Beschreibung:

Schoolcraft, Henry R. Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States: Collected and prepared under the direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs per act of Congress of March 3rd, 1847. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1851 - 1857. 4to, gilt front and spine, blue cloth with raised symbols around perimeter of boards, embossed image of native taking a scalp in center of boards, front one gilt; small bookplates of W.H. Lewis. Part I: 568pp, 76 plates and maps, inscribed to Honor[able] Henry Bennett / with respects / of L. Lea / Commissioner of Indian Affairs [Henry Bennett was a U.S. Representative from New York, 1849-1859]; Part II: 608pp, 79 plates and maps, inscribed to Wingfield [sic] Scott / Major General U.S. Army / with the respects of L. Lea / Comr. Ind. Affairs; Part III: 635pp, 42 plates and maps, inscribed to Winfield Scott / Major General U.S. Army / with the respects of L. Lea / Comer of Indian Affairs; Part IV: 668pp, 41 plates and maps, inscribed to Hon. H.P. Alexander / Little Falls, N.Y. / with respects of / Geo. W. Manypenny / Comer Indian Affairs; Part V: 712pp, 33 plates and maps, inscribed to Hon. Henry Bennett / with respects of / Geo. W. Manypenny / Com. Ind. Affrs.; Part VI: 756pp, 54 plates, maps and folding table, inscribed to Hon. H. Bennett / respects of Chas. E. Mix / Actg. Com. Ind. Affrs. Each volume is divided into subject areas: General History (various topics are covered, such as migration, origins, the Coronado expedition, etc.); Manners and Customs; Antiquities; Geography; Tribal Organization; Intellectual Capacity and Character; Topical History; Physical Type of the Indian Race (including measurements, comparisons of hair roots, etc.); Language; Art; Present Condition and Future Prospects; Daemonology, Witchcraft, and Magic; Medical Knowledge; Literature of the Indian Language; Statistics and Population; Biography; Religion; Ethnology. None of the plates are in numerical order; in the last volume, most are unnumbered, and many are reused from earlier volumes (eg. .plate 16, 32, Red Jacket, many more). Many plates are in color, but most are subtle - having, for example, four tools, one in browns, the others in green shades, or one reddish, the others brown, presumably corresponding to the actual color of the item. Most maps have color. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born in albany County, NY, in 1793. At 14 he attended Middlebury College, VT, where his interest in the physical sciences emerged. He made his first trip west about 1817, returning with an extensive mineral and geological collection and abundant material for a travel narrative. He began publishing in 1816, with a work on glass-making, based on experiences in his father's glass-house, and moving on to a work on lead mines in Missouri, travel in the Ozarks, and an account of copper regions of the upper Mississippi and Great Lakes. He became secretary to the Indian commission in Chicago in 1821, and was appointed an Indian Agent at Sault Ste. Marie, MI, near Lake Superior the following year. Shortly thereafter he married Jane Johnston (Obabaamwewe-giizhigokwe), the granddaughter of Ojibwe chief, Waubojeeg. Through his in-laws he learned of Ojibwe stories and legends, much of which formed the basis for Longfellow's poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." He continued to be a student of Indian culture and secured other appointments to treat with Indians in the North and West. He conducted a census of the Six Nations in 1845, and began the work on the six volumes offered here in 1847, the first one appearing in press in 1851. Jane was apparently never very healthy, and she became ill and died while visiting a sister in Canada in 1842. Henry remarried in 1847 and took up residence in Washington, DC, where he remained until his death in 1864. It was probably a shame that one more person sympathetic to the native plight died before the major Indian Wars of the 1860s -