While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Middle Atlantic States.-- The earliest mission establishment within
this territory was that founded by a company of 8 Spanish Jesuits and lay
brothers with a number of educated Indian boys, under Father Juan Bautista
Segura, at "Axacan," in Virginia, in 1570. The exact location is uncertain, but.
it seems to have been on or near the lower James or Pamunkey River. It was of
brief existence. Hardly had the bark chapel been erected when the party was
attacked by the Indians, led by a treacherous native interpreter, and the entire
company massacred, with the exception of a single boy. The massacre was avenged
by Menendez two years later, but the mission effort was not renewed.
The next undertaking was that of the English Jesuits
who accompanied the Maryland colony in 1633. The work was chiefly among the
Conoy and Patuxent of Maryland, with
incidental attention to the Virginia tribes. Several stations were established
and their work, with the exception of a short period of warfare in 1639, was
very successful, the principal chiefs being numbered among the converts, until
the proscription of the Catholic religion by the Cromwell party in 1649. The
leader of the Maryland mission was Father Andrew White, author of the often
quoted "Relatio" and of a grammar and dictionary of the Piscataway (?) language.
The New York mission began in 1642, among the
Mohawk, with the ministration of the heroic
Jesuit captive, Father Isaac Jogues, who met a cruel death at the hands of the
same savages 4 years later. During a temporary peace between the French and the
Iroquois in 1653 a regular post and
mission church were built at Onondaga, the capital of the confederacy, by
permission of the league. The Oneida,
Cayuga, and Seneca invited and received
missionaries. Much of their welcome was undoubtedly due to the presence in the
Iroquois villages of large numbers of incorporated Christian captives from the
destroyed Huron nation. The truce lasted but a
short time, however, and before the summer of 1658 the missionaries had
withdrawn and the war was again on. In 1666 peace was renewed and within a short
time missions were again founded among all the tribes. In 1669 a few Christian
Iroquois, sojourning at the Huron mission of Lorette, near Quebec, Canada,
withdrew and formed a new mission settlement near Montreal, at a place on the St
Lawrence known as La Prairie, or under its mission name, St Francois Xavier des
Tres, the precursor of the later St Francois Xavier du Sault and the modern
Caughnawaga. The new town soon became the rallying point for all the Christian
Iroquois, who removed to it in large numbers from all the tribes of the
confederacy, particularly from the Mohawk towns. There also gathered the Huron
and other Christian captives from among the Iroquois, as also many converts from
all the various eastern Algonquian tribes in the French alliance. To this period
belongs the noted Jesuit scholar, Etienne de Carheil, who, arriving in 1666,
devoted the remaining 60 years of his lift to work among the Cayuga, Huron, and
Ottawa, mastering all three languages; and
leaving behind him a manuscript dictionary of Huron radices in Latin and French.
In 1668 also a considerable body of Christian Cayuga
and other Iroquois, together with some adopted Hurons, crossed Lake Ontario from
New York and settied on the north shore in the neighborhood of Quinté
Bay. At their request Sulpician priests were sent to minister to them,
but within a few years the immigrant Indians had either returned to their
original country or scattered among the other Canadian missions. In 1676 the
Catholic Iroquois mission town of The Mountain was founded by the Sulpician
fathers on the island of Montreal, with a well organized industrial school in
charge of the Congregation sisters. In consequence of these removals from the
Iroquois country and the breaking out of a new war with the Five Tribes in 1687,
the Jesuit missions in New York were brought to a close. In the seven years' war
that followed, Christian Iroquois of the missions and heathen Iroquois of the
Five Nations fought against each other as allies of French or English,
respectively. The Mountain was abandoned in 1704, and the mission transferred to
a new site at the Sault au Recollet, north of Montreal. In 1720 this was again
removed to the Lake of Two Mountains (Oka, or Canasadaga) on the same island of
Montreal, where the Iroquois were joined by the
Nipissing and
Algonkin, of the former Sulpician
mission town of Isle aux Tourtes. Among the noted workers identified with it,
all of the scholarly Sulpician order, may be named Revs. Déperét,
Güen, Mathevet, 1746-81; De Terlaye,
1754-77; Guichart, Dufresne, and Jean Andre Cuoq, 1843-90. Several of these gave
attention also to the Algonkin connected with the same mission, and to the
Iroquois of St Regis and other stations. All of them were fluent masters of the
Iroquois language, and have left important contributions to philology,
particularly Cuoq, whose "Etudes philologiques" and Iroquois dictionary remain
our standard authorities.
All effort among the villages of the confederacy was
finally abandoned, in consequence of the mutual hostility of France and England.
