USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume I > Part 12
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An extra session of the United Colonies of New England was called to meet at Boston in July 1647, to take action against the Narragansetts for violating their treaty; at which Captain John Mason was one of the Commissioners from Connecticut in place of John Haynes. It was voted that the regular meeting day of the convention should be abandoned; that while sessions must be held annually, it was
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left to the Congress to designate the time for holding ses- sions; and six Commissioners were to constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.
Connecticut had levied a duty of twopence on each bushel of corn, and twenty shillings on each hogshead of beaver skins, that were exported down the Connecticut River, for the maintenance of the fort at Saybrook. Springfield had re- fused to pay the import, and she brought it before the Com- missioners for adjustment. A committee appointed at a pre- ceding session had reported against Connecticut's claim; but, her case being ably defended by one of her Commissioners, Edward Hopkins, it was decided by the concurrent vote of the representatives from New Haven and Plymouth, that she had a legal right to collect this revenue.
The majority of the settlers of New London, represented by John Winthrop, Jr., stated that they were dissatisfied with the government of Connecticut, and wished to be placed un- der the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The Commissioners decided that as Connecticut had purchased the original pat- ent to the territory, the desire of the settlers of New Lon- don could not be granted. Winthrop also complained of Uncas' depredations among the Indians, and claimed a large tract of land that had been deeded and presented to him by the Indians before the Pequot war. Winthrop produced no written instrument to substantiate his claim, but submitted the testimony of Indians. Connecticut ably defended her rights; and after deliberation, the Commissioners decided that they had no grounds or power to determine the title in question.
At the session held at New Plymouth in August 1648, Connecticut was represented by Edward Hopkins and Roger Ludlow, and New Haven by Theophilus Eaton and John
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Astwood. The outrages perpetrated by the Dutch, and troubles with the Indians, were the important topics of the session. Amendments to the original articles of confedera- tion were submitted by the Commissioners from Massachu- setts, who were authorized by their General Court. The most important of these were, that in the event of a resolution not receiving the vote of six Commissioners, it could be refer- red to the General Courts, and if adopted by three of these bodies, it was to become a law. Triennial sessions of the United Colonies of New England were advocated. An amendment was offered so that the articles pertaining to unity in case of war were not binding, if pestilence or famine should devastate any one of the colonies. The equal repre- sentation which constituted the Congress was not satisfactory to Massachusetts; she claimed that the fact that her size and importance, and the large excess of her contributions to the general fund over those of the other members of the confed- eration, entitled her to three representatives; she did how- ever make the proviso, that any other colony willing to sus- tain an equal amount of the expenses should be entitled to the same number of Commissioners. Springfield again appeared as an objector to the payment of the impost; but the Com- missioners decided that Connecticut had a legal as well as a moral right to collect the tax.
In July 1649 the United Colonies of New England met at Boston. The Commissioners from the Connecticut colonies were the same as at the last session, with the exception of Thomas Welles in the place of Roger Ludlow. The selling of ammunition by the Dutch and French to the Indians was condemned, and the inhabitants of the colonies were empow- ered to confiscate the merchandise and arrest the offenders. Springfield refused to obey the mandates of the Commission-
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ers, and had appealed to the General Court of Massachusetts for redress. The legislature had denied the right of Connec- ticut to impose the tax, as Springfield had no representation in her General Court; and her Commissioners demanded the production of the Warwick patent to establish the boundary lines between the two jurisdictions. In retaliation, Massa- chusetts had imposed a tax on all imports from her sister colonies, and had decreed that if the customs were not paid the merchandise was to be forfeited. This was an act of injustice towards New Haven and Plymouth colonies, whose representatives had acted in conformity with the articles of agreement of the league. The Commissioners from Con- necticut equivocated, knowing that the patent could not be produced; and suggested that the matter should be referred to the General Court of Massachusetts, as their action in es- tablishing an importation duty was not in harmony with the love expressed, and the tenor of the articles of confederation. Connecticut decided to abandon the fort at Saybrook and dis- continue the collection of the dues; which placated Massa- chusetts, and her legislature in 1650 repealed the act taxing imported merchandise.
