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CHAPTER VIII

RHODE ISLAND AS A CORPORATE COLONY

Unlike Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, the colony of Rhode Island was formed by the union of plantations; the town was distinctly the root whence the colony sprang. Between the spring of 1636 and that of 1639, the three germinal settlements were founded. These were Providence, at the head of Narragansett bay, Portsmouth,—earlier Pocasset,—and Newport on the island of Aquedneck, or Rhode Island. Later the town of Warwick, on the west side of Narragansett bay, was added. These towns existed for a time independent of each other and of all external control. In 1647, under the authority of a charter obtained from the revolutionary government in England, they combined into a colony. In order to understand the union thus formed, the organization and relations of the towns that formed it must first be briefly reviewed.

Roger Williams, when banished from Massachusetts, had no intention of founding a commonwealth, probably not a distinct plan of founding a town. In 1677 he wrote,¹ “It is not true that I was imployed by any, made covenant with any, was supplied by any, or desired any to come with me into these parts.” His first thought seems to have been, that he would “do the natives good,” but as events proved his work among them was to be that of an interpreter and mediator rather than that of a religious teacher like Eliot. Williams adds that, at their own request, he permitted a few individuals from Salem and elsewhere, who had fallen into disfavor in Massachusetts, to follow him. The fact that he was to have English companionship strengthened in Williams’s

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mind the idea of religious freedom which was to give form to all his future plans. The sentiments from which it sprang had previously dominated his action. The idea itself had lain in his mind and had found expression, though not in specially clear or definite form. Henceforth its realization in institutions and its proclamation to the world were to be the chief work of his life.

The colony which Williams had a share in founding was destined, as he desired, to be a refuge for those who were oppressed for conscience sake. It exemplified more perfectly than any commonwealth that had existed, or that was to exist for more than a century, the idea of which Williams became a leading exponent. Within it the religious tests, the political activity of the clergy, the disciplining of individuals and churches, which fill so large a place in the history of the strictly Puritan colonies, found no place. Williams himself on two occasions rendered valuable service to the colony in England. Its peaceful relations with the Indians were due in large measure to the peculiar influence which he had among the savages. By his correspondence with Winthrop and others he labored to conciliate, while he maintained his own position and that of the colony of which he was a very prominent citizen. He shared largely in the founding of one of the Narragansett towns, and occasionally he held high office in the colony.

But Roger Williams had not the ambition or the organizing power which lead to the establishment of institutions on a firm basis. He was in no sense, like Winthrop, a judge or an administrator. He cared nothing for the details of executive work. He had not the patience or caution of the diplomatist. He was a persistent, somewhat irritable, but on the whole a genial and highly endowed individualist. It is possible to imagine him living such a life as did Blackstone, though with greater activity among the Indians.

Though Williams and the elder Winthrop were lifelong friends, they were men of very different types, and the shares which they had in the founding of the colonies with which their names are identified were as unlike as were the men themselves. In fact the beginnings of Rhode Island were

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not the result of conscious planning, as was the case with Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the colonies in the Connecticut valley. The contrast in this respect between it and the proprietary provinces is equally marked.

More than any other American colony, the settlement of Rhode Island was the result of unforeseen conditions, for which immediate provision had to be made. No man was its founder; that appellation belongs to no single group of men. It was settled by bands of fugitives, who came from different quarters and at different times. Their movement was not the result of concerted action, though they removed thither to escape oppression in the strictly Puritan colonies or conditions there which to them had become intolerable. With the exception of a few who came from Salem, none were disciples of Roger Williams, nor did they go into exile in order to testify to the truth of his beliefs, or to their loyalty to him as a man. And yet common opposition to Massachusetts and the policy of which it was the leading representative, brought them into practical harmony with him. As time passed and the dangers which continued to surround them became evident, this was generalized into a principle, that of the exclusively secular community. It was declared first among the orders of Providence, later among those of the plantations on Aquedneck and in the legislation of the colony. But this action was occasioned by the relations that existed between the inhabitants of all those settlements and by the struggle in which they were all engaged, rather than by the personality or direct influence of Roger Williams.

