Chapter 13.
“Shall we whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high―
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation, O Salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation
Has learned Messiah’s name.”
―Heber.
Who besides Brainerd have labored for the Indians good? What in the past has been the history of mission work to these tribes of Red men, and how far and with what measure of success is this noble toil pursued in our own day? Such questions as these naturally may arise in the minds of those, who, from reading the preceding record of a good and faithful servant, may be inspired with a deeper interest in the race for whom he gave away his life. The history of Indian Missions is itself worthy of a volume, alive as it is with exciting episode, and rich in a martyrology which is not surpassed by any similar work for Christ anywhere in the world. But it may not be out of place in anticipation of the questions just put to briefly narrate something of what has been done, and in these later days is being achieved for the salvation of these people.
To go back very far, even to the fifteenth century, we find the Jesuits first in the field. They followed closely in the wake of the haughty Spaniard, who, by the galleons of his then unsurpassed navy, made for himself a footing on the shores of the West. It would be unjust to refuse a recognition of the heroic devotion and self-sacrifice of these missionary priests. The Gospel which they carried may have been a sadly corrupted message of God’s mercy, but its propagation inspired these men with a zeal and self renunciation which is worthy of all praise. When the great Catholic Queen, Isabella, gave special commands that “great care should be taken of the religious instruction of the Indians, “many there were who in the name of the Church leapt forward to do her bidding.
England, the great religious as well as political antagonist of Spain, was equally alive to the spiritual needs of the Indians, and in the gallant ships which hunted for the Spanish fleet in distant waters were brave, good soldiers of the Cross, whose mission was to fight not carnal but spiritual foes. Thus we find on the deck with the Sir Richard Grenville, of that famous little craft The Revenge, one Thomas Hariot, of goodly memory, who stepping ashore among the Indians preached faithfully the Word of God. “Many times,” says he in his notes, which have come down to us, “and in every town where I came, according as I was able, I made declaration of the contents of the Bible; that therein was set forth the true only God and His mighty works, that therein was contained the true doctrine of salvation through Christ, with many particularities of miracles and chief points of religion as I was able then to utter and thought fit for the time.”
Doubtless in those far off days as in these present with us, the Protestant missionary found a double foe to fight in the united errors of Pagan and Romish superstition. With the Pilgrim Fathers came the first definite endeavor to speak amongst the Indian aborigines the saving truths of the Christian religion. When they landed and began to found their Plymouth colony, it was immediately declared that their aim was “a desire to advance the Gospel in these remote parts of the world, even if they should be but as stepping stones to those who were to follow them.” In Massachusetts they adopted as a state emblem the figure of an Indian with a label from his mouth saying, “Come over and help us.” Thus it has been truly said, “These Pilgrims and Puritans were the pioneers of the Protestant world in attempts to convert the heathen to Christ. There were missionary colleges-self-supporting missions-composed of men who went on their own responsibility and at their own expense to establish their posterity among the heathen whose salvation they sought.” In the first chapter of this book a sketch is given of John Eliot, a famous and successful missionary of that day, one whose name and work is deserving of a more complete and worthier memorial in these present times of missionary interest. His Indian Bible published at Cambridge, near Boston, was the first and for many years the only edition of the Holy Scriptures in the vernacular. The work of Eliot and Mayhew and their praying Indians on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard is a most interesting page in the history of these early missions in New England.
The opening of the eighteenth century brings David Brainerd into view, taking up the noble labors of his Puritan predecessors. What manner of man he was, and what through the grace of God he was enabled to do, is set forth in this book; it need only be affirmed that evidently upon him descended the prophet’s mantle, and a double portion of the spirit of devotion and power.
