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Native American Missionary Schools
As religious revivalism swept through the United States in the early 1800s, a growing group of evangelical Christians took on the role of missionaries. These missionaries were, in many cases, concerned with converting non-Christians to Christianity. Native Americans were a nearby and easy target for these missionaries. According to the scholars Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, these Christian missionaries believed that the Native Americans were uncivilized, and were in need of help from the missionaries to make them more civilized and more like Anglo-Americans.

Missionaries found great difficulty converting adults, but, according to Perdue and Green's research, they found it much easier to convert Native American children. To do so, missionaries often separated Native American children from their families to live at boarding schools where the missionaries believed they could civilize and convert them. Missionary schools in the American Southeast were first developed in 1817. Perdue and Green's research has shown that these children did not only learn the basic subjects of education that most American children experienced, but also were taught to live and act like Anglo-Americans. Boys learned to farm, and girls were taught domestic labor, and according to Perdue and Green, they were taught that Anglo-American civilization was superior to the traditional Native American cultures that these children came from. David Brown, a Cherokee man who converted to Christianity and promoted the conversion to Christianity of Native Americans, went on a fundraising speaking tour to raise money for missionary societies and their boarding schools. Brown, in his speech, described the progress that he believed had been made in civilizing Native American children in missionary schools. "The Indians," he claimed, "are making rapid advances toward the standard of morality, virtue and religions."

The responsibility for missionary work fell on the missionaries themselves for the most part. While the U.S. government provided some funding for missionary work, such as Native American Missionary Schools, the missionaries themselves were primarily responsible for running these schools. The scholar Kyle Massey Stephens argues that the federal government acted in a supporting role in assimilation programs like these mission schools. President James Monroe, though, wanted the United States to increase funding and assistance with private mission schools in their efforts to educate Native American children. According the Stephen's work, the first missionary schools from 1817 were funded completely by private donors. In 1819, this changed when Congress appropriated an annual fee of $10,000 to be given to missionary societies in addition to their private fundraising. The United States Secretary of War at the time, John C. Calhoun, advocated for these funds to be used towards educating Native American children in Anglo-American culture with courses on farming and mechanics for boys, and domestic labor for girls. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was founded in 1824 to handle issues related to Native Americans, had thirty-two missionary schools that they had sanctioned in Native American communities in its first year of existence. In these schools, 916 Native American children were enrolled.