HENRY BENJAMIN WHIPPLE:

Whipple’s correspondence regarding doctrine, administration, and other affairs of the Protestant Episcopal and Anglican churches extends throughout North America and into Europe. He exchanged letters at various times with most of the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, particularly with John Williams, with his close friends Robert Harper Clarkson and Henry Codman Potter, and with three bishops who had served under him in Minnesota before their election to the episcopate: David Buel Knickerbacker, Edward Randolph Welles, and Elisha Smith Thomas. He received letters from many missionary bishops of the frontier West, such as Leigh Richmond Brewer, William Hobart Hare, Thomas Ingraham Kip, Benjamin W. Morris, John F. Spaulding, and Daniel S. Tuttle. There are occasional letters from bishops and clergymen of the Church of England in England, Scotland, and Canada, particularly the bishops of Rupertsland and Montreal. Bishops Gregory T. Bedell, Thomas M. Clark, Arthur Cleveland Coxe, William H. DeLancy, William C. Doane, Jackson Kemper, and William Stevens Perry were also among his frequent correspondents. They wrote to him regarding the affairs of their diocese and church policy and practice in general.

Throughout the papers are found letters and official announcements from other dioceses regarding the election of bishops and the consecration, transfer, and deposition of ministers and deacons. Episcopal rectors and concerned laymen, as well as persons of other denominations, wrote to Whipple regarding his missionary work among whites and Indians, and his diocesan schools. Many sent contributions of money and clothing.

Also scattered through the collection are letters regarding the national church’s educational and missionary organizations, particularly from officers of its Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, from bishops and administrators of diocesan schools in other states, and from persons asking Whipple to support or to promote the circulation of religious books, periodicals, and tracts. Other letters, as well as Whipple’s diary entries, discuss arrangements for the triennial General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church (the convention of 1895 was held in Minneapolis). There are frequent invitations to Whipple to preach and speak and to write articles for church publications.

Whipple’s interest in Episcopal missionary endeavors is apparent in his correspondence with other frontier bishops, with William Langford (secretary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society), and occasionally with missionaries and teachers in western states. Their most frequent topics of discussion are the success of missionary activities among the Indians and financial support for missionaries. During the 1880s, in particular, the correspondence shows the frontier of established residential missionary work shifting westward from Minnesota.

Whipple also urged the expansion of foreign missionary work, especially into Latin America. During the 1870s he sponsored the Cuban Mission of Reverend Edward Kenney. Kenney sent him several detailed letters describing his work on the island; letters from other interested churchmen (especially 1871-1879) also discuss the establishment and support of the Cuban mission. On behalf of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, Whipple made inspection trips to Havana (March 1871, March 1872, February 1887), Haiti (March 1872) and Puerto Rico (1900); these trips are mentioned in his diaries and correspondence. A few other letters mention missionary work in Hawaii, Japan and Mexico, and missions to Negroes in Florida (1892-1895) and in Minneapolis and St. Paul (1900).

A persistent subject of discussion is the controversy between high churchmen and low or evangelical churchmen over the introduction of increased ritual into Episcopal worship and over the need for a less rigid liturgy. Many evangelicals criticized Whipple as a high churchman and “Romish,” although he himself repeatedly avowed that he considered such matters subordinate to a clergyman’s primary duty to “preach Christ crucified.” In a letter of August, 1867, Whipple explains his doctrinal views, his concept of Christian duty, and his differentiation between high church worship and Roman Catholicism.

Several specific instances of the conflict between high and low church worship are highlighted in the correspondence, including: (1) Charles E. Cheney’s deposition from the ministry for omitting from the Baptismal Office the passages asserting that spiritual regeneration is inseparable from baptism (1871). In a letter to Henry John Whitehouse (May 1871), Whipple gives his views on church unity and on the definition of “regeneration.” (2) The schism of George David Cummins, a leader of the militant evangelicals, who in 1874 withdrew from the Protestant Episcopal Church and organized the Reformed Episcopal Church (1874-1875). (3) A controversy over the election of the bishops of Iowa and Illinois (1874-1875). (4) The election of Phillips Brooks as Bishop of Massachusetts (1892-1893). (5) The nature of the episcopacy (1891-1894).

