Native Americans, Christianity, and the reshaping of the American religious landscape

Book

Native Americans, Christianity, and the reshaping of the American religious landscape / edited by Joel W. Martin and Mark A. Nicholas ; foreword by Michelene Pesantubbee.

Martin, Joel W., 1956- (Added Author). Nicholas, Mark A. (Added Author).

Summary:

"In this interdisciplinary collection of essays, Joel W. Martin and Mark A. Nicholas gather emerging and leading voices in the study of Native American religion to reconsider the complex and often misunderstood history of Native people's engagement with Christianity and with Euro-American missionaries. Surveying mission encounters from contact through the mid-nineteenth century, the volume alters and enriches our understanding of both American Christianity and indigenous religion. The essays here explore a variety of post-contact identities, including indigenous Christians, "mission friendly" non-Christians, and ex-Christians, thereby exploring the shifting world of Native-white cultural and religious exchange. Rather than questioning the authenticity of Native Christian experiences, these scholars reveal how indigenous peoples negotiated change with regard to missions, missionaries, and Christianity. This collection challenges the pervasive stereotype of Native Americans as culturally static and ill-equipped to navigate the roiling currents associated with colonialism and missionization."--pub. desc.

Record details

ISBN: 0807871451
ISBN: 9780807871454 (pbk : alk. paper)
ISBN: 0807871451
ISBN: 9780807834060
ISBN: 0807834068
Physical Description: xiii, 325 p. : map ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2010.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Negotiating conversion. Hard feelings : Samson Occom contemplates his Christian mentors / Joanna Brooks -- Eager partners in reform : Indians and Frederick Baylies in southern New England, 1780-1840 / Daniel Mandell -- Crisscrossing projects of sovereignty and conversion : Cherokee Christians and New England missionaries during the 1820s / Joel W. Martin -- Practicing religion. Native American popular religion in New England's Old Colony, 1670-1770 / Douglas L. Winiarski -- Blood, fire, and "baptism" : three perspectives on the death of Jean de Brébeuf, seventeenth-century Jesuit "martyr" / Emma Anderson -- The Catholic rosary, gendered practice, and female power in French-Indian spiritual encounters / Tracy Neal Leavelle -- Circulating texts. The souls of Highlanders, the salvation of Indians : Scottish mission and eighteenth-century British empire / Laura M. Stevens -- Print culture and the power of native literacy in California and New England missions / Steven W. Hackel and Hilary E. Wyss -- Creating communities -- Hendrick Aupaumut : Christian-Mahican prophet / Rachel Wheeler -- To become a chosen people : the missionary work and missionary spirit of the Brotherton and Stockbridge Indians, 1775-1835 / David J. Silverman -- Turns and common grounds / Mark A. Nicholas -- Naming the legacy of native Christian missionary encounters / Michael D. McNally.