The Life of (John) Conrad Weiser, the German Pioneer, Patriot, and Patron of Two RacesJohn Conrad Weiser was among very few colonial settlers to achieve fluency in Native American languages, working for decades as an interpreter and peacemaker between European settlers and native tribes. The services rendered by Conrad Weiser were immensely important to the colonists of North America. He spent time living with the Maqua tribe, learning their customs and culture, and achieving supreme command of their language. When disputes arose, Weiser was called upon - on several occasions, his mediation and diplomacy prevented disagreements from descending into violence. In maturity, he served as Superintendent of the Indian Bureau; an agency which promoted peaceful cooperation between Native Americans and white Europeans. This biography charts Weiser's humble beginnings in Germany, his boyhood emigration to America, and his first communications and residence with the Maqua. His greatest successes as interpreter and promoter of peaceful understanding are related in detail. Strongly revered for decades after his death in 1760, George Washington himself revisited Weiser's gravesite in 1793 to remember his contributions. Weiser remains a pivotal figure in the history of colonial America, and his house in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania is today a museum dedicated to study of the era. The author of this biography, Clement Zwingli Weiser, was a descendent keen on family research, who lived at the turn of the 20th century. |
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... Governor of New York , led 4000 Palatinates thitherward . " At the head of this colony , " says the Schwabische Merkur und Kronik , " stood John Conrad Weiser . " National calam- ity drove him a voluntary exile abroad . Domestic afflic ...
... Governor of New York , and Robert Livingstone , a wealthy landlord of the province , however , knew too well how to hold the emigrants in sus- pense and delay the consummation of the good intention of the royal heart , until those ...
... Governor of New York . " Who can refrain from recurring to the task - masters in Egypt ? Did we but have access to their names , we might place them most appositely aside of their modern successors . Hunter and Livingstone were cousin ...
... Governor Robert Hunter ; the Provincial Governor had long before sold their fruitful valley to seven landlords : Robert Living- stone , Meyndert Schuyler , John Schuyler , Peter Van Brughen , George Clark , the Provincial Secretary ...
... Governor and his crew , in order to gain time , plot more effectually , and , perhaps , wholly prevent the depar- ture of the delegates , pretended to contemplate a favorable compromise . But suspicion and jealousy had now filled the ...