FRIENDLY COLONIZATION:

QUAKER MISSIONARIES, GENDER, AND NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION PROGRAMS AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

I affirm that I have upheld the highest principles of honesty and integrity in my academic work and that I have not witnessed a violation of the Honor Code.

Sophia Vayansky

HIST 426: Pennsylvania’s Indians Senior Seminar

Professor Shannon

December 7, 2015

Vayansky 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Professor Timothy Shannon, Lori Daggar, Karen Vayansky, Mike Vayansky, Beth Matys, Rachel Grande, Harley Emmons, and Nathan Wilcox, all of whom proofread this paper and offered their suggestions and support.

Vayansky 3

ABSTRACT

The Baltimore and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings of Quakers sent several groups of

missionaries to Native American communities in New York, Philadelphia, and the Ohio

Territory in the years following the American Revolution. Unlike most Christian missionaries,

Quakers had little interest in converting Native Americans to Christianity. Rather, Quakers

focused on practical education. They aimed to teach Native Americans reading, writing and,

above all else, European agriculture and domestic arts. This pragmatic approach to missionary

work, along with their reputation for charity and peaceable relations with Native Americans, has

given Quaker missionaries the reputation of being singularly humanitarian and benevolent in

nature. However, in reality, the Quakers used their missionary work in order to further political,

economic, and social agendas. By examining the emphasis Quakers (who have long been

celebrated for their groundbreaking beliefs which defied gender biases of the time) placed on

changing Native American gender roles, this paper highlights the part Quakers played in the

colonizing movement to which they claimed to be opposed.

Vayansky 4

Christian missionary activity played an important role in the interactions between

Europeans and Native Americans after the first large groups of Europeans arrived in the

Americas in the fifteenth century. A large percentage of the religious denominations and sects in

the New World sent representatives whose mission was to convince the Indians to renounce their

traditional beliefs and accept Christianity as the one true faith. The motivations of these

missionaries have been interpreted and reinterpreted by historians over the decades and, in many

cases, historians have judged missionaries to have had less than altruistic intentions. One group

of missionaries, however, has fared better than others in history texts.

Different meetings of Quakers, or the Society of Friends, began sending missionaries to

Native American communities after the conclusion of the American Revolution.1 The paper will

discuss the efforts of the Baltimore and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings, both of which formed

Indian Affairs Committees in the 1790s. As per an agreement between the two groups, the

Baltimore Meeting concentrated its efforts amongst the Indians living in what was once known

as the Northwest Territory (an area the Ohio Yearly Meeting would take responsibility for in

1813) while the Philadelphia Meeting sent its missionaries north to the Iroquois living in New

York State.2

Most historians agree that the Quaker missionaries represented a unique type of

European/Native American interaction. Many aspects of the Quaker efforts were different than

those of other missionaries. For example, the Quakers began sending out missionaries far later

1 In the Quaker faith, a “meeting” is governing or administrating body which presides over the faithful a particular area. Small areas have “monthly meetings,” which in turn belong to larger “quarterly” and then “yearly” meetings. Kari Elizabeth Rose Thompson, “Inconsistent Friends” Philadelphia Quakers and the Development of Native American Missions in the Long Eighteenth Century” (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 2013), 7-8.2 Daniel K. Richter, “’Believing that Many of the Red People Suffer Much for the Want of Food’: Hunting, Agriculture, and a Quaker Construction of Indianness in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 19, no. 4, Special Issue on the Racial Consciousness and Nation-Building in the Early Republic (winter, 1999):603-604.

Vayansky 5

than other denominations, despite the fact that Quakers had been interacting extensively with

Native Americans ever since Quakers first arrived in the New World. However, the most

distinguishing feature of the Quaker missionaries was the lack of emphasis on religious

conversion. Almost every historian who has written about the Quaker missionaries has

commented on the fact that Quakers spent little or no time attempting to convince or persuade

the Native Americans to convert to Christianity. Furthermore, the Quakers had nothing to gain

monetarily from their missionary efforts.3 Rather, the Quakers focused their efforts on teaching

the Native Americans to farm using European techniques and technologies, teaching Indian

women to perform domestic activities, and educating Native children in English literacy.

Some historians who have studied the Quaker missionaries cite the lack of focus on

religious conversion as proof that the missionaries were motivated by purely humanitarian and

benevolent motives.4 This was the interpretation expressed in landmark works such as Anthony

F. C. Wallace’s book The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. Since then, historians have

questioned the Quakers’ methods but, for the most part, have agreed that their motives were

entirely charitable. The assessment that teaching Indians everyday skills over religious and

academic pursuits was more humanitarian has existed for many years. In fact, Timothy Pickering

once wrote to Arthur St. Clair (governor of the Northwest Territory) that “Most attempts at

3 Matthew Dennis, Seneca Possessed: Indians, Witchcraft, and Power in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 6-7; 126. Diane Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation: Seneca Resistance to Quaker Intervention” in Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980), 73. Anthony F. C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), 220. Karim M. Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good: The Quaker Mission to the Oneida Mission, 1790-1840,” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 3 (Fall, 2006): 358. Karim M. Tiro, The People of the Standing Stone: The Oneida Nation from the Revolution to the Era of Removal (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), 102. Thompson, “Inconsistent Friends,” 2. Jill Kinney, “Letters, Pen, and Tilling the Field: Quaker Schools among the Seneca” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 2009), 5. 4 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 603. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, 220. Kinney, “Letters, Pen, and Tilling the Field,” 5.

Vayansky 6

civilizing the Indians which I have heard of have been preposterous: We have aimed at teaching

religion, and the sciences before we taught them the simple and essential labours of civil Life.”5

However, other scholars have come to the conclusion that the Quakers were thinking of

their own goals and needs when they decided to send missionaries into the wilderness to minister

to and instruct Native Americans. Some historians agree with Kari Elizabeth Rose Thompson

who stated that, while the Quakers saw themselves as different and more philanthropic than other

missionaries who worked amongst Native Americans, they were nevertheless part of the same

colonizing movement as other Euro-Christian missionaries who worked amongst Native

Americans.6 Others, such as anthropologist Diane Rothenberg, have expressed the opinion that

Quakers were well aware of their part in the colonization of Native Americans, and knowingly

used supposedly selfless missionary work to support their political causes and bolster their public

reputation.7

In his 2006 article on the Quaker mission to the Oneida Nation, Karim M. Tiro claimed

that Quakers were “[ambivalent] towards politics and the market.”8 Yet, the Quakers’ aims to

promote conformity amongst the Oneida to Euro-American economic models, farming practices,

and gender roles absolutely served American political and economic interests. Ironically, the

Oneida hoped that the Quakers, famed for their fair and friendly treatment of Native Americans

dating back to the days of William Penn and whom had more recently “…plead[ed] the Cause of

the Black People” by supporting the abolitionist cause would help them to resist the federal

government’s pressure to conform in exactly those ways.9 However, the Quaker disregard for

traditional Native American gender roles and political structures shows that the Friends were

5 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 358. 6 Thompson, “Inconsistent Friends,” v. 7 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 65; 82-83. 8 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 355. Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 64. 9 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 354-355, 357.

