Native People in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts II: Weetamoo and the Praying Indians

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Transcript of lecture:

Quick links to some primary sources: Daniel Gookin’s account, John Eliot’s Tears of Repentance.

As a reminder, the learning goals of the lecture are:

…for learners to be able to identify Weetamoo’s role in King Philip’s War and describe features of the Praying Indians. 

Discussion questions and forum:
  1. Describe Weetamoo’s role in King Philip’s War. Do you think it was unusual that she was a female political leader? Gina Martino-Trutor cites Englishperson Nathaniel Saltonstall writing that King Philip asked Weetamoo first about joining him to attack the English, before asking other leaders because she was “as potent a prince as any round about her, and hath as much corn, land, and men at her command” (Saltonstall qtd in Martino-Trutor 44). What do you make of this quote and its wording? What does it and its context reveal to you?
  2. Look at one of the testimonies from the Eliot tracts. You can find several tracts, including Tears of Repentance, on this page: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo?cginame=text-idx;id=navbarbrowselink;key=author;page=browse;value=el .[1] (This link brings you to Tears of Repentance: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A84357.0001.001/1:6?rgn=div1;view=toc ). There is a lot of prefatory material which is optional for you to read but the confessions themselves are found largely after this material. Choose a testimony/confession and read all of it. What is interesting to you? What is the speaker grappling with and what is distinctive to you about how they grapple with it? What do you think could be lost in translation, if anything is? From what you know about the Puritans, how might the person’s beliefs compare to other English Puritans’? 
    • [1] The names of the tracts we refer to as the “Eliot Indian Tracts” are: New England’s First Fruits (1643); The Day-Breaking if not The Sun-Rising of the Gospel, With the Indians in New England (1647); The Clear Sun-shine of the Gospel Breaking Forth Upon the Indians in New-England (1648); The Glorious Progresse of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England (1649); The Light Appearing more and more towards the perfect Day (1651); Strength out of Weaknesse (1652); Tears of Repentance: Or, A further Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New-England (1653); A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New-England (1655); A Further Accompt of the Progresse of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England (1659); A Further Account of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New-England (1660); A Brief Narrative of the Progresse of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England (1671).

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