Reviewed by: Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls: Joe Lynch Davis and the Last of the Oklahoma Outlaws by Jerry Thompson Kathleen P. Chamberlain Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls: Joe Lynch Davis and the Last of the Oklahoma Outlaws. By Jerry Thompson. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. Pp. 320. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Every historian would love to stumble across a collection of family memorabilia that reveals intriguing ancestors and events. Even better if the ancestor is Oklahoma’s version of Jesse James and the event in question rivals Wyoming’s Johnson County War. Fortunately for Jerry Thompson, Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M International University, his mother, born Jo Lee Davis, squirreled away seventeen letters that later introduced him to his grandfather, Joe Lynch Davis, cattle rustler, train and bank robber, and central player in a bloody range war from 1911 to 1912. Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls successfully recreates Davis’s life and [End Page 105] places it within the tumultuous history of Indian Territory and Oklahoma. Joe Lynch Davis was born into one of the wealthiest cattle ranching families in the Cherokee Nation. They boasted of a mixed Cherokee heritage, but Thompson argues that theirs is not a tale of race or of federal neglect. For years the Davises amassed land, wealth, and political influence. They walked a fine line between the legal and illegal and hired a plethora of ne’er-do-wells to intimidate the small cattlemen and farmers who opposed them. In the process, the Davis family sparked a lot of vicious feuds. In 1893, the United States government extended the Dawes Severalty Act to apply to tribes in Indian Territory. Among other requirements, it divided Indian land into allotments, which closed the open range and forced ranchers onto smaller parcels. The Davises, however, refused to downsize. Hostilities intensified and in 1911 exploded into what was called the Porum Range War, which spread across Muskogee and McIntosh Counties. Twenty-year-old Joe was an enthusiastic participant. On May 29, 1911, he and Pony Starr—a member of the infamous Starr family—held off a posse in a gun battle that Thompson maintains was one of the deadliest in Oklahoma history. Davis thrived on the adrenaline rush that came with risk and violence, and his family’s ability to hire attorneys and bribe witnesses convinced him that the law did not apply to him. After the range war, he began to rob trains and to stage bank robberies that grew more spectacular over time. He expanded these activities into Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona, where he was arrested and finally convicted in 1917. Davis spent fourteen years in prison, most of them in Leavenworth. In the process, he lost the woman he loved and his daughter Jo Lee, Thompson’s mother, who saved the letters that led Thompson to his family’s outlaw past. In a larger context, this biography and recent books like Devon Mihesuah’s Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and Cherokee Hero (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018) bring greater insights into this chaotic period in Cherokee Nation history. It is notable that in a 1912 speech, William Jennings Bryan described Davis’s crimes as no worse than those committed by men who “rob the government by means of special tariff favors [and] . . . enormous campaign contributions” (132). This book is painstakingly researched and well written. Thompson lays bare the conditions that led to the range war and his grandfather’s crime spree. He convincingly argues that his grandfather loved adventure and believed no jail could hold him. The book’s main flaw is typographical errors, especially dates, which at times confuse an already complex arrangement of events. Although the editor needed to wield a heavier pen, this failing is more irritating than daunting. The book certainly held my interest. Davis is both arrogant and [End Page 106] strangely sympathetic. Some of his cohorts are bad but appealingly quirky. Scholars and fans of western history alike will be intrigued. Historians will be jealous. Kathleen P. Chamberlain Eastern Michigan University Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association
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Oct 10, 2024
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