The Cherokee NationThe Trail of Tears occupies a special place in Native American history. Many tribes have similar incidents from their history, as this book shows, such as the CHICKASAW, CHOCTAW, CREEK, and SEMINOLE. Yet this event, the name of which originally was applied to the Cherokee, has come to symbolize the land cessions and relocations of all Indian peoples, just as the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, involving the SIOUX (DAKOTA, LAKOTA, NAKOTA), has come to represent the numerous massacres of Indian innocents. When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Cherokee occupied a large expanse of territory in the Southeast. Their homeland included mountains and valleys in the southern part of the Appalachian chain. They had villages in the Great Smoky Mountains of presentday western North Carolina and the Blue Ridge of present-day western Virginia and West Virginia, as well as in the Great Valley of present-day eastern Tennessee. They also lived in the Appalachian high country of present-day South Carolina and Georgia, and as far south as present-day northern Alabama. Cherokee people also probably lived in territory now part of Kentucky. At one time, they had more than 60 villages. In Native American studies, this region of North America is classified within the Southeast Culture Area (see SOUTHEAST INDIANS). The Cherokee were the southernmost Iroquoian-speaking people. Their ancestral relatives, the IROQUOIS (HAUDENOSAUNEE), as well as most other Iroquoians, lived in what is defined as the Northeast Culture Area. The Cherokee Native name is Ani-Yun’wiya, meaning “principal people.” The name Cherokee, pronounced CHAIR-uh-kee, probably is derived from the Choctaw name for them, Tsalagi, meaning “people of the land of caves”. The LENNI LENAPE (DELAWARE) version of the same name is Tallageni. Some linguists theorize, however, that Cherokee is derived from the Creek name for them, Tisolki, or Tciloki, meaning “people of a different speech.”
Lifeways
The Cherokee placed their villages along rivers and streams, where they farmed the rich black soil. Their crops included corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, and tobacco. They grew three different kinds of corn, or maize—one to roast, one to boil, and a third to grind into flour for cornbread. They also took advantage of the wild plant foods in their homeland, including edible roots, crab apples, berries, persimmons, cherries, grapes, hickory nuts, walnuts, and chestnuts. The rivers and streams also provided food for the Cherokee, who used spears, traps, and hooks and lines to catch different kinds of fish. Another method included poisoning an area of water to bring the unconscious fish to the surface.
The Cherokee were also skilled hunters. They hunted large animals, such as deer and bear, with bows and arrows.To get close to the deer, they wore entire deerskins, including antlers, and used deer calls to lure the animals to them .The Cherokee hunted smaller game, such as raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and turkeys, with blowguns made from the hollowed-out stems of cane plants. Through these long tubes, the hunters blew small wood-and-feather darts with deadly accuracy from as far away as 60 feet. The products of the hunt were also used for clothing. In warm weather, Cherokee men dressed in buckskin breechcloths and women in buckskin skirts. In cold weather, men wore buckskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins; women wore buckskin capes. Other capes, made from turkey and eagle feathers along with strips of bark, were used by Cherokee headmen for ceremonial purposes. Their leaders also wore feather headdresses on special occasions. Ceremonies took place inside circular and domed council houses or domed seven-sided temples. The temples were usually located at the summit of flat-topped mounds in the central village plaza, a custom inherited from the earlier MOUND BUILDERS of the Southeast. Cherokee families, as is the case with other people of the Southeast, typically had two houses—a large summer home and a smaller winter home. The summer houses, rectangular in shape with peaked roofs, had pole frameworks, cane and clay walls, and bark or thatch roofs. The winter houses, which doubled as sweathouses, were placed over a pit with a cone-shaped roof of poles and earth. Cherokee villages were usually surrounded with walls of vertical logs, or palisades, for protection from hostile tribes. The Cherokee practiced a variety of crafts, including plaited basketwork and stamped pottery. They also carved, out of wood and gourds, Booger masks, representing evil spirits. And they shaped stone pipes into animal figures, attached to wooden stems. Among the many Cherokee agricultural, hunting, and healing rituals, the most important was the Green Corn Ceremony. This annual celebration, shared by other tribes of the Southeast, such as the Creek, took place at the time of the ripening of the last corn crop. Another important event for the Cherokee, shared with other Southeast peoples, was the game of lacrosse. This game was played between clans from the same villages as well as between clans from different villages. Chunkey, or chenco, a game played by throwing sticks at rolling stones, also was popular. With regard to political and social organization, the many Cherokee villages, about 100, were allied in a loose confederacy. Within each village, there were two chiefs. The White Chief, also called the Most Beloved Man, helped the villagers make decisions concerning farming, lawmaking, and disputes between individuals, families, or clans. He also played an important part in religious ceremonies, along with the Cherokee shamans. The Red Chief gave advice concerning warfare. One such decision was choosing who would be the War Woman, an honored woman chosen to accompany warriors on their war parties. The War Woman did not fight but helped feed the men, offered them council, and decided which prisoners would live or die. The Red Chief also was in charge of the lacrosse games, which the Cherokee called the “little war.”
