PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK AND CAPE COD: THE REVEREND JOHN ELIOT, APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT CAPE COD: Turning over further in our book, our eyes fell on the name of the Rev. Jonathan Bascom, of Orleans: “Senex emunctæ naris, doctus, et auctor elegantium verborum, facetus, et dulcis festique sermonis.” And, again, on that of the Rev. Nathan Stone, of Dennis: “Vir humilis, mitis, blandus, advenarum hospes; [there was need of him there]; suis commodis in terrâ non studens, reconditis thesauris in cœlo.” An easy virtue that, there, for, methinks, no inhabitant of Dennis could be very studious about his earthly commodity, but must regard the bulk of his treasures as in heaven. But, probably, the most just and pertinent character of all, is that which appears to be given to the Rev. Ephraim Briggs, of Chatham, in the language of the later Romans: “Seip, sepoese, sepoemese, wechekum”– which, not being interpreted, we know not what it means, though we have no doubt it occurs somewhere in the Scriptures, probably in the Apostle Eliot’s Epistle to the Nipmucks. JOHN ELIOT A WEEK: Two hundred years ago other catechizing than this was going on here; for here came the Sachem Wannalancet, and his people, and sometimes Tahatawan, our Concord Sachem, who afterwards had a church at home, to catch fish at the falls; and here also came John Eliot, with the Bible and Catechism, and Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, and other tracts, done into the Massachusetts tongue, and taught them Christianity meanwhile. “This place,” says Gookin, referring to Wamesit, “being an ancient and capital seat of Indians, they come to fish; and this good man takes this opportunity to spread the net of the gospel, to fish for their souls.” — JOHN ELIOT 1604 John Eliot was born in Widford in Hertfordshire. 2 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT 1622 The Powhatan offed more than a quarter of the whites living in England’s Jamestown colony. The directors of the Virginia Company would discover that one reason why the attack had been so successful was that most of their whites had been drunk. It is to be noted that the Indians generally spared the blacks — this, presumably, was due to significant intermarriage between runaway slaves and natives. (In 1930, sociologist Melville Herskovitz would estimate that 29% of African Americans have some native American ancestry — surely, therefore, a similar percentage of native Americans have some African ancestry.) READ ABOUT VIRGINIA John Eliot graduated from Jesus College at Cambridge. He had fallen, or would fall, under the influence of Thomas Hooker. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT 1629 At this point after the series of what is likely to have been measles or scarlet fever epidemics, the white intrusives on the Shawmut peninsula were able to count fewer than 500 surviving Massachusett natives — and the small pox would carry away many of these in 1633. Shortly afterward, the Reverend John Eliot would begin his missionary work among the surviving few. The new converts would be gathered into 14 villages of “Praying Indians,” including the following, in which, subjected to strict Puritan rules of conduct, their tribal traditions would quickly disappear: • Cowate • Magaehnak • Natick • Pequimmit • Punkapog • Titicut • Wannamanhut Job Nasutan, a Massachusett, would work with the Reverend Eliot to translate the BIBLE into Algonquin, and Crispus Attucks, who would be killed in the downtown brawl known as the Boston Massacre, would be born of a free black father and a Massachusett mother. Although there are now a few surviving individuals who are able to trace ancestry to the Massachusett, no organized group of the Massachusett is known to have survived into the 19th Century. 4 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT 1631 The Reverend Roger Williams and the Reverend John Eliot arrived at a New World where all male church members in the Bay Colony were becoming eligible to vote, and where, for impiety, in this year Philip Ratcliff’s ears were being severed (so how can someone’s ears be impious, did they wiggle during worship, or what?). When Thomas Angell came with the Reverend Williams on the ship Lyon under Captain William Pierce (Captain William Peirce? Captain A. Pearce?), sailing from London to Boston, he was about thirteen years of age and was bound in service to the Reverend as an apprentice or servant. (Another source says he was instead the servant of Richard Waterman.) After a couple of months in Boston the two went to Salem, where they would remain until their departure for Providence, Rhode Island in 1636. