Summary of George Black's Empire of Shadows

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The explorers were uninvited guests in an unknown land, and any tribe they encountered was assumed to be hostile until proven otherwise. The threat of violence was implicit in the act of exploration.

#2 The Nez Perce were a tribe that the explorers got along with very well with. They were proud, dignified, reserved, slow to anger, and attentive to personal cleanliness. Their language contained no profanity.

#3 The Nez Perce were a tribe that lived in the area of what is now Montana. They were friendly towards the explorers, and helped them cross the Bitterroots Mountains. The explorers were able to trade food for trinkets and knives, and they were able to lie up for more than a week while Clark treated their intestinal problems with salt pills and other emetics.

#4 The Nez Perce were given a guarantee of security in exchange for agreeing to live in peace with their neighbors. The Blackfeet were given the right of secession, which they used to fight against American expansion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Aug 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822563261

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Insights on George Black's Empire of Shadows

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The explorers were uninvited guests in an unknown land, and any tribe they encountered was assumed to be hostile until proven otherwise. The threat of violence was implicit in the act of exploration.

#2

The Nez Perce were a tribe that the explorers got along with very well with. They were proud, dignified, reserved, slow to anger, and attentive to personal cleanliness. Their language contained no profanity.

#3

The Nez Perce were a tribe that lived in the area of what is now Montana. They were friendly towards the explorers, and helped them cross the Bitterroots Mountains. The explorers were able to trade food for trinkets and knives, and they were able to lie up for more than a week while Clark treated their intestinal problems with salt pills and other emetics.

#4

The Nez Perce were given a guarantee of security in exchange for agreeing to live in peace with their neighbors. The Blackfeet were given the right of secession, which they used to fight against American expansion.

#5

The second crossing of the mountains was no easier than the first. The explorers were forced to retrace their steps when the snow turned out to be fifteen feet deep. Eventually, Drouillard returned with three young men who agreed to see them safely across.

#6

Clark’s instincts should have led him to explore the sources of the Madison, Gallatin, and Yellowstone rivers. However, he ignored these opportunities because he was focused on reaching the rendezvous with Lewis.

#7

The Nez Perce guides took their leave of Lewis on July 4, 1806. They were not happy to see him go, and tried to put a brave face on things. But they were obviously not happy to see the Blackfeet.

#8

The trip was attended by ominous omens. The Piegans were known to be the most aggressive of the three Blackfoot tribes. They had a sanguinary reputation, and they would range far and wide in search of beaver.

#9

The Piegans were the key to their military dominance of the Northern Plains. They were the bride price, the favored gift in religious ceremonies, the object of the raid. They brought young men the jolting adrenaline of the hunt.

#10

On July 26, 1805, Lewis met with the Piegans, who were part of a larger group that was camped on the Marias River. He asked them to pass along an invitation for their chiefs to visit the Great Father in Washington. The Shoshone and the Nez Perce, now united in friendship, were already among the lucky beneficiaries of this arrangement.

#11

The men were left with no options but to continue the journey to the Missouri River. They burned the Piegans’ possessions, and Lewis retrieved the American flag. However, he left the Jefferson peace medal around the neck of He That Looks at a Calf, that they might know who they were dealing with.

#12

The Lewis and Clark expedition was the first conflict between American officials and the Native Americans of the Northern Plains, and it set off a chain of events that would culminate in the winter of 1870, when another band of Piegans met another explorer at the same river.

#13

The men who executed Lewis’s plan for a great fur-trading empire were men of almost unfathomable physical hardiness, ingenuity, and self-reliance. They were men who had intersected at every turn with the world of the Piegans.

#14

Lewis’s encounter with Manuel Lisa on the Marias River established a principle that would define the century: exploration plus civilization leads to violence. This was what happened when white men made pacts with the enemies of the Blackfeet, which was almost every other Indian tribe within a 300-mile radius.

#15

The Crows were a tribe that had split off