CROSS-CURRENTS IN THE CONFEDERACY
From the formation of the Confederacy in 1643, until the restoration of
the English monarchy in 1660, the colonies were practically free to make
what use they could of an entire liberty of action, unhampered by any
serious attempt on the part of the British government to interfere with
them. The whole situation was favorable. The settlements had passed the
experimental stage, and were well rooted. If the decline in immigration
entailed certain disadvantages, on the other hand it relieved the
existing order from the necessity of absorbing new elements. The more
powerful colonies had signed articles of union, and no Indian war of any
magnitude was to interrupt their peaceful development. The economic
position slowly improved, and reached a sounder basis than before. Yet
the pages which record the story of those seventeen years are among the
least attractive in New England history. There is hardly an incident to
stir the imagination or to fire a noble pride. Freed from all restraint,
the best use that the colonies could make of their liberty was to
quarrel among themselves over boundaries, annexations, and taxes; to
contend, without honor, with the Dutch and French; to carry on
inglorious controversies with the savages; and to indulge in the only
example of bloody religious persecution that the United States has
known. Looking at the history of those years, however, from the
standpoint of the development of personal liberty, there were two
movements that redeem its otherwise disheartening aspects. One was the
bringing of order out of chaos in Rhode Island, where the settlers
proved that democracy and a broad toleration could, after all, be
combined with political stability. The other was the success of the
people of Massachusetts in securing the fundamental body of laws already
noted, and the unmistakable rejection of their theocratical leaders, lay
and clerical.
On the return of Acadia to France by the treaty of St. Germain, one
Claude de Razilly had been commissioned to rule the territory; and after
his death, three years later, d'Aulnay and de la Tour, both of whom had
possessed grants and trading posts within his jurisdiction, aspired to
replace him in the supreme command.[558] After various encounters, in
one of which d'Aulnay captured de la Tour, the latter, in 1643, arrived
at Boston with one hundred and forty men, and asked for help against his
rival. Winthrop, who was then governor, called together a few of the
magistrates and deputies, who assured de la Tour that, although they
could not grant him aid officially, he might have permission to hire
ships and engage volunteers for his expedition.[559] “The rumour of
these things soon spreading,” however, they encountered so much adverse
criticism that Winthrop consulted with additional members of the Court,
and, of course, the clergy. The question was long debated, whether it
was lawful for Christians to aid idolaters, and, somewhat more
pertinently, whether it was expedient in this particular case. The
debate is given at length by Winthrop, and affords an instructive
example of Puritan casuistry. A matter of so much importance should, of
course, have been referred to the General Court, and, also, under the
terms of the new Confederacy, to the Commissioners of that body. The
Boston merchants, however, seem to have brought powerful influences to
bear, and the little job in dollar-diplomacy was rushed through,
regardless of obligations or consequences. The question was not referred
to the Court, Winthrop wrote, because if it “had been assembled, we knew
they would not have given him aid without consent of the commissioners
of the other colonies, and for a bare permission, we might do it without
the court.”[560] Saltonstall and others afterwards wrote, strongly
condemning the action, urging that the real rights of the case had not
been known, that wars involving the subjects of another nation ought not
to be undertaken without the knowledge of the home government; and
brushed away the sophistical distinctions made by the Boston clique
between private permission by the colony's rulers and their official
sanction. “D'Aulnay, nor France,” they wrote, “are not so feeble in
their intellectuals as to deeme it no act of state.”[561]
Footnote 558:
_Cf._ Parkman, _The old Régime in Canada_ (Boston, 1911), pp. 1 _ff._
Footnote 559:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 128, 130.
Footnote 560:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 135, 138. The agreement is in Hazard,
_Historical Collections_, vol. I, pp. 499 _ff._ Robert Keaynes, of the
“sow case,” was apparently interested in the venture.
Footnote 561:
Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. I, p. 131.
[Illustration:
Page from John Winthrop's Journal
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
The expedition, however, had been allowed to sail, carrying a somewhat
fatuous letter from Winthrop to d'Aulnay, stating that the Massachusetts
volunteers were, if possible, to effect a reconciliation, that they
possessed no commission, and that, if they did anything “against the
rules of justice and good-neighborhood,” they should be held
accountable.[562] In spite of this, some of the men attacked d'Aulnay's
plantation, burned his mill, killed his cattle, and plundered one of his
vessels of beaver skins. The latter were brought back to Boston and sold
at auction, and the proceeds were divided among the soldiers.[563] The
enterprise had been neither successful, glorious, nor profitable; and
when de la Tour again applied for help, in July of the following year,
Endicott, who had opposed the original participation of the colony, had
succeeded Winthrop as governor. The only result of de la Tour's suit,
therefore, was a proclamation of neutrality “till the next general
court,” and the dispatch of a letter to d'Aulnay offering satisfaction,
and likewise requesting it for his own earlier depredations on the
Penobscot.[564] In September, the Commissioners of the United Colonies
met and passed a resolution forbidding, in future, such acts of
volunteers as Massachusetts had connived at.[565]
Footnote 562:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 151.
Footnote 563:
Paper signed by Saltonstall and Hathorne. _Ibid._, vol. II, Appendix
O, pp. 464 _ff._
Footnote 564:
_Ibid._, p. 220.
