THE GROWTH OF A FRONTIER
In the first chapter we called attention to the importance of the
Appalachian barrier in long confining the process of colonizing within
bounds, and preventing that wide dispersion which rendered so precarious
the hold of France upon its far larger American empire. The relation of
area to barrier, in that section chosen by the English, was, indeed,
almost ideal for the formation of colonies, and, subsequently, of a
nation through their union. While the mountains kept the original
settlements within bounds until their population and institutions had
both had opportunity to develop and take strong root, the extent of the
continental mass behind, simple in its physiographic features, was
sufficient for the growth of almost unlimited numbers and a unified
state, and, so, for the effective influence upon the world of whatever
form of culture might there arise. The West Indian colonies, on the
other hand, in spite of their rapid growth, could not fail, eventually,
to become politically unimportant, merely from their limited area and
resulting limited population. Barbadoes, for example, comprised only one
hundred and sixty-six square miles, the equivalent of one seventh of the
land-surface of Rhode Island, or one fiftieth of that of Massachusetts.
Within a century from its settlement, it contained no ungranted or
uncultivated land—a condition which must have been approximated long
before.[423] The possibility of growth, beyond a certain point, was,
therefore, lacking in the islands, and, from the same cause, their
development was to a great extent uninfluenced by another factor, which
was of marked importance in the continental colonies and the nation for
two centuries and a half. This factor was the constantly advancing
frontier, with its radical reactions upon the thought and institutions
of the also constantly expanding older settlements.
Footnote 423:
Worsley to Board of Trade, cited by Pitman, _Development of British W.
I._, p. 70.
American political thought has been moulded, to a very great extent, by
the two ideals, of unrestricted competition in exploiting the resources
of the continent, and of a democracy fostered by the semi-isolated and
self-reliant life of the frontier, with its comparative equality of
opportunity and of economic status. Both these ideals, until a recent
period, were developed by the presence of free land, in which they had
largely had their origin.[424] As we have already pointed out, land in
New England, in the earliest period, was to be obtained without either
purchase price or rent, to which fact, perhaps, had been due the large
non-Puritan immigration that mingled with the religious stream from 1630
to 1640.
Footnote 424:
_Cf._ F. J. Turner, “Social Forces in American History”; _Magazine of
History_, vol. XIII, p. 117.
It is also to the influence of the frontier that the American intellect
owes some of its most marked characteristics: its restlessness, its
preoccupation with the practical, its lack of interest in the æsthetic
and philosophical, its desire for ends and neglect of means, its
preference of cleverness to training, its self-confidence, its
individualism, and its extreme provinciality. The influence, moreover,
has been a continuing one, for almost every decade in American history,
until 1890, witnessed the creation of a new frontier, which lay just a
little beyond the settled regions, and reacted upon them.[425]
Footnote 425:
_Cf._ the very suggestive article by F. J. Turner, “The Significance
of the Frontier in American History,” _Proceedings of State Historical
Society of Wisconsin_, 1894, pp. 79-112.
In describing the first expansion of the New England frontier,
therefore, we are concerned with the earliest manifestation of one of
the most potent forces in American history. The fringe of little
settlements along the coast had been, indeed, the frontier of Europe;
but with the planting of settlements farther inland, an American
frontier came into existence, to react upon what, with the rapid
movement of time characteristic of a new country, soon became the
conservative, older East. That frontier has always been the refuge of
the restless and the discontented, of those who have desired a freer, if
not greater, economic opportunity, as well as of those who have been
unable to adjust themselves to the prosaic life of a settled community,
with its penalties of one sort or another for such as will not yield at
least lip-service to its social, religious, or political beliefs. In
Massachusetts there was no more room—if, indeed, there were as much—for
those who disagreed with the authorities in any particular, than there
had been at home; and those who came to that colony in the hope of
enjoying any larger degree of religious toleration or civil liberty than
in England were promptly disillusioned. About the time of the last
events described in the preceding chapter, the prospects for freedom of
thought or action must have looked as dark to the dwellers in
Massachusetts not wholly in sympathy with the rulers' policy, as it had
looked to those same rulers in the old country, when they met at the
Earl of Lincoln's, and decided to remove to the wilderness. The
opposition having become the government, it was now forcing a new
opposition to follow the same course, involuntarily by banishment or
voluntarily by free migration. Before continuing the story of that
movement, however, we must allude briefly to that portion of the
European frontier which lay northward of the Puritan settlements, and
which, like them, had been formed by immigration from the Old World.
During the period we are now discussing, the history of Maine was the
story of confused grants of territory and of the planting of small
isolated farming, fishing, and trading communities. The existence led by
the inhabitants, in their solitary shacks or little villages, was that
of a rough border life in which the monotony of the hard, bitter
winters, and the routine of planting, fishing, or bargaining for furs,
was punctuated by an occasional murder among themselves, and by
quarrels, sometimes bloody, with the Indians and the French.
In 1629, the Province of Maine, as granted to Mason and Gorges seven
years previously, was divided between them, Mason accepting as his share
that portion lying between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua,—which
received the name of New Hampshire,—while Gorges retained the balance,
extending from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec.[426] Mention has
previously been made of the small beginnings at Pemaquid, Sheepscot, and
Monhegan to the eastward, and of Portsmouth and Dover in what now became
Mason's particular province. The settlements next planted, at Richmond's
Island, Pejebscot, around Casco Bay, and elsewhere, were the work of
servants for English merchants or of individual emigrants, and were
hampered by the conflicting claims arising from the carelessly drawn
patents.[427] Gorges himself became interested in a new attempt to
colonize, and his nephew, William, was sent over as governor of a little
colony planted at York, which later was to become the subject of one of
those grandiose schemes of government to which the old knight was so
uncontrollably addicted.[428] All of these early plantings, however,
were of slight historical importance.
Footnote 426:
_Farnham Papers_ (Maine Historical Society, Portland, 1901), vol. I,
pp. 96 _ff._ For the numerous grants of this period, _cf._ H. S.
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 197-226.
Footnote 427:
The patents may be found in the _Farnham Papers_, _passim_. The most
accurate narrative account is that of Burrage, _Colonial Maine_. The
Trelawney and Cammack patents, and an extremely valuable
correspondence relating to conditions at this time, are in the
_Trelawney Papers_; Maine Historical Society, 1884. _Cf._ also, J. P.
Baxter, _George Cleeve of Casco Bay_ (Gorges Society, Portland, 1885),
pp. 27 _ff._
Footnote 428:
_Farnham Papers_, vol. I, p. 159; Gorges, _Briefe Narration_, p. 79;
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 216 _ff._
Although settlement was proceeding slowly and painfully, the vast
forests and many rivers of the province offered a rich field for the
exploitation of the fur trade, which was the main object of the French
in the north, and one of the principal resources of the English
settlements as well. The traffic, indeed, had been the means by which
the Plymouth Pilgrims had bought their freedom from their merchant
partners, and we have already noted that colony's activities on the
Kennebec. A tragic incident that occurred at their little post on that
stream, located at what is now Augusta, is of interest mainly as
revealing the aggressive attitude which was later to become the settled
policy of the Massachusetts colony in relation to its neighbors. Early
in 1634, one Hocking, a fellow employed in an enterprise of Lords Say,
Brook, and others, on the Piscataqua, tried to poach upon the Pilgrims'
patented lands, and even to pass the trading station, in order to
intercept the Indians carrying their furs. The Pilgrims' agents acted
with restraint; but in the course of the dispute, Hocking wantonly
killed one of their men; whereupon a companion of the slain man, “that
loved him well,” as Bradford records, shot Hocking dead.[429]
Footnote 429:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 317.
