Eliot, John (1604-1690), was an American missionary to the Native Americans of Massachusetts. He translated the Bible into an indigenous (native) dialect. Eliot was born in Hertfordshire, England, and came to America in 1631. He was made the teacher of the church in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Eliot organized the first village of Native American converts at Natick, near Boston, in 1651. By 1674, he had 14 villages with more than 1,000 indigenous people under his supervision. But King Philip’s War (1675-1676) scattered his converts.
