-
IV. Evangelical Ministry to the Multi-Ethnic Community at Mackinac, 1822–1837 [Includes Image Plates]
- Michigan State University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
IV. Evangelical Ministry to the Multi-Ethnic Community at Mackinac, 1822-1837 P rotestant missionaries came to Mackinac Island armed with an intertwined, two-part strategy to reform the fur-trade society. First, they hoped to convert as many people as possible to evangelical Christianity by encouraging men, women, and children to undergo a personal conversion experience. This rite of passage was both a visible means of coming to know God and a sign that a true spiritual transformation had taken place in the new believer. Both old and new members of the Presbyterian church participated actively in its spiritual and communal life. William and Amanda Ferry organized numerous opportunities for prayer, preaching, and teaching designed to help churchgoers grow spiritually and learn more about biblical truths. The second component of the missionaries' plan, inseparable from the first, was to influence-even force-both believers and nonbelievers to conform to evangelical social principles. The Ferrys and their cohorts lived by a rigid standard of behavior that at times brought them into conflict with other people living in the community. Among the marks of a true diSciple of Christ, from the evangelical perspective, were proper observance of the Sabbath, monogamous sexual relationships in marriage, abstinence from or temperate use of alcohol, and active participation in the worship and prayer services of the church. In order to change the overall behavior of a large number of people, the missionaries wanted to convert the prominent people in the community to this life style, hoping that they would then demand that men and women under their authority would live accordingly. In 1829, the evangelicals added a third element to their program: vehement opposition to attempts by Roman Catholic clergy, especially Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, to breathe new vitality into the Catholic congregation on Mackinac Island. A bitter controversy resulted that not only created painful divisions among religious people on the island, but it became a battle over which form of Christianity was most appropriate in American society. In matters of religion, the evangelicals had no desire to conform the life of their church to the ways of the middle ground, where people who had different 69 BATTLE FOR THE SOUL beliefs negotiated understandings that allowed them to tolerate each others faith. While Presbyterian church members made accommodations with the Metis on the street, in the market place, and in the fur trade, they refused to do so in matters of religion, except to formalize marriages between American traders and their unbelieving Native wives. The evangelicals' outright rejection of religious beliefs and practices other than their own meant that few Metis or Indian adults were accepted into full fellowship in the Presbyterian congregation. William Ferry organized the Presbyterian congregation of Mackinac Island on 23 February 1823. Besides himself, it consisted of eight members: Miles and Anna Standish, previously Methodists; Mrs. Christine Carlson, a soldiers wife and member of the Dutch Reformed Church; Ambrose R. Davenport, who first came to the island with the United States army in 1796; Davenport's daughter Elizabeth and her husband, John Campbell, the son of the late Robert Campbell, a Scottish fur trader and mill operator on the mainland; Isaac Blanchard, who had been a soldier at Fort Mackinac; and businessman William Sylvester. As far as can be determined, only Campbell had any Indian heritage.l Over the next fourteen years the church roll grew to over one hundred and included some of the most prominent people living at Mackinac and in the Lake Superior Country (see table 4). Among this group were Robert and Elizabeth Stuart, Dr. Richard and Mary Satterlee, William and Sophia Mitchell, Michael andJane Dousman, Lyman Warren, Daniel Dingley, and Henry Schoolcraft. These people not only provided leadership within the church; they also held key positions in the region's economic, political, and social institutions.2 An analysis of the 1829 church membership roll reveals that the Ferrys enjoyed their greatest success among English-speaking people, especially women. Included among the members were eighteen missionaries and twenty-five people of Indian descent, of whom seven were full-blood. Seventeen of the Indians and Metis lived at the mission, and fifteen of these were students. Together there were twenty-three men and fifty-five women. Adult Anglo-Metis who can be identified, were John Campbell and William Mitchell. Mrs. Henry Gravereat and Sophia Mitchell probably were French-Metis, but apparently no adult male French-Metis joined the church. Excluding the eastern missionaries, there were eleven husbands and wives...