Although the Plymouth men had been entirely in the right, a garbled
version of the affair was sent to England and also to Massachusetts.
Needless to point out, that colony had absolutely no jurisdiction
whatever in the quarrel, which had occurred far outside its bounds, and
not even in the unclaimed wilderness, but within the legal limits of its
older neighbor. Nevertheless, the authorities at Boston arrested John
Alden, one of the Plymouth magistrates, who happened to be there at the
moment, and who had been at the Kennebec when the affray occurred.[430]
This was naturally resented, even by the peace-loving Pilgrims, and
letters requesting Alden's release were dispatched by the Plymouth
government to Dudley. One of these, at least, that governor tried to
suppress, but “Captaine Standish requiring an answer thereof publickly
in the courte,” he was forced to produce it.[431] Alden was released,
but Standish, who had been the bearer of the letter, was bound over to
appear at the next Massachusetts court, to testify to the Pilgrims'
patent. Finally, after Winslow and Bradford themselves had gone to
Boston and conferred with Winthrop, the matter was adjusted, and Dudley
and Winthrop wrote to the Lords in England the true version of the
murder; but it was not likely that the other settlements would soon
forget the high-handed proceedings of the Bay Colony in an affair so
obviously beyond its jurisdiction.[432]
Footnote 430:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 156; _Massachusetts Records_, vol.
I, p. 119.
Footnote 431:
Dudley's reply, in Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 320.
Footnote 432:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 162, 174.
But the trading post on the Kennebec was not the sole concern of the
Pilgrims in Maine, nor was that province the scene merely of contentions
arising from conflicting English land-grants, or from rival colonial
jurisdictions. It had been the stage on which the curtain had first
risen in the struggle for empire between England and France, and was now
to witness new episodes in that long drama. Still farther north the
contest had recently become acute. Sir William Alexander, by virtue of
an English grant, had claimed a large portion of French America, and Sir
William Kirk had seized Port Royal and Quebec. By the treaty of St.
Germain, however, in 1632, England agreed to restore “all places
occupied in New France, Acadia, and Canada by the subjects of the King
of Great Britain,” although the boundaries of those vaguely localized
regions were not specified, and remained matters for contention, which
meant raiding and Indian warfare, for over a century to come.[433]
Footnote 433:
The section of the treaty relating to America is in the _Farnham
Papers_, vol. I, p. 176.
Meanwhile, several more places had been occupied by the Pilgrims and
those associated with the Plymouth colony. In 1630, a “very profane
young man,” Edward Ashley by name, had started a trading post on the
Penobscot, which the Pilgrims feared might injure their fur business on
the Kennebec.[434] In spite of scruples, therefore, they joined with
Ashley, and that person having been drowned at sea, after being released
from the Fleet prison in London, they came into sole possession.[435]
They did not long enjoy it in peace, however, for the following year the
French descended upon them and carried away all their goods, valued at
nearly £500, leaving word with the agents that “some of the Isle of Rey
gentlemen had been there.” Allerton, who had broken with the Pilgrims,
had also begun to trade, at Machias; and, a couple of years later,
suffered in like manner from the French, who killed two of his men, and
carried off all the others, as well as the whole stock of goods, which,
as Bradford says “was the end of that projecte.”[436]
Footnote 434:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 258 _ff._
Footnote 435:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, p. 172; Bradford, _Plymouth_,
p. 275.
Footnote 436:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 293 _f._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 139, 184.
In spite of their own heavy loss, the Pilgrims had clung to the
Penobscot until, in 1635, d'Aulnay, acting under orders from the French
King to clear the coast of the English as far as Pemaquid, seized the
post, and shipped the local agents back to Plymouth. The Pilgrims hired
a vessel, and dispatched an armed force to try to regain possession;
but, owing to the conduct of the man whom they had engaged to effect the
enterprise, it failed miserably, and they merely entailed upon
themselves a heavy additional loss. Massachusetts, when called upon for
help, though she realized the danger to herself from the increasing
aggressiveness of the French, refused aid unless the infinitely poorer
Plymouth colony would bear the entire expense. That colony was,
therefore, obliged to desist, and Bradford bitterly complained that not
only did the Bay people thus do nothing to defend the common frontier,
but that, owing to their cupidity, they even sold food and ammunition to
the French, and so increased the menace both from them and their Indian
allies.[437]
Footnote 437:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 332 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 198, 200, 246; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VIII, p.
192; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 160 _f._
In Mason's province of New Hampshire, settlement, though more
peaceful, was also proceeding but slowly beyond the Dover and
Portsmouth plantations already noted. As the settlers of those two
places were Episcopalians, and as an opportunity was offered to buy
out the Hilton interest in the former, the Massachusetts leaders urged
some of their friends in England to acquire it, with the result that
Lords Say and Brook, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and others came into
possession, and sent out additional colonists.[438] This pouring of
new wine into the old Dover bottle produced a series of explosions,
which subsequently prepared the way for annexation by Massachusetts.
Mason died in 1635, and bequeathed his province to his family.[439]
Two years later occurred the Antinomian controversy in Massachusetts,
and the expulsion of Wheelwright, whom, when discussing that episode,
we left on his way to New Hampshire. He succeeded in making the winter
trip to the settlements on the Piscataqua, and the following spring,
with a few associates and the help of his new hosts, he founded the
town of Exeter, the inhabitants entering into a written compact for
their self-government.[440] That the Massachusetts authorities would
have preferred that he should die alone in the winter's snow is hardly
a charitable supposition; but just what they did wish for is
uncertain; for they wrote a letter of remonstrance to the New
Hampshire people, saying that they “looked at it as an unneighborly
part” that they should help any one expelled by themselves.[441]
Footnote 438:
_New Hampshire Provincial Papers_ (Concord, 1867), vol. I, p. 157.
Footnote 439:
C. W. Tuttle, _Captain John Mason_; Prince Society, Boston, 1887. The
will and notes are on pp. 391-408.
Footnote 440:
_New Hampshire Provincial Papers_, vol. I, pp. 131 _f._ The Indian
deed, formerly thought to have been obtained by Wheelwright for the
land, is now generally considered spurious. _Ibid._, pp. 136 _f._
_Cf._, however, Bell (_John Wheelwright_, pp. 79 _ff._), who contends
that it was genuine.
Footnote 441:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 350.
One of these northern towns, from its first settlement, had been
considered by Massachusetts as under its own jurisdiction. In March,
1637, the General Court had ordered that a plantation should be started
at Wenicunnett,—the name being later changed to Hampton,—a little more
than three miles north of the Merrimac.[442] It was thus slightly
outside of the bounds of the patent, if that were construed, as it had
been construed to that time, to include only such land north of the
river as lay within three miles of it.[443] The project may mark,
however, the first tentative step toward the colony's later, and wholly
unwarranted, interpretation of that instrument, so as to include all the
territory lying south of a line drawn due east from a point three miles
north of the most northerly part of that stream, to the ocean, thus
including practically all of New Hampshire and a large part of Maine.
