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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... British government for the purpose of asking aid against French aggressions , saw and pitied - yes , pit- ied ! —this perishing mass of men , women and children , They offered to open their hunting grounds lying beyond the 16 THE LIFE OF.
Clement Zwingli Weiser. They offered to open their hunting grounds lying beyond the great sea . The government , only too happy over such a prospective riddance , devised ways and means of trans- portation , and Robert Hunter , the ...
... grounds should fall under their own hands and control . They artfully and wickedly changed the course and destiny of the ... ground rent for ten acres on every separate family . Then $ 33 were exacted per capita as passage money . Accord ...
... grounds were to have been a free gift , and their passage was to have been a free passage likewise . It was simply an outrage . For a little while the colony toiled under the strange and galling yoke , rather than provoke the ire of ...
... ground enough to plant corn for their own use the next year . But this year our hun- ger was hardly endurable . Many of our feasts were of wild potatoes ( oehmanada ) and ground beans ( otagraquara ) , which grew in abundance . We cut ...