USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 9
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26.
94
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
1637.
CHAP. III. inevitable doom, as the English, bursting through the palisade of sticks and brushwood, rushed upon them sword in hand. It was the intention to put the garrison to the sword and to save the plunder, but this plan was changed. The Indians, as fast as they awoke either crept under the beds or fled, when Mason gave the terrible or- der, " WE MUST BURN THEM," and seizing a firebrand from one of the wigwams applied it to the matted roof. A northeast wind was blowing at the time. The fire spread with great rapidity, soon involving the whole village in conflagration. Some of the Pequots, climbing the pali- sades to escape, were shot down by the English ; others rushed wildly into the flames and perished by fire ; a few boldly charged upon the enemy and fell by the sword. The allied Indians were stationed in a circle at a distance and killed with their arrows the few, who, fleeing un- scathed from their fiery furnace, had escaped the triple peril of shot and flame and steel. The massacre was complete. One short hour had done the work, and when the sun arose, a heap of smouldering ruins, over the man- gled and crisping corpses of nearly seven hundred Indians, was all that remained of this stronghold of the Pequots. Men, women, and children fell alike in this indiscriminate and wholesale slaughter. Of the hundreds who an hour before were slumbering in fancied security, seven only were taken captive and but seven escaped. The loss of the English was but two killed and twenty wounded.
As they were leaving the ground a party of three hun- dred Indians from the other fort advanced to the attack, ignorant of the fate of their comrades. Upon reaching the spot they gave way to the wildest demonstrations of grief, and then rushing down the hill, charged upon the retiring English whose ammunition was nearly exhausted. A few skirmishers sufficed to keep them at bay, while the English reached the harbor just as their vessels, coming round from Narraganset, had entered it. There they met
95
CLOSE OF THE WAR.
Capt. Patric with forty Massachusetts troops. Underhill placed the wounded on board a vessel and sailed for Connecticut river. The remaining troops marched across the country, and were " nobly entertained by Lieut. Gard- ner with many great guns," upon reaching Fort Saybrook the next evening. A day of thanksgiving for this signal victory was held in all the churches.
About a month after the battle of Mystic Capt. Staughton with one hundred and twenty men arrived in Pequot river to continue the war, and was joined by Ma- son with forty men from Connecticut. The remnant of the Pequot tribe concealed themselves in swamps or fled to the westward. One of their hiding-places was broken up and one hundred Indians taken. The men were killed, the women and children distributed among the Narragan- sets, and sent to Boston as slaves. The troops pursued the main body of the fugitives to a swamp near New Haven. Surrounding the swamp they held a parley with the Indians, resulting in the surrender of the old men, women and children, not belonging to the Pequot tribe, July to the number of two hundred. The warriors resolved to 13. fight it out, and some sixty of them succeeded during the night in breaking through the English lines, after an ob- stinate struggle, and effected their escape. One hundred and eighty were taken prisoners. In this fight it is said that a few of the Indians had fire-arms, which is the first account we have of their use by the natives.
This encounter virtually closed the war. Sassacus, the great sachem, whose name but a few months before had been a terror to both whites and Indians in New Eng- land, was murdered, with twenty of his men, by the Mo- hegans, to whom he fled for shelter, and a part of his skin with a lock of his hair was sent as a welcome present to Bos- ton. The Massachusetts troops returned home with only the loss of one man. The Pequots now became a prey to their savage foes and were hunted down like wolves, the
CHAP. III.
1637. May 27.
June 15.
Ang 26.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. allied Indians daily bringing in their heads or hands to the III. English. A general thanksgiving was observed through- 1637. out New England for the successful termination of the Oct. 12. war. The miserable remnant of the tribe delivered them- selves up at Hartford on condition that their lives should be spared. More than eight hundred had been slain in the war, and less than two hundred remained to share the fate of captives. These were distributed among the Nar- 1638. Sept. 21. ragansets and Mohegans, with the pledge that they should no more be called Pequots, nor inhabit their na- tive country again.1 To make the annihilation of the race yet more complete, their very name was extinguished in Connecticut by legislative act. Pequot river was called the Thames, Pequot town was named New London.