In March of 1878, Bishop William H. Hare of Niobrara removed Samuel D. Hinman (see below, under “Indian Affairs”) from his post at the Niobrara (Sioux) Mission, countercharges that developed out of this incident resulted in a libel suit by Hinman against Bishop Hare. This case has been interpreted as another reflection of the dichotomy between high and low churchmen, as well as of differing interpretations of the church’s missionary calling. Whipple’s correspondence for 1887 contains several letters regarding this case, which was under litigation for several years.

Another frequently mentioned topic is interdenominational harmony among all Christians, of which Whipple was a leading proponent, both in his correspondence and in his addresses before church conferences. He particularly stressed the similarity in doctrine of the Scandinavian, especially the Swedish, churches and the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in both Chicago and Minnesota provided church services to Scandinavians; members of the Swedish National Church were incorporated into the Episcopal communion in Minnesota, and during the 1890s Olof A. Toffteen, pastor of the Swedish Church of St. Ansgarius, Minneapolis, was registered as an Episcopal minister.

The Roman Catholics appear as the chief ecclesiastical foes in Minnesota, particularly in view of their competition with the Episcopalians for control of the religious loyalty and the administration of the Chippewa reservation in Minnesota. The Episcopal deacons, Enmegahbowh and Gilfillan, and the Roman Catholic priest Ignatius Tomaszin write with particular bitterness about each other during the 1870s, when Tomaszin was stationed at White Earth Reservation. A few anti-Catholic tracts also appear among the papers. Occasional letters to Whipple from Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, however, indicate that they enjoyed cordial personal relations.

Whipple attended the Pan-Anglican (Lambeth) Conferences of 1888 and 1897, held in London. His papers for these occasions include programs and reports of the conferences (particularly for 1897), letters from friends in England, invitations to social events, and invitations to preach at various churches and to speak at meetings of missionary, temperance, and benevolent societies. Several letters mention current disagreements between the Protestant Episcopal and Anglican churches over doctrine, and comment on the need for Christian unity and Anglican reunion. A few letters relate to the Lambeth Conferences of 1867 and 1878.

A group of printed and published items about the Anglican and Episcopal churches (Boxes 35-36) includes published sermons and tracts and materials on theology, missionary activities, the Lambeth conferences, and the church’s social responsibilities.

Additional subjects discussed in the papers include: Nashotah Theological Seminary, Delafield, Wisconsin (1859-1864); effects of the Civil War on the Protestant Episcopal Church, and movements toward reconciliation of its northern and southern branches (1860s); Church recognition of divorcees (1872-1873); financial problems of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (1876-1877); Episcopal church and mission work in Florida, especially near Whipple’s winter home at Maitland (1880s, 1890s); science vs. religion (1880s); conflict between the Anglican churches in England and Scotland over usages in prayer and communion (1884-1886, 1889-1891); Protestant Episcopal liturgy, lay baptism, and the proposed modification of the seniority system in choosing the presiding bishop (1889-1891); and the centenary celebration of the Church Missionary Society of England (1899).

Most of Whipple’s correspondence regarding the diocese of Minnesota concerns aspects of administration, particularly the recruitment and support of clergymen, church building, church services, Whipple’s visitations and preaching engagements, confirmations and baptisms, and finances. His diaries also concern themselves primarily with his pastoral activities and the administration of the diocese.

Perhaps the largest number of letters among Whipple’s correspondence are from individuals and churches in the East who contributed money, clothing, books, furniture and other goods to Whipple’s church work, Indian missions and diocesan schools. In addition to hundreds of modest contributors, several philanthropist, many of who were also Whipple’s personal friends, sent regular and substantial donations. Among them were Isaac, Frances and Mathew Carey Lea; Junius S. Morgan; George Cheyne Shattuck, who provided the first funds for the building of Shattuck School; members of the Vanderbilt family; Mary Coles; Robert M. and Ellen F. Mason of Boston; Robert B. Minturn of New York; and Augusta M. Shumway, who contributed funds for several of the Seabury Mission buildings and endowed a professorship at Seabury Divinity School.

