Inconsistent Friends: Philadelphia Quakers and the Development of Native American Missions in the Long Eighteenth Century

With theology grounded in beliefs of human equality and religious toleration, early Quakers discussed religious ideas with Native Americans, but did not conduct the kinds of missionary projects common to other English Protestants in America in their first century there. Instead, they focused on creating good relationships with the native people who lived in the area that became Pennsylvania, as well as with those beyond its borders. Despite this rhetoric, Quakers were inconsistent in enacting their own ideals. This dissertation examines the relationship between Quakers and Native Americans in the eighteenth century, paying particular attention to key moments such as the Walking Purchase of 1737 and the tumultuous Seven Years War. This study argues that despite Quakers' own conception of themselves as unique from other colonists and thus able to provide a superior education for Native Americans than that provided by other Protestants, through their missions with the Oneida in 1796 and the Seneca in 1798, the Quakers were engaged in the same colonizing project as other missionaries and colonists.