Mission and ministry with Native American Peoples: a historical Survey of the Last

Protestant Mission in the Northeast 

From 1805 to 1811 the New York Missionary Society began mission work at the Cattaragus reservation. In 1821 the mission was transferred to the United Foreign Missionary Society and in 1823 a church was organized on the reservation. From 1832 to 1875 the Rev. and Mrs. Asher Wright worked at Upper Cattaragus. He is said to be the only male missionary to have acquired a satisfactory knowledge of the Seneca language. He translated the four Gospels into Seneca. In 1843 the church at Jimmersontown, on the Allegheny Reservation, was established. In 1868 a church was established on the Tonawanda Reservation. In 1870 the work was transferred from the American Board to the Presbyterian Board. 

Shinnecock Church on Long Island, New York, over 250 years old, continues as a Native American congregation in Long Island Presbytery. Holly Haile Smith, a Shinnecock woman ordained in the 1985 was the first Native American woman to be ordained by the Presbyterian Church. 

Southeast Mission

In 1803, Gideon Blackburn was assigned by the Presbyterian General Assembly to serve as a missionary among the Cherokees. Cyrus Kingsbury, missionary, followed to the Cherokees in 1810. He persuaded President Madison to consider appropriating funds for the "civilization" of Indian people. In 1819, Congress passed the Civilization Fund providing $10,000 annually to "moralize Indians." The funds were "for the purpose of providing against the further decline and final extinction of the Indian tribes...and for introducing among them the habits and arts of civilization." The government wanted to civilize and the Church wanted to "Christianize" the Indians. The money funded schools which began to educate Indian students away from their culture while providing skills in black smithing and agriculture. In 1820, the Presbyterian General Assembly endorsed the "gospelizing of the Indians on the frontiers of our country, connected with a plan for their civilization..."

The Civilization Fund supported the schooling of Indian children in partnership with several denominations. For some tribes, this was a positive experience. Because some states would not provide schools for Indian children, the churches believed that education and civilization would improve the lives of Indian people, so they built and staffed denominational mission schools. But when boarding schools were introduced and children were forced to attend school whether their parents gave permission or not, it became less positive. Families were broken up and parents no longer had primary responsibility for their children. Subsequent graduates of the school had little or no parenting skills because they had not been a part of a nuclear family. They had not experienced the necessary bonding for a nuclear family to become strong against adversity and trial. For many years the federal government did not emphasize higher education, only vocational training. 

The American Board developed a model school at Brainard in 1817 and other schools. They sent young men to schools in New England, but racism intervened when Elias Boudinot and John Ridge, both Cherokee, courted white women while attending Cornwall Mission School. It was closed in the fall of 1826 because of the incident. Later the women married these Cherokee men who became outstanding leaders. The outcry against Cherokee intermarriage was heard back in Cherokee territory and it shamed and frustrated the missionaries who had been working among them. 

Elias Boudinot spoke before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1821 and sought credentials for Cherokees as civilized citizens. He was told that because the Cherokees were "nomadic" and not able to describe the metes and bound of their property, they could not be fully civilized. In 1826, Boudinot addressed the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, describing the Phoenix, a Cherokee-published newspaper which used Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary of 86 characters, their unicameral system of government, Supreme Court, library, churches, grist mills, thousands of cattle, sheep, swine and horses. Yet the Cherokees were not considered "civilized." 

On December 8, 1829, President Andrew Jackson (a Presbyterian) in his first annual message to Congress proposed removal of the Cherokees from their land in Georgia. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act forcing Indians to move west of the Mississippi River. In 1835, Jackson rationalized, that "all preceding experiments for the improvement of the Indian have failed. It seems now to be an established fact that they cannot live in contact with a civilized community and prosper."

Jeremiah Evarts, a Christian lawyer, traveled extensively into Indian communities becoming very knowledgeable about treaty rights. He became a fervent advocate of Indian rights against Indian Removal. He became treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners and believed that if America did not manifest moral courage and justice towards Indians, the soul of America would be compromised. Writing under the pen name, "William Penn," he prepared many legal documents and tracts arguing against the policy of removal. When he died in 1831, much of the struggle died with him. The Choctaws were most directly affected and removed in 1831. 

Georgia had enacted laws against the Cherokees. The Cherokee in 1831 sued the State of Georgia for intrusion of their sovereignty. The Cherokees argued that the Supreme Court could render a judgment over "Foreign nations and states." The Supreme Court ruled that the State of Georgia had no jurisdiction over the Cherokees, but that the Cherokees were not a foreign nation and defined them as a "domestic dependent nation." 

