There seems to be no doubt that these
Indians were really benefited both materially and morally by the change
in their life. In theology it is not likely that they reached any higher
view than that expressed by the Connecticut sachem Wequash who "seeing
and beholding the mighty power of God in the English forces, how they
fell upon the Pequots, ... from that time was convinced and persuaded
that our God was a most dreadful God;" accordingly, says the author of
"New England's First Fruits," "he became thoroughly reformed according
to his light." Matters of outward observance, too, the Indians could
understand; for we read of one of them rebuking an Englishman "for
profaning the Lord's Day by felling of a tree." The Indian's notions of
religion were probably confined within this narrow compass; the notions
of some people that call themselves civilized perhaps do not extend much
further. [Sidenote: Villages of Christian Indians]
From such facts as those above cited we may infer that the early
relations of the Puritan settlers to the Algonquin tribes of New England
were by no means like the relations between white men and red men in
recent times on our western plains. During Philip's War, as we shall
see, the Puritan theory of the situation was entirely changed and our
forefathers began to act in accordance with the frontiersman's doctrine
that the good Indians are dead Indians.
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