Colonial Years
Early explorers to encounter the Cherokee were impressed by their highly advanced culture. Hernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer who traveled throughout much of the Southeast, was the first European to come into contact with the Cherokee, when he arrived in their territory from the south in 1540. In later years, occasional French traders worked their way into Cherokee territory from the north. But English traders from the east began appearing regularly after England permanently settled Virginia, starting with the Jamestown colony of 1607 and then, before long, the Carolina colonies.
In the French and Indian wars, lasting from 1689 to 1763, the Cherokee generally sided with the British against the French, providing warriors for certain engagements. In these conflicts, they sometimes found themselves fighting side by side with other Indian tribes that had been their traditional enemies, such as the Iroquois. In 1760, however, the Cherokee revolted against their British allies in the Cherokee War. The precipitating incident involved a dispute over wild horses in what is now West Virginia. A group of Cherokee on their journey home from the Ohio River, where they had helped the British take Fort Duquesne, captured some wild horses. Some Virginia frontiersmen claimed the horses as their own and attacked the Cherokee, killing 12. Then they sold the horses and collected bounties on the Cherokee scalps, which they claimed they had taken from Indians allied with the French. On learning of this incident, various Cherokee bands, led by Chief Oconostota, began a series of raids on non- Indian settlements. The Cherokee warriors managed to capture Fort Loudon in the Great Valley of the Appalachians. The war lasted two years, before the British troops defeated the militant bands by burning their villages and crops. Even then, many insurgents continued to fight from their mountain hideouts for a period of time. Eventually, war-weary and half-starving, the holdouts surrendered. In the peace pact, the Cherokee were forced to give up a large portion of their eastern lands lying closest to British settlements. In spite of the Cherokee War, the Cherokee supported the British against the rebels in the American Revolution of 1775–83. Most of their support consisted of sporadic attacks on outlying American settlements. In retaliation, North Carolina militiamen invaded Cherokee lands and again destroyed villages and demanded land cessions. During the colonial years, the Cherokee also suffered from a number of epidemics of diseases passed to them by non-Indians. The worst outbreaks—from the dreaded smallpox that killed so many Native peoples—occurred in 1738 and 1750.
Tribal Transformation
Despite these various setbacks, the Cherokee rebuilt their lives. They learned from the settlers around them, adopting new methods of farming and business. They became faithful allies of the Americans, even fighting with them under Andrew Jackson in the Creek War of 1813. A Cherokee chief named Junaluska personally saved Jackson’s life from a tomahawk-swinging Creek warrior at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. In 1820, the Cherokee established among themselves a republican form of government, similar to that of the United States. In 1827, they founded the Cherokee Nation under a constitution with an elected principal chief, a senate, and a house of representatives. Much of the progress among the Cherokee resulted from the work of Sequoyah, also known as George Gist. In 1809, he began working on a written version of the Cherokee language so that his people could have a written constitution, official records, books, and newspapers . Over a 12-year period, he devised a written system that reduced the Cherokee language to 85 characters representing all the different sounds. Sequoyah is the only person in history to invent singlehandedly an entire alphabet (or a syllabary, because the characters represent syllables). In 1821, he finished his vast project. In 1827, tribal leaders wrote down their constitution. And in 1828, the first Cherokee newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, was published in their language.
