Pioneers and Founders | Page 9

two captive English girls
she was treated with great consideration, and was much admired for her
good sense and modesty; but the other prisoners were dispersed among
the settlers to serve as slaves, and a great number of the poor creatures
were shipped off to the West India Islands to work on the sugar
plantations.
Those who had escaped the battle were hunted down by the Mohicans
and Narragansets, who continually brought their scalps in to the
English towns, and at last they were reduced to sue for peace when
only 200 braves were still living. These, with their families, were
amalgamated with the Mohicans and Narragansets, and expelled from
their former territory, on which the English settled. An annual tribute of
a length of wampum, for every male in the tribe, varying according to

age and rank, was paid to the English, and their supremacy was so
entirely established that nearly forty years of peace succeeded.
Eliot's missionary enterprise, Mather allows, was first inspired by the
"remarkable zeal of the Romish missionaries," by whom he probably
means the French Jesuits, who were working with much effect in the
settlements in Louisiana, first occupied in the time of Henri IV.
Another stimulus came from the expressions in the Royal Charter
which had granted licence for the establishment of the colony, namely,
"To win and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and
obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the
Christian faith, in our Royal intention and the Adventurers' free
profession, is the principal end of the Plantation."
That the devil himself was the Red men's master, and came to their
assistance when summoned by the incantations of their medicine men,
was the universal belief of the colonists, in corroboration of which the
following story is given:--"The Indians in their wars with us, finding a
sore inconvenience by our dogs, which would make a sad yelling if in
the night they scented the approaches of them, they sacrificed a dog to
the devil, after which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers
months ensuing."
In the intended contest Mr. Eliot began by preaching and making
collections from the English settlers, and likewise "he hires a native to
teach him this exotick language, and, with a laborious care and skill,
reduces it into a grammar, which afterwards he published. There is a
letter or two of our alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs;
though there were enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce
be found an R in their language, . . . but, if their alphabet be short, I am
sure the words composed of it are long enough to tire the patience of
any scholar in the world; they are Sesquipedalia verba, of which their
linguo is composed. For instance, if I were to translate our Loves, it
must be nothing shorter than Noowomantamoonkanunonush. Or to give
my reader a longer word,
Kremmogkodonattootummootiteaonganunnnash is, in English, our
question."

The worthy Mr. Mather adds, with a sort of apology, that, having once
found that the demons in a possessed young woman understood Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew, he himself tried them with this Indian tongue, and
"the demons did seem as if they understood it." Indeed, he thinks the
words must have been growing ever since the confusion of Babel! The
fact appears to be, that these are what are now called agglutinate
languages, and, like those of all savage tribes, in a continual course of
alteration--also often using a long periphrastic description to convey an
idea or form a name. A few familiar instances will occur, such as
Niagara, "thunder of water."
This formidable language Mr. Eliot--the anagram of whose name,
Mather appropriately observes, was Toils--mastered with the assistance
of a "pregnant-witted Indian," who had been a servant in an English
family. By the help of his natural turn for philology, he was able to
subdue this instrument to his great and holy end,--with what difficulty
may be estimated from the sentence with which he concluded his
grammar: "Prayer and pains through faith in CHRIST JESUS will do
anything."
It was in the year 1646, while Cromwell was gradually obtaining a
preponderating influence in England, and King Charles had gone to
seek protection in the Scottish army, that John Eliot, then in his
forty-second year, having thus prepared himself, commenced his
campaign.
He had had a good deal of conversation with individual Indians who
came about the settlement at Roxbury, and who perceived the
advantages of some of the English customs. They said they believed
that in forty years the Red and White men would be all one, and were
really anxious for this consummation. When Eliot declared that the
superiority of the White race came from their