The Falcon

by John Tanner

John Tanner's fascinating autobiography tells the story of a man torn between white society and the Native Americans with whom he identified.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Classics, Biography Memoir, Indigenous

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a great passion for this book. From when I was a boy, I loved to read Indian stories. It would be hard to imagine a more adventurous and fascinating story, then this one taken from real-life, written after Tanner's Narrative. His terror, when captivated as a young boy, his sufferings, and hardships while growing up among the Indians, his terrible and dangerous conflicts with Indians as a grown up and successful hunter and warrior. And lastly, his rejection and difficult re - integration with his own white colonial population. From the beginning to the End a wonderful book, which I imagine, every American would love to tread.

[Graychin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know who’s responsible for renaming Tanner’s book but The Falcon is certainly an improvement on the original title, which was A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, (U.S. Interpreter at the Sault de Ste. Marie,) During Thirty Years Residence Among the Indians in the Interior of North America. Tanner himself is The Falcon in question, that being the name he was given some time after his capture at age ten in 1789.

The younger son of a Virginian family that had relocated to the wilds of Kentucky, Tanner was kidnapped by a group of Shawnee Indians among whom he lived in brutal subjection for two years before being sold to an older Ojibwa woman. Her name was Netnokwa and she raised him as her adopted child in the Red River country of what is now North Dakota and Manitoba. As The Falcon, Tanner grows to adulthood and becomes an accomplished hunter. He marries twice and has children, involving himself on several occasions in disputes between different tribal groups and between the traders of the Hudson Bay and North West Fur companies.

This is no life for soft people. Starvation and violence are constant threats. Then there is the winter cold, disease, wild animals, the depredations of the Sioux, the evil that traders’ rum unleashes in the villages, and the vendettas attached to persons and totemic clans. Tanner earns additional resentment for himself by questioning the motives of a self-appointed prophet of the Great Spirit, though he personally seeks (and finds) help from the Great Spirit in the midst of his own crises.

At about age forty Tanner makes his way back to the United States where he is reunited with members of his original family and reacquaints himself with the English language. Though he engages in little self-analysis, Tanner understands that he occupies an unusual middle space between the two cultures. He’s attracted by white society but finds himself unable to sleep in a house without feeling sick. The book ends abruptly with Tanner working as an interpreter in the Great Lakes region, scheming to retrieve two of his daughters from the Red River country. The end of Tanner’s life is mysterious. Accused of a murder and then exonerated, he returned to the north plains and was never heard from again.

[Richard Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

For almost the entire human saga, our ancestors were hunter-gathers. For most of us, these kinfolk are long forgotten in family memory. Quite a bit has been written about wild societies by visiting outsiders from civilization, strangers who could not fully understand the cultures of their subjects. The Falcon is the autobiography of John Tanner, a fascinating book that gives readers a ringside seat at a wild society, prior to conquest, from the viewpoint of an insider.

Tanner was a white lad born about 1780, in frontier Kentucky, not far from Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of 9, he was captured by the Shawnee and taken to Saginaw, Michigan, where he was treated harshly for two years. Then, up at Mackinaw, an Ottawa woman, who had lost her son, bought him for 20 gallons of whiskey, blankets, tobacco, and other treasures. He was given a name that meant “the falcon.”

Tanner was a rough, tough, honest man who endured an incredibly difficult life. He lived among the Ottawa and Ojibwa people from roughly 1790 to 1820, and spent this period hunting, trapping, fishing, and defending himself from a variety of angry and violent folks. He traveled thousands of miles by foot, canoe, and horseback through a vast wilderness. His saga mentions visits to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Pembina, North Dakota; Lake of the Woods, Ontario; and Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba.

This story takes place in an era of bloody helter-skelter, when the traditional way of life was seriously assaulted, and beginning to disintegrate. Disease ridden, pale faced terrorists had landed on the east coast, and their infectious pathogens spread to distant regions of the interior, killing enormous numbers of natives. Terrorists were beginning to settle on the frontier. Tanner’s parents had moved west from Virginia, stupidly planning to acquire prime real estate in an extremely dangerous wilderness.

