Hope Farm Press Publisher of New York Regional History, Folklore. Nature, Military History and Genealogy Books
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From the Publisher's Introduction
Picture waking up one morning to the arrival of a fascinating people unlike any you had ever seen, who could do things you never thought possible and had riches beyond your imagining. They seemed a friendly people, and although you didn't understand what they said, they led you to believe that they wanted to live with you in peace.
Then imagine how you would feel when you realized that the strangers had weapons that could kill from afar, that through lies and trickery they were stealing your land and all you owned, and that they squandered the wealth of the nature you revered while poisoning you with rum and disease.
Imagine all that and you begin to feel what the Indians must have felt in 1609 when Henry Hudson first sailed into New York harbor . . .
wonder, awe and horror
. . . as the end of their way of life arrived on the incoming tide.
The Author's Preface
- THE pioneer in new fields of historic inquiry encounters many obstacles from which those who follow the more beaten paths of investigation are exempt, and especially so if the inquiry involves conclusions differing materially from those which have been generally accepted. The experience of the author in prosecuting the investigations, the results of which have been embodied in the work which is now submitted to the public, have been no exception to this rule. Not only had the history of the Indians who occupied the valley of Hudson's river never been written, but the incidental references to them, in the histories of nations more prominent at a later period treating them as mere fragmentary bands without organization or political position among the aboriginal nations being regarded as erroneous, the inquiry involved the rejection, to a very great extent, of the conclusions of others, and the investigation and analyzation of original sources of information. To extract the truth and embody it in consistent narrative, has involved no little labor and research, and the careful weighing of words; and, although the results may not be stated in the clearest terms or the most flowing rhetoric, nor entirely without error, they are nevertheless believed to fully sustain the conclusion that the tribes in question have a history which entitles them to a high rank in the annals of aboriginal nations, and which assigns to them native abilities as distinguished, eloquence as pure, bravery and prowess as unquestionable, as was possessed by those who, preserved for a greater time in their national integrity by their remoteness from civilization, became of more esteem in their relations to the government but less noble in their purposes.
It has been the object of the author to trace the history of the Indians from the earliest period; to show their original position in the family of nations, and that which they subsequently maintained; the wrongs which they suffered, and the triumphs which they won; their greatness and their decay. In the narrative, liberal use has been made of current histories, so far as their statements were found to be in accordance with the facts. Acknowledgment, it is believed, has been fully made, and even to an extent which is not customary. Very full notes have been introduced for the purpose of explaining the text and enabling the reader to judge of the correctness of the conclusions drawn therefrom. As far as possible the narrative has been divested of the recitation of events which do not pertain to it, and though necessarily running beyond the limits of the territory regarded as the valley of the Hudson, has been as closely confined to it as possible, too closely perhaps, as it is believed that the eastern Indians have the same claim to consideration as a confederacy as the western.
The work is submitted to the judgment of the public, with a desire that the author may be lost in the theme which he has presented, and the truth of history vindicated in behalf of a people that have left behind no monuments to their memory save those erected by their destroyers.
- In these volumes readers will learn about Native Americans' customs, organization, wars and treaties. These books are not an end-all, be-all reference, but, Ruttenber, as a historian, went to great lengths within his 1872 limitations. He even used some firsthand sources. It really is the best history available today of the tribes of the Hudson River.
- Volume I begins with Dutch explorer Henry Hudson's arrival and reconstructs the history of dozens of tribes in the Northeast. It includes the nations of the Lenni Lenape, the Mahicans and the Iroquois. It also includes the Mohegan tribe, sometimes referred to as Mohican. ISBN#0-910746-98-2 208pp $12.95
- Volume II deals with their battles, provides biographies of noted Indians and explores Native American languages. ISBN#0-910746-09-5 246pp $12.95
any book or see other Native American books available.
For an excerpt from The Delaware Indians or The Redman chapter from Ulster Under the Dutch
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Copyright © 1995 by Richard Frisbie -- All rights reserved.