The Colonies, 1492-1750

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

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.