The Trail of Tears
Despite the new Cherokee way of life, the settlers wanted the Indians’ lands. The discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, helped influence government officials to call for the relocation of the Cherokee, along with other eastern Indians. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act to relocate the eastern tribes to an Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Despite the fact that the principal chief of the Cherokee, the great orator John Ross, passionately argued and won the Cherokee case before the Supreme Court of the United States; despite the fact that Junaluska, who hadsaved Jackson’s life, personally pleaded with the president for his people’s land; despite the fact that such great Americans as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Davy Crockett supported the Cherokee claims; still, President Jackson ordered the eastern Indians’ removal. And so began the Trail of Tears.
The state of Georgia began forcing the Cherokee to sell their lands for next to nothing. Cherokee homes and possessions were plundered. Whites destroyed the printing press of the Cherokee Phoenix because it published articles opposing Indian removal. Soldiers began rounding up Cherokee families and taking them to internment camps in preparation for the journey westward. With little food and unsanitary conditions at these hastily built stockades, many Cherokee died. In the meantime, some tribal members escaped to the mountains of North Carolina, where they successfully hid out from the troops. The first forced trek westward began in spring 1838 and lasted into the summer. On the 800-mile journey, travelers suffered because of the intense heat. The second mass exodus took place in the fall and winter of 1838–39 during the rainy season; the wagons bogged down in the mud, and then came freezing temperatures and snow. On both journeys, many died from disease and inadequate food and blankets. The soldiers drove their prisoners on at a cruel pace, not even allowing them to bury their dead properly. Nor did they protect Cherokee families from attacks by bandits. During the period of confinement, plus the two separate trips, about 4,000 Cherokee died, almost a quarter of their total number. More Cherokee died after arrival in the Indian Territory because of epidemics and continuing shortages of food. During the 1830s, other Southeast tribes endured similar experiences, including the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole.
The Indian Territory
The Indian Territory was supposed to be a permanent homeland for various tribes. Originally, the promised region stretched from the state boundaries of Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa to the 100th meridian, about 300 miles at the widest point. Nonetheless, with increasing non-Indian settlement west of the Mississippi in the mid1800s, the Indian Territory was reduced again and again. In 1854, by an act of Congress, the northern part of the Indian Territory became the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which later became states. Starting in 1866 after the Civil War, tribes living in those regions were resettled on lands to the south, supposedly reserved for the Southeast tribes, now known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” During the 1880s, the Boomers arrived—white home-seekers squatting on Indian reservations. Various white interests—railroad and bank executives, plus other developers—lobbied Congress for the opening of more Indian lands to settlement.
Assimilation and Allotment
In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act (or the Dawes Severalty Act). Under this law, certain Indian reservations held by tribes were to be divided and allotted to heads of Native American families. Some politicians believed that the law would help motivate individuals to develop the land. They also believed it would bring about the assimilation of Indians into the mainstream American culture. But others acted in their own interest, since it was much easier to take advantage of individuals than of whole tribes. Many of the same people advocated stamping out Indian culture and religion and sending Indian children to white-run boarding schools. This period in United States Indian policy sometimes is referred to as the Assimilation and Allotment period. By 1889, 2 million acres had been bought from the Indians, usually at ridiculously low prices, and thrown open to non-Indian settlement.
The Oklahoma Land
Run took place that year, with settlers lining up at a starting point to race for choice pieces. Those who cheated and entered the lands open for settlement were called “sooners.” In 1890, Oklahoma Territory was formed from these lands. Cherokee and Choctaw leaders refused allotment and took their case to federal courts, as John Ross had done years before. In reaction, Congress passed the Curtis Act of 1898, designed to dissolve their tribal governments and tribal courts and extend land Allotment policy to them against their wishes. Piece by piece, the Indian lands continued to be taken. In 1905, the Five Civilized Tribes proposed the creation of a separate Indian state known as Sequoyah to the federal government. Legislation was submitted to Congress but was not enacted. Oklahoma, all of which had once been Indian land, became a state in 1907. During this period, in 1924, the federal government passed the Citizenship Act, conferring citizenship on all Native Americans. Two states—Arizona and New Mexico—delayed giving Indians voting rights until much later.
