The Red Man and the White Man in North America/Preface
PREFACE.
The study and research given to the preparation of the contents of this volume have occupied much of the time of the writer for more than ten years. Portions of it, under titles indicated by those of its chapters, were the substance of a course of Lectures delivered between February 18 and March 28, 1879, before the Lowell Institute of Boston.
I have been disinclined to present, in such a number and array of foot-notes as would have been necessary, all the sources of information, the authorityfor statements, or the grounds for opinions and conclusions on which I have relied. To have done this would have required something but little short of a complete bibliography of the copious and multiform literature relating to our aborigines. What may be classed as the Public Documents illustrative of it are very voluminous, and are of course of the highest authority and value. General and local histories have from time to time given sometimes thorough, but often only superficial, attention to the more important relations of this interesting theme. Travellers, tourists, hunters, explorers, scientific commissions, military officers, missionaries, traders, and those who have lived among the Indians many years, as captives taken in youth, have contributed volumes of great variety in style, contents, views, opinions, and judgments, all of them mutually illustrative, helpful, and instructive, though by no means in accord in their representations of the character and habits, condition, capacity, religion, and general development of the various tribes of the red men, at different periods and in different parts of the country. A single paragraph, sometimes a single sentence, in the following pages, is a digest or summary of facts, statements, or opinions, gathered from several volumes, after an attempt at a fair estimate of the fidelity and judgment of their authors. Considering how rich in material, incident, and character the whole subject is for the literature of romance, it is surprising how little it has prompted of that character. Probably this is to be accounted to the stern reality in fact and record, which has disinclined writers and readers to idealize its actors and incidents. Indians, as subjects for romance, may engage a class of writers in an age to come.
For the reason stated above for limiting the number of foot-notes, I have given only such as authenticate the more important statements and sources of information indicated in the text of the volume. The opinions which I have ventured to express on contested points I must leave to be estimated for their weight or wisdom by different readers.
Occasional repetitions in references to persons, incidents, or facts may be noticed in the following pages, as they present themselves in some different relations to periods or subjects under which the contents of the volume are disposed.
Boston, June 1, 1882.