Peter Jones (1802–1856) was an Ojibwa Methodist minister, translator,
chief and author from Burlington Heights, Upper Canada. Jones converted
to Methodism at age 21 after attending a camp-meeting with his half
sister. As a bilingual and bicultural preacher, he enabled the
Methodists to make significant inroads with the Mississaugas and
Iroquois of Upper Canada, both by translating hymns and biblical texts
in Ojibwe and Mohawk and preaching to Indians who did not understand
English. Beyond his preaching to the Indians of Upper Canada, he was an
excellent fundraiser for the Canadian Methodists, and toured the United
States and Great Britain giving sermons and speeches. Jones drew
audiences of thousands, filling many of the buildings he spoke in, but
came to resent the role, believing the audiences came to see
Kahkewāquonāby, the exotic Indian, not Peter Jones, the good Christian
he had worked so hard to become. Jones was also a political leader. In
1825, he wrote the Indian Department; his letter was the first the
department had ever received from an Indian. This brought him into
contact with Superintendent of the Indian Department James Givins and
influential Bishop John Strachan, with whom he arranged the funding and
support of the Credit Mission.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jones_%28missionary%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1794:
To protect American merchant ships from Barbary pirates, the United
States Congress passed the Naval Act to establish a naval force of six
frigates, which eventually became the United States Navy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy>
1851:
Explorer Lafayette Bunnell and other members of the Mariposa Battalion
became the non-indigenous discoverers of California's Yosemite Valley .
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Valley>
1977:
Two Boeing 747 airliners collided on a foggy runway at Los Rodeos
Airport on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people and
resulting in the worst aircraft accident in aviation history.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster>
1998:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug sildenafil,
better known by the trade name Viagra, for use as a treatment for
erectile dysfunction, the first pill to be approved for this condition
in the United States.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sildenafil>
2002:
A suicide bomber killed about 30 Israeli civilians and injured about
140 others at the Park Hotel in Netanya, triggering Operation Defensive
Shield, a large-scale counter-terrorist Israeli military incursion into
the West Bank, two days later.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover_massacre>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
daub (v):
To apply something to a surface in hasty or crude strokes
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/daub>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
At this point in history when all things which concern man and the
structure and elements of history itself are suddenly revealed to us in
a new light, it behooves us in our scientific thinking to become
masters of the situation, for it is not inconceivable that sooner than
we suspect, as has often been the case before in history, this vision
may disappear, the opportunity may be lost, and the world will once
again present a static, uniform, and inflexible countenance.
--Karl Mannheim
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Mannheim>
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