Books and Manuscripts

London: Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly, 1775. First edition. 4to. (x), 464 pp.; lacking half-title. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece folding map. Contemporary speckled brown calf, stamped in gilt, rebacked, extremities dry and chipped, boards rubbed with scattered scratching; all edges trimmed; marbled endpapers; offsetting in folding map, foxing at bottom of same; foxing and offsetting on title-page; scattered spotting to text at front; foxing to rear text; contemporary ownership signature at top of title-page, additional contemporary ownership initials below imprint in same; armorial book-plate of Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert (1831-1905), first Premier of Queensland, Australia, on front paste-down. Howes A-38; Sabin 155; Graff 10; Field 11; Vail 643; Clark I:28; Reese, Struggle for North America 82

"Standard work on the Southern Indians by a famous Indian trader and frontiersman who was the first to explore the Alleghanies." (Vail). Born in Ireland and emigrated to America in 1735, James Adair (1709-83) was considered "one of the most colorful figures in Southern colonial history" (Clark). For almost forty years following his arrival in America he resided with and traded among the many Native American tribes of Southeastern North America, primarily the Catawba and Cherokee (1735-44), the Chickasaw (1744-50), and then again with the Cherokee (1751-59) and Chickasaw (1759-ca. 1760s). In the late 1760s he moved to New York, and then sailed to London, where at the encouragement of colleagues, he published this first edition from his numerous notes made from his first-hand experiences and observations. The book contains chapters on each the major tribes he interacted with during his time in America, and includes observations on Native American trade and traders, as well as their religious customs and beliefs. Considered by Howes as the "best 18th century English source on the Southern tribes."