Dwight Mission was the education and conversion of Native Americans in Arkansas. One of the first Protestant missions established West of the Mississippi. The mission was established in 1820 and functioned until 1829. The mission was requested by Western Cherokee Principal Chief Tahlonteeskee in 1818.
The Western Cherokee was a diverse group whose past generation had migrated into Arkansas while running from troubles in the Cherokee homeland at the southern end of the Appalachians, and some of the members thought it useful for their to be formally trained in Anglo-American ways. Not all of the Cherokee felt this way. By the time Dwight mission was established in 1820, Tahlonteeskee was dead of natural causes. War Chief Takatoka opposed the effort, and it is probably no accident that he suggested the eventual site of the mission to be located not far from…show more content… Takatoka wanted to keep the mission under observation. Cherokee leaders who supported the mission such as Tahlonteeskee brother Ooluntuskee, Ooluntuskee is also known as John Jollu, who had succeeded him as principal civil chief had some feeling of doubt. Those leaders knew that the effort of converting their children to Christianity might strip them of much of their Cherokee heritage. Dwight Mission was located on the west bank of Illinois Bayou about four miles upstream from the Arkansas River. It is now marked by a sign on Highway 64 at a boat ramp that provides access to Lake Dardanelle. No structures remain, but the cemetery location survives on the hill overlooking the site. The mission was name after Timothy Dwight, who had been president of Yale University and was the first corporate member of the ABCFM. The site was chosen in August 1820 by Cephas Washburn and Alfred Finney, both new young missionaries and New Englanders like most of the rest of the staff. Construction of the log residence buildings began soon thereafter. All of the missionary families and
