Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 12

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 12

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ANDROS INTERVENES-Meanwhile in England plans were approaching maturity for the revocation of all the New England patents and charters, and the consolidation of the several colonies as provinces under a royal governor. During the Andros usurpation, as it is called in America, the Narragansett territory had the status of a royal province. On August 31, 1687, Andros, who had made a careful investigation of the old controversy, reported in favor of Rhode Island on the ground that the grant to Connecticut in 1662 was cancelled by the subsequent grant to Rhode Island in 1663, each being purely an exercise of the royal preroga- tive, each successive grant repealing previous grants inconsistent therewith, and against the

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

Atherton claims as extorted by force. With the departure of Andros, the Narragansett ter- ritory remained under Rhode Island control, although the disorders along the Pawcatuck River boundary continued. Connecticut apparently had abandoned the Narragansett claim for the time being; but the Narragansett proprietors, determined in their opposition to Rhode Island, were not content. In 1696 the English Attorney General, on a petition by them addressed to the crown, sustained Connecticut's right as prior, but no action was taken, and thus the matter rested with Rhode Island actually in possession. An agreement by Rhode Island and Connecticut reached in 1703 fixed the boundary line in the Pawcatuck River up to the mouth of the Ashaway River, thence to the southwest corner of Warwick, and thence north to the southern line of Massachusetts. When in 1719 it was proposed to survey and run the line, Rhode Island and Connecticut again disagreed. This time Connecticut repu- diated the agreement reached in 1703 and claimed as her eastern line the Pawcatuck River to its headwaters in Worden's Pond, and thence a line drawn due north. The Connecticut propo- sition, which would deprive Rhode Island of a strip of territory ten miles wide running almost the length of the colony, was rejected, and an appeal to England was taken. The Board of Trade heard arguments in February, 1723, and on March 22 reported to the Privy Council: "Upon the whole, it seems probable to us, as well as from the pretended grant of the Earl of Warwick and others to the colony* of Rhode Island, as from the submission of the boundaries to arbitration by the agents of Connecticut and Rhode Island so soon after the Charter of Connecticut had been obtained, that King Charles II was surprised in his grant to Connecticut, and that his majesty intended to reduce the grievance complained of by Rhode Island by his subsequent charter to them; but the former Charter to Connecticut being still in force and never made void by scire facias or otherwise, it is certain that the relief intended for Rhode Island is of no force in law. However, in justice to Rhode Island, . it must be observed that the transactions of the commissioners appointed [in 1703] by the respective colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island are a strong proof that those of Con- necticut did apprehend that the pretensions of Rhode Island were just and equitable."

Both Rhode Island ( November 26, 1723), and Connecticut (October 28, 1723), rejected a proposition that they surrender their Charters and be annexed to New Hampshire; and Connecticut expressed a willingness to abide by the King's decision as to the Narragansett territory. The Board of Trade on January 25, 1726, recommended that the line be as agreed upon in 1703, and the King issued a decree on February 8, 1727, confirming the boundary as the Pawcatuck River to the mouth of the Ashaway River and thence due north. Adjustments of the line were made in 1840 and in 1887 without controversy.

BOUNDARY DISPUTES WITH MASSACHUSETTS AND PLYMOUTH-The Parliamentary Pat- ent of 1643 established the northern and eastern lines of Providence Plantations by reference to the southern and eastern lines of the Massachusetts and Plymouth patents. Beyond the controversies arising because of Massachusetts and Plymouth claims of jurisdiction in Provi- dence, Pawtuxet and Warwick, already mentioned, the eastern boundary contest was post- poned until the granting of the King Charles Charter of 1663, and involved definition of the line three miles east of Narragansett Bay, and the line due north from Pawtucket Falls, the territory now included in the Rhode Island towns of Barrington, Bristol, Cumberland, Little Compton, Tiverton and Warren, and part of the present Massachusetts city of Fall River. Plymouth complained of trespass in 1664, and Rhode Island proposed a determination of boundaries. The King's commissioners, to whom the issue was referred in 1665, waived decision with the suggestion that the matter rest until the King might decide. For the time being the boundaries accepted were the Seaconnet River, the easterly shore of Narragansett Bay, the Providence and Seekonk Rivers, a continuous water line. In 1680 the Mount Hope land, formerly King Philip's favorite home, was confirmed to Plymouth. Plymouth and

*The reference here is to the Parliamentary Patent, which was void in the eyes of the monarchy.

