John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts Bay

John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts Bay
Author: Kathryn N. Gray
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611485045

This book traces the development of John Eliot’s mission to the Algonquian-speaking people of Massachusetts Bay, from his arrival in 1631 until his death in 1690. It explores John Eliot’s determination to use the Massachusett dialect of Algonquian, both in speech and in print, as a language of conversion and Christianity. The book analyzes the spoken words of religious conversion and the written transcription of those narratives; it also considers the Algonquian language texts and English language texts which Eliot published to support the mission. Central to this study is an insistence that John Eliot consciously situated his mission within a tapestry of contesting transatlantic and political forces, and that this framework had a direct impact on the ways in which Native American penitents shaped and contested their Christian identities. To that end, the study begins by examining John Eliot’s transatlantic network of correspondents and missionary-supporters in England, it then considers the impact of conversion narratives in spoken and written forms, and ends by evaluating the impact of literacy on praying Indian communities. The study maps the coalescence of different communities that shaped, or were shaped by, Eliot’s seventeenth-century mission.

The Life of John Eliot

The Life of John Eliot
Author: Nehemiah Adams
Publisher: Curiosmith
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2021-03-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781946145611

John Eliot (1604-1690) was born in Widford, England. He was educated at Cambridge and was assistant to Thomas Hooker. He moved to Boston in 1631. He was a pastor at Roxbury and ministered to the American Indians at Natick and Nonantun. He was called "The Apostle of the American Indian." This biography has many testimonies of American Indians thoughts and questions during their spiritual growth. Eliot translated the Bible (Old and New Testament) into the Indian language and had it printed in Cambridge. Author Nehemiah Adams (1806-1878) was born in Salam, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard and Andover Theological Seminary. He was pastor of First Congregational Church of Cambridge (1829-1834) and in 1834 the Essex Street Church of Boston. He was an officer in the American Tract Society and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. For health reasons, he sailed around the world with his son Captain Robert Adams, on his ship, "Golden Fleece," and wrote about the adventure in "Under the Mizzen Mast."

Native Apostles

Native Apostles
Author: Edward E. Andrews
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674073495

As Protestantism expanded across the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most evangelists were not white Anglo-Americans, as scholars have long assumed, but members of the same groups that missionaries were trying to convert. Native Apostles offers one of the most significant untold stories in the history of early modern religious encounters, marshalling wide-ranging research to shed light on the crucial role of Native Americans, Africans, and black slaves in Protestant missionary work. The result is a pioneering view of religion’s spread through the colonial world. From New England to the Caribbean, the Carolinas to Africa, Iroquoia to India, Protestant missions relied on long-forgotten native evangelists, who often outnumbered their white counterparts. Their ability to tap into existing networks of kinship and translate between white missionaries and potential converts made them invaluable assets and potent middlemen. Though often poor and ostracized by both whites and their own people, these diverse evangelists worked to redefine Christianity and address the challenges of slavery, dispossession, and European settlement. Far from being advocates for empire, their position as cultural intermediaries gave native apostles unique opportunities to challenge colonialism, situate indigenous peoples within a longer history of Christian brotherhood, and harness scripture to secure a place for themselves and their followers. Native Apostles shows that John Eliot, Eleazar Wheelock, and other well-known Anglo-American missionaries must now share the historical stage with the black and Indian evangelists named Hiacoomes, Good Peter, Philip Quaque, John Quamine, and many more.

John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War

John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War
Author: Richard W. Cogley
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674029631

No previous work on John Eliot's mission to the Indians has told such a comprehensive and engaging story. Richard Cogley takes a dual approach: he delves deeply into Eliot's theological writings and describes the historical development of Eliot's missionary work. By relating the two, he presents fresh perspectives that challenge widely accepted assessments of the Puritan mission. Cogley incorporates Eliot's eschatology into the history of the mission, takes into account the biographies of the proselytes (the "praying Indians") and the individual histories of the Christian Indian settlements (the "praying towns"), and corrects misperceptions about the mission's role in English expansion. He also addresses other interpretive problems in Eliot's mission, such as why the Puritans postponed their evangelizing mission until 1646, why Indians accepted or rejected the mission, and whether the mission played a role in causing King Philip's War. This book makes signal contributions to New England history, Native American history, and religious studies.

Indian Grammar Begun

Indian Grammar Begun
Author: John Eliot
Publisher: Applewood Books
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2001-06
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1557095752

Written for the native people of Massachusetts by John Eliot in 1666, this monumental linguistic work was intended as a basis for teaching the Algonquinian-speaking people to read the Bible, which Eliot had translated into Algonquinian in 1661. This edition contains a facsimile of the original side-by-side with a reset version in modern type.