Book: The Beginnings of New England

J >> John Fiske >> The Beginnings of New England




During the whole period of the Confederacy, however, disputes kept
coming up which through endless crooked ramifications were apt to end
in an appeal to the home government, and thus raise again and again the
question as to the extent of its imperial supremacy. For our present
purpose, it is enough to mention three of these cases: 1, the adventures
of Samuel Gorton; 2, the Presbyterian cabal; 3, the persecution of the
Quakers. Other cases in point are those of John Clarke and the Baptists,
and the relations of Massachusetts to the northeastern settlements; but
as it is not my purpose here to make a complete outline of New England
history, the three cases enumerated will suffice.

The first case shows, in a curious and instructive way, how religious
dissensions were apt to be complicated with threats of an Indian war on
the one hand and peril from Great Britain on the other; and as we come
to realize the triple danger, we can perhaps make some allowances for
the high-handed measures with which the Puritan governments sometimes
sought to avert it. [Genesis of the persecuting spirit]

As I have elsewhere tried to show, the genesis of the persecuting spirit
is to be found in the conditions of primitive society, where "above
all things the prime social and political necessity is social cohesion
within the tribal limits, for unless such social cohesion be maintained,
the very existence of the tribe is likely to be extinguished in
bloodshed." The persecuting spirit "began to pass away after men
had become organized into great nations, covering a vast extent of
territory, and secured by their concentrated military strength against
the gravest dangers of barbaric attack." [13]

Now as regards these considerations, the Puritan communities in the
New England wilderness were to some slight extent influenced by such
conditions as used to prevail in primitive society; and this will help
us to understand the treatment of the Antinomians and such cases as that
with which we have now to deal.

Among the supporters of Mrs. Hutchinson, after her arrival at Aquedneck,
was a sincere and courageous, but incoherent and crotchetty man named
Samuel Gorton. [Sidenote: Samuel Gorton]

In the denunciatory language of that day he was called a "proud and
pestilent seducer," or, as the modern newspaper would say, a "crank." It
is well to make due allowances for the prejudice so conspicuous in the
accounts given by his enemies, who felt obliged to justify their harsh
treatment of him. But we have also his own writings from which to form
an opinion as to his character and views. Lucidity, indeed, was not one
of his strong points as a writer, and the drift of his argument is not
always easy to decipher; but he seems to have had some points of contact
with the Familists, a sect established in the sixteenth century in
Holland. The Familists held that the essence of religion consists not
in adherence to any particular creed or ritual, but in cherishing the
spirit of divine love. The general adoption of this point of view was to
inaugurate a third dispensation, superior to those of Moses and Christ,
the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. The value of the Bible lay not so
much in the literal truth of its texts as in their spiritual import;
and by the union of believers with Christ they came to share in the
ineffable perfection of the Godhead. There is much that is modern and
enlightened in such views, which Gorton seems to some extent to have
shared. He certainly set little store by ritual observances and
maintained the equal right of laymen with clergymen to preach the
gospel. Himself a London clothier, and thanking God that he had not been
brought up in "the schools of human learning," he set up as a preacher
without ordination, and styled himself "professor of the mysteries of
Christ." He seems to have cherished that doctrine of private inspiration
which the Puritans especially abhorred. It is not likely that he had any
distinct comprehension of his own views, for distinctness was just what
they lacked. [14] But they were such as in the seventeenth century could
not fail to arouse fierce antagonism, and if it was true that wherever
there was a government Gorton was against it, perhaps that only shows
that wherever there was a government it was sure to be against him.

