1
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 332; Winthrop,
New England, I., 36.]
2
(return)
[ Force,
Tracts, II., No. iv., 15.]
3
(return)
[
Mass. Col. Records, I., 75.]
4
(return)
[ Morton,
New English Canaan
(Force,
Tracts, II., No. v.), 109.]
5
(return)
[ Dudley's letter (ibid., No. iv.).]
6
(return)
[
Mass. Col. Records, I., 75, 77.]
7
(return)
[ Palfrey,
New England, I., 323, 324]
8
(return)
[ Ibid., 323.]
9
(return)
[ Hubbard,
New England
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d series, V.), 138, 139; Winthrop,
New England, I., 52.]
10
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 64.]
11
(return)
[
Mass. Col. Records, I., 82.]
12
(return)
[ Ibid., 87.]
13
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 84, 90, 152.]
14
(return)
[
Mass. Col. Records, II., 58, 59; Winthrop,
New England, II., 115-118, 193.]
15
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col.
1574-1660, p. 158.]
16
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 356.]
17
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 122, 123.]
18
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 174.]
19
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 161.]
20
(return)
[ Hazard,
State Papers, I., 341.]
21
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 161, 163, 166, 186, 188, 224.]
22
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 163.]
23
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 393.]
24
(return)
[ Maine Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d series, VII., 183-188.]
25
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 200, 204.]
26
(return)
[ Hazard,
State Papers, I., 423-425.]
27
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, II., 12.]
28
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 256.]
29
(return)
[ Hazard,
State Papers, I., 432.]
The history of the beginnings of the Massachusetts colony shows that there was no real unity in church matters among the first emigrants. The majority were strongly tinctured with Puritanism, but nonconformity took on many shades of opinion. When it came to adopting a form of religion for Massachusetts, the question was decided by the ministers and the handful who then enjoyed the controlling power in the colony, and not by the majority of inhabitants. It was in this way that the Congregational church, and not the Presbyterian church, or a simplified form of the Anglican church, obtained its first hold upon the colony.
The adoption of the law of 1631 making membership in the Congregational church the condition of citizenship, and the arrival at a later day of so many talented ministers embittered by persecution against the Anglican church, strengthened the connection and made it permanent. "God's word" was the law of the state, and the interpretation of it was the natural function of the clergy. Thus, through church influence, the limitations on thought and religious practice became more stringent than in the mother-country, where the suffrage took in all freeholders, whether they were adherents of the established church or not.
In Massachusetts even Puritans who declined to acknowledge the form of church government prescribed by the self-established ecclesiastical authority were practically aliens, compelled to bear the burdens of church and state, and without a chance of making themselves felt in the government. And yet, from their own point of view, the position of the Puritan rulers was totally illogical. While suffering from persecution in England, they had appealed to liberty of conscience; and when dominant in America the denouncers of persecution turned persecutors.
A spirit of resistance on the part of many was the natural consequence of a position so full of contradiction. Instances of contumacy happened with such frequency and determination as should have given warning to those in control. In November, 1631, Richard Brown, an elder in the Watertown church, was reported to hold that "the Romish church was a Christian church." Forthwith the court of assistants notified the Watertown congregation that such views could not be allowed, and Winthrop, who went in person with the deputy governor, Dudley, used such summary arguments that Richard Brown, though "a man of violent spirit," thought it prudent to hold his tongue thereafter. In November, 1634, John Eliot, known afterwards so well for his noble work among the Indians, in a sermon censured the court for proceeding too arbitrarily towards the Pequots. He, too, thought better of his words when a solemn embassy of ministers presented the matter in a more orthodox light.
In March, 1635, Captain Israel Stoughton, one of the deputies from Dorchester to the general court, incurred the resentment of the authorities. This "troubler of Israel," as Governor Winthrop termed him, wrote a pamphlet denying the right of the governor and assistants to call themselves "Scriptural Magistrates." Being questioned by the court, the captain made haste, according to the record, to desire that "the said book might be burned as being weak and oppressive." Still unsatisfied, the court ordered that for his said offence he should for three years be disabled from bearing any office in the colony.1
The first great check which this religious despotism received proceeded from Roger Williams, who arrived in February, 1631, in the Lyon, which brought supplies to the famishing colonists of Massachusetts. He was the son of a merchant in London and a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of master of arts in 1627. In his mere religious creed Williams was harsher than even the orthodox ministers of Massachusetts. Soon after his arrival he was invited to become one of the ministers of the Boston church, but refused because that church declined to make a public declaration of their repentance for holding communion in the churches of England while they lived in the home country.
He was then invited to Salem, where he made himself very popular by his talents and eloquence. Nevertheless, within two months he advanced other "scrupulosities," denying the validity of land-titles proceeding from the Massachusetts government, and the right of the magistrates to impose penalties as to Sabbath-breaking or breaches of the laws of the first table. Winthrop and his assistants complained to the Salem church, and this interference prevented his intended ordination at Salem.2
Williams presently removed to Plymouth, where his peculiar views were indulged, and where he improved his time in learning the Indian language and cultivating the acquaintance of the chief sachems of the neighboring Indian tribes. When, two years later, in 1633, Williams returned to live at Salem for the purpose of assisting the minister, Mr. Skelton, who was sick, the rulers of the church at Plymouth granted him a dismissal, but accompanied it with some words of warning about his "unsettled judgment and inconsistency."3
Williams was soon in trouble in Massachusetts. While at Plymouth his interest in the Indians led him to prepare for the private reading of Bradford a pamphlet which argued that the king of England had no right to give away the lands of the Indians in America. The pamphlet had never been published, but reports of its contents reached Boston, and the court of assistants, following, as usual, the advice of the ministers, pounced upon the author and summoned him to answer for what it was claimed was a denial of their charter rights.