Footnote 565:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 22.
The struggle between the two rivals had not been limited to fighting in
America, but had been carried on at the French Court, where each had
striven for recognition. In this d'Aulnay had been successful, and the
ignominious end of the whole matter for the English was that
Massachusetts finally had to abandon her claims against him, and to make
him a gift as an acknowledgment of her own wrong in joining de la Tour's
expedition.[566] The affair, however, helped to strengthen the deputies
against the body of ministers and magistrates, whose unwarranted action,
as well as lack of statesmanship and even of common prudence, had been
mainly instrumental in bringing unnecessary humiliation upon the colony
without the consent of its representatives.
Footnote 566:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 318, 334 _ff._; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. III, pp. 44, 74 _ff._; _Acts United Colonies_, vol. I,
pp. 56 _ff._
Nor did the Bay and other colonies derive much greater honor from their
diplomacy with the Dutch, one of the main results of which, indeed, was
to develop such a conflict of interests among themselves as threatened
to break up the Confederation. As we have already seen, it was an open
question whether England or Holland had the better title to the central
portion at least, of the territory claimed by the latter. As to the
title of the individual settlers, English and Dutch, on the Connecticut
and the Delaware, it would appear that the Dutch, who were there by the
authority of their home government, were in a much better legal position
than the English, who were mere squatters in the wilderness, without any
patent or charter rights. The New Englanders, however, outnumbered their
neighbors twenty to one, and the land in dispute was good. The advice of
the British Ambassador in the States General was, therefore, acted upon
with the consciousness of overwhelming force. “Crowd on,” he wrote,
“crowding the Dutch out of those places they have, but without hostility
or any act of violence.”[567] Steadily the advancing flood of the
English overwhelmed Dutch claims. It poured westward on Long Island and
along the Sound, up the Connecticut,—encircling the little fort of Good
Hope,—up the Housatonic, and stopped only a few miles from New Amsterdam
itself. A trading company formed in New Haven, but including capitalists
from Massachusetts, tried also to plant on the Delaware in despite of
both Dutch and Swedes.[568] The situation was bound to result in
constant causes for disputes, grave or trifling. At the bottom of all
was the desire of the English for the land, and the sense of injury and
inferior numbers on the part of the Dutch. Governor Kieft touched the
point, when, in reply to a letter of complaint from the United Colonies,
concerning some alleged misdemeanors by the garrison of the little Dutch
post at Good Hope, he wrote that “when we heare the inhabitants of
Hartford complayninge of us, we seem to heare Esops wolfe complayninge
of the lambe.”[569]
Footnote 567:
Letter from Sir William Boswell to Dr. Wright, 1642; _Conn. Col.
Records_, vol. I, pp. 565 _f._
Footnote 568:
For relations with the latter, _cf._ A. Johnson, _The Swedish
Settlements on the Delaware_ (Univ. of Pa., 1911), vols. I, pp. 380
_ff._, and II, p. 755; _New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 56 _f._, 106
_f._
Footnote 569:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 77.
The several attempts to plant forcibly on the Delaware were successfully
repulsed by the two nations already in possession there; and in 1646,
Kieft sent a protest to the New Haven magistrates against their settling
on the Housatonic. To this they replied that they could not imagine what
river the Dutch could mean, and unfairly offered to leave any dispute to
the English Parliament as arbitrators; while at the New Haven court, “it
was fully and satisfyeingly voted” that they would make good their
titles “at the trading house, and leave the issue of things to
God.”[570]
Footnote 570:
_New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 265 _f._ The Dutch spoke of the river
as the Mauritius. In their reply, the New Haven people stated that
they had built on the Paugusset “within our owne lymitts.”
Contentions, new and old, dragged along, embittering relations, and
filling a very large portion of the United Colonies' time and records.
Finally, after Stuyvesant had been governor for three years, he went to
Hartford to try to arrange an amicable settlement of all outstanding
grievances between the colonies of the two nations. The negotiations
were carried on in writing; and both then and in subsequent
correspondence, it must be confessed that, in dignity and courtesy, the
Dutch Governor shone by comparison with the English Commissioners. His
tone throughout was statesmanlike and dignified, while that of the
Puritans was frequently low, and, at times, insulting.
It was finally decided that each side should appoint two deputies to
negotiate a treaty, and Stuyvesant nominated, as his, two Englishmen,
then resident in the Dutch colony.[571] As a result of their
deliberations, a treaty was signed, in September, 1650, which should
have set the disputed matters finally at rest.[572] Most of the smaller
questions were passed over, while that of the Delaware was referred to
Europe. The explanation of the Dutch Governor as to a ship seized at New
Haven, some years earlier, was accepted as final,[573] and a definite
boundary line agreed upon, which gave to the English all territory,
except Fort Good Hope, lying eastward of Oyster Bay on Long Island and
of a line beginning four miles west of Greenwich on the mainland, and
running north, provided it came nowhere within ten miles of the Hudson.
Greenwich, also, was to remain to the Dutch, who were otherwise not to
build within six miles of the new boundary, which was to be referred to
England and Holland for ratification. Holland subsequently accepted
it,[574] but England never acted, as to have done so would have been to
recognize Dutch claims as valid, which she persistently refused to do.