Restoration and Reorganization
In 1934, with the Indian Reorganization Act (or the Wheeler-Howard Act), the policies of Assimilation and Allotment ended. This was the start of what is sometimes referred to as the Tribal Restoration and Reorganization period, sponsored by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his commissioner of Indian affairs, John Collier. The Cherokee and other Native peoples began to rediscover their cultural heritage, which the assimilationists had tried to take away, and to reorganize their tribal leadership into vital and effective governing bodies. Yet those tribes who underwent allotment never regained the lands lost to whites. Remaining Indian lands in Oklahoma are not called reservations, as most tribally held pieces are in other states, but rather Indian trust areas. Some are tribally owned and some are allotted to families or individuals. Yet by an act of Congress in 1936, the lands are protected from outside speculators.
Termination and Urbanization
The federal government went through other phases in its policy toward Indians. In the 1950s, some politicians sought to end the special protective relationship between the government and Indian tribes (see MENOMINEE). Indians in Oklahoma and elsewhere were encouraged to move to cities in order to join the economic mainstream. This phase of federal Indian policy is referred to as the Termination period.
Self-Determination
Termination as a policy failed. The Cherokee and other tribes knew that their best hope for a good life in modern times was tribal unity and cultural renewal as called for in the earlier policy of Restoration and Reorganization. Since the 1960s, the federal Indian policy has been one of tribal Self-Determination, which means Indian self-government and strong tribal identity.
Two Homelands
The Cherokee who make their home in the West are centered at Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Some of the western Cherokee have made money from oil and other minerals found on their lands. A famous American humorist by the name of Will Rogers was a western Cherokee. He gained a wide audience in the 1920s and 1930s through radio, movies, books, and newspapers. He was called the “cowboy philosopher.”
Cherokee still live in the East too, in North Carolina, descendants of those who hid out in the mountains during the relocation period. They presently hold rights to the picturesque Cherokee Reservation in the Great Smoky Mountains in the western part of the state. The eastern Cherokee operate a cooperative artists’ and craftspeoples’ organization known as Qualla; its members make crafts sold in stores all over North America. The Cherokee also run a lumber business, motels, and shops and programs for tourists. The Cherokee lease some of these businesses to whites. In 1984, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Eastern Band of Cherokees held a joint council for the first time in almost 150 years. The groups now meet in council every two years.
In 1985, after having served as deputy chief, Wilma Mankiller became the first modern-day woman to become principal chief of a major Native American tribe, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, when Ross Swimmer resigned. She completed the remaining two years of his term, then won reelection in 1987 and again in 1991. Mankiller since has become a spokesperson and author on both Native American and women’s issues. She wrote Mankiller: A Chief and Her People (with Michael Wallis; 1993), and she coedited The Reader’s Companion to the History of Women in America (1998). Because of health problems, Mankiller decided not to run for reelection in 1995. In September 2005, the Cherokee Nation hosted the State of Sequoyah Centennial History Conference at the Cherokee Casino and Resort in Catoosa, Oklahoma. Wilma Mankiller was one of the five commissioners hosting the event. Numerous other Cherokee groups maintaining tribal identity are located in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Missouri, and Oregon.
Source: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES by CARL WALDMAN
Quotes of the Cherokee
"We are now about to take our leave and kind farewell to our native land, the country that the Great Spirit gave our Fathers, we are on the eve of leaving that country that gave us birth...it is with sorrow we are forced by the white man to quit the scenes of our childhood... we bid farewell to it and all we hold dear." ~ Charles Hicks, Tsalagi (Cherokee) Vice Chief on the Trail of Tears, August 4, 1838"Many proposals have been made to us to adopt your laws, your religion, your manners and your customs. We would be better pleased with beholding the good effects of these doctrines in your own practices, than with hearing you talk about them". ~Old Tassel, Chief of the Tsalagi (Cherokee)
"Whole Indian Nations have melted away like snowballs in the sun before the white man's advance. They leave scarcely a name of our people except those wrongly recorded by their destroyers. Where are the Delewares? They have been reduced to a mere shadow of their former greatness.
We had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Tsalagi (Cherokee) land. They wish to have that usurpation sanctioned by treaty. When that is gained, the same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Tsalagi (Cherokees). New cessions will be asked.
