Children at LCO's Waadookodaading School Sing for Senator Tammy Baldwin

Senator Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) and Senator Jon Tester (Montana, Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee) visited the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation yesterday (October 23rd). The LCO reservation is near Hayward, Wisconsin.

The children of the Waadookodaading School sang for the two senators in the Ojibwe language. A video clip is now on Facebook.

By the way, the Lac Courte Oreilles (pronounced "La Coot Ah-Ray") have a good website which includes a page devoted to their school which is, unfortunately, in the midst of something of a funding crisis right now.

In the video clip below, Senator Baldwin talks about her visit to the LCO reservation and school:

Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Epsicopalians, and Papists (Roman Catholics)

[caption id="attachment_8521" align="aligncenter" width="1250"] No matter what kind of beliefs you may have, it is a nearly impossible task to keep track of all of the various Christian denominations. [/caption]

How do Christian denominations define themselves? By their stated beliefs, right? Well, that is largely correct. But maybe the different church bodies are better understood in terms of their history, that is,  how and why they were established and how they evolved. Both of those are really good ways of understanding the denominations, but you can slice it up another way.

I'm talking about the question of how a church governs itself.

The names of different kinds of Christians in the title of this post are all derived from the political units that were emphasized in each church body.

The Congregationalists believe in local control. The powerful political unit for them is the local congregation.

The Presbyterians govern their church with a Presbytery, a court consisting of the ministers and elders of several congregations.

The Episcopalians (although it isn't obvious) get their name from the word "bishop." Their church government depends more than anything on a national council of bishops, known in the United States as the House of Bishops.

Roman Catholics were once referred to derisively as "papists," a reference to their allegiance to the Pope and a top-down hierarchy. Animosity between various Protestant churches and the Roman Catholics was high for many years.

 

Simple right? So simple that we have time to ask why these differences became prominent.

Congregationalism is associated with Puritanism and, as you may know, the Puritans believed that some individuals were predestined for salvation. The mark of being chosen for salvation was some kind of conversion experience. But that is a generalization. Puritan ministers often developed some kind of "morphology of conversion," a complex explanation for who had the right to call themselves Christians. All the controversies over what made one a legitimate Christian made local control the most efficient (and probably the only possible) form of church government for the Congregationalists.

Presbyterianism (like Congregationalism) is a Calvinist denomination. Although the origin of the word is not known, to me it seems logical that this church is governed by a "court" of ministers and elders, because John Calvin himself was a lawyer by trade.

The Episcopalian Church is associated with the Church of England and the Anglicans. I imagine that explains their focus on a council of bishops.

Finally, of course, the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the original Christian church. At some point it became too big for their bishops to govern, so they developed the present system of Cardinals and a pope.

 

 

John Brown's Place in American History

Once very controversial and now largely forgotten, John Brown certainly deserves acknowledgement as a great American freedom fighter.

But he was an outlaw who opposed the law of the land. (Slavery.)

But he advocated to bring about change through violence. (That isn't cool.)

And, although he may have tried as hard to end slavery as anybody, he was white, so he isn't likely to get mentioned during Black History Month. (There isn't time to honor a white man during Black History Month, is there?)

Who was John Brown and how does he now fit into American History?

Five years ago, John Hendrix gathered up all the recent work historians were doing on John Brown, interpreted it into clear language, drew up illustrations, and the result is an outstanding childrens' book:

John Brown: His Fight for Freedom

 

Since this blog is about church history, I should point out that John Brown's religion motivated him to work to abolish slavery. Hendrix gets even more specific than that.

Behold the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. -Ecclesiastes 4:1

This Bible passage caused something to happen inside John Brown's chest and he made an oath to fight slavery then and there (page 9).

When Kansas was set to vote on becoming a free state or a slave state, pro-slavery "ruffians" destroyed crops, burned settlements and killed people who got in their way. When the ruffians made threats towards John Brown he wouldn't stand for it. He and his sons took five pro-slavery settlers to a creek and killed them with broadswords (page 15).

From that point on, John Brown wasn't just an outlaw to the federal government, he was a crazed madman to many but a folk hero to others.

Violence - even used for a good cause - is what it is. But, by its own nature, slavery required violence and perpetuated more violence. John Hendrix makes the point that many, many free people were opposed to slavery before the Civil War, but not many people were doing much about it. Except talking. And talking didn't get it done. However, at the same time, Hendrix says "John didn't believe bloodshed was the answer."

Anyway, the reason I wrote this post today is that today is the 155th anniversary of John Brown's famous raid of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. Unfortunately, I don't have space here to summarize the raid. Instead, I recommend that you either read about it at U.S. history.org or, better yet, get your hands on Hendrix's book and read pages 18 to 35.

How Was Lead Mined by the Ho-Chunk?

My last post was about one particular lead mine worked by Ho-Chunk Indians for fifteen years before it was sold to a white man. White miners were probably using picks and shovels when they first settled in the lead district which is now made up of parts of Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. Unfortunately, I don't have a complete description of their processes.

On the other hand, Moses Meeker in his "Early History of the Lead Region of Wisconsin" (page 281) gives us a pretty thorough description of Ho-Chunk lead mining.

Their tools were a hoe made for the Indian trade , an axe, and a crowbar, made of an old gun barrel flattened at the breach, which they used for removing the rock. Their mode of blasting was rather tedious to be sure; they got dry wood, kindled a fire along the rock as far as they wished to break it. After getting the rock hot, they poured cold water upon it which so cracked it that they could pry it up.