In that era, many New England tribes had become heavily dependent on agriculture. Corn produced far more food per acre than forest, leading to increased population density and conflict. Diana Muir described how corn quickly depleted the soil, requiring ongoing deforestation to clear new fields. When the devastating epidemics arrived, tribes had been on an unsustainable trajectory to run out of forest that was suitable for cropland. Corn helped the Iroquois become a dominant power, and their aggressive expansion forced other Algonquin tribes to flee westward.

At the same time, the fur trade was a booming, and there was intense competition for pelts. Many traders were lying, cheating, racist creeps. Industrial scale trapping drove the beavers close to extinction in eastern regions, so traders and trappers had to keep moving westward.

As eastern tribes were forced westward by warfare, settlers, and the quest for pelts, they put growing pressure on the fierce Sioux tribes of the prairies, who were not amused. Tanner spent a lot of time in hot zones close to Sioux country, where he was in constant danger of losing his scalp.

The Sioux hated Tanner and his tribe for trespassing. Because Tanner was the offspring of terrorists, many of his Indian companions and family were wary of him — terrorists were often whirlwinds of evil spirits. Several times, they tried to kill him. Finally, the terrorists hated him because he looked like a savage, thought like a savage, and spoke a savage tongue. He once made an effort to return to his kinfolk in Christian society, but he didn’t belong in that bizarre world, and kept catching fevers.

Indians were tolerant of gender-benders. On a visit to Leech Lake, Minnesota, Tanner met the son of a chief who was an A-go-kwa — “one of those who make themselves women, and are called women by the Indians. There are several of this sort among most, if not all the Indian tribes.” The A-go-kwa was about 50-years old, and had lived with many husbands.

The central theme of the book is the endless struggle to survive. Starvation was a primary threat, and getting food was job #1. Mike Culpepper wrote an essay on Tanner’s life, including a description of his diet: “Tanner hunts bear, buffalo, moose, but also eats muskrat, rabbit, beaver, porcupine, otter and other animals trapped for their fur, and, when game is not available, his dogs, horses, and scraps of leather. He eats ducks, geese, blackbirds, and swan. He fishes for sturgeon, dory, and unnamed small fish that are eaten by the handful. He consumes corn, wild rice, and berries.” Yum!

Throughout the book, Tanner and those around him suffer from infections and fevers. He lived in an era where diseases were common and largely incurable, for both wild folks and the civilized. Howard Simpson described the situation after 1812, as settlement of the Midwest began: “The most lethal dangers the pioneers had to face were neither savages nor wild animals. They were typhoid, malaria, dysentery, malignant scarlet fever, pneumonia, erysipelas in epidemic form, spotted fever, or what would now be called meningococcal meningitis, and diphtheria.”

Homo sapiens is a bipedal species — we move on two legs, not four. This evolutionary trait enabled long distance running, chasing game until they collapsed from exhaustion, a practice often mentioned in discussions of the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. Tanner also mentioned this. “There are among the Indians some, but not many, men who can run down an elk on the smooth prairie, when there is neither snow nor ice. The moose and the buffalo surpass the elk in fleetness, and can rarely be taken by fair running by a man on foot.”

Tanner, armed with a low tech, single shot musket, killed lots of animals. One winter, he was hired by a fur company to provide meat for Scottish settlers. In four months, he killed about 100 buffalo. Another winter, he hunted with a buddy. “O-ke-mah-we-ninne, as he was called, killed nineteen moose, one beaver, and one bear. I killed seventeen moose, one hundred beavers, and seven bears, but he was considered the better hunter, moose being the most difficult of all animals to kill.”

Nomadic people found some trade goods useful: muskets, ammo, gunpowder, knives, axes, pots, blankets, corn, etc. They gained no prestige by hoarding valuable trade goods, because it was dumb. The stuff they owned had to be hauled along, every time they moved to a new camp. So, one pot was enough. Consequently, they trapped just enough to secure the necessities, and no more. Traders learned a toxic secret — offering booze seriously motivated the trappers to produce far more pelts.

Oblivion drinking is a regular celebration in this saga. After a long, harsh winter of trapping, pelts would be taken to the trading post. Necessities would be acquired, and the leftover income would be invested in 10 gallon (38 l) kegs of booze. Over the course of the book, at least 100 gallons of rum and whiskey were guzzled. Multi-day drunks often resulted in impolite comments, bloody fights, and murders. Their lives were harsh, and a lovely drunk provided a vacation from the daily routine, a spirit journey. Booze destroyed many lives.

