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The great, pre-Civil War attempt of Protestant missionaries to Christianize Native Americans is found by Robert F. Berkofer, Jr. to be a significant point of contact with enduring lessons for American thought. The irony displayed by this relationship, he says, did not really lie in the disparity between Anglo-Saxon ideals and the actual treatment of first peoples but in the failure of all, including the missions, to see that both sides had ultimately behaved according to their cultural values.

Using the records of missions to sixteen tribes in various regions of the United States, Berkofer has carefully followed the hopeful efforts of sixty-five years. The ultimate outcome, when the Civil War brought most of the missions to an end, was only a nominal conversion of Native Americans, despite the unflagging optimism of missionaries struggling against cultural barriers.

This work was co-recipient of the McKnight Foundation Humanities Prize in American History for 1963.

Robert F. Berkofer, Jr. was professor of history emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Publication Date

1965

Publisher

The University Press of Kentucky

Place of Publication

Lexington, KY

ISBN

9780813151243

eISBN

9780813162102

Keywords

Native Americans, Indians, Missions

Disciplines

United States History

Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787–1862
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