Pay for Mission improvements & copy of a letter to Mr. John Ridge, dated, Brainerd June 24 - 1836,
Mr. J. Ridge
Dear Sir,
I should rejoice to see you, and talk with you, instead of writing, on the following subject viz, The manner of paying for mission improvements. For various reasons the Indians have long been peculiarly jealous of white men, and would scarcely believe that any one of them would be honest. When the Moravian missionaries first came to this country, the council would scarcely admit missionaries of any kind, though at length some were permitted to stay on condition of their instructing the youth in literature; and our venerable father and mother. gamboled, by patient continuance in well doing for sixteen years, lived away the prejudices of the churches, so that they began to conclude it possible for some white men to be honest, and they were ready to allow missionaries, above all others to be such, because Mr. Gambold was a missionary. When we came, therefore, the door was quite open, and the Cherokees received us into their bosoms. The national council granted us every privilege we requested, allowed us to clear and occupy all the land we needed for the benefit of our schools, and to erect just such buildings as we should deem necessary