Book Reviews

Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America.

By Eric Jay Dolin. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2010. Xvii + 442 pp.Cloth. $29.95.)

IF AN EDUCATED AMERICAN was stopped on the street and asked what animal had the greatest impact in the history of North America, most would be surprised to learn that it was the humble beaver. Best known for his industry, the beaver possesses fur that, the quest to acquire ever more, resulted in an epic clash of nations, companies, and individuals all driven by greed, fierce rivalry, and hopes of empire. In this excellent study, Fur, Fortune, and Empire: the Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, author Eric Jay Dolin details the seminal role the fur traders, in search of primarily but not exclusively beaver, played in the history of the United States and Canada for the better part of three centuries. Beginning with exploration and colonization under the leadership of titans such as Samuel Champlain, Henry Hudson, and Robert LaSalle, they sought to create empires based on beaver trade and land claims. Dolin skillfully transitions into the otter and fur-seal trade of the Pacific Northwest that played a key role in opening American trade with China. He maintains that the fur trade played a momentous role in three wars: French and Indian, Revolutionary, and even the War of 1812, as both European and American colonial powers jockeyed for position in the fur trade and with willing Indian tribes. Subsequently, each obtained entitlements to chunks of land in Canada, the Ohio River Valley, the Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest, far larger than these powers had claimed earlier.

Most readers understand that the fur trade was the economic foundation of Canada with the French competing with the British Hudson Bay Company, but many would be surprised to learn it played a vital part in Jamestown, Plymouth, Pittsburg, and Oregon. Dolin demonstrates that the role of the fur trade, brought about by the explorations and later carving out of trading territories by Lewis and Clark, the Astorians, and mountain men played out, not only in lonely mountains and beaver-rich streams, but on an international stage, which resulted in high tension and talk of yet another war between Britain and the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. He adeptly weaves into the narrative the interplay of Native American interests represented by dozens of tribes with the major and minor players from Europe and their descendants. His study continues past the decline of the beaver brokers to include the buffalo robe industry that lured yet another generation of Americans west, and drove another animal to the brink of extinction. In short, the fur trade was the crucial causational factor in fashioning a continental United States.

An excellent author, Dolin’s prose is pleasurable to read. His narrative flows well and his arguments and conclusions are logical and persuasive. He moves back and forth effortlessly and lucidly, from macro to micro issues and participants unveiling the role of nations, Indian tribes, fur companies, politicians, and individual mountain men such as Jedediah Smith and Rufus Sage. His scope of study is reminiscent of David Lavender’s and Bernard DeVoto’s classic works a generation ago. Fur, Fortune, and Empire is enthusiastically recommended for general readers, students and professional historians.

JOHN D. BARTON Utah State University Uintah Basin Regional Campus Roosevelt

Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment: The Military Career of Charles Young.

By Brian G. Shellum. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010. Xxi + 360 pp. Paper,$19.95.)

BLACK OFFICER IN A BUFFALO SOLDIER REGIMENT is the second of Brian G. Shellum’s two volume study on the life of Colonel Charles Young, an African American military hero who according to the author, “deserves rescue from historical obscurity and a restoration of the prestige and recognition he enjoyed at the time of his death in 1922” (xiii). In 1889 he became the third African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy. Henry Flipper was the first in 1879 followed by John Alexander in 1887.It was nearly fifty years before another would receive his degree from West Point. The War Department’s primary concern was to make sure that a black officer not be placed in a position of having to command white troops. This concern influenced War Department decisions as to where to send black officers throughout Young’s career. An astute person, Young was steadfast in remaining on “his side of the color line” in all things social (18). He viewed this as critical to his survival in a white officer corps.

Black Officer in a Buffalo Regiment opens with a short account of the confusion surrounding Young’s first assignment. Army policy dictated that any black graduate from West Point be assigned to one of the four African American regiments in the United States Regular Army. The regiments were the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry. Initially, Young was assigned to the Tenth Cavalry. He was reassigned to the Twenty-fifth Infantry and later requested a reconsideration of the assignment expressing a preference for one of the cavalry units. The request was approved when a position opened in the Ninth Cavalry and Young agreed to the transfer from the Twenty-fifth Infantry.

