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Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846--1890
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.0497078
EAN: 9780743250771
ISBN: 074325077X
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: November 29, 2005
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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Editorial Review:
In Oh What a Slaughter, Larry McMurtry has written a unique, brilliant, and searing history of the bloody massacres that marked -- and marred -- the settling of the American West in the nineteenth century, and which still provoke immense controversy today.
Here are the true stories of the West's most terrible massacres -- Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee, among others. These massacres involved Americans killing Indians, but also Indians killing Americans, and, in the case of the hugely controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, Mormons slaughtering a party of American settlers, including women and children.
McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small -- Custer's famous defeat at Little Big Horn in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead -- yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horrors they had committed. From letters and diaries, McMurtry has created a moving and swiftly paced narrative, as memorable in its way as such classics as Evan S. Connell's Son of the Morning Star and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
In Larry McMurtry's own words:
"I have visited all but one of these famous massacre sites -- the Sacramento River massacre of 1846 is so forgotten that its site near the northern California village of Vina can only be approximated. It is no surprise to report that none of the sites are exactly pleasant places to be, though the Camp Grant site north of Tucson does have a pretty community college nearby. In general, the taint that followed the terror still lingers and is still powerful enough to affect locals who happen to live nearby. None of the massacres were effectively covered up, though the Sacramento River massacre was overlooked for a very long time.
"But the lesson, if it is a lesson, is that blood -- in time, and, often, not that much time -- will out. In case after case the dead have managed to assert a surprising potency.
"The deep, constant apprehension, which neither the pioneers nor the Indians escaped, has, it seems to me, been too seldom factored in by historians of the settlement era, though certainly it saturates the diary-literature of the pioneers, particularly the diary-literature produced by frontier women, who were, of course, the likeliest candidates for rapine and kidnap."
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Random Thoughts
Larry McMurtry, who used to develop his characters in such elaborate ways, seems to have gone to outling his books in the last number of years. "Oh what a Slaughter" is another one of those "is this really a book or a magazine article?" books. Indeed, a collection of his random thoughts on random subjects would, together, make for a rather interesting book. As it is, I wait and buy these later works of his off the sale racks where they are priced more towards their real value. I do so because ... Read More
Rating:  - A Narrow Audience
Mr. McMurtry has written an extended essay/reflection on "pre-emptive stikes", the moral code we live by as a nation, and then tied it briefly to our current policies in IRAQ and the aftermath of 9/11. His subject is several famous, and not so famous massacres in western lore, and his primary purpose is to draw moral conclusions that connect us to today's events. He doesn't really go into any real explaination of the massacres, so you will need to have know about them from other sources in order ... Read More
Rating: - Genocide in the Old West
Genocide in the Old West
Most have heard the expression "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". Some have heard "you must get the nits if you want to get the lice" the policy used to justify they massacre of women and children. Few may realize the extent to which the United States practiced and encouraged genocide against Native Americans during the 19th century and how closely our current conflict in Iraq parallels United States policy during the Indian Wars.
This book ... Read More
Rating:  - Fascinating Writing
Some have argued about the length of this book. I think fine writing is fine writing whether we are talking about a poem of 4 lines or a novel of 1,000 pages.
I am really enjoying this book, and would have been happy to read 500 more pages if they were of the quality of this short book. However, in the summer, I appreciate the brevity of this book since I might not have tackled it if it were long.
What do I like? I find many insightful comments although as McMurtry clearly ... Read More
Rating: - A short but worthy addition
Adopting a conversational tone McMurtry briefly (161 pages) explores six 'big massacres' of the Old West: Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee. He also briefly considers the Fetterman and Custer defeats.
McMurtry's treatment is even-handed. That even-handedness allows his observation of the essential fairness of General Crook, which the Indian leaders acknowledged, as demonstrated by his observation that the Sioux should take the money ... Read More
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