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THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND
TEXTBOOK EDITION
THE CHRONICLES
OF AMERICA SERIES
ALLEN JOHNSON
EDITOR
GERHARD R. LOMER
CHARLES W. JEFFERYS
ASSISTANT EDITORS
THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND
A CHRONICLE OF THE
PURITAN COMMONWEALTHS
BY CHARLES M. ANDREWS
[Illustration]
NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO.
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD: UNIVERSITY PRESS
_Copyright, 1919, by Yale University Press_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
I. THE COMING OF THE PILGRIMS Page 1
II. THE BAY COLONY " 21
III. COMPLETING THE WORK OF SETTLEMENT " 45
IV. EARLY NEW ENGLAND LIFE " 72
V. AN ATTEMPT AT COLONIAL UNION " 88
VI. WINNING THE CHARTERS " 100
VII. MASSACHUSETTS DEFIANT " 116
VIII. WARS WITH THE INDIANS " 129
IX. THE BAY COLONY DISCIPLINED " 147
X. THE ANDROS REGIME IN NEW ENGLAND " 166
XI. THE END OF AN ERA " 194
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 201
INDEX " 205
THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE PILGRIMS
The Pilgrims and Puritans, whose migration to the New World marks the
beginning of permanent settlement in New England, were children of the
same age as the enterprising and adventurous pioneers of England in
Virginia, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. It was the age in which the
foundations of the British Empire were being laid in the Western
Continent. The "spacious times of great Elizabeth" had passed, but the
new national spirit born of those times stirred within the English
people. The Kingdom had enjoyed sixty years of domestic peace and
prosperity, and Englishmen were eager to enter the lists for a share in
the advantages which the New World offered to those who would venture
therein. Both landowning and landholding classes, gentry and tenant
farmers alike, were clamoring, the one for an increase of their landed
estates, the other for freedom from the feudal restraints which still
legally bound them. The land-hunger of neither class could be satisfied
in a narrow island where the law and the lawgivers were in favor of the
maintenance of feudal rights. The expectations of all were aroused by
visions of wealth from the El Dorados of the West, or of profit from
commercial enterprises which appealed to the cupidity of capitalists and
led to investments that promised speedy and ample returns. A desire to
improve social conditions and to solve the problem of the poor and the
vagrant, which had become acute since the dissolution of the
monasteries, was arousing the authorities to deal with the pauper and to
dispose of the criminal in such a way as to yield a profitable service
to the kingdom. England was full of resolute men, sea-dogs and soldiers
of fortune, captains on the land as well as the sea, who in times of
peace were seeking employment and profit and who needed an outlet for
their energies. Some of these continued in the service of kings and
princes in Europe; others conducted enterprises against the Spaniards in
the West Indies and along the Spanish Main; while still others, such as
John Smith and Miles Standish, became pioneers in the work of English
colonization.
But more important than the promptings of land-hunger and the desire for
wealth and adventure was the call made by a social and religious
movement which was but a phase of the general restlessness and popular
discontent. The Reformation, in which this movement had its origin, was
more than a revolt from the organization and doctrines of the mediaeval
church; it voiced the yearning of the middle classes for a position
commensurate with their growing prominence in the national life. Though
the feudal tenantry, given over to agriculture and bound by the
conventions of feudal law, were still perpetuating many of the old
customs, the towns were emancipating themselves from feudal control, and
by means of their wealth and industrial activities were winning
recognition as independent and largely self-sufficing units. The gild, a
closely compacted brotherhood, existing partly for religious and
educational purposes and partly for the control of handicrafts and the
exchange of goods, became the center of middle-class energy, and in
thousands of instances hedged in the lives of the humbler artisans.
Thus it was largely from those who knew no wider world than the fields
which they cultivated and the gilds which governed their standards and
output that the early settlers of New England were recruited.
Equally important with the social changes were those which concerned
men's faith and religious organization. The Peace of Augsburg, which in
1555 had closed for the moment the warfare resulting from the
Reformation, not only recognized the right of Protestantism to exist,
but also handed over to each state, whether kingdom, duchy, or
principality, full power to control the creed within its borders.
Whoever ruled the state could determine the religion of his subjects, a
dictum which denied the right of individuals or groups of individuals to
depart from the established faith. Hence arose a second revolt, not
against the mediaeval church and empire but against the authority of the
state and its creed, whether Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, or
Calvinist, a revolt in which Huguenot in France battled for his right to
believe as he wished, and Puritan in England refused to conform to a
manner of worship which retained much of the mediaeval liturgy and
ceremonial. Just as all great revolutionary movements in church or
state give rise to men who repudiate tradition and all accretions due to
human experience, and base their political and religious ideals upon the
law of nature, the rights of man, the inner light, or the Word of God;
so, too, in England under Elizabeth and James I, leaders appeared who
demanded radical changes in faith and practice, and advocated complete
separation from the Anglican Church and isolation from the religious
world about them. Of such were the Separatists, who rejected the
Anglican and other creeds, severed all bonds with a national church
system, cast aside form, ceremony, liturgy, and a hierarchy of church
orders, and sought for the true faith and form of worship in the Word of
God. For these men the Bible was the only test of religious truth.