In Tanner’s day, in roadless woodlands, dogs were their beasts of burden. On the wide-open prairie, there was a new beast of burden, the horse. The Spanish had brought horses to America, and some escaped. They rapidly grew in numbers. By 1700 or 1750, plains Indians had horses — lots of horses. Horses greatly increased their ability to hunt, feed more people, and zoom across the plains at superhuman velocity.

Each horse was the private property of an individual. Only fools hoarded 100 iron pots, but owning 100 horses provided immense social status. Horses fed themselves, moved themselves to new camps, and hauled people and stuff. Stealing them from neighbors was an exciting way to demonstrate your bravery and get rich quick, or die trying. Raiding was a popular pastime. Naturally, it was a good way to make enemies, and ignite long-term feuds. In the horse age, living in a remote location was no longer safe and secure.

Tanner described the bloody side of raiding: “I had four horses, one of which was a very fleet and beautiful one, being considered the best out of one hundred and eighty which a war-party of Crees, Assinneboins, and Ojibbeways, had recently brought from the Fall Indians. In this excursion they had been absent seven months. They had fallen upon and destroyed one village, and taken one hundred and fifty scalps, besides prisoners.”

Tanner spent most of his life in the Great White North, a region known for long and extremely harsh winters. On chilly nights, they huddled around fires inside drafty lodges. Tanner mentioned several close calls with death. Once, after breaking through the ice, “we were no sooner out of the water than our moccasins and clothes were frozen so stiff that we could not travel. I began also to think that we must die. But I was not like my Indian brother, willing to sit down and wait patiently for death to come.”

Homo sapiens evolved on the warm tropical savannahs of Africa, where a year round supply of organic food was generally available. They didn’t need clothing or shelter. Hypothermia was never a risk. Life was so much easier in an ecosystem for which evolution had fine-tuned our bodies. Remember that. The status quo is zooming toward sharp limits, and our soft lifestyles are a temporary high-impact luxury.

Tanner, John, The Falcon Free PDF

Culpepper, Mike, John Tanner Between Two Worlds. This 10-page essay fills in many helpful details missing in Tanner’s words, and better describes the big picture dramas that affected his life. It discusses his controversial end.

Muir, Diana, Reflections in Bullough’s Pond — Economy and Ecosystem in New England, University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire, 2000. Chapter one describes the ecological and social turbulence generated by the adaptation of agriculture by the Native Americans.

Simpson, Howard N., “The Impact of Disease on American History,” The New England Journal of Medicine CCL (1954):680.

[Cary Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was young and spending most of my waking (and some sleeping) hours in the woods I often dreamed of being a Native American. To say it was an overly romanticized version of what life as a Native American would have been like is similar to suggesting life as Anne Frank would have been interesting, rich and fulfilling. It's a poor analogy but possibly good enough to convey the idea that my romanticized version of being, in the parlance of my youth, Indian, was about as far from reality as you could get and still be in this universe. The Falcon, which is really the reproduced text of A Narrative of the Adventures of John Tanner (U.S. Interpreter at the Sault de St. Marie) During Thirty Years Residence Among the Indians in the Interior of North America, paints an incredibly bleak picture of what Native American life was like in Northern Minnesota from around 1791 - 1821. Constant starvation, assaulted by the elements at every turn, deadly customs, warfare without purpose, familial breakdowns, complicated and what seems to be crazy tribalism ... did I mention starvation? This is a story that again reminds me how lucky I was to be born an American white male in the middle of the 20th century. OMG.

The other evening I did a one hour yoga class and at the end of it the instructor read the familiar Apache Prayer (or Blessing): “May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being, may you walk gently through the world and know it's beauty all the days of your life.” I think there is some debate about whether or not this is genuine, or fakelore. Regardless, there are many who tout Native American spirituality as deep and profound. While there are perhaps very brief glimpses of this in The Falcon, mostly the life John Tanner describes is all about staying alive and surviving in a harsh landscape at a time when whites were starting to enter the area, bringing with them liquor and disease. That said, the book reads very, very authentic, but it does NOT give one the idea that the Native American life was noble or transcendent.

