already had more land than they could use, without the possessions
which they desired to secure, have satisfied themselves that a
degraded race of savages had no rights which they were bound to
respect; and how could the missionaries prosper, when the ignorant
saw such exhibitions of character and life on the part of the people
from whom the missionaries came? These wars have led to cancellation
of treaties, because of inhuman violence, and then, the reservation
taken up, the savage is removed still further back. Thus the Indians
have been planted and uptorn, re-planted and uptorn, and re-planted,
until they are now removed, not hundreds of miles from the grounds of
their fathers, but thousands of miles. A tree will not grow if
uprooted and transplanted every few months, and this will in brief
tell us why the missions which began with the Moravians and the
American Board, and which were so hopeful, were one after another
abandoned. These constant removals were as disastrous to missions as
they were unjust to the Indians. It was remarkable that there should
be the degree of spiritual fruitage through all this period of Indian
removals and Indian wrongs, which characterizes the labors of those
who often, at peril of life, labored on for the red man's salvation.
The American Board began its work among the Dakotas in 1835. It was
one of the most powerful tribes on the continent, numbering over
40,000. Their hunting-grounds extended from the 43 degrees to the 49
degrees of latitude, and from the Mississippi River to the Black
Hills west of the Missouri. This was a territory equal in extent to
that of Scotland. The name Dakota means the "allied one," and
indicates the bands that united to form the tribe. The missionary
work, which was initiated under Rev. T.S. Williamson, Rev. J.D.
Stevens and Rev. S. Riggs, with their wives, and lady teachers, began
prosperously, and in six years forty-nine persons were formed into a
church. For some years the accessions were mostly women. The
acceptance of Christianity was more difficult to the men. The change
in the manner of life involved in it was greater. It meant entire
reconstruction of their ideas of life, and in the manner of it, the
abandonment of polygamy, the adoption of civilized dress, the spirit
of obedience and industry. These were the contradictions to centuries
of tradition and custom, and meant to an Indian brave the becoming
like a woman. At length, however, the gospel did take hold of the
warriors. The work and the faith of the missionaries were thoroughly
tested by the opposition this aroused, but the gospel won its way. At
last, when the rumors of the Civil War between the Northern and the
Southern States came to the Indians, it set their hearts aflame for
battle with their white neighbors, whose encroachment they resented.
Then broke out the dreadful Minnesota massacre, when the missionaries
were compelled to flee for their lives, and the missions were
abandoned. Twelve hundred United States troops at last scattered the
savages and took about five hundred prisoners. They were incarcerated
at the Mankato prison in Minnesota, where thirty-eight were hung in
one day. The remainder in prison were visited by the missionaries,
and the prison house became a chapel. Soon it was a Bethel, a great
revival began, which lasted all winter, and in the spring, two
hundred Dakotas were added to the church in one day, and when they
were transferred to the prison at Davenport, they went out in chains,
but singing the 51st Psalm to the tune of Old Hundred. They carried
the fire from heaven with them to the Davenport prison, and when, in
1886, the prisoners were released, more than four hundred were
hopefully converted, and when they joined their families in Nebraska,
these gathered together in one communion, and called it the Pilgrim
Church--about two hundred years after John Eliot, of the Pilgrims at
Boston, gave his life to the Indians of Massachusetts. A people as
remote from civilization as were the Indians of 1640 founded their
Pilgrim Church.
Now at length the Dakota missionaries began a new life among these
tribes. By the wonderful and strange providence of God, there had
been prepared in prison native teachers and preachers, and the way
was opened for expansive work.
After a period of ten years of this work, the American Board
transferred its Indian missions to the American Missionary
Association. This Association, thirty years previous to this, had
Indian missions in the northwest, with twenty-one missionaries.
Various causes had led to _their_ abandonment, the chief one being
the demands of the newly-emancipated slaves after the war.
Six years before the transfer of these missions to this Association,
it had an interest in Indian missions in Washington Territory and in
Minnesota. The transfer on the part of the American Board brought
under our care the mission at Santee, Nebraska, with its large school
and industrial departments; the Fort Sully mission, those on the
Cheyenne River, and at Fort Berthold, Dakota. These have since been
developed, until now, the facilities for missionary work and the
force of workers have been greatly increased.
There are at the present time in the United States, exclusive of
Alaska, 247,761 Indians. Our missions are chiefly among 40,000 of the
Sioux or Dakota tribe, in the great Dakota reservation; among the
Poncas in Nebraska, and the Gros Ventres and Mandans on the Northern
Missouri.
