Memoirs of a captivity among the Indians of North America, from childhood to the age of nineteen: with anecdotes descriptive of their manners and customs. To which is added, some account of the soil, climate, and vegetable productions of the territory westward of the Mississippi / [John Dunn Hunter].

  • Hunter, John Dunn, 1798?-1827
Date:
1824 [i.e. 1826?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs of a captivity among the Indians of North America, from childhood to the age of nineteen: with anecdotes descriptive of their manners and customs. To which is added, some account of the soil, climate, and vegetable productions of the territory westward of the Mississippi / [John Dunn Hunter]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    with it to New Orleans, On my way down, I was near losing my life and property at a place which I think was called Bayon Sira, in a violent storm. Several boats were wrecked, and some lives and much property lost. I disposed of my produce on advan- tageous terms at New Orleans, and returned up the river to Natches in a steam-boat. This mode of travelling, and the ease with which the boat appeared to be navigated against the current of the Mississippi* without the aid of the wind, or any perceptible human force, filled me with amazement, and almost induced the belief, that if was effected through the agency of invisible spirits; of whose favourable dispositions towards mankind I had no reason to doubt, I passed the following summer and fall, in obtain- ing a further knowledge of the English language, under the tuition of Mr. Robert Currie, a very respectable teacher, who conducted a flourishing seminary in the vicinity of Pearl River, in the Mis- sissippi territory, I remained at this school, under that gentleman, and Mr. John Lewis his successor* at subsequent intervals between the tiding seasons \ so as to make the whole period of my studies amount to about two years and a half, exclusive of about six weeks, which I passed, in the autumn of 1821, at Mr. Samuel Wilson’s academy, near Walnut Hills, in Mercer county, Kentucky. At first, my in- structors experienced some difficulty with me, on account of my supposed intractable disposition, Mr. Currie acknowledged, after we became inti* mately acquainted, that his prejudices were so great