English Letters and Indian Literacies: Reading, Writing, and New England Missionary Schools, 175-183

1. Narratives and Counternarratives: Producing Readerly Indians in Eighteenth-Century New England

C h a p t e r 1 Narratives and Counternarratives: Producing Readerly Indians in Eighteenth-Century New England Eleazar Wheelock’s account books for Moor’s Charity School in the 1760s are a welter of detail. From buttons (small and large, horn, metal, and wood) to buckles (knee and shoe), pins, needles, combs (ivory and horn), sealing wax, razors, “barber’s scissors,” tea, handkerchiefs, shoes, cider, beans, butter , eggs, molasses, wheat, rye, and Indian corn, Wheelock carefully tallies in his daybook the exchanges that made the school possible. Of course, there were the essentials for any educational establishment: paper, goose quills, ink pots, ink powder, penknives, candles, and books. These books, sometimes carefully listed, more often simply referred to as “box of books,” included Virgil, Cicero, Erasmus, “Edwards on free will,” Baxter’s Saints, spellers, singing books, Latin grammars, Greek grammars, books on navigation and geography, dictionaries, and Bibles of all sorts: small Bibles, family Bibles, testaments, Greek testaments, Hebrew Bibles, even a Scottish Bible. More exceptionally , Wheelock recorded certain indulgences: nutmeg, allspice, pepper, coffee, sugar, chocolate, and even a microscope from London (with a book on how to use it). There were services exchanged by neighbors, such as the use of horses; the doctoring of individuals; and the mending of shoes, saddles, clothing, fences, and even buildings. Cows, horses, hogs, and oxen were borrowed , exchanged, purchased, and sold. A delightful variety of cloth works its way through the account books, from wool, linen, broadcloth, calico, and serge to lawn, ribbon, tammy, and gimp. There are items of Irish and German linen, German serge, and even Barcelona handkerchiefs. We catch sight of checked flannel, striped linen, checked linen, scarlet and green cloth, brown 34 Chapter 1 silk, striped druggett, blue broadcloth, black alamode, and black shalloon. The female school dutifully produces a variety of clothing from the yards and yards of material: breeches, trousers, stockings, hose, waistcoats, jackets, coats, shirts, gowns, shifts, aprons, caps, hats, and handkerchiefs. Throughout is the ever elusive “sundries,” items so ordinary they did not warrant their own listing . Were Indian baskets, common in households throughout New England in this period, included under this label? Perhaps items like brooms or carved wooden utensils were designated under this heading, items essential to Indian livelihood throughout the period yet so inconsequential to Wheelock that they would not have merited a distinct itemization. Only once in his accounts is there an entry for “1 doz brooms” purchased with cash from “William Sobuck Indian,”1 a sharp reminder that these ledger books are for reinforcing the ways Indians become Englishmen, not the ways in which Englishmen absorb Indian goods and services. Sometimes we glimpse individuals: Samuel Kirkland favored Holland shirts, while Joseph Johnson (Mohegan) had a pair of checked trousers. Samson Occom (Mohegan), like several of the other Wheelock missionaries, had leather breeches. David Fowler (Montaukett) had a bearskin coat; he also had a lock and key, probably to protect his books, which in 1762 included a Latin grammar, a dictionary, and a Greek testament. Hezekiah Calvin (Delaware), too, had a bearskin coat, as well as a serge coat, ratteen jacket, tapping shoes, and eventually a silver watch. Jacob Woolley (Delaware) had deerskin breeches and an oznabrigs shirt as well as mittens and yarn stockings. The girls generally wore clothes made primarily from coarse linen, cotton, worsted, and camblet, although Sarah Wyoggs (Mohegan) did have a silk handkerchief and Hannah Garrett (Pequot/Narragansett) had a pair of gloves. The girls shared an ivory comb, purchased February 12, 1767, and no doubt kept at David Huntington’s home, which is where most of them boarded, although Miriam Storrs (Delaware ) boarded with Mrs. West in 1767 and 1768.2 Wheelock was convinced of the urgency of transforming the Indian students attending his school from “creatures of the forest” to Englishmen fully outfitted in shoes with buckles, stockings, breeches, shirts, waistcoats, and jackets, and, most important, able to display their knowledge by reading books and transmitting that knowledge through journals and letters. Such Indian gentlemen, in Wheelock’s imagined world, were accompanied by docile Indian wives fully capable of all the English-style domestic practices of sewing , weaving, cooking, and tending house for their more erudite husbands. In Wheelock’s view indigenous language and expression was for “wild” Indians, Narratives and Counternarratives 35 Figure 2. Account book for Moor’s Charity School. Courtesy of the Rauner Special Collections, Dartmouth College...