Published: December 20, 2008 09:56 pm         

Ministering to the American Indians

Many different denominations have sent missionaries to American Indians in Oklahoma and these men and women have had a profound impact on our state.

The earliest was Dwight Mission in far eastern Oklahoma. It was founded in 1821 near Russellville, Ark., by Presbyterian minister Cephas Washburn. It was the first American mission to the American Indians west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokees requested it be moved farther west, and in 1828, it was established near Sallisaw with the goal to provide education for Cherokee children. The school was closed in 1948, but Dwight Mission exists today as a Presbyterian camp, retreat and conference center.

Others missions in eastern Oklahoma include Wheelock Academy, founded in 1832 for the Choctaws by the Congregationalist Church; Bloomfield Academy, founded by the Methodists in 1852 for Chickasaw womenl and Tullahassee Mission, founded by the Presbyterians in 1850 for the Creeks. Alice Mary Robertson, Oklahoma’s first female U.S. Representative, was born at Tullahassee Mission, the grandaughter of the missionary Samuel Austin Worcester.

Catholics were active among the Ponca, Otoe and Osage in northern Oklahoma and the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache in Anadarko. Their most famous mission was Sacred Heart Abbey, founded in 1877 by Father Isidore Robot of France, in what is now far southeastern Pottawatomie County. By 1880, he had built a monastery, schools for American Indian boys and girls, a technical institute, a seminary and a large church. This was the ancestor of St. Gregory’s College, founded by the Benedictines in Shawnee in 1915.

In western Oklahoma, John H. Seger, though not a missionary himself, established a rapport with American Indians, and in 1886, he established a “Colony” of American Indians on Cobb Creek. This became a center for first Arapahoes then Cheyenne. The Mennonites opened a mission here in 1889. In 1896, the Dutch Reformed Church established a mission, operated by Frank Hall Wright, Walter Roe and others. The town of Colony continues to preserve this.

In 1896, a Baptist missionary from Canada named Isabel Crawford arrived at Saddle Mountain in southwest Oklahoma to establish a Baptist mission station. Saddle Mountain was notable for the number of Kiowa missionaries and pastors it produced, including George Hunt, Ioleta McElhaney and Sherman Chaddlesone. Crawford clashed with Baptist officials who opposed the Saddle Mountain practice of administering communion without an ordained, white minister and was forced to transfer from Oklahoma in 1906. When she died in 1961, her body was returned to Oklahoma and buried at the head of the Saddle Mountain cemetery under a stone that reads, “ I dwell among mine own people.” She is just another example of the many men and women who have given their lives as missionaries for American Indians in Oklahoma.



Information provided by Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center.