Bibles for the Indians

In 1631, ten years after the Pilgrims landed at Provincetown, a Puritan minister named John Eliot, immigrated from England to Roxbury, just outside of Boston. He soon became an outspoken supporter of Christian missionary work among local Native American tribes, and was known as the Apostle to the Indians.

He studied the language of the local Indians and began to preach to groups who lived nearby. Eliot’s desire was that the Indians could “pray and read with the Bible.” With the assistance of a few local Indians who also spoke English, he translated the Bible into their native language. With the arrival at Cambridge, Massachusetts, of America’s first printing press, 2,000 Bibles were printed. This project was the largest printing job done in 17th-century Colonial America.

Many Indians converted to Christianity, and Eliot also established Christian towns and villages for them, with schools where they were taught to read and write, and where they learned handicrafts so they could support themselves. By 1674 an unofficial census numbered them at about 4,000 strong.