The Sachem and the Minister: Questions, Answers, and Genre Formation in the New England Missionary Project

Abstract

This essay examines the Indigenous social and diplomatic context behind New England Protestant missionary use of the spiritual question, or the postsermon question-and-answer session—a genre in which English authors recorded the questions asked and answered by potential Indigenous converts in order to showcase their readiness for salvation. The first recorded use of the question-and-answer session in the New England missionary context came during John Eliot’s 1646 attempted proselytization of the Massachusett sachem Cutshamekin. By looking closely at Cutshamekin’s linguistic and diplomatic history, I illustrate the connection between the question-and-answer session and Indigenous treaty-making practices. The generic relationship between treaty making and the question-and-answer session meant that Indigenous participants often approached the sessions as a forum for negotiating and renegotiating the terms of their prior agreements with the English. In providing an alternative generic history to these sessions, I illustrate the ways in which colonial genre formation resulted from active discursive collaboration between Indigenous people and English settlers.