Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States:

by SCHOOLCRAFT, Henry R.

$16,805 · Offered by Biblio

Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Company,, 1853-57. Presentation copies of Schoolcraft's monumental work on the Native American peoples Second edition of this impressive, ground-breaking and expansive work, unchallenged as the most comprehensive study of Native American culture, enhanced by "Captain Seth Eastman's exceptional lithographs" (American National Biography); four of the five volumes here (I-II and IV-VI) are contemporary presentation copies, inscribed by a trio of Commissioners for Indian Affairs. Ethnologist, explorer and writer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864) remains best known as the discoverer of the source of the Mississippi. In 1836 he was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs for Michigan, "negotiating treaties with the Chippewa and other nations... He was in 1845 appointed by the New York legislature to take the census of the native Americans in the state and to collect information concerning the Six Nations. [In 1847] Congress authorized him to collate and edit information for all the American nations of the country, a task which occupied him for the remainder of his working life" (Howgego). Schoolcraft conducted much of the research himself but also sent out "questionnaires to every Indian agent, missionary, and trader that he could find" (Hyde, p. 284), assembling a vast collection of historical information, covering all aspects of Native American life, including biographies, languages, folk tales, legends, histories and educated ideas concerni

• Year: 1853
• Binding: hardcover

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