David Zeisberger

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
David Zeisberger
Clergyman, translator
SpouseSusanna Lecron[2]
Parent(s)David Zeisberger
Rosina Zeisberger[2]

David Zeisberger (April 11, 1721 – November 17, 1808) was a

Amherstburg, Ontario
.

Biography

Zeisberger was born in Zauchtenthal,

colony of Georgia, Zeisberger remained in Europe to complete his education. In 1738, he came to Georgia in the Thirteen Colonies, with the assistance of governor of Georgia James Edward Oglethorpe. He later rejoined his family in the Moravian community at Savannah, Georgia. At the time, the United Brethren had begun a settlement, merely for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the Creek Indians
. From there he moved to Pennsylvania, and assisted at the commencement of the settlements of Nazareth and Bethlehem.

In 1739, Zeisberger was influential in the development of a Moravian community in

Mohawk. He became fluent in the Onondaga language and assisted Conrad Weiser in negotiating an alliance between the Thirteen Colonies and the Iroquois in Onondaga (near present-day Syracuse, New York). Zeisberger also produced dictionaries and religious works in Iroquoian and Algonquian,[3] making him the father of Lenape writing [4]

Gnadenhutten Massacre
.

After Zeisberger was released, violent conflicts with other Native tribes and the expansion of white settlement forced many Moravian Christian settlements to relocate to present-day Michigan and Ontario. A large group of Munsee moved there in 1782, but Zeisberger later returned to live the rest of his life among the Native converts remaining near the village of Goshen (in present Goshen Township, Tuscarawas County, Ohio). Zeisberger spent a period of 62 years, excepting a few short intervals, as a missionary among the Indians. He died on November 17, 1808, at Goshen, Ohio, on the river Tuscarawas, at the age of 87. Zeisberger is buried in Goshen.

Notes

  1. ^ "OhioPix: David Zeisberger". Archived from the original on 2010-12-30. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  2. ^ a b Brock, Daniel J. (1983). "Zeisberger, David". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. V (1801–1820) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  3. Eben Horsford (editor) (1887) Zeisberger's Indian Dictionary : English, German, Iroquois, Algonquin
    , Cambridge Massachusetts
  4. ^ "Official Site of the Delaware Tribe of Indians » Frequently Asked Questions About the Lenape or Delaware Tribe".

References

External links

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