Johannes

first name (variants): Joannes; John
Affiliation

Mohawk Tribe; Moor's Indian Charity School

Education

Moor's Indian Charity School (1761-1765)

Nationality

Mohawk

Residence(s)
  • Canajoharie, NY (from 1765-12 to 1768-08)
Biography

Johannes was a Mohawk who studied at Moor’s Indian Charity School from 1761 until 1765. He was approached as an usher (junior schoolteacher) on March 12, 1765, in the Moor’s graduation orchestrated by Wheelock in preparation for a mass mission to the Mohawk and Oneida. Johannes kept school at Old Oneida during the summer of 1765, but did not continue his post. A variety of Anglo-American Moor’s-affiliated missionaries, including Aaron Kinne and David Avery, sought his services as an interpreter, but there is no indication that Johannes accepted any of their invitations. It is more likely that, like other Haudenosaunees (Iroquois) who studied at Moor’s, Johannes rapidly reintegrated into Haudenosaunee society. Shortly after returning to Haudenosaunee territory, Johannes was too preoccupied with managing his family’s horses to serve as an interpreter (manuscript 765673), and a few years later, he was unable to respond to Aaron Kinne’s request because he was out hunting (manuscript 768363.1). Thus, in Johannes’ disappearance from Anglo-American records, we can read a polite rejection of the assimilation project that was Moor’s Indian Charity School’s raison d’etre.

Sources

Calloway, Colin. The Indian History of an American Institution. Dartmouth College Press 2010. Love, Deloss. Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England. Pilgrim Press 1899.