Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

Apaches And Martians — A Frontier Partisans Tribute To Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Fighting Man of Mars by Frank Frazetta.

Deuce Richardson has long held aloft the torch in honor of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Lane Batot will extoll the joys of the Tarzan novels at the drop of a hat — and he’ll drop the hat himself.

This is as it should be, for ERB was a genuine Frontier Partisans literary giant — one that I have somehow never fully connected with. That needs to be rectified.

Deuce has produced a very fine tribute to ERB marking the 70th anniversary of his voyage to a literary Valhalla. Deuce writes:

Like Homer, Burroughs can’t die. He gave us heroes that we need.

Burroughs lays a stronger claim to Frontier Partisan lineage than just about any other writer. The man chased The Apache Kid while serving as a cavalryman in the Arizona Territory in the 1896. That’s right — while Frederick Russell Burnham was dueling with the Matabele in Rhodesia, Burroughs was riding the rough country chasing an Apache outlaw ghost. He was the real deal.

The Apache Kid.

True West Magazine served up an outstanding article on Burroughs’ time on the frontier. A sample:

As Burroughs later recalled, a man and his daughter had been murdered on the Solomonville trail, and the Apache Kid’s band were the presumed perpetrators.

In late August, B Troop was ordered out on scout to hunt for the Apache Kid. Still suffering with dysentery, Burroughs pleaded his way out of the hospital in order to ride with his troop. The ensuing journey followed a wagon trail “short cut” over the high crags of Mt. Graham. This became a hellish ordeal for Burroughs, who was literally falling out of his saddle most of the way.

“All during this march I was carrying fourteen pounds of ammunition and weapons around my waist—a weight which did not greatly alleviate the intense abdominal pain I was suffering.”

In the field several weeks, B troop was at times split into two-man patrols sent out in different directions. Years later, Burroughs observed: “As I look at it now, we were just bait.”

Being a 20-year-old man, Burroughs made note of the Apache women:

“A never ending source of interest to me were the Apache scouts and their families. We saw little or nothing of their women, though several that I did see among the younger ones were really beautiful. Their figures and carriages were magnificent and the utter contempt in which they held the white soldier was illuminating, to say the least.”

Apache Woman by Howard Terpning. He obviously used the above photograph for reference. Magnificent carriage, indeed.

ERB is, of course, known for his John Carter and Tarzan novels. John Carter is clearly heavily influenced by Burroughs’ Arizona sojourn. He also produced two novels directly inspired by the Apache. From True West:

Burroughs’ legacy of frontier soldiering lives on in his two masterful Apache War novels written nearly a hundred years ago. Within their pages Geronimo, Juh, Cochise and Victorio live again, along with Shoz-Dijiji the Black Bear and his beloved Ish-kay-nay, Cibeque medicine man Nakay-do-klunni and others. Painstakingly researched, written from the heart, and daringly presented from the Apache point of view, The War Chief and Apache Devil contain all the love, hatred and pathos of human existence caught in the crucible of war.

Deuce has inspired me to pick these up and finally really dig in to the legacy of a giant of Frontier Partisan storytelling.

Comments

  1. Matthew says

    Burroughs lived a interesting life.

    Now to be honest Burroughs never meant as much to me as Howard or Tolkien, and I always thought Leigh Brackett wrote the same type of stories better, Burroughs could write “page-turners” that were really were page turners. Burroughs was a master of pace and forward momentum in ways that are lacking in many supposedly “better” writers. He also had a talent of taping into Archtypes. Tarzan being a primary example. He represents the more uncivilized aspects that in modern society we seek to deny.

    Reply

    • deuce says

      “Burroughs was a master of pace and forward momentum…”

      ERB wasn’t just a master of pace and forward momentum–though it weas noted when he first debuted that he brought “breakneck pace” to a new level. He also upped the level of violence and nudity, which are all over A PRINCESS OF MARS and TARZAN OF THE APES.

