Century Past Blog Posts

Foreign Visitors Interpret America 1800-1867

biographies, Books / First-Person Accounts in History of the Great Lakes States, frontier, memoirs, pioneers, travelers

The books below were authored by foreign visitors to the U.S. They described what they saw, recorded their reactions, and collected information for friends or reading audiences back home. All the works cover, at least in part, travels in the region of the Great Lakes States. Books are grouped below in the decades in which …

Foreign Visitors Interpret America 1800-1867 Read More »

Pontiac’s War: Northern Forts Under Attack

History, Michigan, Native Americans / ebooks, First-Person Accounts in History of the Great Lakes States, Fort Detroit, Fort Michilimackinac, french and indian war, historical fiction, history, library, military, Pontiac, Pontiac's War

As a boy I visited Fort Michilimackinac and learned how the Indians, playing a ball game next to the fort in 1763, used a ruse to get warriors inside the gate. They then attacked the British garrison and took the fort. This was just one of many similar attacks on British forts in the region …

Pontiac’s War: Northern Forts Under Attack Read More »

Books by 19th Century American Indian Authors

Native Americans / American Indians, Black Hawk, Great Lakes, Northwest Territory, Ojibwa, Ontario, Ottawa

There are hundreds of public domain books and articles about Native Americans freely available online. Nearly all were published before 1923, as it is assumed that most books published since that date still have valid copyrights. Links are provided below for four books from the 1800s that were authored by Native Americans. Three of the …

Books by 19th Century American Indian Authors Read More »