INTRODUCTION. E do not propose to apologize for writing this book, for the reasons that those who approve would not consider it necessary and those who oppose would not accept the apology. Therefore, we can only offer the same explanation as that made twenty-four centuries ago by the "Father of History" when he said: "To rescue from oblivion the noble deeds of those who have gone before, I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, write this chronicle." We deem it well, however, to mention a few of the many reasons which impelled us to attempt the somewhat laborious but congenial task of preparing this work. First of all, we were gratified and inspired by the kind reception accorded our first literary venture, "The White Side of a Black Subject," which is now out of print after reaching twelve editions. Added to this was the still more generous treatment of our second production, "A New Negro for a New Century." Nearly a hundred thousand copies of this book have been sold up to date, and the demand is still increasing. Having done what we could to vindicate the Afro-American, we next began to consider the First American, when by chance a copy of Thatcher's "Indian Biography" fell into our hands. We read this book with much interest, and were impressed with two facts. First of all, we noticed that while the author gave the lives of a few chiefs well known to this generation, he filled the book up with village or sub chiefs, of whom even historians of this age never heard. Then, too, the book in question was seventy-four years old. Thatcher's biography tended to create an appetite for that kind of literature, and we inquired for other lives of noted Indians, but, strange to say, could only hear of one other book devoted to that subject. This was a small volume written by S. G. Goodrich, sixty-two years ago, and he gave only short sketches of perhaps half a dozen Indians of the United States, but the greater portion of the contents was devoted to the Indians of Peru and Mexico. We now concluded that if there were only two books giving the lives of famous Indians, and both of these published so many years ago, there was certainly room for another book on the subject, which should be confined to the Indian tribes of the United States and cover their entire history from Powhatan to the present time. We trust we will not be misunderstood. We know that many Indian books have been written since the date of those mentioned, but they were on "The Indian Wars," "The Pioneer and the Indian," "The Winning of the West," "" The Manners and Customs of the Indian," "Folklore Tradition and Legend, and many other phases of the question. We know that Pontiac, Brant, Red Jacket, Tecumseh, Shabbona, Black Hawk, Sitting Bull, and perhaps others, have had their lives written, but in each of these cases an entire book is devoted to one Indian and his war. Our claim is that we have written the only book giving in a condensed form the lives of practically all the most famous Indian chiefs from the Colonial period to the present time. Lest it be thought that we have an exaggerated idea of our people's interest in the Indian, we will digress long enough to prove the statement to our own satisfaction, and we trust also to that of the reader. Mrs. Sigourney has well said with reference to this point: "Ye say they all have passed away, That noble race and brave, That their light canoes have vanished That 'mid the forests where they roamed But their name is on your waters; Ye may not wash it out. "Ye say their conelike cabins That clustered o'er the vale Have fled away like withered leaves But their memory liveth on your hills, Their baptism on your shore; We have ventured to add a third verse: Ye say no lover wooes his maid, E'en great chiefs of the clan; That where their council fires were lit But their names are on your mountains The mark of our contact with the Indian is upon us indelibly and forever. He has not only impressed himself upon our geography, but on our character, language and literature. Bancroft, our greatest historian, is not quite right when he says, "The memorials of their former existence are found only in the names of the rivers and mountains." These memorials have not only permeated our poetry and other literature, but they are perpetuated in much of the food we eat, and every mention of potatoes, chocolate, cocoa, mush, green corn, succotash, hominy and the festive turkey is a tribute to the red man, while the fragrance of the tobacco or Indian weed we smoke is incense to their memory. On one occasion, according to Esop, a man and a lion got into an argument as to which of the two was the stronger, and thus contending they walked together until they came to a statue representing a man choking and subduing a lion. "There," exclaimed the man, 66 that proves my point, and demonstrates that a man is stronger than a lion." To which the king of beasts replied, "When the lions get to be sculptors, they will have the lion choking and overcoming the man." |