David Zeisberger

David Zeisberger: A Life among the Indians offers the unique perspective of a Moravian missionary who lived and worked for sixty-three years among the Iroquois and Delaware nations in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Upper Canada. Earl P. Olmstead's narrative draws on thousands of pages of Zeisberger's own diaries, some of which are translated here for the first time. The diaries offer insights into the role of wampum in tribal government, problems resulting from the mass Euro-American western migration and incidents of duplicity on the parts of both the American Government and Native American nations. Of particular interest are Zeisberger's descriptions of Native American life in the years surrounding the French and Indian War and the American Revolution and the effects of these conflicts on the nations that lived in Ohio Country. David Zeisberger complements Olmstead's earlier book, Blackcoats among the Delaware, which focuses on Zeisberger's life and mission at Goshen, Ohio. As a portrait of an individual who worked closely with Native Americans in the mid-eighteenth century, David Zeisberger adds much to the history of early America.