Native Americans on the Path to the Catholic Church: Cultural Crisis and Missionary Adaptation

To help understand the conversion of Native Americans to Catholicism, historians need to take into account the historical and social context of the American Indian community at the time when many Indians were leaving their ancient Stone Age religion and adopting Christianity. Indian religions all were closely linked to their hunting, farming or raiding economies, and by the 1890’s their ancient lifestyle would end. The United States government placed most of the Western Indians on reservations from 1850 to 1890, and it was during this turbulent period that missionaries established permanent missions among them. In addition to their task of converting the Indians, Catholic missionaries had to help them adapt to a new economy, land boundaries, diet, social rules, marital rules, morals, and political system. In contrast, when Jesuit missionaries went to China in the seventeenth century, they did not attempt to make radical changes to Chinese culture, but rather focused on spreading the Catholic faith. In the Native American missions, religion and culture had to change together. Catholic missionaries, however, were not agents of the American government; they were representatives of a modern American Catholic culture that often tried to distinguish itself from many American social trends. With the movement of white population into the American West, Indians faced some of the most rapid and dramatic cultural changes in history. These profound economic and social changes were the primary forces that brought an end to traditional Native American religions.

One of the central aspects of Indian religion that could not survive the encounter with modern culture was the institution of shamanism. Most Indian tribes had shamans who were the healers of the community. Shamans operated under the theory that breaking religious rules would bring sickness to the individual or would have adverse affects on hunting or farming. Diagnosis and treatment of illness and poor hunting were the shamans’ responsibility. Indians believed that shamans were capable of sending their souls out of their bodies, traveling to the land of the gods, and fixing the problems. The tragic outbreak of smallpox and other diseases among Native Americans had the effect of discrediting the shamans who were powerless to hinder the devastation of the diseases. At the beginning of the missions, shamans were the rivals of Catholic missionaries, and the missionaries certainly did try to discredit them. At times, Catholic missionaries themselves administered medicines to Indians and vaccinated them against disease.¹ When priests, nuns or white doctors provided medicines, Western medicine began to replace the shamans’ remedies and through this process a central part of Native American religion began to erode.

Changes in trade and the introduction of Western goods also degraded Native American culture, and the fur trade was a profound example of this. One of the hallmarks of Indian religion was the interdependent relationship between the animals and the people. Native peoples saw the animals as spirits or gods. To ensure a good hunt, the Indians would invoke and propitiate the animal spirits. In turn the animals would allow themselves to be killed by the people. In Native American religion, the idea that the animals sacrificed themselves for the good of the people was a common theme.² The fur trade, however, brought an end to this benevolent relationship between the hunters and the hunted. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Indian overhunting decimated beaver populations in the Great Lakes area.³ Native Americans’ desire for copper pots, steel knives, silver, wool blankets, cotton cloth and alcohol changed their relationship with the animals. No longer were the fur-bearing animals hunted for food with accompanying rituals that honored their sacrifice. The fur trade changed the animals from self-sacrificing spirits into commodities. Although rum traders deserve blame for this tragedy that caused the devastation of the beaver population around the Great Lakes and the degradation of Indian communities, it seems fair to ask why Indians abandoned the animal spirits for copper, iron, rum and other Western goods. If they were really attached to their conception of the balance of nature, the avoidance of overhunting and their worship of...