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THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN His Origin, Development, Decline and Destiny. By Elbridge S. Brooks. FIRST EDITION. Published in 1887 by D. Lothrop & Company, Boston. 9” x 7” illustrated cloth hardcover with gilt decoration. Illustrated. 312 pages.
Condition: GOOD ANTIQUE CONDITION. BEAUTIFUL Exterior as shown in photo, light general wear. BRIGHT gilt decoration. Binding is good, front inner hinge cracked but holding well. Owner name on endpaper. Text is clean and complete. No torn, loose or missing pages. A great example of this very rare 19th-century Native American title.
DESCRIPTION:
Note on Rarity and Value: I refer you to two of my previous sales of this title/edition. Please see No. 351254241266 and No. 352057145458.
Here is a rarity in the annals of 19th-century American Indian literature – a serious and sympathetic study of Indian history by a white author who describes “the mistreatment of the Indian” as “one of the abuses of the age.”
In THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, Elbridge S. Brooks traces the American Indian experience from the colonial shores of New England to the high deserts of the Old West. A fascinating, wide-ranging narrative accompanied by pages and pages of antique illustrations.
Elbridge Streeter Brooks was renowned in the 19th century as an American author, editor, and critic. He made his reputation as an author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction for younger readers, much of it on historical or patriotic subjects – in fact, some of his patriotic works were issued under the auspices of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Revolution.
But in THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, he sheds the mantle of patriotic storyteller and assumes the more discerning and objective viewpoint of the historian. What great personal fortitude must have been required on the part of Mr. Brooks, who earned his livelihood recording the proud saga of his America, to tell the story of the American Indian, so wronged by the United States government and its people.
A period advertisement for THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN describes the book thus:
The first and only complete and consecutive story of the Red Men of America. It is sympathetic but not sentimental, practical but not one-sided, picturesque but not romantic. A book for all Americans to read. In the Preface to THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, Brooks explains why he felt it was important for Americans to do some soul-searching in regard to the original proprietors of the land:
The popular opinion of the American Indian has for generations been based upon prejudice and ignorance – as thoughtless as it is unreasoning and unjust. The red man of America may be no saint, but he is at least a man and should not be condemned unheard. He has his side of the story quite as much as has his white conqueror.
Desire, acquisition, superiority, indifference – these have been the steps toward the ostracism that has been visited upon the American Indian, denying him justice and opportunity for advancement since the earliest days of white occupation. It is these barriers to progress that have alike created and complicated the vexed Indian problem.
This volume does not attempt to state or solve that problem. It simply seeks to arrange in something like complete and consecutive form the story of the North American Indian as he has existed for generations, and as from supremacy in the land of his fathers he has fallen under the ban of the white civilization that conquered and displaced him.
The mistreatment of the Indian, a recent writer declares, is one of the abuses of the age, and one of the reproaches of civilization. It is high time that the abuse and the reproach should give place to something like fairness and moral sense. If this story of a race that has played its part in the drama of human progress shall lead readers to exchange indifference for interest and contempt for justice, the labor and study that it has involved will not have been in vain.
If the future of the American Indian is to be brighter and more self-helpful than ever before the credit of this advance is in great measure due to the self-sacrificing exertions of those missionaries of good who have, in spite of heedlessness, and in spite of slur, devoted so much of their lives to the bettering of a misunderstood and unfortunate race.
To all such, and to all friends of humanity who, despising injustice, seek to convert public opinion into public conscience, this story of the American Indian is gratefully inscribed.
Contents Are:
Chapter One ~ The Ancient American
Chapter Two ~ The Red Man Before Columbus
Chapter Three ~ Race Divisions and Kinship Ties
Chapter Four ~ Indian Faiths and Confederations
Chapter Five ~ Culture
Chapter Six ~ The Indian Home
Chapter Seven ~ The Indian Youth
Chapter Eight ~ Manners and Materials
Chapter Nine ~ The Coming of the White Man
Chapter Ten ~ Colonial Injustice
Chapter Eleven ~ Placing the Responsibility
Chapter Twelve ~ Pushed to the Wall
Chapter Thirteen ~ Indian Types
Chapter Fourteen ~ The Indian's Outlook
ILLUSTRATIONS INCLUDE: Quigualtanqui’s defiance * “The coldest of existing lands” * Ruins called “the Governor’s House,” Yucatan * Skeleton of the megatherium * The mylodon * Hunting the dinornis * An ancient volcano in the Rocky Mountain range * The mammoth and primitive man * Primitive household utensils * Mounds on the Kickapoo River * Skull found in a mound in Tennessee * Skull found in mound in Missouri * Ground plan of “high bank pueblo” * Home of the “village Indians” * In the grand canon of the Colorado * A cliff dwelling * Ruins of an Arizona cliff dwelling * Nature’s wonderland * The home of the ancient American * A study of comparative cranial outlines * An Indian myth * Interior of a partially restored cliff-dweller’s house * Hiawatha, the “river-maker” * Atotarho, the war chief * An Indian village * One of Nature’s highways * The “spoor” of the game * The wounded buffalo * The hunted elk * Shell ornaments and fish hooks * First discoveries * The landing of Columbus * The return of Columbus * An Iroquois scout * The gate of Ladore * In the shadow of Shasta * A Pueblo boy * Powhatan * One of the higher types * Glen Canon * “The marvelous white man” * “The spirit of peace” * An Indian myth * Fighting the stone giant * Coyote fetish * In the land of the fetish * The Navajo of today * Palisaded Iroquois village * In the Moki land * The home of the Columbians * A town of the Zunis * White Buffalo * An Indian’s greeting * “The White Chief” * The domed earth houses of the Pacific tribes * In the Iroquois country * An Iroquois long-house * An admirer of warlike prowess * The Mandan Lodge of the Northwest * Here I discovered five papooses slung to the trees * An education in drudgery * Dreaming of his “medicine” * As happy as a white baby * The Scalp Dance * On the War Trail * The Ceremony of the Wampum Belts * A lesson in archery * A Wampum necklace * Decorated wampum belts * Indian method of lighting fire * Navajo basket work * Indian weapons * Council of chiefs and warriors * So the white man came * “Along the narrow trail the startling tidings sped” * Spanish occupation * The death of his comrade * The pitiless man-hunter * The burial of De Soto * “Killed in the swamp” * “Red man and white” * Civilization distrusts savagery * “Doomed and uncovenanted heathen” * An episode of the French and Indian War * “Justice or war – which?” * “Ho, Waldron, does your hand weigh a pound now?” * “A new feature in the Indian landscape” * Hispaniola * Colonies at the time of the Revolution * Attack on stockade * Military tyranny * In contact with civilization * An episode of the Seminole War * “The white man wanted the land” * Fighting the Indians on the Virginia frontier * The home of the Indian * Types of a fading race * Fra Junipero Serro * The meeting of the races * Charging an Indian camp * The renegade of civilization * Pocahontas and her son * Pontiac, chieftain of the Ottawas * Te-cum-the, Chief of the Shawanoe * Sa-go-ye-wat-ha the Seneca * Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiah the Sauk * Spotted Tail with his wife and daughter * His story is a simple one * Contact with a higher intelligence * A candidate for Hampton School * The land of their fathers * Pack train leaving a pueblo * In process of civilization * Darkness * Daylight
DON’T MISS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO OWN THIS RARE AND BEAUTIFUL ACCOUNT OF AMERICA’S FIRST INHABITANTS, THE AMERICAN INDIANS.
Remember folks, this is an 1887 First Edition. This book is 133 years old.
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