John Eliot – Apostle to the Indians
William Carey set out on his missionary voyage to India in 1792 – a date many call the beginning of the modern missionary movement. However, there was a foreign missionary a century and a half earlier who was well ahead of his time in the spirit and practice of evangelism.
John Eliot was born to a wealthy family in England in 1604. Little is known about his early years, but we know he graduated from Cambridge University and came under the influence of famed Puritan preacher Thomas Hooker. Of the Hookers Eliot later wrote, “When I came to this blessed family, I then saw, and never before, the power of godliness in its lively vigor and efficacy.”
As Anglican leaders put pressure on Puritans, Eliot moved to Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1631 and became pastor of the church there. There, he married Anne Mumford. A part of the Massachusetts Bay charter (1628) was the “royall intention and the adventurer’s free profession, the principal ende of this Plantation” was “to wynn the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the onlie true God and Saviour of mankinde.” Unlike many of his fellow settlers, Eliot was moved by the spiritual ignorance of the natives in his area and the poverty in which they lived – most tribes having been previously decimated by plagues.
Eliot displayed remarkable patience and piety in his efforts to win the local Algonquin tribes. He patiently learned the complex language, taking in an Indian boarder in 1646 as a tutor. The Algonquin language used pictorial symbols in a crude attempt at writing and compressed complex ideas into single lengthy run-on words. Many colonists figured it would be more efficient to teach the Indians English and then teach them God’s Word. One fellow pastor even claimed that, in an exorcism, the demons could understand English, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin – but even they could not understand the “barbarous” language of the Indians.
After two years, Eliot finally felt comfortable preaching in the native tongue. He chose a small village a few miles north of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was on very friendly terms with the Englishmen. His sermon was well-received and he was invited back. As he taught, he was presented with some remarkable questions: “If God is all-powerful, why does he not just kill the Devil who makes men to be bad?” “Was the Devil, or man made first?” “Might there be something, even a little, to be gained by praying to the Devil?” “Are all the Indians who died before us doomed to Hell?” “Where go little children who die go, to Heaven or to Hell?” and “If God made Hell in one of the six days, why did He make it before Adam had sinned?” The complexity of these questions helped to convince him of the genuine reception of those who professed faith.
Eliot’s methods would not entirely pass muster among modern missionaries. He required of his converts that they adopt many English ways. He received a parcel of land from the Massachusetts authorities and settled the “praying Indians” (as they came to be known) there. He found donors in England willing to supply money to purchase tools, clothing, and blankets for the families and spinning wheels for the women. With little direct English assistance, they built a modern town with streets and houses, fenced farms and organized fields. Often, converts were not allowed to be baptized until they had been properly “civilized.” Eliot was careful not to push them too hard, and he built a great deal of trust with them. In time, 14 of these settlements of “praying Indians” were established with over 1,100 Praying Indians and Eliot visited them all, regardless of weather or other impediment, and trained ministers in each.
Eliot’s crowning labor of love was a translation of the Scriptures into the Algonquin language. The rudimentary system of pictures was not sufficient for the task. Instead, he taught them the English alphabet (and had to invent a few new characters as well) then used those characters to translate the Bible for them. This task took him over ten years to complete, with no assurances it would ever even be printed. Frankly, given his workload, it was amazing he had any time at all to complete the task.
The London Bible society, upon hearing of his completed work, offered to fund the cost of publishing the work – this type of work being the very premises on which the society was founded. In 1659 printing was begun in Harvard – the first Bible printed in North America. 1,500 Bibles were printed and bound, the earliest example of the translating and printing of the entire Bible as a means of evangelization. English Bibles would not be printed in North America for another century.
Unfortunately, in 1675, a confederation of Indian Tribes under the leadership of a chief called “King Philip” began a bloody war with the colonists. Englishmen, suddenly very uneasy at the thought of entire fortified town of Indians near their settlements, began to treat Eliot’s converts with suspicion and downright hostility. Against Eliot’s vehement protests, many were even forced to move to Deer Island in Boston Harbor, unprotected from the Atlantic winter. His ready supplies having dried up, Eliot supplied them as best he could, though many perished from the treatment.
Despite these hardships, the Praying Indians remained loyal to John Eliot and many even joined in the war against King Philip, forming a scouting company and rendered valuable service to the English. In the final battle, it was a Praying Indian who fired the shot which killed the rebel King Philip.
Although the English were victorious against the Indians, this incident was a blow to John Eliot’s work from which it was never able to recover. He continued to minister to those who remained until his death in 1690 at the age of 84. Sporadic villages of these Praying Indians continued up into the 18th century.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/missionaries/john-eliot.html
https://www.americanheritage.com/apostle-indians
https://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/john-eliot.html
