At this same date, through the sacrificial labors of Mr. Thomas Mayhew and his son, there were 1,500 praying Indians in the Island of Martha’s Vineyard and vicinity.  The next year came war—­King Philip’s War.  It meant extermination of the whites, or conquest of the red men.  Civilization was too strong to be resisted by barbarism, and then began the long catalogue of organized Indian miseries.  The General Court ordered the removal of the conquered Indians, and they were pushed away before the aggressive steps of a stronger race.  In 1743, the Rev. David Brainerd was propagating missions among the Indians with success in various places.  Idolatrous sacrifices were altogether abolished; many heathen customs lost their sanction, and sincere converts were made whose pious lives and peaceful deaths attested to the influence of the spirit of God in their hearts.

At this period of history the Moravian Church began missions in Pennsylvania among the Delawares.  Christian Rauch soon won the confidence of the savages and excited their astonishment.  And observing him asleep in his hut, an Indian said:  “This man cannot be a bad man, he fears no evil, he does not fear us who are so fierce, but he sleeps in peace and puts his life in our hands.”  There was a remarkable acknowledgment of this mission in converted souls.  The Moravian Missions in various sections of the country, from the early date of 1740 until now, have been characterized by courage, activity, humility and devotion.  In the midst of these scenes of devastation and murder, the Moravian missionaries have wandered in deserts, in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, never relinquishing their purposes, and they have obtained a good report through faith.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which began its existence in 1812, adopted measures in 1815 for carrying the gospel to the Indians.  One hundred thousand of these people, as untamed as when the Pilgrims met them at Plymouth, as ignorant in most respects, and as truly heathen as were their fathers centuries before them, were then supposed to be living east of the Mississippi River.  The first mission was among the Creeks and Cherokees.  Three missionaries and their wives began the work.  In character it was a compound of mission boarding school and agricultural college.  In eighteen months, the Indian boys could read the Bible, and nearly a score of them could write; five converted heathen were members of the church.

Next, in 1818, missions were begun among the Chickasaws and the Choctaws.  Here, also, the first work was that of the school.  So eager were the Choctaws for instruction, that eight children were brought 160 miles across the country before the missionaries were ready for them, and in one year from that date the Choctaw Nation voted to devote to the schools their entire annuity of six thousand dollars, from the sale of their lands to the United States.