INDIANS STILL TROUBLESOME.--CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.--TROUBLES
CONCERNING THE BOUNDARY LINES.
War was followed by pestilence, which moves so fatally in her train.
Of this pestilence we only know that it ran its deadly course in two
or three days, and left its traces in almost every family. Meanwhile
the legislature was sedulously repairing the breaches of the war.
Laws passed in order to meet an urgent want were repealed, and chief
among them as most repugnant to the tolerant spirit of the Colony
the law of military service. The farmers returned to their desolate
fields--citizens to the ruins of their hamlets. "Give us peace," they
may have said, "and we will efface the traces of these ruins."
But it was long before real peace returned. The Indians though subdued
were still turbulent. Active measures were required to prevent them
from passing on and off the Island at will, and building their wigwams
and mat-sheds on the commons and even on private lands. Rumsellers were
found ready to sell them rum, and at Providence parties were sent out
to scour the woods and guard against surprises. As an encouragement to
the men engaged in these duties their wounded were nursed at public
expense.
There was more serious danger from another quarter. Connecticut had
not renounced her designs against Rhode Island territory, nor was she
slow in declaring her intentions. The first step was an order of the
Council at Hartford forbidding every one, whether white man or Indian,
to occupy any lands in Narragansett without its consent. The Assembly
met this order by a counter prohibition. No jurisdiction was to be
exercised there but that of Rhode Island.
This declaration of claims was promptly followed by action. Three
planters who had returned to their plantations in Warwick were
seized by the Connecticut authorities and sent to Hartford. They
appealed to their own Governor, Governor Clarke for protection. One
of the most important measures of the Rhode Island government was
the reëstablishment of King's Province. Full power of protection was
conferred upon a court of justices to be held in Narragansett. No one
was allowed to enter the Province without permission from the Assembly.
Ten thousand acres of land were set apart for new settlers at the rate
of a hundred acres to each man--the new settlers to be approved by the
Assembly. Rhode Island threatened to appeal to the King. Connecticut
declared that she was ready to meet the appeal. Attempts at compromise
were made by both parties. Connecticut proposed to fix the line at
Coweset, the modern East Greenwich. Rhode Island offered to allow
Connecticut to dispose of half the unpurchased lands in the Province
if the settlers would accept the jurisdiction of Rhode Island. The
loss of King's Province would have imperilled the future independence
of Rhode Island, and therewith the great principle on which it was
founded. Connecticut could not renounce her last hope of securing a
part of Narragansett Bay. Neither offer was accepted, and it soon
became evident that no decision could be reached except by appeal to
the King. Peleg Sandford and Richard Bailey were chosen agents, and two
hundred and fifty pounds voted for their expenses. The money was to be
raised by the sale of ten thousand acres of lands in Narragansett at
the rate of a shilling an acre.
Meanwhile the Assembly was very active. A party change took place at
the election of 1677--Governor Arnold was chosen in place of Governor
Clarke. This was equivalent to a triumph of the war party. The militia
law was again revised, care still being taken to protect the rights
of conscience. How jealously these were guarded appears also in the
unwillingness to multiply oaths of office. Five years before an act had
been passed requiring deputies to take an engagement on entering upon
the duties of their office. This law met with great opposition at its
original passage, and its repeal was hailed with general satisfaction.
Every freeman, it was said, made an engagement of allegiance on
receiving the rights of citizenship. An oath is too solemn a thing to
be lightly taken--why should we use it? So reasoned those conscientious
men. By another act, also, they showed how fast they held to this
fundamental principle.
Another sect, the Sabbatarians or Seventh-Day Baptists, had taken
root and begun to flourish in the free air of Rhode Island. In 1667
they were sufficiently numerous to justify them in asking that market
day might be changed from Saturday, their Sabbath, to some other
day. Without breaking in upon an old custom by changing the day, the
Assembly added Thursday as another market day and thus quieted the
scruples of honest and useful citizens.
We have seen how promptly and firmly the Assembly met the encroachments
of Connecticut. Their remonstrances were followed up by spirited and
judicious action. The surest way to strengthen their hold upon the
disputed territory was by peopling it. Among the coves and inlets
which give such quiet beauty to Narragansett Bay there is none more
beautiful than that broad sheet of navigable water which still retains
in part its original name of Coweset. Here it was resolved to plant a
colony and build a town. Five hundred acres were set apart in lots on
the bay for house lots--four thousand five hundred in farms of ninety
acres, which were distributed among fifty men on condition of building
within a year and opening roads from the bay into the country. To
guard against rash speculation no colonist was to sell his land within
twenty-one years unless with the consent of the Assembly. Thus on the
verdant hill-side at whose foot a ripple from the Atlantic mingles with
the inland murmur of Mascachugh was built the pleasant hamlet of East
Greenwich.
Another bitter controversy arose concerning the limits and extent of
the original Providence and Pawtuxet purchase--a question of great
local interest, and which lost none of its heat from having for
opposite leaders Roger Williams and William Harris. Several difficult
questions were mixed up with it, greatly disturbing the harmony of
the northern section of the Colony. Williams had shown himself to
be an inaccurate conveyancer in the drafting of the original deed.
This was purely a question of title. A still more difficult one arose
when Warwick was colonized. Agents were sent to England to ask for
the appointment of commissioners to decide the controversies which
the local tribunals were unable to decide effectually. John Greene
and Randall Holden were the agents for Warwick; William Harris for
Pawtuxet. This William Harris, as we have already seen, was a bold
thinker and an energetic actor. He made several voyages to England in
defence of his party, and followed up with great energy every advantage
that he gained before the tribunals at home. On his last voyage he fell
into the hands of Barbary corsairs, and though ransomed after a year of
captivity died soon after his redemption. The controversy did not cease
with his death. Other voyages were made to England and other decisions
obtained. But it was not till many years later that the unwise contest
was settled. Then, in 1696, the line between Providence and Warwick
was settled by the Assembly, with the Pawtuxet River for boundary.
That between Providence and Pawtuxet was continued till 1712 and then
settled by compromise.