The young Second Lieutenant’s first assignment placed him in Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Captain Frank B. Taylor, Young’s first troop commander, had a reputation of avoiding working with black officers. Young’s inexperience and lack of support led to reprimands from superiors and charges of indifference to his duties. The young officer acknowledged that he had made mistakes; however, it was not because of indifference to his responsibilities. One year after arriving at Fort Robinson, Lieutenant Young and B Troop were transferred to Fort Duchesne, located in eastern Utah, his first of two assignments at the military post. Charles Young flourished during his tours of duty at Fort Duchesne. He mastered the essentials of practical army tactics, leadership and duties. He had the fortune of being under a better command climate as his superior officers were effective leaders who also knew how to relate to all soldiers under their command. At Fort Duchesne, Lieutenant Young was reunited with his former West Point roommate, Lieutenant John Alexander. Alexander’s similar background, experiences and presence at Fort Duchesne provided an invaluable mentoring resource for Young as he learned to master the duties of a commissioned officer in the United States Army. Alexander and Young served two years at Fort Duchesne before Alexander’s transfer.

In 1894, Charles Young was given a detached duty assignment to serve as professor of Military Science and Tactics at Wilberforce University. Tragically, he was given the assignment following the unexpected death of his friend and fellow officer, John Alexander who died unexpectedly shortly after arriving at Wilberforce. There Young met and established a long lasting friendship with Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, the noted intellectual, activist and author of The Souls of Black Folk. In 1898, during the Spanish American War, Young was asked to serve as major and commander of the Ninth Ohio Battalion U.S. Volunteers, a black military unit. He returned to Fort Duchesne in 1899. There he met a young enlisted man, Benjamin O. Davis who wanted to become a commissioned officer in the regular army. Captain Young tutored Davis in mathematics and other subjects and was very proud when Davis successfully completed the requirements for a commissioned officer’s position. Davis would later become the first African American promoted to the rank of general in the United States military service.

Captain Charles Young and his men were battle tested fighting in the Philippines and Mexico. In each setting Young was proven to be an effective leader who was firm but fair and enjoyed the respect and support of his troops. He also provided invaluable service to his country as a military attaché in Hispaniola and Liberia.

In 1917, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young had every intention of playing a significant role along with black soldiers in the World War against Germany. Questions pertaining to his health arose as he stood before the promotion board in San Antonio, Texas. Although professionally qualified, he was ordered to seek additional medical attention in San Francisco where he was deemed medically unfit by the examining board. A combination of parties including President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton Baker and several senators coalesced to deny Young’s wish to play a military role in the war. Young received a medical retirement. He was the highest ranking black line officer in the United States Army. Although Colonel Young did not see service in the war, he affirmatively responded to a request from the State Department and War Department to serve again as a military attaché to Liberia.

Ironically, the concerns about Colonel Young’s health that kept him out of the war in Europe were not a concern when he was requested to return to Liberia. Arriving in Monrovia in 1920, Young pursued the objectives of his nation. On an assignment that took him to Lagos, Nigeria, Colonel Young became ill and was hospitalized. He died on January 8, 1922, and was buried the next day by the British with full military honors. Sixteen months later Colonel Charles Young’s exhumed remains were returned to the United States. His funeral service was held in the Arlington Amphitheater and his remains reinterred at Arlington Cemetery.

Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment along with the first volume of the biography gives us a carefully researched biography of an African American soldier/diplomat whose record of service would have made him America’s first black general if not for the prevailing racism that permeated American life in the military as well as civilian worlds in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. Although I would have preferred a single volume biography, I believe Brian Shellum has filled an important void in African American biography and American military history.

RONALD G. COLEMAN University of Utah

Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West 1845-1910.

By David M.Emmons. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. 472 pp. Hardcover. $34.95.)

DAVID M. EMMONS has compiled an impressive amount of information in his work Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West 1845-1910. Emmons takes a closer look at one of the greatest migrations in American history and how this “pale” fits into the broader and perceived American life. The Irish and their Catholic faith contradicted the protestant beliefs of westward expansion. Early Jeffersonian ideals were being challenged by the advent of Irish immigrants and mining. Welcome or not, the Irish had a dramatic say on how the West and its history played out.

Being outcasts in a predominately protestant nation directly led to high concentrations of Irish in select areas. The Irish Catholic went where Irish Catholics already existed. Although Irish men were involved in several professions, large numbers of them ultimately were employed in mining. The earliest roots of Irish mining can be traced to early immigrants beginning in the 1850s when, “Thousands of experienced hard-rock men… made their way…to every hard-rock gold, silver, and copper mining camp” (223). When these select few settled, they acted as unofficial recruiters for future Irish immigrants.

Utah was no exception to this process. Compared to other western states (California, Nebraska, and Montana) Utah had a relatively small Irish population. With an already existing “well developed policy of Utah mine and smelter owners work through padrones and hire contract laborers;” the Irish simply avoided a Mormon dominated Utah (226). Only one county, Summit County, had a strong first- and second-generation Irish population by 1910. The mining camp in Park City supported a 12 percent Irish population. However, mining couldn’t overpower the difference in religious beliefs.

