Thomas Jefferson Mayfield

I bought this book at the Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza and Museum in Palm Springs, CA. It is very readable, and not necessarily a child's or youth's book. It doesn't look deeply into lives, but it gives us a singular glimpse at a brighter but doomed world of Native Americans in CA in the middle of the 19th century. It is not preachy at all, but Mayfield makes his point in a few words through the writer. A horrifying injustice took place as settlers displaced and destroyed native cultures.

A young boy is allowed to live with Native Americans while his father travels to mine gold. Until the age of 17, Thomas Jefferson Mayfield lived as an Indian. This is his story.