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MACDONALD, William .- Select Charters and other Documents Illus- trative of American History (New York, Macmillan, 1899).
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY Collections .- Second Series, Vol. VIII (Danforth Papers) ; Fourth Series, Vols. II, (1854) VI, VIII.
MATHER, Increase .- "Cases of Conscience"-in Cotton Mather's Won- ders, (Reprint London, 1862; Boston, Harris, 1693).
MURDOCK, Kenneth B .- Increase Mather (Cambridge, Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1925).
PALFREY, John . Gorham .- History of New England (5 vols. Boston, Little Brown, 1859-90) .- Vol. I.
PARKER, Joel .- "The origin, organization and influence of the towns of New England" (Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1866-1867).
SEWALL, Samuel .- "Diary, 1674-1729" (Massachusetts Historical So- ciety Collections .- Fifth Series, Vols. V-VII, 1878-1882).
SHURTLEFF, N. B., editor .- Massachusetts Records (5 vols. Boston, White, Commonwealth, 1753-1754).
WARREN, George, editor .- The Libelle of Englysche Polycye (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1927).
WINSOR, Justin .- Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1884-1889). Vols. III and V.
WINSOR, Justin .- The Memorial History of Boston, 1630-1680 (4 vols., Boston, Osgood, 1880-1881) .- See pp. 303-310, by T. W. Higginson. WINTHROP, John .- History of New England from 1630-1649 (or the
Journal) .- [Edited by James Savage]. (Boston, Little Brown, 1853).
CHAPTER XVIII
EXTERNAL RELATIONS (1640-1689)
BY ARTHUR H. BUFFINTON, Assistant Professor of History, Williams College
The problem of external relations was one which the colony of Massachusetts Bay could not escape. As a dependency of one of the great maritime powers which were struggling for a foothold in the New World, it was from the beginning at- tached by political ties to the Old World. The very soil of the colony was debatable territory, for it was at this precise point of the North American coastline that the territorial claims of England, France, and Holland overlapped. When it was first planted, there already existed, in addition to feeble English settlements along the coast of New England, a Dutch colony on the Hudson, and French settlements in Canada and Acadia. The latter were, it is true, momentarily in the hands of the English, having been seized in 1629 by an English fleet; but in 1632 they were restored to France, enfeebled, but not deprived of the power of future growth. Even had the complications due to its colonial status not existed, the ter- ritorial and commercial expansion of the colony would, as in the case of the United States a century and a half later, have rendered a policy of isolation impossible. The story of the foreign policy of Massachusetts from 1640 to 1689 is that of an ineffectual attempt to maintain independence of action.
EARLY ISOLATION OF MASSACHUSETTS (1630-1650)
For the future of the region about Massachusetts Bay the Great Emigration of 1630 was decisive. Massachusetts was
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ISOLATION OF MASSACHUSETTS
from its birth the strongest European settlement north of Vir- ginia. From the first it was secure from attack except by such an armament as no European power was likely, at this time, to despatch on such an errand. The region which John Smith had named New England was indeed to be New Eng- land, although its precise boundaries remained to be deter- mined.
The condition of affairs in Europe added to the security of the colony. Charles I had just dismissed Parliament and was making peace with France and Spain preparatory to em- barking on a period of personal rule. The power of Spain was decadent, and although France was rapidly increasing in strength under the rule of Richelieu, the latter was more in- terested in the continental struggle against the House of Haps- burg than in the affairs of the colonies. The Netherlands were at this time at, or near, the zenith of their power, but here again fortune favored Massachusetts. The Dutch had, since 1621, been engaged in an exhausting struggle with the Spanish monarchy; during which they devoted their attention chiefly to harrying the Spanish-Portuguese colonial empire and commerce in the East and West Indies and Brazil. Their colony on the Hudson was a side issue, left to vegetate. How- ever active commercially, it was too feebly populated even to protect itself from the encroachments of rival colonizing pow- ers.
