CHAPTER XV

FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT AND NEW HAVEN

(1637-1652)

The establishment of the new settlements on the Connecticut projected the whites into the immediate neighborhood of two powerful and warlike Indian nations—the Narragansetts in Rhode Island and the Pequots in Connecticut. With the first named there existed friendly relations, due to the politic conduct of Roger Williams, who always treated the Indians kindly. With the latter, conditions from the first were very threatening.

As early as the summer of 1633, Stone, a reckless ship-captain from Virginia, and eight of his companions, were slain in the Connecticut River by some Pequots. When called to account by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, the Indians justified themselves on the ground that Stone was the aggressor. Thereupon Winthrop desisted, and referred the matter to the Virginia authorities.[1 ] In 1634, when the settlements were forming on the Connecticut, a fresh irritation was caused by the course of the emigrants in negotiating for their lands with the Mohegan chiefs instead of with the Pequots, the lords paramount of the soil.

The Pequots were greatly embarrassed at the time by threatened hostilities with the Narragansetts and the Dutch, and in November, 1634, they became reduced to the necessity of seeking the alliance of the Massachusetts colony. That authority inopportunely revived the question of Stone's death and required the Pequots to deliver annually a heavy tribute of wampum as the price of their forgiveness and protection.[2 ] Had the object of the Massachusetts people been to promote bad feeling, no better method than this could have been adopted.

In July, 1636, John Oldham, who had been appointed collector of the tribute from the Pequots, was killed off Block Island by some of the Indians of the island who were subject to the Narragansett tribe.[3 ] Although the Pequots had nothing whatever to do with this affair, the Massachusetts government, under Harry Vane, sent a force against them, commanded by John Endicott. After stopping at Block Island and destroying some Indian houses, he proceeded to the main-land to make war on the Pequots, but beyond burning some wigwams and seizing some corn he accomplished very little.

The action of Massachusetts was heartily condemned by the Plymouth colony and the settlers on the Connecticut, and Gardiner, the commander of the Saybrook fort, bluntly told Endicott that the proceedings were outrageous and would serve only to bring the Indians "like wasps about his ears." His prediction came true, and during the winter Gardiner and his few men at the mouth of the river were repeatedly assailed by parties of Indians, who boasted that "Englishmen were as easy to kill as mosquitoes."[4 ]

Danger was now imminent, especially to the infant settlements up the river. For the moment it seemed as if the English had brought upon themselves the united power of all the Indians of the country. The Pequots sent messengers to patch up peace with their enemies, the Narragansetts, and tried to induce them to take up arms against the English. They would have probably succeeded but for the influence of Roger Williams with the Narragansett chiefs. In this crisis the friendship of Governor Vane for the banished champion of religious liberty was used to good effect. To gratify the governor and his council at Boston, Williams, at the risk of his life, sought the wigwams of Canonicus and Miantonomoh, and "broke to pieces the Pequot negotiations and design."[5 ] Instead of accepting the overtures of the Pequots, the Narragansetts sent Miantonomoh and the two sons of Canonicus to Boston to make an alliance with the whites.[6 ]

In the spring of 1637 the war burst with fury. Wethersfield was first attacked at the instance of an Indian who had sold his lands and could not obtain the promised payment. In revenge he secretly instigated the Pequots to attack the place, and they killed a woman, a child, and some men, besides some cattle; and took captive two young women, who were preserved by the squaw of Mononotto, a Pequot sachem, and, through the Dutch, finally restored to their friends.[7 ]

By May, 1637, when the first general court of Connecticut convened at Hartford, upward of thirty persons had fallen beneath the tomahawk. The promptest measures were necessary; and without waiting for the assistance of Massachusetts, whose indiscretion had brought on the war, ninety men (nearly half the effective force of the colony) were raised,[8 ] and placed under the command of Captain John Mason, an officer who had served in the Netherlands under Sir Thomas Fairfax. The force sailed down the river in three small vessels, and were welcomed at Fort Saybrook by Lieutenant Gardiner.

The Indian fort was situated in a swamp to the east of the Connecticut on the Mystic River; but instead of landing at the Pequot River, as he had been ordered, Mason completely deceived the Indian spies by sailing past it away from the intended prey. Near Point Judith, however, in the Narragansett country, Mason disembarked his men; and, accompanied by eighty Mohegans and two hundred Narragansetts, turned on his path and marched by land westward towards the Pequot country. So secretly and swiftly was this movement executed that the Indian fort was surrounded and approached within a few feet before the Indians took alarm.[9 ]

The victory of Mason was a massacre, the most complete in the annals of colonial history. The English threw firebrands among the wigwams, and in the flames men, women, and children were roasted to death. Captain Underhill, who was present, wrote that "there were about four hundred souls in this fort, and not above five of them escaped out of our hands." Only two white men were killed, though a number received arrow wounds.[10 ]

