Californian Indians.—Beginning with the foundation by Father Junipero Serra in 1769 of San Diego de Alcalá, and ending with that of San Francisco Solano in 1823, there were established, from beyond San Francisco Bay to the River Colorado, twenty-three missions of the Catholic faith among the Indians of California, whose direct influence lasted until the “secularization” of the missions and the expulsion of the friars by the Mexican government in 1834. In that year the missions counted 30,650 Indians and produced 122,500 bushels of wheat and corn. They possessed also 424,000 cattle, 62,500 horses and mules, 321,900 sheep, goats, hogs, &c. The mission-buildings of brick and stone contained besides religious houses and chapels, school-rooms and workshops for instruction in arts and industries, and were surrounded by orchards, vineyards and farms. Here Indians of diverse linguistic stocks were “reduced” and “civilized,” and their labour fully utilized by the mission-fathers. But, in the words of Mooney (Handb. of Amer. Inds. pt. i., 1907, p. 895), “Despite regular life, abundance of food and proper clothing according to the season, the Indian withered away under the restrictions of civilization supplemented by epidemic diseases introduced by the military garrisons or the seal-hunters along the coast. The death-rate was so enormous, in spite of apparent material advancement, that it is probable that the former factor alone would have brought about the extinction of the missions within a few generations.” Some of the missions had but a few hundred Indians, some, however, as high as three thousand. Kroeber thinks that their influence was “probably greater temporally than spiritually.” After the “secularization” of the missions decay soon set in, which the American occupation of California later on did nothing to remedy, and the native population rapidly decreased. When the supervision of the missionaries no longer sustained them the Indians fell to pieces and the practical results of seventy years of labour and devotion were lost. In 1908 there remained of the “Mission Indians” less than 3000 individuals (belonging to the Shoshonian and Yuman stocks), whose condition was none too satisfactory, the only human relics of the huge attempt at the “reduction” of the Indian that was planned and carried out in California.

Iroquoian.—The French missions among the Hurons began in 1615-1616 with Father le Caron of the Recollect order; those of the Jesuits with Father Brebœuf in 1626. These missions flourished, in spite of wars and other adverse circumstances, till the invasion of the Huron country in Ontario by the Iroquois in 1641 and again in 1649 brought about their destruction and the dispersal of the Hurons who were not slain or carried off as prisoners by the victors. Some took refuge among neighbouring friendly tribes; others settled finally at Lorette near Quebec, &c. The Wyandots, now in Oklahoma, are another fragment of the scattered Hurons. The Hurons of Lorette numbered in 1908, 1 Anglican, 6 Presbyterians and 459 Catholics. The Wyandots of Oklahoma are largely Protestants. The mission among the Mohawks of New York was established in 1642 by Father Jogues (afterwards martyred by the Indians), and in 1653 the church at Onondaga was built, while during the next few years missions were organized among the Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca, to cease during the warlike times of 1658-66, after which they were again established among these tribes. The mission of St François Xavier des Pré (La Prairie), out of which came the modern Caughnawaga, was founded in 1669, and here gathered many Christian Iroquois of various tribes—Mohawk especially. About this time the Iroquois settlement on the Bay of Quinté, Ontario, was formed by Christian Mohawks, Cayugas, &c. The Lake of the Two Mountains mission dates from 1720, that of St Regis from 1756. Another mission at Oswegatchie, founded in 1748, was abandoned in 1807. The Episcopal missions among the Iroquois began early in the 18th century, the Mohawks being the first tribe influenced, about 1700. The extension of the work among the other Iroquoian tribes was aided by Sir William Johnson in the last half of the century and by Chief Joseph Brant, especially after the removal of those of the Iroquois who favoured the British to Canada at the close of the War of Independence. In 1776 the Congregationalists established a mission among the New York Oneida, and later continued their labours also among the Oneida of Wisconsin. The Congregational mission among the New York Seneca began in 1831. In 1791-1798, at the request of Chief Cornplanter, the Pennsylvania Quakers established missions among the Oneida, Tuscarora and Seneca. The Moravian missions among the New York Onondaga were established under the Rev. David Zeisberger about 1745. The Methodist missions among the Ontario Iroquois date from 1820. Of the “Six Nations” Indians of the Grand river, Ontario, the Cayuga and Onondaga are still “pagan,” the others being Anglican, Methodist and other denominations, including Seventh Day Adventists, Salvation Army, &c. Among the New York Iroquois great variety of religious faith also exists, the Presbyterians (largest), Methodists, Episcopalians and Baptists being all represented. The Iroquois of Caughnawaga and St Regis are mainly Catholic; at Caughnawaga there is, however, a Methodist school.

