The Banker and the Blackfoot: An Untold Story of Friendship, Trust, and Broken Promises in the old West (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "The Banker and the Blackfoot: An Untold Story of Friendship, Trust, and Broken Promises in the old West (en Inglés)"
During the last decades of the nineteenth century in the Old West, cowboys and Indians, lawmen and outlaws, ranchers and farmers shared the border between Canada and the United Statesand mostly ignored it. American traders and cowboys with their cattle came north to the territory that later became Alberta, and the Blackfoot traveled south to Montana to visit their kinfolk there. Bull trains regularly carried supplies from Fort Benton, on the Missouri River, across the border to Fort Macleod, a small ramshackle town in the foothills of the Rockies. The Banker and the Blackfoot conjures up vividly the never-before-told story of Fort Macleod, the surrounding Blackfoot territory, and the foothills during roughly two decades, 1885 to 1905, when the people living thereFirst Nations and Métis, rancher and farmerrespectfully set out to accommodate Blackfoot sovereignty and new settlementbefore the Canadian government broke its Treaty promises to the Indians. There were many friendships in this time and place, both among town residents and foothills settlers and the police, and between many of them and the Blackfoot. It was here that the self-made banker John CowdryJ. Edward Chamberlins grandfathermet Crop Eared Wolf, the legendary Blackfoot warrior and brilliant horseman, and their friendship and trust formed a lasting bond. Cowdry later became the towns first mayor, and Crop Eared Wolf succeeded his father, the great statesman Red Crow, as head chief of the Blood tribe. Fort Macleod embraced it allSun Dances and social dances, bibles and medicine bundles, drums and piano recitals, horse races and polo matches, and rodeos to celebrate both the horse culture of the Blackfoot and the skills of the cattle range. The town was full of great characters, including Madame Kanouse (Natawista), admired for both her influential intelligence and her stunning fashion sense; Kamoose Taylor, hospitable patron of the Macleod Hotelwhere Francis Dickens, son of the great novelist Charles Dickens, and the Sundance Kid himself were found at the bar; Colonel James Macleod, commander of the North-West Mounted Police; the taciturn Jerry Potts, unequaled Métis guide and interpreter; John Ware, a successful black cowboy and rancher; and the renowned Peigan chief Big Swan. Full of wisdom, passion, and insight, The Banker and the Blackfoot compellingly portrays a time when many people in that part of the Old West looked for ways of getting along with each other and getting on with the things that mattered to them all. Their remarkable story offers hope for all of us today.
