Adopted by Indians: A True Story - Paperback

by Thomas Jefferson Mayfield (Author), Malcolm Margolin (Editor), Hilair Chism (Illustrator)

For younger readers: a close-up view of traditional California Indian life and early California.

Thomas Jefferson Mayfield kept a wonderful secret for almost sixty years: the secret of his childhood among the Choinumne Indians of California's San Joaquin Valley. For twelve years he played and slept alongside Choinmune children, he hunted and fished with them, ate their food and wore their clothes. Adopted by Indians is the story of a boy who had an adventure that we can only dream about and it is absolutely true.

Adopted by Indians has been approved by the California Department of Education and is listed in the Instructional Materials Approved for Legal Compliance Catalog.

Author Biography

Thomas Jefferson Mayfield was born in Texas in 1844 and moved to California at the age of six. In 1862, he moved to Visalia, California to attend school. After retirement, Mayfield returned to the San Joaquin Valley and spent his last years in the small town, Tailholt. He died in 1928.

Malcolm Margolin founded Heyday in 1974. Margolin is author of several books, including The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area, named by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the hundred most important books of the twentieth century by a western writer. He has received dozens of prestigious awards and founded the Bay Nature Institute and the Alliance for California Traditional Artists.