Pipestone National Monument Guest Speaker Series

Event:

Date:

May 11th, 2013.

Time:

2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Location:

Pipestone Performing Arts Center

Contact:

507-825-5464 ext 214

Website:

www.nps.gov/pipe

Glen Livermont, Superintendent, at Pipestone National Monument, announces the fifth presentation in this year's Guest Speaker Series. Guest speakers, Dr. James Calvin Schaap will present lectures on "The Role of Missionaries in the Dakota War of 1862" and "Reflections on Mission Enterprises Among the Navajo and Zuni Indians of the American Southwest" at the Pipestone Performing Arts Center, Pipestone, Minnesota, on Saturday, May 11th, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

Dr. Schaap notes that Christian missionaries were often the first white people Native Americans met in the European settlement of the Upper Midwest and throughout the continent. Generally, missionaries of the gospel - both Roman Catholic and Protestant - followed the fur trappers, but preceded significant homesteading in the early decades of the 19th century. Sioux Country, they were often among the earliest white settlers in the woods and on the prairies.

He points out that the missionaries were deeply committed to the cause of Jesus Christ, preaching the gospel and teaching Native people to pray and argues that the importance of Christian missionaries among Native peoples is difficult, complex, and even risky to interpret. The role of Christian missionaries in the 1862 Dakota War is just as complex and fascinating. Through that time in this region's history, no white people so fully supported the Dakota, from beginning to end, as their own Christian missionaries. Yet, they also played decisive roles in sentencing the 303 Dakota Indians to death by hanging.

Dr. James Calvin Schaap is a retired professor of English at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa and has published several books, including novels, historical short fiction, meditations, essays and stories, biography.