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Indian Slaveholders and Presbyterian Missionaries, 1837–1861

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William G. McLoughlin
William G. McLoughlin
Affiliation:
Mr. McLoughlin is professor of history in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
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Extract

Founded in 1837 to provide a denohinational foreign mission board for the Old School Presbyterians, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (PBFM) had from the outset a very different outlook toward mission work among slave-holding Indians than did its closest rival, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which served the New School Presbyterians and New England Congregationalists. The difference increased until 1859 when the latter organization, unable to reconcile its antislavery conviction with the determined proslavery position of the southern Indians, withdrew from that field. The PBFM, headquartered in New York City, thereupon took under its patronage most of those ABCFM missionaries who had been abandoned by their Boston-based board for refusing to expound and practice an antislavery position among the Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 535 - 551
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1973

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References

1. For the role slavery played in the Presbyterian schism of 1837 and the reasons underlying the establishment of the PBFM, see Thompson, Ernest T., Presbyterians in the South (Richmond, 1963), Vol. 1, Chaps. 24, 25 and 28.Google Scholar

2. This petition and most of the other documents cited below are in the archives of the PBFM at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia (hereafter cited as PHS). Indian. ms. Box 10, Vol. 1: 329.

3. The theological defense of this position of benevolent neutrality is amply described in Thompson, 1: 384–391.

4. Membership statistics in Presbyterian mission churches in Indian territory reveal a smail number of black members but since, as noted below, slaveholdiiig Indiana feared the influence of mission work upon their slaves, the missionaries took pains to preach only to slaves whose masters gave them permission to listen. It appears that the slaves enjoyed Christian services and wanted to attend mission schools; many more would have come into mission stations had the missionaries encouraged them to do so with or ‘without their masters’ permission.

5. The controversy over slavery within the ABCFM is discussed in Lewit, Robert T., “Indian missions and Anti-slavery Sentiment: A Conflict of Evangelical and Humanitarian Ideals,” MVHR 50 (06 1963): 39–55Google Scholar. For the American Missionary Association see Wyatt-Brown, Bertram, Lewis Tappan (Cleveland, 1969), pp. 292–314.Google Scholar

6. See the letters of the Rev. Charlton Wilson (nephew of the Rev. J. Leighton Wilson; one of the corresponding secretaries of the PBFM), PHS, Box 11, Vol 3: 17 (March 12, 1855) and Box 6, Vol 3: 205 (January 9, 1860).

7. See Faust, Harold P., “The Presbyterian Missions to the American Indian, 1838–1893” (Ph.D. diss.; Temple University, 1943), pp. 316–317Google Scholar. Faust's thesis, based on a thorough study of the PBFM archives, contains much material on this subject. See especially pp.316–334.

8. Letter dated October 24, 1856 among the Worcester-Robertson Papers at the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

9. See Loughridge, Robert M., “History of Presbyterian Mission Work Among the Creek Indians,” ms. at PHS, and Angie Debo, The Road to Disappearance (Norman, Okia., 1941), pp. 116–121.Google Scholar

10. PHS, Box 9, Vol. 1:391–393.

11. PHS, Box 12 Vol. 2:12. For slaves purcbaaea by Presbyterian missionaries at other stations see Faust, p. 318.

12. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 1:18.

13. PHS, Box 12, Vol. 2:42.

14. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 1:231. One suspects that Robert Foster was a more effective interpreter—at least to his fellow slaves—before he entered the restrained service of the Presbyterians from the following remarks of Ramsay: “Our Interpreter at present is an African. He speaks the Seminole language with great fluency and mostly is warm and energetic [as a speaker]. He is also a member of the Presbyterian Church. But still he is an African. I mean an African of this country. And he will have African ways and will try to lead our people in the same way. And they most willingly follow him as all the Creeks do the Negroes among them in such things as having frequent fasts followed by feasts, great camp meetings, observing Christmas, which they call ‘Big Sunday’ with a great feast and sitting up all Christmas night singing and shouting and praying. Such things I think can be carried too far and will ultimately be subversive of our rule and church Government altogether. The Interpreter, who heaps up this great pile of rubbish on religion is almost adored while the preacher who faithfully warns his people will be considered, to say the least, severe.” PHS, Box 6, vol 1, 143.

15. PHS, Box 6, VoL 3:138.

16. Ibid. Ramsay went on in this letter to explain the providential timing of the transaction, pointing out that “John Read, who has been interpreting for Bemo [the Baptist minister in the region] has fallen into drunkenness and left the neighborhood…. I have heard that he says if he had known that Read was gone he would have gone and offered Foster $400 per year for Robin…. The transaction is very gratifying to all our people as well as to R. himself…. R. will have $1,000 to pay without interest which by industry and economy he can do in five years and then obtain his freedom.” After that, hopefully, he “will most likely continue with us” for wages.

17. See Annual Report of the PBFM (New York, 1849), p. 7Google Scholar and Ibid., (New York, 1850), p. 7.

18. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 2:37.

19. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 2:45.

20. PHS, Box 10, Vol. 2:264. The Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, the noted ABCFM missionary to the Cherokees, fell into the same mistake as Wiggins in 1855 and was accused of promoting abolitionism “By admitting negroes into his family circle as companions, thus breaking down the distinctions between the owner & the Slave, which has a pernicious influence upon the slave portion of the community where he resides.” See letter of George M. Butler, U.S. Agent to the Cherokees, to George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June 22, 1855, in the “Letters Received” files of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

21. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3:15.

22. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3: 18.

23. See Perryman' letter of February 11, 1863, PHS, Box 6, VoL 3:115, and Meserve, John Bartlett, “The Perrymans,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 15 (1937): 166–184.Google Scholar

24. PHS, Box 10, Vol. 2: 24.

25. PHS, Box 10, Vol. 2: 14.

26. Ibid.

27. PHS, Box 10, Vol. 2:10.

28. Faust, p. 317. Faust lists this letter as Box 10, Vol. 1; 1014, but having been unable to locate that letter in the archives, I have quoted Faust Faust “withheld” Eells' name out of delicacy, but there is no doubt from the context that Bells is the person concerned. The young lady was probably Esther Mathers.

29. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3: 14.

30. Robin chimed later that he had no idea that Luke and his wife were running away, or at least so he told Ramsay. Given the circumstances there was hardly anything else he could say. Somehow I have my doubts.

31. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3: 150.

32. Ibid.

33. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3:17 (dated October 12, 1860).

34. Ibid.

35. PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3:152. Lilley visited North Fork “and tried to get the names of the gentlemen who was going to Tar and feather” Ramsay, “but they were not to be found; the whites blamed the Indians and the Indians blamed the whites. They had it reported that [Ramsay] sneaked through North Forks at night to escape being caught.” PHS, Box 6, Vol. 3:154.

36. PHS, Box 10, Vol. 1:275.

37. PHS, Box 10, Vol. 1:274 (dated May 7, 1861).

38. Thompson, 1: 536, 538.

39. For the work of the Joneses in the Cherokee nation see the mss. of Carolyn Foreman, “The Rev. Evan Jones” and “John B.Jones” at the Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City; The Amerscan Baptist Missionary Magazine (Boston) 39 (1859): 274Google Scholar, 40 (1860):138–139, 271; 41 (1861):200; 42 (1862): 212–213; The Watchman and Reflector (Boston), 10 11, 1860Google Scholar; letters of George M. Butler to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June 22, 1855 and June 30, 1858 in “Letters Received, Bureau of Indian Affairs,” National Archives; and Abel, Annie H., The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist (Cleveland, 1915), pp. 47 n. 56, 292, 293 et passim.Google Scholar