CHAPTER VI.
THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. (1620-1643).
Bibliographies.—Winsor, III. 244-256, 283-294; Larned, Literature of American History, 72-92; Avery, II. 421-423; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, ch. xx.; Green, Provincial America, ch. xix.; M. Wilson, Reading List on Colonial New England; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 109-123.
Historical Maps.—No. 2, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. [2]); Doyle, Colonies, II.; MacCoun, Winsor, and school histories already cited.
General Accounts.—J. Palfrey, New England, I. 47-268; Winsor, III. chs. vii.-ix.; Doyle, II. chs. i.-vii.; Osgood, Colonies; Lodge, Colonies, 341-351, 373-375, 385-387, 397, 398; Avery, II. chs. v.-viii.; Andrews and Greene, as above, passim; Channing, United States, I. ch. xiv.; B. James, New England; G. Bancroft, I. 177-288; Hildreth, I. chs. vi., vii., ix.; Fiske, Beginnings of New England, I. chs. i.-iii.; Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation; L. Mathews, Expansion of New England, chs. i.-iii.
Special Histories.—Ellis, Puritan Age and Rule; E. Byington, Puritans in England and New England, and Puritan as Colonist and Reformer; D. Campbell, Puritan in Holland, England, and America; M. Dexter, Story of the Pilgrims; J. Brown, Pilgrim Fathers; W. Cockshott, Pilgrim Fathers; F. Noble, Pilgrims; J. Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic; D. Howe, Puritan Republic.—Massachusetts: W. Northend, Bay Colony; B. Adams, Emancipation of Massachusetts; C. F. Adams, Three Episodes of Massachusetts History; Winsor, Memorial History of Boston; H. Lodge, Boston.—Connecticut: C. Levermore, Republic of New Haven; E. Atwater, New Haven Colony; Andrews, River Towns of Connecticut; C. Orr, Pequot War; state histories by Johnston (Commonwealths), Trumbull, and Morgan.—Rhode Island: I. Richman, Rhode Island: its Making and its Meaning; Arnold, Field, and Richman (Commonwealths).—New Hampshire: Belknap and Sanborn (Commonwealths).—Maine: Williamson.
Contemporary Accounts.—Morton, New England's Memorial (1669); Bradford, Plymouth Plantation; Winthrop, New England; Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence; Wood, New England's Prospect; New England's First-Fruits; Shepard, Autobiography.—Reprints: Force, Tracts; Arber, Pilgrim Colonists; Young, Chronicles of Pilgrim Fathers, and Chronicles of Massachusetts; Jameson, Original Narratives; American History told by Contemporaries, I. part v.; and the many publications of colonial and town record commissions, state and local historical and antiquarian societies, Prince Society, Gorges Society, etc.
48. The New England Colonists.
It will be remembered that the commercial company chartered by King James I. (1606) to colonize Virginia, as all of English America was then styled, consisted of two divisions,—the London (or South Virginia) Company, and the Plymouth (or North Virginia) Company. We have seen how the London Company planted a settlement at Jamestown, and what came of it. The Plymouth Company was not at first so successful. |The Popham colony.| In 1607, the same year that Jamestown was founded, the Plymouth people—urged thereto by two of their members, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of the port of Plymouth, and Sir John Popham, chief-justice of England—sent out a party of one hundred and twenty colonists to the mouth of the Kennebec, headed by George Popham, brother of Sir John; but the following winter was exceptionally severe, many died, among them Popham, and the survivors were glad of an opportunity to get back to England (1608).
Smith's voyage to New England.
In 1614 John Smith, after five years of quiet life in England, made a voyage to North Virginia as the agent and partner of some London merchants, and returned with a profitable cargo of fish and furs. The most notable result of his voyage, however, was the fact that he gave the title of New England to the northern coast, and upon many of the harbors he discovered, Prince Charles bestowed names of English seaports. During the next half-dozen years there were several voyages of exploration to New England, its fisheries became important, and some detailed knowledge of the coast was obtained; but its colonization was not advanced.
The new Plymouth charter (1620).
Chief among the patrons of these enterprises was Sir Ferdinando Gorges. In 1620 Gorges and his associates secured a new and independent charter for the Plymouth Company, usually known as the Council for New England, wherein that corporation was granted the country between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of latitude,—from about Long Branch, N. J., to the Bay of Chaleurs. The region received in this charter the name which Smith had bestowed upon it,—New England. To the company, consisting of forty patentees, was given the monopoly of trade within the grant, and its income was to be derived from the letting or selling of its exclusive rights to individual or corporate adventurers. It had power, also, both to establish and to govern colonies. But the enterprise lacked capital and popular support. Virginia, founded as an outlet for victims of economic distress in England, appeared to absorb all those who cared to devote either money or energy to the planting of America. The reorganized Plymouth Company would doubtless have waited many years for settlements upon its lands, had not aid come from an unexpected source.
Religious groups in England.
The persecution of a religious sect led to the permanent planting of New England. The English Protestants under Elizabeth may be roughly divided into several groups: (1) The great majority of the people, including most of the rich and titled, adhered to the Church of England; as the "establishment," or State religion, it retained much of the Catholic ritual and creed, but with many important omissions and modifications. (2) Besides the Catholics, few and oppressed, there was a distinct class who wished to stay the progress of the Reformation and more closely to follow Rome. (3) The Puritans sought to alter the forms of the church in the other direction, but they were themselves divided into two camps: (a) the conformists, who would go further than the establishment in purifying the State religion and in rejecting Romish forms, yet were content to remain and attempt their reforms within the folds of the Church; and (b) the dissenters, who had withdrawn from the Church of England and would have no communion with it. The dissenters were themselves divided: (1) there were those who wished to be ruled by elders, on the Presbyterian plan, such as had been introduced by Calvin and his followers in Switzerland and France, by Zwingli in Switzerland and Germany, and by John Knox in Scotland; then there were (2) the Independents, or Separatists, who would have each congregation self-governing in religious affairs,—a system in vogue in some parts of Germany. "Seeing they could not have the Word freely preached, and the sacraments administered without idolatrous gear, they concluded to break off from public churches, and separate in private houses." Sometimes the Separatists were called Brownists, after one of their prominent teachers, Robert Browne. The Presbyterians and Independents were alike few in number in Elizabeth's time; but as the result of persecution under James I., and the impossibility of obtaining concessions to the demand for reform, these sects steadily gained strength. The Independents in particular were harshly treated, so that many fled to Holland, where there was religious toleration for all; and from this branch of the Separatists came the Pilgrims, who first colonized New England.
49. Plymouth colonized (1620-1621).
The Scrooby congregation.
Among those who thus departed to a strange land, to dwell among a people with habits and speech foreign to theirs, were about one hundred yeomen and artisans, members of the Independent congregation at Scrooby, a village on the border between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Headed by their wise and excellent minister, John Robinson, and the ruling elder of the church, William Brewster, the party first settled at Amsterdam (1608), |The Independents in Holland.| but early the following year moved to Leyden. Here, joined by many other refugees, they lived for ten years, laboring in whatever capacities they could obtain employment.
