Buckskin & Blanket Days Memoirs of a Fri

By Thomas Henry Tibbles

Book Overview

The earliest memories of Thomas Henry Tibbles (1840-1928) were of adventure and danger as his pioneer family followed the frontier west from Ohio to Bleeding Kansas, where young Tibbles volunteered... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: B000PXFNE0
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Lakeside Press
• Length: 466 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 1.3" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

Defender of the Poncas

Thomas Henry Tibbles was 67 years old when he penned these memoirs in 1905; they tell the story of a man very involved with Indian-white relations in the West as well as other "reformist" issues. Basically a newspaperman most of his life, he began writing for newspapers in Omaha in the 1870s. Before the Civil War, however, he was a close associate of John Brown in Kansas, and relates a story how Brown told him all about his plans to attack the armory at Harpers Ferry and declare Virginia a free state. Tibbles appears to have tried to talk him out of it, obviously to no avail. In 1878, he participated in the famous trial of the Ponca chief Standing Bear in which it was ruled once and for all that Indians were indeed people (some in government thought otherwise and therefore believed Indians were not protected by the law). Moved by the miseries suffered by the Poncas, Tibbles became their unofficial representative, writing frequently about their (and other Indian tribes') plight in various publications. He married an Omaha Indian woman (Bright Eyes) in 1882, continued to do newspaper work as well as farming, and founded various publications in which he promoted his reformist views. He was even nominated VP on the People's Party ticket in 1904. But his memoir doesn't go that far and ends with the disaster at Wounded Knee in 1890. It's an appropriate time to stop, for Tibbles was primarily concerned with his dealings with the Indians throughout the book. Tibbles's writing is strong and objective; his years writing for newspapers and magazines obviously show in this autobiography. He employs a good deal of dialogue, and all of it is effective. After years of living among the Indians, listening to their stories, observing and participating in their customs and ways, it's clear from his tone that he is not overawed by them or fearful or distrustful: he sees the Indians as equals and worthy of anyone's respect. The book is excellent and highly recommended.

A Friend of the Indians-Savior of a People

Near the end of the wild and free days on the plains, when the bison were almost gone and the Indians were moved to the reservations to starve and die, a man of courage and decency realized that a great people and culture were about to be exterminated by a corrupt branch of the federal government. Thomas Henry Tibbles devoted the later half of his life to fighting the federal bureaucracy which was systematically murdering the remanants of the Ponca Indians. The book tells Mr Tibbles story from his youth as farm child in Ohio and Illinois, his adventures in bleeding Kansas before the civil war, the years he spent with several tribes in Kansas and Nebraska and finally his winning fight to free the Indians from the corrupt reservation system. The story of his time with the Indians is well worth reading. Mostly, this is a great story of a man devoted to a worthwhile cause.