“The First American”

The life and times of

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

H W Brands

Anchor Books

The Indians were exceedingly gracious to strangers, setting aside a special house in each village to accommodate visitors, and were exemplars of toleration. Franklin wrote of a missionary

Franklin wrote of a missionary who told the Susquehanna the story of Adam’s fall, and how it had led to great travail and necessitated Jesus’s suffering and death.

“When he had finished, an Indian orator stood up to thank him,” Franklin related, with a twinkle in either his own eye, or the Indian’s.

“What you have told us, says he, is all very good.

“What you have told us, says he, is all very good.

It is indeed bad to eat apples.

“What you have told us, says he, is all very good.

It is indeed bad to eat apples.

It is better to make them all into cider.”

©

“What you have told us, says he, is all very good.

It is indeed bad to eat apples.

It is better to make them all into cider.”

©

It is better to make them all into cider.”

Susquehanna Indian warrior 

from Maryland. 

Engraved by William Hole on

John Smith's Map of Virginia

of 1612. 

©

“When he had finished, an Indian orator stood up to thank him,” Franklin related, with a twinkle in either his own eye, or the Indian’s. “What you have told us, says he, is all very good.

It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cider.”

©

“When he had finished, an Indian orator stood up to thank him,” Franklin related, with a twinkle in either his own eye, or the Indian’s.

©

The missionary grew impatient, then disgusted. “What I delivered to you were sacred truths,” he said. “But what you tell me is mere fable, fiction and falsehood.”

©

The Indian replied:

“My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we who understand and practise those rules believed all your stories.

Why do you not believe ours?”

©

The Indian replied:

“My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we who understand and practise those rules believed all your stories.

Why do you not believe ours?”

©

The Indian replied:

“My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we who understand and practise those rules believed all your stories.

Why do you not believe ours?”

Franklin talking to me, UPenn