[Rarebooks] FS: Red Men of Iowa, Des Moines, 1882

[Greg Powers]

I can offer...

Fulton, A. R.  The Red Men of Iowa: Being a History of the Various Aboriginal Tribes Whose Homes were in Iowa; Sketches of Chiefs, Traditions, Indian Hostilities, Incidents and Reminiscences; With a General Account of the Indians and Indian Wars of the Northwest; and also an Appendix Relating to the Pontiac War.  Des Moines: Mills & Company, 1882.  Illustrated with 18 lithograph portraits (most of them Native Americans, but also several U.S. agents) and 8 wood-engravings.  8vo, original green cloth, gilt lettered and decorated.  559 pp.  Binding soiled and rubbed, rear hinge cracked and upper hinge weak; some signs of damp along the lower edges of most pages, with some modest staining to the lower blank edges of some of the plates.  A good copy only of a scarce work: only three copies have appeared at auction since 1950, the most recent in the Siebert sale in 1999.  Even in 1945 Peter Decker, in a catalogue entry, described this as “an exceedingly scarce work, which may be truly labeled as one of the best and least prejudiced books relating to the plains’ Indian.”
 
The book opens with a general account of various Native American tribes and their hostilities with whites in the West, and segues into an account of aboriginal history and remains.  The main portion of the text includes a full account of the Black Hawk War, and troubles with the Sioux including the Spirit Lake Massacre; one chapter is devoted to personal sketches of white men who were involved in the region’s Native American history—agents, interpreters, traders, etc.; another to personal reminiscences; there is a synopsis of treaties negotiated with Iowa tribes and a section on Iowa aboriginal nomenclature; and the volume concludes with an Appendix on the Pontiac War, a sketch of Sitting Bull, and several official papers.  Most of the portraits are of Native Americans, but also include several of Indian agents.
 
Fulton was a judge and Corresponding Editor of The Annals of Iowa for its first two years (1882-3), but he died shortly after the publication of this work and it is said that most of the edition was pulped.  Howes F411; Graff 1462.

$850

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