Report on missionary activity among the Native Americans of North America.

Parish, Elijah. A Sermon Preached at Boston, November 3, 1814, before the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North-America. Boston: Nathaniel Willis for S. T. Armstrong, 1814. Small 4to [24.3 x 14.9 cm], 44 pp. Stab-stitched, in contemporary blue-gray wrappers. Wrappers much worn, with creases and losses, barely hanging on. Untrimmed, some chipping to edges, minor toning, the occasional minor stain.
 
 
First edition — today rare in commerce — of this pamphlet relating to the 1814 meeting of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, including the sermon preached that day and a 15-page appendix with a digest of reports from missionaries in the field, one of which is by Hendrick Aupaumut (1757-1830), the Mohican diplomat/historian, born among the Stockbridge Indians, who fought on the colonists’ side during the Revolutionary War.
 
Reports by various missionaries mention work with the Stockbridge Indians, Oneidas, Delawares, ‘Wampanahkus’ (Wampanoags), Narragansets, and Wyandots. Individuals are named, and topics include barn raising, the spinning of wool, commerce with Quakers, weddings, the distribution of Bibles, upheavals caused by Tecumseh’s War (1810-13), and the Indian School at Charlestown R.I. (teaching methods of the last school year, teaching white and native children in the same classroom, etc.).
 
A section on the Western Indians is prompted by the sad admission that, “The total extinction of most of the Indian tribes of New-England, and the extreme diminution of those which remain, may render it expedient for the Society to extend its charity to tribes in the remote part of North-America” (p. 33). Noted here are Delawares in Indiana Territory requesting that the New-Stockbridge Mohegans join them there, the Society of Friends attempting to introduce (their) agriculture among the Miamis, recent Cherokee missions as well as contact with the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creeks, with demographic figures and a discussion of agriculture. Missionary areas of Maine and Ohio are also mentioned.
 
The sermon itself, by Elijah Parish (1762-1825), is more interesting than most, discussing the history of the concept of the immortality of the soul (Socrates, Plato, Cicero, the Brahmins of India), blood sacrifice (Egyptians, Hindus, Jews, natives of Mexico), China, Pacific Islanders, Africans, idolatry in Japan, Polytheism, Tibet, Peruvians, Muslims, Russia, astronomy, business, and other peoples and practices thought to be in need of correction.
 
There follow tallies of the Society’s finances, lists of missionaries and areas of operation, and a list of members of the society.
 
The final page serves as a donation form reading: “Item: I give and bequeath the sum of ____________ to the Society for propagating the Gospel among the Indians and others in North America; to be applied either to the general objects of the Institution, or to such particular purposes, consistent with those objects, as the donor may think proper.”
 
“The Prototype for the new evangelical voluntary association was the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North America (SPGNA), founded in Massachusetts in 1787 … To speed this great work, the word of God, propagated by human agency, was required. The Society for Propagating the Gospel supported not only missionaries and Indian schools but the gathering and giving of books as well … The SPGNA did not print books; it procured them through donation, purchase from booksellers, and direct publishing contracts with printers. Nor did it sell books; the society gave them away … The chief legacy of the SPGNA was the unshakeable belief in the indispensability of knowledge to faith and the efficacy of human action” (Nord, pp. 223-24).
 
 
*Shaw & Shoemaker, 32433; D. P. Nord, “Benevolent Books: Printing, Religion, and Reform,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 2, An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790-1840, R. A. Gross and M. Kelley, eds., pp 221-46.