RELATIONS WITH MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT

Massachusetts were united under one charter in 1691, and the eastern boundary line there- after was an issue betwixt Rhode Island and Massachusetts. In 1719 the northern boundary with Massachusetts was run by agreement. Monuments were placed in 1847; and readjust- ments were made by agreement in 1883. Both Rhode Island and Connecticut northern boundaries were defined in their charters as the southern boundary of Massachusetts. The charter of Massachusetts defined the southern boundary of that colony as three miles south of the Charles River. Nathaniel . Woodward and Solomon Saffery were employed by Mas- sachusetts in 1642 to locate the boundary line, and made a report showing a map of the Charles River and the location of a stake three miles south therefrom in the plain at Wren- tham. This stake was accepted in 1718 as the point from which the boundary of Rhode Island should be run. More careful surveys later showed that the stake placed by the Massa- chusetts surveyors was actually seven miles and fifty-four poles south of the Charles River, and indicated that Massachusetts by this location had gained a strip of territory twenty-two miles long and more than four miles wide containing approximately ninety square miles. Governor William Greene protested to his majesty in 1752-1753 that Rhode Island had been deceived. Perhaps the Rhode Island commissioners were wrong in accepting the location pointed out by the Massachusetts commissioners, without investigation, in view of the marked propensity shown by Massachusetts theretofore to expand jurisdiction wherever and when- ever possible. It was too late in 1753, thirty-four years after the boundary had been agreed to by both colonies, to upset the agreement. When readjustments were made in 1883, con- sideration was given to the growth of towns and villages along the line.

Rhode Island, in 1733, appealed to the King for a settlement of the eastern boundary, claiming Cumberland, then known as the "Attleboro Gore," and all of southeastern Massa- chusetts west of a line three miles east of Mount Hope Bay, and the Massachusetts town of Seekonk (now East Providence, Rhode Island), on the interpretation that the mouth of the Providence River was at Fox Point, where the Providence and Seekonk Rivers meet, and not at Bullock's Point, now established as the mouth of the Providence River as it enters Narragansett Bay. Massachusetts claimed everything east of Narragansett Bay. The Eng- lish Privy Council appointed commissioners from New York, New Jersey and Nova Scotia to determine the boundary, and on June 30, 1741, the commission awarded Rhode Island Cumberland by fixing the boundary as a true meridian north from Pawtucket Falls; and also a strip of territory three miles wide from Bullock's Point to Seaconnet Point. Both Rhode Island and Massachusetts appealed, but in May, 1746, the Privy Council sustained the com- mission. Rhode Island surveyed the line alone, Massachusetts having refused to participate. Following a suit in equity the eastern boundary line was adjusted finally in 1861 by agreement with Massachusetts under the authority of an act of Congress. Rhode Island ceded the town of Fall River to Massachusetts, and acquired by cession the Massachusetts town of Pawtucket (so much of Pawtucket as lies east of the Blackstone and Seekonk Rivers), and the present town of East Providence.

The prolonged and bitter struggle with Connecticut over the western boundary was due quite as much to inhabitants of Rhode Island who were hostile to the colony as to Connecticut. In the first instance, the hostility centered in Richard Smith and his followers at Wickford, who were desirous of a more absolute form of government than the democracy made the subject of a lively experiment in Rhode Island; later, the strife was fomented by a group of royalists led by Francis Brinley, who were anxious to accomplish the destruction of the republican form of government in Rhode Island. The eastern boundary controversy did not attain to the bitterness that marked the struggle with Connecticut, probably because posses- sion of disputed territory remained with the stronger neighbor to the east, reversing the west- ern situation with the weaker neighbor in control. Along both boundaries there were frequent quarrels, conflict of tax collectors, disputes as to the lines determining the jurisdiction of

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

sheriffs and other officers, and appeals, beginning along the eastern frontier with those of William Blackstone against taxation by Plymouth after 1663.