Footnote 571:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 186 _f._
Footnote 572:
_Ibid._, pp. 188 _ff._
Footnote 573:
_New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 333, 508; _Acts United Colonies_,
vol. I, pp. 112, 146.
Footnote 574:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. II, pp. 258 _f._
Nor, from their later correspondence, can we conclude that all the
English colonies themselves intended to accept the settlement as final,
or that they really desired a friendly end to the controversies. Within
a year after the signing of the treaty, New Haven attempted further
encroachments upon the Delaware, and, when stopped by Stuyvesant,
complained to the United Colonies, whose Commissioners wrote a bullying
letter to the Dutch Governor.[575] The following year, in Europe,
Cromwell forced war upon Holland, and New Haven and Connecticut felt
that their chance had come to make an end of their neighbor, whose chief
offense seems to have been the prior possession of lands the English
coveted. They claimed, indeed, to have information that Stuyvesant was
stirring up the Indians to attack them, and were, or pretended to be, in
mortal terror; but there is no substantial evidence that any such plot
existed, and when questioned about it, the sachems Mixim, Pesacus, and
Ninigret denied it in the most positive terms.[576]
Footnote 575:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 214 _f._; New Haven’s complaint is
on pp. 210 _ff._
Footnote 576:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 6 _ff._
Three commissioners, whom the United Colonies sent to New Amsterdam to
investigate the rumor, were met with fairness by Stuyvesant, who placed
no obstacle in their way for taking any testimony they wished, asking
only, which was reasonable enough, that the inquiries should be
conducted jointly. This the English refused, but set down all the gossip
they could gather, treated the Governor with great rudeness, and then
left, refusing at the last moment to wait even a few hours to receive an
answer Stuyvesant had prepared.[577] The fact may well have been that,
in view of the overwhelming odds against them, the Dutch were counting
upon using the Indians as auxiliaries in case they should have been
attacked; but there was nothing to indicate, what would have been
exceedingly unlikely, that they had been planning to assume the
offensive, even by savage proxy.
Footnote 577:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 59, 65.
War, however, was ardently desired by both Connecticut and New Haven,
and Rhode Island, somewhat liberally interpreting orders from England,
started privateering on her own account against Dutch ships.[578]
Connecticut, on the strength of similar orders, hastily sequestrated the
Dutch fort at Good Hope, which she never again relinquished.[579]
Footnote 578:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 54, 90, 92; _R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 261,
266, 271. During the course of the war, Cromwell sent Major Sedgwick
and Captain Leverett to the “United Collonyes” to see what aid he
could count upon in an attack upon New Amsterdam. _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Coll._, Series IV, vol. II, pp. 230 _ff._; _New Haven Records_, vol.
II, pp. 100, 107, 112; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 259; _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 390.
Footnote 579:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 254, 275.
Massachusetts, however, had no interest in the quarrel. The lands she
coveted did not lie in that direction, and she professed to be unable to
go to war save in a just cause.[580] Her moral stand might be considered
more sincere, were it not for the quite contrary position she
consistently assumed when her own interests were at stake. Her refusal,
however, undoubtedly prevented an act of great injustice, although her
action permanently weakened the Confederacy; for she claimed, in spite
of the obvious intention of the Articles, that the Commissioners had no
power to declare an offensive, but only a defensive, war. This
unwarranted construction was bitterly opposed by the other three
members, who properly claimed that, if any of the colonies had the
right, on occasion, to alter the Articles to suit herself, then the
league must necessarily “breake and bee dissolved.” “Whether this
violation proceed from some unwarrantable Scruple of Conscience or from
some other engagement of sperit,” they wrote, “the Massachusetts neither
expresse, nor will the Commissioners determine.”[581] In the wilderness,
men come to know one another well; and her neighbors' faith in the Bay
Colony's purity of motive had been too often sorely tried to permit
them, perhaps, to do her entire justice. War was declared in September,
seven of the eight Commissioners voting in favor of it, although
Massachusetts refused to be bound.[582] Her interpretation of the
Articles having been vehemently denied by the western colonies, she
turned to Plymouth, but failed to overawe her little neighbor, who
bluntly answered that the Articles “are so full and plaine that they
occation not any such queries.”[583]
Footnote 580:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 56, 75, 80, 86.
Footnote 581:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 82.
Footnote 582:
_Ibid._, pp. 102, 108 _f._
Footnote 583:
_Ibid._, pp. 111 _f._
Peace having been declared in Europe, however, the war was not
prosecuted, and in the following year Massachusetts completely reversed
her position, and agreed to be bound by the Articles of Union in their
“literall sence and true meaning.”[584] The real motive for her refusal
to attack the Dutch may, perhaps, be found in that fear, on the part of
the East, of any rapid extension of the western frontier, which we have
already noted. Had the western colonies acquired the Hudson River and
the sources of the rich fur-trade possessed by the Dutch, the supremacy
of Massachusetts might readily have been lost to the younger colonies,
which, on the other hand, could be counted upon to remain subordinate to
herself in power and numbers if westward expansion were denied them. So
long as the balance remained undisturbed, or was altered only in her
favor, she could count upon the Confederacy to aid her own plans,
nullifying any decision adverse to her interests by her greater
strength, as she had just done. Having gained her point, it was,
therefore, to her advantage to restore the fullest authority to the
league; and the suggestion by her three colleagues, quoted above, that
her action might have been dictated by “some other engagement of sperit”
than conscientious scruples, would indicate that they perfectly
recognized the situation.