The Separatists organized themselves into small religious groups, as
independent communities or companies of Christians, covenanted with God
and keeping the Divine Law in a Holy Communion. They consisted in the
main of men and women in the humbler walks of life--artisans, tenant
farmers, with some middle-class gentry. Sufficient to themselves and
knit together in the fashion of a gild or brotherhood, they believed in
a church system of the simplest form and followed the Bible, Old and New
Testaments alike, as the guide of their lives. Desiring to withdraw from
the world as it was that they might commune together in direct relations
with God, they accepted persecution as the test of their faith and
welcomed hardship, banishment, and even death as proofs of righteousness
and truth. Convinced of the scriptural soundness of what they believed
and what they practised, and confident of salvation through unyielding
submission to God's will as they interpreted it, they became conspicuous
because of their radical thought and peculiar forms of worship, and
inevitably drew upon themselves the attention of the authorities, both
secular and ecclesiastical.
The leading centers of Separatism were in London and Norfolk, but the
seat of the little congregation that eventually led the way across the
sea to New England was in Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. There--in Scrooby
manor-house, where William Brewster, the father, was receiver and
bailiff, and his son, the future elder of the Plymouth colony, was
acting postmaster; where Richard Clayton preached and John Robinson
prayed; and where the youthful William Bradford was one of its
members--there was gathered a small Separatist congregation composed of
humble folk of Nottinghamshire and adjoining counties. They were soon
discovered worshiping in the manor-house chapel, by the ecclesiastical
authorities of Yorkshire, and for more than a year were subjected to
persecution, some being "taken and clapt up in prison," others having
"their houses besett and watcht night and day and hardly escaped their
hands." At length they determined to leave England for Holland. During
1607 and 1608 they escaped secretly, some at one time, some at another,
all with great loss and difficulty, until by the August of the latter
year there were gathered at Amsterdam more than a hundred men, women,
and children, "armed with faith and patience."
But Amsterdam proved a disappointing refuge. And in 1609 they moved to
Leyden, "a fair and bewtifull citie," where for eleven years they
remained, pursuing such trades as they could, chiefly weaving and the
manufacture of cloth, "injoying much sweete and delightful societie and
spiritual comfort togeather in the ways of God, under the able ministrie
and prudente governmente of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. William
Brewster." But at last new and imperative reasons arose, demanding a
third removal, not to another city in Holland, but this time to the New
World called America. They were breaking under the great labor and hard
fare; they feared to lose their language and saw no opportunity to
educate their children; they disapproved of the lax Dutch observance of
Sunday and saw in the temptations of the place a menace to the habits
and morals of the younger members of the flock, and, in the influences
of the world around them, a danger to the purity of their creed and
their practice. They determined to go to a new country "devoyd of all
civill inhabitants," where they might keep their names, their faith, and
their nationality.
After many misgivings, the fateful decision was reached by the "major
parte," and preparations for departure were made. But where to go became
a troublesome problem. The merits of Guiana and other "wild coasts" were
debated, but finally Virginia met with general approval, because there
they might live as a private association, a distinct body by themselves,
similar to other private companies already established there. To this
end they sent two of their number to England to secure a patent from
the Virginia Company of London. Under this patent and in bond of
allegiance to King James, yet acting as a "body in the most strict and
sacred bond and covenant of the Lord," an independent and absolute
church, they became a civil community also, with governors chosen for
the work from among themselves. But the dissensions in the London
Company caused them to lose faith in that association, and, hearing of
the reorganization of the Virginia Company of Plymouth,[1] which about
this time obtained a new charter as the New England Council, they turned
from southern to northern Virginia--that is, to New England--and
resolved to make their settlement where according to reports fishing
might become a means of livelihood.
