Praying Indians of Natick

The Praying Indians of Natick are a community of Indigenous Christians, known as Praying Indians, established in the 17th century in the town of Natick, Massachusetts. Natick has been translated as "A Place of Hills," or "the Place of (our) Searching."

First settled in 1651 through the missionary efforts of Puritan minister John Eliot and the New England Company, Natick was the first and most prominent of several Praying Towns designed to Christianize Native American populations in New England. The praying town gathered Indigenous Christian converts from Massachusett, Nipmuc, and Pawtucket groups into a European-style settlement with Puritan moral codes.

Although indigenous cultural practices were discouraged, native language use was allowed to continue. As Eliot's missionary efforts evolved, the Natick dialect of the Massachusett language became historically prominent as the first Algonquian language to be printed, and as the language of the first Bible published in the Western Hemisphere.

The community was significantly disrupted by King Philip’s War (1675–1676), during which Praying Indians faced displacement, internment, and hostility from both colonists and their non-Christianized indigenous foes. In the decades following the war, guardians appointed by the colonial authorities eroded Native autonomy, and the influx of white residents turned Natick into a patchwork of privately owned properties. By the mid-19th century, an official state report declared the Natick tribe "near extict," noting only two surviving families, and the last common lands were sold.

Today, though not officially recognized by the federal government, several organizations continue to claim descent from the original Praying Indians of Natick.