Charles Journeycake, Chief of the Delawares, a founding Trustee of Indian University, was born in1817. His mother, Sally Journeycake, converted Charles to Christianity; he was baptized in 1833. Charles began preaching to the Delawares and other Indian tribes of Kansas in 1837. Journeycake became Chief of the Delawares in 1861, and after the Civil War, led his people from Kansas to Indian Territory. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1872, he became a leading intellectual and preacher among the Delawares and others of northern Oklahoma.

In 1886, Journeycake assessed the coming of the whites to America and their impact on his people. His statement is carved into the northwest corner of the Bacone College Chapel:
“We have been broken up and moved six times. We have been despoiled of our property.
We thought when we moved across Missouri River and had paid for our home in Kansas
we were safe, but in a few years the white man wanted our country. We had good farms,
built comfortable houses and big barns. We had schools for our children and churches
where we listened to the same gospel the white man listens to. The white man came into
our country from Missouri and drove our cattle and horses away and if our people
followed them they were killed. We try to forget these things but we could not forget that
the white man brought us the blessed gospel, the Christian’s hope. This more than pays
for all we have suffered.”

Charles Journeycake experienced the contradictions of white civilization, which professed a Christian society of peace and love while at the same time condoned the mistreatment of American Indians. A means to emphasize the former virtues while denigrating the latter vices was education, hence Journeycake’s support for Indian University. Charles Journeycake forgave but did not forget