Synopses & Reviews
At the end of the nineteenth century, Indigenous boarding schools were touted as the means for solving the andldquo;Indian problemandrdquo; in both the United States and Canada. With the goal of permanently transforming Indigenous young people into Europeanized colonial subjects, the schools were ultimately a means for eliminating Indigenous communities as obstacles to land acquisition, resource extraction, and nation-building. Andrew Woolford analyzes the formulation of the andldquo;Indian problemandrdquo; as a policy concern in the United States and Canada and examines how the andldquo;solutionandrdquo; of Indigenous boarding schools was implemented in Manitoba and New Mexico through complex chains that included multiple government offices with a variety of staffs, Indigenous peoples, and even nonhuman actors such as poverty, disease, and space. The genocidal project inherent in these boarding schools, however, did not unfold in either nation without diversion, resistance, and unintended consequences.and#160;Inspired by the signing of the 2006 Residential School Settlement Agreement in Canada, which provided a truth and reconciliation commission and compensation for survivors of residential schools, This Benevolent Experiment offers a multilayered, comparative analysis of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States and Canada. Because of differing historical, political, and structural influences, the two countries have arrived at two very different responses to the harms caused by assimilative education.
Review
"Rubin offers an interdisciplinary perspective on Indians in Christian missions by successfully combining methodologies originating in the sociology of religion with those in ethnohistory."and#8212;S.A. Klein, Choice
Review
"There is a great deal in Tears of Repentance that should be of interest to anthropologists researching colonialism, religion, and personhood."and#8212;Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database
Review
"
Tears of Repentance is recommended for all scholars of early New England."—Matthew Sparacio, H-AmIndian
Jack David Eller - Anthropology Review Database
Review
"Tears of Repentance is recommended for all scholars of early New England."and#8212;Matthew Sparacio, H-AmIndian
Review
andquot;This is a work that offers someone new to the topic a useful overview of the history and meaning of Indian conversions. For the specialist reader, it is useful to see the whole knit together afresh and to reap the benefits of Rubin's careful and synthetic analysis of the extensive primary sources and secondary literatures.andquot;andmdash;Ann Marie Plane, Connecticut History Review
Review
andquot;Rubin brings a firm grasp of sociological and religious theory to the field of Native American history.andquot;andmdash;Journal of American Studies
Review
andldquo;Andrew Woolfordandrsquo;s outstanding book offers fresh contributions to the field of Indigenous and settler colonial studies. His comparison of the Indian boarding schools in the United States with their Canadian counterparts yields new insights into both. He provides a sophisticated and probing analysis of whether these schools constituted genocidal policies and practices. This is a top-notch piece of scholarship that should enrich our scholarlyandmdash;and nationalandmdash;debates for decades to come.andrdquo;andmdash;Margaret Jacobs, author of White Mother to a Dark Race and A Generation Removed
Synopsis
Tears of Repentance revisits and reexamines the familiar stories of intercultural encounters between Protestant missionaries and Native peoples in southern New England from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on Protestant missionariesand#8217; accounts of their ideals, purposes, and goals among the Native communities they served and of the religion as lived, experienced, and practiced among Christianized Indians, Julius H. Rubin offers a new way of understanding the motives and motivations of those who lived in New Englandand#8217;s early Christianized Indian village communities.
Rubin explores how Christian Indians recast Protestant theology into an Indianized quest for salvation from their worldly troubles and toward the promise of an otherworldly paradise. The Great Awakening of the eighteenth century reveals how evangelical pietism transformed religious identities and communities and gave rise to the sublime hope that New Born Indians were children of God who might effectively contest colonialism. With this dream unfulfilled, the exodus from New England to Brothertown envisioned a separatist Christian Indian commonwealth on the borderlands of America after the Revolution.
Tears of Repentance is an important contribution to American colonial and Native American history, offering new ways of examining how Native groups and individuals recast Protestant theology to restore their Native communities and cultures.
About the Author
Andrew Woolford is a professor of sociology at the University of Manitoba and a recipient of the Fulbright Scholar award. He is the author of Between Justice and Certainty: Treaty-Making in British Columbia and the coeditor of Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America.