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?

Reason: Your war changed that. The Pequots are dust, and now you are lord and master!

Pistol: Indeed! And now John Eliot will tame the remnants of the tribe and spread the faith among all the savages throughout New England!

Reason: You fool! Are you not aware that had it not been for Squanto, the Pilgrims of Plymouth would have not survived at all?

Pistol: Squanto! Cannon balls, man! That black-hearted savage will stand forever as traitor! He lived among the English and then returned to school his own against us! Treachery, I say!

Reason: You know nothing! It was Captain Hunt who committed treachery. There was mutiny on the Mayflower. If not for the signing of the Compact, the ship would have been seized and steered to Virginia as intended. The Pilgrims would have never reached Plymouth, nor had Squanto's help, nor Samoset's.

Pistol: You defend the savage Squanto as savior! And what of your Thomas Morton? Your own have turned the savages against us and yourselves!

Reason: Governor Bradford has denounced Morton and his New English Canaan.

Pistol: How easily you dismiss those among you who have contributed to the unrest of the savages. Morton should have hanged.

Reason: He hanged himself.

Pistol: And what is your purpose in the New World, sir? Are you not a Stranger?

Reason: I have so described myself.

Pistol: Yes. I have acquainted myself with some of you. You come to rob the New World of its finery. To plunder and rape her and make your own hand grand.

Reason: There is freedom here for everyone, including the savages who have existed before our coming. No man need propagate others.

Pistol: John Eliot has a divine mission, and I, sir, intend to assist him in any way possible. Have you come to stand in our way?

Reason: I am only telling you, you are wrong. There is no divine mission. The Indians don't want you.

Pistol: I think you speak for yourself, and not the savages. It would not profit you for them to turn from your trade.

Reason: I am speaking of humanity, not trade!

Pistol: The savages have no humanity! John Eliot will show them God's way.

Reason: You, Puritan, impure of heart, and your John Eliot, and all of you who come after, will botch it! You will be the destruction of this new land! And when it's done, I hope your Puritan, propagating souls burn in Hades!

Pistol: And you, sir, are not to be tolerated!

Pistol Packin' Puritan Pete draws from under his long black coat a lock pistol and shoots dead Reason Ahgan. Standing over the silent, bleeding body of Reason, Pistol turns to his shipmates, his officers, his passengers, and observes them slowly. He then proclaims:

Pistol: Strangers like Reason Ahgan are a menace to the divine mission. We must purge the woods and towns of all Reasons daring to stand between Almighty God's John Eliot and the divine mission!

/End/

Sources: Anthology of American Literature (McMichael), Builders of the Bay Colony (Morison), New England Frontier Puritans and Indians 1620-1675 (Vaughan), Saints and Strangers (Willison), The Pilgrim Republic (Goodwin), Compton's Encyclopedia