In 1748 the Sulpician Father Francois Picquet founded the new mission settlement
of Presentation on the St Lawrence at Oswegatchie, the present Ogdensburg, N.
Y., which within three years had a prosperous population of nearly 400 families,
drawn chiefly from the Onondaga and
Cayuga tribes. About 1756 the still existing mission town of St Francis Regis
(St Regis), on the south side of the St Lawrence where the Canada New York
boundary intersects it, was founded under Jesuit auspices by Iroquois emigrants
front Caughnawaga mission. The Oswegatchie settlement declined alter the
Revolution until its abandonment, in 1807. Caughnawaga, St Regis, and Lake of
Two Mountains still exist as Catholic Iroquois mission towns, the two first
named being the largest Indian settlements North of Mexico.
About the year 1755 the first mission in west
Pennsylvania was established among the
Delawares at Sawcunk, on Beaver River, by the Jesuit Virot, but was
soon discontinued, probably on account of the breaking out of the French and
Indian war.
Philology owes much .to the labor of these
missionaries, particularly to the earlier Jesuit, Jacques Bruyas, and the later
secular priest, Father Joseph Marcoux (St Regis and Caughnawaga, 1813, until his
death in 1855), whose monumental Iroquois grammar and dictionary is the fruit of
forty years' residence with the tribe. Of Father Bruyas, connected with the
Sault Ste Louis (Caughnawaga) and other Iroquois missions from 1667 until his
death in 1712, during a part of which period he was superior of all the Canadian
missions, it was said that he was a master of the Mohawk language, speaking it
as fluently as his native French, his dictionary of Mohawk root words being
still a standard. Father Antoine Rinfret, 1796-1814, has left a body of more
than 2,000 quarto pages of manuscript sermons in the Mohawk language; while Rev.
Nicolas Burtin, of Caughnawaga (1855- ), is an even more voluminous author.
The Lutheran minister, John Campanius Holm
(commonly known as Campnius), chaplain of the Swedish colony in Delaware in
1643-48, gave much attention to missionary work among the neighboring Indians
and translated a catechism into the Delaware language. This seems to have been
the only missionary work in the Atlantic states by that denomination.
Under the encouragement of the English colonial
government the Episcopalians, constituting the established Church of
England, undertook work among the Iroquois tribes of New York as early as the
beginning of the 18th century. In 1700 a Dutch Calvinist minister at
Schenectady,. Rev. Bernardus Freeman, who had already, given sufficient
attention to the Mohawk to acquire the language, was employed to prepare some
Gospel and ritual translations, which formed the basis of the first booklet in
the language, published in Boston in 1707. In 1712 the English Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel sent out Rev. William Andrews, who, with the
assistance of a Dutch interpreter, Lawrence Claesse, and of Rev. Bernardus
Freeman, translated and published a great part of the liturgy and some parts of
the Bible 3 years later. The work grew and ex-tended to other tribes of the
Iroquois confederacy, being especially fostered at a later period by Sir William
Johnson, superintendent for Indian affairs, who had published at his own
expense, in 1769, a new edition of the Episcopalian liturgy in the Mohawk
language, the joint work of several missionaries, principal of whom was Rev.
Henry Barclay. From this tune until 1777 the principal worker in the tribe was
Rev. John Stuart, who translated the New Testament into Iroquois. On the removal
of the Mohawk and others of the Iroquois to Canada, in consequence of the
Revolutionary War, a new edition was prepared by Daniel Claus, official
interpreter, and published under the auspices of the Canadian provincial
government. In 1787 a new translation of the Book of Common Prayer, prepared by
the noted chief, Joseph Brant (see Theyandanega), who had been a pupil of
Wheelock's school, in Connecticut, was published at the expense of the English
Government. In 1816 another edition appeared, prepared by the Rev. Eleazer
Williams, a mixed-blood Caughnawaga, sometimes claimed as the "Lost Dauphin."
Mr. Williams labored chiefly among the Oneida in New York. He was succeeded,
about 1821, by Solomon Davis, who followed the tribe in the emigration to
Wisconsin. The latter was the author of several religious books in the Oneida
dialect, including another edition of the Book of Common Prayer, published in
1837. In 1822 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, already noted,
definitely transferred its operations to the Iroquois res., on Grand River,
Ontario, where it still continues, its principal establishment being the Mohawk
Institute, near Brantford. For this later period the most distinguished name is
that of Rev. Abraham Nelles, chief missionary to the Six Nations of Canada for
more than 50 years, almost up to his death in 1884. He was also the author of a
translation of the Common Prayer, in which he was aided by an educated native,
Aaron Hill. (See also Canada, East.)
