USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 1 > Part 8
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1R. I. Col. Rec. i, 130. The grantees in this deed were Randall Holden, John Greene, John Wickes, Frances Weston, Samuel Gorton, Richard Water- man, John Warner, Richard Carder, Samuel Shotten, Robert Potter, and William Wodell. Nicholas Power, although not named in the deed, was undoubtedly one of the original purchasers (see R. I. H. S. Coll. ii, 86). For a discussion as to the correctness of "Shawomet, 1642," in the seal of the R. I. Historical Society, see R. I. H. S. Proc. 1887-88, p. 40; also Book Notes, v, 69.
2Winthrop, ii, 120.
3Mass. Col. Rec. ii, 38-40. The attitude of Massachusetts in this whole matter is painfully apparent. Winthrop enters quite fully into the negotia- tions which preceded the submission, and incidentally shows that the exam- ination of Miantonomi, who came to Boston to answer Pumham's charge, was little more than a farce. The testimony of contemporary writers proves con- clusively that both these sachems were inferior to Miantonomi. (See R. I. H. S. Coll. ii, 94; and Brayton's Gorton, p. 99.) Winthrop remarked that the submission was the "fruit of our prayers", and that "the Lord was by this
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setts could obtain some color of a claim to Shawomet country, she could then satisfy her territorial ambitions, and take revenge on Gorton for his reviling and "blasphemous" letter. The Arnolds, whose action in these proceedings does not place their character in altogether the best light, would reap a rich reward in having the titles to certain lands they had bought of Pumham effectually established.
Massachusetts was now in a position to take summary action. In September they sent a warrant to the settlers at Shawomet, desiring them to come to Boston to answer certain charges made by Pumham and Sacanonoco. The Gortonists orally replied that they were beyond the Bay jurisdiction and would not "acknowledge subjection unto any in the place where they were, but the government of Old England". They also wrote a letter, directed to the "great and honored Idol General, now set up in Massachusetts", in which they more fully and less gently stated their position. Pumham they condemned as a fawning, lying, thieving Indian, who was henceforth debarred from living on their lands. They asserted that the natives themselves had never complained of unjust dealings, and that they had "better em- ployments than to trot to the Massachusetts upon the report of a lying Indian". They were resolved that Massachusetts must take the initia- tive: "If you put forth your hands to us as countrymen, ours are in readiness for you-if you exercise your pen, accordingly do we become a ready writer-if your sword be drawn, ours is girt upon our thigh." They conclude by asking the Boston magistrates to seek redress in Shawomet courts, where they might receive a "fairer hearing than ever we had amongst you, or can ever expect.''1
The General Court which met at Boston in September considered this letter and the oral reply, and appointed three commissioners to take a squad of forty men and "bring Samuel Gorton and his com- pany, if they do not give them satisfaction". They also dispatched a letter to Gorton informing him of their action. The Shawomet men, alarmed at these warlike preparations, immediately wrote to intercept the commissioners, to the effect that if they came in a hostile way, they
means making a way to bring them to the knowledge of the gospel". Savage, in commenting on this passage, says, "It may be feared that there was too much human policy at work in obtaining their subjection, and we must ac- knowledge that a territorial usurpation beyond the limits of our charter was the result, if not the motive, of the negotiation."
1The warrant, dated Sept. 12, 1643, and the oral reply are in Simp. Defence (R. I. H. S. Coll. ii, 96). The above letter, dated Sept. 15, and signed by Randall Holden is in Idem, p. 262. The examination of this letter and the previous one of Gorton's form the chief substance of Winslow's Hypocrisie Unmasked.
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came at their peril.1 To this the commissioners replied that if they could not persuade them to repent of their evil ways, they should "look upon them as men prepared for slaughter". The troops then began an advance upon the little settlement, where Gorton and his friends had fortified themselves in one of the houses. After much parleying, in which some men from Providence acted as mediators, it was finally agreed that hostilities should be suspended until a reply should be received from Massachusetts as to whether neutral arbitration were agreeable. During this truce Gorton says that the soldiers killed cattle, broke into the dwellings and assaulted some of the inhabitants.
Unbeknown to Gorton, some men of Providence had written to Mas- sachusetts, urging arbitration and hoping that the fair propositions offered would prevent blood-spilling. Winthrop's harsh reply clearly reveals for the first time the true motive for Massachusetts's persecu- tion : "Take notice, that besides the title of land, between the Indians and the English there, there are twelve of the English that have subscribed their names to horrible and detestable blasphemies against God, and all magistracy, who are rather to be judged as blasphemers." The letter of the commissioners was answered in the same tone, show- ing that the magistrates had resolved upon a course which no appeal to humanity or justice could change.2
All hope of arbitration was now at end. The soldiers cut short the truce, warned all neutrals to keep away, and threw up entrenchments. The Shawomet men hung out the Old English flag, which their assail- ants immediately riddled with shot. The siege lasted for several days, but such a firm show of resistance did the Gortonists make, that the commissioners were compelled to send to the Bay for reinforcements. The besieged had now to yield, or suffer a fearful slaughter; so, after a short parley, they agreed to accompany the troops to Boston. As soon as they had gained possession of their opponents' firearms, the soldiers pillaged their houses, seized upon their cattle, and carried them as prisoners to Boston, leaving their wives and children to subsist as best they could.
When they arrived at Boston the Gortonists were placed in the common jail to await trial. On the following Sabbath they went, under compulsion, to attend the morning service, at the end of which
1The action of the Court is in Mass. Col. Rec. ii, 41-44; the letter to Shaw- omet, dated Sept. 19, their letter to the Commissioners dated Sept. 28, and the latter's reply are in R. I. H. S. Coll. ii, 95-102.
2For these three letters, see R. I. H. S. Coll. ii, 105-111, and Winthrop, ii, 139.
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SAMUEL GORTON AND THE FOUNDING OF WARWICK.
Cotton and Gorton indulged in a theological controversy over several rather misty points of doctrine. When the Court met on October 17, 1643, Gorton and his companions were brought forth for examination. To their objections that they were not within the Bay jurisdiction, it was answered: "1. That they were either within Plymouth or Mr. Fenwick, and they had yielded their power to us in this cause. 2. If they were under no jurisdiction, that had we none to complain unto for redress of our injuries".1 This minor point having been disposed of, the Court proceeded to consider the real cause of the trial. The odious letters were brought forth and read, and it was demanded of the prisoners whether they would defend the expressions therein written. Upon their affirming that they would maintain them in the sense in which they wrote them, they were brought severally before the Court to be examined. Since they insisted upon their own interpreta- tion of the questioned passages, which would puzzle the brain of even a past-master of doctrinal theology, Winthrop exclaimed that they excelled the Jesuits in the art of equivocation; yet, he admits, they "would seem sometimes to consent with us in the truth".
After this profitless examination the Court consulted about their sentence. The elders thought that if they maintained the opinions as expressed in their writings, "their offense deserved death by the law of God". It was finally decided that the charge against them should be as follows: "Upon much examination and serious consideration of your writings, with your answers about them, we do charge you to be a blasphemous enemy to the true religion of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy ordinances, and also of all civil authority among the people of God, and particularly in this jurisdiction." This having been agreed upon, the Court adjourned and the prisoners were recom- mitted to await sentence.
The rest of this story of perversion of justice and tyrannical abuse of power is best told in the simple record of their persecutors :
"After divers means had been used in public and private to reclaim them, and all proving fruitless, the court proceeded to consider of their sentence, in which the court was much divided. All the magistrates, save three, were of opinion that Gorton ought to die, but the greatest number of deputies dissenting, that vote did not pass. In the end all agreed upon this sentence, for seven of them, viz., that they should be dispersed into seven several towns, and there kept to work for their
1Winthrop, ii, 143. It should be noticed that Plymouth had previously disclaimed jurisdiction beyond the Narragansett River, and that the Connec- ticut claim had never been dreamed of. As for the second answer, it can scarcely be considered as an argument.
