Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History

Predawn, April 30, 1871, a party of Americans, Mexicans, and Tohono O'odham Indians gathered outside an Apache camp in the Arizona borderlands. At first light they struck, murdering nearly 150 Apaches, mostly women and children, in their sleep. In its day, the atrocity, known as the Camp Grant Massacre, generated unparalleled national attention--federal investigations, heated debate in the press, and a tense criminal trial. This was the era of the United States' "peace policy" toward Indians, and the Apaches had been living on a would-be reservation, under the supposed protection of the U.S. Army. President Grant decried the act as "purely murder, " but American settlers countered that the distant U.S. government had failed to protect them from Apache attacks. The massacre has since largely faded from memory. Now, drawing on oral histories, newspaper reports, and participants' accounts, author Karl Jacoby brings this horrific incident and tumultuous era to life.--From publisher description.