Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/215

Rh justly and courteous towards the Indians, thereby to draw them to affect our persons, and consequently our religion.” And the Governor of Massachusetts colony by his oath was required to use his “best endeavor to draw on the natives of New England to the knowledge of the true God.” The company in England also expressed the hope that the ministers who were sent out would, by faithful preaching, godly conversation and exemplary lives, in God’s appointed time, reduce the Indians to the obedience of the Gospel of Christ. And there is no fact in the history of the colonists inconsistent with an earnest purpose to accomplish so desirable a result. But the most formidable and warlike of the Indian tribes resisted the introduction of Christianity, not on account of its doctrines,—these they never comprehended; but its acceptance was regarded by them as an acknowledgment of political inferiority. When Philip protests against the jurisdiction of the English, he thinks to establish his independence by asserting that he was never a praying Indian. It naturally happened that those Indians who embraced Christianity were more or less attached to the English, and soon assumed the position of dependent inferiors. They were consequently despised by such fierce spirits as swayed the Narraganset and Pokanoket tribes. But the English were instant in season and out of season in securing assent to their doctrines, though they must often have known that there was neither conviction of the head nor conversion of the heart. The colonists on some occasions even made a formal assent to the Christian faith a condition of alliance.

Although Uncas never received the Christian religion, his friendly relations with the English gave him an importance and power which were offensive to the neighboring tribes; and there is reason to suppose that a desire to humble him was an element of the war.

The attack upon the Pequots, whether necessary or not,