The chief and his nephew
It’s never a good idea, nor very Christian, to kill someone who refuses to be baptized.
This came back to me the other day when I was thumbing through a book, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, which gives a wonderful history of John Wesley’s life and times. (I’m a history fanatic, BTW.) It’s by Richard P. Heitzenrater. I read it in a Methodism class in seminary and remember being struck by this episode about Wesley’s largely unsuccessful trip to Georgia, in which he’d hoped to convert the “noble savages” to the Christian faith:
Wesley’s design of ministering to the Indians began to materialize during February, before the missionaries moved permanently from ship to shore. His first contact with the Indians of Georgia, on board the Simmonds, clearly exposed the misconceptions upon which his proposed mission to these ‘noble savages’ was based. He was quickly disabused of the notion that they were without preconceived notions or party interest and ready as little children, eager and fit to ‘receive the gospel in its simplicity.’ Although Tomochichi, a chief of the Creeks, expressed hope to hear ‘the Great Word’ (if the wise men of his nation would allow it), he warned the Wesleys {John and brother Charles} and their friends that the French, Spanish, and English traders had caused great confusion and had turned many of the people against hearing the Word. Tomochichi made it clear that he did not want them to evangelize in the Spanish manner; he would rather they instruct first and then baptize. The chief had strong feelings about Christianity; his own father had been killed by the Spanish because he refused to be baptized.”
*** More on this renowned chief from Wiki:
Tomochichi (to-mo-chi-chi’) (c. 1644 – October 5, 1739) was a seventeenth century Creek leader and the head chief of a Yamacraw town on the site of present day Savannah, Georgia.Although much of his early life is unknown, Tomochichi was exiled from the Creek nation for unclear reasons and, along with several followers, first settled what is now Savannah, Georgia. Tomochichi created the Yamacraw tribe from Creek and Yamasee and settled on the bluffs of the Savannah River.
By the time of the establishment of the colonial charter of Georgia in 1732 (the colonial charter was contributed in the same year), Tomochichi remaining a lifelong friend of the early English colonists, helping the settlers in Georgia negotiate a treaty with the Lower Creeks (as well as settling previous disagreements with the Creek).
Tomochichi wanted his people to be educated. He worked with Benjamin Ingham, a friend of John Wesley and Charles Wesley, to create an Indian school at Irene that opened in September 1736.
He was taken to England by colonial governor James Edward Oglethorpe in 1734, where he was entertained, given presents as well as a portrait painted of him and his nephew. Upon his death on October 5, 1739, Tomochichi was given a public funeral by the colony. A mound of stones covered his gravesite. Senauki, his wife, and his nephew, Toonahowi, were left in charge of the tribe. On April 21, 1899, a monument to his memory was erected by the Colonial Dames of America. The Georgia Historical Commission placed a memorial in Savannah’s Wright Square, also.
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