Volume LVIII, Number 2

William and Mary Quarterly

Reviews of Books

John Eliot's Mission to the Indians before King Philip's War. By Richard W. Cogley. (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 331. $45.00.) Richard Cogley is himself a man with a mission. The reputation of John Eliot has suffered in recent decades, and Cogley has written this new study of early missionary efforts in southern New England to challenge some of the more extravagant charges leveled at the "Apostle to the Indians." Cogley is dissatisfied with previous treatments of Eliot and his mission, which virtually ignore other praying towns in favor of well-known Natick, fail to consider Eliot's intellectual evolution, and, especially, misrepresent missionary work as a tool of English imperial expansion. The result is a well-researched and provocative counterpoint to the often politically charged literature on the subject. Cogley wastes no time in taking on Eliot's modern detractors, most notably Francis Jennings. Claiming that critics have held the English settlers to higher standards of missionary idealism than they ever professed, Cogley outlines a more authentic interpretation of Puritan expectations for Indian conversions. No one came to New England with mass christianization of the Indians as a priority or even a realistic expectation. Most seventeenthcentury missionary activity was predicated on a passive "affective model" (p. 5): attracting proselytes through interaction with virtuous English examples. English settlers did not anticipate great success. Only a handful of the English seriously entertained the conjecture that Indians were descendants of the "lost tribes" of IsraelEliot was not onewith its implications for missionary duty. The general European acceptance of the ancient Tartar origins of Indians meant that, according to biblical prophecy, their redemption would have to wait until the mass conversion of the Jewsand there was as yet no sign of that. Certainly there were some early Indian converts, but the predominant expectation that conversion of the Jews would precede the christianization of the heathenwhat Cogley calls the "Jewsthen-Gentiles sequence" (p. 15)as well as the Indians' general "failure to conform to the affective model" (p. 22) were the chief reasons for the delay in an active mission, not Puritan hypocrisy. Indian initiatives in the mid-1640s prompted the English to develop a more aggressive missionary policy. Formal submissions from Narragansett and Massachusett sachems to the Bay Colony government seemed to validate the "affective model" and at the same time abet the colony's expansionist designs against upstart Rhode Island. A missionary effort at this moment not only seemed to offer a good chance of success but also an opportunity to rebut enemies in England, who charged that Puritans had made no serious efforts to christianize the natives. Thus Cogley agrees with Jennings that the decision to launch the missionary program was in part propaganda but denies that the submissions were forced from the Indians. Rather, he argues, the Indians had their own good reasons for doing so, including protection from traditional enemies and intratribal power politics. At any rate, none of the colony's initial directives for a mission to the Indians bore fruit until Eliot made his first efforts in 1646. Why Eliot and not someone else? As Cogley makes clear, Eliot had no predisposition for missionary work. He certainly had not emigrated to New England with the mission in mind, had fully subscribed to the Tartar-origins theory, and had made no effort to study the Massachusett dialect. Instead, Eliot probably preached his first sermons to the natives simply because he was first on a rotation plan devised by the Massachusetts Bay government for Indian instruction. More important for Cogley is the reason for Eliot's persistence in the service. The evidence is meager here. Eliot's first sermon was a flop, but his second effort met with a more responsive audience, and this, according to Cogley, 2001, by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

