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Bradshaw, from the State of Vermont, and Mr. Asa Egerton. Miss Clark has since requested and received a release from the service of the Board, with a view to her permanent engagement as a teacher at Little Lock.

Mr. Newton has been married to Mrs. Joslyn, and Doct. Palmer to Miss John

son.

The station formerly in the Forks of the Illinois has been removed to a more elevated place called Park Hill, about three miles distant, with the hope of avoiding the unhealthy location at the Forks. This place has been selected by Mr. Worcester as the most suitable for the permanent establishment of the printing-press.

Early in the winter the influences of the Holy Spirit were enjoyed at Dwight and Fairfield; and at the latter station, according to the latest intelligence, four had been received to the church, and seven were then candidates. The demands for preaching in various parts of the tribe were much more numerous than the missionaries could supply; the congregations were larger than usual. Many of the church members are highly exemplary in their christian character, and in their exertions to do good to their people. Among these is the one who held up the scalp of the parents of the little Osage girl, whose affecting story was narrated by Dr. Cornelius, and he also who acted as interpreter on that occasion, with their wives. The whole number of church members is supposed to be about 160.

The boarding-schools at Dwight have been full and highly prosperous, embracing sixty-nine Cherokee pupils, of whom sixty were boarded in the mission family. The school at Fairfield, in the number of its pupils, and in its character, has been much the same as during the previous year. Mr. Newton's school has been attended by about thirty-six pupils. Miss Smith has taught a small school on the Bayou Menard. The number of pupils in the four schools is estimated to

be about 180.

A tract entitled, "Select Passages of Scripture," and also the Cherokee Hymn Book, have been reprinted, and five thousand copies of each struck off. An edition of 450 copies of a small almanac for the Cherokees has also been printed; making in all 367,000 pages. Some small works have also been printed in the Choctaw and Creek language. Six cards, containing small portions of Scripture in the Cherokee language, have been lithographed, and 300 copies of

each printed in Boston. The demand for books in their own language seems to be steadily increasing among the Cherokees.

MISSION TO THE CHOCTAWS.

WHEELOCK.--Alfred Wright, Missionary, and Mrs.

Wright.

BETHARARA.Loring S. Williams, Missionary; Mrs. Williams; Eunice Clough and Louisa Williams, Teachers.

EAGLE TOWN.Cyrus Byington, Missionary; Mrs. Byington; Elizabeth A. Merrill, Teacher.

PINE RIDGE.-Cyrus Kingsbury, Missionary; Abner D. Jones, Teacher; and their wives.

LUK-FO-A-TA.--Joel Wood, Missionary, and his

wife.

CLEAR CREEK.-Ebenezer Hotchkin, Catechist; Mrs. Hotchkin; Anna Burnham, Teacher.

BETHEL Samuel Moulton, Teacher, and his wife. (7 stations, 5 missionaries, 3 teachers, 12 female teachers and assistants, and 6 native teachers.)

The families connected with this mission have been permitted by a gracious Providence to prosecute their labors during the past year in quiet, and in most respects under favorable circumstances. Most of the people have become settled and comfortable in their new homes, after the long period of agitation and suffering occasioned by their removal.

Mr. Byington arrived in the Choctaw country with his family, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones and Miss Merrill, as teachers, in November. He selected a site for his station, near that of Mr. Williams, where the people voluntarily erected for him a dwelling-house and school-house, which, with a little additional labor and expense, were rendered comfortable.

Mr. Kingsbury, after bringing the affairs of the old Choctaw mission to a close, so far as his presence was necessary, and attending to some important business at the Osage stations, proceeded with his family to the present Choctaw country, where he arrived in February, and resumed his missionary labors.

During the last spring Mr. Wilson and Mr. Agnew became disconnected with the mission; the latter being induced to adopt this course by the loss of his health; and the former having requested a release from the service of the Board, that he might enter another field of labor under the patronage of the Western Foreign Missionary Society.

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MISSION TO THE CREEKS.

John Fleming, Missionary, and his wife; Roderic L. Dodge, Physician.

(1 station, 1 missionary, 1 physician, and 1 female.)

Mr. Fleming has succeeded but very partially in gaining access to the Creeks. The congregations have been small, and the schools which the mission family have repeatedly attempted to establish have embraced too few pupils, and been too irregularly attended, to lead them to expect that much good would result from that department of labor. The most important neighborhoods are occupied by schools established by the missionaries of the Baptist and Methodist denominations. A boarding-school has been in contemplation; and probably one on an economical plan may be opened, should the mission be continued.

