Study Guide Children and Education
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The Indian Primer (Indiane primer asuh Negonneyeuuk)
Wampanoag education traditionally valued technical skills and insights on the relationship between humans and the natural world. The Indian Primer (Indiane primer asuh Negonneyeuuk) contains none of this knowledge. Rather it reflects the information that Puritans wanted Algonquians to obtain, and the cultural values—including the prominence of reading and writing—the hoped to impart. In many ways it is the Puritans attempt to create a New England Primer that could be used to educate and instruct Algonquians in how to become Puritans. Interestingly, however, Indiane primer asuh Negonneyeuuk is not a direct translation of the highly popular New England Primer.During the era recorded by Experience Mayhew in Indian Converts, the Indian Primer was used on the island of Martha’s Vineyard and throughout Native New England. First printed in 1720, The Indian primer or the first book by which children may know truely to read the Indian language. And Milk for babes differed extensively from the original Indian primer of John Eliot. In addition to the dialect adaptations made with the Vineyard community in mind, the edition brought to bear Experience Mayhew’s superior command of Wôpanâak. The superior quality of the book may have contributed to literacy rates on the Vineyard. Indeed, one side benefit of conversion was education and the economic and social advantages it entailed. On the island, as elsewhere, colonists closely associated literacy with culture, intelligence, and rights. Education opened up job opportunities for Wampanoag converts, both within the Church (missionizing, teaching) and in the general community (writing letters, petitions, legal documents, record keeping, and the like). From the early period, education was open to both Wampanoag women and men on the island. While there is little evidence that initially women were hired outside the home for jobs involving reading and writing, Experience Mayhew often remarks that women who could read and write themselves often taught this skill to their children. The ability to teach one’s children to read and write increased one’s progeny’s likelihood of earning a good living and of marrying into a literate household.
The Indian Primer was only one part of a larger educational program created by John Eliot and the Mayhews. Education occurred both in and out of the classroom in the praying towns of Martha’s Vineyard. This model was flexible in that it allowed for a variety of types and methods of educating Algonquians:
- Indian teachers were trained by Eliot and by Puritan grammar schools to teach English to their fellow Indians. Often because of the small numbers, the tutorial method was used.
- English craftsmen and farmers were hired to teach the Indians carpentry, masonry, farming, weaving, and a number of other skills.
- Eliot and other Puritan clergy regularly instructed the Indians in Calvinist theology.
- Indians were encouraged to attend the sessions of the Indian Magistrate so that they might learn about Massachusetts law.
- Selected Indians youths were sent to neighboring English towns to learn Latin and Greek.
- A stone house was erected on the Harvard campus and a number of Indians were sent there to become schoolmasters and ministers.
- A large number of Indian children were sent to live with English families as servants….
- Eliot himself made fortnightly visits to the Indians at Natick to lecture on logic, theology, and teaching methods.
- Eliot … translated the Old and New Testaments into the Algonquian dialect [sic]. He also made primitive outlines of the various liberal arts for the use of the Indians (Tanis 317).
The Indian Primer played an essential role in this curriculum and was designed to help children and converts on the path towards literacy and conversion.
Items Related to the Indian Primer in the Archive
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