Missionaries in America

The frequent concern of missionaries in North America with the pervasive influence of Satan was thus more than religious bigotry: it was based upon a version of degeneration theory, explaining differences between Indians and Europeans as stemming from a savage fall from primitive religious grace. The Indians, according to most early missionaries, whether Spanish Franciscans, English Protestants, or French Jesuits, had at some point in human history been led away from God's favor into a realm of moral darkness. The principal goal of evangelism, therefore, was religious conquest, to erode the influence of Satan by disseminating knowledge of the true faith.

The Putnams of New York are bringing out ably edited sets of the writings of the men who founded this republic. Thus Dr. Coues has clothed with fresh life the journals and letters of the great explorers who opened up our Pacific country; while a crowning achievement has been the publication in Cleveland, Ohio, of the seventy-three volumes of Jesuit Relations written during two centuries by missionaries in North America to their superiors in France or Italy . Such things speak eloquently of the change that has come over us. They show that while we can still draw lessons from the Roman Forum and the Frankish Fieldof-March, we have awakened to the fact that the New England town-meeting also has its historic lessons.

Inspection of the available material produced by missionaries in North America reveals a very similar picture. However, very little historiographical work was done during the past decade on pre-19th century history of linguistics in Central and South America . Even where the 19th century is concerned, it appears that the Philadelphia anthropologist Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-1899) was the first historiographer, with few followers. In other words, while the data on American Indian assembled by the missionaries, especially the Jesuits, is enormous-witness the massive compilations produced by Spanish Jesuit Lorenzo Hervas y Panduro (1730-1809) during the late 18th century - a historical accounting of their work is still lacking.

The festivities of cruelty that make us turn away from the pages of Waldensian history blot from our recollections the undying love of the Jesuit missionaries in North America. The solemn tolling of a bell breaks the silence of the midnight, calling to more horrible sacrifices than ever Phinician offered to his Moloch, or Druid to his God. Thirty thousand lives fall in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, victims to the remorseless religious cruelty of this enigmatic church. For it is in very truth the unsolved enigma of history, - its flag red on one side with blood of martyrs whom it has slain, on the other side red with its own martyrs who have died for it; bearing the uplifted sword in the one hand, and the uplifted cross in the other; distinguished alike by the names of Loyola and of Xavier, of Torquemada and of Bishop Fenelon.