The Wind Won't Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute - Softcover

Benedek, Emily

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679743863 ISBN 13: 9780679743866

Publisher: Vintage Books, 1993

Synopsis

Born to Anglo-American parents on the Appalachian frontier, captured by the Miami Indians at the age of thirteen, and adopted into the tribe, William Wells (1770–1812) moved between two cultures all his life but was comfortable in neither. Vilified by some historians for his divided loyalties, he remains relatively unknown even though he is worthy of comparison with such famous frontiersmen as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. William Heath’s thoroughly researched book is the first biography of this man-in-the-middle. A servant of empire with deep sympathies for the people his country sought to dispossess, Wells married Chief Little Turtle’s daughter and distinguished himself as a Miami warrior, as an American spy, and as an Indian agent whose multilingual skills made him a valuable interpreter. Heath examines pioneer life in the Ohio Valley from both white and Indian perspectives, yielding rich insights into Wells’s career as well as broader events on the post-revolutionary American frontier, where Anglo-Americans pushing westward competed with the Indian nations of the Old Northwest for control of territory. Wells’s unusual career, Heath emphasizes, earned him a great deal of ill will. Because he warned the U.S. government against Tecumseh’s confederacy and the Tenskwatawa’s “religiously mad” followers, he was hated by those who supported the Shawnee leaders. Because he came to question treaties he had helped bring about, and cautioned the Indians about their harmful effects, he was distrusted by Americans. Wells is a complicated hero, and his conflicted position reflects the decline of coexistence and cooperation between two cultures.

About this title

About the Author:

Emily Benedek is the author of Beyond the Four Corners of the World: A Navajo Woman's Journey, published by the University of Oklahoma Press. She lives in New York City.

Synopsis:

An account of the battle between the Navahos and Hopis over millions of acres of disputed Arizona land discusses the various competing interests involved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0679743863
• ISBN 13: 9780679743866
• Binding: Paperback