Pioneers and Founders

Of one Sachem, Mather tells a story: “While Mr. Eliot was preaching of Christ unto the other Indians, a demon appeared unto a Prince of the Eastern Indians in a shape that had some resemblance of Mr. Eliot or of an English minister, pretending to be the Englishman’s God.  The spectre commanded him ‘to forbear the drinking of rum and to observe the Sabbath-day, and to deal justly with his neighbours;’ all which things had been inculcated in Mr. Eliot’s ministry, promising therewithal unto him that, if he did so, at his death his soul should ascend into a happy place, otherwise descend unto miseries; but the apparition all the while never said one word about Christ, which was the main subject of Mr. Eliot’s ministry.  The Sachem received such an impression from the apparition that he dealt justly with all men except in the bloody tragedies and cruelties he afterwards committed on the English in our wars.  He kept the Sabbath-day like a fast, frequently attending in our congregations; he would not meddle with any rum, though usually his countrymen had rather die than undergo such a piece of self-denial.  That liquor has merely enchanted them.  At last, and not long since, this demon appeared again unto this pagan, requiring him to kill himself, and assuring him that he should revive in a day or two, never to die any more.  He thereupon divers times attempted it, but his friends very carefully prevented it; however, at length he found a fair opportunity for this foul business, and hanged himself,—you may be sure without his expected resurrection.”

This story, grotesque as it sounds in the solemn simplicity of the worthy Puritan, is really only an instance of what takes place wherever the light of the Gospel is held up to men capable of appreciating its standard of morality, but too proud to bend the spirit to accept the doctrine of the Cross.  The Sachem was but a red-skinned “seeker after God,” an “ape of Christianity,” like Marcus Aurelius, and like the many others we shall meet with who loved darkness rather than light, not so much because their deeds were evil as because their hearts were proud.

Like all practical men, Eliot found it absolutely necessary to do what he called “carrying on civility with religion,” i.e. instructing the converts in such of the arts of life as would afford them wholesome industry; but want of means was his great difficulty, and in the middle of a civil war England was not very likely to supply him.

Still he made his Indians at Nonantum hedge and ditch, plant trees, sow cornfields, and saw planks; and some good man in England, whose name he never knew, sent him in 1648 ten pounds for schools among the natives, half of which he gave to a mistress at Cambridge, and half to a master at Dorchester, under whom the Indian children made good progress, and he catechized them himself most diligently by way of teaching both them and the parents who looked on.

He had by this time translated the Bible, but it remained in manuscript for want of the means of printing it; and his favourite scheme of creating an Indian city, with a scriptural government, well out of the way of temptation from and interference by the English, was also at a standstill, from his poverty.

He likewise sustained a great loss in his friend Mr. Shepard, who had worked with him with equal devotion and enthusiasm, but this loss really led to the fulfilment of his wishes, for Mr. Shepard’s papers were sent home, and aroused such an interest in Calamy and others of the devout ministers in London, that the needs of the Indians of New England were brought before Parliament, and an ordinance was passed on the 27th of July, 1649, for the advancement of civilization and Christianity among them.  Then a corporation was instituted, entitled the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, of which Judge Street was the first president, and Mr. Henry Ashurst the first treasurer, with powers to receive the collections that the ministers in every parish were exhorted to make by authority of Parliament, backed up by letters from the two Universities.

There was a good deal of opposition; people fancied it a new plan of getting money for Government, and were not at all interested about the Indians, but money enough was collected to purchase lands worth about 500l. or 600l. a year, by way of foundation, at a time when the property of Cavaliers was going cheap, and the Society was able to undertake the cost of printing Eliot’s Bible, as well as of building him an Indian college, of paying his teachers, and of supplying the greatly needed tools and other necessaries for his much-desired station.

