"On the Indian Trail" 19th Century Text on Life Among Cree and Salteaux Indigenous Communities, First Edition, 1897

Edgerton Young

First Edition

[Native American][Americana][Wild West] Young, Egerton R.. On the Indian Trail: Stories of Missionary Work Among the Cree and Saulteaux Indians. New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1897. First Edition. 214 pp. Frontispiece halftone portrait of the author with facsimile signature. Original brown cloth stamped in red and black, with upper board vignette of a fur-clad Native frontiersman walking on snowshoes with rifle. A firsthand narrative of late-19th-century missionary work among the Cree and Saulteaux peoples of the Hudson Bay region, written by Canadian Methodist missionary Egerton R. Young (1840–1909). Young draws on his years of travel by canoe and dog-train, beginning in 1868, to recount encounters with Indigenous communities, framed through his evangelical mission. The sixteen chapters, many of which read as self-contained vignettes, describe seasonal journeys, domestic visits, and episodes of religious instruction. Titles such as “How the Gospel is Carried: By Canoe in Summer; By Dog-train in Winter,” “God on the Rock; Or, How the Indians Are Taught to Read the Book,” and “The Saulteaux Chieftainess; Or, A Searcher After the Truth” reveal both the text’s ethnographic interest and its Christianizing purpose. While the work reflects the colonial attitudes and cultural biases of its time, it also contains valuable period descriptions of Cree and Saulteaux lifeways, material culture, seasonal movement, and the impact of missionary presence in the Canadian North.

Light rubbing to extremities, mild wear at edges and top and bottom of spine. Light soiling and wear to boards. Binding sound and inner pages clean and complete. Contemporary ink notation on front free endpaper. Very good condition overall. A well-preserved and significant text providing insight into settler-Indigenous relations and the lives Cree and Saulteaux communities during the 19th century.

Item #22539

Price: $255.00