The first of the missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) on the continent was to the Cherokee and Choctaw Indians of the southeast.
“Other Indian missions were begun shortly after this; in fact the next two decades saw the most widespread efforts of the Board upon the American continent. Many of these missions to Indian tribes were short lived and not very productive but there are three which stand out as of special interest: the mission to the Cherokees. the Oregon mission and the mission to the Dakotas.”
“Only one of these is still continuing, the Dakota work which has been carried on by the American Missionary Association since 1883. The Oregon mission was ended by massacre in 1847 and the general break-up which followed the massacre.”
“The Cherokee enterprise was the scene of some of the most stirring events in the history of our country and also of some of the most tragic and shameful actions. When the tribe was deported to the west in 1838 the mission continued but the great promise of earlier days was never fulfilled and the tribe ceased to be the significant nation that it once had been.”
“When Cyrus Kingsbury went to the land of the Cherokees in 1817 the tribe had already had a long and discouraging experience with the white man.”
“Their land had been taken from them piece by piece, treaties had been repeatedly broken – and that was to continue – and they had been in one way or another involved and had suffered in the wars between the French and the English and between the British and the Americans.”
“The Cherokee nation at that time was located mainly in the western and northwestern part of Georgia, in southern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama. The pressure of white settlers was increasing yearly especially upon the part of the nation located in the state of Georgia.”
“But if relations with white settlers and governments had been adverse to the Indians there were already established missions, especially that of the Moravians, which gave support and encouragement to Kingsbury and those who soon followed him.”
“Their first station was located on Chickamauga Creek not far from the present city of Chattanooga and was named the Brainerd Mission after the early evangelist to Indians in the north. This became the center of a work that extends into Georgia and Alabama and other stations in Tennessee.”
“Cyrus Kingsbury went through Washington on his way to Tennessee and secured approval for the opening of a mission. President Monroe himself was interested in it.”
“Later after a surprise visit to the Brainerd station he declared himself to be more than satisfied with its program and promised to have means supplied for the building of a substantial frame house to take the place of the log structure then in use, a promise that was fulfilled.”
“Robert Sparks Walker declares that ‘the Brainerd Mission has the distinction of being the first school in North America to give instruction in systematic and scientific agriculture, also trades, domestic science and domestic arts.’ This educational program lay at the root of the ‘civilizing’ the mission felt that it must do.”
“Among tribes that never settled down to a life of work and discipline such as is involved in farming and the trades little progress has ever been made in the teaching which is necessary to the introduction of an ordered Christian life.”
“(T)he Brainerd mission was at once a school, a farm and a place of apprenticeship to such necessary trades as carpentry and blacksmithing. The long day of the Indian students was divided between study and work. … Both boys and girls, in separate schools, made up the industrious community.”
“Some of the test friends and helpers of the mission program were half breeds. One of these, Charles R. Hicks, was a chief of the Cherokees and a Christian.”
“Every one who reported on the progress of his people has called him the best friend of the mission and the most helpful in all dealings with the Indians. Elias Boudinot probably had some white blood in his veins. He studied in the mission school at Cornwall, Connecticut, married a daughter of one of the best families of that town and returned to be a leader of his people.”
“It is of interest to note that the school at Cornwall came into existence largely because of the plea that the Hawaiian, Obookiah, made for an education. Its function was to train both American students and young men from mission fields for the work of the mission.”
“It was closed in 1827 and at least one reason for its abandonment was the Opposition created in the town by the marriage of Cornwall girls of good family to Indian students. One of these students was Elias Boudinot; the other was John Ridge. Despite the opposition of the people of Cornwall both these marriages were successful.”
“The most noted Cherokee, however, was Sequoia, or George Guess as he was known among white people. Sequoia could neither read nor speak English. He was greatly distressed that his own language had no written form.”
“So he proceeded to create an alphabet of eighty-six characters which represented the language phonetically so well that it was soon adopted in preference to one upon which missionaries were at work. This became and remains the medium of all written or printed Cherokee. The Bible, of course, was translated into the language with the use of Sequoia’s alphabet.”
“The achievement of Sequoia’s deserves at least to be compared to the Laubach invention. To honor this Cherokee Indian, Stephen I. Endlicher in 1847, gave the name of Sequoia to the big trees in California.”
“The mission inevitably suffered from the encroachment of the citizens and the state of Georgia upon the lands of the Cherokee nation and their eventual deportation west of the Mississippi.”
“A law was passed by the Georgia Legislature requiring an oath of allegiance to the state by anyone who wanted to live within its boundaries and declaring null and void all laws and customs of the Cherokees.”
“As a result of refusal to take the oath several of the missionaries were arrested and Dr. Samuel A. Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler were sentenced and kept in prison for more than a year.”
“Meantime, the lands of the Cherokees within the state of Georgia were divided up and opened to white settlers and the properties of the missionaries and mission were taken over by them.”
“The end of the mission in Tennessee and Georgia, however, was in sight. In final violation of the rights of the Cherokees as often affirmed in treaties, the whole tribe was transported to the Indian territory.”
“Some had gone west many years before and a mission was begun there in 1821. But the tribe disintegrated and the mission was closed in 1860. A mission to the Choctaws was also discontinued at about the same time.” (All from Hugh Vernon White, Secretary, The Congregational Church)
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