CHAPTER XII

FOUNDING OF MASSACHUSETTS

(1630-1642)

Winthrop's government superseded Endicott's; but Winthrop, not liking the appearance of the country around Salem, repaired to Charlestown with most of the new-comers. Here, as elsewhere, there was much sickness and death. Owing to the dearth of provisions it was found necessary to free all the servants sent over within the last two years at a cost of £16 or £20 each. The discouragement was reflected in the return to England within a few months of more than a hundred persons in the ships that brought them over.

The gloom of his surroundings caused Winthrop to set apart July 30 as a day of prayer, and on that day Rev. John Wilson, after the manner of proceeding the year before at Salem, entered into a church covenant with Winthrop, Dudley, and Isaac Johnson, one of the assistants. Two days later they associated with themselves five others; and more being presently added, this third congregational church established in New England, elected, August 27, John Wilson to be their teacher and Increase Nowell to be ruling elder.[1 ]

Still the guise of loyalty to the church of England was for some time maintained. In a letter to the countess of Lincoln, March 28, 1631, the deputy governor, Thomas Dudley, one of the warmest of the Puritans, repelled "the false and scandalous report," which those who returned "the last year" had spread in England that "we are Brownists in religion and ill affected to our state at home"; "and for our further cleareinge," he said, "I truely affirme that I know noe one person who came over with us the last yeare to be altered in his judgment and affection eyther in ecclesiasticall or civill respects since our comeinge hither."[2 ]

Winthrop and his assistants held their first formal session at Charlestown, August 23, 1630, and took vigorous measures to demonstrate their authority. Morton challenged attention on account not only of his religious views and his friendship for Gorges, but of his defiant attitude to the colony, and an order was issued that "Morton, of Mount Wolliston, should presently be sent for by process." Two weeks later his trial was had, and he was ordered "to be set into the bilboes," and afterwards sent prisoner to England. To defray the charges of his transportation, his goods were seized, and "for the many wrongs he had done the Indians" his house was burned to the ground,[3 ] a sentence which, according to Morton, caused the Indians to say that "God would not love them that burned this good man's house."[4 ]

Death was still playing havoc with the immigrants at Charlestown. Several hundred men, women, and children were crowded together in a narrow space, and had no better protection than tents, wigwams, booths, and log-cabins. By December two hundred of the late arrivals had perished, and among the dead were Francis Higginson, who had taken a leading part in establishing the church at Salem, the first in Massachusetts.[5 ] The severity of the diseases was ascribed to the lack of good water at Charlestown, and, accordingly, the settlers there broke up into small parties and sought out different places of settlement.

On the other side of the Charles River was a peninsula occupied by William Blackstone, one of the companions of Robert Gorges at Wessagusset in 1626. It was blessed with a sweet and pleasant spring, and was one of the places now selected as a settlement. September 7, 1630, the court of assistants gave this place the name of Boston; and at the same court Dorchester and Watertown began their career under legislative sanction.[6 ] Before winter the towns scattered through Massachusetts were eight in number—Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic, and Lynn.[7 ]

October 19, 1630, a general court, the first in New England, was held in Boston. The membership consisted of the governor, deputy, eight assistants, and one or two others, for these were all at that time in Massachusetts possessing the franchise of the company.[8 ] The former officers were re-elected, and a resolution was adopted that "the freemen should have the power to choose assistants when they are to be chosen, and the assistants to choose from among themselves the governor and his deputy." The rule implied a strong reluctance to leave out of the board any person once elected magistrate.

From the last week in December to the middle of February, 1631, the suffering in the colony was very great, especially among the poorer classes, and many died. Were it not for the abundance of clams, mussels, and fish gathered from the bay there might have been a "starving time," like that of Jamestown in 1609. Winthrop appointed a fast to be kept February 22, 1631; but February 5 the Lyon arrived with supplies, and a public thanksgiving was substituted for a public fasting.[9 ]

From this time the colony may be said to have secured a permanent footing. The court of assistants, who had suspended their sessions during the winter, now began to meet again, and made many orders with reference to the economic and social affairs of the colonists. There were few natives in the neighborhood of the settlement, and Chickatabot, their sachem, anxious to secure the protection of the English against the Taratines, of Maine, visited Boston in April and established friendly communications.[10 ] At the courts of elections of 1631, 1632, and 1633 Winthrop was re-elected governor. His conduct was not deemed harsh enough by some people, and in 1634 Thomas Dudley succeeded him. In 1635 Jonn Haynes became governor, and in 1636 Henry Vane, known in English history as Sir Harry Vane, after which time the governorship was restored to Winthrop.

