USA > Rhode Island > A short history of Rhode Island > Part 3
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Plymouth and Massachusetts colonists, also, bought their land of the natives, but in their intercourse with the whites founded their claim upon royal charter. They even went so far as to apply for a charter covering all the territory of the new Colony.
Meanwhile two other colonies had been planted on the shores of Narragansett Bay : the Colony of Aquidnick, on the Island of Rhode Island, and the Colony of Warwick. The sense of a common danger united them, and, in 1643, they appointed Roger Williams their agent to repair to England and apply for a royal charter. It has been treas- ured up as a bitter memory that he was com- pelled to seek a conveyance in New York, for Massachusetts would not allow him to pass
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through her territories. His negotiations were crowned with full success. In 1644 he was again in the colonies, and the inhabitants of Provi- dence, advised of his success, met him at See- konk and escorted him across the river with an exultant procession of fourteen canoes.
To defray the expenses of his mission he taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew-counting "two sons of Parliament men" among his pupils-and read Dutch to Milton.
CHAPTER IV.
SETTLEMENT OF AQUIDNECK AND WARWICK .- PEQUOT WAR .- DEATH OF MIANTONOMI.
I HAVE said that two other colonies had been founded in Rhode Island. Like Providence, they both had their origin in religious con- troversy. Not long after the return of Roger Williams there came to Boston a woman of high and subtle spirit, deeply imbued with the con- troversial temper of her age. Her name was Anna Hutchinson, and she taught that salvation was the fruit of grace, not of works. It is easy to conceive how such a doctrine might be per- verted by logical interpretation, and religious standing made independent of moral character. This was presently done, and Massachusetts, true to her theoretic system, banished Anna Hutchinson and her followers as she had ban- ished Roger Williams. In the autumn of 1637, nineteen of these Antinomians, as they were called to distinguish them from the legalists or adherents of the law, took refuge in Rhode Island, where they were kindly welcomed ; and, soon after, purchasing the Island of Aquidneck, through the intervention of Williams and Sir Henry Vane, laid the foundation of a new town at Pocasset, near the north end of the Island.
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Their leaders were William Coddington and John Clarke, under whose wise guidance the little Col- ony made rapid progress, and soon began another settlement at Newport, in the southern part of the island. Here, breaking roads, clearing up woods, exterminating wolves and foxes, opening a trade in lumber, engaging boldly in building ships, and above all forming a free and simple government, with careful regard to religion and education, they soon found themselves in advance of their elder sister, Providence. In both col- onies the principle of religious liberty formed the basis of civil organization. On Rhode Island, however, it was confined to Christians-a step greatly in advance of the general intelligence of the age. But in Providence Roger Williams went still further, and, meeting the wants of all future ages, proclaimed it the right of every human being.
The other Colony, as if to illustrate the varie- ties of human opinion, was founded by Samuel Gorton, one of those bold but restless men who leave doubtful names in history because few see their character from the same point of view. In Gorton's religious sentiments there seems to have been a large leaven of mysticism, and the writ- ings that he has left us are not pleasant reading. But the practical danger of his teaching lay in his denial of all government not founded upon the authority of the King or of Parliament. Mas- sachusetts was a legitimate government within
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her own bounds. But unchartered Rhode Island had no legal existence. At Pocasset Gorton soon came into collision with the civil authorities and was banished. In Providence he presently raised such dissensions that Williams almost lost heart, and began to think seriously of withdraw- ing to his little Island of Patience, in Narragan-
sett Bay. At last Gorton with eleven compan- ions bought Shawomet of its Indian owners and established himself there. This brought him into open hostility with Massachusetts, which having already cast longing eyes upon the commercial advantages of Narragansett Bay, was secretly endeavoring to establish a claim to all the land on its shores.
