The Heathen School

The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic (2014) is a nonfiction historical work by American author, historian, and Samuel Knight Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University, John Demos. In The Heathen School, Demos explores the founding, purposes, and effects of the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, as related to early and nineteenth-century America’s obsessions with race, religion, and assimilation. The school’s objectives are tested when two of the Native American students marry white women.

The first part begins with a discussion of the China Trade and the education of a young Hawaiian man, Obookiah. While many details of his early life are unverified, Obookiah eventually leaves the island and studies at Yale. While a boy, he was trained in the native Hawaiian religions, but in America, he converts to Christianity and decides to pursue a vocation in religion. Planning to someday return to Hawaii to convert his countrymen, he decided language would be a good place to start; since the Hawaiian language was entirely oral, he started assigning the English alphabet to it, creating a grammar and spelling he could use to translate the Bible. The idea of building a school to educate the “heathen youth” emerges in the mid-1810s, in part to answer the missionary zeal that Obookiah and others (including Hawaiians) felt towards converting the Sandwich Islands. From there, the idea expanded to include natives from every non-Christian country. They thought that by educating natives and shaping them into missionaries, these youths would return home and spread the Word, converting their homelands from within.

The second part examines the inherent American drive to save the world through the gospel, stemming from the English Protestants (Puritans) who brought their desire to build God’s perfect city on the hill and belief that the eyes of the world were upon them.* Demos contextualizes this missionary impulse by looking at the mid-eighteenth century, including the Great Awakening led by charismatic ministers like Jonathan Edwards, and the upheaval brought by wars abroad and growing revolutionary sentiments. In 1817, the Foreign Mission School opens with the first twelve students, funded in large part by donations. To prove to the public that the school is working, they set up exhibitions to demonstrate knowledge and change from the student’s previous “savage” nature into a more “civilized” one. Unfortunately, not long after the school opens, the poster-boy Obookiah falls ill and dies. Within two years, the number of Native American students outweighs those of the Sandwich Islands and Asia.



In 1820, the school sends its first mission abroad to Hawaii. Of course, not everyone agrees with the missionary impulse. Oppositionists argue that there was no Biblical imperative to save heathens; indeed, this set generally believes that heathens are incapable of “civilization” and that missionaries are on a fool’s errand. They also fear that women might get ideas above their station and be not only effective missionaries abroad, but they might agitate for more rights at home. The School was, in effect, a social experiment; the public consensus was that it succeeded. Privately, the school administration complained about the slow progress of the scholars in mastering the English language, the students’ temperaments (many were unhappy), and the tensions created from multiple ethnic groups being forced to coexist in close quarters.

The third part deals with race and fears of miscegenation. Demos traces the tumultuous rise and fall of racial tensions between white settlers and Native Americans. In the beginning, miscegenation was encouraged as a possible tool for conversion. Gradually, race relations deteriorated; the settlers stopped seeing Indians as sunburnt whites and began seeing them as Other. Color and stereotypes became increasingly intertwined, especially as racism and opposition to slavery grew. By the nineteenth century, racial inclusiveness was, in President Monroe’s view, impossible.

Nevertheless, young love finds a way. The School is tested when two of its Native American scholars marry white women. John Ridge, a Cherokee, and Sarah Northrup sustained a long courtship and were married in 1824, to the consternation of both white and Indian communities. Papers and preachers alike denounce the union; both the young couple and the school receive death threats to the point that the couple leaves town while the school evasively spins the entire matter as a point in favor of the school’s “civilizing” success. Meanwhile, the American Board audits the Mission School, with the idea of putting measures in place to keep the scholars from taking white wives. Regardless, barely five months after John and Sarah married, Harriet Gold and Elias Boudinot become secretly engaged. When the news breaks, her family is dismayed, and the town explodes with vitriol. Harriet’s older brother and others burn effigies of the couple while rumors circulate that a mob is going to destroy the school and the Gold’s house. Harriet’s reputation is destroyed, and Elias receives death threats. Even so, the couple marries in 1826.



The final part of the book revolves around Indian Removal, which was shorthand for mass displacement and ethnic cleansing. Demos writes that the Cherokees were considered civilized, but in the end, civilization means nothing when greed takes over: “‘Civilization’ remained the official goal. But success with the goal might undermine other interests crucially important to whites. Success would mean accepting them, on equal terms and with equal rights. Success would mean competing with them for valuable resources. Success would mean including them as partners … Was the country at large ready for that?” The answer is a resounding “no.” By the end of 1828, the Foreign Mission School was deemed a failure and closed, its students dispersed to either return home or continue their studies at university. Ridge and Boudinot, as Cherokee leaders, do their best to rally support for the Cherokees, who have been slowly stripped of their land. For a time, the ex-scholars of the school appear to gain ground. However, Andrew Jackson’s administration is hostile to Native Americans, and Removal becomes likely—and then a reality with the Trail of Tears. Both Ridge and Boudinot are murdered in 1839.

The Heathen School was a 2014 National Book Award Nominee for Nonfiction. It contains multiple illustrations, including portraits, documents, a picture of Obookiah’s exhumed grave, and snapshots of houses and other buildings relevant to the book.

*See John Winthrop’s sermon on “A Modell of Christian Charity”