State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 1, Part 6

Author: Field, Edward, 1858-1928
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston : Mason Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 700

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Since the local sachem was tributary to Canonicus and Miantonomi, it was from these chiefs that Aquedneck had to be obtained.2 On March 24, 1637, the whole island, together with the grass on several smaller islands, was conveyed to William Coddington and his friends for forty fathoms of white peage and a few extra gratuities to local sachems.3 About a fortnight previous they had organized themselves into a political body, according to the following compact: "The 7th day of the first month, 1638. We whose names are underwritten do here solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a

1John Clarke's Ill Newes from New England, 1652, reprinted in 4 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. ii, 1.

2Roger Williams records that "It was not price or money that could have purchased Rhode Island, but 'twas obtained by that love and favour which that honored gentleman, Sir Harry Vane and myself, had with the great Sachem Miantonomo." Narr. Club Publ. vi, 305.

8The deed and receipts for gratuities are in R. I. Col Rec. i, 45.

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.

Bodie Politik and as he shall help, will submit our persons, lives and cstates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of his given us in his holy word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby."1

Having taken this initial step, they elected Coddington "judge", or chief magistrate, he engaging to "do justice and judgment impar- tially according to the laws of God". They also appointed a secretary and clerk. All these preparatory proccedings had been enacted at Providence. They now were ready for settlement, and chose as the most desirable situation the land around the cove at the northeasterly end of the island.2 Here they planted, enacting as their first law that none could become inhabitants except those who should be "re- ceived in by the consent of the Bodie and do submit to the Govern- ment". During the ensuing year they passed many local acts, making provision for the maintenance of peace and order, for military organ- ization, for the location of a meeting-house, for validating land titles and for many other needs-all somewhat in contrast to the loose and inefficient enactments of the earlier settlement at the head of the Bay.

Before the settlement was a year old there came a slight change in the governmental organization. The original compact had provided for a perfect democracy, in which all laws were passed by the general body of freemen, of whom the judge was merely the presiding officer. But now, as at Providence, an approach toward delegation of power was deemed expedient. On January 2, 1639, it was enacted that the judge, assisted by his three "elders", should govern "according to the general rule of the word of God". Once every quarter they were to report to the assembled freemen, whose power of veto is thus quaintly

1R. I. Col. Rec. i, 52. It is subscribed to by Wm. Coddington, John Clarke, Wm. Hutchinson, Jr., John Coggeshall, Wm. Aspinwall, Samuel Wilbore, John Porter, John Sanford, Ed. Hutchinson, Jr., Thos. Savage, Wm. Dyre, Wm. Freeborne, Phillip Shearman, John Walker, Richard Carder, Wm. Baulston, Ed. Hutchinson, Sr., Henry Bull, and Randall Holden. The Antinomian influence upon these first settlers is shown by the fact that all, except Cod- dington, Ed. Hutchinson, Jr., and Holden, were named in the disarming, act of the previous November. (See Mass. Col. Rec. i, 211.)

2One of the first orders was that "the Town shall be builded at the spring", at the head of the cove, which at that time had a navigable outlet to Narragansett Bay on the northern side. The first house-lots, mostly of six acres, were laid out on the westerly border of the cove. The remains of the settlement could a few years ago be clearly traced; but there is now no house or foundation remaining to show where these first settlers planted. The Indian name for the place of settlement, and also for the main land opposite, was Pocasset (see Callender's Discourse, p. 33). The name Portsmouth was agreed upon in July, 1639, although it seems to have been used earlier. (See R. I. Col. Rec. i, 71-72.)

THE ANTINOMIANS AND AQUEDNECK.

expressed : "If by the Body or any of them the Lord shall be pleased to dispense light to the contrary of what by the Judge and Elders hath been determined formerly, that then and there it shall be repealed as the act of the Body." This new mode of government lasted but four months. During this interval the Coddington faction seem to have urged that the officers in power should be granted a larger amount of authority. Failing, apparently, to impress the majority of the settlers with the wisdom of this course, they determined to build another town.1 On April 28, they met at Pocasset and drew the fol- lowing instrument: "It is agreed by us whose hands are under writ- ten, to propagate a Plantation in the midst of the Island or elsewhere; and doe engage ourselves to bear equall charges, answerable to our strength and estates in common; and that our determinations shall be by major voice of judge and elders; the Judge to have a double voice. ''2

