brief accounts of missionary labours among one or two of the chief Indian stocks and in a few of the chief areas of the continent will serve to indicate their general character.
Californian Indians.—Beginning with the foundation by Father Junipero Serra in 1769 of San Diego de Alcalá, and ending with that of San Francisco Solano in 1823, there were established, from beyond San Francisco Bay to the River Colorado, twenty-three missions of the Catholic faith among the Indians of California, whose direct influence lasted until the “secularization” of the missions and the expulsion of the friars by the Mexican government in 1834. In that year the missions counted 30,650 Indians and produced 122,500 bushels of wheat and corn. They possessed also 424,000 cattle, 62,500 horses and mules, 321,900 sheep, goats, hogs, &c. The mission-buildings of brick and stone contained besides religious houses and chapels, school-rooms and workshops for instruction in arts and industries, and were surrounded by orchards, vineyards and farms. Here Indians of diverse linguistic stocks were “reduced” and “civilized,” and their labour fully utilized by the mission-fathers. But, in the words of Mooney (Handb. of Amer. Inds. pt. i., 1907, p. 895), “Despite regular life, abundance of food and proper clothing according to the season, the Indian withered away under the restrictions of civilization supplemented by epidemic diseases introduced by the military garrisons or the seal-hunters along the coast. The death-rate was so enormous, in spite of apparent material advancement, that it is probable that the former factor alone would have brought about the extinction of the missions within a few generations.” Some of the missions had but a few hundred Indians, some, however, as high as three thousand. Kroeber thinks that their influence was “probably greater temporally than spiritually.” After the “secularization” of the missions decay soon set in, which the American occupation of California later on did nothing to remedy, and the native population rapidly decreased. When the supervision of the missionaries no longer sustained them the Indians fell to pieces and the practical results of seventy years of labour and devotion were lost. In 1908 there remained of the “Mission Indians” less than 3000 individuals (belonging to the Shoshonian and Yuman stocks), whose condition was none too satisfactory, the only human relics of the huge attempt at the “reduction” of the Indian that was planned and carried out in California.
Iroquoian.—The French missions among the Hurons began in 1615–1616 with Father le Caron of the Recollect order; those of the Jesuits with Father Brebœuf in 1626. These missions flourished, in spite of wars and other adverse circumstances, till the invasion of the Huron country in Ontario by the Iroquois in 1641 and again in 1649 brought about their destruction and the dispersal of the Hurons who were not slain or carried off as prisoners by the victors. Some took refuge among neighbouring friendly tribes; others settled finally at Lorette near Quebec, &c. The Wyandots, now in Oklahoma, are another fragment of the scattered Hurons. The Hurons of Lorette numbered in 1908, 1 Anglican, 6 Presbyterians and 459 Catholics. The Wyandots of Oklahoma are largely Protestants. The mission among the Mohawks of New York was established in 1642 by Father Jogues (afterwards martyred by the Indians), and in 1653 the church at Onondaga was built, while during the next few years missions were organized among the Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca, to cease during the warlike times of 1658–66, after which they were again established among these tribes. The mission of St François Xavier des Pré (La Prairie), out of which came the modern Caughnawaga, was founded in 1669, and here gathered many Christian Iroquois of various tribes—Mohawk especially. About this time the Iroquois settlement on the Bay of Quinté, Ontario, was formed by Christian Mohawks, Cayugas, &c. The Lake of the Two Mountains mission dates from 1720, that of St Regis from 1756. Another mission at Oswegatchie, founded in 1748, was abandoned in 1807. The Episcopal missions among the Iroquois began early in the 18th century, the Mohawks being the first tribe influenced, about 1700. The extension of the work among the other Iroquoian tribes was aided by Sir William Johnson in the last half of the century and by Chief Joseph Brant, especially after the removal of those of the Iroquois who favoured the British to Canada at the close of the War of Independence. In 1776 the Congregationalists established a mission among the New York Oneida, and later continued their labours also among the Oneida of Wisconsin. The Congregational mission among the New York Seneca began in 1831. In 1791–1798, at the request of Chief Cornplanter, the Pennsylvania Quakers established missions among the Oneida, Tuscarora and Seneca. The Moravian missions among the New York Onondaga were established under the Rev. David Zeisberger about 1745. The Methodist missions among the Ontario Iroquois date from 1820. Of the “Six Nations” Indians of the Grand river, Ontario, the Cayuga and Onondaga are still “pagan,” the others being Anglican, Methodist and other denominations, including Seventh Day Adventists, Salvation Army, &c. Among the New York Iroquois great variety of religious faith also exists, the Presbyterians (largest), Methodists, Episcopalians and Baptists being all represented. The Iroquois of Caughnawaga and St Regis are mainly Catholic; at Caughnawaga there is, however, a Methodist school.
