The Contested Plains

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Recounts the struggles, triumphs, and defeats of both Indians and whites as they pursued their clashing dreams in Colorado during the mid-1800s. After centuries of many peoples fashioning their own cultures on the plains, the Cheyenne and other tribes found in the horse the power to create a heroic way of life that dominated the grasslands. The discovery of gold by whites challenged that way of life and led finally to the Indian Wars of the 1860s.

Environmental History

An interpretive masterpiece. West tells a colorful story incredibly well, bringing individual actors to life and giving a sense of the sweep of larger cultural events. This is lively, literate, and at times humorous reading, paired with thoughtful historical interpretations.

In a way, Elliot West tells a familiar tale: that of Indians, goldseekers, and the ensuing conflict. But in this case, West is the first to assess the cataclysmic changes that the Colorado gold rush brought to the Great Plains. In addition, rather than casting the story in the usual terms of heartless aggressors and hapless victims, West supplies a large and insightful interpretation that at once softens and increases our understanding of the Anglo disruption of Plains Indian cultures. To understand where western history is now, and is likely to go in the future, one must read this book.
—American Historical Review

West has harnessed, to powerful effect, the diverse and complex story lines that form the history of the Great Plains. His fusion of ecology and history is remarkable

Many books have been written about the Colorado gold rush. This one is different. The virtue of the book, besides its lucid writing, splendid design, extensive research, and the meaning it gives to the frontier concept that has been lambasted for thirty years or more, is the fact that it never scolds or trashes any culture. West's story is a story of cultural revisions -- and thus the imaginations and aspirations of many people.
—Journal of American History