from the series Peace House Community Journal…
By MARTI MALTBY
Last month I wrote about the need to use power wisely, and the temptations that everyone faces when they get power over others. Power can be used for our own prestige and comfort, or for the good of others. We have plenty of examples every day of each of those options playing out in front of our eyes.
Since I wrote that article, I have been reading Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide by George E. Tinker. It is a wonderful example of using power well, along with being a great book on many other levels. Tinker looks at four missionaries who are revered for their work among Native peoples in North America, but he shows how they all contributed to the destruction of Native societies, and the results that still haunt us today. One of the missionaries he writes about is Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple, an Episcopal clergyman who worked in Minnesota and after whom the federal building at Fort Snelling is named.
As Tinker notes, Whipple was genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of the Indians in Minnesota. He presented their case to various Presidents, including working to get President Lincoln to pardon over 300 Dakota Indians who were condemned to death after the Dakota War in 1862. However, Tinker also points out that Whipple believed the Natives’ wellbeing would best be served if they abandoned their traditional way of life and converted, not just to Christianity, but to American/European culture. To Whipple, salvation includes men wearing trousers, having short hair, and farming their own plot of land. The changes he promoted, while well intentioned, ripped apart the fabric of Indian culture and led to generations of suffering.
At this point, you may be asking why I said Tinker’s book is a great example of power used well when it describes power being used poorly. The answer revolves around Tinker rather than Whipple and the other missionaries. Tinker was a member of the Osage Nation from Oklahoma, meaning he came from the community that the missionaries had harmed. He wrote long after they had died when they had no way of defending themselves. He could have written a damning book that condemned them as racist, genocidal individuals who caused the destruction of much of the Indian ways of life. He had the chance to paint them as villains who used God as a justification for hateful acts. He could have dwelt on the pain and suffering they caused, and then wished that same pain and suffering on them. He didn’t.
Tinker is incredibly gracious throughout his book. He is clear about the destruction the missionaries caused, pointing out the contradictions between their goals on the one hand, and their complicity with governmental policy and of imposing their own culture on the Indians on the other hand. He uses their own letters and speeches to demonstrate that the missionaries had some understanding of the risks of their approach. But he never paints them as monsters or caricatures. Instead, he repeatedly says that they were the product of their culture and the beliefs of their time. He argues that in many ways they could do no differently from what they did because of their social and intellectual limitations. He doesn’t excuse the results of their work, but he doesn’t wholeheartedly condemn them either.
Tinker’s writing reflects his realization that anyone can use power badly. He sees the missionaries as products of their times, just as we are products of our times. The missionaries often were more enlightened than those around them and pushed society towards a more humane and respectful understanding of Native peoples. Likewise, we all try to make society better. But we don’t always agree on what “better” looks like, and in 100 years, others may look back on the mixed results of our efforts with either grace or condemnation. The graciousness that Tinker shows to his subjects is a wonderful example of power used well.
MARTI MALTBY is an avid cyclist, Director at Peace House Community, and an obnoxiously proud Canadian.