In the case of such men as Gorton, however,--and the type is by no
means an uncommon one,--their temperament usually has much more to do
with getting them into trouble than their opinions. Gorton's temperament
was such as to keep him always in an atmosphere of strife. Other
heresiarchs suffered persecution in Massachusetts, but Gorton was in hot
water everywhere. His arrival in any community was the signal for an
immediate disturbance of the peace. His troubles began in Plymouth,
where the wife of the pastor preferred his teachings to those of her
husband. In 1638 he fled to Aquedneck, where his first achievement was a
schism among Mrs. Hutchinson's followers, which ended in some staying to
found the town of Portsmouth while others went away to found Newport.
Presently Portsmouth found him intolerable, flogged and banished him,
and after his departure was able to make up its quarrel with Newport.
He next made his way with a few followers to Pawtuxet, within the
jurisdiction of Providence, and now it is the broad-minded and gentle
Roger Williams who complains of his "bewitching and madding poor
Providence." The question is here suggested what could it have been
in Gorton's teaching that enabled him thus to "bewitch" these little
communities? We may be sure that it could not have been the element of
modern liberalism suggested in the Familistic doctrines above cited.
That was the feature then least likely to appeal to the minds of common
people, and most likely to appeal to Williams. More probably such
success as Gorton had in winning followers was due to some of the
mystical rubbish which abounds in his pages and finds in a modern mind
no doorway through which to enter. [Sidenote: He flees to Aquedneck and
is banished thence]

Williams disapproved of Gorton, but was true to his principles of
toleration and would not take part in any attempt to silence him. But in
1641 we find thirteen leading citizens of Providence, headed by William
Arnold, [15] sending a memorial to Boston, asking for assistance and
counsel in regard to this disturber of the peace. How was Massachusetts
to treat such an appeal? She could not presume to meddle with the affair
unless she could have permanent jurisdiction over Pawtuxet; otherwise
she was a mere intruder. How strong a side-light does this little
incident throw upon the history of the Roman republic, and of all
relatively strong communities when confronted with the problem of
preserving order in neighbouring states that are too weak to preserve it
for themselves! Arnold's argument, in his appeal to Massachusetts, was
precisely the same as that by which the latter colony excused herself
for banishing the Antinomians. He simply says that Gorton and his
company "are not fit persons to be received, and made members of a body
in so weak a state as our town is in at present;" and he adds, "There is
no state but in the first place will seek to preserve its own safety and
peace." Whatever might be the abstract merits of Gorton's opinions, his
conduct was politically dangerous; and accordingly the jurisdiction over
Pawtuxet was formally conceded to Massachusetts. Thereupon that colony,
assuming jurisdiction, summoned Gorton and his men to Boston, to prove
their title to the lands they occupied. They of course regarded the
summons as a flagrant usurpation of authority, and instead of obeying
it they withdrew to Shawomet, on the western shore of Narragansett bay,
where they bought a tract of land from the principal sachem of the
Narragansetts, Miantonomo. The immediate rule over this land belonged to
two inferior chiefs, who ratified the sale at the time, but six months
afterward disavowed the ratification, on the ground that it had been
given under duress from their overlord Miantonomo. Here was a state
of things which might easily bring on an Indian war. The two chiefs
appealed to Massachusetts for protection, and were accordingly summoned,
along with Miantonomo, to a hearing at Boston. Here we see how a kind of
English protectorate over the native tribes had begun to grow up so soon
after the destruction of the Pequots. Such a result was inevitable.
After hearing the arguments, the legislature decided to defend the two
chiefs, provided they would put themselves under the jurisdiction of
Massachusetts. This was done, while further complaints against Gorton
came from the citizens of Providence. Gorton and his men were now
peremptorily summoned to Boston to show cause why they should not
surrender their land at Shawomet and to answer the charges against them.
On receiving from Gorton a defiant reply, couched in terms which some
thought blasphemous, the government of Massachusetts prepared to use
force. [Sidenote: Providence protests against him] [Sidenote: He flees
to Shawomet, where he buys land of the Indians]