The good will prevailing along the eastern boundary in the twentieth century is indicated by the bronze monument* to Colonel Henry Tillinghast Sisson of Little Compton, which was erected jointly by the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the Common- wealth of Massachusetts. It commemorates the bravery of Colonel Sisson and the Fifth Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, who on April 13, 1863, raised the siege of Fort Washington, North Carolina, and relieved the Twenty-seventh and Forty-fifth Regiments of Massachu- setts Volunteers, who had been surrounded by an overwhelming force of Confederate sol- diers under command of General Magruder. When a force of nearly 5000 Union soldiers had failed to break the Confederate lines in an attempt to relieve Fort Washington, Colonel Sisson asked permission to try to run the Confederate batteries on the Tar River and carry aid by water. His project was at first condemned as foolhardy, but at length he was given permission, if he could find volunteers. His regiment, the Fifth Rhode Island Heavy Artil- lery, volunteered unanimously. The voyage on the river was made in a small steamboat covered with bales of hay as armor. The steamboat carried the 388 members of the regiment and ample supplies of food and ammunition to relieve the garrison.

TWENTIETH CENTURY BOUNDARY PROBLEMS-The increasing population in New Eng- land and the tendency of centres of population to expand in almost utter disregard of artificial boundaries, such as state lines following meridians of longitude or parallels of latitude, or extending in straight lines otherwise between fixed points, suggests other problems. The state of Rhode Island reimbursed certain of its law enforcement officers who during the Dorr War followed fugitives into Bellingham, Massachusetts, and arrested them there, when the Rhode Island officers were prosecuted by Massachusetts, properly, for intrusion. The Rhode Island officers asked reimbursement from Rhode Island because, acting zealously in what they believed to be their duty, they had ignored the interstate boundary line, not knowing its actual location. Bellingham, Massachusetts, and Blackstone, Massachusetts, adjoin Woon- socket, Rhode Island, so closely as to suggest for municipal purposes a cooperation in police, fire, school and other matters which would be mutually advantageous and economic. The interstate boundary line remains as an outstanding obstacle. Toward the southeast boundary Fall River, Massachusetts, and Tiverton, Rhode Island, are continuous as a matter of fact, but separate in law because lying in different states. Along the same boundary line there are other instances that suggest the desirability of adjusting state boundary lines to meet the problems of dealing with population that tends to ignore artificial boundaries. A river is not a natural boundary, so much as a convenient means of communication. The situation at Westerly-Pawcatuck at the southwest corner suggests that the state line there might follow some other course than the river with advantage to both communities. There the suggestion of community interest transcending the state line induced the Rhode Island General Assem- bly to modify the marriage law, which had limited marriages by clergymen to resident clergy- men, in such manner as to permit the conducting of a marriage ceremony in Rhode Island by a non-resident clergyman for members of his congregation living in Rhode Island, provided at least half the congregation resided in Rhode Island .; When shifting state boundaries is suggested as a remedy for problems arising in border-line communities, each state involved seeks a consideration for what it may surrender, by cession to it of equal areas, or equal population, or property of equal valuation, and a problem of readjustment, far from being simple and local, tends to become complicated and extensive.

From the struggles with its neighbors involving religious toleration, Rhode Island took renewed devotion to the great principles of Roger Williams. To him Rhode Island, and

*Dedicated November 17, 1917.

¡Chapter 1005, Public Laws, 1927.

RELATIONS WITH MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT

America, and all the world are indebted for clear enunciation of principles that are funda- mental in modern democracy; and to him also and to all those good Rhode Islanders who, with all the intensity of bitter and sometimes vituperative disagreement as to religion and everything else, maintained agreement on the essential principle of toleration, all mankind owes a debt of gratitude which may best be repaid by strict observance of the principle of trusting the common man. Roger Williams had no sympathy with the Quakers, and yet could live with them and shield them from persecution. Roger Williams detested the opin- ions of Gorton, and yet could live with him and sympathize with him. Roger Williams returned the ill-treatment meted out to him by Massachusetts with many a kindness. What a wonderful world this would be if everyone could be agreeable in disagreement !

R. [ .~ 5

CHAPTER VI. ORGANIZING A DEMOCRACY.