The correspondence for the 1860s is concerned almost exclusively with Indian affairs (discussed below) and with the building up of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Minnesota. It reflects the challenges and hardships, especially the financial hardships, of church and missionary work in a sparsely settled frontier region. Letters to and from Whipple (see also Letterbook 3) indicate his constant concern with recruiting men suited to a missionary field and spreading them widely enough to meet the need for church services, and reflect his worry over how to provide living wages for his clergy, many of whom could not be adequately supported either by their parishes or by the national church’s Board of Missions. The correspondence shows how heavily he relied in these early years upon benefactors in the East for support of missionaries and for funds to build churches and the diocesan schools.

Other letters, particularly during the 1860s, discuss the organization of parishes and include many deeds for newly-erected churches. The divisions within the Episcopal church in Minnesota, which plagued Whipple upon his election as bishop, are also expressed in the correspondence, particularly in 1859-1861 and during the later 1860s.

During the 1870s and 1880s the correspondence indicates an increasingly settled and stable condition in the diocese, as the church expanded its activities upon a firmer foundation. Church building and services, recruiting and support of clergymen, donations from Eastern benefactors, and financial support for parishes continue to be emphasized. Christian education and improved church buildings are discussed more, while clergy support and Whipple’s visitations to the remote corners of the diocese are treated with less urgency. Other letters are concerned with the celebration of the 20th (1879) and the 25th (1884) anniversaries of Whipple’s election to the episcopate, a factional split in St. Mark’s Church in Minneapolis (1880), St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Paul (1879-1880), diocesan landholdings (late 1880s), and George Clinton Tanner’s proposed history of the Diocese of Minnesota (1889).

Correspondence during the 1890s concentrates largely on contributions to Whipple’s church work, affairs of the diocesan schools, Episcopal church work among the Swedes in Minnesota, church building, diocesan landholdings and finances, and the calling of ministers. Also discussed are the separation of the Diocese of Duluth from the Diocese of Minnesota (1895); the 1895 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, held in Minneapolis (see also newspaper clippings, 1895); construction of St. Clement’s Church in St. Paul, designed by Cass Gilbert (1895); celebration of the 40th anniversary of Whipple’s election to the episcopate (1899); and the Church Deaconess Home Association in St. Paul (1900). The years 1900-1901 show another concentration of letters regarding Whipple’s pastoral activities, when he resumed active management of all diocesan affairs after the death of his coadjutor bishop, Mahlon N. Gilbert.

Printed copies of many of Whipple’s major sermons and addresses during his episcopate (1862-1901) are also included (boxes 31-32 and 46).

Papers concerned with the diocesan schools -- Seabury Divinity School, Shattuck School, and St. Mary’s Hall -- and the Cathedral of Our Merciful Savior begin soon after Whipple’s election to the episcopate, when he began to plan the creation of a cathedral and a diocesan college. Construction of the cathedral is mentioned in the correspondence of the 1860s; volume 59 contains accounts of expenditures for the construction. Discussion of the schools’ affairs, including letters from their professors and officers, continues throughout the papers. It concentrates on financial support through donations and endowments, recruitment of teachers and pupils, constructions of new buildings, administration of the schools, and their curricula. Among other topics discussed are school life (especially 1886-1887) and dress regulations at St. Mary’s Hall, the assignment of army officers to Shattuck School as military science instructors, financial problems after the panic of 1873, the “insubordination” of students at the schools (1887-1888), a controversy over teaching and governing policies at Seabury (1892), and Seabury’s financial problems in the late 1890s. Occasional mention is also made of the Breck School in Wilder, Minnesota, construction of the Bishop Whipple School in Moorhead (1882-1883), and several proposals for educating Indian children in church-sponsored schools. An article by Whipple entitled “The History of the Schools at Faribault” (June 1883) is also included.

Two boxes of diocesan records (boxes 37-38) include lists of confirmands (1859-1901), scriptural vows taken by candidates for the ministry (1878-1887), and examination papers from Seabury Divinity School (1873).

Next to the growth and administration of the Diocese of Minnesota, the major concentration of Whipple’s papers is on Indian affairs. He carried on an extensive correspondence with government officials and with people concerned with the Indians’ welfare, particularly during the 1860s and 1870s when the need for drastic reform seemed most obvious. They wrote to him about the United States government’s Indian policy and suggestions for its reform, the appointment of Indian agents, allegations of dishonesty among agents and other government employees on the reservations, removals of the Sioux and other Indians, treaty provisions, land and timber sales, the whiskey trade, plans to “civilize” the Indians and teach them agriculture and industrial skills, missionary work among various tribes, and attempts to obtain investigations of treaty violations and to lobby in Congress on behalf of the Indians. An occasional letter expresses views on the Indians’ possessory right to their land and timber, and their status as United States citizens.