If security from foreign attack made for a policy of isola- tion, so also, in a more powerful degree, did the circumstances of settlement. Unlike the neighboring French and Dutch colo- nies Massachusetts was not established as a military or eco- nomic outpost of empire in the New World. In the words of an eminent historian of the colonial movement, it was the re- sult of a political and religious schism in the English state. The Englishmen who migrated to the shores of Massachsetts Bay came doubtless for different reasons, some to enjoy a political and religious liberty denied them in the England of Charles I and Laud, others, like the emigrants of all times, to seek wealth in a New World where custom and tradition had not yet closed the door of economic opportunity. In this they were at one,-their prime object was to get away from the Old World and its untoward conditions, and not to establish
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an English empire in the New. If a numerical majority came primarily to better their economic condition, the governing minority had other ends in view. Massachusetts under the first charter was governed by an oligarchy of clergy and ma- gistrates who held office virtually by life tenure. These were the men who removed the charter to America, who established there the Puritan Commonwealth, who were ready to deny that they owed any obligations to the English government aside from those specified in the charter, and who more than once were ready to defy that government to the point of armed resistance.
AIMS OF THE COLONISTS (1630-1689)
In discussing the policy of the colony, therefore, one must inquire what were the aims of the few who shaped and di- rected it, and about this there can be little question. They came to found a commonwealth where they might hold such beliefs, and worship according to such forms, as to them seemed right. They came to escape from a Europe where the tide of Protestantism seemed ebbing, and to establish in another continent "a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist which the Jesuits labour to rear up in all places of the world." "Other plantations," wrote Increase Mather in 1689, "were built upon Worldly Interests, New England upon that which is purely Religious." They were a chosen remnant saved out of the general destruction, for whom God had providentially reserved this New English Canaan.
Such an attitude of mind added strength to the desire for isolation from Old World affairs. "They look upon them- selves," wrote an English naval captain in 1673, "as a free state and not at all to be interested or concerned in the differ- ences or wars which his Majesty may have with other Na- tions." For thirty years circumstances aided them in the maintenance of this isolation. The more Charles I became embroiled with his subjects at home, the less able was he to interfere with those who had crossed the Atlantic; and after his downfall the victorious Cromwell was little disposed to thwart the desires and ambitions of his co-religionists in New England. For three decades, therefore, the colony was left free to determine the course of its relations with its neighbors.
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COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
In fact, down to 1689, although the colony was twice called upon to assist in the conquest of New Netherland and once in that of Canada, Massachusetts expended very little blood or money in the wars of empire.
On the other hand this determination to live its own life and to preserve its peculiar polity did not make for easy rela- tions with the colony's neighbors. In its dealings with them it exhibited a fierce intolerance of opposition to the accom- plishment of its objects, whether that opposition came from the natives, from other English colonies, or from neighboring foreign settlements. "These people," wrote the Dutch De Vries of the New Englanders, "give out that they are Israel- ites, and that we at our colony are Egyptians." Like many another, they confounded their own purposes with the will of God and obscured for themselves, if not for history, the bru- tality of their methods by invoking for them the divine sanc- tion. As leaders of a new crusade, they adopted the historic battle-cry, "It is the Will of God."
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS (1630-1689)
A more potent influence in time moderated this harsh and intolerant temper and brought the colony into closer connec- tion both with Europe and with its American neighbors, and that was the commercial development of the colony. If reli- gion furnished its spiritual atmosphere, trade was its life blood. Massachusetts produced no staple; its economic pros- perity depended upon a complicated interchange of products with the West Indies, the other continental colonies, and Eu- rope. Hence that search for foreign markets and that active commercial life which characterized the whole later history of the commonwealth.
Such a commercial development was incompatible with a policy of isolation. Because of it Massachusetts became an integral part of a commercial empire, centering in England, and thereby was involved in the conflicts of rival maritime powers for colonial and commercial supremacy. It is doubt- ful if from 1689 to 1783 any other of the thirteen colonies spent as much blood and treasure in the wars of empire, and this not because it was compelled to, or because it was more loyal, but because its interests necessitated such a course.
