Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions facts for kids
The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions is a Catholic organization that was started in 1874. It was created by J. Roosevelt Bayley, who was the Archbishop of Baltimore, to help and support Catholic missions working with Native Americans in the United States. Today, it is part of a larger group called the Black and Indian Mission Office.
Contents
How It Started
In 1872, Catholic leaders from Oregon and Washington Territory sent a person named Jean-Baptiste Brouillet to Washington D.C. He went there to sort out problems and claims that Catholic missions had with the United States government. This effort quickly grew to represent all Catholic areas in the U.S. that had worked with Native Americans.
Later, in 1873, Archbishop Bayley chose General Charles Ewing to be the Catholic Commissioner of Indian Missions. His job was to speak for the Catholic Church regarding Native American missions.
The Peace Policy and Reservations
A big issue for Catholics was how President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace Policy divided up Native American reservations. This policy, which started in 1869, aimed to keep peace with tribes and fight corruption in the government's Office of Indian Affairs. It worked by having the government partner closely with different Christian churches.
The Catholic Church had expected to be given control over 38 out of 73 reservations because of their past work with those tribes. However, under Grant's policy, they were only given seven. This meant that Native American Catholics on other reservations couldn't always go to their local Catholic churches and schools, which limited their freedom of religion.
Becoming the Bureau
While General Ewing worked with the government, the Office of Catholic Commissioner also tried to get more support from within the Catholic Church. They asked bishops and regular church members for help and worked with groups like the Catholic Indian Missionary Association.
At first, not many people responded, and some even suggested closing the office. But in 1879, it was reorganized and renamed the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. The Holy See (the main authority of the Catholic Church) approved the Bureau in June 1879. Later, in 1884, a big meeting of Catholic leaders in Baltimore confirmed it and added a board of bishops to guide it. This meeting also started a special collection during Lent to support missions for Native Americans and African Americans, creating the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians.
Supporting Schools for Native Americans
While the Peace Policy was active, the government worked with Christian groups to provide schools for Native American children. The government would pay for tuition and boarding, and the religious groups would provide teachers and buildings.
Under this system, the Catholic Bureau helped expand the number of Catholic schools for Native Americans. In 1873, there were only three Catholic schools getting government money ($7,000). Twenty years later, in 1893, there were 38 schools receiving $395,000!
Challenges to Catholic Schools
This growth worried groups like the Indian Rights Association. They saw the Catholic schools as a threat to American culture and the idea of separation of church and state (keeping government and religion separate).
In 1889, Thomas Jefferson Morgan proposed a national school system for Native American children. When he became Commissioner of Indian Affairs the next year, he started putting his plan into action. His plan stopped new contracts with religious schools and aimed to slowly end existing ones.
Joseph Stephan, the director of the Catholic Bureau, tried hard to save the Catholic schools that relied on these contracts. He managed to get some money directly from the United States Congress, bypassing the Office of Indian Affairs. However, he faced strong opposition, which he believed was organized by Morgan. Their relationship became very difficult, and in 1891, Morgan stopped all communication with the Catholic Bureau. Morgan's school plan continued, and from 1896 to 1900, Congress phased out most contracts with religious schools, causing many Catholic schools to close.
Saving the Schools
The Catholic Bureau worked hard to save as many of the remaining 50-plus Catholic schools as possible. They asked bishops and missionaries to encourage donations. They also started a fundraising group called the Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children and published The Indian Sentinel magazine for members. They also worked with other groups like the Marquette League.
These efforts, along with the Lenten collection, were helpful. But a huge amount of support came from Katharine Drexel. She saved many schools by donating over $100,000 each year and providing teachers through her order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.
Parents' Rights and Trust Funds
In 1896, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Daniel M. Browning thought that since the government looked after Native American people, the Indian Office should decide which schools children attended, not the parents. However, Catholic Bureau director William H. Ketcham told President William McKinley that this went against parents' rights to choose their children's education. In 1901, McKinley ordered the ruling to be changed.
In 1900 and again in 1904, the Catholic Bureau asked to use "trust assets" (money held by the government for certain tribes) to educate some Native American children in Catholic schools. In 1900, this idea was rejected because people said it broke the rule of separation of church and state.
However, in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt decided that if Native Americans agreed, their trust money could be used for private schools. The Indian Office then gave contracts to the Catholic Bureau for eight schools. When Congress didn't stop this, groups like the Indian Rights Association sued Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis E. Leupp. This case was called Quick Bear v. Leupp. In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled that tribal trust assets were private funds, not public ones, and Native Americans could spend them as they wished. Because of this, Native American parents paid Catholic schools over $100,000 in tuition from their trust funds over the next 50 years.
