First Edition - THE INDIAN TRADERS [SOLD]

First Edition - THE INDIAN TRADERS by Frank McNitt

University of Oklahoma Press

Hardback with slip cover, first edition 1962, 393 pages, illustrated with historic photographs.

Synopsis

“We have no concept of Indian traders to match our nearly universal picture of the American cowboy, the cavalryman of Indian-fighting days, or the pioneer settler who followed in their wake,” Frank McNitt tells us in his introduction to this book.  Here men like Lorenzo Hubbell of Ganado Trading Post and Thomas Keam, hidden in his canyon, are put into perspective, no longer merely shadowy figures moving through the history of the West.

The author starts with the earliest Spanish traders who made trips on the Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe, then follows up with the traders who traveled the Santa Fe Trail from the Midwest to Santa Fe, and then he goes into detail of the lives of individual traders to the Navajo and Hopi tribes of the Southwest.

This is a most detailed book on traders to the Southwest, their lives, the lives their wives endured, the earned trust of the Navajo and Hopi, and the conflicts of the mixture of the white and Indian cultures.  It is an excellent and very readable book.

From the PREFACE

“In the history of the Western frontier the Indian traders have received little attention.  When mentioned at all they usually have been presented as almost shadowy figures moving in a scene changing but unchanged and scarcely touched by their own actions.  We have no concept of Indian traders to match our nearly universal picture of the American cowboy, the cavalryman of Indian-fighting days, or the pioneer settlers who followed in their wake.  It is my purpose here to consider the traders first for their group entity, and next as individuals, and so to measure their worth and their contributions to the Indian tribes among whom they lived and to their country.”

CONTENTS

Part One

1.      The Spanish Traders, 1540-1846

2.      Bent’s Old Fort

3.      Trade Regulations

4.      Fort Defiance

5.      The Trading Posts

Part Two

6.      Hamblin and Lee

7.      The Contractors

8.      Solomon Bibo

9.      Thomas Keam: 1846-1872

10.   Hubbell and Keam: 1873-1877

11.   Army and Squaw Men

12.   Thomas Keam: 1880-1882

13.   Keam and the Prospectors

14.   Thomas Keam: 1884-1904

15.   Ganado

16.   Hubbell and Cotton

Part Three

17.   Wingate Valley and Zuni

18.   Cinega Amarilla, Crystal, Two Gray Hills

19.   The Arizona Traders

20.   Shipley and Perry

21.   The San Juan Valley

22.   Cabezon

Part Four

23.   Some Exceptional Cases

24.   Teec-nos-pos

25.   Beautiful Mountain