At the meeting held at Hartford in September 1650, Ed- ward Hopkins was elected President. In the Connecticut delegation, John Haynes succeeded Thomas Welles; and there was also a change in the New Haven representatives, Stephen Goodyear having been chosen in place of John Ast- wood. The session was made memorable by the visit of Governor Peter Stuyvesant and troubles with the Narragan- setts. Permission was given to Connecticut to take East- hampton, Long Island, under her jurisdiction. In Septem- ber of the following year the Congress convened at New Haven; Theophilus Eaton was chosen President, and Roger
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Ludlow again took the seat made vacant by the retirement of John Haynes. The trouble with the Dutch formed the most important business before the body. The Commis- sioners were visited by ambassadors from the French gover- nor of Canada, to induce them to declare war against the Five Nations; they proposed that if the colonies would be- come their allies, they would encourage the establishment of free trade between the French and English provinces. The Commissioners with becoming courtesy declined to add to their present troubles the horrors of a new warfare.
At a meeting held at New Plymouth, in September 1652, there was no quorum present; and a special session met at Boston in the following March. The representatives from Connecticut were Roger Ludlow and Captain John Cullick, and New Haven was represented by Theophilus Eaton and John Astwood. The Dutch and Indian War was the im- portant topic, and precautionary measures were adopted to protect the colonies.
At the meeting at Boston in Sepetmber of the same year, the three smaller jurisdictions voted in favor of declaring war against the Dutch. The Massachusetts Commissioners were in opposition to the adopted measure, claiming that the articles of confederation discriminated between offensive and defensive warfare, and that they could not satisfy their consciences that God called for the war and the attendant blood of their constituents. The other Commissioners could not deny the ethics of Massachusetts, that there was no higher appeal than God's authority; but they were immovable in their determination to declare war. The action taken by the Massachusetts representatives led to a serious debate, in which was threatened the destruction of the confederacy ; but harmony was again restored by her Commissioners receding
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from their position, being authorized to this action by decrees of her General Court.
The sessions of the United Colonies of New England for the next decade were held in the month of September of each year, and the regular routine of business was transacted. In 1654 Hartford was the place of meeting, and Theophilus Eaton was chosen President; he and Francis Newman were the New Haven delegates, while Major John Mason and John Webster represented Connecticut. The following year the session was held at New Haven, and Theophilus Eaton was again elected President. There were changes in the dele- gations from the Connecticut colonies. Captain John Cullick was appointed in place of John Webster, and William Leete succeeded Francis Newman. New Plymouth was the meet- ing place in 1656, and Boston in 1657; and the only change in representation of the Connecticut colonies was, that John Talcott was elected to succeed Captain John Cullick. At the session held at Boston in 1658, the Connecticut com- missioners were John Winthrop and John Talcott, and Fran- cis Newman was elected from New Haven to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Governor Eaton, who had been a member since the organization of the Congress.
At the Hartford meeting held the following year, John Winthrop was elected President; and the only change in the Connecticut delegation was that Thomas Welles was elected in place of John Talcott. Massachusetts, at the last two ses- sions of the New England Congress, had presented her claim to the Pequot country, which was strongly combated by the Connecticut representatives. In 1660 at New Haven, Fran- cis Newman was elected President; and the vacancy in Con- necticut's delegation caused by the death of Thomas Welles was filled by the election of Matthew Allin.
