“Exclusive” Monotheism[1] holds that there is one right way to Heaven.  So, both Catholic and Protestant Christians sought converts from other faiths and from those regarded as “pagans.”  When applied to the New World, this meant that “missionaries” sought to convert Native Americans to some version of Christianity. 

            English Protestant missionary activity seems to have been much less developed than French Catholic missionary activity.  Take the example of New England.  An eminent Puritan preacher named Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) ran a school and John Eliot (1604-1690) assisted him.  The Church of England sought to repress Puritanism and, in 1629, fired Hooker from his preaching job and closed his school.  Hooker bolted for Holland one step ahead of the law.  Then he took ship for Massachusetts.  John Eliot soon followed.  Hooker first attained an eminent position, then fell out with the strict Puritans running Massachusetts.  He soon left for Connecticut.  Eliot, in contrast, thrived.  After a while, Eliot took an interest in preaching to the local Native Americans.  The big barrier here was language.  Eliot set out to learn Algonquin language.  Brave effort!  He was forty and spent most of his time speaking English to other colonists.  As you might expect, progress came slowly. 

            Still in 1646, he preached his first sermon to some puzzled locals.  That same year, the Massachusetts General Court (the legislature) passed an “Act for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Indians.”  In 1649 the English Parliament created “A Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England” which raised money to support the cause.  Eliot began setting up schools among the Indians. 

            The effort to convert Indians to Christianity coincided with a rapid expansion of the English population in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.  A “Great Migration” of Puritans took place between the 1640s and the 1660s.  The Indians found themselves increasingly outnumbered and surrounded by English settlers.  A minority of Indians began converting to Christianity.  The converts seem to have hoped that conversion would strengthen their claims to their land in the eyes of the English.  Moreover, war between Indian tribes was endemic, so the converts may have hoped that conversion would make the English join in their defense against enemies.  Finally, diseases also ravaged the Indians disproportionately.  A smallpox epidemic in 1616-1619 killed 90 percent of the Indians of eastern Massachusetts; another in 1633 killed 80 percent of the Pequot tribe.  Perhaps conversion would help fend off the diseases sent by a jealous Christian God? 

Between 1651 and 1675, the General Court created fourteen so-called “praying towns.”  In these towns, Indian converts would not only become Christians, but also would abandon the “savage” life.  They would learn farming and crafts in place of hunting-and-gathering.  They would dress like English people.  They would assimilate into the English way of life.  By 1675 one fifth of New England’s Indians had converted to Christianity and lived in “Praying Towns.”  

That still left 80 percent of the local Indians in search of another solution.  In 1675, “King Philip’s War” began with a surprise attack.  Terrified, the English confined the “Praying Indians” to their towns, moved 500 of them to an island in Boston Harbor, and, in 1677, disbanded 10 of the original 14 towns and placed the rest under government supervision.  John Eliot tried to protest, but it had become dangerous to take the side of the Indians.  Eventually, disease, demoralization, and assimilation caused most of the Indian presence to slowly disappear. 

Was this a foretelling of 250 years of Indian-White relations? 

[1] My own term, so far as I know.