      Despite the mouthings lof low-info midwits, Burroughs also created plenty of strong female characters, by which, I don’t necessarily mean “women who can outfight any man”. Dejah Thoris is a strong-willed woman, despite the fact that she is no warrioress. So is Thuvia. ERB also had his bad-ass women, though. Check out Narada in THE CAVE GIRL or Jane in several novels, especially in TARZAN THE TERRIBLE. In that book, she turns the tables on two competent soldiers of the Kaiser.

      There is also the fact that ERB was a master of social satire and critique. He does it in almost every novel he wrote, but many readers seem utterly unaware of it. That’s because he KNEW that “Entertainment is fiction’s purpose”, something that almost all writers in mainstream SFF have forgotten. Burroughs’ readers were so busy being entertained they rarely noticed critiques of socialism or the physical vs the intellectual or what-have-you.

      Finally, ERB’s imagination was an order of magnitude, minimum, beyond that of his later fans, REH and Brackett. They were constantly cribbing from ERB. The only rough contemporaries that could compare to ERB in raw imaginative firepower were Merritt, Lovecraft and Tolkien. ERB was coming up with fairly substantial languages for his alien cultures at roughly the same time as Tolkien started doing so and doing so LONG before Tollers got published. ERB also established the “illusion of depth” in A PRINCESS OF MARS long before LotR was published and did so without having to lay down background texts to do so, as JRRT did. You can bet REH took note of that AND of the interconnectedness of ERB’s universe, which–world-building haters to the contrary–is an aid to the author and a selling point to many in the audience. That said, Haggard did the same thing to a lesser degree. All praise to HRH, the Father of Exotic Literature!

      That’s just one small example of Ed’s imagination, which doesn’t take into account his awe-inspiring ability to concoct one amazing and unique culture after another, again and again, novel after novel, at PULP SPEED. The man could conceive of WORLDS at the drop of a hat.

      Nothing against REH or JRRT, both of whom I rank equal to ERB, but the facts are the facts.

      Reply

      • Paul McNamee says

        “Dejah Thoris is a strong-willed woman, despite the fact that she is no warrioress. So is Thuvia.”

        I always give the edge to Thuvia, though, because at one point in MAID OF MARS, she dispatches a bad guy with a solid dagger thrust.

        Reply

  2. John Roberts says

    I read ERB’s Apache novels in my tens and was struck by the fact that his Apaches were three-dimensional human beings, not caricatures. This was because he had known genuine Apaches, ridden and worked with them. He pulled no punches in describing the utter savagery with which they waged war, but he also describes their warm domestic lives. The protagonist, the adopted white boy Ish-Kay-Nay, marvels that his kindly old grandfather, Geronimo, is also the terror of all the whites for hundreds of miles around. Wonderful as his Mars and Tarzan novels are, I think ERB put his best writing, especially in terms of characterization, into these books.

    Reply

  4. Pat McGowan says

    What a wonderful revelation to me. I read a number of the John Carter books in my teens, (no doubt seduced by the Frazetta covers) but until this reading, had no idea about the Apache books. Thank you

    Reply

  6. wayne says

    After leaving the U.S. Cavalry for health reasons, ERB wrote a letter attempting to join the Rough Riders. Theodore Roosevelt’s response is below.

    “First Regt. U. S. Vol.
    In Camp near San Antonio, Texas
    May 19th, 1898

    Dear sir, I wish I could take you in, but I am afraid that the chances of our being over-enlisted forbid my bringing a man from such a distance.

    Yours very truly,
    T. Roosevelt
    Lt. Col.”

    I was another of those adolescents who read every ERB paperback on the rack at the drugstore. Even as a youngster I appreciated his ability to be empathetic to the Apaches. His descriptions of their brilliant tactics in skirmishes with the cavalry were enlightening to a kid raised on Westerns in which Indians were shown aimlessly riding around circled wagons or forts as their enemies shot them down. His novels stand the test of time.