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In the meeting of 1661, convened at New Plymouth, Con- necticut was represented by Major John Mason and Samuel Willis, and New Haven by William Leete and Benjamin Fenn. The sessions of 1662 and 1663 were held at Boston, and the only changes in the delegations from the Connecticut colonies were in the former the substitution of John Talcott for Major John Mason, and in the latter of John Winthrop for Samuel Willis. The convention of 1663 was enlivened by business pertaining to Connecticut, and arguments were heard for and against the union of her colonies. Winthrop's earnest oratory in favor of the consolidation was combated by the courtly and cautious debate of William Leete, and the blunt and bold objections of Benjamin Fenn. Massachusetts lent her aid to the New Haven representatives, which could result only in the Congress deciding that New Haven should still continue her distinct colonial existence ; perhaps jealousy and sense of equity were not wholly disassociated. Governor Stuyvesant also appeared before the body as a complainant against the grasping ambition of Connecticut. She had at- tempted to extend her jurisdiction over Westchester and ad- joining towns, and the Dutch governor demanded satisfac- tion for encroachments on his territory. This matter at the request of the Commissioners from Connecticut was referred to the next meeting of the Congress.
In pressing her demands to the Pequot country, the repre- sentatives from Massachusetts asserted that her General Court had been appealed to by the inhabitants of the disputed territory for protection; but the Commissioners again de- cided that she had no right of action. This seems to have settled forever Massachusetts' attempt to hold a territory to which she could not plead the rights either of purchase, con- quest, or settlement.
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The last annual meeting of the New England Congress was held at Hartford in 1664. The Commissioners from Connecticut were Matthew Allin and Samuel Willis, and from New Haven William Leete and William Jones; they were the last from New Haven Colony, about to be ab- sorbed in Connecticut, and the latter protested against their admission. The position taken by Connecticut in the union of the colonies, and her persistency in pressing her claims against the wishes of the prominent men of the New Haven Colony, backed by the authority of the King, had cre- ated in Massachusetts a feeling of indifference for the con- federation of the New England Colonies. Connecticut her- self realized that in a triplicate agreement, her Commission- ers would hold only one-third of the power; and having by her Royal Charter at last received a substantial form of government indorsed by the King, she hesitated for fear that in the formation of an allied league she might endanger the royal favor, which she had obtained at such trouble and ex- pense. The surrender of New Amsterdam to the Duke of York had relieved Connecticut of her Dutch neighbors, and the Indians within her borders were friendly, preventing the danger of a hostile outbreak. The Massachusetts colonies had lost their Indian friend, the chieftain Massasoit, but as yet the Indians within her territory were not very turbu- lent. The colonies had all acknowledged the authority of Charles II .; and therefore any union against the mother country was deemed unnecessary.
Still there was a kindly feeling existing among the colon- ies, a mutual confidence and kinship that encouraged a con- federation. For the purpose of considering the advisability of a reorganization of the Congress, a meeting was called at Hartford on September 5, 1667. The Connecticut repre-
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sentatives were William Leete ( formerly of New Haven) and Samuel Willis; the former was elected to preside over the body. The Plymouth Commissioners brought authority from their General Court to act only on Indian affairs, and to submit to them for final decision all matters pertaining to a re- establishment of the confederacy. They were not zealous for a renewal of the league, as they had been strongly opposed to Connecticut's actions against New Haven, and being the smallest jurisdiction in population, they feared that their in- terests would suffer at the hands of their sister colonies. The Plymouth Commissioners urged that all measures and acts should receive a unanimous vote, for if they were decided by a majority there was danger of their being a hopeless minority. The meeting adjourned with no formal steps be- ing taken to form an alliance.
The next convention was held at Boston in June 1670. The representatives from Connecticut were Samuel Willis and John Talcott. New articles of confederation were adopted, not differing materially from the old covenant; but the ar- ticle on declaring offensive warfare, which had been such a stumbling block in the old organization, was modified, the power being delegated to the several General Courts. The question of the apportionment of the military forces and sup- plies was the subject of a fierce debate. Connecticut insisted on the adoption of the ancient quota, to which Massachusetts objected, and the matter was left in abeyance. Triennial meetings were to be held; one in every five sessions at New Plymouth, the other four to be divided equally between Boston and Hartford. While the Commissioners from Con- necticut and Plymouth accepted the articles without demur- ring, the representatives from Massachusetts were not ex- actly satisfied. It was nearly two years before the quota to
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be furnished by each colony in case of war was decided. A committee from Connecticut consisting of John Allyn and Wait Winthrop met Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Dan- forth on behalf of Massachusetts, at Boston; and an agree- ment was made for fifteen years. Troops and money were to be contributed by the several jurisdictions in the following ratio: Massachusetts one hundred men, Connecticut sixty, and Plymouth forty.
