LIBERTY UNIVERSITY LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

MISSIONARY EFFORTS AMONG THE DELAWARE INDIANS

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO DR. EDWARD L. SMITHER IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS ICST 657

BY BRIAN DOUGLAS AUNKST

MORRISON, COLORADO

MAY 7, 2011

ii CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . COLONIZATION AND CHRISTIANIZATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delaware Missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 3 4 7 8 10

WESTWARD MIGRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michigan and Ontario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Indiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REMOVAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles Journeycake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 14 15 15 16 17 18

Oklahoma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

INTRODUCTION When Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, some Europeans recognized his discovery as an opportunity to spread the Word of God to those who had never heard it before. However, othersnot just the Spanishviewed it as an opportunity for affluence and influence. Unfortunately, caught in the middle of this struggle for supremacy in the New World were the Native Americans. This paper will show that while the lofty intent of some Europeans might have been the civilization and Christian evangelization of the North American natives, the lust for power and wealth corrupted that ideal and often placed missionaries at odds with their own countrymen. The cumulative result was an ineffective missionary effort among the Native Americansthe Lenni-Lenape (Delaware Indians), in particular.

THE PEOPLE Before the European arrival, the area from the mouth of the Delaware River to the mouth of the Hudson River was occupied by the Lenape, which in the Algonquian language means the people. They were also referred to by other native inhabitants as Lenni-Lenape, meaning the true people.1 The land they occupied included much of modern New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, and southeastern New York.2

Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 7. Ibid., 1.

2 Contrary to popular belief, Delaware was not named for the indigenous peoples at the time. Instead, they were all named for Sir Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, who led forces to support the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. The name was used by the English and became standard following the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664. The Lenape became known as the Delaware Indians.3 The Lenape were a very spiritual people, believing spirits (mantuwk) to be in the world around them. They believed the world was created by a Great Spirit (Kishlemukng). Sickness and death were caused by the evil spirit, known as Mahtantu. The mantuwk could be either helpful or harmful and thus had to be treated respectfully. As all things embodied spirits, from storms, to waterfalls, to rocks, to tree buds, Lenape submitted offerings where they believed the spirits lived, always being careful not to offend the spirits.4

COLONIZATION AND CHRISTIANIZATION In 1638, a consortium of Dutch and Swedish nationals cooperated to form a Swedish colony on the lower parts of the Delaware River and Bay.5 Among the Swedish colonists was an evangelist named Johannes (John) Campanius, who served as a missionary to the Lenape from 1643-1648.6 Over the years he learned the Lenape language and eventually translated Luthers Small Catechism as an aid to conversion.7 Unfortunately, his efforts yielded little fruit; as his

Ibid., 8. Ibid., 313-316.

Albert Cook Myers, ed., Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707, Volume 13 (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1912), 59.
6

Ibid., 79-80. Charles William Schaeffer, Early History of the Lutheran Church In America1857, 15-16.

3 grandson, Thomas Campanius Holm, complained, the Delaware were generally unacquainted with the true worship of God.8

Pennsylvania In 1681, William Penn, son of prominent English admiral, Sir William Penn, was granted a charter by King Charles II for a tract of land in North America between New York and Lord Baltimores Maryland, which the king called Pensilvania.9 Penn, a Quaker, wanted his Pennsylvania to be a land where people of differing languages and customs could live together, where men and women could worship as they pleased, where free men could participate fully in their government.10 The Lenni-Lenape had unknowingly gained an ally, a Brother Onas, as they came to know him, determined actually to act out the clich of the other European colonies.11 Penns attitude toward the natives was best expressed in terms of winning them through the application of just and equitable treatment.12 In 1682, Penn would sign his so-called Great Treaty of Peace with representatives of the Lenape, chief of whom was Tamanend, or Tammany.13 The Lenape began moving further westward and northward to create more space between themselves and the white colonists.14

Jehu Curtis Clay, Annals of the Swedes on the Delaware from Their First Settlement in 1636 to the Present Time (Philadelphia: Hooker, 1858), 25. Jean R. Soderlund, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania: A Documentary History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 36.
10 9

Ibid., 3.

Steven Craig Harper, Promised Land: Penns Holy Experiment, The Walking Purchase, and the Dispossession of the Delawares (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2006), 26-27.
12

11

C.A. Weslager, The Delaware Indians: A History, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,

2000), 158.
13

Russell Bourne, Gods of War, Gods of Peace (New York: Harcourt Books, 2002), 167.

4 Penns death in 1718 drastically altered the relationship between the Lenni-Lenape and the colonists. Bourne sums up the situation: The great planters avaricious heirs and land-hungry newcomers waged a battle for the mastery of Pennsylvania and its borderlands that would confound the Quaker legislature and subvert the old treaty in the most shameful of ways. Although Quakers would continue to grace the American intellectual and cultural scene with the inner light of their beliefs, chances of their persuading American culture, native or white, to follow that light had been dimmed.15 William Penns sons gained control of their fathers estate in 1730. Anxious to provide land to the flood of immigrants pouring into Pennsylvania, in 1737, with acting Governor James Logan, the Penns defrauded the Lenape of 1.2 million acres of eastern Pennsylvania in what was known as the Walking Purchase.16 The purchase, which was approved by Tamanend, who still trusted Brother Onas to deal with him fairly, forced the further migration of the Lenape westward into the interior of Pennsylvania.

Delaware Missions Since the fall of the colony of New Sweden to the Dutch, then the English, Protestant missionary efforts in North America had become almost non-existent. That situation began to change in the eighteenth century, as the awakening invigorated in Europe began to spread to the colonies. On May 1, 1744, Presbyterian missionary David Brainerd was assigned to a number of Indians on the Delaware river in Pennsylvania. Having arrived at the Forks of the Delaware region, one of Brainerds greatest hurdles was that the Indians were much disaffected

14

Harper, Promised Land, 43. Bourne, Gods of War, 169. Harper, Promised Land, 58-71.

15

16

5 to Christianity.17 Combined with the inexperience of his translator, Brainerds time with his poor Indians was most unfruitful, although not for lack of effort on his part. Travel was difficult, the terrain was rugged, and Brainerd seemed to be greatly filled with melancholy and was sickly much of the time, which unsettled his work. He remained in their service until June 1745 when he was transferred to New Jersey, where his missionary efforts met with much more success, including the development of his own congregation of Christian Indians. Brainerd died in 1747; he was 29 years old.18 Thanks to the Penns obliging attitude toward the disenfranchised peoples of Europe, immigrants continued to flow into Pennsylvania. The largest group of settlers arriving from continental Europe was the German-speaking immigrants representing six different religious traditions: Lutherans, German Reformed, Mennonites, Moravians, German Baptists, and Catholics.19 The Moravians, who were an evangelical Protestant denomination founded by Count Ludwig Nicholas von Zinzendorf in 1727, were officially called the Unity of the Brethren. Theirs was the first large-scale Protestant missionary effort in the New World.20 In 1741, Zinzendorf led a small group of Moravians to found a mission in the colony of Pennsylvania. Perhaps ironically, the land the Moravians purchased was part of the infamous Walking Purchase.21 The mission was named Bethlehem, and from here they began ministering to the

Jane T. Merritt, Dreaming of the Saviors Blood: Moravians and the Indian Great Awakening in Pennsylvania. The William and Mary Quarterly 54:4 (October 1997), 727.
18

17

Jonathan Edwards, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, Kindle ebook.

Jon Butler, New World Faiths: Religion in Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), Kindle ebook. Katherine Cart Engel, Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 1.
21 20

19

Ibid., 28.

