Author Jacob Piatt Dunn (1855-1924) was a journalist, ethnologist and historian who grew up in Indiana and published his first book on history in 1886. Among his publications were a history of Indianapolis and a dictionary of the Miami language. He served as the recording secretary of the Indiana Historical Society for over 35 years, and served four years as the state librarian of Indiana.

One of Dunn’s objectives for this book was to track down and preserve Indian place names in Indiana. Another objective was, “to give some illustrations of the contest [between Indians and settlers in the period of the Revolutionary War], of battles and massacres, of hardships, of white and Indian captivity.”