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Furthermore, commercial expansion tended to engender eco- nomic rivalry with neighboring jurisdictions. Fish, furs, and lumber were the commodities which, aside from the products of the soil, furnished the basis of the colony's commercial life. But the best fishing grounds were on the coasts of Acadia and Newfoundland; the principal routes to the main sources of the fur supply of the continent were controlled by the French and Dutch; the best forests were in Maine and New Hampshire; the most fertile soil about Narragansett Bay and in the Connecticut valley.
The danger that the commercial spirit would defeat the intentions of the founders was early foreseen. Little more than twenty years after the foundation of the colony Edward Johnson uttered a warning against permitting the "men of trade in hope of gaine" to fling open the gates so wide "as to mar the worke of Christ intended." The warning was vain. Long before the end of the seventeenth century the commer- cial spirit began to triumph, subtly moderating and modifying the attitude of the colony towards its neighbors. One could not both treat them as enemies in the spirit of the Old Testa- ment and trade with them; and on the whole trade was the better policy. By the time the first generation had passed away the theocracy had given place to a plutocracy, and the economic interests of the colony as represented on the Board of Assistants by the merchants, landed proprietors, and repre- sentatives of the fishing interest, were fast obscuring the ideals of the founders.
TERRITORIAL INTERESTS (1630-1689)
The territorial expansion of the colony also made for closer contacts with its neighbors and often for friction. During the first decade of the colony's existence more than twenty thousand people landed in New England, mostly in Massa- chusetts. Even if many had not been repelled by the in- tolerant policy of the colony, there would have been a large emigration for economic reasons. As a result, Massachusetts became the nest from which all New England was peopled. From it very largely the colonies of southern New England were settled, and the weak northern settlements strengthened. While the former established themselves as independent gov-
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DECADE OF INACTION
ernments, the latter were, in course of time, annexed to Mas- sachusetts. The result was to shift the burden of conflict with the Dutch to Connecticut and New Haven, but to bring Mas- sachusetts into direct contact, territorial as well as commercial, with the French.
THE DECADE OF INACTION (1630-1640)
During the first decade of settlement Massachusetts was far more concerned with establishing its internal polity than with external relations. There was a momentary feeling of alarm in 1632 when news came of the restoration of Acadia to France; but it was soon realized that the French were too weak to be dangerous. Although they so far assumed the ag- gressive as to break up the establishments of the Plymouth traders east of Pemaquid, they took pains to assure Massa- chusetts that no further aggression was intended. Conse- quently when Plymouth sought the aid of its stronger neigh- bor to recover Penobscot, the Bay colony refused assistance except on condition that Plymouth bear the entire expense. Likewise Massachusetts refused to take part in a joint enter- prise, suggested by Plymouth, to prevent the Connecticut val- ley from falling into the hands of the Dutch,-only to permit, two years later, an emigration of its own settlers, which de- feated the ambitions of both Plymouth and the Dutch.
Thus from the beginning the policy of the colony was real- istic and opportunist. Feeling secure, it was free to choose its action, and its choice would depend largely upon whether or not its interests justified action. Cooperation with weaker neighbors, except where its interests were involved, was a pol- icy which made little appeal, and during this decade all pro- posals for a Confederation were rejected.
By 1640 Massachusetts was unconsciously ready to begin its career of expansion. The colony was well established, its polity settled, internal dissent silenced. The danger of inter- ference from the King and Laud was remote now that Eng- land was fast drifting towards civil war. In the following two decades Massachusetts annexed practically all the Eng- lish settlements to the northward, extended her jurisdiction southward at one point to Long Island Sound, made a vigorous attempt to secure a foothold on Narragansett Bay, and at-
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tempted to establish a settlement on the Hudson. Commercial expansion was equally vigorous. A severe economic crisis in 1640 and following years, consequent upon the cessation of immigration, drove the merchants, fishermen, and fur traders afield, stimulating enterprises in territories occupied or claimed by foreign rivals, and resulting in active relations with for- eign jurisdictions. In this way the colony was forced to aban- don the purely negative policy of the first decade.
THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION IN EXTERNAL RELATIONS (1643-1650)
But for the outbreak of the Civil War in England it is probable that Massachusetts would have continued to refuse to link its fortunes even with those of its English neighbors, but the consciousness that no aid could be expected from Eng- land in case of an Indian uprising, or an attack by some for- eign power, won from the colony a reluctant consent to the formation of the New England Confederation in 1643. Never- theless the Confederation was never popular; and it was the refusal of Massachusetts to subordinate its interests to those of its weaker associates which caused its virtual breakdown within a decade after its formation.
It is probable also that the Bay colony looked to the Con- federation to solve the common problem of meeting the com- petition of the French and Dutch in the fur trade. Their practice of selling arms to the Indians was resented by all the English colonies not only as giving them an unfair trade ad- vantage but also as endangering the safety of the English colonies. Consequently when the United Commissioners, in 1644, proposed the formation of a general company to prose- cute the fur trade, Massachusetts accepted; but on this occa- sion Plymouth, which probably had the largest fur trade of any of the colonies, rejected the proposal, and it was perforce dropped.
FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE DUTCH (1635-1664)
Because of the lack of any direct contact with the Dutch, save in a commercial way, the relations of Massachusetts with its western neighbors may be briefly summarized. At a time when the merchants of the colony were seeking every possible
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RELATIONS WITH THE DUTCH
source of profit, it was natural that they should look with envy upon the success of the Dutch in the fur trade. It was known that the great source of the fur supply was somewhere in the interior. Massachusetts had a sea-to-sea charter, but the problem was to get access to the interior where the Dutch held the Hudson and the Delaware. It was decided to try the Delaware route, for here the Dutch were but a handful, and were already meeting with Swedish competition. Conse- quently a company, composed of prominent men of the colony, was formed in 1644 to develop this route. Misfortune dogged the enterprise from the start. The first ship sent by the com- pany was not permitted by the Swedes and Dutch to ascend the river; and a second venture failed because of an affray with the Indians. With this the attempt of Massachusetts traders to gain access to the interior by the Delaware route ceased.
In 1645 a second company was formed to open the trade of the interior by utilizing the direct overland route, but of its activities we have no record. Fourteen years later, how- ever, certain of the members of these early companies joined with other adventurers in a scheme to establish a plantation and fur-trading post about two-thirds of the way between Springfield and Fort Orange. For this enterprise the sup- port of the General Court and the Confederation was secured, and the General Court asserted its territorial rights upon the Hudson under the sea-to-sea charter of the colony. The en- terprise was pushed with great determination against the stub- born opposition of the Dutch, and it was even predicted that there would be war. Before anything could be accom- plished, however, the Restoration of 1660 gave Massachusetts other things to think of; and within a brief time the flag of England supplanted that of the Netherlands in the Hudson Valley.
For the rest, Massachusetts was called upon continually to exercise a mediating influence in the incessant conflict of the two southern members of the Confederation with the Dutch. As the most powerful, though least interested, member of the Confederation, it was appealed to by both sides, but more especially by the Dutch. The action of the colony was usually in keeping with its more or less disinterested position. As a
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
member of the Confederation it supported the English claims ; but it opposed drastic action and repeatedly used its influence to bring about an accommodation.
It was two Massachusetts men, Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Prince, who negotiated, in 1650, as representatives of the Confederation, the Treaty of Hartford. By it the Dutch, as the weaker party, sought to appease the hostility of Connecticut and New Haven by yielding their claims to any part of the Connecticut valley and to a considerable portion of Long Island.
HOSTILE RELATIONS WITH THE DUTCH (1652-1664)
Despite this well-meant effort, which is the high-water mark of the diplomatic activity of the Confederation, friction con- tinued. The southern members of the Confederation would be content with nothing but the extinction of Dutch rule on the Hudson. When in 1652 war broke out between the Eng- lish Commonwealth and the United Provinces their chance seemed to have come. Prompt to scent danger, the governor of New Netherland appealed to Governor Endecott to use his influence for the maintenance of neutrality and the contin- uance of trade.
