The Falcon (Penguin Classics)

By John Tanner and John and Edwin James (ed.) Tanner

Book Overview

Edited with historical annotations and translations, John Tanner's seminal autobiography tells the story of a man who, over the course of 30 years, became almost fully assimilated into Anishinaabe... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140170227
• ISBN13: 9780140170221
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

a sad memoir of my ancestor, John Tanner

I bought this book because John Tanner is my ancestor. Stories had been told in my family here in Kentucky about our relative being captured by Indians, but I enjoyed absorbing this sad written tale of his life. It is not a happy tale, but a great historical read for any history buffs (he's there when Lewis and Clark go through on their Voyage of Discovery ).

A Rare and Valuable Cultural Record

In 1789 when he was a nine year-old boy, his mother already dead, John Tanner's family settled upon a Kentucky farm where the Big Miami and Ohio rivers meet. Shortly thereafter, this piece of "Dark and Bloody Ground" was visited by a Shawnee war party. Two Indians seized young Tanner and forcibly marched him north toward modern day Toledo, then up to Detroit. The child was taken further north to live with his captive family,...

A Far Cry From Last Of The Mohicans

The Falcon is a story of Native American life in the late 18th and early 19th century, as experienced by a white man, John Tanner. Tanner was captured by the Shawnee at an early age and eventually adopted into the Ojibwa Nation of Western Ontario, Eastern Manitoba and Northern Michigan. After years of life with the Ojibway, he attempted unsuccessfully to return to his white relatives in Kentucky. Forget Natty Bumppo of...

The Best and Most Complete Indian Captivity Narrative

"The Falcon" is the autobiography of Shaw-Shaw-Wa Be-Na-Se or John Tanner, a White Indian captured by the Shawnee along the Ohio River in 1789 and later sold to an Ojibwa family in northern Michigan. He went on to live a long and fascinating life among the Indians of the Old Northwest working as a trapper for the Hudson Bay Company and serving as the interpreter at the trading post at Sault St. Marie. He spent some time...

The Falcon, by John Tanner

The Falcon, by John Tanner, is simply one of the most incrediblebooks I have ever read, and must be considered a classic.It was utterly enthralling. I found myself wondering how heever wrote the book, since it is very well written, but he hadlittle knowledge of English until later life. Found out on theweb that back in Sault Ste Marie, he narrated his life to a doctor, who wrote it all down, and later published it.