In 1832, Samuel Worcester, a Presbyterian missionary, was arrested and sentenced to four years of hard labor for violation of a state statute which required that all non-Indians obtain a state license to work with Indians. He sued the State of Georgia. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court studied the treaties signed between the United States and the Cherokee Nation and recognized the Indian right to self-government and the Cherokee right to provide sanctuary to Worcester, and the obligation of the United States to protect the sovereignty of Cherokees. 

The Cherokees and Choctaws had been Jackson allies in the War of 1812 and at Horseshoe Bend in 1815. In spite of a victory before the Supreme Court, they remained victims of political chicanery. Jackson stated that "treaties are an absurdity." In 1836, the Cherokees were removed over the "Trail of Tears," to Indian territory in Oklahoma. The Removal Policy, under a mask of benevolence, sent other eastern tribes to Oklahoma. The American Board had supported the Indians but Removal Laws settled the matter for them. Missionary Worcester joined the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears and continued to print Christian literature.

The Seminoles were also removed to Oklahoma Territory in 1832. In 1849 a boarding school was opened with 11 pupils at Oak Ridge; it was suspended in 1861 due to the Civil War. In 1866 the Rev. J. Ross Ramsey resumed missionary work, reopening the boarding school in 1870. Of the Seminole churches established, Cheyarha was the main church, with chapels at Maud (Achena, established in 1884), Tallahassee and Wewoka First. 

Mission in the Great Plains

Under the American Board of Commissioners (who worked with Congregationalists and New School Presbyterians) the Dakota mission was opened by the Reverend Thomas S. Williamson in 1831 near Lac Qui Parle, Minnesota and was later joined in 1837 by the Rev. Stephen Return Riggs. They developed teaching materials written in both Dakota and English. 

The Civil War began in 1861 and lasted until 1865. Meanwhile, treaty promises of the United States were unfulfilled, leading to near starvation and the Great Sioux uprising in 1862. In Mankato, Minnesota, 303 Sioux Indians were to be hanged, but churchmen and concerned citizens persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to review the cases and consequently 265 people were given lesser sentences. Thirty-eight (38) were hanged. Presbyterian John P. Williamson and Catholic Fr. Augustine Ravoux visited Indians frequently in prison and most of them converted to Christianity. The Santee Sioux were sent to Bazille Creek in Nebraska and later traveled to an area near present day Flandreau, South Dakota where they became the first Indians to homestead. John Eastman, Santee Sioux, became a Presbyterian minister, while his brother Charles Eastman became a famous surgeon, author and one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America.

The Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868 accorded the Sioux all the land west of the Missouri river in South Dakota, but the United States broke the treaty in 1874 when gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

"Wounded Knee" in southwestern South Dakota has been called the last of the Indian wars, but in truth it was a massacre of mainly women and children in the winter of 1890 when Chief Bigfoot, deathly ill of pneumonia, surrendered under a flag of truce. Dr. Charles Eastman, Santee Sioux surgeon, had the burden of being the coroner for the ill fated Indian people. 

While denominations were asked to administer and educate on their assigned reservations, a question arose in 1874 about a Native Missionary society. Dakota Christians had organized their own missionary society and called David Renville and his wife to serve among the Devils Lake Sioux community in North Dakota. Other missionaries questioned this action, arguing that only those denominations assigned by the government could minister to that tribe. Dakota Christians, who viewed this as a rejection of their right to minister to their own people, protested and appealed to the government. The American Board and the Presbyterian Board supported the Renvilles. Beaver, in his book, writes, "the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church sent a petition to President Hayes stating ...We would strongly insist upon giving to the Indians the same religious liberty which we claim for ourselves; that reservations should be open to all religious societies who sincerely work for the elevation of the Indians."

Dakota Presbytery, the only Indian non-geographic presbytery, has carried on mission until the present. There are 21 churches in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. Dakota Presbytery and the Dakota Conference of United Church of Christ carry on the historic work of the American Board of Commissioners. 

The Northwest Mission, Opening of the Oregon Territory 

In 1803, President Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with France. He wanted land west of the Mississippi in which to remove the Southeastern Indians. The "Oregon Territory" was not part of the purchase, but Jefferson appointed Meriwether Lewis and George Rogers Clark to explore lands to the Pacific Ocean. 