    Reply

    • deuce says

      Yeah, I left Rough Riders thing out of my post. ERB was ready to roll. He was a huge Teddy fan (as was Haggard). I have the book, BROTHER MEN, which collects the correspondence of ERB and a friend of his back in Nebraska. Many glowing mentions of Teddy. The whole book is fascinating because it is much more about politics, sports and family/women than it is about ERB’s fiction. A different look than we normally see. Ed was a good guy, albeit with numerous faults.

      Reply

  7. John Roberts says

    I knew Catherine Crook DeCamp (Mrs. L.Sprague), who was a direct descendent of General George Crook, who spent much of his career fighting Indians, including Geronimo. He was also their champion in court and Congress, outraged at their mistreatment even in peacetime. He spoke many Indian languages. She told me that he said,”If the Indians had ever figured out what the back sight on a rifle was for, we never would have beaten them.”

    Reply

    • JimC says

      ”If the Indians had ever figured out what the back sight on a rifle was for, we never would have beaten them.”

      Great quote. It may be a folk tale, but I have read that Matabele warriors who obtained Martini-Henrys often raised the graduated sight on the theory that it made the shot more powerful.

      Reply

      • deuce says

        Matthew, I said the same thing in my reply to JMR above. Back in the days of the CIMMERIAN blog, I mentioned in a post (in rebuttal to a comment by Michael Chabon that the Green Men were OBVIOUSLY based on Pashtuns/Afghans) that the Apaches were the OBVIOUS influence. To my knowledge–and it’s fairly extensive–ERB never wrote or said one word about the Afghans in his entire life. On the other hand, he worked around/knew Apaches, featured Apaches at the beginning of A PRINCESS OF MARS and wrote TWO NOVELS about an Apache warrior.

        So, of course, the Green Men were “obviously” inspired by Afghans. Case closed. Whatever. It always amazes me when people make definitive statements about an author’s inspirations without considering what he said and liked in real life and what he actually chose to write about.

        I’m not fond of people using dead men as hand-puppets to voice their OWN opinions.

        Reply

        • Matthew says

          I somehow missed the sentence about the Martians influencing Apaches when I first read your post.

          Yeah, a lot of critics have tendency to project their own beliefs on to dead writers.

          Reply

  9. .lane batot says

    So I’m a hat dropper am I? Well, I can’t hope to deny that on THIS blog, certainly! Indeed, I became very enamored of the Tarzan character early in childhood, soon after my relating to Mowgli–a very logical progression! Burroughs influenced SO MANY prominent people over time, and continues to(despite the “politically correct” naysayers out there!). Although the Tarzan character was my first Burroughs’ love, I HAVE read many of his other works–most of the Barsoom novels, all of the Venus tales, his marvelous medieval story “The Outlaw Of Torn”, all the Pellucidar novels, the Caspak trilogy, “The Lad and the Lion”, “Jungle Girl”, etc. etc. And OF COURSE, histwo Apache novels!!! Yet, shamefully, I put off getting and reading his Apache novels for the LONGEST–I feared they’d be inaccurate tripe, and having IMMERSED myself in real historical Apache lore and culture since early childhood, I was afraid Burroughs would let me down on that subject. I mean creatively conjuring up lost worlds and other planetary cultures is one thing(and something Burroughs was a MASTER at!), but I just wasn’t sure about his Apache novels. But I finally broke down and got some cheap copies, and was marvelously surprised! I should have known better–it’s Burroughs, for heavens sake–he ALWAYS produced a good yarn! Yet his Apache novels were QUITE accurate, and just good stories. Well, except for Geronimo having blue eyes! Although my FAVORITE(hokey–and inaccurate– as it is by today’s standards) film portrayal of Geronimo is STILL Chuck Conners, with his piercing blue eyes and all! Those that accuse Burroughs of racism REALLY NEED to read his Apache novels–he tackled this thorny cultural taboo without hesitation, and made it rather clear he certainly was not a supporter of racial prejudice!….And I once read a quote of Burroughs about his time spent chasing renegade Apaches, that in hindsight, he was very glad they never actually caught any while he was with the calvary!

