abstractThe Lord’s Prayer translated into Greek, French and Latin.
handwritingHandwriting is Occom's, but is somewhat different from that
of the hand in his letters and journals. His name is written in a very formal
and
bold script.
paperSingle sheet is folded into quarters and is in fair condition,
with moderate-to-heavy creasing, staining and wear.
noteworthyThere are Mohegan words on one verso. The complete name and
identity of S.r Huntington (on one verso) is unknown.
layoutVery small sheet of sheet of paper is divided into four
quadrants. On one recto, there is Greek in the top left, French in the top
right,
Latin the in bottom left, and Occom's name in the lower right.
Modernized Version
Deletions removed; additions added in;
modern spelling and capitalization added; unfamiliar abbreviations expanded.
Greek 9 Pater e̔mo͂n o eν toi͂s ouranois agiasthétω tò ὂnomá σou· 10 elthétω
ἡ basileia σou genethetω to
ϑélemá σou ὡs eν ouranω kaì
ἐpì ten γes· 11 tòn arton emῶn ton epiousion dos e̔mῖn σemeron· 12 kai aphes
e̔mi͂n tà opheilémata
e̔mῶn ὡs kai e̔meis aphiεmen
tois ophiletais emῶn· 13 kai me εisenegkes e̔mas εis peirasmòn
alla rusai e̔ma͂s eupò tou ponerou͂ ὃti σou
εstin e̔ basileia kai e̔ dunamis kai e̔ doxa εis tous
aiῶnas amen
Latin Pater noster qui es in Caelis ·1· Sanctificatur nomen tuum·2
veniat regnum tuum· 3 fiat voluntas tua
quemad modum in Caelo, sic etiam in terra·4·panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie 5 et remitte nobis debita
nostra
sicut
et nos remittimus debitoribus nostris·6·et ne nos inducas in tantationem
sed Libera nos ā malo quia tuum est regnum et potentia et gloria in secula amen
Page 1r
Notre pere qui es aux Cieux, ton nom soit Sanctifie ton regne vienne ta volonte soit faite en la terre. Comme au ciel: donne nous aujourd hui notre
pain quotidien et nous pardonne nos offen
ses Comme nous pardon nons à ceux qui nous ont
offenses
et ne nous induis point en tentation mais deliv
re nous du mal ainſi
so ti il
Mohegan is a village in southeastern Connecticut at the site
of the present-day town of Montville, and is the location of the Mohegan Indian
Reservation. The village gets its name from the Mohegan Tribe, or wolf people,
who split from the Pequots in the early 17th century under the leadership of
the sachem Uncas. In the 1720s, the Mohegans requested the colony of
Connecticut provide them with an English educator. An English minister and
schoolteacher named John Mason (no relation to Captain John Mason) moved to
Mohegan in order to provide English-styled education to the Mohegans, convinced
his sponsors, the New England Company, to build a schoolhouse at Mohegan, which
eventually served as a boarding school for other Native American children from
the surrounding area. During the 17th century, the Mohegan Tribe became
embroiled in a complicated controversy over control of Mohegan land — known as
the Mason Land Case or, more specifically, Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut —
that included the village of Mohegan. The Tribe claimed that it never
authorized a transfer of their lands, held in trust by the Mason family, to the
colonial government. In 1662, the colony of Connecticut was incorporated by a
royal charter, which included the disputed tribal land. The land controversy
was revived in 1704 when descendants of John Mason, the original trustee,
petitioned the Crown on behalf of the Mohegans, but the suit was finally
decided against the Tribe in 1773. Born in Mohegan, Occom became involved in
the Mason Land Case and vehemently argued for the rights of the Mohegan Indians
to maintain their land, opposing Eleazar Wheelock and other ministers in the
area. Although Occom left Mohegan for a 12-year mission with the Montauk
Indians of Long Island, he returned at the end of 1763 with his large family to
build a house in Mohegan, establishing it as his base of operations. Even after
the creation of the Brothertown settlement in Oneida country, for which he
served as minister, Occom continued to commute back and forth from Mohegan; he
didn't sell his house in Mohegan and move his family to Brothertown until 1789.
Many members of his family remained in Mohegan, including his sister Lucy
Tantaquidgeon, who lived there until her death at 99 in 1830.