Finally the whole country, which the Tsalagi (Cherokees) and their fathers have so long occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of the Ani Yvwiya, The Real People, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek refuge in some distant wilderness. There they will be permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the advancing banners of the same greedy host. Not being able to point out any further retreat for the miserable Tsalagi (Cherokees), the extinction of the whole race will be proclaimed.
Should we not therefore run all risks, and incur all consequences, rather than to submit to further loss of our country? Such treaties may be alright for men who are too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will hold our land." ~Chief Dragging Canoe, Chickamauga Tsalagi (Cherokee)
"God Invented baloney so some people could be full of it." "Money may talk, but it still hasn't learned to speak Cherokee." ~Jay Red Eagle (Cherokee)
"I believe it is in the power of the Indians unassisted, but united and determined, to hold their country. We cannot expect to do this without serious losses and many privations, but we possess the spirit of our fathers, and are resolved never to be enslaved by an inferior race, and trodden under the feet of an ignorant and insolent foe, we, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Tsalagi (Cherokees), never can be conquered..."~Confederate General Stand Waitie, Tsalagi (Cherokee)
"By peace our condition has been improved in the pursuit of civilized life." ~John Ross, Principal Chief
"You say: Why do not the Indians till the ground and live as we do? May we not ask, why do the white people do not hunt and live as we do? The Great God of Heaven has given each their lands... he has stocked yours with hog, ours with bear; yours with sheep, ours with deer. he has indeed given you an advantage, in that your cattle are tame and domestic while ours are wild and demand not only a larger space for range, but art to hunt and kill them." -Corn Tassel, Cherokee, 1785
"The Great Spirit is displeased with you for accepting the ways of the white people. You can see for yourselves, your hunting is gone and you are planting the corn of the white men...You yourselves can see that the white people are entirely different beings from us; we are made from Red Clay." -Tsali, Cherokee Medicine Man
"I have a little boy...If he is not dead, tell him the last words of his father were that he must never go beyond the Father of Waters, but die in the land of his birth. It is sweet to die in one's native land and be buried by the margins of one's native stream." - Tsali, Cherokee Medicine Man awating execution, 1838
Born: Peacham ,Vermont
Samuel Worcester was the 7th generation of pastors in his family, dating back to when his family lived in England Peacham , Vermont
Graduating with honors in 1819 he attended Andover Theological Seminary (now Andover Newton Theological Seminary) on the site of Phillips Academy in Andover , Massachusetts Andover
Cherokee Missionary
During his studies, Worcester Worcester Worcester
The influence of Boudinot cannot be understated. The two become close friends in the Northeast. When Sequoyah developed the ""Talking Leaves." Boudinot asked Worcester
Using his missionary connection, Worcester secured funds to build a printing office, buy the printing press and ink, and cast the alphabet's characters (since the "talking leaves" were new, no type existed). He contracted for a house to be built at New Echota and moved there in November, 1827 (This date is from letters he wrote to the missions board. It frequently appears as 1828) The first edition of the Cherokee Phoenix rolled off the presses at New Echota on Februar 21,1828. From this point on, Worcester
Fighting Removal
The westward push of settlers had begun to dramatically affect the Cherokee. These valiant American Indians, with the help of Worcester, his former teacher Jeremiah Evarts and the American Board, formulated a plan to fight the encroachment in court, their last hope. No other civil authority would support the Cherokee right to live on the land they called home for hundreds of years. The board hired former U.S. Attorney General William Wirt to defend George Tassel, a Cherokee convicted of murder in Hall County. A sympathetic Chief Justice John Marshall rejected the suit on technical grounds, but privately instructed Wirt in presenting an acceptable case.
Shortly after the failure of the first trial Georgia Governor George Gilmer and the state legislature officially adopted a policy of forcible Indian removal and began plans for the Land Lottery of 1832. Worcester and 11 other men of the cloth met at New Echota and published a resolution in protest of a law the assembly had passed requiring all whites to get a license to work on Native American land.Worcester
Shortly after the failure of the first trial Georgia Governor George Gilmer and the state legislature officially adopted a policy of forcible Indian removal and began plans for the Land Lottery of 1832. Worcester and 11 other men of the cloth met at New Echota and published a resolution in protest of a law the assembly had passed requiring all whites to get a license to work on Native American land.
