William R. Swagerty

Although some have attributed the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition primarily to gunpowder and gumption, historian William R. Swagerty demonstrates in this two-volume set that adopting Indian ways of procuring, processing, and transporting food and gear was crucial to the survival of the Corps of Discovery. The Indianization of Lewis and Clark retraces the well-known trail of America's most famous explorers as a journey into the heart of Native America--a case study of successful material adaptation and cultural borrowing. Beginning with a broad examination of regional demographics and folkways, Swagerty describes the cultural baggage and material preferences the expedition carried west in 1804. Detailing this baseline reveals which Indian influences were already part of Jeffersonian American culture, and which were progressive adaptations the Corpsmen made of Indian ways in the course of their journey. Swagerty's exhaustive research offers detailed information on both Indian and Euro-American science, medicine, cartography, and cuisine, and on a wide range of technologies and material culture. Readers learn what the Corpsmen wore, what they ate, how they traveled, and where they slept (and with whom) before, during, and after the return. Indianization is as old as contact experiences between Native Americans and Europeans. Lewis and Clark took the process to a new level, accepting the hospitality of dozens of Native groups as they sought a navigable water route to the Pacific. This richly illustrated, interdisciplinary study provides a unique and complex portrait of the material and cultural legacy of Indian America, offering readers perspective on lessons learned but largely forgotten in the aftermath of the epic journey.

The American Fur Trade of the Far West is the premier history of its subject. Its publication in 1902 invited historians and general readers to look more closely at the intricate connec-tions of the fur trade with the development of North America. Hiram Chittenden provides a perspective or overall outline of the fur trade that, after nearly a century, remains sound. Volume 2 of this Bison Book edition follows the traps and trails of such colorful characters as Ezekial Williams, Hugh Glass, Mike Fink, and John Colter. Described here are the explorers, missionaries, government survey parties, and Indian tribes of the fur trade West, and the geography that often determined their success or failure. Nine appendixes containing miscellaneous primary materials precede a bibliography and index. A new feature is a foreword by William R. Swagerty.