Louis Bishop Capron was born in Albany, New York in 1891. Capron spent his childhood in Oneonta, where his exposure to local Indian history fostered an interest in folklore and ethnography. He attended Yale University to study chemistry, but received informal anthropological training by sitting in on graduate courses and participating in the Yale-Andover Archeological Survey of the Connecticut River Valley.

Capron moved to Florida in 1925 and worked at the Palm Beach Mercantile Company until 1952. He developed friendships with the Tommie family of the Seminole tribe after meeting them in 1926 during hurricane relief work. This encounter initiated a life-long relationship with the Seminoles that would inform both his work as an author and lay scholar.

Capron's young adult adventure fiction and nonfiction works both detailed the social life and customs of the Florida Seminole Indians. The novels he is best known for include White Moccasins, Golden Arrowhead, and The Red War Pole. He is also noted for his ethnographic work on the significance of medicine bundles and the Green Corn Dances. In 1953 his article on the subject was published by the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnography. Capron's nonfiction works on the Seminoles were also published by National Geographic. Capron died on December 16, 1971.