Mr. Fleming continues to prosecute the study of the Creek language with success. A small book, of twenty-four pages, has been printed. During the winter five hundred Creeks arrived from their former country, in the state of Alabama. The number still to be removed is said to exceed 20,000. The Seminoles, who are said to number 4,000, have a country assigned them south of that assigned to the Creeks.

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Two small volumes of religious tracts, translated by Mr. Williams, are now in press. The desire for books is greater than at any former time, and the number of Choctaws who are able to read and write their own language is very considerable and constantly increasing. The missionaries have thought it desirable that a small periodical paper should be printed for their use, and have been authorized to commence one.

The mission property in the old Choctaw country have been disposed of, and $4,611 31 has been received from the United States for the buildings and improvements on land.

MISSION TO THE OSAGES.

BOUDINOT.-William C. Requa, Farmer and Cate

chist.

(1 station, 1 farmer and catechist.)

Mrs. Requa was removed from her labors by death, on the 30th of October last.

When the mission to the Osages was commenced, the tribe occupied an extensive tract of country west of the state of Missouri, and extending from the Missouri river on the north beyond the Arkansas on the south. The station at Union, in the southern part of their country, and that at Harmony, in the northern, were far within the limits of their domain, and were the constant resort of multitudes of these ignorant and untamed hunters of the prairie. At this time they had had comparatively little intercourse with the white man; and though some of his vices and diseases had been introduced, yet intemperance, that insiduous destroyer, the inlet of all evil and the barrier against all good to the Indian, was entirely unknown among them.

The situation of the Osages and their affairs being such, it became obvious last autumn, that the mission families could not advantageously be kept longer at Harmony, or the boarding-school be continued. Such were the views of the Committee and the missionaries. Accordingly arrangements were made for disposing of the property of the Board at the station. The members of mission families there, as no other field of missionary labor was opened in that vicinity, where, considering their age and the circumstances of their case, the Lord seemed to be calling them to enter, requested and received a discharge from the further service of the Board. The Rev. Nathaniel B. Dodge, of Boudinot, also presented a similar request, and received his discharge early in the spring. The Rev. Messrs. Dodge and Jones have since been commissioned by the American Home Missionary Society to preach as missionaries in the white settlements in the vicinity of Harmony, where they are now laboring. Some of the mission families still occupy the buildings and grounds at the station.

By a treaty negotiated with them in June, 1825, almost immediately after the mission went into full operation, and before it came under the care of this Board, their country was reduced to a narrow strip, fifty miles in width, whose southern border was forty miles distant from Union, while the northern was still further removed south of Harmony; thus at once placing the missionaries and the schools at a most unfavorable distance from the adult Indians, on whom they were designed to operate. Some of the Indians lingered about their former residences, and continued accessible to the influence of the mission; but they could not be regarded by their teachers as being at home, or in a condition to be permanently benefitted. Harmony fell within the limits of the state of Missouri, which occasioned additional embarrassments. In 1828, by a treaty entered into with the Arkansas Cherokees, Union and the farming settlement at Hopefield were included in the land assigned to the Cherokees. The latter station was broken up and removed, and the former became an unsuitable place for an Osage school, and soon ceased to receive that class of pupils. By a further extension of the Cherokee country, the settlers at Hopefield were again obliged to abandon their fields and lodges, and to commence anew still further north. Within the last few years, white settlers have been locating themselves in the vicinity of Harmony, and thus increasing the embarrassments under which that school was conducted. In the mean time the number of white travellers and traders who had been pass- One assistant missionary is now the ing through or residing among the only remaining individual of the Osage Osages has been increasing. New temp-mission; and should the effort, which it tations have been presented to them. Intoxicating liquors have been introduced in great quantities, and the Osages, though slow to imitate either the whites or their red brethren of other tribes, have at last contracted a fondness for them, which their ignorance and a feeling of their humbled and melancholy || condition well fitted them to indulge. The influence of the traders, who have great sway over their minds, is to prevent their adopting the habits of settled agricultural life, and to lead them to devote themselves more entirely to hunting, wandering further and further west, as the game retires in that direction.

