One issue of concern for the
missionaries was where the native people originated from. The
missionaries were insistent that the native people must be descendants
of Adam, so as to have shared in his fall and be in need of the same
Christian savior. The missionaries rejected the idea that the native
people were created separately, because that idea would support the
notion that there could be separate moralities for separate groups of
people. The missionaries were insistent that the natives came from the
same source as all other people.
However, the missionaries viewed
the native people as being an inferior group. This was obvious to them
by the fact that the native people failed to cultivate or "subdue
the earth", as humans are directed to do in Genesis.
Other signs of the
"inferiority" of the native people included their communal
living, and their lack of private property. They believed that private
property encouraged thrift and hard work.
John McDougall recognized that it
took a lot of work to hunt buffalo, but at the same time, he saw the
decline of the buffalo as a good thing for forcing the natives into a
lifestyle that would involve private property.