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Ancient Way In A New Land: Benedictine Education In The Great Plains, Marielle Frigge O.S.B.

Great Plains Quarterly

In the first half of the sixth century, an Italian monk, Benedict of Nursia, provided a framework for Christian monastic life. In the last half of the nineteenth century, his descendants arrived in the Great Plains, part of the westward movement of Christian missionaries in North America. What could this ancient way of life offer to a new land of Native tribes and immigrant farmers, traders, and soldiers? And what might this new land contribute to the shaping of a uniquely American form of monastic life?

These Benedictine men and women brought with them centuries of experience as learners and …

At The Head Of The Aboriginal Remnant: Cherokee Construction Of A "Civilized" Indian Identity During The Lakota Crisis Of 1876, Paul Kelton

Great Plains Quarterly

In 1876 the bilingual Cherokee diplomat and lawyer William Penn Adair expressed great pride in the level of "civilization" that his nation had achieved. Defining civilization as commercial agriculture, literacy, Christianity, and republican government, Adair believed that his society had reached a sophistication that equaled and in certain areas surpassed that of the United States. Speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Territories, the diplomat claimed that his people produced surpluses of "every agricultural product that is raised in the neighboring States of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Texas." Schools in the Indian Territory, he added, produced a vast …