THE

HE early Protestant colonists have been severely aspersed for their treatment of the Indians. They have been accused of maintaining an unkind, suspicious attitude, of rushing hastily into hostilities, and making only a few tardy, feeble efforts for the conversion of the natives to Christianity, while the Spanish and French colonists, it is claimed, drew the red men into cordial relations and converted them in large numbers to the papal faith. The situation should be considered.

The Spanish and French, in advance of all Protestant settlements, had occupied the northern and southern borders, and were intent upon the possession of the whole country. Studiously attaching the Indians to themselves and fostering jealousy and hatred toward the English, the Jesuits, working in the interests of Spain and France, kept the Indian mind biased against the English colonists and strongly predisposed to hostility. Even the natives living within or near the lines of the Protestant settlements were tainted with the infection, and with difficulty were held in affiliation. Almost all the troubles of the English colonists may be traced to this source.

Section 1.-In New England.

The principal tribes of Indians in New England were the Pequots, in north-eastern Connecticut; the Mohegans, in south-eastern Connecticut; the Narragansetts, in Rhode Island, and Bristol County,

* Bishop Wilberforce, in his History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, says: "It is calculated that 180,000 of the aboriginal inhabitants were slaughtered by them (the colonists) in Massachusetts and Connecticut alone." How absurd! It is probable there were not 30,000 in Massachusstts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, in 1630.

PURITAN WORK AMONG THE INDIANS.

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Massachusetts; the Pawkunnawkutts, on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the neighboring shores, as far as the Plymouth Colony and the Cape; the Massachusetts, around Massachusetts Bay and back to the center of the State; the Pawtucketts, in the northern and eastern part of Massachusetts, and extending into New Hampshire and a small part of Maine; the Algonquins, further east, roaming through northern New Hampshire, Vermont, and the Canadas; the Housatonnocs, on the rivers in western Massachusetts and Connecticut. At one time, shortly before the settlement at Plymouth began, it is said that the Pequots could muster 4,000 warriors; the Narragansetts, 5,000; the Pawkunnawkutts, 3,000; the Massachusetts, 3,000; the Pawtucketts, 3,000; a total of 18,000 men, indicating an Indian population of about 70,000. About 1612-13 a terribly fatal epidemic swept them off by tens of thousands. The Pawtucketts were reduced to about 250 men, besides women and children. The other tribes were greatly decimated, but not so seriously. Probably 30,000 would be a high estimate for the number of Indians, if we except the Algonquins, in all New England in 1630.

The Royal Charter of the Plymouth Colony called for "the conversion of such savages as yet remain wandering in desolation and distress to civil society and the Christian religion." The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony enjoined the duty to win the natives "to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind," and the seal of the colony presented the figure of an Indian with a label at his mouth on which was inscribed the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us." And when it was reported to Rev. John Robinson, at Leyden, that, in an early skirmish with the Indians, some of them had been killed, he wrote to the governor, “O that you had converted some before you had killed any." In less than one year from the landing at Plymouth Robert Cushman wrote to England that many of the Indians were "tractable both to religion and humanity;" that if the colonists had means they would instruct many of the native children, and that young men of wealth in England would do well to come over and devote themselves to this work. During the earlier years of hardships and privations much was done, by both ministers and laymen, as opportunity offered, to impart the Gospel to their heathen neighbors, and some of them gave satisfactory evidence of conversion to Christ. As early as 1636, in the Plymouth Colony, laws were enacted providing for the preaching of the Gospel among the Indians.

These Pilgrims and Puritans were the pioneers of the Protestant world in attempts to convert heathen to Christ. They were missionary colonies-self-supporting missions-composed of men who went on their own responsibility and at their own expense, to establish their posterity among the heathen, whose salvation they sought. Nor should it be omitted that for more than fifty years, if we except one short, sharp, bloody conflict, brought about by an out-settlement of factious men who could not be tolerated at Plymouth, the founders of Massachusetts lived in peace with the Indian tribes. Scarcely a gleam of light shone into the minds of these savages. They adored the sun and the moon, and were in bondage to a system of conjuring and of professed intercourse with evil spirits. Their condition was so degraded that Rev. John Eliot, in his first letter to England in regard to the Indians, said:

Wee are oft upbraided by some of our countrymen (¿. e., in England), that so little good is done by our professing planters upon the hearts of natives. Such men have surely more splene than judgment, and know not the vast distance of natives from common civility, almost humanity itself; and 'tis as if they should reproach us for not making the winds to blow when we list ourselves. It must certainly be a spirit of life from God which must put flesh and sinews unto these dry bones. If wee would force them to baptisme (as the Spanish do about Cusco, Peru, and Mexico, having learnt them a short answer or two to some popish questions), or if wee would hire them to it by giving them coates and shirts to allure them to it, wee could have gathered many hundreds, yea thousands, it may be, by this time into the churches; but wee have not learnt, as yet, the art of coyning Christians, or putting Christ's name and image upon copper mettle."