Vayansky 7

more concerned with pacifying and anglicizing Native Americans according to the federal

government’s wishes in order to regain political power lost during the French and Indian War

and the American Revolution than they were with protecting the Native American ways of life.

By doing so under the guise of a benevolent, religious mission, the Quakers could protect their

reputation as altruistic proponents of human rights who were unconcerned with worldly matters

or politics.

The Quaker missionaries left behind a large amount of source material. Not only did the

yearly meetings’ Indian Committees leave behind records, but the individual missionaries kept

journals which were, in some cases, published. One of the most easily accessible, and therefore

widely read, accounts was written by a Friend named Halliday Jackson and edited by Anthony F.

C. Wallace, who used the account in his scholarship on the Seneca Nation.10 However, while

Quaker women did work as missionaries amongst Native Americans, they did so less often than

their male counterparts, and their accounts were less likely to be published. Also, Native

American women’s role in tribal government, while prominent, was not always recognized by

European observers, and so men’s words were recorded far more often. Therefore, while a large

part of this paper will be dedicated to gender politics within Quaker and Indian cultures, as well

as the effects of the clash of those two cultures, the majority of primary sources come from a

male perspective. Native Americans from this period left far fewer primary sources behind. In

some cases, Quakers or others recorded Indian speeches or actions; however, for the most part, it

is difficult to gain insight into the Native American perspective on the Quaker missionaries.

However, by using what is available in the historical record, as well as cultural information from

10 Jackson, born near Philadelphia in 1771, was twenty seven years old when, in his words, “[his] heart was filled with compassion for the distressed situation of the inhabitants of the Wilderness” and he, along with fellow Quakers Henry Simmons and Joel Swayne, began their mission among the Seneca. Halliday Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal to the Seneca Indians, 1798-1800,” edited by Anthony F. C. Wallace, Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 19, no. 2 (April, 1952): 119-122.

Vayansky 8

modern Native Americans, it is possible to analyze how the missionaries’ actions may have been

interpreted by Indians.

“HUMANE AND BENEVOLENT FEELINGS:” QUAKERS USE OF CHARITABLE

WORK11

Reverend Samuel Kirkland was a New Light Presbyterian preacher who worked as a

missionary among the Oneida Nation at the end of the eighteenth century under the employ of

the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. The Society insisted that

Kirkland keep thorough journals of his work among the Native Americans, and so the thoughts,

impressions, and opinions that Kirkland formed while he lived with the Oneida were therefore

preserved.12 For example, Kirkland expressed the following opinion about the Quaker

missionaries who had arrived with the intention to work with the very Native Americans

amongst whom Kirkland had been living: “A minute & just history of the Quaker undertaking,

the bigotry, Superstition & partiality which masked almost every Stage of their progress I think

would be highly entertaining if not instructive.”13

Bigotry is not generally a word which is associated with the Quaker faith, especially

within the context of Native American/European relations. The Quakers had a longstanding

reputation for fair and peaceful settlements with Indians, dating back to William Penn’s famous

treaty with the Delaware at in 1682 and the unusually peaceful early years of Pennsylvania’s

settlement.14 American history students generally learn about Quakers when studying the group’s

role in fighting for racial, religious, and gender equality in the United States. However, 11 “Address of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held at Baltimore, to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, and his Reply” (New York: Henry Ludwig, 1840), 1.12 Samuel Kirkland, The Journals of Samuel Kirkland: 18th Century Missionary to the Iroquois, Gov’t Agent, Father of Hamilton College, edited by Walter Pilkington (Clinton, NY: Hamilton College, 1980), xi13 Kirkland, “The Journals of Samuel Kirkland, 332. 14 Daniel K. Richter, Native Americans’ Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, PA: Huggins Printing Company, 2005), 7; 42-44.

Vayansky 9

seventeenth-century Quakers did not enjoy such a generous reputation. Friends once exerted

considerable political influence in the New World, particularly in Pennsylvania and other Mid-

Atlantic colonies. However, that power gradually lessened as more Europeans settled in the New

World, and in 1756 the Society of Friends formally withdrew from politics in Pennsylvania in

protest of frontier warfare.15 However, during the Seven Years War and particularly the

American Revolution, the pacifistic Quakers’ public standing suffered, as they refused to fight in

militias and were therefore considered unpatriotic or assumed to be loyalists.16 Some Quakers,

such as New Jersey preacher Joshua Evans, refused to pay taxes that he claimed had been raised

to “defray expenses relating to war.”17 The Quakers’ critics claimed that such protests stemmed

from the Friends’ love of money, not pacifism. By the end of the Revolution, the Quakers had

very little influence or good standing in American society.

If the Quakers wanted to have any positive influence on the society of the new nation

(which, the eyes of the Friends, was threatened increasingly by slavery, capitalism, and rise of

evangelical Protestantism), they would have to find a way to interact with society while at the

same time rejecting many of the mainstream’s values.18 From its inception, the Quaker faith was

based on a rejection of society and a commitment to living outside of worldly influence;

however, if the Quakers refused to interact with society, they would not be able to reform it. As

stated by historian Daniel K. Richter, “Quakers [were] torn between an inward-turning impulse

to maintain a separate identity in an increasingly complicated American religious landscape and

15 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 64. Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 9. 16 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nations,” 64. Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 617. 17 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 65. Joshua Evans, A Journal of the Life, Travels, Religious Exercises, and Labours in the Work of the Ministry of Joshua Evans, Late of Newton Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey (Philadelphia: John & Issac Comly, 1837), 40. 18 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 9.

Vayansky 10

an outward-focused emphasis on humanitarian reforms that set an example of Christian

benevolence.”19

Charitable work and reform societies became a tool which Quakers used to both improve

their reputation and to regain some of their lost political influence. Throughout the eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries, Quakers (particularly Quaker women) were instrumental in several

movements which advocated for social change. For example, despite the fact that Quakers

represented a small percentage of America’s population, thirty percent of prison reformers and

fifteen percent of suffragists born before 1830 were Quaker women, and forty percent of female

abolitionists were Quakers.20 However, nowhere is the Quaker use of charity as a political tool

more evident than in their work amongst Native Americans. As previously stated, Quakers were

thought to have a special penchant for working with Indians and, after the Revolutionary War,

the United States federal government was as eager to use that skill as the Quakers were to offer

it.

