Title To live upon hope : Mohicans and missionaries in the eighteenth-century Northeast / Rachel Wheeler

Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2008

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xiii, 316 pages) : illustrations, maps Contents Introduction : Indian and Christian -- pt. 1. Hope: The river god and the lieutenant ; Covenants, contracts, and the founding of Stockbridge -- pt. 2. Renewal: The chief and the orator ; Moravian missionaries of the blood ; Mohican men and Jesus as Manitou -- pt. 3. Preservation: The village matriarch and the young mother ; Mohican women and the community of the blood -- pt. 4. Persecution: The dying chief and the accidental missionary ; Indian and white bodies politic at Stockbridge -- Conclusion: Irony and identity ; The cooper and the sachem ; Epilogue : real and ideal Indians Summary Two Northeast Indian communities with similar histories of colonization accepted Congregational and Moravian missionaries, respectively, within five years of one another: the Mohicans of Stockbridge, Massachusetts (1735), and Shekomeko, in Dutchess County, New York (1740). In To Live upon Hope, Rachel Wheeler explores the question of what "missionary Christianity" became in the hands of these two native communities.The Mohicans of Stockbridge and Shekomeko drew different conclusions from their experiences with colonial powers. Both tried to preserve what they deemed core elements of Mohican culture. The Indians of Stockbridge believed education in English cultural ways was essential to their survival and cast their acceptance of the mission project as a means of preserving their historic roles as cultural intermediaries. The Mohicans of Shekomeko, by contrast, sought new sources of spiritual power that might be accessed in order to combat the ills that came with colonization, such as alcohol and disease.Through extensive research, especially in the Moravian records of day-to-day life, Wheeler offers an understanding of the lived experience of Mohican communities under colonialism. She complicates the understanding of eighteenth-century American Christianity by demonstrating that mission programs were not always driven by the destruction of indigenous culture and the advancement of imperial projects. To Live upon Hope challenges the prevailing view of accommodation or resistance as the two poles of Indian responses to European colonization. Colonialism placed severe strains on native peoples, Wheeler finds, yet Indians also exercised a level of agency and creativity that aided in their survival Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL English Print version record digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject Moravian Church -- Missions -- New York (State) -- Shekomeko Site -- History -- 18th century SUBJECT Moravian Church fast Subject Stockbridge Indians -- Missions -- Massachusetts -- Stockbridge -- History -- 18th century Moravian Indians -- Missions -- New York (State) -- Shekomeko Site -- History -- 18th century Mahican Indians -- Missions -- History -- 18th century Congregational churches -- Missions -- Massachusetts -- Stockbridge -- History -- 18th century HISTORY -- United States -- Colonial Period (1600-1775) HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- General. HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA) HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT) Congregational churches -- Missions Ethnic relations Missions Moravian Indians -- Missions Stockbridge Indians -- Missions SUBJECT Stockbridge (Mass.) -- History -- 18th century Shekomeko Site (N.Y.) -- History -- 18th century Stockbridge (Mass.) -- Ethnic relations Shekomeko Site (N.Y.) -- Ethnic relations Subject Massachusetts -- Stockbridge New York (State) -- Shekomeko Site Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2007050005 ISBN 9780801463488 0801463483

  Permalink