THE ENGLISH WESTERNERS' SOCIETY
FEBRUARY 2010 BOOK REVIEW
This review first appeared in the Tally Sheet (Autumn 2007, Volume 54, Number 1)
THE OUTLAW STATESMAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FRED TECUMSEH WAITE
By Mike Tower. Bloomington, Indiana. Available from the author at Route 2, Box 35A, Elmore City, Oklahoma 73433 or: mtower@telepath.com Viii + 237 pp., Endnotes, Bibliography, Index, 17 photographs, 3 maps. Soft cover: $14.49; hard cover: $24.99.
We are all familiar with the name of Fred Waite, properly Fred Tecumseh Waite, born September 23, 1853, the eldest of ten children. A Chickasaw, he was born at Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory. He was of the first generation of Chickasaw after the tribe was forced to leave Mississippi. We know the ordeal as the "Trail of Tears" but we know Fred Waite mainly through his participation in the Lincoln County War.
Author Tower has raised some interesting points in his discussion of Waite’s "warrior" experience. Lawyer Alexander McSween who knew Waite, described him as "a young man of means and respectable connections" who intended to make his home in Lincoln County. That is no doubt the truth as McSween believed, but Tower suggests that Waite had more in mind than merely settling down to a bucolic lifestyle. Rather, Waite may have intended to partner with Tunstall and McSween in their efforts to divest the House of Murphy of its economic power in the county. Such a possible partnership did not develop, if indeed Waite intended to become partners with the pair who suffered death in the conflict.
But there is much more to the life of Fred Waite than his gun slinging period in New Mexico Territory. Returning to his homeland he established himself as a leader of his people. He attained the post of Attorney General in 1893. He and his brother-in-law John Will Burks were both members of the Chickasaw House of Representatives. The work he did for his people exemplified what an honest politician ought to be. Death came early to him on September 24, 1895, not from gunfire as so many of his earlier associates, but from what today would be described as inflammatory rheumatism. He was 42 years of age.
Besides uncovering a wealth of material about this individual we know mainly from his association with Billy the Kid, Tower has included photographs of his subject, which reproduce well. Surprisingly he is relatively "well photographed" for a man of the times. Perhaps his best known image is of him standing, wearing leather chaps, pistol worn on left hip. Another frequently printed image shows Waite with companion Henry Brown. Another shows him with brother-in-law John Will Burks. There is a portrait image made by Eaton of Pauls Valley. Four other photographs show Waite but they are groups, the image made from a distance.
Mike Tower's name is easily recognised as he been has published in The Chronicles of Oklahoma', the Journal of the Oklahombres; the Journal of the Western Outlaw and Lawman History Association (WOLA) and Wild West magazine.
Chuck Parsons
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