Still there was a great deal of difficulty and opposition, from the English dislike and contempt for the Indians, who were judged en masse by the degraded ones who loitered about the settlements, begging and drinking; as well as from the Powaws or medicine men who found their dupes escaping, and tried to terrify them by every means by which it was possible to work upon their superstition.  The Sachems, likewise, were finding out that Christians were less under their tyranny since they had had a higher standard, and many opposed Eliot violently, trying to drive him from their villages with threats and menacing gestures, but he calmly answered, “I am engaged in the work of God, and God is with me.  I fear not all the Sachems in the country.  I shall go on with my work.  Touch me if you dare;” nor did he ever fail to keep the most angry in check while he was present, though they hated him greatly.  Uncas, the chief of the Mohicans, made a regular complaint to Government that Eliot and his colleagues prayed by name for the conversion of the Mohicans and Narragansets.  Even Cutshamakin, when he heard of the project of an Indian town, broke out against it with such fury, that all the men in favour of it cowered and slunk away from his furious howls and gesticulations.  Mr. Eliot was left alone to confront him, and looking steadily at him told him that, as this was God’s work, no fear of him should hinder it.  The savage quailed before him, but afterwards came to him and stated that his objection was that the praying Indians did not pay him their tribute.  Eliot kindly answered that this had been complained of before, and that he had preached a sermon enforcing this duty upon the tribe.

The words were good, said Cutshamakin, but the Indians would not obey them.  So Mr. Eliot, after consultation with the ministers and elders in Boston, invited the Indians who understood English to hear a sermon there, and in it the duty of rendering to all their due was fully enforced.  Afterwards, however, the Indians came forward declaring themselves much surprised and mortified at being accused of not paying their just duty to their chief; and they specified the service and gifts: each had rendered twenty bushels of corn, six bushels of rye, fifteen deer, days spent in hunting, the building of a wigwam, reclaiming two acres of land; and the amount when added up amazed Mr. Eliot.  At his next lecture, then, he took for his text the rejection by the Saviour of all the kingdoms of the world, and personally applied it to Cutshamakin, reproaching him with lust of power and worldly ambition, and warning him that Satan was tempting him to give up the faith for the sake of recovering his arbitrary power.  The discourse and the conversation that followed again melted the Sachem, and he repented and retracted, although he continued an unsafe and unstable man.

At length, in 1651, Mr. Eliot was able to convene his praying Indians and with them lay the foundation of a town on the banks of Charles River, about eighteen miles to the south-west of Boston.  The spot, as he believed, had been indicated to him in answer to prayer, and they named it Natick, or the place of hills.  The inhabitants of Nonantum removed thither, and the work was put in hand.  A bridge, eighty feet long and nine feet wide, had already been laid across the river, entirely by Indian workmen, under Mr. Eliot’s superintendence; and the town was laid out in three streets, two on one side of the river and one on the other; the grounds were measured and divided, apple-trees planted, and sowing begun.  The cellars of some of the houses, it is said, remain to the present day.  In the midst was a circular fort, palisaded with trees, and a large house built in the English style, though with only a day or two of help from an English carpenter, the lower part of which was to serve as a place of worship on Sunday, and for a school on other days, the upper part as a wardrobe and storehouse for valuables, and with a room partitioned off, and known as “the prophet’s chamber,” for the use of Mr. Eliot on his visits to the settlement.  Outside were canopies, formed by mats stretched on poles, one for Mr. Eliot and his attendants, another for the men, and a third for the women.  These were apparently to shelter a sort of forum, and likewise to supplement the school-chapel in warm weather.  A few English-built houses were raised; but the Indians found them expensive and troublesome, and preferred the bark wigwams on improved principles.

The spot was secured to the Indians by the Council of Government, acting under the Commonwealth at home; but the right of local self-government was vested in each township; and Eliot, as the guide of his new settlers, could lead them to what he believed to be a truly scriptural code, such as he longed to see prevail in his native land.  “Oh!” he exclaimed, “the blessed day in England, when the Word of God shall be their Magna Carta and chief law book, and all lawyers must be divines to study the Scripture.”

