New England Missions and Schools to the Cherokees in Northeast Alabama 1820-1838

The story of the juxtaposition of attitudes, and practices of the white New England Christian missionaries and the cultural practices, beliefs, and way of life of the Cherokees in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee is illustrated in New England Missions and Schools to the Cherokees in Northeast Alabama 1820-1838. Ten years of research led the authors to write about the many difficulties, misunderstandings, lack of a common spoken language, and different world-views of the missionaries and the Cherokees. With the increasing encroachment of the white civilization, the time between the last half of the eighteenth century and the first three decades of the nineteenth century were very turbulent for the Cherokee people who inhabited the southeastern United States. With white people came missions and schools that were sponsored by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston, an organization that placed missionaries in several parts of the world beginning in 1810. It was composed of members of the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Dutch Reformed churches. The organization's first facility for Native Americans in the South was established in 1817 near Chattanooga, and was called Brainerd. Following the success of the mission at Brainerd, in Tennessee, the American Board began establishing similar facilities in other parts of Tennessee (Candy's Creek mission), in Georgia (Carmel, Hightower, and Haweis missions), and three in Alabama. One of the missions in Alabama was located just north of present Fort Payne, Alabama. Called Willstown Mission, it was established in 1823 by personnel from Brainerd, including William Chamberlin, born in Vermont, who served as an itinerate minister based at Willstown. The other American Board stations were Chattooga, a short-lived school established in 1820 near present Gaylesville, Alabama. The facility was in such a remote area that it did not attract enough Cherokee students to justify keeping it open. About the same time Chattooga was folding, another facility was opened near present-day Guntersville, Alabama called Creek Path. Both Willstown and Creek Path flourished as many Cherokee parents sent their children there to receive an education. Some of the students, who the missionaries called "scholars," boarded at the missions. In exchange for education the Cherokees were required to accept the religious practices of the missionaries and abide by rules that previously had not been part of their culture. All the American Board missions closed due to removal of the Native Americans to the West in the late 1839's. Using letters written by the missionaries to their headquarters in New England and letters of instruction they received in response, the authors have documented daily activities of missionary ministries, missions, churches, school, as well as their personal family lives, and the sometimes troubled and contentious relationships they had amongst themselves. In addition information about the daily lives, habits and culture of the Cherokees with which they worked are documented. Despite the difficulties, many deep and long lasting relationships developed during the two decades the American Board for Foreign Missions personnel and the Cherokees lived together in the East. Many of these relationships continued during the forced removal of the Cherokees, that became known as the Trail of Tears, to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.