Soul Savers, Grammarians, and the Red Man

T HE EARLY MISSIONARIES in America were faced with the practical problem of communication in their idealistic venture of saving pagan souls. The greatest number of unsaved souls in the New World belonged to people who spoke outlandish, non-European languages. Besides ministering to the spiritual needs of transplanted Europeans, the colonial divines had the plain duty of converting these heathen Indians. Linguistically speaking, the problems of ministering to the English colonists were simple: the terms of salvation and damnation were the same for English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic. However, the settler's life in the New World depended to a large degree upon his understanding and being understood by the native. Moreover, certainly in the eyes of the missionaries, the Indian's life in the next world depended upon his understanding and being understood by the white man. Obviously, then, it was necessary both to learn the Indian's language and, when feasible, to teach him the white man's tongue. The explorer and the trader could stop with this. If communication was established, that was sufficient. Such, in all conscience, was not the case with the missionary. For one thing, the very nature of missionary work demands that methods and materials be handed down to one's successors. For another, the very nature of European education and of the Christian religion demands, and places a kind of sanctification upon, the written word. Religion, as the early missionaries knew it, necessarily implied the transcendental importance of the written records of the religion. In order to convert the Indians effectively, then, both oral and written communication were necessary. The missionary must be able to preach in the language of the natives. The natives must be able, in time, to read the sacred writings and commentaries. To effect the latter, it was obviously more practical to teach the Indian how to read in his own language than to teach him how to speak and read English-not that instruction in English was neglected by the early missionaries, but such was assuredly a delayed objective. The zeal of these early missionaries is almost inconceivable to the typical twentieth-century mind. Probably it was a bit strange to the typical seventeenth-century mind. Probably there were beard-wagging and headshaking among the clergy of England when reports trickled back of clerical life in New England. Many of the missionaries lived for years with the Indians. Some of them died among them. They were, for the most part, honored and revered, if not fully understood, by the aborigines. They shared both the

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