Thus perished the race and name of the Pequots. The first aboriginal tribe who defied the English power, had fallen in the desperate struggle for liberty and life. In their fate they were but the precursors of a long line of Indian races who were, one after another, to disappear as the gathering tide of European civilization swept on- ward to the west. In quick succession from the Atlantic to the Alleghanies, and thence to the Mississippi, the native tribes have melted away ; and westward still, from the river to the Rocky Mountains, the fatal tide flows swiftly on, driving before it the few whom it does not slay. Already it breaks in narrow streams through those mountain passes, until the far west is no longer the un- disturbed home of the red man. A few years more will see the fate of the Pequots repeated on our western shores ; the great tragedy of New England will be re- acted on the hills of Oregon ; the "notes of the last aboriginal death song shall mingle with the murmur of the Pacific."
1 Trumbull's Hist. of Connecticut, vi. pp. 92, 93, Book 1, ch. v.
97
COMPANIONS OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF PROVIDENCE FROM ITS SETTLEMENT, 1636, TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT UNDER THE PARLIA- MENTARY CHARTER, MAY, 1647.
THE original companions of Roger Williams, by his own account, were four in number, William Harris, John Smith, Francis Wickes, and a lad whom tradition asserts to be Thomas Angel. 1 By a letter from Joshua Verin, on the town records, it appears that he also accompanied the above named persons to Providence, as he speaks of " we six which came first." This apparent discrepancy is readily explained. The four persons named by Williams probably joined him in his first planting at Seekonk, while Verin came later but in season to remove with them across the river, and thus to become one of the six original settlers of Providence.
That it was not the intention of Roger Williams, in seeking a refuge in the wilderness, to become the founder of a State, his own declaration proves. Driven from the society of civilized men, who showed little sympathy with the enlightened and progressive views that placed him so
1 " My soul's desire was to do the natives good, and to that end to have their language, (which I afterwards printed,) and therefore desired not to be trou- bled with English company, yet out of pity I gave leave to William Harris, then poor and destitute, to come along in my company. I consented to John Smith, miller at Dorchester, (banished, also,) to go with me, and at John Smith's desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wiekes, as also to a lad of Richard Waterman's. These are all I remember."-R. Williams' Answer to W. Harris before the Court of Commissioners, 17th Nor., 1677.
VOL 1-7
CHAP. IV. 1636.
98
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. IV. far in advance of his age, his earnest, toiling spirit, sought among the savages a field of action, and their debased 1636. condition presented a fitting object for his philanthropy. Had his only motive been to escape from the vexations of a discordant community he would have refused, even against the plea of pity, all English companionship, and, like Blackstone, 1 who at the quiet retreat of Study Hill, had preceded him to Rhode Island, would have found, in communion with nature in her solitude, that rest which human fellowship denied. But the Supreme Ruler of
events had ordered otherwise. The missionary spirit which led Williams to devote his energies to the good of the Indians, gave him that hold upon their affection and esteem which enabled him to dwell securely among them, and to acquire that ascendency in their councils which afterwards made him the averter of war, and the virtual protector of New England. The humanity of his disposi-
1 There is a mystery in the life of Wm. Blackstone which probably can never be explained. When and how he came to America is unknown. The first planters of Massachusetts Bay found him already established, the ear- liest English settler on the peninsula of Shawmut, now Boston, where he planted an orchard, the first in Massachusetts. He was a clergyman of the church of England, and no doubt left his native country on account of non- conformity, the same reason that led him soon after to seek a home for the second time in the wilderness, when he used this memorable expression : " I left England to get from under the power of the lord bishops, but in America I am fallen under the power of the lord brethren." At his suggestion the larger portion of the colonists of 1630, who had settled at Charlestown, re- moved to Boston. In 1634 he sold out his title to Shawmut, each inhabitant paying him sixpence, and some of them more, and, purchasing cattle, re- moved soon after to a spot named by him " Study Hill," within what is known as " the Attleboro' Gore," in Plymouth patent, now in the south part of the town of Cumberland, R. I., near the banks of the Pawtucket river. He thus became the first settler of Rhode Island, if we except the three English re- ferred to in Winthrop's Journal, (1, 72) as occupying a house at Sowamset, now Warren, which was attacked by Indians in April, 1632, and as this seems to have been but a temporary trading post, such as were frequently set up ir the Indian country, and not a permanent settlement, such as Blackstone's was, no other reference being anywhere made to it, the honor here claimed prop- erly belongs to the proprietor of Study Ilill. At the time of his removal he is supposed to have resided at Shawmut about ten years. Lechford says,
99
EARLY TITLE DEEDS OF PROVIDENCE.