Footnote 584:
_Ibid._, p. 114.
During the decade and a half that we are now considering, there was
continual uneasiness among the savages, but no serious outbreak. Their
relations with the whites, however, were the subject of constant
negotiations, which, with the entries concerning the Dutch, absorb
almost the whole of the records of the Confederacy. The most striking
incident was one which, unfortunately, redounded but little to the
credit of the colonists.
In 1643, a quarrel broke out between Uncas and a sachem named Sequasson,
and after the English had ineffectually attempted to preserve peace
between them, Uncas attacked Sequasson, killing seven or eight of his
men, and securing considerable booty.[585] The defeated sachem was an
ally of the Narragansett chief Miantanomo, who requested permission from
the English for liberty to revenge himself upon the Mohegan. This was
granted, and Miantanomo, followed by a thousand warriors, fell upon
Uncas, who was supported by less than one half that number.[586] The
Mohegans, nevertheless were successful, and Miantanomo was taken
prisoner, through treachery. It will be recalled that Samuel Gorton had
bought his lands through the Narragansett chief from two of his sachems,
who had subsequently repudiated the transaction, and placed themselves
under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. It will be remembered also that
Miantanomo, in spite of recent suspicions, had consistently been a
friend of the English, that he had sheltered Williams, when banished
from Massachusetts, and that, through the influence of the latter, the
Narragansetts had sided with the colonists in the Pequot war. Gorton now
unwisely tried to save the savage's life by writing a letter to Uncas,
threatening him should he harm his prisoner.[587] Uncas, upon its
receipt, hurried the captive to Hartford, to advise with the authorities
as to what course he should take. At Miantanomo's own request, he was
placed in custody of the English.
Footnote 585:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 155.
Footnote 586:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 11.
Footnote 587:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 158.
There had been rumors of a general rising of the natives in the
preceding year, and the Commissioners of the United Colonies, meeting at
Boston, after serious consideration decided that it would not be safe to
set the unexpected captive free; but they had no grounds upon which to
kill him. As usual, they turned to the church for advice, and, as usual,
that advice was for blood, “the most judicious elders,” who had been
consulted, unanimously agreeing “that he ought to be put to death.” Of
the four reasons for their decision as given by Winthrop, not one
justified the sentence. One of them, that he was “of a turbulent and
proud spirit,” was hardly a capital offense even in Massachusetts, nor
could the beating of one of his own subjects be thus construed. His
alleged heading of an Indian conspiracy had not been proved, and if the
authorities had really believed it, it is not likely that they would
have granted him formal permission to take the warpath with a thousand
warriors against another of their own allies. Opposed to the charges
were to be set the facts that, in the past, he had performed inestimable
service as a friend of the English, and that he was now in their hands
at his own suggestion, trusting in the white man's justice. He had not,
however, reckoned on the church, and it is impossible not to agree with
the often expressed surmise that the leaders of that institution
condemned him, not as the enemy of the English, but as the friend of the
heretic Gorton and the tolerant Williams.[588]
Footnote 588:
_Cf._, _e.g._, editor's note in J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp.
158 _f._
There had been no pretense of trial, and neither the accused nor any
witnesses had been summoned. Nor did the English execute the sentence,
which duty they entrusted to Uncas, who was promised protection against
the Narragansetts if he would perform it.[589] Uncas readily undertook
the work, and Miantanomo, probably cursing his folly for having ever
trusted a white man, was put to death. “That the Indians might know that
the English did approve of it, they sent 12 or 14 musketeers home with
Uncas to abide a time with him for his defence, if need should be”;
which shows how little real credence was placed in the story of a
general rising.[590] The savages could have made no complaint, had the
English from the beginning preserved a strict neutrality; but they had
not done so. They had given Miantanomo leave to take the war-path, and,
when he was captured, they had assumed the responsibility of seeing that
justice should be done. They had, nevertheless, observed none of its
forms, and had merely handed the prisoner back to his savage captor with
what amounted to orders for his death, without trial and without a
hearing. Aside from the injustice of the course pursued, it is difficult
to think of one more certain to turn the “proud and turbulent” spirits
of the slain man's thousand followers permanently against the English
settlers.[591] Nevertheless, for the present, in spite of a threatened
outbreak upon their part two years after the slaying of their chief, the
Indian relations of the colonists for long consisted mainly in efforts
to preserve the peace among rival native tribes and to collect
tribute.[592]
Footnote 589:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 11; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
II, p. 158.
Footnote 590:
_Ibid._, p. 162.
Footnote 591:
_Cf._ letter from the sachems to Massachusetts, 1644, in _R. I.
