Working from firsthand sources-and through the bias and prejudices of his time-noted American historian and writer Francis Parkman produced, in 1867, this prodigious history of the Jesuit priesthood in North America during the early decades of the European colonization. With reports, memoirs, journals, letters, and other papers both official and private serving as his background, Parkman details the Catholics' attempts to convert the Huron, Algonquin, and Iroquois, as well as the resulting Iroquois war on the converted tribes in 1670s. But Parkman, unlike his fellow contemporary historians, also explores the ways and traditions of the tribes themselves. FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-1893) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a wealthy family whose fortune allowed him the freedom to pursue his twin scholarly passions of horticulture and history. A founder of the Archaeological Institute of America, he authored The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and the eight-volume France and England in North America, both considered among the great masterpieces of historical literature.