No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Eighteenth-century European writers showed a heightened awareness of childhood and children, expressed frequently in sentimental or romantic terms. Historian Hugh Cunningham lists key aspects of this sensitivity to children, which had its roots in the Renaissance and Reformation and emerged in the mid-nineteenth century's “ideology of childhood.” He includes: “a belief in the importance of early education; … a concern for the salvation of the child's soul; … a growing interest in the way children learn; and … a sense that children were messengers of God, and that childhood was therefore the best time of life.” An exemplar of this type of thinking was Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian church in the eighteenth century. Emphasizing the child's connection to the divine and portraying childhood as a special stage of life, he wrote in 1739: “Children are little royal majesties. Baptism is their anointing, and from then on they should be treated as none other than a king by birth.” Zinzendorf wrote numerous religious works for children and about child-rearing, demonstrating a deep concern for early education.
1 Cunningham, Hugh, Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500 (London, 1995), 41, 61; quotation (my translation) from Zinzendorf in Hahn, Hans-Christoph and Reichel, Helmut, Zinzendorf und die Herrnhuter Brüder: Quellen zur Geschichte der Brüder-Unität von 1722 bis 1760 (Hamburg, 1977), 276. For a discussion of Zinzendorf's writings on children and for children, see Meyer, Henry H., Child Nature and Nurture according to Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (New York, 1928).Google Scholar
2 Atwood, Craig D., “Blood, Sex, and Death: Life and Liturgy in Zinzendorf's Bethlehem” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1995), 54–55; Smaby, Beverly Prior, The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem: From Communal Mission to Family Economy (Philadelphia, 1988), 150–51; Thorp, Daniel B., The Moravian Community in Colonial North Carolina: Pluralism on the Southern Frontier (Knoxville, Tenn., 1989), 58–59; Cunningham, , Children and Childhood, 61.Google Scholar
3 Atwood, , “Blood, Sex, and Death,” 52–53; Cunningham, , Children and Childhood, 61–62.Google Scholar
4 Smaby, , Transformation, 3–8; Stoeffler, F. Ernest, German Pietism during the Eighteenth Century (Leiden, 1973), 137; Langton, Edward, History of the Moravian Church: The Story of the First International Protestant Church (London, 1956), 27–30; Weinlick, John R., Count Zinzendorf (New York, 1956), 23–30; Hamilton, J. Taylor and Hamilton, Kenneth G., History of the Moravian Church: The Renewed Unitas Fratrum, 1722–1951 (1967; reprint, Bethlehem, Pa., 1983), 44–46, 52–59, 82–86; Wallace, Paul A. W., The Travels of John Heckewelder in Frontier America (1958 as Thirty Thousand Miles with John Heckewelder, reprint, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1985), 25–28.Google Scholar
5 The Delawares became the dominant ethnic group in the missions in the years immediately before and during the American Revolution. The Mahicans and New England Indians had represented a more sizable proportion of converts in earlier years. The Delawares included two major linguistic divisions, known as Munsee and Unami. Their homelands encompassed areas near the Hudson River Valley, on the western end of Long Island, and along the upper and lower Delaware River valleys. The Mahicans' homelands lay between the Schoharie Creek in New York and the Connecticut River Valley. The Moravians called some New England Indians “Wampanosch.” Since “Wappanoo” means “easterner,” these Indians probably included a variety of refugee New England peoples who had migrated toward the Mahican homelands. Brasser, T. J., “Mahican,” in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. Sturtevant, William C., vol. 