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 5 HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT 1632 During this year the government function of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was being relocated from Salem to the Shawmut peninsula, to the settlement that was becoming known as Boston. This was how, in later centuries, the Reverend John Wilson’s church on that peninsula would be remembered: The Reverend John Eliot became the pastor of the church at nearby Roxbury, guarding the continental end of Boston Neck. He would begin a mission to the nearby native Americans, preaching at Nonantun 6 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT (later Newton) and other of their towns. THE SCARLET LETTER: At last, while attending a sick chamber, whither the Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he had gone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indian converts. He would probably return by a certain hour in the afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the next day, Hester took little Pearl –who was necessarily the companion of all her mother’s expeditions, however inconvenient her presence– and set forth. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT 1640 The first booke printed, our historians say, “in the New World north of Mexico City” (which means, you will understand, the first booke printed in the New World by true human beings, quite white, who really matter), titled THE WHOLE BOOKE OF PSALMES FAITHFULLY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH METRE. The text for this booke was provided by Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Welde. It was printed by the Reverend John Cotton on a press in Cambridge MA [another source says Stephen Daye, so perhaps Cotton was providing the authority while Daye was providing the sweat equity]. Still in existence as of this writing are nine complete copies of this first edition of this “Bay Psalm Book” plus two copies which are defective but still of interest to the sort of people who pay immense sums in order that they may be said to “own” such a piece of historical booke. Here is some material from the preface by Richard Mather: If therefore the verses are not alwayes so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them consider that Gods Altar needs not our pollishings: Ex. 20. for wee have respected rather a plaine translation, then to smooth our verses with the sweetnes of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience rather then Elegance, fidelity rather then poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english language, and Davids poetry into english Meetre; that soe we may sing in Sion the Lords songs of prayse according to his owne will; untill he take us from hence, and wipe away all our teares, & bid us enter into our masters ioye to sing eternall Halleluiahs. It would be, presumably, this book that the Reverend was being depicted as carrying in the following relief 8 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT illustration: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 9 HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT 1643 According to Joseph A. Leo Lemay’s “NEW ENGLAND’S ANNOYANCES”: AMERICA’S FIRST FOLK SONG (Newark NJ: U of Delaware P, 1985), this first folk song sung in America most likely was authored in 1643 by the Edward Johnson of Woburn MA who in 1648 would prepare the pro-emigration tract GOOD NEWS FROM NEW ENGLAND and who by 1653 in London would have prepared a HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND. Most likely the lyrics were first printed up at the colonial press in Cambridge MA on a broadside in this year, and most likely this broadside had been necessitated by a tract which was then appearing, NEW ENGLANDS FIRST FRUITS. (That tract was something of a report card of the progress of Harvard College and/or the progress of the Reverend John Eliot’s Christian Indians, and had been prepared by the Reverend Henry Dunster, Thomas Weld, and Hugh Peter.) The song, in quatrains made up of anapestic tetrameter lines, was to be sung to the tune known as “Derry down” and thus, between stanzas, there would have been some sort of refrain like “Hey down, down, hey down derry down.” Abundant internal textual evidence demonstrates that its intended audience was not as it represents, prospective immigrants from England, but instead, with irony, New Englanders who might be being tempted to try their luck elsewhere. Since the persona projected by the singer is interestingly similar to the what we now term the “hillbilly,” what we have here is evidence that this hardscrabble imago constitutes the original American self-characterization. 10 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JOHN ELIOT REVEREND JOHN ELIOT Henry Thoreau may have had this merely as verbal material, for he was not using the version that Benjamin Franklin’s nephew Benjamin Mecom had used as filler material in a 1758 chapbook, FATHER ABRAHAM’S SPEECH,1 heading it “An Old Song, wrote by one of our first New England Planters, on their Management in Those good Old Times.