American Indians and the Inward Light

Abstract

Count Per Abrahamsson Brahe, intimate friend of King Gustavus Adolphus, and for some years a member of the Swedish Council of State, was much interested in New Sweden on the Delaware River, and in the various problems which the Swedes had to face in the New World. Johan Printz, Governor (1643-1653) of New Sweden, felt that the best way to deal with the Delaware Indians was to kill them, and he believed that with two hundred soldiers he could " break the necks of every one on the river." Fortunately the Swedish government did not countersign such a program, but instead ordered Governor Printz to convert the Indian nations to Christianity. In this connection Count Brahe urged Printz to teach the Indians as children and to work on their imaginations through the ceremonies of the Lutheran service, for " outward ceremonies greatly affect such savage people." 1 It is impossible to say how Brahe came to his judgment that outward ceremonies would greatly affect the Indians, but his statement is mentioned here because it is so at variance with ideas long entertained by many Friends. When Thomas Chalkley (about 1706) was visiting the Indians on the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania, he told them how Jesus " came to save people from their sins, and by his grace and light in the soul shows to man his sins and convinceth him thereof." To all of this doctrine the