USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Westerly > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 9
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Charlestown > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 9
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Hopkinton > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 9
USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Richmond > Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses : for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history > Part 9
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" The tribe elect their own officers, and are governed by their own laws, which embrace their customs and usages as they are gathered from tradi- tion. Their council is of annual election, and, subject to an undefined
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supervising power resting with the General Assembly, is the arbiter of all their affairs. About 2,000 acres of their tribal lands is held by individual members of the tribe as their separate estate. Their titles were derived originally from the tribe, and rest upon tradition. The council grant the titles. Their mode of grant is interesting. The council go with the grantee upon the lot proposed to be granted. After the lot is marked out and bounded, the council cut a rod, and place it upon the bare head of the grantee, and then while he is upon the land and under the rod they admin- ister to him a solemn oath of allegiance to the tribal authority. This mode of investiture of title bears a considerable analogy to the old common law livery of seizen, and if this Indian custom antedates the landing of the Pil- grims, it might be suggested that there is a possibility that there was a community of origin in the two modes of grant. The individual lands of the tribe cannot be alienated without the consent of the General Assembly; they descend to the heir upon the decease of the holder, subject, however. to the right of occupancy in the next of kin who remains with the tribe, the possession, however, to be restored to the heir when he returns to the tribal jurisdiction; but should the owner die in debt to the tribe, the council let or improve the lands, or sell the wood from them to pay the debts due to the tribe, and when these are paid, they surrender the lands to the heir, or the holder entitled to possess them. The tribe maintain their poor and support public worship; and the State supports their school. The tribe numbers 58 males and 75 females; in all, 133. They own in all about 3,000 acres of land in the centre of the town of Charlestown.
"With this outline we will again recur to the committee of the General Assembly, who, pursuant to notice, met the tribe and sundry citizens of Charlestown, at the Ocean House in Charlestown, on the 9th instant. The committee stated to the meeting substantially, 'that there had been a ten- dency in the public mind towards the conclusion that all men in equal con- ditions should be equal before the law, without regard to race or color; that this idea had culminated in the enactment by Congress of the " Civil Rights Bill," which was now the law of the land. That it was a matter of concern in the Legislature and among the people of this State that this tribe, to whose ancestors our ancestors were under so many obligations, should still claim to owe allegiance to their tribe, rather than to the State, and to main- tain even a semblance of another jurisdiction amongst us. That the com- mittee were strongly inclined to the opinion that there ought to be no privileged class in the State, and that no right or privilege ought to be enjoyed by one man of mature age and sound mind, who had not forfeited his rights by crime, which was not open to be enjoyed by every other man. That the committee, however, had come there to obtain information, and that they would gladly listen to the views of the officers and members of the tribe, and that they would hear the views of others interested in the investigations of the matters before them.'
"After this invitation, the tribe made a reply, which we give in a con- nected form, and which was delivered with dignity and propriety of manner, substantially as follows: -
"'We have not sent for this committee, and we know of no particular occasion for its visiting us at this time. So far as we know, we are at peace, and are enjoying a good degree of prosperity.
