"This is a fantastic compilation of some really important pieces of American Literature. If you are a college student or even a motivated high school student, you will definitely want this on your bookshelf. Most importantly though, if you are someone who just genuinely enjoys reading and would like to expand your repertoire to some of the best in American literature, this is the book for you!" — Old Musty Books Ranging from colonial times to the mid-19th century, this compact and inexpensive anthology offers a fascinating overview of early American literature. The authoritative texts are supplemented with informative introductory notes and suggestions for further reading. Starting with Cherokee creation myths and Powhatan's moving speech, "Why Should You Destroy Us, Who Have Provided You with Food," the 18th-century selections include the writings of poets Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley; preacher Jonathan Edwards; statesmen Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and others. From the early and mid-19th century come excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark; stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Louisa May Alcott; the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman; and essays, speeches, verse, and memoirs by other prominent Americans. An English professor at the City University of New York's Kingsborough College, Bob Blaisdell is the editor of numerous Dover Thrift Editions and many other books. He has published essays about his own experiences as a teacher and regularly reviews books for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Christian Science Monitor. The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume I From the Origins Through the Civil War By Bob Blaisdell Dover Publications, Inc. Copyright © 2014 Dover Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-486-78076-4 Contents Note, Cherokee Creation Stories (James Mooney), Powhatan, Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, Phillis Wheatley, Thomas Paine, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Sarah Wentworth Morton, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Red Jacket, Sagoyewatha, Tecumseh, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, William Lloyd Garrison, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, Francis Parkman, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, P. T. Barnum, John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet A. Jacobs, Julia Ward Howe, Louisa May Alcott, Abraham Lincoln, Index of Authors, CHAPTER 1 CHEROKEE CREATION STORIES (JAMES MOONEY) The Cherokee Nation spanned much of today's Southeast, from North Carolina to Georgia and into Tennessee, until the early nineteenth century, when a majority of the population was deprived of its land by the U. S. Government and forcibly relocated via "The Trail of Tears" to reservations in Oklahoma. The ethnographer James Mooney (1861–1921) collected the stories from 1887 to 1890 and published them in Myths of the Cherokee. "It is almost certain that most of the myths ... are but disjointed fragments of an original complete genesis and migration legend, which is now lost," writes Mooney. We have placed them first in this anthology on account of their original versions having existed previous to American English writings. How the World Was Made (1897–1898) The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this. When all was water, the animals were above in Galûñ'lati, beyond the arch; but it was very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below the water, and at last Dâyuni's, "Beaver's Grandchild," the little Water-beetle, offered to go and see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterward fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one remembers who did this. At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were anxious to get down, and sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no place to alight and came back again to Galûñ'lati. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard and told him to go and make ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all the buzzards we see now. He flew all over the earth, low down near the ground, and it was still soft. When he reached the Cherokee country, he was very tired, and his wings began to flap and strike the groun