by John Demos
30. On the blurring of racial distinctions between blacks and Indians, see Mandell, Behind the Frontier, 35ff.; specifically for Rhode Island, see Ruth Wallis Herndon and Ella Wilcox Sekatau, “Colonizing the Children: Indian Youngsters in Servitude in Early Rhode Island,” in Reinterpreting New England Indians and the Colonial Experience, ed. Calloway and Salisbury, 137–73. On problems created by black/Indian intermarriage, see David Silverman, “The Church in New England Indian Community Life,” in Reinterpreting New England Indians, ed. Calloway and Salisbury, 264–98, (especially 279–80); Daniel R. Mandell, “The Saga of Sarah Muckamugg: Indian and African American Intermarriage in Colonial New England,” in Sex, Love, Race, ed. Hodes, 72–90. The comments reflecting scornful attitudes toward Indians are quoted in Mandell, Behind the Frontier, 34, 144, 36. For the comment on “a miserable remnant,” see John W. DeForest, History of the Indians of Connecticut (1851; reprint, Hamden, CT, 1964), 446. For a particularly shocking instance of anti-Indian prejudice, see Daniel R. Mandell, “The Indian’s Pedigree (1794): Indians, Folklore, and Race in Southern New England,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, 61 (2004): 521–38. On the alleged “vanishing” of Indians, see Daniel R. Mandell, Tribe, Race, History: Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780–1880 (Baltimore, 2008); Jean M. O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England (Minneapolis, 2010), especially chapters 3–4. On local “last Indian” stories, see Mandell, Tribe, Race, History, 179–83.
31. Barry O’Connell, ed., On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, a Pequot (Amherst, MA, 1992). For thoughtful discussion of Apess’s life and writings, see Lisa Brooks, The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast (Minneapolis, 2008), chapters 4–5.
32. The firsthand comments are quoted in O’Connell, ed., On Our Own Ground, lxv, lvii, lxii, lxviii–lxix.
33. Quoted ibid., xlvi.
34. Quoted in O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, 205.
CHAPTER SIX “So much excitement and disgust throughout our country”
1. See Edward C. Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut: A Typical New England Town (New Haven, CT, 1926), 402, 521.
2. See A. Judd Northrup, The Northrup-Northrop Genealogy (New York, 1910), 26–27, 60–61, 142, 266; New Haven Historical Society Papers, vol. 1, 117–18; vol. 2, 378–80.
3. On the steward’s regular duties, see John Prentice to Samuel Worcester, June 23, 1817, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 59; Report of the Visiting Committee to the Foreign Mission School, September 2, 1817, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 44.
4. Cartersville [GA] Courant, March 19, 1885, quoted in Thurman Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People, 2d ed. (Norman, OK, 1986), 132.
5. The best single account of the life of Major Ridge is in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy. The tribute noted here is by Judge J. W. H. Underwood, Cartersville [GA] Courant, April 2, 1885, quoted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 15.
6. See Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy.
7. Ard Hoyt to Jeremiah Evarts, August 7, 1823, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 3, no. 107.
8. On these parts of Major Ridge’s career, see Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, especially chapters 2–4.
9. Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 100–110.
10. Journal of the Mission to the Cherokees (Brainerd), July 4, 1817, ABC 18.3.1, (1st series), vol. 2, no. 2.
11. Ard Hoyt to Samuel Worcester, September 25, 1818, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 2, no. 116. Herman Daggett to Samuel Worcester, December 18, 1818, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 101. For thoughtful discussion of John Ridge’s ownership of a watch, see Hilary Wyss, English Letters and Indian Literacies: Reading, Writing, and New England Missionary Schools, 1750–1830 (Philadelphia, 2012), 150–57.
12. Herman Daggett to Samuel Worcester, December 18, 1818, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 101.
13. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection” (“written by Mrs. Ellen Gibbs, Crystal Lake, Illinois”), March 1, 1910. (The original manuscript of this document has been lost. A typescript copy was made for the Dwight Collection, then housed in Boston; this copy is currently at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA. A duplicate was sent to the Cornwall Historical Society, Cornwall, CT; see FMS Archive, folder 19. The entire document is published in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 154–57.) As a child, Mrs. Taylor had lived in Cornwall “and was familiar with the following transactions”; these included the Ridge-Northrup wedding. Wherever possible, details of the document have been checked against other evidence; inaccuracies have been found in only one or two minor instances. Mrs. Gibbs, the transcriber, was Mrs. Taylor’s daughter.
