Video
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and Whitman Mission
Transcript
[Music playing] At the beginning of the 19th century, a spiritual movement sweeps across the United States, known as the Second Great Awakening. The period is marked by itinerant preachers, revival meetings, and conversion experiences. With evangelical enthusiasm, believers are eager to spread the word of God. A big part of the Second Great Awakening is once you're saved, you're not done. You are responsible for saving others. Your salvation depends on continued effort to save others. This desire to awaken others to Christianity gives birth to the modern missionary movement. They had this vision that it was really possible to Christianize the entire world. The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, or ABCFM, is formed in the early 1800s with the explicit purpose of spreading the gospel to foreign shores. The American Board had, as its motto, , the saying, "The evangelization of the entire world in the present generation." And for that purpose, they sent missionaries over a good swath of the world. They had missions in India. They had missions in China. They had missions in Africa. They had missions in Thailand, and they had missions among the American Indians. Following the 1831 journey by four Plateau Indians to St. Louis, reportedly looking for the "white man's Book of Heaven," the ABCFM sets its sights on the conversion of Indians in the Pacific Northwest. They wanted to inform us as to how we might be bettered, and that was through Christianity, civilization, through white man's education. In 1836, Marcus Whitman is appointed by the American Board to establish a mission among the plateau Indians in the Oregon Territory. Though no treaties had been negotiated with the native peoples of the region, both the US and Great Britain asserted rights of discovery in the Oregon Country. Oregon Territory was considered a foreign territory. And that's why, in the 1830s, Marcus and Narcissa went out under the Foreign Mission Board. Whitman's mission is not the only one in the region. By 1839, there are four American Board missions in Oregon. Methodists and Catholics are also there, competing for the same souls. The Protestants are, more or less, on the same team. But, of course, there are these Catholic missionaries. And this was horrifying to Whitman and to the other Protestant missionaries. This is the great era of anti-Catholic prejudice in the United States. The Whitman's were very hostile to the Catholic efforts. Basically, the Whitman's thought that those people who were baptized by the Catholics were still heading for hell. Now, what the Whitman's experience is pretty much what the other missionaries experience, even the Catholic missionaries. An initial flurry of interest of two to three years and then a real falling off and, eventually, even hostility. In each case, the Indians found Christianity somewhat wanting. The missionaries proved disappointed. And none of them succeeded in converting large numbers of Indians. Following the deaths of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman in 1847, the American Board closes all of their missions in the Oregon Territory. Although the missions in the Pacific Northwest are a failure, the American Board is successful with missions as far afield as India, Africa, China, and Hawaii. Though the Northwest missions closed, other Christianizing efforts continued in the region. Today, many Cayuse descendants consider themselves to be Christians. It's important to recognize that, in our culture, we still have very many devout Christians. We have many people who are equally devoted to our native practices, spirituality. If you took a survey, we'd have probably a 140% religion because many people are Presbyterian and also understand and follow Waashat practices.
Description
This short video provides a brief overview of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions and how they hired Marcus and Narcissa Whitman to become missionaries in the Oregon Country.
Duration
4 minutes, 40 seconds
Credit
NPS Video
Date Created
02/21/2023
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