The five officers of the little settlement and four others signed this compact, and taking the records of the town in their possession, pro- ceeded to seek a new plantation. The remainder of the inhabitants, thus deprived of their officers and their records, immediately set about the organization of a new government. On April 30 they made as their first entry on a new record-book the following: "We whose names are underw[ritten acknowledge] ourselves the loyal subje [cts of his Majestie] King Charles, and in his na [me do bind our] selves into a Civill body Politicke : a [ssenting] unto his lawes according [to right and] matters of Justice".3 They then chose William Hutchin-

1I do not at all agree with Callender and Arnold in assuming that the increase of population caused the planting of a new town. Infant settle- ments are not often burdened with over-population; nor are there any records to show there was a notable increase. Callender dedicated his book to Cod- dington's grandson, and for personal reasons could not impute unworthy motives to the grandfather; and Arnold simply follows Callender. Codding- ton, as we shall see in his later life, strongly believed in centralization of power, especially when that power was centralized in him. It is probable that there was some tumult in the process of separation, although the evi- dence of that fact comes from the pens of Massachusetts writers who would have been only too willing to give credence to the slightest rumor of insur-

rection on the Island. (See Winthrop, i, 295.) The seceders were in the minority, but they evidently held the political control in the community.

2R. I. Col. Rec. i, 87. This compact is signed by Wm. Coddington, Judge; Nicholas Easton, John Coggeshall and William Brenton, Elders; William Dyer, Clerk; and John Clarke, Jeremy Clarke, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull.

&Portsmouth Rec. p. 1. The words within the brackets are supplied to complete the sense. The thirty-one names, headed by Wm. Coddington and Samuel Gorton, signed to this compact are for the first time rightly given in the recently issued Portsmouth records. The names questioned in Arnold

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.

son as judge and elected cight assistants.1 Provision was made for a quarterly court of trials, with a jury of twelve men, although small cases could be tried before the assistants. This was a government constructed according to English law-the first in the colony to acknowledge allegiance to the king or to provide for an English jury trial. It differcd widely from the government of the seceders. They judged "according to the word of God", which gave to the judge con- siderable latitude in Biblical interpretation. The Portsmouth settle- ment, although it had the stronger polity and was also stronger numer- ically, soon showed its inevitable dependency on the Coddington party. Being the natural leaders, they speedily acquired control of the Island. The Portsmouth records are henceforth given over to the recording of local items; and the subsequent history of Aquedneck must be traced in the doings at Newport.

Meanwhile, how had the seceders fared? On April 30, only two days after the compact, Nicholas Easton came with his two sons to a little island, which they named Coaster's Harbor. On the following day they arrived at Newport, where they planted and erected the first English house.2 It is evident that the rest of the signers immediately followed, for on May 16, 1639, they made as their first town order that "the Plantation now begun at this Southwest end of the Island, shall be called Newport", and that "the Towne shall be built upon both sides of the spring, and by the sea-side southward".3 They also made

i, 133, should be John Sloffe, Wm. Heavens, George Cleare, and John More. (See R. I. H. S. Publ. vi. 85.)

1Portsmouth Rec. p. 3. Hutchinson's name, torn off in the mutilated rec- ord, is preserved by Winthrop, i, 295. The eight (not seven) assistants were Wm. Baulston, John Porter, John Sanford, Wm. Freeborn, John Walker, Philip Sherman, Wm. Aspinwall, and one other, probably Adam Mott.

2The source of the Easton narrative is in a diary noted on the margin of Morton's N. E. Memorial. It is printed in Bull's Memoir (in Newport Mer- cury, Dec. 26, 1857), and in Narr. Hist. Reg. viii, 240.

