Excerpt from Indian Sketches: Pere Marquette and the Last of the Pottawatomie Chiefs This little volume of sketches has been prepared with the purpose of supplying children, and such of their elders as know nothing of these matters, with some of the most beautiful and heroic stories from the material for a history of the Northwest Terri tory. It is constructed on the theory that a history for children Should make biography prominent, along with picturesque and Social features, but that discussions and deductions fit for mature minds are not desir able in children's books. With a choice of presenting too much or too little of the available material, I have tried to send readers a little hungry from the feast rather than with an uneasy sense that they have had too much, and want no more of Indian history. In anticipation of the probable criticism that these pictures of Indian life are not only too romantic, but too rosy, I can only say that Marquette, Petit, Catlin, and many other observers who knew the Indians as friends, saw them so. Examining these witnesses as to their credibility, we must conclude that they are not inferior in quality, but far above the ordinary pioneer or business man, for they were all of unusual intelligence, culture, and independence Of character; they had no axes to grind, and were free to shake the dust from their feet and move on if they did not find the field profitable and to their liking. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.