John Johnston and the Friends: A Midwestern Indian Agent's Relationship with Quakers in the Early 1800s

Abstract

John Johnston and the Friends: A Midwestern Indian Agent's Relationship with Quakers in the Early 1800s Max L. Carter* Most Friends have at least a superficial acquaintance with the nearlegendary history of relations between Quakers and the Indians of North America. The icons of West's painting of Penn and the Indians at the so-called Treaty of Shackamaxon, Hicks' "Peaceable Kingdom," and the painting "None Shall Make Them Afraid" hang in many Quaker institutions and homes. The stories of early frontier Friends who "left the latch-string out" and were left unmolested by marauding Indians are still retold, and many are familiar with John Woolman's trip to an Indian village during the French and Indian War "to learn from them." Fewer may be aware of the work for Indians undertaken by individuals such as Anthony Benezet, Albert Smiley, and Ruthanna Sims, institutional responses at Tunessasa, New York, White's Institute in Indiana, and the various missions in Oklahoma, or Grant's "Quaker Policy" for reforming the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Much has been written recently by historians Clyde Milner II ( With Good Intentions and a chapter in Churchmen and the Western Indians) and Robert Berkhofer, Jr. (Salvation and the Savage) that has expanded the knowledge of Quaker work among the Indians, while also restoring a little humility to Friends' opinions of themselves! One participant in the drama of Quaker-Indian relations that most do not know about, however, is the subject of this essay. John Johnston, a non-Friend but possessing Quaker connections, served as Indian factor and agent in Indiana and Ohio during the years corresponding to Baltimore, Ohio, and Indiana Yearly Meetings' Indian work in those states, primarily with the Miami and Shawnee tribes. His sympathy for Friends, understanding of the Indians, and wise handling of his agency helped contribute to the measure of success Quakers enjoyed in their midwestern work between 1804 and 1833. As will also be seen, Johnston's experience with Friends in their Indian work led him to formulate suggestions for a just United States Indian policy that featured the participation of Friends. John Johnston (1775-1861) was born in Ireland of Huguenot stock, a fact which may have significance, if Frederick Norwood's thesis * Max Carter teaches religion and geometry at Friends' Central School. 37 38Quaker History on the mental make-up of refugees can be applied.1 In 1786 he emigrated to America, arriving first in Philadelphia but eventually finding his way to the frontier where he supervised the transportation of goods in General Anthony Wayne's army from 1792 to 1795. During 1795 he was also briefly in the company of Daniel Boone in Kentucky.2 Not counting his brief sojourn with the Quaker-born Boone, Johnston's first recorded encounter with Friends occurred during the winter of 1799-1800. During that time he boarded with the Quaker Osborn family in Philadelphia and often accompanied them to meeting. One such occasion was especially eventful, as he relates in his Recollections. At the first meeting following the death of George Washington, Johnston heard a Friend by the name of Potts share the following incident. Potts lived on a farm adjoining the Valley Forge encampment of the Continental Army. One day he heard a noise in the bushes and, drawing near, saw Washington on his knees in earnest prayer to God. He knew then that the American cause would succeed.3 John Johnston's contacts with Friends were to become even more intimate in 1802 when he eloped with Rachel Robinson, a Philadelphia Quaker, and was married by a Lutheran minister in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.4 Travelling further west, the newlyweds settled at Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Johnston became the first factor5 of the newly established Indian agency there. It was in this position that Johnston first became involved with the Quaker work among midwestern Indians. This work had its roots in a minute of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1795, which asked, 1 . Norwood's book, Strangers and Pilgrims, makes the point that refugees, having been once "pilgrims and strangers" in the land, take a peculiar view of life and are often more sympathetic to other "strangers." One might note in this...