their way down the river around the headland of Tockwotten and past
Indian and Fox points, where they reached the mouth of the Moshassuck
River. Rowing up this beautiful stream, then bordered on either side
with a dense forest, they landed on the east side of the river,
where there was an inviting spring. Here, on the ascending slopes
of the hill, they commenced a new settlement, which Williams called
“Providence,” in gratitude to God’s merciful Providence to them in
their distress. Later, when they spread out in larger numbers and in
all directions from this place, it was called “Providence Plantations.”
They prepared shelters for their families, probably wigwams made
of poles covered with hemlock boughs and forest leaves. We can in
imagination see them climb the hill to a point where Prospect Street
now runs, to enjoy a wider view of their new territory.
From that height of almost two hundred feet they saw to the westward,
through openings in the forest, the cove at the head of the great salt
river with broad sandy beaches on the eastern and northern shores
and salt marshes bordering the western and southern. From the north
the sparkling waters of the Moshassuck River came leaping over the
falls as it emptied itself into the estuary at its mouth. Bordering
this stream was a valley of beauty and fertility. The clear waters
of the Woonasquatucket threaded their way from the west through
another fertile valley. Between these rivers and also southward (of
the Woonasquatucket) was a sandy plateau, covered with pine forests
stretching to the Indian town of Mashapaug on the southwest and
Pawtuxet Valley to the south. Between the edge of the tidal flow and
the open waters of the great salt river there was a salt marsh dotted
with islands, beyond which rose the bold peak of Weybosset Hill.
Down the river to the south they saw the steep hills of Sassafras
and Field’s Point, beyond which could be seen the lower bay and its
forest-covered shores and islands. The eastern slope of the hill
stretched a mile toward the shore of the Seekonk. To the northeast
the view was cut off by a higher eminence covered with oak and pine.
In all directions, save that of the bay itself, the farther distances
were lost in an indistinguishable maze of forest-crowned heights. At
the feet of the spectators was the place of their immediate settlement,
where the western slope of the hill gradually diminished in height
toward the south. At its lowest extremity, Fox Point projected into the
bay. This slope was covered with a growth of oak and hickory.
A PURCHASED POSSESSION
Roger Williams differed from the ordinary colonists of his age, who
held that the Indian, being heathen, had no real ownership of the
land. It belonged to the Christians who might first claim it by right
of discovery. Williams, who “always aimed to do the Indians only
good,” recognized Indian ownership and secured his colony from them
by purchase. Here among them he first sought to apply his doctrine of
soul-liberty. To him they were humans with equal rights and privileges.
He bitterly fought the Puritan position that the pagan heathen had
no property rights which the Christian, with his superior culture,
was bound to respect. Roger Williams insisted that the land should be
purchased from the Indians, the original owners. He gained the lasting
respect of the Indian and the undying animosity of the Puritan for
holding to ideals which have since come to be recognized as American.
He thus laid the foundation for the belief in America that the weaker
and smaller powers have rights which the greater powers must respect,
a belief which led us into the recent great war. While this principle
is receiving world-wide application, let us not forget that Roger
Williams was the pioneer of international justice in America, if not
in the world. The land viewed from the top of the hill was owned by
five distinct Indian tribes. The Narragansetts dominated over all the
lands now occupied by Rhode Island, and ruled over all other lesser
tribes in this territory. In the northern part of this State, the
Nipmucs lived in the place now occupied by Smithfield, Glocester, and
Burrilville. On the southern seacoast border dwelt the Niantics. Part
of the Wampanoag tribe dwelt in Cumberland and extended to the western
side of the river which we now call the Blackstone. The Pequots lived
in Connecticut Colony. Indian government was monarchial, and became
extinct with the slaughter of the last of the line of rulers or sachems
in the massacre of July 2, 1676. Canonicus was the ruling sachem when
the English first came. As he grew old he needed an assistant and his
nephew, Miantonomo, was appointed. Miantonomo worked well with the
elder chief. He never succeeded to the position of ruling chief, being
murdered in 1643. Roger Williams secured his land from these sachems.