Emmons quickly draws comparisons to Mormons when evaluating Irish migration and lifestyle. Both groups tended to avoid what they viewed as “American capitalism.” The unofficial Irish capitol of Butte, Montana, embodied the same ideals of Salt Lake City. They both “lived a communal way of life that furnished a critical perspective on capitalism” (290). To the Irish, economic stability and cultural identity were a strong contradiction to the “normal” history of the West. By straying from the values of westward expansion as defined in the era, the Irish naturally ostracized themselves.

While the ideas of American reinvention in the West seemed to be discouraged by the Irish settlements and lifestyle, another history was being written. The history of the Irish in the West was a story of strong community, the aim for economic stability, and endurance of ethnicity. Cities like Butte, San Francisco, California, and Melrose, Iowa, supported large Irish communities. All three were characterized by strong identity. This identity could not be shaken by American economic and societal objectives.

Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West 1845-1910 is a wellresearched and well-written book. David Emmons demonstrates how the West is not an American pale consisting of Irish immigrants in limbo, but rather a frontier built with pockets of Irish pales. Despite constant critiques and discrimination, Irish immigrants made a home in the frontier. Their duration and endurance ultimately make up one of several stories that define the real American West.

CAMDEN BURD University of Utah

Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia.

Edited by W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall(Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010. xxviii + 449 pp. Cloth, $85.00.)

SINCE 1955, ABC-CLIO has emerged as a respected publisher of reference materials empowering students, educators, librarians, and general readers with unprecedented access to the conclusions of scholars and researchers. They have been aggressive in recent years with publishing books exploring religion generally and specific religious traditions or aspects of religion. It is therefore appropriate and welcome that ABC- CLIO has partnered with editors Paul Reeve and Ardis Parshall to produce a superb historical encyclopedia of Mormonism.

This single volume encyclopedia packs a lot in an introduction putting Mormonism in historical context, 101 articles, a fifteen-page chronology of the Mormons, and a fourteen-page bibliography. The articles are divided into four sections: Eras, Events, People, and Issues. Peppered throughout the book are call-out boxes on minor topics. Unfortunately, the abundance of text has left very little room for illustrations, charts, maps, and other helpful tools of other types of encyclopedias.

The section “Eras” includes six essays in chronological order beginning with “Foundation: 1820-1830” and ending in “Expansion: 1941-Present.” The section “Events” includes thirty-one articles on various events like Haun’s Mill Massacre and Priesthood Revelation of 1978, but also things like the Book of Mormon and Temples, and general topics such as Correlation, Youth Programs, and Word of Wisdom. The section “People” consists of forty-one biographical sketches of all Church presidents, but also includes a sampling of influential apostles (George Q. Cannon, J. Reuben Clark, and Bruce R. McConkie), female leaders (Aurelia Spencer Rogers, Eliza R. Snow, and Belle Smith Spafford), and others influential in Mormon history from a variety of fields (scholar Hugh Nibley, historian Leonard Arrington, humanitarian Lowell Bennion). The “Issues” section provides a closer look at twenty-three different issues from Mormon history, such as “Mormonism and Education,” “Mormonism and Science,” or “Non-Mormon Views of Mormonism.”

Reeve and Parshall have done an outstanding job providing an amazing amount and variety of information in a professional and compact manner. Contributors included fifty-three different scholars, and the list is a virtual “Who’s Who” of Mormon history, providing significant clout and credibility to the project. They have done a commendable job in being fair and balanced in laying out the historical facts in each article so that the book is neither an attack on Mormonism, nor an apologetic work.

It is tempting to debate which topics should have been included and which ones should have been left out. However, the editors themselves acknowledge in their preface the difficulty in making such determinations and a fair minded reviewer would have to admit that they did a respectable job with making sure the main points of Mormon history were covered. There is some overlap, such as in the articles on “Mormonism and Race” and “Mormonism and Native Americans”; or in the article on the Smoot Hearings and the call-out box on Reed Smoot, but it is minor.

This volume would be especially helpful to a scholar wanting a one-stop source for boning up on the basics and more of Mormon history. Scholars long familiar with Mormonism will find the essays on issues useful for concise summaries of complex facets of Mormon history. The article on “Mormonism and Blacks,” for instance, is the finest I have ever read on the topic. Considering the large role that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints has played throughout the history of Utah, this landmark encyclopedia would be of significant interest to any serious student of Utah history.

MICHAEL K. WINDER Board of State History

West Valley City