Puritanism entered the warp and woof of the Massachusetts colony, and a combination of circumstances tended to build up a theocracy which dominated affairs. The ministers who came over were among the most learned men of the age, and the influence which their talents and character gave them was greatly increased by the sufferings and the isolation of the church members, who were thus brought to confide all the more in those who, under such conditions, dispensed religious consolation. Moreover, the few who had at first the direction of civil matters were strongly religious men, and inclined to promote the unity of the church by all the means at hand.

We have noticed the turn of affairs given by Endicott at Salem, and how Winthrop followed his example on his arrival at Charlestown. After the court of assistants resumed their meetings in March, 1631, the upbuilding of the theocracy was rapidly pushed. Various people deemed inimical to the accepted state of affairs were punished with banishment from the colony, and in some cases the penalties of whipping, cropping of ears, and confiscation of estate were added. In some cases, as that of Sir Christopher Gardiner, a secret agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, there was reason for parting with these people; but in other cases the principle of punishment was persecution and not justice. There is a record of an order for reshipping to England six persons of whose offence nothing more is recorded than "that they were persons unmeet to inhabit here."[11 ]

The most decided enlargement of the power of the theocracy was made in the general court which met at Boston in May, 1631, when it was resolved that the assistants need not be chosen afresh every year, but might keep their seats until removed by a special vote of the freemen.[12 ] The company was enlarged by the addition of one hundred and eighteen "freemen"; but "to the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men," it was ordered that "for the time to come no man should be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."

These proceedings practically vested all the judicial and legislative powers in the court of assistants, whose tenure was permanent, and left to the freemen in the general court little else than the power of admitting freemen. Not only was citizenship based on church-membership, but the Bible was the only law-book recognized by the court of assistants. Of this book the ministers were naturally thought the best interpreters, and it thus became the custom for the magistrates to consult them on all questions of importance. Offenders were not merely law-breakers, but sinners, and their offences ranged from such as wore long hair to such as dealt in witchcraft and sorcery.

Fortunately, this system did not long continue without some modification. In February, 1632, the court of assistants assessed a tax upon the towns for the erection of a fortification at Newtown, subsequently Cambridge. The inhabitants of Watertown grumbled about paying their proportion of this tax, and at the third general court, May 9, 1632, it was ordered that hereafter the governor and assistants in laying taxes should be guided by the advice of a board composed of two delegates from every town; and that the governor and other magistrates should be elected by the whole body of the freemen assembled as the charter required.

Two years later a general court consisting of the governor, assistants, and two "committees," or delegates, elected by the freemen resident in each town, assembled and assumed the powers of legislation.[13 ] This change, which brought about a popular representative body—second in point of time only to Virginia—was a natural extension of the proceedings of 1632. In 1644 the assistants and delegates quarrelled over an appeal in a lawsuit, and as a result the division of the court into two co-ordinate branches occurred.[14 ]

Nevertheless, the authority of the court of assistants, for several reasons, continued to be very great. In the first place, unlike the Council of Virginia, which could only amend or reject the action of the lower house, the assistants had the right of originating laws. Then the custom at the annual elections of first putting the names of the incumbents to the vote made the tenure of its members a pretty constant affair. Next, as a court, it exercised for years a vast amount of discretionary power. Not till 1641 was the first code, called the Body of Liberties, adopted, and this code itself permitted the assistants to supply any defect in the law by the "word of God," a phrase which to the followers of Calvin had especial reference to the fierce legislation of the Old Testament.

The course of the colonial authorities speedily jeopardized the charter which they obtained so readily from the king. Upon the arrival in England, in 1631, of Morton, Gardiner, and other victims of the court of assistants, they communicated with Gorges (now powerfully assisted by John Mason); and he gladly seized upon their complaints to accuse the ministers and people of Massachusetts of railing against the state and church of England, and of an evident purpose of casting off their allegiance at the first favorable opportunity. The complaint was referred, in December, 1632, to a committee of the council,[15 ] before whom the friends of the company in London—Cradock, Saltonstall, and Humphrey—filed a written answer. Affairs bore a bad appearance for the colonists, but the unexpected happened. Powerful influences at court were brought to bear upon the members of the committee, and to the astonishment of every one they reported, January 19, 1633, against any interference until "further inquiry" could be made.[16 ] King Charles not only approved this report, but volunteered the remark that "he would have them severely punished who did abuse his governor and the plantation."[17 ]

Though the danger for the present was avoided, it was not wholly removed. In August, 1633, Laud was made archbishop of Canterbury, and his accession to authority was distinguished by a more rigorous enforcement of the laws against Nonconformists. The effect was to cause the lagging emigration to New England to assume immense volume. There was no longer concealment of the purposes of the emigrants, for the Puritan preachers began everywhere to speak openly of the corruptions of the English church.[18 ] In September, 1633, the theocracy of Massachusetts were reinforced by three eminent ministers, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Thomas Shepard; and so many other persons accompanied and followed them that by the end of 1634 the population was not far short of four thousand. The clergy, now thirteen or fourteen in number, were nearly all graduates of Oxford or Cambridge.

