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Literature: BAL 6934; Bennett 79; Field 992; Howes M129; Lipperheide Mc4; Reese, American Color Plate Books 24; Sabin 43410a

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Notes: First edition (BAL states: Titles: volume 1, A; volume 2, B; volume 3, A. Plates: War Dance, A; Red Jacket, C). A brilliantly colored copy of "one of the most distinctive and important books in Americana" (Reese). These superb lithographs are faithful reproductions of portraits painted from life by Charles Bird King or copied (and improved) by him from portraits by James O. Lewis. The original paintings later perished in the disastrous Smithsonian fire of 1865, so their appearance in McKenney and Hall's Indian Tribes is the only record of the likeneses of many of the most prominent Indian leaders of the nineteenth century: Sequoyah, Red Jacket, Major Ridge, Cornplanter, and Osceola were all numbered among King's sitters. McKenney was the first director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and he provided the biographies, many based on personal interviews, that accompany the portraits. Hall, an Illinois lawyer and journalist, wrote the long general history of the North American Indian. Both authors, not unlike George Catlin, whom they tried to enlist in their enterprise, saw their work as a means of preserving an accurate record of a rapidly disappearing culture. Although History of the Indian Tribes of North America was eventually hugely successful and often reprinted in both folio and octavo formats, the first edition appeared haltingly, as is shown by the changing imprints on the title-pages. Four publishers, three lithographic firms, and more than a decade were required to bring this first edition to completion. A remarkably clean and bright set.