After a period of expansion and little focus on evangelism, Reverend John Robinson told the New Englanders to prioritize missionary work over growth, "the killing of those poor Indians...How happy a thing it had been if you had converted some before you had killed any." Chastened in the wake of the Mystic Massacre of the Pequots, sincere efforts at evangelizing began. A school was set up, a government established, and the Indians were encouraged to convert to Christianity. In November 1675, during King Philip's War, the Natick Indians were sent to Deer Island. Many died of disease and cold, and those who survived found their homes destroyed. The Indian village did not fully recover, and the land held in common by the Indian community was slowly sold to white settlers to cover debts. By 1785, most of the Natick Indians had drifted away. After King Philip's War, Elliot's and a few other missionaries' opposition to the executions and enslavement of Indians were eventually silenced by death threats.