The Praying Indians of Natick are a community of Indigenous Christians, known as Praying Indians, established in the 17th century in the town of Natick, Massachusetts. Natick has been translated as "A Place of Hills,"Bacon, A History of Natick, p. 1 or "the Place of (our) Searching."
First settled in 1651 through the missionary efforts of Puritan minister John Eliot and the New England Company,Bacon, A History of Natick, pg. 12 Natick was the first and most prominent of several Praying Towns designed to Christianize Native American populations in New England. The praying town gathered Indigenous Christian converts from Massachusett, Nipmuc, and Pawtucket groups into a European-style settlement with Puritan moral codes.
Although indigenous cultural practices were discouraged, native language use was allowed to continue. As Eliot's missionary efforts evolved, the Natick dialect of the Massachusett language became historically prominent as the first Algonquian language to be printed, and as the language of the first Bible published in the Western Hemisphere.
The community was significantly disrupted by King Philip's War (1675–1676), during which Praying Indians faced displacement, internment, and hostility from both colonists and their non-Christianized indigenous foes. In the decades following the war, guardians appointed by the colonial authorities eroded Native autonomy, and the influx of white residents turned Natick into a patchwork of privately owned properties. By the mid-19th century, an official state report declared the Natick tribe "near extinct," noting only two surviving families, and the last common lands were sold.
Today, though not officially recognized by the federal government, several organizations continue to claim descent from the original Praying Indians of Natick.
History
Praying town establishment (1646-1675)
Puritan colonists established Praying Towns in New England from 1646 to 1675. These served as refuges to Christian Native Americans, whose communities had been ravaged by infectious disease, warfare, and encroachment by white settlers.
The establishment of the Praying towns accomplished several goals. It helped facilitate the goals of Christianization and acculturation as it allowed for easier distribution of the Massachusett-language translations of Eliot's Bible and other works. The inhabitants were forced to observe the eight tenements of the "Leaf of Rules" distributed in the Bibles which forbid Indian cultural norms such as consenting premarital sex, cracking lice between teeth, avoidance of agriculture by men, and reinforced adoption of European clothing and hairstyles.Copy of Eliot's "Leaf of Rules" in English in Prindle, T. (1994) "Praying towns." Nipmuc Association of Connecticut. Retrieved 26 September 2021. For the colonial government, it brought the Indians fully under the control of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with the Praying towns occupying a status similar to autonomous English colonial settlements. The aboriginal power structures remained somewhat intact, as Native peoples recognized both the traditional power systems, but the chiefs and the tribal élite maintained it by adopting the roles of administrators, clerks, translators, teachers, constables, jurors and tax collectors. The confinement benefited both the desires of Eliot and the colony, and Eliot was often accompanied by Daniel Gookin, the Superintendent to the Indians appointed to ensure cordial relations with the Indians and their adherence to the colonial laws, during his tours of the Praying towns. Similar settlements were established in the Plymouth Colony, such as the Massachusett Praying towns of Titicut and Mattakeeset.Cogley, R. W. (1999). pp. 111–113.
The Massachusett benefited from clear titles of common land where they could plant, hunt and forage, and this likely attracted even more converts since the Praying towns established safe zones away from constant settler encroachment, requests for sales of land and harassment. The Massachusett also were able to revive their prestige, which they had long held prior to colonial settlement. Many of the Praying towns were established by Native missionaries drawn from Natick's old powerful families, affording them much respect in their adopted communities. The Massachusett began to replace the language of the Nipmuc and greatly leveled dialectal differences across the Massachusett-speaking area, due to the spread of Indian missionaries, but also because Massachusett became the language of literacy, prayer, and administration, likely facilitated by its historic use as a regional second language and backed by its use in the translation of the Bible. The Massachusett leaders were also closer to the colonial authorities and thus often chosen to spread official messages, restoring the old power dynamic vis-à-vis other tribes.
Life in the Praying towns was a mixture of European and Indian customs. Indians living there were forced to adopt Puritan dress, hairstyles and habits of modesty along with other cultural norms. They were encouraged to learn European methods of woodworking, carpentry, animal husbandry, and agriculture and Eliot arranged for many Indians to apprentice under several colonists to learn these skills. Natick had an independent congregation with a Christian church, but the services were conducted in Massachusett with Indian preachers and the parishioners were called by Native drumming. The Praying Indians maintained many aspects of their culture, such as foraging and hunting and food preferences but melded them with the Puritan culture and religion they were forced to adopt.
Natick Bible
John Eliot learned the Massachusett language enough to preach to regional tribes, and working with several bilingual indigenous assistants, including Job Nesuton of Natick, translated the Bible into that language. They first translated the New Testament into the Massachusett language, which was published in 1661. Then the entire Bible was published in that language in 1685.
