Reehl: John Eliot, Tears of repentance; or, A further narrative of the progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New-England (London, 1653)(pages 197-260)
Team Members: Elise Reehl
750-Word Description:
This research paper centers on the artifact Tears of Repentance; or A Further Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England written by John Eliot and his conversion of the Native American people to Christianity. The culture clash between the English people and the Native Americans lead to many problems during and after this conversion process. This paper takes a deeper look into the entire process showcased in John Eliot’s writings, including why the Native American people converted, how they changed to fit into their new religion and the sad reality of how this group of Christian Native Americans were treated in the years after their conversion.
First, there is an examination of who John Eliot was and a summary of what he wrote about in Tears of Repentance. The document is broken down into multiple portions. It begins with a few letters, written by John Eliot and Thomas Mayhew, explaining the importance of converting the Native American people to Christianity and the progress they have made so far in their endeavor. Then there are two addresses to the readers: one for the general public and one for the Christian readers. After these comes the main portion of the artifact which is where Eliot explains the Native Americans religious conversion and transcribes the confessions of many newly Christian Native people given before him and a group of elders.
Next, there is a brief section that explains the religion that the Native Americans practiced before they came in contact with the English people. The Native Americans believed in many gods and communicated with spirits via their spiritual leaders known as pawwaws. They practiced many rituals, including one for burial which was extremely important because they also believed in reincarnation. This religion was thought to be full of sin by the English.
Then there are three sections describing the reasons that the Native Americans converted to Christianity. These include their fear of the many new diseases that plagued their tribes, their desire for protection from the English and the influence that their leaders, known as sachems, had on each individual tribe converting. The many Native people who converted thought that the diseases were a punishment from God because they weren’t following the right religion and therefore committing sin. The English people were also a huge threat to the Native Americans in many ways so some converts believed that if they were Christian, they would be saved from the persecution of the colonists. Sachems had a lot of power of their tribes and many trusted their judgment, so many decided to convert or to not convert based on what their sachem did. Many Native people resisted conversion at the start but later decided to trust Eliot’s preachings because of these outside factors.
The following two sections detail the drastic changes that these freshly converted Native Americans were forced to make in their appearance and lifestyle to fit in with the Christian ideals of the time. These new “Praying Indians” moved to new villages that were built in the English style and had to radically alter their way of life. The English established legal codes that mandated the Christian Native Americans to change their appearance and lifestyle completely. This totally transformed the family and gender dynamics for this group of converted Native Americans.
After the changes the Christian Native Americans had to make are explained, the next section illustrates how these changes resulted in this new group of people being denied by the non-converted Native people because they felt that the Christian Native Americans rejected their history. It also explains how the English people also did not accept the Christian Native Americans because they were still not European in blood and still seen as a class of humans below them. Sadly, this resulted in the Christian Native Americans being isolated because they were stuck in between two cultures and not fully acknowledged by either of them.
The last section details the downfall of the Christian Native Americans due to King Philip’s War. The English people treated the Christian Native Americans so poorly during the war because they did not trust them to fight on the English side. The colonists placed the Christian Native people on Deer Island with few resources and many died because of the terrible circumstances they were put in. The remaining Christian Native people mostly stopped Christian practices after the war and following the death of Eliot, no other missionaries attempted to continue his work.