Praying town
Praying towns were segregated communities established in 17th-century colonial Massachusetts for Native American converts to Puritan Christianity, intended to isolate them from traditional tribal influences while promoting English-style agriculture, governance, and religious practice under missionary supervision.[1][2] The initiative was led by Roxbury minister John Eliot, who began preaching to Algonquian-speaking groups in the 1640s and secured land grants from the Massachusetts General Court, with Natick founded in 1651 as the first such town for converts under sachem Waban.[3][2] By the mid-1670s, the colony had designated fourteen praying towns housing several thousand residents who adopted European clothing, fenced fields, and congregational worship, though enforcement varied and some retained native leadership roles like rulers elected annually.[4][5] These settlements represented an early experiment in directed assimilation, yielding Eliot's Algonquian Bible translation and partial self-sufficiency in some communities, but faced challenges from disease, land encroachments, and suspicions of divided loyalties.[3] During King Philip's War in 1675–1676, many praying Indians provided crucial aid to English forces as scouts and informants, yet colonial authorities interned over a thousand on Deer Island amid fears of espionage, leading to high mortality from exposure and starvation.[6][7] Surviving populations rebuilt modestly post-war, with towns like Natick incorporating as municipalities by the 18th century, though native demographics eroded through intermarriage, economic pressures, and cultural dilution, marking the praying towns as transient efforts at native incorporation into colonial society.[2]Historical Origins
Puritan Missionary Foundations
Puritan settlers in New England regarded the conversion of Native Americans, whom they termed "heathens," as a biblical imperative derived from the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19–20, which commands disciples to teach all nations. This theological motivation extended beyond mere baptism to encompass the civilizing of indigenous peoples through adoption of English laws, agriculture, and family structures, viewed as essential to fulfilling God's covenant and preparing the land for a godly commonwealth.[8] The founding charters of the colonies reinforced this duty; the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony charter explicitly tasked settlers with propagating the Christian faith among the natives to incite them "to the knowledge and obedience of the onlie true God and Savior." Similar provisions appeared in the charters of Plymouth and other New England ventures, embedding evangelism as a legal and moral obligation from the outset of settlement in the 1620s.[9][10] In the 1640s, amid England's civil wars and parliamentary scrutiny of colonial ventures, New England leaders faced pressure to demonstrate tangible missionary achievements to maintain royal and parliamentary support, prompting reports of conversion progress to justify expansion and secure funding through entities like the New England Company established in 1649.[11] Before the formalization of praying towns, Puritan efforts involved itinerant preaching to scattered Native groups, exploiting the vulnerabilities arising from epidemics—such as the 1616–1619 "Great Dying," which killed up to 90% of coastal Algonquian populations and disrupted leadership hierarchies, thereby facilitating missionary access and influence among survivors seeking alliances for protection and sustenance.[12][10]John Eliot's Initiatives and Early Conversions
John Eliot began his missionary efforts among the Native Americans of Massachusetts Bay Colony in October 1646, delivering the first sermon in the Massachusett language at Nonantum (present-day Newton) in the wigwam of the sachem Waban. [3] This event marked the initial organized preaching to Algonquian-speaking groups, following Eliot's self-study of the language with the aid of Native interpreters. [13] Initial responses were mixed, with some attendees showing interest while others remained skeptical, prompting Eliot to emphasize doctrinal teaching through repeated visits and dialogues. [9] By 1651, Eliot's work culminated in the establishment of Natick as the first praying town, where approximately 15 families of converts relocated under the leadership of Waban to form a segregated Christian community on land granted by the Massachusetts General Court. [14] This settlement aimed to isolate converts from traditional Native influences, enforcing separation to prevent reversion to pre-Christian practices and to enable focused instruction in Puritan Christianity. [2] Eliot promoted self-sufficiency through the adoption of English-style frame houses, fenced fields, and plow-based agriculture, replacing nomadic hunting and communal wigwam living with sedentary farming to mirror colonial economic structures. [15] Eliot's translation of the Bible into the Natick dialect of Algonquian, completed and printed in Cambridge between 1660 and 1663, served as a primary tool for doctrinal education, providing converts direct access to scripture without reliance on oral English interpretations. [16] This first Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere facilitated literacy and independent study among the praying Indians. [17] By the late 1650s, Eliot reported dozens of baptisms in Natick and nearby areas, with converts demonstrating adherence through public examinations of faith and communal worship. [2] Through the 1650s, Eliot expanded to additional sites, establishing three more praying towns by 1660—Hassanamisco, Okommakamegit, and Wamesit—totaling four initial settlements housing over 100 families collectively, based on colonial records of land allotments and convert relocations. [1] These early outcomes reflected Eliot's strategy of causal separation and cultural adaptation, intended to sustain conversions by integrating economic reforms with religious discipline, as documented in his missionary tracts. [18]Establishment and Geographical Spread