6 Delaware and Mahican Indians of the Mid-Atlantics river valleys where they found great success.22 Like the Jesuits, The Moravians made a point of learning about the native cultures and exhibited considerable patience in awaiting conversions [b]ut most importantly, Moravian theology fit the realities of the conversion process and important themes in traditional native beliefs. The Moravians stressed piety and the love of Christ, both of which could be learned by example.23 In 1747, the Moravians expanded their missionary efforts from Bethlehem further north up the Lehigh River building an Indian mission at Gnadenhtten (Huts of Grace).24 They established another further to the east called Meniolagemeka and one further to the west along the Susquehanna River called Shamokin, although both were more Indian villages than missionary sites. In 1749, Weshichagechive, a prominent warrior from Meniolagemeka, was baptized at Gnadenhtten, an incident foretold in a dream by Joshua, a Mahican Christian at Gnadenhtten. Soon after, several other prominent natives were baptized, including the chief, Augustus (George Rex), his wife, and his grandfather.25 In 1749, David Zeisberger began as a missionary to the Delaware Indians following his ordination as a Moravian minister, joining the Shamokin mission as an assistant.26 Upon his arrival, Zeisberger found the native population had been decimated by smallpox and other European diseases. After Zeisberger was able to lead the dying Chief Shickellamy to know

22

Ibid., 84. Butler, New World Faiths, Kindle ebook. Engel, Religion and Profit, 36. Ibid., 88.

23

24

25

Mike Atnip, Scenes from the Life of David Zeisberger (Newmanstown, PA: Primitive Christianity Publishers, 2005), 9.

26

7 more about Jesus, the chief breathed his last breaths with a bright smile and Brother David stroking his brow.27 War erupted between the English and the French in North America in 1754 in what was called the French and Indian War. Unfortunately, this name obscures the fact the Native American tribes fought on both sides in the war. In 1756, the war expanded into a world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years War. Members of the Iroquois Confederation fought with the British, while the French were joined by their Algonquian allies. The pacifism of the Moravians and their Native American converts frustrated the British authorities who were looking to enlist their aid against the French and their allies in the war.28 As a result of the Treaty of Easton, negotiated by Teedyuscung in 1758, the Pennsylvania government relinquished to any claims on lands in the Ohio Territory, that is the area west of the Appalachian Mountains and south of Lake Erie. In return, the members of the Six Nations, including the Lenape, were expelled from the eastern portion of Pennsylvania.29 In 1763, Zeisberger moved with the Lenape to start a new mission in northwestern Pennsylvania near modern Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, called Friedenshtten, Huts of Peace.30

WESTWARD MIGRATION The Seven Years War ended in 1763, with the victory of the British over the French and their allies. That same year, Teedyuscung was murdered in his sleep by a group of land-hungry

27

Ibid.

Earl P. Olmstead, David Zeisberger: A Life among the Indians (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997), 96-97.
29

28

Atnip, Scenes from the Life of David Zeisberger, 35. Olmstead, David Zeisberger, 141.

30

8 settlers. He had given his life trying to regain the native lands of the Lenape.31 Eventually, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 proclaimed the Ohio Territory to be part of a vast Indian Reserve from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River. All existing settlers were required to leave or get special royal permission to remain.32 The Moravian missionaries, including David Zeisberger, went with the Lenape into the Ohio Territory.33 For several years the border between the white mans land and Indian lands was the Ohio River.34

Ohio In 1772, David Zeisberger led his group of Lenape into the Ohio Territory. He was joined by John Heckewelder, who had been employed at the Friedenshtten mission and eventually became Zeisbergers assistant.35 The group finally settled along the Tuscarawas Branch of the Muskingum River in the Ohio Valley, a site Zeisberger named Schnbrunn (beautiful spring). Later that year, they founded a second missionary site, which they named Gnadenhtten, after the mission they had been forced to abandon in the Lehigh Valley. On October 17, 1772, Zeisberger conducted his first service at the new chapel in Gnadenhtten.36 Baptist minister, David Jones, arrived in the valley from Fort Pitt in 1773. He met with little success, as he lacked an interpreter. Mr. Jones, while not very successful as a preacher or

31

Wallace, King of the Delawares, 258-259. Russell H. Booth, Jr., The Tuscarawas Valley in Indian Days (Cambridge, OH: Gomber House Press,

32

1994), 157.
33

Merritt, Dreaming of the Saviors Blood, 729. Atnip, Scenes from the Life of David Zeisberger, 35. Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 248. Booth, The Tuscarawas Valley, 130.

