Samson Occom

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Samson Occom (* 1723 near New London , Connecticut , † 1792 in New Stockbridge , New York ; also Samson Occum ) was a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church in the United States and a tribesman of the Mohegan . He is considered to be the first Indian to publish documents and pamphlets in the English language.

Early years

Samson Occom was born the son of Joshua Tomachem and his wife Sarah and is believed to be a descendant of the famous Mohegan sachem Uncas . In an autobiographical sketch from 1768 he created a picture of the life of his family and the Mohegan in his youth. English missionaries had piqued his interest in Christianity and so he began learning English in 1740 in order to read the Bible . A year later he converted to Christianity and in 1743 he went to the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock in Lebanon , Connecticut, where he studied theology for four years in his Lattin School . In 1749 he accepted an offer from the Montauk as a schoolmaster and moved to Long Island . Here he married Mary Fowler, a member of the Montauk family who bore him ten children over the years. In order to be able to support his rapidly growing family, he also worked as a farmer, fisherman, cooper and bookbinder. Nevertheless, he was plagued by financial worries all his life, because he was never paid a salary that a white clergyman would have earned.

Samson Occom at the age of 43 painted by Mason Chamberlin (1766)

Priest and missionary

He was officially appointed a priest on Long Island on August 30, 1759 , and spent the next year as an itinerant preacher in southern New England. In 1761 he became a missionary to the Oneida in New York State. In 1764 he moved with his family to the Mohegan and tried together with the Reverend George Whitefield enough funds to raise Eleazar Wheelock's Indian Charity School (Eleazar Wheelock's charity school for Indians), from which today's Dartmouth College arose. Occom was particularly successful in this and was therefore sent from Whitefield to Great Britain to collect further donations. In two years he delivered over 300 sermons and brought £ 12,000 for Wheelock's project on his return trip . Even King George III. donated £ 200.

In Brothertown and New Stockbridge

In the following years he worked mainly for the interests of his people. He supported the plan of his son-in-law Joseph Johnson to relocate the Christian Indians from New England to north New York, where they were offered land by the Oneida. In 1773 Occum preached to his tribe members and organized them in so-called Brother Towns, later called the Brothertown Indians . He converted over 300 of his people, more than half of his tribe. Many of them adopted British customs and clothing and gave up their traditional lifestyle. Occum also converted members of other tribes with similar success and, although the Brothertown soon consisted of a mix of Mohegan, Montauk, and Mattabesic , the Mohegan were by far the largest group. Conversion to Christianity made the Indians little more popular in Connecticut, however, and Occum urged his people to accept the Oneida’s invitation to live with them in upstate New York.

The American War of Independence (1775–1783) initially interrupted the move and Occum described the dangers of war to his people. He did his best to keep his tribe out of the conflict.

In 1784 he traveled through New England, preaching and raising funds for the Christian Indian move to New York. In 1789 he brought his own family to Brothertown, northern New York, and continued to look after the welfare of his people, many of whom were embroiled in land ownership disputes. When he died in New Stockbridge in 1792 at the age of 69, more than 300 Indians followed his coffin. He was buried on Bogusville Road in Deansboro , formerly called Brothertown.

His dream of a secure home for the New England Indians did not come true, just as all other resettlements failed. After the war of 1812 , Brothertown and Stockbridge had to leave their land in New York under pressure from white settlers and move to Wisconsin in Calumet County. Some Brothertown mixed with the Stockbridge and their descendants are now part of the Stockbridge Indians who live west of Green Bay in Wisconsin. The remaining Brothertown in Wisconsin now live on the east bank of Lake Winnebago , but are not yet officially recognized.

Samuel Occom's works

  • A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs , New London, Connecticut: Press of Thomas and Samual Green, 1774.
  • A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul Preached on September 2, 1772 in New Haven for an Indian who committed the murder of Mr. Moses Cook on December 7, 1771. New Haven, Connecticut: Press of Thomas and Samual Green, 1774.
  • A Short Narrative of my Life . An anthology of early prose by North American Indians (1768–1931). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1982. The 10-page A Short Narrative of my Life comes from the Dartmouth College Archive and was first published in 1982. Another publication came recently in The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
  • Journals 1754 and 1786 . Unpublished manuscripts in the collection of the New London County Historical Society.
  • Herbs and Roots . Unpublished manuscript in the collection of the New London County Historical Society

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Samson Occom biography
  2. ↑ a b Mohegan History History of the Mohegan

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Occom, Samson
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Occum, Samson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian, clergyman of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
DATE OF BIRTH 1723
PLACE OF BIRTH New London , Connecticut , USA
DATE OF DEATH 1792
Place of death New Stockbridge , New York , USA