Purchased from QPBC
Some very interesting pieces of US history. Rather uninspiring writing.
I had to go back and re-read the introduction to remember where Davis was going with this book because the incidents are only loosely tied together in the narrative.
Davis looks at six incidents that happened between 1800 and 1850. He picks some fascinating incidents that did not make my general American history courses. Some that look at the Indians between initial colonization and the western Indian wars after the Civil War. I wish I still had a copy of some of the text books that were used in my schooling. I think I remember something about "Indian removal" but not the battles and massacres and political manuevering that came before. And although slavery was a big topic, the relationship to the slave revolt that created Haiti was not even mentioned, let alone the slave revolts and the alliance between the Indians and free blacks and escaped slaves in Spanish Florida. And even though I attended Catholic schools, I don't remember the burning of Catholic Churches in Philadelphia being mentioned!
Anyway lots of interesting stuff but Davis' attempt to start out with an exciting incident and then explain its background and its importance to future events left me working very hard to keep things in order. And his jumping in to provide background (date and place of birth, parentage, upbringing, etc.) was often abrupt and not well tied to the story line.

Left in the Little Free Library