Heckewelder spent forty years in missionary labors among the Indians of the Ohio valley, and was notable in his affinity for Indian language and customs. His account covers the massacre of Christianized Delaware Indians at Ggnadenhutten in 1782 by troops under Col. David Williamson. Field describes the work, and the massacre, in prosaic and poignant fashion: "The narrative of this mission is a history of the noblest labors of the human race, for the civilization of a savage people, and at the same time the record of the most horrible crime perpetrated by a civilized people turned savages. It is the account of a large number of the aborigines, collected into a community; governed by all the refinements of a gentle and admirable humanity, sacrified to the brutal and cowardly vengeance of a murderous mob. Ninety Christian men and women with their children were slaughtered and scalped without attempting resistance, to revenge the outrages of Pagan Indians whom the civilized wretches dared not attack. The massacre was terribly avenged by their Pagan kindred. The frontier was desolated for ten years, and the Colonel Crawford who was present, was afterwards burnt at the stake in avowed retaliation for this very deed of blood...." Old ink name of William A. Wallace to top of title-page. Field 678; Howes H392; Sabin 31205.