Wesleyan Live

Flames on the Plains Redux

October 12, 2010

The Image of Flames on the Plains

• What do you think when you hear “Flames on the Plains?”

Control of the Trans-Missouri West

• 1541-1720 Spain

• 1720-1763 France

• 1763-1800 Spain again

• 1789-1820 British (overlapping with Spain)

• 1800-1803 France again (with British)

• 1803- United States (with British)

Louisiana Purchase & Lewis and Clark Expedition

A Military Mission with Multiple Objectives

a) Explore the newly acquired territory

b) Find a route to the Pacific Ocean

c) Identify natural resources

d) Asses the viability for new settlements

e) Establish trade with native peoples

f) Establish sovereignty over native peoples

g) curtail warfare among different tribes

h) provide an alternative to British presence

The Yellowstone Expedition• Upper Missouri River Forts (mission failed)

– Consequence = Fort Atkinson

• Major Stephen Long Expedition, 1819-20– Consequence = “Great American Desert” Myth

• Major Consequences– Indian Removal Act of 1830 & 1834

• “Permanent Indian Territory west of Mississipi River”• Protect U. S. Fur Trade

Denominational Missions React to Alcohol Abuse in the Fur Trade

• The Major Issue – Firewater

• Original Recipe– 1 part grain alcohol– 3 parts water

• New Recipe after late 1820’s– Original Recipe + chewing tobacco + cayenne pepper +

ginger + molasses + soap + red ink + strycnine

The Baptists• 1831 – Jonathan Lykins

• 1832 – Moses Merrill Mission at Bellevue– To Otoe-Missouria

The Presbyterians• 1834 – John Dunbar and Samuel Allis

• 1835 – Marcus Whitman and Samuel Parker

• 1846 – Edward McKinne

• 1853 – William Hamilton

The Episcopalians• 1838 – Missionary Bishop Jackson Kemper

• 1853 – James De Pui-Fort Kearny Chaplain

• 1853 – W. Vaux-Fort Laramie Chaplain

• 1856 – Edward Peet – 1st Omaha Church

• 1860 – Samuel Hinman mission to Dakotas

The Catholics• 1838 – Jesuit Father Pierre De Smet

– 38 trips across Nebraska beginning in 1838– First Mass in Nebraska 1851

• Near Lyman, Morrill and Mitchell

Note• In 1868 Episcopalian Samuel Hinman and

Jesuit Pierre De Smet had become so trusted by the Lakota (non-treaty Sioux) that they respresented the Lakota at the Fort Laramie Treaty negotiations that created the reservations of Pine Ridge and Rosebud.

The Methodists• 1854 – William D. Gage

– Appointed to Fort Kearny Mission

• John M. Chivington– Appointed presiding elder of Omaha District

Missionary Attitudes towards Indians

Influence of Revolutionary Change on Church and State