рабочееOklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College
Elias Boudinot, Cherokee and His America. By Ralph Henry Gabriel. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941. xv and 190 pp. Appendix and Index. $2.00.)
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Mrs. Carolyn Thomas Foreman presented the romance of Elias Boudinot and Harriet Gold to readers of The American Indian (Tulsa, July, 1929), in a page long article and included excerpts from one or two letters that apparently were not used by Professor Gabriel but his book length account is fully justifiable and competently handled. Aside from a well-written introduction that traces the native religion of the Cherokees, and closing chapters based upon governmental documents, Gabriel built his story around the Vaill Manuscripts, letters of members of the Gold family. The Yale professor uses the letters to show the influence of Puritanism in shaping the career of Elias Boudinot.
Through the influence of the head of the Foreign Mission Society the Indian boy entered school at Cornwall, Connecticut in 1818. He had been a student at Spring Place school kept by the Moravians in Georgia. John Ridge, a cousin of Boudinot, followed him to Cornwall a year later. Being a sufferer from a hip disease, Ridge was quartered in the home of John P. Northrup, steward of the school, and was nursed by Mrs. Northrup. He married their daughter, Sarah Bird Northrup, in 1824.
Elias followed suit by falling in love with Harriett Gold, the daughter of one of Cornwall's most prominent families, and the disturbance that succeeded disrupted the school as well as society in the town. When Ridge married Miss Northrup, it was suggested that "the girl ought to be publicly whipped, the Indian hung, and the mother drown'd." When the engagement of Miss Gold and Boudinot was announced, the agents of the Foreign Mission School, led by Lyman Beecher, issued a report in which they stated that "we regard those who have engaged in or accessory to this transaction, as criminal; an offering insult to the Christian Community; and as sporting with the sacred interests of this charitable institution." Even Harriett's family added their voices to the communal cry.
Boudinot returned to Cornwall in March, 1826, and the marriage was performed in the home of Harriett's parents by a minister from Goshen since the home pastor refused to officiate. "All the bells of Cornwall tolled the loss of Harriett Gold." Three years later her parents visited the Cherokee country and were surprised to find that the Boudinot children were as handsome as any in the North and would pass for full-blooded Yankees.
Gabriel traces the rise to importance of Boudinot among the Cherokee, first as a missionary-teacher and later, as editor of the government controlled press, The Cherokee Phoenix. The author builds a strong case in showing that Boudinot made his decision for the removal treaty within a framework of Puritan thought. This reviewer believes that Gabriel has used postulations rather than facts: facts of Boudinot's Indian heritage, political machinations, and the influence of his kinsmen. The author, likewise, appraises
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the influence of John Ross in the light of the accomplishment of Boudinot.
The director of the University of Oklahoma press will receive many compliments on the make-up of this book, the twentieth in the Civilization of the American Indian series. digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v019/v01...