The Poor Indians: British Missionaries, Native Americans, and Colonial Sensibility
Laura M. Stevens
272 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus.
Cloth 2004 | ISBN 0-8122-3812-5 | $39.95s| £ 26.00
Paper August 2006 | ISBN 0-8122-1967-8 | $24.95s | £ 16.50
Missionary work, arising from a sense of pity, helped convince the British that they were a benevolent people. Stevens relates this to the rise of the cult of sensibility, when philosophers argued that humans were inherently good because they felt sorrow at the sign of suffering.
For review copies, contact Ellen Trachtenberg at ellenpt AT pobox DOT upenn DOT edu.