
NATIVE
AMERICANA
A-G
H-Q
R-Z
[
]
“Yellow Bird's” English Poetry — Morocco Presentation Binding by Bosqui
Ridge, John Rollin. Poems. San Francisco: H. Payot & Company, 1868. 12mo (19 cm, 7.5"). Frontis. port., 137, [1] pp.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
Ridge's Poems is widely held to be
among the first published books of poetry by a U.S. native (i.e., indigenous) American in the English language. The author was the son of a chief of the Cherokee, who, with his white wife, went west with other dispossessed Indians in 1850, hoping to strike pay dirt in the gold fields — but didn't. Instead, he settled in San Francisco and launched a writing career with a series of articles on crossing the plains for the New Orleans True Delta. He later contributed many articles and poems for the Golden Era and the Hesperian under the pen name of “Yellow Bird,” the literal translation of his Indian name. Additionally he “owned or edited ten different papers, including the Sacramento Daily Bee, the Marysville Califonria Express, the Grass Valley Daily National, and the San Francisco Herald” (Reese & Miles). Today, Ridge is remembered primarily for his Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta [1854], which transformed the Mexican bandit into a noble Robin Hood.
Ridge's poems were collected posthumously and are here published by his widow, with
a mounted albumen photograph of the author for the frontispiece; the preface includes a detailed account of the assassination of his father, John Ridge. The book was printed by Edward Bosqui & Co., considered San Francisco’s finest 19th-century printer.
Binding: Chestnut-brown morocco presentation binding with bevelled edges, covers framed in black rules, with author and title in gilt in nice frames on each board (gilt stamping the same as seen on the cloth binding).
Binding by Bosqui, with that firm’s ticket.
Cowan p. 533; Graff 3504; Kurutz, California Books Illustrated with Original Photographs 1856–1890, 43; Miles & Reese, Creating America, 122; Norris 3270. Binding as above; rebacked, original spine somewhat unartfully reapplied, sides scuffed. Scratched markings on pastedowns; title-page and a few others with old stains.
A very decent copy, with the presentation binding copies being rare. (39603)
For LITERATURE, click here.

First Edition in Nahuatl — Andrade Provenance
Ripalda, Gerónimo.; Ignacio de Paredes (trans.). Catecismo mexicano. Mexico: Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana, 1758. 12mo. [16] ff., 170 pp., [1] f.
$4200.00
Click the images for enlargements.
The first edition of Father Ignacio de Paredes's translation of Father Ripalda's Spanish-language catechism into Nahuatl. Both men were Jesuits, but in different centuries and on different continents: Ripalda was born in Spain in 1535 and died in 1618, never having left Europe; Paredes was born in Mexico in 1703 and died there the year this book was published, hailed as
one of the most important Nahuatl scholars of the period.
Beristain describes Paredes as being “outstanding in the Mexican language.” His volume was intended for use by missionaries, by parish priests, and by Indians: Indeed, there is a prologue
intended to persuade Indians in particular to read and learn this catechism. In addition to the basic catechism, the work contains fellow Jesuit Bartome Castaño's “Doctrina pequeña” on pp, 143–70.
The volume is illustrated with woodcut arms on the verso of the second title-page and bears many woodcut initials and tailpieces throughout. This copy lacks the Ortuño-engraved frontispiece of St. Francis; it is often missing.
The Bibliotheca Mexicana was the private press of the great bibliographer, writer, and secular cleric Juan Jose de Eguiara y Eguren.
Provenance: Bookplate of the great 19th-century Mexican collector J.M. Andrade.
Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 56; Viñaza 341; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2286; Palau 269110; Medina, Mexico, 4500; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 210–211; Sutro 15; Sabin 71488; Leclerc 2334; JCB 1191. Mid-19th-century Mexican quarter calf with marbled paper sides; lacks the portrait (as often is the case). Front joint (outside) with small, excellent repair; last line of the the bookseller's advertisement on the verso of the last leaf slightly cropped by the binder, with a few catchwords being shaved also and parts of two decorative borders just touched (not taken).
A very decent copy of an important work with a distinguiished provenance. (41150)