Mason, as he went to the Pequot harbor to meet his vessels, met a party of three hundred Indians half frantic with grief over the destruction of their countrymen, but contented himself with repelling their attack. Finally, he reached the ships, where he found Captain Patrick and forty men come from Massachusetts to reinforce him. Placing his sick men on board to be taken back by water, Mason crossed the Pequot River and marched by land to Fort Saybrook, where they were "nobly entertained by Lieutenant Gardiner with many great guns," and there they rested the Sabbath. The next week they returned home.[11 ]

The remnant of the Pequots collected in another fort to the west of that destroyed by Mason. Attacked by red men and white men alike, most of them formed the desperate resolve of taking refuge with the Mohawks across the Hudson. They were pursued by Mason with forty soldiers, joined by one hundred and twenty from Massachusetts under Captain Israel Stoughton. A party of three hundred Indians were overtaken and attacked in a swamp near New Haven, and many were captured or put to death. Sassacus, the Pequot chief, of whom the Narragansetts had such a dread as to say of him, "Sassacus is all one God; no man can kill him," contrived to reach the Mohawks, but they cut off his head and sent it as a present to the English.[12 ]

The destruction of the Pequots as a nation was complete. All the captive men, women, and children were made slaves, some being kept in New England and others sent to the West Indies,[13 ] and there remained at large in Connecticut not over two hundred Pequots. September 21, 1638, a treaty was negotiated between the Connecticut delegates and the Narragansetts and Mohegans, by the terms of which the Pequot country became the property of the Connecticut towns, while one hundred Pequots were given to Uncas, and one hundred to Miantonomoh and Ninigret, his ally, to be incorporated with their tribes.[14 ]

So far as the whites of Connecticut were concerned the effect of the war was to remove all real danger from Indians for a period of forty years. Not till the Indians became trained in the use of fire-arms were they again matched against the whites on anything like equal terms. Among the Indian tribes, the result of the Pequot War was to elevate Uncas and his Mohegans into a position of rivals of Miantonomoh, and his Narragansetts, with the result of the overthrow and death of Miantonomoh. In the subsequent years war broke out several times, but by the intervention of the federal commissioners, who bolstered up Uncas, hostilities did not proceed.

On the conclusion of the Pequot War the freemen of the three towns upon the Connecticut convened at Hartford, January 14, 1639, and adopted "the Fundamental Orders," a constitution which has been justly pronounced the first written constitution framed by a community, through its own representatives, as a basis for government. This constitution contained no recognition whatever of any superior authority in England, and provided[15 ] that the freemen were to hold two general meetings a year, at one of which they were to elect the governor and assistants, who, with four deputies from each town, were to constitute a general court "to make laws or repeal them, to grant levies, to admit freemen, to dispose of lands undisposed of to several towns or persons, call the court or magistrate or any other person whatsoever into question for any misdemeanor, and to deal in any other matter that concerned the good of the commonwealth, except election of magistrates," which was "to be done by the whole body of freemen."

Till 1645 the deputies voted with the magistrates, but in that year the general court was divided into two branches as in Massachusetts. In one particular the constitution was more liberal than the unwritten constitution of Massachusetts: church-membership was not required as a condition of the suffrage, and yet in the administration of the government the theocracy was all-powerful. The settlers of Connecticut were Puritans of the strictest sect, and in the preamble of their constitution they avowed their purpose "to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus, which we now profess, as also the discipline of the churches, which, according to the truth of the said gospel, is now practised among us." In 1656 the law of Connecticut required the applicant for the franchise to be of "a peaceable and honest conversation," and this was very apt to mean a church-member in practice.

No one but a church-member could be elected governor, and in choosing assistants the vote was taken upon each assistant in turn, and he had to be voted out before any nomination could be made.[16 ] In none of the colonies was the tenure of office more constant or persevering. In a period of about twenty years Haynes was governor eight times and deputy governor five times, Hopkins was governor six times and deputy governor five times, while John Winthrop, the younger, served eighteen years in the chief office.

The Connecticut government thus formed rapidly extended its jurisdiction. Although Springfield was conceded to Massachusetts the loss was made up by the accession, in 1639, of Fairfield and Stratford, west of New Haven, and, April, 1644, of Southampton, on Long Island, and about the same time of Farmington, near Hartford. In 1639 a town had been founded at Fort Saybrook by George Fenwick, who was one of the Connecticut patentees.[17 ] In the confusion which ensued in England Fenwick found himself isolated; and, assuming to himself the ownership of the fort and the neighboring town, he sold both to Connecticut in 1644, and promised to transfer the rest of the extensive territory granted to the patentees "if it ever came into his power to do so."[18 ] As the Connecticut government was entirely without any legal warrant from the government of England, this agreement of Fenwick's was deemed of much value, for it gave the colony a quasi-legal standing.