Records_, vol. I, pp. 136 _ff._
Footnote 592:
For the causes of the Narragansett “war” of 1645, _cf._ _Acts United
Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 50 _ff._ For the war with Ninigret, _Ibid._,
vol. II, pp. 101 _ff._
The disputes of the colonies, however, were by no means limited to those
with foreigners and savages. The union, which had been so seriously
threatened by the Dutch war, had earlier suffered another severe strain
in a controversy between Connecticut and Massachusetts over questions of
taxation. When the fort at Saybrook was bought from Fenwick by the
former colony, for the purpose of protecting and controlling the mouth
of the river, the contract provided that he should receive, in part
payment, certain tolls to be levied upon merchandise exported by all the
River Towns.[593] A few months later, the General Court passed a law
regulating the amounts of these duties and providing for their
collection.[594] The boundary line between Connecticut and Massachusetts
was still undetermined; but as the latter colony claimed Springfield,
which was under its jurisdiction, that town objected to being taxed by
Connecticut, and refused to pay the duties demanded.[595] The question
was referred to the Commissioners of the United Colonies by Connecticut
in 1647, though the fort had then been destroyed by fire. The objections
of Massachusetts, presented in writing, were not well taken, and one was
an absolutely false statement, Connecticut having no difficulty in
showing that the Bay Colony's contention that the question of a
river-toll had delayed the formation of the Confederacy by ten years was
palpably absurd and impossible.[596] Another contention, that the toll
was not levied upon the Dutch at Good Hope, was also of no import, for
the commerce of that tiny post was slight, and by taxing it,
international questions would have been raised, to no advantage.
Moreover, as the main value of the fort at Saybrook was to protect the
river from the Dutch, its upkeep could hardly be considered as a charge
of which that nation shared the advantages. The duties required were not
discriminatory, and Connecticut was merely asking that the other
permanent settlers up the river should share the same burden which she
imposed upon herself.
Footnote 593:
Conn. Col. Records, vol. I, pp. 119 _ff._, 266 _ff._
Footnote 594:
_Ibid._, pp. 189 _ff._
Footnote 595:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 80; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._,
Series IV, vol. VI, p. 380.
Footnote 596:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 89 _ff._
Although the justice of her claim was upheld by the Commissioners of New
Haven and Plymouth, Massachusetts refused to accept the decision as
binding, and threatened retaliation, which, in 1649, took the form of an
import duty on all goods from the three colonies entering at Boston
Harbor, which was then the main channel through which all business was
conducted with Europe.[597] The wording of the act made it obvious that
it was to punish the three smaller colonies for not having agreed with
herself; and the Confederacy's delegates resolved that “how fare the
premisses agree with the lawe of love and with the tenure and import of
the articles of Confederation, the Commissioners tender and recomend to
the serius Concideration of the Generall Court of the Massachusits.”
Wearied with her continuous rejection of their valid rulings for five
years, they also added that they “desire to bee spared in all further
agitations Concerning sprinkfield.”[598] Apparently, however, the
pertinacity of Massachusetts won the struggle, to which bitterness was
added by her persistent refusal, for seventy years, to acknowledge the
real location of her southern boundary line, which she had extended
slightly into Connecticut territory.[599] That “line” she had had
surveyed, in 1642, by the somewhat odd method of having two “skillful
artists,” as she called them, locate a point three miles south of the
Charles River, and then, in order to avoid the long walk across country,
sail around by the Sound, and ascend the Connecticut River to a point
which they agreed was in the same latitude as that from which they had
started. A map, a pen, and a ruler completed this arduous bit of
surveying work in the wilderness.[600] Unfortunately, it did not satisfy
Connecticut.
Footnote 597:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, p. 269. This had been anticipated by
Connecticut; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, p. 383.
Footnote 598:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 158.
Footnote 599:
_Ibid._, vol. I, pp. 151 _f._
Footnote 600:
C. W. Bowen, _The Boundary Disputes of Connecticut_ (Boston, 1882),
pp. 19, 53 _ff._
There was always a certain latitude, not astronomical, in the Bay
Colony's treatment of boundaries, however; and, in spite of the
reasonably strict definition of her own by her charter, the colony
slowly expanded, like a balloon filling with gas. We have already seen
how she had annexed New Hampshire, and, by her new interpretation of the
charter, laid claim to Maine. The state of affairs in England, during
the Civil War and Commonwealth, offered her the opportunity to make that
claim a reality; and by 1658, the entire province had been annexed, bit
by bit. In the midst of the civil commotions in the home country, the
royalist Gorges had died, and his heirs had had no chance to answer
their colonists' letters or to look after their affairs in America.
Godfrey was elected governor of the settlements about York, the
inhabitants there, “with one free and universanimous consent,” binding
themselves into a body politic,[601] while farther east, the feud
between Cleeve and Winter, the latter representing Trelawney's
interests, had been continued. Trelawney, a royalist like Gorges, was
imprisoned in England by the Parliament, and soon after died. Cleeve
went to England, procured the assistance of Alexander Rigby, who had
bought the questionable Lygonia patent, and secured from him a
confirmation and extension of his own holdings. This was three years
before the election of Godfrey at York in 1649, and Josselyn, who was
then representing the Gorges interests, disputed Cleeve's claims, and
both parties agreed to arbitration by Massachusetts. The jury failed to
find a verdict, and the dispute continued.[602] The following year, the
Commissioners of Plantations confirmed Rigby's patent, even enlarging
its interpretation, and so confined the Gorges territory to that south
of Saco.[603] Cleeve established a government within the now legal, if
not equitable, Lygonia grant, and the quarrel between him and Godfrey
seems to have been settled. Affairs promised to assume a more ordered
aspect, and in 1651 Godfrey sent a petition to Parliament, asking that
the inhabitants of Maine be declared “Members of the Common Wealth of
England,” and confirmed in their rights.[604]
Footnote 601:
_Farnham Papers_, vol. I, p. 266.
