Isaac McCoy
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Isaac McCoy (June 13, 1784-June 21, 1846) was a Baptist missionary among the Native Americans who was to play an instrumental role in the founding of Grand Rapids, Michigan and Kansas City, Missouri.
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[edit] Early life
McCoy was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He married Christiana Polk, a cousin of President James K. Polk, in 1803 In 1804 they moved to Clark County, Indiana. In 1808 the Silver Creek Baptist Church granted him a license "to preach the Gospel wherever God in His providence might cast his lot.”[1]
In 1809 they relocated to Knox County, Indiana near Vincennes, Indiana where he became pastor of Maria Creek Church. In 1817 he was assigned to be a missionary to the Miami Indians living on the Wabash River above Terre Haute, Indiana.
In 1822 he established the Carey Mission among the Pottawatomie on the St. Joseph River near Niles, Michigan. In 1826 he founded the Thomas Mission among the Ottawa at what today Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was to be the first white settler in Niles and Grand Rapids.
With good intentions, he was an early proponent of moving the eastern Native American tribes to available land in The West. He believed that getting the tribes their own, isolated places, away from the reach of those white men that were exploiting them, would give them a better chance of surviving — and becoming good Christians. Unfortunately, the result was the great Indian removal that included the Trail of Tears.
[edit] Missionary work in Kansas City
Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, McCoy, his son John, his daughter Deliah and her missionary husband Johnston Lykins accompanied the Shawnee as they moved to what is Kansas City, Missouri which was on the border of Indian territory in Kansas. The younger McCoy established a trading post at Westport, Missouri and was among the first organizers of Kansas City. Lykins became one of the city's first mayors.
In 1840, he wrote one of the earliest, most personally informed reports on the midwestern tribes, The History of Baptist Indian Missions. In 1842 he moved to Louisville, Kentucky where he became director the Baptist American Indian Mission Association and wrote He died and is buried there in Western Cemetery.
[edit] References
- Shultz, George A. (1972). An Indian Canaan: Isaac McCoy and the Vision of an Indian State. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1024-4.
