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Release
of The Taos Massacres Announced |
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On a January morning 156 years ago an armed mob in Taos, New Mexico
killed the American governor and several government officials. The mob
then hunted down every American in the area. The violence resulted in a
vigorous military campaign to put down what became a full-fledged
rebellion.
These are the events
recreated in The Taos Massacres, a
historical novel by John Durand published November 1.
Pre-publication reviews praise Durand's "great story-telling"
and "complex characterizations."
"I was struck by
how little attention is paid to this watershed period in the history of
the West," Durand says. "I wanted to tell a more complete and
balanced story than anything I'd read."
The novel, which Durand
says remains faithful to the documented history, follows several
characters caught up in the conflict that occurred after the United
States occupied New Mexico during the U.S.-Mexico war.
John Albert and Charley
Autobees, former mountain men who made the Taos area their home, are two
of the characters Durand brings to life. Both men worked for Simeon
Turley, whose gristmill north of Taos was besieged and destroyed during
the rebellion. Although Albert and Autobees survived the fighting,
Turley and several other men in the mill were killed.
"Popular history
focuses on the deaths of the governor and men like Simeon Turley, but
probably more than 200 Mexicans and Indians also died in the fighting,
and several dozen of those died in a massacre that took place near the
Taos pueblo. That's why I entitled my novel "The Taos
Massacres." Passions ran high, and massacres occurred on both
sides."
"I was also
interested in fleshing out a Delaware Indian who joined the rebellion.
How an Indian from a tribe that originally lived on the East Coast came
to fight alongside the Indians in a New Mexico pueblo is a story in
itself."
In an Afterword to his
novel Durand also identifies an American soldier who murdered an Indian
prisoner and then was abetted in his desertion and escape. The soldier
was never brought to justice for his crime.
Durand's novel includes
a chronology of events and several battle diagrams from the official
military history of the campaign to put down the rebellion.
Durand makes The
Taos Massacres (paperback, 281 pages, $15) available through
bookstores in the Southwest and through on-line seller Amazon.com. The book can also be purchased on-line from
puzzleboxpress.com. Durand self-published his book through Puzzlebox
Press in Elkhorn, WI. |
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