Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Parker, Samuel. Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains, Under the Direction of the A.B.C.F.M. Performed in the Years 1835, '36, and '37; Containing A Description of the Geography, Geology, Climate, and Productions; and the Number, Manners, and Customs of the Natives. Ithaca: Published by the author; Mack, Andrus and Woodruff, Printers, 1838.

Samuel Parker. Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains, Under the Direction of the A.B.C.F.M. Performed in the Years 1835, '36, and '37; Containing A Description of the Geography, Geology, Climate, and Productions; and the Number, Manners, and Customs of the Natives. Ithaca: Published by the author; Mack, Andrus and Woodruff, Printers, 1838. Title page.

One portion of the American missionary movement’s global ambitions was directed at Native Americans inhabiting western North America, in competition with commercial and military interests.

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It is worthy of remark, that comparatively few of all those who engage in the fur business about, and west, of the Rocky Mountains, ever return to their native land, and to their homes and friends. Mr. P. of Fort Walla Walla told me, that to keep up their number of trappers and hunters near, but west, of the mountains, they were under the necessity of sending out recruits annually, about one-third of the whole number. Captain W. has said, that of more than two hundred who had been in his employment in the course of three years, only between thirty and forty were known to be alive. From this data it may be seen that the life of hunters in these far western regions averages about three years. And with these known facts, still hundreds and hundreds are willing to engage in the hunter’s life, and expose themselves to hardships, famine, dangers, and death. The estimation has been made from sources of correct information, that there are nine thousand white men in the north and in the great west, engaged in the various departments of trading, trapping, and hunting. This number includes Americans, Britons, Frenchmen, and Russians, and it is more than one hundred and fifty years since white men penetrated far into the forests, in their canoes freighted with goods, coasting the shores of the remote lakes, and following up the still more remote rivers, to traffic with the Indians for their furs, not regarding hunger, toils, and dangers. These enterprises have been extended and pursued with avidity until every Indian nation and tribe has been visited by the trader.

What is the power of that principle which draws thousands from their country, and their homes, and all the ties of kindred? Is the love of gain and hope of wealth the motive by which courage and daring are roused, and dangers defied? And shall christianity be a less powerful principle? Has it only furnished twenty or thirty missionaries, whose sole motive is to carry the gospel to the many ten thousand Indians in the wide extended country, over which are ranging nine thousand traders, trappers, and hunters? Are these the only evidences the church of God can give of sincerity in her professions of attachment to Christ, and to the interests of the immortal soul? If so, then christians surely must suffer in comparison with worldly men, and our heaven-descended religion, if judged of by its restricted fruits, must be deemed unworthy of its name and origin. But this want of christian enterprise, characterized by the late period in which it is begun, and carried forward with such slow and faltering steps, is not only to be lamented as a blot upon the christian name, but incomparably more is it to be lamented that in consequence, generation after generation of the heathen, to say nothing of the thousands who are trafficking among them, are left in their ignorance of the Savior to perish eternally. How long shall it be, that when an adventurous man forms a plan for traffic in far distant wilds, in a short time a company is formed with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and a hundred men are found to face hardships and dangers, and they are away? But when a christian heart is stirred up to go and carry the gospel to some far distant Indian nation, he may plead and plead for four men and two thousand dollars, and perhaps plead in vain. But it is said a great deal is now doing for the heathen world. How much? As much as to give five ministers to the United States. All that is doing for the conversion of the heathen is not more than what it would cost to build, and man, and defray the expenses of one ship of war.