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Women and Christian Practice in a Mahican Village

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Rachel Wheeler
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Extract

In August 1742, a little-known scene of the Great Awakening was unfolding in the Mahican villages that dotted the Housatonic Valley region of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. On August 10, the colorful Moravian leader, Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, arrived in the village of Shekomeko to check on the progress of the newly founded mission. Six months earlier, he had overseen the baptism of the first three villagers. Their baptized names—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—expressed the Moravians’ grand hopes that the men would be patriarchs to a new nation of believers. Zinzendorf was now in Shekomeko to witness as these three men assumed the Christian offices of elder, teacher, and exhorter. Twenty miles away and two days later, melancholic missionary David Brainerd preached the Presbyterian gospel of salvation in hopes of saving the residents of Pachgatgoch from Moravian heresy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 27 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2003

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References

Notes

The author wishes to thank a number of individuals and institutions. The NEH provided financial support, and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies provided an institutional home. Jon Butler, Bruce Forbes, Monica Siems, and Jace Weaver critiqued earlier versions of this essay. Irakly Chkhenkely helped with German translations.

1. Büttner Diary, December 11, 1743, box 111, folder 2, item 7 (here-after given in x/x/x format), Records of the Moravian Mission to the Indians, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (hereafter RMM). See also entry of same date, 111/1, RMM. Except where quoted, I have anglicized Christian names; for example, “Sara” is written as “Sarah,” “Rahel” as “Rachel.” Depending on the diarist, “Sara” was sometimes spelled “Sarah” in the original.

2. Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, September 9, 1746, 113/1/5, RMM. This letter is in the hand of Rachel's husband, Christian. It starts in broken German and shifts to broken English written in German script and according to German phonetics. Rachel had probably learned some English growing up in close proximity to English settlers. Post, a carpenter by trade, and native of Polish Prussia, knew little English at this time. For biographical information on Post, see Thomas Christopher Chase, “Christian Frederick Post, 1715-1785: Missionary and Diplomat to the Indians of America” (Ph.D. diss., Pennsylvania State University, 1982).

3. The term Mahican will be used throughout, although the term is problematic, suggesting as it does cultural homogeneity and sharply drawn political boundaries. Mahican tribal identity emerged as a response to colonialism; River Indians, Housatonics, Highland Indians, and Hudson River Mahicans confederated politically to deal with colonial governments and villages consolidated in the wake of epidemic disease and encroaching white settlement. Shekomekoans called themselves Mahican; Pachgatgoch identity is more difficult to determine. The Moravians listed the tribal identity of Pachgatgoch residents as Wampanosch, which has sometimes been taken to mean Wampanoag. However, Wampano means “Easterner” in most Algonquian languages and, thus, could refer to any individual or group who had come from the east. A nineteenth-century manuscript by Moravian missionary John Heckewelder suggests that the Wampanos might have been a branch of the River Indian Mahicans who earlier branched off from their Hudson River location and relocated to the vicinity of New Haven, preferring to live by the shore. If Heckewelder's sources were correct, then the Wampano and the Mahicans of Shekomeko were more closely related than previously understood. Heckewelder, John, Notes, Amendments, and Additions to His Account of the Indians (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1820), 3 Google Scholar. See also Salwen, Bert, “Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, ed. Trigger, Bruce G. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 175 Google Scholar. Throughout this article, to avoid excessive qualifications, I use “Mahican” as an umbrella term meant to include not only Mahican but also Wampanosh, Mennising, Sopus, and Highland, whose representatives could be found in these villages. While there were most certainly meaningful cultural distinctions represented by the different terms, it is very difficult to determine what these may have been.

4. Isaac's wife was also baptized that day and named Rebecca. Jacob's wife, Rachel, was baptized in December of that year. Shekomeko Diary, August 11 and December 12, 1742, 111/1, RMM.

5. Moravian records note that Amanariochque was first awakened by Brainerd's preaching. On that visit, Brainerd reported that God gave him “his presence and Spirit in prayer and preaching: so that I was much assisted, and spake with power from Job 14:14. Some Indians cried out in great distress, and all appeared greatly concerned.” Edwards, Jonathan, Life of Brainerd, ed. Petit, Norman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 176 Google Scholar.

6. The Moravian records contain very little that suggests one way or the other whether baptized villagers continued in the practice of traditional religion. There are occasional references to the continuation of traditional herbal healing and sweat lodges, neither of which the Moravians understood to be religious practices. Moravians generally tended to define Christianity in terms of feeling and ritual and less in terms of cultural practices, and so this restricted view of Christianity likely aided the coexistence of native and Christian religious practices, a coexistence that would not have been entirely unprecedented for most native peoples whose religions were nonexclusive. Religious “dimorphism,” as Jace Weaver has termed it (That the People Might Live: Native American Literature and Native American Community [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], vii-viii), has long been a characteristic of native religious practice. As much as we might like to know about the continuation of “traditional” religions in Moravian missions, the sources simply do not allow for such a study. My presumption is that many native “lifeways,” such as hunting and healing, continued as they had before the arrival of the missionaries, and that neither Mahican nor Moravian found contradiction in doing so. For references to the use of native remedies, see Moravian mission diary entries for November 3, 1750, 114/2, RMM; March 30, 1751, 114/3, RMM; and May 24, 1753, 112/3, RMM; for references to use of sweat lodges by men and women, see July 11, 1745, 111/1, RMM; October 11, 1750, 114/2, RMM; November 1, 1750, 114/2, RMM; and November 29, 1750, 114/2, RMM.

7. Among the most noteworthy of recent works on Native Americans and Christianity are: Treat, James B., ed., Native and Christian (New York: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar; Weaver, Jace, Native American Religious Identity: Unforgotten Gods (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998)Google Scholar; Kan, Sergei, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999)Google Scholar; and McNally, Michael, Ojibway Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

8. Berkhofer, Robert F., Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787-1862 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Beaver, R. Pierce, Church, State, and American Indians: Two and a Half Centuries of Partnership in Missions between Protestant Churches and Government (St. Louis: Concordia, 1966)Google Scholar; Bowden, Henry Warner, American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and McLoughlin, William G., Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

9. The emphasis on resistance to imperialism is not surprising given that many of these scholars came of age in the Vietnam era. Much excellent scholarship has come out of this line of inquiry Wallace, Anthony F. C. launched the field with his article, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 264-81Google Scholar, and his subsequent book, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Knopf, 1969). Several works have followed in the same rieh vein, including Dowd, Gregory Evans, Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Martin, Joel, Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees Struggle for a New World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Edmunds, R. David, The Shawnee Prophet (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

10. On native women, colonization, and Christianity, the foremost works include Etienne, Mona and Leacock, Eleanor, eds., Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives (New York: Praeger Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Silver-blatt, Irene, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Anderson, Karen, Chain Her by One Foot: The Subjugation of Women in Seventeenth-Century New France (New York: Routledge, 1991)Google Scholar; Devens, Carol, Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Missions, 1630-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Shoemaker, Nancy, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (New York: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar; and Perdue, Theda, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998)Google Scholar. The fall 1996 issue of Ethnohistory (43:4) is devoted to the encounters of native women and Christianity. Paula Strong's article in this issue, “Feminist Theory and the ‘Invasion of the Heart’” offers an especially cogent and useful review of work in the field. Etienne and Leacock's work employs a Marxist bent and interprets the advent of capitalism as the end of gender equality in native communities. Anderson finds that Christianity was a key element in establishing the subjugation of women to men in Huron and Montagnais communities. Devens studies the missions to Great Lakes Indians as one aspect of the colonization process and finds three possible responses to Christianity: native peoples (1) rejeeted it as a threat to tribal lifeways, (2) aecommodated Christianity grudgingly in the face of dire economic conditions, or (3) divided along gender lines when the mission or economic circumstances affected men and women differently. Women's engage-ment with Christianity is understood as the conscious manipulation of a tool. Devens, Countering Colonization, 3-4, 21.

11. Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975)Google Scholar; for a more concise summary of Jennings's views of missions, see his “Goals and Functions of Puritan Missions to the Indians,” Ethnohistory 18 (1971): 197-212. See also Ronda, James, “‘We Are Well as We Are’: An Indian Critique of Seventeenth-Century Missions,” William and Mary Quarterly 34 (1977): 66–82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Salisbury, Neal, “Red Puritans: The ‘Praying Indians’ of Massachusetts Bay and John Eliot,” William and Mary Quarterly 31 (January 1974): 27–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. James Axtell has written much on the subject of missions, the most encompassing of which is The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). For a relatively recent reevaluation of New England missions, see Van Lonkhuyzen, Harold W., “A Reappraisal of the Praying Indians: Acculturation, Conversion, and Identity at Natick, Massachusetts, 1646-1730,” New England Quarterly 63 (1990): 396–428 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. This is not to suggest that the missionaries are not in fact legitimate definers of Christianity, but only that it is a mistake to attempt to measure the “authenticity” of native Christianity by the extent to which it reproduces the Christianity taught and practiced by the missionaries.

13. The Moravian sources are unique in allowing such a study of lay Indian Christianity in the eighteenth Century. Even the rieh Jesuit sources do not compare to Moravian sources for depth of detail about individual lives. David Hall has been at the forefront of the movements to study first “populär religion” and, more recently, “lived religion.” His recent edited volume contains essays by many of his students. Hall, David D., ed., Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Inga Clendinnen's work on colonial Mexico presents a fine model for the study of local and lived religion in a native context. She argues against a “belief analysis” approach to the study of religion and proposes instead to seek religion in action and observances, or “religion as performed.” Clendinnen, Inga, “Ways to the Sacred: Reconstructing ‘Religion’ in Sixteenth-Century Mexico,” History and Anthropology 4 (1990): 105-41Google Scholar (quote 110).

14. Brown, Anne and Hall, David, “Family Strategies and Religious Practice: Baptism and the Lord's Supper in Early New England,” in Lived Religion, ed. Hall, , 41–68 Google Scholar (quote 50).

15. For a history of the Moravian Church from its Hussite origins, see De Schweinitz, Edmund, The History of the Church Known as the Unitas Fratrum, 2d ed. (Bethlehem: Moravian Publication Concern, 1901)Google Scholar; and Rican, Rudolf, The History of the Unity ofBrethren: A Protestant Hussite Church in Bohemia and Moravia, Crews, C. Daniel, trans. (Bethlehem and Winston-Salem: Moravian Church in America, 1992)Google Scholar. For general treatments of the German Pietist movement, see Stoeffler, F. Ernest, German Pietism during the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1973)Google Scholar; Stoeffler, F. Ernest, Continental Pietism and Early American Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976)Google Scholar; and Ward, W. R., The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Pietism and the Moravians, see John Jacob Sessler, Communal Pietism among the Early American Moravians (New York: H. Holt and Co., 1933). Sessler and Ward both suggest that the Moravian missions were in part the result of their strained relations with princes and pulpits at home. For more recent studies of the Moravian movement in America, see Gollin, Gillian Lindt, Moravians in Two Worlds: A Study of Changing Communities (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; and Smaby, Beverly Prior, The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem: From Communal Mission to Family Economy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Early Moravian histories of the missions tend not to be as triumphalist as their Anglo-Protestant counterparts. On Moravian mission efforts in America, see Loskiel, George H., History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians of North America, Latrobe, Christian Ignatius, trans. (London: Brethren's Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, 1794)Google Scholar; and Heckewelder, John, A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians, from Its Commencement, in the Year 1740, to the Close ofthe Year 1808 (Philadelphia: McCarty and Davis, 1820)Google Scholar. More recent scholar-ship on the missions includes Gray, Elma, Wilderness Christians: The Moravian Mission to the Delaware Indians (New York: Russell and Russell, 1953)Google Scholar; and Olmstead, Earl P., Blackcoats among the Delaware: David Zeisberger on the Ohio Frontier (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991)Google Scholar. Jon Sensbach explores Moravian relations with African Americans, in Sensbach in his A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). A couple of recent dissertations and recent articles have made substantial use of the Moravian mission sources in the writing of Indian history. Amy Schutt, “Forging Identities: Native Americans and Moravian Missionaries in Pennsylvania and Ohio, 1765-1782” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1995); Schutt, Amy, “Tribal Identity in the Moravian Missions on the Susquehanna,” Pennsylvania History 66 (1999): 378-98Google Scholar; Jane Merritt, “Kinship, Community, and Practicing Culture: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Pennsylvania, 1700-1763” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1995); Merritt, Jane, “Dreaming of the Savior's Blood: Moravians and the Indian Great Awakening in Pennsylvania,” William and Mary Quarterly 54 (1997): 723-46Google Scholar; and Merritt, Jane, “Cultural Encounters along a Gender Frontier: Mahican, Delaware, and German Women in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania History 67 (2000): 502-31Google Scholar.

17. When missionary Christian Rauch went on a scouting trip to Mohawk territory in January 1743, he found “it was common talk every where that we were papists.” It was feared the Moravians’ missionary work was simply a ruse and a way to win the natives to their side, which, once effected, the Moravians would “war with them [the Indians] against the other inhabitants and help deliver the land into the hands of the Spaniards.” Christian Rauch, undated recollections of a journey into Mohawk country, 221/4/1, RMM. Several missionaries were arrested in Connecticut in 1743. During questioning, an Anglican minister took issue with Moravian methods of instructing the Indians, claiming they were “erroneous, dangerous and papistlike.” The minister feared Moravians made “ignorance the Mother of Religion as the Romans do.” John Christopher Pyrlaeus’ account of his arrest and trial, June 1743, 111/9/1, RMM. Shekomeko missionary Gottlob Büttner was held in New York in 1744 following the renewal of hostilities between England and France. During his trial, Büttner was asked why he had not gone to teach among the papists. Rumor circulated that the Moravians had received a shipment of guns and powder from the French. English translation of a report of Gottlob Büttner's trial at New York in a letter to Peter Böhler, August 13, 1744, 112/3/5, RMM. Gottlob Büttner's diary entry June 5, 1744, 112/2/3, RMM. For another reference to Büttner and charges of papacy, see Büttner's diary entry October 17, 1744, 112/19/5, RMM.

18. This issue was in fact a major cause of Zinzendorf's break with the Pietists. For Nicholaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf's views on love as the primary experience of faith, see his lecture “Concerning Saving Faith,” in Nine Public Lecures on Important Subjects in Religion, trans. and ed. George W. Forell (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1973), 34—42. See also Sessler, Communal Pietism, 142.

