A gifted linguist, Du Ponceau was the president of the APS from 1827 to 1844. His work on Native American languages attempted to demonstrate the relationships between Indian tribes based on the similarities or differences of their languages. On this page of Johann Christoph Adelung’s pathbreaking book on world languages, Mithridates, completed after his death by his disciple Johann Vater, Du Ponceau records his meeting with a “Negro who pretended to have understood the Chickasaw & Choktaw [languages].” It provides a sense of Du Ponceau’s dedication to his research.