Sacrifice and Survival: Encountering Colonialism and the Bounds of Christian Humanitarianism in the Cherokee Nation

From 1810 to 1961, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) planted itself within indigenous communities across the globe to spread Protestant Christianity. One of the earliest "successes" of the ABCFM was the Cherokee Nation. Throughout the 1800s and in a calculated decision for survival, the Cherokee Nation aligned itself with the ABCFM, its Christian humanitarianism, and adopted an American Christian standard. The Cherokee established federal treaties, donned Western attire, adopted a written language and constitution, and acquired one of the first printing presses in America for the proliferation of biblical literature and the country's first bilingual magazine.

The 1832 Supreme Court case, Worcester v. Georgia, illustrates the extent of the ABCFM’s Christian humanitarianism. The state of Georgia unconstitutionally imprisoned two ABCFM missionaries for living in the Cherokee Nation, sentencing them to four years of hard labor. Inside the penitentiary, the missionaries worked with their Cherokee allies and legal counsel to secure a landmark victory for Indian rights in the highest court of the nation. By 1835, the partnership disintegrated upon the growing political insecurity of the ABCFM and the potential of a civil war over the “Indian Problem.” The ABCFM refused to enforce the case’s precedence against Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policies.

The ABCFM’s longstanding relationship with and betrayal of the Cherokee Nation is an early American story of political frailty, contingency, and sacrifice. This history illuminates the agency of the Cherokee Nation in crafting its own history, the influence of the ABCFM upon federal Indian law, and the grave consequences of their faltering commitment to Christian humanitarianism and their Cherokee allies.