19. Missionary Martin Mack recorded his feelings as he neared Shekomeko, “My heart longed very much after Checomeco so that I could not sleep in the night being so near to it.” Mack's colleague, John Pyrlaeus, reported that his heart nearly broke when he met his Mahican hosts. “One cannot help loving them. … I am heartily willing even to remain among them.” “A Short Acct of Brother Martin Mack's Journey to Checomeco and Back to Bethlehem,” November 1745, 217/12b/2, RMM. Pyrlaeus, June 1743, 111/9/1, RMM. Although Moravian mission policy accords better with modern sensibilities, it would be misguided to uphold these missionaries as protomulticulturalists. Their relatively nonaggressive proselytizing stemmed less from an appreciation of the innate worth of Indian culture than from the particular historical and political circumstances in which they labored.

20. Gary Kinkel has explored Zinzendorf's feminine imagery in Our Dear Mother the Spirit: An Investigation of Count Zinzendorf's Theology and Praxis (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1990). Much of this imagery can be found throughout Christian history. Caroline Walker Bynum has argued for an understanding of medieval Christian art as centrally tied to ideas of family and sustenance, especially as indicated by the association of Mary's breast milk and Jesus’ spilled blood as nourishment. See especially Bynum, Caroline Walker, “The Body of Christ in the Middle Ages: An Answer to Leo Steinberg,” in her collection of essays, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1991)Google Scholar.

21. A recent and balanced treatment of this rieh body of Moravian religious expression is Craig Atwood, “Blood, Sex and Death in Zinzendorf's Bethlehem” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1995). Sessler's Communal Pietism contains many lengthy quotes from original Moravian sources. A few verses from hymns used in the Mahican missions aptly illustrate Moravian wounds theology as presented at the missions:

Make thou for these dear little Souls
a fine soft bed in thy wound Holes
and in the wound within thy side,
there let them sleep, eat, drink and hide.
(Fürbitte für Kinder, 331/3, RMM)
My Lamb! I thank thee heartily
that thou didst die upon the Tree,
and wert so wounded for my soul
and gotst within thy Side a Hole.
Where now a sinner rests so well,
and can with Tears of Pleasure tell
he on the Cross, my Lamb God!
And I live only thro’ his Blood.
O wounded Head, o through-bor'd Feet,
O hands and Side, you are so sweet!
Be only still more dear to me.
O Lamb! Where is a Lamb like Thee!
(English Verses #26, 331/3, RMM)

22. A common Moravian practice through which the will of the Savior was sought on issues mundane and grand. On the use of the lot, see Smaby, The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem, 23-24.

23. Numerous anti-Moravian tracts were published in the 1740s that offen called attention to the Moravian “delusion” of experiencing the nearness of Christ. See especially Finley, Samuel, Satan Strip'd ofHis Angelick Robe: Being the Substance of Several Sermons Preach'd at Philadelphia, January 1742-3 from 2 Thessalonians 2.11,12. Shewing, the Strength, Nature, and Symptoms of Delusion. With an Application to the Moravians (Philadelphia: W. Bradford, 1743)Google Scholar; Tennent, Gilbert, The Necessity of Holding Fast the Truth (Boston, 1742)Google Scholar; and Tennent, Gilbert, Some Account of the Principles of the Moravians: chiefly collected from several conversations with Count Zinzendorf; andfrom some sermons preached by him at Berlin, and published in London (London, 1743)Google Scholar.

24. Grant, John Webster, Moon of Wintertime: Missionaries and the Indians of Canada in Encounters since 1534 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), chap. 11Google Scholar.

25. The most complete ethnography of the Mahicans remains Ted Brasser's Riding on the Frontier's Crest: Mahican Indian Culture and Cultural Change (Ottowa: National Museums of Canada, 1974). Kathleen Bragdon discusses the marriage practices of southern New England native peoples in her Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), see esp. chaps. 3 and 7.

26. Bragdon, Native People, esp. chap. 1.

27. Robert Steven Grumet discusses women's signatures on deeds among Coastal Algonquians in “Sunksquaws, Shamans, and Tradeswomen: Middle Atlantic Coastal Algonkian Women during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Women and Colonization, ed. Etienne and Leacock, 43-62. A 1735 deed from Mauhammetpeet and Mequnnisqua, women of Scaticook, to the Province of Massachusetts Bay conveyed a significant parcel of land that would eventually sprout ten towns. A confirmation of the women's ownership of the land was signed by nineteen men of the Scaticooks three days before the deed itself. Another deed from Nechehoosqua, a Scaticook woman, deeded land “north of Fort Dummer” for £100 in bills of credit to Jeremiah Allen of Boston “and to his Successor or Successors in Trust for the use and Benefit of Said Province for ever.” Henry Andrew Wright, Indian Deeds of Hampden County (Springfield, Mass., 1905), 120-30.

28. Van der Donck noted, “The Indians also affirm, that before the arrival of the Christians, and before the small pox broke out amongst them, they were ten times as numerous as they now are, and that their population had been melted down by this disease, whereof ninetenths of them have died.” Van der Donck, Adraien, A Description of the New Netherlands (1655; repr., Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1968), 64 Google Scholar. Almost a century later, in 1734, Ebeneezer Poohpoonuc, the first to be baptized at the Stockbridge mission, lamented that, “since my remembrance, there were Ten Indians, where there is now One,” while “the Christians greatly increase and multiply, and spread over the Land.” Appleton, Nathaniel, Gospel Ministers Must Be Fit for The Master's Use (Boston: S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1735), iv Google Scholar.

29. Brasser, Riding on the Frontier's Crest, 29. Adraien van der Donck's account of the Mahican and Delaware was first published in 1655. Van der Donck, A Description of the New Netherlands, 79. A sketch of Shekomeko done in 1745 by Moravian missionary Johannes Hagen seems to confirm this pattern. All of the dwellings depicted are single family (112/17/1, RMM).

30. In 1722, the Mahican chief Ompamit lodged a complaint with Governor Burnet of New York “that many of our people are obliged to hire land of the Christians at a very dear rate, and to give half the com for rent, and the other half they are tempted by rum to sell.” O'Callaghan, Edmund Bailey and Fermow, Berthold, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany, 1856-1887), vol. 5, 661-63Google Scholar. Missionary John Sergeant of Stockbridge noted the small numbers assembled to hear him preach, explaining “the men were gone into New York Government, to reap for the Dutch people there.” Hopkins, Samuel, Historical Memoirs Relating to the Housatonic Indians (Boston: S. Kneeland, 1753), 31 Google Scholar. The early Moravian records make frequent reference to village residents working for the Dutch and selling mats, baskets, wooden bowls, and canoes to European neighbors. Interestingly, a scan of the Index to the Moravian records demonstrates that there are far more references to selling manufactured goods than game or skins.

31. On marriage practices among the seventeenth-century Delaware and Mahican, see van der Donck, A Description of the New Netherlands, 84. David Zeisberger reported on late eighteenth-century Delaware marriage customs in his History of the North American Indians, ed. Archer Butler Hulbert (Columbus: Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society, 1910), 78-82. John Heckewelder comments on the nature of Delaware marriage customs in History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States, rev. ed. by W. C. Reichel (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1876), 154-58.

32. Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 10-12.

33. Both Heckewelder and Zeisberger depict these guardian spirits as the province of boys and men and it is unclear whether women had similar experiences, though Zeisberger may have used the male pronouns to include men and women. It seems likely that both men and women could have guardian spirits, though they would presumably function to quite different ends. Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 245-48; Hulbert, Zeisberger's History, 132-33.

34. For a discussion of Moravian mysticism, see Stoeffler, F. Ernest, Mysticism in the German Devotional Literature of Colonial Pennsylvania (Allen-town: Schlechter's for the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, 1950), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar.

35. Brasser, Riding on the Frontier's Crest, 29.

36. The grandmother's identity as sachem cannot be fully proved, but the evidence is highly suggestive. A document in the Moravian records, written in support of Abraham's efforts to persuade the New York officials to make good on a previous transaction, details the tragic history of Abraham's family and how he came to be among the sole survivingheirs of the land. His grandmother, Mammanochqua, was cited as the owner of the lands including Shekomeko, who, during a great epidemic of sixty years earlier (1683), was prompted to try to secure land for her descendents. Robert Grumet cites evidence of a woman sachem of the Esopus named Mamanuchqua who signed several deeds in the 1670s and 1680s. Additionally, it makes more sense that as sachem, Abraham's grandmother was attempting to preserve tribal lands, rather than family lands. The land including Shekomeko may well have been traditional hunting territory of the Esopus. Brasser suggests a date of 1711 for the founding of the village of Shekomeko. Further, one of the witnesses to Abraham's right to the land cited in the Moravian records was Cornelius, or Gadrachseth, listed as the “Old Captain,” likely the former chief of Shekomeko, who often traveled to the Hudson to confer with other Mahican leaders. Memorandum dated October 1743, 113/5/3, RMM. Grumet, “Sunksquaws, Shamans, and Tradeswomen,” 43-62. Brasser, Riding on the Frontier's Crest, 67. See Shekomeko records dated February 15 and February 21, 1743, 111/2/1, RMM.

37. It might also suggest the differing traditions of the Wampano, as Bragdon suggests that the record is unclear on whether coastal southern New England peoples were matrilineal or patrilineal. Bragdon, Native People, 158-60. Additionally, there would have been quite a mix of varying tribal traditions among the residents of Shekomeko. According to the Moravian records, residents at Shekomeko included Mahican as well as “Wampanosch,” “Sopus,” “Highland,” and “Mennissing.” See Carl John Fliegel's translation of the Moravian catalogs of Indian residents, located at 3191/2/1, RMM.

38. If David Zeisberger's account of Delaware practices holds true for Mahican society as well, Sarah was likely born around 1705 at the latest. According to Zeisberger, Delaware men generally married when they were between eighteen and twenty and women at fourteen or fifteen. Sarah and Abraham had several sons of marriageable age when the Moravians arrived in Shekomeko. Their son David himself had a son who died in 1744 (no date is given for his birth). Son Jonathan married Anna in 1744. Son Joachim married Catharina sometime in the early 1740s. So, if the oldest of Sarah's children was twenty in 1740 and she had married at fourteen, she would have been born in 1705. Hulbert, Zeisberger's History, 82-83. Fliegel, Carl John, Index to Records of the Moravian Mission among the Indians of North America (New Haven: Research Publications, 1970)Google Scholar.

39. Memorandum dated October 1743, 113/5/3, RMM.

40. John Sergeant reported on Mamma'tnikan's visit to Stockbridge in April of 1739. In Mamma'tnikan's vision, as reported to Sergeant, a roar of rushing water filled his ears and he saw before him a group of Indians drunk and naked and unable to escape the onrushing water. A voice told him he must give up all wickedness. The vision continued, a strong light shone all about him, and he heard “a noise like the blowing of a pair of bellows” followed by “a violent blast of wind which dispersed the Indians into the air.” Awakening from the vision, Mamma'tnikan resolved to give up drink and seek knowledge of Christianity. John Sergeant diary entries dated April 14 and June 17,1739, Stiles Papers, Beinecke Library, New Haven, Conn. John Sergeant made at least one visit to Shekomeko, as recorded in the Shekomeko Diary for October 1743, 111/1, RMM. The first meeting between Mamma'tnikan and the Moravians is found in the Shekomeko diary, July 1740, 111/1, RMM.

41. Büttner Diary [Eng.], December 11, 1743, 111/2/7, RMM. “Erzehlte Sara, daßihr ganz besonders etliche Tage daher gewesen sie wäre nämlich zu erst sehr bekümmert gewesen wie sie doch mit dem Heylande stünde, und hätte ihn gebetten 3 nachten hinter einander. Er möchte ihr doch zu erkennen geben wie ihr Herze mit ihm stünde endlich wären, ihr ein mahl die Wunden des Heylandes, so klar und so lebendig geworden, und hätten ihr ein solch gefühl im Herzen verursacht daß sie dächte wenn ihr zu der Zeit iemand Stücke vom Leibe Geißre, sie hätte es nicht gefühlt, ihr Augen hätten zwar die Wunden nicht gesehen aber ihr Herze hätte eine solche Kraft daran gefühlt als ob sie selbige wircklich sähe.” December 11, 1743, 111/1, RMM.

42. This account was taken down by Rachel's husband, Christian Post, who was a joiner by trade and wrote with little punctuation, capitalization, or attention to grammar. “Sie sagt sie wäre so sehr sindig und elend sie wiste nicht warums sie der Heiland so lieb hätte es wäre wohl umb seines Blut und der Wunden willen womit er sie erkauft hat beim eintrit in den sah! ists ihr gewesen als hat einer mit heissen wasser Übergossen sie hat nicht gefühlt ob sie auf den boden trete oder in der luft schwebte es ist ihr so gewesen als wen sie vor gott treten in sein haus. Sie hat gefült als wen der lieb heiland mit seinem engelkens bey sie gesessen wir wohin zeit und Ewigkeit eure armen sinder sein.” Letter from Rachel, 219/1/7, RMM.

43. “Die Manhat [Abraham's mother] selbsten wurde in den damaligen krigen zwischen denen Englishen und Franzen, von denen Franz Maquaischen Indianen gefangen und Todt geschlagen.” Memorandum on Abraham's Land, 113/5, RMM.

44. Van der Donck, A Descrvption of the New Netherlands, 99-101; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 217-19; and Hulbert, ed., Zeisberger's History, 102-8. Daniel Richter discusses the meaning of this practice extensively in The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 33-36, 66-71 and in an article, “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly 40 (1983): 528-59. John Steckley has written provocatively and persuasively on the ways in which Jesuit missionaries used Iroquois and Huron torture practices as a basis for conveying Christian themes. Steckley, “The Warrior and the Lineage: Jesuit Use of Iroquoian Images to Communicate Christianity,” Ethnohistory 39, no. 4 (1992): 478-509. On stoic suffering, see especially Steckley, “The Warrior,” 491-94. For a discussion of women's roles in torture, see Anderson, Chain Her by One Foot, 169-78. Anderson interprets women's participation in the torture of captives as a means of releasing pent up aggression fueled by a restrictive society in which expressions of anger were forbidden. Theda Perdue offers an insightful analysis of the changing meaning of Cherokee women's participation in war, especially their central role in deciding the fate of captives. Perdue, Cherokee Women, 49-55, 66-69.

