Resistance, Transculturation, and Survivance at the Bethany Indian Mission

Abstract

This article details an act of Native American protest against the Bethany Indian Mission and the Norwegian Lutheran Church in 1938. In doing so, it engages in and contributes to theoretical discussions of accommodation, transculturation, resistance, and survivance. In 1938 Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin sent a written petition to the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America calling for the removal of the Superintendent of the nearby Bethany Indian Mission. By articulating their grievances in a formal letter sent to Church administrators, the Ho-Chunk invoked a relationship with the Church. The Church did not recognize this mutual relationship with the Ho-Chunk. Instead, Church leaders clearly communicated that its relationship with Native American congregants was tenuous and contingent on numerous factors. The Ho-Chunk signatories contested this unequal relationship, and while the superintendent remained in his position until 1955, their actions prompted the superintendent to both apologize and seek new opportunities to gain the Ho-Chunks’ trust.