The Light and the Heat: Evidence of Godliness, Domesticity, and Colonial Encounters at the Little Elk Mission

The Little Elk Mission Site (21MO38) is the locale of an 1839-1841 Methodist-Episcopal mission complex in Morrison County, Minnesota. Douglas A. Birk, who began searching for it in 1972, investigated the site in the 1980s. Over the course of 25+ years, Doug researched the history and archaeology of the mission period in Minnesota (e.g., Birk 1993). Our work at the Little Elk Mission Site in 2014 builds on the foundation of mission-period archaeology in Minnesota prepared by Birk. In 1838, renowned Ojibwe chief Bagone-giizhig the Elder (Hole-in-the-Day) invited missionaries from the Methodist-Episcopal church to establish a mission at his village located at the confluence of the Little Elk and Mississippi rivers. One intriguing piece (actually several pieces) of evidence for colonial encounters at the site are fragments of a cast-iron stove, strewn across the site. The cast-iron stove brought to the Little Elk Mission was likely one of only a few stoves in the Minnesota Territory. At this time, stoves were becoming necessities, altering notions of comfort in America. As stoves became increasingly common in the home, worshippers began to expect such domestic comforts in church as well. This association of domesticity and godliness takes on added significance in a mission context. Although there is no doubt that the missionaries brought this stove to the Minnesota frontier for their own comfort, they also imagined that they were bringing the light and heat of Christian "civilization" to a dark, cold wilderness of "savagery."