They lived peacefully enough in Holland, free from religious restraints, but remained Englishmen at heart; they saw with dissatisfaction, as the years went on, that there was no chance for material improvement in Leyden, and that their children were being made foreigners. After long deliberation they resolved to emigrate again, this time to America, far removed from their old persecutors, and there in the wilderness to rear a New England, where they might live under English laws, speak their native tongue, train their children in English thought and habits, establish godly ways, and perchance better their temporal condition. Mingled with these aspirations was a desire to lay "some good foundation, or at least make some way thereunto, for ye propagating & advancing ye gospell of ye kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work."
Emigration to America.
Obtaining a grant of land from the London (South Virginia) Company, and a promise from the king that they should not be disturbed in their proposed colony if they behaved properly, the emigrants sailed from Leyden to Southampton, where they were to take passage for the New World. These Pilgrims, as they styled themselves, were about one hundred in number, and under the excellent guidance of Brewster, Robinson remaining behind with the majority of the congregation, who had decided to await the result of the experiment.
Possessing little beyond their capacity to labor, the Pilgrims had found it necessary to make the best bargain possible with a number of London capitalists for transportation and supplies. A stock partnership was formed, with shares at ten pounds each, each emigrant being deemed equivalent to a certain amount of cash subscription; all over sixteen years of age were counted as equal to one share, and a sliding scale covered the cases of children and those who furnished themselves with supplies. All except those so provided drew necessaries from the common stock. There was to be a community of trade, property, and labor for seven years, at the end of which time the corporation was to disband, and the assets were to be distributed among the shareholders. The entire capital stock at the beginning was seven thousand pounds, from a quarter to a fifth of this being represented by the persons of the emigrants. The London partners sent out several laborers on their account.
The landing.
The voyage of the "Mayflower" is one of the most familiar events in American history. Its companion vessel, the "Speedwell," was obliged to return to England because of an accident, and thus several of the original company remained behind. The adventurers first saw land on the ninth of November; it was the low, sandy spit of Cape Cod. Their purpose had been to settle in the domain of the South Virginia Company, somewhere between the Hudson and the Delaware; but fate happily willed otherwise. The captain, thought to be in the pay of the Dutch, who were trading on the Hudson, professed to be unable to proceed farther southward because of contrary winds. After beating up and down the bay between the cape and the mainland, and exploring the coast here and there, the Pilgrims landed at a spot "fit for situation" (Dec. 22, 1620).
The social compact.
With true English instinct for combination against unruly elements, the Pilgrims had (November 11), while lying off Cape Cod, formed themselves into a body politic under a social compact. This notable document read as follows: "We whose names are under-writen, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God of Great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of ye faith, &c., haveing undertaken, for ye glorie of God and advancemente of ye Christian faith, and honour of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutualy in ye presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."
The compact was signed by the adult males of the company, forty-one in number, only twelve of whom bore the title of "Master," or "Mr.,"—then of some significance. They elected Deacon John Carver as their first governor, styled the place where they landed Plymouth, and entered upon the serious business of building New England.
The first winter.
An exceptionally mild winter had opened, yet it was with difficulty that they could provide adequate shelter for themselves, much less secure comfortable quarters. The stock of food they had brought with them soon failed, and what was left was not wholesome; in consequence of hunger and exposure, sickness ensued, and about one half of the company died. Among those who succumbed was Governor Carver; in his place was chosen William Bradford, who held the office for twelve years, was the historian of the colony, and until his death (1657) the leading man among his people. Those who survived this terrible ordeal were so few and feeble that under ordinary conditions the Indians could readily have massacred them. But owing to a pestilence which, a few years before, had wasted the New England coast tribes, it was many years before the aborigines were strong enough seriously to annoy the Plymouth colonists.
Persistence amid adversity.
Had the Pilgrims been ordinary colonists, they would no doubt have abandoned their settlement and returned in the vessel that brought them. But they were of sterner stuff than the men who succumbed to less hardship at Roanoke and on the Kennebec, and their religious conviction nerved them to a grim task which they believed to be God-given. It was not for faint-hearts to found a new Canaan.
In November, 1621, fifty more of the Leyden congregation came out. By this time the people of Plymouth had, amid many sore trials, erected log-houses enough for their use, built a rude fort on the hill overlooking the settlement, made a clearing of twenty-six acres, and had laid by enough provisions and fuel for the winter. But the addition to the number of mouths materially decreased the per capita allotment of rations.
Patent from the Plymouth Company.
The Pilgrims having settled upon land for which they had no grant, it had become necessary for the London adventurers, who backed the enterprise, to secure a patent from the reorganized Plymouth Company. That company was working under a charter from the king as the feudal lord, giving it privileges of settlement, trade, and government; rights to colonize and trade, it was authorized to parcel out to others, in the form of patents, and a document of this character was issued to the adventurers in May, 1621.
50. Development of Plymouth (1621-1691).
The industrial system.
The industrial system inaugurated at Plymouth was, like that adopted for Jamestown, pure communism. The governor and assistants organized the settlers into a working band, all produce going into a common stock, from which the wants of the people were first supplied: the surplus to be the profit of the corporation. As in the case of Jamestown, the London partners were not pleased with the results of the speculation, and in harshly expressing their dissatisfaction soon fell into a wordy dispute with the colonists.
Dissatisfaction of the London partners.
Thirty-five new settlers came out in the autumn of 1622, and thereafter nearly every year brought increase in the number; but the partners failed to ship supplies with the new-comers, deeming it proper that the colony should be self-supporting; and this neglect still further strained existing relations.
Communal system partially abandoned.
In 1624 the communal system was partially abandoned, each freeman being allowed one acre as a permanent holding. This land was to be as close to the town as possible; for the climatic conditions, the necessity for protection against Indians, and the desire for ease of assemblage at worship, made it important that the settlement should be compact,—in sharp distinction to the scattered river-side plantations of the South. In 1627 each household was granted twenty acres as a private allotment; but for many years there existed as well a system of common tillage and pasturage similar to that with which the colonists were familiar in the English villages. About the same time (1627) the colonists purchased the interest of their London partners for eighteen hundred pounds, and became wholly independent of dictation from England.
The Pilgrims obtain sole control.
Up to this time many of the new colonists were sent or selected by the London shareholders, and were not always congenial to the Pilgrims. It now rested with them to invite whom they might; and as a result many of their faith from England were brought over. In 1643 there were three thousand inhabitants in the eight distinct towns comprising Plymouth colony; there were also several independent trading and fishing stations along the coast established under the auspices of the Plymouth Company. The colony was beyond the danger of abandonment.
The early history of Plymouth is a story full of painful details of suffering. It was a long time before the people became inured to the rigorous climate; the tedious winters were often seasons of much hardship and privation. The life they led was toilsome, but they bore up under it bravely.
Relations with the Indians.
