The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist: An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern ConfederacyAbel, Annie Heloise
History
The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist: An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy
Abel, Annie Heloise
Indian Territory; Slavery -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
Among the tribes of Kansas, denominational strength was distributed as
follows: The Kickapoos[30] and Wyandots[31] were Methodists; but, while
the former were a unit in their adherence to the Methodist Episcopal
Church South, the latter were divided and among them the older church
continued strong. The American Baptist Missionary Union had a school on
the Delaware reservation and, previous to 1855, had had one also on the
Shawnee, which the political uproar in Kansas had obliged to close its
doors. These same Northern Baptists were established also among the
Ottawas, as the Moravians were among the Munsees and the Roman
Catholics[32] among the Osages and the Potawatomies. The Southern Baptists
were likewise to be found among the Potawatomies[33] and the Southern
Methodists among the Shawnees. The Shawnee Manual Labor School, under the
Southern Methodists, was, however, only very grudgingly patronized by the
Indians. Its situation near the Missouri border was partly accountable for
this as it was for the selection of the school as the meeting-place of the
pro-slavery legislature in 1855. The management of the institution was
from time to time severely criticized and the superintendent, the
Reverend Thomas Johnson, an intense pro-slavery agitator,[34] was strongly
suspected of malfeasance,[35] of enriching himself, forsooth, at the
expense of the Indians. The school found a formidable rival, from this and
many another cause, in a Quaker establishment, which likewise existed on
the Shawnee Reserve but independently of either tribal or governmental
aid.
If church influences and church quarrels were discernible among the
northern tribes, they were certainly very much more so among the southern.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational)
that had labored so zealously for the Cherokees, when they were east of
the Mississippi, extended its interest to them undiminished in the west;
and, in the period just before the Civil War,[36] was the strongest
religious force in their country. There it had no less than four mission
stations[37] and a flourishing school in connection with each. The same
organization was similarly influential among the Choctaws[38] or, in the
light of what eventually happened, it might better be said its
missionaries were. Both Southern and Northern Baptists and Southern
Methodists likewise were to be found among the Cherokees;[39]
Presbyterians[40] and Southern Methodists among the Chickasaws and
Choctaws; and Presbyterians only among the Creeks and Seminoles. In every
Indian nation south, except the Creek and Seminole,[41] the work of
denominational schools was supplemented, or maybe neutralized, by that of
public and neighborhood schools.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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