Baptist Indian Missions - Isaac McCoy
McCOY, Isaac (1784–1846) was an American Baptist minister and missionary best known for his work among Native American tribes in the Old Northwest and for his influential role in shaping early U.S. Indian removal policy. Beginning in 1817, he established and supervised missions among the Miami, Potawatomi, and Ottawa in present-day Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, emphasizing education and agriculture as tools of assimilation. Frustrated by the pressures of white settlement on Native communities, McCoy became a leading advocate for relocating tribes west of the Mississippi River. During the 1820s and 1830s he served as a government surveyor and advisor, helping identify lands in what became Indian Territory. His book History of Baptist Indian Missions (1840) remains an important contemporary account. McCoy’s legacy is complex: he was a devoted missionary and chronicler of Native life, but also a key proponent of policies that led to forced removal and lasting harm. Autograph Letter Signed “Isaac McCoy” 1pp quarto, March 17, 1824, New York, with integral leaf addressed to Reverend Luther Rice, District of Columbia, and reads in part: “...I have been waiting for a meeting of the ministers and brethren of the city, which has just now closed. They have resolved to encourage the object of my visit to the city. Howe appointed a committee to prepare a notice for publication, fix on prices of deposit for articles of goods & c…they will endeavor to provide for me to take three collections next Lords day, and three the following Sabbath…I trust the Board will not permit Congress to rise without receiving the memorial on the Colonization of the Indians. Do drop me a line on that subject in your next…” Very good condition.
[ translate ]McCOY, Isaac (1784–1846) was an American Baptist minister and missionary best known for his work among Native American tribes in the Old Northwest and for his influential role in shaping early U.S. Indian removal policy. Beginning in 1817, he established and supervised missions among the Miami, Potawatomi, and Ottawa in present-day Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, emphasizing education and agriculture as tools of assimilation. Frustrated by the pressures of white settlement on Native communities, McCoy became a leading advocate for relocating tribes west of the Mississippi River. During the 1820s and 1830s he served as a government surveyor and advisor, helping identify lands in what became Indian Territory. His book History of Baptist Indian Missions (1840) remains an important contemporary account. McCoy’s legacy is complex: he was a devoted missionary and chronicler of Native life, but also a key proponent of policies that led to forced removal and lasting harm. Autograph Letter Signed “Isaac McCoy” 1pp quarto, March 17, 1824, New York, with integral leaf addressed to Reverend Luther Rice, District of Columbia, and reads in part: “...I have been waiting for a meeting of the ministers and brethren of the city, which has just now closed. They have resolved to encourage the object of my visit to the city. Howe appointed a committee to prepare a notice for publication, fix on prices of deposit for articles of goods & c…they will endeavor to provide for me to take three collections next Lords day, and three the following Sabbath…I trust the Board will not permit Congress to rise without receiving the memorial on the Colonization of the Indians. Do drop me a line on that subject in your next…” Very good condition.
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