(This collection of literature attempts to compile many of...)
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
(“The Indians Have No Exclusive Claim to America” is a let...)
“The Indians Have No Exclusive Claim to America” is a letter written in 1782 by Hugh Henry Brackenridge, an American writer, lawyer, and judge. Brackenridge (1748-1816) was born in Scotland, but emigrated to Pennsylvania with his family when he was five years old. He was the author of a number of books and plays, including the 1815 novel American Chivalry. He was one of the first successful American novelists.
In this 1782 letter, Brackenridge rejects claims that Native American or First Nations peoples have an exclusive claim to North America. Brackenridge grew up in what was then frontier territory in Pennsylvania. In a 1763 proclamation, the British crown banned white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. During the Revolution itself, many Native American leaders allied themselves with the British against the American rebels.
This letter by Brackenridge was written the year before the Treaty of Paris (1783) in which Great Britain recognized American independence, bringing an end to the war. This treaty, and the subsequent Louisiana Purchase (1803) gave American colonists unrestricted access to the regions west of the original English colonies on the eastern seaboard.
In the letter, Brackenridge displays a hostile attitude towards Native Americans, one that contrasts sharply with that of the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn. In “The Native Americans”, written almost 100 years earlier in 1683, Penn expressed his admiration for First Nations peoples and urged kindness towards them. Relations between indigenous peoples and English colonists in late seventeenth century Pennsylvania were far more peaceful than those in the other Anglo-American colonies.
But by Brackenridge’s time, relations between First Nations peoples and Pennsylvanians had evidently soured. In 1783 Brackenridge edited a book describing the atrocities committed by Native Americans against settlers. In his 1782 letter he calls them “devils”, compares them to animals, and claims that their killing of settlers and torture of prisoners justified their expulsion from the land and “extermination”. These views were probably influenced by the Revolutionary War, which saw a number of massacres of patriots by Britain’s Native American allies and vice versa.
Narratives of the perils and sufferings of Dr. Knight and John Slover
(Indian atrocities narratives of the perils and sufferings...)
Indian atrocities narratives of the perils and sufferings of Dr. Knight and John Slover, among the Indians, during the Revolutionary War : with short memoirs of Col. Crawford & John Slover and a letter from H. Brackinridge, on the rights of the Indians. This book, "Narratives of the perils and sufferings of Dr. Knight and John Slover", by John Knight, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, William Crawford, is a replication of a book originally published before 1867. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible.
Modern Chivalry: : Containing The Adventures Of A Captain, And Teague O'regan, His Servant... - Scholar's Choice Edition
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This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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(TO THE PUBLIC.
The two following Narratives were transmi...)
TO THE PUBLIC.
The two following Narratives were transmitted for publication in September last, but shortly afterwards the letters from Sir Guy Carlton, to his Excellency, General Washington, informing that the Savages had received orders to desist from their incursions, gave reason to hope that there would be an end to their barbarities. For this reason it was not thought necessary to hold up to view what they had heretofore done. But as they still continue their murders on our frontier, these Narratives may be serviceable to induce our government to take some eflfectual steps to chastise and suppress them; as from hence they will see that the nature of an
Indian is fierce and cruel, and that an extirpation of them would be useful to the world, and honorable to those who can effect it.
Auguit 3,1782.
Hugh Henry Brackenridge was an American jurist and author. He is noted for founding the Pittsburgh Academy, now the University of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Gazette, still operating today as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Background
Hugh Henry Brackenridge was born in 1748. He belonged to a family which came from near Campbeltown, Scotland, to a farm in York County, Pennsylvania, in 1753. Their economic status was such that they were able to complete the journey only by selling their surplus clothing.
Education
Hugh Henry, who was five years old at the time of the migration, early showed great zeal and capacity for learning. Encouraged by his mother, a woman of ability and intellectual ideals, he began the study of the classics with the help of a neighboring clergyman, and by the time he was thirteen years of age he had made notable progress, although his opportunities to secure reading matter were so limited that he often walked thirty miles to borrow books and newspapers.