Changes and Growth (1930s-1960s)
In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act caused a lot of discussion. Some people criticized it, but the Catholic Bureau supported it. They believed it offered solutions to old problems and was not against Catholic missions or schools.
A report in 1935 showed that 35 Catholic schools on reservations were still getting yearly government contracts. Even during the Great Depression, government support only dropped a little, and the Catholic Bureau helped secure emergency government aid to make up the difference.
During World War II, government spending was cut, and funding for reservation-based Catholic schools dropped to $153,000 by 1946. But after the war, the economy grew, and the Catholic Bureau worked hard to get more money from Congress. By 1952, funding for these schools increased to $289,000.
By 1962, the Catholic Bureau reported that 129,000 Native American Catholics were served by 394 Catholic mission chapels. Also, 9,200 children were attending 54 Catholic schools on or near reservations.
New Challenges and Support (1970s-1980s)
By the 1970s, money from tribal trust accounts for tuition ran out. This caused several schools to close and created serious problems for many of the remaining 47 reservation schools. To help, Catholic Bureau director Paul Lenz started an Association of Catholic Indian Schools. In 1983, this group made plans to keep the schools open through fundraising campaigns and donations.
After Pope Paul VI brought back the permanent deacon role in the church in 1967, Native Americans began to become deacons. However, some Native deacon students found it hard to adjust to traditional classrooms and textbooks. So, in 1986, the Catholic Bureau paid for a new textbook series called Builders of the New Earth. This series has been reprinted many times to help train Native American deacons in the U.S. and Canada.
In 1977, U.S. bishops asked the government to create policies that would bring more justice for Native Americans. Later that year, the Catholic Bureau supported the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which Congress passed in 1978. Also in 1977, the Catholic Bureau began to support the Tekakwitha Conference, which became a group representing Native American Catholics. The Catholic Bureau also started promoting the process to make Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th-century Mohawk convert, a saint.
The Black and Indian Mission Office
In 1980, the offices of the Catholic Bureau, which had been shared with the Commission since 1935, became known as the Black and Indian Mission office. In 1981, there was an attempt to combine the Commission's "Black and Indian Mission collection" with other national collections. This would have ended the independence of the Catholic Bureau and other related groups. Paul Lenz strongly opposed this, seeing it as an attack on the interests of Black and Native American Catholics, and he successfully stopped it. He continued to build the collection, which raised over seven million dollars by 1994.
The Catholic Bureau also helped identify two successful priests with Native American heritage who became bishops. In 1986, the Holy See named Donald E. Pelotte as a bishop in Gallup. In 1988, it named Charles J. Chaput as Bishop of Rapid City.
Groups That Helped Raise Money
The Catholic Church used several groups to raise money for its mission work around the world. Some of these groups specifically helped missions for Native Americans in the United States and worked with the Catholic Bureau. Some were even created with the help of the Catholic Bureau.
- Catholic Indian Missionary Association (1875–1887)
This group was started by Catholic women in cities like Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and St. Louis. They raised $48,700 in donations for the Catholic Bureau and missions. They stopped when the Catholic Bureau started getting government contracts for the schools.
- Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians (1884-)
- Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children (1902–1922)
William H. Ketcham started this group along with The Indian Sentinel magazine. Members paid 25 cents a year and received the magazine. The group raised a lot of money, especially from Catholic churches and schools in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
- Marquette League for Catholic Indian Missions (1904–1991)
Leaders of the Bureau
Catholic Commissioners
- General Charles Ewing (1874–1883)
- Captain John Mullan (1883–1884)
Directors
- John-Baptiste Brouillet (1879–1884)
- Joseph Stephan (1885–1901)
- William H. Ketcham (1901–1921)
- William Hughes (1921–1935)
- John Tennelly (1935–1976)
- Paul Lenz (1976–2007)
- Wayne Paysse (2007-2015)
- Maurice Henry Sands (2015-)
More Information
- Lists of United States Supreme Court cases; Quick Bear v. Leupp in volume 210
Records and Archives
Marquette University Special Collections and University Archives keeps the historical records for the Catholic Bureau and its related groups, the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians and the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board. Together, these groups make up the Black and Indian Mission office. The records are mostly known as the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records because it's the oldest and has the most documents. Marquette University also has some images from the Catholic Bureau records and The Indian Sentinel magazine available online.
