Examining the Eliot BibleBy Susan Ikenberry

UNIT OVERVIEWThis unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–aligned teaching resources. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance. Through a step-by-step process, students will acquire the skills to analyze primary or secondary source material.

Unit Objectives

Students will become aware of the difficulty; complexity and even seeming hypocrisy of an early attempt of English settlers to try to convert indigenous people to their demanding religion.

In the end it is hoped that students will also see how easily good intentions may not produce the intended results:

Number of Class PeriodsOne

Grade Level

10-11

StandardsCCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

Historical Context

Known as the “Apostle to the Indians”, John Eliot, a Puritan minister undertook the translation of the Bible into Wôpanâak Algonquian, as part of his effort to convert the Wampanoag to Christianity. John Eliot learned the language and worked for over eight years, with the help of native speakers, he translated the entire Bible into a phonetic form of Wôpanâak Algonquian, using the English language alphabet. About 1000 copies were

printed in total, and because it was easy enough to import Bibles from Britain, the Eliot Bible was actually the first one printed in the colonies. ~ Eliot translated other Puritan treatises into Wôpanâak Algonquian: Richard Baxter's A Call to the Unconverted and Lewis Bayly's The Practice of Piety, as well as Algonquin editions of The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism and a Psalter.In recent years, those working to revive or learn the Wôpanâak Algonquian have found the Eliot Bible to be an important source for pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

Materials Documents, pictures, and questions as attached.For Enrichment, students can explore the current website of the Praying Indians of Natick and Ponkapoag, which provides additional history and sheds additional light on the current significance of the Eliot Bible

Procedure Have the class work in groups of three examining Documents 1 and 2 Give students a few minutes to examine the documents and to discuss the guiding questions. Lead a discussion using the guiding questions ending with this follow up:Give out Document 4 after students have had an opportunity to examine the seal and the Bible and the engraving. When students have read this document have students consider this question:

What were John Eliot’s motives for translating the Bible into Wôpanâak Algonquian? Overall would you say his efforts to convert the Wampanoag to Calvinist Christianity were a success or a failure? Justify your answer.

Document 1

This seal of the Massachusetts Bay Company was used on the colony’s official documents from 1629 until 1686. The phrase is one that most Puritans probably would have recognized. It’s from Acts 16:9 ~ that night Paul had a vision. In his dream he saw a man over in Macedonia, pleading with him, “Come over here and help us.”

Seal found on the website of the Massachusetts Secretary of State

What does this seal demonstrate about the Puritan attitudes toward the indigenous people they knew they would encounter where they were about to settle and had settled?

What is the meaning of the objects in the picture? What is the significance of the Native American’s dress (or lack thereof)?

Does it matter that the quotation was recognizably from the Bible?

From what you’ve learned about the Massachusetts Bay Company how well do you think this seal represents their motivations for emigrating from East Anglia?

Other observations?

Document 2 ~ The Eliot Bible:

A. Rauner Library Card Catalogue Entry:

Uniform Title Bible. Massachuset. Eliot. 1663.Title Mamusse wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God naneeswe

Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament. Ne quoshkinnumuk nashpe wuttinneumoh Christ noh asoowesit John Eliot

Imprint Cambridge, [Mass.], Printeuoop nashpe Samuel Green kah Marmaduke Johnson, 1661-1663

Description 2 v. in 1 19 cm

LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS Rauner Rare Book  BS345.A2 E4 1663   Lacking final blank N4.

With 32-piece diamond shaped figure on N.T. title. The page headings of chapters 21 and 24 of Luke incorrectly printed Chap. 10 and Chap. 15. Signed on title: "Courtney Pole, 1670." With 19th century ms. notations on front paste down endpaper and second leaf. The Louis H. Silver copy, with his leather book label and ms. bibliographical notes on the collation laid in. Eighteenth century full tree calf binding ; spine gilt ; leather labels. In leather box

 AVAILABLE  IN LIBRARY USE

Note Vol. 2 has special t.p. : Wusku wuttestamentum Nui-Lordumun Jesus Christ nuppoquohwussuaeneumun. Cambridge [Mass.], Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson, MDCLXI [1661]First edition of the first Bible printed in the New World, and the first example in history of the translation and printing of the entire Bible in a new language (Massachuset) as a means of evangelismOne of about a thousand original issuances

Subject Massachuset language -- Texts.Alternate Author Eliot, John, 1604-1690.Control No. ocm04702817

A. Rauner Library, Dartmouth College

B.

