Demons, Saints, and Patriots: Catholic Visions of Native America through The Indian Sentinel (1902–1962) (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Demons, Saints, and Patriots: Catholic Visions of Native America through The Indian Sentinel (1902–1962) Mark Thiel, Michelene E. Pesantubbee, and Michael Steltenkamp S.J. Mark Clatterbuck, Demons, Saints, and Patriots: Catholic Visions of Native America through The Indian Sentinel (1902–1962) (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009) Summary Review Through The Indian Sentinel magazine, the author of Demons, Saints, and Patriots offers a thoughtful study of Catholic perceptions of Native American evangelization in the United States. Comprised of over 7,000 pages of illustrated text, the Sentinel contains one of the most sustained, intimate, and comprehensive records of twentieth-century mission life up to the Vatican II era. Published by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions for subscribers in the United States and Europe, and written and illustrated primarily by missionaries in the field, it features articles about diverse Native peoples and equally diverse missionaries. Throughout, it captured the missionaries’ motivations, assumptions, hopes, and struggles that shaped their vision of Native America, while chronicling the two-way human dynamics of religious conversion. The author, Mark Clatterbuck, noted a lack of scholarly research involving the Sentinel. However, since its online deployment in 2007, increasing numbers of scholars and the public have found and used this rich resource, and for some extensive research, Demons, Saints, and Patriots holds promise as a supplemental aid. Demons, Saints, and Patriots analyzes the mission enterprise through the Sentinel, and in so doing, it explores the radically conflicting portraits of Native people and missionaries against a backdrop of unfamiliar Native cultures. It discusses a plethora of topics about missionaries—their changing self-identities, perceptions, methods, and challenges amid their changing understanding of Native American peoples, languages, and cultures. It explores Native-Catholic syncretism, Native Catholic leadership, and changing U.S. government-Catholic Church relationships in Indian affairs coupled with mission support of government efforts for the World Wars. Also included are discussions on Native Catholic “cultural dysfunctionality” (chapters 2 and 3) and the Sentinel’s cessation, Vatican II-prompted interreligious dialogue, and the Tekakwitha Conference’s transformation from a missionary to a Native Catholic organization [End Page 9] (chapter 5). Notable among the author’s conclusions is a theory that church support for the World War efforts derailed development of Native church leadership. Clatterbuck researched his book primarily with monographs and unpublished documents from two archival collections, one of which was misidentified. Most sources focused on aspects of religious studies, including ones pertaining specifically to Native Catholics. Also included were sources relating to Indian social conditions, identity, culture, and relations with non-Indians. In particular, the later chapters would have benefited from a broader use of sources beyond the Sentinel, especially for concerns that have received relatively less scrutiny in the scholarly literature. While missionary involvement with Native regalia suggests cultural conflict and dependency, Native leaders have long shared cultural capital when cultivating mutual relationships. The Ojibwa leaders depicted in the cover illustration were ancient allies of Catholic France who defeated in battle future U.S. presidents Washington and Taylor and who gave birth to the fighting Ojibwa Catholic priest, Father Phillip Gordon. More recently, nearby Potawatomi used similar techniques in a successful bid for a now lucrative casino next to Marquette University. Because the Sentinel’s 1962 demise occurred without notifying its readers (249–252), the author made assumptions based solely on the impact of changes in U.S. society and the Catholic Church. Not considered were the unusual personal proclivities of its publisher and Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (BCIM) director, Rev. John B. Tennelly, which Kevin Abing described in Directors of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, a series of biographies published online. Abing noted that Tennelly “…was reserved, fastidious, bookish and shy, and [under his leadership] the BCIM seemed to take on some of those same qualities.” In summarizing the Tekakwitha Conference’s history and transformation, Clatterbuck stated that it formally invited its first American Indian speaker in 1978 (255), and in so doing, he ignored its earlier reform efforts such as the 1971 annual meeting, which featured Oglala activist Birgil Kills Straight as its keynote speaker. That event and others are described in the minutes of the conference’s annual...