U.S. federal Indian policy at the turn of the nineteenth century dealt mainly with land

acquisition. The U.S. government had accrued a $40 million debt fighting the War of

Independence, and land speculators and settlers hungry for Indian land in the west would provide

a sorely needed source of income.21 Initially the federal government, claiming that the United

States had won the land by right of conquest from Great Britain, attempted to gain control over

Indian lands by military force.22 In particular, nations who had allied themselves with Great

Britain, such as the Seneca, faced this kind of treatment.23 However, when Henry Knox became

Secretary of War in 1789, he proposed a strategy which would come to be known as “expansion 19 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 617. 20 Margaret Hope Bacon, Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 1. 21 Colin G. Calloway, The Victory with No Name (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 50, 155. 22 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 63-64. Calloway, The Victory with No Name, 19, 42. 23 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 23.

Vayansky 11

with honor.”24 According to Knox, raising, paying, feeding, and supplying an army capable of

neutralizing the continual Indian resistance to European settlement would cost approximately

$200,000, “…a sum far exceeding the ability of the United States to advance.”25 Knox proposed

that convincing Native Americans to adopt an agricultural economy based on the traditional

European model would be a far more cost-effective way of separating Indians from their lands,

as it only required a few talented negotiators or agents, not entire armies of armed troops.

Agriculture required less land than hunting (which, according to Knox and other contemporary

Euro-Americans’ assumptions, was the Indians’ main source of income and sustenance), and so

once the Natives were settled onto farms, they would, presumably, gladly sell the surplus lands

to the federal government.26 Knox assumed that the Quakers, given their history of acquiring

Indian lands without bloodshed, would be the perfect agents to carry out his plan of honorable

expansion. In 1790, President George Washington also suggested that Quakers send missionaries

to Native Americans.27

Quakers and their claims of benevolence were an attractive option to the federal

government, which was also interested in appearing to be charitable. Proponents of Knox’s

civilization policy claimed that the Native American adoption of a Euro-American lifestyle

would not only open the west up to settlement, but also save the Indians from certain extinction.

According to scientific and cultural ideas which came out of the Enlightenment, all societies on

Earth belonged to one of four hierarchical stages: hunting (also called savagery), pasturage (or

24 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,”355.25 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 64. Henry Knox, “Report from H. Knox, Secretary of War, to the President of the United States, Relative to the Northwestern Indians,” June 15, 1789, American State Papers: Indian Affairs Volume 1, 1st Congress, 1st Session, 13. 26 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 64. Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 355. Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 122. Halliday Jackson Civilization of the Indian Natives (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, The Darlington Digital Research Library, 2008), 3. 27 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 357.

Vayansky 12

barbarism), agriculture, and then commerce.28 According to this theory, each successive level

provided a more reliable mode of subsistence, which was why societies abandoned the

supposedly more primitive models for the more modern. Despite plenty of evidence to the

contrary, most Euro-Americans at the time believed that Native Americans relied solely on

hunting for food and for trade, and were therefore constantly in danger of starvation and

famine.29 Additionally, many Europeans believed that, as agriculture and commerce had

purportedly been introduced to the Americas by European settlement, Native Americans would

have to skip over the pastoral stage and adopt modernized economies immediately if they did not

want to be lost to the inevitable march of progress.30

Americans questioned whether the United States should retain its agricultural economy or

adopt a new, capitalistic model. Possibly the most famous participants in this debate were

Alexander Hamilton, who claimed it was necessary that United States citizens “enlarge[ed] the

sphere of our domestic commerce” and Thomas Jefferson, who promoted an agricultural

republic.31 The Quakers also had a stake in this dialogue. Many Friends felt that the increasing

emphasis on commerce and industry would prove toxic to American society as it would

overemphasize money in peoples’ lives and encouraged unsavory markets such as the slave

trade.32 Therefore, they were more than happy to endorse agriculture as a superior, civilized form

of society by encouraging Indians to take up the plow (or, at least, Indian men). By encouraging

agriculture amongst Native Americans, Quakers could promote their economic and religious

ideals without publically engaging in the Federalist/Republican debate.

28 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 608. 29 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 608. 30 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 608-610. 31 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 609. 32 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 9.

Vayansky 13

Quakers were using their benevolent work in a similar way. It is true that individual

Quakers very well may have decided to work as missionaries among Native Americans because

of altruistic reasons. However, were intended to further the Quakers’ political goals and improve

their reputation should not be overlooked. By sending (and paying for) missionaries to travel to

Indian nations and convincing Native Americans to adopt European agriculture and gender roles,

Quakers were able to fulfill federal government goals while improving their public standing at

the same time.33

Knox’s plan seemed to be the perfect solution for all involved: not only would it save the

Indians from their precarious mode of subsistence while opening more land to American

settlement, but it would give the Quakers the opportunity to engage in reform without becoming

overly involved in politics or society. However, the plan was largely based on flawed logic,

wishful thinking, and a willful ignorance of the desires, needs, and culture of the Native

Americans involved. The government assumed that so-called civilized Native Americans would

be more likely to sell their land for settlement; however, as historian Karim Tiro illustrated,

teaching Indians to think of land in European terms (that is, as a commodity with monetary

value) was hardly a strategy that would lead to Native Americans selling their land cheaply.34

Also, the honorable expansion strategy was based on the supposition that Native

Americans heavily depended on hunting, and were not yet civilized enough to raise livestock or

crops on a large scale. Yet, government officials who actually had any experience with Indian

societies knew very well that this was not the case. George Washington, who supported Knox’s

civilization program and the Quaker missions, had even used the British-allied Seneca Nation’s

dependence on agriculture and livestock against them during the Revolutionary War. In 1779,

33 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 64-65. 34 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 355-356.

Vayansky 14

then General Washington specifically instructed General John Sullivan to destroy the Iroquois’

fields and to do whatever “mischief which time and circumstances will permit” that would

prevent them from planting new crops.35 Mary Jemison, a white woman who had been raised by

the Seneca after being taken captive as a young child, described the sufferings and hardships

caused by Sullivan’s raid in her autobiography. By the time the soldiers had moved on and the

Seneca families were able to return to their homes, Jemison said that “there was not a mouthful

of any kind of sustenance left, not even enough to keep a child one day from perishing with

hunger.”36 Among the property damage caused by Sullivan’s troops were slaughtered cattle and

hogs, destroyed orchards, and ravaged fields—all signifiers of a form of civilization that,

supposedly, Native Americans lacked and were incapable of.37 While federal agents and

missionaries claimed that their work would teach Indians how to farm and raise livestock, their

real goal was to convert Native Americans to a form of agriculture more familiar to and therefore

easier for the government to manipulate.

Additionally, the plan failed to take into account what the Native Americans planned to

gain and accomplish by allowing missionaries to live and teach in their villages. For the most

part, Native Americans seemed more than willing to adopt European farming practices, as long

as they could do so on their own terms. For example, in Civilization of the Indian Natives,

Halliday Jackson described how Native Americans carefully tested European technology in order

to ascertain its effectiveness:

[The Indians] took a very cautious method of determining whether

[the plough] was likely to be an advantageous change to them or

not. Several parts of a large field were ploughed, and the

35 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 37. 36 Mary Jemison, quoted in Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 38. 37 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 37-38.

