Abstract
H TISTORIANS' interpretations of Christian missions to the Indians in seventeenth-century North America have changed dramatically in the past decade. It had long been traditional historical wisdom to hold that missionaries played an essentially benevolent role in culture contact and change. Merchants, traders, and politicians were usually identified as the agents of change in native American life, while missionaries were associated with otherworldly concerns. Because missionaries were dedicated, self-sacrificing people who truly believed in their task, historians have tended to see them as they saw themselves: as humble servants, saving souls from savagery and damnation, all for the greater glory of God.1 Several scholars have recently challenged this view. Francis Jennings, Robert Berkhofer, Jr., Neal Salisbury, and James Axtell have demonstrated that the Christian mission to native Americans was neither an attempt to save them from land-hungry settlers nor a guileless exercise in soul-winning.2 These historians view it as a revolutionary enterprise, designed to bring about a radical transformation of
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