What is the effect of revisiting well-known episodes – the Oregon Trail in the 1840s, the California Gold Rush a few years later, the Donner-Reed party disaster, the 'Whitman massacre' – from women’s perspectives? The most profound reorientation comes in Indigenous women’s accounts. They do not predominate numerically in this volume, but Hickman works to centre the hard truths they tell about the violence, environmental destruction and cultural ignorance attendant on westward expansion.

In this spirited book Katie Hickman does her best to go beyond such causes célèbres to tease out the experiences of ordinary women — Europeans, indigenous, Africans and even Chinese — who lived and worked west of the Rockies from 1830 to 1880.

... riveting.

Hickman’s efforts to include Native American and Black voices are laudable, but the enduring Whitman controversy is largely ignored. Overall, Brave Hearted is a triumphant narrative that brings many overlooked women into the spotlight. Extensive source notes included..

... painstakingly researched and fluidly written.