The original colonists were kind and considerate to the aborigines, and for many years were the firm friends and allies of Massasoit, head chief of the Pokanokets, whose lands they had occupied. Whites were not always as comfortable neighbors as the savages. Thomas Weston, one of the London partners, sent out (1622) an independent colony of seventy men to Wessaugusset, about twenty-five miles north of Plymouth. They were an idle, riotous set, and after making serious trouble with the Indians, a year or two later returned to England. |Relations with white neighbors.| In 1623, Robert Gorges, son of Ferdinando, was appointed governor-general of the country by the Council for New England, and in person attempted to form a colony upon land patented to him "on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay," but soon abandoned his enterprise and returned home. In 1625, Captain Wollaston appeared with a number of indented white servants and started a colony on the site of the Quincy of to-day. But this form of slave labor not being suited to the democratic conditions of New England life, Wollaston took his servants to the more congenial climate of Virginia, and his plant was taken possession of by his partner, Thomas Morton, who styled the settlement Merrymount. Morton was much disliked by the Puritans, who were scandalized at his free-and-easy habits, regarded the apparently innocent sports in which he encouraged his people as "beastly practices," and charged him with the really serious offence of selling rum and firearms to the natives. The Plymouth militia dispersed the merrymakers and sent Morton to England (1628).
Several Church of England men, representatives of Robert Gorges,—who had a patent for a strip of territory ten miles coastwise and thirty miles inland,—had come out in 1623, among them William Blackstone, settling on Shawmut peninsula, now Boston, Thomas Walford at Charlestown, and Samuel Maverick at Chelsea. Blackstone afterwards vacated his peninsula in favor of the Puritans of Charlestown. Maverick, in his palisaded fort, was a man of importance, and afterwards a royal commissioner to the colonies. There was also a small trading station at the mouth of the Piscataqua, and another at Nantasket, with here and there an individual plantation. With most of these the Plymouth people had business relations, but little else in common.
Form of government.
Plymouth was at first governed in primary assembly with a governor and assistants elected by popular vote. As the colony grew and new towns were organized by compact bodies of people detaching themselves from the parent settlement, it became inconvenient for all of the people frequently to assemble in Plymouth. The representative system was adopted in 1638, each township sending two delegates to an administrative body called the General Court, in which the governor and assistants also sat. It was some years later before the General Court was given law-making powers, this privilege being retained by the whole body of freemen. For sixteen years the laws of England were in vogue, but in 1636 a code of simple regulations was adopted, more especially suited to the community. The assistants, with the aid of the jury, tried cases as well as aided the governor in the conduct of public affairs. Purely local matters were managed by primary assemblies in the several towns, and petty cases were tried by town magistrates.
Characteristics of Plymouth.
Many features of American government and character may be readily traced to the influence of Plymouth. It was the first permanent colony in New England; it had become well established before another was planted, and therefore served in some sense as a model for its successors. It was a community of Independents acting without a charter, working out their own career practically free from royal supervision or veto, and with an elective governor and council. The Plymouth people were closely knit: their struggle for existence had been hard, and it had taught them the value of solidarity; they set the example of a compact religious brotherhood; they were good traders, cultivated peace with the Indian tribes, and advanced their towns only so fast as they needed room for growth and could hold and cultivate the land. In many respects Plymouth may be regarded as a modern American State in embryo.
Futile effort to obtain a charter.
Three several times (1618, 1676-77, and 1690-91) the colony endeavored, as a measure of self-defence, to obtain a charter from the Crown; but failed in each application,—at first through the influence of the prelates, and afterwards because of the jealousy of its neighbors. Finally, in 1691, Plymouth was incorporated with Massachusetts and lost its identity.
51. Massachusetts founded (1630).
Boundary disputes.
The Plymouth Company did business in a rather haphazard Way. Land-grants were freely made to all manner of speculators, many of them members of the corporation, with little or no regard to the geography of New England. These grants were dealt out to third parties, often with a lordly indifference to previous patents. The result was that holdings frequently overlapped each other, giving rise to boundary quarrels which lasted through several generations of claimants.
Settlement at Cape Ann.
In 1623, an association of merchants in Dorchester, England, sent out a party to form a colony near the mouth of the Kennebec, where they had fishing interests. The master, however, landed his men at Cape Ann, in Massachusetts Bay, the site of the present Gloucester. Roger Conant, who, withdrawing from Plymouth "out of dislike of their principles of rigid separation," had made an independent settlement at Cape Ann, was appointed local manager for the Dorchester merchants. In 1626 the merchants abandoned their colony as unprofitable, most of the settlers returning to England; and Conant led those remaining to Salem, then called Naumkeag.
White's scheme.
John White, a conforming Puritan rector at Dorchester, determined to make this settlement of Dorchester men a success. To the settlers at Naumkeag he sent urgent advice to stay, while at home he set on foot a movement which resulted in a definite scheme of colonization. The arbitrary policy of Charles I. towards dissenters had greatly alarmed the Puritans, and White's plan of "raising a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist" in America had the support of many wealthy and influential men.
The Massachusetts land grant.
In 1628, six persons, heading the movement, obtained from the Plymouth Company a patent for a strip about sixty miles wide along the coast,—from three miles south of Charles River to three miles north of the Merrimack, and westward to the Pacific Ocean, which in those days was thought to be not much farther away than the river discovered by Hendrik Hudson in 1609. This patent conflicted with grants already issued (1622 and 1623) to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his son Robert, and John Mason, of whom we shall hear later on.
The first charter (1628).
In September, 1628, John Endicott, gentleman, one of the patentees, arrived at Salem with sixty persons, to reinforce the colony already there, and supersede Conant. The following spring, the patentees being organized as a trading company, the king granted them a charter styling the corporation the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England; their only relationship to the Plymouth Company was now that of purchasers of a tract of the latter's land.
Form of government.
Under this trading charter the whole body of freemen, or members of the company, was to elect annually a governor, a deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants, who were to meet monthly to perform such public duties as might be imposed upon them by the quarterly meeting of the company, or "Quarter Court." There was also to be an annual meeting, known as "General Court," or "Court of Elections." Laws were to be adopted by the general assembly of "freemen,"—that is, of stockholders,—not contrary to the established laws of England. Endicott was continued as governor of the colony, which was at once recruited by three hundred and eighty men and women of the better grade of colonizing material.
Religious aspirations.
Although the company was chartered as a trading corporation, its principal object was not gain, but to found a religious commonwealth. It was composed of men of rare ability and tact, as well as of consummate courage. Among them were members of parliament, diplomats, state officials, and some of the brightest and most liberal-minded clergymen in England. The church which they set up in Salem was not at first avowedly Separatist, like that of Plymouth; it was simply a purified English church, with a system of faith and discipline such as they had long insisted upon in the ranks of the mother-church. But under the circumstances this purified church was as independent in its character as the professedly Separatist congregations of Plymouth; and it was not long, as one step led to another, and persecution hurried them on, before the Massachusetts Puritans were, like their brethren in England, full-fledged Independents.
The company moves to America.
Soon there was taken the most important step of all. The Massachusetts company, in the desire for still greater independence, removed its seat of government to the colony, thus boldly transforming itself, without legal sanction, from an English trading company into an American colonial government. In April, 1630, eleven vessels went out to Massachusetts Bay, with a large company of English reformers; and during the year there crossed over to America not less than a thousand English men and women who had found the arbitrary rule of Charles quite unbearable. |Character of the founders.| John Winthrop, a wealthy Suffolk gentleman forty-two years of age, and one of the strongest and most lovable characters in American history, was the first governor under the new arrangement. Thomas Dudley, the deputy, was a stern and uncompromising Puritan, cold and narrow-minded. Francis Higginson, the first teacher, who had come over with Endicott, but died in 1630, was a Cambridge alumnus who had lost his church in Leicestershire because of nonconformity. Skelton, the pastor, was also a Cambridge man.