When Williams appeared for this purpose, in January, 1634, the objections of the court shifted to some vague phrases in the document which they construed to reflect upon the king. These expressions were readily explained by Williams, and he was promptly forgiven by the court on his professing loyalty and taking the usual oath of allegiance to his majesty.4 Perhaps this singular behavior on the part of the court is explained by the apprehension generally felt that Ferdinando Gorges, in England, would succeed in his attempt to vacate the charter of Massachusetts. If the charter had been successfully called in, Williams's ground of the sufficiency of the Indian title to lands might have proved useful as a last resort.5
Nevertheless, in November, 1634, the authorities were on his track again. The pretext now was that Williams "taught publicly against the king's patent," and that "he termed the churches of England antichristian." This revamping of an old charge which had been explained and dropped was probably due to a change of attitude towards the English government. In May, 1634, the general court elected the intolerant deputy governor, Thomas Dudley, governor in the place of Winthrop; and when in July the news of the demand of the Lords Commissioners for Foreign Plantations for the surrender of the colony charter was received at Boston, the new governor took steps, as we have seen, to commit the colony to a fight rather than yield compliance.6
Nothing, however, resulted from the charges against Williams, and it was not until March, 1635, that he again excited the wrath of the government. Then his scruples took the shape of objections to the recent legislation requiring every resident to swear to defend the provincial charter. Williams declared that the state had no right to demand an oath of an "unregenerate man," for that "we thereby had communion with a wicked man in the worship of God and caused him to take the name of God in vain."
Williams was, accordingly, summoned to Boston in April, and subjected to confutation by the ministers, but positive action was deferred. While the matter remained thus undetermined, the church at Salem elected him teacher, and this action was construed as a contempt on the part of both Williams and the Salem church. Accordingly, when the general court met in July, 1635, Haynes now being governor, it entered an order giving them till next court to make satisfaction for their conduct. At the same court a petition of the Salem church for some land in Marblehead Neck was rejected "because they had chosen Mr. Williams their teacher."
Affairs had now drawn to a crisis. The Salem church wrote a letter to all the other churches protesting against their treatment, and Williams notified his own church that he would not commune with them unless they declined to commune with the other churches of the colony.
When the general court met in September, Salem was punished with the loss of representation, and thereupon gave way and submitted. Not so Williams. In October, 1635, he was again "convented," and on his refusing, in the presence of all the ministers of the colony, to renounce his opinions, he was banished from Massachusetts. The time given him to depart was only six weeks, and though some of the laymen in the church opposed the decree, every clerical member save one approved it.
Liberty to remain till spring was afterwards granted Williams, but he was admonished not to go about to draw others to his opinions. As Williams was one of those contentious people who must talk, this inhibition was futile. It is true that he no longer preached in his church, as the congregation had submitted to the will of those in power. But he conversed in private with some of his friends, and arranged a plan of establishing a new settlement on the shores of Narragansett Bay.
When information of this design reached Boston in January, 1636, the authorities, on the plea that an heretical settlement in the neighborhood might affect the peace of the colony, determined to get rid of Williams altogether by shipping him to England. An order was sent to him to come to Boston, which he declined to obey on account of ill-health. Captain Underhill was then sent to take him by force, but before the doughty captain could arrive, Williams, getting intelligence of his purpose, sick as he was, left his wife and two infant children and hurried away, and no one at Salem would give Underhill any information.7
Thirty-five years later Williams wrote, "I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bed or bread did mean." In this extremity he experienced the benefits of the friendly relations which he had cultivated with the Indians at Plymouth, for the Pokanokets received him kindly and gave him some land on the Seekonk River.
The long arm of the Massachusetts authorities reached out for him even here. He was soon advised by his friend, Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, that as his plantation was within the limits of the Plymouth colony he had better remove to the other side of the river, as his government was "loath to displease the Bay." So Williams, with five of his friends, who now joined him, embarked in his canoe and established his settlement in June, 1636, at Providence, where he was joined by many members of the church of Salem.8 This was the beginning of Rhode Island, or, rather, of one of the beginnings of their complex colony.