His commencement in carrying out this system was to preach Jethro’s advice to Moses, and thence deduce that the Indians should divide themselves into hundreds and into tens, and elect rulers for each division, each tithing man being responsible for the ten under him, each chief of a hundred for the ten tithings.  This was done on the 6th of August, 1651; and Eliot declared that it seemed to him as if he beheld the scattered bones he had spoken of in his first sermon to the Indians, come bone to bone, and a civil political life begin.  His hundreds and tithings were as much suggested by the traditional arrangements of King Alfred as by those of Moses in the wilderness; and his next step was, in like manner, partly founded on Scripture, partly on English history,—namely, the binding his Indians by a solemn covenant to serve the Lord, and ratifying it on a fast-day.  His converts had often asked him why he held none of the great fast-days with them that they saw the English hold, and he had always replied that there was not a sufficient occasion, but he regarded this as truly important enough.  Moreover, a ship containing some supplies, sent by the Society in England, had been wrecked, and the goods, though saved, were damaged.  This he regarded as a frown of Providence and a fruit of sin.  Poor Cutshamakin also was in trouble again, having been drawn into a great revel, where much spirits had been drunk; and his warm though unstable temper always made him ready to serve as a public example of confession and humiliation.  So when, on the 24th of September, 1651, Mr. Eliot had conducted the fast-day service, it began with Cutshamakin’s confession; then three Indians preached and prayed in turn, and Mr. Eliot finally preached on Ezra’s great fast.  There was a pause for rest; then the assembly came together again, and before them Mr. Eliot solemnly recited the terms of the Covenant, by which all were to bind themselves to the service of the Lord, and which included all their principal laws.  He asked them whether they stood to the Covenant.  All the chiefs first bound themselves, then the remainder of the people; a collection was made for the poor; and so ended that “blessed day,” as the happy apostle of the Indians called it.

When Governor Endicot shortly after visited the place, he was greatly struck with the orderliness and civilization he found there.  “I account this one of the best journeys I have made for many years,” he says.  Many little manufactures were carried on, in particular one of drums, which were used for lack of bells in some of the American settlements, as a summons to come to church.

There was a native schoolmaster, named Monequassum, who could write, read, and spell English correctly, and under whom the children were making good progress.  Promising lads were trained by Mr. Eliot himself, in hopes of making them act as missionaries among their brethren.  All this time his praying Indians were not baptized, nor what he called “gathered into a Church estate.”  He seems to have been determined to have full proof of their stability before he so accepted them; for it was from no inclination to Baptist views that he so long delayed receiving them.  However, on the 13th of October, 1652, he convened his brother-ministers to hear his Indians make public confession of their faith.  What the converts said was perfectly satisfactory; but they were a long-winded race, accustomed to flowing periods; and as each man spoke for himself, and his confession had to be copied down in writing, Mr. Eliot himself owns that their “enlargement of spirit” did make “the work longsome.”  So longsome it was, that while the schoolmaster was speaking every one got restless, and there was a confusion; and the ministers, who had a long dark ride through the woods before them, went away, and were hard to bring back again, so that he had to finish hearing the declarations of faith alone.

Still, he cut off the baptism and organization of a church till he had sent all these confessions to be considered by the Society in England, printed and published under the title of “Tears of Repentance,” with a dedication to Oliver Cromwell.  Then came other delays; some from the jealousy and distrust of the English, who feared that the Indians were going to ally themselves to the Dutch; some from the difficulty of getting pastors to join in the tedious task of listening to the wordy confessions; and some from the distressing scandal of drunkenness breaking out among the Indians, in spite of the strict discipline that always punished it.  It was not till 1660 that Mr. Eliot baptized any Indians, and the next day admitted them to the Lord’s Supper, nine years after he had begun to preach.  The numbers we do not know, but there is no doubt that he received no adults except well proved and tried persons coming up to the Puritan standard of sincerity and devotion.

