USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 23
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Such disputes were trivial compared to the conflict which raged over Springfield and the Connecticut River imposts. In 1646 William Pynchon, head of the trading post at Spring- field, in obedience to an order from the Massachusetts Gen- eral Court, refused to pay to Connecticut the duties laid on goods passing by the river's mouth to the sea. The question was of more importance then than it might now appear, be- cause the river was the great outlet for all the back country and was particularly useful in getting that most valuable com- modity, beaver, to points of shipment to Europe. The impost was demanded of all the river settlements to aid in the pur- chase of and to maintain Saybrook fort at the river's mouth, their guarantee of safety from naval attack, a security of which Springfield partook. The Connecticut Commissioners promptly lodged complaint at the September session with their confederates. But discussion was delayed until the next meeting and meanwhile the fort burned.
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IMPOST CONTROVERSY
Massachusetts then presented a long list of extravagantly far-fetched reasons why Springfield should not pay the im- post; the most logical of these was that Connecticut had no right to force inhabitants of another jurisdiction to purchase without their consent fort or lands in a colony other than their own. Connecticut made a rather neat rebuttal and in- sisted that in any parallel case Connecticut would readily sub- mit to Massachusetts duties. The Plymouth and New Haven Commissioners sided with Connecticut, and ruled that Spring- field should pay. The rate of two pence per bushel of corn and twenty shillings per hogshead of beaver could not be ruin- ous, and the rate was not to be raised until the cause and need for it had been acknowledged by the other colonies.
Disgruntled, Massachusetts appealed for a rehearing in 1648. The General Court sent in dreary acres of argument, and de- manded a view of the Connecticut patent that thus Mas- sachusetts rights might be ascertained. The Connecticut Commissioners produced a copy of the Saybrook patent, their nearest approach to a Connecticut patent, and succeeded in answering their opponents well enough to win a confirmation of the verdict in Connecticut's favor.
Again a year later the question was reopened. This time the crux of the conflict was whether the Massachusetts line had ever been legitimately run so as to include Springfield. Debate was becoming highly acrimonious when the Massa- chusetts General Court thought fit to exert pressure to have the ruling against Springfield revoked. It imposed a retalia- tory custom on all goods of Plymouth, New Haven, or Con- necticut inhabitants which should be imported into or exported from Massachusetts Bay, namely, two pence a skin on beaver, packed in hogsheads and like containers, two pence a bushel on corn and meal, and six shillings a hundred on "bisket."
These were severe measures. Massachusetts doubtless had much right on her side of the impost question, but Connecticut had been acting in accordance with the accepted international usage of that day. The Commissioners of the three smaller colonies at once remonstrated. They attested their efforts to handle the matter with equity and pointed out that Massachu- setts was taking toll of New Haven and Plymouth whose Commissioners at Massachusetts's own request had tried to
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settle the differences, an impost obviously revengeful consid- ering that it was required of neither other Englishmen nor foreigners. They requested the Massachusetts deputies to think on these things with bearing on the law of love, and they begged to be spared all further agitations about Spring- field. Mediation had proved too costly both for New Haven and Plymouth.
Connecticut was obliged to let Springfield cargoes pass free of charge, despite the Commissioners' decisions, and Massa- chusetts then rescinded her customs. The boundary line question was renewed once later, but on Massachusetts's unal- tered insistence that no line could be run until Connecticut produced her original patent or a copy under seal or suffi- ciently witnessed, the dispute was dropped.
INTERPRETATION OF THE ARTICLES (1645-1658)
Conflict between Massachusetts and the other three colonies was in the very nature of the confederation quite inevitable. Massachusetts with three-fifths of the total population of the United Colonies and bearing three times as great a burden in its support as any of her associates had still only an equal vote in deciding its policies. Attempts to curtail the power of the federal Commissioners began as early as 1645 when the Mas- sachusetts deputies endeavored to deny the Commissioners' right to impress men for immediate service without a commis- sion from the General Courts.