Whipple’s correspondents included William Welsh; Herbert Welsh, and other members of the Indian Rights Association, particularly during the 1890s; Benjamin Hallowell of the Baltimore Friends’ Standing Committee on the Indian Concern (1866-1869); members of the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Indian Commission (1870s); several of the Sioux and Chippewa Indians of Minnesota and Dakota; and members of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners. He received expressions of support from many Episcopal bishops and clergy, particularly those who served in western dioceses and were familiar with the Indians’ problems, and from well-wishers in the East who sent contributions to his missionary work. His occasional correspondence with Indian agents kept him informed of events on reservations in other parts of the country as well as in Minnesota.

Whipple also regularly exchanged letters with government officials in a position to influence Indian policy: the Secretaries of the Interior, the Commissioners of Indian Affairs, army officers, Congressmen and other men prominent in public life, particularly Minnesota’s Henry H. Sibley and Henry M. Rice. With them he discussed official Indian policies as they affected the Indians of both Minnesota and the nation as a whole, specific policies and directives regarding the Sioux and Chippewa, proposals for reform, allegations of official misconduct, and appointment of Indian agents. On several occasions he appealed to the President of the Untied States, particularly to President Lincoln.

General William T. Sherman, whom Whipple respected as a personal friend despite their differences of opinion on Indian policy, expresses his views on Indians in letters of February 1877 and December 1878.

Whipple’s own writings reflect his concern for the physical welfare and the spiritual salvation of the Indians of Minnesota and the West, and his desire to see them given just treatment and an honest system of administration. His letterbooks of 1860-1864 and 1870 (letterbooks 3-7) include many letters both to government officials and to private citizens expressing his anguish over the degraded conditions of the Chippewa and Sioux in Minnesota, his indignation at the injustice and indifference they were suffering at the hands of white traders and government agents, and his faith in their ability to respond to missionary efforts in their behalf by becoming useful Christian citizens.

Also among the papers are four of Whipple’s major articles on Indian affairs: “The duty of Citizens Concerning the Indian Massacre,” (1862, in letterbook 3), in which he discusses the causes of the Sioux Uprising; “A Report on the Moral and Temporal Condition of the Indians” (1868, volume 65), commissioned by the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church; “The True Policy Toward the Indian Tribes” (1877); and the “The Present Montana Indian War” (1877), prompted by the Nez Perce war of that year. Several minor articles, a few scattered letters from other years, and the many letters written to him regarding Indian affairs also indicate his opinions.

Whipple’s writing shows that his attitude toward the Indian was that of much of the liberal clerical thought of his day, reflecting current concepts of civilization and the proper approach to an alien people. He viewed the Indian as a naturally noble and innately decent human being, heathen in religion and degraded by the white man’s treatment of him, but capable, if treated justly, of becoming civilized through adoption of Christianity and of the white man’s culture and values. To this end, he emphasized the urgent need for Christian missions to all tribes, vocational education for Indians, agricultural assistance, and adoption of the white man’s way of life and style of dress. A letter to H. H. Montgomery, Bishop of Tasmania (July 1, 1901) gives an especially full statement of his views on the intellectual and moral capacities of the Indian in comparison to the Negro, and on interracial marriage.

During the months following the Sioux Uprising of 1863 in Minnesota, Whipple wrote many letters placing the burden of guilt for the massacre on the United States Indian policies and pleading for moderation in the trial and punishment of the guilty Sioux (letterbooks 3 and 4). Although his incoming correspondence for this period contains frequent mention of the uprising, it contains few letters representative of the hostility that Whipple’s position aroused in many people. Letters during this period and for several years afterward, including letters from many Sioux, discuss the causes and effects of the uprising, the trial and punishment of the guilty Sioux (1863), removal of the Sioux from Minnesota to Dakota (1863-1864), means of providing for their welfare, and appropriations for annuity payments, for relief to the destitute, and for compensation to those Sioux who served with the United States Army or otherwise helped to save the lives of settlers during the uprising.