The Nez Perce Indians sent four men to St. Louis in search of the "Whiteman's Book of Heaven" in 1831. News articles of the event announced the call for missionaries to go to the Northwest. The American Board sent men to Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Jason Lee founded the Mission in the Pacific Northwest near Fort Vancouver, Washington. In 1835, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman went to the Oregon Territory and Henry and Eliza Spalding went to the Nez Perce in Spalding Presbyterian Church, Spalding, ID, Idaho. Kamiah First and the Spalding Church were the first churches organized among the Nez Perce in 1871. Ahsahka, Kamiah Second, Stites and Meadowcreek came later. 

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce successfully fought the United States army over a 1300 mile "rear guard action" in 1877. The "Thief Treaty" in 1863 reduced the original reservation by six million acres of Nez Perce land including Joseph's beloved Wallowa homeland. Chief Joseph who had been baptized as a Christian, then returned to his traditional religion. 

American Board missionaries, especially Whitman continued to work and lobby for the Oregon territory to be part of the United States, while the British also claimed the territory. There was a race to populate the Northwest in order to substantiate the claim to the region. 

The United Presbyterians of North America opened work at Warm Springs reservation in Oregon in 1866. Neah Bay in Washington was originally assigned to the Disciples in 1872, but Presbyterians later assumed responsibility. The Tutuilla Church among the Umatillas in present day Oregon was begun in 1822. The American Missionary Association, organized in 1846, took over the Indian work of the Board of Commissioners in 1883. The Church of Indian Fellowship served Indian patients at Cushman Hospital located near Tacoma, Washington. 

In 1873 Henry Spaulding visited the Spokanes at their invitation. He received 253 members and he was later appointed a missionary but died in 1874. In 1882 a church was founded at Wellpinit, Washington. In the next four years 146 persons were added to the church rolls. 

Southwest Mission 

From 1848 to 1853 the United States boundary was expanded to include Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago. The Gadsden Purchase added the remaining lands of Arizona, New Mexico and California. 

Ft. Defiance was built in Arizona in 1851 to "control" the Navajos. Manuelito retaliated for the killing his livestock and attacked the fort. The Navajos were forced on the "Long Walk" of 350 wintry miles and imprisoned at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico from 1863 until 1868. After the Long Walk, and the establishment of the Navajo reservation, Presbyterian missionaries were assigned to the Navajo reservation as part of the Peace Policy. Cook Memorial Presbyterian Church, Sacaton, AZ, Pima

The mission among the Navajo included Ganado, a mission school, church and hospital began in 1901. The Presbyterian ministry included healing as well as preaching. The Sage Memorial hospital at Ganado provided a powerful presence for healing, especially when tuberculosis hit the tribe in the 1930's. Ganado had one of the first nursing programs for Indian students in the southwest. Navajo missions were assigned shortly after the Peace Policy in 1870-71. Today there are churches at Tuba City, Kayenta, O'jato, Chinle, Indian Wells, Leupp and Fort Defiance. 

The Pima Indians, known as the best farmers in the Southwest, were courted by both the North and South during the Civil War for food stuffs, wheat and vegetables. People heading for the gold fields in California detoured to the Pima's in order to secure food before traveling west. 

Charles H. Cook, a school teacher in 1870 began work among the Pima's as a teacher. Persuaded by Sheldon Jackson to become a Presbyterian minister, he officially began Presbyterian work in 1878. He began 11 churches among the Pima-Maricopa and Yavapai. The "Mother Church of the Pima's," organized in 1879, is the C. H. Cook Memorial Church in Sacaton, Arizona. Cook Bible School, now Cook College and Theological School, began in 1911 in Tucson, moved to Phoenix a year later and then to Tempe, Arizona in 1965. Central Presbyterian Church began in 1915 and is the only organized urban Indian church in the Presbyterian denomination. "Escuela" a Presbyterian High School in Tucson, Arizona, established in 1888, was a central place for many southern Arizona tribes. It was closed in 1960. The two schools developed native church leadership in Arizona during this time. 

A boarding school was established among the Papagos (now Tohono' Odham) in 1890, by the Presbyterian Home Mission Board, twenty eight years before the reservation was established in 1918. In 1912 Presbyterians, following their successful work among Gila Pima's, began to extend their programs to the Papagos. By 1920 they had set up work in Topawa and Choulic. There are five chapels on the Tohono' Odham reservation with the church at Sells, Arizona, being the headquarters. The chapels are located at Vamori, Santa Rosa, Topawa and San Miguel. 

