Up a Tree

While searching through my side of the family tree, I came upon a story for which I can find no familial ties. But because these little missives are supposed to include history that doesn't have to include an ancestor, I've decided to tell it this week. And it's a good story. John Eliot came to Boston in the Massachusetts colony in 1631 to pastor a Puritan (aka Congregational) Church. After a year, he moved to nearby Roxbury and began a church there. He would serve as the church's pastor until his death 58 years later.  Almost immediately he established relationships with members of the Narragansett tribe, and as time went on, with other tribes of the Algonquin language group. He took the time to learn their language and ministered in their midst at the same time as caring for his English church. The English settlers had rocky relations with the tribes. Many thought of the indigenes as a nuisance, in the way of God's will for their ownership and domination of the la