Description
Edited by Helen Hornbeck Tanner
Cartography by Miklos Pinther
Winner of the Illinois State Historical Society Superior Achievement Award and The American Society for Ethnohistory Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize
The Indian history of the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and particularly of the Ohio Valley, is so complex that it can be properly clarified only with the visual aid of maps. The Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, in a sequence of thirty-three newly researched maps printed in as many as five colors, graphically displays the movement of Indian communities from 1640 to about 1871, when treaty making between Indian tribes and the United States government came to an end.
The Atlas project was initiated in 1976 under the direction of Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Editor-in-Chief, who was assisted by Adele Hast, Associate Editor; Jacqueline Peterson; and Robert J. Surtees. American Indians, ethnohistorians, anthropologists, geographers, ecologists, linguists, and other specialists served as consultants to the Atlas staff. The scholarship of their work is impressive, particularly in view of the scope of the book and the enormous amount of information it contains.
“Helen Horseback Tanner’s Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History is an absolute triumph! Its research is awesome, and its presentation altogether wondrous and majestic. It is far and away one of this century’s landmark works on American Indian history—absolutely indispensable. It is a quantum leap forward in the study and understanding of the Indian past.”
—Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
“Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History is the most detailed and complete cartographic record of these tribes that has ever been compiled or published. It will remain a standard reference work in American Indian History for the next century. Both the maps and the accompanying text have been carefully researched, and lucidly delineated. Unquestionably a major contribution to the field, this volume is a “must” for anyone interested in the American frontier or American Indians. Any library ‘worth its salt’ should order a copy for its reference collection.”
—R. David Edmunds
“A most valuable contribution, this volume fills an important gap. There is nothing like it on the market. It will be hailed as a long-needed reference work and reviewers will express the wish that such atlases be made for the rest of North America. It should be in every university and public library.”
—Nancy Oestreich Lurie, Curator, Anthropology, Milwaukee Public Museum
“A magnificent work of scholarship, Tanner’s book will prove invaluable to anyone interested in the history of the Old Northwest and the Ohio Country. She has filled in the areas that most maps simply list as “little known tribes.”…[T]his is an extraordinary piece of historical detective work. It is unquestionably definitive.”
—Mary Beth Norton, Professor of American History, Cornell University
Helen Hornbeck Tanner is a senior research fellow at the Newberry Library. She has written extensively in the field of Indian studies and has served as an expert witness in cases presented before the Indian Claims Commission and as a historical consultant in tribal litigation.
Miklos Pinther is a Chief Cartographer to the United Nations.
The University of Oklahoma Press, 1987
ISBN: 978-0-8061-2056-0