The religion of the ruling class in Massachusetts, though bitterly hostile to the ritual of the English church, was a matter of strict regulation—there were rules regarding fast days, Sabbath attendance, prayer-meetings, apparel, and speech. The wrath of God and eternal punishment formed the substance of every sermon. In the church at Boston this rigid system found a standard exponent in the pastor, John Wilson; but the "teacher," John Cotton, a man of far greater ability, sometimes preached sermons in which he dwelt upon the divine mercy and love. The result was that the people crowded to hear him, and more persons were converted and added to the church in Boston in the earlier months of Cotton's residence than in all the other churches in the colony.9
Among the members of Cotton's church was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who knew Cotton in England and had crossed the sea to hear his teachings. After her arrival, in June, 1636, she made herself very popular by her ministrations "in time of childbirth and other occasions of bodily infirmities." Soon she ventured to hold open meetings for women, at which the sermons of the ministers furnished the subject of comment. From a mere critic of the opinions of others Mrs. Hutchinson gradually presumed to act the part of teacher herself, and her views on the questions of "a covenant of works" and "a covenant of grace" attracted much attention.10 The former of these terms had been used by Protestants to designate the condition of the Catholic church, which imposed as the condition of salvation penances, confessions, pilgrimages, legacies to the church, etc.; while the latter expression described the condition of all true Protestant Christians who found peace in the consciousness of holiness of spirit and faith in Jesus Christ.
Mrs. Hutchinson gave an emotional rendering to the "covenant of grace," and held that the divine spirit dwelt in every true believer and no demeanor in life could evidence its existence. To the Massachusetts ministers this doctrine seemed like a claim to inspiration, and struck at the whole discipline of the church. But what disturbed them more than anything else was the report that she had singled out two of the whole order, John Cotton and her brother-in-law John Wheelwright, to praise as walking in "the covenant of grace."11
The quarrel began first in the bosom of the Boston church. Wilson, the pastor, resented Mrs. Hutchinson's preference of Mr. Cotton, the teacher, and began to denounce Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions. The congregation divided into two factions; on the one side was the pastor, supported by John Winthrop and a few others, and on the other were Mrs. Hutchinson, young Harry Vane, then governor, and the large majority of the members. Mr. Cotton was not identified with either side, but sympathized with the latter. Matters verged to a crisis when the Hutchinsonians announced their intention of electing Mr. Wheelwright, who had not long since arrived, as a second teacher in the church.
The election was to take place on Sunday, October 30, 1636; but October 25 the general court met and the ministers from other parts of the colony came to Boston and held a conference at which Cotton, Wheelwright, and Wilson were present, and there was a general discussion of all points in controversy. They agreed that "sanctification" (i.e., a holy deportment) did help to evidence "justification" (salvation); but there was more or less difference on the question of the "indwelling of the Holy Ghost." Mr. Wheelwright argued in its favor, but held that the indwelling referred to did not amount to "a personal union with God," as Mrs. Hutchinson and Governor Vane contended.
The conference instead of quieting aggravated the difficulty. Five days later, when Mr. Wheelwright's name was voted upon, Winthrop rose and hotly objected to him on the ground that he held unorthodox opinions respecting the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and was apt to raise "doubtful disputations." As a consequence the church would not elect Wheelwright in the face of an objection from so prominent a member as Winthrop. Next day Winthrop continued his attack, insisting that Wheelwright must necessarily believe in a "personal union."
At this juncture Governor Harry Vane unfortunately gave to the existing difficulties a political aspect. Vane was the son of one of the secretaries of state of England. Having taken a religious turn, he forsook all the honors and preferments of the court and obtained the consent of his parents to visit Massachusetts. Almost immediately after his arrival, he was elected, in May, 1636, when only twenty-four years of age, governor of the colony, with John Winthrop as deputy governor. After the quarrel in regard to the election of Wheelwright, Vane, who had become tired of the distractions in the colony, convened the general court, December 10, 1636, to tender his resignation upon the half-reason that his private affairs required his presence in England.
Next day one of the assistants very feelingly regretted the coming loss, especially in view of threatened attacks from the French and Indians. The remarks took Vane off his guard. Carried away by his feelings, he burst into tears and protested that, though his outward estate was really in peril, yet he would not have thought of deserting them at this crisis had he not felt the inevitable danger of God's judgments upon them for their dissensions. Thereupon the court, of which a majority were his opponents, declined to allow his departure on the grounds assigned. Vane saw his mistake and reverted to his private estate. The court then consented to his departure, and a court of elections was called for December 15 to supply the vacancy caused by his resignation.
Before this time arrived the religious drama took a new turn. The friends of Mrs. Hutchinson knew the value of having the head of the government with them, and would not dismiss Vane from the church, whereupon he withdrew his resignation altogether. Till the next election in May the colony was more divided than ever. Mr. Wheelwright was appointed to take charge of a church at Mount Wollaston, but his forced withdrawal from Boston was a source of irritation to his numerous friends. Mrs. Hutchinson remained and was the storm-centre, while Vane, who now sought a re-election, was freely accused of subterfuge and deception.
A day or two after December 15 the ministers and the court held a meeting at which very hot words passed between Governor Vane and Rev. Hugh Peter. Wilson, the pastor of Boston, also indulged in caustic criticisms directed at Governor Vane and the other friends of Mrs. Hutchinson. By this speech Wilson gave great offence to his congregation, who would have laid a formal church censure upon him had not Cotton interfered and in lieu of it gave his fellow-preacher a good scolding, under the guise of what Winthrop calls "a grave exhortation."