Meanwhile the unfortunate Miantonomo had rushed upon his doom. The
annihilation of the Pequots had left the Mohegans and Narragansetts
contending for the foremost place among the native tribes. Between the
rival sachems, Uncas and Miantonomo, the hatred was deep and deadly.
As soon as the Mohegan perceived that trouble was brewing between
Miantonomo and the government at Boston, he improved the occasion by
gathering a few Narragansett scalps. Miantonomo now took the war-path
and was totally defeated by Uncas in a battle on the Great Plain in the
present township of Norwich. Encumbered with a coat of mail which his
friend Gorton had given him, Miantonomo was overtaken and captured. By
ordinary Indian usage he would have been put to death with fiendish
torments, as soon as due preparations could be made and a fit company
assembled to gloat over his agony; but Gorton sent a messenger to Uncas,
threatening dire vengeance if harm were done to his ally. This message
puzzled the Mohegan chief. The appearance of a schism in the English
counsels was more than he could quite fathom. When the affair had
somewhat more fully developed itself, some of the Indians spoke of
the white men as divided into two rival tribes, the Gortonoges and
Wattaconoges. [16] Roger Williams tells us that the latter term, applied
to the men of Boston, meant coat-wearers. Whether it is to be inferred
that the Gortonoges went about in what in modern parlance would be
called their "shirt-sleeves," the reader must decide. [Sidenote:
Miantonomo and Uncas]

In his perplexity Uncas took his prisoner to Hartford, and afterward,
upon the advice of the governor and council, sent him to Boston, that
his fate might be determined by the Federal Commissioners who were
there holding their first regular meeting. It was now the turn of the
commissioners to be perplexed. According to English law there was no
good reason for putting Miantonomo to death. The question was whether
they should interfere with the Indian custom by which his life was
already forfeit to his captor. The magistrates already suspected the
Narragansetts of cherishing hostile designs. To set their sachem at
liberty, especially while the Gorton affair remained unsettled, might be
dangerous; and it would be likely to alienate Uncas from the English. In
their embarrassment the commissioners sought spiritual guidance. A synod
of forty or fifty clergymen, from all parts of New England, was in
session at Boston, and the question was referred to a committee of five
of their number. The decision was prompt that Miantonomo must die. He
was sent back to Hartford to be slain by Uncas, but two messengers
accompanied him, to see that no tortures were inflicted. A select band
of Mohegan warriors journeyed through the forest with the prisoner and
the two Englishmen, until they came to the plain where the battle had
been fought. Then at a signal from Uncas, the warrior walking behind
Miantonomo silently lifted his tomahawk and sank it into the brain of
the victim who fell dead without a groan. Uncas cut a warm slice from
the shoulder and greedily devoured it, declaring that the flesh of
his enemy was the sweetest of meat and gave strength to his heart.
Miantonomo was buried there on the scene of his defeat, which has ever
since been known as the Sachem's Plain. This was in September, 1643, and
for years afterward, in that month, parties of Narragansetts used to
visit the spot and with frantic gestures and hideous yells lament their
fallen leader. A heap of stones was raised over the grave, and no
Narragansett came near it without adding to the pile. After many a
summer had passed and the red men had disappeared from the land, a
Yankee farmer, with whom thrift prevailed over sentiment, cleared away
the mound and used the stones for the foundation of his new barn. [17]
[Sidenote: Death of Miantonomo]

One cannot regard this affair as altogether creditable to the Federal
Commissioners and their clerical advisers. One of the clearest-headed
and most impartial students of our history observes that "if the English
were to meddle in the matter at all, it was their clear duty to enforce
as far as might be the principles recognized by civilized men. When they
accepted the appeal made by Uncas they shifted the responsibility from
the Mohegan chief to themselves." [18] The decision was doubtless based
purely upon grounds of policy. Miantonomo was put out of the way because
he was believed to be dangerous. In the thirst for revenge that was
aroused among the Narragansetts there was an alternative source of
danger, to which I shall hereafter refer. [19] It is difficult now to
decide, as a mere question of safe policy, what the English ought to
have done. The chance of being dragged into an Indian war, through the
feud between Narragansetts and Mohegans, was always imminent. The policy
which condemned Miantonomo was one of timidity, and fear is merciless.

