Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884

In Short

Myron Eells chronicles ten years of Congregational missionary work among the Twana and Clallam tribes at the Skokomish Reservation in Washington Territory. Writing to document a neglected field of Christian labor, Eells details administrative shifts, church plants, temperance campaigns, and legal battles over Native land titles. He records the triumphs and setbacks of establishing schools, translating hymns, and navigating Indigenous customs like the potlatch and traditional healing. The book endures as a detailed, firsthand record of late-nineteenth-century Pacific Northwest reservation life and early Native-white encounters from a missionary's perspective.

The Story

The narrative opens with an administrative overview of the Skokomish Reservation, detailing how government policies and treaty timelines dictate daily operations. Eells charts the shifts in federal oversight, including the consolidation of multiple agencies under his brother, Agent E. Eells, and the eventual replacement of white agency workers with Indian employees. Against this institutional backdrop, Eells establishes a dense schedule of weekly services, prayer meetings, logging-camp visits, and Sunday schools for both Native residents and white agency staff.

Central to Eells’s efforts is the confrontation between evangelical Christianity and traditional Indigenous practices. He examines tamahnous—a system of spiritual beliefs and traditional healing—and notes how tenaciously it persists, even among Native individuals who embrace the church. Eells also targets the potlatch, viewing its gift-giving and feasting as an economic barrier to Christian progress, and works to redirect festival energy into civil observances like the Fourth of July.

As the mission develops, external political realities break into reservation life. The author documents the crisis following an 1873 Supreme Court ruling that leaves Native lands vulnerable to government seizure. Eells actively lobbies Christian boards and denominational bodies to secure patented land titles for the Indians, recognizing that local trust in his message depends on securing their homes.

The narrative turns to cultural adaptation and community building. Eells describes establishing churches off the reservation, such as the branch at Jamestown, where Clallam families buy land and organize their own civic and religious life. He writes of translating traditional hymns into the Chinook jargon, Twana, and Clallam languages, despite the steep linguistic hurdles.

The final years of the decade bring internal spiritual upheaval. The emergence of the Indian Shaker Movement, sparked by John Slocum, spreads rapidly across the region. Eells views the movement's visions, brushings, and physical shaking as a chaotic blend of traditional practices and Catholic elements, yet he watches as it draws away church members and shuts down logging camps. By the close of his ten-year account, Eells reflects on the ebbs and flows of his ministry. He concludes that despite setbacks, progress among the tribes is real—resembling a rising tide whose waves pull back only to surge further forward.

How It Unfolds

The agency reorganizes Federal policy reshapes the reservation as treaty provisions expire, leading to the discharge of white tradesmen and the consolidation of multiple Puget Sound agencies under one agent.

Battling the spirits Missionary work collides with traditional medicine when illness strikes civilized tribal members, exposing the deep roots of tamahnous and triggering debates over the rules of church membership.

Fighting for the land After an 1873 court ruling strips Native people of their property rights, Eells rallies regional church assemblies and missionary boards to petition the federal government for permanent land titles.

Civilizing the Fourth The mission redirects community gatherings by turning the traditional potlatch into elaborate Fourth of July celebrations complete with shared feasts, public speeches, and group weddings.

Translating the word Eells tackles the difficult task of converting English hymns into Chinook jargon, Twana, and Clallam, eventually discovering a single hymn that can be sung simultaneously in four distinct tongues.

The Shakers arrive A new religious movement led by John Slocum sweeps through the tribes, bringing intense physical shaking, visions, and rival baptisms that challenge the reservation's established Christian church.

The People

• Myron Eells serves as the primary missionary on the Skokomish Reservation. Driven by a desire to convert the local tribes and introduce Western domestic habits, he preaches, teaches, lobbies for land rights, and translates hymns, while constantly adjusting his expectations to the realities of reservation life.
• Sarah M. Eells, the author's wife, manages the missionary household, leads prayer meetings for young Native girls, and provides a stable domestic sanctuary that Eells credits with sustaining his decade of labor.
• Agent E. Eells, the author's brother, oversees the government administration of the reservation. He works to enforce temperance laws, replace white staff with Native workers, and secure legal land titles for the residents.
• Chehalis Jack, an influential sub-chief among the Twanas, stands as an early supporter of the agent and missionary. He builds a modern home and joins the church, yet he struggles with the lingering influence of traditional medicine when severe illness strikes.
• John Foster Palmer, a Chemakum Indian who traveled as far as Asiatic Russia in his youth, serves as the agency's primary interpreter. Fluent in six languages, he becomes the first Native member of the Skokomish church and a fierce opponent of intemperance and superstition.
• John Slocum initiates the Indian Shaker Movement, introducing a powerful religious blend of visions, shaking, and unique baptisms that draws many reservation residents into a new form of worship.

In Its Own Voice

“It is the only part of tamahnous, which I think an Indian can hold and be a Christian, because it is held partly as a superstition and not wholly as a religion.”

Eells reflects on the persistent reliance on traditional medicine men during severe illness, acknowledging the complex overlap between long-held spiritual beliefs and new religious professions.

“If these titles come we will believe your religion to be true, but if not it will be evidence that you are deceiving us.”

Native leaders directly challenge the missionary, making clear that their faith in the white man's gospel is tied to whether the government respects their property rights.

“The smoke is of equal thickness: that of the Indians, however, is clean smoke from wood; that of the whites, filthy from tobacco.”

While staying in a town hotel, Eells dryly compares the smoky lodge of an Indian family to the tobacco-filled barroom of white settlers.

What It's Really About

Underneath its daily log of sermons and administrative duties, the book is about the complex struggle for cultural survival and authority on the nineteenth-century frontier. It explores how Native communities navigate forced assimilation, adopting aspects of white culture—like homesteading, Western legal structures, and Christian worship—while fighting to retain their lands and social identity. For Eells, the central question is whether a Indigenous community can be transformed without destroying its people, though his methods remain firmly bound to the paternalism of his era. The text highlights the friction between government policy, missionary zeal, and Native resistance, showing that cultural change was never a simple, one-way conversion, but a contested negotiation over land, faith, and daily habits.

Why Read It Today

This text appeals to readers of Pacific Northwest history, Native American studies, and early American religious life. It offers a rare, highly specific look at the day-to-day realities of reservation life in Washington Territory during the 1870s and 1880s, detailing everything from census figures to the mechanical difficulties of translating hymns into local dialects.

Reading it requires navigating the paternalistic tone and period assumptions typical of a nineteenth-century evangelical missionary. Eells views Native traditions through the lens of a reformer intent on replacing them, frequently framing Indigenous spiritual practices as superstitions or obstacles to progress. Yet the narrative is remarkably candid about white hypocrisy, government failures, and the resilience of the Twana and Clallam people. What stays with the reader is the vivid picture of a transforming landscape: Native loggers running business enterprises, church leaders struggling to understand new laws, and a missionary slowly learning that human nature and historical change are far more complex than his original plans allowed.