Indian Converts.
WITH A CHAPTER OF BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
ON INDIAN WOMEN FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD
[Native Americans] Mayhew, Experience. Indian Converts: Or, some account of the lives and dying speeches of a considerable number of the Christianized Indians of Martha’s Vineyard, in New-England. Viz….A Preacher of the Gospel to the Indians of that Island. To which is added, some account of those English Ministers who have successively presided over the Indian work in that and the adjacent Islands, by Mr. Prince. London: printed for Samuel Gerrish, Bookseller in Boston in New-England, 1727.
8vo.; t.e.g.; some foxing throughout; bound in later three-quarter morocco; marbled boards; stamped in gilt; binding lightly rubbed. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition; with two pages of publishers advertisements in the rear; OCLC lists only one copy of this rebound version; Sabin 47124; Howes M452; Field, Indian Bibliography 1045; JCB (I)III:399; European Americana 7272/158; Simmons 1727#17.
The “English Ministers” section, bound-in at the rear, includes biographical entries – modeled after the style of the Indian entries – giving the histories of four generations of Mayhew men who undertook the ministerial tasks on Martha’s Vineyeard: Thomas Mayhew Sr., Jr., Jr’s son, John, and his son, Experience (the author of Indian Converts).
In four sections: “I. Of Godly Ministers,” “II. Of other Good Men,” “III. Of Religious Women,” “IV. Of Pious young Persons.” Chapters I, II and III have “Supplements” included at the conclusion of each. According to Field, there are 129 biographical sketches of Indians included in the book, each runs to several pages in length.
Chapter III begins, “The number of Women truly fearing God, has by some been thought to exceed that of Men so doing: but whether the Observation will generally hold true or not, I shall not now inquire; or if it will, stay to consider the Reasons of it. However, it seems to be a Truth with respect to our Indians…that there have been, and are a greater number of their Women appearing pious than of the Men among them” (135).
Mayhew provides thirty examples of “pious women;” he lists their name, the date of each woman’s death, the town where she died, and her age (if it was known); he then illustrates her piety in a biographical sketch that runs to two or three pages in length. These entries commonly begin as follows:
WUTTUNUNOHKOMKOOH, who was the Wife of PAMCHANNIT, and the Mother of the memorable JAPHETH, and died about the Year 1675.
And continue to explain the breadth of their faith:
The Piety of this Woman was further discovered in that, as she seriously joined with others in the Worship of God, when it was her Duty so to do, so she was not ashamed her self vocally to call on him, when it was proper and convenient that she should do….There are several living Witnesses of the serious and fervent Prayers that this Woman offered up to the Lord (137)
Often the entries explain the origins of a woman’s faith. One Mary Coshomon is
described as “a daughter of pious Parents, (viz. Deacon Jonathan Amos and his Wife, before mentioned) who taught her to read, and instructed her well in the Principles of true Religion: and she, so far as I can learn, was of a sober and regular Conversation from her Youth up” (179).
However laudatory Mayhew can be, he also reveals his intolerance, in entries like that for Elizabeth Ugquat, whom he describes as a “poor Woman…Being very ignorant, she was also exceedingly wicked while she was a young Woman; and a Violation of the seventh Commandment was the Sin of which she appeared to be most deeply guilty, having by her Whoredoms been the Mother of two Children, before ever she had a Husband to be the Father of them” (194).
In addition to the biographical information these entries yield, the genealogical element is equally noteworthy; many of the men, women and children profiled herein are related to each other.
Mayhew (1673-1758) was a missionary, teacher, translator and author. Of the Mayhews who preceded him in missionary work, he was the most renowned. As a child, he mastered the language of the Martha’s Vineyard Indians, and by the age of twenty he preached to them and was offered a teaching position at the English school in Tisbury (it is not known if he accepted). In 1720 Harvard granted him an honorary degree for his missionary work. Though Indian Converts was his best-known work, he penned other books, including the Massachusee Psalter (1709) and Grace Defended (1744). In the biographical note on him in Indian Converts, it is noted that Mayhew spoke at “more than thirty Indian Assemblies, and of more than thirty hundred Christian Indians then in this Province” (306). He married twice – to women named Thankful Hinckley and Remember Bourne, respectively – and had a son, Jonathan with his second wife, who followed his father in missionary work.
Print Inquire