Muskogian.—Several tribes of this stock came under the influence of the missions established by the Spanish friars along the Atlantic coast after the founding of St Augustine in 1565. The missionaries in this region were chiefly Franciscans, who succeeded the Jesuits. They were very successful among the Apalachee, but these Indians were constantly subject to attack by the Yamasi, Creek, Catawba and other savage peoples, and in 1703-1704 they were destroyed or taken captive, and the missions came to an end. A few of the survivors were gathered later at Pensacola for a time. In the early part of the 18th century French missions were established among the Choctaw, Natchez, &c., and the Jesuits laboured among the Alibamu from 1725 till their expulsion in 1764. From 1735 to 1739 the Moravians (beginning under Spangenberg) had a mission school among the Yamacraw, a Creek tribe near Savannah. In 1831 a Presbyterian mission was established among the Choctaw on the Yalabusha river in northern Mississippi, to which went in 1834 the Rev. Cyrus Byington, the Eliot mission over which he presided there and in the Indian Territory till 1868 being one of great importance. After the removal of the Indians to the Indian Territory more missions were established among the Choctaw, the Creek and the Seminole, &c. The work was much interfered with by the Civil War of 1861-65, but the mission work was afterwards reorganized. The Baptist missions among the Choctaw began in 1832 and among the Creek in 1839. The “Choctaw Academy,” a high school, at Great Crossings, Kentucky, chiefly for young men of the Choctaw and Creek nations, was founded in 1819 and continued for twenty-four years. In 1835 a Methodist mission was established among the Creek, but soon abandoned, to be reorganized later on. Among the Indians of Oklahoma, the Catholic and Mormon churches and practically all the Protestant denominations, including the Salvation Army and the Christian Scientists, are now represented by churches, schools, missions, &c. The missionaries among the Muskogian tribes during the last half of the 18th century, as may be seen from Pilling’s Bibliography of the Muskhogean Languages (1889), furnished many able students of Indian tongues, whose researches have been of great value in philology. This is true likewise of labourers in the mission-field among the Algonkian, Iroquoian, Athabaskan, Siouan and Salishan tribes and among the Eskimo. The celebrated “Eliot Bible,” the translation (1663) of the scriptures into the language of the Algonkian Indians of Massachusetts, made by the Rev. John Eliot (q.v.), is a monument of missionary endeavour and prescientific study of the aboriginal tongues. In his work Eliot, like many other missionaries, had the assistance of several Indians. The names of such mission-workers as Egede, Kleinschmidt, Fabricius, Erdmann, Kohlmeister, Bruyas, Zeisberger, Dencke, Rasles, Gravier, Mengarini, Giorda, Worcester, Byington, Wright, Riggs, Dorsey, Williamson, Voth, Eells, Pandosy, Veniaminov, Barnum, André, Mathevet, Thavenet, Cuoq, Sagard, O’Meara, Jones, Wilson, Rand, Lacombe, Petitot, Maclean, Hunter, Horden, Kirkby, Watkins, Tims, Evans, Morice, Hall, Harrison, Legoff, Bompas, Peck, &c., are familiar to students of the aboriginal tongues of America.

When in 1900 the withdrawal by the United States of government aid to denominational schools occurred, it compelled some of the weaker churches to give up such work altogether, and interfered much with the activities of some of the stronger ones. According to the statistics given by Mooney (Handb. of Amer. Inds., 1907, pt. i. p. 897) the Catholic Church had in 1904 altogether, under the care of the Jesuits, Franciscans and Benedictines, &c., and the sisters of the orders of St Francis, St Anne, St Benedict, St Joseph, Mercy and Blessed Sacrament, “178 Indian churches and chapels served by 152 priests; 71 boarding and 26 day schools with 109 teaching priests, 384 sisters and 138 other religious or secular teachers and school assistants.” The Catholic mission work is helped by “the Preservation Society, the Marquette League and by the liberality of Mother Katharine Drexel, founder of the order of the Blessed Sacrament for negro and Indian mission work.” The corresponding statistics for the chief Protestant churches were as follows:—

Denomination.Missions and
Churches.		Missionaries.Schools.
Baptist1415 4
Congregationalist1012 5
Episcopalian142817
Friends1015 1
Mennonite 5 6 0
Methodist 40 1
Moravian 3 3 0
Presbyterian1016932
Total15718860

This is exclusive of Alaska, where Greek Orthodox (18 ministers in 1902), Roman Catholics (12 Jesuits and lay brothers and 11 sisters of St Anne in 1903), Moravians (5 mission stations with 13 workers and 21 native assistants among the Eskimo in 1903), Episcopalians (31 workers, white and native, 13 churches, 1 boarding and 7 day schools in 1903), Presbyterians (a dozen stations and several schools), Baptists, Methodists (several stations), Swedish Evangelical (several stations), Friends (several missions), Congregationalists (mission school) and Lutherans (orphanage), all are labouring.

