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25 The Great Awakening and Indian Conversion in Southern William S. Simmons University of California, Berkeley

Historians and anthropologists know a great deal about the conversion of the New England Indians to in the seventeenth century. Missionaries such as John Eliot of Roxbury and Jr. of Martha's Vineyard are well known for their efforts to convert the Native Americans of what is now to English Puritan religion and culture. It is not well known, however, that a significant number of New England groups did not convert in the seventeenth century and that they practiced their traditional religion into the fourth decade of the eighteenth century. In the early 1740's, however, about a century after the first missionary efforts by Eliot and Mayhew, these remaining Indian groups gave up their ancestral religion and converted to Christianity. Their conversion was not a gradual process. It occurred quickly over a period of several months during that first great surge of religious enthusiasm to affect the American colonies which was known as the Great Awakening. In this paper I am concerned with two general problems. The first is to explain why the traditional eighteenth century Indian remnants converted on this occasion. The second is to discuss the consequences of this conversion for the social and cultural life of these groups. We will begin with a review of the historical substance of this event and of the theoretical issues pertinent to this discussion of conversion. I One of the dominant themes of modern anthropology has been the process of interaction between small scale traditional cultures and large scale colonial and mainly western cultures which have intruded into their territories. The results of this interaction may be classified into three straightforward categories. First, the traditional culture is destroyed by disease, war, or demoralization. Second, the traditional culture survives and attempts to adapt within the new situation by identifying with the symbols of the dominant culture. By symbols of the dominant culture I mean the key religious symbols of that culture and the moral behavior associated with these symbols. Third, the traditional culture survives and attempts to adapt by rejecting the symbols of the dominant culture. This was the approach first taken by the New England groups which later converted in the Great Awakening. Examples of total rejection are rare. The Handsome Lake religion of the Iroquois and the Peyote religions of the nineteenth century were by Christian standards rejections of conventional faith, but as Wallace, Lanternari and others have clarified, 26 these separatist religions involved strong symbolic and behavioral borrowing from and convergence with colonial culture. We will ask first why a significant number of New England Indian groups rejected the dominant colonial religion and then why they changed their minds. II

Our understanding of the conversion in the seventeenth century of the Indians of Massachusetts Bay, , and Martha's Vineyard was advanced significantly by Alden Vaughan's account published in 1965, New England Frontier: and Indians, 1620-1675. It has been enriched more recently by Neal Salisbury's doctoral dissertation, Conquest of the "Savage": Puritans, Puritan Missionaries, and Indians 1620-1680 and by Francis Jenning's highly original book, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest. In general we may conclude from these that acceptance or rejection of English religion by seventeenth century Indian communities was influenced strongly by political and demographic variables. Indians converted where colonial populations were strong and where traditional Indian communities were weak. Missionary success was an expression of political domination. Conversion of the Martha's Vineyard population by the Mayhew family would seem to be an exception, but a close analysis of the process of conversion on that island reveals that domination by the missionary of Indian shamans was paralleled by gradual domination of the Indian by the English colonial community. Those Indian groups which inhabited northeastern Massachusetts and the shores of Massachusetts Bay, the peripheral coastal regions of southeastern Massachusetts, and Martha's Vineyard, were the ones who accepted the religious symbols of English culture by converting to Puritan Christianity. All of these groups were directly colonized by English settlers, had been weakened to varying degrees by European diseases, and were weak politically, both vis a vis other Indian groups and vis a vis the colonial English. Successful resistance towards English religion was related to the degree of group autonomy and was not a reflection of whether or not the group was allied with or perceived as an enemy by the English. The most powerful Indian groups in southern New England, the Narragansett, Pokanoket, and , did not convert to Christianity even though a number of English clergymen and Indian converts did offer them the opportunity. The of , long term allies of the United Puritan Colonies through the and King Philip's War, resisted Christianity because their feared that it would undermine his personal authority. The Narragansetts who lived beyond the Puritan frontier in benign actively resisted attempts by English and Indian converts to influence them. Philip himself, son of the Pokanoket sachem , was reported to have told John Eliot that "he did not value what he preached," any more than a button which he pulled from Eliot's coat (Mather 1820:336). After King Philip's 27