At the Santee Normal School, we are teaching about two hundred Indian
youth of both sexes. We are instructing them also in agriculture and
trades. There is a department for theological study, where
missionaries are prepared from the Indians for the Indians. Sixty-one
missionaries and teachers have caught the spirit of Eliot, Edwards
and Brainerd, and are earnestly serving Christ among these tribes.
A Christian civilization is wedging its way in until eighty thousand
Indians are now clothed in civilized dress. Forty thousand have
learned to read English, and nearly thirty thousand are living in
houses. There are forty thousand Indian children of school age, and
about fourteen thousand enrolled as pupils, leaving between twenty
and thirty thousand children for whom as yet there are no schools
provided. Sixty-eight tribes remain without a church, a school or a
missionary, absolutely destitute of Christian light.
It has been said that these heathen tribes are a vanishing people,
destined to decline and finally to disappear. Certainly their
condition for two hundred years has tended to decrease them, and yet,
when Columbus discovered America there were not double the number
that there are now. In happier conditions than formerly, there is a
decided increase in the Indian population, as there is betterment in
their customs and modes of life. Their missionary teachers find them
with the ancient characteristics unchanged--rude in thought, though
with a marked intellectual power. The open book of nature, the Indian
knows well. He will tell you the habits of bird and beast and tree
and plant. He will tell you the time of day by looking at a leaf. But
the life of civilization comes hard to him. He does not know the
value of time, nor the value of money. It is hard for him to measure
his days or to provide for the future, or to care for to-morrow. He
has not the heredity of civilization and Christianity, hence
missionary work sometimes seems slow in progress, but it is surely
gaining upon this almost dead past of half a century. Thirteen
Missionary Boards are now pressing forward to teach them the way and
the truth and the life.
The doors are wide open as never before. The hearts of the Indians
are friendly as never for two hundred years. If the majority of them
show as yet no deep desire for that which Christianity brings, they
are not, in this, dissimilar from other heathen. But this desire is
growing. The Government at last is seeking to redeem the past. It has
appropriated for the Indian tribes reservations larger, in square
miles, than the whole German Empire. The Republic of France must
re-annex considerable of its ancient possessions before it will own
as much land as is now the property of the Indians in the United
States. Under these conditions, the hopefulness of the past argues
for a more hopeful future of missionary work.
Our mission is to raise up teachers, preachers, interpreters and a
native agency that shall work for the regeneration of their own
people. It is a mission that is hopeful.
It means a good deal to teach those who come to us in moccasins and
blankets, arithmetic, algebra, the elements of geometry, physical
geography, natural philosophy and mental science. It means much to
give them an industrial training that shall show them how to live
rightly, and enable them to do it. But above all, in all and through
all, is the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God to their
salvation. Perhaps no missions to the heathen have been more blessed
than many of these to the wild, painted savages. Thousands who were
barbarian in heart and in deed are now true disciples of Christ.
Where heathenism held its revels, now the church-bell calls the red
man to prayer, and the war-whoop is being exchanged for songs of
Christian praise. Wigwams are being transformed into houses, and
coarse and cruel people are illustrating home piety and virtues. The
prayers of God's people have been well directed, and there is every
reason why they should be increased, the wilderness and the solitary
place being made glad for them. The missionaries among them behold
the time when God will make for them a way, even a highway, that
shall be the way of holiness, in which the redeemed shall walk and
the ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion with joy and gladness.
* * * * *
BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK.
MISS D.E. EMERSON, SECRETARY
* * * * *
WOMAN'S STATE ORGANIZATIONS.
CO-OPERATING WITH THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
ME.--Woman's Aid to A.M.A., Chairman of Committee,
Mrs. C.A. Woodbury, Woodfords, Me.
VT.--Woman's Aid to A.M.A., Chairman of Committee,
Mrs. Henry Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury, Vt.
VT.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. Ellen Osgood, Montpelier, Vt.
CONN.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. S.M. Hotchkiss, 171 Capitol Ave., Hartford,
Conn.
N.Y.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. William Spalding, Salmon Block, Syracuse,
N.Y.
ALA.--Woman's Missionary Association, Secretary,
Mrs. G.W. Andrews, Talladega, Ala.
OHIO.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. Flora K. Regal, Oberlin, Ohio.
IND.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. W.E. Mossman, Fort Wayne, Ind.
ILL.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs.
C.H. Taintor, 151 Washington St., Chicago, Ill.
