USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 4
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32
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. be alarmed at a movement designed to destroy the only guarantee of freedom, and whatever his abstract opinions 1635. in regard to oaths may have been, the illegality of the measure was enough to ensure the opposition of Williams. It appears that he was not alone in this opposition. So many were found to resist the unlawful attempt, that for a time "the Court was forced to desist from that proceed- ing." It was not until the spirit of free inquiry was more effectually checked, and submission compelled by the coer- cive policy of the Court, that the act was finally passed, and the oath enforced, under severe penalties, upon every man over sixteen years of age.
While the authorities, and especially the ministers, were thus diligent in establishing their power over the colonists, seeking to punish as seditious persons all those who ventured to exercise their freedom by calling in ques- tion the acts of the Legislature, they were aiming to ac- complish a virtual independence of the mother country. At the very time they were arraigning. Williams as an enemy to the patent, for his too faithful defence of the rights of the Indians, and disgracing Endicott for mutilat- ing ensigns which they had already laid aside as idola- trous, they were nullifying their charter by decreeing an oath of fidelity to themselves, and were preparing for more overt acts of treason, should circumstances render it expedient. The council, alarmed by the evidence of serious designs against the colony, fomented by the high church party in England, convened the clergy to con- sider "what ought to be done if a general governor should be sent out of England." Four months prior to this, unusual activity was displayed in completing the fortifications, when these designs were first detected, and the idea of resistance to the home government was freely canvassed by the General Court. Thus early was the spirit of colonial independence entertained by the fathers of Massachusetts, while as yet they were ignorant of the
Jan. 19.
33
POLICY OF THE PURITANS.
CHAP. I. 1635.
leading principles of national freedom, and were pursuing a policy fatal to the existence of popular liberty. That they should conceive the idea of eventual separation from the mother-country as an act of necessity, was natural and commendable under the circumstances in which they were placed ; but that they should at the same time ar- raign Williams for a constructive hostility to the patent they were designing to supplant, and degrade Endicott for violating colors which they had already disowned, was inconsistent in itself, and accords with the real motive which animated the dominant class-to make inde- pendence of England the means of establishing a theo- cratic despotism at home. The republican feeling with which the name of independence is associated in our minds was unknown to the authorities of Massachu- setts. At this time there was no sympathy with the spirit of progress in the stern assemblies of the Puri- tans. The all-pervading element of religious contro- versy had withered every generous sentiment and dried up the fountain of Christian benevolence. No respect was felt for individual opinions, and no regard was shown for private rights, that conflicted in any degree with the rules of a coldly intellectual system of theology. The sanctity of domestic life was disturbed by the sur- veillance of the State. Even parents were known to re- port to the magistrates incautious remarks made by their children in the familiar intercourse of home. Cotton, whose influence was paramount in the colony, preached publicly " that a magistrate ought not to be turned into the condition of a private man without just cause," a doc- trine calculated to perpetuate power in the hands of men over whom the clergy already exercised unbounded con- trol. The strong common sense of the Puritan masses re- jected the dangerous dogma, but was not sufficient, as yet, to withstand the organized efforts of the magistrates and clergy. Every thing in the polity of Massachusetts was
VOL. 1-3
34
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. made subservient to the interests of the State, and that I. State was virtually and exclusively the Puritan church. 1635. No wonder that religious toleration and political freedom were alike abhorrent to its rulers, or that the conscience which could not accept an oath designed to perpetuate despotism was treated as an enemy to the State.
May 6.