Williams wrote in 1661 as follows:
I was the procurer of the purchase, not by monies, nor payments, the
natives being so shy and jealous, that monies could not do it, but
by that language, acquaintance, and favor with the natives and other
advantages which it pleased God to give me, and also bore the charges
and venture of all the gratuities which I gave to the great Sachems
and natives round about us, and lay engaged for a loving and peaceable
neighborhood with, to my great charge and travel.
[Illustration: Original Deed of Providence from the Indians]
He found Indian gifts very costly. Presents were made frequently.
He allowed the Indians to use his pinnace and shallop at command,
transporting and lodging fifty at his home at a time. He never denied
them any lawful thing. Canonicus had freely what he desired from Roger
Williams’ trading-post at Narragansett. William Harris stated in 1677
that Roger Williams had paid thus one hundred and sixty pounds ($800)
for Providence and Pawtucket.
Mr. Williams generously admitted the first twelve proprietors of the
Providence Purchase to an equal share with himself, without exacting
any remuneration. The thirty pounds which he received were paid by
succeeding settlers, at the rate of thirty shillings each. This was not
a payment for the land but what he called “a loving gratuity.” Straus
says:
He might have been like William Penn, the proprietor of his colony,
after having secured it by patent from the rulers in England, and thus
have exercised a control over its government and enriched himself and
family. But this was not his purpose, nor was it directly or remotely
the cause for which he suffered banishment and misery. Principle--not
profit; liberty--not power; conviction--not ambition, were his
impelling motives which he consistently maintained, theoretically and
practically then, and at all times.
Williams’ own words were:
I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for
conscience. I then considering the conditions of divers of my
distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving
friends (whom he names) who desired to take shelter with me.
He afterward purchased, jointly with Governor Winthrop, the Island of
Prudence from Canonicus. He also purchased, a little later, the small
islands of Patience and Hope, afterward selling his interest in them to
help pay his expenses to England on business for the colony.
Following is a true copy of the Original Deed of Land for Providence
from _Canonicus_ and _Miantonomo_:
At Nanhiggansick, the 24th of the first month, commonly called March,
in the second year of the Plantations of Plantings at Mooshausick or
Providence. Memorandum that we Caunaunicus and Meauntunomo, the two
chief sachems of Nanhiggansick, having two years since sold unto Roger
Williams, the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called
Mooshausick and Wanasquatucket, do now by these presents, establish
and confirm the bounds of those lands, from the river and fields at
Pawtucket, the great hill of Neotackonkonutt, on the northwest, and
the town of Mashapauge on the west. As also in consideration of the
many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us, both
with our friends of Massachusetts, as also at Quinickicutt and Apaum,
or Plymouth, we do now freely give unto him all the land from those
rivers reaching to Pawtuxet River, as also the grass and meadows upon
the said Pawtuxet River. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our
hands.
In the presence of
The Mark * of Setash,
The Mark * of Assotenewit,
The Mark * of Caunaunicus,
The Mark * of Meauntunomo.
This original deed is preserved, as a precious relic, in the City Hall
at Providence.
[Illustration: Williams’ Letter of Transference to His Loving Friends]
EARLY EXPERIENCES IN PROVIDENCE
The Providence planters soon built their crude homes. The Indian
name of the plantation was Notaquonchanet. In their early records of
Providence this name is spelt in at least forty-two different forms.
Other settlers came and swelled their numbers. The original six were
bound together by a compact. It was verbal, or if written, the copy has
been lost. When new settlers came and Wickes and Angell had reached
majority, a copy of the original agreement was drawn up and signed by
those not included in the first compact. Williams was familiar with the
great compact signed in the Mayflower by the Pilgrims and probably it
suggested to his mind the need of one in Providence. This Providence
Compact is as follows:
We, whose names are hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in
the town of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves in active or
passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made
for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major
consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated
together into a township, and such others whom they shall admit unto
the same, ONLY IN CIVIL THINGS.