In 1649 East Hampton, on Long Island, was annexed to the colony, and in 1650 Norwalk was settled. In 1653 Mattabeseck, on the Connecticut, was named Middletown; and in 1658 Nameaug, at the mouth of the Pequot River, settled by John Winthrop, Jr., in 1646, became New London. In 1653 Connecticut had twelve towns and seven hundred and seventy-five persons were taxed in the colony.[19 ]

While Connecticut was thus establishing itself, another colony, called New Haven, controlled by the desire on the part of its leading men to create a state on a thoroughly theocratic model, grew up opposite to Long Island. The chief founder of the colony was John Davenport, who had been a noted minister in London, and with him were associated Theophilus Eaton, Edward Hopkins, and several other gentlemen of good estates and very religiously inclined. They reached Boston from England in July, 1637, when the Antinomian quarrel was at its height, and Davenport was a member of the synod which devoted most of its time to the settlement, or rather the aggravation, of the Antinomian difficulty.

Owing to Davenport's reputation and the wealth of his principal friends, the authorities of Massachusetts made every effort to retain them in that colony, and offered them their choice of a place for settlement. These persuasions failed, and after a nine months' stay Davenport and his followers moved away, nominally because they desired to divert the thoughts of those who were plotting for a general governor for New England, but really because there were too many Antinomians in Massachusetts, and the model republic desired by Davenport could never be brought about by accepting the position of a subordinate township under the Massachusetts jurisdiction.[20].

One of the results of the Pequot War was to make known the country west of Fort Saybrook, and in the fall of 1637 Theophilus Eaton and some others went on a trip to explore for themselves the coasts and lands in that direction. They were so much pleased with what they saw at "Quinnipiack" that in March, 1638, the whole company left Boston to take up their residence there, and called their new settlement New Haven. Soon after their arrival they entered into a "plantation covenant," preliminary to a more formal engagement.[21 ] This agreement pledged the settlers to accept the teachings of Scripture both as a civil system and religious code.

Having no charter of any kind, they founded their rights to the soil on purchases from the Indians, of which they made two (November and December, 1638).[22 ] The next summer they proceeded to the solemn work of a permanent government. June 4, 1639, all the free planters met in a barn, and Mr. Davenport preached from the text, "Wisdom hath builded her home; she hath hewn out her seven pillars." He then proposed a series of resolutions which set forth the purpose of establishing a state to be conducted strictly according to the rules of Scripture. When these resolutions were adopted Davenport proposed two others designed to reduce to practice the theory thus formally approved. It was now declared that only church-members should have the right of citizenship, and that a committee of twelve should be appointed to choose seven others who were to be the constitution-makers.[23 ]

These articles were subscribed by one hundred and thirteen of the people, and after due time for reflection the twelve men chosen as above elected the "seven pillars," Theophilus Eaton, Esq., John Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gilbert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson, and Jeremiah Dixon, who proceeded in the same solemn and regular manner to reorganize the church and state. First they set up the church by associating with themselves nine others, and then after another interval, on October 25, 1639, a court was held at which the sixteen church-members proceeded to elect Theophilus Eaton as governor for a year and four other persons to aid him as "deputies," who were thereupon addressed by Davenport in what was called a charge.

Under the government thus formed a general court of the freemen was held every year for the election of governor and assistants, and to these officers was confided the entire administration of affairs. There was no body of statutes till many years later, and during this time the only restriction on the arbitrary authority of the judges was the rules of the Mosaic law. The body of the free burgesses was very cautiously enlarged from court to court.

Hardly had the people of New Haven settled themselves in their new government before two other towns, Guilford, seventeen miles north, and Milford, eleven miles south, sprang up in their neighborhood. Though practically independent, their constitution was modelled after that of New Haven.[24 ] Besides Guilford and Milford another town called Stamford, lying west of the Connecticut territory and loosely connected with New Haven, was also settled.[25 ] In the political isolation of these towns one sees the principle of church independence, as held by Davenport and his followers.

In April, 1643, apprehension from the Indians, the Dutch, and their neighbor Connecticut caused a union of these towns with New Haven. The new commonwealth was organized just in time to become a member of the greater confederation of the colonies founded in May, 1643. It was not, however, till October 27, 1643, that a general constitution was agreed upon.[26 ] It confined the suffrage to church-members and established three courts—the plantation court for small cases, consisting of "fitt and able" men in each town; the court of magistrates, consisting of the governor, deputy governor, and three assistants for weighty cases; and the general court, consisting of the magistrates and two deputies for each of the four towns which were to sit at New Haven twice a year, make the necessary laws for the confederation, and annually elect the magistrates. Trial by jury was dispensed with, because no such institution was found in the Mosaic law.

In 1649 Southold, on Long Island, and in 1651 Branford, on the main-land, were admitted as members of the New Haven confederacy; and in 1656 Greenwich was added. And the seven towns thus comprehended gave the colony of New Haven the utmost extent it ever obtained.