The clergy were very anxious to win over Mr. Cotton, and about a week later held a meeting at Boston and solemnly catechised Cotton on many abstruse points. The storm of theological rancor was at its height. Harsh words were hurled about, and by some orthodox ministers Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends were denounced as Familists, Antinomians, etc., after certain early sects who cherished the doctrines of private inspiration and had committed many strange offences. On the other hand, some of Mrs. Hutchinson's friends scornfully referred to the orthodox party as legalists and antichrists, "who walked in a covenant of works."
Harsh words are only one step removed from harsh measures. The legalists were in a majority in the general court, and they resolved to retaliate for the treatment Mr. Wilson had received at the hands of his congregation.12 At the general court which convened March 9, 1637, Wilson's sermon was approved and Wheelwright was summoned to answer for alleged "seditious and treasonable words" that were used by him in a sermon preached in Boston on a recent fast day. This action brought forth a petition from the church of Boston in Wheelwright's behalf, which the court declared "presumptious" and rejected. Wheelwright himself was pronounced guilty, and thereupon a protest was offered by Vane, and a second petition came from Boston, which, like the first, went unheeded, and only served at a later day to involve those who signed it.
Amid great excitement the legalists carried a resolution to hold the May election at Newtown (Cambridge) instead of Boston, a partisan move, for Newtown was more subject to their influence than Boston. At this court in May the turbulence was so great that the parties came near to blows. Threats resounded on all sides, and Wilson was so carried away with excitement that he climbed a tree to harangue the multitude. The Vane forces struggled hard, but were badly defeated, and Winthrop was restored to his former office as governor, while the stern Thomas Dudley was made deputy governor. Vane and his assistants, Coddington and Dummer, were defeated and "quite left out," even from the magistracy.13
Secure in the possession of power, the legalists now proceeded to suppress the opposing party altogether. An order was passed commanding that no one should harbor any new arrival for more than three weeks without leave of the magistrates. This was to prevent any dangerous irruption of sympathizers with Mrs. Hutchinson from England, and it was applied against a brother of Mrs. Hutchinson and some others of her friends who arrived not long after.
August 3, 1637, Vane sailed for England, and thenceforward the Hutchinson faction, abandoned by their great leader, made little resistance. In the latter part of the same month (August 30) a great synod of the ministers was held at Newtown, which was the first thing of the sort attempted in America, and included all the teaching elders of the colony and some new-comers from England. This body set to work to lay hold of the heresies which infected the atmosphere of the colony, and formulated about "eighty opinions," some "blasphemous," but others merely "erroneous and unsafe." How many of them were really entertained by Mrs. Hutchinson's followers and how many were merely inferences drawn from their teachings by their opponents it is hard to say.
When these heresies were all enumerated and compared with the opinions of Cotton and Wheelwright, only five points of possible heterodoxy on their part appeared. Over these there was a solemn wrangle for days, till Cotton, shrinking from his position, contrived, through abundant use of doubtfull expressions, to effect his reconciliation with the dominant party. After a session of twenty-four days the synod adjourned, and Wheelwright, alone of the ministers, was left as the scapegoat of the Antinomians, and with him the majority determined to make short work.14
At the general court which met November 2, 1637, the transgressions of Wheelwright through his fast-day sermon were made the basis of operations. For this offence Wheelwright had been judged guilty more than nine months before, but sentence had been deferred; he was now sentenced to disfranchisement and banishment. Many of his friends at Boston, including William Aspinwall and John Coggeshall, delegates to the general court, experienced similar treatment for signing the petition presented to the court in March, 1637, after the verdict against Wheelwright.15
An order was passed for disarming Mrs. Hutchinson's followers, and finally the arch-heretic herself was sent for and her examination lasted two days. In the dialogue with Winthrop which began the proceedings, Mrs. Hutchinson had decidedly the best of the controversy; and Winthrop himself confesses that "she knew when to speak and when to hold her tongue." The evidence failed wretchedly upon the main charge, which was that Mrs. Hutchinson alleged that all the ministers in Massachusetts except Mr. Cotton preached "a covenant of works." On the contrary, by her own evidence and that of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Leverett, it appeared that Mrs. Hutchinson had said that "they did not preach a covenant of grace as clearly as Mr. Cotton did," which was probably very true.16
Her condemnation was a matter of course, and at the end of two days the court banished her from the colony; but as it was winter she was committed to the temporary care of Mr. Joseph Welde, of Roxbury, brother of the Rev. Thomas Welde, who afterwards wrote a rancorous account of these difficulties, entitled A Short Story. While in his house, Mrs. Hutchinson was subjected to many exhortations by anxious elders, till her spirits sank under the trial and she made a retraction. Nevertheless, it was not as full as her tormentors desired, and the added penalty of dismissal from church was imposed. After her excommunication her spirits revived, "and she gloried in her condemnation and declared that it was the greatest happiness next to Christ that ever befell her."