Edmund J. Carpenter says of this Compact:
A compact of government, which in its terms, must be regarded as
the most remarkable political document theretofore executed, not
even excepting the Magna Charta. It was a document which placed a
government, formed by the people, solely in the control of the civil
arm. It gave the first example of a pure democracy, from which all
ecclesiastical power was eliminated. It was the first enunciation
of a great principle, which years later, formed the corner-stone of
the great republic. It was the act of a statesman fully a century in
advance of his time.
At the west entrance to the street railroad tunnel in Providence a
bronze tablet commemorates the fact that there in the open air the
first town meetings were held.
Roger Williams’ house was opposite the spring, forty-eight feet to the
east of the present Main Street and four feet north of Howland Street.
Next, to the north of his residence, was the house and lot of Joshua
Verein. North of this was Richard Scott’s. The first house south of
Williams’ was that of John Throckmorton and, beyond, that of William
Harris. At first the struggle for existence was hard, more so because
of the loss of the crops planted at Seekonk. Governor Winslow, of
Plymouth, conscious of the wrong Plymouth Colony had done to Williams,
visited the little settlement that first summer and left a gift of gold
with Mrs. Williams. In the spring and summer of the following year, new
houses were built along the street. The new settlers brought money with
them, and Williams enlisted outside capital to help develop the colony.
[Illustration: The Original Providence “Compact”]
Drawn up by the men of Providence, August 20, 1638, and now contained
in the City Hall. One of the most valuable documents in existence,
under which Williams and his companions promised to subject themselves
in active and passive obedience, but “Only in Civil Things.”
“You must look to the Magna Charta, for another such epoch-making
decree, for these, with the Declaration and the Emancipation
Proclamation, are the four great dynamic forces of American
Freedom.”--R. B. BURCHARD.
Courtesy of “Providence Magazine,” October, 1915
The number of town lots increased. The land lay between the present
Main Street and Hope Street. Each lot was of equal width and ran
eastward. Eventually there were one hundred and two of these lots
extending from Mile End Brook, which enters the river a little north
of Fox Point, to Harrington’s Lane, now the dividing line between
Providence and North Providence. Meeting and Power Streets were the
dividing streets in those early days. In addition to the home lot, each
proprietor had an “out six-acre lot” assigned to him. Williams’ “out
lot” was at “What Cheer Rock.”
THE THREATENED INDIAN TROUBLE
Williams, although suffering from Puritan persecution, had an
opportunity that first year of doing good to his persecutors. He became
the savior of all the New England Colonies. The Pequot Indians planned
the annihilation of the English. Williams, hearing of this, did his
utmost to break up an Indian league, and kept the Narragansetts from
joining the Pequots and Mohicans. He describes this experience in the
following statement:
The Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hands, and
scarce acquainting my wife, to ship alone, in a poor canoe, and to
cut through a stormy wind, with great seas, every minute in hazard of
life, to the sachem’s house. Three days and nights my business forced
me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambassadors, whose hands
and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered
and massacred by them on the Connecticut River, and from whom I could
not but nightly look for their bloody knives at my own throat also.
God wondrously preserved me, and helped me to break the Pequod’s
negotiation and design; and to make and finish, by many travels and
charges, the English league with the Narragansetts and Mohegans
against the Pequods.
As a result of this, the tribe of Pequots was obliterated completely
and a danger hanging over all the colonies was removed.
The Indian villages of southern New England were composed at times of
as many as fifty houses or wigwams. Most of these wigwams were shaped
like the half of an orange, with the flat or cut surface down. They
were ten to twelve feet in diameter and could accommodate two families.
Other houses were like the half of a stovepipe cut lengthwise, twenty
to thirty feet long, and accommodated from two families in the
summertime to fifty in the winter, when the people crowded together
for the sake of warmth. The council-chamber was often as long as
one hundred feet with a width of thirty feet. It was used only for
councils. A fortified stockade in the center of the village was made
of logs set into the ground. Such was the shelter afforded Williams
when he fled from Salem, and such was the place when he met the Indian
sachems in council seeking to avert the massacre of the whites. In
these villages he preached the everlasting gospel of the Son of God.
