.png){kind=icon}
Abstract and Keywords
Sansom Occum was a Mohegan Indian from Connecticut. By the eighteenth century, the Mohegans had lost their land and with it their way of life. In the 1740s, Occum was educated at the school that would later become Dartmouth College and became a minister to Indians on Long Island. In 1768, he penned a brief autobiography, revealing that in his experience, hard work did not pay off as well as it had for Benjamin Franklin: when a white friend and ally advocated for him with the society for missionaries, asking for more reasonable pay, he was rebuffed.
Source: Colin Calloway, ed., The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America (New York: Bedford) p. 61.
Excerpt
The Reverend Mr. Buell was so kind as to write in my behalf to the gentlemen of Boston; and he told me they were much Displeased with him, and heard also once again that they blamed me for being Extravagant; I Can’t Conceive how these gentlemen would have me Live. I am ready to forgive their Ignorance, and I would wish they had Changed Circumstances with me but one month, that they may know, by experience what my Case really was; but I am now fully convinced, that it was not Ignorance, For I believe it can be proved to the world that these Same Gentlemen gave a young Missionary a Single man, One Hundred Pounds for one year; and fifty Pounds for an Interpreter, and thirty Pounds for an Introducer, so it Cost them One Hundred & Eighty Pounds in one Single Year, and they Sent too where there was no Need of a Missionary.
Now you See what difference they made between me and other missionaries; they gave me 180 pounds for 12 Years Service, which they gave for one years Services in another Mission.—In my Service (I speak like a fool, but I am Constrained) I was my own Interpreter. I was both a School master and Minister to the Indians, yea I was their Ear, Eye & Hand, as well as Mouth. I leave it with the World, as wicked as it is, to Judge, whether I ought not to have had half as much, they gave a young man Just mentioned which would have been but 50 pounds a year; and if they ought to have given me that, I am not under obligations to them, I owe them nothing at all; what can be the Reason that they used me after this manner? I can’t think of anything, but this as a Poor Indian Boy said, Who was Bound out to an English Family, and he used to Drive Plow for a young man, and he whipt and beat him almost every Day, and the young man found fault with him, and Complained of him to his master and the poor Boy was Called to answer for himself before his master, and he was asked, what it was he did, that he was So Complained of and beat almost every Day. He Said, he did not know, but he Supposed it was because he could not drive any better; but says he, I Drive as well as I know how; and at other Times he Beats me, because he is of a mind to beat me; but says he believes he Beats me for the most of the Time “because I am an Indian.”