Y soul's desire was to do the natives good, and to that end to have their language (which I afterwards printed), and therefore I desired not to be troubled with English company," said Roger Williams in 1677, referring to the founding of Providence Plantations. He planned to serve the Indians as a social missionary, living among them ; it was not his purpose to found a colony or a state. Yet he yielded to the urgent requests of other souls troubled by persecution as his was, and made Providence a refuge for those ostracized by neighboring colonies. He soon had companions in large numbers as the theocratic establishments elsewhere cast out the heterodox, and with them faced the problem of organizing the community. Himself a victim of tyranny, of a clerico-political system in which authority was the dominating factor, of a ruthless purpose to suppress the individual in word and deed, and even in thought, it was to be expected that Roger Williams should undertake an experiment in democracy as a substitute for autocracy and theocracy, and to be expected also that the turbulent spirits who found restriction in Massachusetts and Plymouth unbearable should find it not altogether easy to adapt them- selves to the new freedom in Providence Plantations.

THE LIVELY EXPERIMENT AT PROVIDENCE-Democracy is the most complex and most difficult of all forms of government; at the opposite pole is autocracy, at once so much the simplest and easiest form of government as to be praised by philosophers. In an autocracy the citizen has no duty other than active and passive, unreasoned obedience; in a democracy he carries the responsibility of governing himself and others, his fellow-citizens. He must master himself, and control and curb his impulses, in order that he may assert the mastery necessary for success in the complex relation that exists when governor and governed are identified in the same persons. Autocracy tends to be effectual in its utter ruthlessness, and men admire it for its power and brilliancy, and for the protection it affords; democracy is less efficient, so inefficient sometimes that men almost despair and long for a Cæsar or a Napoleon, but it is safer for the individual. In an autocracy the individual is submerged and overwhelmed; in a democracy he finds freedom and wins mastery as he learns to reconcile impulse with reason, and license with liberty. Providence Plantations in the seventeenth century conducted perhaps the most "lively experiment" in democracy that the world has ever known. It was democracy without precedent, a unique type of individual liberty, novel in its conception and almost fascinating in its development. Small wonder that Puritan critics, viewing Providence from without, and observing startling innovations and departures from conventionalities, believed that "the devil was not idle," and mistook a psychological intoxication arising from deep draughts of a new and potent liberty for physical inebriation. In the end democracy justified the hopes of its fondest advocates, though they, too, were mys- tified sometimes by its almost amazing problems. Roger Williams once lamented that he had "reaped nothing but grief and sorrow and bitterness" from his venture. And Sir Harry Vane, addressing all the inhabitants of the colony of Rhode Island, in 1654, said: "Are there no wise men amongst you? No public, self-denying spirits, that at least, upon the grounds of public safety, equity and prudence, can find out some way or means of union and recon- ciliation for you amongst yourselves, before you become a prey to common enemies, especially since this state [England] .... gives you freedom, as supposing a better use would have been made of it than there hath been?"

RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

Roger Williams at the beginning planned a system of land holding that avoided the economic error of communism, characteristic of ideal societies and found fallacious and impractical at Jamestown and Plymouth. He anticipated in the seventeenth century the American ideal of the husbandman attached to the soil as an individual land owner rather than as a tenant, the latter a relation that survived in Europe the crumbling of the feudal system with the rise of national states. There the feudal baron as a political officer was succeeded by the economic landlord. Roger Williams might have become landlord of the domain which he purchased from the Indians; he chose to apportion and distribute it to his companions in exile and those who came later and were admitted to fellowship or freemanship in the society. Probably early in 1636, he purchased a tract of land, the rather indefinite boundaries of which corresponded somewhat roughly with the boundary lines of the city of Providence in 1930. This was described in a confirmatory deed made by the Indians two years after the purchase and dated March 24, 1637-1638, as "ye land and meadows upon the two fresh rivers called Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket . .. from the river and fields at Pawtucket, the great hill of Neutaconkanut on the northwest, and the town of Mashapaug on the west." What purpose lay behind the motion to obtain a confirmatory deed from the Indians is not clear from record or contemporary explanation in letter or diary, although it may be assumed from the litigation with respect to land titles in Providence that continued for almost the first cen- tury of the town's history, that those who later were to challenge Roger Williams and to bring about an abandonment of his original plan were active so early as 1638, and that their persua- sion and their insistence upon "clearing titles" may have paved the way for this and other confirmatory deeds in later days.