34

35

36

9 evangelist, apparently had more success as an adventurer.37 The Quakers also made missionary forays into the Ohio Valley in 1773.38 In 1776, Zeisberger established a third mission site two miles below the Indian town of Coshocton and called it Lichenau (meadow of light). The Continental Congress was anxious for the Indians of the Ohio Valley to maintain their neutrality in the pending conflict with the British and desperately wanted to prevent them from treating with the British at Fort Detroit.39 They met at Fort Pitt in 1775 and agreed that the Ohio River would become a permanent boundary between the Indians and the whites. This Treaty of Friendship is no longer extant.40 In 1778, the Delawares were once again approached by the Continental Congress; this time their goal was to enlist the help of the Delaware in mounting an assault on Fort Detroit. This treaty became the first formal treaty entered into by the newly established United States of America and an Indian nation.41 True to their word, the Delawares provided safe passage through their territories for the Continental Army, although an attack against Fort Detroit was never undertaken.42 Zeisberger and Heckewelder were keen advocates for Natives rights and, as such, were constantly in conflict with the colonial British authorities, and in September 1781, they were arrested and taken to Fort Detroit, charged with treason.43 The Christian Lenape were forced

37

Ibid., 140. Ibid., 151. Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 304-305. Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 484.

38

39

40

John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder, A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians (Memphis, TN: General Books, 2009) 76-78.
42

41

Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 305. Booth, The Tuscarawas Valley, 200-202.

43

10 from the Moravian villages and taken to a place called Captive Town.44 On March 8, 1782, while Zeisberger was still imprisoned, a group of Pennsylvania militia attacked the mission at Gnadenhtten, murdering 96 of the Christian Lenape inhabitantsmen, women, and children; only one boy escaped the massacre by feigning death under a pile of bodies. The mission was then burned to the ground.45 For a time, this was the most notorious examples of mistreatment of Native Americans by European Americans, only to be eclipsed by the infamous Trail of Tears several decades later.46

Michigan and Ontario Zeisberger, imprisoned and heartbroken, could not believe what had happened, finding his only solace in the ultimate mercy of God.47 Yet, he refused to give up. After his release from prison, Zeisberger led a group of Lenape to found another settlement on the Clinton River northwest of Detroit. This mission, labeled New Gnadenhtten, became the refugees home for four years. Given the increasingly hostile environment in the Detroit area, Zeisberger began searching for another location for the Lenape in 1786-7. They returned to the Ohio Country in 1787 and established a new mission called New Salem, which became their home for the next five years.48 However war again raged in the Ohio Country, and in 1792, the decision

44

Atnip, Scenes from the Life of David Zeisberger, 36. Booth, The Tuscarawas Valley, 210-211.

45

Bowes, John P. The Gnadenhutten Effect: Moravian Converts and the Search for Safety in the Canadian Borderlands. Michigan Historical Review 34:1 (Spring 2008), 101.
47

46

Olmstead, David Zeisberger, 335-336. Bowes, The Gnadenhutten Effect, 105-6.

48

11 was made to cross the border into Canada, founding yet another settlement; this one called Fairfield or Moraviantown, was located on the Thames River in present-day Ontario.49 Living under British rule created its own unique problems for Zeisberger and the Moravians. In 1798, Zeisberger lead a small group of Lenape back to Ohio to establish the settlement of Goshen on the Muskingum River. Zeisberger served there until his death in 1808. Excluding a few short periods, he had spent 62 years as a missionary among the Indians.50 Zeisberger was succeeded in Goshen by Benjamin Mortimer, a skilled organizer and administrator.51 Mortimer built on the legacy of Zeisberger and revitalized Goshen. In 1810, Heckewelders replacement, Gottfried Sebastian Oppelt, arrived at the Goshen, where he served for the next eight years.52 Unfortunately, the growing white population in Ohio led to growing concerns for the Lenape missionaries, and growing hostilities among the other Indian groups. During the War of 1812, the Shawnee, led by their prophet Tecumseh, joined with the British forces and assisted in the capture of Detroit, which was defended by Ohio enlisted men and officers. In 1813, Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames in Fairfield, Ontario, the village Zeisberger has established for his Delaware Christians in 1792. Fairfield was burned to the ground.53 Fearing a repeat of the Gnadenhtten massacre, Mortimer acted quickly and was able to avert a disaster.54 Mortimer had won the war, but alas, on November 5, 1821, the last of

