eBook

To Live upon Hope

Wheeler, Rachel

2008,2013,2017

Overview

Two Northeast Indian communities with similar histories of colonization accepted Congregational and Moravian missionaries, respectively, within five years of one another: the Mohicans of Stockbridge, Massachusetts (1735), and Shekomeko, in Dutchess County, New York (1740). InTo Live upon Hope, Rachel Wheeler explores the question of what \"missionary Christianity\" became in the hands of these two native communities. The Mohicans of Stockbridge and Shekomeko drew different conclusions from their experiences with colonial powers. Both tried to preserve what they deemed core elements of Mohican culture. The Indians of Stockbridge believed education in English cultural ways was essential to their survival and cast their acceptance of the mission project as a means of preserving their historic roles as cultural intermediaries. The Mohicans of Shekomeko, by contrast, sought new sources of spiritual power that might be accessed in order to combat the ills that came with colonization, such as alcohol and disease. Through extensive research, especially in the Moravian records of day-to-day life, Wheeler offers an understanding of the lived experience of Mohican communities under colonialism. She complicates the understanding of eighteenth-century American Christianity by demonstrating that mission programs were not always driven by the destruction of indigenous culture and the advancement of imperial projects.To Live upon Hopechallenges the prevailing view of accommodation or resistance as the two poles of Indian responses to European colonization. Colonialism placed severe strains on native peoples, Wheeler finds, yet Indians also exercised a level of agency and creativity that aided in their survival.

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Subject: 18th century / christian mission / Christianity / Colonial history / Colonial Period (1600-1775) / Colonialism / Congregational churches / Congregational churches -- Missions -- Massachusetts -- Stockbridge -- History -- 18th century / Cultural contact / Ethnic relations / HISTORY / HISTORY / World / Indigenous populations / Interethnic relations / Mahican Indians / Mahican Indians -- Missions -- History -- 18th century / Massachusetts / Missionaries / Missions / mohican adaptation / mohican history / mohican mission experience / Mohicans / Moravian Church / Moravian Church -- Missions -- New York (State) -- Shekomeko Site -- History -- 18th century / Moravian Indians / Moravian Indians -- Missions -- New York (State) -- Shekomeko Site -- History -- 18th century / Moravians / Native American / native american indoctrination / NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES / native communities / native religious history / New York / New York (State) / North Amerindians / northeast indian communities / RELIGIOUS STUDIES / Shekomeko / Shekomeko Site / Shekomeko Site (N.Y.) / Shekomeko Site (N.Y.) -- Ethnic relations / Shekomeko Site (N.Y.) -- History -- 18th century / Stockbridge / Stockbridge (Mass.) / Stockbridge (Mass.) -- Ethnic relations / Stockbridge (Mass.) -- History -- 18th century / Stockbridge Indians / Stockbridge Indians -- Missions -- Massachusetts -- Stockbridge -- History -- 18th century / U.S. HISTORY / U.S.A / United States
• ISBN: 9780801446313, 0801446317, 9780801478895, 0801478898