Sand Creek: Repenting of an Imperialistic Mind-set Then and Now

by

A United Methodist Insight Exclusive

In advance of Native American Ministries Sunday, observed on April 10, this white, U. S., male author reflects on the imperialistic mindset contributing to the 1865 Sand Creek Massacre and what it means for white, U.S. United Methodists today in a global church.

As a white United Methodist leader in the United States of America, I struggle with how to respond to injustices perpetuated generations ago against Native Americans. My ancestors played a role in the destruction of native peoples. I continue to benefit from social structures and inheritances designed to bestow privilege upon me and other white people in the United States. How do I repent?

Repentance, metanoia, calls for turning from the ways of the past in order to prevent future wrongs. Acknowledging the wrongs done to Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other native peoples by white Methodist settlers in the 19th century is but one part of repentance. Restitution is another piece. Committing to a better future, that is working proactively to avoid the same kind of sin, is yet another piece.

This article explores this third component of repentance, asking what white, U. S. United Methodists can do proactively to turn from a mind-set that distorted the gospel to the extent that it resulted in the subjugation of native peoples in the name of Christianity and civilization. The answer implicates current United Methodist structures and the “worldwide” ambitions of The United Methodist Church.

An Act of Repentance

The UMC has only recently begun to address past mistreatment of Native Americans by Methodists. The denomination took a big step through its “Act of Repentance toward Healing Relationships with Indigenous Peoples” at the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Fla. The 2012 General Conference also adopted a petition calling for “full disclosure” of those persons involved in the 1865 Sand Creek Massacre, one of the worst atrocities committed against native peoples in North America and one led and abetted by Methodists.

This disclosure is being presented to General Conference next month. Remembering the Sand Creek Massacre: A Historical Review of Methodist Involvement, Influence, and Response, written by scholar Gary L. Roberts, a historian and United Methodist from Tifton, Ga. This book-length, historical account is printed in full in the Daily Christian Advocate Advance Edition, pp. 1235-1408, and will subsequently be available in hard copy.

Roberts documents how white Methodists treated Native Americans and the mind-set that enabled them to rationalize and justify the events of Nov. 29, 1864 at Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory. On that day, U. S. Army soldiers led by Col. John M. Chiviington, a Methodist elder-turned-soldier known as "the fighting parson," set upon a peaceful encampment of Cheyenne and Arapho peoples, slaughtering some 200 women, children and elderly after luring away most adult men. The mind-set that enabled this slaughter of innocents remains a social sin of which white U. S. Methodists still need to repent.  

An Anglo-American Mind-set of Superiority

Roberts begins with the basic point that Native Americans and Euro-Americans have different ways of seeing the world: one cyclic and the other linear (Page 1254). Within these distinct ways of seeing are diverse cultures, languages, and traditions. There are multiple indigenous peoples in North America, just as there are multiple European peoples. These differences or similarities in themselves do not determine how individuals and entire peoples might relate to each other, though. Those relationships and potentials for relationship depend on one’s mind-set.

According to Roberts, understanding the complexities of Indian-white relationships involves realizing the distinct ways of seeing, diverse cultures, and differing mind-sets involved. Persons sharing a way of seeing may develop differing ways of interacting with each other and the world “based on thought and experience” (Page 1255). This is what Roberts calls mind-set. Mind-sets shape the way different people and peoples interact.

The prevailing Anglo-American mind-set in the 19th century was one of cultural, religious, and technological superiority (Pages 1255-56). Roberts traces the development of this mind-set through the history of Western Christendom, embedded in a triumphalist theological narrative and expressed in the Roman Empire, the medieval Crusades, and the European “Doctrine of Discovery,” through which Christian nations provided legal justification for subjugating indigenous peoples in other lands (Pages 1261-62). To this general European mind-set, the English added “a deeply embedded sense of Anglo-Saxon superiority” (Page 1263).

The Anglo-American mind-set prevented significant relationship building with Native Americans. Attempted Methodist missions among Native Americans largely faltered as white evangelists and missionaries rarely invested sufficient time to learn about native peoples’ ways of seeing, their cultures, and their languages.

“The old ‘anti-Indian sublime’ was as fundamental to American Methodist thinking as was grace or sanctification. The best that could be said of Methodist efforts among Indian people was that enough was done to make the annual reports of the Missionary Society respectable. But there was no aggressive or enthusiastic support for the effort beyond a few missionary spirits [citing scholar Robert H. Keller, Jr.]. There was no heart for Indian missions because the soul of Methodism was bound up in American exceptionalism.” (Page 1362).

Methodists had fully embraced a civic theology.

Methodist Civic Theology

White Methodists embraced an Anglo-American mind-set as completely consistent with—indeed as an expression of—their faith. At the same time that the United States began to develop a sense of national identity, Methodism was spreading rapidly among Anglo-American settlers. Methodists and other Euro-Americans considered the “Indian” as a savage other in need of civilization and salvation (1273). Methodists prioritized the former as they embraced a civic theology blurring Christian and U. S. identities.

