Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: Correspondence, largely from Peter S. du Ponceau to Albert Gallatin, regarding legal and political matters, Indian languages and linguistics, philological matters, and the American Philosophical Society. Specific topics include exchanges of publications and manuscripts between the two men; the creation of a map of Indian languages; the government's collecting of Indian vocabularies and du Ponceau's refusal to supply Historical and Literary Committee material to the government, believing that the committee rather than the government should undertake the collection and publication of Indian materials; methods of seeking data on languages, and the difficulties of sentence for testing problems of comparative Vocabularies;s both already published and in progess, such as Eliot's Grammar, Barton (1797), Pickering (1820), Hodgson on the Berber, Najera (1837), Zeisberger (1830), Gallatin (1836), Prichard (1813), several of du Ponceau's works, etc.; du Ponceau's acceptance of copies of Gallatin's Synopsis, with a jab at its Worcester (rather than APS) the fate of the manuscript for du Ponceau's prize essay: the printer bankrupt, difficulties in getting manuscript returned, and du Ponceau has no full copy; of du Ponceau's study of Chinese;s and the Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee; du Ponceau's acceptance of vocabularies on behalf of the the state of European linguistics; Pickering's alphabet for Indian languages; Carib women's vs. men's the opposition founding of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and du Ponceau's efforts to make peace by submitting his translation of Vater's Enquiry for them to publish; illnesses and deaths in du Ponceau's family; and du Ponceau's age, health, and failing eyesight. Other individuals mentioned include Franklin, Rush, Rittenhouse, Jefferson, Cass, Schoolcraft, Long, Ebeling, Adelung, Klaproth, Balbi, Humboldt, Volney, and Heckewelder. Originals at the New York Historical Society.

Collection:Peter Stephen Du Ponceau letters, 1801-1843, to Albert Gallatin (Mss.Film.541)

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Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Indian Committee. Records, 1791-1892

Culture:

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1756-1908

Contributor:Society of Friends

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Correspondence | Diaries | Reports | Minutes

Extent:12 reels

Description: Selections made by Dr. George Snyderman for the American Philosophical Society from the Society of Friends' Record Room in Philadelphia. Includes 12 reels of letters, diaries, reports of missionaries and individual Quakers, etc., committee reports and correspondence from Indians to Quakers, 1791-1908 and undated; minutes of the Committee...for Promoting the Improvement and Gradual Civilization of the Indian Natives (Indian Committee), 1795-1895 and beyond; minutes of the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures, 1756-1791; and miscellaneous papers of teachers, pupils, visitors to Tunessassa Indian School, Quaker Bridge, New York, mostly twentieth century.

Collection:Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Indian Committee. Records, 1791-1892 (Mss.Film.824)

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Powhatan materials, Royal Society (Great Britain) miscellaneous correspondence and documents

Culture:

Powhatan

Language:English

Date:April 29, 1688

Contributor:Unknown

Subject:Birds | Zoology | Wampum | Material culture | Social life and customs

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Correspondence

Extent:1 page

Description: Letter from S. P., perhaps to Robert Boyle of the Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge. Sends dead hummingbird and a sample of Indian wampum which Indians measure by cubits, varying with each person. Original at the Royal Society of London.

Collection:Royal Society (Great Britain) miscellaneous correspondence and documents (Mss.Film.460)

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Ronald L. Olson microfilm collection

Culture:

Quinault

Chehalis includes: Tsihalis

Blackfeet includes: Blackfoot, Niitsítapi, Siksika, Siksikaitsitapi

Language:English | Chehalis, Lower | Quileute | Quinault | Blackfoot

Date:1925-1927

Contributor:Olson, Ronald L. (Ronald Leroy), 1895-1979 | Stevens, Isaac Ingalls, 1818-1862

Subject:Linguistics | Anthropology | Washington (State)--History

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Field notes | Vocabularies

Extent:1 reel

Description: These linguistic materials include field notes taken by Ronald L. Olson pertaining to the Quinault and Quileute Indians, and a vocabulary of the Blackfoot language assembled by Isaac Ingalls Stevens, as well as a comparative vocabulary of Indians of the United States. From originals in the University of Washington Libraries.

