National Council on Public History

NCPH Working Group

Katie Garland

Current Research

March 13, 2015

The American Bible Society (ABS), one of the United States’ oldest voluntary associations will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2016. Founded by some of the country’s most prominent leaders, including John Jay, John Quincy Adams, Elias Boudinot, and Francis Scott Key, the ABS sought to publish and distribute Bibles “without note or comment” to people throughout the United States and the world. The ABS headquarters, still located in the heart of New York City where the institution was founded, includes a Bible museum, an archive, and a collection of historic Bibles.

In preparation for the bicentennial of the ABS, Dr. John Fea (Chair of the Department of History at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA and my undergraduate advisor) was commissioned to research and write a history of the organization. Because he needed to write the book within a years’ time, he hired me as a research assistant for the project. Thus, I have spent the last year working on the project as an externship. Essentially, I have used the Bible Society’s annual reports, monthly newsletters, and other internal ABS sources to outline eight chapters describing the ABS’s history from Reconstruction through World War II.

Of the institution’s rich history, I am most intrigued by the ABS’s relationship with various ethnic and religious groups throughout the US, especially Native Americans and immigrants. The ABS’s message continually relates Christianity with American patriotism, arguing for the importance of giving Bibles to these groups, even if the people themselves could not afford them, because these people needed to be exposed to Christian values to become good Americans. Yet, because the ABS was most interested in religious conversion, the institution regularly stood up for the rights of minority groups to maintain their vernacular languages. For the ABS, it was more important that the people receive the message of the gospel than that they learn English. For instance, in 1887, when the Commissioner for Indian Affairs passed an act forbidding teachers from instructing Native American children in their vernacular languages, the ABS stood up for the rights of Native American people, noting in its October 1887 Bible Society Record (the monthly newsletter) that:

What becomes of freedom of speech if a government officer can forbid a man’s teaching in the only language he knows? Where is the free exercise of religion if a civilian has authority to say in what tongue the Bible shall be read in public worship? Surely there are some rights which cannot be questioned; and the only excuse to be made for the Commissioner’s order is, that with good intentions he unwittingly adopted a rule which puts him at variance with the best friends of the Indians…

 

But it is appropriate to call the attention of the friends of the Society throughout the land to the interests at stake when the attempt is made to enforce a rule by which the word of God becomes bound; the Scriptures in Dakota, Muskokee, Cherokee, Ojibwa, and Choctaw are thrust aside as ‘detrimental to the civilization of the Indians;’ and missionary translators and teachers are forbidden to use their discretion in deciding how they may be fulfil [sic] the great commission, and give elementary instruction in the principles of morality and religion.

 

It is greatly to be desired that this rule, if it be not at once withdrawn, be countermanded by the President, to whom the Dakota Indian Conference makes its appeal.[1]

The ABS did not just talk about giving the Bible to Native Americans and immigrants in their native languages; it actively worked to translate the Bible into these languages. In fact, the ABS had so many versions of the Bible in various languages that when the American government needed a number of translations of the same text for a language test to administer to immigrants in the 1910s, it turned to the ABS. Because the ABS had translations of the Bible in so many different languages, it could offer the same passage in different languages to ensure that the test was fair.[2] Yet, while respecting these native languages, the ABS continued to emphasize the importance of assimilation for citizenship and Protestant Christianity as a key element of that assimilation process.

Because of the nature of this book project, I have only been reading primary sources. We needed someone to go through all of the primary sources and gather all of that information. Once he gets my outlines, Dr. Fea will do the secondary research. Thus, I cannot suggest any monographs on this subject that I have actually read myself. Likewise, because this research is for a book project, I cannot offer this information to NCPH for an exhibit or other public history project. If we decided to do something on the ABS, I would have to have a few conversations with Dr. Fea and our contacts at the American Bible Society who have been paying me and supplying me with the resources.

All of these qualifications aside, I like the idea of doing an exhibit or other public history project about how mainstream Protestant Christianity has interacted with Native American history or immigration history. The first step in doing such a project would involve determining an appropriate place to hold such an exhibit. (While the ABS headquarters might seem like a natural choice, since the organization is currently in the midst of a move from New York City to Philadelphia, it is probably not the best choice right now.) We would need a historic site that is appropriate and relevant to the issue of immigration and/or Native American history, and which would be able to encourage a healthy dialogue about the topic.

Discussion