A Mixture of So Many Bloods: A Family Saga of the American West
FAIN: FA-55350-10
Andrew Richard Graybill
University of Nebraska, Lincoln (Lincoln, NE 68503-2427)
My project uses the experiences of a single family of mixed ancestry to trace the hardening of racial boundaries in Montana and the larger American West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The murder of white fur trader Malcolm Clark by a relative of his Indian wife set in motion the events leading up to the Baker (or Marias) Massacre of January 23, 1870, in which 173 Piegans were slaughtered. Clark's family lived in the shadow of these events for years, and his children and grandchildren (who were of mixed native and white heritage) suffered especially, as a frontier of relative racial inclusion in Montana, typified by intermarriage and cultural accommodation, gave way to a harshly exclusive one. I would use an NEH Fellowship during 2010 to finish writing the book, which is under contract to W.W. Norton and slated for publication in late 2011 or early 2012.