He had the constant confidence of Indian sachems because he applied to
them the principle of soul-liberty which he sought to practise among
the whites.
In the autumn of 1638, Roger Williams’ third child and first son was
born and named “Providence.” He was the first white male child born
in this colony. In the year 1639-1640 the town grew and felt the need
of a system of town government. On July 23, 1640, an organization was
decided upon in which they vested the care of the general interests of
the town in five “disposers” or arbitrators. The people retained the
right to appeal from the “disposers” to the general town meeting. They
were careful to provide that as “formerly hath been the liberties of
the town, so still to hold for the liberty of conscience.”
In 1638 a settlement had been made at Portsmouth on Rhode Island.
John Clarke and Mrs. Ann Hutchinson were the leaders of this new band
who were looking for a place where they might have religious freedom,
which was denied them at Boston. They went first to New Hampshire,
but, finding it too cold there, turned to the south. By the friendly
assistance of Mr. Williams, they secured from Canonicus and Miantonomo,
for a consideration of forty fathoms of white beads, Aquidneck and
other islands in Narragansett Bay. The natives residing on the island
itself were induced to remove for a consideration of ten coats and
twenty hoes. The new settlers chose Mr. Coddington to be their judge
and united in a covenant with each other and with their God. They made
Mr. Coddington their governor in 1640.
[Illustration: PLAN SHOWING THE FIRST DIVISION OF HOME LOTS IN
Providence, R.I.]
About this same time a number of Providence people settled in Pawtuxet,
four miles south of Providence in territory ceded to Williams. Warwick
and Shawomet were settled by Samuel Gorton and his friends. Gorton
was a strange character who did not find things congenial for him at
Boston, Plymouth, and Newport in turn. Roger Williams, however, gave
him shelter in Providence. Finally he went to Pawtuxet and later to
Shawomet, for which he paid four fathoms of wampum to the Indians. At
once Boston Colony claimed that Shawomet was under their jurisdiction.
Gorton and his associates refused to come to Boston at the bidding of
the authorities. Forty soldiers came to Shawomet and seized Gorton and
ten of his friends and imprisoned them in Boston. They were tried for
their lives, escaping only by two votes. They were then imprisoned in
the various towns. Each one was compelled to wear a chain fast bolted
around his legs. If they spoke to any person, other than an officer of
the Church or of the State, they were to be put to death. They were
kept at labor that winter and then banished in the spring. Gorton
escaped to England and secured an order from the Earl of Warwick and
the Commissioners of the Colonies requiring Massachusetts not to molest
the settlers at Shawomet. Thereafter Gorton and his friends occupied
their lands in peace.
Gorton wrote his side of the question in “Simplicities Defence,” in
which he referred to his persecutors as “That Servant so Imperious in
his Master’s Absence Revived.” This is another indictment against the
persecuting Puritans by one who found shelter in the Baptist colony of
Rhode Island.
[Illustration]
_SIMPLICITIES DEFENCE_
against
SEVEN-HEADED POLICY.
OR
Innocency Vindicated, being unjustly Accused,
and sorely Censured, by that
_Seven-headed Church-Government_
United in
NEW-ENGLAND:
OR
That Servant so Imperious in his Masters Absence
Revived, and now thus re-acting in NEW-ENGLAND.
OR
The combate of the United Colonies, not onely against some of the
Natives and Subjects, but against the Authority also of the Kingdme of
_England_, with their execution of Laws, in the name and Authority of
the servant, (or of themselves) and not in the Name and Authority of
the Lord, or fountain of the Government.
Wherein is declared an Act of a great people and Country of the
_Indians_ in those parts, both Princes and People (unanimously) in
their voluntary Submission and Subjection unto the Protection and
Government of Old England (from the Fame they hear thereof) together
with the true manner and forme of it, as it appears under their own
hands and seals, being stirred up, and provoked thereto, by the
Combate and courses above-said.
Throughout which Treatise is secretly intermingled, that great
Opposition, which is in the goings forth of those two grand Spirits,
that are and ever have been, extant in the World (through the sons of
men) from the beginning and foundation thereof.
