Quakers and the Indians

One of the amazing aspects of the life of the Quakers in colonial America was their good relations with the Indians. While other groups of colonists were sporadically engaged in wars with the Indians, the Quakers managed to live peacefully with these original Americans. Quakers attributed this unusual rapport with the Indians to their acceptance of the Indians as their equals. While not the only ones to accord this treatment to the Indians, the Quakers appear to have been more consistent than others in insisting that the Indian be treated as anybody else-that his land be purchased rather than confiscated, that he have trials by juries composed of his peers, that he not be captured and used as a slave. A notable practitioner of this philosophy was William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, who felt so strongly about just treatment for the Indians that shortly after receiving his land grant, he sent a letter to the Indians of his colony expressing his "great love and regard" for them and his eagerness to earn their friendship by "a kind, just, and peaceable life."

As Quakers moved into the Ohio Country late in the eighteenth century, they demonstrated this concern for the welfare of the Indians in various ways-through visits to them with the message of Christ and through the establishment of service centers at Sandusky, Upper Sandusky, and Wapakoneta. (Indians had withdrawn their settlements from the Mount Pleasant area prior to the arrival of white settlers.) Of particular interest and importance was the activity at Wapakoneta. The Indians there were a remnant of the Shawnee tribe which had largely moved west of the Mississippi River.

The recently formed Ohio Yearly Meeting at Mount Pleasant appointed a committee in 1818 to oversee the building of a saw and grist mill on Indian land and then assisted the Indians with the management and instruction in the use of the mill.

In 1821 Indiana and Baltimore yearly meetings decided to cooperate in an Ohio Yearly Meeting plan to provide a school for the Shawnee children, a proposal that seems to have stemmed partly from the Shawnees' request for establishment of a mission at Wapakoneta. A Committee of Men and Women Friends on Indian Concerns purchased land about five miles south of Wapakoneta, adjacent to the reservation. Two cabins were built-for a school and for a residence occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Baldwin, superintendents. Operating funds were supplied by Ohio Yearly Meeting.

In succeeding years usually between nine and eighteen children were enrolled at any given time. The boys assisted on the farm and the girls in the house during their off hours. In 1828 the monetary support was interrupted because of the Hicksite Separation that year, which caused the school to close temporarily. However except for other brief interruptions, the school operated satisfactorily until 1832, when the Shawnees decided to exchange their Ohio reservation for lands west of the Mississippi River. It was closed after the last Indians departed in 1833, and the Friends committee disposed of the property at Wapakoneta, bringing to an end this Quaker activity in Indian affairs in Ohio.