MICH.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. Mary B. Warren, Lansing, Mich.
WIS.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Mrs. C. Matter, Brodhead, Wis.
MINN.--Woman's Home Miss. Society, Secretary,
Miss Katharine Plant, 2651 Portland Avenue,
Minneapolis, Minn.
IOWA.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, Secretary,
Miss Ella E. Marsh, Grinnell, Iowa.
KANSAS.--Woman's Home Miss. Society, Secretary,
Mrs. G.L. Epps, Topeka, Kan.
NEB.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, President,
Mrs. F.H. Leavitt, 1216 H St., Lincoln, Neb.
DAKOTA.--Woman's Home Miss. Union, President,
Mrs. T.M. Hills, Sioux Falls; Secretary, Mrs.
W.R. Dawes, Redfield; Treasurer, Mrs. S.E.
Fifield, Lake Preston.
* * * * *
REPORT OF SECRETARY.
It is fitting that woman should have a part in a work that finds its
centre of operations in Christian schools and homes for the training
of the exceptional classes reached by the American Missionary
Association.
Let us not forget that the Indians for whom we work have been
excluded from our civilized communities, until it is difficult to win
them to our customs, our language and our religion; that until only
about twenty-five years ago, generation after generation of our
colored people had been born to bondage, and had groaned its hopeless
life away in far greater misery than the same conditions brought in
uncivilized Africa--misery made deeper and keener by contrasts in
civilized America. Is it a wonder that the women of a slave race lost
their womanly instincts; that the moral nature was blunted and
marred; that the mind became impoverished, the heart a waste place
for poisonous weeds to grow?
Let us not forget that the mountain people have been passed by, until
shrinking farther and farther into the seclusion of their hills and
ravines, and living unto themselves, they have lost the sturdy
qualities of their ancestors.
What kind of homes do we find among these people, where the children
with their impressible minds are receiving their first instruction?
Our teacher is invited to visit the home of a Kentucky girl, one
somewhat above the average. Beautiful for situation, up a winding
road, past cascades and mountain waterfalls, upon a high plateau the
home is found--a box house, one room, no windows, two beds, four
chairs, a table, a few dishes, father, mother, seven children, dogs,
cats, and chickens. At retiring hour the teacher is pointed to the
corner and is told she is to sleep there. A pile of dirty, ragged
quilts are pulled out from under the beds, some bags and rags rolled
for pillows, and the family dispose of themselves for the night, with
no change of clothing, scarcely the removal of shoes. Change the box
house to a tent, put the fire in the centre, and with less furniture,
but no more smoke or dirt, you have the tepee home of the Indian.
Match the dilapidation and the dirt, the narrow quarters and the
large family, and you have the cabin home in the Georgia swamps and
the lowlands of Louisiana. The conditions in the main are the
same--an untutored father and mother, no books, no pictures, no
newspapers, no clean clothes, no Sunday, no God.
At first sight our sympathies are aroused by the lack of all ordinary
comforts and conveniences of home life, but transplant the family
into a neat cottage, suitably furnished for a home, explaining to
them its advantages and uses, and let us see if thus we have met the
need. What a disappointment! Their old habits still cling to them.
They do not know the names or use of the kitchen utensils; they have
no proper knowledge of cooking, no orderly habits; there is no family
or personal reserve. There are books and newspapers, but they cannot
read them, or cannot read intelligently because of their meagre
vocabulary. Evidently the real degradation of these people does not
lie wholly in the poor cabins or tents, the scant furniture, the
ragged clothing, the shiftlessness and poverty. It is deep in the
nature, and far harder to overcome than any outward conditions.
We want to help them: we ought to help them. For what were we
nurtured and shielded in Christian homes; why taught self-restraint,
self-reliance, the law of God as applied to our duty to ourselves and
our neighbors? Why have our hands been trained to skillful work, our
minds opened to knowledge, if not to make these our talents ten more
by their exercise in behalf of such needy ones? But how shall we
convey to them the blessings of intelligent, Christian home life? I
am sure every womanly heart gives the same response: through the
children.