Before the advent of the whites the children of the North American aborigines “had their own systems of education, through which the young were instructed in their coming labours and obligations, embracing not only the whole round of economic pursuits—hunting, fishing, handicraft, agriculture and household work—but speech, fine art, customs, etiquette, social obligations and tribal lore” (Mason). Parents, grandparents, the elders of the tribe, “priests,” &c., were teachers, boys coming early under the instruction of their male relatives and girls under that of their female relatives. Among some tribes special “teachers” of some of the arts existed and with certain of the more developed peoples, such as some of the Iroquoian and Siouan tribes, both childhood and the period of puberty received special attention. Playthings, toys and children’s games were widespread. Imitation of the arts and industries of their elders began early, and with not a few tribes there were “secret societies,” &c., for children and fraternities of various sorts, which they were allowed to join, thus receiving early initiation into social and religious ideas and responsibility in the tribal unit. Corporal punishment was little in vogue, the Iroquois e.g. condemning it as bad for the soul as well as the body. Appeals to the feelings of pride, shame, self-esteem, &c., were commonly made. As the treatment of the youth at puberty by the Omaha e.g. indicates, there was among some tribes distinct recognition of individuality, and the young Indian acquired his so-called “totem” or “guardian spirit” individually and not tribally. In some tribes, however, the tribal consciousness overpowered altogether children and youth. With the Indian, as with all other young human beings, “unconscious absorption” played its important rôle. Parental affection among some of the peoples north of Mexico reached as high a degree as with the whites, and devices for aiding, improving and amusing infants and children were innumerable. Some of the “beauty makers,” however, amounted to rather serious deformations, though often no worse than those due to the corset, the use of uncouth foot-wear, premature factory labour, &c., in civilized countries.

Interesting details of Indian child-life and education are to be found in books like Eastman’s Indian Boyhood (1902), Jenks’ Childhood of Jishib the Ojibwa (1900), Spencer’s Education of the Pueblo Child (1889), La Flesche’s The Middle Five (1901), Stevenson’s Religious Education of the Zuñi Child (1887), and in the writings of Miss A. C. Fletcher, J. O. Dorsey, J. Mooney, W. M. Beauchamp, &c., besides the accounts of missionaries and travellers of the better sort.

Outside of missions proper there were many efforts made by the colonists to educate the Indians. It is an interesting fact, emphasized by James in his English Institutions and the American Indian (1894), that several institutions still existing, and now of large influence in the educational world of the United States and Canada, had their origin in whole or in part in the desire to Christianize and to educate the aborigines, which object was mentioned in charters (e.g. Virginia in 1606 and again in 1621), &c. Sums of money were also left for the purposes of educating Indian children and youth, many of whom were sent over to England for that purpose, by colonists who adopted them (one such was Sampson Occum, minister and author of the hymn, “Awaked by Sinai’s Awful Sound”). In 1618 Henrico College in Virginia was founded, where Indian youth were taught religion, “civility” and a trade. It was succeeded by the College of William and Mary (founded in 1691 with the aid of a benefaction of Robert Boyle), where Indian youth were boarded and received their education for many years. The great university of Harvard has long outgrown “the Indian college at Cambridge,” whose single graduate Cheeshateaumuck, took his degree in 1665, but died afterwards of consumption. But its original charter provided for all things “that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness.” Since Cheeshateaumuck’s time, doubtless, there have been graduates of Harvard who could boast of Indian blood in their veins (e.g. recently William Jones, the ethnologist), but they have been few and far between. Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, founded in 1754, really grew out of Wheelock’s Indian school at Lebanon, Connecticut—at this period there were several such schools in New England, &c. In the royal charter, granted to Dartmouth in 1769, is the provision “that there be a College erected in our said Province of New Hampshire, by the name of Dartmouth College, for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land, in reading, writing and all parts of Learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and christianizing children of pagans, as well as in all liberal Arts and Sciences, and also of English Youth and any other.” The college of New Jersey long served as one of the institutions for the education of Indian youth. A glimpse of Indians at Princeton is given by Collins (Princeton Univ. Bull., 1902) in his account of the attempt to confer an academic education, at the end of the 18th century, upon Thomas Killbuck and his cousin, George Bright-eyes, son of a Delaware chief, and a descendant of Taimenend, eponym of the political “Tammany.” It would seem that at this period the states and Congress were in the habit of granting moneys for the education of individual Indians at various institutions.

At the present time the most noteworthy institutions for the education of the Indian in the United States are the Chilocco Indian Industrial school, under government auspices, in Kay county, Oklahoma, near Arkansas city, Kansas; the Carlisle school (government) at Carlisle, Pa.; and the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (private, but subsidized by the government), at Hampton, Va.