Praying Indian

I'm your host, Dr. Sam Hume.

Last time, we saw the trial of the Praying Indians, Nipmuc Christians, who had believed they were under English protection.

After all, they'd willingly put themselves under colonial sovereignty, embraced English dress and culture, and, surely most importantly, were practicing Christians.

But with King Philip's War not going especially well, suspicion and fear was running rampant among colonial leaders.

Why? I don't know, for no apparent reason I can find.

But the general court was not done.

On the thirteenth of September, the magistrates decreed that simply confining the praying Indians to the praying towns just wasn't secure enough.

So they ordered that the inhabitants of the oldest praying town, Natick, were to be rounded up, taken to Boston, and interned on Deer Island in Boston Harbor.