The Struggle for the Puyallup Mission
Puyallup tribal members resist government-imposed church leadership.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Rev. C. A. Pavement, pastor of the Presbyterian mission church on the Puyallup Indian reservation, is meeting with little or no success collecting funds among the Indians to go toward his salary. He was put in charge of the church by the Olympia Presbytery against the wishes of most of the Indian members, at the instance, they say, of Government Agent Eells and Headmaster Chalcraft of the government school. The Rev. G. W. Mann, whom the Indians wanted as their pastor, was removed to the Chehalis and Mud Bay Indian missions. The Indians, except for the pupils of the reservation schools, have with a few straggling exceptions given up attendance at church and profess themselves 'hungry' for Mr. Mann's ministrations.
“The Indians... have with a few straggling exceptions given up attendance at church, and profess themselves in their idiom as 'hungry' for Mr. Mann's ministrations.”
This reflects the systemic effort by the U.S. government to force religious and social conformity on Indigenous communities through appointed 'agents' and school officials. It highlights a period where tribal members were actively organizing to assert their own agency against colonial governance.
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