An American Medical Doctor's Observations . . .
. . . in German for the German
Public
Rush, Benjamin. Medicinische Untersuchungen und Beobachtungen. Leipzig: In der Weidmannschen Buchhandlung, 1792. 8vo (22.5, 8.75"). [6], 358 pp.; 2 folded leaves of tables. [with his] Neue Medicinische Untersuchungen und Beobachtungen. Nurnberg: in der Raspeschen Buchhandlung, 1797. 8vo (22.5, 8.75"). ix, [1], 302 pp.
$900.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Bound in this thick volume is the sole German-language translation of both volumes of Rush's Medical Inquiries and Observations. The translation is from the pen of Friedrich Michaelis (1727–1804), a well-regarded and much published Leipzig physician. Among the subjects discussed and essayed in these volumes are medical practices of the American Indians, climate in Pennsylvania as it related to health, war and disease, aging, the effects of alcohol, and personal reporting on dropsy, measles, the flu, gout, and rabies.
Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Surgeon General of the Continental Army, and a leading doctor and teacher of medicine during the late colonial and early republic years of the nation.
Provenance: Bookplate of Samuel X. Radbill (Philadelphia book collector, bookplate collector, and medical doctor).
VD18 11231777 for the first title; second title not in VD18; Blake, NLM 18th Century, p. 394. Contemporary German pastepaper over boards; binding very worn. Interior very good. (39953)

REALLY, Isn't “Rustlings in the Rockies” a GREAT Title??
Shields, G.O. Rustlings in the Rockies: Hunting and fishing by mountain and stream. Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1883. 8vo. Frontis., xvi (vii/viii bound in after xvi),9–306, [6 (adv.)] pp.; illus.
$100.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Early edition, following the first of 1880 (published as Hunting the Great West): Outdoors adventures among the bears and buffalo — not to mention the trout and the alligator — as well as
encounters with the Cheyenne and Sioux, all illustrated with numerous full-page and in-text steel engravings. The author (a.k.a. Coquina) was president of the League of American Sportsmen and a frequent contributor to American Field.
Binding: Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with black-stamped hunting scene and title framed in gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title.
Binding as above, corners and spine head lightly rubbed. Ex–social club library: call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Pages clean. (27113)
For AMERICAN PUBLISHER'S
CLOTH BINDINGS, click here.

A Bespoke Cedulario for
Use in New Spain & Guatemala
(Spanish Royal Decrees). An assemblage of 43 manuscript and printed royal and viceroyal decrees and some 25 related documents. Barcelona, Madrid, Valldolid (Spain), Aranjuez, Mexico City, & elsewhere: 1701–79. Small 4to, folio, & larger. Approximately 135 ff.
$8275.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Explaining why manuscript cedularios were made in the era of the printing press is called for here, and the answer is simple: The number of copies that were printed of any given royal cédula tended to be smaller than the number of lawyers, clerks, judges, and other legal sorts who needed a copy. And within months of the issuance of the decree, no printed copies were available for love or money. Owning the various editions of the Recopilación de leyes de Indias was insufficient, for most cédulas related to
specific issues peculiar to one person, place, institution, or event, and such specificity is not included in the recopilaciones, though the royal decrees provided good, useful precedents to cite.
QED: Every colonial-era lawyer had to resort to maintaining his own cedulario.
This cedulario was assembled in Mexico during the 18th century, probably around 1778 or 1780, for the use of a lawyer before the audiencia, or perhaps for an audiencia judge or a judge's staff member. The decrees relate to a wide variety of topics: criminal cases, the army and navy, confiscation of property, the use of stamped paper, the royal treasury, royal officials in Nicaragua, cabildos, proselytization of
Indians, commodities, dress codes, bigamy, and other social matters in the regions of Mexico, New Galicia, and Guatemala. Of the 43 items, 22 are printed decrees (all but one printed in Spain) and the remaining 21 are manuscript. Fifteen bear
true (rather than stamped) royal signatures: six are signed by Felipe V, and nine are by Ferdinand VI. Of the 28 documents not signed by a king, 17 are printed and 11 are manuscript.
The documents are sewn and were once bound; binding removed some time ago. 18th-century numbering of documents shows that 10 documents were removed som time before the collection came into our hands. There are some stains, a few holes at folds, a few edges a little tattered — nothing worse.
A sound and interesting collection. (34851)
For MANUSCRIPTS of HISPANIC INTEREST, click here.
For MANUSCRIPTS generally, click here.
For COMMERCE / TRADE /
FINANCE / ECONOMICS, click here.