Finally, Louise Erdrich's intro is brief and does little to give the book any additional weight or insight. Apparently she and her family liked John Tanner's story because of Net-No-Kwa, the strong matron who buys Tanner, rescues him, and raises him as her own ... up to a point.

This is a tough book to read. Very interesting, but features one horrific and/or tragic event after another told with the kind of matter-of-fact deadpan delivery that belies what is taking place. Tanner is a tale waiting to be properly told, in a way that might breathe some meaning into its chaotic core. Right now I'm not sure there is more meaning to the book than to simply convey one man's tragic story of what desperate life was like among the Native Americans of Northern Minnesota in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

[Miss Meliss · Rating 5 out of 5]

What. A. Book.

This isn’t a captivity narrative, in the typically understood sense. This is a time capsule — an inside look at a society surviving in a specific geographic place and time while undergoing immense change. Through the experiences of John Tanner, we get a glimpse of what the subsistence lifestyle of the Ojibwe people was like in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Tanner was uniquely positioned in that, after two years of being a slave and treated poorly, he was not only essentially adopted (by a woman of some influence named Netnokwa), but he absorbed so much of the culture that he internally identified, at least to a significant extent, as an Ojibwe. However, due to the complex dynamics of how bands and families operated among the tribe, he was not fully accepted, even as an adult with an Ojibwe wife and children. Some families and chiefs accepted him, and some did not (to be fair, as the Ojibwe tribe underwent significant change in the wake of encroaching influence of traders and settlers and the deep, longstanding feud with the increasingly politically powerful Sioux, acceptance was not necessarily a guarantee as an Ojibwe when encountering different bands or families).

What was striking to me at the beginning of the book was how, in a very analytical sense, Tanner was open to adapting to the Indian lifestyle because of his life circumstances prior to his capture. His mother had died when he was 2. The one significant memory he shares of his father is how badly he beat Tanner as a young boy when he didn’t go to school one day, because his older sisters essentially overlooked or forgot a directive from his father that he needed to go to school, and he received a severe beating for it. That injustice stayed with that boy into manhood and beyond, indicating something of an existing mental disconnect from his own family as a child. He was in the care of his stepmother, who was tending a baby and not paying attention to him, when he disobeyed his father and decided to go outside to gather some nuts in the nearby woods, even though he had been warned of the dangers. While many 9 or 10 year olds can be careless in the face of danger, one gets the impression that he didn’t feel he had much to lose. He certainly underwent quite a shocking experience when he was captured and endured quite a bit of hardship as a slave in the first couple of years. However, after his purchase (and essentially, adoption – it was a common practice for many tribes to either kidnap or buy children to replace biological children who had died) by Netnokwa, his life changed for the better. One senses that Netnokwa was the mother he never had, and although their life was filled with difficulties, she encouraged him and supported him as he grew and began hunting and participating in the traditions of Ojibwe life. That clearly had more influence on him than any other factor in his life.