On this occasion the magistrates upheld the board of Com- missioners by declaring the main ends of the union defeated if it were refused authority to make effective its decisions in emergency. Some months later a committee of the General Court scrutinized the Articles of Confederation and the acts of the Commissioners to detect any which might prove preju- dicial to the home governments. Already Massachusetts was feeling uneasy over her compact. Magistrates and deputies alike showed themselves anxious to win for her a preponder- ance proportionate to her greater size and wealth.
To begin, her Commissioners demanded the right to have first place in subscribing the acts of the Commissioners. Here their claim was accorded by their fellows, not as a right but
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as a privilege. Next they requested to have the delegates at all meetings seated in the order in which the colonies signed the Articles. This would have put the Massachusetts men at the head, and John Brown of Plymouth refused to agree to the arrangement as being contrary to Scripture. At the same time the General Court of the Bay proposed a revision of the Articles whereby she was to have a third Commissioner, as might any other of the confederates who would bear an equal share of the charges. It was rejected.
After the failure of these proposals, which were intended to increase her importance, Massachusetts began to give less meticulous regard to the Confederation. The Commissioners' decision notwithstanding, Springfield goods went down the Connecticut river free. What was worse, in 1651 she began quietly to extend her authority further and further into the provinces of Maine and New Hampshire; until by 1658 the process was complete. Her confederates, through their Com- missioners, it is true, had earlier given a limited sanction to her jurisdiction over two settlements on the Piscataqua river, but that could hardly have been considered as giving her per- mission to annex the whole region as a province. And the Articles of Confederation had expressly stipulated that such permission should be secured before addition to any of the colonies was made.
NULLIFICATION CONTROVERSY (1653-1654)
Not until 1653, however, did another serious controversy break out between Massachusetts and her weaker allies. The occasion then was dramatic. In that year had come persistent rumors of an Indian conspiracy against the New Englanders, instigated and fostered by the Dutch. Such tales were noth- ing new, but so likely did these stories sound that the Massa- chusetts Council called an extraordinary session of the Com- missioners at Boston in April. For weeks evidence was exam- ined and the question of what to do was debated. Messengers sent to the Narragansett and Nyantick sachems and to the Dutch Governor, Stuyvesant, brought back full denials of the truth of the charges but also brought a mass of ill-assorted testimony and rumor to the contrary.
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The case against Ninigret, the Nyantick, looks fairly strong. And it is known that the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Holland some time before had instructed Stuy- vesant to employ Indians if the English should begin hostilities against New Netherland. Still it seems improbable that he could have gone further than to try to obey this order by se- curing the alliance of the natives in event of future conflict between New Netherland and New England, a clash which seemed eventually unavoidable.
England and the United Provinces were now at war in Europe, and Connecticut and particularly New Haven, who had suffered at the hands of the Dutch in America, were not loath to avail themselves of this opportunity to push matters to a conclusion, regardless of the truth of the accusations made against Stuyvesant. Massachusetts, on the other hand, had nothing to gain from such war. At the critical moment, therefore, the Massachusetts General Court elected to inter- fere in the Commissioners' deliberations: they appointed a committee to join with the Commissioners in drawing up a statement of all pertinent facts; they had the statement exam- ined by the elders, and then upon the advice of the latter they took it upon themselves to vote against war.
They defended their unwarrantable procedure by contend- ing that the Articles did not empower the Commissioners to declare offensive or vindictive war and that consequently it was the General Court's duty to make the decision in this case. To delegate such supreme authority to six Commission- ers, all of whom might be of other jurisdictions, would be bondage, she maintained, a "Scandall in Religion that a gen- erall court of Christians should be oblidged to acte and engage vpon the faith of six Delligates against their Conscience." With this blast ringing in its ears, the meeting of the Commis- sioners dissolved, for as long as Massachusetts blocked action, there was nothing further to be done without consultation of the other colonial governments.
During the summer Connecticut and New Haven, as the colonies directly affected, wrote to the Bay in remonstrance, and then rather lamely asked for permission to gather up vol- unteers against the Dutch, if Massachusetts continued to im- pede joint war by denying the Commissioners' right to declare
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it. The answers of Massachusetts, while disavowing any intention of disrupting the Confederation, gave no hope of concession on the main issue. By way of reply New Haven voted not to send Commissioners to the September meeting, unless Massachusetts revoked her interpretation of the Ar- ticles.
