Daniel Takawambait

Takawambait was born around 1652 to a family of Nipmuc origin.Jim Rose, "Chief Wompatuck, Rev. John Eliot and the Praying Indians," Patriot Ledger, Jun 10, 2013 He became associated with missionary John Eliot at a young age and may have attended Harvard's Indian College.{{Cite web|url=https://www.natickhistoricalsociety.org/takawambpait|title = Takawambpait - Natick's First Minister}} In 1674 Daniel Gookin wrote that "[f]or [ Quantisset (in eastern Connecticut)] we appointed a sober and pious young man of Natick, called Daniel, to be minister, whom they accepted in the Lord."Daniel Gookin, An account of the Indians of New England by Daniel Gookin, a magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1792), p. 50.Richard W. COGLEY, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War, p. 157 In 1676 Takawambait signed a petition with several other Indians in Natick and Punkapoag "requesting the release of an Indian youth named Peter" who "was a servant of John Kingsley before he was imprisoned."The Massachusetts Archives Collection (1629-1799) https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ArchivesSearch/RevolutionaryDetail.aspx?rec=VyiORR2scTyc3Vm6zeEOy5is4DYJZOWJystFrxC6hSE%3d

After the War Takawambait was ordained around 1681.{{Cite web|url=http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/164.html|title = John Eliot, Missionary to the American Indians}} Around the same time, Rev. Daniel Gookin, Jr. of Sherborn began preaching once a month in the Natick Indian church solely in English which proved unfruitful without a Nipmuc translator, but the congregation enjoyed worshipping with Gookin's Sherborn congregants who often joined him in the Native American church.Edward E. Andrews, Prodigal sons: Indigenous missionaries in the British Atlantic world, 1640--1780 (Doctoral Dissertation) (University of New Hampshire, Durham: 2009), p. 109 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/215517164.pdfCompany for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the Parts Adjacent in America, Some correspondence between the governors and treasurers of the New England Company, 74-75 (accessible on google books). In 1683 the Indigenous congregation, including Takawambait, appealed to the John Eliot using a theological argument from Paul the Apostle's letter in {{bibleverse|1|Corinthians|14:27-28}} and requested that services continue in the Nipmuc language by either Gookin learning the language or using their local interpreter.Edward E. Andrews, Prodigal sons: Indigenous missionaries in the British Atlantic world, 1640--1780 (Doctoral Dissertation) (University of New Hampshire, Durham: 2009), p. 109 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/215517164.pdfCompany for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the Parts Adjacent in America, Some correspondence between the governors and treasurers of the New England Company, 74-75. Eventually, "[i]n 1683, the [Natick Praying] town appointed their second minister, Daniel Takawambait, an Indigenous man, to replace John Eliot."Gail Coughlin, "Our Souls are Already Cared For: Indigenous Reactions t or: Indigenous Reactions to Religious Colonialism in Seventeenth-Century New England, New France, and New Mexico" (UMASS Master's Thesis, July 2020), p. 38 citing Jean O’Brien, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 88 In 1685 at the request of Gookin, Takawambait wrote down the final words of several deceased Natives Americans church members (Waban, Piambohou, Old Jacob, Antony, Nehemiah, John Owussumug, Sr., John Speen, and Black James) in their native language, and their speeches were translated by Eliot and published in English in a pamphlet entitled "Dying Speeches and Counsels Of such Indians as dyed in the Lord.""The Dying speeches of several Indians.

Eliot, John, 1604-1690, tr" https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/n00266.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltextCraig White, "The Praying Indians' Speeches as Texts of Massachusett Oral Culture," Early American Literature, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2003), p. 457 accessible on JSTOR

In addition to serving as a bilingual pastor, Takawambait was a community leader and signed and witnessed deeds for various Native American land transactions. Between 1681 and 1685 Takawambait signed documents with other Nipmucs protesting the sale of tribal lands including near what is now Marlborough, Massachusetts and elsewhere in "Nipmuc country" by various Native American parties who acted without authority including Waban, Great James, and John Wompas in transferring land titles to settlers.Mass. General Court Records at State Archives, https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ArchivesSearch/RevolutionaryDetail.aspx?rec=VyiORR2scTyc3Vm6zeEOy55NhOJ1YqEItmfmZWKHVJE%3dMass. General Court Records at State Archives, https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ArchivesSearch/RevolutionaryDetail.aspx?rec=VyiORR2scTyc3Vm6zeEOy8TAaJHbpGpWA3pYjFTZlyE%3d Also, Takawambait witnessed a confirmatory deed by Peter Jethro and others in 1684 of lands in Sudbury and what is now Maynard, Massachusetts.Land Sales in Nipmuc Country 1643-1724 BYU https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=14&article=1010&context=data&type=additional

