Member does research on church's founding story

 

By Mary Stamp

For several years, Mary Rupert has invited members of her church, Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) in Spokane, to join her in reflecting on their own history and legacy of colonization.

Five joined a "Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization" class with the Spokane Alliance's Truth and Transformation Team last fall and winter.

More than three years ago, Mary was curious about the church's founding story.

A 20-year member, she did research and wrote a report examining the context of the story that the church—Spokane's oldest—was founded by missionaries, Henry and Abigail Cowley, and Spokane Chief Enoch Siliqouwya and his wife, Anna.

"We were proud that the two couples were friends, that Henry learned their language and helped them," said Mary, who began to wonder what happened to Chief Enoch and Anna, and why the church today has no Indigenous members.

She wanted to know more. Why did the Indigenous Spokane people invite the Rev. Cowley to come, given the terrible things that had happened, such as Col. George Wright hanging Indians and slaughtering their horses?

Mary, who grew up in the Anglican Church in Ottawa, Canada, had an interest in Indigenous people. While studying dance at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, she researched dance at the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.

After earning a certificate in information processing, she moved to Spokane in 1986 to be a software engineer for ISC Systems Corporation at Liberty Lake.

While studying in the 1990s for a master's degree in conflict resolution at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., she interviewed a mediator and wrote several papers on a conflict in Oka, Quebec, that escalated into violence when developers wanted to make a golf course on top of an Indigenous burial site.

"A lifelong pacifist, I seek to move the world to be peaceable," said Mary, who returned to Spokane where she taught conflict resolution in Catholic schools and Gonzaga University, and taught two semesters at the Spokane Tribal College in Wellpinit.

"Our church seeks more intentionally to create relationships with members of the Spokane Tribe. Last year, we attended Spokane Alliance events with tribal historian Warren Seyler," she said.

Mary included insights from him and other research in her paper on the church's history.

Warren knew that Cowley had assisted Chief Three Mountain and his band related to a settlement at Deep Creek. That band was one of five bands deciding whether to move to the reservation or homestead. They were later pushed off by settlers and moved to the Coeur d'Alene or Spokane reservations.

Mary's report summarized relevant information about the historical context.

• Geological records and mythology confirm the Spokane Tribe were river people who lived in the area 10,000 to 16,000 years, sustained on salmon, roots and berries.

• European influence came before Europeans arrived. Horses from conquistadors in Mexico came in 1730 and allowed area tribes to hunt buffalo. Before white people came, smallpox and other epidemics spread from the plains Indians and reduced the Spokane numbers from 3,000 to 500.

• Fur traders encouraged tribes to hunt for beaver pelts to trade for beads, blankets, guns, pots and pans. As the tribes turned from hunting, gathering and fishing for food, they became dependent on the traders.

• When Christianity came, Hudson's Bay Company sent Spokane Garry to Winnipeg for religious education. He returned to preach.

• Here as elsewhere the military massacred Indigenous people and took their land. Then Lincoln's 1852 Homestead Act gave land to settlers.

When Cowley arrived in 1874, there were only two white families in Spokane. By 1890, there were 30,000, as trains brought settlers.

Cowley's biography states that he received letters from the Spokane Tribe, inviting him to start a school. Warren told Mary that the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene tribes had prophecies. The Coeur d'Alene prophecy said white men in black robes would come carrying crossed sticks. The Spokane prophecy said white men would come with talking leaves—the Bible. Both tribes were told to listen and learn from the people who would come. When they met missionaries, they welcomed them.

"While missionaries came to serve Indigenous people, churches they started grew with white settlers as Indians went to reservations," she said.

In newspaper archives and history books, Mary found little about Chief Enoch or Anna beyond mention on a plaque in Riverfront Park. One newspaper story said Chief Enoch refused to go to the reservation and was living near town making a living as he could. By 1896, he went to the Spokane reservation with his band of 188 and received a government annuity of $100.

Cowley started a newspaper and began selling real estate, which were "white colonial jobs," she said. There was also a court case about land Cowley said the church bought from Enoch, but the railroad claimed to own.

"Given that land ownership was not an Indigenous concept, I doubt Cowley paid Enoch," she commented.

Part of Mary's motivation for learning history and sharing it with others comes from the Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama who said, "The capacity for a community to tell the truth about their past is a test for how their future will be enacted."

"I felt we needed to understand a fuller history of the story and keep our hearts open to go forward," she said.

For her, hearing the broader story and the context calls for humility.

"Often white people want to fix things but may fix things in ways that are unjust. We need to fix our own systems," she said.

Working with the Spokane Alliance Truth and Reconciliation Team, Mary also learned more about the complex history of relationships with Indigenous neighbors.

"I appreciate the amazing graciousness of the Indigenous people I have met," she said.

When former tribal chair Carol Evans visited for Westminster's 140th anniversary, she offered a blessing to the church and said, "We need to work together."

Mary found a similar openness with Warren, the Salish School and American Indian Community Center.

"I sense an openness, which surprises me given the history," she said.

Warren affirmed that the Spokane Tribe of Indians were and are a giving people. They welcomed people to fish on the banks of the Spokane River.

In the fall and winter of 2023, the Spokane Alliance held a "Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization" class series on Zoom. At a spring 2024 town hall with state elected officials, the alliance "used its people power," Mary said, to support funding a new American Indian Community Center building.

Last spring, some church members met to discuss the name of the church's Mayflower Room.

Mary wondered if some Indigenous people might be offended by the name, but realized others might say, "Don't focus on the name of a room, fix the justice system, the school system, the foster care system, the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women system and other systems that are affecting us."

As another way to follow up, Mary and the Rev. Bob Feeny, Westminster's pastor, will co-lead an eight-week study series called "The Land Is Not Our Own: Seeking Repair Alongside Indigenous Communities" for their church's Tuesday Night Talks from Jan. 7 to March 7.

The program by JustFaith Ministries in collaboration with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery is designed "to equip people to stand beside Native communities to work for justice and repair," said Mary, anticipating that the process will lay a foundation for trust and relationships so participants can acknowledge injustice and honor the interconnection of Creation.

The series presents how the Doctrine of Discovery generated power and wealth for some settlers and permeated U.S. laws and church policies. Sessions also invite hope, healing and learning how to partner with Native leaders for justice.

"People say we aren't responsible for what happened back then. That's true, but we need to take responsibility for what is happening now, and we can see, own and understand what happened," Mary pointed out. "Genocide has happened around the world, and we need to understand our own place in it, so we don't continue to do that forever."

For information, call 624-1366 or visit spokanealliance.org.