Hostile words were soon followed by hostile acts. Gorton and his companions were besieged in their house by an armed band, compelled to surrender, carried by force to Massachusetts, tried for heresy, and barely escaping the gibbet, condemned to im- prisonment and irons. A reaction soon followed. Public sentiment came to their relief. They were banished indeed from Massachusetts, but they were set at liberty and allowed to return to Rhode Island. At Aquidneck they were received with the sympathy which generous natures ever feel for the victims of persecution, and Gorton was raised to an honorable magistracy in the very colony wherein he had been openly whipped as a disturber of the public peace. It was not till the claims of Massachusetts had been virtually
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set aside by the charter which Roger Williams obtained for his Colony that Gorton returned to Shawomet, and set himself to rebuild the Colony of Warwick.
Meanwhile great changes had taken place in the relations of the white man to the red. I have told how kindly the natives received Roger Williams, and how justly he dealt by them. I will now tell, though briefly, with what a Chris- tian spirit he used the influence over the Indians, which his justice had won for him, to protect the white men who had driven him from amongst them. On the western border of the territory of the Massachusetts dwelt the fierce and powerful Pequots. No Indian had ever hated the whites with a hatred more intense than they, or watched the growth of the white settlements with a truer perception of the danger with which they menaced the original owners of the soil. They resolved upon war, and to make their triumph sure, re- solved also to win over the Narragansetts as active allies. Tidings of the danger soon reached the Bay Colony, and Governor Vane appealed to Roger Williams to interpose and prevent the fatal alliance. Not a moment was to be lost. The Pequot embassadors were already in confer- ence with Canonicus and Miantonomi on Conan- icut. Forgetting his personal wrongs, and barely taking time to tell his wife whither he was going, he set forth alone in his canoe, "cutting through a stormy wind and great seas, every minute in hazard of life."
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Greater hazard awaited him on shore. English blood had already been shed by the Pequots, and knowing their fierce nature, he "nightly looked for their bloody knives at his own throat also." For three days and three nights he con- fronted them face to face, and so great was the control which he had gained over the Narragan- sett chiefs that he succeeded in "breaking in pieces the Pequot negotiation and design, and made and finished by many travels and charges the English league with the Narragansetts and Mohegans against the Pequots." The war came. The Narragansetts were on the side of the Eng- lish ; fearful massacres were committed; the Pequots were rooted out from their native soil forever ; Massachusetts was saved ; but the Chris- tian, forgetting of injuries wherewith Williams had come to her aid in the critical moment of her fortunes, was not deemed of sufficient virtue to wash out the stain of heresy, and the sentence of banishment was left unrepealed on the darker page of her colonial records.
The Pequots were crushed. The turn of the Narragansetts came next. It was the fate of the red man to everywhere give way as a civiliza- tion irreconcilable with his habits and his beliefs advanced, and it is for the good of humanity that it is so. But it is sad to remember that the Chris- tian, with the Bible in his hand, should have sought his examples in the stern denunciations of the Old Testament, rather than in the injunc-
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tions to love and mercy of the New. Six years after the formation of the league against the Pequots, a war broke out between Sequasson, an ally of Miantonomi and the Mohegans. The Narragansett Sachem, trusting to the good faith of his adversary, the powerful Uncas, was be- trayed in a conference, and his followers, taken by surprise in open violation of the laws of even Indian warfare, were put to flight. The unfortu- nate chief fell into the hands of his enemy, who, fearing the English too much to put an ally of theirs to death, referred the question of his fate to the Commissioners of the United Colonies- Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven-who were about to hold a conference in Boston. Rhode Island, which had been excluded from the league, had no voice in this outrage, and Williams, whose remonstrances might have been of some avail, was in England. To give greater solemnity to their deliberations the Com- missioners called to their aid "five of the most judicious elders," and by their united voices Miantonomi was condemned to die. The execu- tion of the sentence was entrusted to Uncas, and the only condition attached to the shameful act was that the generous friend of the white man should not be tortured. His people never recov- ered from the blow. In the very next year they placed themselves by a solemn resolution under the protection of the King, and appointed four commissioners, one of whom was Gorton, to carry their submission to England.
CHAPTER V.
CHARTER GRANTED TO PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS .- ORGAN- IZATION UNDER IT .- THE LAWS ADOPTED.
