Isaac McCoy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Isaac McCoy (June 13, 1784-1845) was a Kentucky-born Baptist missionary to mid-western Native Americans in the United States in the early 19th Century. In this capacity, he founded Westport, Missouri and was the first permanent European settler in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1840, he wrote one of the earliest, most personally informed reports on the midwestern tribes, The History of Baptist Indian Missions.
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[1]
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.
