Jesuit Missions and Native Communities in the Northwest, 1840–1940

FAIN: FT-259489-18

Emily Suzanne Clark
Corporation of Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA 99258-1774)

Research and writing of a chapter in a history of Jesuit missions to Native Americans in the American Northwest and Alaska, 1840-1940.

Using the rich and understudied archive of the Jesuits of the Oregon Province, this book project focuses on the interactions between Jesuit priests and Native communities in the Northwest region of the United States. While many scholars of American religion have studied Christian missions to Native communities in early America and the eastern states, this project shifts the focus westward and later in American history. It also expands our understanding of conversion and colonialism. Even as the Jesuit priests emphasized their dedication to serving native communities, their actions aided the expansion of the U. S. nation-state through processes of Christianizing and "civilizing." Thus, the book continues a turn in the scholarship on missions and Native Christians to think of conversion as a complicated process with no universal definition. The native communities who hosted them accepted, resisted, and adapted the Catholicism and culture brought by the Jesuits.

Associated Products

Jesuits, the Iñupiat, and Catholicism on the Seward Peninsula Coast, 1898–1937 (Article)
Title: Jesuits, the Iñupiat, and Catholicism on the Seward Peninsula Coast, 1898–1937
Author: Emily Suzanne Clark
Abstract: Taking the interactions between Jesuit missionaries and Iñupiat communities as its focus, this article interrogates the complexity of conversion in the Alaskan territory on Seward Peninsula. The Jesuits viewed their evangelizing efforts as a corrective of Native “superstitions” and simultaneously, Native communities of the Seward Peninsula brought Christianity alongside of, rather than in lieu of, Iñupiat religious practice. Particular focus is given to the Jesuit missionary Bellarmine Lafortune and the King Island community, just off the Seward Peninsula. Though he considered the pre-contact Iñupiat to be superstitious, Lafortune did not ascribe to a definition of conversion that required a full break with previous cultural traditions. This allowed for more fluidity in that space of conversion, and just as Iñupiat men and women converted to Catholicism, elements of Catholicism could be converted and made Iñupiat. After providing background information about the Jesuit mission to the Peninsula, the article considers Iñupiat cultures (mainly of King Island) and how the Jesuits attempted to evangelize these communities. The continued emphasis on dance and reciprocity in the King Island community demonstrate how Catholicism lived alongside indigenous cultures.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/739823
Primary URL Description: A link to the journal article's page on the ProjectMuse database.
Secondary URL: https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/publications/acs.html
Secondary URL Description: This is a link to the supporting institution's page for the journal.
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: American Catholic Studies
Publisher: American Catholic Historical Society

The Sisters of Our Lady of the Snows: An Indigenous, Alaskan Sisterhood (Article)
Title: The Sisters of Our Lady of the Snows: An Indigenous, Alaskan Sisterhood
Author: Emily Suzanne Clark
Abstract: In 1932 the Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sponsored the creation of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Snows, a sisterhood of Native women religious. By most accounts the women were good and effective sisters: they taught the catechism and English to fellow Alaskan Natives, clergy with whom they labored admired their work ethic, and their convent house diaries reflect a dedication to their vows and their community. However, in 1945 the Jesuit Vicar Apostolic for Alaska suppressed the sisterhood. The Jesuit leadership cited financial concerns and poor health in their decision, but it was more complicated. This article first narrates the efforts to establish and sustain an indigenous sisterhood in Alaska and then recounts the obstacles faced by the sisters and their supporters. These obstacles were multilayered, related to race, gender, and logistics; additionally, these obstacles reveal the unique challenges of the Alaskan mission field. Unfortunately, these challenges kept the SOS from having a real chance to succeed. In this way, the story of the SOS mirrors much of the history of women religious in the United States but refracts that image through additional lenses of race and the colonial frontier.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/766309
Primary URL Description: Database subscription page for article
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: American Catholic Studies
Publisher: American Catholic Historical Society

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