A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with some of the Indian Tribes

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881. First edition. Near Fine. Original publisher's cloth binding with bright gilt to spine and front board. Brown coated endpapers. A pleasing copy, with some spotting to boards and bumping to edges and extremities. Front hinge starting, but binding sound overall; minor staining to closed textblock (with staining to fore-edge extending slightly into page margins, else internally unmarked). Contemporary gift inscription to front endpaper: Martha Goddard to Mrs. Chenoweth." Measuring 187 x 122mm and collating complete including the adverts to the rear: x, 457, [1, blank], 6. An important activist work difficult to find in collectible condition, Helen Hunt's account of the U.S. government's crimes against indigenous communities intended to raise awareness and generate a push for legislative and ethical change.

Novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and activist for the improved treatment of first nations people of the U.S. "Her greatest achievement was her pioneering work for Indian rights. After hearing the Ponca chief Standing Bear speak about the dispossessed Plains tribes, she vowed to write an expose of the government maltreatment of Indians. Her months of research in the Astor Library of New York resulted in A Century of Dishonor, a copy of which Jackson presented to every U.S. Congressman. This is an impassioned account of the various tribes since white contact, beginning with a discussion on the rights of sovereignty and occupancy, and ending with massacres of native peoples. It shocked the public, and within a year, the powerful Indian Rights Association was born, followed by the Dawes Act of 1884" (Blain and Grundy). As with her previous works of fiction and poetry, Jackson chose to publish under her initials H.H. in order to avoid revealing her real identity and to stay removed from larger women's rights movements. Despite her doubts about women's suffrage, however, she ultimately became a public voice on behalf of tribal rights. By 1883, her Report on the Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California was the first publication to bear her full name. A year later, she would issue her most famous work of fiction, Ramona, which emulated the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe to dramatize the plight of the first nations tribes and emotionally sway white readers to push for social and legislative change.

BAL 10444. Feminist Companion to Literature 564. Cultural Landscape Foundation. Oxford Companion to Women's Writing. Near Fine.