Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793–1864) was an American ethnologist, born near Albany, N.Y. He gave enormous impetus to the study of American Indian culture and may be regarded as the foremost pioneer ...

Philip P. Mason

Philip P. Mason is Distinguished Professor of History at Wayne State University. Mason is the recipient of the 2009 Historical Society of Michigan Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Award of Merit from the AASLH Leadership in History Awards for...

Notes on the Iroquois
The 1847 Edition

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

 Edited by

Philip P. Mason

First published in 1846, Notes on the Iroquois is the result of a census that Henry Rowe Schoolcraft began in July 1845, of Native Americans living on reservations in central New York. He also met with Indian leaders and chroniclers, local officials familiar with
Indian history, and others who had information
about other aspects of Indian life and culture. Schoolcraft was especially interested in music, pottery, language, petroglyphs, burial mounds, and the tribal clan system.

In addition to the documents relating to the
senate’s authorization for the census and a statistical report on the census returns,
the 1846 edition of Notes on the Iroquois
contained nearly three hundred pages of other information relating to the Iroquois.

In an 1847 edition, Schoolcraft revised several
of the sections and expanded the appendix with a more detailed account of his journal,
which described his visits to the various
Iroquois reservations and his contacts with key Indian leaders and chroniclers. Additional illustrations were also included.

In 1953, Michigan State University Press
commenced an ambitious project to republish Schoolcraft’s major studies and make them readily available to the American public.

Schoolcraft Series