45. Quoted from Heckewelder's notes for a never published revised edition of his An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations. Heckewelder, Notes, Amendments, and Additions to His Account of the Indians, 11-12.

46. An entry of the Shekomeko diary reads in part “die geschwister im Hauße hatten heute ein sehr geseegnetes Streitermahl.” October 2, 1743, 111/1, RMM. In hymns written for use in the Mahican missions (often with the assistance of the Mahican couple, Joshua and Bathsheba), Christ's cross is frequently referred to as a tree. This booklet of hymns contains German, English, and Mahican versions. There seems to be some correspondence between the European language and Mahican language hymns. A few of the Mahican hymns have the German translation interlineated, while many are written in Mahican alone.

Behold the loving son of God
Strech'd out upon the Tree,
behold him shedding forth his blood for all of you and me.
(English Verses #25, 331/3, RMM)
(2) The Blood Sweat trickling down thy Face,
assure my Heart of purchased Grace.
Thy Cross, thy suffrings and thy Pain
my everlasting Strength Remain.
(3) Cleanse me and wash me in thy Blood,
then only Thine I'll be;
Create me Thine, and I will have
no other Lord but thee.
(English Verses #28, 331/3, RMM)

There is some evidence that such depictions resonated with Indian neophytes. Nicodemus, a Wampano Indian from Shekomeko who made the move to Gnadenhütten near Bethlehem, reported to the missionaries a dream in which he saw Jesus in a tree and kissed his wounds. “Nicodemus und Eva besuchten uns und erzehlten unterschiedliche Instanzen der Arbeit des Lämleins an ihren Herzen, sonderlich auch wie letztere in Träume den Heiland am Baume gesehen und seine durchstochene Seite geküßet haben.” January 6, 1748, Gnadenhütten Diary, 116/3/1, RMM.

47. In a chapter on war, Theda Perdue explores the changes to traditional Cherokee gender roles in the pursuit of war that accompanied the economic and political transformations begun during the colonial era. She suggests that women were often vulnerable to raiding warriors as they worked in the fields. If they were not immediately killed, they were more apt to be adopted than tortured. On the other side of the battle lines, women had once “avenged the deaths of their relatives personally through torture, but by the late eighteenth century torture had waned.” Perdue, Cherokee Women, chap. 4 (quote 90).

48. Traditionally, women, too, likely placed a high value on stoicism, though the occasions for demonstrating stoicism and gaining power thereby would have been private (childbirth) rather than public (warfare and torture). Some scholars have suggested that the nearly universal European assumption that Indian women gave birth with far less pain than European women is largely a function of a cultural imperative of stoicism. Axtell, James, ed., The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 3 Google Scholar. Roger Williams noted of the Narragansett that “most of them count it a shame for a Woman in Travell to make complaint, and many of them are scarcely heard to groane.” Quoted in Bragdon, Native People, 175. On the spiritual powers gained through suffering, Perdue writes, “Although women could not avoid the physical and spiritual dangers brought on by menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, they could gain a spiritual power through these trials.” Perdue, Cherokee Women, 32-36.

49. For Moravian conference minutes from Shekomeko, see, for example, 112/5/3, RMM which contains conference minutes from June 1744—January 1745. One entry dated September 20, 1744, reads, “Ruth sagte sie feilte in Ihren Herzen das Boas so lange er so wäre sie nicht kb'nde lieben und sie wolte nicht mehr zu ihnen, sondern alleine bleiben”; several days later, the minutes noted, “Cornelius hat gestern Ruth in seinem Hause gefunden und erfahren daß sie wieder von ihrem Mann geschlagen und weg gejagt worden”; December 9, 1744, reads, “Cornelius seine Fr. hat bey der Sara sich sehr beklagt über ihren Mann”; January 1, 1745, reads, “Petrus wurde verklagt das er sich auf der Jagt gegen sein Weib schlecht hat mit gefahrtet.”

50. I have yet to find any discussion of the process by which delegates were chosen to serve on the committee, but it is apparent that it was the Christian members in good standing who most often served. At times, these were people who were apparently prominent members of the community even before the arrival of the Moravians. But it is also clear that the Moravians helped to disrupt traditional patterns of authority. Many native communities experienced a new factionalism between Christians and non-Christians. See, for example, Daniel K. Richter, “Iroquois versus Iroquois: Jesuit Missions and Christianity in Village Politics, 1642-1686,” Ethnohistory 32, no. 1 (1985): 1-16. James Axtell also deals extensively with this question in The Invasion Within.

51. For example, Heckewelder comments, “Although the Indians have no code of laws for their government, their chiefs find little or no difficulty in governing them.” And further, he writes, “it may justly be a subject of wonder, how a nation without a written code of laws or system of jurisprudence, without any form or constitution of government, and without even a single elective or hereditary magistrate, can subsist together in peace and harmony, and in the exercise of the moral virtues.” He goes on to attribute the smooth operation of society to “the pains which the Indians take to instill at an early age honest and virtuous principles upon the minds of their children, and to the method which they pursue in educating them.” In this task, parents were assisted by all members of the Community, who employed public praise and scorn to shape behavior. Such education would have been largely the province of women. Heckewelder, , History, Manners, and Customs, 107, 113-14Google Scholar.

52. Conference minutes from 1744 show Sarah particularly active in domestic disputes. On June 10, Sarah recommended that Eva continue to live in the house with Sarah's son David and his wife, Anna. On June 17, she reported on Martha's desire to move to Shekomeko from Potatik in order to find a husband. On December 16, Sarah brought forward Rebecca's complaint that Susanna was her husband's “kebs weih” (concubine). She also reported on Ester's spiritual condition, saying sometimes she was very happy and others, she was “sehr elend” and that her mother often bothered her. On December 23, Sarah's daughter-in-law, Anna, reported that she had often prayed to the Savior for her husband, Jonathan, to return. Worker's Conference Minutes, 112/5/3, RMM.

A sampling of the Gnadenhütten diary for 1752 for all references to Sarah suggests Sarah's continued community work. On January 12, she is list-ed as conference member. January 17, she visits homes of Christians. Febru-ary 7, she offers advice to parents on education of children. February 12, March 11, and June 4, Sarah serves as “Jungerin” or disciple. July 26, she re-ports the spiritual desires of a relative. August 15, she helps a sick woman. September 14, she visits Christians. September 29, she pleads on behalf of an old friend. September 20, she makes housecalls. Gnadenhütten Diary, January-December 1752, 117/3, RMM.

53. “Sie wolte gerne des heyland sein, und warum sie sich nicht lange schon hingegeben, als die brüder von hier abgereist sind und ihr man auch hier war ist sie allein in Potatcoch geblieben, ist aber unruhig gewesen, das sie den aus gangen in der unruhe hat sie eine kastangen bäum gesehen so ist die gemein in Schecomeko wie die viele baumchen von einer art und sie war so alleine mit solchen schweren Herzen soll sie den verlangte her getaufft zu werden, wen sie auch solte nach bethlehem gehen, es mächte ihr auch kosten was es wolle.” March 31, 1745, 112/15, RMM.