Vayansky 15

intermediate space prepared by their women with the how,

according to former custom. It was all planted with corn; and the

parts ploughed, (besides the great saving of labour,) produced

much the heaviest crop; the stalks being more than a foot higher,

and proportionably [sic] stouter then those on the hoed ground.38

However, while they were interested in obtaining farming tools and technology, the

Native Americans made it clear, time and time again, that they did not intend to lose any more

land to white settlement. In fact, several Native American leaders stated that they had asked the

Quakers to come specifically because they thought the Friends would be able to help them keep

their land.39 One example of this comes from a speech made by the Seneca chief, Cornplanter, as

recorded in Halliday Jackson’s journal. Cornplanter, or Gaianfẃaka, was a major Seneca leader

from the 1780s until his death in 1836.40 Jackson’s account of his mission to the Seneca Nation

provides a wealth of information about the Quaker missionaries’ aim, their opinions of Indian

life, and how the Friends wanted to be perceived by the general public. He also recorded

speeches made by Native Americans on several occasions, and therefore documented some

Indian opinions of Quakers and their missionaries.

When Jackson and his fellows arrived at the Allegheny Seneca Reservation, they were

heartily welcomed. The first community that they encountered was Jenuchshadago, which

Jackson sometimes refers to as Cornplanter’s Town or the Village of Cornplanter, just south of

the Pennsylvania-New York border.41 By the time the Quakers arrived in 1778, Cornplanter had

been petitioning the Pennsylvania government for quite some time to send whites, particularly 38 Jackson, Civilization of the Indian Natives, 44. 39 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 354-355. 40 Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), s.v. “Cornplanter (Gaianfwaka, John O’Bail) (Seneca), c. 1735-1836).”41 Jenuchshadago, recorded phonetically by Jackson as “Je, nuch, sha, da go,” translates to “Burnt House.” See Appendix I for Map. Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 126.

Vayansky 16

Quakers, to help the Allegheny Seneca.42 The Quakers, according to Cornplanter, had “never

desired to take our Lands from us, neither have you coveted anything that is ours.”43 Others,

however, had been dishonest in their dealings with the Seneca, and more Seneca lands had been

taken “very little left of all that our forefathers possessed.”44 In particular, Cornplanter and his

people were worried that Robert Morris, the famous financier of the War of Independence, posed

a threat to their lands along the Allegheny River. In 1797, Morris had purchased large portions of

western New York from the Seneca. The sale had preserved certain tracts of lands as reservations

for the Seneca; however, in 1798, Morris had fell into considerable debt, and the Seneca worried

that he might attempt to sell those reservations, particularly a forty two square mile tract just

north of Jenuchshadago.45 The Quakers had at times interceded on behalf of Native Americans in

order to protect their land rights, and it seems that Cornplanter was hoping that they would do the

same for his people.

“TO MAKE THEM SEE & FEEL THEIR NEED”: THE CONSTRUCTION OF

INDIAN NECESSITIES46

Reverend Kirkland, after speaking with one of the Quakers at the Oneida mission,

reported in this journal that the Friend had told him: “[the Quakers’] two leading maxims in

order to civilise [sic] & reform the Indians, and by which they expect gradually to effect it, are

necessity & kindness. First, to make them see & feel their need, & then to shew [sic] them

kindness.”47 If that was true, it would mean that when Halliday Jackson claimed that the

objective of the Quaker missionary effort was “to minister to [the Indians’] necessities” because

42 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 354-355. Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 72. 43 In this speech, the “us” to whom Cornplanter referred was all Indians, not just the Seneca Nation. Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 129. 44 Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 129. 45 Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 128-129. 46 Kirkland, “The Journals of Samuel Kirkland,” 314. 47 Kirkland, “The Journals of Samuel Kirkland,” 314.

Vayansky 17

“[the Quakers’] hearts were drawn in compassion towards [the Indians],” it would seem that the

Quakers were completely uninterested in or simply ignorant of what it was that the Native

Americans deemed necessary.48 Certain Quaker sources make it very clear that Quakers began

their missions with certain beliefs about Native Americans, and that they were loath to change

their ideas. Even when the physical evidence gained by living with Native Americans directly

contradicted that the Friends expected to see, the Quakers often failed to adjust their goals or

their perceptions of Native American society. For example, Gerard T. Hopkins, a member of the

Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Quakers, was sent to live and work among the Miami people in

1804.49 The Baltimore meeting had first encountered the Miami leaders Five Medals, Little

Turtle, and Tuthinipee two years prior, and had been discussing with those chiefs the fact that

“the time was fast approaching, in which it would be necessary for them to alter their mode of

living.”50 The Quakers were of the opinions that the Miami, just like other Native American

people, would eventually need to give up their way of life and begin farming in the European

way if they were ever going to survive. Apparently, that would mostly mean growing grain

alongside native corn, as well as raising livestock, horses, and hogs for consumption.51 The

Miami had apparently welcomed the idea, and had accepted the Quakers’ gifts of “some ploughs,

harness for horses, axes, hoes, and other implements of husbandry” readily.52

When Hopkins and the other Quakers arrived in 1804 to teach the Miami in person, their

belief that the Indians’ form of subsistence was insufficient was apparently confirmed.

According to Hopkins, he and his fellow Quakers were moved by how much the Miami were

48 Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 121. 49 Richter, “’Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” Journal of the Early Republic 19, no. 4, Special Issue on the Racial Consciousness and Nation-Building in the Early Republic (winter, 1999): 601. 50 Gerard T. Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, from the Indian Committee of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, to Fort Wayne, in 1804 (Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Zell, 1862), 71.51 Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, 71. 52 Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, 72.

Vayansky 18

suffering, forced to toil for not enough food on which to live. Once the Indians took up European

farming, Hopkins insisted, they would raise more food than was necessary with a fraction of the

effort required for hunting and foraging, and also would be able to build sturdier homes “where

you may enjoy in plenty the rewards of your labors.”53

Yet, for all of Hopkins’s concern over the state of the Miami food stores, his own

writings seem to suggest that the Native Americans were surviving quite nicely on their own.

When the Quakers first arrived in Miami territory, their interpreter’s wife (an Indian woman) and

Little Turtle’s daughter Sweet Breeze served them a meal which was anything but sparse: “She

had prepared for us a large well roasted turkey, and also a wild turkey boiled, and for these she

had provided a large supply of cranberry sauce. The Little Turtle sat at table with us, and with

much sociability we all partook of an excellent dinner.”54 To quote historian Daniel K. Richter,

for Hopkins “to insist that these people were ill-fed…was a remarkable triumph of ideological

construction over visual and gastronomical evidence.”55 This example, others like it, and

Kirkland’s journal entry all demonstrate how Quakers were more mindful of what they believed

to be the Indians’ concerns than what their actual observations proved those concerns to be.

“DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS TO VALUABLE FRIENDS:” AGRICULTURE AS A

PACIFYING TECHNIQUE56

Quaker individuals and organizations claimed time and time again that their only motive

for sending missionaries to Indian Nations was to help the people they called their Red Brethren

survive and prosper. Such claims appear in transcriptions of speeches given to Native Americans

as well as published journals and correspondences intended for white audiences. However, in a

53 Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, 72-74. 54 Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, 55. Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 602. 55 Richter, “Believing…the Red People Suffer Much,” 602-603. 56 “Address of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held at Baltimore, to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, and his Reply” (New York: Henry Ludwig, 1840), 1.

Vayansky 19

letter to Thomas Jefferson, a scribe from the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends stated that

converting Native Americans to a Euro-American form of agriculture was “an undertaking

which, whilst it increasingly alleviates the wretchedness of their former condition, converts them

from dangerous neighbors to valuable friends.”57 The scribe made no more mention of the

apparently pacifying nature of European agriculture, and in his reply Jefferson only spoke of

how the missionary efforts of “philanthropic” Quakers and other Christians “ameliorate[d] the

conditions of the Indian natives”.58 However, as stated earlier, Knox first proposed his

civilization program as a way to avoid wars with Native Americans.

Halliday Jackson’s writing also mentioned the pacifying effects that the Quaker missions

were meant to have on Native Americans. In Civilization of the Indian Natives, Jackson’s book

published in 1830, the former missionary drew a clear connection between introducing Native

Americans to European agriculture and making Indians easier for Euro-Americans to control. In

the preface, Jackson claims that his history of Indian/European relations is more sympathetic to

Indians because it shows “a disposition” on the part of the Indians “to exchange the tomahawk

and scalping knife, for the plough and the hoe, and peacefully betake themselves to the innocent

employments of the pastoral and agricultural life.”59

Jackson does not simply state that the Native Americans took up Euro-American farming

and therefore became civilized in their imitation; rather, he specifically states that farming had a

civilizing effect on the Natives because they exchanged their weapons for farming implements.

Native American men, particularly Iroquois men, did not simply lounge about while their female

counterparts toiled in the fields, as many Euro-American accounts claimed. Rather, while women

57 “Address of the Yearly Meeting of Friends…to Thomas Jefferson…and his Reply,” 1. 58 Thomas Jefferson, “Address of the Yearly Meeting of Friends…to Thomas Jefferson…and his Reply,” 1 59 Jackson, Civilization of the Indian Natives, preface (preface unpaginated).

Vayansky 20

tended to crops and to responsibilities close to home, men used their time and mobility to do

tasks which required travel. This included hunting, which of course was the Europeans’ favorite

activity to cite. However, anthropological studies of Iroquois culture show that hunting was a

prestige activity for men, that men mainly hunted in order to supplement the food provided by

women and to prove to the community that he was a good, responsible husband.60 Far more

important to the community’s survival was the man’s responsibility to use his mobility to trade

with other villages and nations, to attend councils and go on diplomatic missions, and to make

war on potential or proven enemies. For Native American men, adopting European gender roles

meant tying themselves to the land, and therefore making it far more difficult for various villages

and nations to organize against the United States and the steady flow of western settlement.

The Baltimore Meeting’s message to Jefferson and Jackson’s words both insinuate that

the Quaker missionaries were aware that alleviating the threat of Indian violence was part of

their purpose. Perhaps, to the pacifistic Friends, this seemed like a benevolent and godly task.

However, whatever their intentions were, tying Native American men to their communities year

round made it that much easier for the United States to defeat and colonize them.

“IN SOULS THERE IS NONE”: QUAKERS AND GENDER EQUALITY61

Quakers took, or claimed to take, a particular interest in the welfare of Indian women.

The Quakers’ insularity was in part caused by the conflicts between their beliefs and those of the

mainstream society, and gender equality was certainly one of those controversial opinions.62

Quakers believed in the spiritual equality of all persons, despite race or gender, which clashed

with many social conventions and laws of the day. In accordance with those beliefs, Quakers

60 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 70. 61 William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims (Hoboken: Generic NL Freebook Publisher n.d. eBook Collection), 10.62 Bacon, Mothers of Feminism, 2-3.

Vayansky 21

played a large part in the Women’s Rights Movement of the nineteenth century. For example,

four of the five women who planned the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 were Quakers.63

William Penn, the famous Pennsylvania colonial proprietor whose legendary Indian

treaties and land deals many Quaker missionaries alluded to in their accounts, supported gender

equality among his fellow Friends. In Penn’s 1682 work Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections

and Maxims, he included advice for how husbands should relate to their wives:

“Sexes make no Difference; since in Souls there is none: And they

are the Subjects of Friendship…Between a Man and his Wife

nothing ought to rule but Love. Authority is for Children and

Servants…Wherefore use her not as a Servant, whom thou

would’st, perhaps, have serv’d Seven Years to have obtained.”64

That idea, that women are spiritually equal (and, therefore, should be socially equal) to men

because souls have no gender, was a radical one to express in 1682. During and after the English

Reformation, many Protestant sects rejected traditional clergy and religious institutions on the

basis that all people, not just the ordained, possessed an inner Light which allowed them to

interpret scripture and receive the word of God.65 However, only the Quakers understood that to

mean that women also possessed the same ability and right to preach, prophesize, and work in

church government as men.66 Not only were women allowed to preach, but they did so often:

45% of Quakers were female during the early years of the movement, and a generous percentage

of those women were involved in ministry.67 This proved to be one of the most controversial

63 Bacon, Mothers of Feminism, 1. 64 Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 10. 65 Bacon, Mothers of Feminism, 6-7. 66 Bacon, Mothers of Feminism, 7. 67 Pink Dandelion, The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 11.

Vayansky 22

facets of Quakerism, and one that was most hotly contested by more conservative Christian

groups.

In 1666, a Friend named Margaret Fell (whose husband, George Fox, is considered today

to be the founder of Quakerism) published Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by

the Scripture, which Quakers referred to for generations in defense of their beliefs of gender

equality.68 In her essay, Fell argued that the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man,

generally used to condemn women, could also be used to support female church leadership. In

Genesis 3:15, God says to the serpent “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and

between thy seed and her seed.”69 According to Fell, this verse should have silenced those that

were opposed to women preaching, because the verse proved that God had made Satan

particularly abhorrent to women. Fell also supported her argument by pointing out that the Bible

often refers to the Church as a woman, and the Christ and the Apostles interacted with several

women in the Gospels.70 According to George Fox, man and woman were equal before the

banishment from Eden, and had been returned to that original state of equality through Christ.71

“WOMEN ARE LESS THAN MEN:” QUAKERS AND NATIVE AMERICAN

GENDER ROLES72

The Quakers were particularly willing to inform Native American women what their

wants and needs should be. The general consensus of most Euro-Americans during this period

was that Native Americans women suffered greatly in traditional communities, and that Indian

women were oppressed and subjugated in Native society. Those who believed this cited several

68 Margaret Fell, “Women’s Speaking Justified, Proves, and Allowed by the Scripture” in Quaker Writings: And Anthology, 1640-1920, ed. Thomas D. Hamm (New York: Penguin Books, 2010, accessed through Google Books), unpaginated. Bacon, Mothers of Feminism, 8-9. 69 Genesis 3:15 (unknown version), quoted in Fell, “Women’s Speaking Justified,” unpaginated.70 Fell, “Women’s Speaking Justified,” unaginated. 71 Bacon, Mothers of Feminism, 11. 72 Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, 78.