tion prompted him so far to vary his exclusive design in CHAP. IV. favor of the Indians, out of pity to those who had like- wise suffered persecution in Massachusetts, that, contrary 1636. to his own desire, he brought with him a small but reso- lute band of immigrants and thereby formed the nucleus of a State. These were soon joined by others, but at what precise time or in what numbers it is now impos- sible to know. Many of the records were lost, probably in the burning of the town during Philip's war, and those which are still preserved were but imperfectly kept.
The earliest deed upon record is in the form of a memorandum dated the twenty-fourth of March in the second year of the plantation. It refers to a sale made two years previous, of the lands upon Mooshausick and Wanasquatucket rivers, by Canonicus and Miantinomi to Roger Williams, confirming the same, and by its terms extending the grant on either side so as to include
" One Master Blackstone, a minister, went from Boston, having lived there nine or ten years, because he would not join with the church ; he lives near . Master Williams, but is far from his opinions," p. 42-Plaine Dealing, London, 1641. He lived peacefully at his new plantation the remainder of his days. Here he planted an apple orchard, the first that ever bore fruit in Rhode Island. " He had the first of that sort called yellow sweetings that were ever in the world perhaps, the richest and most delicious apple of the whole kind." (2 M. H. C. ix. 174.) Many of his trees planted one hundred and thirty years before were still in bearing when Gov. Hopkins wrote in 1765, and Mr. New- man in his Discourse on 4th July, 1855, before the Blackstone Monument Association, says that as late as 1830 three of these trees were living, and two of them bore apples. They were then nearly two centuries old! He frequently came to Providence to preach the Gospel, " and to encourage his younger hearers gave them the first apples they ever saw." When no longer able to travel on foot he rode on a bull that he had broken to the saddle. His wife, Mrs. Sarah Blackstone, died in June, 1673. His own death oe- curred May 26th, 1675, at an advanced age, having resided probably more than fifty years in New England. He was spared from witnessing the deso- lation of his place, and the burning of his house and library by the Indians in Philip's war, which broke out a few days after his decease. He left but one child, John, for whom guardians were appointed by Plymouth govern- ment in 1675. His family is now extinet. An inventory of his estate, taken ten days after his death, is contained in 2 M. H. C. x. 172. The name was originally spelt Blaxton.
1637-8. March 24.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
1637-8.
1639.
CHAP. IV. all the land between Pawtucket and Pawtuxet rivers, with the grass and meadows upon the latter stream. This extended grant is made "in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us," and the instrument is signed by the original grantors. A memorandum appended the following year states that May 9. this was all again confirmed by Miantinomi, "up the streams of Pawtucket and Pawtuxet without limits we might have for the use of our cattle." By this document it appears that the sole title to all the lands vested in Roger Williams. When years afterwards a bitter dis- pute arose among the settlers, in which the opponents of Williams denied his exclusive original title to the lands, ยท he wrote, " they were mine own as truly as any man's coat upon his back." Nor was it true, as alleged, that the purchase was made by him as agent of the company. The sources of his ability to treat with the Indians, and the reasons of his having any companions at all in his set- tlement, as above recited, are sufficient proof, apart from his own positive statements, that his assertion upon these points is correct. But it was not his intention to secure to himself the exclusive advantage which his position afforded him. Soon after the purchase he executed a deed giving an equal share with himself to twelve of his companions "and such others as the major part of us shall admit into the same fellowship of vote with us." It was a simple memorandum, like the first Indian deed, without date, and known as the "initial deed," from its containing simply the initials of the grantees. These were Stukely Westcott, William Arnold, Thomas James, Robert Cole, John Grecne, John Throckmorton, William Harris, William Carpenter, Thomas Olney, Francis Wes- ton, Richard Waterman, Ezekiel Holyman, who, with Roger Williams, the grantor, form the thirteen original proprietors of Providence.