"'It is said by the committee that there is a desire that we should be made citizens, and be subjected to the duties, and given the rights of white citizens. We have traveled much over the country; have visited many States, and have seen many men, both white and black. We have heard much said about the rights of the negro; of negro citizenship and negro
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equality; but we have not found the place where this equality and these rights exist, or the negroes who enjoy them. Negro citizenship, as we have seen it, means the right to have the negro vote for somebody, but not to be voted for; no white man votes for a negro; we do not want this negro citi- zenship, and if we are to have some other citizenship, we prefer to see it enjoyed by some one else before we accept it. We donot wish to jump off the foundation where we stand, until we know where we are to jump to. We are not negroes; we are the heirs of Ninigret, and of the great chiefs and warriors of the Narragansetts. Because, when your ancestors stole the negro from Africa, and brought him amongst us, and made a slave of him, we extended to him the hand of friendship, and permitted his blood to be mingled with ours, are we to be called negroes, and to be told that we may be made negro citizens ? We claim that while one drop of Indian blood remains in our veins, we are entitled to the rights and privileges guaranteed by your ancestors to ours by solemn treaty, which, without a breach of faith, you cannot violate. We did not go to the white man, but the white men came to us. When we were powerful and he was weak, he claimed our protection and we extended it. We are now weak, and our grasping neigh- bors, of a grasping race, are seeking the remaining remnant of our inherit- ance, and will not give over while an inch of our territory remains to us, and until the members of our tribe are beneath the soil, or are scattered to the winds of heaven. They propose no measures for our good, but foment our quarrels, trespass upon our inheritance, detract from our just merits, and even desecrate the graves of our kings. Our individual estates are mostly held by our women. If they were compelled to pay taxes, to make. fences, and were liable to be sued, their estates would soon pass from their hands, and the homes upon which they rely for shelter in age, and it may be in poverty, will be taken from them. Your imperious draft cannot touch us now; we may volunteer to fight your battles, but now you cannot force. us into the ranks of your army to be shot down without our consent. And as for your right of voting, what is it worth ? We do not want it now. We desired to vote for the great and good Lincoln. Had we been gratified, we should have also voted for Andrew Johnson. The joy of having voted for the one, would have been darkened by the sorrow that we had voted for the other.
"'We are attached to the traditions of our fathers. We reverence the memory of our kings. Our title deeds came from the great Jehovah. They have never been obscured by your writings. We deny your right to take from us that which never came from you.'
" After these sentiments were expressed by three or four members of the tribe, the committee heard statements from some of the citizens of Charlestown, and complaints from two female members of the tribe, that the council had permitted their rights to be improperly infringed; and the committee then adjourned to meet for consultation in Providence, the second Tuesday in January next."
We may appropriately subjoin, as we can heartily indorse, the following paragraph of another article that appeared from the worthy pen of Hon. Wm. R. Staples, in the same paper, on the 19th of the same month.
" Where could the exiles who settled this State have gone if the Indians had not extended protection to them ? They had fled from England to escape the dungeon and the stake. Their over-zealous fellow-exiles in Mas- sachusetts were preparing to send them back again across the Atlantic, to
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the tender mercies of their old persecutors. Where could Roger Williams have planted soul liberty, if the Narragansetts had not extended protection to him ? Where on God's earth would it have been tolerated, even at that day, among civilized nations ? What this act of kindness, followed as it was by continued assistance and good-will, cost the Narragansetts, may be found in the murder of their chieftain Miantonomi, and in the almost entire destruction of the tribe. Indianhistory written by the white man is pregnant with proofs of this. While these acts should make Rliode Islanders grate- ful to the little band that remains, and mercifully just in their dealings with them, there will still remain a debt due to the two sachiems, Canonicus and Miantonomi, who ruled the tribe when Williams sought their protection. The bones of the martyr rest in Pequot soil, where he was slain. Canonicus was buried with his fathers. But where is the monument that the grati- tude of the descendants of our twice Pilgrim fathers liave erected to their memory ? Is this not a fitting occasion to call attention to this ? Have we not dallied and delayed long enoughi ? A few thousand dollars would roll to the entrance of your public burial-ground a massive granite bowlder, resem- bling the character of the chiefs, - massive, unyielding, rough, - and inscribe on it in bold relief the names of the chieftains, and the symbols of their sover- eignty, broken. This would be an appropriate monument for these sachems, and the present is a proper time to erect it."
Whether or not we shall express our obligations to the Indians by tables of stone or monumental piles, the pens of our historians must not fail to do them the honor they have deserved. It would be well for Westerly and her children, if, in her public buildings and all her public works, as in the pages of her history, she should not forget the names of Sosoa, the Ninigrets, and the faithful Niantics. We are happy to present, as the frontispiece of this volume, and so pre- serve to the eyes of all the children of Westerly, the face and features of one who here, with pagan pomp and circumstance, held a throne, and acted a part that gave color to the history of our State.