Vayansky 23

different examples to prove their point, such as the fact that Native American women ate after

men in many communities.73 However, most frequently, Euro-Americans claimed that the Native

American economic and agricultural models forced women to spend their lives doing arduous

and grueling physical labor in order to keep their families from starving, whilst the men were

free to amuse themselves and occasionally hunt. Therefore, Americans argued, the lives of

Native American women would be vastly improved if they adopted the agricultural model

endorsed by Pickering and the federal government.

Interestingly, primary sources indicate that Indian women did not work exponentially

harder than white women. Mary Jemison claimed that women in both societies had comparable

amounts of work, and even said that life as an Indian woman was more enjoyable because of the

relaxed atmosphere. Her description of working in the fields with her Seneca family is a far cry

from the stories of mistreated Native American women espoused by whites: “In the summer

season we planted, tended and harvested our corn, and generally had our children with us, but we

had no master to oversee or drive us, so that we could work as leisurely as we pleased.”74 For

Native American women, agriculture was a method of ensuring their independence and

autonomy as well as a method of food production. When missionary Gerard Hopkins told the

Miami that it was unkind and inadvisable to expect women to be responsible for farm work

because “Women are less than men. They are not as strong as men. They are not able to endure

fatigue as men,” he did not think about the cultural implications that removing women from their

fields would have.75

In Civilization of the Indian Natives Halliday Jackson claimed that the Oneida reacted

thusly to the Quakers offering to teach European agriculture and gender roles to that nation:

73 Rothenberg, The Mothers of the Nation, 71. 74 Mary Jemison, quoted in Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 72. 75 Hopkins, Mission to the Indians, 78.

Vayansky 24

The women, especially, who had great reason to coincide with the

views of Friends in this business, appeared to be well satisfied; for

in proportion to the rude and uncultivated state of these people, are

the hardships of their women increased; they having most of the

drudgery to perform; such as hoeing corn, chopping wood,

carrying burthens, &c. while their men are sporting with their bows

and arrows, and other similar diversions.76

Jackson reported that the Oneida women were pleased after listening to the Quakers’ plan

to “change [the Oneida’s] manner of life,” and he assumed that they were excited to leave behind

the physical labor of agriculture in order to “learn to spin, knit, and manufacture their clothing.”77

Jackson apparently did not consider the possibility that the women were interested in learning

European agriculture techniques for themselves, or that they would continue to farm even if they

learned how to spin and knit or began raising livestock. Native American women were interested

in learning European crafts, but not in replacing their traditional work with it. For example, many

Seneca women gladly learned to knit and weave but, instead of spending their time doing that

work, only did so during the winter, a traditionally leisure-filled season.78

Indeed, women seemed to be interested in and willing to adopt European agricultural

technology, as long as they would be the ones utilizing it. However, when the Quakers attempted

to convince Indian men to use the techniques and farming instruments that they had brought

from Philadelphia, the women of the community resisted. In his famous work on the Seneca

Nation, historian Anthony F. C. Wallace was under the impression that the resistance came from

76 Jackson, Civilization of the Indian Natives, 12. 77 Jackson, Civilization of the Indian Natives, 12. 78 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nations,” 78.

Vayansky 25

the Native American men, who felt that farm work was emasculating.79 However, even though

Wallace included a quote from the Quaker missionary William Allison which stated that “[i]f a

man took hold of a Hoe to use it the Women would get down his gun by way of derision &

would laugh & say such a Warrior is a timid woman,” he apparently did not consider the fact that

women were taunting men who farmed as a sign that women were resisting the Quaker

agricultural model, as well.80

THE LIFE GIVERS: FEMALE AGRICULTURE AND NATIVE AMERICAN

CULTURE

The claim that traditional Native American gender roles subjugated women and that

adopting European agricultural practices (wherein men would be responsible for farm work and

women would devote their time to domestic arts such as spinning, knitting, and cooking) would

make their lives better was popular in Quaker missionary accounts. However, while it was true

that Native American women, particularly Iroquois women, did most of the farm work, what

Europeans often failed to recognize was that those women’s control over crops and the land from

which they came gave them considerable social, religious, and political power within the

community.81 Iroquois women were in charge of dividing and distributing food, especially

surpluses. Since intertribal diplomacy required gifts of food, this meant that women had

considerable diplomatic and political power, even if they were not delivering those gifts

personally. Also, military parties could not depend on hunting to sustain them through long wars,

and therefore depended on provisions brought from home. Women could therefore potentially

prevent wars if they so chose by withholding essential food rations.82

79 Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, 310. 80 Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, 310. Rothenberg, The Mothers of the Nation, 77.81 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation,” 68, 77-79. 82 Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nations,” 69.

Vayansky 26

In addition to the political and social control which was ensured by women’s role in food

production, there were also powerful spiritual and ceremonial connections between Iroquois

women and agriculture. According to the Iroquois creation story (and similar stories in several

other Eastern Woodlands nations), the Earth was created when a woman, known as the Sky

Woman or as the Aataentsic, Ataensie, or Eagentci, fell or was pushed through a hole in her

world and into this one.83 There are many different versions of the story, but in every telling the

Sky Woman (along with certain aquatic animals such as Beaver, Loon, and Muskrat) brings dry

land into a formerly watery world. Then, Sky Woman gives birth to a daughter, who eventually

gave birth to a set of twins. Sky Woman’s daughter dies in childbirth, and is buried by her

mother and children:

When [the twins’] mother died, their grandmother, Sky Woman,

places the fistful of earth that she grasped from the edge of the Sky

World, and places it on her daughter’s grave. The earth carried

special seeds from the Sky World that were nourished by the earth

over her daughter. So from the body of her daughter came the

Sacred Tobacco, Strawberry and Sweetgrass. We call these

Kionhekwa. The Life Givers.84

According to Iroquois tradition, all life on Earth came from women, including plants

which are both living and allow people to live. Since Sky Woman brought the first seeds to this

world and her daughter allowed them to grow, women and agriculture were irrevocably linked in 83 Paula Gunn Allen, editor. “Iroquois (Mohawk), Traditional: The Woman who Fell from the Sky” in Spider Woman Granddaughters, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1990), 66-68. Keller George, “The Haudenosaunee Creation Story,” Oneida Indian Nation.com, 1. Patricia Ann Lynch and Jeremy Roberts, Native American Mythology A to Z, second edition (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004, accessed through Google Books), 33. 84 “Native American Legends, The Creation Story: An Iroquois Legend.” FirstPeople.us, 1. In some versions of this story, the Sky Woman brings seeds of the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash.