52. Government of Massachusetts (1630-1634).
Salem divides.
There were now too many people assembled at the port of Salem for the supply of food, and sickness and hunger prevailed to such an alarming degree that many died in consequence. It became necessary to divide, and independent congregations were established, on the Salem model, at Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Roxbury, and later at Boston, which soon became the capital of the colony (September, 1630). Morton, who had returned to Merrymount, was again driven from the country; Sir Christopher Gardiner, a disturbing element among the settlers, was obliged to withdraw to the Piscataqua: the Puritans now held Massachusetts Bay, and brooked no rival claimants. In establishing this commonwealth in America, the Puritan founders were determined to have things their own way.
The theocracy established.
It was early decided by the General Court (1631) that none but church members should be admitted as freemen. Four times a year the freemen were to meet in quarter court, and with them the governor, his deputy, and the assistants. But, as in Plymouth, it was found after a time that the towns and the freemen had so multiplied that this primary assemblage became inconvenient. In 1630 the assistants were given the power to elect the governor and deputy governor, and also to make laws. Then it came about that in certain cases the control of the colony was in the hands of only five of the assistants, which made the government almost oligarchical. The cap-sheaf was applied when (1631) it was ordered that the assistants were to hold office so long as the freemen did not remove them.
The Watertown protest.
That same year, however, came a vigorous protest against this autocratic rule. The Watertown freemen declined to pay a tax of £60, levied by the assistants for fortifications built at Cambridge. It was argued that a people who submitted to taxation without representation were in danger of "bringing themselves and posterity into bondage." The next General Court accepted this plea as valid, and a House of Representatives was inaugurated on the plan of the English Commons, each town sending two deputies, and the governor and assistants sitting as members.
The representative system established.
For a time the freemen resumed the right of election of governor and deputy-governor, but soon handed this duty over to the representatives. Voting by ballot was introduced in 1634, and the freemen, who had become annoyed at threats from England of interference with their charter, asserted their independence of the official class by rebuking the assistants, turning Winthrop out of office, electing Dudley as governor, making new rules for the election of deputies, providing for an oath of allegiance to the colony, and placing their representative system on an enduring foundation. Ten years later (1644), as the result of a quarrel between the assistants and the deputies, growing out of a petty civil suit over a lost pig, the colonial parliament became bicameral, the assistants forming one house, and the deputies the other.
The representative system established.
There had been a healthy renewal of immigration to Massachusetts in 1633 because of increased harshness towards Puritans in England, and a number of strong men,—such as Sir Henry Vane and Hugh Peter,—destined to play no inconsiderable part in the history of America and England, were among the new arrivals. There were other Puritans higher in the social scale who would have liked to come,—such as Lord Say and Sele, and Lord Brook; but their proposition (1636) that an hereditary order of nobility be established in the province, did not meet with popular favor; a desire to be free from such distinctions was one of the causes which had impelled thousands to flee to America. A little later (1638) the freemen put down another attempt at aristocratic rule,—a movement looking to the establishment of a permanent council, whose members were to hold for life or until removed for cause.
53. Internal Dissensions in Massachusetts (1634-1637).
Condition of the colony (1634).
In 1634 the colony, now firmly planted with free English institutions in full force, contained about four thousand inhabitants, resident in sixteen towns. The old log-houses of the first settlers were gradually giving way to commodious frame structures with gambrel roofs and generous gables. The fields were being fenced, roads laid out between the towns, and watercourses bridged; and the farms were beginning to take on an air of prosperity. Goats, cattle, and swine abounded. Adventurous trading skippers, often in home-made boats, had cautiously worked their way through Long Island Sound as far as the Dutch settlements at New York, and up the coast to the Piscataqua, doing a small business by barter. Salt fish, furs, and lumber were exported to England, the vessels bringing back manufactured articles; for as yet the industries of New England were few and crude.
Harvard College founded.
The Massachusetts colonists were for the most part middle-class Englishmen, and education was general among them. Many were graduates of Cambridge, and the clergymen had, as conscientious Reformers seeing no hope of improvement in the English Church, abandoned comfortable livings at home to take charge of rude Independent meeting-houses in America. In 1636, an appropriation of £400—a very large sum, considering the means of the province—was made by the General Court to found a college at Cambridge, that "the light of learning might not go out, nor the study of God's Word perish." Two years later (1638) the Rev. John Harvard, a graduate of Emmanuel College, who had come out in 1637, dying, left his library and a legacy of £800 to the new institution of learning, "towards the erecting of a college;" and the Court decreed that it should bear his name. For two centuries the college continued to receive grants from the commonwealth.
Malcontents make trouble.
While the colonists were thus bravely making progress in laying the foundations of liberal institutions in America, there were troubles brewing both at home and abroad. The uncongenial spirits whom they had driven from Massachusetts Bay made complaints in England of the ill-treatment they had received, and carried to Archbishop Laud and other members of the Privy Council reports that the Puritans were setting up in America a practically independent state and church. As an immediate consequence, emigrants, early in 1634, were not permitted to go to New England without taking the royal oath of allegiance and promising to conform to the Book of Common Prayer.
Attack on the charter.
In April a royal commission of twelve persons was appointed, ostensibly to take charge of all the American colonies, secure conformity, and even to revoke charters; but it was well understood that Massachusetts was especially aimed at. The Massachusetts people were speedily ordered to lay their charter before the Privy Council. Their answer, however, was withheld, pending prayerful consideration. Meanwhile Dorchester, Charlestown, and Castle Island were fortified; a military commission was set to work to collect and store arms; militiamen were drilled; arrangements were made on Beacon Hill, in Boston, for signalling the inhabitants of the interior in case of an attack; the people were ordered on pain of death, in the event of war, to obey the military authorities, and no longer to swear allegiance to the Crown, but to the colony of Massachusetts.
The charter annulled.
But the men of the colony were politic as well as pugnacious, and despatched Winslow to England to make peace with the authorities. While he was in London, in February, 1635, the Plymouth Company surrendered its charter to the king, with the condition that the latter should annul all existing titles in New England, and partition the country in severalty among the members of the Plymouth council. In accordance with this arrangement, a writ of quo warranto was issued against the Massachusetts charter, it was declared null and void, and Gorges was authorized to be viceregal governor of New England.
Judgment suspended.
Winslow was imprisoned in England for four months for having broken the ecclesiastical law in celebrating marriages in the Plymouth colony, but upon his release did good diplomatic work and neutralized much of the opposition. Meanwhile, another and stricter order was sent out to the Massachusetts Company to surrender its charter. This again was met by silence and renewed military preparations. English Puritans were at this time attempting to leave for America in great numbers, on account of acts of royal tyranny. The difficulty with the Scotch Church ensued, and by 1640 the Long Parliament was in session. In the excitement occasioned by the Puritan rising in the mother-land, the day of punishment for Massachusetts was postponed.
54. Religious Troubles in Massachusetts (1636-1638).
Roger Williams.
