by John Demos
Inevitably, outsiders would wish to see all this from close-up; hence the school became something of a tourist attraction. By consensus, it was one of three leading “points of interest” in the state of Connecticut. (The other two were Yale College, in New Haven, and the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, in Hartford.) Daggett would periodically complain of the crowding created by “throngs of visitors, some of whom frequently tarry overnight”; his assistant kept a record, which at one point included “200 visitors, during a period of 5 months.” David Brown noted that “many ministers come to visit this school, from different parts of the country,” and certainly it held great attraction for members of the Protestant clergy. Their enthusiastic impressions lie scattered through the religious press for the pertinent years.69
Some of the visitors came with a particular purpose. Thus, for example, Thomas Gallaudet, the principal of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, journeyed over from Hartford one evening in 1819 in order to meet with “several of these interesting strangers from the islands of the South Sea, and from different tribes of the North American Indians.” His goal was to “ascertain how far a conversation could be conducted with them merely by signs and gestures.” Gallaudet’s work with deaf-mutes had led him to regard signing as a kind of lingua franca, “implanted … by the Author of nature … in the very constitution of our species”; now he would put this idea to a special test. The results were remarkably confirming. Thomas Hopoo, among others, fielded questions in sign language about his parents, his fellow countrymen, the Hawaiian climate, and “many inquiries of a similar nature, all of which he well comprehended, and to many of which he replied by signs.” Sometime later, Hopoo made his own visit to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and communicated “by the same means” with the inmates there. All this was expected to be of “immense importance to the missionary to the unlettered heathen.” More broadly, it served to link the Mission School with the spirit of human progress in “an age of wonderful experiment.”70
There were foreign visitors, too. An Englishman named Adam Hodgson traveled to Cornwall—having previously “heard [the Mission School] mentioned with deep interest”—in early March 1821. His experience there, as described in his subsequent book Letters from North America (1824), included lengthy conversations with several scholars who “paid me a visit in my room.” He was particularly impressed by their polite manners, their academic program (he was able to examine their “trigonometrical copy-books” in detail), and their “devotions” in prayer. He was astonished, too, by the sheer diversity of their cultural backgrounds. He interviewed Daggett, who showed him a handwritten lexicon of English names for “common objects … and opposite to them the corresponding names in the different languages of all the pupils who had ever been at the school.” Moreover, he received from the principal, as a parting gift, “a copy of the 19th psalm in the language of the Muh-he-con-nuk, or Stockbridge tribe of Indians.” All in all, he concluded, “it would be difficult to conceive a more interesting sight than was presented by this school.”71
Visitors—including authors like Hodgson—were crucial to sustaining the school’s base of outside support. And public relations, in a very nearly modern sense, would remain a central focus of its leaders. Time and again, they proposed the publication of “interesting papers,” such as “letters passing between the students and their friends” or “an account of the experience of each scholar who is a subject of piety”; these and “other … scraps of personal history might be given to the public, and would be beneficial to the School.” Christian-sponsored journals, such as The Religious Intelligencer and The Missionary Herald, formed the front line here; most appeared monthly or bimonthly, with scarcely an issue failing to include some mention of the Mission School. Networks of more informal contact joined the numerous members of local “societies” devoted to the same end.72 Their task was more difficult than might at first appear, for a current of skepticism about all missionary work ran strong within some sectors of the wider populace. Indeed, this was a major counterforce that would grow alongside, and in close connection with, the Mission School. Supporters rarely acknowledged it—and then only with reluctance—until, at last, it began directly to undermine them.
Anti-mission attitudes brought together an odd mix of “the enlightened”—highly educated, prosperous folk, mostly Unitarians or “moderate” Congregationalists—with Protestant traditionalists from society’s lower ranks. (“Swamp Yankees,” the latter were sometimes disparagingly called.) Together these groups opposed what they termed “the great missionary delusion.” They started with scriptural arguments. Nowhere, they said, did the Bible require massive efforts to assist the heathen; moreover, since God could do everything He might wish, conversion was “taking the work out of His hands.” They went on from there to cultural and biological difference. The heathen, they believed, were incapable of “civilization” and genuine religious understanding; hence missionary projects were misconceived from the start.