War, which took place in 1675-76, the Narragansett survivors combined with the eastern Niantic under the sachem and continued to resist conversion even though they had become a conquered subject people. I infer from this case that rejection of the symbols of the dominant culture can occur also when the experience of domination has been too severe, as it was in their destruction in that war (Leach 1958:112-144). The Narragansetts who survived this war, and the Niantics with whom they merged, were angry with the English and rejected their religion on the grounds that it failed to make the English and Christian Indians better people. When the Reverend Experience Mayhew of Martha's Vineyard attempted to preach to the sachem Ninigret II in 1713 the sachem refused his request: I told him the occasion and end of my visiting of him, and desired him to consent that his people should hear me open the mysteries of Religion to them, as being that which was greatly for their good: but he did not seem at all inclineable to what I proposed: He demanded of me why I did not make the English good in the first place: for he said many of them were still bad: He also told me that he had seen Martha's Vineyard Indians at Rode Island, that would steal, and these he said I should first reform before I came to them (Mayhew 1896:110). Throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Narragansett-Niantic, Mohegan, Pequot remnants, and the more isolated Montauk of , continued to practice their ancestral religion which was focused upon traditional religious practitioners known as powwows, whom we may refer to as shamans (Blodgett 1935:27; Occum 1809:106-111; Simmons 1976:217-256). By 1740 the southern New England Indian population had undergone heavy acculturation into the English colonial way of life. Many had worked for colonial families as slaves and indentured servants and had begun to raise English domestic animals and to practice English style plow agricul­ ture. They participated in a range of new professions as sailors, stone masons, carpenters, well diggers, wood cutters, and domestic laborers of various sorts, and many could speak English. They had changed over the previous century from being a politically autonomous and economically self- sufficient people to being a poor rural working class which was dependent upon the colonial government for protection and which supported itself by small scale farming, hunting, and marginal roles in the rural labor market (Blodgett 1935: 27-29; Callender 1838:138-139; Crane 1899:116; Sainsbury 1975: 378-393; Updike 1907:212). Ill Then came the Great Awakening which burst upon the non- Christian Indians with as much effect as it did upon the White and Black inhabitants of these same areas. Thomas 2 6 Prince, author of a prominent contemporary account of the Great Awakening entitled The Christian History, Containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great-Britain and America, which was published in two volumes in 1744 and 1745, summarized the religious situation among the New England Indians at that time: It is no small Part of the wonderful Dispensation of the Grace of God in the present Day, the surprizing Effusion of his SPIRIT on diverse Tribes of Indians in these Ends of the Earth, who wou'd never before so much as outwardly receive the Gospel, notwithstanding the Attempts which have been made this hundred Years to persuade them to it. Their extream love of Hunting, Fishing, Fowling, Merry-Meeting, Singing, Dancing, Drinking, and utter aversion to Industry, have render'd them extremely averse to the Christian Religion: And tho' several Tribes of them both in Plimouth and Massachusetts Colonies and in the Island of Martha's Vineyard have been prevail'd upon to hear the Gospel, many among them hopefully converted, and diverse Churches gathered and maintained among them, for near an Hundred Years: Yet very small Impressions of Religion have been ever made 'till now, on the Mohegan Indians in Connecticut, and scarce any at all on the Montauk Indians in Long Island, or the Narragansetts in Rhode Island Colony (Prince 1745:21- 22) . The Great Awakening began essentially in 1740 with a preaching tour to the American colonies by the English minister George Whitefield, who was known for his ability to arouse an awareness of sin and thirst for salvation among his listeners. The two basic themes of Whitefield's preach­ ing were that nominal Christians could experience a new birth in this life through conversion, and that the ministry of his day was dull and uninspiring and thus incapable of winning converts because they themselves had not had this experience. Whitefield's preaching style differed from that of the more conventional clergy of his day in that he held outdoor meetings and could arouse a strong emotional response from his listeners which motivated them to convert spontan­ eously to his vision of the Christian life. Before departing for England in 1741, Whitefield