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"A Useful Christian Woman"

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"A Useful Christian Woman": First Nations' Women and Protestant Missionary Work in Ma^aret whitehead T-» • • i ^i i • Camosun College British Columbia — Lansdowne Campus ABSTRACT Research on British Columbia's missionary frontier suggests that women made a vital contribution to the Churches' proselytization work among the province's First Nations. However, proselytization was not the work of white women only. Aboriginal women appear to have contributed significantly to the missionary work of the Protestant Churches. Christianity, which imposed European values along with conversion, had a profound effect on aboriginal women's lives. For some, it offered, as it had to their white sisters, new opportunities for influence and status; for others, it created alienation from their people and culture. RESUME La recherche sur les missionnaires de la Colombie-britannique revele que les femmes ont joue un role vital dans le travail du clerge parmi les autochtones de la province. L'evangelisation n'a cependant pas seulement ete l'oeuvre des femmes blanches; en effet, les femmes autochtones semblent avoir, elles aussi, grandement contribue a ce travail. Le christianisme, qui imposait les valeurs europeennes tout en convertissant, a profondement marque la vie des femmes autochtones. Pour certaines, il leur a offert, comme pour leurs consceurs blanches, une chance d'avoir de l'influence sur leur condition et de l'ameliorer. Pour d'autres, cependant, il les a alienees de leur peuple et de leur culture. N THE MORNING OF TUESDAY, JANU- was the first mission work in the province to ary 25, 1921, the Crosby Girls' Home be supported by the Canadian Methodist O at Port Simpson, on the northwest Women's Missionary Society. On this occa• coast of British Columbia, was destroyed by sion, neither the buildings nor their contents fire. Port Simpson was the site of a Hudson's could be saved. Almost immediately, Kate Bay Company fort founded in 1831. It was Dudoward, a Tsimshian woman who, with her moved in 1834, and the local Tsimshian peo• husband Alfred, worked with the Methodist ple had settled nearby. The Crosby Girls' Church, as well as other First Nations women, Home for the protection and training of First collected clothing and money for the mission Nations girls, which had operated since 1881, staff. She tried to ensure the continuity of the Home's work by reminding the local people Historically, the response of North Amer• — considered by the W.M.S. to be "the most ican aboriginal women to the missionary progressive and advanced" First Nations peo• efforts of various Christian churches has been ples in the province1 — that they owned their far from uniform. According to one study in progress to both the W.M.S. and the Methodist the United States, missionaries experienced Church Missionary Society which had, for their earliest successes among women, notably decades, supported missionary work amongst among female children, adolescents, and them. According to one of the Home's work• "women in their child-bearing years."5 It has ers, Kate Dudoward "cited the great losses been argued that, in the seventeenth and eigh• these societies had sustained in the wreck of teenth centuries, a number of American First [mission] boats and the recent fire," and she Nations women "turned to Christianity with a "urged everybody to be faithful and to teach fervour and intellectual intensity so convincing their children in the same way."2 Kate Dudo• as to astound Euro-American missionaries and ward was a committed Christian aboriginal lay observers."6 For her part, in her study of women and, in her devotion, the Methodist the Tlingit people of Alaska, Laura Klein dis• Church could read a measure of its success. covered that the missionaries' most successful However, how typical was Kate? converts were women.7 However, across North America, the pattern is not consistent. The Most accounts of missionary work concen• Montagnais women studied by anthropologist trate on the success or failure of the mission• Eleanor Leacock were, because of the egalitar• aries' efforts3 and, consequently, little attention ian nature of Montagnais-Nescapi society, has been paid to the nature of First Nations openly hostile to Jesuit conversion efforts. peoples' response to Christianity; their partici• Devens argues that Montagnais men "identi• pation in the proselytization process remains fied women as the major obstacle to the 8 largely undocumented.4 Not surprisingly, nei• group's conversion." Ottawa women also ther the extent of the response of aboriginal proved to be frustrating for these French women to the gospel message, nor the positive priests. As one noted: or negative impact of the response is known. Using primarily the records left by missionary We found no persons more attached to personnel, female and male, this article will these silly customs, or more obstinate in focus