A History of American Literature

72 The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

Gospel, and Missionary to the Indians; at the Execution of Moses Paul an Indian (1722).

Reflecting Occom’s own evangelical convictions, and focusing, in the tradition of all

execution sermons, on the omnipresence of death and the necessity for immediate,

radical conversion, it was immensely popular. Its popularity encouraged the publi-

cation of the second book, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1774), which

became the first Indian bestseller. All Occom’s work is marked by a fervent belief in

the power of grace, and by his insistence that, as he put it in the execution sermon,

“we are all dying creatures” who had to seek that grace at once. It is marked, as well,

by a fervent rhetorical style and an equally fervent belief that all his people, the

Mohegans and other tribes, were in particular need of Christian redemption. Passing

through it, however, is another current, less openly acknowledged but undeniably

there: the suspicion that many of the miseries of his life were there “because,” as he

expressed it, “I am a poor Indian,” that this was true of all other “poor Indians” too,

and that the way to deal with this was to build a separate community. Quite apart

from consistently arguing that his people should not become involved in the quar-

rels of whites, such as the Revolution and the War of 1812 between the United States

and England, he became an enthusiastic disciple of a project to remove the Christian

Indians of New England to a settlement in New York. The project was never realized,

but Occom’s enthusiasm for it shows how differently he felt from Aupaumut about

the promise of the new republic. For him as for many Native Americans – and

despite a passionate commitment to a religion learned from white people – the only

solution was to come apart and be separate.

The rage felt by many African-Americans, enslaved or freed, at the obvious and

immense gap between the rhetoric of the Revolution and the reality of their condi-

tion was memorably expressed by Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833). As an evangelical

minister, Haynes, along with Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, helped to pro-

duce the first significant body of African-American writing, founded on revivalist

rhetoric and Revolutionary discourse. His address “Liberty Further Extended: Or

Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping” (written early in his career but not

published until 1983) begins by quoting the Declaration of Independence to the

effect that “all men are created Equal” with “Ceartain unalienable rights.” Haynes

then goes on to argue that “Liberty, & freedom, is an innate principle, which is

unmoveably placed in the human Species.” It is a “Jewel,” Haynes declares, “which

was handed Down to man from the cabinet of heaven, and is Coeval with his

Existance.” And, since it “proceeds from the Supreme Legislature of the univers, so it

is he which hath a sole right to take away.” So, anyone who “would take away a mans

Liberty assumes a prerogative that Belongs to another, and acts out of his own

domain,” he assumes the power and prerogatives of God. In short, “the practise of

Slave-keeping, which so much abounds in this Land is illicit.” Skillfully using the

founding documents of the nation, and quotations from the Bible such as the pro-

nouncement that God made “of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell upon the face

of the earth,” Haynes weaves a trenchant argument against slavery. “Liberty is Equally

as pre[c]ious to a Black man, as it is to a white one,” he insists; “even an african, has

Equally as good a right to his Liberty in common with Englishmen.” The message is

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