Theology Today - Vol 43, No.4 - January 1987 - BOOK REVIEW - Churchmen and the Western Indians, 1820-1920

591 - Churchmen and the Western Indians, 1820-1920

Churchmen and the Western Indians, 1820-1920

By Clyde A. Milner II and Floyd A. O'Neil

Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. 264 Pp. $19.95.

Theology's concern with questions of justice leads logically to an affirmation of pluralism and the human right to cultural self-determination by diverse ethnic groups. In the process, it has become critical of its own past (and present) efforts at cultural assimilation, focusing in missionary policy and efforts, even to the point of entertaining misgivings about its interpretation of the meaning and scope of conversion.

The concern for justice also makes theologians heedful of the methods and findings of sociology and anthropology. To take others seriously on their own terms requires the adoption and use of unaccustomed attitudes and tools of investigation and inquiry. The matter becomes more difficult and more poignant for theologians when sociologists and anthropologists themselves are in quest of new and more empathetic ways of understanding the peoples they set out to study.

This makes the present volume, Churchmen and the Western Indians, 1820-1920, especially illuminating and useful. The six chapters are studies of individual missionaries, plus one political advocate marked by religious concern, done by university historians who are mindful, on the one hand, of the religious nuances of the missionary effort, and on the other hand, of what the sociologists and anthropologists in the field have been doing. Each chapter was presented at a research conference held at the University of Utah in 1982. At the conference, the papers were subjected to careful critique by panels of scholars and subsequently revised in light of their suggestions. The editors, who are themselves authors of chapters, provide a short but informative introduction that points up the issues and discusses "the Protestant paradigm," frontier variations, and national reform figures.

The Protestant paradigm is exemplified by Cyrus Byington and John Jasper Methvin. Byington served among the Choctaws from 1821 until 1867, turbulent years in which they were removed from Mississippi to the Indian Territory, in which tensions grew between the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the slave-holding Choctaws, and the mission was all but destroyed by the Civil War. Byington, nevertheless, managed remarkable achievements in education and in linguistic studies, made possible by his close personal identification with the people, his concern that they have the gospel in their own tongue, basically on their own cultural terms, and his willingness to serve as a buffer between the "Protestant paradigm" of his sponsors and the culture and exigencies of Choctaw life. Methvin, already a recognized educational administrator, served among various Oklahoma tribes, but primarily the Kiowas and Cornanches, from 1885 until his partial retirement in 1904 and death in 1941. He established schools, trained and supervised native men and women as teachers and religious workers, and conducted evangelistic work that resulted in strong and permanent

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congregations. With some reservations, and with a keen eye for the practicalities, he was in the main convinced that "almost all of native religion and culture were contradicted by Christianity and its accompanying civilization."

In the far West, George Washington Bean was a curious combination of Mormon pioneer and empire builder, Indian fighter, and missionary to the Indians. Mormon concern for Indian missions stemmed from their theology of the "Lamanite," their name for the Indians, who held a special place in Mormon history. Like other Mormon missions, leadership was considered to be temporary. Bean thus lacked the life-time commitment of missionaries of other groups. His journals "reflect no hint that he saw any inconsistency in taking Ute lands to build his home. If it troubled his conscience to begin his mission by building a fort and planting his garden in the center of their lands, he left no record of his doubts." Joseph M. Cataldo, S.J., was in the Rocky Mountain area, with special concern for the Nez Perce mission, from 1865 to 1928. His was the struggle of one who seeks to put his church at the service of the people, without overbearing assimilationist aims, in the face of strong Protestant and government pressure and accountability to a distant hierarchy. The tangible results were few. The strength was advocacy on behalf of the Indians and willingness to see things their way.

National reform figures are represented by Albert K. Smiley and Bishop Henry B. Whipple. Smiley, a Quaker hotel keeper, spent most of his life in political action on behalf of the Indians, as a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners and as head of the Friends of the Indian conferences, for which he made his Catskill resort available. Throughout his career, the emphasis was on working for the Indians, with little initiative or leadership accorded to the Indians themselves. Perhaps the most poignant study in the book is that of Enmegahbowh (the Reverend John Johnson), Ottawa and Episcopal priest, who worked under Bishop Whipple's sponsorship in Wisconsin. While Whipple worked valiantly for the Indians, the priest suffered the day-to-day turmoil occasioned by a people made confused and hostile by the conflicting promises and demands of the white government and the white community around them.

Granted that, in the light of American historical development, concern for justice for the American Indians seems not a little lame, balanced and considered studies like these help us to understand the miracle of Indian survival and to see the varieties of approaches with which the churches seem to have blundered through. Possibly the conclusion that "continued existence may be explained in terms of adaptive self-determination combined with the historic failures of assimilation" is over simple and too optimistic. It is good, however, for churches moving eagerly toward multi-ethnic pluralism, and for their theological mentors, to be brought fact-to-face with the not-so-subtle difficulties involved in that course of action. Ingrained ideologies and preconceptions of missionary aims are hard to identify and to adjust in

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light of actual situations that are faced in the field. Nevertheless, the chief thesis of this volume appears to be that failure to do so may spell disaster.

D. CAMPBELL WYCKOFF

Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey