John Eliot's Divine Mission: A Dialogue

An intense dialogue takes place aboard the ship Massacur, just docked on the Boston shore in late 1637. The principal speakers are Pistol Packin' Puritan Pete and Reason Ahgan, a Stranger.

Pistol Packin' Puritan Pete has just arrived in the New World for the first time, as a cousin and "military consultant" to John Eliot, who has charged himself with the task of converting the New World Indian souls to Christianity. PPP Pete is an idealistic Puritan of twenty-three.

Reason Ahgan came to New England in 1614, well before the beginning of the Puritan Great Migration, (1628-1643). Forty, he has lived among the Indians in peace, while reaping gigantic financial rewards in trapping, hunting, fishing, and trading amongst the tribes. He generally makes it his business to meet the arriving English ships to see what further financial gain might be in the offing.

We pick up their conversation:

Pistol: It is a matter of charter, sir. By the Governor and the Massachusetts Bay Company, it (the charter) says the natives shall be incited "to the knowledge and obedience of the onlie true God and Savior of mankinde".

Reason: And this conversion you would leave in the hands of John Eliot? And he not even "bishoped," but only of the Congregational Way?

Pistol: He is well schooled and has mastered the Algonkian dialect.

Reason: What do any of you (Puritans) know of the ways of the savages? Are you gods, that you should impose upon the Indian tribes your own ways?

Pistol: You blasphemy, sir! We are not gods, but the servants of God!

Reason: And this God wants you to convert the Indians?

Pistol: It is our Christian duty!

Reason: To destroy the Indian culture?

Pistol: To convert non-believing and ignorant souls! John Eliot has a divine mission.

Reason: I have lived among the Indians, and find no quarrel with them.

Pistol: Ah! You live among savages, and take on their ways without giving them the Bible? How then can you call yourself a Christian?

Reason: I make no such claim. Neither do I propagate to another.

Pistol: These savages need the faith. Have you not seen how they fight amongst themselves because they know nothing else?