Perishing Heathens

In Perishing Heathens Julius H. Rubin tells the stories of missionary men and women who between 1800 and 1830 responded to the call to save Native peoples through missions, especially the Osages in the Arkansas Territory, Cherokees in Tennessee and Georgia, and Ojibwe peoples in the Michigan Territory. Rubin also recounts the lives of Native converts, many of whom were from mixed-blood métis families and were attracted to the benefits of education, literacy, and conversion. During the Second Great Awakening, Protestant denominations embraced a complex set of values, ideas, and institutions known as “the missionary spirit.” These missionaries fervently believed they would build the kingdom of God in America by converting Native Americans in the Trans-Appalachian and Trans-Mississippi West. Perishing Heathens explores the theology and institutions that characterized the missionary spirit and the early missions such as the Union Mission to the Osages, and the Brainerd Mission to the Cherokees, and the Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees. Through a magnificent array of primary sources, Perishing Heathens reconstructs the millennial ideals of fervent true believers as they confronted a host of impediments to success: endemic malaria and infectious illness, Native resistance to the gospel message, and intertribal warfare in the context of the removal of eastern tribes to the Indian frontier.  

“This book is built on an incredible range of sources, and Rubin’s theoretical treatment of conversion is both welcome and excellently done. A must read for those interested in the religious dimensions of Indian politics in the early nineteenth century.”—A. R. McKee, Choice            , “Rubin has successfully captured the image of a nation forged by widespread evangelical peoplehood in nineteenth-century America that titillates the reader's intellectual and emotional sides. Bolstering his career-long work as a religious and cultural scholar, Rubin engages readers in an expertly crafted interdisciplinary work that appeals to scholars, students, and the eager novice interested in religion, history, and sociology.”—Kara Jo Wilson, Chronicles of Oklahoma, "In Perishing Heathens: Stories of Protestant Missionaries and Christian Indians in Antebellum America Julius Rubin holds a magnifying glass up to the lives of early settler evangelicals and Native American converts. As a historical sociologist, Rubin explores individuals, both Native and non-native, many of whom are underrepresented in the historical record."—Rachel R. Luckenbill, Transmotion, "Rubin provides a clear account of antebellum evangelical Protestant culture that demanded the salvation of the "perishing heathens.""—Linda M. Clemmons, Church History, "Perishing Heathens is most successful as a study of missionary culture."—Sarah Koenig, Journal of Southern History

Julius H. Rubin is a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Saint Joseph. He is the author of Tears of Repentance: Christian Indian Identity and Community in Colonial Southern New England (Nebraska, 2013), The Other Side of Joy: Religious Melancholy among the Bruderhof, and Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America.