About a year and a half after the “bound house” was built, a group of
colonists went to take possession of the new site. The Exeter men at
once objected to this encroachment of Massachusetts on their
neighborhood; but the General Court replied that the new settlement was
within their patent, and that they looked upon the protest as “against
good neighborhood, religion and common honesty.” They did, however,
quietly send out a surveying party, and having found that the part above
Pennacook was north of the line of 43½ degrees, they phrased a new
answer to Exeter's renewed protest, saying that, while they relinquished
none of their rights, nevertheless, as the Exeter men did not profess to
claim anything which might fall within the Massachusetts patent, the
matter would be allowed to rest. The way was thus left open for future
aggression, and the Court immediately proceeded to erect the new
settlement into a legal town.[444]
Footnote 442:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 167, 271; J. Dow, _History of
Town of Hampton_ (Salem, 1893), vol I, pp. 7 _f._
Footnote 443:
It is noteworthy that in 1633, in a letter to Secretary Coke, Emanuel
Downing asked that the charter limits be extended a little to the
north, where were the best firs and timber. _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1675-76_, p. 74.
Footnote 444:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 349, 365; _Massachusetts Records_,
vol. I, p. 259.
The frontier north of Massachusetts had thus, for the most part, come
into being without any action on her part, except in the two settlements
last noted. Owing to the location between the French and English, and
the uncompromising geographic factors of soil and climate, the vast
forested area, comprising over two thirds of all New England, increased
but little in population throughout the century; and by 1700 New
Hampshire had but six thousand souls, or less than that of the Bay
Colony at the time that Wheelwright left it. The northern provinces,
unhappily for themselves, were destined to play the part of buffer
states between the French, with their savage allies, and the more safely
located colonies in the south.
In tracing the foundations of the latter, we find the influence of
Massachusetts far more potent, for they were being laid mainly by men
who found scant room in that increasingly reactionary commonwealth. The
founders of Rhode Island and Connecticut alike condemned the religious
and political policy that the Bay Colony had now definitely made its
own; and the more democratic and tolerant forms of government, which
developed in the two former, “represented more nearly the principles
which underlie the government of the United States to-day than any other
of the British colonies.”[445] The seeds of both political and religious
liberty had been brought to America by the Massachusetts colonists; but
the leaders, partly from a dread of losing their own influence, and
partly from a genuine fear of noxious weeds, had done their best to
interfere with their growth. The founders of Rhode Island and
Connecticut, with less desire for personal power, and greater courage as
to tares in the wheat, watered and nursed the seeds of liberty, which
bore an abundant harvest. In Rhode Island, indeed, the weeds flourished
riotously; but the faith of the founders was justified in both colonies,
and their commonwealths marched with Holland at the head of those
struggling for human freedom, while England and Massachusetts yet lagged
and nagged.
Footnote 445:
C. M. Andrews, _The Colonial Period_ (New York, 1912), p. 28.
The lands around Narragansett Bay had been known for some time to be
attractive as sites for colonizing, when Williams made his way thither
after his banishment, in the winter of 1636. In spite of frequent
trading with the Indians, however, only one settler had as yet located
there permanently. William Blackstone, who had left England because he
disliked the tyranny of the Lord-bishops, and who had, as we have seen,
an equal aversion for that of the Lord-brethren, had quietly left his
plantation in Massachusetts, and betaken himself to the wilderness north
of Providence.[446] A lover at once of peace, of books, and of freedom,
there is something singularly attractive in his little known
personality. He called his new home “Study Hill”; and there in his
orchard grew the first “yellow sweetings” ever known, which, later, when
he occasionally preached to the newcomers, he handed around, “to
encourage his younger hearers.”
Footnote 446:
Lechford, _Plain Dealing_, p. 97. _Cf._ Adams, _Three Episodes_, vol.
I, p. 328 _n._ Some time before Blackstone settled, Winter,
Trelawney's agent in Maine, thought of settling about Narragansett,
and claimed that he had Warwick's permission to plant a colony.
_Trelawney Papers_, vol. I, p. 20.
Thus, while, owing to the great services Williams was to render the
colony, he is entitled to the name of its founder, he was not its first
settler, nor was the little band that planted Providence with him in
1636 the only one to lay the foundations of the future commonwealth. Nor
had he himself, apparently, any intention of doing so. “It pleased the
most high,” he wrote, many years afterward, “to direct my steps into
this Bay, by the loving private advice of that very honored soul Mr.
John Winthrop the Grandfather, who, though he was carried with the
stream for my banishment, yet he personally and tenderly loved me to his
last breath. It is not true, that I was imployed by any, made covenant
with any, was supplied by any, or desired any to come with me into these
parts.”[447] The others came, however, and the leading idea of the
settlement was reiterated four years later in the proposals for a form
of government, when the “arbitrators” noted that they agreed “as
formerly hath bin the liberties of the town, so still, to hould forth
liberty of conscience.”[448]
Footnote 447:
Williams's answer to the charges of Harris, in Rider, _Rhode Island
Tracts_, No. 14 (Providence, 1888), p. 53. But Williams's statements
are often contradictory.
Footnote 448:
_R. I. Records_ (Providence, 1856), vol. I, pp. 14, 28.
In 1638, another group, of eighteen persons, including William
Coddington, settled the town of Portsmouth; and in the following year,
that little hamlet planted an offshoot at Newport, while a few
individuals from both Providence and Portsmouth organized Warwick.[449]
These four towns were absolutely independent of each other, and of any
superior government of any sort, except England. Although Newport and
Portsmouth partially combined in 1640, it was not until seven years
later, when the charter of 1644 finally went into effect, that there was
any colony of Rhode Island, or a united government over the several
settlements.[450] It thus offered a great contrast to the Massachusetts
colony, in which the towns were the creatures of the General Court; and
it was this extreme looseness of organization, combined with religious
toleration, which formed the leading characteristic of the Rhode Island
political experiment. Although the settlers at Providence had signed an
agreement to unite for purposes of government, there were no town
officers, and practically no organization, until four years later. The
agreement was merely to yield obedience to such orders “as shall be made
for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of
the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together in a
Towne fellowship, and others whom they shall admit unto them only in
civil things.” These masters of families met once a fortnight, discussed
their common affairs, and decided them by majority vote.[451] The
government was thus almost a pure democracy, only women, minors, and
bachelors being excluded. Even when the towns were united, and a more
elaborate governmental machinery was set up, the extremely democratic
trend of thought was evidenced in the remarkable provision that the
General Assembly could not initiate legislation, but that laws were
first to be considered in each town, and that only after all four had
considered them, were they to be sent to be acted upon by the Assembly,
all legislative initiative thus being retained in the hands of the
people.[452]
Footnote 449:
_Ibid._, pp. 45 _ff._, 87, 129.
Footnote 450:
_Ibid._, pp. 100 _ff._ _Cf._ Foster, _Town Government in Rhode
Island_, pp. 10 _ff._
Footnote 451:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 14; Letter from Williams to Winthrop;
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 186 _f._
Footnote 452:
Foster, _Town Government_, p. 19.
With such looseness of organization, and extreme individuality of
thought and action, another characteristic was bound to be lack of
harmony, with frequent bickerings and disputes. These were soon in
evidence, and it was found also that a pure democracy and absence of
restraint were not compatible with orderly living. As the commonwealth
grew, the difficulties were met in the spirit of men who, believing in
liberty and toleration, were yet forced to make concessions to human
nature; while, on the other hand, the Massachusetts authorities met
their difficulties in the spirit of men who honestly disbelieved in
democracy and toleration, and whose concessions were forced by a growing
demand for things in which they had no faith. In Connecticut, also, the
leaders were, happily, on the side of that part of the people, important
in all the colonies, who were struggling upward toward a larger liberty,
and who, even in Massachusetts, were slowly bringing it into being.
