The Cherokees and Christianity, 1794-1870

About this book

In The Cherokees and Christianity, William G. McLoughlin examines how the process of religious acculturation worked within the Cherokee Nation during the nineteenth century. More concerned with Cherokee "Christianization" than Cherokee "civilization," these eleven essays cover the various stages of cultural confrontation with Christian imperialism. Missionaries from six different denominations were welcomed into the Nation between 1794 and 1861. The first section of the book explores the reactions of the Cherokee (and to some extent other southeastern tribes) to the inevitable clash between the missionaries and their own religious leaders. It also addresses Cherokee reactions to the many and varied Christian responses to slavery. It is a measure of how acculturated the Cherokees had become by 1850 that they also took sides on the issue of slavery and later fought against each other in the Civil War. In part two, McLoughlin examines the crucial problem of racism that divided the southern part of North America into red, white, and black long before 1776 and he considers the ways in which the Cherokees either adapted Christianity to their own needs or rejected it as inimical to their identity. As in white society, it proved impossible for the Cherokees to separate religion from politics between 1830 and 1860. A short epilogue that contains the Fast Day Proclamation of 1870 by Chief Lewis Downing, the fullblood chief of the Cherokees, is also included.