54. One suspects that the missionaries in selecting conference members tended to give precedence to those villagers who were respected Christians and whom they perceived as holding political sway in the Community. Rebecca and Jacob would have met the first criterion, but not the second. “Rebecca hat gesacht was das sein solte sie kennte es nicht verstehen, daß Sara solte die Perschon sein der sie solte ihr Herz sagen, und wiste auch nicht was die Konferenz wäre.” Conference minutes, April 11, 1745, 112/15, RMM.

55. “Abraham, Jacob, Sara kommen zu mir und sagten das Isaac d. 29 May den ganzen tag in Wirts Hause gewesen wäre und gesoffen als er war zu Hause gekommen hatte er sehr [illeg.] und geruffen daß er wolte der Johannes tod schiessen, und gegen die Gemeine in Bethl. gerrede. Abraham sagte mir auch das mir Johannes viel schäme sagte erzehlte es weren aber alles [illeg.] sie fragten mich ob sie solten mit Isaac alleine reden oder ob ich auch wolte dar bey sein. Ich sagte ihnen aber das sei alleine solten mit ihm reden, (der Heyl. woltens das sie solten alein mit ihm reden).” Conference minutes, June 4, 1745, 112/8, RMM.

56. “Sarah ging mit ihren herzen heraus, nemlich daß sie allezeit die Gedancken von sich gehabt, sie hätte den Heiland lieb, und stünde gut mit ihr: Nun aber sehe sie daß ihr herz an der Erde und ihren Kindern gehangen.” Shekomeko Diary, August 7, 1745, 111/1 RMM.

57. The community had been in flux as the Moravians came under increasing suspicion due to the renewal of colonial hostilities and as Shekomeko residents felt ever greater pressure from an increasing population of New Yorkers. The Moravians secured land from the Delaware about thirty miles from Bethlehem, and most Shekomekoans eventually relocated to the Pennsylvania site. The dislocation and cramped quarters facilitated a devastating epidemic which claimed the lives of many Shekomekoans. Gnadenhütten Diary, April 22,1747,116/1, RMM.

58. Actually, he sought to stay in Wechquadnach, another Mahican village in New York, near Shekomeko where some of the villagers moved following the dissolution of Shekomeko.

59. “Die Abrahams Sarah wurde mit einem Söhngen entbunden…. Abraham verlangte auch daß sein Kind möchte getaufft werden, desgleichen äusserte sich auch die Sara gegen die Esther und sagte, sie wäre wohl sehr arm und hätte sich versündigt am Heiland und der Gemeine ah sie noch in Shecomeko gewesen wäre, doch würde sie vor eine große Gnade halten wenn ihr Kind könte getaufft werden ihr Herz und Sinn wäre, es solte des Hlds ganz seyn…. Die Sarah sagte sie hätte schon viel geweint über die Kind, und weil sie so schlecht stände, so hätte sie immer gedacht, daß Kind würden wir wol nicht tauffen. Sie würde aber den Heiland sehr davor dancken, wenn es die Gnade haben könnte.” Gnadenhütten Diary, May 6-8, 1747,116/1, RMM.

60. A 1749 list of farmland assigned in Gnadenhütten includes Abraham and his three sons, David, Joachim, and Jonathan. September 2, 1749, 119/1/4, RMM. Lists of communicants from the same year include Abraham and Sarah, David and Sarah, Jonathan and Anna, but not Joachim. December 17, 1749, 119/2/1, RMM. A similar list from 1752 includes all three couples. January 15, 1752, 119/2/3, RMM.

61. “Jonathan aber läge ihr sehr am Herzen und er habe sie in Shecomeco recht zur Gemeine getriben und gesagt: Mutter wenn wir hier bleiben, so werden wir alle verdammt: und nun komme er nicht, so fürchte sie, er werde verdammt werden.” Gnadenhütten Diary, May 29, 1747, 116/1, RMM. The Moravian records contain numerous references to dying parent exhorting family members to remain faithful after their death so that they would be reunited. Jonathan himself had once found comfort when his premature child died by believing that “it's near to the wounds, and if we continue faithful to our Savior we shall see it again with him.” Letter from Brother Jonathan, 319/2/19, RMM. Similarly, Gideon of Pachgatgoch sent his greetings to his daughter Christina and other friends and family, exclaiming, “What a blessed and happy time this will be when we shall come together and meet one another there above, when we are gone home to our Savior for to live with him for ever. That will be a great happiness to us.” Letter from Gideon, 319/3/9, RMM.

62. “Maria und Mackin Hessen sie rufen, die Mary bezeugte ihr herzliches mitleiden, und daß sie es selbst erfahren wie einen Mutter Herzen sey wenn ihre Kinder den Hld nicht annehmen wolten. Sie erzehlte ihr wie sie von Lämmlein sey getröstet vor den, nemlich sie habe ihr Kind dem der sie gemacht und denn gekauft, in seine Hand gegeben, weil er die Seelen doch lieber habe als alle Väter und alle Mütter. Denn wurde ihr von den 2 Kindern gesagt, und wie der größte den kleinen weg geführt. Man konte es ihr ansehen wie nah es ihr ging.” Pachgatgoch Diary, May 29, 1747, 116/1, RMM. Johanna (Jannetje) Rau Mack was the daughter of Johannes Rau whose farm lay just two miles from Shekomeko. As a child, Jannetje had spent enough time with her Mahican neighbors to learn their language. Martin Mack was sent to Shekomeko in 1742 to assist missionaries Rauch and Büttner. He and Jannetje were soon married.

63. For a discussion of the duties of a captain, see Hulbert, ed., Zeisberger's History, 100-101. The Iroquois had been seeking for some time to settle allied Indians in this area. In 1745, Abraham had decided not to move to Wyoming for fear that it lay on the war path of the Flat-heads (Catawbas) and that the Indians there lived immoral lives. For Abraham's view of the move, see Shekomeko diary entries dated, May 30, June 1, and June 16, 1745, 111/1, RMM. In the fall of 1753, Abraham was named to be a Mahican captain. In a conference between Delaware and Mahicans in April 1753, Abraham deposit-ed several strings of wampum, the first of which read: “Ich bin 7 Jahr wie ein Kind herumgegangen und habe keine Chiefs gehabt und habe euch meine Freunde auch nicht gesehen. Ich habe auf euren alten Plaz die 7 Jahr beym Kleinen feuer gewohnt. Dieser Herbst aber bin ich zu meinen alter Plaz beym Mahikan hingegangen da habe ich einer Chiefs gesehen. Die Mahikander haben dran gedacht daß hier in Gnadenh. auch ein Chief'seyn soll mit Nahmen Mamanetthekan [Abraham]. Dieser Mamanetthekan hat um sich der Zeit beym feuer gesaßen und den Weg hinaufgesehen der diesen Sommer gemacht ist und da hat er meine Freunde die Nantikoks Scha-wanohs und Deleware gesehen.” Gnadenhütten Diary, April 5, 1753, 119/1/9, RMM. Abraham felt he must go, though he feared the conditions there would not be conducive to a Christian Community. “Den Vormittag sprach Br. Martin mit dem Alten Abraham, der unter andern erzehlte, daß seine Gedancken doch ein bißgen stärcker nach Wajomick gingen als in Gnadenhütten, und das darum, weil sies den Nantikoks und Shawanohs versprochen hätten, er fürchte, es möchte sonst was schlimmes geraus kommen, wenn sie nicht gingen.” Gnadenhütten Diary, March 2,1754,118/1, RMM. Abraham knew his wife did not want to accom-pany him and he requested that the Brethren let her stay with them. Sarah in-sisted on following her husband. “Nachhero brachte br. Abraham seine Worte daß er nun resolvirt wäre, nach Wajomick zu ziehen, und bat zugleich wehmüthig ab, womit er bishero die Brr. betrübt hätte. Er hafte, wenn er nach Wajomick käme, würde er nichts anders treiben als die lehre von Jesu Marter, wir solten ihn lieb behalten, seine Frau könte er mit guten Gewissen nicht mitnehmen weil sie auch lieber wolte hier bleiben. Er bat auch, die Gemeinen wolte sich seiner Frau annehmen, und sie in ihrer Pflege behalten. Er wünschte nur noch eins, daß ihm die Brr. möchten von thun, wenn er nach Wajomick käme, wo er wohnen solte, ob er unter den Shawanos, diejezo da wohnten, wohnen solte, oder aber alleine wo an einen Ort wohnen solte.” Gnadenhütten Diary, March 13, 1754, 118/1, RMM.