Knowledge of the existence of the Connecticut River, and of the
advantages of its rich bottoms as sites both for trading and for
planting, seems to have been first acquired by the English through
information given to the Pilgrims by the Dutch. Friendly intercourse
between Plymouth and New Amsterdam had been opened by the latter as
early as 1626; and the Dutch not only taught the Pilgrims the value of
wampum in the Indian trade, but, seeing how barren a site they had
chosen for their settlement, told them of the Connecticut, and “wished
them to make use of it.” However, “their hands being full otherwise,
they let it pass” until, having been solicited by Indians who had been
driven from their homes there by invading Pequots from the West, they
dispatched several exploring and trading expeditions in 1633.[453] The
same Indians had also earlier requested the Massachusetts people to make
a settlement, but they had declined.[454] The Pilgrims, having made up
their minds to erect a permanent trading post on the river, also asked
the Bay people to join them; and when the latter refused, alleging their
poverty, they even offered to provide the capital for both if
Massachusetts would assume half the responsibility. This, likewise,
being refused, the Pilgrims went on with the project alone, after
telling the Bay authorities that they could have no cause to complain,
as they had now had ample opportunity to join; to which they
assented.[455] This was in the middle of July, and although the
Massachusetts leaders had done their best to discourage the Pilgrims, by
telling them the place was “not fit for plantation,” and by picking
other flaws in the project, nevertheless, four weeks later, they had
themselves dispatched a bark to Connecticut to trade, and John Oldham,
going overland, had also spied out the resources of the place, and
trafficked with the Indians there.[456] In view of all their actions,
then and subsequently, it would seem difficult to avoid the conclusion
that the Massachusetts authorities, having been offered by their
neighbors a chance to share in a profitable opportunity, deliberately
tried, by fraud and force, not only to obtain all the profits for
themselves, but to prevent the very people whose enterprise it was from
retaining any share in it. Not possessing the interpretative advantages
of a New England ancestry, one is, perhaps, limited to remarking that
the business dealings of ultra-religious people are often peculiar.
Footnote 453:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 222, 233, 311.
Footnote 454:
In 1631. J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 62.
Footnote 455:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 312 _f._; J. Winthrop (_History_, vol. I, p.
125) gives as reasons for refusal that the place was not fit for
habitation on account of the Indians, the bar across the river, and
the closing of navigation in winter. Even his admiring editor, Savage,
was “constrained to remark” that these “look to me more like pretexts,
than real motives,” and that the Pilgrims' subsequent complaints of
their treatment by Massachusetts “appear very natural, if not
unanswerable” (p. 125 _n._).
Footnote 456:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 132. Doyle (_Puritan Colonies_,
vol. I, p. 151), by a slip, wrongly dates the negotiations in 1634,
making it appear that they followed the Massachusetts expeditions
instead of preceding them.
The Dutch, meanwhile, seem to have repented of their former hospitality,
probably because of the warnings that the English had early sent them of
their encroachment upon English territory, and of the rapid growth of
the eastern colonies, which might threaten even their occupation of the
Hudson.[457] Hearing of the projected settlement by Plymouth, a party
was sent from New Amsterdam in January to buy land from the
Indians,[458] and some of the Dutch were already ensconced in a little
fort, on the present site of Hartford, when the English arrived in the
late summer. In spite of Dutch protests, however, the Pilgrims, in their
“great new barke,” sailed past the fort, and, passing north of the
bounds of the Hollanders' Indian purchase, settled at what is now
Windsor, buying the soil from its savage occupants. A later attempt by
the Dutch to dislodge them by threatened violence proved
unavailing.[459]
Footnote 457:
Bradford, _Letter-book_, pp. 51 _ff._ The Dutch territorial claims
were noted (_supra_, Chap. III). The English grant of this territory
preceded Dutch discovery by three years, but the question was one of
time between discovery and settlement, and of extension of territory
from points discovered. There was no established international law by
which this particular dispute could be settled. Individual opinion may
differ as to the ethics of the case. To me, with no desire to make out
a case either way, the legal points seem to be impossible of dogmatic
answer.
Footnote 458:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 313; Acts of the United Colonies, vol. II, p.
65 (_Plymouth Records_, X). These Acts, vols. I and II, form vols. IX
and X of the _Plymouth Records_, and are hereafter cited as _Acts
United Colonies_. J. R. Brodhead, _History State of New York_, vol. I,
p. 204, gives the month as June; but the Records say January. Various
Dutch documents, all of a later period, state that a settlement was
contemplated, and possession taken, in 1623. _Cf._ _Documentary
History State of New York_, vol. III, p. 50; _N. Y. Colonial Docts._,
vols. I, pp. 286, 360, and II, p. 133. There is, however, no
contemporary documentary evidence of it; and it is certain, at least,
that there was no settlement actually made until that designed to
forestall the English in 1633.
Footnote 459:
Bradford, Plymouth, pp. 313 f. The Dutch side of the case is given in
_Acts United Colonies_, _ubi supra_.
Meanwhile, on the same day on which Winthrop recorded in his Journal the
results of the Massachusetts expedition to Connecticut, he also entered
the arrival of the ship Griffin, eight weeks from England, with John
Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and John Haynes among her
passengers. Cotton, as we have seen, remained in Boston, but the others
immediately went on to Newtown, where a body of Hooker's English
congregation had preceded him by a year.[460] Of this transplanted body,
Hooker and Stone now became pastor and teacher. It is not likely that
Hooker, with the political views he possessed, could have found the
Massachusetts atmosphere congenial; and a year later, he and his
congregation applied to the General Court for permission to remove to
Connecticut. The reasons they gave were the lack of land for expansion
at Newtown, the fear that otherwise Connecticut might fall into the
hands of other English or the Dutch, and, lastly, “the strong bent of
their spirits to remove thither.” The Court, however, refused the
petition, alleging many reasons, which, in the main, came to the fear
that such a defection would weaken the colony, and tend to draw away
future emigrants from it.[461] In the debates on the subject, a majority
of the deputies were in favor of allowing Hooker and his party to leave
if they wished, while a majority of the magistrates opposed it. This
raised the question whether the magistrates could veto a vote of the
more numerous body of deputies, which was the more popular and
democratic of the two. As the result of a sermon preached by Cotton the
contest, which had promised to become bitter, was postponed, and the
Newtown settlers were granted additional land in their present
neighborhood.[462] The incident is interesting, not only as marking the
beginning of the political struggle between the two elements in the
legislature, which we shall have occasion to follow later, but also as
an early example of that fear which the East has always had of the
growth of its western frontier and its desire to check it.
Footnote 460:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 104.
Footnote 461:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 167.
Footnote 462:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 168; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 129.
Owing to continued pressure, however, the legislature withdrew its
opposition the following year, and in 1635 permission was granted the
towns of Watertown, Roxbury, and Dorchester to move anywhere, provided
that they would continue subordinate to the Massachusetts government—a
condition which that government had no legal right to impose. A few
months later it went further, indeed, and passed a law that no one could
leave the colony without permission of a majority of the
magistrates.[463] As, under a previous law, no one could settle in
Massachusetts without the consent of the half-dozen or more men mainly
in control, so now no one, however uncongenial his surroundings or
urgent his need, could leave without permission from the same little
group.
