The tribes of Algonkin lineage can also count some respectable writers. The Rev. William Apess (or Apes), a member of the Pequod tribe of Massachusetts, wrote and published five or six small books and pamphlets, on questions relating to his people, between 1829 and 1837. The book of George Copway, or Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, a chief of the Ojibways, on _The Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation_ (London, 1850), is a good authority on the topic, and so well written that we can scarcely suppose that it was his unaided effort. Of almost equal merit is the _History of the Ojibway Indians, with especial reference to their Conversion to Christianity_, by the Rev. Peter Jones, or Kahkewaquonaby, a full-blood Indian, (London, 1861.)
In the southwest, the _Cherokee Phoenix_ offered a medium through which the native writers of that tribe frequently published original contributions; and one of its early editors, Elias Boudinot (named after the celebrated philanthropist), published separately a number of addresses and other documents, in English.
But, as we might naturally expect, it is in Spanish that we find the best work of the native writers. The partly civilized races of Mexico, Central America and Peru, were much better prepared to receive the lessons of European teachers than the barbarous hunting tribes. Had they had any fair chance, they would have soon equaled their teachers. Father Motolinia, one of the earliest missionaries to Mexico, testifies to the readiness with which the natives acquired both Spanish and Latin, and adds that, in the latter tongue, they became skilled grammarians, and wrote both verse and prose with commendable accuracy.[6] Quite a long list of such native Latinists, their names and their writings, is given by Father Augustin de Vetancurt, and he is not sparing in his praise of the ability they displayed in the use of both Spanish and Latin.[7] Similar testimony is rendered of the natives of Guatemala, by the Archbishop Garcia Pelaez. He mentions, by name, several Indians who became conspicuously thorough Latin scholars, and refers to others who won honors in all the faculties of the University of Guatemala, and distinguished themselves in after life by the display of their talents and education.[8] Nor would it be difficult to find many other such examples in Peru and Brazil.