Source

David Brainerd Diary

Publication Year: 1745

David Brainerd. Mirabilia Dei inter Indicos, or, the Rise and Progress of a Remarkable  Work of Grace amongst a Number of the Indians in the Provinces of New-Jersey and  Pennsylvania… Philadelphia: Printed and sold by William Bradford in Second Street,  [1746]. 
PHS Call number: CR Amer 1746 E5748
 

Primary/Secondary
Primary
Reading suggestions

See especially pages 7-15, diary entry for July 21, 1745, documenting the baptism of  Brainerd's interpreter, Moses Tinda Tautamy, and his wife. This document was  printed using the "long s".

Read more
Source note

David Brainerd (1718-1747) was a Presbyterian missionary who worked  in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey with members of the Seneca, Delaware, Six  Nations, and Tutela tribes. Originally from Connecticut, Brainerd was inspired by the  Great Awakening taking place in the 1730s and 1740s in the British colonies of North  America. Brainerd was expelled from Yale Divinity School in 1741 for supporting  revivalist principles and denigrating a Yale tutor, and in late 1742, he began working as a  missionary for the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK).  Brainerd set out in the spring of 1743 to try and convert Native Americans along the  Delaware and Susquehanna rivers in the mid-Atlantic region. Critical to his moderate  success as a missionary was his translator, Moses Tinda Tautamy (sometimes spelled  “Tattamy”), who, along with his wife, converted to Christianity in 1745. A little over four years after beginning his missionary work, Brainerd died of tuberculosis, at age 29.

Read more
Reading questions
  1. Who is the author of this source? When was it published?  
  2. How does Brainerd describe his Indian congregants early on in the account (page 7)? What was his attitude towards them, based on this account?  
  3. What were Brainerd’s initial concerns about Moses Tinda Tautamy’s desire to convert to Christianity (page 9)? 
  4. What was the deciding factor in Tautamy’s choice to convert to Christianity, according to Brainerd (page 10)?  
  5. In what ways does Tautamy’s conversion story as recounted by Brainerd reflect the Christian ideology of the Great Awakening?  
  6. What additional sources would be helpful for corroborating Brainerd’s account of the conversion of Tautamy and his wife to Christianity? 
     
Read More
Further Reading

Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue. Maecenas faucibus mollis interdum. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit. Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue. Maecenas faucibus mollis interdum. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit. Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue. Maecenas faucibus mollis interdum. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit. Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue. Maecenas faucibus mollis interdum. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit.

Read More
History Topics
American Religious History
Mission History
Native American History
Time Period
Colonial Settlement (1600s-1763)