Читать книгу The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy - Robert Elliott Flickinger - Страница 20

Rev. John Edwards. Wheelock Academy, 1853–61; 1882–95.

When Columbus landed on the shores of America, the Indians were the only people he found occupying this great continent. During the long period that has intervened, the Indian has furnished proof, that he possesses all the attributes which God has bestowed upon other members of the human family. He has shown that he has an intellect capable of development, that he is willing to receive instruction and that he is capable of performing any duty required of an American citizen.

Considerable patience however has had to be exercised both by the church in its effort to bring him under the saving influence of the gospel, and by the government in its effort to elevate him to the full standard of citizenship. Results are achieved slowly. His struggles have been many and difficult. He has needed counsel and encouragement at every advancing step.

In the former days, when the Indian supported his family by hunting, trapping and fishing, he moved about from place to place. This was finally checked in Indian Territory by the individual allotment of lands in 1904. He has thus been compelled by the force of circumstances, to change his mode of life. He has gradually discovered he can settle down on his own farm, improve it by the erection of good buildings, and either buy or make the implements he needs for cultivating the soil.

The great commission to the church to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," will not be completed until the American Indian and the Freedmen, who were his former slaves, have been brought under its uplifting influence.

The Presbyterian church throughout all its history has been the friend and patron of learning and inasmuch as the evangelistic work among the Indians and Freedmen, has been largely dependent on school work for permanent results, it began to establish schools among the Indians at a very early date. The work among the five civilized tribes was begun many years before they were transported from the southern states to Indian Territory. Some of these missionaries migrated with them and continued both their school and church work in the Territory. Rev. Alfred Wright, who organized the Presbyterian church at Wheelock in December, 1832, and died there in 1853, after receiving 570 members into it, began his work as a missionary to the Choctaws in 1820.

The aim of the government in its educational work among the Indians, as elsewhere in the public schools of the country, has been mainly to make them intelligent citizens. The aim of the church, by making the Bible a daily textbook, is to make them happy and hopeful Christians, as well as citizens. In the early days there was great need for this educational work, and in the Presbyterian church it was carried forward by its foreign mission board, with wisdom, energy and success.

In 1861 the Presbyterian church had established and was maintaining six boarding schools with 800 pupils and six day schools among the Indians in the Territory. Two of these schools, Spencer and Wheelock Academies, were located in the southern part of the Choctaw Nation.

In 1840 the Presbytery of Indian was organized and in 1848 the Presbytery of the Creek Nation. In 1861 these included an enrollment of 16 churches with a communicant membership of 1,772.