3R. I. Col. Rec. i, 88. Bull, in his Memoir of R. I. (R. I. Hist. Mag. vii, 191) relates the tradition of settlement as follows: The land fronting on the harbor where Thames street now is, was then an impenetrable swamp, which circumstance so discouraged the settlers that they concluded to locate the town near Easton's Beach; but on further survey, they found the roadstead there unsafe for shipping, which obliged them to resort again to the spot where Newport now stands. Miss E. C. Brenton repeats this tradition ( Hist. of Brenton's Neck, p. 5), and adds that the swamp was fired, cleared and filled in by the Indians for the gift of a coat with brass buttons. The spring in question rose on the west side of Spring street, near the State House, and ran northwesterly into the harbor. Home-lots of four acres each, most of them extending from Spring street to the bay, were assigned to the proprie- tors. The first houses were built in the vicinity of the present Parade, the Easton house being on the easterly side of Farewell street, a little west from the Friend's Meeting House. The Coddington house, torn down in 1835, was

THE ANTINOMIANS AND AQUEDNECK.

the division from Pocasset on a line five miles north and east from the town, and then proceeded to the laying out of their lands.

Now that the Coddington party had erected a government according to their own liking, they decided to draw their Portsmouth comrades back into the fold. They appointed commissioners to "negotiate with our brethren of Pocasset", and by October 1 thought this project far enough advanced to assume practical union. On that date was issued a "Catalogue of such who, by the general consent of the Company were admitted to be inhabitants of the Island now called Aqueedneck". This included lists of Portsmouth and Newport settlers, all of whom, according to the record, had "submitted themselves to the Government that is or shall be established, according to the word of God therein". Whether or not this partnership seemed undesirable to the Pocasset "brethren", the action of the Newport body on November 25 is signifi- cant. They then made an order concerning courts, prefacing it by what is undoubtedly a concession to the Portsmouth principle of English allegiance: "In the fourteenth yeare of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord King Charles, it is agreed that as natural subjects to our Prince, and subject to his Laws, all matters that concern the Peace shall be," etc. Two men, furthermore, were appointed to take steps about "obtaining a Patent of the Island from his Majestic". They styled themselves as "the Body Politicke in the Ile of Aquethnec", and at the same meeting issued further orders to the commissioners as to effecting a union with Portsmouth. Their efforts were now finally crowned with success. On March 12, 1640, decreed two months before as Election Day, the "brethren" came in. The first entry in the records on this day reads that William Hutchinson and the other leaders of the neighboring settlement, all mentioned by name, "pre- senting themselves, and desiring to be reunited to this body, arc readily embraced by us". This preliminary proceeding having been settled, it was then agreed by "this Bodie united" that the chief magistrate of the island should be called governor, and the next deputy-governor, and the rest of the magistrates assistants. The governor and two assistants were to be chosen in one town, and the deputy and two other assistants in the other town. The election resulted in the choice of Coddington as governor and William Brenton as deputy-governor.1 The union was complete, but the joint signers were not to be equal

on the north side of Marlborough street, fronting Duke street. Stephen Gould, however, in a letter to John Howland (MS. in R. I. H. S.) stated that this house was built about 1670, Coddington's first residence having been near Coddington's Cove.

1For these and other Newport proceedings, see R. I. Col Rec. i, 87-101.

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.

partners in the contract. It was the Newport settlement that was henceforth to control both the initiative in legislation and the power in government.

Now that the two separated towns were consolidated, the injection of the Portsmouth idea of self-governing democracy with its right to political existence vested in royal authority, seems to have borne imme- diate fruit and rendered dormant any autocratic aspirations of the Coddington party. In March, 1641, one year from the date of union, it was recorded that "the Government which this Bodie Politick doth attend unto in this Island, and the Jurisdiction thereof, in favor of our Prince is a Democracie, or Popular Government ; that is to say, it is in the power of the Body of freemen orderly assembled, or the major part of them, to make or constitute just laws, by which they will be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man".1 The government thus existed as a democracy until the union of the towns into a colony in 1647. In May, 1644, a name was provided for this colony in the following words : "It is ordered by this Court, that the island commonly called Aquethneck, shall be henceforth called the Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island.''2

1R. I. Col. Rec. i, 112. This same assembly ordered that a seal-a sheaf of arrows with the motto Amor vincet omnia-should be provided for the "State". The Newport records exist through 1642, and for one meeting in 1643 and 1644 respectively. There are no records from 1645 until the meeting under the patent in May, 1647. The only record for this interval exists in the action of the Court of Trials. These records, which often throw im- portant light on the history of the period, are as yet unprinted, Bartlett having printed the Colonial Records as far as 1679 from the Gyles copy of the assembly records.