The confirmatory deed conveyed to Roger Williams also "all that land from those rivers reaching to Pawtuxet River, as also the grass and meadows upon the said Pawtuxet River." This particular provision in the confirmatory deed has been subject for vigorous controversy among Rhode Island historians, with charge of forgery and countercharge of mutilation. On the same paper, under the deed, is a memorandum dated May 9, as follows: "This was all again confirmed by Miantonomah. He acknowledged this his act and hand, up the streams of Pawtucket and Pawtuxet without limits we might have for our use of cattle. Witness hereof : Roger Williams, Benedict Arnold." Allegation has been made that the memo- randum, intended to extend the limits of the grant of land, was a forgery so far at least as . the signatures of Roger Williams and Benedict Arnold are concerned. Questions as to the boundaries of the Pawtuxet lands were subjects for a tremendous volume of litigation.

Roger Williams, on October 8, 1638, granted to twelve of his associates and himself "and such others as the major part of us shall admit into the same fellowship of vote with us . . . . equal right and power of enjoying and disposing" the land in the Moshassuck and Woona- squatucket River Valleys ; and to the twelve and himself "equal right and power of enjoying and disposing the lands and grounds reaching from the aforesaid rivers unto the great river Pawtuxet, and the grass and meadows thereupon." The consideration was thirty pounds for the Providence land, and twenty pounds for the Pawtuxet land. On the same day, October 8, 1638, the twelve grantees and Roger Williams entered into an agreement to divide the Pawtuxet lands equally, following the differentiation in the deed, which omitted reference to persons admitted to freemanship later, as in the instance of the Providence land. The Providence land was deeded to the original thirteen "and such others," etc. The plan of Roger Williams with reference to the Providence lands is related in a confirmatory deed made by Roger Williams in 1661 and carrying release of dower right by Mary Williams. The consideration of thirty pounds was to be paid by contributions of the twelve original grantees and subsequent contributions of thirty shillings each by later comers, as town lots were assigned to them after being made freemen by vote of the company. Aside from ques- tions as to title, many of which were quieted later by an agreement dated July 27, 1640,

ORGANIZING A DEMOCRACY

under which each proprietor at that time was given a deed in fee simple by the town covering his land lying within the town, the exact language used in these early deeds has historical interest only as it suggests the pretexts and causes for early quarrels and protracted litigation that vexed the inhabitants of Providence Plantations. The first town lots in Providence were laid out on the peninsula bounded east and south by the Seekonk River and west by the Providence and Moshassuck Rivers. Each lot fronted on the town street, now North Main and South Main Streets, extending back therefrom between parallel lines to Hope Street, and contained five acres. In addition to his town lot each proprietor was assigned six acres of pasture land on the common east of Hope Street, or in the Woonasquatucket Valley. An early plat shows fifty-four town lots, assigned to the original thirteen and forty-one others. The section east of Hope Street was called the common so late as 1890.

The conditions of acquiring land in Providence were admission to the company by vote of the proprietors for the time being, and payment of thirty shillings into the common fund. A grantee might sell his land to another proprietor, but not to a person not a member of the company without the consent of the latter. There was, therefore, no way by which Samuel Gorton, after his withdrawal from Portsmouth, could establish a plantation in Providence, the majority of the company being unwilling to admit him to freemanship because of his expressed hostility to compact government not supported by royal sanction. The conditions of continued ownership were occupancy and improvement. Thus Joshua Verein, whose name appears as one of those to whom home lots were assigned, removed from Providence back to Salem in 1637. Later in 1650, he asserted a claim that he had been "disinherited," and was answered by Gregory Dexter, Town Clerk, on behalf of the town of Providence, "that if you shall come into court, and prove your right, they will do you justice." In 1637 three proprietors were fined one shilling and sixpence each "for damage in case they do not improve their ground at present granted to them, vis .: by preparing to fence, to plant, to build, etc."

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 12

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716