The Atlas is a new kind of book designed to illuminate an important but obscure area of our national history. I am pleased to have this opportunity to describe our project to the Subcommittee because I believe that it provides a clear example of the significance of the Endowment's work in making visible and in underscoring the value of humanities scholarship to a wide range of Americans, both within and beyond the academic and educational communities. The need for such a resource such as the Atlas became apparent to me more than ten years ago when I was engaged in historical research dealing with Ohio Valley Indian tribes. The complexity was attributable to the fact that from fifteen to thirty different Indian tribes were involved, along with the representatives of the governments of France, England, Spain, and finally the United States. History in this region was shaped by intertribal and international warfare, refugee movements, epidemics of European-introduced diseases, fur trade rivalry, white population advances, Indian resistance, Indian treaties ceding land to state and national governments, and arrangements for reservations, removal, and individual allotment of land.
Maps can graphically display the diversity, and the changes.
The Atlas project is an example of the kind of a task that requires, and seems, to merit, federal government support because it draws together people and organizations from many sectors of the population across a broad geographical area. The final product of this basic research endeavor is a permanent addition to the body of knowledge about American and Indian history, in a form that appears to gratify the needs of many different kinds of people here in the United States and in foreign countries. While our project was still in the proposal stage, we had helpful suggestions and constructive recommendations from the staff of the Endowment. And it was encouraging to get a psychological boost from visits made by representatives while map-making was in progress. From the outset, research for the Atlas involved scholars throughout the country, and Indian people interested in a more realistic presentation of their role in the total history of the Great Lakes - Ohio Valley region.