Footnote 463:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 146, 148, 167.
Parties from Dorchester at once availed themselves of the Court's
consent to leave, and by July were arriving daily on the Connecticut. On
that river no spot would suit them except that already bought and
occupied by the Pilgrims, from which the Massachusetts people now tried
to oust them. In reply to a protest from Governor Bradford, the
Dorchester men had the effrontery to answer that, as to the land settled
by the Pilgrims, God “in a faire way of providence tendered it to us.”
Upon this bit of fraud and hypocritical cant, Bradford caustically
commented that they should “abuse not Gods providence in such
allegations.” Massachusetts, however, was strong, and the Plymouth
people were weak; and although the latter did finally wring a reluctant
acknowledgment that the right was on their side, nevertheless they were
forced to yield fifteen sixteenths of their land, and were allowed only
one sixteenth and a little money, in an enterprise which was wholly
theirs, in which they had courteously tendered Massachusetts a half
interest, and which was located entirely outside any territory to which
that colony had any legal title. There was good reason for Bradford's
note in his diary, that the controversy was ended, “but the unkindness
not so soone forgotten.”
The winter was very severe, and many of the new settlers were obliged to
return to Boston; but in the spring, Hooker, with most of his
congregation, emigrated to the river, traveling overland, with their
herds of cattle, the precursors of an endless western stream. These
newcomers, Bradford carefully notes, as we also are glad to do, treated
the Pilgrims more fairly. By the end of 1636, there may have been eight
hundred people in Connecticut, settled mainly at Hartford, Windsor, and
Wethersfield, while the little settlement of Springfield, within the
legal limits of Massachusetts, had also been planted.[464]
Footnote 464:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 341 _f._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 216, 223; B. Trumbull, _History of Connecticut_ (New Haven, 1818),
vol. I, p. 68.
These settlements, at first, were merely plantations and not organized
towns. They apparently had no officers, except constables,—who,
Massachusetts tried to require, should be sworn by one of her own
magistrates,—and the body politic consisted of the inhabitants, who met
together, as we have found them doing in Rhode Island, to decide upon
their common interests. The territory, however, in which they were
located, was also claimed at the time by a group of patentees, including
Lords Say, Brook, and others, who had been granted the lands by the Earl
of Warwick in 1632, but who had made no attempt to enter upon them until
three years later, when they sent John Winthrop, Jr., to act as
governor, and took other action looking toward settlement. Winthrop, who
had come to Boston in the ship with young Vane, was there at the time
that the emigration from Massachusetts took place, and Hooker and the
other emigrants consulted him concerning such rights as his principals
might claim. As a result, an agreement, to last one year, was entered
into between Winthrop, acting for Say, Brook, and their associates, and
Hooker and his, which provided that a court of eight magistrates should
be created, with power to summon a General Court, until further advices
could be received from England. This agreement, for purposes of record,
was ratified in the Massachusetts General Court, but was not a
“commission” from that colony, as often stated.[465]
Footnote 465:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 170 _f._ Cf. W. DeL. Love, _The
Colonial History of Hartford_ (Hartford, 1914), pp. 70 _ff._ The
earliest records of the three Connecticut towns are lost, but by using
those of Springfield, Mr. Love has thrown much light upon the disputed
points as to the origin of the Connecticut “constitution.”
On May 31, 1638, when a new form of government was under consideration,
Hooker preached his famous sermon, in which he laid down the doctrines
that “the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by Gods
own allowance,” and that “they who have the power to appoint officers
and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set bounds and
limitations of the power and place unto which they call them,” because
“the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of
the people.”[466] Neither to Hooker, nor to his fellow colonists of
Connecticut, was this last principle new, either in theory or in
practice. He was arguing, not for a democratic government, which they
already possessed, but for a fixed code of laws to rule the magistrates
in their actions. The following year, the constitution of the new
government was adopted by the residents of the plantations of Hartford,
Wethersfield, and Windsor.[467] That constitution provided for a General
Court, in which each of the three original plantations should be
represented by four deputies, and which should have the authority to
incorporate towns. It was only subsequent to the creation of this
general government by the inhabitants of the commonwealth, that the
towns, as political entities, came into being. Freemen were merely
required to be passed upon by the General Court, no religious
qualification being attached to the franchise. It is noteworthy that the
governor was not allowed to serve for two successive terms, and that no
reference was made to any external authority, not even to that of the
king.
Footnote 466:
The text of the sermon has not survived. The notes, by some hearer,
which are all we have, are in G. L. Walker, _Thomas Hooker_ (New York,
1891), p. 125, and elsewhere.
Footnote 467:
_Public Records of Colony of Connecticut_ (Hartford, 1850), vol. I,
pp. 20 _ff._ (Hereafter cited as _Conn. Col. Records_.)
While the descent of the “Fundamental Orders” of Connecticut can be
traced in every step from the earliest charters of the trading
companies, the transition was now complete. From such as we saw Tudor
monarchs granting to merchants in the fifteenth century, past all those
which we have noted as milestones by the way, the progress had been as
steady as it was unperceived, from the privileges possessed by a few
expatriated English traders and their clerks, dwelling among foreigners,
to the self-governed commonwealth of a people in a land which they had
made their own. While the charters, however, served as the framework of
their government, the foundation of their political philosophy was found
in the church covenant, which the Separatists had used in Europe for
forty years before the Mayflower sailed; and the constitution of
Connecticut was thus equally descended from religious theory and from
the practice of trade.
Although there was little in the Fundamental Orders, as settled in 1639,
which cannot be found in previous custom or legislation in Massachusetts
or Plymouth, nevertheless, only those elements which were of a
democratic tendency were put into the new constitution, and there was
distinctly a more democratic attitude on the part of the leaders and
people than in the Bay Colony. Such provisions as that making the
governor ineligible for immediate reëlection, and the franchise
independent of religious qualification, probably show a reaction from
the rule of Massachusetts.
The contrasted influences which the new colony and its parent were
bringing to bear upon the development of American thought at this time
may best be illustrated by the theories of their several leaders.
Perhaps the two most influential men in New England in 1640, and the two
who most deserved the positions assigned them, were John Winthrop, the
leader in Massachusetts, and Thomas Hooker, the leader in Connecticut.
Winthrop's opinion of democracy as “the worst of all forms of
government,” we have already noted, and may contrast with Hooker's
belief that the complete control of their rulers “belongs unto the
people by Gods own allowance.” In the important question whether judges
should render arbitrary decisions wholly according to their personal
views, or be limited by a fundamental body of laws, the two leaders were
equally far apart. “Whatsoever sentence the magistrate gives,” wrote
Winthrop, who opposed any such limitation, “the judgment is the Lord's,
though he do it not by any rule prescribed by civil authority.”[468]
“That in the matter which is referred to the judge,” asserted Hooker, on
the other hand, “the sentence should lie in his breast, or be left to
his discretion, according to which he should go, I am afraid it is a
course which wants both safety and warrant. I must confess, I ever
looked at it as a way which leads directly to tyranny, and so to
confusion, and must plainly profess, if it was in my liberty, I should
choose neither to live nor leave my posterity under such a
government.”[469]
Footnote 468:
_Connecticut Historical Society Collections_, vol. I, p. 17.