In Texas, the Alabama Coushatta Church was established in 1884, not as an incident of directed mission, but as a result of a Presbyterian minister getting lost and rescued by the Coushattas. Dr. S.F. Tenney a minister from Crockett, Texas, was on his way to visit churches in Beaumont when he got lost. Indian people found him and took him to their home until he became well enough to continue on his journey. On April 3, 1880, Tenney brought the "plight of the Indians" to the attention of his Presbytery and asked that the Evangelistic Committee look into the situation and employ a missionary. On November 1, 1880, Dr. L. W.Currrie and his wife from North Carolina were sent to work with the Alabama Coushattas in Polk County. He built a school, and in 1884 he officially organized the Indian Presbyterian Church. The church survived a fire in 1886, said to have been set by "lawless white men," and continues to this day. 

In New Mexico, the Rev. John Menaul began work as a government school teacher at Laguna Pueblo in 1875. The Laguna Presbyterian Church was founded in 1897. The church at Jemez Pueblo, established in 1878, was closed in the 1970's. The Ute Mountain Church is located near Towoac, Colorado. Menaul School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, originally was a school for Indians, and has been turned over for Hispanic students while still enrolling Indian students. 

Churches were also established among the Paiute in the Eastern Sierras of California (Valley Presbyterian in Bishop), and in Northern California among the Hupa at Hoopa. In 1912 a church was reported with four mission stations. There were 108 communicants. The founding minister was the Rev. W. N. Price. Eventually the mission work in the Owens Valley included churches at Bishop, Lone Pine, and Big Pine. 

Alaska Mission 

Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, but citizenship and Alaska native rights were not considered in the land transaction. The Russian Church was first into Alaska in 1794. Sheldon Jackson began his ministry at Spencer Academy in Oklahoma among Indians. He had organized several churches in Midwestern and Southwestern states. He recruited Amanda McFarland for Alaska and she began a school for girls at Ft. Wrangell in 1877. In Alaska, he became General Agent for Education while simultaneously serving as superintendent of Presbyterian Missions. He established a comity agreement in Alaska and depended on the Protestant churches to provide him with teachers and finances. He traveled to Barrow in 1890, but the church did not begin until 1897. From the base at Barrow, the churches at Wainwright, Barter Island, and Kaktovik were begun after 1913. 

The Wales Church was given over to Presbyterians by Congregationalists and in 1954 it was traded to Mission Covenant Church in return for the church at Yakutat, Alaska. Anaktuvak Pass received instruction and began a church in the 1950's. The churches at Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island were not organized until 1942. Jackson established Presbyterian mission points including schools, one named after him, Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska. The school served many of the southeastern villages where Presbyterian Churches are located such as Juneau, Kake, Hoonah, Angoon, St. Petersburg, Sitka, Wrangell, Ketchikan, Hydaburg, Craig, Klukwan and Metlakatla.  William Duncan led the Tsimshian from Ft. Simpson, British Columbia, to Metlakatla, Alaska. He had been an Anglican in Canada but did not believe his denomination supported him enough. Congress established the Annette Islands Reserve in 1891. The Tsimpshian later voted whether to remain with a non-denominational church or establish a Presbyterian Church at Metlakatla. On October 18, 1920 the Presbyterian Church was organized. While the native people respected Duncan for his early leadership, they were dismayed when he attempted to rule as if the community and its property belonged to him. Duncan especially lost favor when


Peter Simpson, Sheldon Jackson (seated) and Edward Marsden, ca. 1896-1913.
he dissolved the Metlakatla Industrial Company, turning the assets over to himself. 

Edward Marsden was a Tsimshian who championed Indian rights, sought educational opportunity in theology and ministry. He had great respect for missionary Duncan, but when he returned after his long tenure of education, it is said that Duncan refused his hand shake. Duncan had advised against his leaving for an education, but received encouragement from Dr. Sheldon Jackson. He was rebuked in his ministry and on one occasion replied to the Board of Home Missions in 1919 when he wrote his philosophy. Multitudes of testimony supported his selfless ministry. 