_Imprimatur, Aug. 3ᵈ. 1646._ Diligently perused, approved, and
Licensed to the Presse, according to Order by publike Authority.
_LONDON_,
Printed by _John Macock_, and are to be sold by LUKE FAVVNE, at his
shop in _Pauls Church-yard_, at the sign of the _Parrot_. 1646.
THE STORY OF THE FIRST CHARTER
As the colony grew, it was found necessary that there should be some
vested authority which would command respect from the neighbors.
Notwithstanding what Williams had done for the Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay colonies in connection with the Pequot War, and the
personal friendships he had with the governors, they would not consider
that he or his had any separate colony rights whatever. He had been
their Joseph driven from home and country by hostile brethren. In
exile, he became the savior of his brethren from a dreadful massacre
by the Indians. Nevertheless, Plymouth claimed jurisdiction over all
the plantations in Narragansett Bay, and Massachusetts claimed it over
Providence, Pawtuxet, and Shawomet. The Dutch had formed a trading-post
at Dutch Island and elsewhere and could strike a blow at the colony
at any time. Out of these conditions grew the demand for a charter.
Roger Williams, at a great personal sacrifice, went to England from
Manhattan, now New York City, because the two colonies to the north
forbade his departure from their ports.
Arriving in England, he found the country in the midst of the great
Civil War. King Charles was powerless because Parliament controlled the
realm. Parliament had placed colonial interest in charge of a committee
of which the Earl of Warwick was chairman or “Governor in Chief, and
Lord High Admiral of the Colonies.” From this council a charter was
granted, March 17, 1644. The colony was incorporated as “Providence
Plantations” and embraced the territory now covered by the State of
Rhode Island. There was granted to the inhabitants of Providence,
Portsmouth, and Newport, a
free and absolute charter of incorporation ... together with full
power and authority to govern themselves and such others as shall
hereafter inhabit within any part of said tract of land by such form
of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest
part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and
condition, etc.
Upon the return of Williams, the inhabitants of Providence, learning of
his approach, came out in fourteen canoes to meet him at the Seekonk.
They traveled over the historic course which he had traveled six years
before when he was an exile. Now in triumph they escorted their beloved
leader to home and native town. A picture of his return with the
charter, by Grant, is on the walls of the Court House at Providence.
[Illustration: The Arrival of Roger Williams with the Charter]
The earliest published work of Mr. Williams is entitled,
A KEY INTO THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA: or, an help to the Language of
the Natives in that part of America, called New-England. Together,
with briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners and Worships, etc.
of the aforesaid Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death. On
all which are added Spirituall Observations, Generall and Particular
by the Authour, of chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions) to all
the English Inhabiting those parts; yet pleasant and profitable to
the view of all men: By Roger Williams of Providence in New-England.
London, Printed by Gregory Dexter, 1643.
It was written at sea, en route to England, in the summer of 1643.
Copies of the original edition are in the Bodleian Library, at
Oxford, the British Museum, also in the Library of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, Harvard College, Brown University, and the American
Antiquarian Society at Worcester. It comprises two hundred and sixteen
small duodecimo pages, including preface and table.
The second published work of Roger Williams is entitled, “Mr. Cottons
Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered. By Roger Williams of
Providence, in New-England. London, Imprinted in the Yeere 1644.” Mr.
Cotton had sought to “take off the edge of Censure from himself”--that
he was no procurer of the sorrow which came to Williams in his flight
and exile. It is a small quarto of forty-seven pages, preceded by
an address of two pages. The letter referred to was written by John
Cotton, and was published in London, 1643. The author vindicated the
act of the magistrates in banishing Roger Williams from Massachusetts.
He denies that he himself had any agency in it. It consists of thirteen
small quarto pages. Good copies of both the Letter and the reply are
in the Library of Brown University. Two copies of the reply are in
England, one in the British Museum, the other in Bodleian Library. A
mutilated copy of the reply is also in the Library of Yale College.