Keith R. Widder

Keith R. Widder served as Curator of History, Mackinac Island State Park Commission for over 25 years. He has written extensively on the history of the western Great Lakes and is author of Bat...

Battle for the Soul
Métis Children Encounter Evangelical Protestants at Mackinaw Mission, 1823-1837

Keith R. Widder

In 1823 William and Amanda Ferry opened a
boarding school for Métis children on Mackinac
Island, Michigan Territory, setting in motion an
intense spiritual battle to win the souls and
change the lives of the children, their parents,
and all others living at Mackinac. Battle for the
Soul demonstrates how a group of enthusiastic
missionaries, empowered by an uncompromising
religious motivation, served as agents of
Americanization. The Ferrys' high hopes crumbled,
however, as they watched their work bring about a
revival of Catholicism and their students refuse
to abandon the fur trade as a way of life. The
story of the Mackinaw Mission is that of people
who held differing world views negotiating to
create a "middle-ground," a society with room for
all.

Widder's study is a welcome addition to the
literature on American frontier missions. Using
Richard White's "middle ground" paradigm, it
focuses on the cultural interaction between
French, British, American, and various native
groups at the Mackinac mission in Michigan during
the early 19th century. The author draws on
materials from the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions archives, as
well as other manuscript sources, to trace not
only the missionaries' efforts to Christianize
and Americanize the native peoples, but the
religious, social, and cultural conflicts between
Protestant missionaries and Catholic priests in
the region. Much attention has been given to the
missionaries to the Indians in other areas of the
US, but little to this region.

This study demonstrates how the most successful
missionaries accommodated themselves and their
teachings to Native American customs and
traditions. It belongs in all serious missionary
collections, and it also provides a fine study of
cultural interaction.

~Choice Magazine

In the 1830s evangelical missionaries, confident
of their ability to transform the world,
encountered the Métis of the upper Great
Lakes . . . Battle for the Soul chronicles their
fascinating contact as missionaries attempted to
transform the Métis through their children. Fair,
sensitive, and nuanced, this is a history that
never seeks to demonize and always seeks to
understand.

Richard White
Professor of History,
Stanford University

Keith Widder has given us a thoughtful and
carefully researched account of the impact of
evangelical Protestantism on the Native Americans
and their Métis

relatives at the Mackinaw Mission in the 1820s
and 1830s. . . . this seminal work adds greatly
to our understanding of the history of the
Western Great Lakes.

Phil Mason
Distinguished Professor of History,
Wayne State University