But their plans could not be executed without assistance; and, coming
into touch with a London merchant, Thomas Weston, who promised to aid
them, they entered into what proved to be a long and wearisome
negotiation with a group of adventurers--gentlemen, merchants, and
others, seventy in number--for an advance of money to finance the
expedition. The Pilgrims entered into a partnership with the merchants
to form a voluntary joint-stock company. It was understood that the
merchants, who purchased shares, were to remain in England; that the
colonists, who contributed their personal service at a fixed rating,
were to go to America, there to labor at trade, trucking, and fishing
for seven years; and that during this time all profits were to remain in
a common stock and all lands to be left undivided. The conditions were
hard and discouraging, but there was no alternative; and at last,
embarking at Delfthaven in the _Speedwell_, a small ship bought and
fitted in Holland, they came to Southampton, where another and larger
vessel, the _Mayflower_, was in waiting. In August, 1620, the two
vessels set sail, but the _Speedwell_, proving unseaworthy, put back
after two attempts, and the _Mayflower_ went on alone, bearing one
hundred and two passengers, two-thirds of the whole, picked out as
worthy and willing to undertake the voyage. The _Mayflower_ reached the
waters of New England on the 11th of November after a tedious course of
sixty-five days from Plymouth to Cape Cod; but they did not decide on
their place of landing until the 21st of December. Four days later they
erected on the site of the town of Plymouth their first building.
The coast of New England was no unknown shore. During the years from
1607 to 1620, while settlers were founding permanent colonies at
Jamestown and in Bermuda, explorers and fishermen, both English and
French, had skirted its headlands and penetrated its harbors. In 1614,
John Smith, the famous Virginia pioneer, who had left the service of the
London Company and was in the employ of certain London merchants, had
explored the northern coast in an open boat and had given the region its
name. These many voyages and ventures at trading and fishing served to
arouse enthusiasm in England for a world of good rivers and harbors,
rich soil, and wonderful fishing, and to spread widely a knowledge of
the coasts from Newfoundland to the Hudson River. Of this knowledge the
Pilgrims reaped the benefit, and the captain of the _Mayflower_,
Christopher Jones, against whom any charge of treachery may be
dismissed, guided them, it is true, to a region unoccupied by Englishmen
but not to one unknown or poorly esteemed. The miseries that confronted
the Pilgrims during their first year in Plymouth colony were not due to
the inhospitality of the region, but to the time of year when they
landed upon it; and insufficiently provisioned as they were before they
left England, it is little wonder that suffering and death should have
accompanied their first experience with a New England winter.
This little group of men and women landed on territory that had been
granted to the New England Council and they themselves had neither
patent for their land nor royal authority to set up a government. But
some form of government was absolutely necessary. Before starting from
Southampton, they had followed Robinson's instructions to choose a
governor and assistants for each ship "to order the people by the way";
and now that they were at the end of their long voyage, the men of the
company met in the cabin of the _Mayflower_, and drew up a covenant in
accordance with which they combined themselves together into a body
politic for their better ordering and preservation. This compact, signed
by forty-one members, of whom eleven bore the title of "Mister," was a
plantation covenant, the political counterpart of the church covenant
which bound together every Separatist community. It provided that the
people should live together in a peaceable and orderly manner under
civil authorities of their own choosing, and was the first of many such
covenants entered into by New England towns, not defining a government
but binding the settlers to unite politically as they had already done
for religious worship. John Carver, who had been chosen governor on the
_Mayflower_, was confirmed as governor of the settlement and given one
assistant. After their goods had been set on shore and a few cottages
built, the whole body "mette and consulted of lawes and orders, both for
their civil and military governmente, still adding therunto as urgent
occasion in severall times, and as cases did require."
Of this courageous but sorely stricken community more than half died
before the first winter was over. But gradually the people became
acclimated, new colonists came out, some from the community at Leyden,
in the _Fortune_, the _Anne_, the _Charity_, and the _Handmaid_, and the
numbers steadily increased. The settlers were in the main a homogeneous
body, both as to social class and to religious views and purpose. Among
them were undesirable members--some were sent out by the English
merchants and others came out of their own accord--who played stool-ball
on Sunday, committed theft, or set the community by the ears, as did one
notorious offender named Lyford. But their number was not great, for
most of them remained but a short time, and then went to Virginia or
elsewhere, or were shipped back to England by the Pilgrims as
incorrigibles. The life of the people was predominantly agricultural,
with fishing, salt-making, and trading with the Indians as allied
interests. The partners in England sent overseas cattle, stock, and
laborers, and, as their profits depended on the success of the
settlement, did what they could to encourage its development. The
position of the Pilgrims was that of sharers and partners with the
merchants, from whom they received directions but not commands.
But under the agreement of 1620 with their partners in London, which
remained in force for seven years, the Plymouth people could neither
divide their land nor dispose of the products of their labor, and so
burdensome became this arrangement that in 1623 temporary assignments
of land were made which in 1624 became permanent. As Bradford said, and
his comment is full of wisdom:
The experience that was had in this commone course and
condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and
sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of
Platos and other ancients, applauded by some of later times;
that the taking away of propertie, and bringing in
communitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and
florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this
comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much
confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that
would have been to their benefite and comforte. For the
yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and
service did repine that they should spend their time and
streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with
out any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more
in devission of victails and cloaths, than he that was weake
and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was
thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and
equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, etc., with the
meaner and yonger sorte, thought it some indignitie and
disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to
doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing
their cloaths, etc., they deemd it a kind of slaverie,
neither could many husbands well brooke it.