The punishment inflicted upon the people of Salem for the alleged contempt of installing Roger Williams, contrary to the repeated remonstrance of the Court, was characteristic, and illustrates the incongruous mingling of temporal and spiritual affairs which must exist with a church and state establishment. The authorities of Sa- lem petitioned the General Court for some adjacent land which they considered as belonging to their town. The petition was refused, " because they had chosen Mr. Wil- liams as their teacher." This was certainly an extraor- dinary reason to assign for denying an act of justice. The Salem people so considered it, and Williams may be par- doned for having united with the whole body of his parish- ioners in an earnest protest against what they considered to be a flagrant wrong. The church at Salem addressed letters to the other churches desiring them to remonstrate with the magistrates and deputies who were their mem- bers on account of this injustice, and warning them of the danger to which their liberties were exposed. This appeal to the people brought no relief. Popular sentiment was not so keenly alive to a sense of violated right, or so vigi- lant in guarding the outposts of freedom, as it is in our day. At the next General Court the deputies from Salem were refused their seats until their constituents " should give satisfaction about the letter."1 Subsequently Mr. Endicott protested against the action of the Court, and
July 8.
Sept. 1.
1 Winthrop, i. 164. Mr. Savage here justly remarks, in a note: "This denial, or perversion of justice, by postponement of a hearing, on a question of temporal right, for some spiritual deficiency in the church or pastor, will not permit us to think that the judges of Williams were free from all blame in producing his schism."
35
WILLIAMS SUMMONED BEFORE THE COURT.
justified the Salem letter; for which exercise of his rights as a citizen he was committed by order of the government
CHAP. I. until he acknowledged his fault. By such arbitrary meas- 1635. ures, the authorities were shortly to subdue the manly op- position of the people of Salem, and to rule without re- straint over their submissive subjects. 1136325
At the same Court which disfranchised the Salem deputies, Roger Williams was summoned to answer " for divers dangerous opinions, viz. :- 1, that the ma- gistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table otherwise than in such cases as did disturb the civil peace; 2, that he ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man; 3, that a man ought not to pray with such, though wife, child, &c .; 4, that a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor after meat." To what has already been said upon the first two points, it is only necessary to add, that the con- cluding clause of the first charge proves that Williams' views were not opposed to civil magistracy, as has been represented, but only to the extension of authority over subjects for which man is alone amenable to his Maker. With respect to the third charge, there is nothing in Wil- liams' writings to show that he entertained the views therein expressed. It should be borne in mind that the only reports we have of his opinions, during the ordeal through which he was made to pass while a minister at Salem, are given by his opponents, of whom Winthrop is the earliest writer, and the only one who was superior to the influence of prejudice. And we know that inferences from his abstract notions, drawn by those less skilful in lo- gical deduction than himself, have been recorded as his real opinions, and that, with equal recklessness, he has been charged with acts which he never committed, but which were supposed by his enemies to be the legitimate results of views which they could not comprehend.1 Wheth-
1 Morton, Hubbard, Mather, and other nearly cotemporary writers, have erred in this way ; e. g. Morton's Memorial, 153, says, "he would not pray
July 8.
36
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
1635.
CHAP. er in this case he entertained the precise views alleged I. against him or not, is of little importance. If he did, it may be attributed to the effect of the prevailing idea of English worship, where all present are supposed fervently to unite in the prescribed forms of prayer, however incon- sistent may be their lives. An undue prejudice may have biased his judgment in this particular. The fourth alle- gation is immaterial otherwise than as evidence of his wis- dom and zeal in opposing the attempt to establish by law "a uniform order of discipline in the churches." Uni- formity, the rock upon which, a century before, the reform- ed church of England had well-nigh been wrecked, and which ever since had been the principal occasion of diffi- culty, which had led to the expatriation of the Pilgrims, and to the emancipation of the Puritans, was about to be attempted in Massachusetts. The Court had already taken measures to accomplish this object, and, if, as prob- able, these minor observances were to form a part of the religious system, we can well understand why Williams should oppose them.
