GREETINGS, FEEL FREE 

TO

"SHOP NAKED."©

We deal in items we believe others will enjoy and want to purchase.

We are not experts.

We welcome any comments, questions, or concerns.

WE ARE TARGETING A GLOBAL MARKET PLACE.

Thanks in advance for your patronage.

Please Be sure to add WDG to your favorites list!

NOW FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE…

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Cooper, James Fenimore

Published by The Heritage Press, Avon, Connecticut (CT)

Used - Hardcover

Condition: Very Good -

Edward A . Wilson (illustrator). not dated (c. 1970s), 377pp, illustrated, paper over boards, cloth spine, slipcase, includes 'Sandglass; Number IV: 37', 

A handsome edition with an easily readable typeface originated by Frediric Goudy.

Text is clean, tight and unmarked.

Green and yellow paper-covered boards are bright and undamaged. 

Biege paper case is intact.

"Sandglass" the Heritage Press newsletter, is included.

Introduction by Edward Everett Hale

--------------------

FYI

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which are still enduring as political communities. There is a wide range of terms used, and some controversy surrounding their use: they are variously known as American Indians, Indians, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Indigenous, Aboriginal or Original Americans.

Not all Native Americans come from the contiguous U.S. Some come from Alaska, Hawaii and other insular regions. These other indigenous peoples, including Alaskan Native groups such as the Inupiaq, Yupik Eskimos, and Aleuts, are not always counted as Native Americans, although Census 2000 demographics listed "American Indian and Alaskan Native" collectively. Native Hawaiians (also known as Kanaka Maoli and Kanaka ?Oiwi) and various other Pacific Islander American peoples, such as the Chamorros (Chamoru), can also be considered Native American, but it is not common to use such a designation.

Initial impacts

The European colonization of the Americas nearly obliterated the populations and cultures of the Native Americans. During the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, their populations were ravaged by conflicts with European explorers and colonists, disease, displacement, enslavement as well as internal warfare. Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives.

The first Native American group encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, were the Island Arawaks (more properly called the Taino) of Boriquen (Puerto Rico), the (Quisqueya) of the Dominican Republic, the Cubanacan (Cuba). It is said that of the 250 thousand to 1 million Island Arawaks, only about 500 survived by the year 1550, and the group was considered extinct before 1650. Yet DNA studies show that the genetic contribution of the Taino to that region continues, and the mitochondrial DNA studies of the Taino are said to show relationships to the Northern Indigenous Nations, such as Inuit (Eskimo) and others.

In the sixteenth century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. Ironically, the horse had originally evolved in the Americas, but the early American horse became game for the earliest humans and became extinct about 7,000 BC, just after the end of the last ice age. The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America. As a new mode of travel the horse made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game.

European settlers brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no natural immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved deadly to Native Americans. Smallpox, always a terrible disease, proved particularly deadly to Native American populations. Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. While precise figures are difficult to arrive at, some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations died due to European diseases.

In 1617-1619 smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Indians. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans. It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679, killing millions. During the 1770's, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.

In the nineteenth century, the incessant Westward expansion of the United States incrementally compelled large numbers of Native Americans to resettle further west, often by force, almost always reluctantly. Under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to conduct treaties to exchange Native American land east of the Mississippi River for lands west of the river. As many as 100,000 Native Americans eventually relocated in the West as a result of this Indian Removal policy. In theory, relocation was supposed to be voluntary (and many Native Americans did remain in the East), but in practice great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. Arguably the most egregious violation of the stated intention of the removal policy was the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed by a dissident faction of Cherokees, but not the elected leadership. The treaty was brutally enforced by President Andrew Jackson, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated four thousand Cherokees on the Trail of Tears.

The explicit policy of Indian Removal forced or coerced the relocation of major Native American groups in both the Southeast and the Northeast United States, resulting directly and indirectly in the deaths of tens of thousands. The subsequent process of assimilations was no less devastating to Native American peoples. Tribes were generally located to reservations on which they could more easily be separated from traditional life and pushed into European-American society. Some Southern states additionally enacted laws in the 19th century forbidding non-Indian settlement on Indian lands, intending to prevent sympathetic white missionaries from aiding the scattered Indian resistance.