The Federal Commissioners heartily approved the conduct of Massachusetts
toward Gorton, and adopted it in the name of the United Colonies. After
a formal warning, which passed unheeded, a company of forty men, under
Edward Johnson of Woburn and two other officers, was sent to Shawomet.
Some worthy citizens of Providence essayed to play the part of
mediators, and after some parley the Gortonites offered to submit to
arbitration. The proposal was conveyed to Boston, and the clergy were
again consulted. They declared it beneath the dignity of Massachusetts
to negotiate "with a few fugitives living without law or government,"
and they would no more compound with Gorton's "blasphemous revilings"
than they would bargain with the Evil One. The community must be
"purged" of such wickedness, either by repentance or by punishment. The
ministers felt that God would hold the community responsible for Gorton
and visit calamities upon them unless he were silenced. [20] The
arbitration was refused, Gorton's blockhouse was besieged and captured,
and the agitator was carried with nine of his followers to Boston, where
they were speedily convicted of heresy and sedition. Before passing
judgment the General Court as usual consulted with the clergy who
recommended a sentence of death. Their advice was adopted by the
assistants, but the deputies were more merciful, and the heretics
were sentenced to imprisonment at the pleasure of the court. In this
difference between the assistants and the deputies, we observe an early
symptom of that popular revolt against the ascendancy of the clergy
which was by and by to become so much more conspicuous and effective
in the affair of the Quakers. Another symptom might be seen in the
circumstance that so much sympathy was expressed for the Gortonites,
especially by women, that after some months of imprisonment and abuse
the heretics were banished under penalty of death. [Sidenote: Trial and
sentence of the heretics]

Gorton now went to England and laid his tale of woe before the
parliamentary Board of Commissioners. The Earl of Warwick behaved with
moderation. He declined to commit himself to an opinion as to the
merits of the quarrel, but Gorton's title to Shawomet was confirmed. He
returned to Boston with an order to the government to allow him to pass
unmolested through Massachusetts, and hereafter to protect him in
the possession of Shawomet. If this little commonwealth of 15,000
inhabitants had been a nation as powerful as France, she could not have
treated the message more haughtily. By a majority of one vote it was
decided not to refuse so trifling a favour as a passage through the
country for just this once; but as for protecting the new town of
Warwick which the Gortonites proceeded to found at Shawomet, although it
was several times threatened by the Indians, and the settlers appealed
to the parliamentary order, that order Massachusetts flatly and doggedly
refused to obey. [21] [Sidenote: Gorton appeals to Parliament]

In the discussions of which these years were so full, "King Winthrop,"
as his enemy Morton called him, used some very significant language. By
a curious legal fiction of the Massachusetts charter the colonists were
supposed to hold their land as in the manor of East Greenwich near
London, and it was argued that they were represented in Parliament by
the members of the county or borough which contained that manor, and
were accordingly subject to the jurisdiction of Parliament. It was
further argued that since the king had no absolute sovereignty
independent of Parliament he could not by charter impart any such
independent sovereignty to others. Winthrop did not dispute these
points, but observed that the safety of the commonwealth was the supreme
law, and if in the interests of that safety it should be found necessary
to renounce the authority of Parliament, the colonists would be
justified in doing so. [Sidenote: Winthrop's prophetic opinion] [22]
This was essentially the same doctrine as was set forth ninety-nine
years later by young Samuel Adams in his Commencement Oration at
Harvard.

