Another book upon the Aborigines of North America, exclaims the reader! Have we not volume upon volume of works on the Indians of this continent? Their manners and customs, warfare and barbarities, have been described again and again, by antique as well as modern writers: Church, Hoyt, Hubbard, Mather, McClung, Flint, Proud, Smith, Hutchinson, Heckewelder, Fletcher, Drake, and many others, have all written books in relation to some certain tribes, confining themselves to distinct latitudes, whilst others of them have taken into their works a review of the entire race, as they existed after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth up to the present period; but they are most generally given in a prolix detail-much that to the mere casual reader is dull and uninteresting, and which for their great length are laid aside, and their beautiful parts lost sight of as they moulder upon the mantel or in the book-case of many a household. We would not be understood to say, that the authors of the books we have alluded to are in any manner blameable for this; they have labored faithfully and industriously in the accumulation of facts and matter which directly concerns every American. They have made their subjects part of the history of our own government, and as such we should understand them, and be conversant with the events, changes and scenes of days that have passed.
Voluminous histories are looked upon and very often deemed too intricate by some to be read. In view of a full and minute description of all the Indians that priorly existed in the vast territories which now compose the United States, it would require as many years and as much labor as the printing of the archives of our own republic. This work has, however, been undertaken by a distinguished author, S. G. DRAKE, Esq., of Massachusetts, who has already published several volumes, which are deservedly popular. We must here acknowledge that we are much indebted to him for some of the events which appear in the volume we are now about presenting to the public.