John Eliot's Mission to the Indians Before King Philip's War (Innbundet (stive permer))

Richard W. Cogley is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University.

This text examines John Eliot's mission to the Indians through a dualistic approach. Richard Cogley delves into Eliot's theological writings and describes the historical development of Eliot's missionary work. By relating the two, he challenges the accepted assessments of the Puritan mission. Cogley incorporates Eliot's eschatology into the history of the mission, takes into account the biographies of 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.

Cogley truly understands the seventeenth century's theological literature...[He] also understands the Puritan ministry--how it worked and how it expressed itself. His thorough grounding in Puritan religious thought, and the fact that he doesn't himself subscribe to Puritan ideology or have any stake in glorifying New England history, make Cogley the ideal scholar to explicate fairly the missionary program. And because Cogley is familiar with the full range of primary and secondary literature on the missionaries and on their Indian proselytes, he is able to give a perceptive, thorough, and persuasive portrait of the Puritan program. I consider Cogley's book the most original and important contribution to Puritan missionary studies that we've ever had and a very important addition to the larger and equally lively field of New England Puritan studies. -- Alden Vaughan Smartly and provocatively, this book contests prevailing views of Puritan missionizing, and I predict that it will cause a major stir among historians of Puritanism, colonial New England, early American religion, and Eastern Woodlands Native Peoples. It presents a more complete and textured view of Eliot's work than we have previously possessed. No one before has grasped Eliot's project in its entirety. Moreover, no one has delved so carefully into Eliot's theology of mission...This book is important for the dialogue it will generate; scholars will have to re-evaluate the revisionist position very carefully. -- Charles L. Cohen, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Context of the Mission The Submission of the Sachems and the Birth of the Mission The Early Development of the Mission The Mission and the Millennium The Natick Mission The Remaining Praying Towns Missionary Work outside Massachusetts Bay The Supervision of the Mission Conclusion: The Apostle and the Indians Appendixes John Cotton's Lectures on Revelation and Canticles Variant Indian Personal and Place Names in the Missionary History of Massachusetts Bay Population Figures and Permanent and Temporary Personnel in the Prewar Settlements Principal Nonantum and Petonset Indians Eliot's Massachusett Publications Abbreviations Principal Printed Sources Notes Index