Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustration
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Transatlantic stories and Transatlantic readers
- PART I “POOR MAN'S COUNTRY”
- PART II THE SERVANT'S TALE
- 5 The bonds of servitude
- 6 Bond and free: contemporary readings of Gronniosaw's Life
- 7 Samson Occom's itinerancies
- PART III PRINTSCAPES
- Afterword
- Notes
- Works cited
- Index
7 - Samson Occom's itinerancies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustration
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Transatlantic stories and Transatlantic readers
- PART I “POOR MAN'S COUNTRY”
- PART II THE SERVANT'S TALE
- 5 The bonds of servitude
- 6 Bond and free: contemporary readings of Gronniosaw's Life
- 7 Samson Occom's itinerancies
- PART III PRINTSCAPES
- Afterword
- Notes
- Works cited
- Index
Summary
In 1766, while in Britain raising money for Revd Eleazar Wheelock's Indian Charity School in Connecticut, the Revd Samson Occom wrote a letter to his wife which has been described as a rare example of his humor, and dismissed accordingly:
My dear Mary and Esther,
Perhaps you may Query whether I am well; I came from home well, was by the way well, I got over well, am received in London well, and am Treated extreemly well, yea I am Caress'd too Well, – And do you pray that I may be well; and that I may do well; and in time return Home well, – And I hope you are well, and wish you well, and as I think you begun well, So keep on well, that you may end well, and then all will be well: And so Farewell …
Wheelock's erstwhile Indian pupil was demonstrating his mastery of English epistolary conventions in a satirical performance that could easily be construed as confirming readings of Occom which saw him, through missionary texts and missionary eyes, as an “educated” and “civilized” Indian. Missionary-based accounts of Occom's life have tended to agree with James Ronda that “the Indian who embraced Christianity was compelled in effect to commit cultural suicide.” As a result, they have represented Occom as an Indian who had whole-heartedly embraced European ways, or judged him in terms of how well he met the expectations and demands of his teacher and patron, Eleazar Wheelock.
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- Information
- Transatlantic Stories and the History of Reading, 1720–1810Migrant Fictions, pp. 158 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011