David Brown (Cherokee: A-wih[1]) (c.1790 – September 14, 1829) was a Cherokee clergyman and translator who worked in Mississippi as a missionary to the Cherokee. As a youth, he was educated in schools for Native Americans in Tennessee and Connecticut. He also attended Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts before returning to the South.
David Brown | |
|---|---|
| A-wih | |
| Born | c.1790 Wills Valley, Etowah County, Alabama |
| Died | September 14, 1829 |
| Occupations |
|
Biography
editBrown was born in Wills Valley, Alabama in the late 18th century, according to Ricky. His father was mixed-race, Cherokee and white.[1] Then part of Cherokee territory, the area is in present-day Etowah County, Alabama, in the northern part of the state.
Will's Town was founded about 1770 as a trading post on Big Wills Creek. The post and creek are said to have been named for Red Headed Will, a local Cherokee chief. He inherited his distinctive hair from his white father.[2]
Brown, or A-wih, as he was known in Cherokee, and his sister Catharine, born about 1800, were sent as youths to the boarding school of Cyrus Kingsbury in Tennessee. It had been established by Moravian missionaries to educate Native American children. It was about 100 miles (160 km) from their home in Alabama. Catharine became literate in English there.
Brown became a preacher and an interpreter. He also served as secretary to the Cherokee Treaty Party. In November 1819, he assisted John Arch in the preparation and printing of a Cherokee spelling book.
In the spring of 1820, Brown went to Cornwall, Connecticut, for more education. Catharine also studied there and learned English. The school was for Native Americans.[1] After two years there, Brown spent a year at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, further preparing for ministry.
Returning to the South, Brown served as a missionary at Creek Path, in what became Mississippi. He claimed in an 1825 letter that the people were adopting the new religion of Christianity. Brown died September 14, 1829, in Creek Path.[citation needed]
This was several years before most of the Cherokee were forced on the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They were dispossessed of most of their eastern lands by the United States government in defiance of treaty obligations.
Notes
edit- ^ a b c Ricky, Donald B. (2000). Encyclopedia of Mississippi Indians: Tribes, Natives, Treaties of the Southeastern Woodlands Area. North American Book Dist LLC. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-0-403-09778-4. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
- ^ Owen, Thomas McAdory; Owen, Marie Bankhead (1921). "History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography". Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
References
edit- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. This source seems to repeat the Appletons' presentation.
External links
edit- Brown, David (1871). "Address in Favor of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of America". Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. JSTOR 25079429.
- Holmes, A. (1829). The Annals of America: from the discovery by Columbus in the year 1492, to the year 1826. Hilliard and Brown. p. 531. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
- Morse, J. (1822). A Report to the Secretary of War of the United States, on Indian Affairs: Comprising a Narrative of a Tour Performed in the Summer of 1820 ... S. Converse. Retrieved 2018-02-02.