Whipple’s interest in the Sioux continued after their expulsion from Minnesota. Periodic correspondence, until 1901, continues to deal with remuneration and economic assistance for the loyal Sioux and their descendants, as well as with the administration of the Sioux agencies in Dakota Territory. During the 1860s and 1870s there are occasional letters from Samuel D. Hinman, who was appointed missionary to the Sioux at Minnesota’s Lower Agency in 1860 and who accompanied them in their exile to Dakota. He describes the generally wretched living conditions at the new agency, difficulty in obtaining adequate annuity payments, education, and agricultural progress.

An act of Congress of July, 1868, appropriated funds for the purchase and distribution of supplies to the Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux at Devil’s Lake and Lake Traverse, in Dakota Territory, and authorized Whipple to carry out the provisions of the act. Many of Whipple’s papers from August, 1868, to mid-1870 consist of correspondence, receipts and accounts regarding his activities, assisted by Dr. Jared W. Daniels, in fulfilling this assignment. Other letters discuss expansion of aid to other Sioux bands and Dr. Daniel’s appointment as agent to the Sisseton and Wahpeton (July 1869).

The proposed transfer of the Office of Indian Affairs from the Department of the Interior to the War department is a subject of periodic discussion from 1868 to 1878, particularly during the years 1876-1878. Whipple and his friends opposed this plan, fearing that to place the Indians under the jurisdiction of a military department would be tantamount to maintaining a state of perpetual war and would preclude any attempt at effective assimilation and education of the Indians.

A few comments during the 1870s reveal the growing hostility of the prairie Sioux which culminated in the Sioux War of 1876. Two letters written by Whipple for newspaper publication (March and May, 1876) predict the war, blaming the Indians’ hostility on treaty violations by whites. Correspondence and diary entries from August to December 1876, and a few letters early in 1877, discuss the war and the work of the Sioux Commission, appointed to negotiate the cession of the Black Hills. Some letters from October 1876 though 1877 are concerned with the disarming of the Sioux, their resettlement on a new reservation near the Missouri River, and the justice of the United States’ Indian policy as reflected in its relations with the Sioux.

The correspondence for the 1880s and 1890s contains more references to Indians in other states: living conditions, agency administration, education, atrocities and maltreatment by the United States army and government, and appeals for aid.

In the late 1870s, some of the Sioux who had been expelled from the Lower Sioux Agency in 1862 began to return to the area. Good Thunder and others bought land and settled in the vicinity of Birch Coulee, and in the later 1880s a government appropriation permitted the purchase of land in Redwood County for what was called the Lower Sioux Community. In 1886[?], following his removal from the Niobrara mission, Samuel D. Hinman was employed as a temporary teacher at the Birch Coulee settlement. He remained there until his death in 1890. During this period his frequent letters to Whipple discuss the relocation of several Sioux families onto lands in Minnesota, the growth and development of the settlement, construction of a school and other buildings, living conditions, agriculture, and education. After Hinman’s death, a few letters from R. V. Belt (1890), R. B. Benton (early 1890s), Good Thunder, Charles E. Flandrau (1892), and Elisha Whittle set (1895-1896) also mention the settlement.

Whipple was also deeply interested in plans for educating Indians, particularly in the establishment of vocational and industrial schools. In addition to correspondence regarding the education of the Chippewa in Minnesota (see below) and Hinman’s work among the Sioux, he received a few letters from missionaries and teacher from various schools and reservations throughout the country, describing their educational efforts. Occasional exchanges of letters between Whipple and Captain R.H. Prate, superintendent of the United States Indian School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, discuss the condition of the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho prisoners under his supervision at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida (1876); his plans for educating them and his efforts to have some sent to Faribault (1878); and the educational programs of Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (1878) and Carlisle (1879, 1882). Some of the Indian students at these schools also wrote to him.

Other educational activities include: education of Indians at Shattuck School and Seabury Divinity School; S.C. Armstrong’s recommendations for educating girls as well as boys (August 1878); proposals for establishing an Episcopalian Indian school at Fort Ripley (1882-1883); a proposal to establish a school for Indian girls in Faribault (1884); proposed school for Dakota Indians (1886); proposed Indian Industrial School at Lapway, Idaho (1889); and Indian training schools in North Dakota and Wisconsin (circa 1889-1891, 1895).

