![Carey Misson Marker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Carey_Misson_Marker.jpg)
The Carey Mission was established by
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
Isaac McCoy
Isaac McCoy (June 13, 1784 – June 21, 1846) was a Baptist missionary among the Native Americans in what is now Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Kansas. He was an advocate of Indian removal from the eastern United States, proposing an Indian ...
among the
Potawatomi
The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
tribe of
American Indians on the
St. Joseph River near
Niles, Michigan
Niles is a city in Berrien and Cass counties in the U.S. state of Michigan, near the Indiana border city of South Bend. In 2010, the population was 11,600 according to the 2010 census. It is the larger, by population, of the two principal cities ...
, United States in December, 1822. It was named for
William Carey, a noted English Baptist missionary. The Carey Mission's official nature and reputation made it a headquarters for settlers and a point from which the
American frontier
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of United States territorial acquisitions, American expansion in mainland North Amer ...
was extended.
[Fuller, George Newman (1916). ''Economic and Social Beginnings of Michigan'', pp. 258-60. Lansing, MI: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co.]
History
Lewis Cass
Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782June 17, 1866) was an American military officer, politician, and statesman. He represented Michigan in the United States Senate and served in the Cabinets of two U.S. Presidents, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan. He w ...
, the second governor of the
Michigan Territory
The Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan. Detroit w ...
, signed the
1821 Treaty of Chicago on August 29, 1821, with the chiefs of the
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Chippewa, and Potawatomi nations. The Potawatomi agreed to cede to the United States all the territory lying west and north of the St. Joseph River,
[Glover, Lowell H. (1906). ''A Twentieth Century History of Cass County, Michigan'', pp. 17-19. The Lewis Publishing Company.] and the United States agreed to provide funds for a blacksmith and a teacher, to reside on "one mile square on the south side of the St. Joseph" within a tract that the Potawatomis had reserved for their villages. McCoy, who had previously traveled to Detroit and petitioned Cass to provide funds for Indian missions in the 1821 Treaty, secured the position of teacher.
[Fisher, Ernest B. (1918). ''Grand Rapids and Kent County, Michigan: Historical Account of Their Progress from First Settlement to the Present Time'', pp. 39-45. Chicago: Robert O. Law Company.]
In December 1822, McCoy and his family, and a group of Indians who had elected to accompany them (32 persons in all), set out for southwestern Michigan.
[ They emigrated from the vicinity of ]Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...
, to a point about a mile west of the present city of Niles, and by the following year they had built six mission houses.[
The first school at Carey was opened on January 27, 1823, and originally had 30 Indian pupils.][ An expedition that visited the mission in June 1823 reported, "The school consists of from forty to sixty children, of which fifteen are females. They are either children of Indians, or half-breed descendants of French and Indian parents; there being about an equal number of each. It is contemplated that the school will soon be increased to one hundred."
In 1824 an agent for Cass reported that the Carey Mission was "a colony firmly settled, numerous, civilized and happy". Fifty densely wooded acres had been cleared and fenced, and workers had raised large amounts of corn, oats, and potatoes. By 1826 over of land had been cleared, and had been planted.][
The mission became a way station for white settlers of the Michigan Territory. McCoy realized that they would soon supplant the native Indians. He wrote: "Our location was so remote from the settlements of white people when we first made it, and the inconveniences of reaching and residing at it so great, that we hoped, at that time, to be able to push forward the work of civilization to a state not much liable to injury by the proximity of white population, before we should be crowded by it."
During the period from 1827 to 1829, southwestern Michigan began to be actively settled, and the Carey Mission declined,][ as a result of the U.S. policy of ]Indian removal
Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a de ...
. In 1827, in the Treaty of St. Joseph {{Short description, 1827 treaty between the United States and Potawatomi
''Note: There are multiple treaties referred to as Treaty with the Potawatomi. See Treaty with the Potawatomi for others.''
The Treaty of St. Joseph (formally titled ''A tre ...
, the Potawatomi tribe ceded some of their reserved lands in southwestern Michigan. The treaty stated that its purpose was "to consolidate some of the dispersed bands of the Potawatamie Tribe in the Territory of Michigan at a point removed from the road leading from Detroit to Chicago, and as far as practicable from the settlements of the Whites". In 1829 McCoy removed to the Thomas station, another mission he had established near the Grand River. The only missionary who remained at Carey was Robert Simerwell. With passage of the Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for ...
in 1830, the school at Carey Mission was discontinued, and in 1831 McCoy led a number of the Potawatomi to a new mission in Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
.
Significance
The founding of the Carey Mission was, according to Michigan jurist Nathaniel Bacon, "the pioneer step in the way of settlement." Bacon remarked that in 1822, when the mission was established, the region was considered by European settlers to be dangerous and hostile. Within recent memory were the Battle of Tippecanoe
The Battle of Tippecanoe ( ) was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana, between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Native American forces associated with Shawnee leader Tecums ...
in Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
and the Battle of Fort Dearborn
The Battle of Fort Dearborn (sometimes called the Fort Dearborn Massacre) was an engagement between United States troops and Potawatomi Native Americans that occurred on August 15, 1812, near Fort Dearborn in what is now Chicago, Illinois (at that ...
in Illinois. "Emigration had in a great measure stopped. Very few dared to venture beyond the older settlements, until McCoy boldly entered into the heart of the Indian country, and began his mission school among the Pottawottomies who dwelt on the river St. Joseph. The fact was soon made known throughout Indiana and Ohio, and at once adventurers began to prepare to follow the example of the missionary, who had led the way."[ Several notable former students, including John Tecumseh Jones, became leaders in the American West.][Tauy Jones Mansion https://www.lasr.net/travel/city.php?Tauy+Jones+Mansion&TravelTo=KS0302004&VA=Y&Attraction_ID=KS0302004a007]
References
{{commons Category, Carey Mission School Site
External links
Isaac McCoy Papers, 1808-1874
Pre-statehood history of Michigan
Berrien County, Michigan
Potawatomi
1822 establishments in Michigan Territory