64. “Sarah sagte: ich will beym Hld bleiben, und Ihn lieb behalten, dabey vergoß sie noch viel Thränen. dann namen sie von uns Herzl. Abschied, und gingen mit ihren Kindern zu Mittag am ersten fort. Die mehresten folgten ihnen bald nach, einige aber blieben nach der Tag hier. Der Abzug war betrübt zu sehen.” Gnadenhütten Diary, April 24, 1754, 118/1, RMM; Meniolagomekah Diary, June 13, 1763,124/2, RMM.

65. “Die Esther fragte sie warum sie denn weinte, die Anna antwortete: Sie hätte Ursach genug zu weinen, sie dächte viel an ihren Mann. Vor etl. Tagen, ehe er auf die Jagd wäre gegangen, hätte sie gesagt: Mein Lieber Mann, beschiene dich doch bald, was du thun wilt, und mache nicht so langeö Ich will der sagen, was ich thun will, ich gehe nicht mit dir an die Susquehanna. Wenn du gehen wilt, du kanst. Ich aber und meine Kinder wollen bei der Gem. bleiben: denn wenn ich bedanke, was Hld an uns und an uns Kindern gethan hat, so kan ich mich unmögl. dazu resolviren, von der Gemeine zu ziehen, ich würde mir ein scheres Gerichte zuziehen. Darauf sagte Jonathan: liebe Frau, habe noch ein wenig Geduld mit mir, und wenn ich werde von der Jagd zu Hause kämmen, denn will ich dir eine Antwort sagen, denn sagte die Anna: darüber denke und weine ich, und warte mit Verlangen auf meinen Mann, zu was er sich wird resolvirt haben, ach wie ofte habe ich an ihn gedacht, besonders in der Christnacht und Neu-Jahrs Woche, und habe ihm von Herzen gewünscht, wenn er doch auch etwas fühlen mägte von der Gnade und Seligkeit, dir uns Hld hat fühlen laßen. Den Abend kam er euch von der Jagd zu Haus.” Gnadenhütten Diary, Janu-ary 9, 1754, 118/1, RMM.

66. “Jonathan ging heute zu seinen Vater und Mutter, und that Wederruf, was er die Zeit in senen schlechten Umständen gegen die Gemeine geredet hatte, und bat mit Thränen, sie solten ihm vergeben. Womit er ihnen Schaden gethan hätte, es wäre ihm iezu ganz anders, und seine Augen würden nicht viel trocken, wenn er darüber dächte. Die Sarah hub die Hände auf, und danckte dem Hld, der ihr Gebet erhöret hat, und sagte, wenn ich im Busch ginge Holz zu holen, so bin ich alle mal auf meine Knien niedergefallen, und habe zu Gott geschreyen, er soll sich doch erbarmen über meinen Mann und Kinder, und ihnen wieder einen andern Sinn und Herz schencken, und Gott hat mich erhört, dafür dancke ich ihm.” Gnadenhütten Diary, January 16, 1754, 118/1, RMM

67. “Er [Jonathan] sagte: ezo wollen wir wieder aufs neue dem Herzen nach mit einander bekannt werden; und seine Anna danck dem Hld der ihr Gebet für ihren Mann erhört hat.” Gnadenhütten Diary, January 15, 1754, 118/1, RMM.

68. “Kam Br. Abraham mit seiner Sarah nach zu uns, sie versprachen beym Hld zu bleiben, und den andern bey gelegenheit auch manch Wörtigen von Ihn und seiner Liebe zu sagen.” Gnadenhütten Diary, April 24, 1754, 118/1, RMM.

69. “Ich grüße dich Herzlich. Wie wohl ich dich noch nicht gesehen habe, so habe ich dich doch lieb. Ich bin sehr arm hier in Wajomic, der Heiland thut sich aber doch zu mir, und ich halte mich an ihn darum halte ich immer am Heiland, weil ich mein herz fühle, darum lieb ich den Heiland, weil er Wunden hat, und sein Blut vergoßen hat, das schmolzt mein Herz und macht mich auch freudig. Ich bitte allezeit, daß der Heiland mir ein Tröpfen Blut in mein herz mag schencken, das aus der Seite und seinen fußen geflosßen ist, daß ichs einmal vergoßen möge. Ich bitte dich meine Schwester, denck vorm Heiland an mich, ich habe es nötig, denn ich bin unter Indianern die noch in Sünden leben. Ich grüse und küse dichjezo abwesend, wenn ich aber einmal werde zu dir kommen, und dich sehe, so will ichs auch lieblich thun. Ich bin die arme Sara. Ich grüße auch Martins und Schmicks frau und all.” Sarah to Sister Spangenberg, August 31,1754, 319/4/9, RMM.

70. No birth date is given for young Sarah, but she was baptized September 17, 1749, and was likely born around the same time.

71. “Zu ihrer Tochter hat sie gesagt: du bist meine einige Tochter, du hast nun meinen Sinn gehört, was willstu nun machen? Wilstu mich verlaßen, du kanst es thun, du hast deine Freyheit, ich bin lange mit euch gegangen und habe euch gros gezogen, und ihr würdet euch betrüben, wenn ich bey euch im Busch sterben sollte, und ginge verloren, darum haltet euch nicht auf. Die Tochter fing an sehr zu weinen, und sagte, ich will mit dir gehen, wie wohl ich noch nicht einen solchen Sinn habe wie du, und kan nicht sagen ob ich bey dir bleiben werde.” Meniolagomekah Diary, June 13-20, 1763, 124/4, RMM.

72. Philadelphia Diary, June 10, 1764, 127/2, RMM.

73. Much of the information on Rachel's life is in the form of conference minutes and letters from Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, to whom she often turned for comfort and support. Rachel dictated these letters and her husband transcribed them.

