Her neighbors speak of her as possessing one of the happiest tempers and
disposition, and give her the name of never having done a censurable act
to their knowledge.

Her habits, are those of the Indians--she sleeps on skins without a
bedstead, sits upon the floor or on a bench, and holds her victuals on her
lap, or in her hands.

Her ideas of religion, correspond in every respect with those of the great
mass of the Senecas. She applauds virtue, and despises vice. She believes
in a future state, in which the good will be happy, and the bad miserable;
and that the acquisition of that happiness, depends primarily upon human
volition, and the consequent good deeds of the happy recipient of
blessedness. The doctrines taught in the Christian religion, she is a
stranger to.

Her daughters are said to be active and enterprizing women, and her
grandsons, who arrived to manhood, are considered able, decent and
respectable men in their tribe.

Having in this cursory manner, introduced the subject of the following
pages, I proceed to the narration of a life that has been viewed with
attention, for a great number of years by a few, and which will be read by
the public the mixed sensations of pleasure and pain, and with interest,
anxiety and satisfaction.




LIFE OF MARY JEMISON.