At a meeting held at New Plymouth in September 1672, John Winthrop and John Richards represented Connecticut. A special session of the New England Congress was called at Hartford in August 1673; the Connecticut representatives were William Leete and John Talcott, and the former was chosen president. The business before the convention was the occupancy of New York by the Dutch. A communica- tion was addressed to the Dutch commanders asking their future designs, but this did not receive a satisfactory answer. A resolution was passed declaring that any damage done to one of the colonies should be considered as an injury to the confederacy. It was suggested that active measures should be taken to secure ammunition, men, and means of defense. It was plain to see that the original Congress of the four colonies had a substitute, but not a successor.
The United Colonies of New England held at Boston a continuous session of ten weeks from Sept. 9 to Nov. 19, 1675. The Connecticut delegation were John and Wait Winthrop. The directing and management of the cam- paign of King Philip's War was the important business of the session. An army of 1,000 men was ordered to be enlisted, of which Massachusetts was to furnish 527, Connecticut 315, and Plymouth 158. The Connecticut troops were to rendez- vous at Norwich, Stonington, and New London. At a spe-
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cial session held in the spring of 1676, at Boston, occurred the death of John Winthrop, who was struck down while at- tending to those civil duties in the performance of which he had spent the greater part of his life.
There were two sessions in 1678: one in May at New Plymouth, and the other at Boston in September. The Con- necticut Commissioners were William Leete and Captain John Allyn. At these and the subsequent sessions of the New England Congress, there was transacted no important business pertaining to Connecticut affairs. She joined with her sister colonies in extending her congratulations to Sir Edmund Andros on his appointment as Royal Governor to the Colony of New York; which was courteously responded to by his Excellency. At a session held at Boston in August 1679, Connecticut was represented by Captain John Allyn and James Richards ; at the meeting in September 168 1, the latter was succeeded by Robert Treat. The last meeting of the New England Congress was held at Hartford in Septem- ber 1684, and Robert Treat was elected as presiding officer.
Thus adjourned sine die the first American Congress. Nearly a century was to roll away before another American confederation was to make a permanent and vitalized organ- ization of all the great English societies on the continent. In the formation of the first confederacy it was not deemed necessary to obtain the ratification of the King, but its suc- cessor was a revolt against the King. The two Congresses were both created for mutual protection and to combine their strength to battle against common foes. The younger, how- ever, did not follow the doctrines of the elder, but separated Church from State as ultimately all societies will do.
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CHAPTER XI WITCHCRAFT IN CONNECTICUT
T HAT there are materials for such a chapter is simply restating the fact that the settlers were seventeenth-century English. That the mate- rials are so scanty, relative to those for Eng- land at the same period, evinces that they were much superior to the mass of English. That their being products of their time, with the same stock of information and beliefs and the same practical inferences from both, should be matter of denunciation or Pharisaical sarcasm, is discreditable to human rationality. With equal justice might we revile the society of the fourteenth century for eating with their fingers or believing in the divinity of the Holy Roman Empire. All that could be asked, and more than could be hoped, would be superior readiness to make social outcome the test of religious theory ; and such they had. They would be entitled to lenient judgment had they been something less ready in place of more; for while all Christians accepted the Bible as it stood, their own society was built up on the Bible-on its fervent ac- ceptance, its studious interpretation, its upholding against tra- dition or custom or authority, the attempt to bring their social life into general accordance with its precepts. As teaching and as literature it filled their lives; for many years they lit- erally had nothing else. It is creditable to their common- sense that they fell into so little barbarity or absurdity in at- tempting to apply obsolete systems of thought and practice to their own lives.