All three of the lesser colonies, nevertheless, did swallow their chagrin enough to send their delegates to Boston that fall to carry on the argument. Massachusetts at first pre- sented an interpretive emendation of the Articles, taking from the Commissioners and vesting in the General Courts the right to declare offensive war. This the Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth Commissioners declared was to rewrite the covenant. The controversy dragged on until suddenly the Massachusetts magistrates gave in. They sent word : "wee Judge and graunt that by the Articles of Confederation soe farr as the Determinations of the Commissioners are Just and according to God the seuerall Collonies are bound before God and men to Acte accordingly and that they sin and breake Couenant if they doe not but otherwise wee Judge wee are not bound neither before God nor men;". Indeed that they were ready to go the full length of retraction is shown by a draft of the letter wherein they admitted the binding char- acter of the Commissioners' decisions even without the saving clause about justice. An inconvenient, a disastrous, war had been averted and the General Court could afford to yield on the technicalities of interpretation.
Up to this point, be it noted, while Massachusetts had aired her views she had not countered any definite act of the Com- missioners. But almost the first move they made after this caused a split. There had been much evidence of the Nyan- tick Ninigret's conspiring against the English in the spring, and now he was further demonstrating his treacherous nature by attacking the Long Island Indians, allies of the English. To allow him to continue his course with impunity, six of the Commissioners felt, was to court disaster. They voted to raise an army of two hundred and fifty men to march against him. Only Simon Bradstreet of Massachusetts dissented on the grounds that the Long Island Indians were not really allies of the United Colonies, and that this quarrel was entirely
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a native affair. Of all this he wrote to the Massachusetts Council and that body immediately decided war unnecessary and refused to raise the Massachusetts quota.
This was outright breach of the Articles of Confederation. However sensible Bradstreet's arguments may have been, he was outvoted. Massachusetts commands a certain amount of sympathy for resolutely maintaining peace both with the Dutch and with the Indians at a time when a colonial war must have been disastrous. None the less she was now delib- erately nullifying an act of the Confederation. Here was the fruit of the jealous individualism which had prevented earlier federation of the colonies and of which Franklin was to com- plain a century later.
The attempts to justify Massachusetts on the grounds of conscience sound to modern ears unctuous and hypocritical. Bradstreet defended his government, protesting its deed no breach of faith since the Commissioners' acts opposed the will of God. But the Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven Commissioners were not so minded. They declared Massa- chusetts a covenant breaker and departed homeward to lay the case before their General Courts. An ensuing exchange of letters between the four governments netted Massachusetts only indignant repudiations of her explanations. Plymouth and New Haven asserted that all the General Courts were sub- ject to the Commissioners in matters properly within the sphere of the federal administration, although the latter were responsible to the General Courts for a true rendering of their trust. New Haven reminded the trouble-maker that five years before she herself had expressly labelled refusal to accept the Commissioners' determinations breach of compact.
It was with reluctance that New Haven elected Commis- sioners the next year and she sent them with instructions that if Massachusetts persevered they were to consider only securing reparation from the covenant-breaker, as a section of the Articles provided. Massachusetts was to be called to account. But at the meeting in 1654 all was concord. The two Massachusetts representatives declared that in their judg- ment the General Court recalled their earlier interpretation of the Articles and acknowledged themselves bound to execute the decisions of the Commissioners "according to the literall
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CONCLUSION OF DUTCH AFFAIRS
sence" of the Articles. This statement was accepted by the other Commissioners and later confirmed by the Massachusetts government. So ended the greatest conflict of the Confed- eration.
The quarrel made some stir in England. Massachusetts deemed it wise to send explanatory letters to the Lord Protec- tor and other influential persons in order to clear herself of charges of bad faith. In America, mindful of how nearly the union had been disrupted, the colonies thereafter were scrupulous in their adherence to the injunction of the Commis- sioners, though some soreness of feeling lingered on. Fortu- nately the Confederation was not again to be faced with prob- lems so difficult as those of its first ten years, and later dis- putes were easier to avert or settle.
