Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History: An Address, Delivered Before the New York Historicalsociety, at Its Forty-Second Anniversary, 17th November 1846

This 1846 address represents a remarkable early argument for the importance of pre-Columbian American history. Schoolcraft, one of the era's most prominent ethnologists, delivers a passionate plea to the New York Historical Society: look at what was here before Europeans arrived. He presents evidence of sophisticated Indigenous civilizations, mound structures stretching across the continent, pyramidal earthworks, complex linguistic systems, and astronomical knowledge that rivaled contemporary European understanding. Schoolcraft rejects the prevailing narrative that dismissed Indigenous peoples as primitive, arguing instead that substantial archaeological and cultural evidence demonstrates centuries of advanced development. The work endures as a historical artifact in its own right, a window into 19th-century American archaeology and the emerging discipline of ethnology, while also demonstrating that serious scholarly attention to Indigenous history began far earlier than many assume.