This paper offers a critical analysis of George Tinker's Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide, examining his central thesis that Christian missionaries were active partners in the cultural genocide of Native American peoples. The paper evaluates Tinker's methodology — including his use of the missionaries' own writings to support his argument — while also identifying two significant weaknesses: the tension created by Tinker's own identity as a Christian pastor, and the broader problem of reconstructive criticism, namely the difficulty of judging historical actors by contemporary moral standards. The four missionaries Tinker profiles — John Eliot, Junipero Serra, Pierre-Jean De Smet, and Henry Benjamin Whipple — are examined in turn, with attention to how Tinker's analysis both succeeds and falls short.
The paper demonstrates critical book review methodology at a strong undergraduate level. Rather than accepting the author's framework uncritically, the writer isolates two structural weaknesses — authorial positionality and the limits of anachronistic moral judgment — and tests them against each chapter's evidence. This technique, sometimes called immanent critique, holds an argument to its own stated standards.
The paper opens with a framing introduction that previews both Tinker's thesis and the reviewer's two main objections. It then works chapter by chapter through the four missionaries Tinker profiles, applying the same critical questions to each. The conclusion synthesizes the reviewer's assessment: Tinker largely succeeds in his historical goal but is hampered by unresolved tensions in his own position. References consist of a single primary source (Tinker, 1993), appropriate for a focused book review.
It is often said that there is nothing so dangerous as a convert or a missionary. Although many take this idea as a kind of tongue-in-cheek characterization of the excesses of those "blinded by faith," there remains a sinister truth in the statement. George Tinker's book, Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide, clearly illustrates the dark side of missionary work and the damage that can, and has been, done to Native American cultures and peoples as a result of the inherent coupling of colonialism, ethnocentrism, and religion — what Tinker calls "religion in the service of evil."
However, although Tinker does a remarkable job of pointing out the unfortunate Anglo-centrism of the missionaries he discusses, as well as the horrible price Native Americans would pay as a result of their efforts, he does not acknowledge the difficulty his own position as a Christian pastor creates for the effectiveness of his argument. Nor does he reconcile the reader's doubt concerning the common problem with reconstructive thinking — namely, can one use the values of today to judge the values of history?
From the beginning of the book, Tinker makes it clear that his main point in writing Missionary Conquest is "that the Christian missionaries — of all denominations working among the American Indian nations — were partners in genocide" (Tinker, 1993: 4). This assertion is no small thing. The term "genocide" is hardly trifling — especially when coupled with an institution as supposedly benevolent as Christian mission work. Tinker nonetheless mentions several times throughout the book the supposed "good intentions" of the very genocidal missionaries he discusses — missionaries who, despite the very real damage they helped perpetrate against an entire people, are on the verge of canonization:
"It is important to my thesis that my selections are among the most remembered and most revered missionaries, who have been the subjects of countless hagiographies and continue to serve as models. They have, I would argue, been elevated implicitly to the level of sainthood. My examples include John Eliot in Puritan New England, Pierre-Jean De Smet in the Northwest, soon to be officially 'Saint' Junipero Serra in California, and Henry Benjamin Whipple, Episcopal bishop of Minnesota during the later part of the nineteenth century" (4).
The point Tinker wants to make by choosing four of the most highly respected missionaries in American history is that even at its highest and supposedly most successful level, the unavoidable mixture of lofty Christian ideals and cultural ethnocentrism produced a genocidal effect on Native American societies. He writes, "I intend to expose the illusion, the covert 'lie' of white self-righteousness as it was internalized and acted out by the missionaries themselves" (5).
Because Tinker is so blunt in his accusation of genocide — cultural contributing to general — he employs a strident supporting methodology. Not only is his research backed by solid historical evidence, but he uses the words, writings, and letters of the very men he critiques to prove his thesis. However, time and again, these same words raise questions that Tinker is not prepared to answer. Perhaps if the author were not a Christian pastor himself, the reader might find his position easier to accept; as a Christian, one imagines that Tinker shares many of the assumptions embraced by the missionaries he critiques.
Tinker makes his strongest points when he illustrates the erroneous links the four missionaries drew between so-called "civilization" and "faith" — especially in his description of John Eliot's "praying towns." These praying towns were, at their most basic, embodiments of Eliot's belief that "civilization" must precede "conversion" — so much so that he actually prevented, or at least delayed, the conversion of those Native Americans who came to profess faith in Christianity:
"... It pleased God to stir up in them [Indians] a great desire of partaking in the Ordinance of Baptism ... But I declared unto them how necessary it was, that they should first be Civilized, by being brought from their scattered and wild course of life, into civil Cohabitation and Government ..." (36).
Tinker holds that this attitude, resulting from the non-introspective ethnocentrism of Eliot and other Puritan thinkers, is directly responsible for the destruction of the Indians of New England. In Eliot's insistence on the de-culturalization of Indian life as a prerequisite for admission to faith, he necessarily instilled "self-hatred" (41). Tinker writes, "Eliot must be held historically accountable for the resulting cultural genocide of those peoples" (40).
This problem is compounded by a recurring issue throughout the book: the suppression of practices contrary to Christian doctrine. The best example is polygamy, which Tinker returns to several times (pages 26, 76, 77, 106, 135, 152), charging its suppression with the "breakup of Indian families, and economic turmoil within the tribe" (77). The difficulty with this criticism is that the missionaries' focus was inherently religious, drawn from fixed principles based on the social understanding and doctrinal interpretation of their day. Because of this, it is difficult — even for Tinker — to fault these men for working against practices they deemed inconsistent with those principles.
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