Footnote 602:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 314 _f._
Footnote 603:
_Ibid._, p. 391.
Footnote 604:
_Farnham Papers_, vol. I, pp. 267 _f._ Williamson says it was carried
to England by Cleeve; _History of Maine_, vol. I, p. 336.
Massachusetts saw her opportunity slipping, and decided to act. In May
of the following year, the General Court voted that the northern
boundary of the colony was a line running from sea to sea and passing
through a point three miles north of the most northerly section of the
Merrimack, sending out more “skilfull artists” to find the exact
latitude.[605] Godfrey vigorously objected, recalling to Massachusetts
the services he had rendered her in England when her charter had been
questioned, and denying the validity of her new claim.[606] His protest,
of course, was of no avail, and in May, 1653, Massachusetts sent a
commission, headed by Bradstreet, forcibly to require the submission of
the inhabitants at Kittery. After much debate among the settlers, they
agreed to submit, provided their conditions were accepted. This,
however, was “wholy denied by the comissioners, who told them they must
first submitt to the government, and then they should be ready to
affoord such liberties and imunities as they should think meete to
graunt.”[607] To this demand, as illegal as it was arrogant, the
settlers were forced to yield an unconditional assent; and Godfrey
returned to England, to add another, in the day of reckoning, to the
enemies of Massachusetts. The country was organized as the County of
York, and the towns incorporated with the same privileges as Dover.[608]
Later in the same year, the commission continued its journey, and Wells,
Cape Porpus, and Saco were likewise forced to submit.[609] Five years
later, in spite of repeated protests from Cleeve, the whole of Maine and
Lygonia were absorbed as far as Casco Bay, and the process of annexation
was complete.[610] Of the principalities that Mason and Gorges had spent
their fortunes to acquire, not a foot was left to their heirs.
Footnote 605:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 274, 288.
Footnote 606:
The answer of Massachusetts and Godfrey's second letter are in Hazard,
_Historical Collections_, vol. I, pp. 564 _ff._ Godfrey's protest,
stating that £35,000 had been spent in settling, and that
Massachusetts had recognized the lawful jurisdiction of the settlers
for the past 20 years, is in Baxter MSS., _Doct. Hist. Maine_, vol.
IV, pp. 15 _f._
Footnote 607:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 123.
Footnote 608:
_Ibid._, pp. 123-26.
Footnote 609:
_Ibid._, pp. 158 _ff._
Footnote 610:
_Ibid._, pp. 175, 250, 312, 357, 360.
By her policy of annexation, Massachusetts had added over forty thousand
square miles to her territory; while by that of nullification, she had
patently shown that the bonds uniting the New England Confederacy were
but ropes of sand. Confederation was a failure and imperial control as
yet impossible. The unification of New England was progressing rapidly,
but it was a mere process of absorption by Massachusetts. Had there been
no hindrance offered by England to the movement, the fate of the other
colonies was amply foreshadowed. A single state, with its capital at
Boston, guided by the reactionary ideas of its leaders, would probably
have arisen, and much of the work already accomplished for the
enfranchisement of the individual by Connecticut and Rhode Island, as
well as the progress so far made by Massachusetts herself, might have
been lost.
Although her policy had met with so little real resistance in the north,
it received an unexpected check in the south, from the despised Rhode
Islanders, while the restoration of the monarchy in England was
permanently to save the independence of that colony and of Connecticut.
In view of the circumstances, that event, and the assertion of imperial
control which followed it, cannot be considered as so inimical to the
interests of liberty and the colonies as writers whose attention and
sympathy have been wholly devoted to Massachusetts have usually pictured
it. In spite of the many fine qualities of the Bay Colony, and the
services which she rendered in the settlement of New England, it was
fortunate that her career of aggrandizement was halted, for the United
States could ill afford to have lost the independent contributions made
to her intellectual and political life by the smaller colonies. Indeed,
it may even be questioned, if a single powerful, unscrupulous, and
aggressive state had come to occupy the whole of New England, and
possibly the Hudson Valley, whether the United States, as a federal
nation in its present form, would have come into existence at all. When
one considers the possibilities involved in a wholly different balance
of power among the colonies in the following century, the early career
of Massachusetts and the checks it encountered take on a larger
interest.
