• 
• 
• 
• 

Introduction

Isaac McCoy was ordained as a Baptist minister and lived much of his life on the American frontier where he became deeply distressed for the plight of American Indians. He and his family lived in sacrificial poverty in order to help these people who were being displaced and brutalized by whites. His appeals to the government and to his mission board to help the Indians met with a favorable response, although assistance was slow in coming. His noble, dangerous work is sometimes misrepresented in secular writings today because he couched his concern in terms that later became politically incorrect.

In one of his communications with his mission board, he asked permission to move his base of operations from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the St. Joseph River near Niles, Michigan, where he would be able to work more directly with Indians. The attitude of the board, as expressed by its secretary, was one of qualified encouragement. Mr. William Staughton wrote on this day 29 September 1821: