John Eliot was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians who some called "the apostle to the Indians" and the founder of Roxbury Latin School in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1645. In 1660 he completed the enormous task of translating the Eliot Indian Bible into the Massachusett Indian language, producing more than two thousand completed copies.
The Wampanoag, also rendered Wôpanâak, are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands currently based in southeastern Massachusetts and formerly parts of eastern Rhode Island. Their historical territory includes the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family that was formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is spoken in four communities of Wampanoag people. The language is also known as Natick or Wôpanâak (Wampanoag), and historically as Pokanoket, Indian or Nonantum.
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills overlooking Boston Harbor from the south.
John Sassamon, also known as Wussausmon, was a Massachusett man who lived in New England during the colonial era. He converted to Christianity and became a praying Indian, helping to serve as an interpreter to New England colonists. In January 1675, Sassamon was ambushed and assassinated. A mixed jury of colonists and Indian elders convicted and executed three Wampanoag men for his murder. These events helped spark the conflict known as King Philip's War, in which the New England Colonies defeated the Wampanoag and ended armed resistance by the Native Americans of southeastern New England.
Samuel Maverick was one of the first colonists to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arriving ahead of the Winthrop Fleet, Maverick became one of the earliest settlers, one of the largest landowners and one of the first slave-owners in Massachusetts. He signed his name as "Mavericke". He is the ancestor of rancher Samuel Maverick, from whom the term maverick for "independently minded" and an unbranded animal derives.
Praying towns were settlements established by English colonial governments in New England from 1646 to 1675 in an effort to convert local Native Americans to Christianity.
The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England, with Plymouth Colony absorbed into Massachusetts and Maine separating from it.
Samuel Green was an early American printer, the first of several printers from the Green family who followed in his footsteps. One of Green's major accomplishments as a printer was the Eliot Indian Bible, translated by the missionary John Eliot, typeset by James Printer, which became the first Bible to be printed in British America in 1663. Members of his family who also became printers include his sons Bartholomew, Bartholomew Green Jr. and Joseph Dennie. Throughout his adult life Green also served in the Massachusetts Bay Colonial Militia, advancing to the rank of captain later in life.
Israel Stoughton was an early English colonist in Massachusetts and a colonial commander in the Pequot War. Returning to England, he served as Parliamentarian officer in the First English Civil War.
Richard Pierce was an early American printing press owner and publisher who printed Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick for Benjamin Harris, generally considered the first newspaper printed in America.
John Foster was an early American engraver and printer who lived in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when the colony was still in its infancy. He is credited with producing the first printed image in British colonial America, from a woodcut engraving of the Puritan minister Richard Mather. He also printed the first map to appear in the colonies. Foster graduated from Harvard University, but was a self-taught pioneer in American printmaking in woodcut, and also learned the art of typography from the Boston printer Marmaduke Johnson. He subsequently printed many works by prominent religious figures of the day in Massachusetts, and for a few years printed and published an annual almanac. His woodcut engravings were also used for the printing of official seals of the Massachusetts Bay Colony used by the provincial government.
The Eliot Indian Bible was the first translation of the Christian Bible into an indigenous American language, as well as the first Bible published in British North America. It was prepared by English Puritan missionary John Eliot by translating the Geneva Bible into the Massachusett language. Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the work first appeared in 1661 with only the New Testament. An edition including all 66 books of both the Old and New Testaments was printed in 1663.
James Printer, also known as Wowaus, (1640–1709) was a Native American from the Nipmuc tribe who studied and worked as a printer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was one of the most famous early Nipmuc writers. Printer was the first Native American printer's devil in America as well as one of John Eliot's most accomplished interpreters who assisted in the creation of the Eliot Indian Bible.
The Indian College was an institution of higher education established in the 1640s with the mission of training Native American students at Harvard College, in the town of Cambridge, in colonial Massachusetts. The Indian College's building, located in Harvard Yard, was completed in 1656. It housed a printing press used to publish the first Christian Bible translated into a Native American language, the Eliot Indian Bible of 1663, which was also the first Bible in any language printed in British America.
Richard Callicott (1604–1686) was a New England colonist who was a fur trader, land investor, and early leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He also had two Native American servants who became prominent translators in New York and New England.
Job Nesuton was a Native American translator who translated large parts of the Eliot Indian Bible, the first Bible printed in America.
The Praying Indians of Natick were a community of Indigenous Christian converts, known as Praying Indians, in the town of Natick, Massachusetts, one of many Praying Towns. They were also known as Natick Indians.
Marmaduke Johnson was a London printer who was commissioned and sailed from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1660 to assist Samuel Green in the printing of The Indian Bible, which had been laboriously translated by John Eliot into the Massachusett Indian language, which became the first Bible printed in America. Johnson is considered the first master printer to emerge in America. When he attempted to operate his own privately owned printing house in Boston, without an official license from the Crown, the Massachusetts General Court interceded and censured his operation, which in turn started one of the first 'Freedom of the Press' issues in colonial America. After several appeals the Court conceded, where Johnson moved to Boston, set up and outfitted his printing shop, and ultimately became the first printer in America allowed to operate his own private printing press. During his printing career, Johnson printed several works for Eliot containing religious material translated for the Indian nations of Massachusetts.
Joseph Glover, typically referred to as Jose or Josse, was an English nonconformist minister, noted for being a pioneer of printing in the English colonies of North America and one of the people instrumental in establishing Harvard College.