WE have seen that in 1643 Roger Williams had been sent to England as agent to solicit a charter for the three colonies of Narragansett Bay. He found the King at open war with the Parlia- ment, and the administration of the colonies en- trusted to the Earl of Warwick and a joint com- mittee of the two Houses. Of the details of the negotiation little is known, but on the 14th of March of the following year, a "free and abso- lute charter was granted as the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay in New England." It was not such as Charles would have given. But one fetter was placed upon the free action of the people-"that the laws, constitutions, punishments for the civil government of the said plantation be conform- able to the laws of England"-and that was made powerless by the qualifying condition that the conformity should extend only "so far as the nature and constitution of that place will admit." Civil government and civil laws were the only government and laws which it recog- nized ; and the absence of any allusion to relig- ious freedom in it shows how firmly and wisely Williams avoided every form of expression which
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might seem to recognize the power to grant or to deny that inalienable right. The regulation of the "general government" in its "relation to the rest of the plantations in America," was re- served "to the Earl and Commissioners."
Yet more than three years were allowed to pass before it went into full force as a bond of union for the four towns. Then, in May, 1647, the cor- porators met at Portsmouth in General Court of Election, and, accepting the charter, proceeded to organize a government in harmony with its pro- visions. Warwick, although not named in the charter, was admitted to the same privileges with her larger and more flourishing sisters.
This new government was in reality a govern- ment of the people, to whose final decision in their General Assembly all questions were sub- mitted. "And now," says the preamble to the code, "sith our charter gives us powere to gov- erne ourselves and such other as come among us, and by such a forme of Civill Government as by the voluntairie consent, &c., shall be found most suitable to our estate and condition :
"It is agreed by this present Assembly thus incorporate and by this present act declared, that the form of Government established in Providence Plantations, is Democratical ; that is to say, a Government held by ye free and voluntairie con- sent of all or the greater part of the free Inhab- itants."
In accordance with this fundamental principle all laws were first discussed in Town Meeting,
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then submitted to the General Court, a committee of six men from each town freely chosen, and finally referred to the General Assembly. The General Court possessed, also, the power of orig- inating laws, by recommending a draft of law to the towns, upon whose approval the draft ob- tained the force of law till the next meeting of the General Assembly.
The first act of this first Colonial Assembly was to organize by electing John Coggeshall Moderator, and secure an acting quorum by fixing it at forty. It was next "agreed that all should set their hands to an engagement to the Charter." Then, after some provision for the union of the towns, the formation of the General Court and the adoption of the laws "as they are contracted in the bulk," Mr. John Coggeshall was chosen " President of this Province or Colonie; Wm. Dyer, General Recorder ; Mr. Jeremy Clarke, Treasurer, and Mr. Roger Williams, Mr. John Sanford, Mr. Wm. Coddington and Mr. Randall Holden, Assistants for Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick " respectively. Then, en- tering boldly upon its independent existence, the little Colony-a State in all but the name-pro- ceeded to examine the body of laws which had been prepared for its acceptance. One of the most significant of them, as indicating their com- mercial aspirations, was their adoption of the laws of Oleron for a maritime code ; and another, as illustrating their consciousness of their peril- ous position in the midst of savages, still able to
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strike sudden blows, though no longer strong enough to wage long wars, the revival and exten- sion of "the Statute touching Archerie," and the enactment of a stringent militia law. The laws against parricide, murder, arson, robbery and stealing, show that there were men in the community who were believed to be capable of these crimes. The law against suicide, and still more the law against witchcraft, are too much in harmony with the general spirit of the age to warrant a severe condemnation. The punishment provided against drunkenness reads as though it were not an infrequent offence. Marriage was regarded as a civil contract. The law of debt was wise and humane, forbidding the sending of the debtor to prison, "there," it says with sim- plicity and force, "to lie languishing to no man's advantage, unless he refuse to stand to their order." The character of the whole code was just and benevolent, breathing a gentle spirit of practical Christianity and a calm consciousness of high destinies. "These," it says, "are the laws that concern all men, and these are the Pen- alties for the transgression thereof; which by common consent are Ratified and Established throughout this whole Colonie ; and otherwise than thus what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God."