Poetry by an American Journalist
Stuart, Carlos D. Ianthe: and other poems. New York: C.L. Stickney & J.C. Wadleigh, 1843. 12mo. Added engr. title-page; 222, [2] pp.
$70.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition:
Collection of verse from one of the founders of the New Yorker, including
two Native American-themed pieces.
“Contain[ing] several poems of historical interest,” according to
Sabin, this bears on its added engraved title-page a lovely vignette in romantic
melancholy style signed, “J.N. Gimbrede.” The general title given
above this, interestingly, is not “Ianthe” as on the printed title
but “Greenwood” — that being one of the “other poems”
in Stuart's volume.
Provenance: “Miss
Carrie G. Skinner, Fort Ann Village, NY.”
American Imprints 43-4820; Sabin 93131. Publisher's
violet cloth, covers blind-stamped with central gilt-stamped urn vignettes,
spine with gilt-stamped title and decorations; cloth sunned especially at
edges and spine, corners bumped, front joint with small spots of old insect
damage. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription, as
above. Foxed; a few poems with early pencilled annotations (brief) —
one is, simply, “Splendid.” (27650)

The Northernmost
MAYAN Dialect — Two “Firsts”
Tapia Zenteno, Carlos de. Noticia de la lengua
HUASTECA ... con cathecismo, y doctrina christiana para su instruccion ... enchiridion sacramental para su administracion, con todo lo que parece necessario hablar en ella los neoministros y copioso diccionario para facilitar su inteligencia. Mexico: En la Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana, 1767. 4to (20 cm, 7.785"). [5] ff., 128 pp.
$8500.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Huastec is the northernmost dialect of the Maya language. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was spoken in Puebla, Veracruz, and San Luis Potosí. Works of any category in this language are rarely found, this being
the first surviving published grammar and the first dictionary. The catechism is bilingual (Spanish and Huastec) as is the doctrine. Both are important for the study of moral and doctrinal concerns by the clergy among the indigenous population.
Tapia Zenteno was not only an important Mexican linguist and professor of Mexican languages at the Royal and Pontifical University, but was also a comisario for the Inquisition. This work of his is dedicated to Archbishop Francisco Antonio Lorenzana, a man deeply interested in the indigenous culture and the conquest of it, and the man who produced Cortés's letters in a fine and wonderfully illustrated edition in Mexico in 1770. He also paid for the publication of this work, and his coat of arms appears at the top of the Dedication in an engraving by Manuel Villavicencio, one of Mexico's finest engravers.
The volume is handsomely printed, with a nicely composed typographic border to its title-page, an elegant headpiece and a scenic initial “E” on its p. 1, and a modest but charming typographic “surround” for its final leaf's “O MARIA” (above).
Provenance: Marca de fuego on upper edges of closed book, most likely of the Franciscan Convento de Santa María Magdalena de San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla; early 19th-century pressure-stamp of a private Spanish-language collector on title-page; faint 19th-century case and shelf rubber-stamp in English on front free endpaper.
Viñaza 355; García Icazbalceta, Apuntes, 73; Medina, Mexico, 5187; Sabin 94355; Palau 327486; Maggs,
Bibl. Amer., 4678; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Huastec, 15; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3801. Contemporary limp vellum lacking the leather ties.
An attractive, crisp copy and only the fourth complete copy of this work we have seen on the market in 35 years. (33590)

