White Indian by Donald Clayton Porter: Book Review

The Great Sachem of the Seneca tribe has lost his infant son. In grief, he joins an alliance of tribes in making war on other tribes and an English settlement. In the settlement, he finds a baby boy, only a few days old, who looks at him fearlessly even though the mother has just been killed. The Sachem decides that this brave boy will become his son, so he takes the child home and raises him to become the best fighter and the wisest man of his generation. His name is Renno. As the Seneca and the settlers encounter each other more and more over the years, it becomes apparent to both that their individual needs can best be met by an alliance. Who better to form the basis of that alliance than Renno, a man with ties to both worlds?

Obvious thing first: the book wasn’t very politically correct. Just look at the title: White Indian. What should it be? Caucasian Native American? I don’t know. But that was the first thing to jump out at me.

Overall though, I enjoyed the book. I liked the characters and the descriptions of their ways of life, both settlers and Native Americans. The pace was good overall, only occasionally getting bogged down in description. I could have used more dialog. The book was based more on description of action than dialog, and I really do like dialog more.

Fans of westerns will like this one, even though it’s not a true western (I think more of the settlers in California or New Mexico when I think of westerns). I’ll keep reading the series.

Reviewed October 14, 2008

Friday Flashback Reviews are a weekly feature here on The Introverted Reader. These are old reviews I wrote on GoodReads. Thanks to Angieville and her Retro Friday Reviews for the inspiration and encouragement!

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