Hare, William Hobart

Christian Schools Among the Indians. Bishop Hare's Circular. Number One [wrapper title]

New York: 1874. 7pp. Original printed self wrappers, sewn. Minor soiling to front wrapper, significant browning to final leaf. Very good. Item #4075

A rare circular focused on the education of Native American youth in the early years of the Yankton Agency in the Dakota Territory. The work was written by William Hobart Hare (1838-1909), who oversaw the Christian schools among the Native Americans at Yankton, from Dakota in January 1874, and was issued by the Office of the Indian Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York. Headlined "The Church and the Indians," this series of circulars began with the present issue and ran through 1877. In the present work, Hare acknowledges the "many Christian people for the interest which they have shown in the Boarding-School work," and then lays out the "general plan of the school work." Hare's tone is clearly contemptuous of the indigenous peoples in Dakota, whom he variously refers to as "wild people" and "idle," arguing that Indian boarding schools are necessary to "draw some of them from their wild ways to serve our Saviour in industrious, honest and holy lives." Hare then describes the school building, its location, the composition of the student body, more about his plan "to make the school self-serving," and further details on each school day. Hare signs the end of his circular as "Missionary Bishop of Niobrara." The final two pages provide details on a few dozen scholarships available to fund the education of about a hundred students at the Yankton Agency, Santee Mission, Crow Creek Mission, and Cheyenne Mission. Fewer than ten institutional copies of this first issue in OCLC.

Price: $650.00