Lawsuits and land disputes The truce between the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth and local Native peoples was frequently tested. The submission of the local chiefs to the respective colonial governments and adoption of Christianity allowed the Indians to seek redress in the colonial judiciary and removed one of the prejudices against them. The Praying Indians of Natick were brought to court several times by groups of colonists from Dedham, Massachusetts that claimed some of the land, but with Eliot's assistance, most of these attempts failed. Most of the time, however, the Indians failed, as some of the Indian interpreters and chiefs ceded lands to curry favor from the colonists to maintain special privileges, such as the Nipmuc John Wampas, who betrayed the Nipmuc and Massachusett people by selling land to the settlers to which he had no claim, but these sales were upheld in later court challenges. The Pawtucket sachem Wenepoykin, son of Nanepashemet and Squaw Sachem of Mistick, through kinship and family ties laid claim to much of Massachusett territory, and tried several times to petition the courts for lands lost in the turbulence of the 1633 epidemic that took both of his brothers to no avail, with most cases simply dismissed.Russel, F. (2018). An Early History of Malden. Charleston, SC: The History Press.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a series of harsh measures that earned the ire of the Native peoples. All Indians, Christian and traditional religionists, were forced to observe the Christian Sabbath and were restricted from a wide range of activities, such as hunting, fishing and farming or entering any colonial settlements, and heavy fines were imposed on those caught practicing the shamanic rights or consulting traditional spiritual leaders or healers. Alcohol, firearms and many luxury goods were banned. By this time, the Indians had already integrated into the economic system of the settlers, but were dealt a heavy blow as laws were passed restricting trade to appointed colonial agents, which gave the colonial government a monopoly on trade with the Indians and made Indian farmers less competitive as they were not allowed direct access to colonial markets. New laws allowed open settlement to any 'unimproved' lands, essentially anything that was not fenced in or with crops grown on it, threatening the wooded areas and meadows cleared by fire that were used for hunting and cultivation areas that were allowed to fallow.Massachusetts General Court 1814 pp. 33–802
King Philip's War (1675-1676)
The outbreak of King Philip's War from 1675 until 1676 was disastrous for both the Indians and the English colonists, with enormous bloodshed and destruction on both sides. The Massachusett, all of whom had become Praying Indians confined to Praying towns, remained neutral during the war but suffered heavy casualties. The Praying Indians were attacked in their fields and harassed by neighboring colonists who had become overwhelmed with panic, hysteria, and anti-Indian sentiment. The Praying towns were also targets of Metacomet's forces, raided for supplies and persuading or using force, bringing some of the Praying Indians to join. To appease the colonists, the Praying Indians accepted confinement to the Praying towns, curfews, increased colonial supervision, and surrendered their weapons.
Aftermath of King Philip's War (1676–1743)
King Philip's War significantly disrupted Indian life in New England. The Praying Indian survivors of internment, any Indians lucky enough to have been pardoned and any survivors regrouped at Natick, where they divided up among their pre-existing tribal groupings and pressed for a return to their lands. By 1681, the Indians were allowed to return to their respective homes but continued to face harassment, retaliatory attacks, local killings, and abuse to their lands and property by neighboring colonists.
The Indian missions were considered a failure. Natick absorbed many of the surrounding tribes. Okommakamesit was sold by the colonial authorities in 1685, as the colonial judiciary upheld forged deeds of questionable and sales, forcing most of the Nipmuc and Pawtucket of the community to settle in Natick. Wonalancet (c.1619—1697), a Pennacook sachem or leader, joined his nephew in Natick.
Disease, outmigration, and loss of land shrunk many of the former Indian communities below carrying capacity, and most young people often left for Natick to seek land, spouses, and employment.O'Brien, J. (1997). Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790. pp. 77–84. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Most of the young Nipmuc had left Nashoba for Natick for these reasons.Boudillion, D. (2009, Dec.). "Nashoba Hill: The Hill that Roars, Vision Quest and Nashoba Praying Indian Village." Littleton History Field Reports. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
The autonomy of the Indians was eroded by the dismantling of their lands. Natick was able to retain its local leadership, with the Natick elite serving the administrative roles of the community and holding the positions of the Indian church with daily affairs conducted in the Massachusett language. This continued until 1721, when record-keeping switched to English, and Oliver Peabody, a monolingual English-speaker, became the minister of the Indian church. Peabody used his position to encourage the Indians to sell land, in part so as to increase the amount of white settlers living in the Indian enclave. By the 1750s, Natick had ceased to be an Indian town, as it was more a messy patchwork of Indian common lands and white-owned property in between, and the town's governance and church had switched to English and was dominated by white colonists, although a few Indians continued to serve the church.Goddard, I., & Bragdon, K. (1988). (185 ed., pp. 57, 71-72, 270-273).
Natick Indian Identity