15, Northeast , ed. Trigger, Bruce G. (Washington, D.C., 1978), 198–212; Salwen, Bert, “Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period,” in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. Sturtevant, 15:175; Frazier, Patrick, The Mohicans of Stockbridge (Lincoln, Neb., 1992), 248–49 n. 11; Brasser, Ted J., Riding on the Frontier's Crest: Mahican Indian Culture and Culture Change, Ethnology Division Paper, no. 13 (Ottawa, 1974); Goddard, Ives, “The Ethnohistorical Implications of Early Delaware Linguistic Materials,” in Neighbors and Intruders: An Ethnohistorical Exploration of the Indians of Hudson's River , ed. Hauptman, Laurence M. and Campisi, Jack, Canadian Ethnology Service, no. 39 (Ottawa, 1978), 95; Goddard, Ives, “Delaware,” in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. Sturtevant, 215; Weslager, C. A., The Delaware Indians: A History (New Brunswick, N.J., 1989); Kraft, Herbert C., The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography (Newark, N.J., 1986).Google Scholar
6 Friedenshütten catalog (c. 1767), item 1, folder 4, box 131, Records of the Moravian Mission to the Indians (RMM), Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pa. (These records are available on microfilm and are largely in German. Quoted portions are the author's translations.) Fliegel catalog, folders 2 and 4, box 3191, RMM, enumerates the converts and notes their tribal affiliations for those baptized before October 1772. I assume that most of those converts after that date until 1782 were Delawares, given the mission's proximity to Delaware populations.Google Scholar
7 Szasz, Margaret Connell, Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607–1783 (Albuquerque, N.M. 1988), 214–31; Axtell, James, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York, 1985), 207; Brainerd, Thomas, The Life of John Brainerd, the Brother of David Brainerd, and His Successor as Missionary to the Indians of New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1865), 379, 404.Google Scholar
8 For studies that attempt to understand how Indians shaped their own education and/or set their own goals within the white-Indian setting, see for example Coleman, Michael, American Indian Children at School, 1850–1930 (Jackson, Miss., 1993); Lomawaima, K. Tsianina, They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (Lincoln, Neb., 1994); Pointer, Richard W., “‘Poor Indians’ and the ‘Poor in Spirit’: The Indian Impact on David Brainerd,” New England Quarterly 67 (Sept. 1994): 403–26; and Ronda, James P., “Generations of Faith: The Christian Indians of Martha's Vineyard,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 38 (July 1981): 367–94.Google Scholar
9 Wogan, Peter, “Perceptions of European Literacy in Early Contact Situations,” Ethnohistory 41 (Summer 1994): 414. Wogan discusses how shamans' “standing waxed and waned as it was continually evaluated against what could be called a ‘results standard.’” CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Frazier, , Mohicans of Stockbridge, 9; Goddard, , “Delaware,” 214; Dowd, Gregory Evans, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore, Md., 1992), 33–36; White, Richard, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), 269–314.Google Scholar
11 Gnadenhütten diary, 21 Oct. 1773, item 1, folder 2, box 144, RMM; Schönbrunn diary, 27 Jan. 1774, item 1, folder 4, box 1411, RMM; Friedenshütten diary, 5 Feb. 1769, item 1, folder 6, box 131, RMM.Google Scholar
12 Harrington, M. R., “A Preliminary Sketch of Lenápe Culture,” American Anthropologist, n.s., 15 (Apr.-June 1913): 212; Szasz, Margaret Connell, “Native American Children,” in American Childhood: A Research Guide and Historical Handbook , ed. Hawes, Joseph M. and Hiner, N. Ray (Westport, Conn., 1985), 320.Google Scholar
13 Friedenshütten, Pa., diary, 26 Jan., 7 Feb., 25, 26, 28 Mar., 25 Apr., 6, 7, 9, 10 May, 8, 9, 21, 22, 24 Sept. 1767, item 1, folder 4, box 131, RMM.Google Scholar