The opposition at home, occasioned by differences in religious belief, was not, however, so easily thrust aside. Roger Williams, an able and learned, but bigoted young Welshman, a graduate from Pembroke College, Cambridge, came out to Plymouth in 1631. His tongue was too bold to suit the English ecclesiastical authorities, and to gain peace he had been obliged to depart for the colonies. In 1633 he went to Salem, where he became pastor of the church. Williams was fond of abstruse metaphysical discussion, and he was an extremist in thought, speech, and action; but while his arguments were phrased in such manner as often to make it difficult for us to understand him, the views he held were in the main what we style modern. He opposed the union of church and state, such as obtained in Massachusetts, where political power was exercised only by members of the congregation; he was opposed to enforced attendance on church, and would have done away with all contributions for religious purposes which were not purely voluntary. Such doctrines were, however, held to be dangerous to the commonwealth; and indeed expression of them would not at that time have been permitted in England nor in many parts of Continental Europe. But this was not all. Williams in a pamphlet pronounced it as his solemn judgment that the king was an intruder, and had no right to grant American lands to the colonists; that honest patents could only be procured from the Indians by purchase; and that all existing titles were therefore invalid. This was deemed downright treason, which he was compelled by the magistrates to recant. At Salem, Endicott, who was one of his disciples, became so heated under his pastor's teachings that, in token of his hatred of the symbols of Rome, he cut the cross of St. George from the English ensign. The General Court, greatly alarmed lest these proceedings should anger the king, reprimanded Endicott; and, because of his "divers new and dangerous opinions," ordered Williams (January, 1636) to return to England. The latter escaped, and passed the winter in missionary service among the Indians. In the spring, privately aided by the lenient Winthrop, the troublesome agitator passed south, with five of his followers, to Narragansett Bay, and there established Providence Plantation.
Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomians.
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston from England in the autumn of 1634. She was a woman of brilliant parts, but impetuous and indiscreet, and by instinct an agitator. Her religious views are described by Winthrop as containing "two dangerous errors,—first, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person; second, that no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." This is cloudy to a modern layman. The theory is styled Antinomian by its enemies, and was substantially as follows: Any person in a "state of grace" or "justification" is at the same time "sanctified;" since he is both justified and sanctified, the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in his heart, and his acts cannot in the nature of things partake of sin: therefore he need have no great concern about the outward aspect of his works. This doctrine was contrary to that entertained by the Puritans, who believed that a person must be first justified by faith, and then sanctified by works. They thought the Antinomian dogma open to pernicious interpretation, and not conducive to the welfare of society. Its advocacy threw Boston into a great ferment.
Mrs. Hutchinson soon had a large following, among whom were Wheelwright, John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker, of the ministers; while among laymen who were well inclined towards her doctrine was the younger Henry Vane, then governor of the colony, who was in later years to become prominent as one of the leaders in the English Commonwealth. In the conditions then existing in Massachusetts Mrs. Hutchinson's teachings were considered dangerous to the State; they opposed the authority of the ecclesiastical rulers, and this tended to breed civil dissension. One of her supporters, Greensmith, was fined £40 by the General Court (March, 1637) for publicly declaring that all the preachers except Cotton, Wheelwright, and Thomas Hooker taught a covenant of works instead of a covenant of grace, the difference between which, the layman Winthrop said, "no man could tell, except some few who knew the bottom of the matter." At the same time Wheelwright was found guilty of sedition because in a sermon he had counselled his hearers to fight for their liberties, but with weapons spiritual, not carnal. When the Boston church supported their minister, the Court responded by voting to hold its next meeting at Newtown (Cambridge), where it might deliberate amid quieter surroundings than at Boston.
When the Court of Election met at Newtown (May, 1637), Vane and his friends were, in the course of a tumultuous session, dropped out of the government, Winthrop was again chosen governor, and the uncompromising heretic-hater Dudley deputy-governor. Vane departed for England in disgust, never to return. For a time it seemed as if peace had come under the politic Winthrop, and the Hutchinsonians gave evidences of a desire to compromise. In a few months, however, the Court re-opened the whole controversy by legislating against all new-comers who were tainted with heresy. The old warfare broke out again. The charges of sedition against Wheelwright were renewed, he was banished, and fled, with a few adherents, to the Piscataqua.
Mrs. Hutchinson banished.
Mrs. Hutchinson was placed on trial (November, 1637) and commanded to leave the colony, which she did in March following, and went to Rhode Island. Seventy-six of her followers were disarmed, some were disfranchised, others fined, and still others "desired and obtained license to remove themselves and their families out of the jurisdiction." Quiet once more prevailed. Wheelwright recanted after a time, and was permitted to resume his habitation in Boston; and many others of the disaffected were finally restored to citizenship.
The policy of repression successful.
The little commonwealth had been shaken to its foundations by a controversy which to-day—-when religion and politics are separated, to the advantage of both—would be considered of small moment even in one of our rural villages; but the State and the Church were one in the colony of Massachusetts, and ecclesiastical contumacy was political contumacy as well. Under such conditions there could safely be neither liberty of opinion nor of speech; the welfare of a government thus constituted lay in stern repression. The suppression and banishment of Roger Williams and Mrs. Hutchinson were eminently successful in restoring order and public security, in the train of which came increased immigration and greater prosperity.
55. Indian Wars (1635-1637).
The Dutch at Hartford.
While these things were going on in Boston and Newtown, warfare of another sort was in progress to the south. In 1635 residents of Massachusetts made a settlement on the Connecticut river, on the site of Windsor, above the Dutch fort at Hartford; and later in the same year another party, under John Winthrop the younger, built Saybrook, at the mouth of the stream. These Connecticut settlements formed an outpost in the heart of the Indian country, and trouble was inevitable.
The Pequod war.
At last the attitude of the Pequods, the tribe occupying the lower portion of the Connecticut valley, became unbearable; they interfered with immigrants going overland, and rendered trade by sea dangerous. They endeavored to enlist the sympathy of the Narragansetts in their forays. Could these tribes have formed a coalition, it seems likely that the New England colonists, then few and weak, must have been driven into the sea. Roger Williams, bearing no malice towards his old enemies in Massachusetts, averted this calamity. As the result of great exertions on his part, the Narragansetts were induced to disregard the overtures of their old enemies, the Pequods, and the Connecticut Indians went alone upon the war-path. They made life a burden to the settlers in the little towns of Saybrook, Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. An appeal for aid went up from the colonists in the Connecticut valley to Massachusetts and Plymouth, and was promptly answered.
The Pequods crushed.
In the little intercolonial army of some three hundred men, Captains John Mason of Windsor and John Underhill of Massachusetts were the leading figures. The Pequods were surprised in their chief town (May 20, 1637), the walls of which were burned by the whites, while volleys of musketry were poured into the crowd of savages, who huddled together in great fear. Says Underhill, "It is reported by themselves that there were about four hundred souls in this fort, and not above five of them escaped out of our hands;" others report that seven hundred Pequods fell on that terrible day. Of the besiegers but two were killed, though a quarter of the force were wounded. From this scene of slaughter the victorious colonists marched through the rest of the enemy's territory, burning wigwams and granaries, taking some of the survivors prisoners, to be sold into slavery, and so thoroughly scattering the others that the Pequod tribe never reorganized; the expedition had thoroughly uprooted it.
56. Laws and Characteristics of Massachusetts (1637-1643).
Laws.