After King Philip's War several Indians returned to Natick from slavery in the Caribbean including Sagamore George (Wenepoykin), who had been enslaved in Barbados, and in 1686 after George's death, Takawombait gave evidence in deposition regarding George's land at Naumkeag (Salem) and his background stating that "Sagamore George when he came from Barbados he lived Sometime and dyed at the house of James Rumley Marsh," and "he left all this land belonging to him unto his kinsman James Rumley Marsh."Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 77, No. 1 p. 28 https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1201&context=bmasPerley, Sidney (editor) 1912 The Indian Land Titles of Essex County Massachusetts. Essex Book and Print Club, Salem, MA.p 10 (1912) In 1692 Takawambait also deeded Natick land to the Sawin family.Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1826) p. 330

By 1699 many worshippers in at Takawambait's church in Natick had died or left Natick because they were impoverished and needed to live among the English to support themselves,Mandell, 34-35 and the original meeting house, built in 1651, was falling down, so the congregation petitioned the government to allow Natick to sell two hundred acres of indigenous land in order to hire a carpenter to rebuild the meeting house.Daniel R. Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts, p. 34-35 Two white pastors, Grindal Rawson and Samuel Danforth, of Mendon and Taunton, visited Takawambait's church in 1698 and noted that only a small church remained with ten official members, but Takawambait was "a person of great knowledge."Samuel Adams Drake, History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880), p. 190 (accessible on google books)Mandell, p. 35 Despite Takawambait's language skills and knowledge of Christian theology, some Puritan church leaders were concerned that Takawambait had some unknown theological errors or “errata”Edward E. Andrews, Prodigal sons: Indigenous missionaries in the British Atlantic world, 1640--1780 (Doctoral Dissertation)

(University of New Hampshire, Durham: 2009), p. 109 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/215517164.pdf William Kellaway, The New England Company, 1649-1776: Missionary Society to the American

Indians (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1961), 237. which may have included incorporating indigenous traditions into the worship services.Mandell, 34-35 By the 1712 colonial religious leaders, such as Cotton Mather, were concerned the church had diminished so much, that they discussed the possibility of removing Takawambait and blamed him and the lax membership procedures for the diminution in the church. Andrews, p. 109Letter from Cotton Mather to Sir William Ashurst, 10 October, 1712, in “Cotton and Increase Mather Letters, 1713-1726” Massachusetts Historical Society Manuscript Collection, 7; Daniel R. Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 35 Despite their concerns, Takawambait served as Natick's pastor until his death in 1716 and was one of the few Native Americans buried in the English fashion with a headstone and foot stone, and today his headstone is still viewable adjacent to the Eliot church in Natick where it was moved several feet from its original location near the intersection of Eliot and Pleasant streets, and his foot stone was moved and embedded into the Bacon Free Library building.Michael J. Crawford, History of Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1976 (1978), p. 23{{Cite web|url=https://www.natickhistoricalsociety.org/takawambpait|title = Takawambpait - Natick's First Minister}}

After Takawambait's death, the New England Company chose another Native American pastor, John Neesnumin of Sandwich, as a replacement in 1717, but he died two years later, and the church largely dissolved shortly after.O'Brien at p. 120 Today Takawambait's pulpit desk is on exhibit in the Natick Historical Society Museum and was built by members of his congregation as one of the earliest surviving examples of Native American-made furniture.Julia Spitz, "An eclectic collection at Natick’s Historical Society Museum," Metro West Daily News," Feb 14, 2010 https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20100214/NEWS/302149966{{Cite web|url=https://www.natickhistoricalsociety.org/takawambpait|title = Takawambpait - Natick's First Minister}} In the 1800s an I.O.O.F lodge in Natick was named in Takawambait's honor.The Golden Rule and Odd-fellows Family Companion (1847), p. 92.

{{reflist}}

Category:17th-century Native American leaders

Category:Pre-statehood history of Massachusetts

Category:People from colonial Massachusetts

Category:Native American people from Massachusetts

Category:Native American history of Massachusetts

Category:17th-century New England Puritan ministers

Category:Religious figures of the indigenous peoples of North America

Category:18th-century Native American leaders