This little vignette is not about Christiania Polk, but I mention this extraordinary woman because she married Isaac McCoy, who was perhaps America’s the most important missionary to this country’s Indians. That Christiania was an important part of McCoy’s ministry is surprising when we learn that her mother and three siblings had been captured by Ottawa Indians and held as prisoners for years before being found and rescued by her father, Captain Polk.
Christiania’s husband, Isaac McCoy, was born in Pennsylvania in 1784, but his family shortly thereafter moved to Kentucky, two years before it became a state. He was saved by God’s grace and baptized in 1801, and he was ordained to the gospel ministry in October 1810. Six years later he became a missionary to the natives, serving among many different tribes including the Potawatomis and Ottawas and later the Choctaws and Cherokees and dozens of others. In 1822 one of the family’s daughters was killed by an Indian, but it just intensified the McCoy’s dedication to their evangelism. He and Christiania recognized that one of the greatest hindrances to their evangelistic work was the white man’s wicked sale of alcohol.
I have never asked any of my native friends about their perspective on Isaac McCoy, but I have read that it was out of a sincere desire to rescue the natives from the white man’s sins, that he became the primary proponent of the establishment of the Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. He surveyed most of the area, dividing it up between tribes, and he was constantly urging the government to implement his plans. Eventually they did, but for reasons quite different from that of McCoy.
On this day in 1825, Isaac McCoy preached the first gospel message in a village of the Miami tribe on the edge of Lake Michigan. Four years later it was determined by the Illinois Legislature that the place could become a transportation hub for the area, calling it “Chicago” which was a derivative of the old Indian name “Checagou.”