“Iroquois Creation Story 1,” Origins and Creation Myths of the American Indians, 1.

Vayansky 27

the Iroquois religion and ceremonies. Both modern scholars and eighteenth century persons

congratulated Quaker missionaries for their lack of interference in Native Americans’ religion;

however, the Quaker’s aim to transform Native American agriculture had the potential to disrupt

Native religious traditions tremendously.

Far from being servants to lazy husbands, Iroquois women enjoyed freedom and

leadership opportunities that far surpassed what was available to contemporary white women in

the United States. In fact, according to historian Sally Roesch Wagner, famous Women’s Rights

activist, Quaker, and member of the Indian Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the

Society of Friends Lucretia Mott was inspired to call the first woman’s rights convention at

Seneca Falls after visiting the Seneca nation and witnessing “[Seneca] women exercising equal

authority in discussion and decision-making.”85 Why then did the Quakers, who were known for

having progressive views on gender and for educating their daughters in much the same way as

their sons, insist that the lives of Native American women would be so improved if they gave up

their plows to their husbands?86 This goal of the Quaker missionaries, more than anything,

demonstrates their complicity in colonization and, in a larger sense, Indian land removal. The

Quakers did not fail because of their ignorance of Native American ideas about gendered labor,

as some historians have concluded.87 Rather, the Friends were at least partially aware of the

positive effects of Native American gender roles on the lives of Indian women, but were willing

to sacrifice those advantageous effects in order to receive the approval of the federal government

and the general American public.

CONCLUSION

85 Sally Roesch Wagner, Sisters in Spirit: The Iroquois Influence on Early American Feminists (Summertown, TN: Native Voices Book Publishing Company, 2001), 44. 86 Nancy W. Comstock, “Quakers,” Salem Press Encyclopedia (January 2015), 3-4. 87 Tiro, “We Wish to Do You Good,” 367.

Vayansky 28

Seventeenth and eighteenth century Quaker missionaries were eager to insert themselves

into the long history of friendly relations between Friends and Native Americans. When Halliday

Jackson published his journal, he began by recalling the story of William Penn and his famously

pleasant relations with the Indians of Pennsylvania. Interestingly, even though Penn mainly dealt

with the Delaware, Jackson seemed to imply that the founder of Pennsylvania had a relationship

with the Iroquois.88 Jackson drew a direct connection between Penn’s relationship with Native

Americans and the “Children of Onas” responsibility to teach and to aid the Native Americans.89

According to Jackson, the Quakers were called to teach the Indians husbandry and farming “in

remembrance of the kindness of the Natives to Onas our forefather, and forasmuch as we now

enjoy the Land whereon they once lives in ease & plenty.”90 Of course, the Seneca women had

been farming for centuries, and since European contact many had begun to raise animals for sale

as well. The Quakers’ mission was not to teach the Seneca to farm, but to convince Seneca

women to stop farming and to leave food production to the men.

The place of Native American women, particularly Seneca women, changed drastically

after the arrival of Quaker missionaries. Traditionally, women had held great political and social

power in Iroquois societies; however, throughout and after the 1790s, women were

disenfranchised and increasingly expected to become submissive, dutiful wives in progressively

patriarchal and nuclear households.91 Many of these new ideals were adopted by the prophet

Handsome Lake and included in his teachings (which eventually evolved into the modern

Longhouse Religion).92 88 Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 121-122. 89 “Children of Onas” refers to the Quakers. Native Americans referred to William Penn, and later the Pennsylvania government, as Onas or Brother Onas. The word “onas” means “feather” or “quill” in Iroquois, and so the title is a pun on Penn’s last name. Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), s.v. “Onas.”90 Jackson, “Halliday Jackson’s Journal,” 121. 91 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 84-87. 92 Dennis, Seneca Possessed, 84-87.

Vayansky 29

In the 1870s, famous women’s rights activist and Quaker Lucretia Mott became one of

the first individuals to suggest that her people had participated in Native American land loss.

Approximately thirty years prior the Quakers Joint Indian Committee, of which Mott and her

husband James were members, had helped the Seneca to renegotiate the terms of the Treaty of

Buffalo Creek of 1838, which would have lost all four of the Seneca reservations to private white

settlement and essentially removed the Seneca from New York State.93 In 1842, the Quaker Joint

Committee lobbied on behalf of the Seneca, and ensured that they would be able to retain two

reservations, the Alleghany and the Cattaragus, and that the Seneca would receive extra annuities

from the federal government.94 However, the Seneca were still forced to relinquish their claims

on the Buffalo Creek and Tonawanda reservations. Despite the fact that the Seneca were very

obviously unhappy with the results of the new Buffalo Creek Treaty (the Tonawanda even

refused to vacate their reservation peacefully), the Quakers felt pleased with their efforts.95 One

Indian Committee Report stated that:

We believe much distress has been averted from the Indians by the

exertion of Friends; and although not able to arrest entirely the

consequences of the treaty of 1838, yet we think Friends will feel

much satisfaction in having been instrumental in restoring to the

Indians a part of the land, of which they had been so unjustly

deprived.96

Later, after a violent clash between the Modoc Indians and the U.S. government over

removal, Lucretia Mott gave a speech in which she reflected on the Quakers’ involvement in the

93 Carol Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s rights in Nineteenth-Century America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 134-135. 94 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 134. 95 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 134. 96 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 134-135.

Vayansky 30

Buffalo Creek Treaty.97 In the speech, Mott questions whether she and her fellow Friends had

deserved the congratulations that they had given themselves for being such fine advocates for

Indian land rights. According to Mott, the Quakers had never considered the possibility that they,

too, had wronged Native Americans in the past.98 Indeed, Mott claimed that “we [the Quakers]

have aided in driving [the Indians] further and further west.”99 This speech marked the first time

that Mott identified herself with Native Americans, and also perhaps a turning point in Quaker

thinking about their roles as advocates for Indian rights.100 In the past, Quaker missionaries had

tolerated traditional Native beliefs, but they believed that, in the end, western ideals would be the

Indians’ saving grace. However, by Mott’s speech suggests that, by the latter nineteenth century,

the Quakers had come to realize how ethnocentric and harmful their earlier missionary work had

been.