Formation of Initial Towns
The initial praying towns were formed through a process of selecting Native converts who demonstrated sincere commitment to Christianity, as assessed by missionary John Eliot via examinations of their understanding of Puritan doctrine and renunciation of traditional practices such as polygamy and powwowing (shamanistic rituals).[19] These individuals voluntarily relocated to designated lands to live apart from unconverted tribes, fostering isolation from cultural influences deemed incompatible with Christian civil order, under colonial oversight that enforced compliance through periodic inspections and biblical governance models.[2] The Massachusetts General Court approved land grants for these settlements, prioritizing areas suitable for agriculture and community organization while minimizing conflicts with English towns. Natick, the first such town, was established in 1651 when Eliot led a group of Massachusett converts, initially numbering around 15 families under leader Waban, to a 2,000-acre tract along the Charles River in present-day South Natick.[14] [20] The General Court formalized this grant to support self-sustaining communities, requiring inhabitants to build infrastructure reflecting English norms, including frame houses, fenced pastures for livestock, plowed fields for crops like corn and wheat, and a meetinghouse for worship and assembly.[21] This development aimed to instill habits of disciplined labor and property division, with residents constructing items such as an 80-foot wooden bridge over the river to facilitate trade and mobility.[2] Subsequent initial towns followed this template, with Hassanamesit (also known as Hassanamisco) formed in 1654 as the third praying town in Nipmuc territory, granted lands by the General Court for similar converts who pledged adherence to Christian monogamy, rejection of idolatry, and communal labor. By the mid-1660s, Natick's population had expanded to over 200 residents across multiple households, supported by these agricultural reforms and missionary-supplied tools, though growth depended on sustained conversions and avoidance of relapse into traditional customs enforced by elected Native rulers accountable to colonial authorities.[14]Expansion Across New England Colonies
The expansion of praying towns progressed from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where John Eliot established the model at Natick in 1651, to adjacent colonies including Plymouth and Connecticut by the mid-17th century.[22] By 1674, Eliot and collaborators had founded fourteen such towns within Massachusetts Bay boundaries, each allocated specific land grants—often encompassing thousands of acres—to facilitate segregated Christian communities modeled on English townships.[5] These included Natick, Punkapoag, and Hassanamesit, with colonial authorities enforcing boundaries to prevent intermingling with non-converting tribes.[22] In Plymouth Colony, missionary efforts by figures like Thomas Mayhew paralleled Eliot's, yielding seven praying towns prior to 1675, such as Mashpee, Gay Head, and Christiantown on Martha's Vineyard. Connecticut saw fewer formalized establishments, primarily in the northeast among Nipmuc groups, with sites like Wabaquasset hosting up to 150 residents and others including Maanexit and Quinnatisset.[7] Overall, these developments encompassed approximately 20 towns across the colonies, housing around 2,000 praying Indians by the early 1670s according to missionary estimates.[23] Eliot's networks of assistants, including Daniel Gookin who conducted surveys in 1674, drove geographical spread through targeted preaching in Algonquian languages and petitions to colonial courts for land deeds.[24] Incentives for Native converts included secured land tenure and exemptions from certain tribute demands imposed on unconverted groups, though these were conditional on adherence to English-style governance and labor practices.[2] Expansion faced opposition from non-converting sachems, who viewed the towns as threats to tribal sovereignty and traditional land use, leading to sporadic resistance documented in colonial records.[11]| Colony | Key Praying Towns | Notes on Establishment |
|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts Bay | Natick (1651), Hassanamesit (ca. 1654), Punkapoag | Core of Eliot's initiative; 14 total by 1674 with land grants emphasizing segregation.[22][5] |
| Plymouth | Mashpee, Gay Head, Christiantown | 7 towns; influenced by Mayhew missions on Vineyard and Cape. |
| Connecticut | Wabaquasset, Maanexit, Quinnatisset | Smaller-scale; focused on Nipmuc conversions in northeast.[7] |