Eastern Woodland Native American Religion

Sources

Great Spirit. Native American tribes of the eastern woodlands believed that a Great Spirit had created a harmonious world of plenty of which they were only one part. All of nature contained this divine spirit and was to be respected. Thus the native inhabitants managed the land so that it would be productive for all living creatures but changed it little, taking only want they needed. They thanked a tree for dying and providing them with wood for a fire and thanked an animal they had killed for giving up its flesh to feed them and its skin to clothe them. The Judeo-Christian view that humans dominated nature and could change it for their advantage made no sense to these people. Access to the spirit world came through dreams, which shamans would interpret for them. Often these shamans were women, who seemed to be more in contact with the spiritual world because of their role in the miracle of childbirth.

Efforts at Christianizing. To the Puritans, Native Americans were heathens and savages who, nonetheless, could be converted to the Christian faith and English civilization. To the natives, the Englishman’s God was just another name for the Great Spirit, and they were quite happy with their own culture. However, the decimation that they suffered from smallpox and other diseases led them to view the English God with a healthy respect. Besides, the metal goods that the Europeans exchanged for Indian furs were useful and necessitated some interaction with the Puritans. Colonial officials supported the missionary activities of such clergymen as John Eliot and Thomas Mayhew, who established more than fourteen “praying villages” where Native Americans followed an English style of life and underwent religious instruction, often under the tutorship of a converted Indian. Eliot even provided an Algonquian translation of the Bible for those who could not read English.

King Philip’s War. As the fur trade increased in New England, it demanded that Native Americans defy the Great Spirit by slaughtering many more animals than the tribes needed. Such a heavy emphasis on furs also disrupted their traditional culture and economy and fostered intertribal wars over trapping grounds. By 1675 tribal leaders were ready to push the Puritans out of their land and regain the integrity of their traditional religion and culture. In King Philip’s, or Metacom’s, War various tribes united in this mission. They destroyed outlying settlements, pushing the Puritans back to their coastal strongholds. At first the colonists attacked the praying villages, which they believed were dens of spies and sympathizers for Metacom. Yet gradually these “civilized” Indians were used successfully against their hostile countrymen. In fact, it was a Christian Indian who eventually killed Metacom in 1676, which ended the war.

Sources

Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill: Institute of Early American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 1975);

Neil Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500–1763 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982);

Alden T. Vaughan, New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620–1676, second edition (New York: Norton, 1979).