At this time the Society at home was in great danger; for, on the Restoration, the charter had become void, and, moreover, the principal estate that formed the endowment had been the property of a Roman Catholic,—Colonel Bedingfield,—who resumed possession, and refused to refund the purchase money, as considering the Society at an end.  It would probably have been entirely lost, but for the excellent Robert Boyle, so notable at once for his science, piety, and beneficence.  He placed the matter in its true light before Lord Clarendon, and obtained by his means a fresh charter from Charles II.  The judgment in the Court of Chancery was given in favour of the Society, and Boyle himself likewise endowed it with a third part of a grant of the forfeited impropriations in Ireland which he had received from the king.  But all the time there was a great disbelief in the efficacy of the work among the Indians both at home and in New England.  It was the fashion to call all the stories of Indian conversions mere devices for getting money, and the unhappy, proud hostility that almost always actuated the ordinary English colonist in dealing with natives, was setting in in full force.  However, at Massachusetts, the general court appointed an English magistrate to hold a court of judicature in conjunction with the chiefs of the Christian Indians, and to be in fact a sort of special member of government on their behalf.  The first so appointed was Daniel Gookin, a man of great piety, wisdom, and excellence, and a warm friend of Mr. Eliot, with whom he worked most heartily, not only in dealing with the Indians of Natick, but with all those who came under English jurisdiction, providing schools, and procuring the observance of the Sunday among them.  It was also provided that the Christian Indians should set apart a tenth of all their produce for the support of their teachers—a practice that Mr. Gookin defended from the charge of Judaism.  It seems as if these good men, who went direct to the Old Testament for their politics, must have been hard set between their desire of scriptural authority and their dread of Judaizing.

It was well for Eliot that he had friends, for in the first flush of the tidings of the successes of the Puritans in England, he had written a set of papers upon Government, entitled the “Christian Commonwealth,” which had been sent to England, and there lay dormant for nine or ten years, until in the midst of all the excitement on the Restoration, this speculative work, the theory of a scholar upon Christian democracy, was actually printed and launched upon the world at home, whether by an enemy or by an ill-advised friend does not appear, and without the author’s consent.  Complaints of this as a seditious book came out to New England, and John Eliot was forced to appear before the court, when he owned the authorship, but disowned the publication, and retracted whatever might have declared the Government of England, by King, Lords, and Commons, to be anti-Christian, avowing it to be “not only a lawful but eminent form of government, and professing himself ready to conform to any polity that could be deduced from Scripture as being of Divine authority.”  The court was satisfied, and suppressed the book, while publishing Mr. Eliot’s retractation.  Some have sneered at his conduct on this occasion as an act of moral cowardice; but it would be very hard if every man were bound to stand to all the political views expressed in an essay never meant for the general eye, ten years old, and written in the enthusiasm of the commencement of an experiment, which to the Presbyterian mind had proved a grievous disappointment.

He had a much more important work in hand than the defence of old dreams of the reign of the saints—for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England had just finished printing his translation of the New Testament, Wusku Wuttestermentum as it was called, and in two years more the Old Testament was finished.  A copy was presented to Charles II., to the Chancellor Clarendon, and to the two Universities in England, as well as to Harvard College.  It was in the Mohican dialect, which was sufficiently like that of the neighbouring tribes to serve for them, and had all the correctness that the scholarship and philology of the time could furnish.  There is a story that Eliot wrote the whole with a single pen.  It went through a good many editions, but is now very rare, and with Eliot’s Catechism, and translations of Baxter’s chief works, and a metrical version of the Psalms, remains the only vestige of the language of the Mohicans.

There were now several Indian congregations, one in especial at the island called Martha’s Vineyard, under the charge of an Indian pastor, John Hiacoomes, who is said to have been the first red-skinned convert, and who had made proof of much true Christian courage.  Once in the act of prayer he received a severe blow from a Sachem, and would have been killed if some English had not been present; but all his answer was, “I have two hands.  I had one hand for injuries, and the other for God.  While I did receive wrong with the one, the other laid the greater hold on God.”

