Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/12

viii more important relations of this interesting theme. Travellers, tourists, hunters, explorers, scientific commissions, military officers, missionaries, traders, and those who have lived among the Indians many years, as captives taken in youth, have contributed volumes of great variety in style, contents, views, opinions, and judgments, all of them mutually illustrative, helpful, and instructive, though by no means in accord in their representations of the character and habits, condition, capacity, religion, and general development of the various tribes of the red men, at different periods and in different parts of the country. A single paragraph, sometimes a single sentence, in the following pages, is a digest or summary of facts, statements, or opinions, gathered from several volumes, after an attempt at a fair estimate of the fidelity and judgment of their authors. Considering how rich in material, incident, and character the whole subject is for the literature of romance, it is surprising how little it has prompted of that character. Probably this is to be accounted to the stern reality in fact and record, which has disinclined writers and readers to idealize its actors and incidents. Indians, as subjects for romance, may engage a class of writers in an age to come.

For the reason stated above for limiting the number of foot-notes, I have given only such as authenticate the more important statements and sources