Volume I Part 11 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: First Church in Salem.]
So early as 1631 this colony decreed to admit none as freemen who were not also church members. Thus Church and State were made one, the government a theocracy. The Ma.s.sachusetts settlers, though in many things less extreme than the Pilgrims, were decided Puritans, sincere but formal, precise, narrow, and very superst.i.tious. They did not, however, on coming hither, affect or wish to separate from the Church of England, earnestly as they deprecated retaining the sign of the cross in baptism, the surplice, marriage with ring, and kneeling at communion.
Yet soon they in effect became Separatists as well as Puritans, building independent churches, like those at Plymouth, and repudiating episcopacy utterly.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Seal of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Company.]
[1635]
Much as these Puritans professed and tried to exalt reason in certain matters, in civil and religious affairs, where they took the Old Testament as affording literal and minute directions for all sorts of human actions for all time, they could allow little liberty of opinion.
This was apparent when into this theocratic state came Roger Williams, afterward the founder of Rhode Island. Born in London, England, about 1607, of good family, he was placed by his patron, c.o.ke, at the Charter House School. From there he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1631 he arrived in Boston. Somewhat finical in his political, moral, and religious ideas, he found it impossible, having separated from the Church of England, in which he had been reared, to harmonize here with those still favoring that communion. At Salem he was invited by a little company of Separatists to become their teacher. His views soon offended the authorities. He declared that the king's patent could confer no t.i.tle to lands possessed by Indians. He denied the right of magistrates to punish heresy, or to enforce attendance upon religious services. ”The magistrate's power,” he said, ”extends only to the bodies, goods, and outward state of men.”
Alarmed at his bold utterances, the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts, September 2, 1635, decreed his banishment for ”new and dangerous opinions, against the authority of magistrates.” His fate was not, therefore, merely because of his religious views. The exile sought refuge at Seekonk, but this being within the Plymouth jurisdiction, he, on Governor Winslow's admonition, moved farther into the wilderness, settling at Providence. He purchased land of the natives, and, joined by others, set up a pure democracy, inst.i.tuting as a part thereof the ”lively experiment,” for which ages had waited, of perfect liberty in matters of religious belief. Not for the first time in history, but more clearly, earnestly, and consistently than it had ever been done before, he maintained for every man the right of absolute freedom in matters of conscience, for all forms of faith equal toleration.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Roger Williams' House at Salem.]
[1638]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Edward Winslow.]
Some friends of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson established a colony on Aquidneck, the Indian name for Rhode Island. Williams went to England and secured from Parliament a patent which united that plantation with his in one government. Charles II.'s charter of 1663 added Warwick to the first two settlements, renewing and enlarging the patent, and giving freest scope for government according to Williams' ideas. Mrs. Hutchinson, a woman of rare intellect and eloquence, who maintained the right of private judgment and pretended to an infallible inner light of revelation, was, like Williams, a victim of Puritan intolerance. She and her followers were banished, and some of them, returning, put to death, 1659-60. She came to Providence, then went to Aquidneck, where her husband died in 1642. She next settled near Hurl Gate, within the Dutch limits, where herself and almost her entire family were butchered by the Indians in 1643.
In 1633 the Dutch erected a fort where Hartford now is, but some English emigrants from Plymouth Colony, in defiance of a threatened cannonade, sailed past and built a trading-house at Windsor, where, joined by colonists, from about Boston, they soon effected a settlement.
Wethersfield and Hartford were presently founded. In 1630 the Plymouth Company had granted Connecticut to the Earl of Warwick, who turned it over to Lord Brooke, Lord Say-and-Seal, and others. Winthrop the Younger, son of Governor Winthrop, of Ma.s.sachusetts, commissioned by these last, built a fort at Saybrook. Till the expiration of his commission the towns immediately upon the Connecticut were under the government of Ma.s.sachusetts. Their population in 1643 was three thousand. A convention of these towns met at Hartford, January 14, 1639, and formed a const.i.tution, like that of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, thoroughly republican in nature. Connecticut breathed a freer spirit than either Ma.s.sachusetts or New Haven, being in this respect the peer of Plymouth.
At Hartford Roger Williams was always welcome.
