37 detailed illustrations, informative captions.

Forty carefully researched, accurately rendered line drawings -- ready to be colored -- depict the traditional costume and culture of the Plains Indians, including the Apache, Pawnee, Crow, Blackfoot, Cree, and many others as they actually existed from the mid-17th through the early 20th centuries. Full captions. Introduction. 4 illustrations in color on covers.

This volume tells the story of how, almost from the first arrival of French and English colonists in eastern North America in the 16th century, the settlers were forced to raise militias to protect themselves from the Indians. French and English soon made alliances with different tribes and fought alongside them against their Native American and European enemies during a long series of frontier wars. In the absence of more than tiny forces of European troops it was the colonists themselves who had to bear the brunt of the periodic fighting. Remote forts were planted on the vital waterways and along the advancing frontiers and these were often the objectives of long, dangerous expeditions through the wilderness.

This book describes the life of a pirate of the early 18th century - the heyday of the 'Golden Age of Piracy'. It charts the way these men (and a few women) were recruited, how they operated, what they looked like and what their prospects were. In the process the book attempts to strip away many of the myths associated with piracy, to reveal the harsh realities of life beyond the normal bounds of society. The book draws on decades of research into the subject, and pulls together information from a myriad of sources, including official reports, contemporary newspaper reports, trial proceedings and court testimony, last words on the scaffold, letters, diaries and period scandal sheets. Other sources include archaeological evidence, and relevant objects and artefacts from museum collections on both sides of the Atlantic. In other words the book will reflect the last word in pirate research, making it beneficial to both the serious pirate historian and the novice apprentice.