The main object of the union was the security of the colonies against the natives, who becoming now acquainted with some of the arts of civilised life, were more and more formidable as antagonists. The destruction of the Pequods had not secured peace to the colonies. Unfortunately by this time, too, an idea was becoming prevalent in New England that the Indians were of the accursed race of Ham, and fit only to be rooted out; and hence a spirit of vengeance prevailed against them. In vain the milder-tempered settlers of Connecticut and Rhode Island combated such a doctrine; their pity for the heathen was only regarded as of a piece with their heretical notions. In proportion as the English became vindictive towards the Indian, his savage nature became excited. To be the allies of the hated English drew down upon the feebler tribes the vengeance of their Indian enemies. The bold Miantonomoh hated the Mohegans for this cause. He had been taken to Boston as a criminal on the accusation of Uncas, the Mohegan chief, and now he thirsted for vengeance. Accordingly, at the head of 1000 warriors, and in defiance of a treaty with the English, he suddenly fell upon the Mohegans. He was defeated and taken prisoner, and by the laws of Indian warfare death was his doom. Samuel Gorton, however, and some other heretical English settlers, on the lands of Miantonomoh, interceded for him, and his life was spared. The unfortunate and haughty chief, being conducted a prisoner to Hartford, his fate was referred to the court of Boston, the cruel Uncas, who charged him with an attempt to bewitch and assassinate him, being his accuser; the good services of the forest chief to the colonists, and the aid he had given in the Pequod war, were all forgotten. Murder was one of the crimes punished by death among the Puritans, and as they themselves had on one occasion put to death two of their own people for the murder of one Indian, Miantonomoh, against whom it was easy to found such an accusation, to say nothing of his having in spite of the league of amity commenced a bloody war, was condemned to death as a murderer. He was again given up to his enemy Uncas, the conditions simply being that he should be executed beyond the English boundaries, and that no torture should accompany his death. Uncas conveyed him back to the place whence he was taken, and then one of his men marching behind him clove his head with a hatchet, and he fell dead with the blow. Such was the hard fate of one of the noblest chiefs of the wilderness, “the fast friend of the exiles of Massachusetts, the fathers of Rhode Island.” Later and more enlightened times have attempted in some measure to evince respect to this bold and ill-used chief; Cooper has written of him, and a block of granite inscribed with his name now marks the spot where he fell. It was about this time, and in consequence of the unquiet state of the Indians, that a law was passed, requiring all towns to be well provided with powder, “and hence,” says Hildreth, “the origin of those powder-houses, perched on some lonely hill, which formed in past years marked objects in the New England landscape.”
Whilst the confederate colonies were thus strengthening themselves, the people of Rhode Island resolved to obtain from the mother-country an acknowledgment as a separate state. We have already mentioned that Roger Williams succeeded in this important object, through his powerful friend Henry Vane. But Williams, independent of any political partizanship, was already favourably known in England from his printed work on the Indian language, “the like whereof was not extant in any part of America.” This, and his merits as a missionary, induced both houses of parliament to grant to him and his friends, “a free and absolute charter of civil government for those parts of his abode. The places of refuge for soul-liberty on the Narragansett Bay were thus incorporated with full power and authority to rule themselves.”
Williams returned triumphantly to New England, now landing in Boston, whence he had not been allowed to sail, with letters from the parliament, which demanded his safety and good reception. “As he approached Seekonk the water was covered with boats; all the people of Providence had come out to meet him. Receiving their successful ambassador, the group of boats started for the opposite shore, and as they paddled across the stream, Roger Williams, placed in the centre of his grateful fellow-citizens and glowing with the purest joy, was elevated and transported out of himself.” It is pleasant to record such an incident in the life of a good and great man.
Again, in a moment of danger to the little state, Williams was sent to London to negotiate for its safety, which he again did successfully.
And now came a trial of his virtue in a new form. The General Assembly, grateful to Roger Williams for the services which he had ever rendered the state of which he was the founder, desired that he should obtain from England an appointment of governor of the colony. But “he refused to sanction a measure which would have furnished a dangerous precedent, and was content with the honour of doing good.” The government of Rhode Island remained a pure democracy, ever anxious, to use the words of its own records, “not to prove an anarchy, and so a common tyranny.” To the orthodox states of New England, Rhode Island appeared as an anarchy, and nothing but destruction was foretold for it; the towns, it was said, “were full of Anabaptists, Antinomians and infidels, so that, if a man chance to lose his religious creed, he may be sure of finding it again in some village of Rhode Island.” But all went well in the end; “good men, independent of creeds, were chosen to administer the government, and the spirit of mercy, liberality, and wisdom was impressed on its legislation.”