Additional topics relating to Indian affairs which are briefly mentioned in the papers include: land cessions by Indians outside of Minnesota and the Dakotas; several of the Lake Mohonk Conferences of Friends of the Indian (1884, 1893, 1897); atrocities committed by the United States Army against Indians, including a massacre of Apache children in 1872 or 1873 (1896); the report to the President of the Indian Peace Commission (January 1868); the work of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners (1870, 1871, 1880, 1890s); the work of the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Indian Commission (circa 1872-1874, 1881); the Modoc War (1873); campaigns against the Cheyenne (January 1877); letters from Helen Hunt Jackson as she was preparing her book, A Century of Dishonor (1880); a possible railroad route through the Sioux reservation (1880); removal of the Turtle Mountain Indians from their land in Dakota (1882, 1900); education of the Arapaho missionary, Sherman Coolidge (1877-1882), and his expulsion from the Shoshone Agency, Wyoming (1887); the platform of the Indian Land Adjustment League (1895); erection of a monument to the loyal Sioux (1899); and affairs of various western tribes, including the Utes in Colorado (July 1870), the Oneida in Wisconsin (1877, 1895, 1896), the Nez Perce in Idaho (1877, 1889), the Seminole in Florida (1891-1897, with letters from James E. Ingraham and William Crane Gray), the Menarche in Washington (1895), and the Navajo (1895).

There are also a few newspaper clippings on Indian affairs (box 35).

Consult the correspondent list for names of the United States Secretaries of the Interior and Commissioners of Indian Affairs with whom Whipple most frequently corresponded.

Whipple tried to keep in close touch with Chippewa affairs on Minnesota’s three main reservations, White Earth, Red Lake and Leech Lake, and with the outlying bands at Lake Winnibigoshish and Cass Lake. He made summer visitations to the Chippewa reservations and settlements during most of the years of his episcopate. John Johnson Enmegahbowh, Chippewa deacon and later priest, whom Whipple met on his first visitation to Chippewa country, and Joseph Alexander Gilfillan, who was the Episcopal missionary to the Chippewa from 1873-1898, were his regular correspondents. They kept him informed about health and living conditions among the Chippewa, their progress in education and Christianity, agriculture on the reservations, Chippewa attitudes toward treaties and annuity payments, administrative problems, conflicts with Indian agents and other government employees, aid to destitute Indians, illicit whiskey trade, and appropriations of money for the Chippewa. Many of Enmegahbowh’s letters are eloquent pleas for help to a people forced into an alien way of life, and expressions of his hopes and fears for their souls and their future. Letters from other Chippewa present their problems, ask Whipple’s advice, and request aid in the form of money, clothing, agricultural supplies, teachers and missionaries. They occasionally express opinions on the right of mixed blood Chippewa to government annuity payments and reservation land. Whipple’s extensive correspondence with the United States Secretaries of the Interior and Commissioners of Indian Affairs, Indian agents, politicians, and the many people who sent donations for his missionary work also concentrates heavily on Chippewa affairs.

Letters from 1862 to 1868 discuss the Sioux Uprising and the plight of the Chippewa in its aftermath; treaties of 1863-1864 and 1867; Chippewa chief Hole-in-the-Day’s opposition to new treaties (1862-1868); appointment of Joel B. Basset as Chippewa agent (1866) and his allegedly dishonest conduct in office (1867); relocation of the Gull Lake Chippewa at White Earth in 1867-1868; and the death of Hole-in-the-Day (1868). An incomplete copy of Whipple’s diary of August, 1862, describes his visitation to the Chippewa at Red Lake, and a few notes describe another Chippewa visitation in 1866. Letters for 1869 discuss Basset’s replacement as Chippewa agent.

The regulation of annuity payments to Minnesota’s Indians was one of Whipple’s earliest concerns, and his correspondence during the 1860s mentioned his service on several Boards of Visitors to the Chippewa, appointed to oversee the annuity payments which usually took place in September or October of each year.