had established the model for emotional itinerant preaching which was followed by a number of New England clergymen who had learned his approach. The result was a widespread revival of religious interest which reached its peak in 1743 and subsided after about 1745 (Bumsted 1970:1-3; Bushman 1970:xi-xiv, 19-22; Goen 1962; Rutman 1970:1-8). Among the itinerant clergymen who helped spread the revival were Gilbert Tennent, Eleazar Wheelock, and James Davenport. Whitefield himself appointed Tennent to carry on for him after his departure for England. Eleazar Wheelock who preached to both Whites and Native Americans was later to be known for his Indian Charity School which began in Connecticut and eventually moved to Hanover, , 29 where it became (Lathem 19 71; McCallum 1932; Sprague 1857:397-403). James Davenport of Long Island also possessed a remarkable ability to excite large numbers of followers and to generate enthusiasm leading to an experience of conversion. Davenport was one of the most colorful ministers of the Awakening and soon became unpopular with established church authority for his strong criticisms of traditional clergymen and for his emotional demeanor. The nineteenth century Connecticut historian Benjamin Trumbull wrote of Davenport in a paragraph entitled "Mr. Davenport's imprudence and wildness": At the same time, there was a Mr. James Davenport, of Southold, on Long Island, who had been esteemed a pious, sound, and faithful minister, but now became zealous beyond measure; made a visit to Connecticut, and preached in New-Haven, Branford, Stonington, and various other places; and went on as far as Boston. He gave an unrestrained liberty to noise and outcry, both of distress and joy, in time of divine service. He promoted both with all his might, raising his voice to the highest pitch, together with the most violent agitations of body. With his unnatural and violent agitations of the body, he united a strange singing tone which mightily tended to raise the feelings of weak and undiscerning people, and consequently to heighten the confusion among the passionate of his hearers. This odd, disagreeable tuning of the voice, in exercises of devotion, was caught by zealous exhorters, and became a character­ istic of the separate preachers. The whole sect were distinguished by this sanctimonious tone. It was Mr. Davenport's manner, when a number had cried out, and there had been great agitations of body, to pronounce them tokens of divine favour; and what was still worse, he would declare those persons who were the subjects of those outcries and agitations, to be converted (Trumbull 1818:160-161). The most detailed accounts of Indian conversion in the Great Awakening were recorded by the Reverend Joseph Park among the Narragansett-Niantic inhabitants of Westerly and Charlestown, Rhode Island. Park had been sent as a missionary to the Narragansett reservation community by the New England Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1733. He lamented in his letters that his ministry had been a failure even though the Indian inhabitants of this area were not Christian and in his estimation, much needed his instruction. In 1741 the climate began to change. Reverends Tennent and Davenport preached in the vicinity and created a great deal of interest among Whites, Indians, and Blacks. Joseph Park drew a renewed inspiration for his own ministry by hearing these preachers. Park became an evangelist him­ self and preached before gatherings in Charlestown and Westerly. By April 1742 he had attracted enough converts to found a formal church which at its creation was entirely English in membership, but which soon included a number of 30 Indians and Blacks. Inter-racial services were a common feature of the Awakening as it spread through the country­ side. In February 1743 a number of Pequot converts from Stonington, Connecticut, visited the Narragansett community and Park preached to the combined convert and pagan audience. This was the turning point in the conversion of the Narragansetts: But the Power of GOD began to be most remarkable among the Body of them upon Feb. 6, 174 2, 3. when upon the Lord's Day, a Number of Christian Indians from Stonington came to visit the Indians here: I went in the Evening after the publick Worship of GOD to meet them, and preach a Lecture to them. The Lord game me to plead with him that his Kingdom might be seen coming with Power among the Indians. The LORD I trust began to answer even in the Time of Prayer. After which we sung an Hymn. The Glory of the LORD was manifested more and more. The Enlightened among them had a great Sense of spiritual and eternal Things: A SPIRIT of Prayer and Supplication was poured out upon them; and a SPIRIT of Conviction upon the Enemies of GOD. I attempted to preach from 2 Cor. 6.2. but was unable to continue my Discourse by Reason of the Outcry. I therefore gave it up: And as I had Opportunity offered a Word of Exhortation,' as the Lord enabled me. I spent the Evening until late with them. The Indians continued together all Night and spent the most of the next Day and Night together: And it continued a wonderful Time of GOD's Power. And from that Time the Indians were generally stirred up to seek after eternal Life. They flocked more to