White miners would eventually dominate the lead district. I have read a rather vague statement somewhere that the white miners used technology to force the Indians out of lead mining. However, other factors are also noted by Meeker: 1) the Indians' tendency to view mining as "women's work" meant that their physically strongest people weren't digging or blasting, and 2) although Indians were skilled at discovering sites to mine lead, the same Indians were also often willing to show white miners these sites in exchange for whiskey (page 290).



As evidenced by the state flag, mining was still an essential part of Wisconsin's economy when it became a state in 1848.

The Old Buck Lead Mine

Old Buck was a Ho-Chunk Indian who spoke broken English well enough to deal with his white neighbors.

He lived in the area that we would now call Illinois, but present-day Wisconsin and Iowa were also part of his stomping grounds.

Moses Meeker, was qualified to write "Early History of [the] Lead Region of Wisconsin" because he was active in lead mining in the 1820's. The title of Meeker's recollection, of course, is problematic, because, first of all, our current state boundaries were not yet established at that time and also because lead mining went on, not only in present-day Wisconsin, but also in present-day Illinois and Iowa.

[caption id="attachment_7994" align="aligncenter" width="577"] An artist's conception of Galena [Illinois] after Indians stopped working in the mines.[/caption]For the most part, Meeker capably describes the early days of lead mining in Wisconsin. My only complaint is that he is somewhat inexact or inconsistent on page 281.

There were about five hundred Indians; their women quite industrious miners, but their men would not work.

He must have meant that to be a relative statement because he later tells us that "Old Buck was reputed to be the best miner among the Indians" (and Old Buck, of course, was a man).

Old Buck discovered a lead deposit less than two miles from where Galena, Illinois now stands. He and his wife and their friends worked that spot for fifteen years. It must have been a particularly good place to mine. On page 281-282 Meeker states that Old Buck sold his mine to Colonel J. Johnson in 1833 for $300. Johnson continued to operate The Old Buck Lead Mine for a number of years.

Was Old Buck cheated by Johnson? Well, looking back on it now, we might guess that he was. But in those days, whites engaged in maneuvers that forced Natives out of the mining industry. White technology was used as an economic weapon. So by paying Old Buck real money for his mine - even if it wasn't what we'd call "full value," the colonel was probably being more ethical than a lot of the other whites were in the pre-statehood lead mining days.

Bishop Jackson Kemper

By the time he was 42 years old, the Episcopal priest, Jackson Kemper, had been married twice, and made a widower twice.

He'd been born in New York State in 1789 and from 1811 to 1831 he served three parishes in Philadelphia. Being a single clergyman with plenty of pastoral experience - including mission experience he picked up during vacations from his regular position - qualified Jackson Tremper to serve on the frontier. (Academic degrees, of course, were also considered to be a qualification, and Kemper was a Doctor of Divinity and had been the valedictorian of his class at Columbia College.)

In 1834, Kemper left the settled east and arrived at what is now known as Wisconsin. On behalf of a mission society that was affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church, he was charged with making a report on a mission that was started in 1827 by Rev. Richard Cadle, and his sister, Miss Sarah Cadle. This mission was an essential part of a settlement known as "Shantytown" (now part of DePere). Unsurprisingly, the Episcopal mission had not gotten off to a good start. To the Indians, the Cadles' discipline was rigid, perhaps even oppressively rigid. Furthermore, the kind of Christianity that had existed in the Green Bay area among French traders and others for many years was Roman Catholicism - let's not forget that back in the 1800's Catholics and Protestants didn't get along.

In 1832, Richard Cadle - who was discouraged by the lack of success he was having - asked the mission society that was supporting himself and his sister to relieve them of their burden. Somehow, the mission society persuaded the Cadles to carry on with their work in Shantytown by promising more support for the mission. Jackson Kemper traveled to what was known as "the Northwest" back then, in order to see the Cadles' Shantytown mission firsthand and report back to the mission society. Jackson Kemper kept a diary on that trip which - along with footnotes provided by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin - is the source used in this blogpost. [Access Kemper's diary here.]

To make a long story short, in Kemper's opinion, the Cadles' mission was at least successful enough to be worth the effort:

Is it nothing to have rescued more than 200 ch[ildren] from
degradation & vice & ignorance & death—to teach them the arts &
feelings of civilized life and the principles of the Gospel? * * * Many of
these chld are real Indians born in our ch, but who would be ignorant of
knowledge & our language were it not for this school. And many born
heathen exhibit by their conduct & writings an evidence of the Gospel
upon their souls. Here, in this mission the Ch is exerting herself & has an
opportunity of doing good to heathen. If we give up this, we abandon the
only post we have among the heathen. We have more Indian child here
than they have at Macanaw—& the schools of the ch[urch] Miss[ionary]
Soc[iety] among the N W Indians are principally composed of the children
of white traders. Some of the chld here in 2 yrs have in addition to a
knowledge of the language acquired as much school information i. e.
made as much progress in spelling, reading, writing, composition,
geography, grammar & arithmetic as chld of similar age in the district
school of Connecticut.

In 1835 Jackson Kemper was elected the first missionary Bishop of his denomination.



You can read a more complete biography of Bishop Jackson Kemper on Harry Allagee's Good Heart blog (the visual above is taken from that site).