Indian Missions and the Puritan Legacy

Abstract

Abstract America was a field for foreign missions long before the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M) sent the first American missionaries overseas. Missions to North America were predominantly, though by no means exclusively, aimed at the conversion of Native Americans, and Indian missions continued long after foreign operations commenced. The A.B.C.F.M. itself maintained extensive missions to the North American Indians throughout the period of this study. Foreign missions and Indian missions were organized into separate departments in 1832, but that does not mean they were regarded as distinctly different types of mission work. In the eyes of the missionaries, ‘‘heathenism’’ possessed an essential unity. All heathens were similarly possessed by mental stagnation and moral degradation—to different degrees, perhaps, but always owing to their ignorance of gospel truth. That was one indispensable justification for missions in the first place.