14. John Howard Payne Papers, vol. 8, 63–102, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL.
15. The comments on John Ridge’s declining health are, successively, in Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, December 16, 1820, April 6, 1821, June 5, 1821, July 11, 1821, August 6, 1821, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, nos. 123, 126, 128, 129. The order for crutches appears in the account book of C. and F. Kellogg, 59, Cornwall Historical Society, Cornwall, CT.
16. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection,” in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 155; C. E. B. (Catherine E. Beecher), Boston Courier, March 15, 1832; T. S. Gold, Historical Records of the Town of Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut (Litchfield, CT, 1904), 351. The Cherokee council pipe is currently in the possession of Charles Gold (Cornwall, CT), who kindly allowed the author to examine it.
17. Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, September 22, 1822, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 141.
18. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection,” in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 154. The italicized passages are direct quotes from the Taylor account. The description of the reactions of Major Ridge and Susanna is based on an article in The Religious Intelligencer, vol. 10 (1825–26), 280, as noted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 133.
19. Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, September 22, 1822, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 141.
20. “Visit of Indian Young Men at Charleston, S.C.,” The Missionary Herald, vol. 19 (1823), 29–30.
21. The Religious Intelligencer, vol. 7 (1822–23), 446; Cartersville [GA] Courant, March 19, 1885, quoted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 137.
22. Emily Fox, “The Indian Song, Sarah and John,” in Gold, Historical Records of the Town of Cornwall, 32. Reportedly, this poem “once had a considerable local fame”; indeed, according to Gold, “there are many among our aged readers who will remember having read it.”
23. The Christian Herald, vol. 10 (1823), 48.
24. A copy of the marriage certificate of John Ridge and Sarah Northrup is in the files of the Cornwall Historical Society, Cornwall, CT. There were many announcements in newspapers; see, for example, Connecticut Courant, February 10, 1824, and Connecticut Mirror, February 16, 1824.
25. A report of these events was authored by a local resident identified only as “A.B., Cornwall, June 7, 1824,” as noted in E. C. Starr, “Outlines of the Story of the Pupils of the Foreign Mission School, at Cornwall, Collected and Presented to the Cornwall Library Association, by E. C. Starr (1895),” Cornwall Historical Society, Cornwall, CT.
26. On the recollections of John and Sarah (Northrup) Ridge, see “Then and Now,” Fort Smith [AR] Herald, May 21, 1870. Additional details quoted in this paragraph are from American Eagle (Litchfield, CT), March 1, 1824.
27. See American Eagle (Litchfield, CT), February 23, 1824; April 19, 1824; February 2, 1824; March 1, 1824. See also the article entitled “Married,” Massachusetts Spy (Worcester), February 25, 1824, and Litchfield Gazette, reprinted in Nantucket Inquirer, February 23, 1824.
28. American Eagle (Litchfield, CT), May 31, 1824; August 8, 1824; May 31, 1824; February 2, 1824.
29. See The Pilot (New Haven, CT), February 17, 1824.
30. For the comment on romantic competition, see ibid. The poem “The Indian Song, Sarah and John” quoted here is by Emily Fox. See Gold, Historical Records of the Town of Cornwall, 32.
&nb
sp; 31. American Eagle (Litchfield, CT), September 27, 1824, February 23, 1824.
32. The school’s defense of its own position was part of a “Letter of the Executive Committee to Mr. Charles Sherman, March 9, 1824,” published in Connecticut Courant, March 23, 1824.
33. Daniel Buttrick to Jeremiah Evarts, November 4–7, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 4, no. 5; Moody Hall to Jeremiah Evarts, September 18, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 5, no. 328.
34. Edward Coote Pinkney, “The Indian’s Bride,” in Thomas Olive Mabbott and Frank Leslie Pleadwell, eds., The Life and Works of Edward Coote Pinkney (New York, 1926), 95–99.
