Abstract

Abstract One of the French Jesuits’ Keys to Evangelical success was their early appreciation that the natives, members of an oral culture, were extremely impressed by printed books and the Europeans’ ability to read and write. They quickly turned this phenomenon to their advantage by awing the Indians with their “shamanic” powers to “read minds at a distance.” Since natives all over the eastern woodlands were initially impressed by literacy, books, and writing, I wondered why the English missionaries had not been able to capitalize on the natives’ astonishment to the same degree. “The Power of Print” was the result. The French material had been discussed in The Invasion Within in the context of Jesuit methods of conversion, but the English and Indian data were largely new.

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