Footnote 469:
Letter to Winthrop, _Ibid._, p. 11.
The aristocratic and oligarchical tendencies at work in Massachusetts
there received enormous additional strength from the fact that the
clergy were almost a unit in their support of reactionary ideas. This
was a defect which was, to a certain extent, inherent in the Calvinistic
ministry; and the failure of the contemporary Puritan colony in the
Caribbean was, in considerable measure, due to the outrageous claims of
the Puritan ministers there upon the civil power.[470] The influence of
the Puritan clergyman upon his more devout followers could be equaled
only by that of the Catholics, and it is difficult for the modern layman
to realize its full extent. It came about in part from the Puritan
doctrine already noted, that nothing in life was untinged with a
religious aspect. If no one dreams now of any necessity of consulting
the clergy, as such, with reference to the fashion in clothes or the
economic and social policy of the nation, it is partly because those
matters are no longer considered as religious, but purely temporal. The
opinion of a clergyman, therefore, is of no more value than that of the
well-informed layman, with his broader practical experience of life, if,
indeed, of as much. One does, however, have recourse to a specialist,
and a banker's opinion is sought on finance, and a doctor's on health.
As, according to Puritan theory, there was no act which was not of a
religious or moral character, the clergyman was, so say, a specialist on
one aspect of everything, and from that standpoint his advice must be
sought in every detail of life, and his influence was correspondingly
great.
Footnote 470:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 160 _ff._ _Cf._ similar conditions
in Bermuda, where the ministers went to such lengths as to “make a man
quite out of love with the government of the clergy.” _Cal. State
Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 323.
The individuals who emigrated to Rhode Island and Connecticut were
mainly those who were dissatisfied with the restrictions imposed by
Massachusetts. That process of secondary selection had now begun which
was to continue to winnow out from every new community the most
adventurous and independent, and to plant them again to the westward in
still newer settlements, where, in turn, the process would again be
repeated. In the colonies now forming, therefore, there was a freer
opportunity for the seeds of liberty to grow than in the old Bay. The
new commonwealths had, in addition, the great advantage that in them, at
least at their beginning, the influence of the clergy was wholly upon
the side of freedom; and in estimating the results of priestly power in
New England, it is only just to recall that Roger Williams and Thomas
Hooker were clergymen, as well as the narrower divines of Boston and her
sister towns.
The westward movement of New England was to continue until her sons and
her institutions were to be found in a continuous chain of communities
from Portland on the Atlantic to Portland on the Pacific, and the
influence of New England thought upon the life of the nation cannot be
overestimated. In so far as the origins of that thought can be traced
back to any definite leaders, or individual colonies, it was evidently
the ideas of Williams and Hooker, rather than those of Winthrop, with
all his high qualities, which were to dominate the American people, and
to be absorbed into their very being.
At the same time that these new communities and influences were coming
into existence, there was the possibility of another experiment being
tried, in colonial matters, of a radically different sort.
The group of Puritan leaders, Warwick, Say, Brook, and others, whom we
noted earlier as being interested in promoting Puritan colonization both
in New England and in the Caribbean, had continued to be actively
engaged in colonizing the latter; while by their acquisition of the
Hilton patent in New Hampshire, and the grant in Connecticut, they were
still in possession of large tracts in the former. Since the emigration
of Winthrop in 1630, affairs in England had not improved politically,
though they had distinctly done so economically. About 1634 or 1635,
nearly all of the group of leaders with whom we are particularly
concerned suffered in one way and another from the influence of the
Court party. Warwick, who had been forced out of the Council for New
England three years earlier, was attacked under the forest laws, and
also made to divide his lord-lieutenancy of Essex. Pym was sued by the
Attorney-General, and Barrington, Say, and Brook suffered in their
estates.[471] In July, Humphrey, the Earl of Lincoln's brother-in-law,
arrived in Massachusetts with “propositions from some persons of great
quality and estate,” who were thinking of emigrating if satisfactory
arrangements could be made.[472] In October, the younger Winthrop went
to England, returning a year later with his commission as governor of a
projected colony at the mouth of the Connecticut.[473] At the end of
November, 1635, twenty men arrived there, and under the direction of
Lyon Gardiner, a fort was erected at Saybrook. Saltonstall, one of the
patentees, had also, a few months earlier, attempted to plant some men
higher up the river; but they had been driven out by the same lawless
Dorchester party that had fallen on the Pilgrims, causing Saltonstall a
loss of £1000.[474]
Footnote 471:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, p. 175.
Footnote 472:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 160.
Footnote 473:
The commission and agreement are in Trumbull, _Connecticut_, vol. I,
pp. 497 _ff._ The Warwick patent is given in vol. I, pp. 495 _f._
_Cf._ C. J. Hoadly, _The Warwick Patent_ (Acorn Club, Hartford, 1902),
pp. 7 _ff._
Footnote 474:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 579 _f._
Among the proposals made by Say, Brook, and the others to Massachusetts,
as conditions of their emigrating to New England, it was stipulated that
there should be two ranks in the commonwealth—gentlemen and freeholders;
that the power of making and repealing laws should belong to both ranks,
but that the governor should always be chosen from the higher. To these
and the other proposals the authorities in the colony wholly agreed, but
with the proviso that the church-membership qualification for the
franchise must be retained.[475] The theocracy of Massachusetts, under
the guidance of its ministers, had drifted far from the current of
English life. Englishmen have always had a thoroughly healthy hatred of
ecclesiastical rule in civil affairs, and, whatever country squires,
noblemen's factors, or tradesmen and mechanics, might be willing to do,
it could not be possible that such men as Warwick, Say, Brook, and Pym
could place their political rights and careers wholly in the hands of
the narrow-minded ministers and congregations of the little
Massachusetts town churches. On that account, and because of the turn of
affairs in England, the project was given up, and when, three years
later, Warwick, Brook, Say, and Darley announced definitely that they
were going to emigrate, it was not to New England but to their island in
the Caribbean. Although they were not permitted to do so, the fact marks
the distinct breach which had now taken place between the rulers of
Massachusetts and the leaders of the Puritan party in England. The
mistaken policy of the colony, which earlier had brought alarmed
protests from her less powerful friends at home, had now definitely
alienated her most influential ones. The selfish attitude toward her
neighbors, already shown upon the Penobscot, the Piscataqua, and the
Connecticut, and which, unfortunately, was to become more aggressive and
unscrupulous, also lost her the friendship of her sister colonies. The
result was that, when the real struggle came with the English
government, a generation later, Massachusetts, although, thanks to her
geographical position and aggressive acquisitiveness, she had become the
most powerful of the New England group, found herself with hardly a
friend in the old country or the new.
Footnote 475:
The proposals and Cotton's answer are in Hutchinson, _History_, vol.
I, pp. 433 _ff._
The work of extending the frontier was not a mere matter of discussions
or of peaceful penetration into an untenanted wilderness. Owing to the
great plague, which had so nearly annihilated the natives in the regions
where the settlers had first planted, the Indian danger had never been a
serious one, and no such massacre as almost wiped out the Virginia
colony need have been apprehended. The savage, however, had been an
important element in the life of the settlements. As friend or spying
enemy, he was as constantly in and out of the little villages as he is
of the pages of the early records. Although there was, unluckily, little
that the white man could teach him that was of any service, he, on the
contrary, taught the colonists many a useful lesson. He showed them how
and where to plant, trapped their game and gathered in their stock of
furs, guided them through the almost trackless forests, and, in a
multitude of ways, gave them knowledge of the land which they had
entered and of the products it might yield. In the background,
nevertheless, always lurked the danger that the natives might grow tired
of being slowly dispossessed, that they might decide to make an end of a
situation which the more far-sighted among them could not fail to see
would inevitably more and more narrow the free range for their savage
life. In the fifteen years since Bradford and his little band had landed
in an almost deserted spot, the white population had grown alarmingly.
