David Zeisberger: A Life Among the Indians

by Earl P. Olmstead, David Zeisberger, George W. Knepper (Foreword)

David A Life among the Indians offers the unique perspective of a Moravian missionary who lived and worked for sixty-three years among the Iroquois and Delaware nations in new York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Upper Canada. Earl P. Olmstead s narrative draws on thousands of pages of Zeisberger s own diaries, some of which are translated here for the first time. The diaries offer insights into the role of wampum in tribal government, problems resulting from the mass Euro-American western migration, and incidents of duplicity on the parts of both the American government and Native American nations. Of particular interest are Zeisberger s descriptions of Native American life in the years surrounding the French and Indian War and the American Revolution and the effects of these conflicts on the nations that lived in Ohio Country. David Zeisberger compliments Olmstead s earlier book, Blackcoats among the Delaware , which focuses on Zeisberger s life and mission at Goshen, Ohio. As a portrait of an individual who worked closely with Native Americans in the mid-eighteenth century, David Zeisberger adds much to the history of early America.

Genres: History, Biography

441 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Mel Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers the life & work of David Zeisberger up to the Gnaddenhutten massacre (1721-1782). Olmstead's Blackcoats Among the Delaware covers the later decades of Zeisberger's life. Olmstead has a deep, well-researched knowledge of the primary source material--indeed of pretty much all relevant material. He identifies his intention as to produce a Ziesberger bio "from a secular viewpont," in contrast with the 1870 biography by de Schweinitz.
This book will give you a great window into what colonial American life was really like, as well as an abiding respect for the integrity and work of the Moravian missionaries, who honestly worked for neutrality and peace and the purity of the gospel, unlike some ministers of their time.
This is genuine frontier America here. I love Indian agent James Wood's description of Zeisberger's church in Gnadenhutten. "He prayed in the Delaware language Preached in the English and sung Psalms in the German in which the Indians joined. . . "
And then there was the school. Zeisberger was educating 100 students in a Delaware language school. I would have liked to seen more about his ground-breaking work in linguistics, but maybe I am the exception. A primary school of 100 kids was a big deal in the 1700s.
Zeisberger "did not attempt to convert the natives to the white man's world but desperately tried to reach an accommodation between the native culture and mission life." The Moravians' emphasis on work ethic and agricultural improvement, combined with prohibition of alcohol, made their missions comparatively prosperous and happy, but working against this prosperity were the forces that would not accept Christian Indians into any society, especially the racism of the white colonists.
Looking at the book itself, there are a lot of names and geographical places to keep straight. There are a lot of maps in the book, but they don't seem customized to the content of the book. On a number of occasions I was trying to get movements straight and the key places weren't on the maps.

[Tim Stafford · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a bio it's only so so, but I found it utterly fascinating to read about the Moravians and their intense interactions with Native Americans over a generation. One cannot help thinking that Europe and America might have had a very different relationship.