We now come to the time when General Oglethorpe laid the foundations of the colony of Georgia, and took with him a pioneer band of Moravian missionaries, who were destined to make history and inscribe their names indelibly in the record of distinguished service for Christ. One of this number was David Zeisberger, a man of apostolic character, who seemed to have had a charmed life, so wonderfully was he preserved amid a perilous career. In common with all the Brethren he was a man of peace, refusing to bear arms, and having the rare courage to accept the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount as his rule of conduct, for which godly offense he became the butt of the white man’s jealousy and spite, who, indeed, seems to have done his utmost to undermine the confidence of the Indians in their meek and devoted friend. He mastered the languages of the Six Nations, and when by persecution his Christian Indians were driven forth from Shekomeko, he founded the settlement of Gnadenhütten or the “Tents of Grace.” Everywhere the influence of his teaching was felt, and the Christian natives began to flock around him, and fresh settlements were formed, notably Friendenstadt, or the “Town of Peace,” among the Iroquois; and Schönbrunn, or “The Beautiful Spring,”near Lake Erie. Soon afterward the American War of Independence began, and the Moravian Brethren, staunchly refusing to take part with either side, were caught in the fiery storm, and suffered by the inroads and attacks of both whites and Indians. Drink had made the red men lawless and thirsty for outrage, and the Christian settlements were being constantly invaded, and the lives of the missionaries openly threatened. In vain did the friends of Zeisberger urge him to fly. He determined, even if it cost him his life, to remain loyally with his converts. “My heart does not allow me,” says he in reply, “even so much as to think of leaving. Where the Christians stay I will stay. It is impossible for me to forsake them. If Edwards and I were to go they would be without a guide and would disperse. Our presence gives authority to the national assistants, and the Lord gives authority to us. He will not look upon our remaining here as foolhardiness. I make no pretensions to heroism; but am by nature as timid as a dove. My trust is altogether in God. Never has He put me to shame, but always granted me the courage and the comfort I needed. I am about my duty, and even if I should be murdered it will not be my loss but my gain.” He lived long beyond the allotted three-score years and ten, and, like Eliot, saw in his last days the cruel obliteration of that work among the Indians, which he had given the energy of his lifetime to accomplish.
Besides Ziesberger many others might be quoted, as for instance, Christian Rauch, who inspired the Indians with confidence and respect. One of them once seeing him peacefully sleeping in a hut amongst them, remarked, “This man cannot be a bad man. He fears no evil. He does not fear us who are so fierce, but he sleeps in peace, and puts his life in our hands.”
Among the Moravian missionaries who came out with General Oglethorpe was a young English clergyman, who with considerable High-Church notions began to preach the Gospel to the Indians in Georgia. This was John Wesley, whose mission to Georgia was the means of bringing him in contact with the Brethren, and resulted in his own conversion and that glorious revival of religion in his own country, the fruits of which are being gathered in every part of the world to-day.
The commencement of American missions to the Indians dates from a little gathering of students of Williams College, under a haystack in the rain, to pray for the heathen and devote themselves to the work of their salvation. The outcome of this first missionary meeting was the establishment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The New York Missionary Society had already, in 1801, sent Mr. Holmes to work among the Tuscaroras at the Falls of Niagara, to whom came the pitiful appeal from some chiefs: ― “We cry to you from the wilderness, our hearts ache while we speak to your ears.... Think, poor Indians must die as well as white men. We pray you, therefore, never to give over and leave poor Indians, but follow them in their dark times, and let our children always find you to be their friends when we are dead and no more.”
