Thomas Jefferson to Peter S. Du Ponceau, 14 March [1819]
To Peter S. Du Ponceau
Monticello Mar. 14.
I thank you, dear Sir, for the valuable volume of your historical transactions which you have been so kind as to send me, and I rejoice to see that the history of our aborigines is so ably commenced before their final extinction, or their amalgamation with us. wishing it may continue to engage the exertion of talents so competent to it I salute you with friendship & respect.
Th: Jefferson
RC (PPAmP: Thomas Jefferson Papers); partially dated; addressed: “Peter S. Duponceau esq. Philadelphia”; franked; postmarked Milton, 16 Mar.; with notation by John Vaughan: “read—in Comee April 21. 1819.” PoC (DLC); on verso of reused address cover of George H. Richards to TJ, 15 Dec. 1818; endorsed by TJ as a letter of 14 Mar. 1819 and so recorded in SJL.
Material on the history of our aborigines in the first volume of the Transactions of the Historical & Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society (1819; , 7 [no. 343]) included two articles by John Heckewelder, “An Account of the History, Manners, and Customs, of the Indian Natives who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States” and “Words, Phrases, and Short Dialogues, in the Language of the Lenni Lenape”; a collection of letters between Heckewelder and Du Ponceau on Indian languages; Du Ponceau’s report to the committee on this subject; and a “List of MS. Donations to the Committee, concerning the Indians and their Languages,” which included as TJ’s contributions eleven Indian vocabularies and a handwritten copy by Benjamin Hawkins of his “Sketch of the Creek Country in the years 1798, and 1799.”
Index Entries
- American Philosophical Society, Historical and Literary Committee; TJ sends works to search
- American Philosophical Society, Historical and Literary Committee; Transactions search
- A Sketch of the Creek Country, in the years 1798 and 1799 (B. Hawkins) search
- Creek Indians; A Sketch of the Creek Country, in the years 1798 and 1799 (B. Hawkins) search
- Du Ponceau, Peter Stephen; and Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society search
- Du Ponceau, Peter Stephen; and Indians search
- Du Ponceau, Peter Stephen; letters to search
- Hawkins, Benjamin; A Sketch of the Creek Country, in the years 1798 and 1799 search
- Heckewelder, John; and Indians search
- Indians, American; and B. Hawkins search
- Indians, American; Creek search
- Indians, American; languages search
- Indians, American; Lenni Lenape search
- Indians, American; TJ’s vocabularies of search
- Indians, American; works on search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Books and Library; receives works search
- language; Indian (American) search
- Lenni Lenape Indians; works on search
- Vaughan, John (1756–1841); and Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society search