This exodus of so many of the best, "both ministers and Christians,"[19 ] aroused the king and Archbishop Laud to the danger threatened by the Massachusetts colony. Gorges, Mason, and the rest renewed the attack, and in February, 1634, an order was obtained from the Privy Council for the detention of ten vessels bound for Massachusetts. At the same time Cradock, the ex-governor of the company, was commanded by the Privy Council to hand in the Massachusetts charter.[20 ] Soon after, the king announced his intention of "giving order for a general governor" for New England; and in April, 1634, he appointed a new commission for the government of the colonies, called "The Commission for Foreign Plantations," with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. Mr. Cradock transmitted a copy of the order of council, requiring a production of the charter, to Boston, where it was received by Governor Dudley in July, 1634.

This was a momentous crisis in the history of the colony. The governor and assistants made answer to Mr. Cradock that the charter could not be returned except by command of the general court, not then in session. At the same time orders were given for fortifying Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown. In this moment of excitement the figure of Endicott again dramatically crosses the stage of history. Conceiving an intense dislike to the cross in the English flag, he denounced it as antichrist, and cut it out with his own hands from the ensign borne by the company at Salem. Endicott was censured by the general court for the act, but soon the cross was left out of all the flags except that of the fort at Castle Island, in Boston Harbor.[21 ]

Massachusetts, while taking these bold measures at home, did not neglect the protection of her interests in England. The government of Plymouth, in July, 1634, sent Edward Winslow to England, and Governor Dudley and his council engaged him to present an humble petition in their behalf.[22 ] Winslow was a shrewd diplomat, but was so far from succeeding with his suit that upon his appearance before the lords commissioners in 1635 he was, through Laud's "vehement importunity," committed to Fleet Prison, where he lay seventeen weeks.[23 ]

Gorges and Mason lost no time in improving their victory. February 3, 1635, they secured a redivision of the coast of New England by the Council for New England, into twelve parts, which were assigned to as many persons. Sir William Alexander received the country from the river St. Croix to Pemaquid; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the province of Maine from Penobscot to Piscataqua; Captain John Mason, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts as far as Cape Ann, while the coast from Cape Ann to Narragansett Bay fell to Lord Edward Gorges, and the portion from Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River to the marquis of Hamilton.[24 ]

April 25, 1635, the Council for New England issued a formal declaration of their reasons for resigning the great charter to the king, chief among which was their inability to rectify the complaints of their servants in America against the Massachusetts Company, who had "surreptitiously" obtained a charter for lands "justly passed to Captain Robert Gorges long before."[25 ] June 7 the charter was surrendered to the king, who appointed Sir Ferdinando Gorges "general governor." The expiring company further appointed Thomas Morton as their lawyer to ask for a quo warranto against the charter of the Massachusetts Company.

In September, 1635, judgment was given in Westminster Hall that "the franchises of the Massachusetts Company be taken and seized into the king's hands."[26 ] But, as Winthrop said, the Lord "frustrated their designs." King Charles was trying to rule without a Parliament, and had no money to spend against New England. Therefore, the cost of carrying out the orders of the government devolved upon Mason and Gorges, who set to work to build a ship to convey the latter to America, but it fell and broke in the launching,[27 ] and about November, 1635, Captain John Mason died.

After this, though the king in council, in July, 1637, named Gorges again as "general governor,"[28 ] and the Lords Commissioners for Plantations, in April, 1638, demanded the charter anew,[29 ] the Massachusetts general court would not recognize either order. Gorges could not raise the necessary funds to compel obedience, and the attention of the king and his archbishop was occupied with forcing episcopacy upon Scotland. In 1642 war began in England between Parliament and king, and Massachusetts was left free to shape her own destinies. It was now her turn to become aggressive. Construing her charter to mean that her territory extended to a due east line three miles north of the most northerly branch of Merrimac River, she possessed herself, in 1641, of New Hampshire, the territory of the heirs of John Mason; and in 1653-1658, of Maine, the province of Gorges.

When the Long Parliament met, in 1641, the Puritans in England found enough occupation at home, and emigration greatly diminished. In 1643 Massachusetts became a member of the New England confederation, and her population was then about fifteen thousand; but nearly as many more had come over and were distributed among three new colonies—Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.