Great Warriors II

Native leaders who won the respect of both their own people as well as Whites were rare in the West.  Animosity between both sides ran too deep for each side to see the good in the other, or to allow for such personal sentiments.  Some leaders commanded the respect of their White neighbors, though they did so at the cost of rousing the suspicions of their own people. Ouray was born in November, 1833, in what is now New Mexico.  On the night of his birth, a meteor shower occurred which was seen as a good omen.  The name Ouray means arrow in Ute, referring to the stars shooting across the night's sky.  Ouray's father was a Jicarilla Apache who'd been adopted as a child into the Uncompahgre band.  When Ouray was 27, he inherited his father's position of leadership among the Ute people.  By then, he'd already born his share of personal tragedies.  Ouray's first wife was a Uncompahgre woman known as Black Water.  She died in childbirth to their only son, called Par

Great Warriors II continues the story begun in Great Warriors Path, focusing on the Native American tribes, warriors and leaders who found themselves combatting European settlement of their lands in North America.  Great Warriors Path focused on the earliest contacts between Native peoples and Europeans from England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, among others.  From the 16-19th centuries, warfare, communicable diseases, destruction of food resources and social displacement reduced tribal populations.  By 1830, most if not all of the tribes in what is now the eastern United States faced the ultimate injustice, removal from their ancient lands.  Individual leaders such as Tecumseh of the Shawnee, Osceola of the Seminole and Black Hawk of the Sauk rose on behalf of their people to fight against the inevitable.  Other leaders attempted cooperation and co-existence with Settlers, often with tragic consequences.  Great Warriors II carries this story into the American west.  Leaders s