INDIAN MISSIONS IN KANSAS. Excerpted from "Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1911-1912", Edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary. Vol XII., State Printing Office, Topeka, Kansas 1912, pages 65-69 . submitted by Teresa Lindquist (merope@radix.net); (copyright) 2002 by Teresa Lindquist ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INDIAN MISSIONS IN KANSAS. An address by EARL LEON SHOUP,(1) of Holton, before the Kansas State Historical Society, at its thirty-fifth annual meeting, December 6, 1910. KANSAS history of significance is usually thought of as dating from the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska bill, and the inauguration of the "storm-and-stress" period in which determined men and Sharp's rifles played so important a part. This was a critical time for the future of the state. Should the new society transplanted to the western prairies be that of the old Puritan type in social, political and educational ideals, or should it take its impulse from the institutions of the South? The struggle in Kansas was but the conflict of two irreconcilable ideas. The one triumphed; and our fifty years of statehood has been a development and an expansion of the principles then decided. But there is an earlier chapter in Kansas annals fraught with great significance for her subsequent history, and, if anything, more fascinating in interest. This was the period of the establishing of missions among the Indian tribes of the territory. But these must be considered as more than attempts to civilize the native. Those pioneer preachers are to be reckoned among the factors contributing largely to the Kansas of to-day. When the curtain lifted on the Kansas scene almost a century ago it revealed a wild and beautiful view--wide expanse of prairie lands; hills and valleys covered with tall, waving grass; fringes of timber along the water-courses. The sole inhabitants were the bands of Indians who lived along the streams and subsisted by means of the chase. In the east were the Kanzas and Osages, and farther west the Pawnees, bands of Cheyennes and other western tribes, making frequent incursions on war and hunting expeditions. Two different classes of men looked upon this vision, and each saw a different possibility. The trader saw the chance of making a fortune through bartering his trinkets and bad whisky to the Indians for furs and pelts. French traders were the first to arrive, these coming mostly from St. Louis. Pierre Chouteau and Manuel Lisa were the most noted of these. The missionary conceived more. He saw the Indian lifted from his degraded and miserable life to civilization. Then, too, he thought of Christianity: "Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind, Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind. ..... Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-top't hill, an humble heaven." He wished to give _him_ a God. Before mentioning the work of the missionaries in particular, it is better to give a sketch of one of the most characteristic of them. If one were to name the person who above all others had a guiding hand in the Indian affairs of the territory, it would be Isaac McCoy. Born in Pennsylvania and reared in the frontier settlements of Kentucky and Indiana, he was peculiarly fitted for the work that he took up. After a short time as a young minister he became greatly interested in the conditions of the Indians about him. At his solicitation, he was appointed, in 1817, the first Baptist missionary to the Indians, and was sent to the Miamis in Indiana. He founded the missions among the Miamis, Ottawas and Pottawatomies in Indiana and southern Michigan, drawing about himself a band of young workers, among whom were Johnston Lykins, Jotham Meeker and Robert Simerwell, who, inspired by their leader, devoted their whole lives to the cause of Indian reform, and afterwards formed the nucleus of the Baptist missionaries in Kansas. McCoy's activities were by no means confined to the work of teaching. In 1823 he conceived the scheme of setting aside a large tract of land in the West, to which all the Indians of the United States should eventually be removed. This he thought to be the only way of saving them from destruction. Here, away from the baleful contact of white men, they could be raised to civilization. He had in mind a federation of all the tribes of the territory, and finally the formation of an Indian state. It was not the scheme of a dreamer; it was formulated by one who knew the Indian character as scarcely any other person ever has, and it became his life work. Never once, to the day of his death, did he lose sight of his one great object--to civilize and Christianize the Indians. To this he devoted himself, unconditionally, all that he had--family, property and friends. Space forbids telling of his almost superhuman efforts to bring about success; of his oft-repeated trips to Washington and other cities of the East, through the wilderness in the dead of winter; of his frequent addresses in all parts of the country; of his lobbying at Washington. Suffice it to say, he won the support of John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, and other influential men, members of both branches of Congress, and the results of his efforts was the act of May 26, 1830, providing for the removal of the Indians to the West. McCoy was appointed surveyor and agent for the removal. He defined the boundaries, which include the eastern half of the present state of Kansas. His scheme also included the establishment of missions and schools and the appointment of an adviser to the Indians. Finally, there was to be a district set apart for the seat of government of the Indian territory, soon to become a state. With almost startling exactness his scheme was carried out. In 1837 he was given permission to survey a district of seven square miles for the capital. This he located on the Marais de Cygnes river, in what is now Miami county.(2) The town of Osawatomie is located within the district assigned for the Indian capital by McCoy. He surveyed, or had surveyed, most of the Indian reservations;(3) made treaties, acted as personal adviser for the natives, and on more than one occasion prevented intertribal war. McCoy's chief assistants in the survey were his sons, Doctor Rice McCoy and John Calvin McCoy, and John Donelson, a nephew of Mrs. Andrew Jackson. Soon after the passage of the act a large number of Indians were congregated in the eastern part of the territory. The total number in the whole territory was given as: native tribes, 21,660; emigrant, 73,200; total, 94,860. About this time their location was something as follows: The Wyandots were north of the Kaw river, next to the Missouri. North of these were the Delawares, whose villages were near the Kaw; the Kickapoos; and in the extreme northeast corner of what is now Kansas were the Ioways and the Sacs and Foxes. South of the river were the Shawnees, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Osages, Quapaws, and the remnants of several tribes. Most of these were in the most miserable condition; and one of the first duties of the missionary was to cooperate with the government officials in allaying their distress. This was one of the very important services they performed. The churches were not slow in seeing their opportunity, and soon a number of mission establishments were in successful operation. Only a few of these can be mentioned here. Just at this point it is interesting to note that America's first Christian martyr, a missionary to the Indians, met his death in Kansas. This was Fray Juan de Padilla, a Franciscan friar, who accompanied Coronado on his expedition to the Quivira villages. When Coronado returned, Father Juan remained behind as a missionary, and was killed by the Pawnees, it is thought, in 1842.