This is the story of people who lived on both sides of a line in an irreconcilable conflict between cultures and societies. They experienced a duality of awareness that few in their age could even imagine.

Scott Zesch's biography of his ancestor Adolph Korn, a "White Indian", captured and raised for a few years by the Comanches, is eye opening and enlightening. Zesch explores the historical context of his ancestor and about ten other individuals who were captured on the Texas frontier by Indians from 1865 to 1871. In so doing, he explains the circumstances of Texas settlement by German immigrants (poverty, struggle, fear), differences between English speaking and German settlers in Texas, the cultures of the tribes who captured the children (a warrior ethic), their motivations (largely, they wanted more warriors), and the policies of the U.S. government toward native Americans during and after the Civil War. We are reminded that for many of the captives, after about a year of captivity a life as a Plains Indian was preferred, and few wanted to return home. When they were forced to return to their parents and homes, as the US army drove the Indians into reservations, the adjustment was difficult and painful.

Zesch feels himself both to be a descendant of whites and, through the experience of his ancestor Adolph Korn, to be an adoptive descendant of the Comanche. He tells both sides' stories with balance and sympathy. He also explores his own family's ambivalent relationship to its ancestor, and peels back the layers of history, so that we feel not only the reality of the 1860s and 1870s, but the subsequent ways in which the experiences of soldiers, Indians, captives and others were later represented in the early twentieth century, through books, Wild West shows, reunions between former adversaries (White and Indian) and former brothers (the captives and their former fellow warriors.) Family history is woven beautifully together with historical sociology and political history.

The story of "White Indians", in short, cracks open a window on the entire Western reality. The bi-cultural experience of the captives, their struggle to become Indians, and their struggle to return to White society, reveal worlds about both societies. I cannot recommend this highly enough as a lens on American history and the American experience. Focussed on Texas from 1860 to 1880, we understand through the very specific experiences of 10 captives and the activities of those who held them and those who tried to redeem them, something profound about the entirety of 19th century America.