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ABC 18.3-18.8

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. North American Indian missions records: Guide.

Houghton Library, Harvard College Library

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Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

© 2005 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Last update 2009 March 9

Descriptive Summary

Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
Call No.: ABC 18.3-18.8
Creator: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Title: North American Indian missions records,
Date(s): 1803-1883.
Quantity: 83 boxes (40.5 linear ft.)
Abstract: Letters from missionaries and other documents originating in the various missions to American Indians of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Acquisition Information:

Deposited by Wider Church Ministries, 700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115-1100, Phone: 216/ 736-3200; Fax: 216 736-3203.
Wider Church Ministries is a ministry of the United Church of Christ and successor of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).
This series is part of the ABCFM collection received on deposit from the ABCFM in 1944.

Access Restrictions:

Restricted items in the ABCFM collection are materials of the last forty years and some materials specifically marked "Restricted". There are no such materials in this series.
Most items in this series are on microfilm (for which see below), permission of the curator is required to consult the original documents.

Use Restrictions:

Permission to quote from the ABCFM archives for publication should be requested from both Houghton Library and the Executive Minister of Wider Church Ministries.

Alternative Form Available:

Research Publications Ltd. (now Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group) filmed a considerable part of the ABCFM collection in the early 1980s, their focus being the correspondence to and from the field before 1919. For the contents of the 858 rolls of film, download the reel listing, or see the printed edition Papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions: Guide to the microfilm collection (1994), shelved in the Houghton Reading Room. A set of the microfilm is in Lamont Library, call number Film A467 (see HOLLIS record 1113915 ). Some papers in this series have also been microfilmed by historical societies in the states where the ABCFM Indian missions operated.

Historical Note

For a general note on the history of the Board and the importance of its archives, see the finding aid to the main collection.
Missions to American Indians began in 1817 with a mission station in Brainerd, Tennessee, to serve the Cherokees. Other tribes were added to the Board's deployment up to 1836, but the work met many obstacles, including the dispersal of tribes by the U.S. government, and the Civil War put an end to almost all mission activity. The following is a chronological list of the American Indian missions, taken from the later Board year books:

Arrangement

Organized into the following series: Note that for some items that are bound volumes, there is a number in square brackets at the end of the description in this finding aid . This is a number on the spine of the volume, following an old scheme of classification in the ABCFM's own library. Numbers after the names of correspondents refer to the item-numbers of the documents within the volume.

Scope and Content

Letters and other documents originating in the American Board's missions to North American Indians, including the Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Dakota, Mackinaw, Maumee and other tribes.

Related Material

This finding aid is a detailed guide to part of one series (ABC 18.3-8) within the Archives of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABC 1-91). Documents originating in the Board offices, such as copies of outgoing correspondence to the missions, as well as personal papers of the missionaries, photographs, and maps, are not covered here. For all these, consult the finding aid for the main collection.

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