For more than ten years after the planting of Massachusetts the magistrates dispensed justice according to their understanding of right and wrong; there were no statutes, neither had the English common law been officially recognized, except so far as it was understood that Englishmen carried the law of their land with them in emigrating to America. "In the year 1634," says Hutchinson, "the plantation was greatly increased, settlements were extended more than thirty miles from the capital town, and it was thought high time to have known established laws, that the inhabitants might no longer be subject to the varying uncertain judgments which otherwise would be made concerning their actions. The ministers and some of the principal laymen were consulted with about a body of laws suited to the circumstances of the colony, civil and religious. Committees of magistrates and elders were appointed" from year to year by the General Court, but it was not until 1641 that a body of statutes was finally adopted.
The Body of Liberties.
The influence of the clergy is well illustrated in the fact that the two codes finally submitted were the work of ministers,—John Cotton of Boston, and Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich. The latter's plan, in which he received the aid of Winthrop and others of the elders, was adopted in 1641, under the title of The Body of Liberties. In England, Ward had at one time been a barrister, and was well read in the common law, on which his code was mainly based, although it also contained many features of the law of Moses. Equal justice was vouchsafed to all, old or young, freeman or foreigner, master or servant, man or woman; persons and property were to be inviolable except by law; brutes were to be humanely treated; no one was to be tried twice for the same offence; barbarous or cruel punishments were forbidden; public records were to be open for inspection; church regulations were to be enforced by civil courts, and church officers and members were amenable to civil law; the Scriptures were to overrule any custom or prescription; the general rules of judicial proceedings were defined, as were also the privileges and duties of freemen, and the liberties and prerogatives of the churches; public money was to be spent only with the consent of the taxpayers. "There shall be no bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitie amongst us unles it be lawfull Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us;" but all such were to be allowed "all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of god established in Israell." Notwithstanding this enlightened provision, persons continued to be born and to live and die as slaves within the boundaries of the commonwealth down to 1780. Servants fleeing from the cruelty of their masters were to be protected, and there was to be appeal from parental tyranny. "Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, unlesse it be in his owne defence upon her assalt." The capital offences, selected from the Scriptures, were twelve in number; among them were: "(2) If any man or woman be a witch (that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit), they shall be put to death;" and "(12) If any man shall conspire and attempt any invasion, insurrection, or publique rebellion against our commonwealth, ... or shall treacherously and perfediouslie attempt the alteration and subversion of our frame of politie or Government fundamentallie, he shall be put to death." The essence of this Body of Liberties was afterwards incorporated into the formal laws of the colony. It was the foundation of the Massachusetts code.
Characteristics of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts was the first large colony in New England. Its people were educated, and as a rule of a higher social grade than those of Plymouth. Under a charter which contained many very liberal provisions, a highly organized government was developed, which served as a model to the other colonies, and had a wide influence in the building of a nation founded on the principles of self-government. Plymouth had, after sixteen years, separated into towns; but when organized town and church governments moved bodily from Massachusetts to found Connecticut, Massachusetts became the first mother of colonies. Massachusetts was bolder, more aggressive, and more tenacious of her liberties than any other of the American colonies; her people took firm, sometimes obstinate, stand for their rights as Englishmen, and were often alone in their early contentions for principles upon which in after years the Revolution was based. In their treatment of the Indians they were inclined to be more imperious than their neighbors.
57. Connecticut founded (1633-1639).
Plymouth traders at Windsor.
In 1633 Plymouth built a fur-trading house on the site of Windsor, on the Connecticut River. A party of Dutch traders from New York was already planted at Hartford, in "a rude earthwork with two guns," and strenuously objected to this intrusion; but the Plymouth men found trade with the Indians profitable, and stood their ground.
The Massachusetts hegira.
The same year the overland route to the Connecticut was explored by the Massachusetts trader, John Oldham, who was afterwards slain by the Pequods at Block Island. The favorable reports which Oldham carried back induced a number of people in Newtown (Cambridge), Dorchester, and Watertown, in the Massachusetts colony, to remove to the Connecticut and set up an independent State. "Hereing of ye fame of Conightecute river, they had a hankering mind after it." Ostensibly they sought better pasturage for their cattle, to prevent the Dutch from gaining a permanent hold on the country, and to plant an outpost in the Pequod country; but there also appear to have been some differences of opinion between these people and the Massachusetts authorities, growing out of the taxation of Watertown in 1631; and no doubt their ministers and elders—among whom were such strong men as Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and Roger Ludlow—were desirous of greater recognition than they obtained at home. These differences were not so grave but that Massachusetts, after a spasm of opposition, formally permitted the migration, gave to the outgoing colonists a commission, and lent to them a cannon and some ammunition.
Plymouth overawed.
During the summer of 1635 a Dorchester party planted a settlement at Windsor around the walls of the Plymouth post. Plymouth did not approve of this cavalier treatment of her prior rights by the Massachusetts pioneers, but was obliged to submit with what grace she might, as she had in many controversies with her domineering neighbor to the north.
Winthrop at Saybrook.
That same autumn (1635) John Winthrop, Jr., appeared at the mouth of the Connecticut with a commission as governor, issued by Lord Brook, Lord Say and Sele, and their partners, to whom in 1631 Lord Warwick, as president of the council for New England, had granted all the country between the Narragansett River and the Pacific Ocean. Winthrop had just thrown up a breastwork when a Dutch vessel appeared on its way to Hartford with supplies for the traders, and was ordered back; thus were the New Amsterdam people cut off from a profitable commerce on the Connecticut, and from territorial expansion eastward, although their Hartford colony lived for many years.
Condition of the colony (1636-1637).
The migration from Massachusetts to the Connecticut continued vigorously during 1636, and by the spring of 1637 the colony had a population of eight hundred souls, grouped in the three towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield,—Winthrop's establishment at Saybrook being but a military station, which had no connection with the Massachusetts settlements up the river until 1644. The Pequod war, in 1637, stirred Connecticut to its centre. A force of about one hundred and fifteen Massachusetts and Connecticut men, under the command of Capt. John Mason of Windsor, was handled with much skill, and soon nearly annihilated the Pequod tribe. The Indians crushed, immigration was renewed, and prosperity became general throughout the valley.
58. The Connecticut Government (1639-1643).
Government established.
During the first year the Connecticut towns were still claimed by the parent colony, and were controlled by a commission from Massachusetts. At the end of that time (1637) there was held a General Court, in which each town was represented by two magistrates, this body adopting such local regulations as were of immediate necessity.
The Connecticut Constitution.