49

Ibid., 102. Olmstead, David Zeisberger, 340. Earl P. Olmstead, Blackcoats among the Delaware (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1991),

50

51

156.
52

Ibid., 165-66. Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 496. Ibid., 169.

53

54

12 the Lenni-Lenape left the Muskingum Valley and moved to [New] Fairfield. The Christian missions on the Muskingum and Zeisbergers noble experiment came to an end.55

Indiana As the Moravian Delawares moved on into Michigan and Ontario, the main body of non-Christian Delawares remained in Ohio, insisting the 1768 Treaty of Stanwix established that area for them. In 1795, an expedition led by General Mad Anthony Wayne put down an uprising by the Six Nations, resulting in a treaty signed in Greenville, Ohio. This treaty effectively removed the Indians from the Ohio Territory and gave them rights to occupy the land between the Cuyahoga River and the Mississippi, which is today Indiana and Illinois.56 The years immediately following the American Revolution were gloomy and uneasy for the Delawares. Defeated and disheartened, many of the blighted peopledecided to move into Indiana.57 Weslager characterized their stay in Indiana by increased alcoholism and hunger.58 Moravian missionaries John Kluge and Abraham Luckenbach, attempted to evangelize the Delaware, but met with more resistance than success. Whether their failure was due to Delaware distrust following the Gnadenhtten massacre, the missionaries inexperience and ignorance of Delaware language and customs, or a combination, the mission only lasted five years (18011806).59

55

Ibid., 171. Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 322. Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 490. Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 344. Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 491.

56

57

58

59

13 Subsequent to the War of 1812, settlers from Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina invaded the Indiana territory looking for prime real estate, and that real estate was occupied by the Delawares. On October 3, 1818, the Delaware Chief William Anderson signed a treaty giving up their rights to occupy lands in the Indiana territory. Terms of the treaty allowed the Indians three years (until 1821) to move. As part of the agreement, the Indians were given free land in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma by the United States Government.60 Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy visited Chief Anderson on several occasions between 1818 and 1819.61 In 1818 McCoy had founded a mission and school adjacent to the Indian reservation at Fort Harrison, Indiana, working primarily with the Wea and Kickapoo Indians.62 As McCoy found the Kickapoos difficult to deal with, he gladly focused his efforts on the Delawares, using an eleven-year old as his interpreter and traveling companion.63 McCoy was greatly distressed at the abhorrent effects alcohol was having on the Indians. In the spring of 1820, McCoy moved his mission and school to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Most of the Indians in this area were Shawnee.64

Missouri In November 1820, the first group of Delawares was taken from Indiana across the Mississippi River via ferry, and by September 1822, the main Delaware settlement, known as
60

Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 352-353. Ibid., 354. Carol Spurlock Layman, Isaac McCoy and the American Indians (Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks, 2003),

61

62

74-75.
63

Ibid., 90. Ibid., 117.

64

14 Andersons Village, was located on the James River, a tributary of the White River in southwestern Missouri, near the Arkansas border.65 Unfortunately, illegal white squatters had preceded them and were already farming the land. The federal government interceded and the squatters were forced to pay rent to the Delawares.66 The Delawares continued to struggle with their neighbors, the Osage, and in at the Treaty of Council Camp in September 1829, just eight years after crossing the Mississippi, the United States agreed to provide a more suitable homeland for the Delaware.67 This tract of land was located in Indian Territory (northeastern Kansas), around Fort Leavenworth. Once again, the Delawares were on the move.