But these errors of doctrine appear to have had less weight in determining the action of the Court than did the " contempt of authority," by the Salem church, of which he was both the instrument and the victim. Church and pastor were each warned to expect sentence at the next General Court, unless satisfaction should mean- while be given. For two years this harassing treatment had continued with little intermission. Williams' health failed under the accumulated burden of pastoral duties and legal vexations. While in this condition, " being sick and not able to speak, he wrote to his church a pro-
Aug. 16.
nor give thanks at meals with his own wife," &c. Hubbard copies him ver- batim. A more open slander Mather in his History has exposed, although with no good intent to Williams, in Magnalia, B. 7 ch. 2, ยง 6, which is cited by Knowles, 69, who significantly adds : " We may wonder, nevertheless, that Mr. Williams has not been accused of starving his children, to the horror of succeeding generations !"
37
BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
testation, that he could not communicate with the churches CHAP. in the Bay ; neither would he communicate with them, I. except they would refuse communion with the rest.". The 1635. cup of his anguish was full when he penned this last epistle, the only one upon the record of this protracted contro- versy of which even his enemies could say that "it was written in wrath ;" nor can we know that the apparent bitterness of his rebuke did not spring from a spirit more in sorrow than in anger.
The period of his sufferings was shortly to terminate. The letter of the Salem church was an unpardonable sin, which he, as its author, was to expiate, while that ad- dressed to his parishioners was considered an equally proper subject of judicial condemnation. For the fifth and last time he was summoned by the authorities to appear at the next General Court, where these two letters were presented as the sole charges against him. He justified their contents, and remained unmoved by the arguments of Hooker, who was appointed to dispute with him. The result was a decree of banishment in these words : " Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions, against the authority of magis- trates ; as also writ letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any con- viction, and yet maintaineth the same without any re- tractation ; it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Wil- liams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing, which, if he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the governor and two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to re- turn any more without license from the Court."1. It is a
1 Winthrop says the sentence was passed " the next morning " after the examination by the General Court, which met in Oct., but the colonial rec- ords, which we adopt as being documentary evidence, fix the date Nov. 3d. An explanation of the discrepancy may perhaps be found in the fact recorded
Oct.
Nov. 3.
38
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. singular fact, that in this Court, composed of magistrates I.
r
1635.
and clergy, while some of the laymen opposed the decree, every minister, save one, approved it. A practical com- mentary is thus afforded on the danger of uniting the civil and ecclesiastical administrations. It suggests the reflection that, of all characters, the most dangerous and the most despicable is the political priest.
Liberty to remain until spring was afterward granted him, accompanied by the injunction that he should refrain from disseminating his opinions, a restriction not easy to be borne by an earnest mind, conscious of possessing important truths and actively employed in diffusing them. To con- tinue his connection with the Salem church was incompat- ible with his present position. The church, subdued by the severity of the Court, surrendered at discretion, and apolo- gized for the offensive letter. The lands for which they had petitioned and been refused, were soon afterwards granted to them. The stern exercise of power, although it accom- plished its purpose in breaking the spirit of the people, could not alienate their affections from one who had been their fearless champion and devoted pastor. Great was the grief in Salem when the sentence of banishment was pronounced, and many prepared to follow him into exile. The per- mission to remain until spring was suddenly withdrawn at a meeting of the council, and his immediate departure for England, in a ship then ready to sail, was resolved upon. The reason of this harsh treatment was that he had pro- mulgated his views among those friends who visited him at his own house, and was planning a settlement in Narra- ganset Bay, which was considered as being too near for
1635-6. Jan.
by Winthrop, that "a month's respite " was offered him to prepare for the disputation, but " he chose to dispute presently." When the dispute with Hooker was ended, the Court doubtless agreed upon the sentence, as Winthrop states, but still indulged him with the month's respite before entering up the judgment, which seems to have been formally done at a meeting of the Court of Assistants, Nov. 3d, as appears by the record, which is therefore the proper date to assign for this important event in the life of Williams.
