Horatio Emmons Hale (May 3, 1817December 28, 1896) was an American-Canadian ethnologist, philologist and businessman. He is known for his study of languages as a key for classifying ancient peoples and being able to trace their migrations.
Hale was the first to analyze and confirm that the Tutelo language of some Virginia Native Americans belonged to the Siouan family, which was most associated with the western Dakota and Hidatsa languages.
Hale also determined that the Cherokee language spoken by a tribe associated with the Appalachian Mountains and upland areas of the interior American Southeast was one of the Iroquoian family of languages. Most of the speakers of the latter had historically occupied territory to the east and south of the Great Lakes, in present-day New York and Pennsylvania. In addition, he published a work, Iroquois Book of Rites (1883), based on his translation of their only two known historic manuscripts. It was supported by his studies with tribal elders in interpreting the Iroquois wampum belts to establish the people's prehistory.
Early life and education
Horatio Hale was born on May 3, 1817, at Newport, New Hampshire, in the United States, the son of David Hale, a lawyer, and of Sarah Josepha Hale (née Buell). After the death of her husband, Sarah Josepha Hale turned to writing and became a prominent magazine editor.
Entering Harvard College in 1833, Hale showed a marked faculty for languages. His first original work was published the next year, and attracted the attention of the college authorities. It consisted of an Algonkian vocabulary, which he gathered from a band of Native Americans who had camped on the college grounds.
United States Exploring Expedition
Three years later, when the United States Exploring Expedition was organized under Charles Wilkes, Hale was recommended, while yet an undergraduate, for the post of ethnologist and philologist. He was appointed to the position.
From 1838 to 1842, Hale worked with the expedition, visiting South America, Australasia, Polynesia, and north-western America, then known as Oregon Country. From this point he returned overland. The Hale Passages of Puget Sound were named in recognition of his service to the expedition.
The expedition also traveled to Polynesia. Of the reports of that expedition, Hale prepared the sixth volume, Ethnography and Philology (1846), which is said to have laid the foundations of the ethnography of Polynesia.
Personal life
Having completed his master's degree at Harvard, Hale made a short tour of Europe. On his return, he studied law, and was admitted to the Chicago bar in 1855. In 1854, at Jersey City, New Jersey, he married Margaret Pugh, whom he met in Ontario. Her father William was formerly justice of the peace for the township of Goderich in Huron County, Canada West (now Ontario).
In 1856, the Hales moved to Clinton, Ontario, Canada, where he administered the estate of his father-in-law. He began to get involved in local real estate development and other business and educational endeavours.
He continued to reside in Clinton until his death, devoting much attention to the development of the Ontario school system. He was influential in introducing co-education of the sexes in high schools and collegiate institutes, in increasing the grants to these institutions, in establishing the normal school system for training of teachers, and in improving the methods of examination.
Native American studies
In Canada Hale returned to his study of First Nations and Native Americans. He was mentored by the Iroquois chiefs George Henry Martin Johnson and John Fraser, whom he met while visiting the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario. In addition he traveled to the United States to consult with other native informants. Hale documented the oral history and rituals of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was assisted in interpreting the group's wampum belts, which recounted their history. As a result of this work, he published The Iroquois Book of Rites (1883). He also studied the Iroquois languages, determining that Mohawk was the oldest. He also concluded that the Laurentian languages were Iroquoian.
Archeologists and linguists have since confirmed that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians were an early people who had occupied territory in what is now considered upper New England and along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and Ontario from about the 14th century to about 1580. They were likely destroyed by the Mohawk from central New York, who were competing for control of hunting grounds and the fur trade.