The American Nations, Vol. I. / Or, Outlines of a National History of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South America

by C. S. Rafinesque

Dedication.

To The

Society Of Geography

Of Paris.

Gentlemen:—

To you I dedicate this work, result of long and weary researches. This homage is due to the public approbation you gave to my first analogous labor, my Memoirs or Series of Researches on the Origin of Mankind: which I endeavored to trace philologically to the centre of Asia. I had announced long ago this history of the Americans, the inhabitants of a whole hemisphere. I had quoted it in my other works. I now offer the outlines of it under your auspices.

You have furnished the example of cultivating along with Geography, all the auxiliary and connected sciences, which may enlighten it: particularly the ancient and modern Ethnography, with Philology one of its bases. You will see that I have followed this practice in availing myself of all the sciences to enlighten the history of mankind, the Ethnography and annals of nations: above all Philology with Chronology and Geography.

The origins and annals of the black nations, and of the American nations, were two subjects quite obscure and neglected, or the least known, of the history of mankind. Nobody has undertaken, as yet, the history of the Negro nations: a labor so difficult and luckless as to be despised.

My memoirs on this despised race, may perhaps furnish the bases of such history. All the histories of America are mere fragments or dreams. I have perceived the possibility and necessity to write a general and faithful history of this hemisphere. I now offer the results of this weary labor.