John Elliot, The Apostle to the American Indians.

[ELIOT, John].

Item Number: 119423

Philadelphia: Published by the Sunday and Adult School Union, nd.

Scarce printing of the biography of John Eliot. Octavo, one of 50 brief dialogues, biographies, and tracts bound as one in full contemporary tree calf with red morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, illustrated with woodcut engravings including an illustration of Eliot. In near fine condition. Scarce with only 2 copies traced in OCLC.

Commonly referred to as "the apostle to the Indians", Puritan missionary John Eliot focused his efforts on the conversation of the Massachusett Indians and, in 1663, published Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God, his translation of the Bible into the Massachusett language and the first complete Bible printed in the Western hemisphere. As a missionary, Eliot strove to consolidate the Algonquian Indians in planned towns, thereby encouraging them to recreate a Christian society. At one point, there were 14 towns of so-called "Praying Indians", the best documented being at Natick, Massachusetts. Eliot also wrote The Christian Commonwealth: or, The Civil Policy Of The Rising Kingdom of Jesus Christ, considered the first book on politics written by an American, as well as the first book to be banned by a North American governmental unit.