Owing to circumstances like these, it is the opinion of the missionaries that the Osages were never so poor, dissipated, and wretched, as at the present time; or in a condition more unfavorable to the influences of religious truth.

The school was discontinued about the first of March. Some of the pupils have gone home to their friends; others are retained in the families of their former teachers, with the hope of protecting them till maturer years from the bad influences to which they would otherwise be exposed. Some of the older and more promising members of the school are establishing themselves as farmers.

is said will be made the present autumn, to bring the whole tribe upon their reservation, and by aiding them in erecting houses and opening fields, to induce them to exchange the hunter's mode of life for that of the agriculturist, fail, the mission must probably be abandoned.

MISSION TO THE PAWNEES.

John Dunbar, Missionary; Benedict Satterlee, Physician and Catechist; Samuel Allis, Jr., Assistant; Mrs. Allis.

(1 station, 1 missionary, 1 physician, 1 assistant, and 1 female.)

Doct. Benedict Satterlee, and his wife, and Miss Palmer, affianced to Mr. Allis, all from the state of New York, proceeded early in the spring, by way of the Ohio and Missouri rivers, towards their destined field of labor. At Liberty,

on the western frontier of the state of Missouri, Mrs. Satterlee became ill, and on the 30th of April she was called away by death from her husband and the scene of her contemplated labor, on which she was just ready to enter. Doct. Satterlee reached Bellevue, a settlement on the Missouri river, about 130 miles from the Pawnee country, on the 27th of May.

Nez Perces tribe; and so favorable did the prospects of missionary labor among them appear, that it was thought expedient for Doct. Whitman to return and obtain associates, with a view of immediately commencing a mission in their country. Doct. W. accordingly directed his course homeward, and reached St. Louis on the 4th of November. Mr. Parker continued his tour westerly to the waters of the Oregon river, and thence down the river to Fort Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean. The Indians near the coast were found to be very few in number, and extremely poor and wretched.

During the summer and winter of last year, Messrs. Dunbar and Allis accompanied the Indians as heretofore, receiving the same kind treatment, and directing their attention principally to the acquisition of the language. In this Mr. D. states that he had made such profi- Doct. Whitman and Mr. Spaulding, ciency as to be able to understand near- with their wives, and Mr. Gray, about ly all which the Indians said, and to ex- the first of March commenced their jourpress his thoughts with little difficulty ney up the Missouri river toward the on common topics. He could make him- || Flat Head country, and were near the self but very imperfectly understood on mouth of the Great Platte river on the religious subjects. The health of these 20th of May, when the latest intelligence brethren has been good, without inter- from them was dated. ruption. They feel perfectly safe among the Indians, and think the prospect of benefitting them is favorable. Nothing prevents the free access of missionaries to them, or presents formidable obstacles to preaching the gospel to the whole 8,000 or 10,000 which the tribe embraces. Other large tribes west and south of the Pawnees are equally accessible and friendly.

No schools have yet been established among the Pawnees. Books must first be prepared in their language, and the obstacles to establishing any other than boarding-schools, will be nearly insuperable till the Indians shall adopt a more settled manner of life.

INDIANS WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUN-
TAINS.

Samuel Parker, Henry H. Spaulding, Missionaries; Marcus Whitman, Physician; William H. Gray, Mechanic; Mrs Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding.

MISSION TO THE SIOUX.

LAC QUI PARLE.--Thomas S. Williamson, Missionary and Physician; Alexander Huggens, Farmer; and their wives; Sarah Poage, Teacher.

LAKE HARRIET.-Jedediah D. Stevens, Missionary: Mrs. Stevens, Lucy C. Stevens, Assistant.

(2 stations, 2 missionaries, 1 farmer, and 5 females.)

Doct. Williamson and his associates

arrived at Lac qui Parle on the 9th of July of last year. Above seventy Indian families spend their summers within half a mile of the station; and near Lake Travers, about a day's ride distant, there are 200 families.

Much of the time of the missionaries has been occupied in erecting buildings, and providing other accommodations for their families. They have made some progress in acquiring a knowledge of the Sioux or Dakota language, in which

(1 station, 2 missionaries, 1 mechanic, and 2 fe- they have prepared vocabularies of con

males)

Mr. Parker and Doct. Whitman continued the exploring tour, which it was stated in the last Report they had commenced, till they arrived, about the middle of August, and the rendezvous of the traders on Green river, a branch of the western Colorado. So far as they could learn, the Indians in that quarter are generally friendly and ready to receive missionaries and teachers among them, and are more numerous and more densely settled, than has heretofore been supposed. Their attention was particularly attracted to a band of the Flat Head and

siderable extent; and 500 copies of a small spelling-book, embracing twentytwo pages, has been printed.

