Francis Parkman: The Oregon Trail, The Conspiracy of Pontiac

by Francis Parkman, William Taylor (Editor)

“From boyhood,” wrote Francis Parkman, “I had a taste for the woods and the Indians.” This Library of America volume, containing The Oregon Trail and The Conspiracy of Pontiac, brilliantly demonstrates this lifelong fascination. Parkman traveled through the West in 1846 after graduating from Harvard. His first book, The Oregon Trail, is a vivid account of his frontier adventures and his encounters with Plains Indians in their final era of nomadic life. The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada, Parkman’s first historical work, portrays the fierce conflict that erupted along the Great Lakes in the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War and chronicles the defeats in which the eastern Native American tribes “received their final doom.”

The Oregon Trail (1849) opens on a Missouri River steamboat crowded with traders, gamblers, speculators, Oregon emigrants, “mountain men,” and Kansas Indians. In his search for Natives untouched by white culture, Parkman meets the Whirlwind, a Sioux chieftain, and follows him through the Black Hills. His descriptions of natives’ buffalo hunts, feasts and games, feuds, and gift-giving derive their intensity from his awareness that he was recording a vanishing way of life. Praised by Herman Melville for its “true wild-game flavor,” The Oregon Trail is a classic tale of adventure that celebrates the rich variety of life Parkman found on the frontier and the immensity and grandeur of America’s western landscapes.

In The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), Parkman chronicles the consequences of the French defeat in Canada for the eastern Native American tribes. At the head of the Native American resistance to the Anglo-American advance in the 1760s was the daring Ottawa leader Pontiac, whose attacks on the frontier forts and settlements put in doubt the continuation of western expansion. A powerful narrative of battles and skirmishes, treaties and betrayals, written with eloquence and fervor and filled with episodes of heroism and endurance, The Conspiracy of Pontiac captures the spirit of a tragic and tumultuous age.

Genres: History, American History, Native American, Nonfiction, War, Literature, American

951 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1991

About the author

Francis Parkman was an American historian.

He is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.

Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.

Reviews

[Amerynth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the two books, I liked Parkman's "The Oregon Trail" best His vivid descriptions and great detail are most interesting here, as he describes the people -- from traders to homesteaders to Native Americans he met while traveling the American West in the 1840's. The book is full of adventure, buffalo hunting and narrow escapes from hostile tribes.

"The Conspiracy of Pontiac" tells the final chapter of the French and Indian War. It focuses on the 1760's, as the Great Lake tribes, who favored the French traders, attempt to toss England out by orchestrating a raid on a number of forts and homesteads. This is a period of American (and Canadian) history, I knew little about and found it interesting. However, Parkman's attention to detail made this book bog down a bit -- it was a little bit harder to read.

[Todd Kruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey Goodreads - there are 2 books here! Instead of “books read” the Reading Challenge should track “pages read”

Oregon Trail is a travel memoir worth reading while Conspiracy of Pontiac was very disjointed and so dominated by footnotes it became visually difficult to enjoy.

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great history. Parkman journeys to Oregon...he doesn't even get half-way! A faulty title but incredible scenery and personal accounts like hunting bison only for the tongue! The waste of nature that prevails among Parkman's generation can be understood by the abundance of everything. If only they knew the legacy they would leave later generations. I finished this in 2008.
The Conspiracy of Pontiac is pure objective history taken from incredible research including the British military records, French records, correspondence, etc. How different a true historian is when compared to today's claim of scholarship by reading peer-review articles. We certainly need to reevaluate current historical scholarship.

[Babs M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend this book. Parkman's narrates his travels in the plains states and Wyoming, Colorado in 1846. Life amongst the indians, trappers, hunting expeditions while the buffalo were still plentiful. I found it very interesting because of the period in which it was written, while the west was still in it's relatively primitive environment before the white man came and took over with railroads, settlements, etc.

[Angela]

I'm so drawn to this era but it will probably just piss me off more...
manifest destiny and her "filibusters".

[Dan Crews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable, although it was written 160 years ago. A vivid first hand account of the Prairies and The Rockies in the 1840s. Parkman spent 3 weeks living amount the Dakota Indians.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot more fun than I thought it would be. It really put me in the era of the Oregon Trail.