CONCLUSION OF DUTCH AFFAIRS (1653-1664)
Relations with the Dutch became gradually more easy. After the Commissioners of the lesser colonies in vain regis- tered a vote declaring the justice of war against New Nether- land in 1653, New Haven petitioned Cromwell for ships, ammunition, and men to assist the colonies in attacking the Dutch. Although the Protector responded by sending over an armed force, the news of peace between England and the United Provinces arrived in time to prevent hostilities.
When bad feeling had somewhat subsided, Stuyvesant opened up correspondence with the United Colonies again over the treaty of 1650, now ratified by the States General in Hol- land. Parliament, on the other hand, had purposely disre- garded the treaty, preferring to be free to claim the whole Atlantic seaboard from Newfoundland to Florida. So Stuyvesant's efforts profited him nothing. Yet through all these troubled years trade between "Monhatoes" and New England flourished. The chief commodities were beaver, moose skins, and provisions; and Stuyvesant and the Commissioners spent considerable time in trying to regulate this commerce. Soon after the Restoration rumor of an impending English conquest of New Netherland became so definite that Stuyvesant renewed his endeavors to get the
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United Colonies to admit themselves bound by the 1650 agree- ment. But in 1664 the Duke of York's conquest ended the Dutch problem for the confederates. Dutch New Netherland became English New York.
INDIAN WARS (1654-1658)
The danger of Indian hostilities was not so easily remedied. The earlier inaction of the United Colonies against Ninigret apparently encouraged him to greater offenses. By 1654 his overbearing attitude convinced even Bradstreet that trouble was brewing. All eight Commissioners, accordingly, now voted to dispatch an expedition to obtain surety for his future peaceable bearing, and to take from him the Pequod Indians subject to him. Extensive preparations for war were made.
These notwithstanding, through the failure of the Massa- chusetts commander to press the issue, the United Colonies did not succeed this time in bringing the wily savage to terms. Other means were therefore resorted to with better results. All Ninigret's Indian enemies were given free rein to war against him; and English planters on Long Island who had been suffering from his depredations were instructed to join with his Indian foes if he came within six miles of the Eng- lish towns. As a final precaution, an armed vessel was char- tered to ply the Sound to watch and to check the Nyantick's hostile movements.
These precautions mark the last active measures taken against the Indians for nearly twenty years. Though the quarrels among the natives dragged on interminably, the United Colonies were less and less concerned in them, and while the Commissioners continued to mediate somewhat, they interfered only when Indian offenses directly touched the colonies.
CIVILIZING THE INDIANS (1643-1664)
Meanwhile an Indian problem of a peaceable nature con- fronted the Commissioners. What was to be done with the tributary Pequods? At the close of the Pequod War in 1637, the English decided that the Pequods, who had nearly de- stroyed the English in New England, must never again be a
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CIVILIZING THE INDIANS
distinct people. Those who had not been deported to Ber- muda or the West Indies had been scattered among other New England tribes, a few on Long Island, more under the Mohegans' rule and the rest under the Narragansetts and Nyanticks. Through their alien chiefs these subject Pequods were to pay a yearly tribute as indemnity to the English.
Such a system was inevitably a source of friction, and for years the Commissioners regularly received complaints of recalcitrancy or injustices from overlords or subjects. At length upon the earnest advice of John Winthrop the Younger, most of the Pequods subject to Uncas were allowed to form a separate settlement near Nameoke (New London) where they might live under the shadow of English justice.
By 1654 the Commissioners decided to extend the arrange- ment to include the Narragansetts' Pequods. After consider- able difficulty with Ninigret, most of these tributaries were brought together in two settlements under direct English sur- veillance. The Commissioners evolved a workable system of governing them by appointing for each group a Pequod gov- ernor and deputy governor ; and over these, English overseers. Peace and order were well kept thus, the tribute was paid annually, and the Commissioners successfully maintained this native protectorate until 1664. Then with the breakup of the original Confederation, Connecticut alone was able to take charge.
