The Life and Adventures of Nat Love: A True History of Slavery Days

by Nat Love

Book Overview

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love (1907) is an autobiography by Nat Love. Written while Love was living in California, the text is an invaluable record of the wildness of the American West in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Filled with tales of adventure and danger, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love is a moving self portrait of a man who defied the circumstances of his birth and played a minor role in the transformation...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1513208853
• ISBN13: 9781513208855
• Release Date: August 2021
• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Length: 118 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A pleasant surprise, worth the read

I actually had this assigned to me in a western literature class, so I didn't have a choice but to read it. Fortunately it was one of those pleasant surprises you come along in school every now and then. It's a quick read, fun and interesting. The main character is one you'll love.

A worthy read.

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love is the narrative of a former slave who went west first to become a cowboy in Texas and across the plains during the American Reconstruction period and then to retire as a Pullman Porter in Oklahoma (I believe). It is a culturally significant work because there are obviously very few such stories and it highlights the fact so many cowboys in the latter part of the 19th century were, in fact, black. It would probably be inaccurate, however, to read Nat's narrative as the gospel truth. Rather, it reads more like a dime novel romp with a heavy dose of Horatio Alger and Booker T. Washington's 'Up from Slavery' philosophy. Which seems strangely fitting for a former slave during Reconstruction who believed himself undeniably American. Nat became a cowboy because he was a free spirit, despite slavery, and the order of the day for Americans was to 'go west.' Thus, like other Americans at the time, he has (at first, at least) no sympathy for marauding Indians (the best one being a dead one) and no cultural identification with non-Americans (i.e., Mexicans). Like other American cowboys (and dime novel heroes) he was a crack shot and superior horse-man, eventually earning the name of Deadwood Dick for these talents (notably on July 4). The narrative is definitely an intriguing read and anyone with an interest in slave or cowboy narratives, or dime store novels, should be interested in looking deeper into this one.