“Methodists, like other Americans, acted toward [Native Americans] on the basis of this image of the savage and never attempted to know them or to learn what they thought, knew, believed, valued, or felt. The country’s growth blended with biblical notions of ‘chosen people’ and ‘the promised land,’ to make the ‘savage other’ even more alien to the principles of the Church. What emerged was a ‘civic theology’ that linked Anglo civilization and Christian evangelization. Unlike the Methodists of the Revolutionary era, Methodists were now [by the 1850s] fully in the political arena. Loyalty to the Union was a religious duty, and Christianization was essential to civilization.” (Page 1285, citing Jeffrey Williams).

The Anglo-American mind-set of superiority seemed to justify domination of native peoples, and every incremental achievement of greater domination fed back into an even greater sense of divine favor. A nationalistic mission driven by a sense of Manifest Destiny (Page 1287) created a self-fulfilling circumstance in which white Methodists understood their faith through the lens of their nation and the progress of their nation as evidence of the truth of their faith. “Methodism had become an establishment church,” according to Roberts, embracing “American exceptionalism and destiny as tenets of Church policy and ministry” (Page 1395).

Remembering the Sand Creek Massacre

Once white Methodists made this turn to a “civic theology,” it became nearly impossible for them to critique U. S. policies and the injustices perpetrated by its dominant white culture without also implicating Christianity itself. This is perhaps an explanation, not an excuse, for why it has taken Methodism so long to acknowledge its sins against Native American peoples.

General Conference 2012 desired a full disclosure of the Sand Creek massacre. Roberts was given the task to determine the responsibility of two prominent white male Methodist leaders as well as the Methodist Episcopal Church for the attack (Page 1389). His conclusions are unambiguous. Methodist layman John Evans, founder of Northwestern University and namesake of Evanston, Ill., was governor of the Territory of Colorado at the time. Roberts concludes: “John Evans, more than any other person, was responsible for the conditions that made the Sand Creek Massacre possible” (Page 1389). Col. John Milton Chivington, an ordained Methodist elder, led the attack “to further his own ambitions,” according to Roberts (Page 1391).

Although the Sand Creek Massacre was widely condemned at the time (Pages 1378, 1397), the Methodist Episcopal Church remained silent (Page 1393). Roberts writes, “What stands out most strikingly in the Methodist response to Sand Creek and the events that followed, however, is indifference. Sand Creek was simply not important enough to the Church to matter” (Page 1395).

As I read Roberts’s report, the pervasive Anglo-American mind-set shaped by a civic theology among Methodists seems to have been the most significant enabling factor in the tragedy of Sand Creek. Roberts describes the effects of this mind-set as ranging from “benign paternalism” to “militant contempt and even violence” (Page 1394). Roberts writes: “The different ways of seeing must be understood and valued before words like ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ can have meaning, purpose, or hope of reality” (Page 1254). Very few Methodists transcended this mind-set, which blinded them to the injustices to which they contributed.

Repenting of an Imperialistic Mind-set

The Anglo-American mind-set and civic theology that turned so destructive in 19th century Methodism continue today in the form of an “imperialistic mind-set.” White U. S. Methodists attempting to repent of Methodist responsibility for the Sand Creek massacre must also seek to turn from modern-day forms of U. S. Christian imperialism and mind-set that enables it. Repentance begins with recognition and acknowledgement.

We see an imperialistic mind-set in the U. S. presidential election campaign as well as the political maneuverings for power by some caucus groups within the UMC.

We see an imperialistic mind-set in paternalistic structures of mission, in which poor people and non-English speakers in the United States are seen as objects of rather than partners in mission (despite the bishops’ Call to Action).

We see an imperialistic mind-set in U. S. involvement in global military struggles since Sept. 11, 2001, as discussed in the bishops’ study document In Search of Security.

We see an imperialistic mind-set in our denomination’s treatment and expectations of Central Conferences (church regions located outside the United States) suppressed voices at General Conference, a belated attempt at global apportionments, inconsistent or missing data reports (GC2016 Guide, p. 38), failure to provide adequate and timely translation of General Conference materials (GC2012 monitoring report, p. 2613), and unequal treatment during a merger.

Indeed, we must ask ourselves what it means to be a “worldwide” denomination and why that ambition is so important to the UMC’s sense of identity at this moment in history. When the presence of huge imbalances of money, privilege, and power seems destructive of mutual relationships of trust and respect, we must ask how this desire to become a “worldwide” church will avoid the excesses and abuses of the same kind of imperialism that caused the Sand Creek massacre.

The good news is that mind-sets can be changed. An imperialistic mind-set must be changed in order to heal relationships with Indigenous peoples. Indeed, those healed and healing relationships may be the key to helping white U. S. United Methodists like me to overcome the imperialistic mind-set we have inherited.