In 1818 the American Board sent missionaries to the Cherokees and Choctaws; schools were founded, and there seemed every prospect of permanent success, when the Indians were driven back beyond the Mississippi, and in despair many became slaves to drink, and fell away. In 1836 three missionaries, Mr. Spalding, Mr. Gray, and Dr. Whitman, traversed three thousand miles to reach the Kayuses and Nez Perces Indians, and found them remarkably ready to receive the truth. During ten years great progress was made; schools, printing presses, and a Christian church were founded; but suddenly the unchristian natives burst upon the little mission house, treacherously murdered the doctor, his wife, and his friends, and the whole community were brutally treated and dispersed. After this Mr. Stephen R. Riggs, and his wife, began work among the Dakotas and Sioux, and after much patient endurance, God gave these faithful witnesses great success, and, like Brainerd, they saw a remarkable revival of religion among the Indians. “A Dakota now began to think as an Englishman, Christ came into the language, the Holy Spirit began to pour sweetness and power into it.” But upon this glad time there waited a season of persecution and distress; and murderous outrage destroyed the workers, and dispersed the converts. Here seems to have followed a time when, on every hand, a policy of retreat and discomfiture seized the mission societies. The mission to the Chickasees was abandoned in 1834; that to the Osages in 1836; to the Stockbridge tribe in 1848; to the Choctaws in 1859; to the Tuscaroras and Cherokees in 1860―twelve missions, and forty-five churches, which reached about one hundred thousand Indians, abandoned in twenty-six years! Dr. Beard, of America, who vouches for these facts, says, “The question now asks itself, Why were not these hopeful missionary efforts to these pagan tribes more permanent? What turned the tide of success, and left the missions stranded? Here comes the story of dishonor.... Unscrupulous greed has hovered about the Indian reservations as waiting buzzards hover near the wounded creature upon whose flesh they would fatten. Lands granted to the Indians were encroached upon by the white people. These encroachments resisted led to war. Savage nature, wrought up with a sense of injustice, and burning for revenge, swept down upon the guilty intruder and settler alike with indiscriminate massacre.”
One of the most conspicuous instances of the mission work among the Indians being injured by the unchristian aggression of the white man was that of the treatment of the peaceful and enlightened Cherokee tribe, who had so far embraced civilized ideas as to found the town of Brainerd in Georgia. The efforts of the missionaries there had been crowned with much success; but the State authorities were jealous of their influence with the natives, and at one time imprisoned two of them until the pressure of the Supreme Court, to which the missionaries appealed, enforced their release. The Indians were oppressed, deprived of their native government, and treated with the greatest injustice. Finally, a treaty was agreed upon, and for a consideration, wholly insufficient, the Cherokees were to be exported wholesale beyond the Mississippi. The way in which this was enforced, and its miserable results, is thus well described by one of the best and most impartial works of missionary history. “This treaty was bitterly opposed by the majority of the nation. They said, We feel it due to ourselves frankly to state that the Cherokee people do not and will not recognize the obligation of the instrument of December, 1835. We reject all its terms; we will receive none of its benefits. If it is to be enforced upon us, it will be by your superior strength. We shall offer no resistance, but our voluntary assent will never be yielded. We are aware of the consequences; but, while suffering them in all their bitterness, we shall submit our cause to an all-wise and just God, in whose Providence it is to maintain the cause of suffering innocence and unprotected feebleness.
“On the strength of the treaty, however, preparations were made for their removal, and forts were built to guard against any opposition that might arise. The 23rd of May, 1838, was fixed upon as the day when the troops were to commence operations. When the day arrived few had made any preparations, and families were turned out wholesale from their houses and farms, and collected into bodies ready for their long march to the Arkansas country.
“For a period of ten months the work of emigration went on, and during this period m000 people, divided into fourteen companies, traveled a distance of six or seven hundred miles, old and young, male and female, sick and healthy, none were spared, all were compelled to seek a new home away in the west. Before starting some of the companies were detained for a considerable time in their encampments, during which they remained idle, and were exposed to every kind of evil and temptation which proximity to the whites afforded. Often without sufficient tent accommodation they were greatly exposed to the inclemency of the severe winter of 1838-39, and many besides were very inadequately clothed. The result was a terrible mortality among them, not less than one-fourth of the whole dying on the journey, this being on an average twelve deaths a-day.
