Research Guides: Native American and Indigenous Studies: Chapin Library

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Early European Reports of Native Peoples

Epistola Christofori Colom. cui etas nostra multu[num] debet : de insulis Indie supra Gangem nuper inve[n]tis ... ad ... d[omi]n[u]m Gabrielem Sanchis by Christopher Columbus
Publication Date: 1493
The Chapin Library's sources concerned with indigenous peoples of the Americas begin with copies of the Columbus report printed in Rome in 1493.
In laudem serenissimi Ferdinandi Hispania[rum] regis Bethicae & regni Granatae obsidio, victoria & triu[m]phus : et De insulis in Mari Indico nuper inuentis. by Carlo Verardi
Publication Date: 1494
Leandro di Cosco's Latin translation of Columbus's letter to Raphael Sánchez concerning his discovery of America. The first illustrated edition of Columbus.
New-Englands rarities discovered : in birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, and plants of that country : together with the physical and chyrurgical remedies wherewith the natives constantly use to cure their distempers, wounds, and sores... by John Josselyn
Publication Date: 1672
Even a small work which is chiefly about the natural history of New England includes native remedies for sickness and “a perfect Description of an Indian SQUA, in all her Bravery.”
Admiranda narratio fida tamen, de commodis et incolarum ritibus Virginiae by Thomas Hariot
Publication Date: 1590
Particularly notable for its illustrations, engraved from drawings made on the spot by John White, whose portrayal of the Indian combines native culture with classical European notions of the physical form.

Relations between Settlers and Native Peoples

The history of the wars of New-England, with the eastern Indians by Samuel Penhallow
Publication Date: 1726
The history of the five Indian nations : depending on the province of New-York in America by Cadwallader Colden
Publication Date: 1727
Colden was the first colonial representative to the Iroquois confederacy.

Westward Expansion

As European settlement moved West in the United States, native peoples were assimilated, eradicated, or displaced. The literature of the westward movement in America is extensive, encompassing accounts of travelers, missionaries, exploring expeditions, and works promoting settlement and commerce.

An account of expeditions to the sources of the Mississippi by Zebulon Montgomery Pike
Publication Date: 1810
History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark : to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the river Columbia to the Pacific Ocean by Meriwether Lewis
Publication Date: 1814
The first American edition of Lewis and Clark's journals.
Travels to the source of the Missouri river and across the American continent to the Pacific ocean : performed by order of the government of the United States, in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806 by Meriwether Lewis
Publication Date: 1814
The first British edition of Lewis and Clark's journals.
The annual register of Indian affairs within the Indian (or Western) Territory by Isaac McCoy
Publication Date: 1835
The Chapin Library has three numbers, 1835-1837.
A report on an exploration of the country lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains : on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte Rivers by John Charles Frémont
Publication Date: 1843

Captivity Narratives

Christian Missions

Among the settlers in America were those who sought to convert the native peoples to Christianity. Numerous publications in the Chapin Library document these activities, such as accounts of Jesuit missions in North America and the writings of Eleazar Wheelock on his charity school for Indians, originally in Lebanon, Connecticut (later Dartmouth College in New Hampshire). Religious texts were translated into many Native American languages.

Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God Naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament
Publication Date: 1663
The first Bible printed in what would become the United States, translated by Puritan minister John Eliot into the Massachuset dialect of Algonquian and printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1661–3 under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England.
A primer for the use of the Mohawk children
Publication Date: 1786
A key into the language of America, or, An help to the language of the natives in that part of America called New-England by Roger Williams
Publication Date: 1643

Art

History of the Indian tribes of North America : with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the principal chiefs : embellished with one hundred and twenty portraits, from the Indian gallery in the Department of War, at Washington by Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall
Publication Date: 1838-1844
Thomas M’Kenney, a government superintendent of Indian trade, engaged the artist Charles Bird King to paint the portraits of prominent Indians who visited Washington, D.C.
Catlin's North American Indian portfolio : hunting scenes and amusements of the Rocky Mountains and prairies of America / from drawings and notes of the author, made during eight years' travel amongst forty-eight of the wildest and most remote tribes of s by George Catlin
Publication Date: 1844
Lithographs based on Catlin’s visits to fifty tribes while journeying from his base in St. Louis.