The Indenture Agreement
Ten year old “Lionall the Indian” signed an indenture agreement on on May 15, 1679 “with the consent and good liking of my granmother and my uncle Robin Indian.” The agreement was unremarkable in that it followed the standard template for such agreements of that period. However, it was unusual in two respects.
First, Indigenous laborers, unlike their European counterparts, rarely received a written agreement of the terms of their indenture. Lyonell’s agreement specified that he would serve in the household of Henry and Lydia Bennett for eleven years until he was twenty one.
Second, Okemesw8’s signature is as large as any of the settlers’ signatures. Although the shapes above the word “praysqua” have not been deciphered, could they indicate that Okemesw8 was literate? Could this be more than a mark used by the illiterate when signing such documents?
“Pray[ing] Squa[w]” indicates that Okemesw8 was a Praying Indian. Praying Indians were taught to read from Reverend John Eliot’s Bible. As a result of Eliot’s evangelism, the literacy rate among the Praying Indians was equivalent to that of the settlers colonizing their homeland.
John Eliot
Eliot was known as the “Apostle to the Indians”. Eliot and a team of indigenous interpreters adopted a time-honored strategy for colonizing local populations by appropriating local beliefs and customs on behalf of Christendom.
Although Eliot did not go as far in this syncretic approach as some of his fellow evangelists, he appers to have equated the Christian God with Kiehtan. Brooks observes that Eliot relied on his Indigenous interpreters “to communicate his message through Indigenous frameworks and methods of persuasion.”
“For example, while explaining the pervasive presence of God, Eliot perhaps unwittingly joined with his Indigenous interpreters in comparing Jehovah to the spirit of the upper world. He explained that God was akin to ‘the light of the sun,’ which shines in so many places at once, ‘here at Massachusets,’ at ‘Quinipeiock,’ and ‘in old England’ simultaneously. Eliot’s metaphor would have been easily understood by his audience, who, like many people of the east, already associated Kiehtan with the power of the sun and understood that different peoples had various names in their own languages for the same being. They also understood the concept of a force, Manitou, which pervades all beings and places.”
Okemesw8’s Signature
Okemesw8’s signature (her “mark”) above “Pray[ing] Squa[w]” suggests her literacy as one of John Eliot’s converts to Christianity. As a Praying Indian, Okemesw8 most likely came from the Praying Village of Wamesit (called Lowell today). — Read More
Wamesit sits at the convergence of the Musketaquid (Concord) with Mol8demak (Merrimack) Rivers about two miles downstream from Pawtucket Falls. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian developed the map below showing Wamesit north of the Mol8demak. In fact, Eliot’s Praying Village was south of the Mol8demak and east of the Musketaquid.
Eliot’s Praying Villages are marked with a black cross and villages colonized by the English are marked with a red triangles.
Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe
As a Praying Indian, Okemesw8 would have read and recited verses from Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God. The book, shown here, is a linguistic and cultural rewriting of the New Testament into Wôpanâak.
Although not written in their native Abenaki language, the orthography of “Eliot’s Bible” brought literacy to the Praying Indians at Wamesit. The two Algonquian languages had enough similarity to provide a common orthography for Eliot’s Praying Villages across eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Living in one of John Eliot’s “Praying Villages” would have provided Okemesw8 with an understanding of settler norms and values. Regardless of how much she adopted Eliot’s beliefs as her own, the knowledge she acquired as a Praying Indian undoubtedly informed her strategy for protecting Lyonell against Daniel and Elizabeth Epps’ attempt to remove him to Castle Hill.
By the time the indenture agreement was signed in 1679, Okemesw8 and Lyonell had been living for a decade near Henry and Lydia Bennet’s property at Wigwam Hill. Okemesw8 had been able to observe the many differences between Yeoman Farmer Henry Bennett and Puritan Gentleman Daniel Epps. How could she use these differences to her advantage?
The restoration of Charles II to the monarchy in 1660 was a crisis for the Puritan government in Massachusetts. In 1664, Charles II sent commissioners to Massachusetts to assess the loyalty of the colonists. When the commissioners were not well received, the King sent a letter saying that those who governed Massachusetts “believe that His Majesty had no jurisdiction over them”.
In response, seventy three of the settlers colonizing Agawam signed a petition urging the Puritan leadership not to push back against the King. Henry Bennett signed the petition along with Lydia Bennett’s father, John Perkins, and Lydia’s brother, Jacob Perkins. Daniel Denison, a leading settler at Agawam, did not sign the petition but was an outspoken loyalist to the King.
Charles II
King Charles II, pictured here toucing his subjects in the belief that his touch would cure them of scrofula (tuberculosis), was restored to the Monarchy in 1660. Although welcomed in England, the King was not welcomed by the Purtian leadership in Massachusetts.
Under Purtian rule, freemen — who had the right to elect representives to the Massachusetts government — had been limited to the male members of Puritan churches. The government agreed that members of the Episcopal church would be accepted as freemen and that “all persons of good and honest lives should be admitted to the Lord’s Supper, and that all of wisdom and integrity should have liberty of voting” (Waters Vol. 1, p 135). These concessions failed to assuage the King and were unpopular with some in the Massachusetts government.
When the compromise failed, settlers colonizing Agawam became deeply divided. Some petitioned the govenment to express its loyalty to the Crown more clrearly while othes believe they should compromise no further.
Henry and Lydia (Perkins) Bennett’s loyalty to the King may explain why they were willing to join Okemesw8 in defying a member of the Puritan establishment as powerful as Daniel Epps. Samuel Symonds, Elizabeth Epps’ father and Daniel’s stepfather, was the leading advocate in Ipswich for standing firm against the King.
Ipswich Historian Thomas Franklin Waters explains that the petition signed by Henry Bennet demonstrated the “warm support that Denison had in Ipswich, in his loyalist attitude. Samuel Symonds was aggressive in his opposition to this conservative spirit. Many of his fellow citizens no doubt sided with him, and partisan feeling must have run high.”