J. W. Wilbarger’s remarkable book Indian Depredations in Texas contains more than 250 separate narratives of attacks and counterattacks that occurred from the 1820s to the 1870s.

Wilbarger, a pioneer who had emigrated to Texas in 1837, was fully aware of the dangers that he faced by living on the frontier of the American West as his own brother had miraculously survived being scalped and left for dead in 1833.

Over the course of the next fifty years Wilbarger compiled accounts of Native American attacks that formed the basis of his book. Yet, rather than simply relying on hearsay and rumors of attacks, he sought out the victims and as he states in his Preface, many of the articles had been “written by others, who were either cognizant of the facts themselves or had obtained them from reliable sources."

Perhaps the original version of this publication is better organized. The lack of any organization in this version prevents me from giving a recommendation to reading any of it. The spine is blank. There is no table of contents. There is no index, there are even no page numbers. It is impossible to find anything. Intuitively,you could assume a grouping by geographic regions or by chronology. You would be wrong.

Al the stories are randomly mixed up. There is no grouping by region. There is no normal introduction. There are stories of only the Anglo versions, none from the native Americans.

Good luck finding any specific story or region, or era, or a balanced account of any of the conflicts. ( )