By the same Assembly it was ordered, "that the seale of the Providence shall be an anchor." A free gift, also, of one hundred pounds was
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made to Roger Williams, "in regarde to his so great travaile, charges, and good endeavors in the obtaining of the Charter for this Province." This sum was "to be levied out of the three towns ;" and how far the island was in advance of the main-land may be seen by the distribution of the levy which assigns fifty pounds to Newport and thirty to Portsmouth, while Providence was held at twenty. Of Warwick, still poor and weak, nothing was asked.
The spirit of this first legislation may be com- prised in four articles : the first of which provides for the protection of the citizen against the gov- ernment by guaranteeing liberty of property and person, and restricting criminal suits to the vio- lation of the letter of the law. The second for- bids the assumption of office by any who are not legally chosen, and the extension of official action beyond its prescribed bounds. The third by making the charter and acts of the Assembly the sources of law, secures the rights of minorities. And the fourth, displaying a comprehension of the true principles of public service which suc- ceeding generations would do well to study, re- quired that every citizen should serve when chosen to office or pay a fine, and that his service should receive an adequate compensation. The engagement of state and officer was reciprocal -- the officer binding himself to serve the state faithfully, and the state to stand by her officers in the legitimate exercise of their functions.
CHAPTER VI.
FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC TROUBLES .- UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT AT USURPATION BY CODDINGTON.
AND now, just as the new Province was enter- ing upon that chartered existence which was to lead to such brilliant results, the wise and peace- able Canonicus died, closing in humiliation and sorrow a life which had begun in strength and hope. He had seen the first foot-prints of the stranger ; had aided him in his weakness; had resisted him in his strength ; had lived to see his destined successor fall victim to an unholy policy, and his people, impoverished and enfeebled, vainly strive to avenge the murder on their adver- saries ; and thus with a heavy heart he passed away from the scene of his early glory and his long humiliation. We shall see bye and bye the miserable end of the great Narragansetts.
The new Colony entered upon its career with two great problems before it. The first was almost solved. An experience of eleven years had demonstrated the possibility of soul liberty, which had taken a hold upon the hearts of the colonists too strong to be shaken. But did it leave the needed strength in the civil organization to bear "a government held by the free and vol-
ยท
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untary consent of all, or the greater part, of the free inhabitants ?" Thus the reconciliation of liberty and law formed from the beginning the fundamental problem of Rhode Island history.
At first there were great and frequent dissen- sions. There were dissensions between Newport and Portsmouth. There were still greater dissen- sions in Providence. Enemies exulted, foretell- ing an early dissolution of the feeble bands which held the dangerous Colony together. Friends trembled lest their last hope of the reconciliation of liberty and law should fail them. But still the great work of solution went on, each new dissension revealing some new error, or aiding in the demonstration of some new truth. It would take us far beyond our limits were we to attempt to follow up the history of these dissensions in detail, even if the materials for a full narrative of them had been preserved. There were other diffi- culties, also, which demand more than a passing allusion.
Massachusetts had not yet renounced her de- signs upon the territories of the heretical Colony. A party in Pawtuxet which had put itself under the protection of the Bay Colony had opened the way for action, and the dispute with Shawomet had enlarged it. Gorton was in England in 1647, exerting himself to answer the assertions of the Massachusetts agent, Winslow. Three years later the question became so complicated and the dan- ger so imminent that Roger Williams was asked to go again to England on behalf of the Colony.
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Meanwhile there were menacing indications of an Indian war, and a serious effort was made on the part of the Island towns to obtain admission to the New England confederation. The applica- tion was refused unless on terms equivalent to the surrender of all right to independent exist- ence. The time for justice and a clear compre- hension of the common interest was not yet come. Especially strong was Massachusetts' dread of the Baptists, who were becoming a powerful body in Rhode Island, and three of the prominent members of that communion, among whom was John Clarke, one of the most illustrious of the colonists, were siezed at Lynn-whither they had been summoned to give comfort and counsel to an aged brother-cast into prison, fined, and one of their number, Obadiah Holmes, cruelly scourged with a three-corded whip.
