Michael L. Tate – författare

While occupying the center of the continental United States, the state of Nebraska remains outside the comprehension of most Americans. Contrary to the popular image of a flat, treeless landscape from horizon to horizon, the state offers a variety of topography. It has long supported a mixed economy of agriculture, livestock production, and industry. In its historical development, it has embraced a strong frontier tradition alongside a modern fusion of sophisticated city life and state-of-the-art agribusiness. This bibliography—the first systematic bibliographical tool ever assembled for the state of Nebraska—provides a valuable aid for scholars and students wishing to do research on this little-understood state.This bibliography includes monographs, journal articles, theses, and dissertations published prior to 1994. The sources are arranged into topical chapters, including subjects such as the Environment, Native Americans in Historical Times, the Frontier Period, Cultural Life, and Social Issues. Entries are fully annotated, including both descriptive and interpretive annotations, making the book useful to both academic and amateur researchers.

The last thirty-five years of the nineteenth century were a time of dramatic change for the U.S. military, including the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War; fighting the Indian Wars of 1865 through 1890; and shifting military personnel concerns and increased responsibilities, including law enforcement, protection of the National Parks, and border patrols. As the century's end neared, the army faced increasing retrenchment and increased advocacy for veteran's causes when the Civil War veteran population aged. This book illustrates the lives of the average soldier and his family, his involvement with the community, and his contributions and needs as a veteran.The late nineteenth century in American military history is not as well known as others. Relying on documents, diaries, newspaper accounts, and family histories, Tate also includes a timeline, a topically arranged bibliography, and a comprehensive index.

Books, art, and movies most often portray the frontier army in continuous conflict with Native Americans. In truth, the army spent only a small part of its frontier duty fighting Indians; as the main arm of the federal government in less-settled regions of the nation, the army performed a host of duties. The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West examines the army's nonmartial contributions to western development. Dispelling timeworn stereotypes, Michael L. Tate shows that the army conducted explorations, compiled scientific and artistic records, built roads, aided overland travelers, and improved river transportation. Army posts offered nuclei for towns, and soldiers delivered federal mails, undertook agricultural experiments, and assembled weather records for forecasting.The ""multipurpose"" army also provided telegraph service, extended relief to destitute civilians, and protected early national parks.

In the first book to focus on relations between Indians and emigrants on the overland trails, Michael L. Tate shows that such encounters were far more often characterized by cooperation than by conflict. Having combed hundreds of unpublished sources and Indian oral traditions, Tate finds Indians and Anglo-Americans continuously trading goods and news with each other, and Indians providing various forms of assistance to overlanders.Tate admits that both sides normally followed their own best interests and ethical standards, which sometimes created distrust. But many acts of kindness by emigrants and by Indians can be attributed to simple human compassion.Not until the mid-1850s did Plains tribes begin to see their independence and cultural traditions threatened by the flood of white travelers. As buffalo herds dwindled and more Indians died from diseases brought by emigrants, violent clashes between wagon trains and Indians became more frequent, and the first Anglo-Indian wars erupted on the plains. Yet, even in the 1860s, Tate finds, friendly encounters were still the rule.Despite thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges between whites and Indians between 1840 and 1870, the image of Plains Indians as the overland pioneers' worst enemies prevailed in American popular culture. In explaining the persistence of that stereotype, Tate seeks to dispel one of the West's oldest cultural misunderstandings.