Skip to main content

Notes taken by Samuel Gardner Drake, for a possible "Indian dictionary" (including names of tribes and geographical place-names), undated, possibly ca. 1869

 Item — Box: 1, Folder: 9

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

The American Indian Collection is a small, eclectic collection of 18th and 19th century materials related to indigenous peoples in North America and their languages. The highlight of this artificial collection is the original manuscript of French Jesuit missionary Rev. Jacques Gravier (1651-1708), entitled 'Dictionary of the Algonquin Illinois Language' (ca. 1700), which was acquired and partially transcribed by James Hammond Trumbull (1821-1897), a noted philologist and statesman. It also includes correspondence from various institutions of white imperialism which interacted with Native Americans, including the U.S. Army and the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology. The collection also contains two Catholic liturgy and prayer books (in manuscript) partially written in Abenaki, along with notebooks by amateur linguists, historians, and antiquarians (such as Samuel Gardner Drake) containing vocabularies related to the Seminole, Menominee, Ojibwe, Mickmac, and Sioux-Dakota languages.

Also included are supplemental materials from the 1990s about the Gravier Algonquin-Illinois Dictionary, as well as a small folder of manuscripts and correspondence involving the study of the Kiowa language by Parker Paul McKenzie, identified in the documents as a "member of the Kiowa tribe."

Materials were added to the collection at unknown times related to additional subjects about American Indians.

Dates

  • Creation: undated, possibly ca. 1869

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open to the public and must be used in the John M.K. Davis Reading Room of the Watkinson Library, Trinity College Library, Hartford, Connecticut. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws when using this collection.

Extent

1 Folder(s)

Language of Materials

English

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Sydney Stanley donated this bound volume to the Watkinson Library in September-October 1919. The volume was given accession #31422. In 1919, the cost was marked as $3.00.

Repository Details

Part of the Watkinson Library - Archival Collections Repository

Contact:
Trinity College Library
300 Summit St.
Hartford Connecticut 06106