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living, and wear irons upon one leg, and not to depart the limits of the town, nor by word or writing maintain any of their blasphemous or wicked errors upon pain of death, only with exception for speech with any of the elders, or any other licensed by any magistrate to confer with them ; this censure to continue during the pleasure of the court."1
If only the pages of Winthrop remained, and the personal account of their sufferings had never been written, we could even then render a full measure of justice to the persecuted, and record in history one of the darkest blots on Massachusetts's escutcheon. To quote from the Massachusetts historian, Savage, "Silence might perhaps become the commentator on this lamentable delusion ; for this narrative almost defies the power of comment to enhance or mitigate the injustice of our government.''2
The terms of the sentence were carried out to the letter. By an order of November 3, 1643, Gorton and six others were confined in different towns around Boston, where they were subjected to servile labor throughout the whole winter. About a week after the sentence the magistrates sent men to Shawomet to get the remainder of the cattle, which were appraised and sold to defray the expenses of the seizure and trial. But this unjust condition of affairs could not last long. Gorton says that as the people came to be informed of the truth of the proceedings, they were much dissatisfied with what had been done. The magistrates found that the prisoners "did corrupt some of our people by their heresies", and wisely decided that public opin- ion was safer with the heretics out of the way. So the Court, at its session of March 7, 1644, set the prisoners at liberty, but decreed that if within fourteen days they should be found in the Massachusetts jurisdiction, they should suffer death. This jurisdiction they de- scribed as including the lands in or near Providence, as well as the lands of Pumham and Sacanonoco.3
The prisoners soon had their bolts filed off, and were at liberty. But whither could they go? There was no English settlement, in the region where their wives and children were scattered, where they could
1Winthrop, ii, 146.
2Savage's ed. of Winthrop, ii, 177. The foregoing account of the trial has been wholly drawn from Winthrop ii, 142-147, and from the records of the Court in Mass. Col. Rec. ii, 51. Although it has not been necessary to use Gorton's account of the trial as given in his Simplicities Defence, it is notice- able that this account harmonizes perfectly with Winthrop.
8Mass. Col. Rec. ii, 57. Winthrop (ii, 156) says: "This censure was thought too light and favorable, but we knew not how in justice we could inflict any punishment upon them, the sentence of the court being already passed."
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SAMUEL GORTON AND THE FOUNDING OF WARWICK.
live in safety but the Island of Aquedneck. While Gorton and some of the others were waiting at Boston for their companions to join them, they received an order from Governor Winthrop to leave the town within two hours. They immediately departed for Aquedneck, stopping at Shawomet in their houses for the night. From here they wrote a letter to Massachusetts, inquiring whether their lands which they had purchased from the Indians were included within the Bay jurisdiction. Certain passages in this letter indicate that their spirit was still unconquered and that their sense of the injustice done them was only sharpened by their sufferings. "If you should so far forget yourself," they write, "as to intend thereby our land lawfully bought we resolve upon your answer, with all expedition, to wage law with you, and try to the uttermost, what right or interest you can show to lay claim, either to our lands or our lives".1
To this missive the governor replied that the Massachusetts jurisdic- tion did include the Shawomet lands and that they must leave there upon peril of their lives. Unable to cope with the superior force of the Bay, the Gortonists withdrew to Aquedneck, where they rejoined their families, hired houses, and set about their spring planting. It is a great credit to the people of Aquedneck that they could so far dispel any resentment of Gorton's previous conduct in their settle- ment as now to welcome and shelter him, and even, as Winslow de- clares, elect him to office. It was but natural, however, that the few who still leaned towards Massachusetts should object to his inhabita- tion. Gorton asserts that Winthrop wrote a private letter to a certain person on the Island, telling him, "that if he and others could work the people of the Island to deliver us up into their hands again (at least some of us) it would not only be acceptable unto the Court, then sitting, but unto most of the people in general". On August 5, 1644, we find Coddington writing to Winthrop: "Gorton, as he came to be of the Island before I knew of it, and is here against my mind, so shall he not be by me protected. Here is a party which do adhere unto Gorton and his company in both the plantations, and judge them so much strength to the place, which be neither friends to you nor Fortunately Coddington's prejudiced antipathy could not per-
1R. I. H. S. Coll. ii, 151.
