John Carter was from Virginia and was a captain in the Confederate Armed Forces. After the war, his money and officer's commission was useless, so he set out to rebuild his life as a prospector in Arizona. He was chased by hostile Arizona natives into a lonely cave, where he was mysteriously transferred to the dying red planet of Barsoom, a fictionalized version of planet Mars. Barsoom is home to a myriad of different races of Martian, including the race to which Carter's wife Dejah Thoris belongs, as well as the green skinned, four armed race of which Tars Tarkas is a representative.