Muskogian.—Several tribes of this stock came under the influence of the missions established by the Spanish friars along the Atlantic coast after the founding of St Augustine in 1565. The missionaries in this region were chiefly Franciscans, who succeeded the Jesuits. They were very successful among the Apalachee, but these Indians were constantly subject to attack by the Yamasi, Creek, Catawba and other savage peoples, and in 1703–1704 they were destroyed or taken captive, and the missions came to an end. A few of the survivors were gathered later at Pensacola for a time. In the early part of the 18th century French missions were established among the Choctaw, Natchez, &c., and the Jesuits laboured among the Alibamu from 1725 till their expulsion in 1764. From 1735 to 1739 the Moravians (beginning under Spangenberg) had a mission school among the Yamacraw, a Creek tribe near Savannah. In 1831 a Presbyterian mission was established among the Choctaw on the Yalabusha river in northern Mississippi, to which went in 1834 the Rev. Cyrus Byington, the Eliot mission over which he presided there and in the Indian Territory till 1868 being one of great importance. After the removal of the Indians to the Indian Territory more missions were established among the Choctaw, the Creek and the Seminole, &c. The work was much interfered with by the Civil War of 1861–65, but the mission work was afterwards reorganized. The Baptist missions among the Choctaw began in 1832 and among the Creek in 1839. The “Choctaw Academy,” a high school, at Great Crossings, Kentucky, chiefly for young men of the Choctaw and Creek nations, was founded in 1819 and continued for twenty-four years. In 1835 a Methodist mission was established among the Creek, but soon abandoned, to be reorganized later on. Among the Indians of Oklahoma, the Catholic and Mormon churches and practically all the Protestant denominations, including the Salvation Army and the Christian Scientists, are now represented by churches, schools, missions, &c. The missionaries among the Muskogian tribes during the last half of the 18th century, as may be seen from Pilling’s Bibliography of the Muskhogean Languages (1889), furnished many able students of Indian tongues, whose researches have been of great value in philology. This is true likewise of labourers in the mission-field among the Algonkian, Iroquoian, Athabaskan, Siouan and Salishan tribes and among the Eskimo. The celebrated “Eliot Bible,” the translation (1663) of the scriptures into the language of the Algonkian Indians of Massachusetts, made by the Rev. John Eliot (q.v.), is a monument of missionary endeavour and prescientific study of the aboriginal tongues. In his work Eliot, like many other missionaries, had the assistance of several Indians. The names of such mission-workers as Egede, Kleinschmidt, Fabricius, Erdmann, Kohlmeister, Bruyas, Zeisberger, Dencke, Rasles, Gravier, Mengarini, Giorda, Worcester, Byington, Wright, Riggs, Dorsey, Williamson, Voth, Eells, Pandosy, Veniaminov, Barnum, André, Mathevet, Thavenet, Cuoq, Sagard, O’Meara, Jones, Wilson, Rand, Lacombe, Petitot, Maclean, Hunter, Horden, Kirkby, Watkins, Tims, Evans, Morice, Hall, Harrison, Legoff, Bompas, Peck, &c., are familiar to students of the aboriginal tongues of America.
When in 1900 the withdrawal by the United States of government aid to denominational schools occurred, it compelled some of the weaker churches to give up such work altogether, and interfered much with the activities of some of the stronger ones. According to the statistics given by Mooney (Handb. of Amer. Inds., 1907, pt. i. p. 897) the Catholic Church had in 1904 altogether, under the care of the Jesuits, Franciscans and Benedictines, &c., and the sisters of the orders of St Francis, St Anne, St Benedict, St Joseph, Mercy and Blessed Sacrament, “178 Indian churches and chapels served by 152 priests; 71 boarding and 26 day schools with 109 teaching priests, 384 sisters and 138 other religious or secular teachers and school assistants.” The Catholic mission work is helped by “the Preservation Society, the Marquette League and by the liberality of Mother Katharine Drexel, founder of the order of the Blessed Sacrament for negro and Indian mission work.” The corresponding statistics for the chief Protestant churches were as follows:—
| Denomination. | Missions and Churches. |
Missionaries. | Schools. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | 157 | 188 | 60 |
This is exclusive of Alaska, where Greek Orthodox (18 ministers in
