OCCOM, SAMSON
(1723, Mohegan, CT-14 July 1792, New Stockbridge, NY). Education: Studied at Eleazar Wheelock's* school, Lebanon, CT, 1743-47. Career: Schoolmaster and minister to Montauk Indians, Long Island, 1749-64; fund-raising tour to England, 1766--68; itinerant minister to New England natives, 1768-84; minister to Mohegans, Brothertown Tract, NY, 1784-92.
Of the Native Americans who imbibed Puritan teaching and in turn became preachers themselves-and there were a number in the colonial period-Samson Occom was the most famous and influential. Raised in "heathenish" ways among the Mohegan Indians of Connecticut, he was attracted to Christianity in his late teens by the preaching of revivalist James Davenport*. He then began to study at a private school run by Eleazar Wheelock* and proved himself an adept pupil. Weak eyesight is usually offered as the only reason he did not go on to college. Despite this limitation he was sufficiently well educated by Wheelock to become a preacher to the Montauk Indians on Long Island and to be ordained a minister.
Occom was a powerful preacher, knowing Indian ways and tongues, and was at the same time so respected by his many white friends, including evangelist George Whitefield*, that they persuaded him to make a fund-raising trip to England in 1766-68. Accompanied by Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, he preached several hundred sermons. The English were fascinated at meeting a Native American Puritan who preached so well, and they donated the considerable sum of twelve thousand pounds to his mission. The king himself gave two hundred pounds.
Upon returning to America, Occom broke with Wheelock, who urged him to go west and preach to the Iroquois (Occom wanted to stay in New England) and
used the funds raised by Occom to found Dartmouth, rather than a school exclusively for Indians. The dispute ended their friendship. Occom continued his ministry as an itinerant preacher among native New Englanders, but in discouragement he took to the bottle for a time and lived in poverty.
In 1772 he preached a famous sermon at the execution of Moses Paul, an Indian, decrying the influence of alcohol. Mary Fish was there and described the episode in her memoirs. Three thousand people listened to Occom preach on the theme that the wages of sin are death and the road to salvation is through Christ. Other Indians were there, and at the end of his sermon, which had been in English, Occom "most ardently addressed his own nation in their own language." Mary Fish, could not uqderstand the words, but was impressed; "he seemed to be engaged with whole soul." "How beautiful the image of Christ appear[sl," Fish added, "let the national complexion be what it may." Occom spoke so effectively that the sermon was published and went through eighteen editions. He also wrote many hymns and published an Indian hymnal.
Samson Occom fought for Indian rights in Connecticut, thereby alienating many whites. Finding the climate hostile, he moved west to Brothertown, New York, leading his Mohegan followers to a new home on lands purchased from the Oneida tribe. Occom's career illustrates all too well the tendency of colonial Americans to sentimentalize the Indian in thought, but to consider natives merely a nuisance when land or money was at stake.
Bibliography
A: Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian (New Haven, 1772); A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (New London, Conn., 1774).
B: AAP 3, 192-95; DAB 13, 614-15; DARB, 337-38; William D. Love, Sampson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England (Boston, 1899); Leon B. Richardson, An Indian Preacher in England (Hanover, N.H., 1933); Harold W. Blodgett, Samson Occom (Hanover, N.H., 1935); Mary Fish. Journal, Silliman Family Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
Of the Native Americans who imbibed Puritan teaching and in turn became preachers themselves-and there were a number in the colonial period-Samson Occom was the most famous and influential. Raised in "heathenish" ways among the Mohegan Indians of Connecticut, he was attracted to Christianity in his late teens by the preaching of revivalist James Davenport*. He then began to study at a private school run by Eleazar Wheelock* and proved himself an adept pupil. Weak eyesight is usually offered as the only reason he did not go on to college. Despite this limitation he was sufficiently well educated by Wheelock to become a preacher to the Montauk Indians on Long Island and to be ordained a minister.
Occom was a powerful preacher, knowing Indian ways and tongues, and was at the same time so respected by his many white friends, including evangelist George Whitefield*, that they persuaded him to make a fund-raising trip to England in 1766-68. Accompanied by Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, he preached several hundred sermons. The English were fascinated at meeting a Native American Puritan who preached so well, and they donated the considerable sum of twelve thousand pounds to his mission. The king himself gave two hundred pounds.
Upon returning to America, Occom broke with Wheelock, who urged him to go west and preach to the Iroquois (Occom wanted to stay in New England) and
used the funds raised by Occom to found Dartmouth, rather than a school exclusively for Indians. The dispute ended their friendship. Occom continued his ministry as an itinerant preacher among native New Englanders, but in discouragement he took to the bottle for a time and lived in poverty.
In 1772 he preached a famous sermon at the execution of Moses Paul, an Indian, decrying the influence of alcohol. Mary Fish was there and described the episode in her memoirs. Three thousand people listened to Occom preach on the theme that the wages of sin are death and the road to salvation is through Christ. Other Indians were there, and at the end of his sermon, which had been in English, Occom "most ardently addressed his own nation in their own language." Mary Fish, could not uqderstand the words, but was impressed; "he seemed to be engaged with whole soul." "How beautiful the image of Christ appear[sl," Fish added, "let the national complexion be what it may." Occom spoke so effectively that the sermon was published and went through eighteen editions. He also wrote many hymns and published an Indian hymnal.
Samson Occom fought for Indian rights in Connecticut, thereby alienating many whites. Finding the climate hostile, he moved west to Brothertown, New York, leading his Mohegan followers to a new home on lands purchased from the Oneida tribe. Occom's career illustrates all too well the tendency of colonial Americans to sentimentalize the Indian in thought, but to consider natives merely a nuisance when land or money was at stake.
Bibliography
A: Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian (New Haven, 1772); A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (New London, Conn., 1774).
B: AAP 3, 192-95; DAB 13, 614-15; DARB, 337-38; William D. Love, Sampson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England (Boston, 1899); Leon B. Richardson, An Indian Preacher in England (Hanover, N.H., 1933); Harold W. Blodgett, Samson Occom (Hanover, N.H., 1935); Mary Fish. Journal, Silliman Family Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
