A Woman of the People (Paperback)

An absorbing plot with a minimum of melodrama, A Woman describes the last fifteen years of a Comanche tribe before it finally surrenders to the white man and is, presumably, shipped off to a reservation. The full tragedy of the tribe's decimation is shown, although the story ends right at the point where it might deteriorate into social protest. In 1854, Helen Morrison, 9, and her little Sister are abducted by Indians after their family is murdered. The girls are sold as slaves but reared as family members of a branch of the Comanches. Through the years it is the older girl's fixed idea that she must some day rescue her younger sister and return to the White Man's world. She develops certain skills in order to facilitate her escape, and resists marriage to an Indian until she is twenty-three. But at the end both girls are totally integrated and, after the death of the younger sister, Helen transfers her sense of duty to her husband... Foods, the seasons, hunting, raids, funerals, etc. everything is presented in a straightforward fashion. Less successfully does the novel communicate the Indians' powerful identification with nature which was quite as intense as that of the early Greeks. (Kirkus Reviews)

A Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1966, A Woman of the People is one of Texas' best-known and most-respected novels. In this story of the Texas frontier, Capps dramatizes the capture by a Comanche band of a ten-year-old white girl and her five-year-old sister from the upper reaches of the Brazos River a decade before the Civil War.

As the narrative progresses, Helen Morrison slowly -- and almost unbeknownst to herself -- goes from being a frightened, rebellious white girl to becoming "a woman of the People". Like many of the people who figure in true-life Indian captivity narratives, Helen adopts the ways of the Comanches, marries a member of her small band, and becomes a major figure in tribal life.

A Woman of the People parallels in some ways the real story of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was taken by Comanches, married Peta Nocona, and became the mother of the celebrated Quanah Parker, the last great chief of the Comanches. But unlike the Cynthia Ann Parker story, where many mysteries abound, the novel takes the reader inside the mind of the main character, and we are allowed to grow with her as she forgets her white heritage as Helen and becomes Tehanita (Little Girl Texan).

General

Imprint:	Texas Christian University Press,U.S.
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Texas Tradition Series
Release date:	1999
First published:	1999
Authors:	Benjamin Capps
Dimensions:	220 x 141 x 14mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	248
ISBN-13:	978-0-87565-195-8
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-87565-195-X
Barcode:	9780875651958

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