Sela G. Wright Papers

Reverend Sela(h) Goodrich Wright, educator and missionary, was born in Pompey, New York, on July 1, 1816 to John (1791-1886) and Betsy Goodrich (1795-1875) Wright, farmers. After 1830 they moved to Medina, Ohio. Wright enrolled in the Preparatory Department of Oberlin College in 1840, but withdrew in 1843 to become one of the first members of the "Oberlin Band" of evangelical missionaries working among the Ojibwe (Chippewa) tribe in Minnesota. Three years later, in 1846, he returned to Oberlin to find a "suitable wife." The principal of the Female Department helped him identify a small group of young women who embodied the "necessary qualifications," and from among these women Wright selected Emeline Farnsworth (1822-1917, enr. 1840-41) whom he married June 6, 1846. They returned to Minnesota, serving at Red Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, and Leech Lake until 1862. Seven children were born to them during these years, two of whom died young of dysentery. Wright was ordained in 1849 and added ministerial duties to his work in the schoolhouse. The mission dissolved in 1859 with few converts, but Wright and his family stayed among the Ojibwe until 1862 when an uprising caused them to flee.

Wright settled his family in Oberlin in 1862 (where their last child was born in 1865 and died one year later). Wright himself went on to establish churches and schools for the American Missionary Association in the American South among freedpeople. He was frequently at odds with his superiors and teachers, so in 1867 he returned to Government service in Minnesota as a teacher among the Ojibwe, establishing a boarding school at Leech Lake to reduce the influence of family and tribe on the indigenous students. He remained here until 1883 and served briefly in the late 1880s as a missionary to members of a Wisconsin tribe. He ultimately claimed 41 years of education and missionary work with the Ojibwe. During these years he and his wife acquired a very thorough knowledge and understanding of the Ojibwe language, and he compiled a grammar text and dictionary of words in order to write materials for the Ojibwe in their own language.

Sela G. Wright was the author of several writings: The Religious Customs of the Ojibway [sic] Indians (pamphlet, 1890), Some Reminiscences of Early Oberlin Missionaries and their Work in Northwestern Minnesota (manuscript, 1890), and a manuscript edited by Frank Hugh Foster in 1891 with an unknown title.

Wright had a lengthy career among the Ojibwe, though it was generally characterized by limited success. Although he had mastered the Ojibwe tongue and had a profound respect for its richness, he could not see that its fiber and essence came from the nomadic, subsistence life of the Ojibwe. In addition, although he abhorred the demoralizing effects of the unscrupulous traders and government agents and the intrusion of white settlers, he clung to his cultural prejudices, demanding the Ojibwe give up their culture and accept those same white values held by the intruders as evidence of conversion and "civilization." In his last years he was bitter about the success of an Episcopal mission among the Ojibwe, not able to grasp that it was due to its greater cultural tolerance. Wright died in Oberlin on 12 July 1906.

Sources Consulted

Ronald E. Butchart—SUNY Purchase at Cortland [copy in 30/192 case file].

Sela Wright Papers, RG 30/192, Oberlin College Archives

Note written by Melissa Gottwald and Jonathan Thurn.