Collection:Ronald L. Olson microfilm collection, 1925-1927 (Mss.Film.1276)

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Sahaptin field notes

Culture:

Yakama includes: Yakima

Walla Walla includes: Waluulapam, Natítayt

Umatilla includes: Natítayt

Tayx

Sahaptin includes: Shahaptin

Molala includes: Molalla, Molale

Nez Perce includes: Niimíipu

Colville includes: sx̌ʷyʔiɬpx

Date:ca. 1953-1969

Type:Text

Extent:2 reels; 18 notebooks and ca. 380 loose pages

Description: Fieldnotes across the Plateau region, especially in Pendleton OR (near the Umatilla Reservation), Nespelem WA (in the Colville Reservation), and Toppenish WA (Yakama Reservation), between 1963 and 1969, supplemented by materials collected from other recent secondary sources. Copies held by the APS were privately microfilmed by Bruce Rigsby; the APS does not possess the originals. Notebooks 1-8 mostly represent work at and around the Umatilla Reservation in 1963, and notebooks 9-18 were recorded mostly near the Colville and Yakama reservations, 1964 onwards. The notebooks contain elicited lexica, with some texts, and details on the knowledge and use of languages by specific individuals. The loose notes at the end are mostly texts. A full inventory of the notebooks and notes, with individual contributor, place and language information, is in the collection finding aid.

Collection:Sahaptin field notes (Mss.Film.1261)

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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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Selections from papers relating to the Six Nations, 1789-1820

Culture:

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1789-1820

Type:Text

Extent:1 reel

Description: These selections include letters, bills, accounts, receipts, memoranda, and official communications and documents relating to the Iroquois [Haudenosaunee] in New York State, selected from volumes 6-15 of O'Reilly's collections, "Mementos of western settlement," together with copies of documents from the American State Papers, etc. Included are letters of Phelps, Gorham, Chapin, Brant, Kirkland, Knox, Pickering, Irvine, and Morris. Many manuscripts appear to be from the papers of General Israel Chapin, an Indian agent. From originals at the New York Historical Society.

Collection:Selections from papers relating to the Six Nations, 1789-1820 (Mss.Film.639)

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Seneca materials, Halliday Jackson journals, 1805-1806

Culture:

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:circa 1800-1806

Contributor:Jackson, Halliday, 1771-1835

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Journals | Stories

Extent:2 items

Description: Materials composed by Pennsylvania Quaker missionary Halliday Jackson concerning his work with Native peoples at the turn of the nineteeth century. The first item is a manuscript dated to 1800 titled "Some account of my residence among the Indians," a continuation of another manuscript, concluding his account of a missionary stay at Tunessassa and Cornplanter's village, and his return to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, after an absence of 2 years and 2 months (Jackson departed for missionary work April 30, 1798), pages 1-30. There is also an account of a meeting between Senecas at Buffalo Creek with an Indian agent and a missionary from Massachusetts, pages 31-39; and Red Jacket's speech, May 1811, at Buffalo Creek, pages 40-43 [Donor, Elisa Schofield, 1912. See also Deardorff and Snyderman (1956): 589-592; Wallace (1952b).]. The second item is a journal dated to 1806 concerning business of the Society of Friends committee on Indian affairs, and the Indians in western Pennsylvania [Printed, Snyderman (1957)]. From originals held at the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. Some of these materials were printed under the title Civilization of the Indian Natives (Philadelphia, 1830) and described by George S. Snyderman, "Halliday Jackson's Journal of a Visit Paid to the Indians of New York (1806)," APS Proc. 101 (1957): 565.

Collection:Halliday Jackson journals, 1805-1806 (Mss.Film.631.631a)

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Seneca materials, Halliday Jackson journal, 1814

Culture:

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:1810-1814

Contributor:Jackson, Halliday, 1771-1835

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Drafts | Journals

Extent:2 items

Description: Materials compiled by Pennsylvania Quaker missionary Halliday Jackson. First item is titled "Civilization of the Indian tribes from the times of Penn to 1809" and consists of two drafts of a chronologically ordered account of relations between Pennsylvania Quakers and their Native neighbors, with special emphasis on the Seneca. An account of Native manners and customs is included in the first draft; a Seneca vocabulary is appended to the second draft. [See also Jackson (1830a); Snyderman (1957): 568.] The second item is a journal dated to 1814 containing "Some account of a visit paid to the Friends residing at Tunessassa and Cattaraugus and to the Indians residing at those places" and describing meetings with Indians, observations on social change resulting from missionary activities and white contact, and other references to the Native peoples of western New York [Haudenosaunee]. Originals in possession of Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Collection:Halliday Jackson journal, 1814 (Mss.Film.631b)