Anecdotes of the American Indians, illustrating their eccentricities of character
History
Anecdotes of the American Indians, illustrating their eccentricities of character
Indians of North America -- Anecdotes
wore out their hearts; others abandoned their books, even when they
were prepared to enter Harvard College, in the town of Cambridge; their
patience was probably exhausted, and the boon of literary dignity could
lure them no further. A few of these, passing from one extreme to
the other, burst their bonds at once; and as if mind and body panted
together to be free, hastened back to the wilderness again, into its
wigwams and swamps; where neither Homer nor Ovid was like to follow
them.
“These circumstances proved very discouraging to the godly in
New England,” says a contemporary. “Some were so far affected by
them, as to conceive that they were manifest tokens of the Divine
disapprobation. Mr. Eliot, however, whose faith was more vigorous,
considered them merely as trials, to which they ought to submit without
reluctance.” In consequence of the death and failure of those who
entered the aforesaid building, it was soon after chiefly occupied
by the English. Only one of these Indian students appears to have
obtained his degree at Harvard College; and at the conclusion of two
Latin and Greek elegies, which he composed on the death of an eminent
minister, subscribed himself “Cheesecaumuk, Senior Sophista.” What an
incongruous blending of sounds!
Eliot at last saw his error, and, instead of the classics, applied with
fresh ardour to his more useful translations, of which the circulation
was so rapid, that he printed a fresh edition of the “Practice of
Piety.” He also soon after established a lecture at Naticke, in which
he explained the leading doctrines of theology and logic: here he was
on safe ground, and his labours were eminently useful. During the
summer months they assembled eagerly once a fortnight, and many of them
gained much knowledge; yet he was far from being satisfied with his
oral instructions, and he printed a thousand copies of a logic primer,
and made little systems of all the liberal arts, for the use of the
Indians. The same minds that had pined and sunk beneath the study of
the classic tongues, embraced these things with ardour.
[Illustration]
AN INDIAN WARRANT.
Judge Davis, in his Appendix to the Memorial, observes, that the
employment of the more intelligent and energetic Indians as rulers, was
particularly grateful to them. He had often heard of amusing anecdotes
of the Indian rulers. The following warrant is recollected, which was
issued by one of these magistrates, directed to an Indian constable,
and will not suffer in comparison with our more verbose forms.
‘I, Hihoudi, you Peter Waterman, Jeremy Wicket, quick you take him,
fast you hold him straight you bring him before me, Hihoudi.’
[Illustration]
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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