Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: Christian Frederick Post was a Moravian missionary and observer of Native peoples and cultures; he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1768. This journal of Post's, who was in the company of fellow colonist John Hays and Delaware leader Teedyuscung (and also mentions Delawares Isaac Still and Moses Tattamy), relates to Post's mission as a representative of the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania to the Ohio Valley Indians and the conference held near the Ohio River in 1760. Copy in clerk's hand. Concerning message carried to Mingos (Haudenosaunee, in the Ohio Valley) and other Ohio Indians, return of colonists taken captive during the Seven Years' War, and other happenings on the journey. Includes description of conjuring ceremony. This is a microfilm of an original in possession of Mrs. Henry P. Gummere.

Collection:Journal, 1760, of the great council of the different Indian nations (Mss.Film.204)

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Journal of the operations of the American War

Culture:

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1778

Contributor:Sullivan, Thomas, 1755-

Type:Text

Genre:Journals

Extent:422 pages

Description: A firsthand narrative of the early years of the American Revolution written by Thomas Sullivan, an Irish-born sergeant serving with the British 49th Regiment of Foot. Sullivan describes the events from his arrival in North America just prior to the Battle of Bunker Hill through his participation in the Long Island, Philadelphia, and New Jersey Campaigns. Sullivan's journal is written in a meticulous hand and may originally have been intended for publication. It does not appear to have seen print, however, until extracts appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1910. In 1997, the complete journal, edited by Joseph Lee Boyle, was published by Heritage Books. Among the engagements described are Bunker Hill, Long Island, White Plains, Brandywine, Germantown, and Red Bank, but he reports as well on events that he did not personally witness, drawing liberally upon published sources to fill out his narrative. The "diary" ends abruptly with the entry for July 28, 1778. In terms of Native American content, Sullivan describes Indians acting as scouts and Indian military aid in the battle of Germantown and with Burgoyne near Ticonderoga, 1777.

Collection:Journal of the operations of the American War (Mss.973.3.Su5)

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Letters and documents relating to the government service of Jasper Parrish among the Indians of New York state, 1790-1831

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1940

Contributor:Parish, Jasper, 1767-1836 | Newton, Dorothy May Fairbank | Pickering, Timothy, 1745-1829

Type:Text

Extent:1 reel

Description: "Letters and documents relating to the government service of Jasper Parrish among the Indians of New York State," compiled and edited by Mrs. Dorothy May Fairbanks Newton, 1940. This Vassar College student thesis contains text written by Newton, transcriptions of letters to and from Parrish [aka Parish, an Indian agent and interpreter] and other documents, and 54 letters and 5 maps pertaining to Indian affairs in New York State. Newton used primary documents found in Vassar College's Jasper Parrish Papers Collection. Originals of both thesis and the primary documents it is based on are at Vassar College.

Collection:Letters and documents relating to the government service of Jasper Parrish among the Indians of New York state, 1790-1831 (Mss.Film.650)

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Pennsylvania Indians materials, Selections from the correspondence of the Honourable James Logan

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Susquehannock includes: Conestoga

Shawnee

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Nanticoke

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English

Date:1700-1757; ca 1815

Type:Text

Genre:Correspondence | Depositions | Instructions | Copybooks | Notes

Extent:40 items

Description: Correspondence and other materials regarding Pennsylvania Indian affairs. Topics include Pennsylvania's relations with Native peoples; hostilities between Native groups and colonists in the backcountry; diplomatic overtures and councils between Native and colonial leaders; the fur trade; land claims and disputes; legal and illegal surveying of Indian lands; the Lancaster Treaty of 1744; copper mine opened by Governor Keith; anxieties about French influence over Indians and conflict with French over fur trade; role of gifts and payments for Indians; Indian roads; Virginians' desires to expand west; Native religious beliefs and morality; Count Zinzendorf's mission; the imprisonment and escape of Thomas McKee. Other individuals mentioned include Peter Bizaillon, Letitia Penn. Caxagan, Edward Shippen.

Collection:Selections from the correspondence of the Honourable James Logan, 1699-1750 (Mss.B.L82)

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Selected materials, 1665-1775, on Indian affairs

Culture:

Stockbridge-Munsee

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1665-1775

Contributor:Unknown

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Correspondence | Government Documents and Records

Extent:3 reels

Description: Selections from 31 volumes from the Massachusetts State Archives (volumes 1-6, 13, 20-22, 25, 27-33, 35, 38A, 51-54, 74, 80, 108-109, 219, 233, 287). These materials include letters and papers from the official records of provincial Massachusetts. Many relate to the Haudenosaunee in New York, and to French activity and influence among the Indians. Contains references to the treaties at Albany with the Haudenosaunee, the western boundary of Massachusetts, the Stockbridge removal, and the sack of Deerfield by Caughnawaga Mohawks.