That is our way--the foundation of the broad work of this
Association. We cannot expect the mothers to teach their children
what they do not know themselves, have never seen and cannot
understand. So we bring the youth out of these homes, cut off as far
as possible from their low surroundings, into our missionary schools,
where they are lifted into a purer atmosphere and are brought into
daily contact with refined Christian womanhood. Here mind and heart
and hand are trained. Not only do they learn habits of fore-thought
and industry, but by the blessing of the Holy Spirit very many of
them learn the saving power there is in Jesus Christ. Ten thousand
youth we have thus reached within the last year. Is it not a grand
work, worthy your heartiest support? There is encouragement in all
our fields, but especially now in what is accomplished for the girls
of the colored race. Their perils are peculiar. Your hearts would
ache could you know all the dangers that encompass them. They are
beset on every hand. Not a girl in our schools is safe. They, of all
others, are the ones that are tried, tempted, allured. Do they go out
to teach, they are watched, written to, harassed, and only as strong
in God's strength and deliverance can they escape. When you think of
the snares set for these girls, and that no father or brother may
even yet dare defend them, and when you know that there are
those--yes, very many--who, guided by Christian teachers stand firm
in the purity of their womanhood, clinging to the Everlasting Arm,
how plain it is that God has a plan, a purpose for this race, when we
shall have fulfilled our duty to them, and when their fiery furnace
of trial shall have done its work!
And these people are not in Asia, or Africa, or the Islands of the
Sea. They are within our own domain--ten millions of them--a constant
reminder of our duty, a threat of danger if duty is neglected. You
may say, what are ten thousand youth among ten millions? They are the
leaven, which, if a woman take and properly direct shall leaven the
whole mass. The American Missionary Association has these youth, and
through these, access to larger numbers. It has been no easy matter
to win the alienated Indian until he would give up his boys and girls
to our care; nor to break through the ignorant pride and reserve of
the mountaineers; or even to wisely direct the impulsive, selfishly
ambitious, undisciplined colored people. But it has been done. Our
school homes are there, upon the sure foundation of gospel, no caste
principles, and we need the help of every Christian woman in the land
to sustain what has been established at such painstaking and cost,
and to meet the demand for the new phases of help that can now be
given.
That some of our church woman in the North are interested, is shown
by the twenty-eight thousand dollars of contributions received from
them during the past year. That they are alive to the advantage of
reaching this field through the American Missionary Association and
thus keeping in sympathy with the work of the churches in their
annual contributions, is shown in the formation of State Unions, for
direct co-operation with us. We consider it especially favorable that
the purpose of these State organizations is to increase the flow of
money and other forms of helpfulness through the regular channels to
this part of the home field; that thus the young people and strangers
who are gathered into the church auxiliaries are being interested in
the history and work of the American Missionary Association and that
the children--the future church members--also are learning to give to
it, for the sake of the people to whom it ministers.
It has been a great help to us, that in the past year the Woman's Aid
of Maine sustained four teachers, that the Woman's Aid of Vermont
contributed so faithfully to their adopted school at McIntosh, Ga.,
and Connecticut ladies to the Industrial School for colored girls in
Thomasville. We cannot speak too highly of the efficiency of the New
York Woman's Union, which pledges us a definite sum, increasing the
amount annually, and keeping its pledge. The Ohio Union has sustained
Miss Collins' mission in Dakota and a teacher in the South. The
Minnesota Union met nearly two-thirds the cost of our school at
Jonesboro', Tenn., and the Iowa Union more than one-third the expense
of Beach Institute, Savannah, Ga. The ladies of other States have
helped in the girls' department of our school at Tougaloo, Miss., the
schools at Athens and Mobile, Ala., Austin, Tex., Williamsburg, Ky.
and Santee Agency, Neb. These friends have been in communication with
the schools they have aided, learning of the needs and economical
measures of help. They have been permitted to know for themselves the
hopeful results of patient Christian endeavor. For many of our
scholars are beginning quietly and persistently to do noble Christian
work in the locality in which they live, relieving the destitute,
reading, singing, praying with the sick and infirm and themselves
growing stronger and wiser in religious work every day. There are
many who appreciate and long for a better and purer life for their
own people, and they are doing much to elevate the tone of society.
They are the leaven. They can transform the home life--to some extent
the old homes--but in much larger degree the new, in giving
intelligent parentage to the little ones of their own households.
In order to make the work so well begun tell most for the future, the
woman's skill is required in its every phase. The homes must have
their visitors, schools their teachers; pastors urgently call for the
special missionary. There are those who are willing to go. Will the
ladies of the churches provide the means? Will you Christian
women--the women of our churches, come to the aid of the American
Missionary Association, in support of your sisters in the field? If
you will do this, we shall have no more debt. If you will do this,
there will be far less of heart-aching denial to those who plead with
us year by year to send them just one--only one Christian woman to
guide and teach.