Unfortunately for the Dutch the rumor had spread among the English that the Dutch were inciting the Indians to attack them. Connecticut and New Haven were in an uproar and demanded drastic action. A special meeting of the United Commissioners was held in April, 1653, to investigate, and all the old charges against the Dutch were rehearsed. On the flimsy evidence of ex parte witnesses the reality of the plot was asserted, and seven of the eight Commissioners voted for war. The Massachusetts General Court, however, refused to sanction war, acting on the advice of the elders, who drew the somewhat fine distinction that there was evidence enough to prove the reality of a plot, but not enough to justify resort to the sword. As Massachusetts was expected to furnish 333 men out of a projected force of 500, the other colonies were forced to abandon the idea of an immediate attack upon New Amsterdam.
By asserting her right to place her own interpretation upon the Articles of Confederation and to disregard the vote of one
A
M
R
NOVE BELGIE
1659
From a copy of the Visscher Map in the Bostonian Society A DUTCH VIEW OF COLONIAL BOUNDARIES IN 1659
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CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND
of her own Commissioners, Massachusetts robbed that docu- ment of all meaning. As the colony was never at a loss for extending its boundaries at the expense of weaker neighbors, one is forced to the conclusion that the real reason for the ac- tion of Massachusetts was that she felt her interests did not call for war, a war in which the chief cost would fall upon her, but the chief fruits of which would be reaped by others.
Balked in their attempt to use the Confederation to dislodge the Dutch, Connecticut and New Haven appealed to Cromwell in England, who despatched a small force commanded by two Massachusetts men, John Leverett and Robert Sedgwick, to conquer New Netherland. Grudgingly the General Court ac- ceeded to the request of Cromwell for assistance and gave per- mission for the raising of five hundred volunteers for the ex- pedition. Long before arrangements were completed, how- ever, news arrived of the signing of peace; and the Dutch were left for another decade in possession of the valleys of the Hudson and the Delaware.
CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND (1664)
Nevertheless the days of Dutch rule were numbered. The English government had never recognized them as anything but interlopers. Charles II was even more ready than Crom- well to listen to complaints against them, either from royal officials or from his subjects in New England. Of these there was no lack; and in 1664 another expedition crossed the At- lantic to conquer New Netherland. Again the aid of the colonies was asked, and again Massachusetts reluctantly granted it. After much debate the General Court voted two hundred men for the expedition, but as this decision was reached less than two weeks before the English fleet appeared before New Amsterdam, it is more than doubtful if any of them saw service. The two agents sent by the colony to bring word to the English commander of its preparations were, how- ever, appointed by him to the commission which arranged the terms of surrender; and thus Massachusetts was made an ac- complice in the conquest.
To the Bay colony the passing of the Dutch was a matter of little moment. Its interests were already bound up with the fisheries and trade of the regions to the northward; and the substitution of a Stuart proprietor for the Dutch West
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India Company on its western borders seemed likely to prove more of an embarrassment than an advantage. Indeed it set in motion a train of events which involved the colony in the conflict of New York and New France for control of the western fur trade, and thus was one among other factors which brought about the costly conflict of Massachusetts with the French. To the relations of the Bay colony with its northern neighbors we must now direct our attention.
EARLY FRENCH RELATIONS-LA TOUR AND D'AULNAY
(1632-1643)
Massachusetts was brought into direct contact with Acadia less by her own remarkable commercial and territorial ex- pansion than by the quarrels of its French inhabitants. Among the few hundred settlers of that region two only had achieved some degree of eminence. They were Charles de Menou d'Aulnay and Charles St. Estienne de La Tour. On the death of the French governor Razilly in 1635 a struggle broke out between them for the mastery.
In a vague way these rivals stood for different principles of colonization. La Tour, who was one of the oldest settlers in Acadia, was a commercial adventurer pure and simple. To him it mattered not whether Acadia was English or French, Protestant or Catholic, so long as he could profit from the ex- ploitation of its resources. No politician bred to the ways of courts could be less troubled by scruples or more dexterous in changing sides. In a period when Acadia passed through many vicissitudes he succeeded, sooner or later, in ingratiating himself with each new master and thus maintained himself, with slight interruptions, where less supple men were broken. His rival D'Aulnay came to Acadia in 1632 at the time of its restoration to the French, served zealously as a subordinate of the French Governor, stood well with the Capuchin mis- sionaries, and in general was loyal to French interests and the Catholic faith.
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