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CHAPTER XII.
SPREAD OF GREAT PRINCIPLES.
THE true life of a man is to be found in his motives and princi- ples. The same is true of a community or a nation. The glory of an age is in the truths it holds and transmits to following times. Always the harvests of a land are determined by the seeds sown in it. To study the progress of principles, therefore, is an essential part of history. Providentially selected, the colony of Rhode Island became an honored seed-plot. It is a small province indeed, geo- graphically considered, yet morally it has exerted wide and benefi- cent empire. From Roger Williams and John Clarke, exiled for their principles, certain great truths, peculiar to the Baptists, and always dear to them, obtained from the New Testament, a cardi- nal one of which is the doctrine of religious or soul liberty, based on the great fact of man's individual responsibility to God, soon com- manded the hearty approval of the colony, and, despite the obloquy cast upon them, have finally permeated the nation.
The faithful historian, John Callender, thus testifies : " Mr. R. Williams and Mr. J. Clarke, two fathers of this colony, appear among the first who publicly avowed that Jesus Christ is king in his own kingdom, and that no other had authority over his subjects, in the affairs of conscience and eternal salvation." A subsequent Bap- tist historian appropriately adds : "The guarantee of this, as well as its conception, we as Baptists claim ; and it is a matter of devout gratitude that, as such, we have never held any adverse opinion ; nor have we at any time ever persecuted another sect on account of the religious sentiments they propagated; nor on any other ground have we sought to bind their consciences."
Bancroft says, " The plebeian sect of Anabaptists, reproached as ' the scum of the reformation,' with greater consistency than Luther, applied the doctrine of the Reformation to the social relations of life, and threatened an end of kingcraft, spiritual dominion, tithes, and vassalage. The party was trodden under foot, with foul reproa ches and most arrogant scorn ; and its history is written in the blood of myriads of the German peasantry ; but its principles, safe in their
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immortality, escaped with Roger Williams to Providence ; and his colony is the witness that naturally the pathis of the Baptists were paths of freedom, pleasantness, and peace." He adds, " Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was, from the first, the trophy of the Baptists."
The distinguishing principles of this denomination may be summed up as follows : (a.) Freedom of conscience in matters of worship. (b.) Separateness of churches and states. (c.) The organic com- pleteness of every individual church. (d.) The spiritual and volun- tary constituency of every church. (e.) The one law of baptism, and baptism the ceremonial door of a church. (f.) No law in a church not plainly deducible from the New Testament. (g.) The parity of rights in the members of a church, and every member a responsible one.
The primal and cardinal principles of the people of Rhode Island were kindled anew and reinforced by the Great Awakening; as after a spiritual winter, this great event, like a blessed spring-time, spread its regenerating power widely over the country, and dis- turbed the foundations of the State churches in all the colonies. In nearly all parts of the land, not only the strong outreachings of a higher life were manifested, but there followed numerous separations from the Presbyterians and Episcopalians. The Methodists had not yet come into existence. The revival was reproached as the " New Light Stir." It gave prominence to Evangelical preaching, to Christian experiences, to the exercise of all classes of gifts, to the principle of church independency, and allowed men, not favored with a liberal education, to attempt the office of the ministry ; hence it promoted conscious religion, Christian activity, and greatly loosened the foundations of semi-political ecclesiasticism.
It should not be a matter of astonishment that the principles of Rhode Island were opposed and maligned by the surrounding col- onies. The simple truth is, they were not understood; and what men do not comprehend, they always misrepresent. The motives of the opposers of Rhode Island were better than their logic. It is difficult for even the best of men to rise above the customs and prejudices and precedents of their times, when these have had the full indorsement of their pious fathers ; and, prior to the "living experiment " of Roger Williams, the instance of the complete sepa- ration of church and state had not been known in the world since the days of the first Christian churches. The Puritan opposers of Roger Williams, walking in the light they had, deemed his principles utterly impracticable, and hence heretical. They were doubtless sincere, but time has shown that they lacked knowledge.
