Kinship and convenants in the wilderness: Indians, Quakers and conversion to Christianity, 1675--1800

This dissertation focuses on Quakers' efforts to convert Indians to Christianity and Native peoples' reactions to their endeavors. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Lenape welcomed members of the Religious Society of Friends to their homeland. Both peoples' religious beliefs served as the basis for their interaction. According to their world views, both Indians and Quakers believed that they were their kinsmen. Additionally, Friends concluded that the Inner Light and their example of proper Christian deportment would induce Indians in the Delaware River Valley to become Quakers. However, after extensive contact, both groups became disappointed in each other and both experienced what they considered a decline in their faiths. The Indians found that Friends did not live up to their expectations for kin. Quakers found that Indians were not very interested in adopting Christianity. In fact, Indians believed that through frequent interaction with whites they had adopted behaviors that were not in keeping with their traditional beliefs. Thus, in the 1730s and '40s the Lenape began an effort to preserve and recapture their religious ideals and way of life. The Friends, too, let themselves become distracted from their spiritual base. Abundant opportunities for themselves become distracted from their spiritual base. Abundant opportunities for temporal gain led many Quakers to violate the dictates of their faith. In order to correct this problem, in the 1730s and '40s, they labored to restore religious principles and recover lost spiritual fervor. Following the American Revolution, in part to live their faith more fully, Friends of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting began an undertaking to acculturate and convert Indians in the mid-1790s. This effort to teach Christianity and agricultural techniques had the approval of the Federal government. After learning about the program through correspondence with the Quakers, the Oneida volunteered to participate in it. While some took part in the Friends' mission-model farm experiment, most did not. Instead, many Oneida joined a revitalization movement designed to recapture sacred ancestral ceremonies and traditions which they had neglected for decades. The Native people wanted to retain their culture and determine what elements of white society---if any they would adopt.