The case of the Presbyterian cabal admits of briefer treatment than that
of Gorton. There had now come to be many persons in Massachusetts who
disapproved of the provision which restricted the suffrage to members of
the Independent or Congregational churches of New England, and in 1646
the views of these people were presented in a petition to the General
Court. The petitioners asked "that their civil disabilities might be
removed, and that all members of the churches of England and Scotland
might be admitted to communion with the New England churches. If this
could not be granted they prayed to be released from all civil burdens.
Should the court refuse to entertain their complaint, they would be
obliged to bring their case before Parliament." [23] The leading signers
of this menacing petition were William Vassall, Samuel Maverick, and The
Presbyterian cabal. Dr. Robert Child. Maverick we have already met. From
the day when the ships of the first Puritan settlers had sailed past
his log fortress on Noddle's Island, he had been their enemy; "a man of
loving and curteous behaviour," says Johnson, "very ready to entertaine
strangers, yet an enemy to the reformation in hand, being strong for the
lordly prelatical power." Vassall was not a denizen of Massachusetts,
but lived in Scituate, in the colony of Plymouth, where there were no
such restrictions upon the suffrage. Child was a learned physician who
after a good deal of roaming about the world had lately taken it into
his head to come and see what sort of a place Massachusetts was.
Although these names were therefore not such as to lend weight to such a
petition, their request would seem at first sight reasonable enough.
At a superficial glance it seems conceived in a modern spirit of
liberalism. In reality it was nothing of the sort. In England it was
just the critical moment of the struggle between Presbyterians and
Independents which had come in to complicate the issues of the great
civil war. Vassall, Child, and Maverick seem to have been the leading
spirits in a cabal for the establishment of Presbyterianism in New
England, and in their petition they simply took advantage of the
discontent of the disfranchised citizens in Massachusetts in order
to put in an entering wedge. This was thoroughly understood by the
legislature of Massachusetts, and accordingly the petition was dismissed
and the petitioners were roundly fined. Just as Child was about to start
for England with his grievances, the magistrates overhauled his papers
and discovered a petition to the parliamentary Board of Commissioners,
suggesting that Presbyterianism should be established in New England,
and that a viceroy or governor-general should be appointed to rule
there. To the men of Massachusetts this last suggestion was a crowning
horror. It seemed scarcely less than treason. The signers of this
petition were the same who had signed the petition to the General Court.
They were now fined still more heavily and imprisoned for six months.
By and by they found their way, one after another, to London, while the
colonists sent Edward Winslow, of Plymouth, as an advocate to thwart
their schemes. Winslow was assailed by Child's brother in a spicy
pamphlet entitled "New England's Jonas cast up at London," and replied
after the same sort, entitling his pamphlet "New England's Salamander
discovered." The cabal accomplished nothing because of the decisive
defeat of Presbyterianism in England. "Pride's Purge" settled all that.
The petition of Vassall and his friends was the occasion for the
meeting of a synod of churches at Cambridge, in order to complete the
organization of Congregationalism. In 1648 the work of the synod was
embodied in the famous Cambridge Platform, which adopted the Westminster
Confession as its creed, carefully defined the powers of the clergy, and
declared it to be the duty of magistrates to suppress heresy. In 1649
the General Court laid this platform before the congregations; in
1651 it was adopted; and this event may be regarded as completing the
theocratic organization of the Puritan commonwealth in Massachusetts.
[Sidenote: The Cambridge Platform; deaths of Winthrop and Cotton]

It was immediately preceded and followed by the deaths of the two
foremost men in that commonwealth. John Winthrop died in 1649 and John
Cotton in 1652. Both were men of extraordinary power. Of Winthrop it is
enough to say that under his skilful guidance Massachusetts had been
able to pursue the daring policy which had characterized the first
twenty years of her history, and which in weaker hands would almost
surely have ended in disaster. Of Cotton it may be said that he was the
most eminent among a group of clergymen who for learning and dialectical
skill have seldom been surpassed. Neither Winthrop nor Cotton approved
of toleration upon principle. Cotton, in his elaborate controversy
with Roger Williams, frankly asserted that persecution is not wrong in
itself; it is wicked for falsehood to persecute truth, but it is the
sacred duty of truth to persecute falsehood. This was the theologian's
view. Winthrop's was that of a man of affairs. They had come to New
England, he said, in order to make a society after their own model;
all who agreed with them might come and join that society; those who
disagreed with them might go elsewhere; there was room enough on the
American continent. But while neither Winthrop nor Cotton understood the
principle of religious liberty, at the same time neither of them had the
temperament which persecutes. Both were men of genial disposition, sound
common-sense, and exquisite tact. Under their guidance no such
tragedy would have been possible as that which was about to leave its
ineffaceable stain upon the annals of Massachusetts.