14 For illness in the neighboring towns, see Friedenshütten diary, 24 Feb and 20 May 1767, item 1, folder 4, box 131. For smallpox outbreak, see ibid., 12 May-20 June 1767, item 1, folder 4, box 131. James P. Ronda shows in a similar way how the Wampanoags of Martha's Vineyard saw a connection between physical health and the spiritual gifts of Christianity. Ronda, , “Generations of Faith,” 367–94. While the converts were housed in protective barracks in Philadelphia during Pontiac's War, fifty-six of them died during a smallpox outbreak. Friedenshütten was a vast improvement over that deadly time in Philadelphia. Comparing their lives on the Susquehanna with their time in Philadelphia, their relative prosperity must have been all the more striking. See Philadelphia barracks diary, 9 Feb.-5 Nov. 1764, item 1, folder 2, box 127, RMM.Google Scholar
15 Gnadenhütten diary, 10 Oct. 1773, item 1, folder 2, box 144; ibid., 20 Feb. and 27 Aug. 1774, item 1, folder 3, box 144; ibid. 11 Dec. 1774, item 1, folder 4, box 144; Schönbrunn diary, 21 Aug. 1773, item 1, folder 3, box 1411; ibid., 16 Jan. and 19 Mar. 1775, item 1, folder 4, box 1411. In Bethlehem the Kinderstunde was at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon and on other days at 9:00 a.m. I found references to the Sunday Kinderstunde in the Indian mission records. Smaby, , Transformation, 14–17.Google Scholar
16 On the importance of vivid imagery to Zinzendorf, see Atwood, , “Blood, Sex, and Death,” 39–41. Friedenshütten diary, 20 May 1771, item 1, folder 8, box 131.Google Scholar
17 Friedenshütten diary, 28 Dec. 1768, 28 Dec. 1769, and 29 Dec. 1771, item 1, folders 5, 6, and 8, box 131; ibid., 24 Dec. 1768, item 1, folder 5, box 131; Gnadenhütten diary, 24–25 Dec. 1773 and 1–2 Jan. 1774, item 1, folder 2, box 144; Schönbrunn diary, 24 Dec. 1775, item 1, folder 4, box 1411.Google Scholar
18 Friedenshütten diary, 24 June 1767, 24 June 1768, 24 June 1770, item 1, folders 4, 5, and 7, box 131; Gnadenhütten diary, 16 Aug. 1774, item 1, folder 3, box 144; Thorp, , Moravian Community, 17; Smaby, , Transformation, 10–12.Google Scholar
19 Harrington, M. R., “Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape,” Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, no. 19 (n.p., n.d.), 63; Weslager, , Delaware Indians, 68. For a discussion of rites of passage among a variety of Native American groups, see Szasz, , Indian Education in the American Colonies, 15–17.Google Scholar
20 Harrington, , “Preliminary Sketch,” 215; Goddard, , “Delaware,” 219.Google Scholar
21 Zeisberger, David, “History of the Northern American Indians,” ed. Hulbert, Archer Butler and Schwarze, William Nathaniel, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, vol. 19 (Columbus, 1910), 77. For a slightly different version, see John Ettwein, copied by Jared Sparks, [1788?], “Some Remarks and Annotations concerning the Traditions, Customs, Languages &c. of the Indians in North America, from the Memoirs of the Reverend David Zeisberger, and other Missionaries of the United Brethren,” no. 100, John Ettwein Papers, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem.Google Scholar
22 Friedenshütten diary, 22 Jan. 1769 and 8 Jan. 1770, item 1, folders 6 and 7, box 131. For more examples of the baptisms of pre-teen and early teen age children, see Gnadenhütten diary, 6 Jan. 1774, item 1, folder 2, box 144.Google Scholar
23 Zeisberger, , “History,” 80; Heckewelder, John, History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States (Philadelphia, 1881; orig. 1818), 141; Trowbridge, Charles C., “Account of some of the Traditions, Manners and Customs of the Lenee Lenaupaa or Delaware Indians,” in Weslager, , Delaware Indians, 488–89.Google Scholar
24 Friedenshütten diary, 26 June 1769, item 1, folder 6, box 131; Zeisberger, , “History,” 80; Harrington, , “Preliminary Sketch,” 213.Google Scholar
