INCONSISTENT FRIENDS: PHILADELPHIA QUAKERS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIVE AMERICAN MISSIONS IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

With theology grounded in beliefs of human equality and religious toleration, early Quakers discussed religious ideas with Native Americans, but did not conduct the kinds of missionary projects common to other English Protestants in America in their first century there. Instead, they focused on creating good relationships with the native people who lived in the area that became Pennsylvania, as well as with those beyond its borders. Despite this rhetoric, Quakers were inconsistent in enacting their own ideals. After allowing the unfair Walking Purchase of 1737 through poor government oversight, Philadelphia Quakers created a group whose aim was to reestablish peaceful relationships with Native Americans, particularly during the tumultuous Seven Years War. This group had scant success, largely limited to reinvigorating communication between Quakers and Native Americans. By 1795, Philadelphia Quakers determined they were divinely called to assist Native Americans more directly by teaching them skills of Euro-American farming and housekeeping. To that end, they began missions with the Oneida in 1796 and the Seneca in 1798. This study argues that despite Quakers ’ own conception o