Volume LVIII, Number 2

William and Mary Quarterly

Reviews of Books

"sealed Eliot's commitment to the work" (p. 50). Lacking more direct evidence from Eliot himself, Cogley cannot otherwise account for Eliot's long commitment to the work than to conclude that "the Apostle was transformed by his exposure to the natives: he learned to appreciate their humanity and to sympathize with their problems" (p. 249). In other words, Eliot had experienced something of a conversion as well. Despite subsequent progress made among the Indians along the coast, few colonists or clergy shared Eliot's enthusiasm. Cogley takes pains to demonstrate that missionary work truly was "too costly an enterprise for New England" (p. 69) and that appeals to English contributors were sincere and necessary, and not a fraud, as Jennings has alleged. Because of the minimal commitment from Massachusetts Bay and the requirements of Eliot's own Roxbury ministry, most evangelical work by the late 1640s was done by Indian converts rather than by Eliot himself. Most early proselytes, Cogley concludes, "turned to Eliot's program for the benefits it promised" (p. 75), rather than because of Christianity's appeal. These benefits included literacy, access to English goods, and, for Indian groups farther west, English protection from raiding Mohawks and Narragansetts. A crucial chapter links Eliot's flirtation with millennialism to the establishment and character of the most famous praying town, Natick, in 1650. The origins of Eliot's millennial fervor are unclear; according to Cogley, it inspired in Eliot a fresh appreciation for missionary work. Reluctant initially to believe that Indians were descended from the lost tribes, Eliot had a change of heart in the late 1640s, concluding that it was "clear in the Scripture" that the Indians "are the children of Shem" (p. 85). As such, the Indians "remained entitled to the biblical promises . . . given to the posterity of Jacob" (p. 89), and their redemption "no longer had to await the national conversion of the Jews" (p. 90). Eliot had broached the idea of a legally established town for converts as early as 1648, but his radical new outlook, according to Cogley, "transfigured Natick," making it "the staging area for the millennial reconstruction of America" (p. 94). Eliot's millennial enthusiasm also explains his establishment of a Bible-inspired government, with rulers appointed over units of ten and of one hundred at Natick, which became his model for other praying towns. Eliot's support for the lost tribes theory soon waned (again, the reasons are obscure), and his radical millennial views, curbed by the colony magistrates, collapsed with the Restoration. Still, Cogley insists, the development of Natick in the early 1650s must be understood in the context of Eliot's brief fling with radical eschatology. Cogley's chronological progression and clarity sometimes fray as he tries to sketch thorough histories for each of the fourteen praying towns in Massachusetts before 1675. The reader may also have difficulty keeping track of Cogley's cast of characters; no one, it seems, is too obscure to escape mention. Most especially, the chapter on mission efforts outside Massachusetts Bay wanders beyond Cogley's immediate purpose and is distracting. Generally, however, he holds fast to his principal mission of rescuing his subject from "scholars who question Eliot's integrity" (p. 128). Cogley argues convincingly against Neal Salisbury's insinuation that Eliot's Indian assistants did the actual translation for his Massachusett language texts and denies that Eliot "knowingly or willingly" (p. 127) altered Indian conversion narratives in translation or that these were "concocted to impress benefactors in England" (pp. 127-28). And far from being a vehicle for dispossession, Eliot's mission "relative to the early settlement period . . . improved the fortunes" (p. 246) of Indians who took advantage of it. In the case of King Philip's War, Cogley rejects Jennings's allegation that Eliot's "forcible" (p. 162) missionary tactics drove the Nipmuck people into the war, citing far more compelling motives for their animosity. 2001, by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

Volume LVIII, Number 2

William and Mary Quarterly

Reviews of Books

Has Cogley achieved his goal of restoring historical balance? One cannot miss Cogley's obvious advocacy of Eliot, as he unblushingly bestows the epithet "Apostle" throughout his text and seems to let the English off the hook a bit too easily at times. On the other hand, he is refreshingly honest in places where lack of evidence forces him to speculate, and even as he tries to save Eliot's reputation, Cogley concedes that he was in fact a mediocre missionary, a poor observer of Indian culture, increasingly out of step with both the colony leadership and the Indians his mission supposedly served, and a sometimes disastrous negotiator. But John Eliot was sincere. He was indispensable as the mission's publicist, translator, and chief advocate, but for Cogley, Eliot's motivation, rather than his effectiveness, is the key to his historical rehabilitation and by extension that of the entire mission. Richard Cogley's book is hardly "Eliot for Beginners," but as a fresh contribution to the literature of cross-cultural cause and effect, it is excellently suited for graduate seminars and will be sure to generate lively debate. Those desiring a much needed, rationally argued re-evaluation of New England's missionary errand and a persuasive challenge to Eliot's critics will be well served by Cogley's mission. University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Len Travers

2001, by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture