First to Fight
Henry Mihesuah author Devon A Mihesuah editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of Nebraska Press
Published:1st Nov '02
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The story of Henry Mihesuah, a Comanche of the Quahada Band, who has led an ordinary modern American Indian life filled with extraordinary moments
Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s on his family's allotment outside of Duncan, Oklahoma, the author was a member of a family of farmers so successful that they hired black sharecroppers and often helped feed their poorer white neighbors. This title discusses the early history of the his family.Henry Mihesuah, a Comanche of the Quahada band, has led an ordinary modern American Indian life filled with extraordinary moments. Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s on his family's allotment outside Duncan, Oklahoma, Mihesuah was a member of a family of farmers who gave part of what they grew to black sharecroppers and often helped feed their poorer white neighbors. Never afraid of controversy and always the first to fight, Henry Mihesuah fell in love with and married a white woman and then served a dangerous tour of duty in the Marines in post–World War II China. In the 1950s he took a chance and, encouraged by a federal government program, relocated along with many other Indians to seek urban employment in California. Barely surviving a horrific traffic accident, Mihesuah eventually returned home to Oklahoma, where he has spent the last few decades fighting racism and attempts to take his family's land, eschewing local politics yet also taking many steps to reclaim and revitalize connections to his Comanche family and culture, past and present.
Henry Mihesuah spoke at length about his life to his daughter-in-law, accomplished historian Devon Abbott Mihesuah, who has carefully researched and edited those hours of conversation into an engaging, detailed account that is at once honest, informative, and moving. Readers come to know and respect how one forthright Comanche man unyieldingly walks his own path in the modern world, the ways in which events big and small have affected him, and how, with his wife, family, land, strong opinions, and tough choices made along the way, Henry Mihesuah leads a happy and fulfilling life.
"A work readers of any level may engage and enjoy."—Ty Hawkins, The Fulton Sun (MO)
“Mihesuah…belong[s] to a generation that can understand more accurately than any before or since what Native peoples lost, and gained, by becoming American.”—E. A. Schwartz, Western Historical Quarterly
ISBN: 9780803232228
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 363g
118 pages