The Great Awakening P8

Last week we left where John Marrant, the free born black, who met up with Rev. Whitefield. And after the meeting the Rev. Whitefield introduced him to a minister friend of his and the minister spiritually mentored John, encouraging him to the read the Bible.

Marrant became extremely passionate about his new found faith and wanted his family to share that experience with him. But they became hostile and began to persecute him. By his own testimony, they “called me every name except that which was good.” So John fled to the woods, where he met a Cherokee warrior. The two spent the next 10 weeks hunting together and becoming friends. John also learned to speak Cherokee.

When they returned to the Indian’s camp Marrant was made a prisoner and sentenced to death. (Cherokee law demanded that any outsider to the camp be killed.). They explained to him in detail how he would die:

The executioner showed me a basket full of turpentine wood, stuck full of small pieces, like skewers. He told me I was to be stripped naked and laid down on the basket and these pegs were to be stuck into me and then set on fire. And when they had burnt to my body, I was to be turned on the other side and served in the same manner, and then to be taken by four men and thrown into the flame, which was to finish the execution.

Content sourced from The American Story - The Beginnings By David Barton & Tim Barton