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The astonishing report of a distinctive missionary task - and the America it embodied - from award-winning historian John Demos Near the start of 19th hundred years, as the newly established USA appeared outward toward the wider world, several eminent Protestant ministers produced a grand system for gathering the others of mankind in to the redemptive fold of Christianity and "civilization". Its central element was a particular college for "heathen junior" drawn from all parts of the Earth, like the Pacific Islands, China, India, and increasingly, the native countries of North America. If all gone well, graduates would go back to join similar assignments in their individual homelands. For a few years the institution prospered and became quite famous. However, when two Cherokee students courted and married local women, general public deal with - and important ideals - were put to a severe test. The Heathen College follows the improvement - and the demise - of the first true melting container through the lives of individual students: among them, Henry Obookiah, a young Hawaiian who ran away from home and did the trick as a seaman in the China Trade before ending up in New Britain; John Ridge, son of a powerful Cherokee main and subsequently a leader along the way of Indian "removal"; and Elias Boudinot, editor of the first paper published by and for Native Americans. From its labor and birth as a beacon of hope for universal "salvation", the heathen college descends into bitter controversy as American racial attitudes harden and intensify. Rather than encouraging reconciliation, the institution exposes the restrictions of tolerance and cause a chain of events that will culminate tragically in the Trail of Tears. In The Heathen College, John Demos marshals his deep empathy and feel for the textures of record to see a moving report of family members and communities - and to probe the very roots of American identification.
