Out on the Pampas is a book written by G.A. Henty, an author from the 19th century who wrote many historical fiction books. Historical fiction is the genre where a story takes place in a true historical time, such as the french revolution, or, like in this book, the colonial period, but the story itself is entirely fictional. This book, Out on the Pampas is the first children’s novel that he wrote, first writing it for his own children, so much so that the children in the book have the same names as his own kids.
The book starts in London, with the Hardy family, a family that was pretty well off, but worried for their children not having much opportunity with life in London. this worry came from the city having a lot of people, and chances for a good job and family for all their children were rather slim. So, they decided to go out to the New World and see if they couldn’t provide a good future for their family.
The majority of the book takes place once they reach the new world, specifically Argentina, as Mr. and Mrs. Hardy decided that they would get the most land for cheapest there. The eastern Argentina wild lands are called the Pampas, giving rise to the title of the book. They make friends with other settlers in the area, and start up their farm. There was some risk concerning the natives who lived in the area, as they had settled on the extreme limits of civilization. This risk was soon proved as they lost some livestock to an Indian raid after a couple months of farming there, but Mr. Hardy and his sons went after them to reclaim what they could, and though it wasn’t much, they sent a message that the Indians didn’t forget.
The climax of the story happened after a little more than a year afterwards, and was caused by an Indian attack on a neighbors property. These neighbors were extremely good friends with the Hardy family, and one of Mr. Hardy’s daughters had been at their farm during the attack. Due to their belief that she had been taken prisoner (as they couldn’t find her body at the scene of the crime) and the outrage caused by the burning of this neighbor’s farm, all the settlers in the area formed a posse to go after the Indians, mirroring the prior attack by Indians. A good bit of the book was devoted to the tracking of these Indians, as it was unknown where their home was. Some of the Indians, the ones that had previously met the Hardy’s, recognized the daughter, and when the posse finally caught up to the Indian village they told all the others about the rather traumatic hunt that had happened previously in the book. This, paired with the fireworks and guns the settlers had with them, convinced the rest of the Indians to give back the daughter and most of the livestock, as well as write up a simple treaty with them.
The book then sped through the years, summarizing the peace with the Indians and the continued settling of the Pampas. Since they held onto their extensive land which they bought in the past, the Hardys then sold it for a considerable profit. The children all went their ways, some going to England again as wealthy people, while others intermittently went to the new fringes of civilization and started new farms, repeating what they had done before in this book.
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