Significantly, too, their position expressed deep social concerns. The work of the mission-minded they described as “priestcraft”—a sneaky way for “a certain class of our clergy” to gain power and influence, and perhaps eventually to roll back the recently achieved separation of church and state. Local fund-raising for missionary purposes (of a sort on which the Mission School placed heavy reliance) they regarded as “pious fraud, pious tricks,” its individual “agents” as little better than itinerant hucksters. They regaled one another with anecdotes like the following: “[T]he other day, one of those privateering priests, who are sent about to beg for the Missions, called at my house and by some means or other worked on the feelings of my family until they gave him five dollars.… Now I consider myself swindled out of the money.”
In many such stories, women were cast in an especially compromised role—as witless dupes, or enablers, or (in a sense) co-conspirators. One writer deplored the activity of “female societies” in supporting missions; “their tendency,” he declared, “is to countenance and encourage mothers and daughters to take the government into their hands.” Another asked, “Is it not a fact that in almost every parish … every clergyman of a certain class has four or five … ladies, some matrons and some maids, whom they have … spoiled, by making them believe that the salvation of the heathen principally depends on them … filling them with all manner of conceits, pride, vanity, self-consequence, haughty and domineering propensities?” Worse yet, the women involved were liable to conclude “that they can not only convert the heathen abroad, but … have a right to govern and give tone to society at home.” (Missions, ministers, matrons, and maids: how dangerous that combination! And how much lay at risk: civil society and governance, religious liberty, family life, the racial and gender orders—nothing less. If made real, theirs would be a topsy-turvy world; hence right-thinking folk were bound to push back.)
The Mission School, in particular, received some pointed barbs. For example, this: “It is said … that the scholars are luxuriously fed; dressed extravagantly; are lawless; learn nothing; and abuse by indolence the liberality of their patrons.” Also this: “For what purpose are some of these young ‘gentlemen’ dressed up in the best attire that this country, Europe, or India can afford, or a rich treasury purchase, and annually brought onto a public stage for exhibition? Is this only to get more money from the public, by contributions when people come to see them?” And, finally, this: “How many wheels there are in this business! Have an Indian show, [and] collect fifty or a hundred dollars, from the public.… By the head of Tecumseh, if this wasn’t a good plan, when laid!” (In short: It didn’t work at all as claimed; instead, it amounted to a fraud on the good intentions, and pocketbooks, of uninformed supporters—in effect, a kind of confidence game.) For some at least, perhaps for a good many, the school seemed virtually to epitomize the fault found with all missionary endeavor.73
Against these doubters and dissenters, the school worked tirelessly to maintain itself. Appreciative tributes and, most i
mportant, “donations” arrived from around the country and overseas. A Swiss nobleman, the Baron de Campagne, was an especially generous benefactor; his two gifts to “his beloved Cornwall, on which the praying hearts of thousands in our Switzerland are firmly fixed” would enable the purchase of hundreds of books, globes, “mathematical instruments,” and a two-year supply of stationery. Such marks of international recognition seemed especially gratifying to the agents, inasmuch as the school “embraces all nations and stands without a competitor in the world.” There were other substantial gifts, as well, from ministers, from merchants, from “a nobleman of South Prussia,” from the estate of Congressman Elias Boudinot (for whom a Mission School student had been renamed), from John Jay, the famed diplomat and first chief justice of the Supreme Court, from Lydia Sigourney, a celebrated poet and novelist, and (at $2,000, one of the biggest) from a certain Mrs. Lewis of New London, Connecticut. Meanwhile, humble, small-scale contributions—in both money and kind—continued to pour in from countless supporters nearby. These resources were supplemented, on a regular basis, from the funds of the American Board. Finally, the federal government provided subsidies to aid some (not all) of the Indian students; this was part of an official policy “to provide for the Civilization of the Indian tribes.”74
Part of the local fund-raising involved a door-to-door, “horse and wagon” strategy, but the leaders acknowledged that “people in this region are tired of the solicitation of traveling Agents.” Better results would come from “mission boxes” strategically sited in churches, “concerts of prayer” (special meetings organized to promote the cause), and, most of all, collections taken at the annual examinations or other major events. Publicity about the scholars and their various achievements remained central to all such efforts. And the leadership placed special hope on news expected soon from the Hawaiian mission: If that proved favorable, support for the school might increase dramatically.75
