THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS; PARTICULARLY THOSE NATIONS ADJOINING TO THE MISSISSIPPI, EAST AND WEST FLORIDA, GEORGIA, SOUTH AND NORTH CAROLINA, AND VIRGINIA: Containing an Account of their Origin, Language, Manners, Religious and Civil Customs, Laws, Form of Government, Punishments, Conduct in War and Domestic Life, Their Habits, Diet, Agriculture, Manufactures, Diseases and Method of Cure, and Other Particulars, Sufficient to Render It a Complete Indian System. With Observations on Former Historians, the Conduct of Our Colony Governors, Superintendents, Missionaries, Etc

London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1775. First Edition. Hardcover. Contents clean with minor toning; some rubbing to joints. Near Fine. Quarto (8-1/2" x 11-1/4") bound in contemporary calf rebacked with the original spine with a new gilt-lettered burgundy morocco spine label, the original label loosely laid in; [xii], 464, [2, ads] pages. Complete with half title and the engraved folding map. GRAFF 10; HOWES A-38 ("Best 18th century English source on the Southern tribes, written by one who traded forty years with them"); SABIN 155 James Adair was a frontiersman and fur trader who lived among the Catawba, Chickasaw, and Cherokee for forty years, gathering first-hand information about the customs of these Indian tribes. He was one of the first white settlers to explore the Alleghenies. Bookplates of Lucy Foster and Francis Bayard Rives on front pastedown and endpaper, respectively.