But the journal has been carefully edited to make it a straightforward read for modern readers. It isn't so much that Simmons has been re-written as it is that transitions and connectives have been added to bridge the gaps and smooth the bumps in his chaotic and lurching style. Within the text of A Friend , all quotations of the Simmons 1799 Journal are taken from the edited version. The unedited version, presented in an appendix, is as close to a faithful original as could be managed in transcribing hand-written manuscript to printed text. It retains all of Simmons's errant grammar, erratic capitalization, and eccentric spelling.
Readers can see for themselves the differences between the two.
It would be a mistake to think of and promote A Friend as nothing more than a book of regional historical interest. That resistance continued, taking on new forms, after armed resistance was no longer possible. By 1799 Seneca resistance had become a struggle for cultural autonomy. The shooting war had stopped, but the culture war was heating up to unprecedented intensity. But fewer Americans realize that the Indian political and economic assertiveness seen today is a direct descendant of the native cultural resistance that continued after armed resistance had ceased.