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PROSPERO in NEW ENGLAND: the PURITAN MISSIONARY AS COLONIST Neal Salisbury Smith College Resume. L'auteur Se Sert Du "Compl

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PROSPERO in NEW ENGLAND: the PURITAN MISSIONARY AS COLONIST Neal Salisbury Smith College Resume. L'auteur Se Sert Du Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian25 Conference3 Papers (1974) PROSPERO IN NEW ENGLAND: THE PURITAN MISSIONARY AS COLONIST Neal Salisbury Smith College Resume. L'auteur se sert du "complexe de Prospero" elabore par Shakespeare dans The Tempest pour etudier la personnalite des deux grands missionnaires de la Nouvelle-Angleterre du XVII siecle: John Eliot et Thomas Mayhew. L'article soutient que leurs actes etaient motives en partie par le desir d'echapper a la taxation emotive et au defi que representait leur responsabilite dans leur propre societe, en depit de leur appartenance a l'elite. Au lieu de participer a la course au pouvoir, ils choisirent de dominer des enclaves d'lndiens decultures et de les preparer a la coexistence subordonnee avec la population coloniale. Le manque de dispositions des missionnaires pour la politique les a rendus incapables de comprendre la dynamique politique des relations entre blancs et Indiens dans le sud le la Nouvelle-Angleterre et les roles qu'ils avaient a y jouer. La personnalite des missionnaires peut difficilement a elle seule expliquer le sort qui a ete finalement reserve aux "Praying Indians". Cependant, les decouvertes presentees ici donnent a penser qu'une etude des missionnaires dans le contexte de leur propre culture et de leur societe pourraient fournir de precieux apercus pour des etudes sur les contacts entre cultures. Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian 25Conference4 Papers (1974) THE "PROSPERO COMPLEX" The psychological characteristics of Europeans who would educate native peoples provided a theme for Shakespeare in The Tempest, first staged in l6ll as England was beginning its overseas expansion . Shakespeare was concerned here with the political and psychic implications of contact with the strange peoples of Africa and the Americas. The protagonist Prospero disdained political power and the general give and take of human relations, and neglect­ ed his duties as Duke of Milan, for the more comfortable world of his library where his authority went uncontested (Shakespeare 196l:8-9). Usurped by his brother, Prospero escaped for his life to an island shared only with his daughter Miranda and the native Caliban. As the play opens we find Prospero exercising complete control over this isolated environment through the use of magical powers, the instructions to which are included in his books (Abenheimer 1946:4ll-4l2). Prospero first set out to educate and civilize the "savage" Caliban, but abandoned the scheme when Caliban realized that it was a cover for Prospero's usurpation of the island. "You taught me language," Caliban exclaims, "and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse (Shakespeare 196l:19)." He is now a bitter slave instead of a contented one. Miranda is a more pliable creation of Prosperous as witnessed by her utter inability to distinguish reality from her father's magic. She is oblivious to the sources of the action around her. The "airy spirit" Ariel is even more perfect precisely because he is not human and is literally an extension of his master's powers. By exercising such control, Prospero can perceive his environment and the people who inhabit it as reflections of his own ego. He thereby controls his own emotional 255 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974) responsiveness to others, something he could not achieve while still in Milan, and the cause of his retreat to the library. He has thus used others to fashion a persona for himself. Even Caliban fits his purposes, for this wild "savage" should not be seen as a real aborigine, but as a shadow of Prospero, embodying all those impulses and desires incompatible with his ego- manufactured persona (Abenheimer 1946:4o4, 4ll-4l2; Mannoni 1964:106-107; Mason 1962:69-71, 90-96; Fiedler 1968:49). Prospero's preference for a world without conflict to one of spontaneous human interaction indicates his unwillingness to accept the consequences of human maturity (Abenheimer 1946:4ll). Instead of allowing himself to grow emotionally, he chooses the security of an isolated environment over which he can exercise total control. Such regression characterizes the missionary sub­ culture of Euroamerica described by G. Gordon Brown (1944). Brown points out that missionaries tend to adopt more rigid and simplistic moral-theological codes than their peers. They also believe it incumbent upon themselves to propagate these values to non-Europeans who do not share them. While Brown's generalizations cannot be applied uniformly to all western missionaries, they are strikingly appropriate for a discussion of seventeenth-century New England. Indeed in one sense the Puritan experiment as a whole could be discussed