In this affair Winthrop acted as prosecutor and judge. Before the spring had well set in he sent word to Mrs. Hutchinson to depart from the colony. Accordingly, March 28, 1638, she went by water to her farm at Mount Wollaston (now Quincy), intending to join Mr. Wheelwright, who had gone to Piscataqua, in Maine, but she changed her mind and went by land to the settlement of Roger Williams at Providence, and thence to the island of Aquidneck, where she joined her husband and other friends.17
Such was the so-called Antinomian controversy in Massachusetts, and its ending had a far-reaching effect upon the fortunes of the colony. The suppression of Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends produced what Winthrop and the rest evidently desired—peace—a long peace. For fifty years the commonwealth was free from any great religious agitations; but this condition of quietude, being purchased at the price of free speech and free conscience, discouraged all literature except of a theological stamp, and confirmed the aristocratic character of the government. As one of its mouth-pieces, Rev. Samuel Stone, remarked, New England Congregationalism continued till the close of the century "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent democracy."18 The intense practical character of the people saved the colony, which, despite the theocratic government, maintained a vigorous life in politics, business, and domestic economy.
1
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 70, 81, 113, 179, 185;
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 180.]
2
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 49, 63.]
3
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 370; Hubbard,
New England
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d series, V.), 203.]
4
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 145, 147.]
5
(return)
[ Eggleston,
Beginners of a Nation, 282.]
6
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 163, 166, 180.]
7
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 188, 193, 198, 204, 209, 210.]
8
(return)
[ Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 1st series, I., 276.]
9
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 144.]
10
(return)
[ Adams,
Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 339.]
11
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 239; Hutchinson,
Massachusetts Bay, I., 435.]
12
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 240-255;
Mass. Col. Records, I., 185.]
13
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 256-263.]
14
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 261-288.]
15
(return)
[ Ibid., 291-296.]
16
(return)
[ Hutchinson,
Massachusetts Bay, II., 423-447.]
17
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 296-312.]
18
(return)
[ Adams,
Massachusetts: Its Historians and its History, 57.]
The island of Aquidneck, to which Mrs. Hutchinson retired, was secured from Canonicus and Miantonomoh, the sachems of the Narragansetts, through the good offices of Roger Williams, by John Clarke, William Coddington, and other leaders of her faction, a short time preceding her banishment, after a winter spent in Maine, where the climate proved too cold for them.1 The place of settlement was at the northeastern corner of the island, and was known first by its Indian name of Pocasset and afterwards as Portsmouth. The first settlers, nineteen in number, constituted themselves a body politic and elected William Coddington as executive magistrate, with the title of chief judge, and William Aspinwall as secretary.2 Other emigrants swelled the number, till in 1639 a new settlement at the southern part of the island, called Newport, resulted through the secession of a part of the settlers headed by Coddington. For more than a year the two settlements remained separate, but in March, 1640, they were formally united.3 Settlers flocked to these parts, and in 1644 the Indian name of Aquidneck was changed to Rhode Island.4
Not less flourishing was Roger Williams's settlement of Providence on the main-land. In the summer of 1640 Patuxet was marked off as a separate township;5 and in 1643 Samuel Gorton and others, fleeing from the wrath of Massachusetts, made a settlement called Shawomet, or Warwick, about twelve miles distant from Providence.
The tendency of these various towns was to combine in a commonwealth, but on account of their separate origin the process of union was slow. The source of most of their trouble in their infancy was the grasping policy of Massachusetts. Next to heretics in the bosom of the commonwealth heretic neighbors were especially abhorrent. When in 1640 the magistrates of Connecticut and New Haven addressed a joint letter to the general court of Massachusetts, and the citizens of Aquidneck ventured to join in it, Massachusetts arrogantly excluded the representation of Aquidneck from their reply as "men not fit to be capitulated withal by us either for themselves or for the people of the isle where they inhabit."6 And neither in 1644 nor in 1648 would Massachusetts listen to the appeal of the Rhode-Islanders to be admitted into the confederacy of the New England colonies.7
The desire of Massachusetts appeared to be to hold the heretics and their new country under a kind of personal and territorial vassalage, as was interestingly shown in the case of Mrs. Hutchinson and Samuel Gorton. Despite her banishment and excommunication the church at Boston seemed to consider it a duty to keep a paternal eye on Mrs. Hutchinson; and not long after her settlement at Portsmouth sent an embassy to interview her and obtain, if possible, a submission and profession of repentance.
The bearers of this message met with an apt reception and returned very much disconcerted. They found Mrs. Hutchinson, and declared that they came as messengers from the church of Boston, but she replied that she knew only the church of Christ and recognized no such church as "the church of Boston." Nevertheless, she continued to be annoyed with messages from Boston till, in order to be quiet and out of reach, she removed to a place very near Hell Gate in the Dutch settlement, and there, in 1643, she, with most of her family, perished in an Indian attack.8
The authority of Massachusetts over the banished was not confined to religious exhortations. Samuel Gorton, a great friend of Mrs. Hutchinson, was in many respects one of the most interesting characters in early New England history. This man had a most pertinacious regard for his private rights, and at Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Providence his career of trouble was very much the same. But he was not an ordinary law-breaker, and in Providence, in 1641, Gorton and his friends refused to submit to a distress ordained by the magistrates, for the reason that these magistrates, having no charter, had no better authority to make laws than any private person.9
The next year, 1642, thirteen citizens of Providence petitioned Boston for assistance and protection against him; and not long after, four of the petitioners submitted their persons and lands to the authority of Massachusetts.10 Although to accept this submission was to step beyond their bounds under the Massachusetts charter, the authorities at Boston, in October, 1642, gave a formal notice of their intention to maintain the claim of the submissionists.11 To this notice Gorton replied, November 20, 1642, in a letter full of abstruse theology and rancorous invective.