(4) The first missionary station was the one established by the Presbyterians on the Neosho river, among the Osages, in 1824. But this and several others by the same denomination in these parts were soon abandoned. In 1830 the Shawnee Methodist mission was established a few miles southwest of where Kansas City now stands, in what is now Johnson county. Three large buildings were erected, and in 1855 the so-called "bogus" legislature met in one of these. This was a manual-labor school; a large farm was worked, and Indians taught both to read and to work. Rev. Thomas Johnson was the founder, and for most of the time the superintendent. Near by was the Shawnee Baptist mission, established in 1831 by the Rev. Mr. Lykins; and the Friends' Shawnee mission, begun in 1834. It was at the Baptist mission that the first book was printed in Kansas--an Indian primer of twenty-four pages, printed by Rev. Jotham Meeker in 1834. He aftewards did much printing for the missions and Indian agents. In 1837 he removed his press to where Ottawa now stands, and founded a mission among those Indians, which he faithfully superintended till his death in 1854. The Presbyterian station among the Iowas and the Sacs and Foxes was another important one. This was established in 1837, near the present town of Highland, by Rev. Samuel Irvin and his wife. At the same time that Thomas Johnson was starting his Shawnee mission his brother Rev. William Johnson, commenced his labors among the Kanzas. He was first at their village, a few miles east of the site of Topeka and north of the river. In 1835 he founded the Methodist mission, among the same tribe, on Mission creek. There was also a most efficient station here, conducted by the Baptists, founded by Dr. Johnston Lykins in 1848. There were Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian or Catholic missions among the Delawares, Kickapoos, Weas and Piankeshaws, Pottawatomies, Wyandots, and Sacs and Foxes, which did an aggressive work. There was a Methodist mission located on the site of Osawatomie,(5) which John Brown and his men were in a few years to make immortal; also another famous one at the old trail town of Council Grove.(6) But one of the most successful enterprises was the Catholic station on the Neosho river, among the Osages. In 1822 Father de La Croix visited this tribe and baptised two Indian children--the first ceremony of this kind within the state. In 1827, 1829 and 1830 Father Charles Van Quickenborne visited the Osages and preached; and later, in 1847, Rev. John Schoenmachers established the Osage mission. Substantial buildings were erected, and subsequent success won for the mission the name of the "Cradle of civilization in the Neosho valley." There were other Catholic missions, but the next in importance was the St. Mary's mission, among the Pottawatomies.(7) This was a Jesuit station, established in 1838 on Pottawatomie creek, in what is now Miami county. It was moved into Linn county in 1839, where it remained until the removal of the Pottawatomies north of the Kaw in 1849. It was then established at St. Mary's, Pottawatomie county. Here an efficient mission school was run, with an able corps of teachers, and so continued till 1869. From our viewpoint, it seems as if the missionaries were doomed from the first to fail. But not so. If the government had always been able to keep its promises to the Indians--to have assured them a permanent home, and kept out undesirable traders who proved to be the worst of foes to the interests of the Red Man--there is every reason to believe that the project of Indian reform would have succeeded. There was always a class of men who for selfish interest kept before the public and the government an impression of the futility of any effort to civilize the Indians. Many of the schools had as many as fifty pupils, and several had more. The young Indians made fine progress; so much as to call forth the wonder and praise of government inspectors and chance visitors from the East. Those thus trained became the leaders of their tribes; and when they finally left Kansas for a home farther south in the territory, they could count, as Kansas' only good gift to them, the life service of these consecrated men and women missionaries. The missionary's contribution to Kansas was more than religious. His entrance marked the beginnings of the moral forces in the state. It is characteristic of Kansas that in building her foundations she did not think only of her material prosperity, and later bring in education and culture; but here the teacher preceded even the homesteader. Some of the more direct services of the missionaries were: religiously, they constituted the nuclei of the churches as they developed later, and, educationally, they founded the first of the splendid schools for which Kansas has since become famous. The first school of higher learning was the Western Academy, founded at the Shawnee Manual Labor School in 1848. It was attended by students from eastern Kansas, and there were a score or more of pupils from Missouri. The first teacher was Rev. Nathan Scarritt. Three of our colleges and universities grew directly out of mission schools: Highland University, Highland; Ottawa University, Ottawa; and and [sic] St. Mary's College, St. Marys. To the missionaries, also, we owe the first printing plant and the first Kansas book. Finally, we are indebted to the missionaries for the example of those who placed the welfare of men above that of mere gain; men who, without hope or thought of pecuniary reward, endured the hardships of savage life and remained true to their cause until the end. Surely such are fitting founders of a great commonwealth. ------ NOTE 1.--[biography of EARL LEON SHOUP]. NOTE 2.--The Historical Society has in its collections a map of Missouri, 1850, which shows a part of the adjacent Indian territory, on which is located the "seat of government," as well as various Indian reservations and villages. NOTE 3.--This work began in 1830, when land for the Delaware Indians was surveyed. NOTE 4.--For an account of Father Padilla, see Historical Collections, vol. 10, p. 84. The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911, Vol. XI, p. 385, gives a brief account of the "proto-martyr of the United States." NOTE 5.--This mission was established in 1837, and Frederick B. Leach was appointed missionary. NOTE 6.--This mission was established when the Kaws moved to their new reservation, and was in charge of T.S. Huffaker and Rev. Henry Webster. NOTE 7.--Established by Rev. Christian Hoecken.--The Dial, June, 1890, p. 1.