Experience Mayhew's Indian Converts: A Cultural Edition

445 Pages·2008·2.847 MB·English

by  Experience Mayhew

ON
Experience Mayhew’s
Indian Converts
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ON
Experience Mayhew’s
Indian Converts
A Cultural Edition
Edited and with an introduction by
Laura Arnold Leibman
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS
Amherst
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a volume in the series
Native Americans of the Northeast: Culture, History, and the Contemporary
Copyright © 2008 by University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
LC 2008014530
ISBN 978-1-55849-661-3 (paper); 660-6 (library cloth)
Designed by Sally Nichols
Set in Monotype Bell by BookComp, Inc.
Printed and bound by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mayhew, Experience, 1673– 1758.
Experience Mayhew’s Indian converts : a cultural edition / edited and with an
introduction by Laura Arnold Leibman.
p. cm. — (Native Americans of the Northeast: culture, history, and the
contemporary)
New scholarly edition of Indian converts by Experience Mayhew published in
1727.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55849-661-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-55849-660-6 (library
cloth : alk. paper)
1. Indians of North America—Biography. 2. Indians of North America—
Massachusetts—Martha’s Vineyard. 3. Martha’s Vineyard (Mass.)—History.
4. Wampanoag Indians—Missions. 5. Mayhew family. I. Leibman, Laura
Arnold. II. Mayhew, Experience, 1673–1758 Indian converts. III. Title.
E78.M4M64 2008
970.004'97—dc22 2008014530
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.
Frontispiece. Jane Wormsley [Wamsley], a Wampanoag Baptist Preacher at Gay Head
(1860). From Porte Crayon, illustrator, “Summer in New England,” Harper’s New
Monthly Magazine, September 1860.
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Contents
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List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Experience Mayhew Timeline xii
Introduction 1
Indian Converts 77
Dedication 79
The Author’s Preface to the Reader 81
An Attestation by The United Ministers of Boston 85
The Introduction 91
Chap. I. 95
Containing an Account of several Indian MINISTERS, both
Pastors, Ruling Elders, and Deacons, who have been justly
esteem’d godly Persons.
Chap. II. 170
Containing an Account of several Indian MEN, not in any
Church Offi ce, who have appeared to be truly good Men.
Chap. III. 227
Containing an Account of several Indian WOMEN that have
been justly esteemed Religious.
Chap. IV. 305
Early Piety exemplifi ed, in an Account of several Young Men,
Maids, and Children, that have appeared to be truly pious.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THOSE ENGLISH MINISTERS
Who have successively presided over the Work of Gospelizing
the Indians on the Vineyard, and adjacent Islands: By whose
special Care and Labour it was at fi rst begun, and has been
carried on and continued down to this Day. 355
Appendix 383
A Brief Account of the State of the Indians on Martha’s Vineyard, and the small
Islands Adjacent in Duke’s-Country, from the Year 1694 to 1720.
Bibliography 391
Index 405
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Illustrations
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Figure 1. Map of Martha’s Vineyard with Towns and Sachemships xvii
Figure 2. Map of Colonial New England with Algonquian
Confederacies xvii
Figure 3. The Missionary Mayhews and Other Prominent Mayhews 7
Figure 4. Gravestone of Experience Mayhew’s Granddaughter,
Reliance McGee (1754) 16
Figure 5. “Divine examples of God’s severe judgements” (1671) 40
Figure 6. John White, “The Tovvne of Secota” (1585–1593) 45
Figure 7. Paul Revere, “Philip. KING of Mount Hope” 47
Figure 8. Page from the New-England primer (1762) 70
Figure 9. Wampanoag School at Gay Head (1860) 71
Figure 10. Frontispiece from Experience Mayhew’s Narratives of
the Lives of Pious Indian Women (1830) 228
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Acknowledgments
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No work of scholarship is possible without the hard work of other scholars.
This edition was feasible only because of the prior perseverance of David
Silverman, Jerome Segel, Andrew Pierce, Charles Edward Banks, and of
course Experience Mayhew. I am also profoundly indebted to Michael
Colacurio: almost every useful idea I have about the Puritans can be traced
back to Michael’s tutelage, though any mistakes are my own. In addition I
thank Peter Steinberger, Eric Sundquist, Gary Nash, Lisa Gordis, Kathryn
Lofton, Tobias Vanderhoop, Gordon Sayre, Chris Moses, Kent Coupe, Joanna
Burgess, Alice Beckett, Andrew Nusbaum, and Sabrina Gogol. The staffs at
the Newberry Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, Martha’s Vineyard
Historical Society, Library of Congress, Massachusetts Archives, Aquinnah
Cultural Center, Plimouth Plantation, New England Historic Genealogical
Society, American Antiquarian Society, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthro-
pology, Harvard University, and the John Carter Brown University Library
generously answered my questions and allowed me to examine their collec-
tions. Funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Ruby
Grant, and Reed College provided means to travel to these collections. Special
thanks go to Sara Berkelhamer and Bob and Trudy Josephson for hosting
me in Boston and Cape Cod. My deepest gratitude belongs to my husband,
Eric Leibman, ?tmnh hn ohbunt ahtu usxj aht treh ost cr :v,t khj aht hf.
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