The four settlements about Narragansett Bay, whose extreme individualism
and disinclination to submit to any superior government have already
been noted, would probably have been exceedingly slow to form a
combination, had it not been for the danger to their existence,
threatened by their neighbors. Massachusetts had already set up claims
to a portion of the territory, and assumed jurisdiction over some of the
natives at the time of the Gorton affair in 1643; and contemplated more
aggressive action by attempting to secure a charter from the
Commissioners of Plantations, in the same year. While never legally
granted, this pretended patent was at first used by the colony to
bolster its claims.[611] At the same time at which Massachusetts was
trying to obtain that document, Williams, then in England for the
purpose, was also endeavoring to secure a patent which would enable the
settlements legally to resist encroachment. In this he was successful,
and, after that, “the country about us was more friendly,” he wrote,
“and treated us as an authorized colony, only the difference of our
consciences much obstructed.”[612] The charter named the towns of
Providence, Newport, and Portsmouth, and incorporated a vague territory
bounded in part by Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the Pequot River, as
“the Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New
England.”[613] The settlers were given the right to erect any form of
government which they might choose.
Footnote 611:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. V, pp. 398 _ff._;
Arnold, _History of Rhode Island_, vol. I, pp. 118 _f._; Osgood,
_American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 354.
Footnote 612:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 458.
Footnote 613:
_Ibid._, pp. 143 _ff._
The Narragansett Indians, after the death of Miantanomo, had agreed to
place themselves directly under the protection of the English crown; and
Gorton, who, after his release from Massachusetts, had gone back to
Warwick, was chosen by them to go to England and carry their submission
to the King.[614] In 1644, Plymouth had renewed her claim to Warwick;
but in the following year, twenty families from Braintree having
petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for permission to settle on
Gorton's lands, the Court had granted them ten thousand acres there, and
arranged for the organization of a town.[615] A Plymouth settler
objected, however, when the party arrived, and the new planters
dispersed to other places. At the same meeting of the court at which the
Braintree men were granted their land, a letter was ordered sent to
Williams, stating that Massachusetts had received a charter for
Narragansett Bay, and ordering him to desist from exercising any
authority.[616]
Footnote 614:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 326; _R. I. Records_, vol. I,
pp. 134 _ff._
Footnote 615:
Cited by Arnold, _Rhode Island_, vol. I, p. 159; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. III, p. 49; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 308.
Footnote 616:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, p. 49; _R. I. Records_, vol. I, p.
133.
Nothing had been done by the Narragansett towns to combine under their
patent, until May, 1647, when a meeting attended by freemen from all
four, was held at Portsmouth, at which it was voted to give Warwick the
same privileges as Providence.[617] The new government derived directly
from the people, and not from the towns, those present also agreeing
that it should be “democraticall, that is to say, a Government held by
the free and voluntarie consent of all, or the greater parte of the free
Inhabitants.”[618] Legislation was, in the main, to be initiated by the
people in town meeting, and not by the Assembly, which latter was to be
a representative body, consisting of six delegates from each township.
Such bills as might be initiated in the Assembly, or General Court, were
required to be submitted to the four towns at their meetings, the whole
legislative system thus being “a crude combination of initiative and
referendum.”[619]
Footnote 617:
_Ibid._, pp. 147 _ff._
Footnote 618:
_Ibid._, p. 156.
Footnote 619:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 358.
Meanwhile, Gorton had obtained a letter from the Commissioners for
Plantations, granting him safe conduct through Massachusetts, and
allowing him to resettle upon his lands without molestation, until the
disputed title should be decided.[620] To this, Massachusetts returned
an answer defending her actions in the case and her refusal to allow of
appeals to England; but Gorton was permitted to pass through her
territory on his way to Warwick.[621] The settlers there, however, were
much troubled by the Indians, whom Massachusetts claimed as under her
jurisdiction; and after receiving two complaints from the Warwick
people, the Commissioners of the United Colonies finally returned answer
that they were ready to undertake the settlement of the question as to
“under what Colonie youer Plantation doth fall.”[622] The following
year, 1650, Massachusetts, by agreement with Plymouth, acquired all
rights which that colony might possess about Warwick, but the
Commissioners of the United Colonies refused to sanction the
transfer.[623]
Footnote 620:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 367 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
II, p. 333.
Footnote 621:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 95 _ff._; J. Winthrop,
_History_, vol. II, pp. 360 _ff._
Footnote 622:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 150. The previous complaint, and
the Commissioners' mild rebuke to the Indians, are on p. 111.
Footnote 623:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 198 _f._; _Acts United
Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 170 _f._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, p.
216.
As before, however, there was a party at Patuxet working in the
interests of the Bay Colony, and in 1651, certain settlers there
appealed to her for protection against taxes levied upon them.
Massachusetts, still claiming jurisdiction, wrote to Williams, requiring
that the government refrain from taxing the residents of Warwick, and
stating that in case it refused to comply, Massachusetts would seek
satisfaction “in such manner as God shall put into theire hands.”[624]
There was no doubt what this meant.
Footnote 624:
_Ibid._, p. 228, and vol. IV, pt. i, p. 47.
There was, moreover, additional trouble in store for the distracted
settlements. William Coddington, one of the original settlers at
Aquidneck, had treacherously gone to England, and there procured a
commission appointing him Governor of Rhode Island, his territory thus
including the two towns of Portsmouth and Newport.[625] This would have
disrupted the union, and have left the mainland towns a prey to
Massachusetts. The four towns, being now at last closely united in aim
by the common danger, sent Williams and Clarke to England, to protest
against Coddington's action; and, largely through the influence of
Williams's friendship with Vane, they were entirely successful.