Chippewa affairs are a major subject of Whipple’s correspondence during the 1870s. It particularly emphasizes living conditions and agricultural progress, development of the central Episcopal mission at White Earth Reservation, Enmegahbowh’s ministry and the achievements of the White Earth Mission, appointment of agents, relations of the Chippewa and the church with Indian agents and government employees, and administration of funds appropriated for the Chippewa’s benefit. Under United States Indian Office policy in the 1870s, the Episcopal church took a direct interest in the administration of the White Earth agency by recommending the appointment and replacement of agents at White Earth. There is also information on the construction of buildings for the White Earth agency and mission, particularly (1873-1874) the Bishop Whipple Hospital. Later comments (1870s-1880s) suggest that the hospital failed to attract many of the Indian sick.

The sale of the Pillager band’s pine lands at Leech Lake is also frequently discussed, particularly in 1873 and 1874. Agent Edward P. Smith had contracted with Amherst H. Wilder for the sale to Wilder of timber on the Leech Lake Reservation, a transaction soon labeled fraudulent by friends of the Chippewa. Wilder and Smith, federal government officials, Indians, and others concerned about the legality of the contract discuss the negotiations with the Leech Laker's, Smith’s character, and the nature of the Indians’ rights to land and timber. Henry M. Rice is also accused of fraud in connection with the sale, and a letter from Whipple to William Welsh in August, 1874, states that Whipple, too, had been accused of condoning corruption in the agency’s administration.

Other letters (circa 1873-1884) discuss the training, support, and assignments of several young Chippewa divinity students, some of who were educated at Seabury Divinity School, and Gilfillan’s plans to use them in expanding his missionary and education work at the various reservations. A letter from Gilfillan of July 10, 1884, includes a list of the Chippewa clergy. Letters from Gilfillan, Enmegahbowh, and Roman Catholic missionary Ignatius Tomaszin (1874-circa 1877) reveal a sharp conflict between the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic missions for both administrative and religious control of White Earth. Many letters, beginning in the late 1870s, make apparent the often strained relationship between Gilfillan, who appears determined to exercise his prerogatives as head missionary, and Enmegahbowh, who was jealous of Gilfillan’s position.

During the late 1870s and the early 1880s, correspondence regarding the Chippewa continues to stress living conditions, education and work of the Chippewa missionaries, mission progress, agency and church buildings, annuity payments, and agency administration. Health conditions on the reservations are more frequently mentioned; Enmegahbowh speaks of the high death rate of starvation among the Pembina Indians (1881-1882), and of his fears of a smallpox epidemic during the winter of 1882-1883. Letters of 1879 and 1880 discuss W. Thornton Parker’s appointment as head of the Bishop Whipple Hospital at White Earth, and his subsequent quarrel with Gilfillan and expulsion from the reservation.

A major topic of discussion during the 1880s (particularly 1881-1886) is the construction of dams and reservoirs on Leech Lake and Lake Winnebago shush. Although the War Department had authorized payment for damages to private property, the Chippewa first opposed the construction of the dams and then refused to accept what they considered inadequate compensation. Gilfillan, Henry H. Sibley, and William R. Marshall, commissioned to reassess the government’s original evaluation of damages sustained by Indians, reported a higher evaluation of damages and recommended annual compensatory payments. The letters are concerned with construction of the dams, the extent of damage being done to reservation land and to the wild rice crop, the work of the commission, and other attempts to obtain reparations. They reflect the Chippewa’s almost unanimous opposition to the dams.

Attempts by the United States Office of Indian Affairs to prohibit the Chippewa from cutting dead and down reservation timber for sale was another topic of some concern during the middle 1880s.

Throughout the 1880s the correspondence mentions proposals for consolidating the Chippewa reservations in Minnesota and for dissolving tribal landholdings and allotting the land to individuals. The Northwest Indian Commission (1886) and the Chippewa Commission (1889) were authorized to negotiate the removal of all Minnesota Chippewa to the White Earth and Red Lake reservations and the sale of the abandoned reservations. The correspondence discussed their work, as well as the subsequent removal of several bands of Chippewa to White Earth, the sale of vacated reservation land and ceded pine lands, and the cession of part of the Red Lake Reservation (1886-1891). The “Act for the Relief and Civilization of the Chippewa Indians” (Nelson Act), which established the Chippewa Commission, is criticized as being unjust to the Red Laker's and designed to favor lumber interests and traders (1889).

