Missions unaccomplished: Female missionaries, Native American rights, and media in the nineteenth-century American West

Abstract

Two-faced. Deceitful. Insincere. These words summarize the actions of Anglo-Americans toward Native peoples in the United States in the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Under the guise of maternal instinct female missionaries and activists contributed to assimilationist agendas put forth by the United States Government. This thesis will examine the life of Caroline Weldon, an activist with the National Indian Defense Association (NIDA) in the historical record and three modern media depictions: two Derek Walcott works, The Ghost Dance (1990) and Omeros (1992), and the film Woman Walks Ahead (2017).

Caroline Weldon did not act alone in Dakota Territory, rather she is a single example for a larger trend. By using an array of unconventional sources, the story of Weldon's contemporaries Lucy Arnold, Mary Collins, and Corabelle Fellows have become apparent. Combined together, media depictions and the historical record provide a better understanding of four women who have eluded historian's attention for many years. It is my hope that the lives of Caroline Weldon, Lucy Arnold, Mary Collins, and Corabelle Fellows will shed a new light on an old history.

This story is broken into two parts: Part I explores the historical role of Caroline Weldon and assimilation policy in the final two decades of the nineteenth century and Part II analyzes the role media has played in shaping historical memory and legacies. The historical legacy of Caroline Weldon has grown with each and every newspaper article, book, play, and movie based on her life. As historians have had access to modern technologies, new sources on Weldon and the nineteenth century have allowed her story to be told and re-told.