Nevertheless, he and his party left Patuxet and removed to Shawomet, a tract beyond the limits of Providence, and purchased in January, 1643, from Miantonomoh, the great sachem of the Narragansetts.12 Gorton's letter had secured for him the thorough hatred of the authorities in Massachusetts, and his removal by no means ended their interference. The right of Miantonomoh to make sale to Gorton was denied by two local sachems; and Massachusetts coming to their support, Gorton was formally summoned, in September, 1643, to appear before the court of Boston to answer the complaint of the sachems for trespass.13 Gorton and his friends returned a contemptuous reply, and as he continued to deny the right of Massachusetts to interfere, the Boston government prepared to send an armed force against him.14
In the mean time, a terrible fate overtook the friend and ally of Gorton, Miantonomoh, at the hands of his neighbors in the west, the Mohegans, whose chief, Uncas, attacked one of Miantonomoh's subordinate chiefs; Miantonomoh accepted the war, was defeated, and captured by Uncas. Gorton interfered by letter to save his friend, and Uncas referred the question of Miantonomoh's fate to the federal commissioners at Boston. The elders were clamorous for the death penalty, but the commissioners admitting that "there was no sufficient ground for us to put him to death," agreed to deliver the unhappy chieftain to Uncas, with permission to kill him as soon as he came within Uncas's jurisdiction. Accordingly, Miantonomoh was slaughtered by his enemy, who cut out a warm slice from his shoulder and declared it the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted and that it gave strength to his heart.15 Thus fell Miantonomoh, the circumstances of whose death were "not at all creditable to the federal commissioners and their clerical advisers."16
Massachusetts sent out an armed force against the Gortonists, and after some resistance the leaders were captured and brought to Boston. Here Wilson and other ministers urged the death penalty upon the "blasphemous heretics." But the civil authorities were not prepared to go so far, and in October, 1643, adopted the alternative of imprisonment. In March, 1644, Gorton and his friends were liberated, but banished on pain of death from all places claimed to be within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.
They departed to Shawomet, but Governor Winthrop forbade them to stay there; and in April, 1644, Gorton and his friends once more sought refuge at Aquidneck.17 Gorton, having contrived to reach England, returned in May, 1648, with an order from the Parliamentary commissioners for plantations, directed to the authorities of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, to permit him and his friends to reside in peace at Warwick, which they were then permitted to do.18 In 1652 Gorton became president of Providence and Warwick.19
In December, 1643, the agents of Massachusetts in England obtained from the Parliamentary commissioners for plantations a grant of all the main-land in Massachusetts Bay; and it appeared for the moment as if it were all over with the independence of the Rhode Island towns. Fortunately, Williams was in England at the time, and with indomitable energy he set to work to counteract the danger.
In less than three months he persuaded the same commissioners to issue, March 14, 1644, a second instrument20 incorporating the towns of "Providence Plantations, in the Narragansett Bay in New England," and (in flat contradiction of the earlier grant to Massachusetts) giving them "the Tract of Land in the Continent of America called by the name of Narragansett Bay, bordering Northward and Northeast on the patent of the Massachusetts, East and Southeast on Plymouth Patent, South on the Ocean, and on the West and Northwest by the Indians called Nahigganeucks, alias Narregansets—the whole Tract extending about twenty-five English miles unto the Pequot River and Country." The charter contained no mention of religion or citizenship, though it gave the inhabitants full power "to rule themselves and such others as shall hereafter inhabit within any Part of the said Tract, by such a Form of Civil Government, as by voluntary consent of all, or the greater Parte of them, they shall find most suitable to their Estate and Condition."
Williams returned to America in September, 1644. On account of the unfriendly disposition of Massachusetts he was compelled, when leaving for England, to take his departure from the Dutch port of New Amsterdam. Now, like one vindicated in name and character, he landed in Boston, and, protected by a letter21 from "divers Lords and others of the Parliament," passed unmolested through Massachusetts, and reached Providence by the same route which, as a homeless wanderer, he had pursued eight years before. It is said that at Seekonk he was met by fourteen canoes filled with people, who escorted him across the water to Providence with shouts of triumph.22
Peace and union, however, did not at once flow from the labors of Williams. The hostility of Massachusetts and Plymouth towards the Rhode-Islanders seemed at first increased; and the principle of self-government, to which the Rhode Island townships owed their existence, delayed their confederation. At last, in May, 1647, an assembly of freemen from the four towns of Portsmouth, Newport, Providence, and Warwick met at Portsmouth, and proceeded to make laws in the name of the whole body politic, incorporated under the charter. The first president was John Coggeshall; and Roger Williams and William Coddington were two of the first assistants.
Massachusetts, aided by the Plymouth colony, still continued her machinations, and an ally was found in Rhode Island itself in the person of William Coddington. In 1650 he went to England and obtained an order, dated April 3, 1651, for the severance of the island from the main-land settlements.23 Fortunately, however, for the preservation of Rhode Island unity, an act of intemperate bigotry on the part of Massachusetts saved the state from Coddington's interference.
