SETTLEMENT OF AQUIDNECK AND WARWICK.-PEQUOT WAR.--DEATH OF
MIANTONOMI.
I have said that two other colonies had been founded in Rhode Island.
Like Providence, they both had their origin in religious controversy.
Not long after the return of Roger Williams there came to Boston a
woman of high and subtle spirit, deeply imbued with the controversial
temper of her age. Her name was Anna Hutchinson, and she taught that
salvation was the fruit of grace, not of works. It is easy to conceive
how such a doctrine might be perverted by logical interpretation,
and religious standing made independent of moral character. This was
presently done, and Massachusetts, true to her theoretic system,
banished Anna Hutchinson and her followers as she had banished Roger
Williams. In the autumn of 1637, nineteen of these Antinomians, as they
were called to distinguish them from the legalists or adherents of the
law, took refuge in Rhode Island, where they were kindly welcomed;
and, soon after, purchasing the Island of Aquidneck, through the
intervention of Williams and Sir Henry Vane, laid the foundation of a
new town at Pocasset, near the north end of the Island. Their leaders
were William Coddington and John Clarke, under whose wise guidance the
little Colony made rapid progress, and soon began another settlement
at Newport, in the southern part of the island. Here, breaking roads,
clearing up woods, exterminating wolves and foxes, opening a trade
in lumber, engaging boldly in building ships, and above all forming
a free and simple government, with careful regard to religion and
education, they soon found themselves in advance of their elder sister,
Providence. In both colonies the principle of religious liberty
formed the basis of civil organization. On Rhode Island, however, it
was confined to Christians--a step greatly in advance of the general
intelligence of the age. But in Providence Roger Williams went still
further, and, meeting the wants of all future ages, proclaimed it the
right of every human being.
The other Colony, as if to illustrate the varieties of human opinion,
was founded by Samuel Gorton, one of those bold but restless men who
leave doubtful names in history because few see their character from
the same point of view. In Gorton's religious sentiments there seems
to have been a large leaven of mysticism, and the writings that he
has left us are not pleasant reading. But the practical danger of his
teaching lay in his denial of all government not founded upon the
authority of the King or of Parliament. Massachusetts was a legitimate
government within her own bounds. But unchartered Rhode Island had
no legal existence. At Pocasset Gorton soon came into collision with
the civil authorities and was banished. In Providence he presently
raised such dissensions that Williams almost lost heart, and began to
think seriously of withdrawing to his little Island of Patience, in
Narragansett Bay. At last Gorton with eleven companions bought Shawomet
of its Indian owners and established himself there. This brought him
into open hostility with Massachusetts, which having already cast
longing eyes upon the commercial advantages of Narragansett Bay, was
secretly endeavoring to establish a claim to all the land on its shores.
Hostile words were soon followed by hostile acts. Gorton and his
companions were besieged in their house by an armed band, compelled
to surrender, carried by force to Massachusetts, tried for heresy,
and barely escaping the gibbet, condemned to imprisonment and irons.
A reaction soon followed. Public sentiment came to their relief. They
were banished indeed from Massachusetts, but they were set at liberty
and allowed to return to Rhode Island. At Aquidneck they were received
with the sympathy which generous natures ever feel for the victims of
persecution, and Gorton was raised to an honorable magistracy in the
very colony wherein he had been openly whipped as a disturber of the
public peace. It was not till the claims of Massachusetts had been
virtually set aside by the charter which Roger Williams obtained for
his Colony that Gorton returned to Shawomet, and set himself to rebuild
the Colony of Warwick.
Meanwhile great changes had taken place in the relations of the white
man to the red. I have told how kindly the natives received Roger
Williams, and how justly he dealt by them. I will now tell, though
briefly, with what a Christian spirit he used the influence over the
Indians, which his justice had won for him, to protect the white men
who had driven him from amongst them. On the western border of the
territory of the Massachusetts dwelt the fierce and powerful Pequots.
No Indian had ever hated the whites with a hatred more intense than
they, or watched the growth of the white settlements with a truer
perception of the danger with which they menaced the original owners
of the soil. They resolved upon war, and to make their triumph sure,
resolved also to win over the Narragansetts as active allies. Tidings
of the danger soon reached the Bay Colony, and Governor Vane appealed
to Roger Williams to interpose and prevent the fatal alliance. Not
a moment was to be lost. The Pequot embassadors were already in
conference with Canonicus and Miantonomi on Conanicut. Forgetting his
personal wrongs, and barely taking time to tell his wife whither he was
going, he set forth alone in his canoe, "cutting through a stormy wind
and great seas, every minute in hazard of life."
Greater hazard awaited him on shore. English blood had already been
shed by the Pequots, and knowing their fierce nature, he "nightly
looked for their bloody knives at his own throat also." For three days
and three nights he confronted them face to face, and so great was
the control which he had gained over the Narragansett chiefs that he
succeeded in "breaking in pieces the Pequot negotiation and design, and
made and finished by many travels and charges the English league with
the Narragansetts and Mohegans against the Pequots." The war came. The
Narragansetts were on the side of the English; fearful massacres were
committed; the Pequots were rooted out from their native soil forever;
Massachusetts was saved; but the Christian, forgetting of injuries
wherewith Williams had come to her aid in the critical moment of her
fortunes, was not deemed of sufficient virtue to wash out the stain
of heresy, and the sentence of banishment was left unrepealed on the
darker page of her colonial records.
The Pequots were crushed. The turn of the Narragansetts came next. It
was the fate of the red man to everywhere give way as a civilization
irreconcilable with his habits and his beliefs advanced, and it is for
the good of humanity that it is so. But it is sad to remember that
the Christian, with the Bible in his hand, should have sought his
examples in the stern denunciations of the Old Testament, rather than
in the injunctions to love and mercy of the New. Six years after the
formation of the league against the Pequots, a war broke out between
Sequasson, an ally of Miantonomi and the Mohegans. The Narragansett
Sachem, trusting to the good faith of his adversary, the powerful
Uncas, was betrayed in a conference, and his followers, taken by
surprise in open violation of the laws of even Indian warfare, were
put to flight. The unfortunate chief fell into the hands of his enemy,
who, fearing the English too much to put an ally of theirs to death,
referred the question of his fate to the Commissioners of the United
Colonies--Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven--who were
about to hold a conference in Boston. Rhode Island, which had been
excluded from the league, had no voice in this outrage, and Williams,
whose remonstrances might have been of some avail, was in England.
To give greater solemnity to their deliberations the Commissioners
called to their aid "five of the most judicious elders," and by their
united voices Miantonomi was condemned to die. The execution of the
sentence was entrusted to Uncas, and the only condition attached to the
shameful act was that the generous friend of the white man should not
be tortured. His people never recovered from the blow. In the very next
year they placed themselves by a solemn resolution under the protection
of the King, and appointed four commissioners, one of whom was Gorton,
to carry their submission to England.