This remained for more than twenty years the only
101
DIVISIONS OF LAND.
evidence of title possessed by the town, until Dec., 1661, CHAP. IV. when Mr. Williams executed a more formal conveyance by request of the citizens, and five years later he exe- 1637. cuted still another deed, being an exact transcript of the " initial deed," except that the names of the grantees were given in full, and the instrument was dated the 8th of 8th month, 1638, to conform as nearly as possible with the time the original was given. The sole object of this instrument appears to be to explain the first one as to date and names.' It will be observed that only two of the original settlers appear as proprietors by this deed. Of the remaining four, two at least were minors, one, Ve- rin, had already abandoned the settlement and returned to Massachusetts, while the non-appearance of John Smith, the miller, as a copartner in the deed, is not easily explained. Some of the grantees it is known did not leave Massachusetts until 1638. But all of them, the six settlers and thirteen proprietors, being seventeen per- sons, had lots assigned them, together with many others, 1638. fifty-four in all, in the first division of land which took place soon after the "initial deed " was accepted. The proprietors divided the lands into two parts, one called Oct. 8. " the grand purchase of Providence," the other " the Pawtuxet purchase." In the first of these divisions fifty- four names appear as the owners of " home lots," as they were called, extending from "the town street," now North and South Main streets, eastward to Hope street, beside which each person had a six acre lot assigned to him in other parts of the purchase, some on the banks of the Seekonk, where Roger Williams' out lot was located, at Whatcheer, the farthest north of all, and some on the. Wanasquatucket river .? The division known as the " Paw- tuxet purchase," which from the beauty of its meadow
1 See Staple's Annals of Providence, pp. 26, 28, 30, 33, for these deeds.
" The grantees were prohibited fromn selling to any but an inhabitant without consent of the town, and a penalty was imposed upon such as did not improve their grounds.
102
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. IV. 1638.
lands soon began to be settled,1 was the source of long and angry contention in the subsequent history of the colony, as will hereafter appear.2
The government established by these primitive settlers of Providence was an anomaly in the history of the world. At the outset it was a pure democracy, which for the first time guarded jealously the rights of conscience by igno- ring any power in the body politic to interfere with those matters that alone concern man and his Maker. The in- 1637. habitants, "masters of families," incorporated themselves into a town and made an order that no man should be molested for his conscience. As yet there was no dele- gated power. The little community had not swelled to the dimensions that required a division of labor in the conduct of public affairs. The people met monthly in town meeting, and chose a clerk and treasurer at each meeting. It is much to be regretted that the records of the town were so loosely kept .? An experiment like this, which had no precedent to furnish in doubtful cases a cri- terion of action, must have often presented questions of the deepest importance to the colonists, in the decision of which there could be no other guide than their own clear minds. Principle, not precedent, formed their only stand-
1 The first settlers of Pawtuxet were Wm. Arnold, Wm. Carpenter, Zech- ariah Rhodes and Wm. Harris, who removed from Providence in 1638.
2 The details of the various divisions of land in the town and vicinity, and the localities assigned to individual proprietors, so far as they can now be as- certained, are given in Judge Staple's Annals of Providence, and are not re- peated here because they belong more properly to a local history of the town, which has already been most diligently prepared in the aforenamed book, than to a general history of the State.
3 The only officer whose election is recorded is Thomas Olney, Treasurer. The earliest record is dated 16th of 4th mo., (June,) but without year. It provides for a fine upon all persons who may be more than fifteen minutes late at town-meeting, and but three other entries are made under that year, the last of which, dated 3d of 10th month, is but a repetition of the first mem- orandum. The next page is headed " Agreements and Orders of the 2d year of the Plantation," under which but seven entries are made, all relating to grants of land and preservation of timber, and but three have a date affixed.