During the two years that followed, so evident was the failure of the
joint undertaking that efforts were made on both sides to bring it to
an end; for the merchants, with no profit from the enterprise, were
anxious to avoid further indebtedness; and the colonists, wearying of
the dual control, wished to reap for themselves the full reward of their
own efforts. Under the new arrangement of small private properties, the
settlers began "to prise corne as more pretious than silver, and those
that had some to spare begane to trade one with another for small
things, by the quart, pottle, and peck, etc., for money they had none."
Later, finding "their corne, what they could spare from ther
necessities, to be a commoditie, (for they sould it at 6s. a bushell)
[they] used great dilligence in planting the same. And the Gov[erno]r
and shuch as were designed to manage the trade, (for it was retained for
the generall good, and none were to trade in particuler,) they followed
it to the best advantage they could; and wanting trading goods, they
understoode that a plantation which was at Monhigen, and belonged to
some marchants of Plimoth [England] was to breake up, and diverse
usefull goods was ther to be sould," the governor (Bradford himself) and
Edward Winslow "tooke a boat and some hands and went thither.... With
these goods, and their corne after harvest they gott good store of
trade, so as they were enabled to pay their ingagements against the
time, and to get some cloathing for the people, and had some comodities
beforehand." Though conditions were hard and often discouraging, the
Pilgrims gradually found themselves self-supporting and as soon as this
fact became clear, they sent Isaac Allerton to England "to make a
composition with the adventurers." As a result of the negotiations an
"agreement or bargen" was made whereby eight leading members of the
colony bought the shares of the merchants for L1800 and distributed the
payment among the settlers, who at this time numbered altogether about
three hundred. Each share carried with it a certain portion of land and
livestock. The debt was not finally liquidated until 1642.
By 1630, the Plymouth colony was fairly on its feet and beginning to
grow in "outward estate." The settlers increased in number, prospered
financially, and scattered to the outlying districts; and Plymouth the
town and Plymouth the colony ceased to be identical. Before 1640, the
latter had become a cluster of ten towns, each a covenanted community
with its church and elder. Though the colony never obtained a charter
of incorporation from the Crown, it developed a form of government
arising naturally from its own needs. By 1633 its governor and one
assistant had become a governor and seven assistants, elected annually
at a primary assembly held in Plymouth town; and the three parts,
governor, assistants, and assembly, together constituted the governing
body of the colony. In 1636, a revision of the laws and ordinances was
made in the form of "The Great Fundamentals," a sort of constitution,
frequently interspersed with statements of principles, which was printed
with additions in 1671. The right to vote was limited at first to those
who were members of the company and liable for its debt, but later the
suffrage was extended to include others than the first-comers, and in
1633 was exercised by sixty-eight persons altogether. In 1668, a voter
was required to have property, to be "of sober and peaceable
conversation," and to take an oath of fidelity, but apparently he was
never required to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown. So rapidly
did the colony expand that, by 1639, the holding of a primary assembly
in Plymouth town became so inconvenient that delegates had to be
chosen. Thus there was introduced into the colony a form of
representative government, though it is to be noted that governor,
assistants, and deputies sat together in a common room and never divided
into two houses, as did the assemblies in other colonies.
The settlement of Plymouth colony is conspicuous in New England history
because of the faith and courage and suffering of those who engaged in
it and because of the ever alluring charm of William Bradford's _History
of Plimouth Plantation_. The greatness of the Pilgrims lay in their
illustrious example and in the influence they exercised upon the church
life of the later New England colonies, for to the Pilgrims was due the
fact that the congregational way of organization and worship became the
accepted form in Massachusetts and Connecticut. But in other respects
Plymouth was vastly overshadowed by her vigorous neighbors. Her people,
humble and simple, were without importance in the world of thought,
literature, or education. Their intellectual and material poverty, lack
of business enterprise, unfavorable situation, and defenseless position
in the eyes of the law rendered them almost a negative factor in the
later life of New England. No great movement can be traced to their
initiation, no great leader to birth within their borders, and no great
work of art, literature, or scholarship to those who belonged to this
unpretending company. The Pilgrim Fathers stand rather as an emblem of
virtue than a moulding force in the life of the nation.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In 1606 King James had granted a charter incorporating two
companies, one of which, made up of gentlemen and merchants in and about
London, was known as the Virginia Company of London, the other as the
Virginia Company of Plymouth. The former was authorized to plant
colonies between thirty-four and forty-one degrees north latitude, and
the latter between thirty-eight and forty-five, but neither was to plant
a colony within one hundred miles of the other. Jamestown, the first
colony of the London Company, was now thirteen years old. The Plymouth
Company had made no permanent settlement in its domain.