The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 71could and should be rectified. Appealing to the principle of equality enshrined in the
laws of the new republic, to rational justice and Christian faith, she helped raise an
issue that was to be foregrounded in the next century – not least, at the Seneca Falls
Women’s Rights Convention. There, at the Convention in 1848, a “Declaration of
Sentiments” was framed that gave succinct expression to Sargent’s beliefs by making
a simple change to the original Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths
to be self-evident,” it announced, “that all men and women are created equal.”
“The great men of the United States have their liberty – they begin with new
things, and now they endeavour to lift us up the Indians from the ground, that we
may stand up and walk ourselves.” The words are those of Hendrick Aupaumut
(?–1830), a Mahican Indian educated by Moravians. They come from A Short
Narration of my Last Journey to the Western Country, which was written about 1794
but not published until 1827. Aupaumut, as this remark suggests, was intensely loyal
to the United States; and he clearly believed, or at least hoped, that his people would
be afforded the same rights and opportunities as “the great men” of the new nation.
Because of his loyalty, he served as an intermediary between the government and
Native Americans in the 1790s. This involved traveling among the tribes; and it was
evidently after a journey among the Delawares, Shawnees, and others that he wrote
his book. Often awkward in style, the Narration reflects the desperate effort of at
least one Native American, working in a second language, to record the history and
customs of his peoples – and to convince them, and perhaps himself, that the leaders
of the American republic would extend its rights and privileges to those who had
lived in America long before Columbus landed. “I have been endeavouring to do my
best in the business of peace,” Aupaumut explains in the Narration, “and according
to my best knowledge with regard to the desires of the United States.” That best con-
sisted, fundamentally, of assuring the Native Americans he met of the good inten-
tions of the whites. “I told them, the United States will not speak wrong,” Aupaumut
recalls, “whatever they promise to Indians they will perform.” Part of the assurance,
we learn, rested on laying the blame for previous injustices on “the Law of the great
King of England.” “Now they have new Laws,” Aupaumut insists, “and by these Laws
Indians cannot be deceived as usual.” The Narrative is, in effect, a powerful declara-
tion of faith in the universality of the principle of natural rights, and an equally
powerful statement of the belief that this principle would now be put into practice.
In the light of what happened to Native America after this it has, of course, acquired
a peculiar pathos and irony that Aupaumut never for once intended.
A Native American who was less convinced that the American Revolution was a
good cause was Samson Occom (1723–1792). Quite the contrary, during the
Revolutionary War Occom urged the tribes to remain neutral because that war was,
he insisted, the work of the Devil. Born a Mohegan, Occom was converted by mis-
sionaries when he was 16. He then became an itinerant minister, devoting most of
his energies to preaching and working on behalf of the Indian people. Only two
books by him were published during his lifetime, but they were immensely success-
ful. The first was a sermon written at the request of a fellow Mohegan who had been
sentenced to death for murder, A Sermon Preached by Samson Occom, Minister of theGGray_c01.indd 71ray_c 01 .indd 71 8 8/1/2011 7:54:57 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 57 AM