During the late 1880s and early 1890s there is again considerable mention of education and church services for the Chippewa, and the work of the native missionaries (circa 1887-1894), and of competition with the Roman Catholics for the loyalty of the Christian Indians (circa 1892-1894). In letters written during 1890-1894, the period of the Ghost Dance movement, Enmegahbowh and Gilfillan express considerable concern over the enthusiasm for dancing manifested by the Chippewa, and over the gambling, the whiskey trade, and the Indians’ neglect of their farms that accompanied their preoccupation with the dances. The beginning of the lace-making industry among the Chippewa appears in letters from Sybil Carter (1892-1893).

Most of Whipple’s correspondence regarding the Chippewa ceases after 1895, when the diocese of Minnesota was divided and they were committed to the care of the Bishop of Duluth. Several articles by Gilfillan about the Chippewa are present (1896). During the last half of the decade, Enmegahbowh writes reminiscent letters about his early years as a missionary, the growth of Episcopal religion among the Chippewa, their relations with the United States government, and the activities of Hole-in-the-Day during the 1860s. The several reminiscences among the undated papers were probably also written during this period.

Occasional mention of African-Americans and of racial problems can be found scattered among the papers. They include Whipple’s views on slavery, African-Americans and Black culture in the South (see his “Southern Diary,” 1843-1844, volumes 9 and 10); two letters from Whipple’s uncle (1862) regretting Whipple’s and Henry W. Halleck’s apparent indifference to the evils of slavery; mention of a proposed school in Raleigh, North Carolina (1882); Whipple’s views on African-Americans’ place in the church (1889); the contract labor system in the South (1890); the demand of Black Episcopalians for African-American bishops in the South (1897, in newspaper clippings, box 34); Whipple’s opinions on African-American moral and intellectual qualities as compared to those of Indians (1901); religious instruction in the South (1897); and missions to African-Americans (previously noted ) in Florida (1892-1895) and in Minneapolis and St. Paul (1900).

Some of the letters and diary entries also relate to Whipple’s private affairs. During each of his European trips there are letters from friends, particularly in England, inquiring after his health and inviting him to their homes. Letterbooks 5 and 6 contain copies of letters written by Whipple to his wife and family during his travels in 1864-1865 and 1869-1870. He saved several letters written by other bishops advising him regarding an offer of the bishopric of the Sandwich Islands (1871). During the 1880s and 1890s, his winter residence in Maitland, Florida, and the maintenance of his home and gardens there are discussed, while other correspondence is concerned with his landholdings in Florida and Minnesota. Occasional letters regarding the meetings and work of the Peabody Fund trustees also appear throughout the papers.

Other letters discuss his fishing trips; his financial burdens after the death of his father (see letterbook 3); the deaths of his son, John Hall Whipple (1878), his son-in-law, H. A. Scandrett (1883), and his wife Cornelia (1890); a railroad accident in which Whipple was involved (1886); the illness of his sister, Susan Letitia Hill, with blood poisoning (1887); his trip to Canada and Alaska (1887); the writing and publication of Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate (1895-1900); and Whipple’s courtship and marriage to Evangeline Simpson (1895-1896). During the 1890s, several reminiscent letters by Whipple, published in The Churchman, are included. Volumes 56-64 are personal memoranda and account books.

A typewritten copy of Whipple’s reminiscences, dictated by him to diocesan registrar George C. Tanner in 1892-1893, and the manuscript of it are also among the papers (boxes 32-33). Several biographical sketches, articles, memorial addresses and newspaper clippings discuss his life and activities (box 34).

Additional miscellaneous topics mentioned briefly in Whipple’s correspondence include the Civil War and its effects on the United States; politics and Reconstruction during the 1860s; the Chicago fire (1871); relief activities during Minnesota’s grasshopper plague (1874); the assassination of President Garfield (September 1881); the question of whether to grant a pardon to the Younger brothers (November 1886); repeal of a provision in the interstate commerce bill granting half-rate railroad fares to ministers (1887); the contract labor system in the South (1890); the Spanish-American War (1898); the work of the National Civil Service Reform League (1880s); occasional mention of the University of Minnesota; medical public health; and benevolent organizations in Minnesota.