The sect called Anabaptists, or Baptists, opposed to infant baptism, made their appearance in New England soon after the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson. Rhode Island became a stronghold for them, and in 1638 Roger Williams adopted their tenets and was rebaptized.24 In 1644 a Baptist church was established at Newport.25 The same year Massachusetts passed a law decreeing banishment of all professors of the new opinions.26 In October, 1650, three prominent Baptists, John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, and John Crandall, visited Massachusetts, when they were seized, whipped, fined, imprisoned, and barely escaped with their lives.27
The alarm created in Rhode Island by these proceedings brought the towns once more into a common policy, and Clarke and Williams were sent to England to undo the work of Coddington. Aided by the warm friendship of Sir Harry Vane, the efforts of the agents were crowned with success. Coddington's commission was revoked by an order of council in September, 1652, and the townships were directed to unite under the charter of 1644.28 Coddington did not at once submit, and there was a good deal of dissension in the Rhode Island towns till June, 1654, when Williams returned from England. Then Coddington yielded,29 and, August 31, commissioners from the four towns voted to restore the government constituted seven years before. The consolidation of Rhode Island was perfected when, in 1658, Massachusetts released her claims to jurisdiction there.30
Liberty of conscience as asserted by Roger Williams did not involve the abrogation of civil restraint, and when one William Harris disturbed the peace in 1656, by asserting this doctrine in a pamphlet,31 Williams, then governor, had a warrant issued for his apprehension. When, in 1658, Williams retired to private life the possibility of founding a state in which "religious freedom and civil order could stand together" was fully proved to the world.32
Besides the Indian power, as many as six independent jurisdictions existed originally in the present state of Connecticut. (1) The Dutch fort of "Good Hope," established in 1633, on the Connecticut River, had jurisdiction over a small area of country. (2) The Plymouth colony owned some territory on the Connecticut River and built a fort there soon after the Dutch came. (3) Next was the jurisdiction of Fort Saybrook, the sole evidence of possession on the part of the holders of a patent from the earl of Warwick, president of the Council for New England, who claimed to own the whole of Connecticut. (4) A much larger jurisdiction was that of the Connecticut River towns, settled in 1635-1636, contemporaneously with the banishment of Roger Williams. (5) New Haven was settled in 1638, in the height of the Antinomian difficulties. (6) A claim was advanced by the marquis of Hamilton for a tract of land running from the mouth of the Connecticut River to Narragansett Bay, assigned to him in the division of 1635, but it did not become a disturbing factor till 1665.
The early relations between the Dutch and English colonies were, as we have seen, characterized by kindness and good-fellowship. The Dutch advised the Plymouth settlers to remove from their "present barren quarters," and commended to them the valley of the "Fresh River" (Connecticut), referring to it as a fine place both for plantation and trade.33 Afterwards, some Mohegan Indians visiting Plymouth in 1631 made similar representations. Their chief, Uncas, an able, unscrupulous, and ambitious savage, made it his great ambition to attain the headship of his aggressive western neighbors, the Pequots. The only result had been to turn the resentment of the Pequots against himself; and he sought the protection of the Plymouth government by encouraging them to plant a settlement on the Connecticut in his own neighborhood.34
These persuasions had at length some effect, and in 1632 Edward Winslow, being sent in a bark to examine the river, reported the country as conforming in every respect to the account given of it by the Dutch and the Indians.35 Meanwhile, the Indians, not liking the delay, visited Boston and tried to induce the authorities there to send out a colony, but, though Governor Winthrop received them politely, he dismissed them without the hoped-for assistance.36
In July, 1633, Bradford and Winslow made a special visit to Boston to discuss the plan of a joint trading-post, but they did not receive much encouragement. Winthrop and his council suggested various objections: the impediments to commerce due to the sand-bar at the mouth; the long continuance of ice in spring, and the multitude of Indians in the neighborhood. But it seems likely that these allegations were pretexts, since we read in Winthrop's Journal that in September, 1633, a bark was sent from Boston to Connecticut; and John Oldham, with three others, set out from Watertown overland to explore the river.37
Plymouth determined to wait no longer, and in October, 1633, sent a vessel, commanded by William Holmes, with workmen and the frame of a building for a trading-post. When they arrived in the river, they were surprised to find other Europeans in possession. The Dutch, aroused from their dream of security by the growth of the English settlement, made haste in the June previous to purchase from the Indians twenty acres where Hartford now stands, upon which they built a fort a short time after. When the vessel bearing the Plymouth traders reached this point in the river, the Dutch commander, John van Curler, commanded Holmes to stop and strike his flag. But Holmes, paying little attention to the threats of the Dutchman, continued his voyage and established a rival post ten miles above, at a place now known as Windsor.38
Meanwhile, the ship which Winthrop sent to Connecticut went onward to New Netherland, where the captain notified Governor Van Twiller, in Winthrop's name, that the English had a royal grant to the territory about the Connecticut River. It returned to Boston in October, 1633, and brought a reply from Van Twiller that the Dutch had also a claim under a grant from their States-General of Holland.39 In December, 1633, Van Twiller heard of Holmes's trading-post and despatched an armed force of seventy men to expel the intruders. They appeared before the fort with colors flying, but finding that Holmes had received reinforcements, and that it would be impossible to dislodge him without bloodshed, they returned home without molesting him.40
The Plymouth settlers were destined to be dispossessed, not by the Dutch, but by their own countrymen. The people of Massachusetts were now fully aroused, and the news that came to Boston in the summer of 1634 that the small-pox had practically destroyed the Indians on the river increased "the hankering" after the coveted territory.41 The people of Watertown, Dorchester, and Newtown (Cambridge) had long been restless under the Massachusetts authority, and were anxious for a change. Dorchester was the residence of Captain Israel Stoughton, and Watertown the residence of Richard Brown and John Oldham, all three of whom had been under the ban of the orthodox Puritan church. At Watertown also had sprung up the first decided opposition to the aristocratic claim of the court of assistants to lay taxes on the people. As for Newtown (now Cambridge), its inhabitants could not forget that, though selected in the first instance as the capital of the colony, it had afterwards been discarded for the town of Boston.
