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The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado. By Elliott West. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. xxiv, 422 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-0891-5.)
Many books have been written about the Colorado gold rush. This one is different. It is the layered story of the peopling of the Plains and the front range of the Rocky Mountains. It is a vast and complex story that should be fascinating and instructive to historians. The first part of the book is devoted to Native American peopling of the region. Professor Elliott West reveals the ingenuity of these Americans as they adapt to the environment in numerous ways, including the revolution in their ways brought by the acquisition of the horse. Here he points out that the horse was not...