Oliver La Farge

The absorbing and amazingly interesting story of the Indians of North America from the time the first white men landed to the present. Oliver La Farge, the foremost authority on the American Indian, traces the spread of the civilizations of Mexico and South America northward, correcting many misconceptions and reconstructing in great detail the life of the Indians in every section of North America. All the great events, major developments and notable chiefs and heroes of Indian history are covered. The wars among the tribes, their leagues, their fighting and alliances with the British, the French, the Spanish and the American settlers are recounted dramatically, as is the tribes’ resistance to the pioneers as they moved westward to Kentucky, to the Mississippi, across the wide-open spaces of the plains to the Far West. All the many tribes are described, from the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Natchez of the Southeast, and the Cherokees, Iroquois (Mohawks, Senecas, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Tuscaroosas), Hurons and Eries of the Northeast to the tribes of the West: Pawnees, Osages, Kickapoos, Pueblos, Blackfeet, Navahos and other Apaches, Cheyennes, Comanches, Sioux, Utes, Shoshones, and the Raven people of the Northwest. The customs, ways of life, religions, superstitions, culture and social organization of the Indians are all thoroughly examined: the place of women in tribal councils, war activities, agriculture, hunting, dances, sports, inter-marriage with whites, clothing, wampum, arts, crafts, dwelling places - there is no aspect of Indian life left uncovered. As the white men advanced and Indians were pushed westward new cultural influences occurred: in the prairie, horses were introduced, hunting took precedence over agriculture, and subsequently new pressures were introduced with the gold rush to the West Coast. Finally we see the Indians as they are today - their reservations and the policy towards them, education, medical service, self-government, industries and promise for the future. Great care, attention and emphasis was given to the several hundred illustrations illuminating Mr. La Farge’s superb text. These include color plates and many previously unpublished items. All the pictures are authentic. They were selected after an examination of some 5,000 drawings, paintings, photographs, engravings and manuscript illuminations in public and private collections all over the country, including the files of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, The Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and of institutes, museums, railroad and industrial collections and numerous private sources. BOOK JACKET.

The author who gave America a great book on Indian life, Laughing Boy, and a splendid succession of books of fiction and nonfiction based in the Southwest, as at last chosen Santa Fe, his own place of residence, for one of the most absorbing of his accounts. For 110 years, The New Mexican has been the mirror of Santa Fe life. It reflects the story of a peculiar community, at once raw frontier and older than any other surviving capital or any other settlement, with the possible exception of St. Augustine. From its pages, Mr. La Farge has extracted the narrative of the city, from its occupation by Americans after the Mexican War to the present. We see Santa Fe emerge from a remote Mexican provincial capital, newly annexed, besieged by hostile Indians. Then, as Indian troubles fade away, the era of the bad man, highway robbers, casual gunfights, and lynch law appears, to be followed by a modicum of law and order, gold rushers (mostly for no gold), a fake diamond find, the beginning of coal mining, and the appearance of tourists. How "modern" Santa Fe made its appearance is the story of how brick dwellings almost triumphed over the ancient adobe of other centuries. It is also the story of how the Indian returned to Santa Fe, from which his art and handicrafts have been diffused to the larger world. It is the story of great writers and artists: among the former, Alice Corbin, Carl Sandburg, Witter Bynner, and Mary Austin; and among the latter, Randall Davey and John Sloan. But the story of Santa Fe must be allowed to tell itself, as Oliver La Farge has wisely chosen to do in this interesting book -- Book jacket.