Of less historic importance was the
Munsee mission of Crossweeksung,
near the present Freehold, N. J., conducted by Rev. David Brainerd for the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in 1746-47.
In Virginia a school for the education of Indians was
established in connection with William and Mary College, Williamsburg, about
1697, chiefly through the effort of Mr. Robert Boyle, and some Indians were
still under instruction there as late as 1760. Some earlier plans to the same
end had been frustrated by the out-break of the Indian war of 1622 (Stith).
Under Gov. Spotswood a school was established among the
Saponi about. 1712, but had only a brief existence. Both of these may be
considered as under Episcopalian auspices.
In 1766, the Congregational minister Rev. Samuel
Kirkland began among the Oneida of New York the work which he conducted with
success for a period of nearly 40 years. The
Stockbridge and
Brotherton missions in New York and
Wisconsin by the same denomination are properly a continuation of New England
history, and are so treated in this article. To a later period belongs the
Congregational mission among the Seneca of
New York, maintained by Rev. Asher Wright from his first appointment in 1831
until his death in 1875. A fluent master of Seneca, he was the author of a
number of religious and educational works in the language, besides for some
years publishing a journal of miscellany in the same dialect.
The Friends, or Quakers, in Pennsylvania
and New Jersey, from their first coming among the Indians, had uniformly
cultivated kindly relations with them, and had taken every opportunity to
enforce the teachings of Christianity by word and example, but seem not to have
engaged in any regular mission work or established any mission schools in either
of these colonies.
As early as 1791 the noted Seneca chief, Cornplanter,
impressed by the efforts of the Quakers to bring about a friendly feeling
between the two races, requested the Philadelphia yearly meeting to take charge
of three boys of his tribe for education, one of them being his own son. In 1796
the meeting began regular work among the Iroquois in New York by establishing
three workers among the Oneida and the
Tuscarora. These teachers gave first attention to the building of a mill and
a blacksmith shop, the introduction of farm tools, and the instruction of the
Indians in their use. The women were instructed in household duties, including
spinning and weaving. A school was also commenced, and the work progressed until
1799, when, in consequence of the suspicions of the Indians as to the ultimate
purpose, the Quakers withdrew, leaving all their working plant behind. In 1798,
on invitation of the Seneca, they established a similar working mission on the
Allegany res., and later at Cattaraugus and Tunesassah, with the good result
that in a few years most of the bark cabins had given place to log houses, and
drunkenness was almost unknown. They remained undisturbed through the war of
1812, at one time forestalling a smallpox epidemic by the vaccination of about
1,000 Indians, but were soon afterward called on to champion the cause of their
wards against. the efforts at, removal to the west. In the meantime the New York
meeting, about 1807, had started schools among the Stockbridge and Brotherton
tribes from New England, then living in the Oneida country. Owing to the
drinking habits of the Indians, but little result was accomplished. The removal
of the Oneida and Stockbridge, about 1822, and the subsequent disturbed
condition of the tribes brought about, first, the curtailment of the work, and
afterward its abandonment, about 1843.
In 1740 the Moravian missionary, Christian
Rauch, began a mission among the Mahican
at Shecomeco, near the present Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y., which
attained a considerable measure of success until the hostility of the colonial
government, instigated by the jealousy of those who had traded on the vices of
the Indians, compelled its abandonment about 5 years later. During its
continuance the work had been extended, in 1742, to the Scaticook, a mixed band
of Mahican and remnant tribes settled just across the line, about the present
Kent, Conn. Here a flourishing church was soon built up, with every prospect of
a prosperous future, when the blow came. Some of the converts followed their
teachers to the west; the rest, left without help, relapsed into barbarism. The
Shecomeco colony removed to Pennsylvania, where, after a a brief stay at
Bethlehem, the Moravian central station, a new mission, including both Mahican
and Delawares, was established in 1746 at Gnadenhuetten, on Mahoning River, near
its junction with the Lehigh. A chief agent in the arrangements was the noted
philanthropist, Count Zinzendorf. Gnadenhuetten grew rapidly, soon having a
Christian Indian congregation of 500. Missions were founded at Shamokin and
other villages in east Pennsylvania, which were attended also by
Shawnee and
Nanticoke, besides one in charge of
Rev. David Zeisberger among the Onondaga, in New York. The missionaries, as a
rule, if not always, served without salary and supported themselves by their own
labors. All went well until the beginning of the French and Indian war, when, on
Nov. 24, 1755, Gnadenhuetten was attacked by the hostile savages, the
missionaries and their families massacred, and the mission destroyed. The
converts were scattered, but after some period of wandering were again gathered
Into a new mission at Nain, near Bethlehem, Pa. On the breaking out of Pontiac's
war in 1763 an order was issued by the Pennsylvania government for the
conveyance of the converts to Philadelphia. This was accordingly done, and they
were detained there under guard, but attended by their missionary, Bernhard
Grube, until the close of the war, suffering every hardship and in constant
danger of massacre by the excited borderers.