2Letter in Mass MS. archives (see Newport Hist. Mag. iii, 1; and also a copy in Extracts from Mass. MSS. i, 31, in R. I. Hist. Soc. Library ). Coddington again writes, Nov. 11, 1646: "Gorton and his company, they are to me as ever they have been, their freedom of the Island is denied, and was when I accepted of the place I now bear." ( Deane's Gorton, p. 41.)
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suade the popular will to work further harm upon this much buffeted man.
The scene of the narrative was now to be changed to England. As Gorton had threatened at the time of his trial, an appeal to the king at least remained to him after other resources had failed. Before his departure he brought about an event which, besides greatly strength- ening his cause at court, has done more to render his name revered in Rhode Island than any other one effort of his life. It seems that the Narragansett Indians, upon finding that the Gortonists had returned alive and unharmed, had imagined that the English at Boston released the "Gortonoges" through fear of a mightier power in Old England. They conceived that England was inhabited by two great races, the English and the Gortonoges, of whom the latter were the stronger. Taking advantage of this impression, Gorton with five or six others, visited Canonicus and on April 19, 1644, brought about a complete cession of all the Narragansett lands and people to the English king. This instrument, which is signed by all the chief sachems, declares that having "just cause of jealousy and suspicion of some of His Majesty's pretended subjects, our desire is to have our matters and causes heard and tried according to his just and equal laws. Nor can we yield ourselves unto any, that are subjects themselves". It further deputes four of "our trusty and well-beloved friends"-Gorton, Wickes, Holden and Warner-to convey the submission to England.
This act, considered in the light of subsequent events, was of the most vital importance to Rhode Island. Had it not been accomplished, the vast Narragansett territory would have inevitably fallen into the hands of Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, limited to three small, isolated settlements scattered along the water front, could never have withstood the attacks of her aggressive neighbors. Deprived of the body and backbone, the extremities would surely have been split up and parceled out among the adjacent colonies. Whether Gorton real- ized the significance of what was done is doubtful. It is certain that, in order to make the submission appear as voluntary as possible, he was compelled to subordinate his own part in the transactions. But it is not too much to say that this cession, together with the obtaining of the Patent of 1644 and the Charter of 1663, was one of three events in our early history that insured Rhode Island's existence.
In the winter of 1644-45 Gorton, Holden and Greene, armed with the Act of Submission and resolved to win back their homes, set sail for England. The first year of his stay Gorton spent in writing his Simplicities Defence, which he finished in January, 1646. Then he
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and his companions presented to the Committee on Foreign Planta- tions a memorial setting forth their grievances. The Commissioners, of whom Sir Henry Vane, ever a friend to Rhode Island colonists, was one, soon issued an order requiring Massachusetts to permit the peti- tioners to live without interruption at Shawomet until the matter could be settled with a full hearing. "We found," states the order, "that the petitioner's aim and desire was not so much a reparation for the past, as a settling their habitation for the future." In September, Holden and Greene returned with this order, which the Bay received with much ill grace, scarcely allowing the bearers to pass through their jurisdiction. They immediately commissioned Edward Winslow to go to England as their agent, and also sent a written answer to Gorton's petition. Upon Winslow's arrival the Commissioners returned an explanatory letter to Massachusetts and appointed a day for both claimants to appear before them. Winslow, in the meanwhile, had hurried into print his Hypocrisie Unmasked, in the dedication of which he made five requests-that the censure of Massachusetts might be strengthened, that Gorton might not be suffered to return to New England, that Shawomet might be included in the Plymouth Patent, that appeals from New England courts should be disregarded, and that he himself should be "patronized in his just defense". On May 25, 1647, the Commissioners made their final answer. They utterly ig- nored every one of Winslow's five requests and ordered that the Gor- tonists should be allowed a peaceable inhabitation of their Shawomet lands, until it should be proved that the tract in question was within any New England Patent.1
Having accomplished the object of his visit, Gorton returned to America in 1648, being compelled to show a letter from the Earl of Warwick before he was allowed to pass through Massachusetts. He immediately rejoined his companions at Shawomet, which was renamed Warwick in honor of the chief of the Parliamentary Commission. Thither had the persecuted families, in spite of the notices, warrants and intimidations of the Bay Colony, returned soon after the receipt of the first order from England.2 Although the express command of the English authorities that they should not be molested did not release
The documents for the English phase of the Gorton controversy are chiefly reproduced in Staples's ed. of Simp. Defence. Other sources to be con- sulted are Winslow's petitions, in his Hypoc. Unmasked, and the full text of Gorton's Letter to Morton, in Force's Tracts, iv. no. 7.