74. Later baptized Boas, Annimhard was accused of beating his second wife, Ruth. Conference minutes note, “Cornelius hat gestern Ruth in seinem Hause gefunden und erfahren daß sie wieder von ihrem mann geschlagen und weg gejagt worden.” One week later, the minutes report, “Ruth sagte sie feilte in Ihren Herzen das Boas so lange er so wäre sie nicht könder lieben und sie wolte nicht mehr zu ihnen, sondern alleine bleiben.” September 23 and 30, 1744, 112/5/3, RMM.

75. Her father, Lucas, was baptized March 27, 1743. Her mother, Priscilla, was baptized August 2, 1743. Her sister, also named Priscilla, was baptized August 7, 1743. Her brother, Lucas, was baptized March 14, 1749.

76. The other three candidates were Tachtamoa (daughter of Johannes and later baptized Deborah); a thirty-two-year-old unbaptized widow; and eighteen-year-old Maria (daughter of Gideon, the chief of Pachgatgoch, and also object of affection of the chief of Stockbridge, probably Umpachenee). Büttner's Diary, February 21, 1743, 111/2/1, RMM.

77. “Rahel hat gesagt sie wolte ihren Mann lieb haben, könte aber nicht.” Shekomeko Diary, August 13, 24, 28, and September 10, 1743, 111/1, RMM and Conference minutes, September 19 and October 16, 1743, 111/6, RMM. Apparently, Rachel was not alone in having difficulty liking Post. He had a tendentious personality and seldom won many admirers. The only full-length biography of Post is Chase's dissertation, “Christian Frederick Post, 1715-1785.”

78. “Mittlerzeit wolte der Heyland sie solten ihre vereinigung haben, welches sie ihm aber eineige mahl nicht erlaubte.” Büttner to Anton Seiffert, December 9, 1743, 111/8/7, RMM. The lot was not to be used by individuals but only by Elders acting in the interest of the Gemeine, or congregation. Smaby, The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem, 24.

79. Büttner to Anton Seiffert, December 9, 1743, 111/8/7, RMM.

80. Conference minutes, December 22, 1743, 111/6, RMM.

81. The boy was born September 24, 1744. Rachel often confided in Johannes, one of the first four men to be baptized by the Moravians. Her child is likely named after Zinzendorf and Johannes. Many couples named their children after their own family members. That Rachel did not suggests there may well have been tensions between her and her family.

82. That Rachel addressed Maria as “Liebe Mutter” rather than the more common “Schwester” (as Sarah and others called her) suggests the uncommon bond between the women and Rachel's desire for a spiritual mother. Maria Spangenberg's given name was Eva-Maria, but she was known as Maria and her husband, Augustus, as Joseph. Referring to Spangenberg as Mother might also suggest that Rachel viewed Spangenberg as the embodiment of Mary, mother of Jesus, or as the Holy Spirit, commonly referred to as Mother by Moravians. Native understanding of selfhood was quite different from prevailing European notions, stressing the relational basis of identity over inborn essence. For example, when an individual was named after an important person, the individual shared in the personhood of their namesake. Rachel may well have seen Maria Spangenberg as the present embodiment of the Heiland's mother. She would have been encouraged in this belief by the European Moravians who clearly put great störe in the power of names, so clearly evident in the baptisms of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel. See White, Richard, “‘Although I Am Dead, I Am Not Entirely Dead. I Have Left a Second of Myself: Constructing Self and Persons on the Middle Ground of Early America,” in Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America, ed. Hoffman, Ronald, Sobel, Mechal, and Teute, Fredrika J. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 404-18Google Scholar. See also Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse.

83. Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, 319/2/1, RMM. The original German letter can be found at 219/1/7, RMM. Neither letter is dated, but presumably this letter refers to her first pregnancy.

84. Moravians believed sex to be a sacrament and allegedly newly married couples were often enjoined to consummate their marriage while others waited outside the small room [Kabinet]. “O liebe muter. Ich wahr sehr arm in Bethlehem und weill wir zu sammen waren im Kabinet und Bruder Joseph bätte fühlt ich große Gnade der Heiland begoß mein Hertz recht mit Blutt daß er hielt mich alle zeit wohl und vergnicht im Herzen ob ich gleich noch so elend bin.” Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, October 1745, 319/1/10, RMM. On Moravian attitudes toward sexuality and marriage, see Atwood, Craig, “Sleeping in the Arms of Christ: Sanctifying Sexuality in the Eighteenth-Century Moravian Church,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 8 (1997): 25–51 Google Scholar; and Peter Vogt, '“Ehereligion': The Moravian Theory and Practice of Marriage as Point of Contention in the Conflict between Ephrata and Bethlehem,” forthcoming.

85. Hannes died May 13, 1745. Rachel's sister Priscilla (named after their mother) was baptized August 7,1743. Her brother, Lucas (named after their father) was baptized March 14, 1749. Three other children, Benigna, Salome, and Esther were also baptized. Three of the children (likely Benigna, Esther, and Priscilla) all died in 1744. 86. Rachel Post to Brethren and Sisters in Berbies [Berbice], 1745, 319/3/5, RMM. Another letter further suggests reconciliation with her husband. In a letter to her fellow villagers, Rachel assured them that she loved her husband and her child (one-year-old Maria) was well. Rachel to Gnadenhütten, A. [April? August?] 1746, 219/1/7, RMM.

87. “En dis mey moder dus lafmie so mus en gret del mor den mey ohn moder.” Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, September 9, 1746, 113/1/5, RMM.

88. For references to Joshua, see Post's Pachgatgoch Diary, July 22, 1746, September 1, 1746, and September 9, 1746, 113/1/5, RMM.

89. “Mey hart was won dey were heffe ey did not noh wat did key so heffe mey hart ey was alwes kreyin Ples aur söfger hi schut scho mie wat it was effmey men was sick mey hart did sey noh it is som oder tinks en den did Josua kom hohm tensing en schringin o mey hart did krey were mutz et was as iff was kot won off mey finger aff en ey did krey were mutz dat aur söfger mut help him egin ey kut not schlip hohlneit beloved moder ey tuckt iur letter aut de heus off aur söfger it was ius so es wen de söfger giwid mey hens en ey was so gled dat ey did krey.” Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, September 9, 1746, 113/1/5, RMM.

90. A similar, but more fragmentary, bit of evidence suggests that other women experienced a similar power in giving birth and nursing their children. The Gnadenhütten Diary reports, “Die Aeimel erzehlte bei der Gelegenheit wie ihrs in ihren Herzen wäre wenn sie Kinder vor den Hld trüge und wenn sie gebühre und säugete.” June 7, 1747, 116/6, RMM. Rachel's letter reads, “Mey scheyld gros well en sträng but it hes eh gret kaffey wist auer söffger did meg him well egen. ey ken help him noting de söffger muß du alting…. wen ey giffmey scheyld suck en ey tenck an die blot en wouns off auer söffger ey fühl mey hat sam teims were wet en so ey tenck mey scheyld saks de blot off auer söffger en ey fahl de engels luck efter mey en mey scheyld…. ey em puhr but ey krey en pre vor dem dat de söffger wut giff dem eh fühling off his blot en wouns in der harts. beluvet moder ie mus tenck an mie dat hie giefs mutz gres…. wie er iur pur schilderen Rahel und Maria Post.” Rachel to Maria Spangenberg, September 9, 1746, 113/1/5, RMM.

91. Pachgatgoch Diary, December 26, 1747, 116/2, RMM.