Topics in Kansas History: Community & Daily Life

Essay on Religion

A great variety of religious denominations built missions and churches in Kansas. The majority came from the Protestant Christian tradition, but large numbers of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox came to parts of the state. Blended into the mix were a few Jews and Free-Thinkers.

McCoy began his missionary work among the Indians in Indiana and Michigan. By the early 1820s he had reached the conclusion that the eastern Indians could best be protected and civilized by moving them westward to the area beyond Missouri where they could escape the vices and diseases of the whites. Through a long lobbying effort, McCoy was able to secure the adoption of his plan by the U.S. government.

About 1830, McCoy came to the territory which later would become Kansas. From land secured by the government from the native Kansa and Osage Indians, he carved out districts for each of the immigrant tribes which were to be moved in from the East. As a leading Baptist missionary he established a series of Baptist missions throughout the new Indian territory. These he staffed, primarily, with younger missionaries who had served under him during his earlier work.

Other religious denominations began to set up their own missions about the same time.

Dr. Lykins was a close associate of Isaac McCoy in his early missionary work and married his daughter, Delilah. In 1831, Lykins founded the Shawnee Baptist Mission near present-day Kansas City, Kansas. Here he and his staff worked to improve the spiritual, educational, and physical conditions of the neighboring Indians, although most of the natives were reluctant to abandon their traditional beliefs and lifestyles.

A trained printer, Meeker made one of his greatest contributions by devising a written form for various Indian languages, particularly Ottawa, and by printing materials in those languages. He established a printing press at the Shawnee Baptist Mission in the early 1830s. This he moved to the Ottawa Baptist Mission near present-day Ottawa when he and his wife, Eleanor, opened that missionary station in 1837.

Like nearly all wives of missionaries, Eleanor Meeker worked very closely with her husband. She was largely responsible for caring for the Indian girls at the Ottawa Mission and for training them to perform household chores in the Euro-American manner.

Much of the education at the missions was designed to be practical, from a white viewpoint. Simerwell was a farmer and a blacksmith, skills which he tried to pass on to his Indian students, often much against their will. First, from the early 1830s, he worked at the Shawnee Baptist Mission. Then, in 1848, he moved to the new Pottawatomie Manual Labor School west of present-day Topeka.

Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Robert Simerwell, taught with her father at the Pottawatomie Manual Labor School. Many young women pursued teaching careers at the various missions until the trying conditions drove them away or marriage lured them to a more settled life. A few of these women married missionaries and shared a long-term commitment to working with the Indians.

This buildings housed Pottawatomie children who were being trained in white ways. Besides learning to read and write English, girls studied such domestic arts as sewing and cooking while boys were instructed in modern agricultural and mechanical techniques. Other subjects were taught from time to time.

The upper story of the building served as a dormitory with girls sleeping in one end and boys in the other. Separate classrooms for boys and girls occupied the second floor. The ground floor contained a kitchen and separate dining rooms.

From 1848 until 1861, Baptist missionaries and teachers fought disease, bickering among themselves, and general indifference among the Indians in an attempt to Americanize their pupils. Operations continued only sporadically until the mission closed about 1869. The main mission building was transformed into a barn, as it appears in this later picture.

The Rev. John G. Pratt and his wife, Olivia, took over the Delaware Baptist Mission in 1848 after ten years of service at the Shawnee and Stockbridge missions. The Pratts operated the mission until it closed in 1864.

This house remained in the hands of Pratt family members for many years. It contained a fine collection of papers and objects from the mission, which were later donated to the Kansas State Historical Society.

Founder of the Shawnee Methodist Mission in 1830, Johnson was one of the most prominent missionaries in the future Kansas. He served as the superintendent of the mission and, after the formation of Kansas Territory in 1854, he became deeply involved in territorial politics, on the proslavery side.

Thomas Johnson, his family, and the teachers lived in this house. Other buildings contained sleeping quarters for the Indian students and classrooms for the manual labor training school.

The Methodist mission for Kansa or Kaw Indians was moved to Council Grove in 1850. Like other missions, it offered general education and vocational training for Indian children. The mission school remained open only for four years, but farming operations continued somewhat longer.

In 1837, Samuel and Eliza Irvin opened the Iowa Presbyterian Mission near Highland in Doniphan County. Indians from the nearby Sac and Fox reservations also received services through the mission.

The Catholic Mission followed the Pottawatomie Indians as they were shuffled from one district to another by the U.S. government. In 1849 the mission was moved to St. Mary's where it operated for the next twenty years.

Catholic missionaries accompanied the Osage Indians when they moved onto their Kansas lands in the mid-1820s, but no permanent station was established until the Osage Catholic Mission was founded on the Neosho River in 1847. Mother Bridget Hayden started a school for Indian girls there in 1848. This evolved into a long-lasting female academy for both Indians and whites.

Many churches, both Catholic and Protestant, operated parochial schools to foster the culture and beliefs of their respective groups.

A few of the Volga-Germans in central Kansas were Lutherans or Mennonites but most, like the Rohrs, were Catholics.

The Friends or Quakers built a mission on the Shawnee Indian lands in the 1830s, about the same time that the Baptists and the Methodists opened their first missions. Later, Quakers were appointed as agents on many of the Indian reservations because they had gained a reputation for treating the natives fairly.

Mennonites and other groups of Anabaptists were the "plain people" of Kansas. Although many differing sects were represented, they were very similar in their simple lifestyles and in their practice of adult baptism.

The press published church tracts, but it was best known for its progressive newspaper, Vorwaerts, which advocated major reforms in American society.

Opened in 1883, the Halstead Seminary merged 10 years later with Bethel College in North Newton.

This label may be incorrect. The Old Order Amish did not have churches but instead they met in members' homes. Also they prohibited photographs of themselves so would not have had a picture such as can be seen on the front wall. However, it is possible that this was a liberal group of Amish, more like the Mennonites, who allowed deviations from the traditional practices.

If this couple is truly Amish, they have departed from Amish customs by posing for this picture. Innovations in the man's clothing would be the necktie, the collar on the shirt, and the lapels on the coat.

The Dunkers separated from the German Baptist Brethren Church about 1880 because they thought it was becoming too worldly. Similarly to the Amish, the Dunkers held tightly to the form of primitive Christianity which arose in Germany and Switzerland during the Protestant Reformation.

Rural churches seldom had baptistries, so ministers resorted to the nearest adequate body of water.

Bible salesmen took their wares to their scattered customers, just like other peddlers.

Revivals have been a recurring feature of Kansas history, meeting outdoors, in tents, or in almost any type of building.

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