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.