David Cusick

author

David Cusick

d. 1839

An early Tuscarora writer and artist, he is best known for Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations, a pioneering English-language account of Haudenosaunee history and tradition from a Native perspective. His work helped preserve oral histories and myths in print at a time when very few Native authors were being published.

1 Audiobook

David Cusick's Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations Comprising First—A Tale of the Foundation of the Great Island, (Now North America), The Two Infants Born, and the Creation of the Universe. Second—A Real Account of the Early Settlers of north America, and Their Dissensions. Third—Origin of the Kingdom of the Five Nations, Which Was Called a Long House: the Wars, Fierce Animals, &c.

David Cusick's Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations Comprising First—A Tale of the Foundation of the Great Island, (Now North America), The Two Infants Born, and the Creation of the Universe. Second—A Real Account of the Early Settlers of north America, and Their Dissensions. Third—Origin of the Kingdom of the Five Nations, Which Was Called a Long House: the Wars, Fierce Animals, &c.

by David Cusick

About the author

Born around 1780 in what is now upstate New York, David Cusick was a Tuscarora author and artist associated with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. He is remembered chiefly for David Cusick's Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations, first published in the late 1820s, one of the earliest known books in English by a Native American author to present Native history and traditional stories from within the community.

Cusick's book blends creation stories, oral tradition, and historical narrative about the Six Nations. It stands out not only for its subject matter, but also because Cusick included his own engravings, making the work an important visual as well as literary record.

Details of his life are limited and not always consistent across sources, including the exact year of his death; he is often said to have died around 1840. Even so, his small body of surviving work has had a lasting place in Native American literary history because it brought Haudenosaunee voices, memory, and storytelling into print in a form that could reach wider audiences.