Missionary activities among the Indians were also under the Commissioners' supervision. In 1649 Parliament incor- porated a society under the name of Corporation for the Prop- agation of the Gospel in New England, and in the first official English recognition of the colonial union, named the Commis- sioners of the Confederation agents for handling the funds in America. The trustees in England lost no time in opening with them a correspondence on Corporation business which was carried on as long as the Corporation endured. With the money raised in England, appointed buyers purchased a supply of English manufactures to be sold to the colonists or distributed to Indian converts. The proceeds of sales of these articles to the colonists were used to pay the salaries of mis- sionary teachers among the natives. The Commissioners after consultation with the missionaries listed the kinds of goods
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most needed in New England, textiles, "haberdashery espe- cially thred", shoes, hinges, axes and other farm implements. Between meetings of the Commissioners a steward, living in Boston, took charge of the supplies under the constant supervision of the Massachusetts Commissioners.
Though a number of converts were gradually made, thanks to the devoted labors of John Eliot around Natick and of Thomas Mayhew on Martha's Vineyard, the United Colonies were criticized in England as not cooperating in the work. The Commissioners were practically accused of peculation, a charge not to be substantiated save for their authorizing the expenditure of Corporation monies for the erection of a build- ing at Harvard College to house the Indian students. Most of the Indian boys under the tutelage of white teachers died be- fore they were ready for college, so that five was the greatest number of native students ever to use the building at one time and only one graduated. It was therefore at least bad judgment for the Commissioners to have made such an invest- ment. Nevertheless the work of conversion went on. Such a large share of the Commissioners' time was devoted to this missionary business in the years after the settlement of the troubles with the Dutch and with Ninigret, that Massachu- setts proposed having part of the Commissioners' expenses met from Corporation funds. But this thrifty suggestion met with no response.
The Restoration brought little change to the organization and work of the Corporation. The Commissioners tendered King Charles a copy of Eliot's Indian translation of the New Testament with a discreetly worded dedication to the "Most Dread Sovereign," and Charles saw no cause to interfere with the evangelizing work. As the number of christianized Indians grew, the Commissioners made provisions to have them taught trades, perhaps the earliest attempt at vocational education in America. To Indians who should apprentice their children to any godly English craftsman in the United Colo- nies, one coat a year each was promised by way of encourage- ment, though, the Commissioners warned, watch must be kept for seekers after loaves. One Captain Gookin, sponsored by the Commissioners, undertook to introduce to the praying Indians of Natick and neighboring settlements some knowl-
Tears of Repentance:
Or, A further Narrative of the Progrefs of the Gofel Amongft the
INDIANS IN NEWENGLAND
Setting forth, not only their prefent ftate and condition, but fundry Confeffions of fin by diverfe of the faid Indians, wrought upon by the faving Power ofthe Gofpel; Together with the manifeftation of their Faith and Hope in Jefus Chrift, and the Work of Grace upon their Hearts.
Related by Mr. Eliot and Mr. Mayhew, two Faithful Laborers in that Work of the Lord.
Published by the Corporation for propagating the Gospel there, for the Satisfaction and Comfort of fuch as wifh well thereunto.
May, 42. 3. A bruifed Reed fall benor break , and the ]moaking Flax, fball be not quench.
London : Printed by Peter Coke in Leaden- Hall, and are to Sold at his Shop, at the Sign of the Printing-Prefs in Cornbil, pear the Royal Exchange. 1653.
From the Harvard University Library
PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL IN NEW ENGLAND
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QUAKER CONTROVERSY
edge of spinning and knitting cotton and wool, as well as car- pentry and trades useful for the men. Agriculture was abetted and schools increased. Over all this varied work the Commissioners had supervision and discharged their duties with punctiliousness.
QUAKER CONTROVERSY (1660-1667)
No less conscientious but far less humane was the Commis- sioners' treatment of the Quakers. Perhaps chiefly because this sect held it wrong to swear obedience to any earthly magis- trate, they were looked upon as dangerous persons whose doc- trines tended "to the very absolute cutting downe and over- turninge relations and civill government among men, if gen- erally received." They were the artificial Bolsheviks of the seventeenth century New England.
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