    Reply

  10. Lynda A. Sanchez says

    All, loved the post, the info and the responses of readers. Would you please post the author and title of that True West article about ERB? It sounds like an excellent article to put out there for others to read and enjoy.

    Also, the two Apache books were very well written and researched. ERB did his homework and therefore did not write a lot of silly stuff about the Apache. I believe he used Bourke a lot and of course his own experiences as a trooper. Having written about Apaches and having read those two novels makes me respect ERB even more as an author/educator and all around incredible addition to American Lit.

    Last year in Willcox, Arizona the fans of ERB had their annual conference along with many field trips, talks and other revealing tales that one does not often associate with ERB. Mr. Frank Puncer of Rio Rico Arizona was the man in charge.

    Best regards,
    Lynda A. Sánchez

    Reply

    • JimC says

      The author is Frank W. Puncer. The link is embedded in the post above (first sentence below pic of The Kid). Very honored to have you here.

      Reply

      • Lynda A. Sanchez says

        Jim, then I stand corrected in terms of info on that article and great photos. I thought the “green” coloring was just part of the artistic inclination you have in your posts. Now I see that they can mean the source. Thank you. I hope all of your followers do read that article by Mr. Puncer.

        And thanks to you for this really nifty blog.

        Best regards, Lynda (Lincoln, NM)

        Reply

        • John Roberts says

          Lynda, welcome to a fellow New Mexican. I live in Estancia. In case it’s not made clear here, I write under my full name, John Maddox Roberts, known here and elsewhere on the ‘net as JMR.

          Reply

          • Lynda A. Sanchez says

            mil gracias JMR…Estancia is not too far and we all share such exciting history here in NM.

            I enjoy the variety of Frontier Partisans too. Great job to all the editors etc.

            las

    • .lane batot says

      Despite all the naysayers, I really liked it–I thought MY favorite characters–the Tharks, and Woola, were wonderfully depicted! I understand the “purists” whining about things that were different from the original first book,”A Princess of Mars”,(and things from later books were interjected), but I can also understand WHY the script writers did that for the sake of the kuhzillion or so viewers who had not yet read the books, and would have NO IDEA otherwise what was going on(the Therns, for instance, only became visible in a later book in the series….) My perspective is that, I have come to expect, from long disappointed experience, SO LITTLE from Hollywood attempts to film great classic stories, that I am always pleasantly surprised when they get ANYTHING right! I think a LOT is right about “John Carter”. One thing that has really worked against the film is the IGNORANCE of this latter day whipper-snapper audience, that believed “John Carter” was a rip-off of the “Star War” series and other space travel classic movies and stories, not realizing all of THEM had been HUGELY influenced originally by Burroughs’ stories! I always tell people who are just discovering the Barsoom(Mars) tales, to just remember, these were first written in 19-frikkin’-12!!! As for this film–I’m very sorry that there will likely be no sequel….

      Reply

  12. Traven Torsvan says

    Ooh the mention of Bourke and Crook reminds me, and I know I’m preaching to the choir, On the Border with Crook is one of the best primary sources on the Indian wars.

    The sympathy of Bourke, Crook, and other participants in the campaigns is interesting, I dont know of many other fighters in Colonial wars elsewhere showing sympathy for the “natives” but others are probably more well read on that front.

    Reply

  13. wayne says

    I’ll stick my neck out and say I enjoyed the Disney version of John Carter, especially Deja Thoris!
    They managed to make the plot workable, and they did a great job depicting the Martian life forms and those wonderful airships. As a kid I read all the ERB Mars books, and I was hoping once Disney got the computer graphics done there would be sequels. The box office just didn’t support it.

    Reply

    • JimC says

      I think the general consensus amongst the non-precious critical set is that it was a pretty damn good movie that the marketing push let down badly.

      Reply

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