THE MORAVIANS. 45 



However simple and credulous these men might be, they were not without intel- 

 ligence and culture ; and their sincerity was attested by their toils and sufferings. 

 Their knowledge of Indian character and languages was of wide extent, and in 

 Heckewelder's case of forty years' duration. If deceived by fictitious tales, it was 

 not as inquisitive strangers that deception was practised upon them, but they were 

 imposed upon by neighbors and familiar friends. 



What May hew and Eliot had been to the aborigines of New England, the Mora- 

 vians were to the Delawares and Iroquois; but with more protracted and more per- 

 fect intimacy. As the villages of Christian Indians in Massachusetts were broken 

 up, one after another, as, in time of war, their occupants fell under suspicion, now of 

 their own people, and now of the whites, and were massacred in turn by both ; so 

 the " Tents of Grace" of the Moravian converts were destroyed, and their " Beautiful 

 Prospect" laid waste and made desolate. No enduring monument of the toils of 

 those missionaries remains, except the vocabularies they collected, and the narra- 

 tives they compiled ; save that, in the names of some of their settlements which 

 have been preserved, the memory of their pious endeavors may be transmitted. 



Heckewelder's narrative, and even his linguistic accuracy, were, many years 

 ago, subjected to severe criticism by one of our prominent statesmen, Hon. Lewis 

 Cass. 1 Few men of education have had better opportunities than Governor Cass, 

 of acquiring a knowledge of the characteristics, customs, and capacities of the 

 Indians. He has lived among them, explored their distant abodes, and dealt with 

 them in many different relations ; and his opinion is entitled to great weight on all 

 points connected with their history. It is proper, however, to remark that he 

 belongs to that class of writers who arc careful to divest the character of the 

 aborigines, as well as their history and antiquities, of all romantic and poetical 

 coloring. 



In the article referred to, Governor Cass describes Heckewelder as a worthy 

 missionary, of moderate intellect, and still more moderate attainments, of great 

 credulity, and strong personal attachments to the Indians, who had passed almost 

 his entire life among the Delawares, and derived his knowledge of the natives wholly 

 from them. Even the correctness of his interpretations is questioned; and it is said 

 of him : " Every legendary story of their former power, and of their subsequent 

 fall, such as the old men repeat to the boys in the long winter evenings, was received 

 by him in perfect good faith, and has been recorded with all the gravity of history. 

 It appears never to have occurred to him that these traditionary stories, orally 

 repeated from generation to generation, may have finally borne very little resem- 

 blance to the events they commemorate; nor that a Delaware could sacrifice the 

 love of truth to the love of his tribe. To those who know something about Indian 

 traditions, nothing can be more unsatisfactory than these details, unless they are 

 corroborated by the accounts of the early travellers, or by concurrent circumstances." 

 Governor Cass also speaks of having listened to Heckewelder in his own house, "as 

 anxious to hear as he was to relate the marvellous events of his intercourse with 



North American Review, for January, 1826. 



