Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story Of George Bent -- Caught Between The Worlds Of The Indian And The White Man - Softcover

David F. Halaas; Andrew E. Masich

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0306814102 ISBN 13: 9780306814105

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2005

Synopsis

This is the story of the amazing and uncommon life of George Bent-a "halfbreed" born to a prominent white trader and his Indian wife-whose lifetime spanned one of the most exciting epochs in our nation's history. Raised as a Cheyenne but educated in white schools, George Bent fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, became a Cheyenne warrior and survived the horrific 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, rode and killed for revenge with the ferocious Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, and later became a prominent interpreter and negotiator for whites and adviser to tribal leaders. He hobnobbed with frontier legends Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, and George Custer, and fought side-by-side with great Indian leaders. After a lifetime of adventures and misfortunes, accomplishments and failures, George Bent made a lasting contribution to the memory of his people by sharing with historians the story of the fighting Cheyennes.

About this title

About the Author:

 Andrew E. Masich is the President of Pittsburgh's Smithsonian-affiliated Senator John Heinz History Center and the Meadowcroft Museum & Rockshelter, Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, and Fort Pitt Museum. He is Chairman of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and serves on the American Alliance of Museums Accreditation Commission. David F. Halaas, now retired,  is a former Library of Congress historian, Colorado State Historian, and Director of Library & Archives of Pittsburgh's Senator John Heinz History Center.

From Publishers Weekly:

The son of white Southwest trader William Bent and his Cheyenne spouse, Owl Woman, George Bent (18431918) receives rich biographical treatment from Halaas (former Library of Congress historian and now director of Pittsburgh's Heinz History Center) and Masich (president and CEO of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania). They show Bent growing up more attuned to his mother's culture than his father's, but receiving a conventional white-world. education at the latter's insistence. George was in St. Louis when the Civil War broke out and promptly joined the Confederate Army. He later deserted, returned to the camps of the now beleaguered Southern Cheyenne and survived the horrifying Sand Creek Massacre of noncombatant Cheyenne by Colorado militia. George then spent several years as an effective Cheyenne Dog Soldier warrior before becoming a mediator, agent and, in due course, a major source for the history of the Cheyenne through his prodigious correspondence with several white scholars. He battled poverty, financial scandals, broken marriages, alcoholism and the problem of not being fully trusted by either Cheyenne or white, all of which are recorded meticulously along with his more public achievements. One suspects that some of George's martial prowess was "remembered with advantage," but the research on both the man and his times and places appears painstaking. The narrative as presented by Halaas and Masich is coherent if not necessarily fluent, and the book emerges as a powerful chronicle of a man who stood squarely in the middle of the tragedy of the Plains Indians, seeing and being seen by both sides.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0306814102
• ISBN 13: 9780306814105
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496