In January, 1639, the three towns adopted a constitution in which Massachusetts acquiesced, thus practically abandoning her claims of sovereignty over them. This Connecticut constitution was undoubtedly, as Fiske says, "the first written constitution known to history that created a government,"—the "Mayflower" compact being rather an agreement to accept a constitution, while Magna Charta did not create a government. Bryce characterizes the Connecticut document as "the oldest truly political constitution in America." It is noticeable for the fact that it made no reference to the king or to any charter or patent; it was simply an agreement between colonists in neighboring towns, independent of any but royal authority, as to the manner of their local and general self-government. The governor and six magistrates (another name for assistants) were to be elected by a majority of the whole body of free men; but later, with the spread of the colony, voting by proxies was allowed. The governor alone need be a church member, and he was not to serve for two years in succession; but this restriction on re-election was abolished in favor of the younger Winthrop in 1660. Each town might admit freemen by popular vote; and it is noticeable that despite the fact that the original settlers of Connecticut came as organized congregations, with their ministers and elders, it was ordained there should be no religious restriction on suffrage, which was thus made almost unrestricted; the towns were to be represented in the General Court by two deputies each; the practical administration was in the hands of the governor and his assistants, who were also members of the General Court. In time the system became bicameral, the deputies forming the lower, and the council the upper house; the towns were allowed all powers not expressly granted to the commonwealth, the affairs of each being executed by a board of "chief inhabitants," acting as magistrates. The government of Connecticut was on the whole somewhat more liberal and democratic than that of Massachusetts, and was the model upon which many American States were afterwards built.
Hooker's influence.
More than to any other man, the credit for this epoch-making constitution belongs to the Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, the leading spirit of the colony. He argued that "the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people;" that "the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance;" and that "they who have power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them." These are truisms to-day, but in 1638 they were the utterances of a political prophet.
Characteristics of Connecticut.
Under her liberal constitutional government, based upon the voice of the people, Connecticut was from the first a practically independent republic. The public officers were plain, honest men, who acceptably administered the affairs of the colony with small cost. The colonists were shrewd in political management, frugal in their expenditures, hard-working, and ingenious. Education flourished, a severe morality obtained, and religious persecution was unknown. Connecticut was noted among the colonies for its prosperity, independence, and enlightenment.
59. New Haven founded (1637-1644).
Origin of the colony.
Theophilus Eaton was a London merchant "of fair estate, and of great esteem for religion and wisdom in outward affairs." He was at one time an ambassador to the Danish court, and had been one of the original assistants of the Massachusetts Company, although not active in its affairs. John Davenport had been an ordained minister in London; he turned Puritan, and on his resignation in 1633 went to Holland. These two men formed a congregation, composed for the most part of middle-class Londoners, who resolved to migrate to America, there to set up a State founded on scriptural models. The Plymouth and Massachusetts men had started out with this same idea; but as the result of circumstances, had made compromises which Eaton and Davenport could not countenance.
The plantation covenant.
In July, 1637, the two leaders arrived in Boston with a small company of their disciples, among whom were several men of wealth and good social position, but extremely narrow and bigoted in religious faith. They have been styled the Brahmins of New England Puritanism. They did not deem it practicable to settle in Massachusetts, and the following spring (March, 1638) sailed to Long Island Sound and established an independent settlement on the site of New Haven, thirty miles west of the Connecticut river. For a year their only bond of union was a "plantation covenant" to obey the Scriptures in all things.
The Constitution.
In October, 1639, there was adopted a constitution, in the making of which Davenport had the chief hand. The governor and four magistrates were to be elected by the freemen, who were, as in Massachusetts, church members; trial by jury was rejected, because it lacked scriptural authority; and it was formally declared "that the Word of God shall be the only rule attended unto in ordering the affairs of government." Eaton was chosen governor, and held the office by annual election until his death, twenty years later.
Neighboring towns.
The neighborhood of New Haven was soon settled by other immigrants, most of whom were also strict constructionists of the Scriptures, while a few others were as liberal in their ideas as the people of the Connecticut valley. Guilford was established (1639) seventeen miles to the north, and Milford (1639) eleven miles westward; Stamford (1640), well on towards New York, followed, while Southold was boldly planted (1640) on Long Island, opposite Guilford, in territory claimed by the Dutch. As each town was as well a church, these were for some years little independent communities, founded on the New Haven model. In 1643, however, they formed a union with New Haven, and a system of representation was introduced. Each town sent up deputies to the General Court, in which also sat the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, elected by the whole body of freemen; yet a majority of either the deputies or the magistrates might veto a measure. Local magistrates—seven to each town, known as "pillars of the church"—tried petty cases, but important suits were passed upon by the assistants. The "seven pillars" were the autocrats of their several towns, and colonial affairs were also practically in the hands of the select few who controlled the church.
Peter's False Blue Laws.
At the meeting of the General Court in April, 1644, the magistrates in the confederation were ordered to observe "the judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses." This injunction afterwards gave rise to an absurd report, circulated in 1781 by Rev. Samuel Peters, a Tory refugee, that the New Haven statutes were of peculiar quaintness and severity. For nearly one hundred years Peters's fable of the New Haven Blue Laws was accepted as historic truth.
Characteristics of New Haven.
At first, New Haven failed to prosper; but after a few years, with the increase of trade, better times prevailed, and by the close of the century the town was noted for the wealth of its inhabitants and their fine houses. Education was greatly encouraged, and there were considerable shipping interests; but the ecclesiastical system was peculiar, and suffrage greatly restricted. There were, in consequence, frequent outbursts of dissatisfaction among the people. The colony thus had conspicuous elements of weakness, and was finally absorbed by Connecticut.
60. Rhode Island founded (1636-1654).
Roger Williams.
In 1636, with five of his disciples, Roger Williams, driven from Massachusetts as a reformer of a dangerous type, established the town of Providence, at the head of Narragansett Bay.
Anne Hutchinson.
The following year (1637) a party of Anne Hutchinson's followers—also expelled from Massachusetts because of heretical opinions—settled on the island of Aquedneck (afterwards Rhode Island), eighteen miles to the south. Mrs. Hutchinson joined them in 1638, and the town was eventually called Portsmouth.
Newport established.
Both communities at once attracted from Massachusetts people who had either been expelled from that colony or were not in entire harmony with it, and by the close of 1638 Providence contained sixty persons, and Portsmouth nearly as many. The next year fifty-nine of the Portsmouth people, headed by the chief magistrate, Coddington, dissenting from some of Mrs. Hutchinson's "new heresies," withdrew to the southern end of the island and settled Newport; but the two towns reunited in 1640, under the name of Rhode Island, with Coddington as governor.
The Providence agreement.
Each of these colonies, Providence and Rhode Island, was at first an independent body politic. It is interesting to note their original compacts. The Providence agreement (1636), signed by Roger Williams and twelve of his sympathizers, was as follows: "We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the Town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellowship, and such others whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things." Five freemen, called arbitrators, managed public affairs, and for some years there appear to have been no fixed rules for their guidance.
The Portsmouth declaration.
At Portsmouth the people united in the following declaration: "We do here solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, incorporate ourselves into a body politic, and as He shall help will submit our persons, lives, and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His, given us in His holy words of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." The freemen conducted public affairs in town meeting, with a secretary, a clerk, and a chief magistrate. Newport was similarly organized; but when Newport and Portsmouth reunited, a more complex government was instituted. A General Court was then established, in which sat the governor, the deputy-governor, and four assistants,—one town choosing the governor and two of the assistants, and the other the deputy-governor and the remaining assistants; the freemen composed the body of the court, and settled even the most trivial cases. In 1641 it was declared that "it is in the power of the body of the freemen orderly assembled, or the part of them, to make and constitute just laws by which they shall be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man." At the same session an order was adopted "that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established."
An asylum for sectaries.