It was most unfortunate that at this moment the places of these two men
should have been taken by two as arrant fanatics as ever drew breath.
For thirteen out of the fifteen years following Winthrop's death, the
governor of Massachusetts was John Endicott, a sturdy pioneer, whose
services to the colony had been great. He was honest and conscientious,
but passionate, domineering, and very deficient in tact. At the same
time Cotton's successor in position and influence was John Norton, a man
of pungent wit, unyielding temper, and melancholy mood. He was possessed
by a morbid fear of Satan, whose hirelings he thought were walking
up and down over the earth in the visible semblance of heretics and
schismatics. Under such leaders the bigotry latent in the Puritan
commonwealth might easily break out in acts of deadly persecution.
[Sidenote: Endicott and Norton take the lead] [Sidenote: The Quakers and
their views]

The occasion was not long in coming. Already the preaching of George Fox
had borne fruit, and the noble sect of Quakers was an object of scorn
and loathing to all such as had not gone so far as they toward learning
the true lesson of Protestantism. Of all Protestant sects the Quakers
went furthest in stripping off from Christianity its non-essential
features of doctrine and ceremonial. Their ideal was not a theocracy
but a separation between church and state. They would abolish all
distinction between clergy and laity, and could not be coaxed or bullied
into paying tithes. They also refused to render military service, or
to take the oath of allegiance. In these ways they came at once into
antagonism both with church and with state. In doctrine their chief
peculiarity was the assertion of an "Inward Light" by which every
individual is to be guided in his conduct of life. They did not believe
that men ceased to be divinely inspired when the apostolic ages came
to an end, but held that at all times and places the human soul may be
enlightened by direct communion with its Heavenly Father. Such views
involved the most absolute assertion of the right of private judgment;
and when it is added that in the exercise of this right many Quakers
were found to reject the dogmas of original sin and the resurrection of
the body, to doubt the efficacy of baptism, and to call in question the
propriety of Christians turning the Lord's Day into a Jewish Sabbath, we
see that they had in some respects gone far on the road toward modern
rationalism. It was not to be expected that such opinions should
be treated by the Puritans in any other spirit than one of extreme
abhorrence and dread. The doctrine of the "Inward Light," or of private
inspiration, was something especially hateful to the Puritan. To the
modern rationalist, looking at things in the dry light of history,
it may seem that this doctrine was only the Puritan's own appeal to
individual judgment, stated in different form; but the Puritan could not
so regard it. To such a fanatic as Norton this inward light was but
a reflection from the glare of the bottomless pit, this private
inspiration was the beguiling voice of the Devil. As it led the Quakers
to strange and novel conclusions, this inward light seemed to array
itself in hostility to that final court of appeal for all good
Protestants, the sacred text of the Bible. The Quakers were accordingly
regarded as infidels who sought to deprive Protestantism of its only
firm support. They were wrongly accused of blasphemy in their treatment
of the Scriptures. Cotton Mather says that the Quakers were in the habit
of alluding to the Bible as the Word of the Devil. Such charges, from
passionate and uncritical enemies, are worthless except as they serve to
explain the bitter prejudice with which the Quakers were regarded. They
remind one of the silly accusation brought against Wyclif two centuries
earlier, that he taught his disciples that God ought to obey the Devil;
[24] and they are not altogether unlike the assumptions of some modern
theologians who take it for granted that any writer who accepts the
Darwinian theory must be a materialist. [Sidenote: Endicott and Norton
take the lead] [Sidenote: The Quakers and their views]

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.