Henry Warner Bowden

Spanish Missions, Cultural Conflict and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680

Historians who try to understand encounters between red men and white men in the seventeenth century are immediately confronted with a problem: Indians were not literate, and they left no records of the sort we are accustomed to studying. For centuries the only information about aboriginal populations in the Americas was derived from European narratives, conditioned by viewpoints that harbored an outsiders values. Archaeology added some indigenous references, but the evidence has usually been too meager for adequate generalization. Historians have pursued the goal of avoiding white mens biases and viewing Indian cultures as having an integrity all their own, but that goal has remained an ideal, causing more despair than hope of eventual success. As far as the history of early New Mexico is concerned, the situation is worsened by the fact that most church and government archives were burned during the fighting of 1680–1696.

Science and the Idea of Church History, an American Debate

Students of American historiography value the latter part of the nineteenth century as a period in which distinctive ideas about the nature and procedures of historical research became explicit. More specifically, it was an era when the scholarly world was greatly influenced by the ideal of scientific objectivity and exactitude. Rapid advances in scientific theory and practical application in the post-war industrial boom set a standard for reliable knowledge in all fields. In that general enthusiasm for scientific precision several practicing historians tried to align their craft with the dominant criteria of their day in hopes of winning added respect and integrity for historical writing. The acceptance of that standard in the realm of historio-graphical theory produced significant repercussions in current ideas about church history, an area which until that time had been considered a separate field of inquiry. The decades between 1884 and 1896 mark a watershed in American thought, a transition from historical sensitivity at once patriotic and hagiographical to a discipline self-consciously, perhaps naively, tied to documentary evidence. But, beyond the popular rubric of faithfulness to the written record, there was a great debate over both the possible interpretations allowed by accumulated data and the final purpose of historical information. Such questions were especially relevant to church historians because they often answered the latter query before the former. The conflicting opinions, articulated by a fresh generation of European-trained scholars, broached questions about the historians task that continue to be pertinent today. Contemporaneous problems besetting all historians came into open conflict in this earlier period, and serious dilemmas still confront us.

Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians

An articulate and deeply committed leader of the Ojibwa people, Peter Jones (1802-1856) played a key role in the Mississaugas adjustment to European culture and their survival as a cohesive group. This biography draws on Joness letters, diaries, sermons, and his history of the Ojibwas, as well as on the diaries and letters of his English wife.

Ends and Means in Church History

Presidents of our Society have usually delivered annual addresses based on some aspect of their research interests. Few of these customary presentations (13 of 80) have self-consciously grappled with questions of method, definition, or interpretation in the larger context of historiographical concerns. My effort tries to honor both precedents, reporting on my current studies of twentieth-century American church historians while making some normative observations on perennially difficult philosophical problems, particularly those dealing with sacred references in a secular framework. Some of you might think that speaking to historians about historical procedures comes close to violating the injunction in Exodus 23:19 against boiling a kid in its mothers milk. But I suggest that such an exercise is beneficial because all of us can derive greater professional awareness from surveying the options found in scholarly practices past and present. Today the historical enterprise is characterized by both diversity and uniformity. Major concerns about method and interpretation-such as scientific objectivity, environmental conditioning, and relativistic skepticism-have contributed to this state of affairs. Arguments supporting different topical focuses-ranging from the now staid New History to emphases on consensus themes, intellectual history, the significance of ethnic groups and feminist roles-have added variety to the situation. These various orientations did not arise sequentially or progress in an orderly line of succession. They emerged with overlapping timetables, and in our day no single perspective dominates inquiries into the past because many attitudes vie uncertainly with each other. Despite this diversity, however, historians do share a common procedural core. Through pronouncements and demonstrations, theoretical overviews and practical studies, historians have shaped an implicit framework within which all of us operate. Looking at basic elements in this uniform pattern will allow us to see how church historians have adjusted their special topical concerns within the current system. Over recent generations historians have hammered out a standard set of procedures for accomplishing their work. These procedural steps have acquired a rationality and integrity of their own, whether or not practitioners are conscious of following them as a linked sequence. They also provide analytic-minded students with a comprehensive, abstract framework useful