REMOVAL The task of surveying this new Indian reserve fell to Isaac McCoy, the Indiana missionary.68 Since his work in Indiana, McCoy had become convinced that the only permanent solution to the Indian problem was their removal and relocation to their own landtheir own state in the United States.69 McCoy promoted his ideas to the politicians in Washington, DC, as civilization programs for the Indians.70 In 1830, President Andrew Jackson used the Indian Removal Act to essentially banish all Native Americans from east of the Mississippi to lands divided up by the government (and surveyed by McCoy) for Indian habitation.71
65

Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 362. Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 506. Ibid., 507. Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 370. Tucker, From Jerusalem, 87. Layman, Isaac McCoy, 356. Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 370.

66

67

68

69

70

71

15 Kansas The Delawares adapted to their new home along the Kansas and Missouri Rivers quite well. The soil was good for farming, and the government provided a school and small industries, such as blacksmith, grist mill, etc.72 Isaac McCoy and his son-in-law, Johnston Lykins, a physician, established the Shawnee Baptist Mission near what is now Kansas City.73 In 1837, printer, Jotham Meeker joined Lykins and McCoy at the mission, bringing with him a printing press and types. Meeker had already worked with the Ottawas and the Chippewas, and by spring, he had printed 300 copies of the Delaware Primer and First Book.74 Meeker began printing and binding additional books for use by other tribes. By the end of the year, Meeker was printing The Delaware Harmony, the first newspaper printed exclusively in an Indian language. John G. Pratt and his wife, Olivia, came to the Shawnee Baptist Mission in 1837. Afterwards, Meeker left Kansas, returning to Canada to minister to the Ottawas. Pratt remained until 1844 printing hymnals, textbooks, and pamphlets in the Indian language. He returned to the Delaware Reserve in 1848 to re-establish the school and mission and became the pastor of the Delaware Mission (Baptist) Church, where he labored for 30 years.75

Charles Journeycake Charles Journeycake, born in 1817, was baptized by Johnston Lykins in 1833, becoming the first Delaware (if not the first person) baptized in Kansas. Charles mother, Sally,
72

Weslager, The Delaware Indians, 370. Layman, Isaac McCoy, 356.

73

Margaret Landis, Early-day Indian mission was first publishing house, The Kansas City Kansan (September 14, 1986), 5B.
75

74

Ibid.

16 was a devout Christian and was an interpreter for the missionaries. For a long time, Charles and his mother were the only two Christian Delawares in Kansas. In 1853, Journeycake was chosen chief of Wolf Clan (Munsee) of the Delawares, and eventually (1861) became principal chief of the entire Delaware nation.76 After resettling in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in 1871, Charles Journeycake and his family organized a new church among his people. In June 1872, fifty Delaware converts were baptized, and in September of that year, the Delaware Baptist Church was dedicated, and Charles Journeycake was ordainedJohn G. Pratt among those conducting the services.77 The new church experienced phenomenal growth, with 100 members by the end of 1872. The Delaware Baptist Church conducted 266 baptisms over the next ten years, nearly all of whom were newly converted Delawares. J. S. Murrow, missionary to the Indian Territory for over 37 years described Journeycake as follows: As a Christian and a minister of the gospel he exerted fully as great an influence for good upon his people as he did as chief and statesman.78

Oklahoma In 1864, John G. Pratt was appointed United States Indian agent, a capacity in which he served until 1868, when he supervised the transfer of the Delawares to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) following a treaty signed in 1866.79 In 1869, the Delawares were absorbed into the Cherokee Nation.80 When Charles Journeycake, the last Delaware tribal chief, died in 1894, the

Rev. S. H. Mitchell, The Indian Chief Journeycake, (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1895), 32-36.
77

76

Ibid., 54. Ibid., 68. Landis, Early-day Indian mission, 5B. Kraft, The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage, 514.

