Indians j f me The Story of the American Southwest before 1830 BY
GRANT FOREMAN New Haven Tale University Press LONDON . HUMPHEET
MILIWD OXFOED TTNIVEESITT PEBSS 1930 Copyright 1930 by Yale
University Press Printed in the United States of America No 11 To
the Memory of My Father and Mother w PREFACE HEN early writers told
of the West and Southwest, they were, with few exceptions, writing
of a region east of the Mississippi River. As the country enlarged
after the Mexican War and the discovery of gold, the West suddenly
expanded to the Pacific, and the Southwest of that period was the
region colored by the romantic atmosphere of Spain. The Northwest
had its Lewis and Clark, its Astoria, and the Oregon Trail.
Historians and novelists have reaped harvests from the fertile soil
between Westport and the Pacific with narratives of the covered
wagon, the pony express, and the cow-horse. The adventures of
explor ers and military expeditions, the saga of white settle ment
and pioneering in this boundless domain have been celebrated in
volumes without number. For years scholars have been bringing into
view thou sands of manuscripts from the opulent archives of Spain
and Mexico, to contribute to the history of our Spanish domain and
Southwest came to suggest the land of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico,
and California, of the cliff dweller, the pueblo, and the Spanish
mission. But there was another Southwest that has remained in
eclipse. Between the Mississippi River and New Spain was a region
little known. That part of the original Missouri Territory which
afterward became Arkansas Territory, southern Missouri, and
southern Kansas, has held for the historian only a fugitive
interest. When the state waserected out of Arkansas Territory, the
remain ing domain extending westward to the Spanish posses sions
was held as an Indian country, and until modern times was not
opened up for settlement by white people and thereby it missed much
of the romance of white x Indians and Pioneers pioneering. Before
the Civil War the Government made several abortive efforts to set
up an Indian state here, where many indigenous and immigrant tribes
were to be combined under a government in which they would all
participate. This interesting experiment was never put into
operation as the plans of the Government were in variably rejected
by the Indian owners of the soil, though they were at the time
engaged in building up an interesting civilization here. When the
state of Oklahoma was admitted to the Un ion, with four times as
many people as there were in the next largest state at the time of
its admission, it began with a degree of literacy exceeding that of
most pioneer states. Unlike other young states, her civilization
was to a great extent the civilization of the aborigines. The In
dian owners of this land had erected orderly constitu tional
governments, and established schools patronized by them with a zeal
unequaled by most frontier white settlements. These and other
interesting characteristics peculiar to this region developed from
an equally interesting early history that distinguished it from the
surrounding territory. While most of the writers of books have
passed it by in quest of the white mans adventures, this Ameri can
Southwest was not wanting for chroniclers of early conditions and
events. More than one hundred years ago army officers, Indian
agents, factors, traders, and missionaries, matter-of-fact
observers of this virgin country from the Mississippi to the
Spanish possessions, in the discharge of routine duties began
recording and forwarding their accounts to the East. These
documents accumulated in the dust-covered files of official store
rooms, appeared in early prints, or in more recent years drifted
into the archives of historical societies...
General
Imprint: |
Read Books
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
March 2007 |
First published: |
March 2007 |
Authors: |
Grant Foreman
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 21mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
384 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4067-1235-3 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
Promotions
|
LSN: |
1-4067-1235-3 |
Barcode: |
9781406712353 |
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