2It is not probable that they returned to the exact spot which they had been compelled to abandon a few years previous. Their new settlement was planted at the head of Warwick Cove.
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them from all annoyances from the Bay, they could now feel free to unite with their sister settlements in a chartered government, and bear the common burden of overcoming aggression from without and dis- sension from within.
In view of the somewhat unsettled existence of the first planters of Shawomet, it is difficult to determine exactly what kind of a political framework they would have erected had they been undisturbed. Nonc of their records before 1647 are preserved, and possibly none were kept. The most that we can learn is from the pen of Gorton, who writes in 1643: "In the mean time [until the arrival of an English Charter] we lived pcaccably together, desiring and endcavoring to do wrong to no man, neither English nor Indian, ending all our differ- ences in a neighborly and loving way of arbitrators, mutually chosen amongst us." Although some of their letters to Massachusetts are signed by the "Secretary of the Government of Shawomet", it is probable that this tiny settlement of less than a dozen families re- quired no definite political organization beyond the "peculiar fellow- ship" which one of their number alluded to as existing.1 To this absence of necessity for government was added their dislike of magis- tracy until the same should be officially recognized from England. Some of their acts arc recorded before the incorporation of Providence Plantations on May 19, 1649 ;2 but it was not until this colony organ- ization was accomplished that the Warwick men consented to institute a real town government. They then received their town charter, signed their fundamental agreement and elected town officers. The colony patent quieted their misgivings as to the lack of English alle- giance, and thereafter no town showed a greater attachment to "law and order" than Warwick.
1See R. I .H. S. Coll. ii, 96, 151, 165, 269.
2Peter Greene was received an inhabitant of the Town of Warwick on May 1, 1467, (MS. Warwick Records).
CHAPTER VI.
THE OBTAINING OF THE FIRST CHARTER, 1639-47.
We have witnessed the small beginnings of the earliest Rhode Island towns. We have seen how the forces of internal dissension and exter- nal aggression gradually forced upon them the necessity of having a more powerful source of authority than their own self-appointed as- semblies. Scorned and threatened by the adjacent colonies, they came to realize that if they wished to become the political equals of their neighbors, they must seek for some evidences of favor from the Gov- ernment of England-the well-spring of authority throughout all New England. More than the desire to secure the enjoyment of relig- ious liberty, more than the hope of obtaining a unification of the different communities-for some at Newport hoped for the exclusion of Providence, and the admission of Warwick was not even dreamed of-more than either of these two causes, the necessity of gaining royal recognition to ward off the attacks of their enemies was the weightiest reason in inducing the Rhode Islanders to take active steps in the question of a patent. They knew that their government was little better than a "squatter's sovereignty"; they could not deny the contemptuous remarks of Lechford, Winthrop and Gorton as to their lack of a legally constituted magistracy. It was now time to act.
The first official action in this matter of a patent was taken at New- port. On November 25, 1639, the Newport Court commissioned Eas- ton and Clarke to "inform Mr. Vane by writing of the state of things here, and desired him to treat about the obtaining a patent of the Island from his Majestie". Since this order apparently availed noth- ing, on September 19, 1642, a new committee of the ten principal men of the Island was appointed. They were to "consult about the pro- curation of a patent for this Island and Islands, and the land adja- cent; and to draw up petitions; and to send letters for the same end to Sir Henry Vane".1 This second committee accomplished but little, and the law makers must have come to the conclusion that letters and
1R. I. Col. Rec. i, 94, 125.
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STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.
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