Worcester v. Georgia
Gilmer ordered the militia to arrest Worcester and the others who signed the document. Worcestor was arrested on July 7, 1831 and forced to walk with the other missionaries to Lawrenceville , Georgia. . Quickly brought to trial and convicted, Worcester
William Wirt again argued the case and in late 1832 the Supreme Court ruled the Cherokee Nation was independent and under the Treaty Clause of the Constitution, all dealings with the Cherokee fell under federal jurisdiction. The ruling was ignored by Gilmer and President Andrew Jackson, who continued to hold the men prisoners.
Worcester heads West
Wilson Lumpkin assumed the governorship early the next year and faced with the Nullification crisis in neighboring
After moving to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma ) Worcester Worcester
Personal Life
Samuel Worcester married Ann Orr while a student at Andover
David Brainerd1718-1747
Missionary to the American Indians. David Brainerd was born April 20, 1718, at Hatham, Connecticut. His early years were spent in an atmosphere of piety though his father died when David was nine and his mother died five years later. As a young man he was inclined to be melancholy, with the welfare of his soul ever before him. His entire youth was divided between farming, reading the Bible, and praying.
Early in life, he felt the call to the ministry and looked forward almost impatiently to the day when he could preach the Gospel. His formal education consisted of three years at Yale, where he was an excellent student until ill health forced him to return home. He completed his studies privately until he was fitted and licensed to preach by the Association of Ministers in Fairfield County, Connecticut. He turned down the offers of two pastorates in order to preach the Gospel to the American Indians.
Jonathan Edwards wrote of him, "And, having put his hand to the plow, he looked not back, and gave himself, heart, soul, and mind, and strength, to his chosen mission with unfaltering purpose, with apostolic zeal, with a heroic faith that feared no danger and surmounted every obstacle, and with an earnestness of mind that wrought wonders on savage lives and whole communities."
Brainerd did his greatest work by prayer. He was in the depths of the forests alone, unable to speak the language of the Indians. But he spent whole days in prayer, praying simply that the power of the Holy Ghost might come upon him so greatly that the Indians would not be able to refuse the Gospel message. Once he preached through a drunken interpreter, a man so intoxicated that he could hardly stand up. Yet scores were converted through that sermon. Plagued by ill health and the hardships of the primitive conditions, he died at the early age of 29, at the home of Jonathan Edwards, to whose daughter he was engaged.
After his death, William Carey read his diary and went to India. Robert McCheyne read it and went to the Jews. Henry Martyn read it and went to India. Though it was not written for publication, his diary influenced hundreds to yearn for the deeper life of prayer and communion with God, and also moved scores of men to surrender for missionary work.
Where is the hope found only in Jesus Christ?
Fifteen Fast Facts on Native Americans
- Estimates of the pre-Columbus Indian population range from 1 to 30 million, depending upon the criteria. [Conservatively, many use the use figure of 10-12 million.]
- By 1900 there were only 237,000 Native people left in the United States.
- In the early 1800s, there were an estimated 260,000 Indians in California. By 1900, there were 20,000.
- Today there are nearly 2 million self-declared Native Americans. There are another 1.3 million in Canada.
- According to the 1990 Census, 23 percent of the Native population live on reservations and 77 percent live in urban areas.
- There are 557 federally recognized tribes or nations and 220 of those Tribes are in Alaska.
- 150 Tribes are in some stage of petitioning for Federal Recognition. 30 are currently state recognized.
- Approximately 200 tribes have become extinct.
- There are 250 different languages and dialects spoken on a daily basis. [Apache and Lakota, or Navajo and Mohawk are as different as Norwegian is from Japanese.]
- Less than 10 percent of contemporary Indians speak their native languages.
- There are 300 federally recognized reservations in the United States.
- Indian reservations make up less than 4 percent of the continental United States.
- 11 million acres (20 percent) within reservation boundaries are owned by non-Indians.
- Nearly one-half (46 percent) of reservation populations are non-Indians.
- Each tribe claims rights as a sovereign nation, with its own agenda and concerns. The legal ramifications are a quagmire of overlapping state and federal judicial systems.