Moreover, their increasing numbers and desire for expansion would
naturally lead the settlers to adopt a more aggressive attitude toward
the natives in any dispute occurring between them. There was more and
more probability of trouble, arising from individual outrage on the part
of an unscrupulous or ruffianly white, or of some aggrieved or drunken
Indian, of which the organized power of the former would but too likely
take full advantage. The Old Testament texts on dealing with those
outside the pale of God's chosen people offered little comfort to the
Indian, should the Puritan divines ever start on the war-path.
At the beginning of 1633 word was received in Boston that a certain
Captain Stone had been murdered by the Pequots, or Indians allied to
them, after having landed at the mouth of the Connecticut. The exact
truth of what occurred is not known. Stone, who was a trader from
Virginia, was a drunken, dissolute, and thoroughly worthless character,
and very likely provoked the natives by some act. On the other hand,
their stories of what happened did not agree, and were not above
suspicion.[476] The Massachusetts authorities reported the matter to
Virginia, and no further action was taken until the following year, when
an embassy from the Pequots arrived at Boston. That tribe had become
embroiled in a quarrel with the Narragansetts on the east, and the Dutch
on the west, and were, therefore, anxious to smooth their relations with
the English. They agreed to deliver up the two men who had killed Stone,
to surrender their rights to Connecticut, and to pay damages in furs and
wampum. A few days later a number of Narragansetts appeared, who had
come to waylay the Pequots on their way home; but the Massachusetts
authorities purchased the safety of the savages and promise of peace
between the two tribes, by offering the Narragansetts some of the Pequot
wampum. Although the Bay Colony had thus bought the Pequot title to
Connecticut with the blood of the slain Virginian, the natives had no
idea, apparently, of observing the terms of the bargain, nor did the
English take further steps in the matter until two years later, when the
younger Winthrop, then at Saybrook, was commissioned to treat with the
savages regarding rumors of recent outrages, and to declare war if he
could not obtain satisfaction.[477]
Footnote 476:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 132, 146; Bradford, _Plymouth_,
pp. 323 _ff._
Footnote 477:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 176 _ff._; _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proceedings_, Series III, vol. III, pp. 130 _f._
A fortnight later news came of the murder of John Oldham, and the
capture of two boys, in his small boat, while off Block Island on a
trading voyage. The natives of that island, who were subordinate to the
Narragansetts, were the guilty parties, but the crime seems to have been
committed with the connivance of the Narraganset sachems, except
Canonicus and Miantanomo. Through the intercession of Roger Williams,
the latter sachem secured the release of the two youngsters, while
emissaries of Massachusetts, who went to treat with Canonicus, returned
home fully satisfied. So far, matters had been conducted reasonably and
patiently. Suddenly, however, on the advice of the Massachusetts
magistrates and ministers, the policy was completely changed, and a
course of blundering stupidity and criminal folly was entered upon. John
Endicott, with about a hundred volunteers, was ordered to proceed to
Block Island, where he was instructed to put all the men to death,
without making any effort to distinguish between guilty and innocent.
The women and children were to be carried off, and possession taken of
the island. Thence he was to go on to the Pequots, demand the murderers
of Stone and Oldham, and a thousand fathoms of wampum, and to secure, by
consent or force, some of the children as hostages.[478]
Footnote 478:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 229 _f._
Endicott possessed none of the qualities of a military leader, and
although his lack of knowledge prevented this bloody decree from being
carried out, he managed to do just enough to enrage the savages without
intimidating them. The party, after two days' searching, failed to find
the island Indians, who were in hiding in the underbrush, but burned
their wigwams, mats, and provisions, staved their canoes, and valiantly
slew their dogs. They next proceeded to Saybrook, where Lyon Gardiner,
who, in his little outpost, was responsible for the lives of twenty-four
men, women, and children, did his best to warn Endicott of his folly.
The corn-fields of the Saybrook people were two miles from the fort, and
if the Indians, who had shown themselves suspiciously unfriendly of
late, should be stung to revenge by Endicott, starvation and massacre
would confront the settlement. “You come hither to raise these wasps
about my ears,” said Gardiner, “and then you will take wings and flee
away.” In spite of the dictates of common sense and humanity, Endicott
proceeded to do just that. At Pequot Harbor he killed two Indians,
burned many wigwams, staved the canoes, and then sailed away to the
safety of Boston, leaving Saybrook and the towns on the Connecticut at
the mercy of the savages, whom Massachusetts had now roused to
fury.[479]
Footnote 479:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 232; John Underhill, “Newes from America,” _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VI, pp. 6-11; L. Gardiner,
“Relation of the Pequot Wars,” _Ibid._, vol. III, pp. 138 _ff._
The Pequots immediately made peace with the Narragansetts, urging them
to a common war against the English. Such a combination, under the
circumstances, would have meant a disaster of the first magnitude, and
Massachusetts was now forced to ask the help of the only man who could
avert it, but whom she had already driven from her company—Roger
Williams. In response to most urgent appeals sent from the Governor and
Council, he at once started, “all alone in a poore canow, and to cut
through a stormie wind with great seas, every minute in hazard of life,
to the Sachem's house.” There he remained three days, and by means of
his friendship with Miantanomo, he won the Narragansetts back to the
side of the English, and broke up the proposed alliance between the
savages. In consequence of this inestimable service, Winthrop and some
of the Massachusetts council, Williams wrote, “debated whether or no I
had not merited, not only to be recalled from banishment, but also to be
honored with some mark of favor”; but neither the authorities nor the
contemporary historians, except Winthrop, had the generosity to say a
word of the man who had saved New England.[480] In the fall, Miantanomo
and other Narragansett sachems went to Boston, and signed a treaty with
the English, which included an offensive alliance against the Pequots.
Footnote 480:
Williams's Letter to Mason, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol.
I, p. 177. J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 234, 237. Even Palfrey
dismisses Williams's services in three lines; _History_, vol. I, p.
460.
Meanwhile, the results of the folly that Massachusetts had perpetrated,
and against which Plymouth as well as Saybrook had formally protested,
now made themselves felt.[481] Three men were killed at Saybrook,
another was roasted alive, a trader was murdered at Six-mile Island,
then two more at Saybrook, and another on his way up the river. At
Wethersfield, nine men were slaughtered, and two young girls carried
into captivity.[482] The horrors of Indian warfare became the hourly
dread of every inhabitant along the frontier, thanks to the
Massachusetts magistrates and ministers. Having, as Gardiner predicted,
raised the wasps about his ears and those of all the English along the
river, Massachusetts now asked help of Plymouth, as she had before
turned to Williams. That colony agreed to lend aid, but in doing so,
recalled to her stronger neighbor how she had refused help against the
French when the Pilgrims were the petitioners; how she had interfered
with their trade on the Kennebec; and how she had deprived their
Connecticut pioneers of their lands.[483]
Footnote 481:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 238.