Collection:Selected materials, 1665-1775, on Indian affairs (Mss.Film.642)

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Selected materials on Indian affairs, 1698-1796

Culture:

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1723-1796 and undated

Subject:United States--History--French and Indian War, 1754-1763 | United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783 | Warfare | Canada--History--To 1763 (New France) | Government relations

Type:Text

Extent:3 reels

Description: Selected materials on Indian affairs from the Public Archives of Canada, the Public Records Office, London, and Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, relating to the Haudenosaunee. From the Daniel Claus Papers, 1761-1796, are letters and papers on Indian affairs at Forts Pitt, Niagara, and Detroit, with letters of Dr. Alexander McKee, Arthur St. Clair, Joseph Chew, Richard Butler, Joseph Brant, and John Graves Simcoe. From the papers of Brigadier Robert Monckton, 1760-1761, are appointments, returns, reports, bills and receipts, and letters relating to Forts Pitt, Bedford, and Niagara, with letters of James Burd, Horatio Gates, Henry Bouquet, Lewis Ourry, Sir John St. Clair, Thomas Hutchins, John Stanwix, and Lord Amherst. There are also excerpts from the minutes of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs at Albany, 1723-1746; transcripts from the Public Record Office on Indians, trade, defense, 1698-1767, including names of persons naturalized in British America, 1740-61, and accounts of Lt. Col. Harry Gordon, 1756-1761, 1764-1767; Duquesne-Centrecoeur correspondence, 1752-1753, Fonds Verreau, from the Université Laval, Quebec; and, miscellaneous documents. Some of the materials pertain to the Haudenosaunee during the Revolutionary War era. All materials concern eighteenth-century Indian affairs, especially the Haudenosaunee, and to a lesser extent Algonquian Indians. Donated by historian Barbara Graymont in 1965.

Collection:Selected materials on Indian affairs, 1698-1796 (Mss.Film.426)

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Seneca materials, Indian and Military Affairs of Pennsylvania, 1737-1775

Culture:

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:February 20, 1759

Contributor:Montour, Andrew

Subject:Pennsylvania--History | United States--History--French and Indian War, 1754-1763 | Seven Years' War, 1756-1763 | Diplomacy | Warfare

Type:Text

Genre:Correspondence

Extent:2 pages

Description: Montour to Secretary Richard Peters that he is confident of Bocaloons or Cawawwagos [Caughnawaga (Kahnawake) Mohawks?].

Collection:Indian and Military Affairs of Pennsylvania, 1737-1775 (Mss.974.8.P19)

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Seneca materials, Selections from the correspondence of the Honourable James Logan

Culture:

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1702; 1741; 1743

Contributor:Logan, James, 1674-1751 | Peters, Richard, 1704-1776 | Sconshode

Type:Text

Genre:Correspondence

Extent:3 items

Description: 1702 letter from James Logan to William Penn regarding Indian trade, mentioning Senecas; 1741 letter regarding Seneca delegation en route to Philadelphia; 1743 letter from the "king of the Senecas" to the Governor of Maryland asking that treaty be in late April or early May; that land grievances be postponed to then; that Indians not be held responsible for behavior of renegades with disreputable Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania in Virginia;that Virginia governor give pass to Senecas to permit war parties to go south.

Collection:Selections from the correspondence of the Honourable James Logan, 1699-1750 (Mss.B.L82)

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Tuscarora material

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English | Tuscarora

Date:1948-1949

Type:Sound recording

Genre:Autobiographies | Speeches | Stories | Vocabularies

Extent:30 open reel tapes (14 hr., 38 min.) : DIGITIZED

Description: Recorded by Anthony Wallace in 1948 and 1949 at the Tuscarora Reservation in Niagara County, New York. Contains folkloric stories, tribal histories (especially relating to the 18th and 19th centuries), autobiographical stories, reminiscences, Vocabularies, and descriptions of tribal government, organizations, and customs. Almost all stories are given in both Tuscarora and English. Originally recorded on 16 wire spools, transfered to open reel tape in 1950. (NOTE: This material has been digitized and can be accessed online for free by users not physically at the APS Library through a login and password. Please see our Audio Access Page for information on how to request these materials.)

Collection:Tuscarora material (Mss.Rec.2)