‘Indian Boyhood, ‘ presents the incredible adventurous childhood and youth which were a part of the free wilderness life of the first American — a life that is gone forever. By dint of much persuasion, the story has now been carried on from the point of that plunge into the unknown with which the first book ends, a change so abrupt and so overwhelming that the boy of fifteen ‘felt as if he were dead and travelling to the spirit land.’ In his second autobiography ‘From the Deep Woods to Civilization’ we will hear of a single-hearted quest throughout eighteen years of adolescence and early maturity, for the attainment of the modern ideal of Christian culture. It is clearly impossible to tell the whole story, but much that cannot be told may be read ‘between the lines.’ The broad outlines, the salient features of an uncommon experience are here set forth in the hope that they may strengthen for some readers the conception of our common humanity.
A propos de l’auteur
Charles Alexander Eastman (1858 – 1939) was a physician writer, national lecturer, and reformer. Eastman was of Santee Dakota, English and French ancestry. After working as a physician on reservations in South Dakota, he became increasingly active in politics and issues on Native American rights, he worked to improve the lives of youths, and founded thirty-two Native American chapters of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). He also helped found the Boy Scouts of America. He is considered the first Native American author to write American history from the Native American point of view.