Perhaps the greatest presence in the book is starvation. It looms, an ever-threatening specter, over every aspect of life with the Ojibwes. Over and over again, every winter and sometimes in between, they hover on the edge of death when they run out of food, and finding big game (primarily moose — which is extremely difficult to kill — or bear) is their only hope of survival. That also depends on who among their band are talented and trustworthy hunters, able to track and kill game and return the meat to the lodges. At one point, he describes very succinctly the reality of the threat of death by starvation: “This is but a fair specimen of the life which many of the Ojibbeways of the north lead during the winter. Their barren and inhospitable country affords them so scantily the means of subsistence, that it is only with the utmost exertion and activity that life can be sustained, and it not infrequently happens that the strongest men, and the best hunters, perish of absolute hunger.” He describes people going mad with hunger, and children starving to death. One of his closest and most trusted friends dies from starvation. This isn’t a book to read if you’re looking for idealistic, feel-good platitudes about the Indian way of life. Tanner shares tales of familial violence, revenge, horrific mistakes people made in a state of drunkenness, fatal accidents, disease, suffering, stealing (lots and lots of stealing). However, he also shares moving tales of mercy and kindness. It’s an inside look at Ojibwe society at a certain time, yes, but it’s also a timeless tale of humanity: among their band, there are power-hungry, manipulative persons seeking to influence others for their own interests, and there are patient, wise individuals who stay above the fray and give him counsel. There are ghost stories, spiritual moments, gut-wrenching loss, unexpected humor. One place that made me burst out laughing is one of the times when a relatively new governing official (which had, from Tanner’s perspective, much more to do with trading activities than national interests) thought he was the one officiating peace between the Ojibwe and Sioux (a conflict occurring for generations that was far beyond one white man’s purview). This peace was in the political interests of the trading company as well as the European powers such as England and France, not the Ojibwes. He gave a long speech that Tanner repeats, using the term “red” men (one Tanner never uses to describe his family or band or any other tribe) and invoking the advice of the “great father beyond the waters” and all sorts of terms that indicate the official feels he knows about the tribes but really doesn’t. And, afterward, “the Indians answered with the usual promises and professions, and being about to leave the fort that evening, they stole every horse belonging to Lord Selkirk and his party. In the morning, not a single horse was left, and the Indians who had most of them disappeared also.” And because we’ve read so much from the perspective of the Ojibwes to this point from Tanner, this seems a very practical and predictable response. One almost cheers, after reading that condescending speech. What else did Lord Selkirk think was going to happen?

Tanner himself gains a decent reputation as a hunter and trapper. Interestingly, he refers often to using dogs — this practice seems to have been introduced by Europeans, as was planting corn, something his “family” (that term is used to include biological and non-biological persons in his care) begins to do when he is an adult. In general, they lead highly nomadic lives – crossing truly impressive distances every year. As someone who grew up in the area described, it seemed shocking to me that so much ground was covered every year, as they essentially travelled from the north shore of Lake Superior into Canada, onto or near Lake Winnipeg, and into the eastern region of what is now North Dakota. However, when one realizes they are primarily moving via bodies of water, such as rivers and lakes, it makes a little more sense, but it is still a feat nonetheless. The Ojibwes travel to wintering grounds, to areas the women gather to “make sugar” in the spring (from sap), to lands in which they harvest wild rice, to prairie where they hunt elk and buffalo, and to forests and swamps where they trap for furs to trade (primarily beaver). That doesn’t even include the war parties that ventured further into the lands held by the Sioux (with varying success). One of my favorite parts of reading this book was reading the place names and doing my best to find the locations on current maps (not sure how accurate some of that activity was, but it was enjoyable nonetheless).

The book has too much content and too many incredible moments to describe in one review. Read it. It’s better than any history textbook. It is also important to recognize that Tanner never learned to read or write, so he dictated these stories to someone else who wrote the book. The “narrator” (the person who is actually writing the story) interjects some terms and explanations, and it’s very likely at least some of the content is filtered through the perspective of that narrator as well. As a warning, the word “squaw” does appear a few times, the first time or two in the notes of the narrator only. The ending is also rather sad, as he attempts to return to his biological family later in life, and he struggles significantly to adapt (both in health, as it's clear his immune system struggles for several months, and in others' acceptance of his non-conforming cultural perspective). He was something of a man without a country or true family. It’s still important to read and one of the most valuable texts we have from this part of the Americas from that time.

[Goober · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. It’s like going back in time. People are the same even though there are absolutely wild differences historically and culturally. It’s amazing how people survived back then. The very fact that I have the ability to sit down and reflect on my life is a luxury compared to what our ancestors lived through.

Also I’ve done a lot of camping and there is something about breathing outdoor air that is very healing. I think it’s very interesting that Tanner physically could not stay in houses when he tried to visit his white family. He just kept getting sick. Maybe this was also from coming around towns and cities after being mostly out in the woods for years. But interesting.

Is this where illness comes from? From sleeping indoors?

So many things come up. I just really love nonfiction about other times and cultures (and genders, seriously, it’s interesting for me, as a woman, to read about men’s lives). Especially people who couldn’t read nor write, but could survive up near the border of Canada and hunted moose (!). And who survived not only frontier life until age 9 but were then abducted and adopted into another culture.

In some ways it’s one of the most interesting stories I’ve ever read. It shows a lot about how people are and how we survive.

