On the 28th of October, 1646, Eliot set out from his home, in Roxbury,
Massachusetts, in company with three friends, to the nearest Indian
settlement: he had previously sent to give this tribe notice of his
coming, and a very large number was collected from all quarters. If
the savages expected the coming of their guest, of whose name they had
often heard, to be like that of a warrior or sachem, they were greatly
deceived. They saw Eliot on foot, drawing near, with his companions;
his translation of the scriptures, like a calumet of peace and love, in
his hand. He was met by their chief, Waubon who conducted him to a large
wigwam. After a short rest, Eliot went into the open air and standing on
a grassy mound, while the people formed around him in all the stillness
of strong surprise and curiosity, he prayed in the English tongue, as if
he could not address heaven in a language both strange and new. And then
he preached for an hour in their own tongue, and gave a clear and simple
account of the religion of Christ, of his character and life, of the
blessed state of those who believed in him.
Of what avail would it have been to set before this listening people
the terrors of the Almighty, and the doom of the guilty? This wise man
knew, by long experience as a minister, that the heart loves better to
be persuaded than terrified—to be melted than alarmed. The whole career
of the Indian’s life tended to freeze up the finer and softer feelings,
and make the more dark and painful passions familiar to him. He resolved
to strike a new chord, and when he saw the tear stream down their stern
faces, and the haughty head sink low on the breast, as he painted the
ineffable love of Christ, he said it was “a glorious and affecting
spectacle to see a company of perishing forlorn outcasts, so drinking
in the word of salvation.” The impressions this discourse produced,
were of a very favourable nature: as far as the chief, Waubon, was
concerned, they were never effaced. Afterwards the guest passed several
hours conversing with the Indians, and answering their questions. When
night came, he returned to the tent with the chief, and the people
entered their wigwams, or lay down around, and slept on the grass. What
were Eliot’s feelings on this night? At last, the longing of years was
accomplished; the fruit of his prayers was given to him.
“Could the walls of his loved study speak,” says his friend, “they would
tell of the entreaties poured forth before the Lord, of the days and
nights set apart with fasting—that thus, thus it might be.” A few of the
chiefs’ friends alone remained, after the people were retired. One of the
Christians perceived an Indian, who was hanging down his head, weeping;
the former went to him, and spoke encouraging words, after which he
turned his face to the wall, and wept yet more abundantly: soon after,
he rose and went out. “When they told me of his tears,” said Eliot, “we
resolved to go forth, and follow him into the wood, and speak to him.
The proud Indian’s spirit was quite broken: at last we parted, greatly
rejoicing for such sorrowing.”
He now resolved to continue his labours; but, on the 26th of November,
when he met the assembly of the Indians for the third time, he found
that, though many of them had constructed wigwams at the place of
meeting, for the more readily attending his ministry, his audience was
not so numerous as on the former occasions. The Powahs (or soothsayers)
had strictly charged the people not to listen to the instructions of the
English, and threatened them with death in case of disobedience. Having
warned his auditors against the impositions of these men, he proceeded to
discourse as formerly, and was heard with the greatest attention. “It is
wonderful,” observed one of his friends, “to see what a little light will
effect, even upon hearts and spirits most incapable.”
On the night after this third meeting, many were gathered in the tent,
looking earnestly at Eliot, with the solemn gravity and stillness which
these savages affected; when the chief, Waubon, suddenly rose, and began
to instruct all the company out of the things he had heard that day from
Eliot, with the wild and impressive eloquence of the desert. And waking
often that night, he many times was heard speaking to some or other of
his people, of the words of truth and mercy that he had heard.
Two or three days after these impressions had been made, Eliot saw that
they were likely to be attended with permanent consequences. Wampas,
an intelligent Indian, came with two of his companions to the English,
and desired to be admitted into their families. He brought his son, and
several other children with him, and begged that they might be educated
in the Christian faith: the example quickly spread and all the Indians
who were present at the fourth meeting, on the 9th of December, offered
their children to be instructed.
The missionary was himself surprised at the success of his first efforts,
as well as at his facility of preaching and conversing in the Indian
tongue; it was the reward of his long and patient application. “To think
of raising,” says Mather, “these hideous creatures unto the elevations
of our holy religion, must argue a more than common or little soul
in the undertaker: could he see any thing angelical to encourage his
labours?—all was diabolical among them.”
Eliot saw that they must be civilized ere they could be christianized;
that he must make men of them, ere he could hope to see them saints. It
is, no doubt, far easier and more flattering to the soul of the agent, to
see men weep and tremble beneath his word, than to teach them to build,
to plant, to rear the walls and the roof-tree, and sit at their own
hearth-side: this is slow and painful work for a man of lofty mind and
glowing enthusiasm. But in his own words, “he abhorred that he should sit
still, and let that work alone;” and lost no time in addressing himself
to the General Court of the colony, in behalf of those who showed a
willingness to be placed under his care. His application was successful;
and the Indians, having received a grant of land on which they might
build a town, and enjoy the Christian instruction which they desired, met
together, and gave their assent to several laws which he had framed, to
enforce industry and decency—to secure personal and domestic comfort.
The ground of the town having been marked out, Eliot advised the Indians
to surround it with ditches and a stone wall; gave them instruments
to aid these objects, and such rewards, in money, as induced them to
work hard. It was a strange and novel thing to see these men of the
wilderness, to whom a few months previous all restraint was slavery,
and their lakes and forests dearer than the palaces of kings, submit
cheerfully to this drudgery of bricks and mortar—chief as well as serf;
the very hands that were lately red with slaughter, scooping the earth
at the bidding of Eliot, from morn to night. He soon had the pleasure of
seeing Nonanetum completed.
The progress of civilization which followed, was remarkable for its
extent and rapidity: the women were taught to spin, and they soon found
something to send to the nearest markets all the year round: in winter
they sold staves, baskets, and poultry; in spring and summer fish,
grapes, strawberries, &c.
In the mean while, he instructed the men in husbandry, and the more
simple mechanical arts: in hay-time and harvest, he went forth into the
fields with them. All this was not done in a day, for they were neither
so industrious nor so capable of hard labour as those who had been
accustomed to it from early life.