Memoir of Catharine Brown.
[Religion]. (Brown, Catharine). Anderson, Rufus. Memoir of Catharine Brown. A Christian Indian of the Cherokee Nation. Boston…: Samuel T. Armstrong, and Crocker and Brewster…, 1825.
12mo.; some foxing throughout; contemporary inscription; front endpaper tipped-in; endpapers darkened and offset; first seven pages dampstained; three-quarter marbled paper-covered boards; red morocco spine; stamped in gilt; tips bumped. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
First edition; with frontispiece engraving, illustrating Catharine Brown propped up in a bed, with a book at her side, dictating to a nurse. Transcribes letters that Brown sent to “Christian friends,” pages 44-76; as well as extracts from her diary, pages 78-80 and 87-106. This is one of the earliest biographies devoted to a Native American woman; Experience Mayhew’s Indian Converts (1727) is similar in content and theme, but is a collective biography. Anderson’s book predates William Apes’ A Son of the Forest by four years, which is generally considered to be the first Native American autobiography ever published; even though Anderson is the author of the Catharine Brown book, he includes a significant amount of her own writing for it to be considered autobiographical.
In six chronologically arranged chapters: “Her history until she entered the mission school at Brainerd,” “From her entering the school at Brainerd, until her removal by her parents,” “From her return to Brainerd, until she takes charge of a school at Creek-Path,” “From her taking charge of a school at Creek-Path, until her sickness,” “Her sickness and death,” and “Her character.”
Anderson explains in his Preface: “This Memoir was commenced as a biographical article for the Missionary Herald. In its progress, however, the materials were found to be so abundant, as to suggest the inquiry whether a distinct publication were not expedient…[the author’s] object has been to give a plain and true exhibition of the life and character of a very interesting convert from heathenism” (pp. iii-iv).
The early chapters describe Brown and her family as rather bright but uneducated. “Ignorant as were the parents of Catharine, on the most important subjects, they were among the more intelligent class of their people” (p. 13). Anderson explains that Brown was born around 1800, and, “Her mind, like the wilderness in which she had her home, was uncultivated” (p. 151). According to Anderson, Brown’s life turned around when she enrolled in the missionary school at Brainerd, “Catharine had been at the school but a very few months, before the divine truth began to exert an influence upon her mind. This was manifested in an increased desire to become acquainted with the Christian religion, and in a greater sobriety of manners” (p. 24). Anderson continues, describing her conversion to Protestantism and her encouraging her “Cherokee brothers and sisters” (p. 45) to follow suit.
Throughout, Anderson praises Brown’s “Christian conduct” (1p. 68), her “habits of devotion” (p. 168) and her “zeal” (p. 170); he concludes, “In her history, we see how much can be made of the Indian character. Catharine was an Indian…Yet what did she become! How agreeable as an associate, how exemplary as a member of the domestic and social circle and of the Christian church, how blameless and lovely in all walks of life!” (p. 172).
Anderson (1796-1880) was a Congregationalist minister and a missionary, founder of “indigenous church mission theory,” a groundbreaking approach which encouraged missions to be self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating. He also served as the Foreign Corresponding Secretary to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).
“Feminist Theory and the "Invasion of the Heart" in North America,” by Pauline Turner Strong, Ethnohistory, Vol. 43, No. 4, Native American Women's Responses to Christianity. (Autumn, 1996), pp. 683-712.
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