Cotton Mather

I am still waiting for the book on Copp's Hill Burying Ground, so I went to my local library to see what they had on Cotton Mather. I found The Life and Times of Cotton Mather, by Kenneth Silverman. I am only about half way through this huge book, and I admit I have skimmed a few pages here and there, but so far it is very interesting. Cotton Mather was the son of Increase Mather and they were both very famous ministers in early Boston. They are both buried at Copp's Hill. I had a vague negative memory from my past reading of history that the Mathers were pretty brutal to the local Native Americans, mostly in an effort to convert them to the English language so they could convert them to their puritan form of Christianity. This book is very vague on that subject, though. While on the one hand, I think Cotton was a disturbed religious fanatic, on the other hand he tried to do what he thought was right and he did quite a bit of scientific research and wrote about it, those writings still survive as documentation of early New England nature, weather, landscape etc. What bothered me the most was that the fire and brimstone preaching of 300+ years ago is still alive and well in some of the evangelical churches today. I find that very frightening.