Pagans in our midst

"This book covers the years 1885-1910 ... Through examining newspaper, magazine, and official reports dealing with the Iroquois Indians of New York State, one can glean a microcism picture of the White endeavor to destroy the Indian culture throughout the United States"--Page v

"This book is a compilation of American journalism material dealing with American Indian which exemplifies American journalism during the period 1885-1910. It is also a kind of social history of the intercourse between two alien cultures. The local history of the Six Nations can be seen as a microcosm of Indian culture during this time period as presented by the journalists of the day. In the three major reservation areas of New York dealt with in this book, the people of the Six Nations were in easy contact with the total economic and intellectual spectrum of growing America ... The text for this book is derived from the local press of the three reservations areas mentioned above. In all, six newspapers were used for this work. Four of these journals, the 'Salamanca Republican', -- Salamanca, N.Y.; the 'Palladium', - Malone, N.Y.; the 'Northern Massena Observer' - Massena, N.Y.; and the 'Standard-Freeholder' - Cornwall, Ontario, Canada; were totally indexed for every shred of reported material concerning the Seneca and Mohawk peoples."--Page viii

"Interspersed throughout the text is a dual visual experience. The first part of this experience is a collection of broadsides, dime novel jokes, political and pleasure cartoons, advertisements, etc., all utilizing the 'Indian' for gain or pleasurable ridicule. These broadsides were all gathered from media published within New York State. They are used illustrate the text. They most often caricature Western Indian culture. With illustrative Eastern propaganda visually homogenizing all Indian cultures, it is not difficult to understand the currency given to the then-popular verbal categorization of all Indians-'the only good Indians i ever saw were dead'"--Page ix; "The second part of this visual experience, strategically spaced throughout, consists of photographs of the period. These photographs were primarily gathered from private Iroquoian family albums and secondarily from the small Iroquoian collections at the Heye Foundation Museum of the American Indian, and the Beauchamp collection of the New York State Museum at Albany"--Page x