Osage Nation Seal – via Wikipedia

Resistance also has taken the form of maintaining autonomy and traditional beliefs in the face of persistent onslaughts, sometimes over hundreds of years. For example, the Osage were subjected to military attack, forcefully removed from their original land base, and targeted by Catholic and Protestant missionary efforts. Yet they avoided military defeat by playing French, English, Spanish and US forces against each other. By adapting their lifestyles to the changing challenges, they were able to resist unrelenting missionary efforts for extended periods, even while accepting missionaries and the resources they brought onto the land. They set firm limits to missionary activity, and did not convert or send their children to church schools. Although the Osage were forced to change some of their rituals and cultural practices, they managed to maintain national sovereignty, cultural integrity and their core spiritual values.

Willard Hughes Rollings. Unaffected by the Gospel: Osage Resistance to the Christian Invasion 1673-1906: A Cultural Victory. University of New Mexico, 2004.