78

79

80

17 Commissioner of Indian Affairs decided on the election of a business committee to tend to Delaware affairs. In 1982, the Delawares decided to return to their heritage and selected a Chief and Tribal Council. Most surviving Lenape today live in Oklahoma, although they are still a viable presence in Ontario, Canada.81

CONCLUSION The story of the Delaware Indians (Lenni-Lenape) is not extraordinary in the history of the Native Americans; on the contrary, it is all too common. Yet despite their continual mistreatment by the Europeans, there remained a constant thread, often nearly invisible, of Christs missionaries called to spread His Gospel to those who had not heard it. And this they did, despite whatever obstacles the Natives or even their fellow Europeans put in their way. The words spoken by Charles Journeycake to the Indian Defense Association in 1886 best summarize the experience of his native Delawares: We have been broken up and moved six times. We have been despoiled of our property. We thought when we moved across the Missouri River, and had paid for our homes in Kansas we were safe. But in a few years the white man wanted our country. We had made good farms, built comfortable houses and big barns. We had schools for our children and churches where we listened to the same Gospel the white man listened to. We had a great many cattle and horses. The white man came into our country from Missouri and drove our cattle and horses away across the river. If our people followed them they got killed. We try to forget these things, but we would not forget that the white man brought us the blessed Gospel of Christ, the Christian's hope. This more than pays for all we have suffered.82

81

Ibid., 529.

E. C. Routh, The Story of Oklahoma Baptists. The Baptist History Homepage. http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/ok.bapt.routh.ch6.others.html accessed April 12, 2011.

82

18 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Atnip, Mike. Scenes from the Life of David Zeisberger. Newmanstown, PA: Primitive Christianity Publishers, 2005. Booth, Russell H., Jr. The Tuscarawas Valley in Indian Days. Cambridge, OH: Gomber House Press, 1994. Bourne, Russell. Gods of War, Gods of Peace. New York: Harcourt Books, 2002. Bowes, John P. The Gnadenhutten Effect: Moravian Converts and the Search for Safety in the Canadian Borderlands. Michigan Historical Review 34:1 (Spring 2008), 101-117. Butler, Jon. New World Faiths: Religion in Colonial America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Kindle ebook. Clay, Jehu Curtis. Annals of the Swedes on the Delaware from Their First Settlement in 1636 to the Present Time. Philadelphia: Hooker, 1858. Edwards, Jonathan. The Life and Diary of David Brainerd with Notes and Reflections. Kindle ebook. Engel, Katherine Cart. Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Harper, Steven Craig. Promised Land: Penns Holy Experiment, The Walking Purchase, and the Dispossession of the Delawares. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2006. Heckewelder, John Gottlieb Ernestus. A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians. Memphis, TN: General Books, 2009. Kraft, Herbert C. The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage: 10,000 BC to AD 2000. Stanhope, NJ: Lenape Books, 2001. Landis, Margaret. Early-day Indian mission was first publishing house. The Kansas City Kansan (September 14, 1986), 5B. Layman, Carol Spurlock. Isaac McCoy and the American Indians. Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks, 2003. Merritt, Jane T. Dreaming of the Saviors Blood: Moravians and the Indian Great Awakening in Pennsylvania. The William and Mary Quarterly 54:4 (October 1997), 723-746. Mitchell, Rev. S. H. The Indian Chief Journeycake. Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1895.

19

Myers, Albert Cook, ed. Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707, Volume 13. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1912. Olmstead, Earl P. Blackcoats among the Delaware. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1991. __________. David Zeisberger: A Life among the Indians. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997. Routh, E. C. The Story of Oklahoma Baptists. The Baptist History Homepage. http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/ok.bapt.routh.ch6.others.html accessed April 12, 2011. Schaeffer, Charles William. Early History of the Lutheran Church In America1857. Soderlund, Jean R., ed. William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania: A Documentary History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Tucker, Ruth A. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004. Wallace, Anthony F. C. King of the Delawares: Teedyuschung 1700-1763. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Weslager, C.A. The Delaware Indians: A History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.