Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643

330 Pages·1984·6.132 MB·English

by  Neal Salisbury

MANITOU AND PROVIDENCE

MANITO U
and
PRO VIDENCE
Indians, Europeans,
and the Making of New England,
1500-1643
Neal Salisbury
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1982 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
First published by Oxford University Press, New York, 1982
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1984
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Salisbury, Neal.
Manitou and providence.
Includes index.
1. Indians of North America—New England—History.
2. Indians of North America—New England—First
contact with Occidental civilization. 3. New
England—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
I. Title.
E78.NsS24t 974'.O2 81-11238
ISBN 0-19-503025-7 AACR2
ISBN 0-19-503454-6 (pbk.)
Printing (last digit): 987
Printed in the United States of America
To Dana and Cleo

ACKNO WLEDGMENTS
No author is an island. Indeed, die sources of support on which
I have drawn in writing this book are far too numerous to list
individually; they include students, faculty colleagues, and the
many others with whom I have discussed points of mutual in­
terest through the mails, at conferences, or at libraries. Re­
grettably, I can mention only a few of the more substantial
contributions.
Research fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution (1972-
73) and the Newberry Library Center for the History of the
American Indian (1977-78) provided the time, money, ma­
terials, and congenial settings for preparing this study (and
much of the succeeding volume which will follow). In addi­
tion, I have benefited from the leaves of absence from teaching
granted me by the Smith College Board of Trustees, with the
support of my colleagues in the Department of History and of
President Jill K. Conway. The Smith College Committee on Aid
to Faculty Scholarship has kindly assisted me with a number of
incidental expenses connected with the project. The staffs and
collections of the Anthropology Library, Smithsonian Institu­
tion; Newberry Library; William Allan Neilson Library, Smith
College; and Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass., have been
especially helpful. In addition to the institutions credited for
supplying the illustrations and permission to reproduce them,
I would like to thank John Aubrey, Jane Becker, Kathleen
Bragdon, Susan Dean, Wayne Hammond, and William Sim­
mons for their assistance in locating certain items.
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Brief passages in this book appeared previously in “The
Conquest of the ‘Savage’: Puritans, Puritan Missionaries, and
Indians, 1620-1680” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los
Angeles, 1972; published University Microfilms, Ann Arbor,
Mich., 1972); “Red Puritans: The Traying Indians’ of Massa­
chusetts Bay and John Eliot,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d
ser., 31 (1974), 27-54; and “Squanto: Last of the Patuxets,” in
David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash, eds. Struggle and Survival
in Colonial America (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1981), pp. 228-46.'
A number of individuals critically read portions of the manu­
script in one or another incarnation and offered me the bene­
fits of their insights: John Demos, Dena Dincauze, Lester
Little, Calvin Martin, Kenneth Morrison, James Ronda, Dean
Snow, William Sturtevant, Wilcomb Washburn, R. Jackson
Wilson, and Mary Young. Francis Jennings has been most gen­
erous in his suggestions and support for a study that at once
builds on and departs from his own. Three other outstanding
scholars have not only contributed at many points along die
way but gave me die benefit of a reading of the final manu­
script—James Axtell, Gary Nash, and William Simmons. With­
out them, the book would not be what it is. Hilda McArthur
proved a perceptive reader as well as a superb typist
This book has been nurtured through a long evolutionary
course over the last several years by the remarkable patience,
understanding, and encouragement of Sheldon Meyer of Oxford
University Press. Also at Oxford, Stephanie Golden proved to
be a truly gifted editor. Like the scholars noted above, she con­
tributed in many important ways to the book’s final form.
The support and love of two others is far too basic to be con­
veyed here; for them, a separate space is reserved.
Northampton, Mass. N.S.
June 1981
TECHNICAL NOTE ON THE TEXT
Dates in die colonial period appear, as in die sources, accord*
ing to the Old Style Julian calendar, except those from Janu­
ary 1 to March 25, which are rendered according to the New
Style Gregorian calendar.
Quotations follow die spelling, punctuation, and other usages
of the edition cited except for the transliteration of “ye” and
“yt” as “the” and “that,” respectively.