I Did Not Make Myself So. . .’: Samson Occom and American Religious Autobiography
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1998
Publisher
Palgrave/Macmillan
Abstract
In 1772, Samson Occom composed what LaVonne Ruoff calls the “first Indian best-seller”: an execution sermon before the hanging of his fellow Christian Mohegan, Moses Paul (62).¹ The most famous student of Eleazar Wheelock—a New England preacher turned Indian educator—Occom himself had become a missionary, teaching and preaching to Native Americans, and raising significant sums of money on a British tour on behalf of missionary efforts among Native Americans.² An articulate and persuasive speaker, Occom was successful in ministry and marketing, inspiring jealousy in white colleagues (who worried that his popularity undermined theirs) and generosity for “Wheelock’s Indians”...
Chapter of
Christian Encounters With The Other
Editor
John Hawley
Recommended Citation
Elrod, Eileen Razzari "'I Did Not Make Myself So. . .': Samson Occom and American Religious Autobiography” in Christian Encounters With The Other. Ed. John Hawley. New York University Press/Macmillan UK. 1998. 135-149.
