Moccasin Trail

Jim Keath runs away from home at an early age, gets mauled by a bear and then raised by the Crow Indians who save him, runs away from the Crow and spends his time with a fur-trapper until he discovers that what remains of his family have followed the Oregon Trail for a new homestead. This is where the book picks up and so follows Jim's struggle to discover where he belongs, being not fully white nor fully Crow.
I'm torn about this one, really. The story was good, and I love Jim bunches, but although McCraw does seem to try to balance sympathies between both the Crow and the white man's lifestyles, I'm uncomfortable with her glorification of what the white settlers got up to, to the great cost of the lives of so many.

Jonathan ran away from his abusive father to trap with his uncle. After being attacked by a bear, he was rescued by the Crow Indians. He lived among them for years, then left to live the life of a trapper once again. Living off the land in semi- solitude, he does not know how to relate to what he calls the "bourgessy" white people. He also feels estranged by the natives after one of his tribe displayed a white woman's scalp after a raid on a settlement.

He eventually returns to his family but has difficulty fitting in. He longs for a life in the wild, free of constraints of the pioneers and their traditions, clothing and culture. He tries to teach his younger brother the ways of the natives, but also desperately wants the approval of his show more sister and other older brother.
While I found the writing engaging, I found the content unacceptable for children in the 21st century.
While the book does try to teach respect and understanding of native culture, I felt it did so in a condescending way. It also had some inherent racism. Women were looked down on, especially the "squaws". The author uses terms that seem obviously racist to me. If the author decided to do this to create a more realistic portrayal of the relationship between whites and natives, it still is not appropriate for our times. show less

Eloise Jarvis McGraw has written some of my favorite books of all time, and I pulled this off the shelf at the library because it was the only book there by McGraw. However, this book is problematic for numerous reasons, many of them recounted by other reviewers (e.g., indigenous peoples = savages = bad; white = good). The writing is also very slow and stilted, and I skimmed after the first few chapters. Don't waste your time on this one.

Jim Keath hungers for adventure and to leave his home as a young boy. Without saying goodbye, he does just that, following his uncle into the wilderness where he helps him hunt and trap beaver. But when his uncle is suddenly killed, he is on his own. After an attack by a bear leaves him seriously injured, a band of Crow Indians come to his rescue, nursing him back to health. Jim lives out his adolescence among the Crows, speaking their language and living and thinking of himself as a Crow.

Quite interesting. This story tells how Jim ran away at 11, got adopted by Crow Indians and lived with them for several years, then met back up with his siblings in Oregon in the early pioneering days. I loved reading about how the Columbia looked and felt in those times, and enjoyed the descriptions of the territory as much as I enjoyed the story.

Jim is torn between the world of Native Americans and that of the settlers- he can't take the middle ground as a mountain man because the beaver have been wiped out, so he ends up back with his family. Even as he rejoins them he always feels like running away. Eventually he decides that his place is with them and he rejects his old Crow self. The thing I disliked about this book was that the Native American lifestyle was portrayed as wrong and the religion as untrue.

A young white man who was raised by Indians must decide who he is as he choses a way of life in the rapidly changing west. The book dramatically explores the conflicts of the Oregon settlers against the land, against the Indians, and in the case of this young boy, against himself. Worth reading again and again.