We’ve changed a lot since the late 1700’s/early 1800’s. But there are moments where I thought to myself: I totally agree. For example, how he could see right through the “religious” weird dude who tried to manipulate and control the group, but because he called him out, the religious dude really messed up his life and turned people against him. And Tanner notes at the very beginning of meeting him that the religious dude is not a good hunter—interesting.

Weirdly reminded me of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People—superstition is a human thing. Smart people, who try to do the right thing, are always sort of isolated, because the toxic people will do anything to avoid detection. There are multiple stories of Tanner having to deal with the consequences of cowardly or jealous or inept or drunk folks. Who knows how much of it is made up. But it felt strikingly familiar to some things I’ve dealt with.

Disease and injury and starvation were really major issues. But alcohol is the one thing that is so awful to see—it is clearly one of the major things that brings people of all cultures down. Parts of this are like a memoir of a kid with alcoholic parents—hiding the rum barrels away—anyway.

I also liked that he refused to be, basically, a shitty salesman—when he had the opportunity to try to make fortuitous trades, he regarded it as stealing. I have made similar choices in my own life.

I’m not sure. But this is one of the things I love about books and stories. We get to go into other people’s minds. What a gift—even if the person is flawed. How anyone emotionally could survive all of this, and not totally lose their minds, is amazing.

But it’s amazing to be alive and survive today, too. We are the descendants of these people. We come from them. It’s important to acknowledge and understand our past. Being a human is fascinating.

[Sarah Rigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe I read a slightly older edition of this book, but anyway...

I'd read about Tanner in "Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country" by Louise Erdrich and was really intrigued. Tanner was a white child kidnapped by Native Americans when he was 9 or 10 (accounts vary) in the 1790s and grew up with them, becoming a sort of honorary Ojibwe. The actual "as told to" narrative section is pretty fascinating, and was extra-interesting to me since it's largely set in Michigan. The supplementary material in the second half is interesting, but I'd skip most of the horribly condescending and patronizing commentary by the white man who recorded it. I really liked this and would recommend it to others interested in this part of American history.

[JulieAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing. The introduction must not be skipped. The information gleaned from the detail of his biography is relied on too by native Americans who learned from his text about their heritage and their people. His life was harsh. I believe this is a no holds barred truthful accounting of what he experienced as best as he could remember and of course his English was broken due to living as a Native American where their language became his language and it needs to be taken into consideration. The transcriber had his work cut out for him. Though this can be tough to get through because it doesn’t read easily in many places— it’s worth it. Very worth it. We are so lucky to have this account. His story is one that should be in history books for so many reasons. This is an English teachers dream as different perspectives of this book can be used as fodder for argumentative essays.

[Max Parness · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was gave great descriptions of the realities of Native American life, rituals, seasonal ebbs and flows, and hunting. Three subjects that I found particularly intriguing were Tanner’s comprehension of the problems created by the liquor trade, how lending and revenge were viewed by the natives, and the kidnapping of American children to replace dead relatives and repopulate native communities. Because it was so real, the book did drag towards the end- as not every week of ones life is filled with great adventure. At times I wished the translator had probed a little more to get Tanner to go deeper than the laundry list of places he travelled to. A map of the region with the Ojibwe/Ottawa. names for all of the big lakes/rivers and rough tribal ranges would have been helpful for situating/grounding the narrative.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating and frustrating book. Tanner tells the most amazing stories, and he gives us a fascinating glimpse into traditional Ojibwe life. He can also be surprisingly funny. But he tells his story in a dispassionate way, showing very little introspection or emotion. He doesn’t even tell us how many children he had, and he only names one or two of them.

The other frustrating thing about this work is the lack of a critical apparatus. The Penguin edition has no notes other than the ones that were written by the original transcriber, Edwin James. I wish there were a critical edition with footnotes, modern spellings of Indian words, identifications of people and places Tanner mentions, and an account of the creation and reception history of the text. I’m imagining something similar to the Nebraska edition of Black Elk Speaks.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at a part of history we don't generally consider. This was written by someone other than John Tanner because he didn't read or write. He had to narrate the book to the actual writer.