1604-1690
John Eliot, American colonial clergyman, was born probably at Widford, Hertfordshire, England, where he was baptized on the 5th of August 1604. He was the son of Bennett Eliot, a middleclass farmer. Little is known of his boyhood and early manhood except that he took a B.A. Degree at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1622.
The first Bible printed in America was done in the native Algonquin Indian Language by John Eliot in 1663; nearly 120 years before the first English language Bible was printed in America by Robert Aitken in 1782. Eliot’s devotion to ministry to America’s natives earned him the title “Apostle to the Indians”. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson also recognized the native American “Indians” as among the most challenging of converts, when he published “The Morals of Jesus”, featuring the Parables of Jesus in one abridged volume.
It seems probable that he entered the ministry of the Established Church, but there is nothing definitely known of him until 1629—1630, when he became an assistant at the school of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, at Little Baddow, near Chelmsford. The influence of Hooker apparently determined Eliot to become a Puritan, but his connection with the school ceased in 1630, when persecutions drove Hooker into exile. The realization of the difficulties in the way of a nonconforming clergyman in England undoubtedly convinced John Eliot to emigrate to America in the autumn of 1631, where he settled first at Boston, assisting for a time at the First Church.
Eliot’s Ministry to American Indians
In November 1632, John Eliot became a teacher at the church of Roxbury, with which his connection lasted until his death. There he married Hannah Mulford, who had been betrothed to him in England, and who became his constant helper. Soon, Eliot became inspired with the idea of converting the Indians. His first step was to learn their dialects, which he did by the assistance of a young Indian whom he received into his home. With his aid he translated the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. John Eliot first successfully preached to the Indians in their own tongue at Newton in October 1646. At the third meeting several Indians declared themselves converted, and were soon followed by many others.John Eliot induced the Massachusetts General Court to set aside land for their residence. The Court did so, and also directed that two clergymen be annually elected by the clergy as preachers to the Indians. As soon as the success of Eliot’s endeavors became known, the necessary funds flowed in upon him from private sources in both Old and New England. In July 1649 parliament incorporated the “ Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England,” which supported and directed the work inaugurated by John Eliot. In 1651 the Christian Indian town founded by Eliot was removed from Nonantum to Natick, where residences, a meeting-house, and a school-house were erected, and where Eliot preached, when able, once in every two weeks as long as he lived.
John Eliot’s missionary labors encouraged others to follow in his footsteps. A second town under his direction was established at Ponkapog (Stoughton) in 1654. His success was duplicated again in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and by 1674 the unofficial census of the “praying Indians” numbered 4,000. At Eliot’s death, which occurred at Roxbury on the 21st of May 1690, the missions were at the height of their prosperity.
The Eliot Indian Language Bible
Even wider in influence and more lasting in value than his personal labors as a missionary, was Eliot’s work as a translator of the Bible and various religious works into the Massachusetts dialect of the Algonquian language. The first work completed was the Catechism, published in 1653 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first book to be printed in the Indian tongue. Several years elapsed before Eliot completed his task of translating the Bible. The New Testament was at last issued in 1661, and the Old Testament followed in 1663. The New Testament was bound with it, and thus the whole Bible was completed. To it were added a Catechism and a metrical version of the Psalms. This book was printed in 1663 at Cambridge, Mass., by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson, and was the first Bible printed in America. In 1685 appeared a second edition, in the preparation of which Eliot was assisted by the Rev. John Cotton (1640—1699), of Plymouth, who also had a wide knowledge of the Indian tongue.Many people are shocked to discover that the first Bible printed in America was not English… or any other European language. In fact, English and European language Bibles would not be printed in America until a century later! Eliot’s Bible did much more than bring the Gospel to the pagan natives who were worshiping creation rather than the Creator… it gave them literacy, as they did not have a written language of their own until this Bible was printed for them. The main reason why there were no English language Bibles printed in America until the late 1700’s, is because they were more cheaply and easily imported from England up until the embargo of the Revolutionary War.
But the kind of Bible John Eliot needed for his missionary outreach to the native American “Indians” was certainly not to be found in England, or anywhere else. It had to be created on the spot. Eliot recognized that one of the main reasons why the native Americans were considered "primitive" by European settlers, is that they did not have a written alphabet of their own. They communicated almost exclusively through spoken language, and what little writing they did was in very limited pictorial images, more like Egyptian hieroglyphics than that of any functional alphabetical language like those of Europe or Asia or Africa.
