COLUMBIAN CENTINEL, Boston, Nov. 8, 1797

• Anne Home Hunter song lyrics

The back page has the lyrics of a "Song, By a Captive Indian, while his conquerors were preparing for his Death. Written by the Lady of Mr. John Hunter." The front page has: "Tennessee Eloquence".
Also a notice for an exhibit of "The Elephant" & two ads for "Playing Cards" offering "Harry the Eighth" & "Mary Andrew Playing Cards", dating from the earliest period of playing cards produced in America.
Four pages, good condition.

Background: The back-page entry in the November 8, 1797 issue of the Columbian Centinel features Anne Home Hunter's famous verse—most widely known as "The Death Song of a Cherokee Indian" or "Alknomook"—a piece that gained immense popularity across late 18th-century Britain and early America through both broadsides and theatrical adaptations like Royall Tyler's The Contrast. Framed as a dramatic monologue, the poem expresses the stoic, unyielding defiance of a captured indigenous warrior facing imminent torture and execution by his enemies. Rather than pleading for mercy, the speaker taunts his captors by recounting his past martial triumphs, asserting that true glory outlasts life itself and boasting that "the son of Alknomook shall never complain." Operating through the popular 18th-century romanticized literary trope of the stoic warrior, the song highlights themes of honor, courage, and an unshakeable refusal to submit to fear in the face of death.