Acton is a town in Middlesex County, and located in eastern
Massachusetts, twenty-four miles northwest of Boston. Native Americans lived in
the area as early as 7000 years ago, and by the 17th century, the area was
settled by the Pawtucket tribe, who used it for agriculture. An epidemic
brought to the area by Europeans killed 90-percent of the Native Americans in
Massachusetts Bay in the first quarter of the 17th century, and was followed by
a smallpox outbreak in 1633, killing even more of the Native American
population. In 1655, Concord appealed to the Massachusetts government to
receive the land that would become Acton. The government agreed and the land,
which they used mostly for sheep grazing, was called New Grant. By the end of
the 17th century, the people of Concord began referring to the land as Concord
Village. After several petitions, settlers in Concord Village were granted
permission to become a separate town in 1735. After this point, the town was
called Acton. There is no official record of how the town got this name;
however, it is likely that the name comes from Acton of Middlesex County in
England. In the mid-17th century, colonists began converting Native Americans
in the area to Christianity, and the Praying Town of Nashobah was located on
the town line between Acton and Littleton.
Samson Occom was a Mohegan leader and ordained
Presbyterian minister. Occom began his public career in 1742, when he
was chosen as a tribal counselor to Ben Uncas II. The following year, he
sought out Eleazar Wheelock, a young Anglo-American minister in Lebanon,
CT, in hopes of obtaining some education and becoming a teacher at
Mohegan. Wheelock agreed to take on Occom as a student, and though Occom
had anticipated staying for a few weeks or months, he remained with
Wheelock for four years. Occom’s academic success inspired Wheelock to
open Moor’s Indian Charity School in 1754, a project which gave him the
financial and political capital to establish Dartmouth College in 1769.
After his time with Wheelock, Occom embarked on a 12-year mission to the
Montauk of Long Island (1749-1761). He married a Montauk woman, Mary
Fowler, and served as both teacher and missionary to the Montauk and
nearby Shinnecock, although he was grievously underpaid for his
services. Occom conducted two brief missions to the Oneida in 1761 and
1762 before embarking on one of the defining journeys of his career: a
fundraising tour of Great Britain that lasted from 1765 to 1768. During
this journey, undertaken on behalf of Moor’s Indian Charity School,
Occom raised £12,000 (an enormous and unanticpated amount that
translates roughly to more than two-million dollars), and won wide
acclaim for his preaching and comportment. Upon his return to Mohegan in
1768, Occom discovered that Wheelock had failed to adequately care for
his family while he was gone. Additionally, despite the vast sums of
money that he had raised, Occom found himself unemployed. Wheelock tried
to find Occom a missionary position, but Occom was in poor health and
disinclined to leave his family again after seeing the treatment with
which they had met while he was in Britain. Occom and Wheelock’s
relationship continued to sour as it became apparent to Occom that the
money he had labored to raise would be going towards infrastructure at
Dartmouth College, Wheelock’s new project, rather than the education of
Native Americans. After the dissolution of his relationship with
Wheelock, Occom became increasingly focused on the needs of the Mohegan
community and increasingly vocal in criticizing Anglo-Americans’
un-Christian treatment of Native Americans. In September of 1772, he
delivered his famous “Sermon on the Execution of Moses Paul,” which took
Anglo-American spiritual hypocrisy as one of its major themes, and which
went into four printings before the end of the year. In 1773, Occom
became further disillusioned when the Mason Land Case was decided in
favor of the Colony of Connecticut. The details of the Mason Case are
complicated, but to summarize: the Colony of Connecticut had gained
control of Mohegan land early in the 18th century under very suspect
circumstances, and successfully fended off the Mohegan’s 70-year-long
legal challenge. The conclusion of the case came as a blow to the
Mohegans, and further convinced Occom of Anglo-American corruption.
Along with David Fowler (Montauk Tribe), Occom's brother-in-law, and
Joseph Johnson (Mohegan), Occom's son-in-law, Occom helped found
Brothertown, an Indian tribe formed from the Christian Mohegans,
Pequots, Narragansetts, Montauks, Tunxis, and Niantics. They eventually
settled in Oneida country in upstate New York. Occom moved there with
his family in 1789, spending the remaining years of his life serving as
a minster to the Brothertown, Stockbridge, and Mohegan Indians. Harried
by corrupt land agents, the Brothertown and Stockbridge groups relocated
to the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago, though Occom died in 1792 before
he could remove himself and his family there. Occom's writings and
legacy have made him one of the best known and most eminent Native
Americans of the 18th century and beyond.