The beginning of the severe, repressive rule of the Puritan over domestic and social life, so repellent to modern thought, is found in the instructions sent to Endicott by the directors of the English company.
“To the end the Sabbath may be celebrated in a religious manner, we appoint that all that inhabit the Plantation, both for the general and the particular employments, may surcease their labour every Saturday throughout the year at 3 o’c in the afternoon, and that they spend the rest of that day in catechizing and preparing for the Sabbath as the ministers shall direct.”
He was also to see that at least some members of each family were well grounded in religion,
“whereby morning and evening family duties may be well performed, and a watchful eye held over all in each family ... that so disorders may be prevented and ill weeds nipt before they take too great a head.”
For this purpose the company furnished him with blank books to record the daily employments of each family and expected these records to be sent over to England twice a year. In our natural dislike and distrust of such a Puritan Inquisition we should remember that the exigencies of the time and place go far towards justifying such stern precautions. The English company wanted a successful settlement, one to which they could themselves retreat if political and ecclesiastical oppression in the old country should prove too great for their endurance; and they well knew that prosperity depended upon order, sobriety, thrift, and piety. The splendid history and the moral leadership of New England in these three centuries have justified this painstaking, minute, even exasperating watch over the welfare of a colony far from the restraints of an old civilization, in peril from hostile savages and lawless adventurers on an inhospitable soil.
As a contrast to this gloomy picture of social life, their intentions towards the Indians shine in a bright light. The company wrote to Endicott in reference to the land questions certain to arise:
“If any of the savages pretend right of inheritance to all or any part of the lands granted in our Patent, we pray you endeavour to purchase their title, that we may avoid the least scruple of intrusion.”
Great pains were taken to establish just and humane relations with the red man. One of the objects of the company was the conversion of the Indians to the Gospel of Christ. Among the wise measures of the day it was forbidden to sell them muskets, ammunition or liquor, and they were permitted to enter the settlement at certain stated times only, for purposes of trade or treaty. As a nation, our treatment of the Indian has been so barbarous that this sagacious and Christian policy of the first Puritans calls for the highest praise and reveals another valuable trait in the heroic character of the Fathers.