By the other colonies Providence and Rhode Island were deemed hot-beds of anarchy. Persons holding all manner of Protestant theological notions flocked thither in considerable numbers, and it is true that for many years there were hot contentions between them, often to the disturbance of public order. Despite these years of bickerings, Providence and Rhode Island prospered.
Establishment of Providence Plantations.
Through the exertions of Roger Williams, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, with a new town called Warwick were united under one charter (1644), as the colony of Providence Plantations. This liberal document, issued by the Parliamentary Committee on the Colonies, gave to the inhabitants along Narragansett Bay authority to rule themselves "by such form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and condition." Larger power could not have been wished for. By a curious provision, adopted in 1647, a law had to be proposed at the General Court; it was then sent round to the towns for the freemen to pass upon it, thus giving the voters a voice in the conduct of affairs, without the necessity of attending court. A majority of freemen in any one town could defeat the measure. A code of laws resembling the common laws of England, and with few references to biblical precedents, passed safely through the ordeal in 1647; one important section provided that "all men may walk as their conscience persuades them."
The Coddington faction.
The following year Coddington, as the head of a faction, obtained a separate charter for Newport and Portsmouth,—much to the disgust of many of the inhabitants of those as well as of the other towns. A bitter feud lasted until 1654, when Williams once more appeared as peacemaker and secured the reunion of all the towns under the general charter of 1644, with himself as president. The old law code was restored.
Characteristics of Rhode Island.
Rhode Island was founded by a religious outcast, and always remained as an asylum for those sectaries who could find no home elsewhere. The purpose was noble, and Williams persisted in his policy, despite the fact that life was often made uncomfortable for him by his ill-assorted fellow-colonists, who were continually bickering with each other. Throughout the seventeenth century Rhode Island was a hot-bed of disorder. Fanaticism not only expressed itself in religion, but in politics and society; and no scheme was so wild as to find no adherents in this confused medley. The condition of the colony served as a warning to its neighbors, seeming to confirm the wisdom of their theocratic methods.
61. Maine founded (1622-1658).
Sir Ferdinando Gorges.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth in England, became interested in New England, we have seen, as early as 1605. Ten years later he assisted John Smith in organizing an unsuccessful voyage to the northern coast; in 1620 we find him a member of the council of the Plymouth Company; in 1622 he and John Mason (not the hero of the Pequod war), both of them Churchmen and strong friends of the king, obtained a grant of the country lying between the Merrimack and Kennebec Rivers; and it was Gorges who sent out Maverick to settle on Noddle's Island, and Blackstone to hold the Boston peninsula. Later (1629), Mason obtained an individual grant from the Plymouth Council of the territory between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua (New Hampshire), and Gorges that from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec (Maine); these grants were similar in character to the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company. When the Plymouth Company threw up its charter in 1634, and New England was parcelled out (1635) among the members of the council, Gorges and Mason secured a confirmation of their former personal grants. Mason died a few months later, leaving the settlements in his tract to be annexed to Massachusetts in 1641.
Becomes Lord Proprietor of Maine.
In April, 1639, Gorges obtained a provincial charter from the king, conferring upon him the title of Lord Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine, his domain to extend, as before, from the Kennebec to the Piscataqua, and backward one hundred and twenty miles from the coast. He received almost absolute authority over the people of his province, who were then but three hundred in number. Saco, established by him about the year 1623, was the principal settlement, and contained one half of the population; while a half-dozen smaller hamlets, chiefly of his creation, were scattered along the neighboring shore, inhabited by fishermen, hunters, and traders. The greater part of these people were adherents of the king and the Established Church. Notwithstanding Gorges's long-sustained effort to attract men of wealth to his plantations, the province was not as flourishing as its neighbors to the south.
His cumbrous constitution.
Gorges amused his old age by drafting a cumbrous Constitution for his people. He was to make laws in conjunction with the freemen; the laws of England were to prevail in cases not covered by the statutes; the Church of England was to be the State religion; all Englishmen were to be allowed fishing privileges; the proprietor was to establish manorial courts; and he was also empowered, of his own motion, to levy taxes, raise troops, and declare war. In examining the official machinery which Gorges sought to erect in Maine, we are reminded of Locke's constitution for the Carolinas; the proprietor was to be represented by a deputy-governor, under whom was to be a long line of officers with high-sounding titles, these to form the council; with them were to meet the deputies selected by the freeholders. The provinces were to be cut up into bailiwicks or counties, hundreds, parishes, and tithings; justice in each bailiwick was to be administered by a lieutenant and eight magistrates, the nominees of the proprietor or his deputy, and under each was a staff of minor functionaries. There were almost enough officers provided for in Gorges's plan to give every one of his subjects a public position.
The colony neglected.
The proprietor himself never visited America; he was represented by his son Thomas as deputy-governor. It was impossible for the latter, however, to carry all of his father's plans into effect, and gradually the province sank into disorder and neglect. Its towns were finally absorbed by Massachusetts (1652-1658).
Characteristics of Maine.
The settlers brought out to people Maine were the servants of individuals or companies having a tract of land to be occupied and cultivated, fisheries to conduct, and fur-trade to prosecute. They did not come to found a church or build a state, and such institutions as they developed were the immediate outcome of their necessities. They had little sympathy or communication with their neighbors of Massachusetts and Plymouth.
62. New Hampshire founded (1620-1685).
Origin of the first settlements.
We have seen that John Mason was given a grant in 1629 of the country between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua. In his scheme for colonizing the tract, Gorges was associated with him. But David Thomson and three Plymouth fur-traders had already gained a footing at Rye in 1622, under a grant from the Plymouth Council. Dover had been founded before 1628 by the brothers Hilton, Puritan fish-dealers in London; and some of Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents, exiles from Massachusetts, founded Exeter and Hampton. In 1630 Neal, as colonizing agent of Mason and Gorges, settled at Portsmouth, on the Piscataqua, with a large party of farmers and fishermen, all of them Church of England men; and it is probable that this colony absorbed the neighboring settlement at Rye. By the time the proprietors dissolved partnership in 1635 (page [150]), considerable property had been accumulated by them here, as in the inventory of their possessions at Portsmouth we find twenty-two cannons, two hundred and fifty small-arms, forty-eight fishing-boats, forty horses, fifty-four goats, nearly two hundred sheep, and over a hundred cattle. This argues a large establishment. Upon the death of Mason, later in the year, the Piscataqua colony was left to its own guidance. All of the New Hampshire towns were from the first independent communities, governed much after the fashion of the other English towns to the south of them.
Characteristics of New Hampshire.
The beginnings of New Hampshire were the results of commercial enterprise in England and theological dissensions in Massachusetts. The inhabitants of the several towns had little in common, and held different political and religious views. Planted under various auspices, when they grew to importance they were the subject of long struggles for jurisdiction. It would be tiresome to trace the history of these disputes; suffice it to say that after many changes the settlements on or near the Piscataqua were (1641-1643) incorporated with Massachusetts, which ruled them with marked discretion, and refrained from meddling with their religious views. In 1679, as the result of disputes growing out of the revival of the Mason claim in England, New Hampshire was turned into a royal province, but in 1685 was reunited to Massachusetts. As to the character of the people of New Hampshire, what has been said in regard to those of Maine may in a great measure also be applied to them.