Regarding their action, it is to be observed that as in other communities, the extirpation of witchcraft confined itself mainly to local nuisances or suspects, Ishmaelites or indepen- dent thinkers,-those out of favor with the respectability or inertia of the community, in short: when members of the latter were involved, though the theory was not for the mo-
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ment discredited, the evidence began to be scrutinized with great care, and the canons made so severe that practical re- sults failed. This must never be forgotten in discussing the intellectual status of communities. They made witch-hunt- ing a branch of their social police, and desire for social solidarity. That this was wrong and mischievous is granted ; but it is ordinary human conduct now as then. It was a most illogical, capricious, and dangerous form of enforcing pun- ishment, abating nuisances, and shutting out disagreeable truths; fertile in injustice, oppression, the shedding of inno- cent blood, and the extinguishing of light. No one can jus- tify it, or plead beneficial results from it which could not have been secured with far less evil in other ways. But it was natural that, believing the crime to exist, they should use the belief to strike down offenders or annoyances out of reach of any other legal means. They did not invent the crime for the purpose, nor did they invent the death penalty for this crime. We impute a cruelty to them which has no basis, be- cause we shrink from the infliction of the death penalty as that age did not. They saw no more cruelty in putting this particular sort of criminal to death than any other.
One other general remark is called out by the non-recog- nition of it in most writing on witchcraft. The skeptics -- who were never such as to the abstract existence of witchcraft, but only as to its existence in their own community, or the adequacy of the explanation in individual cases-formed but a small part of the whole body of suspects. The majority were as firm believers in the black art as their accusers; they believed that though personally innocent, they were surround- ed with those not so, that very likely those indicted as accom- plices had really committed sorcery, and not only so, but the actual piece of sorcery charged. That this had been in fact
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committed, they no more thought of doubting than a man wrongfully accused of murder doubts that the murder has taken place. Not to admit this is to suppose that the social riffraff had an invariable monopoly of advanced intelligence and clarity of mind. There is nothing to justify such an idea; yet it is tacitly assumed that the al- leged witches and wizards in all cases were the only ones in the community free from the delusion, and were not merely protesting against the sacrifice of their own lives unjustly, but against what they believed to be in its own nature falsehood and perjury. If we disabuse ourselves of this notion, and re- member that they probably thought merely that suspicion for a real crime had fallen on the wrong person, we shall under- stand better how they could confess in their crazed anguish to the commission of the crimes of which they had heard all their lives, and could involve others in the same doom.
The number of lives taken for this cause in colonial Con- necticut seems to have been nine, all in the years 1647-62 ; but the 1647 case is dubious, and the number may not be above eight. After 1662 no more blood was shed here on this ground ; some reasons are suggested later. In the exact half- century (1647-97) between the first indictment and the last, allowing the doubtful case, twenty-eight persons in all were accused of the crime before the courts of Connecticut and New Haven colonies,-seven of them, or one-fourth, in a single "flurry," that of 1662; three were in New Haven, 1653-7. Three other convictions of guilty were found be- sides those followed by executions ; but as the courts either set aside the verdicts or released the convicted, they belong to the credit side. Communities are judged by the final action of their superior elements, not by the intentions of their lower. New Haven apparently escaped all share of the bloodshed by
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having judge instead of jury trial,-there was no difference in belief or law, and certainly no superior personal humanity, witness the much harsher treatment of the Quakers,-and that judge the governor, Theophilus Eaton, a gentleman of exemplary sense and moderation. Men of superior station were not always exempt from the frenzy of the mass,-wit- ness the Salem craze; but in general their experience would undermine the bigoted self-confidence of the more ignorant, and their station exempted them from either annoyance or ridicule by the social pariahs, of whose dread the lesser good- men and goodies rid themselves by sending them to the gal- lows. We shall see reason to surmise that this acted on the Connecticut as well as the New Haven magistrates.
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