“The work of the mission was greatly deranged by the embarrassed state of the political affairs of the Indians; and when the missionaries were arrested and imprisoned, some of the stations became neglected and abandoned. Under the system of lottery by which the land was distributed, the premises of two of the mission stations were taken possession of by the men who had drawn the lots containing them, and the Board suffered considerable loss therefrom. The Cherokees, too, now imbibed a deep prejudice against the Christian religion. They found themselves robbed and despoiled of their most sacred and undisputed rights by a nation professing to be Christian! They saw that those who taught them were themselves American citizens, and as such were partly responsible for those injuries done to them. The result was that a spirit of laxity grew up among the church members, and caused many to fall back into heathenism and superstition. Their own political condition occupied attention to such an engrossing extent that little heed was paid to religion, and the morals of the people suffered accordingly.”
One of the most celebrated missionaries to the Indians in the present century was Peter Cartwright, the Methodist backwoods preacher. His own conversion from a life of gaiety and gambling, and his subsequent call to go forth to preach to the Indians is full of interest. He married an excellent woman, who became his brave and faithful helpmeet, and with their little children they traveled hundreds of miles through roadless swamps and forests and swiftly flowing rivers. The influence of his preaching was almost as striking as that of Brainerd, at one revival service we are told three hundred people lay upon the ground under conviction of sin. He stoutly opposed slavery, and, after enduring the discredit of emancipation principles, lived to see, at fourscore, the black man free. Others nobly followed up the work.
Space fails to recount the remarkable missionary experiences of those who, during the past half-century, have given themselves freely for the salvation of the Indians. Each name, of which a bare mention can alone be given here, deserves a record in the annals of holy enterprise. How nobly Riggs and his devoted wife labored among the Dakotas, how he compiled an invaluable dictionary of 16,000 native words, and how, with a party of sixty Christian men and women, they retreated a hundred miles across the prairie from the fury of the Indians maddened rage. How Finley formed a Church among the Wyandotts, and had a grand helper in a converted chief, by name “Summun-de-wet,” how Breck spent nearly forty years amongst the Chippewas, how Jackson and Mrs. MacFarland preached the Gospel in Alaska, how Wilson and his wife founded the native community at Sarnia, on the Garden River, what Case and Copway did in the midst of the Ojibways, the faithful service of Macdonald and Kirby in the Youkan district, and of Duncan at Fort Simpson. Besides these, mention must be made of three native Indian missionaries, Peter Jones, John Sunday, and Henry Sternheur, who were called upon to “hold the fort” for Christ among their brethren, and were much blessed in their work. Amongst missionaries of our own time, perhaps the name of the Rev. Egerton R. Young is most distinguished, one who has described his work among the Cree and Salteaux Indians in a volume of charming interest.
Nearly all branches of the Christian Church have been and are represented in this work of spreading the good news of salvation among the denizens of the wigwams. The New England Company, which, founded so far back as 1649, may be deemed the parent Society, does still a great work among the Mohawks on the Grand River, and has there and elsewhere educational establishments for the young Indians. The Church Missionary Society established a mission station in 1822, and are now doing excellent work in the district of Saskatchewan, among the Plain Crees, Sioux, and Blackfeet. The missions of the Unitas Fratrum or Moravians with its honorable history is still doing good among the Alaska Indians and Eskimos and Greenlanders. Societies which are indigenous to American soil do not forget the claims of the red man, the American Board, Baptist Union, Methodist Episcopal, Reformed Episcopal, Presbyterian Board, Mennonites, Bible Society and Society of Friends, are all more or less engaged in this work. The dispersal of the tribes, and the recent conflict at the Pine Ridge Agency, has, however, affected the progress of these efforts. In all his troubles and vicissitudes, the redskin is not forgotten by many who still believe that he has an immortal soul to be won for Christ.
One of the most intelligent and famous of North American Indians, the chief Sitting Bull, who perished recently in a conflict with the whites, once said, “There is not one white man who loves an Indian, and not a true Indian but hates a white man.” The bitterness of this declaration cannot be measured. But it is hoped that the perusal of the preceding pages will show that in the case of David Brainerd and many others since his day, it is happily possible for a white man to have a heart full of Christlike affection for his red brother, who, on his part, is not slow in reciprocating the fellowship of a common salvation.