Jeningo Oneidas

Janingo Indians; Geningo [Indians]

Jeningo on the Susquehanna River (modern Chenango)

Now modern Chenango, NY, Jeningo was an Oneida village on the Susquehanna River. The Jeningo Oneidas are noteworthy because they requested an Indian missionary, rather than an Anglo-American one, largely out of fears of missionaries taking land. The missionary they requested was Samuel Ashpo, who made successive tours to the Jeningos between 1760 and 1767. Ashpo was fired in 1767 because of alleged drunkenness. It is unclear if the Connecticut Board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge began the proceedings against him or if the Jeningo Oneidas complained. Both are possible: on the one hand, Ashpo was a separatist preacher who was potentially alarming to Anglo-Americans, despite Wheelock et al's attempts to reform him; on the other hand, there were multiple instances of Six Nations tribes complaining when missionaries fell short of behavioral standards.

Andrews, Edward E. Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2013. Fisher, Linford. The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press 2012. McCallum, James. The Letters of Eleazar Wheelock’s Indians. Dartmouth College Press 1932.