"A revealing history of the West that pivots on Native peoples and the mixed families they made with European settlers. There is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native life for centuries there were complex households using marriage to link communities and protect people within circles of kin. These family circles took in European newcomers who followed the fur trade into Indian Country from the Great Lakes to the Columbia...

Documented account of the systematic plunder of Native American Indians during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Pioneers of the slave era in California, Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Washington, Montana, North and South Dakota, and the Southwest, with special emphasis on Dred and Harriet Scott, Biddy Mason, Mary Pleasant, Clara Brown, Elvira Conley, Lulu Sadler Craig, Lucy Parsons, and Mary Fields.

"A riveting history of the American West told for the first time through the pioneering women who used the challenges of migration and settlement as opportunities to advocate for their rights, and transformed the country in the process. Between 1840 and 1910, over half a million men and women traveled deep into the underdeveloped American West, the vast lands that extended from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. Survival in this uncharted region...

In 1865, Goldie O'Neill was nine years of age when she trekked across the unclaimed American West with her family to form their own Irish catholic Colony. Their new community had dreams of self-governance and prosperity far removed from the anti-Irish sentiment and prejudice of the ruling classes. They soon learned about the extremes of the American West and the ongoing Indian war. A year after their arrival, Goldie blames herself for her sister's...

"There was a new freighting company in Nebraska City. Ajax Overland, owned by Trace Bovard, seemed to be gradually drawing a noose around the neck of the freighting business, reaching out to absorb all the other companies, trying to buy them out, trying to force them out. Bovard had a plan. He could underbid contracts and overpay teamsters until his was the only company left. Then he could make the money back quickly by cutting wages and raising prices...

Brief text and color illustrations chronicle the history of the American West, from the adventures of Lewis and Clark to the massacre at Wounded Knee.

Surveys the settling of the American West, using excerpts from contemporary sources to highlight the original Native American inhabitants, the arrival of fur traders, the Gold Rush, Mormon migrations, the growth of cattle-ranching, and more.