35. Silas Hurlbut McAlpine, “To the Indians of Cornwall”; see Gold, Historical Records of the Town of Cornwall, 31–32.
36. Daniel Buttrick to Jeremiah Evarts, October 12, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 4, no. 2.
37. American Eagle (Litchfield, CT), June 7, 1824, April 19, 1824.
38. William Chamberlain to Jeremiah Evarts, July 30, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 4, no. 37; Moody Hall to Jeremiah Evarts, April 5, 1825, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 5 (part 2), no. 333.
39. Foreign Mission Society of Litchfield County, Annual Meeting, 9 February 1825, 3. (Pamphlet with no place or date of publication. Copy seen at the Torringford [CT]Public Library.)
40. “Visit of Indian Young Men at Charleston, S.C.,” The Missionary Herald, vol. 19 (1823), 29–30.
41. The donation totals presented here, and the accompanying quotation, appear in Foreign Mission Society of Litchfield County [CT], Annual Meeting, 9 February 1826, 4–5. (Copy seen at the Torringford [CT] Public Library.) The figures for the ABCFM as a whole are in S. A. Howland (attrib.), The History of American Missions to the Heathen, from Their Commencement to the Present Time (Worcester, MA, 1840), 110–13.
42. Summary of the meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Hartford (CT), September 15–17, quoted in Howland (attrib.), The History of American Missions to the Heathen, 125.
43. Quarterly Report of the Foreign Mission School, 1 June 1824. (Copy seen at the Torringford [CT] Public Library.)
44. Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, January 2, 1824, Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, July 21, 1823, Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, September 4, 1823, Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, September 25, 1823, and Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, May 26, 1824, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, nos. 154, 149, 150, 151, 155.
45. Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, January 2, 1824, ABC 12.1, vol. 5, no. 154.
46. Information on these arrivals is scattered through ABC 12.1, vol. 2, and ABC 11, vol. 1. For Patoo, see also Harlan Page, Memoir of Thomas H. Patoo, a Native of the Marquesas Islands (New York, 1840); for A’lan and Alum, The Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst, NH), July 19, 1823, and Carl T. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong, 2d ed. (Hong Kong, 2005), 56–57; for Abrahams, Israel’s Advocate, vol. 1 (December 1823), and Quarterly Report of the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, for June 1, 1824, 6–11; for Kavasales and Karavelles, Boston Daily Advertiser, March 5, 1823, and Luther Hodge, Photius Fisk: A Biography (Boston, 1891); for Carter, “The Captives,” St. Albans [VT] Messenger, April 19, 1846, and Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 286–87.
47. Herman Daggett to Jeremiah Evarts, January 2, 1824, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 154.
48. Jeremiah Evarts to Rufus Anderson, December 18, 1823, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 245.
49. For a brief summary of the life and career of David Brown, see Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 279–80. Brown’s sister Catharine achieved considerable fame in her own right by qualifying as “the first, who was hopefully converted from among the Indians, by means of the missionaries sent out by the American Board of Missions.” See Rufus Anderson, Memoir of Catharine Brown, a Christian Indian of the Cherokee Nation (Boston, 1825), 26.
50. New Hampshire Repository (Concord, NH), January 5, 1824; Haverhill [MA] Gazette, November 15, 1823; The Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst, NH), November 8, 1823.
51. David Brown to Rev. Elias Cornelius, December 1, 1823, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 1, no. 89.
52. Jeremiah Evarts to Rufus Anderson, December 17, 1823, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 244.
53. Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, December 15, 1823, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 243; Jeremiah Evarts to Rufus Anderson, December 20, 1823, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 247; Jeremiah Evarts to Rufus Anderson, December 27, 1823, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 250.
54. “Indian Eloquence,” Haverhill [MA] Gazette, November 29, 1823.
55. Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, January 2, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 255.
56. Ibid.; Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, January 9, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 258; Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, January 6, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 254.
57. Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, January 16, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 261.
58. Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, January 20, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 264.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.; Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, January 22, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 265.
62. Ibid.
63. David Brown to Jeremiah Evarts, March 15, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 1, no. 92; Jeremiah Evarts to S. A. Worcester, February 14, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, no. 275; David Brown to Jeremiah Evarts, April 21, 1823, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 1, no. 87; Jeremiah Evarts to Henry Hill, February 25, 1824, ABC 11, vol. 1, nos. 283–84.
64. David Brown to Jeremiah Evarts, March 15, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 1, no. 92; David Brown to Jeremiah Evarts, April 19, 1824, ABC 18.3.1 (1st series), vol. 1, no. 93.
65. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection,” in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 155.
66. See the account book of C. and F. Kellogg, Cornwall Historical Society, Cornwall, CT.
67. George “Prince” Tamoree to Herman Daggett, July 25, 1820, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 125; George “Prince” Tamoree to Rev. Jedediah Morse, January 21, 1819, Morse Family Papers, Division of Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. See also Rev. Timothy Stone to Rev. Jedediah Morse, January 22, 1819, Morse Family Papers.
68. This anecdote was attributed to Col. D. W. Pierce; see Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 150.
69. Ibid., 148.
70. A strip of cloth, “made from tree bark by the Hawaiians,” is in the collections of the Cornwall Historical Society, Cornwall, CT; correspondence about its provenance is in FMS Archive, folder 48. This may be the same piece reported elsewhere as given by Henry Obookiah “to the Miner family of South Canaan”; see Starr, “Outlines of the Story of the Pupils of the Foreign Mission School,” 179.
71. Friendship album of Miss Cherry Stone, FMS Archive, folder 52. For detailed analysis of this document, including translation of the entries in Mandarin, see Karen Sánchez-Eppler, “Copying and Conversion: An 1824 Friendship Album ‘From a Chinese Youth,’ ” in Asian Americans in New England: Culture and Community, ed. Monica Chiu (Lebanon, NH, 2009).
72. Ibid.
73. Friendship album of Martha Day, Waterbury Historical Society, Waterbury, CT.
74. Mary Stone to William Kummooolah, n.d., addendum to letter from John Eliot Phelps to William Kummooolah, n.d., Archives of the Mission Houses Museum, Honolulu, HI; Herman Daggett to Rev. Elias Cornelius, September 25, 1823, ABC 12.1, vol. 2, no. 151.
75. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection,” in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 155.
76. In the spring of 1825, Cynthia Thrall traveled with her parents to the Dwight mission among the Cherokees in Arkansas. En route they visited the Foreign Mission School, about which Cynthia wrote at some length to an unidentified friend. The original of this letter, dated May 12, 1825 (Goshen, CT), cannot be located today, but it was seen as recently as 1954. A long passage from it was quoted in Mrs. Carrie McKendrick to Emily Marsh, January 15, 1954; see FMS Archive, folder 48.
77. Connecticut Journal, A
ugust 10, 1824.
78. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection,” in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 155; Herman Vaill to Harriet Gold, April 22, 1823, in Theresa Strouth Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian: The Marriage of Harriett Gold & Elias Boudinot in Letters, 1823–1839 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2005), 79–80.
79. See Ralph Henry Gabriel, Elias Boudinot, Cherokee, & His America (Norman, OK, 1941). The comments by Daggett on school performance are found in the files of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. For the description of Boudinot’s visit to New Haven, see The Religious Intelligencer, vol. 7 (1822–23), 556.
80. Catharine Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, July 18, 1825, in Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian, 110.
81. Ibid. Herman Vaill to Mary (Gold) Brinsmade, August 2, 1825, in Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian, 118–20.
82. Daniel Brinsmade to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, June 29, 1825, in Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian, 89; Mary (Gold) Brinsmade to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, July 14, 1825, ibid., 105–6; Catharine Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, July 18, 1825, ibid., 111.
83. Catherine Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, July 18, 1825, in Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian, 110; Mary (Gold) Brinsmade to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, July 14, 1825, ibid., 106; Catharine Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, July 18, 1825, ibid., 110.
84. Mrs. Eunice (Wadsworth) Taylor, “Recollection,” in Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, 156.
85. Stephen Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, June 11, 1825, in Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian, 81; Cornelius Everest to Stephen Gold, July 2, 1825, ibid., 103–4.
86. Stephen Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill, June 11, 1825, in Gaul, ed., To Marry an Indian, 81; Harriet Gold to Herman and Flora (Gold) Vaill and Catharine Gold, June 25, 1825, ibid., 84; Benjamin Gold to Hezekiah Gold, December 8, 1829, quoted in Mary Brinsmade Church, “Elias Boudinot: An Account of His Life by His Grand-daughter,” Town History Papers of the Woman’s Club of Washington, Conn. (1913), typescript copy, FMS Archive, folder 61.
