losing the mission

Plymouth’s war council met on August 4 to decide the fate of 112 Wampanoags taken at Dartmouth, most of them women and children. Plymouth officer Benjamin Church later claimed that most had surrendered after they were promised good terms thanks to the efforts of a friendly Indian, but Plymouth governor Josiah Winslow was informed they came in “without any assurance or invitation from us.” After questioning them, the council concluded that several had participated in raids and that the rest had either supported them or violated their covenant by failing to report Philip’s conspiracy. After “serious and deliberate consideration,” it sentenced most to be sold abroad. A dozen or so were “otherwise disposed of” on “special consideration.” A few weeks later, fifty-seven more Wampanoags who had surrendered were condemned to slavery by Plymouth. Another eighty brought in by Captain Samuel Mosely were sold in Boston.

John Eliot, the missionary, was horrified. He could hardly imagine a policy more likely to encourage Native hostility than the “terror of selling away such Indians unto the [Caribbean] islands for perpetual slaves,” he wrote in a petition to the Massachusetts government. It was certain to prolong the war, leading to unimaginable “evil consequences.” Even worse, it contradicted the gospel. “Christ hath said, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,” he reminded them, yet this fate was “worse than death,” since those sold would never hear the gospel. Christ’s goal was to evangelize the heathen, not destroy them, turning “the kingdoms of this world” into “the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ.” 

“When we came [to America],” he continued, “we declared to the world . . . that the endeavor of the Indians’ conversion, not their extirpation, was one great end of our enterprise.” God had blessed this mission richly. True, many Indians rejected the gospel and were now at war. Psalm 2 prophesied that the nations would thus rage and plot against the Lord. But Psalm 2 also promised them the opportunity to flee to Christ for refuge. “My humble request is that you would follow Christ’s design in this matter, to promote the free passage of religion among them and not to destroy them,” Eliot implored. To sell them abroad was to condemn them to “perpetual darkness, to the eternal ruin of their souls.” How could Christians cast away “souls for whom Christ hath . . . provided an offer of the gospel? To sell souls for money seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize.” Even Old Testament law prohibited sending a slave back to a heathen master. The English condemned the Spanish for “destroying men and depopulating the land,” yet they were in danger of doing the same thing, and Eliot believed he knew why: they desired the Indians’ land. “The country is large enough,” he pleaded. “Here is land enough for them and us too.”

But his petition made little difference. Although some captives were sold locally, in September the Sampson set sail from Boston with 178 captives destined for sale in Spain. They would not be the last.

Tuininga, Matthew J.. The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People (pp. 257-258). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.