In all three towns there was a pressure for arable lands and more or less jealousy among the ministers. Some dissatisfaction also with the requirement in Massachusetts of church-membership for the suffrage may have been among the motives for seeking a new home. At the head of the movement was the Rev. Thomas Hooker, a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who had lived in Holland, and while there had imbibed a greater share of liberality than was to be found among most of the clergy of Massachusetts. Cotton declared that democracy was "no fit government either for church or commonwealth," and the majority of the ministers agreed with him. Winthrop defended his view in a letter to Hooker on the ground that "the best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser." But Hooker replied that "in matters which concern the common good a general council, chosen by all, to transact business which concerns all, I conceive most suitable to rule and most safe for the relief of the whole."
Hooker arrived in the colony in September, 1633,42 and in May, 1634, at the first annual general court after his arrival, his congregation at Newtown petitioned to be permitted to move to some other quarters within the bounds of Massachusetts.43 The application was granted, and messengers were sent to Agawam and Merrimac to look for a suitable location.44 After this, when the epidemic on the Connecticut became known, a petition to be permitted to move out of the Massachusetts jurisdiction was presented to the general court in September, 1634. This raised a serious debate, and though there can be little doubt that Winthrop and the other leaders in Massachusetts shrewdly cherished the idea of pre-empting in some way the trade of the Connecticut, against both the Plymouth people and the Dutch, an emigration such as was proposed appeared too much like a desertion. The fear of the appointment by the crown of a governor-general for New England was at its height, and so the application, though it met with favor from the majority of the deputies, was rejected by the court of assistants.45
The popularity of the measure, however, increased mightily, and there is a tradition that in the winter of 1634-1635 some persons from Watertown went to Connecticut and managed to survive the winter in a few huts erected at Pyquag, afterwards Wethersfield.46 The next spring the Watertown and Dorchester people imitated the Newtown congregation in applying to the general court for permission to remove. They were more successful, and were given liberty to go to any place, even outside of Massachusetts, provided they continued under the Massachusetts authority.47
Then began a lively movement, and Jonathan Brewster, in a letter written from the Plymouth fort at Windsor in July, 1635, tells of the daily arrival by land and water of small parties of these adventurous settlers. Their presence around the fort caused Brewster much uneasiness, since some began to cast covetous eyes upon the very spot which the Plymouth government had bought from the Mohegans and held against the Dutch.
As their numbers grew their confidence increased; and finally the men of Dorchester, headed by Roger Ludlow, one of the richest men in Massachusetts, pretending that the land was theirs as the "Lord's waste," upon which "the providence of God" had cast them, intruded themselves into the actual midst of the Plymouth people. The emigrants from Plymouth protested, but were finally glad to accept a compromise, though, as Bradford remarks, "the unkindness was not soon forgotten." The Massachusetts settlers held on to fifteen-sixteenths of the land, while they magnanimously conceded to the Plymouth people one-sixteenth, in addition to their block-houses.48
The emigration in the summer of 1635 was preliminary to a much larger exodus in the fall. In October a company of about sixty men, women, and children, driving before them their cows, horses, and swine, set out by land and reached the Connecticut "after a tedious and difficult journey";49 but the winter set in very early, and the vessels which were to bring their provisions by water not appearing, they were forced to leave their settlement for fear of famine. They were fortunate to find a ship frozen up in the river, which they freed from the ice and used to return to Boston. The other settlers who remained upon the river suffered very much, and were finally reduced to the necessity of eating acorns and ground-nuts, which they dug out of the snow. A great number of the cattle perished, and the Dorchester Company "lost near £2000 worth."50
These calamities were soon forgotten; and as soon as the first flowers of spring suggested the end of the dreary winter season, the Newtown people prepared to move. Selling their lands on the Charles River to the congregation of Rev. Thomas Shepard, the whole body, in June, 1636, emigrated through the green woods, musical with birds and bright with flowers, under the leadership of their two eminent ministers, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone.51 Among the lay members of the community were Stephen Hart, Thomas Bull, and Richard Lord.52 A little later the churches of Dorchester and Watertown completed their removal, while a settlement was made by emigrants from Roxbury under William Pynchon at Agawam, afterwards Springfield, just north of the boundary between Massachusetts and Connecticut.53