The peculiar sentiments of Rhode Island, though offensive to the sister colonies, were ummolested in Providence and Newport, and through the middle and southern portions of the colony; but
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in this region, from its proximity to Connecticut, which was at first a politico-religious colony, they endured some opposition. A Bap- tist church, nevertheless, had been planted by Rev. Valentine Wightman, a Rhode Island man, in 1705, in Groton, Conn., the first of the kind organized in the State. Another in North Stonington was gathered in 1743, under the pastoral charge of Rev. Wait Palmer. So, while Connecticut principles were struggling to influence Rhode Island, the free ideas planted here struck their roots across the boundary among the State churches. Soul liberty, responsible church membership, and the idea of separateness of church and state, and the supremacy of New Testament law over human coun- cils and creeds, proved an overmatch for ecclesiastical assumptions even when supported by the civil arm.
In 1739 there were 33 churches in Rhode Island ; of these, 12 were Baptist; 10 were Quakers; 6 were Presbyterians ; 5 were Episcopalians. There were a few other assemblies not yet organized and without houses of worship.
The Quakers have always, from the days of George Fox, been a power in Rhode Island. Agreeing with the Baptists in some of their principles, and much more in their spirit, as they had suffered together with them in Massachusetts, they have dwelt together in fraternal union and harmony. Their differences of opinion have never been differences of heart. The first offices and honors of the State have often been worthily borne by Friends through the votes of the Baptists. To the Quakers the rights of conscience have ever been dear on the ground of principle. If they have been extremists, they have been so in their devotion to truth; if they have unduly exalted the spirit above the letter of the law, it has been because others sadly erred in the opposite extreme. No history of Pennsyl- vania or Rhode Island would be truthful or just that did not give honorable record to the upright, industrious, economical, plain, con- scientious Quakers.
The fundamental views of the followers of George Fox are suc- cinctly stated by Backus : " The Quakers held that they had a light and spirit within them, which was their highest rule of action, and that the Scriptures were only a secondary rule ; and the external use of baptism and the Lord's Supper was now out of date, and that they had those ordinances inwardly and spiritually. They also held themselves to be inspired by the spirit of God to teach a more clear and perfect way than men had known since the days of the Apostles. This spirit taught them to give no titles to rulers or other men, and to use thee and thou to all."
Bancroft says : "The Quaker has but one word, The Inner Light, the voice of God in the soul. That light is a reality, and therefore, in its freedom, the highest revelation of truth ; it is kin- dred with the spirit of God, and therefore merits dominion as the
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guide to virtue ; it shines in every man's heart, and therefore joins the whole human race in the unity of equal rights. Intellectual freedom, the supremacy of mind, universal enfranchisement, - these three points include the whole of Quakerism, as far as it belongs to civil history."
The Friends also deemed themselves called upon to protest against the pride and extravagance of mankind in respect to dress, modes of salutation, and general manners. Hence they assumed uniform patterns of dress and plain colors ; the men neither bowed, nor doffed their wide-brimmed hats; they even wore their hats in meeting, except when moved to speak. Their meeting-houses had neither bells nor steeples, and vocal and instrumental music found no toleration in their worship. They have remained substantially the same to this day. And in all the wars of the country their principle of non-resistance has distinguished them, and placed them in unpleasant circumstances. Of the Quaker meetings in Westerly, we shall be called to speak in a subsequent chapter.
The free principles and catholic spirit of Rhode Island were hap- pily shown by the Sabbatarians of Westerly on the occasion of Mr. Prince's visit to the town in 1721. He says, "The sectarios here are chiefly Baptists, that keep the Saturday as a Sabbath." He then expressed a marvel "that these Baptists, who I imagined would oppose me, and all of the same interest with me, should be so far from it, that they have expressed a gladness of a minister's coming to those of a different persuasion from them ; that instead of sepa- rating and keeping at a distance, they should many of them come with my own hearers, and be as constant as most of them, and but few that would not occasionally do it, and manifest their liking ; that when I supposed, if they did come, it would be to pick and carp and find fault, and then go away and make the worst of it, that they should come after a sermon and thank me for it ; that instead of shunning me and keeping from an acquaintance with me, they should invite me to their houses, and be sorry if I would pass by without calling ; that their two ministers in the town, who I expected would be virulent and fierce against me, and stir up their people to stand to their arms, should not only hear me, thank me, visit me, but take my part against some few of their own persuasion, that showed a narrow spirit towards us, and be the most charitable and catholic, whom I thought to have found the most stiff and prejudiced."
