[Rarebooks] [b] fs: Headed for the Border... (puff, puff) 1878

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

Sitting Bull made it across...
  Chief Joseph almost made it across...
    Bootleggers could no longer make it across...


Campbell, Archibald.  REPORTS UPON THE SURVEY OF THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE
TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE POSSESSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN FROM
THE LAKE OF THE WOODS TO THE SUMMIT OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, as authorized
by an act of Congress approved March 19, 1872.

Washington; Government Printing Office: 1878.

As both Canadians and Americans moved westward in the middle of the 19th
century, the question of exactly where the western US-Canadian border was
became of pressing importance.  Between 1858 and 1862 a joint team of
American and Canadian surveyors had surveyed and settled the disputed
boundary line around Vancouver Island and in 1870 this approach was again
used on a larger, more ambitious project- the surveying of some 700 miles
of boundary stretching roughly from Minnesota west to the Rocky Mountains.

Archibald Campbell had been the chief US Commissioner in the Vancouver
survey and he was again pressed into service for this project; his
Canadian counterpart was a Scottish artillery officer, Captain Donald
Cameron.  In 1873 the parties started westward, the American column an
impressive and imposing sight, with its escort of a company of U.S. Army
infantry and two companies of United States cavalry, to protect the
surveyors from Indian attack.

The armed escort also provided a dramatic contrast to the Canadian team,
which was unescorted, Captain Cameron having concluded that the proudly
displayed British flag was all the protection his men needed.

The surveying project took several years, work in the field finally being
concluded at the end of 1875, followed by an official agreement, signed in
London in 1876, and the issuing of this report in 1878.  The boundary
itself was now clearly delineated by almost 400 iron and timber markers,
earth mounds and stone cairns.

All in all, the line was much more useful to Canada and those fleeing the
United States than to the United States itself, at least at first.  It
immediately proved very useful to Plains Indians seeking shelter from the
depredations of the US Army, and among those taking early advantage of the
newly official line were Sitting Bull and his followers as they fled
northward after the Little Bighorn battle.  Chief Joseph and his band of
Nez Perce followers almost made it across the new line in 1877, being
stopped just 40 miles south of it, near Chinook, Montana.

The line also allowed the Canadian Mounted Police to more effectively seal
the border against American whiskey peddlers selling Canadian tribes
illegal alcohol.

This report is notable for the large maps and the absolutely wonderful
tinted lithographic plates of scenery and native villages. The tinted
lithographs include scenes of: a Sioux grave stand; an Ojibway camp; an
Assiniboine camp; a camp of "half-breed hunters"; the "departure of the
dog trains" from the Pine Ridge camp; a wagon train going through a snow
storm; and many plates of mountains, plateaus, waterfalls, etc.

Hardcover.  9.5"x12", 624 pages, tinted lithographic frontispiece and 14
tinted lithographs, 13 of views; 3 folding maps in the text, and 7 more
folded, colored maps at the rear; a lithographed diagram showing how to
trace a parallel; 2 lithographed plates of instruments.  Original green
pebbled cloth.  Spine lightly soiled, hinges cracked but fairly tight; a
little internal soil, a few small chips at page corners, a few short tears
repaired with archival tape, but overall a very nice, clean, crisp copy. 
[02357]  $1,250.00

Illustration-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images/th-02357.jpg>

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