the House and Worship of GOD, than they were wont to do to their Frolicks: They remain earnestly enquiring after God: and appear many of them hope­ fully to have found the LORD (Prince 1744:208-209). After this event about a hundred Indians attended Park's meeting on a regular basis and before long over fifty were baptised and received into full communion in his church. At about this same time the Pequot, Mohegan, and western Niantic communities of southern Connecticut were converting en masse through the efforts of Reverends Tennent, Davenport, Eells, Fish, Adams, and others. Samson Occum the Connecticut Mohegan who eventually became a schoolteacher and missionary to a number of northeastern Indian groups wrote a brief account of his personal conversion: When I was 16 years of age, we heard a Strange Rumor among the English, that there were Extraordinary . ConcerMinisterthingsSpringn, osamontilf begaPreachinthlg e Som nthYear et ogWhit Tim. visi froeBue tm it nPeople u Placwsthe eansae d Summer:w t oPreacnothinthi Placs,h ewhewag th sanone f di Wor Somnthesa th deStrang eeo f e 31

God: and Common People also Came frequently, and exhorted as to the things of God, which it pleased the Lord, as I humbly hope, to Bless and accompany with Divine Influences to the Conviction and Saving Conversion of a Number of us; amongst whom, I was one that was Impresst with the things we had heard. These Preachers did not only Come to us, but we frequently went to their meetings and Churches. After I was awakened and converted, I went to all the meetings I could come at; and Continued under trouble of Mind about 6 Months; at which time I began to Learn the English letters: got me a Primer, and used to go to my English Neighbors frequently for Assistance in Reading, but went to no School (Blodgett 1935:29-30). Occum1s remarks about learning to read and write are important for they reveal that one of the consequences of conversion was a commitment to learning new skills and habits necessary for survival in English colonial culture. Conversion was instrumental in changing the convert's behavior as well as in changing values, and these changes were practical as much as they were spiritual. The missionary Joseph Park wrote that among the Narragansetts: "...there is among them a change for good respecting the outward as well as the inward Man. They grow more decent and cleanly in their outward dress, provide better for their Households, and get clearer of Debt" (Prince 1745:26). Park also commented that the converts withdrew from drinking liquor and quarrelled less among themselves, and that they asked for a school to be built among them for children and adults to learn to read. Thus we see a qualitative change on the part of the converts in their degree of identification with English colonial culture. The god they had resisted for so many years had now become a dominant symbol in their religion, morality, and outlook on life. Although the revival had the effect of increasing church membership and of bringing in persons of diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, it also created dissensions within most congregations between those who favored the Awakening, known as the New Lights, and those who rejected the Awakening, known as the Old Lights. By and large the Old Lights disapproved of the irrational and ecstatic aspects of the New Light ministry, and of their criticisms of traditional clergy. Many New Lights chose to separate themselves from their parent-bodies, and as did the followers of Joseph Park, establish an independent New Light church. Within the separatists there were further cleavages between those who could be described as moderate New Lights and more extreme New Lights who carried the emotional and spontaneous aspects of church service beyond the limits approved by the moderates. In the Narragansett case a definite schism occurred in Joseph Park's New Light church which resulted in the with­ drawal of all Narragansett members. They separated from the parent body around 1746 when Samuel Niles, soon to be their 3: pastor, was disciplined for exhorting in a manner considered disorderly by the White members of the congregation. The Narragansett separatists gathered into a new church and because no local clergyman would sanction their interpre­ tation of Christian religion, they ordained their own Samuel Niles as pastor (Backus 1871:510-511; Boissevain 1975:37-38; Denison 1878:67-70; Love 1899:191-193; Potter 1835:122-123; Tucker 1877:65; Stiles 1901:232-233; Walker 1897:118-119). As the Narragansett case would suggest, the swell of inter­ racial and inter-sectarian community that had been generated by the revival had come to a crossroad and the older more familiar racial and social lines re-emerged. The Narragansetts withdrew permanently into a Freewill Baptist sect which has existed to this day. Before conversion the Narragansett reservation community already was integrated into colonial society while remaining a separate enclave from the point of view of residence, marriage, and political participation. They had acquired elements of colonial technology such as plow agriculture and the techniques of animal husbandry, and worked in a variety of working class and indentured roles. Their division of labor became