OF THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA. FROM ITS FIRST DISCOVERY TO THE PRESENT TIME; COMPRISING DETAILS IN THE LIVES OF ALL THE MOST DISTINGUISHED CHIEFS AND COUNSELLORS, EXPLOITS OF WARRIORS, AND THE CELEBRATED SPEECHES OF THEIR ORATORS; ALSO, A HISTORY OF THEIR WARS, MASSACRES AND DEPREDATIONS, AS WELL AS THE WRONGS AND SUFFERINGS WHICH THE EUROPEANS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS HAVE DONE THEM; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR Antiquities, Manners and Customs, LIKEWISE EXHIBITING AN ANALYSIS OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED, as welL AS ABSURD AUTHORS, WHO HAVE WRITTEN UPON THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE FIRST PEOPLING OF AMERICA. PX They waste us; ay, like April snow In the warm noon, we shrink away, Towards the setting day, Till they shall fill the land, and we Are driven into the western sea....BRYANT. BY SAMUEL G. DRAKE. Seventh Edition, With large Additions and Corrections, and numerous Engravings. BOSTON: ANTIQUARIAN INSTITUTE, 56 CORNHILL. 1837. / les 10244.3 5.30 4646566.30.6 * HARVARD COLLEGE JUN 14 1924 LIBRARY Bright feed Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, BY JOSIAH DRAKE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. то HIS EXCELLENCY EDWARD EVERETT, LL D. SIR: WITH the idea of a Dedication to this my New Edition of the Biography and History of the Indians, your name was coeval. The association was inseparable; nor could it have been otherwise, as it seems to me, in the mind of any young man of New England, engaged in a similar undertaking. For it would be absurd, were he to ask himself, "Who has been the most prominent assertor of the red man's rights in his country's councils, or the most ardent friend of the young men of his own race?" Under these considerations, therefore, to say nothing of my own gratification, I could not do otherwise than assign this page to you; and could the author be assured, that his work would be as long remembered, for any merit contained in it, as the name he is gratified to honor, his anxiety for its fate would from that moment cease. However great, the disparity may appear, when the value of my labors are considered, in respect to those of others, it must be remembered, that one of the most predominant traits in your Excellency's character, is your readiness to extend a fostering hand to all such as are engaged in laudable undertakings. The well-informed do not require to be told, that many a well-directed mind has been diverted from a pursuit in which it would have excelled, but for the cold and blasting hand of the hypercritic. Such, however, it has not been my lot, yet, to encounter; and although the countenance of one, illustrious in the annals of true criticism, may not further protect me, I have the satisfaction of believing that the success of my labors can scarcely be affected by the unkindness of critics. Accept, Dear Sir, my most grateful acknowledgments for all former kind attentions, and believe me Yours in duty, S. G. DRAKE. |