Coddington's commission was withdrawn; Williams obtained a safe conduct
through Massachusetts, and brought a letter from Vane urging the
colonists to unite peaceably and to avoid tumult and disorder.[626] In
1654, the towns reunited by formal action, and two years later,
Coddington submitted to the authorities.[627] In 1658, Massachusetts at
last resigned her pretensions,[628] while, to guard against any such
troubles in future as had been brought about by that colony's faction in
Patuxet, Rhode Island passed a law, somewhat later, that, if any citizen
should attempt to place his lands under the jurisdiction of another
colony, they should be forfeited.[629]
Footnote 625:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 354.
Footnote 626:
I. Backus, _History of New England with particular Reference to the
Denomination of Christians called Baptists_ (1871), vol. I, pp. 223,
232; Hazard, _Historical Collection_, vol. I, p. 495.
Footnote 627:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 278 _ff._, 327.
Footnote 628:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 333.
Footnote 629:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 401.
The government, however, was by no means through with Massachusetts, nor
with its other neighbor, Connecticut, both of whom were soon to lay
claim to the soil in another direction. The Pawcatuck River, which is
the present western boundary of the state, had also been the dividing
line between the Narragansetts on the east and the Pequots on the west;
and after the destruction of the latter, both Connecticut and
Massachusetts had claimed the Pequot country by right of conquest. In
spite of attempts to divide the spoil between them, the dispute dragged
along, with clashings of interests and of jurisdiction.[630]
Massachusetts, however, not content with claiming a large part of the
country west of the Pawcatuck as a reward for her share in the war, was
also constantly endeavoring to establish her claims to the rich tract
lying between the east bank of that river and Narragansett Bay, known as
the Narragansett country. In spite of her defeat in the Gorton episode,
she continued her efforts, and in 1659, a year after Southertown, the
present Stonington, had been declared by the Massachusetts Court to be a
part of Suffolk County in that colony,[631] the Atherton Company was
formed, mainly by Massachusetts land-speculators, to secure title to the
Narragansett lands.[632] A grant was obtained by the company from one of
the sachems, and, in the following year, four others, in order to meet a
fine which had been imposed upon them by the United Colonies, executed a
mortgage deed of the entire Narragansett country to the Atherton
Company, except such parts as might have already been granted, the
Indians having six months in which to redeem the pledged lands, which,
of course, they failed to do.[633]
Footnote 630:
_Acts United Colonies_, vols. I, pp. 19, 79, 97, and II, pp. 209, 228;
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 451 _ff._, 457; _Conn. Col. Records_,
vol. I, pp. 570 _ff._; Bowen, _Boundary Disputes of Connecticut_, pp.
31 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vols. II, p. 160, and IV, pt. i, p.
315.
Footnote 631:
_Ibid._, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 353.
Footnote 632:
The members included Gov. Winthrop of Connecticut, and Richard Smith;
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 464.
Footnote 633:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 248; _R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp.
465 _f._
Massachusetts herself had no valid claim to any of the territory, to
which, on the other hand, Rhode Island was justly entitled under her
charter, which had named the “Pequot River and Country” as the western
boundary.[634] In October, 1661, a clash occurred between Rhode Island
citizens claiming lands at Stonington and the Massachusetts authorities,
three Rhode Islanders being carried off to Boston, and imprisoned.[635]
The Rhode Island government protested, and denied the pretensions of
Massachusetts to the disputed territories, and herself claimed
jurisdiction over the lands owned by the Atherton Company.
Massachusetts, some months later, renewed the old fiction of her
Narragansett patent, and asserted, what she must have known to be false,
that under it she had a valid title to “all that tract of land, from
Pequot River to Plymouth line,” and ordered the Rhode Island authorities
to desist from exercising any government within their limits.[636]
Footnote 634:
As we have already noted, the bounds were vaguely stated, but this
western one was clear enough; _Ibid._, p. 144.
Footnote 635:
_Ibid._, pp. 455 _f._
Footnote 636:
_Ibid._, pp. 469 _ff._, 461.
The troubles between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, between
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and between Connecticut and Rhode Island,
were thus rapidly approaching the point at which a general intercolonial
war might easily have resulted in the annihilation of the smallest
colony, and a possible quarrel over the spoils by the two victors,
already bitterly quarreling over the spoils of a war of twenty years
earlier. The disgraceful spectacle of two colonies, planted in the
wilderness ostensibly for the glory of God, and still pretending to be
guided by his laws, annihilating a weaker neighbor in order to annex her
harbors and rich lands, was fortunately prevented by the reassertion of
imperial control by England.
Meanwhile, the little Rhode Island commonwealth had established its
internal affairs upon a firm and orderly basis, and in spite of the dire
forebodings, and every possible impediment thrown in his way by
Massachusetts, Williams had finally succeeded in his effort to prove
that civil and religious liberty was not incompatible with a
well-ordered state. Against all her enemies, without and within, the
colony had won her way to intellectual freedom, and had advanced along
the path in which it has been the glory of the nation to follow, while
the restoration of the monarchy in England intervened to save her from
further molestation from her powerful Puritan neighbors, and enabled her
to pursue her chosen ways in peace.