At one point, President Jackson told people to kill as many bison as possible in order to cut out the Plains Indian's main source of food. Later in time there were fewer than 500 bison left in the Great Plains.

Current status

There are 561 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States. These tribes possess the right to form their own government, to enforce laws (both civil and criminal), to tax, to establish membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone and to exclude persons from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include the same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money (this includes paper currency).

According to 2003 United States Census Bureau estimates, a little over one third of the 2,786,652 Native Americans in the United States live in three states: California at 413,382, Arizona at 294,137 and Oklahoma at 279,559.

As of 2000, the largest tribes in the U.S. by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Lumbee, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten. In addition, there are a number of tribes that are recognized by individual states, but not by the federal government. The rights and benefits associated with state recognition vary from state to state.

Some tribal nations have been unable to establish their heritage and obtain federal recognition. The Muwekma Ohlone of the San Francisco bay area are pursing litigation in the federal court system to establish recognition. Many of the smaller eastern tribes have been trying to gain official recognition of their tribal status. The recognition confers some benefits, including the right to label arts and crafts as Native American and permission to apply for grants that are specifically reserved for Native Americans. But gaining recognition as a tribe is extremely difficult; to be established as a tribal group, members have to submit extensive genealogical proof of tribal descent.

Military defeat, cultural pressure, confinement on reservations, forced cultural assimilation, outlawing of native languages and culture, termination policies of the 1950s and 1960s and earlier, slavery, and poverty have had deleterious effects on Native Americans' mental and physical health. Contemporary health problems suffered disproportionately include alcoholism, heart disease, diabetes.

As recently as the 1970s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was still actively pursuing a policy of "assimilation", dating at least to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. The goal of assimilation — plainly stated early on — was to eliminate the reservations and steer Native Americans into mainstream U.S. culture. In July 2000 the Washington state Republican Party adopted a resolution of termination for tribal governments. As of 2004, there are still claims of theft of Native American land for the coal and uranium it contains.

In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes, largely due to Walter Ashby Plecker. In 1912, Plecker became the first registrar of the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics, serving until 1946. Plecker believed that the state's Native Americans had been "mongrelized" with its African American population. A law passed by the state's General Assembly recognized only two races, "white" and "colored". Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in the state as "colored", leading to the destruction of records on the state's Native American community.

Cultural aspects

Though cultural features, language, clothing, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another, there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many tribes.

Early hunter-gatherer tribes made stone weapons from around 10,000 years ago; as the age of metallurgy dawned, newer technologies were used and more efficient weapons produced. Prior to contact with Europeans, most tribes used similar weaponry. The most common implement were the bow and arrow, the war club, and the spear. Quality, material, and design varied widely.

Large mammals like mammoths and mastodons were largely extinct by around 8,000 B.C., and the Native Americans switched to hunting other large game, such as bison. The Great Plains tribes were still hunting the bison when they first encountered the Europeans. The acquisition of the horse and horsemanship from the Spanish in the 17th century greatly altered the natives' culture, changing the way in which these large creatures were hunted and making them a central feature of their lives.

---------------------

Thanks for choosing this sale. You may email for alternate payment arrangements. We combine shipping. Please pay promptly after the auction. The item will be shipped upon receipt of funds.

WE ARE GOING GREEN, SO WE DO SOMETIMES USE CLEAN RECYCLED MATERIALS TO SHIP. 

Please leave feedback when you have received the item and are satisfied. Please respond when you have received the item * If you were pleased with this transaction, please respond with all 5 stars! If you are not pleased, let us know via e-mail. Our goal is for 5-star service. We want you to be a satisfied, return customer.

Please express any concerns or questions. More pictures are available upon request. The winning bid will incur the cost of S/H INSURED FEDEX OR USPS. See rate calculator or email FOR ESTIMATE. International Bidders are Welcome but be mindful if your country is excluded from safe shipping. 

Thanks for perusing THIS and ALL our auctions.

Check out our other items!

WE like the curious and odd.

BUY, BYE