The
“O'Gallala” Trade Warfare for Farming?
United States. Treaties, etc. 1865–1869 Johnson. Treaty between the United States of America and the O'Gallala band of Dakota or Sioux Indians. Concluded October 28, 1865. Ratification advised, with amendment, March 5, 1866. Proclaimed March 17, 1866. [Washington: publisher not identified, 1866]. Folio (29.6 cm; 11.625"). 6, [2] pp.
$650.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Printed version of the treaty between the United States government and the
Oglala Lakota signed in print by Newton Edmunds (governor of the Dakota Territory), Edward B. Taylor (superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern superintendency), Gen. H.H. Sibley, Tan-tan-ka-has-ka (Chief Long Bull), Ma-lo-wa-ta-khe (The Charging Bear), Pa-ha-to-ne-je (The Man that Stands on a Hill), and others at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory, on 28 October 1865.
The treaty states that the United States will pay each family thirty dollars annually for twenty years for their decisions to “withdraw from the route overland already established,” ceasing all warfare with other groups, and to settle future disputes by using the president as an arbitrator. The government promises that it will provide protection from “annoyance or molestation on the part of whites or Indians” should members of the group settle permanently to engage in agricultural pursuits, and offers further incentives for their doing so.
It was ratified 5 March 1866 and later proclaimed by President Johnson on March 17.
Eberstadt 130. Folded sheets, light age-toning, gently chipped along edges; light pencilling on upper margin of title-page. (36650)

“A Treaty Was Made & Concluded at Fort Sully”
United States. Treaties, etc. 1865–1869 Johnson. Treaty between the United States of America and
the Sans Arcs band of Dakota or Sioux Indians. Concluded October 20, 1865. Ratification advised, with amendment March 5, 1866. Proclaimed March 17, 1866. [Washington: publisher not identified, 1866]. Folio (31.4 cm; 12.375"). 6, [2] pp.
$600.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Printed version of the treaty between the United States government and the Sans Arc Lakota signed by Newton Edmunds (governor of the Dakota Territory), Edward B. Taylor (superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern superintendency), Gen. H.H. Sibley, Wah-mun-dee-o-pee-doo-tah (The War Eagle with the Red Tail), Cha-tau-'hne (Yellow Hawk), Shon-kah-we-te-ko (The Fool Dog), and others at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory, on 20 October 1865.
The treaty states that the United States will pay each family thirty dollars annually for twenty years for their decisions to “withdraw from the route overland already established,” ceasing all warfare with other groups, and to settle future disputes by using the president as an arbitrator. The government promises that it will provide protection from “annoyance or molestation on the part of whites or Indians” should members of the group settle permanently to engage in agricultural pursuits, and offers further incentives for their doing so.
It was ratified 5 March 1866 and later proclaimed by President Johnson on March 17.
Eberstadt 130. Folded sheets, light age-toning, gentle chipping along edges; light pencilling on upper margin of title-page, bottom corner of same chipped away. (36651)