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THE CIVIL COMPACT.
ard of judgment. Could the record of their proceedings CHAP. IV. -- have been preserved, with what interest should we now peruse the debates of this earliest of modern democracies ! 1637. The first written compact that has come down to us is as follows : " We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the pres- ent inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellowship, and such others whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things." It is signed by thirteen persons-Richard Scott, William x Reynolds, John x Field, Chad. Brown, John Warner, George Rick- ard, Edward Cope, Thomas x Angell, Thomas x Harris, Francis x Wickes, Benedict Arnold, Joshua Winsor, William Wickenden. The five with the mark x affixed, signed by their mark, but whether through inability to write their names, or from some other cause, may be ques- tioned, as we know that at that period instruments having more than one signature were often thus signed by some of the parties who knew how to write. This agreement is without date on the original record. It refers in terms to an agreement between the first settlers and to their in- corporation into a town fellowship, and is therefore pre- sumed to be the agreement of the " second comers "-a view strengthened by the fact that it is signed by T. An- gell and F. Wickes, who came with R. Williams, but be- ing, according to tradition, minors, were not named in Mr. Williams' deed, and now, having attained their ma- jority, they take this occasion to sign the compact of cit- izenship. The parties bind themselves " only in civil things," thus securing the rights of conscience inviolate as their predecessors had done. The different and often conflicting views of the members of this infant State upon the exciting topics which caused their exile, and the un-
104
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
1637.
CHAP. IV. tried principles upon which their settlement was made, would afford a curious example of diversity of thought and action converging to the same great end. Unfortu- nately our only authorities upon these subjects are the scattered and often biassed statements from the chronicles of Massachusetts. The fairest of these annalists has preserved a fragment of discussion, so curious as an illus- tration of the nature of the difficulties which must have been constantly arising in the colony, and of the shrewd, practical character of the people in their solution of knotty questions, that we transcribe it. " At Providence, also, the devil was not idle. For whereas at their first coming thither, Mr. Williams and the rest did make an order that no man should be molested for his conscience, now men's wives, and children, and servants, claiming liberty hereby to go to all religious meetings, though never so often, or though private, upon the week days ; and be- cause one Verin refused to let his wife go to Mr. Wil- liams' so often as she was called for, they required to have him censured. But there stood up one Arnold, a witty man of their own company, and withstood it, telling them that, when he consented to that order, he never intended it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God, such as the subjection of wives to their husbands, etc., and gave divers solid reasons against it. Then one Greene replied that if they should restrain their wives, etc., all the women in the country would cry out of them, etc. Arnold answered him thus : Did you pretend to leave the Massachusetts because you would not offend God to please men, and would you now break an ordi- nance and commandment of God to please women ? Some were of opinion that if Verin would not suffer his wife to have her liberty, the church should dispose her to some other man who would use her better. Arnold told them that it was not the woman's desire to go so oft from home, but only Mr. Williams' and others. In conclusion,
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THE VERIN CASE.
when they would have censured Verin, Arnold told them CHAP. that it was against their own order, for Verin did that he I. did out of conscience ; and their order was that no man 1637. should be censured for his conscience." This then is the earliest record we have of the struggle between liberty and law, the rival elements which Rhode Island was to reconcile in the novel experiment of a self-governed State. The only entry referring to it upon the town books is in May 21. these words : "It was agreed that Joshua Verin, upon the breach of a covenant for restraining of the libertie of conscience, shall be withheld from the libertie of voting till he shall declare the contrarie." Here was a case in- volving the cardinal principle of the Rhode Island settlers with the most delicate subject of family regulation. One of greater difficulty could not well be imagined. On the supposition that Mrs. Verin felt bound in conscience to attend the meetings, and did so without detriment to her domestic duties, the restraint imposed by her husband was a violation of the Rhode Island principle, and as such the punishment was correctly administered, although the report, as given by Winthrop, doubtless derived from Verin himself, naturally gives the best of the argument to the latter.
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