Read more
Helen Hunt Jackson found fame as a novelist, poet, and champion of the rights of indigenous people the West in the nineteenth century. Her friendship with Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca--an activist for his people's rights--influenced her literary works and her tireless efforts on the part of American Indians.
Jackson's friendship with Chief Standing Bear and her daring efforts to publish a book about the broken promises of the United States government made with the Native Americans is a compelling story. During the three years it took Jackson to write the book attempts were twice made on her life. There was a lot of speculation about who tried to kill her, including many politicians who resented her association with Chief Standing Bear and the book she was working on, but no one was ever charged with the crimes.
About the author
Chris Enss is a New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about women of the Old West for more than thirty years. She has penned more than fifty published books on the subject. Her work has been honored with nine Will Rogers Medallion Awards, two Elmer Kelton Book Awards, an Oklahoma Center for the Book Award, three Foreword Review Magazine Book Awards, the Laura Downing Journalism Award, and a WILLA Award from Women Writing the West for Best Scholarly Nonfiction Book. Enss's most recent works are The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Cowgirls of Rodeos and Wild West Shows, Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont "The Fifth Marx Brother," and The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier.
