|
About this Book
"This man has scalped more Indians than any other person living on
this coast, and has his trophies to prove the fact."
T his was the headline of an article in the San
Francisco Examiner in early 1899. The reporter had obtained an
interview with one Jackson Farley, a pioneer rancher who had settled in
Mendocino County in 1857. Was this merely the idle boast of an old man
seeking notoriety? Not at all. Farley pointed out dozens of Indian
scalps decorating the walls of his cabin. Too, the reporter duly noted
the fact that Farley recited his tales while sitting in his "Indian
hide-bottomed chair."
A member of one of Farley’s 1859 Indian hunting forays testified that:
"On the first night we found and surrounded a rancheria in which we
found two wounded Indians and one old squaw, all of which we killed; on
our return home we found another rancheria which we approached within
fifteen feet before the Indians observed us; then they broke for the
brush, and we pursued them and killed thirteen bucks and two squaws."
And why were they slaughtered? The local Yuki and Wilacki Indians had
been driven from their homes and forced to live on reservations where
they were worked as slaves, starved, and their women raped. Desperate to
feed their families, they would leave the reservation and kill the white
man’s cattle.
The most persistent enemy of the native Californians was the firmly
rooted white philosophy which preached that, one way or another, the
Indian was doomed. Beyond the callous references to "Diggers" and "Poor
Lo," the single most important catchword of the period was
"extermination." It was used early and often and picked up by the
newspapers and repeated in the army reports, letters, government
documents, and journals of the time. It was a word that set the stage
for slaughter.
When the Great Spirit Died is a sad and tragic story that will haunt
our country forever.
About the Author
Born in Fresno, California, in March of 1930, William
B. Secrest grew up in the great San Joaquin Valley. After high school he
joined the Marine Corps where he served in a guard detachment and in a
rifle company in the early years of the Korean War. Returning to
college, he obtained a BA in education, but for many years he served as
an art director for a Fresno advertising firm.
Secrest has been interested in history since his
youth and early began comparing Western films to what really happened in
the West. A hobby at first, this avocation quickly developed into
correspondence with noted writers and more serious research. Not
satisfied in a collaboration with friend and Western writer Ray Thorp,
Secrest began researching and writing his own articles in the early
1960s.
Although at first he wrote on many general Western
subjects, some years ago Secrest realized how his home state has
consistently been neglected in the Western genre and concentrated almost
exclusively on early California subjects. He has produced hundreds of
articles for such publications as Westways, Montana, True West, and the
American West, while publishing seven monographs on early California
themes. His book I Buried Hickok (Early West Publishing Co.)
appeared in 1980, followed by Lawmen & Desperadoes (The Arthur H.
Clark Co.) in 1994 and Dangerous Trails (Barbed Wire Press) in
1995. Books published with Word Dancer Press include California
Desperadoes (1999), Perilous Trails, Dangerous Men (2001),
and When the Great Spirit Died (2002). Current projects
include a biography of Harry Love, the leader of the rangers who tracked
down Joaquin Murrieta, and famous feuding families of California.
|
Save 10%
Add both books to
your shopping cart by
clicking here to save $3.19!
|
|
