Kiowa: A Woman Missionary in Indian Territory

Abstract

Near close of nineteenth century, Isabel Crawford went to Kiowa-Comanche Reservation in Oklahoma and founded Saddle Mountain Baptist Mission. This book, written in journal form, begins with her arrival at reservation in 1896 and describes her decade-long crusade to convert Indians to Christianity. She and her assistant were only white women at isolated station in Wichita Mountains. Crawford's experience there tested her resourcefulness, endurance, and sometimes her faith. Humor marks her journal as she recounts her struggles to establish a formal mission. She lived with Indians, at first putting up in a tipi and adjusting, not without difficulty, to their ways. She was the Jesus woman who taught Ten Commandments. In her wake came camp meetings, baptisms, and big eats. Through years Isabel Crawford and her Indian brothers and sisters were bound more closely as they raised money to build a church. Though written with Christian purpose, Kiowa: A Woman Missionary in Indian Territory shows Crawford's sensitivity to Kiowa history and culture during a period of transition. The mission still exists and Isabel Crawford is still remembered kindly, according to Clyde Ellis, who introduces this Bison Books edition. An authority on Oklahoma tribes, Ellis is author of To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at Rainy Mountain Boarding School, 1893-1920. He is an assistant professor of history at Elon College in North Carolina.