Footnote 482:
Gardiner, “Relation,” pp. 143, 144, 148.
Footnote 483:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 352 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 260 _ff._
But the settlers on the latter river could not await the slow movements
of the Bay Colony, if the lives of their wives and children were to be
saved. At the Connecticut General Court of May 1, 1637, war was declared
against the Pequots, and ninety men, from the three plantations, were
levied for immediate service.[484] The expedition, under command of
Captain John Mason, with some Indian auxiliaries under Uncas,
immediately proceeded to Saybrook, where they were joined by Underhill,
who happened to be there, and a few additional men.[485] A skirmish, in
which the Indians, whose fidelity had been doubted, acquitted themselves
loyally, encouraged them not a little. The original plan had been to
sail down the coast to the Pequot River and to attack the enemy
directly, but this was wisely changed at the suggestion of Mason.
According to the new plans, the party set sail for Narragansett Bay,
with the design of then returning overland, and making a surprise attack
on the Pequots, who were expecting it from the water. After landing on
the shore of the Bay, and being reinforced by several hundred
Narragansetts, Mason marched his band from eight in the morning until an
hour after dark, when they camped about two miles from the Pequot fort.
It had been decided to attack only the larger of the two villages, a
palisadoed enclosure of an acre or two.[486] About one o'clock, the
English were on the march again, but were deserted by all the Indians,
Narragansetts and Mohegans alike, before reaching the fort. The palisade
having two entrances, opposite one another, it was agreed that two
parties, led respectively, by Mason and Underhill, should make
simultaneous attacks upon them. In spite of the fact that the Indians
had been warned, by the barking of their dogs, of the approach of the
enemy, Mason boldly jumped over the brush piled at the entrance, and was
followed by his men. The other party also entered at the opposite side,
and the slaughter of the dazed and half-awakened savages began. Seeing,
however, that the resistance might prove too much for his men, Mason
snatched a torch from a wigwam and set fire to the village, which, owing
to the strong wind blowing, was soon ablaze. The English now had only to
withdraw, and to shoot any wretched savage who attempted to climb over
the palisade. In the early dawn of that May morning, as the New England
men stood guard over the flames, five hundred men, women, and children
were slowly burned alive.[487] Not over eight escaped, and there were
but seven captives. The English lost two killed and twenty wounded. It
is difficult to imagine what thoughts must have been in the minds of the
Puritans as they slowly roasted the Indian women and children. Mason
merely notes that, by the providence of God, there were one hundred and
fifty more savages than usual in the village that night.
Footnote 484:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 9.
Footnote 485:
The accounts do not agree. _Cf._ Mason, “A brief History of the Pequot
War,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series II, vol. VIII, p. 134;
Underhill, “Newes from New England,” p. 16; Gardiner, “Relation,” p.
149.
Footnote 486:
Mason, “Brief History,” p. 137; P. Vincent, “A true Relation,” _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VI, p. 38.
Footnote 487:
Mason says 600 to 700 (“Brief History,” p. 141); Underhill, 400
(“Newes from New England,” p. 25); Gardiner, 300 (“Relation,” p. 150).
Mason's account throughout is the most accurate.
The English, carrying their wounded, retreated to the ships,—which
fortunately had come into Pequot Harbor,—as the savages from the smaller
village were hampering their movements. With the vessels had also
arrived Captain Patrick and forty men from Massachusetts, that colony
having voted one hundred and sixty, and Plymouth sixty, although too
late to take part in the expedition. The bulk of the Pequot nation was
now destroyed, and it remained only to make an end of the few hundred
who had thus far escaped. Sassacus, the sachem, being repudiated by his
own followers, fled with seventy warriors to the Mohawks, and the
English indefatigably ran down detached parties. In a swamp twenty miles
from the Dutch line, eighty of the Pequots' “stoutest men,” with two
hundred old people, women, and children, made a last stand. After being
subjected to the fire of the English for some hours, the two hundred
non-combatants surrendered, while the warriors fought to the last man,
twenty finally escaping through the surrounding lines. The other savages
turned against the all but annihilated Pequots, and “happy were they,”
wrote Mason, “that could bring in their heads to the English: Of which
there came almost daily to Windsor or Hartford.” In all, during the
campaign, over seven hundred were killed or made captive.[488]
Footnote 488:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 192; _Plymouth Records_, vol. I,
p. 60; Mason, “Brief History,” pp. 141, 148; J. Winthrop, _History_,
vol. I, p. 279.
[Illustration:
Document signed by Uncas and his Squaw
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
Of the prisoners some were divided between Uncas and the Narragansetts,
while the rest were kept by the English, or sold into bondage in the
West Indies.[489] In the division of this human spoil, the clergy took
its part. “Sir,” wrote the Reverend Mr. Peter to Governor Winthrop, “Mr.
Endecot and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus. Wee have heard of a
dividence of women and children in the bay and would bee glad of a share
viz: a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good. I wrote to you
for some boyes for Bermudas, which I thinke is considerable.”[490]
Fifteen boys and two women were sent thither as slaves, but whether for
the profit of the Reverend Peter, Winthrop does not say. Roger Williams
pleaded over and over again, but in vain, with the Massachusetts
authorities for a more lenient course. “Since the Most High delights in
mercy, and great revenge hath bene allready taken,” he advised
incorporating the survivors among the friendly Indians; but though, only
a short time before, the Massachusetts authorities had been pleading
with Williams to save themselves, they now turned a deaf ear to his
intercession for the natives.[491] The Narragansetts and Mohegans were
both anxious to adopt the few survivors of their powerful enemies,
according to Indian custom, so that Williams's suggestions were as
practicable as they were merciful. Two hundred were finally so allotted
by Connecticut, when the last remnants of the Pequots submitted and the
River plantations entered into a treaty with Uncas and Miantanomo.[492]
From the end of the Pequot war, all the New England colonies adopted not
only Indian but negro slavery, and it was wholly due to economic, and
not ethical, causes that the institution did not take root. In the one
small locality in all New England where it proved profitable, it did so
root itself, and the importing of slaves for use in the other colonies
long constituted an important part of Puritan trade.[493]
Footnote 489:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 279.
Footnote 490:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, p. 95.
Footnote 491:
_Ibid._, p. 225. Other quotations from Williams and others are
conveniently gathered in G. H. Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery
in Massachusetts_ (New York, 1866), pp. 1-10.
Footnote 492:
Text in E. R. Potter, “Early History of Narragansett”; _Rhode Island
Historical Society Collections_, vol. III, pp. 177 _f._
Footnote 493:
E. Channing, _The Narragansett Planters_ (J. H. U. S., 1886), p. 10;
W. E. B. DuBois, _The Suppression of the African Slave Trade_ (Harvard
Univ. Press, 1916), pp. 27 _ff._
The contest between the English and the Indians had been inevitable from
the start. The murders of the two traders were but the sparks that
touched off the explosive material which had long been accumulating. The
struggle, with varying details and proximate causes, but based upon the
unchanging fundamental conflict of the natures and economic interests of
the two races, was to be repeated over and over again as the American
frontier advanced. Endicott's stupid campaign, and, perhaps the too
thorough absorption of Old Testament examples, had made the struggle
almost inhumanly bloody in the first advance of that frontier in New
England. The effect, however, was complete. It was to be nearly forty
years before the savages regained sufficient strength, and found a
leader to attempt again to dispute the relentless advance of the Puritan
planters.