It costs but four hundred dollars a missionary. Yet of those who have
been appointed for the new year--some already at work, others now on
the way--there are one hundred whose support is not yet provided; and
only four hundred dollars a missionary! What a glow would enter the
hearts of these noble, self-denying woman, if from the Woman's Bureau
word might go that the ladies of such churches have provided for you,
and you, and you! Weary with the constant drain upon mind and heart,
as they come in contact with the warped, barren lives of the people
whom they would help, how it would refresh them to feel that because
they are your missionaries you are working for, thinking of and
praying for them. One hundred woman missionaries unprovided for!
At the word of the Lord we put out into the deep and let down the
nets. The draught is great, our nets are breaking, and we beckon unto
you, our partners in the other boat to come and help us--to share in
the work and the reward.
* * * * *
RECEIPTS FOR OCTOBER, 1888.
MAINE. $261.51.
Alfred. Cong. Ch. and Soc. ...12.92
Bingham. Cong. Ch. ...2.00
Brewer. M. Hardy 50 to const. MRS.
ADDIE B. GARDNER L.M., Mrs. C.S.
Hardy 30, to const. MRS. SARAH L.
WING, L.M. ...80.00
Bridgton. First Cong. Ch. and
Soc. ...17.03
Brunswick. First Cong. Ch. ...54.25
Castine. Class of little girls.
No. 9. Trin. Ch. Sab. Sch., for
Student Aid, Tougaloo U. ...2.31
East Orrington. Cong. Ch. ...4.00
Gorham. "Young Ladies Helping Hand"
Cong. Ch. ...25.00
Lebanon Center. Mrs. Sophronia D. Lord ...1.00
Lewiston. Richard C. Stanley ...5.00
Norridgewock. Cong. Ch. and Soc. ...35.00
Oxford. Rev. Geo. F. Tewksbury ...2.00
Princeton. Cong. Ch. ...6.00
Richmond. Sab. Sen. of Cong. Ch. for
Student Aid, Talladega C. ...10.00
Sherman Mills. Washburn Memorial Ch. ...5.00
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $340.97.
Bennington. Cong. Ch. ...8.22
Candia. Mrs. A.E. Page ...1.00
Campton. Cong. Ch. ...16.22
Concord. By Mrs. Enoch Gerrish,
Freight for McLeansville, N.C. ...1.00
Deerfield. Cong. Ch. ...8.60
Milford. Cong. Ch. to const. WILLIAM C.
CLEAVES and ARTHUR M. WINSLOW L.M'S ...65.00
Nashua. Pilgrim Ch. (30 of which from
SUSAN P. PEARSON to const. herself L.M) ...150.08
New Ipswich. Childrens' 26th Annual Fair
for Benev. objects (4.67 of which
for Indian Schools) ...18.18
Peterboro. "Mother and daughter" ...5.00
Union. "Ladies and Band of Hope" by Mrs.
G.S. Butler, for Storrs Sch.
Atlanta, Ga. ...11.00
Warner. Cong. Ch. ...10.41
Winchester. Cong. Ch. and Soc. (24 of
which for Student Aid.
Gregory Inst., Wilmington, N.C.) ...40.41
Winchester. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. ...5.85
VERMONT, $866.60.
Brattleboro. Central Cong. Ch. ...100.00
Brownington. Martha S. Stone ...10.00
Burlington. First Cong. Ch., adl. ...2.00
Derby. Cong. Ch. ...5.00
Derby. Ladies of Cong. Ch., by Mrs.
David Hopkinson, for McIntosh,
Ga. ...4.00
Essex Junction. Cong. Ch. ...20.00
Fair Haven. First Cong. Ch.
and Soc. ...10.21
Grandby and Victory. Cong. Ch.
and Soc. ...2.77
Grand Isle. Mrs. Martha Ladd,
for Indian M. ...3.00
Highgate. Cong. Ch. ...7.30
Jamaica. Cong. Ch. and Soc. ...10.27
Marshfield. Lyman Clark ...15.00
New Haven. "A Friend" ...15.00
Newport. Cong. Ch. and Soc. ...14.20
North Ferrisburg. Mrs Maria D.
Wicker (120 of which to const.
ROXA M. CHAMPLIN, ALMA M. WEBB,
Mrs. EMMA W. WICKER and ABBIE D.
WICKER L.M's) ...500.00
Orwell. Cong. Ch. and Soc. ...13.75
Saint Johnsbury. Mrs. T.M.
Howard and Mrs. E.D. Blodget,
for Student Aid, Fisk U. ...50.00