It's a heart-breaking story, told in the most unemotional manner. In some ways that makes it a more powerful reading experience.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of Native Americans and Europeans in early America.

John Tanner was kidnapped before the American Revolution and didn't return to his home in Kentucky until after the war of 1812. He never really belonged in either world, and this book proves that no race or people have a monopoly on compassion, intelligence or family values.

[Annette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating account by John Tanner who was kidnapped by Shawnee Indians in 1789 when he was around 9 years old. Although not an easy read, it is a fascinating look at his life living among the Ojibwa tribe, his later encounters with white men and even his own family. He lived an extremely hard life where food and shelter were the main concerns. It's hard to tell how much is exaggerated - his escapades and hunting skills are told from his side but again, a look into the hardships of life in this time period.

[Britton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to read at times, is it is not written as a story, rather a personal journal or memior. Somehow important though because it is a first hand account if living in the America's and amongst both Native Peoples and Whites, in a time when there were few such voices recording their experiences. Concludes that their is no "romatic Savage" or "civilized White". Turns out anybody can be decent and kind or a scoundrel, regardless of color or origin.

[ribbonknight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have a hard time rating books like this immediately after reading it.
I picked this up at Louise Eridrich’s bookstore, and she wrote the introduction to the version I read.
Interesting, painful, and something I feel I might return to over time.

[Grace Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of Tanner’s life amongst the Ojibwe in the upper Midwest. A nomadic life, Tanner and his family travelled hundreds of miles over northern Minnesota, North Dakota, and south Manitoba and Saskatchewan, often on the brink of starvation.

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandpa gave this book to me before he passed away in 2019 and I finally got around to reading it. Sorry grandpa 😬.

Definitely an interesting narrative. Very dry at times, so it can be a slog to get through.

[The Spooky Jedi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terribly written by someone who has no transitions and little self reflection

[Luke]

First pub 1830.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative read! A bit tedious at times but worth plugging along to get the snapshot of Native American life during this era.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. That's about all I can say. :-)

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but at times very repetitive and tedious reading….

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This autobiography of John Tanner (the Falcon) is an intriguing read. Tanner was captured by the Shawnee tribe in 1789 at the age of nine and sold to an Ojibwa family. He spends most of his life with Indian tribes in northern Minnesota and North Dakota. Much of what he relates in pre Lewis and Clark and in an era where there was a seemingly marvelous and diverse abundance of game. Still, the winters were incredibly harsh for these tribes and Tanner frequently faced starvation. It is a sad tale in some respects, as Tanner searches for a sense of belonging that he never really achieves.

[Taj · Rating 2 out of 5]

i slogged thru this. seriously slogged.
i have read older books & the language is far more 'floral' than modern reading. but good books are still readable

this is barely.. there are a few so called classics that the orginals are actually dreadful "the original version of Last of the Mohicans' comes to mind. as much as i love the book i cant recommend it unless you are a masochist. this one is pretty much the same problem.

sadly despite the interest in the subject i cannot enjoy it, read it again (i frequently re-read books i love & enjoy)
or recommend it.

[Carrie Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives perspective to the integration of white and natives during the mid 1800's in Canada - then BNA. It is an autobiography by John Tanner, a white man, who as a child was kidnapped by natives. He later went onto be a translator for military personnel and he was aided in writing his story.

Well worth the time if you are a Canadian History lover.

[Kateri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most realistic portrayal of Ojibway life during the times of fur traders. His overall tone is very straight-forward and "this happened that way, and that is how it is." It was funny, sad, spiritual, and just a jouney from start to finish. I loved it.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this despite it being repetitive(many accounts of hunting expeditions with total number of each animal killed) and sometimes incomprehensible writing/language. Fascinating and un-romanticized account of Indian life circa early 1800s.

[Sherri Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic and a great read. I can't keep it on the shelf in my store. It has great details of the people and area during the fur trade. It was hard to put down. Reread the book and learned so much more than the first time.

[Mae Cannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great first-hand account of an Indian captive narrative. I enjoyed the descriptions and detail, but there is not a plot or major storyline.

[Brent]

Reading Tanner's autobiography of life with the Ojibwe in northern Michigan.

[Emily Proctor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dry, but totally fascinating at the same time.