on a number of ways in which First Na• clinging to this error than the old women, tions women participated in missionary work who will not lend an ear to our instructions.9 and how that participation affected their lives. It will also attempt to reveal how the advent of British Columbia aboriginal women's response Christianity itself, which imposed European to Christianity was also uneven. values along with conversion, made critical changes in First Nations women's culture. Some women, like Kate Dudoward, Jane While for some, Christianity created new op• Cook of Alert Bay, Vancouver Island, and portunities for influence and status, for others, Lucy Sewid and Mary Bell, Kwakiutl of Fort it alienated them from their own people and Rupert (both Lucy and Mary are referred to by caused them new cultural and social problems. their grandson, James Sewid, a Kwakiutl lead• By their commitment to their newly acquired 10 er, as "very religious women" ) responded faith, First Nations women both assumed a positively to the Christian message. While new status and courted ostracization. there is no way of knowing what this term means as far as the depth of conversion is ples' proselytization and its successes must, of concerned, the comment clearly notes that the course, be utilized with extreme care. Ethno- family believed the women were committed centricity, combined with the wide cultural gap Christians. Furthermore, a comment by Rever• between the missionaries and peoples "whose end Thomas Crosby, which described the com• sense of self and the cosmos [had] been mitment a Salish of Cultus Lake, Annie Lay- shaped by different cultural pre-supposi- Why-eton, reveals the dedication that a tions,"15 must have led, inevitably, to major response to Christianity could elicit. According communication errors. Not only in the early to Crosby, Annie: years, but even, in some cases, into the 1930s and 1940s, missionaries were impeded by the used to trudge in feebleness from Kultus language barrier. For example, even though [sic] Lake on the Upper Chilliwack, to the the Anglican Church had been active at Alert church at Skowkale.... She was blind and Bay since the 1880s, Church leaders needed had to cross the river on a single log." the assistance of an interpreter in their dis• There were also, however, women who op• cussions with local people at a special meeting posed missionary efforts. called in June 1936 by the Anglican Church at Alert Bay to discuss the continuity of aborigi• The Anglicans who opened a mission in nal peoples' participation in the now illegal 1869 at Alberni, Vancouver Island, ran into Potlatch ceremonials.16 women's strong resistance. According to the local minister, the Reverend J.X. Willemar: The Chinook language, which many Prot• estant missionaries used to some extent, while After the first few weeks, preaching to the adequate for trade dealings, proved to be inad• heathen was commenced. Forty persons equate for mission work. As commented the attended the first service. These were all Reverend Dr. Campbell, a pioneer Presbyterian men: the women could not be induced to 12 missionary, "to try to preach the Gospel in attend. 17 Chinook is a farce, an utter impossibility." Women's reluctance to change was also noted Consequently, interpreters remained the key to by a female Methodist missionary working any understanding between Church workers among some of the Tsimshian of the Port and both prospective and recognized First Na• Simpson area. The women "love their old tions converts. The accuracy of First Nations ways," she wrote;13 over a year later, she was peoples' commentary on their conversion ex• still complaining that they "clung more firmly periences and what those experiences meant in than their husbands to the old heathen cus• their lives depended, most often, on the skills toms."14 Unfortunately, neither of the two mis• of aboriginal interpreters, both women and sionaries who reported their difficulties men, their command of English — even their pursued the issue of women's reluctance. Yet trustworthiness. it is almost solely through such missionary comments that we learn of aboriginal peoples' Missionaries also tended to embellish their response to Christianity. accounts of aboriginal peoples' conversion and proselytization efforts in order to promote their Missionary comments regarding the con• own work and to obtain funding. It is easy to version experiences of First Nations peoples, be skeptical regarding the following speech the impact of the acceptance of Christianity on said to have been made by a Nanaimo aborigi• their lives, and the extent of First Nations peo• nal woman referred to only as "Mrs. Wesley": When I go to sleep I think about God. I example for others to follow. Missionary Rev• dreamt I saw my sainted children in heav• erend A.E. Green, who worked extensively in en the other night but instead of sitting up the Nass region, wrote of one First Nations to wail and lament ..
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