GODS OF WAR, GODS OF PEACE

A former editor of American Heritage argues that the religions and religious leaders of indigenous Americans affected in profound ways the Europeans—Protestant and Catholic—who sought in our early centuries to convert and/or massacre American Indians.

History has let its glance linger overlong on the mostly destructive influences of missionaries and pioneers on the religious beliefs and practices of Native Americans, ignoring influences that coursed the other way, asserts Bourne (Floating West, 1992, etc.). As he points out, hundreds of immigrants abandoned their traditions and went native, though the totals are hardly overwhelming. In a persuasive voice evidencing prodigious knowledge of early American history, the author begins at Plymouth and tells the stories of Squanto and Samoset, Myles Standish, Roger Williams, who despite his biases sought to understand Indian ways. In his sequence on the Pequot War, Bourne reveals one of his great interests to be frontier warfare. In fact, for a study of religion, the coverage of martial matters is so extensive that relevance becomes an issue, although it must be admitted that the account of the two-hour Battle of Tippecanoe, among others, is a corker. In general, the narrative is spun with a pleasingly light touch. Of great interest are the author’s portraits of prominent individuals in both camps: John Eliot, who for two years studied the Algonquian language before going to preach among them; Samuel Kirkland; Joseph Brant, the Mohawk who refused to shake the hand of George III; Peter Gansevoort, grandfather of Herman Melville (not mentioned); Tecumseh; Cornstalk; Sequoyah. Bourne describes the Indian encounters with Puritans, Roman Catholics, Shakers, Mormons, and assorted frontier Bible-pounders during the Great Awakenings. He closes, appropriately and poignantly, with the Trail of Tears.

Though sometimes obscured by war whoops and thick flights of arrows, a fascinating examination of what happens to religions when worlds collide. (maps, 8 pages b&w photos, not seen)