My Life Among the Indians

George Catlin spent eight years living among and learning from Native Americans of the Great Plains and the Far West.

Over the course of five trips he took in the 1830s and 1840s he came to encounter fifty different tribes, including the Pawnee, Omaha, and Ponca in the south and the Mandan, Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine, and Blackfeet to the north.

During these expeditions he came to learn a great deal about the culture and customs of the various tribes.

My Life among the Indians records the ways of the life of these rapidly vanishing indigenous populations. He spoke with and recorded the thoughts and acts of their leaders, warriors, medicine men, as well as their women and children.

Catlin provides insight into various Native American tribes; how they lived, what they ate, where they slept, how they played and enjoyed themselves, as well as how they worshipped. He demonstrates not only the similarities that were apparent between all the tribes, but also their huge differences that could sometimes lead to tensions.

“His task was to rescue ‘from oblivion the looks and customs of the vanishing races of native men in America,’ a task to which he dedicated his life and his energies. This volume helps us to appreciate the significance of the cause — and the varied achievements of a remarkable man who accepted his own challenge.” James T. Forrest, The Western Historical Quarterly

This work was derived from his much larger work, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians that he wrote while exploring the Far West, but as a readable overview of Native American life in the mid-nineteenth century My Life among the Indians cannot be surpassed.

George Catlin was an American author and traveler who was particularly famous for his portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Travelling to the American West five times during the 1830s, Catlin was the first white man to depict Plains Indians in their native territory. His book My Life among the Indians was posthumously published in 1909 and Catlin passed in 1872.