Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - June - 2007 Issue
Indians and the West from George S. MacManus Co.
Father De Smet was one of the few whites to earn the trust of the Indians.
Item 173 is a very different but truly fascinating look at travel in America: A History of Travel in America...by Seymour Dunbar. The timing of this book makes it particularly interesting -- 1915. Dunbar looks at the development of modes of travel in America, from simple canoes to steamboats, canals, and most notably, the railroads that changed the face of the land in the 19th century. However, Dunbar is also aware that he was writing at the edge of a new era, where new methods of transportation would leave even the railroads behind. He notes that "the recent perfection and widespread adoption of mechanical vehicles designed for use on land highways...has made it necessary to rebuild a large proportion of all existing American land roads..." But this is not all. "The recent accomplishment of human flight is a feat so tremendous that...it still seems a figment of the fancy; an absurd hallucination." He sees much of the machinery of railroads disappearing, it instead rushing above the land where there are no tracks "at eighty or a hundred miles an hour." And there was still more. Physical travel is now, he observed, in many cases no longer necessary. "Instead of going in person...to make visits we send our words or voices only, and keep our bodies at home." Dunbar is speaking of telegraphs and telephones. He notes that people can now "fly through the air," and look down at cities where "log cabins are gone, and we sit amid wires, push-buttons and tubes by which we summon light, heat, water, food, drink, absent friends, messenger boys, motor-cars and music, as our fancy wills." For a look at transportation up to the dawn of its enormous leap forward, this is an excellent resource. It also provides a surprising amount of side material on the Indian tribes who were at one time a bit of an impediment to travel by the settlers. This detailed review consists of four volumes. $275.
Item 333 is a first-hand account relating to one of the later Indian uprisings in the West. The event took place in 1885 in what is now Alberta, Canada, when some younger Cree warriors, in a bit of freelancing, took twelve white settlers, including the local Indian agent, prisoner. They were taken prisoner near Frog Lake, hence the name "Frog Lake Massacre" to describe what happened. Evidently the agent resisted and was shot, whereupon eight other men were also shot. Only one man, hidden by Cree women, and two white women, both of whom became widows that day, survived. Those two women, who were rescued a few months later, authored this 1885 book: Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear. The Life & Adventures of Theresa Gowanlake and Theresa Delaney. Big Bear himself was convicted of the crime, though he was not involved, but given what amounted to a suspended sentence. The younger warrior who led the uprising was executed. $400.
The George S. MacManus Company may be reached online at www.macmanus-rarebooks.com or 610-520-7273.
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