Books in the The Oklahoma Western Biographies series

The son of white captive Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker rose from able warrior to tribal leader on the Comanche reservation. In this crisp and readable biography, William Hagan presents a well-balanced portrait of Quanah Parker, the chief, and Quanah, the man torn between two worlds.

More than any other pioneer of the genre, Owen Wister turned the Western into a form of social and political critique. In this biographical-literary account of Wister's life and writings, Gary Scharnhorst shows how the West shaped Wister's career and ideas, even as he lived and worked in the East.

Agnes Morley Cleaveland found lasting fame after publishing her memoir, No Life for a Lady, in 1941. In Open Range, Darlis Miller expands our understanding of Cleaveland's significance, showing how a young girl who was a fearless risk-taker grew up to be a prolific author and social activist.

In this biography, Robert Carriker describes De Smet's love for the great American West and the native tribes who lived there, the Potawatomis, Flatheads, Coeur d'Alenes, Kalispels, Blackfeet, Yankton Sioux, and others to whom the Jesuit father carried Christianity. Soon the man called Black Robe became known throughout the mountains and plains as a man of peace and a friend of all Indians. Yet this book looks at De Smet as more than a mere courier of Christianity to the western tribes and an establisher of missions among the Indians. De Smet was also a fund raiser extraordinary for his order on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean as well as a writer of travel books read avidly by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. With the nearly quarter of a million nineteenth-century dollars he raised in his lifetime, and with the addition of his own family's funds, De Smet kept the Jesuits' underfunded western Indian missions alive. Deeply sensitive to criticism by his fellow Jesuits, De Smet did not always enjoy community living. He felt most at home on the frontier, where he maintained his reputation as an affable companion on the trail, whether seated in a canoe or astride a mule, until his death in 1873.

A steadfast champion of his people during the wars with encroaching Anglo-Americans, the Apache chief Victorio deserves as much attention as his better-known contemporaries. In presenting his story, Kathleen Chamberlain expands our understanding of Victorio's role in the Apache wars and brings him into the centre of events.