"I believe, Sir, that my Indian race, especially those that are here, should receive all the benefits of the plain and pure gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, worship all the advantages of education, engage in honorable business, bear the burdens of their own progress against being treated as words and nursing babes, be under representative rule and authority, practice the requirements of Christian freedom and conform themselves to the duties and mandates of the national government under whose protection and flag they are living today. This is my platform and is one on which I propose to deal with them in the years to come, if my poor life is spared."

In Southeast Alaska, the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) and Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) were very strong native organizations that involved tribal leadership in social and legal concerns while the churches dealt with the ecclesiastical and spiritual concerns. But it must be understood that all of the meetings were opened with prayer and often had a worshipful emphasis to their meetings. Members were inspired at each meeting when they sang their theme song, "Onward Christian Soldiers." Presbyterians and the Salvation Army gave the initial support to these organizations, as well as provided important leadership. 

Presbyterian Policy 1880's to 1930's 

Perhaps the largest loss of Indian land occurred as a consequence of the Dawes Act, which was strongly supported in 1884-1847 by Christian denominations who gathered yearly at Lake Mohonk Conference grounds in New York. Under the Dawes Act "solution," each Indian was to be given an allotment of land, thereby undermining the concept of communally held tribal land. Christians rationalized, "Let the Indian have the same right to personal possession of his land as any American citizen or immigrant." They will leave their nomadic ways, settle down, become farmers and responsible citizens. The Dawes Act opened the way for the federal government to declare all un allotted land as surplus and open for sale. More land was lost because Indians did not understand tax laws relative to property. Many lost their land and others sold land because they were not accustomed to individual ownership of land. 

Lands were allotted from 1887 to 1934. Lands not allotted or designated tribal were considered surplus and opened for sale. By the time the policy ended in 1934, with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, Indians had lost 90 million acres of land. 

Churches became beneficiaries of the Dawes Act when in 1922, all denominations that had used land given under the terms of the Act were granted title to the property. The Board of National Missions was established in 1923. Some tribes believed that they had a treaty with a denomination assigned to their reservation. It raises the question as to what "trust responsibility" does the Church have for the land which has been entrusted to their care? Some tribes actually believe that they have a "treaty" with the Presbyterian Church, whereby they have given up land for a Presbyterian church and ministerial leadership. 

American Indians were made United States citizens in their own country in 1924. By 1928, Lewis Merriam completed a study of Indian Affairs which documented the failure of federal Indian policy during the allotment period, and provided impetus for sweeping changes in federal Indian policy. The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), passed in 1934, ended the practice of allotment, thereby offering protection for the land base of tribes. The IRA also encouraged tribes to adopt a constitutional style of government; while many tribes did so, a good number resisted, insisting on maintaining their traditional forms of government. John Collier, the new Indian Commissioner, followed recommendations of the Merriam study and supported the return of Indian culture and heritage, much to the chagrin of various church denominations. They feared a return to traditional ways, thus subverting their assimilation ethic. The social science approach adopted by Commissioner John Collier was clearly at odds with the Christian motivation behind the Christian reformers of the late 19th century. 
The National Fellowship of Indian Workers was organized at Madison, Wisconsin in 1935 by the Protestant Churches who had historic missions. This organization brought together Christian Church workers and federal government employees to seek mutual solutions to Indian issues. The emphasis was on fellowship for it prompted church workers and federal employees to meet and develop acquaintances and friendships. The Presbyterian Church provided limited travel grants so Indian families could participate in this ecumenical conference. 

In 1953, Congress adopted "termination" legislation during the Eisenhower (a Presbyterian) administration. Its express aim was to "make the Indians within the territorial limits of the United States subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as are applicable to other citizens of the United States, [and] to end their status as wards of the United States." H. Con. Res. 108, 83rd Cong., 67 Stat. B132 (1953). While this language may sound, neutral, the intention of some members of Congress was clearly to terminate tribes' existence as tribes, a reiteration of the assimilation ethic of the late 1800's. The results were devastating for thirteen tribes whose relationship with the federal government was terminated; they were subjected to state laws, and their lands were converted into private ownership and in most instances sold. This federal policy threatened all tribes as it sought to chip away at Tribal government and sovereignty. The church response was mixed. Some thought that this was a way by which Indians could enter the "mainstream society," not fully understanding the importance of tribal sovereignty. The 1949 PCUSA General Assembly had earlier "recommend[ed] that an enlightened government Indian policy limit ward ship." The UPC in 1954 issued a general policy statement against forced termination of tribes (Minutes, 1954, UPC, Part I, p. 193).