Eliot Offers the Gift of Literacy
Clearly the Word of God was something these people needed if they were to stop worshiping creation and false gods, and learn to worship the true Creator… but God’s Word could not realistically be translated effectively into their primitive pictorial drawings. So Eliot found a wonderful solution: he would give the native Americans the gift of God’s Word and also give them the gift of true literacy. He agreed to learn their spoken language, and they agreed to learn the Western world’s phonetic alphabet (how to pronounce words made up of character symbols like A, B, C, D, E, etc.) Eliot then translated the Bible into their native Algonquin tongue, phonetically using our alphabet! This way, the natives did not really even need to learn how to speak English, and they could still have a Bible that they could READ. In fact, they could go on to use their newly learned alphabet to write other books of their own, if they so desired, and build their culture as the other nations of the world had done. What a wonderful gift!Other Literary Works of John Eliot
Besides his Bible, John Eliot published at Cambridge in 1664 a translation of Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted. With the assistance of his sons he completed (1664) his well-known Indian Grammar Begun, printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1666. The Indian Primer, comprising an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer and a translation of the Larger Catechism, was published at Cambridge in 1669. In 1671 Eliot printed in English a little volume entitled Indian Dialogues, followed in 1672 by his Logick Primer, both of which were intended for the instruction of the Indians in English. His last translation was Thomas Shepard’s Sincere Convert, completed and published by Grindal Rawson in 1689.John Eliot’s literary activity, however, extended into other fields than that of Indian instruction. He was, with Richard Mather, one of the editors of the Bay Psalm Book of1640, which was the first book of any kind ever printed in America.
Praying Indian
Praying Indian is a 17th century term referring to Native Americans of New England who converted to Christianity. While many groups are referred to by this term, it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages, known as praying towns by Puritan leader John Eliot. In 1646, the General Court of Massachusetts passed an "Act for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Indians." This act and the success of Reverend John Eliot and other missionaries preaching Christianity to the New England tribes raised interest in England. In 1649 the Long Parliament passed an Ordination forming "A Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England" which raised funds to support the cause. Contributors raised approximately £12,000 pounds sterling to invest in this cause, to be used mainly in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and in New York. Reverend Eliot received financial aid from this corporation to start schools for teaching the Native Americans. The Indian nations involved appear to have included the Massachusett and the Nipmuc.
On October 28, 1646, in Nonantum (now Newton), Reverend Eliot gave his first sermon to Native Americans in their own language. This happened in the wigwam of Waban, the first convert of his tribe. Waban later offered his son to be taught the English ways and served as an interpreter.[2] By 1675 20% of New England's Natives lived in Praying Towns. Christian Indian Towns were eventually located throughout Eastern and Central Massachusetts. They included: Littleton (Nashoba), Lowell (Wamesit, initially incorporated as part of Chelmsford), Grafton (Hassanamessit), Marlborough (Okommakamesit), Hopkinton (Makunkokoag), Canton (Punkapoag), Mendon-Uxbridge (Wacentug), and Natick. Today only Natick retains its original name (a proposal to rename it "Eliot" was rejected by the Massachusetts General Court).
These towns were situated so as to serve as an outlying wall of defense for the colony. That function came to an end in 1675 during King Philip's War when residents were first confined to their villages (thus restricted from their farms and unable to feed themselves), and many were confined on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. Criticism of these towns vary in degrees. Some believe that acculturation was imposed on the Natives and they had very little choice in the matter. However, the Praying Indian communities were able to exercise self-government and to elect their own rulers (sachems) and officials, to some extent exhibiting continuity with the pre-contact social system, and used their own language as the language of administration, of which a wealth of legal and administrative documents survive. However, their self-government was gradually curtailed in the 18th and 19th centuries, and their languages also became extinct around the same time. During that period, most of the original "Praying Towns" eventually declined due to epidemics and to the fact that the communal land property of others passed out of native control. The Indian-inhabited areas were eventually transformed into "Indian districts".
Roger Williams (1603-1683)Source: www.history.com