COUNCIL FIRES ON THE UPPER OHIO

By Randolph C. Dowries '23. University ofPittsburgh Press, 1940, $3.00.

THE ONLY TRUE "native Americans" have become historical curiosities—so remote that most people think of the United States as having been developed in a virgin and uninhabited wilderness. Actually the surge of the frontier rolled back and destroyed an independent culture of considerable worth, but one that was physically incapable of coping with superior white implements and man power. Dr. Downes has told the story as it unfolded in the upper Ohio Valley between 1720 and 1795. By the latter date Wayne had well begun the process later completed by Harrison at Tippecanoe—the breaking of the power of the Indians of the Old Northwest.

The clash of Indians and whites is a dramatic story, with rich materials for the study of human cultures in conflict. Dr. Downes has not, however, stressed the dramatic or the sociological elements, but has devoted most of his account to a careful and accurate portrayal of the political, diplomatic and military facts involved. The diligence of his research is attested both by the footnotes and bibliography and by the text itself. In consequence he has placed scholars and other interested persons greatly in his debt. He has not of course produced a volume to appeal to the casual reader searching for tales of blood and adventure.

By this book Dr. Dowries has increased markedly the historical reputation he had acquired earlier in his Frontier Ohio. He has demonstrated his abilities, not only as an able research worker, but also as a scholar of sufficient breadth to treat both white and Indian civilizations with sympathetic understanding.