Table Of Content“FOR THE GOOD OF THEIR SOULS”
a volume in the series
Native Americans of the Northeast
edited by
Colin G. Calloway, Jean M. O’Brien, and Lisa T. Brooks
“FOR THE GOOD OF THEIR SOULS”
Performing Christianity in
Eighteenth- Century Mohawk Country
WILLIAM B. HART
University of Massachusetts Press
Amherst and Boston
Copyright © 2020 by University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978- 1- 62534- 495- 3 (paper); 494- 6 (hardcover)
Designed by Sally Nichols
Set in Caslon Classico
Printed and bound by Maple Press, Inc.
Cover design by Frank Gutbrod
Cover art: Detail from Classroom of a Native American School, 1786, by James Peachey.
Courtesy of Bridgeman Images.
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Hart, William B., author.
Title: “For the good of their souls” : performing Christianity in
eighteenth-century Mohawk country / William B. Hart.
Other titles: Native Americans of the Northeast.
Description: Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2020] | Series:
Native Americans of the Northeast | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019044406 | ISBN 9781625344946 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781625344953 (paperback) | ISBN 9781613767405 (ebook) | ISBN
9781613767412 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mohawk Indians—New York (State)—Religion. | Missions—New
York (State)—History—18th century. | New York (State)—Church
history—18th century.
Classification: LCC E99.M8 H37 2020 | DDC 974.7004/975542--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044406
British Library Cataloguing-i n- Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
An earlier version of chapter 4 was originally published as William B. Hart, “Mohawk School-
masters and Catechists in Mid- Eighteenth- Century Iroquoia: An Experiment in Fostering
Literacy and Religious Change,” in The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492– 1800: A
Collection of Essays, edited by Edward G. Gray and Norman Fiering (New York: Berghahn
Books, 2000), 232– 57. An earlier version of chapter 6 was originally published as William B.
Hart, “ ‘As Formerly under Their Respective Chiefs’: Factionalism and the Foundation of
Two Exile Mohawk Communities in Upper Canada, 1785–1 800,” in Proceedings of the North-
eastern Native Peoples & the American Revolutionary Era, 1760– 1810, edited by David Naumec
(Mashantucket, CT: Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, 2008) 16–23.
To Ewa.
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
introduction
Mohawk Beliefs and the Needs of the Soul
1
chapter 1
“Dwindl’d to Nothing Almost”
The Mohawks and Their World at 1700
21
chapter 2
“Ordering the Life and Manners of a Numerous People”
The Ideology and Performances of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
57
chapter 3
“Laying a Good and Lasting Foundation of Religion”
Success and Failure at the Fort Hunter Mission, 1710– 1719
90
chapter 4
Mohawk Schoolmasters and Catechists
Literacy, Authority, and Empowerment at Midcentury
125
vii
viii Contents
chapter 5
“A Single Mission in the Old, Beaten Way Makes No Noise”
New Strategies for Capturing Mohawk Bodies and Souls, 1760– 1775
152
chapter 6
“As Formerly under Their Respective Chiefs”
The Mohawk Diaspora into Upper Canada, 1784– 1810
186
conclusion
226
Notes 231
Index 273
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book began initially as an interrogation and critique of the term
“nominal Christian” used by many historians to describe the quality of
religiosity among eighteenth- century baptized Mohawks living in the
Mohawk Valley of New York. My hope is that this study has revealed the
inadequacy of that term, for baptized Mohawks reflected a broad range
of identification with Christianity. Historians today should not ascribe a
general state, degree, or quality of Christian identification to the entire
Mohawk nation of the eighteenth century, as they so often did earlier.
Rather, we must look closely at individuals and their communities and
assess their relationships with missionaries and their institutions.
To parse through the evidence and arrive at some interpretation of
what eighteenth- century baptized Mohawks did, I have relied heavily on
two scholarly strategies beyond the discipline of mere history: ethnohis-
tory, a methodology, and performance theory. Ethnohistory is, in brief,
an interdisciplinary methodology that relies on the concepts and methods
of several disciplines— for example, history, anthropology, archaeology,
linguistics, comparative religion— to discern the essence of a culture or
society that left few written records. The vibrant and vital conversations
of ethnohistorians and historians of the Native American past drew me to
this field and to this exercise of unpacking the term “nominal Christian.”
Performance theory permits the historian to assess and frame what his
ix
x Acknowledgments
or her subjects did, which in turn illuminates complexities of agency.
Since my early but brief career in the professional theater, I have been
intrigued by the roles that everyday people enact in their everyday lives.
Moreover, I share the belief of many scholars of religion that faith is what
one does, not necessarily what one believes.
Over the years, many smart people with deep knowledge in these
scholarly and theoretical fields helped me to think and rethink and to
write and to rewrite this book. I must first acknowledge the incompara-
ble training I received from my three graduate school mentors: the late
William G. McLoughlin (history, Brown University), a model scholar-
activist; Shepard Krech III (anthropology, Brown), a highly disciplined
and inspirational scholar; and James Merrell (history, Vassar College),
the epitome of a careful, critical thinker about Native American history.
Others from whom I have learned at professional conferences or during
casual conversations include Colin Calloway, Jean O’Brian, Dan Rich-
ter, Dan Mandell, Ed Gray, Norm Fiering, Tiya Miles, Theda Purdue,
Mike Green, Rebecca Kugel, Nancy Shoemaker, Joanne Melish, Susan
Sleeper-S mith, Rachel Wheeler, James Axtell, Francis Jennings, James
Brooks, Bill Paden, Melanie McAlister, Patrick Rael, Al Raboteau, Dean
Snow, Scott Lyons, Karim Tiro, Harold Prinz, Jere Danielle, David
Silverman, John Saillant, Louise Burkhart, Patricia Bonomi, Larry Yar-
borough, Andrew Cayton, Fredrika Teute, and Mary Beth Nevins. My
apologies for overlooking those of you with whom I served on various
academic panels and with whom I have shared research tables. I learned
much from you, as well, and I am deeply grateful to all for their counsel
and friendship.
I also benefited from access to several collections at world- class institu-
tions, libraries, and archives. I began this book at Brown University and
thus must thank the library staffs at the Rockefeller Library, the John
Carter Brown Library, and the Hay Library. As a Ford Foundation
Minority Postdoctoral Fellow and a fellow in the Center for the Study of
American Religion at Princeton University, I enjoyed the fellowship of
Robert Wuthnow and his friendly support staff, as well as that of the
superb staff at the archives in Princeton’s Firestone Library. A Thurgood
Marshall Dissertation Fellowship at Dartmouth College, a Mary
Catherine Mooney Fellowship at the Boston Athenaeum in Boston, a
Gilder Lehrman Fellowship at the New-Y ork Historical Society, and a
