INTRODUCTION. 21 



topography, Indian tribes, and natural history of the country, 

 was first published in 1809, and, as a volume of travels and 

 adventures, is a valuable acquisition to our means of informa- 

 tion. This work abounds in just and sensible reflections upon 

 scenes, situations, and objects of the most interesting kind, and 

 is written in a style of the most charming perspicuity and sim- 

 plicity. He was the first English traveller of the region. 



The date of Carver's travels over those regions is 1766. Carver, 

 whose travels have been treated with too indiscriminate censure, 

 was descended from an ancient and respectable English family in 

 Connecticut, and had served as a captain in the provincial army, 

 which was disbanded after the treaty of peace of Versailles, of 

 1763, and united to great personal courage a persevering and ob- 

 serving mind. By his bravery and admirable conduct among 

 the powerful tribes of Sioux and Chippewas, he obtained a high 

 standing among them ; and, after being constituted a chief by the 

 former, received from them a large grant of land, which was not, 

 however, ratified by the British government. The fate of this 

 enterprising traveller cannot but excite regret. After having 

 escaped the massacre of Fort William Henry, on the banks of 

 Lake George, in 1757, and the perils of a long journey through 

 the American wilderness, he was spared to endure miseries in 

 the heart of the British metropolis, which he had never encoun- 

 tered in the huts of the American savages, and perished of want 

 in the city of London, the seat of literature and opulence ! 



Between the years 1769 and 1772, Samuel Hearne performed 

 a journey from Prince of Wales's Fort, in Hudson's Bay, to the 

 Coppermine River of the Arctic Ocean. McKenkie's voyages to 

 the Frozen and Pacific Oceans were performed in 1789 and 1793. 

 Pike ascended the Mississippi in 1805 arid 1806. 



Such is a brief outline of the progress of discovery in the 

 north-western regions of the United States, by which our sources 

 of information have been from time to time augmented, and ad- 

 ditional light cast upon the interesting history of our Indian 

 tribes — their numbers and condition, and other particulars con- 

 nected with the regions they inhabit. Still, it cannot be denied 

 that, amidst much sound and useful information, there has been 

 mingled no inconsiderable proportion that is deceptive, hypo- 

 thetical, or false; and, upon the whole, that the progress of infor- 