more complex, and as men participated in agriculture they moved into roles formerly held by women. By 1740 they were following in most respects an English social model while remaining on the periphery of English society. Through conversion they advanced their participation in colonial culture one step further, by accepting the symbolic system which represented that culture. Yet they did so in a way that expressed their marginality to English colonial society. The Christianity that triumphed in the Narragansett church was fashioned from that of their White neighbors but was distinctive to themselves, both from the point of view of ritual practices and church membership. IV At this point let us step back from historical specifics and return to our original questions. I think that the Narragansett and other Indian communities of southern New England converted at this time for four general reasons. The first of these is cultural and concerns the musical intonations, bodily movements, and appearance of trance which characterized many New Light preachers. This was the closest that the American colonial ministry ever came to resembling the shamans of traditional southern New England Indian religion. The behavior described for New Light preachers was strikingly similar to that described by William Wood, , and others from seventeenth century shamanistic performances (Simmons 1976:217-256). The Native American populations of this area had been exposed to Christian missionaries and ministers for many werparticipatioLighyearconvertstylete s unaffectehapreachersisnd wer botoccurredneh doattracteth f,e untiNean .seventeentdw l ThutLighdothi sthttso e Idramati congregationsthhagreate mean performancsuggestind creighteent changresponsivenesg.e thahNestyli nwtcenturies preachineLighth soe ftan India Ned gw, nbu t 33 Christianity reached them at a level that resembled traditional shamanistic religion. Secondly, I think that the movement started by the New Light clergy was appealing because it was new to all who participated.1 It was a novelty and a departure from tradition for Indians as well as for colonial Whites and Blacks. This was not the Christianity of Thomas Shepard, John Eliot, or Roger Williams which they had resisted for so many years. Rather than being a submission to established colonial religion, it was a fresh new step for all who participated in it, Black, White, and Red. I think that a radical break from ancestral tradition, as this was, is more appealing if all who participate make the same sacrifice. The third reason is related closely to the second. Not only was the Awakening a new experience for all cultural groups which participated, through it they envisioned a new and in some ways more attractive society than many of the converts had experienced before. To be born again held promise for a more satisfying life on earth. One concrete way in which this new society took shape was in the inter­ racial nature of the revivals. For the oppressed Indian and Black populations these revivals may have been seen as evidence that a new society was in the process of being created. Thus I suggest that the Great Awakening appealed to the dreams of subjugated people. The final reason for Indian conversion in the Great Awakening is that they had reached the point where some kind of ideological breakthrough was imminent. The southern New England Indians had been transformed from autonomous tribes into part communities which were integrated into and dependent upon the dominant colonial culture. Their last arena of resistance to the colonial regime was in the area of religion. But as Karl Marx once observed, our social existence ultimately determines our consciousness of that existence. This means in this case that if the Narragansett, Mohegan, and others were to accept and function in the social conditions of colonial culture, they had to accept or approximate the religious symbols which represented that culture. Finally I would like to temper the suggestion that religion is a simple reflection of overall social context with the concluding observation that it provides motiva­ tional resources for acting upon that context. The New Light converts seem to have acquired new motivations and strengthened commitments as a result of their conversion. They found a source of strength for enhancing their participation in colonial society. It gave them new spiritual resources for adapting to an alien but absolutely inescapable social system. The missionary Joseph Park woulwasvitalizatiodominanquarrellingnegavfonoterwe, dd thvalue an thealloethadt mNarragansetttcultursno w inne not,ann thei dmovemenaanth rsed habitre resourcethei aindebtednesNarragansetparticipations trs,the whicMoheganancestorhayds coulhtaket ospropelle td ,surviv nsha reservatio. gando holdthoughd declineaneotherd . itnathe sTheis thindm tfa e idrunkennessr aantshoul sworlwada conversios fas adr tha arangabe intrets .-oeculturi ,nt othThufe se 34 NOTE 1 The author is grateful to Dr. Elizabeth Colson of th Department of Anthropology at the University of Califor Berkeley for suggesting this idea. Also to David Levin William McLaughlin, Jim Ronda, Neal Salisbury and David Stineback for their helpful comments on this paper.

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