39
WILLIAMS ESCAPES TO SEEKONK.
the safety of Puritan institutions. An order was sent for CHAP. him to come to Boston, which he declined to do. A boat I. was then despatched to take him by force and place him 16 3 6. on board the ship. Warned by the previous order, he had already escaped three days before, no one knew whither. Leaving his wife and two infant children, he set out alone in midwinter to perform that arduous journey of which, thirty-five years later, he wrote, " I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not know- ing what bed or bread did mean." Happily for the world, and most fortunately, as the event soon proved, for the people of New England, he eluded the vigilance of his pursuers. Had their designs succeeded, the grasp of in- tellect and the energy of purpose which had evolved the grand idea of religious toleration, and was about to estab- lish it as the primary article in the government of a State, would have been transferred to another field of action, and generations might have passed away, in the stormy period of English history then commencing, before the man and the opportunity again arose to test the great experiment ; while the removal of the only man in New England who could control the elements of Indian warfare, might have given another and fatal termination to the desperate strug- gle which Pequot cruelty was preparing.
Driven from the society of civilized man, and debarred the consolations of Christian sympathy, Williams turned his steps southward, to find among heathen savages the boon of charity which was refused at home. The now venerable Ousamequin, who sixteen years before had first welcomed the weary Pilgrims to his shores, and with whom Williams, during his residence at Plymouth, had contracted a friend- ship, received with open arms the lonely and twice-exiled Puritan. From him Williams obtained a grant of land near what is now called Cove Mills, on the eastern bank of Seekonk river, where he built a house, and commenced planting with the view of permanent residence. But this
April.
40
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. was not to be his home. In the quaint scriptural lan- I. guage of the day, " he had tarried on this side Jordan, while 1636. the promised land lay still beyond." He was soon advised - by his friend Gov. Winslow that, as his plantation was within the limits of Plymouth colony, who "were loath to displease the Bay, he should remove to the other side of the water." This he resolved to do, and in company with five others, who appear to have followed him from Salem, he embarked in his canoe to find at length a resting-place on the free hills of Providence. Tradition has preserved the shout of welcome, " What cheer, netop,"1 which greeted his landing at " Slate Rock ;" poetry has em- balmed it in enduring verse ; good taste affixed the name, " what cheer " to the adjacent farm, and even the spirit of enterprise and the growth of population, which have thrown these broad lands into the market of a proud and prosperous city, have respected the consecrated spot, and reserved "What Cheer Square," with its primeval rock, forever to mark the place where the weary feet of Roger Williams first pressed the soil of Providence.2 Pursuing their course from Slate Rock around the headland of Tock- wotten, passing what are now called India and Fox points, they entered the Moshasuck river, and sailing up what was then a broad and beautiful sheet of water, skirted by a dense forest, their attention was attracted by a spring close on the margin of the stream, where they landed, and com- menced a settlement, to which, in gratitude to his supreme June. deliverer, Williams gave the name of Providence.
There is a singular confusion among the writers as to
1 How are you, friend ? " What cheer, netop, is the general salutation of all English toward them (the Indians). Netop is friend."-R. W.'s Key to the Indian Language, ch. 1.
" The writer hopes that the Rhode Island of the twentieth century will not have occasion to question the accuracy of his narrative, by finding that the aforesaid square has never been laid out, unless upon some then long-lost plat, and that Slate Rock exists only in the pages of history. At present there seems a likelihood of this.
41
FOUNDATION OF PROVIDENCE.
the period at which this memorable event occurred, arising CHAP. rather from ignorance or carelessness than from the absence of authentic data. The precise day of Williams arrival at Seekonk, or at Providence, cannot be determined, but both events may be established with sufficient accuracy for historical purposes. The Massachusetts records fix the date of his banishment, and also the proximate time of his flight, early in January, from which time the " four- teen weeks," that he describes as the period of his wander- ing, would establish his settlement at Seckonk about the middle of April, near the usual planting time of this region. The warning letter from Gov. Winslow, after he had " be- gun to build and plant at Seekonk," makes it certain that he was there after March, 1636, at which time Mr. Wins- low became governor of Plymouth, and the only year between 1633 and 1644 in which he held that office. A letter to Gov. Vane of Massachusetts from Mr. Williams is dated from Providence, July 26, proving that he had already been some time in his new plantation ; so that in placing the foundation of Providence in June, 1636, we feel assured of a tolerable degree of accuracy.
