Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher

I frequently feature books in my blogposts, but seldom actually recommend them. However, here is a book that I am recommending: Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher should be purchased by all the middle school libraries in Wisconsin. Although the focus is on Electa Quinney, the author does a good job of giving readers the context of the woman's life, which is a remarkable stage. The reality that Native nations like the Stockbridge Mohicans fought amongst themselves is not lost on the author, Karyn Saemann. At the same time, harsh realities like the Indian Removal Act are not sugar-coated. And, of much importance to historians of Native Christianity like myself, religion was not scrubbed out of this portrait. The negative stereotype of missionaries is not reinforced. (Electa Quinney's first husband, Daniel Adams, was a Native preacher.)

Frontier America in the 1800's is broken down into simple enough language for middle schoolers to be able to comprehend Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher. Saemann also encourages students to form their own viewpoints of what Electa Quinney may have thought and felt. I really appreciate how the author admitted up front that history is like a puzzle and there are missing pieces. It appears that most of the letters that Electa wrote were not preserved for posterity. (The discovery of Electa's son's remarkable collection of papers in an old trunk in 1932 was rightfully featured in the book.)

The quality of the body of the book makes it worth reading not only for schoolchildren but also adults interested in American history. People like me will be disappointed that the book doesn't have notes or a bibliography that can be used to track down the sources used by the author, but remember, the book was not written for adult scholars.

Factual errors? I think that every book has a few. Let me speak to that.
On pages 10-11, the author repeats the error made by others that John W. Quinney and Austin E. Quinney were brothers. According to the tribe's current enrollment officer, the two men were cousins.
On page 10, the author acknowledges "we can't say for sure who Electa's father was." Then she guesses that Electa probably had the same father as John W. Quinney. (We already know that John W. Quinney and Electa had the same mother.) In minutes of an Indian Party meeting contained in the John C. Adams Papers, I found that John P. Quinney objected to Electa Quinney's membership in the Indian Party because, as John P. put it, "her father was not an Indian."
In a post I wrote before Saemann's book was published, I addressed the question of whether or not Electa Quinney was the first public school teacher in Wisconsin. To summarize that post, Electa Quinney - contrary to what some books say - did not teach school at Statesburg in 1828. Augustus T. Ambler, who Saemann acknowledges on page 41, did teach the Stockbridge school at Statesburg in that year and then, as Saemann notes, Electa Quinney took over for Ambler. So how is E. Quinney still the Wisconsin's first public schoolteacher? Saemann's view is that Augustus T. Ambler's school was private, while Electa Quinney's school was public. Of course, she knows it was the same students being taught in the same building. On pages 38-39 she has a section where she explains the difference between public and private schools - she says it is about where the money comes from. I suppose that is a legitimate definition, but I'm not convinced that the school that was taught by Ambler one term and by Quinney the next was funded by two different sources of money in those two terms. Saemann asserts that public schools are supported by taxes, but the 1794 Treaty of Canadaigua was supposed to support a tribal school. Without Electa Quinney being the first public schoolteacher in Wisconsin, you still have an important biography and a significant role model.

In conclusion, Electa Quinney: Stockbridge Teacher is a good read. While the focus and the intended audiences are different, the subject matter of this book may overlap as much with my own Proud and Determined, as any other book. I recommend that you read both.