One of the Few
BROADSIDES Printed in NAHUATL
during the Colonial Era
Venegas, Francisco Javier. Broadside, begins: Don Francisco Xavier Venegas ... Teniente General de los Reales Exercitos, Virey, Gobernador ... de esta N. E. ... Ayamo moyolpachihuitia in Totlatocatzin Rey D. Fernando VII. [Mexico: No publisher/printer, 1810]. Folio (42.3 cm, 16.25"). [1] p.
$15,000.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Publications in Nahuatl, the indigenous imperial language of Mexico, were not uncommon in the colonial era. The first came off the press of Juan Pablos, the earliest known printer in the New World, in 1543, but virtually all were meant to be used by Spaniards either wishing to learn the language or interacting with the indigenous population either as catechizers, confessors, or bosses.
The notable exception to the rule were the broadside decrees that were published for promulgation to the Indians during the war of independence. Two were issued by Viceroy Venegas in 1810 shortly after he arrived in New Spain: They were an effort to quell the recently declared Hidalgo revolt. The present one, which alludes to the revolt, announces an end to the required payment of tribute by Mexico's Indians and is a printing in Mexico of a decree that the Regency had issued in Spanish on 26 May. At the same time it is a plea for donations from the Indians to fight the French!
This broadside also importantly marks the end of the 40-year ban on the use of Nahuatl in official publications. Venegas adds (in translation): “And so every one may know the king's desires, and so they may be realized, we order this decree be promulgated everywhere in the Mexican language, the Otomí language, and every other Indian language.” No examples of its publication in those other indigenous languages have been found.
The broadside was not intended to be read by the natives, most of whom were illiterate, but rather was to be read by Nahuatl-speaking town criers.
Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only four U.S. libraries (UC-San Diego, Lilly, John Carter Brown, and Cushing at Texas A&M) reporting ownership.
Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 914; Medina, Mexico, 10533; Torres Lanzas 2609; Ugarte, Obras escritas en lenguas indigenas de Mexico, 421; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolll, 2812. See also: Mark Morris, “Language in Service of the State: The Nahuatl Counterinsurgency Broadsides of 1810,” in Hispanic American Historical Review 87:3 (2007), pp. 433–70. Removed from a bound volume, printed on pale blue paper. Two tears in text area with old repair.
The bottom margin shows the faintly visible transfer from another copy of the broadside while wet and stacked in the print shop! (41014)
Villagutierre Sotomayor, Juan de. Historia de la conquista de la provincia de el Itza, reduccion, y progressos de la de el Lacandon, y otras naciones de indios barbaros, de la mediacion de el reyno de Guatimala, a las provincias de Yucatan, en la America septentrional. Madrid: Lucas Antonio de Bedmar y Narvaez, 1701. Folio (28.5 cm; 11.5"). Engr. “frontispiece,” [32] ff., 660 pp., [17] ff.
$28,750.00
Click any image above for an enlargement.
Although the author never set foot in the New World, his high position in the Consejo de Indias and other royal councils gave him access to much important documentation for the writing of this prized history of the conquest of the Izta Maya and the attempted conquest of the Lacandón Indians during the last decades of the 17th century; the conquest of Petén and the misadventures of Roque de Soberanis y Senteno and Martín de Urzúa, two governors of the Yucatán make for very exciting reading.
This is the first published book dedicated solely to the history of the Yucatán and the Maya, here offered in its first edition, first issue (with the incorrect catchword “gla” at the foot of the recto of the 22nd preliminary leaf).
Bedmar y Narvaez printed the title-page in black and red and the text is in double-column format. This copy bears both the engraved “frontispiece” and the black and red title-page, but, as usual, not the very rare colophon.
Although touted as “Primera parte” on the title-page, there were no further parts; this Historia is complete, “all published.”
Palau 366681; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 2051; Sabin 99643; Leclerc 1546; Salvá 3422; Heredia 3407; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 701/262. On Villagutierre, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 1019, frames 213–16. 19th-century Spanish sheep (“pasta española”), covers abraded and with pinhole-type worming to spine; loss of lower inch of spine leather to insects. Browning to text due to impurities in water during paper manufacture. Small insect damage to margins of first four leaves, not touching any text; similar small damage in inner margins of last four leaves. Over all, a decent copy of a scarce work. (13286)
For more of MILITARY/NAVAL interest, click here.

