Native American Missionaries

Since its publication in 1932, Black Elk Speaks has moved countless readers to appreciate the American Indian world that it described. John Neihardt’s popular narrative addressed the youth and early adulthood of Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux religious elder. Michael F. Steltenkamp now provides the first full interpretive biography of Black Elk, distilling in one volume what is known of this American Indian wisdom keeper whose life has helped guide others. Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic shows that the holy-man was not the dispirited traditionalist commonly depicted in literature....

She can't let a man come between her and God...can she? Widowed missionary Laurie Wilcox has promised to live the rest of her life serving God and feels called to minister to the Plains Indians. But when a handsome Cheyenne elder ignited a passion in her heart, she realized he had also taken her eyes off her calling. Panicked by the distraction, Laurie ran, slipping away to a different reservation. Surely, after all, serving the Lord was her path… not a trivial romance? Henry Long Feather was fighting to build his life in a white man’s world. When he met and fell in love with Laurie, he...

What would you do if you inherited extraordinary wealth—and discovered that the greatest use for it was to give others opportunities they had been denied? Saint Katharine Drexel was born into one of America’s wealthiest families, yet she chose a life few could have predicted. Instead of allowing privilege to define her future, she became a religious sister, founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and devoted her fortune, energy, and faith to educating Native and African Americans during an era of entrenched racial discrimination. Saint Katharine Drexel for Beginners tells the ...

After the Indian wars, many Americans still believed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. But at Ganado Mission in the Navajo country of Northern Arizona, a group of missionaries and doctors - who cared less about saving souls and more about saving lives - chose a different way and persuaded the local parents and medicine men to allow them to educate their daughters as nurses. In this detailed history, Jim Kristofic traces the story of Ganado Mission on the Navajo Indian Reservation.

A young Mohawk woman. A devastating childhood marked by loss and illness. A faith so powerful that it would eventually make her the first Native American saint canonized by the Catholic Church. Saint Kateri Tekakwitha for Beginners brings to life the remarkable story of the woman remembered as the “Lily of the Mohawks”—a courageous figure whose journey unfolded at the meeting point of Indigenous culture, colonial conflict, Catholic missionary activity, and deeply personal religious conviction. Born in seventeenth-century North America, Kateri lost her parents and younger brother ...

In this short story, about a 30-40 minute read, you will meet a spunky woman whose determination led her to do amazing things, in spite of enormous challenges! Katherine Beard, 1908-1998, is not a well known missionary outside of Northern Arizona. I personally knew Miss Beard, and like me, you will be inspired and challenged as you get to know her through this story.

At the start of the 1840s, the Oregon Country had no political boundaries or effective government. The first to begin showing up in large numbers were missionaries...Narcissa Prentiss Whitman became the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains...A teacher and missionary, she accomplished the journey with her like-minded husband, Dr. Marcus Whitman. Their history-making tenure in the northwestern wilderness caused them to become one of the most well-known couples of the 19th century, and their story was soon known to the entire nation.

The Whitman Massacre: The History and Legacy of the Native American Attack on Missionaries that Started the Cayuse War looks at the chain of events that led to one of the most notorious attacks of the 19th century on the frontier. You will learn about the Whitman Massacre like never before.

In the tradition of Ian Frazier's Great Plains, and as vivid as the work of Cormac McCarthy, an intoxicating, singularly illuminating history of the Texas borderlands from their settlement through seven generations of Roger D. Hodge's ranching family. What brought the author's family to Texas?...

The American frontier in the 1700s produced some men of utter ruthlessness, and Jim Girty was one of the worst. Living among the Delaware Indians in the Ohio Valley, Girty and his brothers incited acts of savagery and war against the white settlers. One of Jim Girty's targets was the Village of Peace, a settlement of Christian Indians who had been converted by Moravian missionaries.