The Life and Times of David Zeisberger, the Western Pioneer and Apostle of the Indians

By EDMUND DE SCHWEINITZ. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

IN an article entitled “ Gnadenhiitten,” which was printed in the Atlantic for January, 1869, the principal facts of the noble career here so fully described were sketched, and the present work, which we heartily welcome, was mentioned as in preparation. It has all the value which we then predicted for it, and is certainly “ a most important contribution to American history in a department hitherto neglected by students, and almost an unknown land to the mere general reader” ; it is something more than this, and is to be praised, not only for the thorough research and conscientious industry shown in it, but for the enlightened spirit in which it is written, and the candid manner in which Zeisbergers labors are considered. The author, who is now a bishop of the Moravian Church, yields to none probably in zeal for his ancient faith, and pride in its apostles ; but as to the practical result of the Moravian mission to our Indians, no one could be more courageously and unsparingly outspoken. This mission resulted at Gnadenhiitten and elsewhere in the conversion and civilization of a limited number of Indians, who, as long as they were isolated from the influences of the border, maintained themselves in Christian communities, but who disappeared before the advancing whites almost as quickly as their wild heathen brethren. Of all the stations established among the Indians by the Moravians, during the last century and a half, but three are now left, —one in Canada, another in Kansas, and another in the Cherokee country. “The time may not be far distant,” says our author, " when even these will disappear, and nothing remain of the Moravian mission among the North American Indians, as nothing remains of the work of the Jesuit fathers, except its wonderful history, to teach future generations zeal for God and faithfulness unto death. ” He contrasts the failure of this mission with the success of the Moravian missions to other heathen, and attributes it to the vastly more indocile character of our aborigines, as well as the more adverse circumstances ; and a less generous and patient historian would perhaps have inferred from his facts that the Indians were not worth the sublime sacrifices made for them. But neither the Moravians nor the Jesuits would admit this, and every one else should be loath to do so. It is not a justifiable interpretation of Bishop de Schweinitz’s language even where he deals most frankly with the subject, and paints the Indians in a spirit which is very far from ideal or romantic. His colors are from Zeisberger’s own records, now for the first time used; but we do not know that they are darker than those of other observers of Indian life, though they are certainly not those of the novelist: —

“Morally considered, they belonged to the most ordinary and the vilest of savages. Upon this point Zeisberger’s testimony is as clear as it must be deemed conclusive. He loved the Indians. He spent his life in doing them good. It is impossible to suppose that he would have depicted their character in darker colors than truth warranted. And yet, instead of clothing it with those illustrious features which other writers have portrayed, he represents it as low and detestable. Lying, cheating, and theft were universal. The marriage relation was of the lowest kind. Husbands forsook their wives whenever they pleased. To grow weary of a woman was a sufficient cause of desertion. Fornication and adultery prevailed. The ordinary state of a majority of both sexes was unchastity. Other vices, of the most abominable kind, were common. The false estimate which has been made of the aborigines of the last century arose from their aptitude to dissemble and their eagerness for praise. Zeisberger has laid this bare by a single pithy sentence. ‘ They love to be deemed honest and good,’he writes, ‘ even when detected in the worst of villanies.’ In almost every respect, therefore, they were double-faced and doublehearted ; one character they assumed for show, the other was theirs in reality.”

Bishop de Schweinitz concludes that “among such a race the triumphs of the Cross were the more wonderful,” and no one, in spite of the early decay of the Christian communities, can deny this when he considers the changes wrought in the savages by the efforts of the missionaries.

It is probable that the question of the conversion and civilization of the Indians will not be settled much before the extinction of their race ; it is and always has been principally in the hands of the savages themselves and the frontiersmen who could not offer them a life desirable for imitation, but who freely made an exchange of vices with them, the heathen for once, in a bargain with the whites, getting probably as much as they gave. It is not for us here to pronounce which side is more or less in the wrong ; we do not believe in the relegation of the Indian question to the next world ; but this appears to be its destiny, whatever the right opinions may be, and we acquiesce without being persuaded.

In the mean time, the history of such a man as Zeisberger is very melancholy, very interesting reading. The man’s character is brought out clearly, and the facts of his endurance and perseverance are not more surprising than the fact that he was not a zealot or an enthusiast. He certainly was a firm believer in the power of Christianity over all other forces, and if ever it seemed to fail, he recognized, the will of God where a less religious spirit would have seen only evil. But he judges the Indians with perfect common sense, both before and after their conversion, and from the most thorough acquaintance with every phase of their life. He entered upon his work among them when a very young man, and he labored for their conversion and civilization with varying success in different parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Canada, though nearly always among Indians of the great Delaware race. Whatever could be done to ameliorate or enlighten them by the devotion of a clear, sound mind and strong, loving heart, he did for sixty-two years. He founded community after community, and saw them wasted and dispersed by the malice of circumstances, by war, murder, and corruption ; but, undismayed, he proceeded to other efforts in new fields. In the midst of the labors of his vocation, and its manifold dangers and deprivations, he was able to study scientifically the native dialects, and to publish many works in them and upon them. He took all a scholar’s pride and interest in these matters, and it is amusingly characteristic that, commenting upon Bishop Loskiel’s History of the Mission to the North American Indians, n which Zeisberger is himself the chief figure, he should praise it somewhat, and then add, that “the orthography of the Indian words, however, was a disgrace to the work.” An affecting evidence of the same fondness for his literary performances is the fact that, in his last hours, “nothing soothed him so much as Delaware hymns from his hymn-book, especially those appointed for the dying, which the Indians sung grouped around him.”

This was at Goshen, the town on the Muskingum founded near the site of Gnadenhütten, where the dreadful massacre took place. The poor fellows who sung these hymns were often given over to the sin of drunkenness, to which they were tempted with a devilish perseverance by the white settlers ; and Zeisberger was now dying, to all human perception, amidst the final ruin of his life-long hopes.

In the article “ Gnadenhütten ” we discussed so fully the Moravian theory and practice of civilizing the Indians, that it would be repetition to say anything here. Zeisberger was the great embodiment of their system, and in his life its history is told. How well Bishop de Schweinitz has done his work in acquainting us with this life we have said in general terms, but we must not fail to speak of the means he has had for making it thoroughly good. He has based it mainly upon the manuscripts in the archives of the Moravian Church, which consist not only of the reports of Zeisberger and his fellow-missionaries to the Mission Board, but of the “ voluminous journals of their every-day life among the Indians, as also complete reports of any occurrences of special interest.” The author’s careful study of these gives peculiar value to his chapters on Indian history and character, and freshness to his whole work. It is in every way complete, one of its final chapters being devoted to an account ot Zeisberger’s literary labors, some notion of which may be gained by an examination of several of his manuscript works presented to the library of Harvard College.

The style of Bishop de Schweiniz’s history is very clear and simple, with no ambition for mere artistic effect; while the work is at once full of a sincere piety, and remarkably free from the cant of “otherworldliness.”