Trail of Tears
An examination of America’s Indian policies, and the age old struggle between two competing motivations: greed and the Gospel
Throughout history, those who were motivated by greed:
took land from Indians
sold people into slavery
voted for candidates promising financial entitlements but who also advocated immorality and disregard for human life
Individuals motivated by greed include:
some British East India Company merchants who grew opium in India and imported it into China
some who hung signs in shops: “Help Wanted – No Irish Need Apply”
organizers engaging in “race-baiting” – intentionally inciting racial tensions for political gain
corrupt politicians who capitalize on national crisis as an excuse for the government to usurp rights away from the people and set up a totalitarian dictatorship
Scripture states in 1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Throughout history, there have also been individuals motivated by the Gospel, such as those who:
dug wells in native villages
opened orphanages and medical clinics
founded hospitals, inoculated children
taught farming techniques
provided literacy programs
donated money, food and clothes to help the poor
took in homeless
visited those in prison
provided disaster relief and emergency aid
fought to abolish slavery, forced marriages and sex-trafficking
Though there were Spanish conquistadors motivated by greed for gold and glory, they were followed by Spanish missionaries, like Bartolomé de Las Casas, motivated by the Gospel to minister and care for native peoples.
Others motivated by the Gospel to help those less fortunate included:
Nate Saint and Jim Elliot, who were missionary-martyrs to Ecuador’s Auca Indians
Scottish Missionary to the Congo David Livingstone, who worked to end the Muslim slave trade in Africa
Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, who created a Burmese-English Dictionary
Missionary to India William Carey, who helped end the practice of “sati” – the burning of widows on their husband’s ashes
George Muller, who founded orphanages in the slums of England
Gladys Aylward, missionary to China, who helped end the binding of little girls’ feet
Hudson Taylor, who was a missionary and physician in China
Irish missionary Amy Carmichael, who worked with orphans in India
Olympic athlete Eric Liddell, who was a missionary and teacher in North China
Scottish Missionary to Nigeria Mary Slessor who promoted women’s rights and ending twin killing
Baptist Missionary Lottie Moon, who helped famine victims in China
Jake DeShazer, who was a prisoner-of-war turned missionary to Japan
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who said: “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”
Scripture states in James 1:27 “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (NASB)
Those motivated by the Gospel spread uniquely Judeo-Christian ideals like:
women and children first
charity and philanthropy
tolerance, equality, honesty and marital fidelity
civil rights
volunteerism
forgiveness
racial healing
These competing motivations can be observed most prominently when more advanced civilizations have clashed with less advanced civilizations.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” by Jared Diamond (1997), explained how the first humans were hunter-gathers.
As time progressed, some advanced from hunter-gather to domesticating crops and animals, these being the first occupations: “tiller of the ground” and “keeper of flocks.”
As methods of food storage developed, these peoples advanced from spending all day hunting and gathering to now developing other occupations, inventions, writing skills, bureaucracies, and eventually armies, with which they subdued those still hunting-gathering.
Mesopotamia had the largest share of domesticable crops and animals:
Cereals: Wheat, Barley, Rye, Oats
Pulses: Lentil, Pea, Chickpea, Bean
Other: Almonds, Olives
Flax: a source of linseed oil and fiber for clothes, ropes, rugs, bedding, curtains, sails
Animals: such as donkey, horses, camel, cattle and oxen
Mesopotamia’s had a head start in advancing civilization, which spread into Europe, the East and North Africa.
The Americas, on the other hand, had a much smaller selection of domesticable crops and animals: beans, squash, potatoes, and later maze-corn, and these were limited by climate and terrain from spreading north or south across equatorial central America. America’s buffalo, llama, and alpaca, were difficult to domesticate, and dogs could only pull sleds.
The people of the Americas survived because there was a plentiful abundance which could be hunted and gathered.
The Europeans who immigrated to the New World were the inheritors of 5,000 years of civilization advances, whereas the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas were still hunting and gathering, basically living a pre-iron age existence, without even the invention of a usable wheel.
As a result there was a civilization clash.
The American Indians were caught up in this clash, as well as in the struggle between greed and the Gospel.
For example, many Indians were persuaded to side with the French against the British during the French and Indian War. When the French lost, the Indians lost land.
Many Indians were persuaded to side with the British during the Revolutionary War as Britain limited colonial westward expansion in 1763. When the British lost, Indians lost more land. (Treaty of Greenville, 1795)
Many Indians were persuaded to side with the British during the War of 1812. When the British lost, Indians lost more land. (Treaty of Fort Jackson, 1814)
When gold was discovered in Georgia, greedy settlers rushed in. A Democrat-controlled Congress hurriedly passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by Democrat President Jackson.
The federal government then forcibly marched thousands Cherokee to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears. Four thousand died. (Treaty of Fort Armstrong, 1832; Treaty of Echota, 1835)
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Desperate Indians sometimes raided along the Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma borders, as did pro-slavery Missouri “bushwackers” and anti-slavery Kansas “jayhawkers.”
Some Indians sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. When the South lost, these Indians lost more land.
Eventually the Democrat policy towards Indians of removal was replaced with the Republican policy towards Indians of reservations.
Unfortunately, millions of buffalo were killed off to pressure Indians onto reservations, as well as make way for railroads.