When some of the Powaws, or medicine men, were boasting that they could, if they would, destroy all the praying Indians at once, Hiacoomes made reply: “Let all the Powaws in the island come together, I’ll venture myself in the midst among them all.  Let them use all their witchcrafts.  With the help of God, I’ll tread upon them all!”

By which defiance he wonderfully “heartened” his flock, who, Christians as they were, had still been beset by the dread of the magic arts, in which, as we have seen, even their White teachers did not wholly disbelieve.

Such a man as this was well worthy of promotion, and Mr. Eliot hoped to educate his more promising scholars, so as to supply a succession of learned and trained native pastors.  Two young men, named Joel and Caleb, were sent to Harvard College, Cambridge, where they both were gaining distinguished success, and were about to take their degree, when Joel, who had gone home on a visit, was wrecked on the Island of Nantucket, and, with the rest of the ship’s company, was either drowned or murdered by the Indians.  The name of Caleb, Chee-shah-teau-muck, Indus, is still to be seen in the registers of those who took their degree, and there are two Latin and Greek elegies remaining, which he composed on the death of an eminent minister, bearing his signature, with the addition, Senior Sophister.  How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin proclaim themselves the universal languages, thus blending with the uncouth Mohican word!  Caleb’s constitution proved unable to endure College discipline and learning, and he died of decline soon after taking his degree.  Consumption was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often is among savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems to have mown down especially the more intellectual of the Indians; Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among them.  An Indian College, which had been established at Cambridge, failed from the deaths of some scholars and the discouragement of others, and had to be turned into a printing house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the best he could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an “Indian logick primer.”  It was a wonderful feat, considering the loose unwieldy words of the language.

From 1660 to 1675 were Eliot’s years of chief success.  His own vigour was unabated, and he had Major Gookin’s hearty co-operation.  There had been time for a race of his own pupils to grow up; and there had not been time for the first love of his converts to wax cool.  There had been a long interval of average peace and goodwill between English and natives, and there seemed good reason to suppose that Christianity and civilization would keep them friends, if not fuse them together.  There were eleven hundred Christian Indians, according to Eliot and Gookin’s computation, with six regularly constituted “churches” after the fashion of Natick, and fourteen towns, of which seven were called old and seven new, where praying Indians lived, for the most part, in a well-conducted, peaceable manner, though now and then disorderly conduct would take place, chiefly from drunkenness.  Several Sachems had likewise been converted, in especial Wanalanset, the eldest son of the famous old chief Passaconnaway.  After four years of hesitation whether he should, as he said, quit his old canoe and embark in a new one, he came to the conclusion that the old canoe was floating down the stream of destruction, and manfully embraced the faith, although at the cost of losing many of his tribe, who deserted him on his profession of Christianity.

But there is always a period of check and disappointment in every great and holy work.  The tide of evil may be driven into ebb for a time, but it always rallies and flows back upon the servant of God, and usually when the prime of his strength is past, and he is less able to withstand.  Most good and great men have closed their eyes upon apparent failure and disappointment in what is especially their own task, and, like the first great Leader and Lawgiver, have had to cry, “Show Thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory.”  Often the next generation does see the success, and gather the fruits; but the strong, wise, scholarly, statesman-like Apostle of the Indians was destined to see his work swept away like snow before the rage and fury of man, and to leave behind him little save a great witness and example.  At least he had the comfort of knowing that the evil did not arise among his own children in the faith, but came from causes entirely external, and as much to be preferred as persecution is better than corruption.

The Sachem nearest to Plymouth had been at the first arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers, Massasoiet, chief of the Wampanongs, who had kept the peace out of fear.  His son Alexander had followed his example, but it was current among the English that he had died of “choler,” on being detected in a plot against them, and his successor, Philip, was a man of more than common pride, fierceness, cunning, and ability.  These were only names given them by the English; none of them were Christians.  Mr. Eliot had made some attempts upon Philip, but had been treated with scorn.  The Sachem, twisting a button upon the minister’s coat, told him he cared not that for his Gospel; but Major Gookin had some hopes of having touched his heart.