On the conclusion of peace they established themselves
on the Susquehanna at a new town, which was named Friedenshuetten, near the
Delaware village of Wyalusing. In 1770 they again removed to Friedensstadt, on
Beaver Creek, in west Pennsylvania, under charge of Zeisberger, and two years
later made another removal to the Muskingum River, in Ohio, by permission of the
western Delawares. By the labor of the missionaries, David Zeisberger, Bishop
John Ettwein, Johannes Roth, and the noted John Heckewelder, who accompanied
them to the west, the villages of Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhuetten were established
in the midst of the wild tribes within the present limits of Tuscarawas County,
the first named being occupied chiefly by Delawares, the other by Mahican. The
Freidensstadt settlement was now abandoned. In 1776 a third village, Lichtenau
(afterward Salem), was founded, and the Moravian work reached its highest point
of prosperity, the whole convert population including about 500 souls. Then came
the Revolution, by which the missions were utterly demoralized until the
culminating tragedy of Gnadenhuetten, Mar. 8, 1782, when nearly 100 Christian
Indians, after having been bound together in pairs, were barbarously massacred
by a party of Virginia borderers. Once more the missionaries, Zeisberger and
Heckewelder, gathered their scattered flock, and after another period of
wandering, settled in 1787 at New Salem, at the mouth of Huron River, Lake Erie,
north Ohio. A part of them settled, by invitation of the British Government, at
Fairfield, or Moraviantown, on Thames River, Ontario, in 1790, under the
leadership of Rev. Christian Dencke, while the rest were reestablished in 1798
on lands granted by the United States at their former towns on the Muskingum.
Here Zeisberger died in 1808, after more than 60 years of faithful ministry
without salary. He is known to philologists as the author of a grammar and
dictionary of the Onondaga, besides several smaller works in the Delaware
language.
The mission, by this time known as Goshen, was much
disturbed by the War of 1812, and the subsequent settlement of the country by
the whites so far demoralized it that in 1823 those then in charge brought it to
a close, a small, part of the Indians removing to the west, constituting the
present Munsee Christians in Kansas, while the remainder joined their brethren
in Ontario, Canada. The latter, whose own settlement also had been broken up by
the events of the same war, had been gathered a few years before into a new town
called New Fairfield, by Rev. Mr. Dencke, already mentioned, who had also done
work among the Chippewa. Dencke died in
retirement in 1839, after more than 40 years of missionary service, leaving as
his monument a manuscript dictionary of the Delaware language and minor printed
works, including one in Chippewa. The Moravian mission at New Fairfield was kept
up for a number of years after his death, but was at last discontinued, and both
the "Moravians" and the "Munsees" of the Thames are now credited officially
either to the Methodist or to the Episcopal (Anglican) church.
The Munsee who had removed with the Delawares to Kansas
were followed a few years later by Moravian workers from Canada, who, before
1840, had a successful mission among them, which continued until the diminishing
band ceased to be of importance. Among the workers of this later period may be
named Rev. Abraham Luckenbach, "the last of the Moravian Lenapists," who
ministered to his flock during a 3 years' sojourn in Indiana, and later in
Canada, from 1800 to his death in 1854, and was the author of several religious
works in the language. Dencke, founder of the Thames River colony, was also the
author of a considerable manuscript religious work in the language and probably
also of a grammar and dictionary.
Another Moravian missionary, Rev. John C. Pyrlaeus,
labored among the Mohawk from 1744 to 1751, and has left several manuscript
grammatical and devotional works in that and the cognate dialects, as also in
Mahican and Delaware. For several years he acted as instructor in languages to
the candidates for the mission service. Rev. Johannes Roth, who accompanied the
removal to Ohio in 1772, before that time had devoted a number of years to the
work in Pennsylvania, and is the author of a unique and important religions
treatise in the Unami dialect of the
Delaware.
A remarkable testimony to the value of the simple life
consistently followed by the Moravians is afforded in the age attained by many
of their missionaries in spite of all the privations of the wilder-ness, and
almost without impairment of their mental faculties, viz: Pyrleus, 72 years;
Heckewelder, 80; Ettwein, 82; Zeisberger, 87, and Grebe, 92.
