Vanished Worlds, Enduring People

Cadwallader Colden. The History of the Five Indian Nations. London: T. Osborne, 1747. [view first image] | [view second image]

Colden’s book represents the first significant attempt in the colonial era to write in depth about the history of Iroquois Indians in New York and Canada. A colonial scholar and political leader in New York, Colden published the first edition of his History in 1727. He expanded it significantly in this and later editions, including several chapters on interactions of the Five Nations with the French. Neither the book nor the map includes the sixth member of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Tuscaroras, as they had not yet emigrated to the New York from their home in North Carolina.