John Eliot and Nonantum
In the 1646 to 1674 period, the Reverend John Eliot of Roxbury, the so-called “Apostle to the Indians,” converted some 1100 Massachusetts natives to the Christian religion and played a central role in establishing fourteen “Praying Indian” communities in the eastern part of Massachusetts.
Though not the first English missionary to attempt the conversion of New England’s natives (that distinction belongs to Roger Williams of Rhode Island and Thomas Mayhew of Martha’s Vineyard), the Roxbury clergyman had far more success than earlier missionaries, thanks largely to his unrivalled command of the native language, Algonquian.
Nor was Eliot content merely to preach to the natives in their own tongue. A fundamental tenet of the Puritan faith held that anyone seeking to know the will of God had to be able to read and interpret the Bible for himself. The natives had no written language into which holy scripture could be translated. Eliot dealt with this problem, first, by devising an Algonquian grammar (thus giving their language written form), and then by translating both the Old and New Testaments into that complex tongue, a herculean task that he did not finally complete until 1663.
There was also a measure of cultural imperialism in Eliot’s approach to conversion, for the Roxbury minister required his converts to adopt an English style of living---to give up their semi-migratory habits and to settle into English-style villages under the watchful eye and rigid regulations of a Puritan church community.
Eliot also hoped to furnish each of these Praying Indian towns with a native minister. To that end, he helped found the Indian College at Harvard, an institution established specifically to train natives to preside over their own congregations. Another goal was the provision of schools in all the towns to ensure that the residents would be able to read the Bible for themselves.
John Eliot was born in Widford, Hertfordshire, England in 1604, the younger son of Bennett Eliot, a wealthy landowner. When he was fifteen, he entered Jesus College at Cambridge University, where he quickly established a reputation as a brilliant linguist and classical scholar.
The early 1630s was a time of trouble for nonconformists, and in 1631 Eliot joined a great migration of Puritans to North America. Settling at first in Boston, he was immediately hired as a substitute for the Reverend John Wilson, who was then absent in England. When Wilson returned, the Boston congregation invited Eliot to remain in the capacity of an associate minister, but he instead opted to become the pastor of the church of neighboring Roxbury, a post he occupied for nearly sixty years. Eliot also married at this point, his long and happy union with Ann (Mumford) Eliot lasting until his death in 1690 and producing six children.
The Roxbury minister’s crusade to convert the local Indians was not launched until 1646, some fifteen years after his arrival in America, and one historian has suggested that Eliot’s motives were as much political as religious.
In chartering the Bay Colony in 1628, the English government had extracted a solemn promise that conversion of the natives would be a high priority of the colonial regime (the seal of the Mass Bay Colony, in fact, featured an Indian pleading with the English to “Come over and help us!”), but a decade and a half after the colony’s foundation very little had been accomplished.
The Bay Colony’s leaders feared that the home government (which had fallen under the control of Presbyterian dictator Oliver Cromwell) might cancel certain of Massachusetts’ charter privileges unless a missionary crusade was soon launched. It was in this context that Eliot began to prepare himself for the task through a close study of the Algonquian language.
By 1646 Eliot was ready. His first attempt at conversion came in mid-1646, when he preached to the native community under Sachem Cutshamekin at Neponset in Dorchester, but this effort ended in embarrassing failure. Not only did the elderly Sachem reject Eliot’s plea to embrace Christianity, but his braves openly ridiculed and heckled the clergyman.
At this point Eliot turned to another native leader, of somewhat lesser stature. At the urging of the Bay Colony magistrates, Eliot decided to proselytize Waban, son-in-law of the Sachem of Concord, whom he described as "one who gives more grounded hope of serious respect for the things of God, than any as yet I have known of that forlorn generation."
A small band under Waban lived on the southwest slope of Nonantum Hill (on the present Brighton-Newton boundary), an area that then formed part of Cambridge. It was in order to be closer to the white settlements that Waban’s extended family had moved from his native Concord to the south side of the Charles River opposite the village of Cambridge in the early 1630s.
Accompanying Eliot to Waban's encampment were three companions, Thomas Shepard, Minister of Cambridge; Daniel Gookin, afterwards Supervisor of Indian towns for the Massachusetts Bay Colony; and either John Wilson, Minister of Boston, or Elder Heath of Roxbury (on this point the record is unclear). The presence of these notables demonstrates the support that Eliot’s missionary effort enjoyed from the Massachusetts Bay magistrates.
The date was October 18, 1646. This historic hour-long sermon in the Algonquian language initiated the “Apostle’s” long crusade for the souls of the Massachusetts Bay natives. His three hour lectureship---much of it delivered in the Algonquian tongue---had the anticipated effect. As his guests were leaving, recounted Rev. Thomas Shepard, Waban approached and said, "We need more ground to build our town on." "I will speak to the General Court about that,"Eliot answered.
On November 4, 1646, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted to grant the desired land "for the good of the Indians" and appointed a commission to attend to the matter, which included the Roxbury minister. When the Indians inquired what name to give their Christian village, Eliot recommended that it be called Nonantum, which signifies in English rejoicing, because “they hearing the word, and seeking to know God, the English did rejoice at it."
An early historian of Newton, the Rev. Jonathan Homer, has left us the following description of the "Praying Indian" village of Nonantum:
The Indians, thus settled, were instructed in husbandry, and were excited to a prudent as well as industrious management of their affairs. Some of them were taught such trades as were most necessary for them, so that they completely built a house for public worship, 50 feet in length and 25 feet in breadth.
Most of the financial support for Nonantum and later Praying Indian ventures came from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, based in England. The New England Puritans were much less sanguine of the long-range prospects for Christianizing the natives. Because of their deep distrust of the natives and the insatiable land hunger that marked the early history of the colony, the Praying Indian village of Nonantum soon proved untenable. In 1651, less than five years after its foundation, Eliot was obliged to move the entire population of this first Christian Indian community in British North America some fifteen miles to the southwest, to a 3,000-acre site in the present town of Natick.
For the next quarter century, the number of Christian Indian communities proliferated until there were a total of fourteen. John Eliot kept close watch over the progress of these settlements. The praying Indian experiment was decisively undermined, however, by King Philip’s War of 1675-76, the most severe Indian conflict in Massachusetts history, which led to the abandonment of most of the praying Indian towns.