So it was that many in Cornwall had eyes and ears pointed far to the west during the spring, summer, and fall of 1820. In fact, the first direct reports from that quarter took a full year in transit. But when finally they did arrive, they were nothing short of astonishing. The old island king, Kamehameha, had died not long before. Something of a succession crisis ensued, with the king’s son and heir, Liholiho, eventually taking the throne. Through the course of these changes, much in traditional Hawaiian culture—especially religious culture—was overturned. Thus, when the missionaries landed, they received “the interesting intelligence [that]…THE KING IS DEAD! THE TABOOS ARE BROKEN! THE IDOLS ARE BURNT! THE MOREEAHS ARE DESTROYED AND THE PRIESTHOOD ABOLISHED!” Nothing else could have given them such an enormous lift; it seemed, quite simply, providential—the work of “that arm alone which sustains the universe.” Wrote one: “A great and important Revolution has opened the way for missionaries, and seems to insure their success.” Said another: “Christ is overturning the ancient state of things, in order to take possession.” Within mere weeks they had fanned out across the islands—founding little churches, beginning farm projects, establishing schools. The new king, his family, and the various satellite chiefs seemed quite ready to accept them and their mission. They felt fully—and literally—blessed.76
All this they would describe, in extravagant detail, for their like-minded “brethren” at home. Daggett himself began a many-sided correspondence with several of the missionaries and two or three among the island’s native royalty. As a direct result, affecting tales of “accomplishment” circulated widely at Cornwall and elsewhere: of conversions “hopefully anticipated” and native rituals abruptly given up; of lessons “newly learned” and “ancient” beliefs renounced; of Christian chapels built and “pagan altars” torn down; of crosses raised and “idols committed to the flames.” For example, one of the returned scholars destroyed a group of “stone gods” lining a path to a native shrine; he did this “in his pious indignation against such an insult to the God of the Christians.” In another case, a different scholar approached “several huge stones … dignified with the appellation of gods … and rolled them into the sea.” Indeed, such stories went on and on.77
But not all “idols” were treated so roughly; some would be sent back across the ocean to New England, to be set up there on public display. One, in particular, became the focus of extensive comment; hence its long and quite remarkable journey can be retraced even now. At some point in the summer of 1820, King Tamoree (of Atoi) decided to disown his previous religious practice. He reportedly declared (through a translator), “I believe that my idols are good for nothing.… I throw them all away.” In fact, however, he kept at least a few for a while longer. Thus the following November, Samuel Ruggles, one of the newly arrived missionaries, wrote home to Daggett: “We send by … Capt. Bennett [master of a China Trade schooner] a small box containing two of King Tamoree’s favorite idols, which he lately presented to us. One is for yourself, and the other is intended for President Day [of Yale College].” Daggett received his part of the shipment in mid-May (1821); he described it as “a piece of wood curiously carved nearly in the form of a human being, with very distorted and disgusting features, and stained black.”78
This timing was especially propitious; the idol arrived “on the day of our public exhibition” and was immediately incorporated into the official program. Daggett’s account continued: “We had, upon this occasion, an Owhyhean Dialogue, spoken on the stage, between Kummooolah, Irepoah, Kriouloo, Whyhee, Arohekaah, Popohe, & Zealand [all, save the last, being Pacific Islanders], during which one … entered, as a messenger, & reported the pleasing intelligence received from the Sandwich Islands; upon which the youths gave a shout of approval … after which the idol was exhibited, & such observations made upon it, as were thought proper. The Owhyheans then joined in a song, after their native manner, & closed the performance by repeating, in English, the Hymn ‘Owhyhee’s Idols are no more’…[which] was immediately afterwards sung by the choir [composed of local townsfolk], in the gallery.” The same object may also have been the source of a $5.36 entry in the school’s account, recorded as coming from a Cornwall “charity box … by the exhibition of the idol of King Tamoree.”79
Daggett said nothing about audience reaction when “the idol was exhibited,” but we may easily imagine. Excitement, horror, fascination, and, most of all, disgust: There lay the animating spirit of the entire missionary project, its fount of creative (and destructive) energy. On the visible surface, laborers in “the Great Cause” showed only the most giving, most affirmative of motives. But underneath they struggled with feelings of a deeply aversive sort. Heathenism, as they knew it (or construed it), was utterly ugly and loathsome. This attitude, in turn, reflected the binary world in which they lived, where right and wrong, good and evil, salvation and sin, Heaven and Hell, perfection and failure, glory and abomination, formed a set of tightly linked opposites: Be one, be the other, there was nothing in between. Always they sensed a danger that the boundary might blur, that a line might be crossed. Put differently: The good and glorious might somehow be ruined by its awful, toxic underside. Still, together with danger came opportunity; heathenism, and all its doleful accompaniments, could yet be undone. Missionary work was, at bottom, a vast program of cleansing, of purging, of root-and-branch decontamination.