When he realized that the Indian would not be allowed to determine that destiny, Murrow struggled to protect the rights of Indians against predatory actions by both the government and white settlers.

Always maintaining his first allegiance was to the Indians whom he came initially to serve, Murrow struggled to defend that position against encroaching whites. He perceived his efforts to expand missionary activities, establish school, church and fraternal groups, as well as the organizations to administer and coordinate those more effectively as a part of the Indians' progression toward the development of those skills necessary to determine his own destiny.

This is a biographical study of Joseph Samuel Murrow, frontier missionary, who spent seventy-three years as a religious, educational, fraternal and humanitarian leader among the Indian and white populations of what became the state of Oklahoma.

When Murrow arrived in 1857, Indian Territory was a frontier environment, but in the years before his death in 1929, Oklahoma, its people and institutions matured. As a participant, observer and commentator, Murrow helped to found and mold many of the elements of that maturation process.