Rauner Library, Dartmouth College

C. Rauner Library, Dartmouth College

D. Rauner Library, Dartmouth College

E. Library of Congress

Questions for Photos and catalog entry for Document B (The Eliot Bible)

Does the Bible seem like a practical undertaking?What sort of training would have been needed to make it possible for a Wampanoag person have read this Bible?What do you think a Wampanoag person might have thought on hearing this Bible read to him?

Can you actually pronounce the words? Why are many words familiar? How might this Bible be useful to descendants of the Wampanoag today?

Does the publication of this Bible bear any relationship to the seal of the Mass Bay Company? Explain.Other observations?

Document 3

This is a late 19th century imagining of JOHN ELIOT preaching with his Bible in hand. Peabody Museum, Harvard University

Questions:This engraving was made more than 200 years after the event. What do you notice about it? IN what ways does it seem to be authentic and in what ways not authentic? Do you notice stereotypes or inaccuracies in the picture? How does the artist want his audience to respond to John Eliot’s preaching and his Bible?

Document 4Bradley Shreve, in The Encyclopedia of American Indian History Ed. Bruce E. Johansen and Barry M. Pritzker. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008. p599-600. COPYRIGHT 2008 ABC-CLIO, Inc; Page 599

Praying Villages of Massachusetts…….In 1646, John Eliot began a rigorous campaign of proselytizing to the tribes of New England, including the Massachusett, Nipmuck, Pawtucket, and the Pennacook Confederacy. The success of this initial foray was limited, leading Eliot and the colony's leadership to believe that the Indians first had to be immersed in English culture before they could be converted. To accomplish this, they established protoreservations, or praying villages, where the Native people could be isolated and taught European customs. The first such village was Natick, which was soon followed by numerous others. By the outbreak of King Philip's War in 1675, there were fourteen such missions.

The Massachusetts Bay government set land aside for the praying villages and maintained control over them. Each reservation was laid out in an orderly manner, with English-style structures and streets spread across the village. The Native inhabitants also followed European subsistence patterns, tilling the surrounding fields and tending to livestock. In terms of government, the villages’ adult male populations elected their own local leaders and drafted legislation. ……

A staunch assimilationist, John Eliot insisted that the villages’ inhabitants throw off their Indian culture. Native dress and

religion, tribalism, polygamy, and powwows were strictly prohibited, while the European conception of private property was hammered home. A system of punishments and incentives was enacted: Those who transgressed or violated the villages’ codes were fined; those who exhibited “good” behavior and made progress in adopting white ways were rewarded. This crash course in “civilization” was followed by a relentless effort to Christianize the Indians. Eliot worked with Indian converts to translate the Bible into Algonquian. He also wrote The Indian Primer and other texts outlining the cornerstones of Puritanical theology.

The success of the praying villages was limited. Most New England Indians shunned the missions and opted to keep their distance from the intruding non-Native world. The minority who did join the villages were from the most weakened tribes, such as the Massachusetts and Nipmucks. Their world had been decimated by disease and the English conquest of their lands. For these “praying Indians,” the adoption of European culture seemed to be the only alternative. Nevertheless, despite the best efforts of Eliot and others, they remained caught between Puritan society and their former tribes, never fully accepted by either.

When King Philip's War broke out in 1675, many of the Indians in the praying villages sided with the …..Wampanoag sachem, Metacom (King Philip), and his pan-Indian alliance. Others remained neutral or even fought alongside the colonists. Regardless of where they stood in the conflict, all New England Indians lost out once the war came to an end in 1676. Most of those who survived the bloody ordeal were pushed out of their traditional lands and summarily shipped off to isolated reservations or the West Indies. The colony's General Court eliminated all but three praying villages. The villages that remained were overrun and eventually absorbed by land-hungry whites in a few years. By the turn of the century, Eliot's initial experiment of assimilation and Christianization was just a fading memory.