The first settlers located wherever they pleased, but the Massachusetts general court soon took over the superintendence of town founding and prescribed more or less definitely the boundaries of each town. The grants were made in tracts of thirty-six square miles or more. Within a town there were many common fields which were handled by associated proprietors. The fields were surrounded by common fences and were cultivated by a joint system. The herds were also held in common. The original grantees and their legal heirs or successors made up the commoners or proprietors. Originally the town and the proprietors were approximately the same. An important function of the town meeting was in allotting land. Soon each community began to receive newcomers who were freemen but not proprietors. At first the proprietors were in control, but as the freemen increased in number frequent struggles occurred over the arrangement of town lands.
The meeting house was the center of local life. There the town meeting was held and there the people repaired on the Sabbath. In early days the military stores and equipment were usually kept in the edifice and the men attended service with arms in hand. The town constructed and took care of the meeting house and the minister was supported by taxation. One of the early acts of each town was to establish a school, the meeting house frequently being used as a school-house.
A representative system introduced.—The governor and assistants soon found their power challenged. In 1632 a tax was voted for fortifying Newtown, the modern Cambridge. The tax caused considerable grumbling, and the general court decided that, in future, the governor and assistants should be advised in matters of taxation by two delegates from each town, and that all magistrates should be elected by the entire body of freemen. In 1634 a committee of two freemen from each town demanded larger rights. The result was a representative system, each town sending representatives according to its size to meet with the general court. This system was in no sense a popular government, the franchise continuing to be restricted to a limited number of church members, the leaders of whom were distinctly aristocratic.
The struggle with Laud.—The patentees who had been deprived of their rights found a ready listener in Archbishop Laud, who disliked the Puritan commonwealth growing so lustily on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. Grounds for accusation were found in the fact that the Massachusetts magistrates expelled those who disagreed with their religious ideas. Complaints were filed with the privy council by Gorges and Mason, but a committee of the council in 1633 made a report which was favorable to the colony. In 1634 the attack was renewed, and this time with better success, for the king appointed the Commission for Foreign Plantations, headed by Laud, to take over the general supervision of all the colonies. Immediately a demand was made for the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Governor Dudley and the assistants replied that the charter could not be returned except by order of the general court, which was not in session. They immediately fortified Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown.
In 1635 the coast of New England was reapportioned, Sir Ferdinando Gorges receiving the lands in Maine between the Penobscot and the Piscataqua, Mason receiving New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts as far as Cape Ann, and Lord Edward Gorges from Cape Ann to Narragansett Bay. The same year the Council for New England resigned its charter, and the king decided to seize the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company. The pecuniary difficulties of the king, the destruction of a boat which was built by Mason and Gorges, and the death of Mason combined to help the colony. Though the charter was again demanded in 1638 by the lord commissioners, the general court refused to recognize the order, and the increasing difficulties of the king made it possible for the Massachusetts authorities to continue their independent course.
EXPANSION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
RHODE ISLAND
Roger Williams.—The power of the Massachusetts magistrates was exercised to maintain the ideal of a biblical commonwealth, whose principles were expounded by John Cotton of the Boston church. Those who did not agree were in danger. Among the dissenters was Roger Williams, a brilliant young student from Cambridge, who arrived at Boston in 1631, where he was invited to become one of the ministers. He refused to commune with those who had not broken with the English church and repaired to Salem where he was invited to become the minister, but the general court prevented his ordination. Williams soon departed for Plymouth, where he devoted much time to the study of the Indians. He concluded that the title to land belonged to the natives and that the king had no right to grant it away, a view which somewhat disturbed Brewster and Bradford.
He returned to Salem where, during the illness of Skelton, the pastor, he occasionally preached; when Skelton died, Williams became the teacher of the organization. In his sermons he argued that church and state should be separate, and denied the right of the magistrates to regulate churches. He also considered it a sin to follow the forms of the established church. When the colony was attacked by Laud, the general court ordered that a new oath of fidelity be taken. Williams objected to enforced oaths, as he thought that they obliged wicked men to perform a religious act, thus invading the freedom of the soul.
Providence plantation.—To punish Salem for harboring Williams, title to its lands on Marble Neck was refused by the general court and the town was denied the right of representation. Endicott yielded but Williams remained obdurate. In a letter to the churches he protested against the arbitrary act. Williams was summoned before the magistrates and in October, 1635, was sentenced to banishment. The sentence was not immediately enforced and at Salem he continued to be the center of a group of Separatists, who proposed to remove in the spring to the shores of Narragansett Bay. This again alarmed the magistrates, and they decided to send Williams to England. Hearing of the project, he fled from his persecutors and found refuge among the Narragansett Indians. He was warned away from the territory of Plymouth, and in June, 1636, settled at Providence, where he soon had a considerable following, this being the first settlement in Rhode Island.