We have alluded to the bitter opposition of Connecticut to the principles of Rhode Island. Unpleasant records are the confirma- tion of this fact. Rev. Joshua Morse, a Baptist of South Kings- town, who married Susanna Babcock, daughter of Joseph Babcock, of Westerly, and who was ordained at New London (now Mont- ville), May 17, 1750, " in several different places in Connecticut," " was subjected to severe trials from the intolerance of the times."
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While laboring with great success in the town of Stonington, he was disgracefully opposed and cruelly treated. During a season of revi- val in North Stonington, he was arrested and "sentenced to pay a fine of twenty shillings, or receive ten lashes at the whipping-post." He was spared only through the compassion of the executioner, who was moved to pay the fine rather than inflict the blows upon a Chris- tian man. " At another time, while preaching, two men rushed in, and with violent blows brought him to the floor. On another occasion, as he was preaching, a clergyman came in, put his hand upon his mouth, and commanded a man who accompanied him to
strike him. At another time, while engaged in prayer, he was knocked down, dragged by the hair down a flight of steps into the street, and was there beaten in the most inhuman manner. A gash on his face was laid open so deep that he carried the scar to his grave. A fuller account of the treatment meted to him by the clergy and people, may be found in a small volume, entitled Early Baptists of Connecticut, from the pen of Rev. A. G. Palmer, D. D. While such records are painful, they are necessary to the truth of history, and the delineation of the progress of ideas. Moreover, they remind us of the great worth of the principles that, through the struggles and sacrifices of the fathers, have at last gained an ascendency in our land ; and so they should excite our gratitude for our present free and peaceful times. Besides, we may reflect that the principles of pure freedom, being as unchangeable as the rela- tions of man to God, however they may battle for the present, hav- ing the signature of God upon them, shall finally be triumphant in the earth.
As explanatory of some of the peculiarities of the Puritans, and of the churches that ruled in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and of the persecutions in which they indulged, it should be remem- bered that they believed that "natural birth, with the faith and doings of parents, brought children into the covenant of grace with the parents; and that it was right to enforce and support their sen- timents about religion with the magistrate's sword." Hence the Puritan persecutions were the consistent embodiment of Puritan sentiments.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GREAT REVIVAL.
THAT the Great Awakening, commencing near 1740 and reach- ing through twenty-five or more years, was an event deserving prominent historical mention, will be conceded from the fact that 40,000 persons were converted in New England alone during its continuance ; this number was about one twelfth of all the inhabi- tants, and one sixth of the adults. But the reformation also ex- tended far to the South. The great event deserves record in the history of Westerly from the fact that it led to the formation of five churches within the original limits of the town. We have already mentioned the separation from the Presbyterian Church, that resulted in the planting of the Indian Church, and the separa- tion of two bodies from the old Sabbatarian fold, one of which became a church. We shall hereafter speak of three more churches that had a similar origin, and, like the others, were regarded as New Light bodies. Perhaps we might add to this list the three Quaker meetings that were set up within Westerly's original boundaries, during the "New Light Stir." The part acted in this Revival, and in its resultant transformations, by the churches named and their leading ministers, especially by Rev. Stephen Babcock and his church, makes it imperative to devote a few paragraphs to the delin- eation of its character.
And the time has come when an impartial record, once impossible on account of the engaged feelings of men, can be presented. The contest has substantially ended ; the actors have passed away ; the smoke of the battle has been swept from the field.
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