Once Indians were on reservations, oil and minerals were found there and greedy politicians soon took land from the Indians, such as in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
On the other hand, America’s history is also filled with missionaries motivated by the Gospel who wanted to better the condition of Indians, such as:
John Elliott
Pierre Marquette
David Brainerd
Francis Makemie
John Stewart
Marcus Whitman
Fr. Pierre-Jean DeSmet
Hiram Bingham
On April 26, 1802, President Jefferson extended a 1787 act of Congress in which special lands were designated: “For the sole use of Christian Indians and the Moravian Brethren missionaries for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity.”
After the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson asked Congress to ratify a treaty with the Kaskaskia Tribe, negotiated by William Henry Harrison – the future ninth president.
The Kaskaskia Treaty, Dec. 3, 1803, stated: “And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually, for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also to instruct as many of their children as possible, in the rudiments of literature, and the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars, to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.”
In 1806 and 1807, two similar treaties were made with the Wyandotte and Cherokee tribes.
President Jackson stated in a Message to Congress, January 20, 1830: “According to the terms of an agreement between the United States and the United Society of Christian Indians the latter have a claim to an annuity of $400. …”
President Jackson commented in his second annual message, Dec. 6, 1830: “The Indians … gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.”
In the 1850’s, the territory of the five civilized tribes in the eastern Oklahoma had missions, schools and academies:
Presbyterians’ Dwight Mission (Cherokee, 1820, 1828)
Chuala Female Academy (Choctaw, 1842)
Tullahassee Manual Labor Boarding School (Cherokee, 1848)
Congregational-American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’s Wheelock Academy (Choctaw, 1832)
Methodist Episcopal Church’s Quapaw Mission (1843)
Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females (1852)
President Lincoln stated in his third annual message, Dec. 3, 1863: “It is hoped that the treaties will result in … permanent friendly relations with such of these tribes. … Duty to these wards of the Government demand our anxious and constant attention to their material well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, and, above all, to that moral training which under the blessing of Divine Providence will confer upon them the elevated and sanctifying influences, hopes and consolations, of the Christian faith.”
In 1869, the Board of Indian Commissioners noted in its annual report: “The religion of our blessed Savior is … the most effective agent for the civilization of any people.”
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President Grant stated in his first annual message, Dec. 6, 1869: “I have attempted a new policy toward these wards of the nation. … The Society of Friends is well known as having succeeded in living in peace with the Indians in the early settlement of Pennsylvania. … They are known for their opposition to all strife, violence, and war, and are generally noted for their strict integrity and fair dealings. These considerations induced me to give the management of a few reservations of Indians to them. … The result has proven most satisfactory.”
President Grant stated in his second annual message, Dec. 5, 1870: “Reform in … Indian affairs has received the special attention. … The experiment of making it a missionary work was tried with a few agencies given to the denomination of Friends, and has been found to work most advantageously. … Indian agencies being civil offices, I determined to give all the agencies to such religious denominations as had heretofore established missionaries among the Indians, and perhaps to some other denominations … to Christianize and civilize the Indians, and to train him in the arts of peace.”
President Grant stated to Congress, Jan. 1, 1871: “Civilized Indians of the country should be encouraged in establishing for themselves forms of Territorial government compatible with the Constitution. … This is the first indication of the aborigines desiring to adopt our form of government, and it is highly desirable that they become self-sustaining, self-relying, Christianized, and civilized.”
President Grant stated in his third annual message, Dec. 4, 1871: “The policy pursued toward the Indians has resulted favorably. … Through the exertions of the various societies of Christians … many tribes of Indians have been induced to settle upon reservations, to cultivate the soil, to perform productive labor of various kinds, and to partially accept civilization. … I recommend liberal appropriations to carry out the Indian peace policy, not only because it is humane, Christianlike, and economical, but because it is right.”
Oklahoma had missions run by Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Quakers, Moravians, Nazarene, Catholic and others. Mennonites had a mission among the Comanches at Post Oak Mission and at Colony. Catholics had missions in the Potawatomi Nation at Sacred Heart Abbey, at Anadarko on the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation, and in north central Oklahoma among the Osage, Ponca, and Otoe.
In 1884, one of the first missionaries to the Yupik Indians in Alaska was John Henry Killbuck, great-grandson of Lenape Chief Gelelemend, who in 1778 made the first Indian Treaty with the United States and later was converted to Christianity by German Moravian missionaries.
President Cleveland issued the proclamation respecting church property in Alaska, Nov. 14, 1896: “Whereas … the Russian Empire ceded to the US the Territory of Alaska … the churches which have been built in the ceded territory … shall remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church. … The Cathedral Church of St. Michael … The Church of the Resurrection … called the Kalochian Church, situated near the battery number at the palisade separating the city from the Indian village … Three timber houses … for lodging of priests. Four lots of ground belonging to the parsonages.”
In 1924, Republican President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizen Act granting citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States. In 1927, President Coolidge was “adopted” into the Sioux tribe at Fort Yates in North Dakota. As a boy, Herbert Hoover had spent several months living on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma Territory. After Hoover became a multi-millionaire in the mining industry, he organized the feeding of Europe after World War I.
Hoover became the 31st U.S. president, having chosen as his vice president Charles Curtis, the nation’s first Native American vice president, from the Kaw tribe in Kansas. Hoover reorganized and provided increased funding to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The next president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had John Collier serve as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1933-45. The son of a successful Atlanta businessman, John Collier pressured Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. This preserved Indian identity by restoring native lands, improving reservation medical services, and promoting development of business opportunities for Indians.
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