Many of the people who study American history agree that, generally speaking, the

Quakers who were involved in charitable work and societal reform did so with philanthropic

intentions, born of sincere faith. The Quakers are especially lauded for their groundbreaking

commitment to gender and racial equality. Even when Quakers have been proven to be in the

wrong, many come to the conclusion that their failures were due to ignorance or another

mitigating factor. This, however, was not the case for the Quaker missionaries of the late

eighteenth century. The Quakers had a very real need to improve their reputation following the

Revolutionary War. Not only that, but divisions between those Friends who wished to reform

society and those who believed that Quakers should separate themselves from the world were

threatening the religion from within. Participating in the civilization of Native Americans

97 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 200-201. 98 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 201. 99 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 201. 100 Faulkner, Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, 201.

Vayansky 31

through missionary work satisfied both of those needs in the Quaker community. Quaker

missionaries claimed that their only aim was to protect the Indians’ lands and to satisfy Indian

needs; however, by insisting that Native Americans change their agricultural traditions and

gender roles, the Quakers did just the opposite. In a speech to a group of pacifists, Lucretia Mott

urged her fellow Friends to consider how they, too, had contributed to the colonization and

dispossession of Native Americans; modern historians need to consider this as well.

APPENDIX I

Vayansky 32

Anthony F. C. Wallace, Halliday Jackson’s Journey through the Wilderness, 1790-1800

in “Halliday Jackson’s Journal to the Seneca Indians, 1798-1800,” edited by Anthony F. C.

Wallace, Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 19, no. 2 (April, 1952): 125.

Vayansky 33

Bibliography

Primary Sources

“Address of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held at Baltimore, to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, and his Reply.” New York: Henry Ludwig, 1840. Accessed through Triptych Tri-College Digital Library, Bryn Mawr, December 1, 2015

Allen, Paula Gunn, editor. “Iroquois (Mohawk), Traditional: The Woman who Fell from the

Sky” in Spider Woman Granddaughters, 65-68. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990. Evans, Joshua. A Journal of the Life, Travels, Religious Exercises, and Labours in the Work of

the Ministry of Joshua Evans, Late of Newton Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey. Philadelphia: John & Issac Comly, 1837.

Fell, Margaret. “Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by the Scriptures.” In Quaker Writings: An Anthology, edited by Thomas D. Hamm. New York: Penguin Books, 2010. Accessed through Google Books, November 16, 2015.

George, Keller. “The Haudenosaunee Creation Story.” www.OneidaIndianNation.com, accessed November 24, 2015. http://www.oneidaindiannation.com/history/creationstory

Hopkins, Gerard T. Mission to the Indians, from the Indian Committee of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, to Fort Wayne, in 1804. Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Zell, 1862. Accessed November 23, Archive.org.

“Iroquois Creation Story 1.” Origins and Creation Myths of the American Indians, accessed November 24, 2015. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/Amerind/origins/AmindorsIroquois.htm

Jackson, Halliday. “Halliday Jackson’s Journal to the Seneca Indians, 1798-1800.” Edited by Anthony F. C. Wallace. Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 19, no. 2 (April, 1952): 117-147. Accessed September 20, 2015. JSTOR.

Jackson, Halliday. Civilization of the Indian Natives Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, The Darlington Digital Research Library, 2008. Accessed September 21, 2015.

Joint Committee on Indian Affairs of the Four Yearly Meetings of Baltimore, Genesee, New York, and Philadelphia (Society of Friends : Hicksite). The Case of the Seneca Indians in the State of New York: Illustrated by Facts. Philadelphia: Merrihew and Thompson, 1840. Accessed November 16, Archive.org.

Kirkland, Samuel. The Journals of Samuel Kirkland: 18th Century Missionary to the Iroquois, Gov’t Agent, Father of Hamilton College. Edited by Walter Pilkington. Clinton, NY: Hamilton College, 1980.

Vayansky 34

Knox, Henry. “Report from H. Knox, Secretary of War, to the President of the United States, Relative to the Northwestern Indians,” June 15, 1789. American State Papers: Indian Affairs Volume 1, 1st Congress, 1st Session.

“Native American Legends, The Creation Story: An Iroquois Legend.” www.FirstPeople.us, accessed November 24, 2015. http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheCreationStory-Iroquois.html

Penn, William. Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims. Hoboken, N.J.: Generic NL Freebook Publisher, n.d. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed November 12, 2015).

Society of Friends. New York Yearly Meeting (Hicksite), Joint Committee on Indian Affairs. Proceedings of the Joint Committee appointed by the Society of Friends: Constituting the Yearly Meetings of Genessee, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, for Promoting the Civilization and Improving the Condition of the Seneca Nation of Indians. Baltimore: William Wooddy, 1847. Accessed November 20, Archive.org.

Secondary Sources

Bacon, Margaret Hope. Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986.

Calloway, Colin G. The Victory with No Name. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Comstock, Nancy W. “Quakers.” Salem Press Encyclopedia (January 2015): Research Starters, EBSCOhost (accessed September 29, 2015).

Dandelion, Pink. The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Dennis, Matthew. Seneca Possessed: Indians, Witchcraft, and Power in the Early American Republic. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 2010.

Faulkner, Carol. Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Hinds, Hillary. George Fox and Early Quaker Culture. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2011.

Johansen, Bruce Elliot and Barbara Alice Mann, editors. Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Kinney, Jill. “Letters, Pen, and Tilling the Field: Quaker Schools among the Seneca.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 2009.

Vayansky 35

Larson, Rebecca. Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775. New York: Alfred A. Knop, Inc., 1999.

Lynch, Patricia Ann and Jeremy Roberts. Native American Mythology A to Z, second edition. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. Accessed through Google Books, November 30, 2015.)

Marsh, Dawn G. A Lenape among the Quakers: The Life of Hannah Freeman. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.

Richter, Daniel K. “’Believing that Many of the Red People Suffer Much for the Want of Food’:

Hunting, Agriculture, and a Quaker Construction of Indianness in the Early Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 19, no. 4, Special Issue on the Racial Consciousness and Nation-Building in the Early Republic (winter, 1999): 601-628. Accessed November 11, 2015. JSTOR.

Richter, Daniel K. Native Americans’ Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, PA: Huggins Printing

Company, 2005.

Rothenberg, Diane. “The Mothers of the Nation: Seneca Resistance to Quaker Intervention” in Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives. Edited by Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980.

Szasz, Margaret Connell. Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607-1783. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

Thompson, Kari Elizabeth Rose. “‘Inconsistent Friends’: Philadelphia Quakers and the Development of Native American Missions in the Long Eighteenth Century.” Ph. D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 2013.

Tiro, Karim M. The People of the Standing Stone: The Oneida Nation from the Revolution to the Era of Removal. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.

Tiro, Karim M. “We Wish to Do You Good: The Quaker Mission to the Oneida Mission, 1790-

1840.” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 3 (fall, 2006): 353-376. Accessed September 15, 2015. JSTOR.

Wagner, Sally Roesch. Sisters in Spirit: The Iroquois Influence on Early American Feminists. Summertown, TN: Native Voices Book Publishing Company, 2001.

Wallace, Anthony F. C. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1970.