Wars of the Lord

The Wars of the Lord The Puritan Conquest of America's First People Matthew J. TuiningaOxford University Press, 2025ISBN 9780197671764 Hardcover, 464 pp.9.5 X 6.5 X 1.1 inches | 1.8 pounds The epic, tragic story of the Puritan conquest of New England through the eyes of those who lived it Over several decades beginning in 1620, tens of thousands of devout English colonists known as Puritans came to America. They believed that bringing Christianity to the natives would liberate them from darkness. Daniel Gookin, Massachusetts's missionary superintendent, called such efforts a "war of the Lord," a war in which Christ would deliver captive souls from Satan's bondage. When Puritan soldiers slaughtered hundreds of indigenous men, women, and children at Fort Mystic in 1637, during the Pequot War, they believed they were doing God's will. The same was true during King Philip's War, perhaps the bloodiest war in American history. The Puritan clergyman Increase Mather described this conflict, to