First Peoples, First Contacts : Native Peoples of North America

by King, J. C. H.

• ISBN13: 9780674626546
• ISBN10: 0674626540
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-07-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

From the Big-Game Hunters who appeared on the continent as far back as 12,000 years ago to the Inuits plying the Alaskan waters today, the Native peoples of North America produced a culture remarkable for its vibrancy, breadth, and diversity--and for its survival in the face of almost inconceivable trials. This book is at once a history of that culture and a celebration of its splendid variety. Rich in historical testimony and anecdotes and lavishly illustrated, it weaves a magnificent tapestry of Native American life reaching back to the earliest human records. A recognized expert in North American studies, Jonathan King interweaves his account with Native histories, from the arrival of the first Native Americans by way of what is now Alaska to their later encounters with Europeans on the continent's opposite coast, from their exchanges with fur traders to their confrontations with settlers and an ever more voracious American government. To illustrate this history, King draws on the extensive collections of the British Museum--artwork, clothing, tools, and artifacts that demonstrate the wealth of ancient traditions as well as the vitality of contemporary Native culture. These illustrations, all described in detail, form a pictorial document of relations between Europeans and Native American peoples--peoples as profoundly different and as deeply related as the Algonquians and the Iroquois, the Chumash of California and the Inuipat of Alaska, the Cree and the Cherokee--from their first contact to their complicated coexistence today.

Table of Contents

Preface	7	(6)
Acknowledgements	13	(1)
Ancient North America	14	(22)
The Northeastern Woodlands	36	(34)
The Southeastern Woodlands	70	(26)
California	96	(26)
The Mowachaht and Captain Cook, 1778	122	(24)
The Northwest Coast	146	(30)
The Arctic	176	(24)
The Subarctic	200	(24)
The Canadian Plains	224	(28)
The American West	252	(26)
Bibliography and Further Reading	278	(4)
Photographic Credits	282	(2)
Index	284