I have read many contemporary books written about the North American Natives and more often than not am disappointed by them. Instead I prefer to read the journals and biographies of the fur traders, settlers and prospectors who lived among the natives because they provide first hand accounts of living among them.

My interest is in the Canadian fur trade. So the majority of my reading is about this.

British Columbia Chronicles by George and Helen Akrigg. Two books that gather first hand eyewitness accounts of the happenings in the Pacific Northwest, from Oregon to Alaska. These two are my favorite books from my collection and I mostly refer to them they contain a lot of observations of the Indian's culture, battles, and how they treated their slaves and captives.

The Jesuit Relations. The Jesuit priests kept a record of their life in New France from the early 1600's. This is generally an exceptionally boring read but they contain many inciteful observations about the Huron/Algonkin Indian culture and how the French dealt with them. They tell of how the Iroquois almosy wiped out the Hurons during the Iroquois wars. Few interesting examples are in mid 1600's a drunk Indian was not held responsible for his actions while he was drunk. Instead the person who provided the booze to the Indian was held accountable and was made to pay for damages incurred by the drunken Indian, or jailed for the Indian's crimes. In 1630 something a drunk Indian raped a French, white, married colonist. When the colonists went to capture the culprit and hang him the chiefs refused to hand him over. Their reasoning was that he did not know that the colonists punishment would be so severe since it was not considered a crime in his band. So the chiefs saved his life but told the colonists that they could hang him if he did it again because now he knew the consequences.

John Jewitts journal. He was a blacksmith and one of only two survivors of the Boston after it was attacked and burnt in Friendly Cove on Nootka Sound. He was a slave to the Head Chief Macqinna for five? Years before he escaped.

Buffalo Days and Nights. A autobiography by Peter Erasmus, a Metis born in the early 1800's. He was an interpreter for a missionary in Alberta, a prospector, fur trader and lived with the Cree. He was hired by the Cree as their interpreter when they negotiated Treaty 6 and writes of what the chiefs were saying and why they signed it.

Daniel Harmon's Journal. He was a factor for the Northwest Company and spent 12 years in Fort St James starting in 1812, just 5 years after the Indians first met the white men. It has some very interesting observations about the local native cultures. Some of the observed traditions of the natives were truely disgusting and barbaric.

The Pathmakers. A combination of journal and biography of A.C. Anderson, a fur trader for the Hudson's Bay Company in the mid 1800's.

The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia By Father Morris. He was a Catholic priest who lived in the Bulkley Valley in the late 1800's. He recorded much of the local natives oral history of the Skeena River.

The Fur Trade Governor. A biography of Sir George Simpson, who was in charge of the entire operations of the Hudson's Bay Company for 30 odd years beginning in the 1830's.

The Bloody Falls of the Coppermine Rivet by ??? Tells the story of Samuel Hearne's expeditions into the Arctic in the 1700's and how his Indian guides and packers slaughtered a sleeping Eskimo band along the way.

I have two really good old books about the history of the Hudson's Bay Company that record their battles with the French colonists, and living among the Indians but can't remember the titles off the top of my head.

One common thread that prevails in all of these books is that the Canadians went out into the frontier to live among the Indians. Most of the fur traders strove to earn the Indians trust and respect so there were few confrontations between the whites and the Indians. Quite often the Hudson's Bay Company acted as mediators and peacekeepers between warring Indian factions.

Enjoy

Do you have a set of Native Americans in mind?

The histories of the northern and southern Iroquois are fairly different, and those are close cultural groups. When you expand out to the Creek Confederacy or the Shawnee you're in entirely different language families, and I haven't mentioned anything west of the Mississippi yet.

Personally I would recommend a book on Cahokia too. It's been a dead city since before Columbus but it was the same size as London in the Middle Ages. It's just outside of St. Louis and well worth a visit. The third largest earthen pyramid in the Americas is there.

Are you also interested in the Native Americans in Mesoamerica and the Andes? Or specifically Natives in the US & Canada?