*****NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION****** IT AMAZES ME HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET OUR HISTORY. JUST OVER 100 YEARS AGO THIS SPEECH WAS WRITTEN BY THE LEADING NATIVE AMERICANS OF OUR TIMES, YET VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE IT HAD ON OUR COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE OF TODAY. THE IROQUOIS CONFERENCE WAS ESTABLISHED TO MEET WITH SOME OF THE LEADING MINDS AT THE TIME TO DEAL WITH A PROBLEM EACH ONE OF THE TRIBES WERE DEALING WITH INDIVIDUALLY AS WELL AS NATION OF PEOPLE; DESTRUCTION OF THEIR PEOPLE AND LAND. IN THIS BOOK, THE PUBLISHER, HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, WAS SENT TO THE CONFERENCE BY THE UNITED...

It is now twenty-six years since I first entered the area of the Mississippi valley, with the view of exploring its then but imperfectly known features, geographical and geological. Twenty-two years of this period have elapsed since I entered on the duties of an Executive Agent for the United States Government in its higher northern latitudes among the Indian tribes in the west. Having devoted so large a portion of my life in an active sphere, in which the intervals of travel left me favourable opportunities of pursuing the languages and history of this branch of the race, it appears to be a...

"Our second day's journey yielded but little to remark. We travelled diligently along a rough mountainous path, across a sterile tract called the Pinery. This tract is valuable only for its pine timber. It has neither farming land nor mineral wealth. Not a habitation of any kind was passed. We saw neither bird nor animal. The silence of desolation seemed to accompany us. It was a positive relief to the uniform sterility of the soil, and monotony of the prospect, to see at length, a valley before us. It was a branch of the Maromeg, or Merrimack, which is called by its original French term of...