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  • Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent—Caught between the Worlds of the Indian and the White Man
  • James Lieker
Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent—Caught between the Worlds of the Indian and the White Man. By David Fridtjof Halaas and Andrew E. Masich. (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004. Pp. 458. Cloth, $30.00.)

In 1843, trader William Bent's marriage to one of his three Cheyenne wives, Owl Woman, produced a son who would lead a remarkable life. Born half-white and half-Indian, George Bent grew up on the pains of southeastern Colorado, was educated in white schools, fought briefly for the Confederacy, survived the Sand Creek massacre, negotiated the Medicine Lodge treaty, and aided the Cheyennes with the transition to reservation life before his death in the global flu epidemic of 1918. Halaas and Masich describe Bent's life as a microcosm of the sweeping changes that transformed the Great Plains during the era of westward expansion. They particularly emphasize the dichotomy that George Bent and his siblings endured in their lives as cultural beings: torn between the conflicting values of Indians and whites yet able to serve as cultural mediators between both.

In fact, it was this "half-breed" connection (a polemical name common to the nineteenth century) that seems to have propelled Bent and his family into playing central roles in some of the greatest events of western history. George's mother, as well as most of his paternal uncles, died during the Mexican War, leaving him to be reared almost entirely by his Cheyenne relatives. At his father William's urging, George attended white schools in Westport and St. Louis and joined the pro-secession Missouri state guard in 1861. [End Page 328]

The massacre at Sand Creek marked a turning point for Bent, who afterward joined the militant Dog Soldiers and participated in open attacks on the U.S. Army. Halaas and Masich provide a compelling account of Col. John Chivington's slaughter of peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos at Sand Creek, Colorado, in 1864, an event from which Bent barely escaped, though wounded. Though his "white" mannerisms often made him suspect among full-blood Indians, George Bent made a choice to side with his mother's people, even while his fluency in English and his understanding of white customs made him a valuable liaison between the two worlds. The Civil War taught Bent about the importance of battle tactics and organization, knowledge he used in his later war against white expansion.

The authors devote their last chapter to Bent's work with ethnographers such as James Mooney and George Bird Grinnell, who used his knowledge of Cheyenne culture to produce the first histories of Plains Indians written for white audiences. In old age, George struggled with alcoholism, broken marriages, and estrangement from his children.

Halaas and Masich explore the life of this fascinating, tragic figure with an accessible and fluid narrative style that readers will enjoy. Their research is well rooted in primary sources, acquired from Bent's own memoirs as well as newspaper accounts and government reports. However, secondary sources are neglected here; readers gain no sense of the historiography through which the topic has evolved. Multiple excellent works on race, cultural identity, and the Plains environment itself have been produced in recent years that would aid scholarly understanding of the social milieu in which George Bent and other biracial persons operated. The authors refrain from such discussion in their haste to tell a dramatic story. For a man who lived to be seventy-five years old, Bent's biographers devote more than half their chapters to his twenties alone, the same decade—not coincidentally—in which he fought in the Indian Wars. At times the chapters on Bent's military life become so burdened with details and so overfocused on well-known events and characters that the larger significance of his life is lost, along with an opportunity to examine what he and other "half-breeds" faced during the collision of cultures.

Overall, this book will find its most appreciative audience among western history buffs and others who enjoy history for its entertainment value. Academic...

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