As the laws and customs of a people infallibly reflect its life, character, and circumstances, we will here give a few examples from the legislative books of New England. “A fundamental law of Massachusetts enacted that all strangers professing the Christian religion and fleeing thither should be supported at the public charge till other provision could be made for them.” This law, however, did not apply to Jesuits or popish priests, who were subjected to banishment, and death in case of their return. Defensive war only was considered allowable; blasphemy, idolatry and witchcraft, like murder, were capital offences; gaming was prohibited; intemperance and all immorality was severely punished; interest was forbidden on money lent, as well as the wearing of expensive apparel; parents were commanded to instruct and catechise their children and servants; and the Bible, wherever legal enactments were insufficient, was made the ultimate tribunal of appeal. Regarding themselves as similar in circumstances to the children of Israel who journeyed in the wilderness, they governed themselves in many respects by the Jewish law; as for instance, the Sabbath with them, as with the Jews, commenced on the preceding evening, sunset being regarded as the commencement of the day. From the same cause arose the prevalence of Scriptural and significant names in baptism. We have already mentioned such in the earliest recorded baptisms. Even to this day we believe that the Christian virtues, as among their forefathers, furnish prevalent names throughout New England. One unfortunate result of their adherence to the Mosaic code must be mentioned from the important consequences to which in some measure it led. It was provided by their law “that there should be no bond-slavery, villanage, nor captivity among them, excepting of lawful captives taken in war, and such strangers as voluntarily sell themselves for service: none being exempted from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority.” Hence, Indian captives and negroes might be held in perpetual slavery by the laws of New England, and this before the statutes either of Virginia or Maryland sanctioned the same. Again, the union of Church and State in Massachusetts produced all the ill effects of such a union—bigotry and intolerance. “Orthodoxy” and “piety,” so called, were the rocks upon which the liberty and true greatness of Massachusetts suffered shipwreck. We shall see more of this anon.
Having thus brought down the affairs of the New England States to the sitting of the Long Parliament, we will hastily glance at their condition. “The change,” say their writers, “which had been wrought through their industry in the wilderness was the wonder of the world.” Plenty prevailed everywhere. The wigwams and hovels, which furnished the first shelter to the settlers, were replaced by substantial houses. The number of persons who had already emigrated amounted to 21,200. “In little more than ten years, fifty towns and villages had been planted; between thirty and forty churches built; and strangers as they gazed could not but acknowledge God’s blessing on the planters. Affluence was already following in the train of industry; furs, timber, and fish were exported; and grain carried to the West Indies.” Ship-building, in which the Americans of the present day excel so greatly, was early commenced, the great promoter of this branch of art being Hugh Peters, the successor of Roger Williams in the church of Salem. Vessels of 400 tons were built before 1640, which traded to Madeira, the Canaries, and Spain, touching frequently, we regret to confess, on the African coast, and bringing away cargoes of negroes, who were sold in the West Indies, there being, it is said, but small demand for them at home.
In many respects the present New Englanders are the genuine and praiseworthy descendants of the early colonists, and in none more so than as regards education. It was ever the custom, and soon became the law, of puritan New England, that “none of the brethren should suffer so much barbarism in their families as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue.” That learning might not be hidden, as they said, in the graves of their forefathers, it was ordered that as soon as any township contained fifty householders, a person should be “appointed to teach all the children to read and write, and that after the number amounted to 100, a grammar-school should be established, in which the youth should be instructed so far as to be fitted for the university.” In 1636, a sum equal to a year’s rate of the whole colony was voted for the erection of a college at New Town, the name of which was changed to Cambridge, in commemoration of the seat of learning where most of the Massachusetts divines were educated; and two years later, John Harvard, a man of wealth and learning, arriving in the country only to die, nobly bequeathed one-half of his property and his library to the infant institution. This college was hailed as welcome by all the states; the rent of a ferry was devoted to it as an annual revenue by Massachusetts; and Connecticut, Plymouth and other places, were not behindhand in its support, whilst each individual family was rated twelvepence, or a peck of corn, for the same purpose. “This college,” says Bancroft, “exerted a powerful influence in forming the early character of the country. In the laws requiring the establishment of common schools lies the secret of the success and character of New England. Every child, as it was born into the world, was lifted from the earth by the genius of its country, and, in the statutes of the land, received as its birthright a pledge of the public care for its morals and its mind.” And as it began, so has it continued; and New England to this day is the seat of the intellectual strength of the New World, and from New England proceed over all the Union teachers, both men and women, of the highest character.
The first printing-press in Massachusetts arrived in 1638. It was purchased in England by Jesse Glover, a worthy nonconformist minister, who was about to emigrate with his family, but who unfortunately died on the passage. The press was welcome in the colony, and was worked by Stephen Daye, the printer whom Glover had engaged and taken out with him. It began to work in January, 1639, and it is characteristic of the colony that the first works which it produced, were the Freeman Oath and a metrical version of the Psalms. The first newspaper was published upwards of half a century later.
In 1641, the settlements of New Hampshire, on the banks of the Merrimack, feeling themselves in a weak and insecure condition, petitioned the now powerful Massachusetts to take them into its jurisdiction. The general court granted their request, and they became incorporated with that colony.