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36
stances, not sinful. Slavery lies directly across the path of the
missionary, and must be met. A person involved in slaveholding
is to be considered as living in sin, and on him it devolves to show,
if he can, that in his case there are palliating circumstances. The
missionaries are to set their faces against all overt acts of cruelty,
and they are instructed to pursue such a course as will free the
Choctaw churches from Slavery. In 1836, the expediency of buy-
ing slaves, with liberty to work out their purchase money, was
considered, and it was decided that this be no longer tolerated ; and
as to hiring slaves, it is deemed inexpedient in the mission to resort
to this kind of labor.
The Board advised the postponement of the discussion, pro-
duced by the reading of the documents, till the correspondence
should be finished. Rev. J. Blanchard, of Illinois, offered the
following resolutions :
‘“}. That this Board distinctly admits and affirms the principle that
slavcholding is a practice not to be allowed in the Christian church.
“2, That it is, in the judgment of this Board, the duty of the
missions in the Cherokee and Choctaw nations to abolish the practice
of hiring slaves to do the work of their schools, and to conform to
the recommendation of their Secretary, (Mr. Treat,) that slave-
holding should be prima facie evidence against an applicant for ad-
mission to the church.”
He said:
“The Choctaw Mission was, by its own showing, incorrigibly
pro-slavery. It receives slaveholders into the communion of the
mission church, and makes their slaveholding no more an objection,
than it makes the Slavery of the slaves in receiving them. And it
not only does this, but in the pulpit and in the private conversation
of the missionaries, all reference to Slavery as an evil ora sin is
avoided. More than that, in spite of the remonstrances of the Secre-
tarics of the Board for twelve years, the Choctaw Mission School
is served by slaves. All the work for the institution was done by
slaves.”
The resolutions were rejected, and afterwards reconsidered.
The mover offered to withdraw them, if they, with a minute of
his course, could be entered upon the records. ‘This was op-
posed; but on the venerable Dr. Beecher, of Ohio, ‘solemnly
protesting against the position of the Board, and stating that
unless the churches of the great West could be heard from the
records of the Board, it would assuredly lose all confidence and
‘support in that quarter,’? Mr. B.’s request was complied with.
The missionaries haye remonstrated against the course pur-
“\ Ir
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