Schools have been opened at each of the stations; but the number of pupils has been exceedingly variable. When the Indians have been in the vicinity the number of pupils in each has varied froin fifteen to twenty-five.

In communicating christian knowledge to the Indians, the missionaries have been able to accomplish but little, owing to their ignorance of the language and the want of competent interpreters. A church has, however, been

organized at Lac qui Parle, to which || anxious concern for the salvation of the

the trader at that post has been admitted.

The Sioux or Dakota tribe is supposed to embrace about 25,000 Indians, who wander and hunt through the extensive country lying between the 43d and 49th degrees of north latitude, and extending from the Mississippi to the Missouri rivers. Their means of subsistence are often scanty and obtained with difficulty; and their sufferings from cold, hunger, nakedness, and disease are great; and the missionaries are often pained in view of the most heart-rending scenes of wretchedness and suffering. To christian benevolence alone they must probably look for relief.

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FON DU LAC.-Edmand F. Ely, and Granville T. Sproat, Teachers and Catechists; Mrs. Ely.

Indians, prevailed at the latter station, accompanied by a corresponding spirit of inquiry and readiness to listen to instruction among the people. Two Indians, a man and his wife, were hopefully converted, and, with two other persons, received to the fellowship of the church. Three other persons gave some evidence of having been born again, and in August two were candidates for admission to the church. A similar state of religious feeling prevailed about the same time at Yellow Lake, where two or three, it is believed, were converted to God. At Leech Lake and Fon du Lac there were at that time some tokens for good, though no full accounts have been received from either of those stations.

The school at La Pointe has increased in numbers and interest. Forty-six pupils have attended during the year, and while the Indians were encamped near it, the average daily attendance was twenty-five or thirty. Thirty-five were enrolled in the school at Yellow Lake, and the average number daily was fourteen. At Fon du Lac the school contained, on an average sixteen pupils, nearly all of whom were children of pa

(4 stations, 2 missionaries, 3 catechists and teach-pists. As there is no family government

ers, 2 farmers and mechanics, and 7 females.)

At La Pointe and Yellow Lake some pains have been taken to induce the Indians to adopt the habits of civilized life, and not wholly without success.

among these Indians, the parents never Yellow Lake being found to be an un- constrain their children to attend school; favorable place for exerting a steady and and the children, having of course very extensive influence over the Indians, and || inadequate notions of the value of the especially for collecting them into a per-advantages to be enjoyed, are tardy and manent agricultural settlement, it was irregular. thought best for Mr. Ayer and his family to remove to Pokegumma Lake, a body of water communicating by a short channel with Snake river, and through that with the St. Croix river and the Mississippi. The new station is about fifty miles west southwest from Yellow Lake, and about two and a half days travel from St. Peters. The soil is much better and more easily cultivated than that at Yellow Lake, and the fish and game are much more abundant.

Additional laborers are much needed in this mission. At the stations now occupied there should be at least one more ordained missionary, two schoolmasters, and a layman, farmer or mechanic, at each station, who shall devote his principal attention to the Indians, teaching them how to perform various kinds of Mr. Sproat, an approved teacher, pro- labor, and aiding them to overcome the ceeded to La Pointe last autumn.

Three native catechists from the Methodist missions in Canada, being unable to proceed to the place of their destination, further west, spent the winter at La Pointe and Fon du Lac, where their christian deportment and labors were apparently highly useful to the Indians. The gospel has been more extensively and faithfully preached during the last year, than during any previous year since the mission was established. During the winter an unusual spirit of prayer and

VOL. XXXIII.

difficulties which must ever be met by a people who are passing from a savage into a civilized state.

In the opinion of the missionaries, other stations might advantageously be occupied without delay. No obstacles are to be encountered which will not probably become more formidable the longer the work is deferred.

Mr. Ely was in the summer of last year united in marriage with Miss Catherine Bissel of Mackinaw, and Mr. Town with Miss Hannah Hill of Chicago. 4

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