OF THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA; FROM ITS FIRST DISCOVERY. History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or gray hairs; privilledging him They waste us; ay, like April snow In the warm noon we shrink away; And fast they follow as we go Towards the setting day, Till they shall fill the land, and we Are driven into the western sea. - BRYANT FULLER'S Holy War. BY SAMUEL G. DRAKE. ELEVENTH EDITION. BOSTON: BENJAMIN B. MUSSEY & CO. M.рCCO.LI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841, BY THE AUTHOR, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. TO VIMU PREFACE .TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. In the preface to the eighth edition, (which will be found upon the next page,) something like a history of the rise and progress of the BOOK OF THE INDIANS may be seen; in addition to which it may be stated here, that the ninth and tenth editions were merely reprints of the eighth, without either additions or corrections. The work was an original attempt to bring the events in Indian history under certain heads, which heads were the leaders in the events on the side of the Indians. This plan, although the most difficult probably that could have been chosen, has been well received by the public, which encourages the publishers to continue its publication. The date of my last preface, on the following page, was accidentally omitted. It should have been 1841. The disagreement between the dates in the title-pages of books of the present day, with certain facts in other parts of them, often set matters in a ludicrous point of view. The practice of stereotyping has caused much confusion, if not all that to which I refer. It now behoves an author, like the almanac maker, to write his preface to suit the latitude of one year as well as another. This remark is made to explain some seeming inconsistencies which may be found in the work, it being stereotyped. The reader is therefore desired to bear in mind, that the whole work, as it now appears, was published in 1841, and, with the exception of some important corrections, and a few notes at the end, has remained the same to this time. There has, however, been added to this edition, a very particular INDEX, at a great expense of labor; and it is now submitted as finished, though not as a finished performance. The author is not insensible to the approbation which has been constantly bestowed upon his labors, on both sides of the Atlantic, and he would here tender his sincere gratitude in return. That approbation, with the kind expressions of the most esteemed literary and other friends, has encouraged him to continue his labors in the same field; and he now has, in a forward state, a very comprehensive work on our Indian affairs, brought together under a more perfect system than any thing of the kind hitherto promulgated, and far more extensive. Time will determine its fate. BOSTON, May, 1849. |