In reviewing the measures which led to the banishment of Roger Williams, we find that they all proceeded from the firmness with which, upon every occasion, he main- tained the doctrine that the civil power has no control over the religious opinions of men. To adapt this new theory to practical life was to effect a revolution 'in the existing systems of government ; to sever the chain, which, since the days of Constantine, had linked theology to the throne ; to restore to the free mind the distinctive, but long-fettered gift of Deity-free agency ; and, in fine, to embody in civil polity that principle, but dimly un- derstood by the Reformers, which, from Wittenberg to Rome, in the cloister and the camp, had aroused the spirit of all Europe-the right of private judgment.
The entire separation of Church and State had already
I. 1636. June.
4.2
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. been advocated by a small portion of English dissenters, consisting of Baptists and Independents, but the great 1636. majority of Puritans, as we have seen, still maintained the prerogative of the crown to interpose in matters of faith. Their chief objections to the English Church related to forms and ceremonies, and these they sought to alter. Persecution failed to make them liberal or tolerant to the scruples of others.
The right of every man to worship God according to his own conscience, untrammelled by written articles of faith, and unawed by the civil power, implies a degree of advancement in moral science and political philosophy, utterly at variance with the tone of feeling in that age. If to this assertion of natural right we add the denial of any power in civil government to enquire even whether a citizen believes in the existence of God, we have a propo- sition far more bold than many which had already led a host of martyrs to the gibbet and the stake. Yet this was the sentiment which, in those days of political dark- ness, Roger Williams had the clearness to discover, and the courage to defend. He dared assert the freedom of the soul. Thus was introduced a new principle in political science, by eradicating an old element of civil polity. The church was no longer to be a portion of the state, and the state must undergo a thorough re-organization, when deprived of its powerful auxiliary. Roger Wil- liams saw that government could be more efficient in its object and more just to its citizens, if independent of the church ; and he knew that the church could best sustain its spiritual nature when freed from the clogs of state. Religion, ethics, and politics, as now received, are alike indebted to him for their fundamental principle.
Yet plain and immutable as these truths appear to us, they were but dimly comprehended by the wisest states- men two centuries ago. Their exponent was driven to found a new state, which should illustrate the great prin-
43
CHARACTER OF THE PURITANS.
ciples for which he contended. From England he had fled CHAP. I. to Massachusetts, seeking sympathy among those who had suffered with him in a common cause. But affliction, 1636. which should serve to soften the heart to the sufferings of others, seemed only to increase the acerbity of the Puri- tans. Even among the ministers of Christ, from whom he might expect forbearance, if not kindness, he met his most virulent enemies. By their influence he was banished, and escaping to the headwaters of the Narragansett, he found a spot in the pathless wilderness, where he could rear a temple of liberty, consecrated to the Lord of the whole earth, before whose ample shrine Jew and Gentile, bond and free, might each worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
Although the conduct of the Puritans in this trans- action cannot be justified, it may admit of palliation. It is a source of regret to be compelled, from the nature of the subject, to treat chiefly of the dark side of characters who possessed so much true piety and essential greatness of soul-to apologize for their errors and expose their obliquities.
We observe in the Fathers of Massachusetts a degree of virtue and intelligence, and a supreme regard for the dictates of religion, and for the preservation of a sound morality, such as has never fallen to the lot of any other country in its carly history. The germs of a powerful state, competent to give laws to the world, and to trans- mit the heritage of a wise example to future generations, are seen in the feeble band of Pilgrims, planted on Ply- mouth rock, and in the throng of earnest Puritans gath- ered along the shores and headlands of Massachusetts Bay. But while we recognize these noble attributes in the men who persecuted Roger Williams for opinion's sake, justice requires that we should relate facts as they occurred without abatement or reservation. We may re- gret the conduct of our ancestors, but we are not entitled
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