A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars | 483 ratings

Price: 17.03

Last update: 12-18-2024


About this item

Frederick Russell Burnham's amazing story resembles a newsreel fused with a Saturday matinee thriller. One of the few people who could turn his garrulous friend Theodore Roosevelt into a listener, Burnham was once world famous as "the American scout". His expertise in woodcraft, learned from frontiersmen and Indians, helped inspire another friend, Robert Baden-Powell, to found the Boy Scouts. His adventures encompassed Apache wars and range feuds, booms and busts in mining camps around the globe, explorations in remote regions of Africa, and death-defying military feats that brought him renown and high honors. His skills led to his unusual appointment, as an American, to be chief of scouts for the British during the Boer War, where his daring exploits earned him the Distinguished Service Order from King Edward VII.

After a lifetime pursuing golden prospects from the deserts of Mexico and Africa to the tundra of the Klondike, Burnham found wealth, in his 60s, near his childhood home in Southern California. Other men of his era had a few such adventures, but Burnham had them all. His friend H. Rider Haggard, author of many best-selling exotic tales, remarked, "In real life he is more interesting than any of my heroes of romance."

Among other well-known individuals who figure in Burnham's story are Cecil Rhodes and William Howard Taft as well as some of the wealthiest men of the day, including John Hays Hammond, E. H. Harriman, Harry Payne Whitney, and the Guggenheim brothers.

Failure and tragedy streaked his life as well, but Burnham was endlessly willing to set off into the unknown, where the future felt up for grabs and values worth dying for were at stake. Steve Kemper brings a quintessential American story to vivid life in this gripping biography.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Bobby D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining life... loved the Los Angeles connection
    Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2020
    History is fickle and leaves many interesting stories and personalities on the precipice of Fame or lost to our collective memory. In some cases, it takes an entertaining life story and a good biographer or movie maker to capture s personality worth knowing. (Look what David Lean and Peter O'Toole did for T E Lawrence). In Splendid Savage (what Burnham called himself) Steven Kemper brings us the amazing adventures and history of Frederick Burnham who grew to only 5’ 4”. In later life got rich in an oil discovery on Dominguez Hill in Los Angeles; then building a mansion next to the Hollywoodland sign in the 1920s. He leads a wandering life as a scout, prospector, promoter, warrior who often ended up on what we might today deem the wrong side of history. Interestingly the author Kemper spends a great deal of the book using Burnham's life to open up a discussion of the history and perspective of events as they were accepted by most (whites) at the time. Pointing out for example that Burnham was both a conservationist at the same time he accepted racial eugenics and sided with colonial white settlements in Arizona, Rhodesia, and Mexico (and wished to import African animals to set up hunting preserves on federal lands.)
    Kemper sums up Burnham’s life this way. “He was endlessly willing to set off into the unknown and start over. His natural habitat was the frontier, a place of escape and hope and violence.” Here is just a shortlist of Burnham’s adventures: Born in 1862 on the Minnesota frontier whereas a baby escaped an Indian raid… he ended up living on his own in Los Angeles at the age of twelve… he became a scout and fought the Apaches… took part in range wars… prospected for gold (numerous times and places)… gave up on American (as too crowded) and moved to Africa (bringing his family which included his wife who was amazing in her own right)… in Africa, he scouted for Rhodesia and fought the Boers for the British… returned to Pasadena, Ca and bought an Orange grove (and several other ranches)… could never remain in one spot…returned to East Africa where he found the continents larges coal deposits… started up a colony of settlers in Mexico… went mining for gold in the Klondike … used his mining expertise and acquaintances to find valuable metals needed for WW! Weapons… knew Teddy Roosevelt and many notables of his time (always looking for investors and benefactors)… wrote his autobiography (the rights were bought by Earnest Hemingway who planed a TV series but who’s suicide came before he wrote a single script.)
    A large part of these amazing, unsettled, adventurous life can be told because of Burnham’s wife Blanch who saved his long and detailed letters. She had to learn to live alone for long periods of time although she did join Burnham on many trips. Burnham died at 86 in 1947 his life seeing a whirlwind of change.
    Although I have given the book a high rating and found it a very interesting and fact fill read I did find some sections that needed better editing and clarity. The African sections would have been helped with better maps and because I am unfamiliar with that area's geography so I found this narrative of battles and sides fought at times confusing. I much more enjoyed the descriptions of the Southwest and Alaska. Also, Kemper ends the book with a chapter highlighting many controversies about the truth of various exploits (mostly those in African campaigns as a scout). I found this interesting but it also seemed to undermine Kemper’s own belief and narrative of the events questioned. (Yet, he does a good job of debunking the attacks.) Like T E Lawrence, when one writes one’s own history the truth sometimes remains obscured by the fog of war. Botton line I am very happy I discovered Frederick Burnham even if he did participate and support some unsavory history.
  • Informed Consumer
    4.0 out of 5 stars A fair and accurate summary of a man about whom much is exaggerated
    Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2019
    I had heard quite a few people talking about this book and so finally decided I should check it out. I'm certainly glad I did as the book was a wonderful read and I was not disappointed in the slightest.

    If you study various periods of history certain names tend to continuously pop up as culturally relevant to the society of the era as a whole. For the late 1800's and early 1900's Russell was one of those names. The man lived such a wandering, extensive, and frankly full life that chronicling all of it would take a lifetime in and of itself, likely filling several volumes. That is of course assuming you can even compile enough surviving material to compose an accurate telling of F.B.R.'s entire life.

    What Steve Kemper has done here is compress that incredibly full life into what I would argue is one of the most fair, balanced, and accurate summaries of this extraordinary man [Russell] and his almost mythical life that I have yet to see.

    Russell was what I would consider to be the quintessential male archetype of his time, embodying those most masculine of traits for good or ill from the era which spawned him. Certainly no stranger to controversy (much of it long after his death) Russell is quite an interesting study in the often contradictory nature of man and his eternal struggle with his own cognitive dissonance.

    All in all I think Kemper did quite a fair job of accurately and fairly summarizing a man about whom much is exaggerated. If I had to come up with one complaint it would be that he does jump around a fair bit and can sometimes be a bit harder to follow, but this is likely to not be an issue for everyone.

    >Who this book is for:
    -People who enjoy biographies of fantastic and adventurous characters from history who accomplished an almost unthinkable amount in their lifetime

    >Who this book is not for:
    -People with a closed mind and preconceived notion of who F.B.R was and who are unwilling to absorb new information on the subject.

    TL;DR:

    If you like action/adventure stories about big characters and fantastical feats then give this a read.

    If not, then pass.
  • Mitch in Mississippi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great story
    Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2024
    Well written, Book in excellent condition. Very exciting life of this American scout. Highly recommended.
  • James M. Driskell
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Grand Adventurer
    Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2016
    This is an excellent book that provides a close look of the old west, the events leading up to and during the Boer War and even Burnham's involvement in the First World War. He seemed to be in the right place at the right time during his very active life. But I think the author also strips away Burnham's polished exterior to reveal his core values which seemed to me to revolve around him chasing the next rainbow, hoping to strike it rich in two continents including both Alaska and Mexico. He appears to back some loosing causes, especially in Mexico, but he usually bounces back the the help of some very influential and rich associates. Towards the end of his life, he seemed to become much more radically conservative in his world view (similar to some on the national front now).

    In any event, Frederick Russell Burnham lived a life of grand adventure and excitement, interspersed to sorrow and tragedy on a personal basis.

    I highly recommend is book.

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