The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1916, Page 18

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18°

The Saddest Page of American
Missionary History.

The early Christian settlers of the American
Colonies soon turned their attention to the spiritual
needs of the native Indians. Thus in Massachu-
setts. Rhode Island. Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania we find the beginnings
of Indian missions at an early date. But more
successful than all other missionaries among the
Indians were the German Moravians. They suc-
ceeded in a remarkable degree, where others failed,
in gaining the Indians for Christ.

It was in 1771 that certain Delaware chiefs
invited the Moravians to come and live among them
in Ohio. ‘These Delawares had formerly lived in
the East, but had now come to live west of the
Alleghanies, and they had built a number of towns
on the banks of the Muskingum River in Eastern
Ohio. In response to this invitation the Moravian
Christian Indians left their homes in the East, and
settled down among the Delawares in what is to-

‘day Tuscarawas County, Ohio. With the Indians
caine their white teachers, and soon a number of
villages sprang up in the wilderness. Three of
these villages were called Schoenbrunn (Beautiful
Spring), Lichtenau (Field of Light), and Gnaden-
huetten (Tents of Grace). Of these three mission-
stations Gnadenhuetten is the most famous, and it
is here that a massacre took place on the 8th day of
March, 1782, which, for cold barbarity and fiendish
atrocity, is probably unequaled in history. Con-
cerning this abominable deed a historian writes:
“The whole massacre leaves a stain of deepest dye
on the page of American history. It was simply
atrocious and execrable, a blistering disgrace to all
‘concerned, utterly without excuse, and incapable of
defense. It damns the memory of each participant
to the last syllable of recorded time. All down the
ages the Massacre of Innocents will be its only
parallel.”

It was in the very heart of the wilderness that the
German missionaries Zeisherger, Post, and Hecke-
welder and their Christian Indians settled down
among the savage Delawares, but the soil was fer-
tile and the Indians kind and friendly. Jn a few
years the villages they had founded here were sur-
rounded by large clearings planted with corn, and
the influence of the Christian villagers upon their
heathen neighbors was strongly felt. The Indians
came from far and near to look upon the wonderful
houses of their Christian brethren, built solidly out

The Lutheran Pioneer.

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of neatly squared logs, set on strects leading to the
four quarters from the little church, which was the
center of each village. ‘The well-tilled fields, or-
chards, and vegetable gardens were to their savage
eyes a never-ending source of admiration. And
when the Christian Indians would invite their
savage guests to their tables furnished with “good
bread, meat, butter, cheese, milk, tea, and colfee,
fruits from the orchards, and vegetables from the
gardens,” many a savage came to the conclusion
that the liberty of savagery could not be compared
to the creature comforts enjoyed by his Christian
brother. One by one this and that savage Indian
began to cast away his paint and feathers, cut his
hair, and settle down in one or the other of these
peaceful villages of the Moravians. ‘Through these
accessions the three villages grew and flourished,
and the good missionaries’ hearts were gladdened
by the conversion of many a son and daughter of
the forest.

But, alas! days of great sorrow were soon to
come: the dark and troublous days of the Revo-
lutionary War were to bring bitter distress to the
peaceful inhabitants of these Christian Indian vil-
lages. The Delawares had promised the missionaries
that they would not take part in the war on either
side, and most of them kept their promise to the
great disappointment of the British. But a few
young warriors did not abide by their promise, and
so also war parties of the Wyandotte Indians, who
lived farther westward, and were in the service of
the British, would often pass through the Moravian
villages on their way to and from the Virginia and
Pennsylvania frontier. As Christian converfs and |
friends of peace, the Moravian Indians did all they —
could to show their neutrality; but do what they
would, the white settlers along the frontier regarded
them as spies and allies of the savage Wyandottes
and the British, and the Wyandottes believed them
to be the friends and allies of the Americans. ‘I'he
fact that the Moravians ransomed many of the
white captives from the savages and returned them
to their families, as well as the fact that they held
thousands of Delaware warriors neutral, all counted
for naught in the eyes of the white settlers, and
the hatred of the latter for the peaceful Christian
Indians was just as bitter as was the hatred they
harbored against the savage Wyandottes.

With much difficulty the Moravians upheld their
position of neutrality, though often harassed by the
whites and Indians, until the*fall of 1781. In
August of that year several Indian chiefs, attended