Great Indian Chief of the West; or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk
Drake, Benjamin, 1794-1841Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019
Rating 3.5- Word count
- 422K words
- Chapters
- 43
Tags
English Originals History BooksHistorical Figures Military StrategyAmerican HistoryLegendary LivesAdventure JourneyIndigenous LeaderAntiheroHeroismTribal ConflictDocumentary NarrativeFrontier AdventureSummary
Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Great Indian Chief of the West; Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk by DrakeAuthor: Drake, Benjamin, 1794-1841,Language: English, Class: E011: History: America: America, Release Date: Apr 30, 2006Editor's review
This book is a biography of Black Hawk written by the nineteenth-century American author Benjamin Drake, presenting in chronological narrative the experiences and stance of this Sauk leader in the conflicts of the frontier. Its value lies not in neutral historical material but in showing how an American author of the time understood and shaped the image of a Native American leader; it is of reference value for studying early American frontier narrative and the construction of Native American imagery. Its strengths are a coherent narrative and abundant records of the subject's words and deeds, reading like an adventure biography; but its language and ideas bear obvious marks of their era, and its descriptions of Native Americans must be viewed critically. It is suitable as supplementary material for courses in American history, Native American studies, or nineteenth-century literature, and also for readers interested in frontier history as extended reading.Who it's for
A good fit for
- Students studying American history or Native American studies who need to understand nineteenth-century narrative perspectives
- General readers interested in frontier history and biographical narrative who can read critically
- Literary readers studying how Native American images are shaped in English writing
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking first-hand records from a Native American perspective or contemporary tribal historiography
- Those hoping to read a neutral historical work revised by modern scholarship
- Readers impatient with nineteenth-century English narrative style who want only a simplified version
Reading tips
- Begin with the publication information and introduction to clarify the author's identity and the time of writing before entering the main text.
- While reading, mark descriptions bearing the prejudices of the era, and reflect on their standpoint afterward.
- Compare with modern works of Native American history, contrasting different narratives of the same events.
- Take timeline notes chapter by chapter to clarify the sequence of figures and conflicts.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
Is this book Black Hawk's autobiography?
No. It is a biography written by Benjamin Drake, based on sources and interviews; it is a nineteenth-century narrative from another person's perspective, not Black Hawk's own autobiography.Can the accounts in the book be taken as reliable history?
With caution. It provides valuable narrative material, but bears the standpoint and prejudices of a nineteenth-century author; it should be used in comparison with modern scholarship and not as a sole basis for historical fact.How difficult is the English?
It is nineteenth-century English prose, with longer sentences and older vocabulary, but the narrative is clear. Readers with college-level English reading ability can complete it with the help of notes and a dictionary.This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Drake, Benjamin, 1794-1841 Author · American · 1794–1841Benjamin Drake (1794–1841) was an American writer whose public biographical details remain limited. His works center on the American frontier and Native American leaders, and two of them are included in this collection: The Great Indian Chief of the West; or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk and Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet. Both are biographical narratives recounting the lives and deeds of frontier figures such as Black Hawk and Tecumseh, focusing on the experiences and fates of Native American leaders amid a changing era. Drake's writing emphasizes narrative and character portrayal, showing the documentary flavor of nineteenth-century American frontier writing and offering later readers accessible and concrete texts for understanding these figures and frontier history.