The ENDURING LAWS of the
VISIGOTHS
Visigoths. Laws, statutes, etc. Fuero juzgo en latín y castellano, cotejado con los más antiguos y preciosos códices por la Real Academia Española. Madrid: Por Ibarra, 1815. Folio (34.2 cm, 13.5"). [7] ff., pp. [iii], ivliv, [2] ff., X, 162 pp., [2] ff., XVI, 231, [1] pp.
$300.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
The best pre-20th century edition: Edited by scholars of the Spanish Royal Academy. The Fuero juzgo (in Latin, Forum judicum) is, basically, the customary law of the Visigoths of Spain that existed and was maintained outside of and in parallel with the Leges romanæ, the Fuero juzgo being the code to which German-origin Spaniards were liable and the Leges romanæ that to which inhabitants of pre-Visigothic origin had to answer. The Visigoths achieved the code in written form during the high middle ages.
As a social and historical document of medieval Spain, the Fuero juzgo is of outstanding importance, but its significance does not stop there, for the code continued unrepealed into the 19th century and, indeed, was
an important element in the formation of the legal status of the Indians of America under the Spanish rule. The verso of the seventh unnumbered leaf at the beginning of this edition has an engraved facsimile of a page from the Codex murcianus of the Fuero juzgo.
Palau 95528. Original printed wrappers with a little tattering and a small chip from the base of the spine; light waterstaining in the outside margins of some leaves and title-page with some staining in the inside margin, not affecting printed area. Wrappers, edges, first and last leaves with smoke discoloration; many upper margins with intrusion of same. (3312)

American Women's Missions
Woman's Home Missionary Society. Woman's home missions [of the Methodist Episcopal Church]. Delaware, OH: Woman's Home Missionary Society, 1884–85. Folio (27.1 cm, 10.67"). 104, 144, 192 pp.
$200.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Collected here are the first three volumes of a monthly periodical dedicated to Methodist women's domestic missions — and their accompanying fundraising efforts — in the south and west of the U.S., running from Jan. 1884 through Dec. 1886. The Woman's Home Missionary Society was organized in 1880, and sent missionary teachers to
Mormon, Chinese, African-American, and Native American communities as well as assisting impoverished women and children. The present accounts of their labors include news of members' activities, uplifting readings, illustrated advertisements, and extensive writings on
the state of affairs in Utah and in Indian Territory.
Contemporary half oxblood morocco and pebbled cloth–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; minor shelfwear overall, spine and extremities unobtrusively refurbished. All page edges speckled red. Front pastedown with book manufacturer's ticket. Pages very slightly age-toned, otherwise clean and fresh.
Uncommon. (41345)

A Polyglot Dictionary of
American Indian Languages
Zeisberger, David. Zeisberger's Indian dictionary: English, German, Iroquois — The Onondaga, and Algonquin — The Delaware. Cambridge: John Wilson & Son, 1887. 4to (27.5 cm; 11"). v, [1 (blank), 236 pp.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
“Printed from the Original Manuscript in Harvard University Library.” Zeisberger was an 18th-century Moravian missionary among the native Americans named in the title of this work. He left this polyglot dictionary in manuscript and it is
here printed for the first time. Edited by Eben Norton Horsford.
Sabin 106302n. Publisher's textured cloth in a brick color, hinges (inside) cracked; ex-library with a bookplate, no stamps. Clipping about this “quaint” dictionary affixed to a blank, with offsetting to endpaper verso opposite; interior clean. (31960)
Click here
for a database including 
not in PRB&M's
illustrated catalogues . . .
keyword,
e.g. = INDIAN, NATIVE AMERICAN, AMERIND
. . .
&
probably
excepting,
INDIANA,
WEST INDI . . .

Or, GO TO
OUR NEWEST ARRIVALS!
All material © 2021
The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company, LLC
 |
PRB&M/SessaBks |
 |
PLACE AN ORDER | E-MAIL US | GO (BACK) TO TOPIC/INTEREST TABLE