in Brown's terms: most of the original colonists migrated in response to a perceived moral anarchy in old England. In the beginning con­ version of the native population was a goal for the entire community: every­ one was to be a missionary at least by example (Shurtleff 1853-1854 1:17, 384; E. Winslow 1624:515-516). Even within this society, the two leading mission­ aries displayed certain distinguishing characteristics. Eliot in particular stood out for the kind of extreme intellectual simplicity described by Brown. Both men were members of the Massachusetts Bay elite by virtue of their 256 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974) positions but had become isolated from political and social leadership outside their localities before turning to Indian work. This isolation was combined with a life-style of self-conscious asceticism even more extreme than that of most of their peers. Their very interest in converting Indians marked them off from New England society: each began the work in the l640s, after the project had faded as a collective ideal. Like the fictional-mythical charac­ ter created by Shakespeare thirty years earlier, each had rejected his own society for a world of greater perfection in which he could weave his own magic. JOHN ELIOT John Eliot arrived in New England in 1631 at the age of twenty-seven. While the little known of his life before then indicates that the foundations had been laid for a life of pious Puritan orthodoxy, nothing foreshadowed this man's peculiar yet extraordinary career as Indian missionary (Mather 1702 1:526-583; Morison 1930: 289-319; 0. Winslow 1968). Yet over the next half century the personality of Eliot made its mark on New England. Authoritarian, ascetic, a fierce opponent of emotional or sensual expression, a biblical literalist—there was nothing unique in these qualities among Puritan minis• ters except that in Eliot they were combined and followed to a peculiar extreme. In temperament he was obstinate, vindictive, and self-righteous to the ironic point of taking pride in his humility and loudly publicizing his self-denial (Salisbury 1972:152-167, passim). More successfully than most, he seemed to have attained the ascetic ideal classically described by Max Weber; The Puritan, like every rational type of asceticism, tried to enable a man to maintain and act upon his constant motives, especially those which it taught him himself, against the emotions. In this formal 257 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974) psychological sense of the term it tried to make him into a personality. ... The end of this asceticism was to be able to lead an alert, intelligent life: the most urgent task was the destruction of spontaneous, impulsive enjoyment, the most important means was to bring order into the conduct of its adherents (Weber 1930:119). Weber recognized and stressed that Puritan asceticism was a quality that was consciously cultivated. Like Prospero, the ascetic man molded a persona that would fit a conscious plan and enable him to suppress more spontaneous, for­ bidden behavior. To the Puritan minister and historian, Cotton Mather, Eliot was a model ascetic: "We are all of us compounded of those two things, the man and the beast; but so powerful was the man in this holy person, that it kept the beast ever tyed with a short tedder, and surpassed the irregular calcitrations of it (Mather 1702 1:537)." The biography abounds with stories of Eliot's perseverance and self-denial, all of which must be considered in the context of the consciously cultivated ascetic persona. Mather was also certain that Eliot had attained the ascetic's desired state of willessness: "Yea, he bore all his trials with an admirable patience, and seemed loth to have any will of his own, that should not be wholly melted and moulded into the will of his Heavenly Father (Mather 1702 1:543)." Yet Eliot was obviously far from willess, the paradox of the ascetic ideal being that it requires a great effort of will to attain. The distrust of others, so central to Prospero's character and to the ascetic ideal, also characterized Eliot. Weber specifically cites Lewis Bayly's Practice of Piety and the works of Richard Baxter as especially note­ worthy among Puritan writings in counseling suspicion of one's fellows and reserving all trust for God (Weber 1930:106). It is significant that Eliot was a good friend of Baxter's and translated one of his works, along with Practice of Piety, to be read by the praying Indians (Pilling l891:lo9-172). 258 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974) Eliot was himself distrustful of those who threatened his personal control of the missionary program, particularly the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England. Over the years, Eliot circumvented, defied, and sought to intimidate and embarrass them publicly in order to get his way. He constantly asked for more money while refusing to tell the Commissioners how he spent it or how much he raised on his own.
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