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Educating the Heathen: the Foreign Mission School Controversy and American Ideals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

John Andrew
John Andrew
Affiliation:
Chairman of the American Studies Program at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17604.He wishes to thank the Grants Committee of Franklin and Marshall College and the American Philosophical Society for helping to support the research on which this article is based.
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Extract

“ Never in all past ages did a prospect so glorious rise to the view of any nation, as that which is disclosed to our own.” So wrote a reviewer in the years following the War of 1812, and he echoed the millennial feelings of his countrymen. Awash in a surge of post-war nationalism, and buffeted by the revivals of the Second Great Awakening, Americans struck out in search of themselves, their culture, and their future. Within a generation, the same reviewer proclaimed, “ fifty or sixty millions of men will have poured themselves over our country, carrying civilization and the arts to the extreme corner.”

This spirit energized people in all sections, and in the Northeast missionary activity grew to significant proportions. Numerous state missionary societies formed, and by 1812 a larger body — the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) — had been organized to carry this spirit across the country and throughout the world. Board organizers had as their vision a world transformed, but one transformed along the lines of an idealized New England community. Religion would guide men's lives, and a spirit of morality would infuse the operations of government. They saw before them the dawning of a new age.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , December 1978 , pp. 331 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 “Professor Frisbie's Inaugural Address,” North American Review, 6 (01 1818), 241Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 See my Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth: New England Congregationalists and Foreign Missions, 1800–1830 (Lexington, Ky., 1976)Google Scholar for a more detailed discussion; especially Chap. 9.

4 Connecticut Courant, 30 July 1816.

5 For the details of its founding see Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth, pp. 85–92; also Bollman, Oscar P., “The Foreign Mission School of Cornwall, Connecticut,” Master of Sacred Theology Thesis, Yale Divinity School, 1939Google Scholar.

6 Joseph Harvey and James Morris to Samuel Worcester, 25 June 1816, ABC 12.I, v. 2, Houghton. (Throughout the notes I have abbreviated manuscript material from the ABCFM Archives according to the filing system at the library. I would like to thank Houghton Library, Harvard University for permission to examine these manuscripts.)

7 “On Educating Heathen Youth in Our Own Country,” The Panoplist, 12 (07 1816), 299Google Scholar; Harvey, Prentice, and Morris to ABCFM, 20 Aug. 1816, ABC 12.1, v. 2.

8 Starr, Edward C., A History of Cornwall, Connecticut (New Haven, 1926), p. 64Google Scholar; Bidwell, Percy, “Rural Economy in New England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century,” Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Transactions, 20 (1916), 264Google Scholar.

9 Harvey, Prentice, and Morris to ABCFM, 20 Aug. 1816, ABC 12.1, v. 2.

10 Joseph Harvey to Samuel Worcester, 30 Oct. 1816, and James Morris to Worcester, 9 Dec. 1816 in ABC 12.1, v. 2.

11 James Morris to ABCFM, 2 Sept. 1817, in ibid.

12 Hodgson, Adam, Remarks During a Journey Through North America (New York, 1823), pp. 244–45Google Scholar. For lists of the students see Treadwell, John, Inaugural Address (Elizabethtown, N.J., 1819), p. 9Google Scholar, and Bollman, “The Foreign Mission School,” pp. 138 ff.

13 Harvey, Joseph, The Banner of Christ Set Up (Elizabethtown, N.J., 1819), p. 12Google Scholar; Treadwell, , Inaugural Address, pp. 9–10Google Scholar.

14 For letters to this effect see Charles Hicks (Cherokee chief) to Elias Cornelius, 5 Aug. 1819, and David Folsom (Choctaw chief) to McKee Folsom and Israel Folsom, 14 June 1820, Simon Gratz Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP).

15 Annals of Congress, 14th Cong, 1st Session (14 03 1816), p. 199Google Scholar.

16 For some discussion of the marriage, and a description of Ridge, see Halliburton, R. Jr, Red Over Black: Black Slavery Among the Cherokee Indians (Westport, Ct., 1977), pp. 22–23Google Scholar.

17 Delly, Lillian, “Episode at Cornwall,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, 51 (Winter, 1973–1974), 444–447Google Scholar; Halliburton, , Red Over Black, pp. 23–24Google Scholar.

18 Printed in the Foreign Mission School Catalogue, 1 June 1825, ABC 18.8, v. 1. The agents were Lyman Beecher, Timothy Stone, Joseph Harvey, and Philo Swift. See also Stephen Gold to Rev. Herman Vaill, 11 June 1825, Vaill Collection, Sterling Library, Yale University.