25 Zeisberger, , “History,” 76.Google Scholar
26 Ibid.; Friedenshütten diary, 22 Feb. 1768, item 1, folder 5, box 131; Lawunkhannek diary, 12 Mar. 1770, item 1, folder 4, box 135, RMM; Schönbrunn and Gnadenhütten diary, 28 Feb. 1773, item 1, folder 2, box 1411.Google Scholar
27 Schönbrunn diary, 22 Apr. 1775, item 1, folder 4, box 1411; Gnadenhütten diary, 11 Sept. 1774, item 1, folder 4, box 144; Friedenshütten diary, 9 Sept. 1768, item 1, folder 5, box 131.Google Scholar
28 Friedenshütten diary, 8 Jan. 1769, item 1, folder 6, box 131; Schönbrunn diary, 8 Jan. 1775, item 1, folder 4, box 1411.Google Scholar
29 Schönbrunn diary, 22 May 1775, item 1, folder 4, box 1411. The Moravians told one woman seeking baptism that she must “neglect friends and children and everything that the Savior does not love” and “expect insult and enmity from such as these.” Friedenshütten diary, 3 Jan. 1767, item 1, folder 4, box 131.Google Scholar
30 For Glikhikan's family members, see Fliegel, Carl John, comp., Index to the Records of the Moravian Mission among the Indians of North America (Woodbridge, Conn., 1970), 1:150–51; and Fliegel catalog, folders 2 and 4, box 3191. Friedenshütten diary, 9 (quotation), 11, 12 Sept. 1768, item 1, folder 5, box 131. There were a few occasions when the Moravians rejected Indians who seemed to want to join the missions only to be with their family members. See Friedenshütten diary, 12 May 1770, item 1, folder 7, box 131. More often than not, however, the Moravians accepted Indians who had many family connections in the missions.Google Scholar
31 Heckewelder, , History, 116.Google Scholar
32 “Bruder Ettweins Bericht von seinem Besuch in Langunto Utenünk an d. Beaver Cr. u. Welhik Tuppeeck am Muskingum [?], 1772,” 12 Aug.-25 Sept. 1772, no. 115, Ettwein Papers.Google Scholar
33 Copy of letter from Johnson, Sir William, 18 Mar. 1768, item 14, folder 10, box 221, RMM; Friedenshütten diary, 5 Apr. and 17 July 1768, item 1, folder 5, box 131; Johann Schmick to Seidel, 14 Aug. 1768, item 16, folder 10, box 221; Friedenshütten diary, 5 and 19 June 1768, item 1, folder 5, box 131; Goschgoschunk diary, 10 June 1768, item 1, folder 1, box 135, RMM.Google Scholar
34 Friedenshütten diary, 26 Dec. 1770 (quotation), 15–16 Jan. and 31 Dec. 1770, item 1, folder 7, box 131; ibid., 2 and 4 Jan. 1771, item 1, folder 8, box 131; Schönbrunn and Gnadenhütten diary, 22 Dec. 1772, item 1, folder 2, box 1411; Gnadenhütten diary, 3–4 Jan. and 16 Feb. 1774, item 1, folder 2, box 144.Google Scholar
35 Friedenshütten diary, 18 and 22 Sept., 7 Oct. 1769, item 1, folder 6, box 131; Schönbrunn diary, 11 Jan 1774, item 1, folder 4, box 1411; Heckewelder, John to Seidel, , 28 Dec. 1776, item 5, folder 3, box 215.Google Scholar
36 Friedenshütten diary, 7, 9, and 17 Dec. 1769, item 6, folder 6, box 131; ibid., 7 Jan. and 20 Dec. 1770, item 1, folder 7, box 131; ibid., 18 Jan. 1771, item 1, folder 8, box 131; Schönbrunn diary, 4 Dec. 1775, item 1, folder 4, box 1411.Google Scholar
37 For details on the Revolutionary War experience, see Schutt, Amy C., “Forging Identities: Native Americans and Moravian Missionaries in Pennsylvania and Ohio, 1765–1782” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1995), chs. 6 and 7. On the massacre, see “A Brief Account of the Christian Indians formerly settled on the Muskingum River,” and “An Account of the Massacre at Gnadenhuetten, Ohio,” nos. 102 and 103, Ettwein Papers. For a published primary account of the Moravian mission during the Revolution, see Wellenreuther, Herman and Wessel, Carola, eds., Herrnhuter Indianermission in der Amerikanischen Revolution: Die Tagebücher von David Zeisberger 1772 bis 1781 (Berlin, 1995). For a recent study of the impact of the Revolution on native peoples, see Calloway, Colin G., The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (Cambridge, Eng., 1995).Google Scholar