Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce

1890

Despite their separation, the McBeths continued to have a great impact on the Nez Perces. Many Indians visited Sue at Mount Idaho, still seeking her counsel and help. In 1890, the sisters were disturbed by a schism at the Kamiah church in which part of the congregation turned against the native pastor, Robert Williams, who in 1879 had been the first Nez Perce to be ordained as a minister. Moving across the Clearwater River, the dissenters established the Second Indian Presbyterian Church under another native minister, Archie Lawyer, who had been with the exiles in the Indian Territory. Though the conflict was marked by a variety of charges brought against Williams, it stemmed basically from rivalry between the prestige-conscious families of old-time chiefs and followers of Lawyer, whose father had been the tribe’s head chief, and those of Williams and his church officers, whose families were not of chiefly status. For a long time, the two congregations would have nothing to do with each other, and though passions eventually cooled, the strains of the rift continued for many generations. (pp. 161-162)