When he was fifteen years old he took charge of a school in Maryland in order to earn money for a higher education. About 1768, he entered Princeton, then under Dr. Witherspoon, where he served as master in the grammar school while he pursued his studies.
He found congenial classmates in Philip Freneau and James Madison, who were, like himself, devoted to literature and attentive to political issues. The Commencement poem, The Rising Glory of America, written by Brackenridge and Freneau in 1771, is an expression of the growing national feeling.
After his graduation Brackenridge, while head of an academy in Maryland, studied divinity. He took his master's degree at Princeton in 1774, writing A Poem on Divine Revelation for Commencement.
Career
During the Revolution, Brackenridge contributed patriotic writings to the cause and served as chaplain. The first of his literary productions of this period were two plays, The Battle of Bunker's Hill (1776) and The Death of General Montgomery (1777).
The Battle of Bunker's Hill was, according to Brackenridge's statement, written to be performed by the pupils in his academy. The theme of the drama, the superior fighting spirit of the American troops as compared with the British, was especially pointed by the device of putting praise of American valor into the mouths of the British officers, Howe and Gage.
In the second play, The Death of General Montgomery, Brackenridge expressed bitter resentment against the instigation of Indian atrocities by the British. The Ghost of General Wolfe appears as a dramatic character to castigate the English government and to foretell the future greatness of the American Union. Both these dramas are written in dignified, if somewhat stilted, blank verse and are cast in the neo-classical mold, due attention being given to the dramatic unities.
In style and structure, they are superior to the other American plays of the time. Brackenridge, however, disavowed any ambitious dramatic intention in the compositions, insisting that they were designed only for academic and private performance. Evidence that they were used as the author intended is found in a list of plays performed by Harvard students at the time, which includes the titles of Brackenridge's pieces.
His published sermons, Six Political Discourses (1788), were fiery exhortations to fight. During 1799, he edited the patriotic and literary United States Magazine in Philadelphia. Having given up the ministry on account of difficulties with the creed, he studied law with Samuel Chase in Annapolis, removing thence to the frontier village of Pittsburgh in 1781.
He also had an active political career. In 1786-87, he was a member of the state assembly.
In 1787-88, he was the foremost champion in the western country of the Federal Constitution, satirizing its opponents in contributions to the Gazette; and he was an unsuccessful candidate for the state constitutional convention. In the Whiskey Rebellion of 1793-94, Brackenridge, interested in the development of both the federal government and the western country, played a part which, though unsatisfactory to the insurrectionists, led federal officials to suspect him of disloyalty. He was, however, completely exonerated by Alexander Hamilton, who investigated his conduct.
In 1801, he removed from Pittsburgh to Carlisle, where he resided until his death in 1816. His legal studies were the chief product of these years in Carlisle. He collaborated with the other members of the supreme court in a study of the English laws in force in Pennsylvania (1808).
His purely literary work of this later period showed deterioration. Additions to Modern Chivalry published in 1804-05 and 1815 are of interest chiefly for their criticism of new popular follies, such as the attack on the judiciary and the opposition to learning.
Although Brackenridge was a Democrat, he did not accept the current romantic conception of "the people, " having observed that the democratic fiat often made statesmen of illiterate persons. Nevertheless, he was a leader of the Republican party in the West, and, as a reward for his exertions, he was appointed a justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania by Governor McKean on December 17, 1799.
Personality
His eccentricity and his caustic wit made many enemies, but his ability and honesty won the respect of friends and enemies alike. He was, as portrayed by Gilbert Stuart, and as described by his own son, "a gentleman of the old school. "
Interests
Writers
Brackenridge was writing under the influence of Lucian, Swift, Samuel Butler, and Cervantes.
Connections
Brackenridge was married twice. The date of his first marriage and the name of his first wife, the mother of H. M. Brackenridge, are unknown.
In 1790, two years after her death, he married Sabina Wolfe, a farmer's daughter, for whose hand, in typically eccentric fashion, he proposed on their first meeting.