Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884Eells, Myron
Religion
Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884
Eells, Myron
Clallam Indians -- Missions; Missions -- Washington (State); Skokomish Indian Reservation (Wash.); Twana Indians -- Missions
About 1850 Father E. C. Chirouse, a Catholic priest, came to Puget
Sound, and for a time was on Hood’s Canal. He had two missions among the
Twanas, one among the Kolseed band, and the other among the Duhlaylips.
He baptized a large number of them; made two Indian priests, and left an
influence which was not soon forgotten. At a council held after a time
by various tribes, the Skokomish and other neighboring tribes of the
lower eastern sound were too strong for the Twanas and induced Father
Chirouse to leave them. Not long afterward the Indians relapsed into
their old style of religion, and on the surface it appeared as if all
were forgotten: but when Protestant teachers came among them, and their
old religion died, some of the Indians turned for a time to that
Catholic religion which they had first learned, as one easier for the
natural heart to follow than that of the Protestants.
From 1860 to 1871 but little religious instruction was given to these
Indians. At different times Rev. W. C. Chattin, of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and Mr. D. B. Ward, of the Protestant Methodist
Church, taught the school, and each endeavored to give some Christian
teaching on the Sabbath, but they found it hard work, for
Sabbath-breaking, house-building, trafficking, and gambling by the
whites and the Indians were allowed in sight and hearing of the place
where the services were held. “If it is wrong to break the Sabbath, why
does the agent do so?” “If it is wrong to play cards and gamble, why do
the whites do so?” These and similar questions were asked by the Indian
children of their Christian teachers. It was somewhat difficult to
answer them. It was more difficult to work against such influences.
Still the seed sown then was not wholly lost. It remained buried a long
time. I have seen that some of those children, however, although they
forgot how to read, and almost forgot how to talk English, yet received
influences which, fifteen or twenty years afterward, made them a
valuable help to their people in their march upward.
In 1871, however, a decided change was made. In that year President
Grant adopted what has been known as the peace policy, in which he
assigned the different agencies to different missionary societies,
asking them to nominate agents, promising that these should be confirmed
by the Senate. While it was not expected that the government would
directly engage in missionary work, yet the President realized that
Christianity was necessary to the solution of the Indian problem, and he
hoped that the missionary societies who should nominate these agents
would become interested in the work, and encouraged them to send
missionaries to their several fields. These agents were expected to
coöperate with the missionaries in their special work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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