Meantime, in 1638, having touched at Boston the year before, Davenport, Eaton, and others from London began planting at New Haven. The Bible was adopted as their guide in both civil and religious affairs, and a government organized in which only church members could vote or be elected to the General Court. The colony flourished, branching out into several towns. In 1643 it numbered twenty five hundred inhabitants.
As early as 1622, Mason and Gorges were granted land partly in what is now Maine, partly in what is now New Hamps.h.i.+re; and in 1623 Dover and Portsmouth were settled. Wheelwright, a brother-in-law of Mrs.
Hutchinson, with others, purchased of the natives the southeast part of New Hamps.h.i.+re, between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, and in 1638 Exeter was founded. In the same year with Wheelwright's purchase, Mason obtained from the council of the Plymouth Company a patent to this same section, and the tract was called New Hamps.h.i.+re. These conflicting claims paved the way for future controversies and lawsuits. The settlers here were not Puritans, nor were they obliged to be church members in order to be deputies or freemen.
The settlement of Maine goes back to 1626, when the Plymouth Company granted lands there both to Alexander and to Gorges. In 1639 Gorges secured a royal charter to re-enforce his claim. Large freedom, civil and religious, was allowed. For many years the Maine settlements were small and scattered, made up mostly of such as came to hunt and fish for a season only.
[1650]
From 1643 to 1684 Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed a confederation under the style of the United Colonies of New England. Maine, Providence, and Rhode Island sought members.h.i.+p, but were refused as being civilly and religiously out of harmony with the colonies named. Connecticut, offensive to the Dutch, and exposed to hostilities from them, was the most earnest for the union, while at the same time the most conservative as to its form. It was a loose league, leaving each colony independent save as to war and peace, Indian affairs, alliances and boundaries. Questions pertaining to these were to be settled by a commission of two delegates from each of the four colonies, meeting yearly, voting man by man, six out of the eight votes being necessary to bind.
The confederacy settled a boundary dispute between New Haven and New Netherland in 1650. It received and disbursed moneys, amounting some years to 600 pounds, for the propagation of the gospel in New England, sent over by the society which Parliament incorporated for that purpose in 1649. It was also of more or less service in securing united action against the savages in Philip's War. The union was, however, of little immediate service, useful rather as an example for the far future. Its failure was due partly to the distance of the colonies apart, and to the strength of the instinct for local self-government, a distinguis.h.i.+ng political trait of New England till our day. Its main weakness, however, was the overbearing power and manner of Ma.s.sachusetts, especially after her a.s.sumption of Maine in 1652. In 1653 the Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut commissioners earnestly wished war with New Netherland, but Ma.s.sachusetts proudly forbade--a plain violation of the articles. After this there was not much heart in the alliance. The last meeting of the commissioners occurred at Hartford, September 5, 1684.
CHAPTER VI.
BALTIMORE AND HIS MARYLAND
[1630]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Maryland s.h.i.+lling.]
The very year that witnessed the landing of the Pilgrims records the beginning of another attempt to colonize the New World. While Secretary of State, having been appointed in 1619, Sir George Calvert, a member of the Virginia Company from 1609 until its dissolution in 1624, determined to plant a colony for himself. In the memorable year 1620 he bought of Lord Vaughan the patent to the south-eastern peninsula of Newfoundland, the next he sent colonists thither with a generous supply of money for their support. In 1623 King James gave him a patent, making him proprietary of this region. In 1625 Calvert boldly declared himself a Catholic, and resigned his office of Secretary. Spite of this he was soon afterwards enn.o.bled, and his new t.i.tle of Lord Baltimore is the name by which he is best known. Visiting his little settlement in 1627 he quickly came to the conclusion that the severity of the climate would make its failure certain. He therefore gave up this enterprise, but determined to repeat the attempt on the more favorable soil of Virginia.
Confident of the goodwill of Charles I., to whom he had written for a grant of land there, he did not await a reply, but sailed for Virginia, where he arrived in 1629. In 1632 the king issued a patent granting to Baltimore and his heirs a territory north and east of the Potomac, comprising what we now call Maryland, all Delaware, and a part of Pennsylvania. The name Maryland was given it by the king in, honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria. But before this charter had received royal signature Lord Baltimore had breathed his last, and his son Cecil succeeded to his honors and possessions.