Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History

A masterful reconstruction of one of the worst Indian massacres in American history

In April 1871, a group of Americans, Mexicans, and Tohono O’odham Indians surrounded an Apache village at dawn and murdered nearly 150 men, women, and children in their sleep. In the past century, the attack, which came to be known as the Camp Grant Massacre, has largely faded from memory. Now, drawing on oral histories, contemporary newspaper reports, and the participants’ own accounts, prizewinning author Karl Jacoby brings this perplexing incident and tumultuous era to life to paint a sweeping panorama of the American Southwest—a world far more complex, diverse, and morally ambiguous than the traditional portrayals of the Old West.