The General Court of Massachusetts (Nov. 19, 1644) ordered:

That the county courts should take care that the Indians residing in their several shires should be civilized, and that they should have power to take order, from time to time, to have them instructed in the knowledge and worship of God.

Two years later the court

Ordered and decreed that two ministers should be chosen by the elders of the churches every year at the court of election, and so to be sent with the consent of their churches, with whomsoever would freely offer themselves to accompany them in that service, to make known the heaverly counsel of God among the Indians, in most familiar manner, by the help of some able interpreter, and that something might be allowed them by the General Court to give away freely to those Indians whom they should perceive most willing and ready to be instructed by them.

...

Rev. John Eliot.

Rev. John Eliot was educated in Cambridge University, England, came to Boston in 1631, and was settled as "Teacher" of the

Church, in Roxbury, in 1632. He was eminently an intellectual and devout man of high character. Almost simultaneously with Thomas Mayhew, on Martha's Vineyard, he gave himself to the work of converting the Indians, and urged the subject upon the attention of the colonists in their legislative assembly. President Dunster, of Harvard College, advised that they be instructed through their own language rather than the English. From his first settlement in Roxbury, Eliot had given much attention to the welfare of the natives. Long after his efforts seemed hopeful to himself he encountered incredulity and opposition from those around him. Eliot's preliminary preparation extended through several years. An Indian captured in the Pequot wars, and who lived in Dorchester, was the first native, "whom he used to teach him words and to be his interpreter." He took the most unwearied pains in his strange lessons from this uncouth teacher, finding progress very slow and baffling, receiving no aid from the other tongues which he had learned and taught in England, and which were so "difficultly constructed, inflected, and augmented."

Though he is regarded as having gained an "amazing mastery of the Indian language, he frequently, even to the close of a half century in his work, avowed and lamented his lack of skill in it. He secured from time to time what he called the more nimble-witted natives, young or grown,' to live with him in Roxbury and to accompany him on his visits, to interchange with him words and ideas." "'*

First Sermon to the Indians.

After two years of study Eliot ventured to preach in the Indian tongue. On the 28th of October, 1646, on a hill† in Nonantum, about four or five miles from Roxbury, he discoursed for an hour and a quarter to the dusky natives, from Ezekiel 38: 9. Here resided Waban, one of the principal chiefs, who had gathered his tribe to listen to the new message. Eliot's "prayer was in English, as he scrupled, lest he might use some unfit or unworthy terms in the solemn office." This prompted an inquiry from his interested but bewildered listeners, whether God would understand prayers offered to Him in the Indian tongue. His method in subsequent visits, when he gained more confidence, was to offer a short prayer in Indian; to recite and explain the ten commandments; to describe

* Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D., in Memorial History of Boston, Vol. I, p. 260.

+ Within the present limits of the city of Newton, on the south bank of the Charles River, opposite to Watertown.

the character, work, and offices of Christ as Saviour and judge; to tell his hearers about the creation, fall, and redemption of man, and to persuade them to repentance. He then encouraged them to put any questions that rose in their minds, promising answers and explanations. Some of their queries were so apt and pertinent, indicating so much acumen,* that their good friend was often puzzled to satisfy them. Cotton Mather, in commending Eliot's style in sermonizing, said: “Lambs might wade into his discourses on those texts and themes, wherein elephants might swim." Such a style must have been equally suited to his white and red auditors. Some of the leading men of the colony, magistrates and ministers, occasionally accompanied Eliot on his preaching visits, and however they may have fallen short of his enthusiasm and hopefulness, they gratefully appreciated his devotion and zeal." +

The following week Eliot met another company of Indians at Neponset, about four miles south-west from his own home, in the wigwam of Chicatabut, chief of another tribe. Between Nonantum and Neponset he alternated his labors. These chiefs soon became zealous helpers of Eliot, and their people generally accepted Christianity.

Interest in England.

Eliot's narrative of his Indian labors was printed in England, in 1647, under the quaint title, The Day-Breaking if Not the Sun Rising of the Gospel with the Indians in New England. In 1648 another from Rev. Thomas Shepard appeared, entitled, The Clear Sun-shine of the Gospel Breaking Forth Upon the Indians in New England, and dedicated "To the Godly and Well-affected of This Kingdom of England." This tract "begat a debate," in the House of Commons, "how the Parliament of England might be serviceable to the Lord Jesus to help forward such a work begun." After two years' delay, in 1649 an act was passed entitled, "A Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England." This ordinance set forth that

Divers heathen natives of New England had, through the blessing of God upon the pious care and pains of some godly English, from being very barbarous become civil, but many of them forsaking their sorceries and other satanical delusions, did

* Being told that they were the children, not of God, but of the devil, they were naturally interested chiefly in the latter. They asked, "Whether ye devil or man was made first ? Whether there might not be something, if only a little, gained by praying to ye devil? Why does not God, who has full power, kill ye devil that makes all men so bad? If God made hell in one of the 'six days,' why did he make it before Adam had sinned? If all ye world be burned up, where shall hell then be ?'"

+ Memorial History of Boston, Vol. I, p. 262.