More Than God Demands : Politics and Influence of Christian Missions in Northwest Alaska, 1897-1918 (Paperback)

More Than God Demands presents a new perspective on the politics, methods, and motivations of a government project designed to erase ten thousand years of Native culture in a misguided attempt to “uplift” Alaska Native peoples into “civilized” American citizenship. Urvina draws on new and established sources to explore the political fights between agents of the federal government and the American church missionary-teachers as they struggled for control of the Iñupiaq.

Additionaly, Urvina draws on details from his mother’s background, she was an orphan raised at Brevig Mission, to make sense of how government policy and religious objectives shaped her early life—policies and objectives that caused damage that reverberated through his family. In bringing together personal and regional history, he discovers a greater understanding of the person she became and reveals a lively account of the men and women who arrived to capture the Great Land for Christ. Urvina’s extraordinary position as a researcher with new resources and a man with mixed ancestry trying to make sense of his past offers scholars and casual readers a look into a colonial legacy that resonates today.