2R. I. Col. Rec. i, 127. The origin of the name of Rhode Island has given rise to much discussion. That it was transferred from Block Island, com- pared by Verrazano to the Isle of Rhodes; that it came from the Dutch "Roode Eylandt," the reddish appearance of a certain island in the Bay having been noted by Block; and that the action of the Assembly in 1644 is sufficient reason for its origin-have all been advocated as theories. Dr. J. C. Kohl sums up all the theories ( Mag. Am. Hist. ix, 81) and adds another-that the name was given to immortalize a Mr. Rhodes who might have lived there. He makes no preference, however, and assumes that all these theories are accountable for the origin. Most authorities favor the Dutch origin, in- stancing the fact that the name "Roode Eylandt" occurs in all the early Dutch maps; but they overlook the fact that the name does not occur on the earliest Dutch maps, and that the first to have the name was the Visscher map of 1650-56 (see Asher's Bibliog. Essay, 2d suppl. p. 17). It is significant that this was nearly a decade after the island had been expressly named Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island. The first Dutch use of the name is in 1645, and then it is called Rhode Island and not Roode Eylandt (O'Callaghan's Coll. of Hist. Mss. p. 98). In all subsequent references until the publication of the Visscher map, it is called by the English name or else "Island of Nahi-

THE ANTINOMIANS AND AQUEDNECK.

The social and religious, as well as the political, framework of the Newport settlement was already in a far better condition than at Providence. Although a few of the many slanders of their Massachu- setts neighbors may have been true of the earlier settlement, they could scarcely apply to Aquedneck. The Boston magistrates had a woeful habit of treating as heretics and atheists all those who differed from them in the non-essentials of religion; and the Antinomian exiles formed no exception to this rule. All their religious endeavors were but new broachings of heresy, and the smallest of petty crimes were taken as symptoms of sure disorder. But, as we shall see, the Aqued- neck settlers were as watchful of their spiritual welfare as their former brethren of the Bay, and were certainly far more advanced in solving the problem of true religion.

At Portsmouth we have seen that one of their first acts was to pro- vide for the location of a meeting-house. Although this place of wor- ship was undoubtedly not then erected, it is certain that they held religious meetings, as Mr. Clarke is described by Winthrop as "a preacher to those of the island".1 This same author, writing in May, 1639, says, "They also gathered a church in a very disordered way ; for they took some excommunicated persons, and others who were members of the church at Boston and not dismissed".2 This church,

cans" (as in the Hartgers map, 1651). These facts lead to the conclusion that the origin of the name Rhode Island, as decreed by the Newport Assem- bly in May, 1644, was not all due to the Dutch "Roodt Eylandt", which prob- ably owed its origin to the English name. Roode Eylandt, moreover, is merely the Dutch equivalent for the English name, so far as pronunciation is concerned. It has already been noted (p. 9) that Block's "little reddish island" applied to an island in the western part of the bay, and not to Aqued- neck. S. S. Rider, in a review of Kohl's theories ( Book Notes, vii, 29, 37) clearly disposes of the Dutch etymology, and shows that all the historical facts point toward a Greek origin. Roger Williams in a letter of 1637 (Narr. Club. Publ. vi, 18) mentions "Aquedneck, called by us Rhode Island, at the Narragansett's mouth"; and in a letter of 1666 (R. I. H. S. Publ. viii, 152) he says, "Rhode Island, in the Greek language, is an Ile of Roses".

1Winthrop, p. 271, under date of Sept., 1638. Callender's assumption (p. 63) that the meeting-house was built is merely an inference from the records, disproved by subsequent facts.

2Winthrop, p. 297. This Puritan opinion, as Arnold remarks, "will not be held to militate against the piety or prudence of our ancestors". That this church was not organized, but merely a religious gathering, is proved by the statement of Francis Hutchinson, in July, 1640, desiring from the Boston . church dismission "to God and the word of his grace, seeing he knew of no church there [at Portsmouth] to be dismissed to" (Ellis, Anne Hutchin- son, p. 338), and also of Lechford, in 1641, who says: "At the other end of the island there is another towne called Portsmouth, but no Church: there is a meeting of some men, who there teach one another, and call it Prophesie." (Plaine Dealing, p. 41.)

GOVERNOR WILLIAM CODDINGTON.

FROM A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL IN THE REDWOOD LIBRARY, NEWPORT.