Another danger menaced the Colony. William Coddington, who had been chosen President, but had never taken the legal engagement, had gone to England, and, as was soon ascertained, with the design of applying for a commission as Gov- ernor of the Island. For two years he was una- ble to obtain a hearing. The new government of England was too busy with its own concerns to lend an ear to the agent of a distant and humble
Colony. At last the favorable moment came, and, on the 3d of April, 1651, he received a com- mission from the Council of State, appointing him Governor for life of Rhode Island and Connecti- cut. By what representations or misrepresenta-
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tions he obtained the object of his ambition, history does not tell us. A council of six, nom- inated by the people and approved by him, were to assist him in the government. The charter government was apparently dissolved.
But the men of Providence and Warwick did not lose heart. Roger Williams, who had already given proof of his diplomatic skill at home by his successful negotiations with the native chiefs, and in England by obtaining a charter, was still with them, and to him all turned their eyes in this hour of supreme danger. It was resolved that he should repair to England without delay, and ask for a confirmation of the charter in the name of Providence and Warwick. To provide money for the support of his family during his absence he sold his trading-house in Narragan- sett, and, obtaining a hard-wrung leave to embark at Boston, set forth in October, 1651, upon his memorable mission. In the same ship went John Clarke, as agent for the Island towns, to ask for the revocation of Coddington's commission. On the success of their application hung the fate of the Colony. Meanwhile the Island towns sub- mitted silently to Coddington's usurpation, and the main-land towns continued to govern them- selves by their old laws, and meet and deliberate as they had done before in their General Assem- bly.
It was in the midst of these dangers and dis- sensions that on the 19th of May, in the session of 1652, it was "enacted and ordered . . that
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no black mankind or white being forced by cov- enant, bond or other wise shall be held to service longer than ten years," and that "that man that will not let them go free, or shall sell them any else where to that end that they may be enslaved to others for a longer time, hee or they shall forfeit to the Colonie forty pounds." This was the first legislation concerning slavery on this conti- nent. If forty pounds should seem a small pen- alty, let us remember that the price of a slave was but twenty. If it should be objected that the act was imperfectly enforced, let us remem- ber how honorable a thing it is to have been the first to solemnly recognize a great principle. Soul liberty had borne her first fruits.
In the same month of May the embarrassments of the Colony were increased by the breaking out of a war between England and Holland, which interrupted the profitable commerce between Rhode Island and the Dutch of Manhattan. But welcome tidings came in September, and still more welcome in October. Williams and Clarke, who went hand in hand in their mission, had obtained, first, permission for the Colony to act under the charter until the final decision of the controversy, and a few weeks later the revoca- tion of Coddington's commission. The charter was fully restored. Williams had again proved himself a consummate diplomatist, and Clarke had proved himself worthy to be his colleague. We shall soon see him using his newly acquired skill under more difficult circumstances.
CHAPTER VII.
MORE FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC TROUBLES. - CIVIL AND CRIMINAL REGULATIONS OF THE COLONY .- ARRIVAL OF QUAKERS.
AND now it seemed as though the little Colony might peaceably return to its original organiza- tion and devote itself to the development of its natural resources. But the spirit of dissension had struck deep. The absolute independence which was claimed for religious opinion, led . some to claim an equal independence for civil action. If conscience was to be the supreme test in the relations between man and God, why should not conscience decide between man and man ? Roger Williams addressed a letter full of calm wisdom to the Town of Providence, explain- ing, under the figure of a ship, the distinction between civil obedience and soul liberty. A few years later an able advocate of the opposite opinion was found in William Harris ; and for a long while an nnhealthy agitation pervaded the community, justifying, in appearance, the un- friendly prophecies of the early enemies of Wil- liams and his doctrines.
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