19 See the circular in ABC 18.8, v. 1.

20 Harriet Gold to (unknown), ABC 18.8, v. 1. See also H. Gold to Rev. Herman Vaill, 25 June 1825, Vaill Collection, Yale.

21 D. B. Brinsmade to Rev. Herman Vaill, 29 June 1825, ibid.

22 Vaill to Harriet Gold, 29 June 1825, ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 D. B. Brinsmade to Vaill, 14 July 1825, ibid. See also Mrs. D. B. Brinsmade to Vaill, 14 July 1825, ibid. Brinsmade also noted that his wife would probably cross out his marginal comments (she did), and he sent a separate letter.

25 Vaill to Mrs. Mary Brinsmade, 2 Aug. 1825, ibid.

26 Evarts to Rev. Chapin, 5 July 1825, ABC 1.01, v. 5, pp. 326–37.

27 Ibid.

28 Evarts to the Rev. Charles Prentice, 26 July 1825, ABC 8.6, v. 5, pp. 29–31.

29 Evarts to Stone, 26 Aug. 1825, ABC 1.01, v. 5, pp. 359–61.

30 Ibid. See also Catherine Gold to Rev. Herman Vaill, 10 Aug. 1825, Vaill Collection, Yale.

31 For this opposition, see Bennet Roberts to Rev. Herman Vaill, 1 Aug. 1825, and Rev. Cornelius Everest to Vaill, 10 Aug. 1825. See also Benjamin Gold to Vaill, 1 Sept. 1825, Vaill Collection, Yale.

32 Evarts to Kingsbury, 8 Sept. 1825, ABC 1.01, v. 5, pp. 376–77. See also Evarts to William Chamberlain in the Cherokee Nation, 16 Sept. 1825; to David Butrick, 16 Sept. 1825; and to John Ross, Cherokee chief, 17 Sept. 1825, ABC 1.01, v. 5, pp. 387–92.

33 Butrick to Evarts, 26 Oct. 1825, ABC 18.3.1, v. 4.

34 Brown to Evarts, 29 Sept. 1825, ABC 18.3.1, v. 5. Walker, Robert, Torchlights to the Cherokees: The Brainerd Mission (New York, 1931)Google Scholar, notes that about 85 such marriages had occurred in the South.

35 See Evarts to Henry Hill, 9 Feb. 1826, ABC 11, v. 2. Boudinot wanted the letter published in the Boston Recorder, a religious newspaper.

36 Evarts to Hill, 2 Apr. 1826, ABC 11, v. 2. For more on the tour, see Oliphant, J. Orin (ed.), Through the South and West With Jeremiah Evarts in 1826 (Lewisburg, Pa., 1956)Google Scholar.

37 For the marriage and threats to Boudinot, see a typescript in ABC 18.8, v. I. See also Flora Gold Vaill to Herman Vaill, 29 Apr. 1826, Vaill Collection, Yale. Flora was another of Harriet's sisters.

38 See Evarts to Henry Hill, 2 June 1826, ABC 11, v. 2; and Evarts to Rev. Joshua Bates, 28 June 1826, ABC 1.01, v. 6, pp. 154–55.

39 See Evarts to Rev. Charles Boardman, 7 Oct. 1826; Evarts to Rev. Amos Bassett, 7 Oct. 1826; and Evarts to Rev. Timothy Stone, 7 Oct. 1826, ABC 1.01, v. 6, pp. 308–11.

40 ABCFM, Seventeenth Annual Report (Boston, 1826), p. 106Google Scholar. See also Foreman, Carolyn, “The Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, Connecticut,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, 7 (09 1929), 258Google Scholar.

41 The Constitution of the Foreign Mission School is in the Board's 1820 report, in ABCFM, First Ten Annual Reports (Boston, 1834), p. 307Google Scholar.

42 See my Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth, pp. 146–50. Also see the Missionary Herald, 23 (01 1827), 24–26Google Scholar.

43 For the Crandall episode, see Edwin, and Small, Miriam, “Prudence Crandall: Champion of Negro Education,” New England Quarterly, 17 (12 1944), 506–29Google Scholar. Later, in 1829, Harriet's parents visited her and her husband at New Echota. They concluded the visit by praising both the land and Indian civilization, insisting that no one should try to take the Indians' land from them. See Benjamin and Eleanor Gold to Rev. Herman Vaill, 29 Oct 1829, Vaill Collection, Yale.