THE ANTINOMIANS AND AQUEDNECK.

which lost the best part of its strength upon the secession of its officers, was Congregational in its tenets. The Portsmouth settlers, says Cal- lender, "were Puritans of the highest form". They had emigrated from Massachusetts through dissent as to the evidencing of justifica- tion, and were now, as then, at one with their former brethren on most points of doctrine.

These same Congregational ideas were doubtless also held by the early Newport seceders, as anabaptism had not yet made much headway on the Island. At Newport, however, there was more of a semblance of church organization than at Portsmouth. Coddington, Dyer, and Coggeshall, according to a Boston record of 1640, had "gathered themselves into church fellowship",1 being officiated over by Dr. John Clarke and Robert Lenthall. In August, 1641, a contention over some points of doctrine created a schism, and although the records of the proceedings are somewhat misty, it would seem that one side, headed by Coddington, embraced views later taken up and held by them as Quakers, while the other side, led by Clarke, united to form a Baptist church in 1644.2

Enough has been said to show that the Aquedneck settlers were not neglectful of their spiritual welfare. That they were equally regard- ful of the religious faith of others who perhaps dissented from their mode of worship is manifested by their acts protecting the rights of conscience. In March, 1641, the Court ordered that "none be account- ed a delinquent for Doctrine; provided, it be not directly repugnant to the Government or laws established", and at the following session in September it was enacted that "the law made concerning Libertie of Conscience in point of Doctrine is perpetuated". It is true that these laws, so contrary to the prevailing spirit of the age, permitted enthusiasts, visionaries, and fanatics to live and work and talk side by side with orthodox thinkers; but it was precisely the absence of such laws that induced these settlers to leave England and later Massachu- setts. They had no intention of allowing posterity to belittle them for denying the free discussion of religious problems-the very prin- ciple for which they themselves had contended.

Keayne MS. in Prince Soc. Publ, xxii, 401; also Winthrop, i, 329. The Keayne MS. reports the proceedings of a commission sent by the Boston church to reclaim their brethren on the Island. It is needless to say that the delegation received little satisfaction.

2Winthrop ii, 40, enumerates the causes of the schism; see also Arnold i, 151. Lechford's MS. draft of his Plaine Dealing ( see Trumbull's edition, p. 94) should be consulted in this particular. For the traditional date of 1644 as the founding of the Baptist Church, see Comer's statement (quoted in Jackson, Churches in R. I. p. 95), and Callender's Discourse, p. 63.

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.

In their provisions for the execution and recognition of the arm of the law, there exists fully enough evidence to vindicate the Aqued- neck colonists from any aspersions of their Massachusetts neighbors. If their Boston brethren asserted that they "denied all magistracy", they could well retort that they never called in the clergy to pass judgment on civil offenses. Scarcely a New England community, while in its infancy, provided so careful and liberal a framework for the execution of justice. We have seen how the Portsmouth settlers, at the time of the separation, organized a quarterly court, with an English jury trial. Those at Newport soon followed suit. Although their small number did not require at first any regular court organiza- tion, yet, in 1640, the second year of their settlement, we find estab- lished an orderly judicial system, with monthly courts, right of appeal to quarter sessions, and trial by jury.1 The accessories of justice- the stocks and the whipping post-were provided for in each town, and at Newport a prison was soon built.2 All these provisions for the vindication of violated laws and the absolute impartiality of their execution stand out somewhat in contrast to the situation at Provi- dence, where the decision of such matters by arbitration often led to wrangling and disorder. It is through the observation and study of these provisions that we can fully believe John Clarke, when he thus describes the condition of the Island in 1652: "Notwithstanding the different understandings and consciences amongst us, without inter- ruption we agree to maintain civil justice and judgment, neither are there such outrages committed amongst us as in other parts of the country are frequently seen."3

A study of the foregoing facts should offer convincing proof that the Massachusetts imputations of disregard of religion and law cer- tainly were not true of Newport. A comparison with the condition of affairs existing at Providence will not be amiss at this point, and will also serve to show whether the aspersions of the Bay may not possibly have applied to the earlier Rhode Island colony. Although the actuat- ing impulses of Roger Williams himself were religious, the chief end

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State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 1, Part 6

Author: Field, Edward, 1858-1928 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Boston : Mason Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 700

Author: Field, Edward, 1858-1928
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston : Mason Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 700