Led by circumstances more than by definite choice and plan, Williams and his companions established themselves on the west side of the peninsula which separated the Mooshassuc from the mouth of the Blackstone river, and characteristically named the settlement Providence. The neck itself consisted of a ridge which furnished them with the upland that was immediately needed for the purposes of cultivation. To the west, the northwest, and the southwest lay the meadows adjacent to the banks of the Mooshassuc and the Wanasquatucket, two small fresh-water streams, the

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currents of which united before they mingled with the Great Salt River,”—the name which the early settlers gave to the northernmost arm of Narragansett bay. To the low ground along these streams the settlers must look for their grass land and pasturage for their cattle.

As was to be expected, steps were early taken by Williams to extinguish the claims of the Indians to the land of the plantation. His friendly relations with the Narragansett chiefs of the region made this easy. But like most of his contemporaries among the colonists, Williams had little acquaintance with English law, while he was personally careless about details. Two years passed after the so-called “gift” was received from Canonicus and Miantonomi, before a written record of it was obtained, not in the form of a deed, but of a memorandum. This was dated in March, 1638, and it not only confirmed the original purchase of the lands and meadows on the Mooshassuc and Wanasquatucket, but added “the grass and meadows” on the Pawtuxet, a river which lay considerably farther to the southwest. According to the language of this memorandum two tracts had been conveyed, which were later known as the “Providence purchase” and the “Pawtuxet purchase.” The latter, however, as later interpreted by Williams, was not intended¹ to extend beyond the hill Neutaconkanut, which lay a considerable distance northeast of the middle course of the Pawtuxet river. But so indefinite was the language of the memorandum, that it was susceptible of an interpretation which would push the bounds twenty miles to the westward.

In 1639 Williams and Benedict Arnold also signed a certificate in which it was stated that Miantonomi, one of the

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sachems concerned, had confirmed the previous grants, with the addition that the land “up streams without limits” might be used by the settlers for the pasturage of their cattle. This referred to the land on the Mooshassuc and Wanasquatucket, and was understood by Williams to concede to the English by “courtesy,” joint use of the lands with the Indians. But the form of language was such as to make the western bounds of the plantation still more uncertain. By the wording of these documents the occasion was furnished for controversies which agitated¹ Providence at intervals for more than a generation.

By Williams and the half dozen men who accompanied him a town government was instituted early in 1636 and town meetings were held at intervals of a month or oftener. The only official, however, who is mentioned in the fragmentary records is an elected treasurer. That this government was based on a tacit, if not an express, plantation covenant, is clear. But some time in 1637,² on the arrival of a body of “second comers,” a written covenant was adopted to the effect that they whose names were subscribed, desiring to inhabit in the town, subjected themselves “in active and passive obedience to all such orders and agreements as shall be made for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families incorporated together in a Towne fellowship, and others whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things.” The last clause expressed the

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resolve of the planters that the enjoyment of rights in the town should be in no way conditioned by church membership, and that any church which might be established should be a distinct and purely voluntary association. In order to become a townsman it was necessary only to sign the covenant and to prove the possession of such character and means as to justify the bestowment, on the payment of thirty shillings,” of the customary town lots.

These steps were taken before the certificate of confirmation was attached to the memorandum of the Indian grant, and before it was decided what the chief purpose of the settlement should be and how its land should be managed. Were the settlers to be tenants of Williams, or should a system of joint occupation, such as that which existed in other New England towns, be substituted? It is scarcely possible to imagine Roger Williams playing the part of a landed proprietor, or of individualists such as those who settled about Narragansett bay becoming tenants of him or of any other man. It was doubtless Williams’s intention from the first to admit the settlers to a share in the purchase. But William Harris, one of those who had accompanied him from Salem, was unusually persistent in his demands that this should be done. Williams stated at a later time that Harris “wearied” him with his desires, and even pretended religion that he might the better secure² his object.

Harris, however, partially succeeded in his effort. Williams, in 1638, delivered the so-called “initial deed,”³ of which not the original, but only a memorandum, exists. This stated that he, the sole purchaser of Providence, in consideration of the payment to him of £30 by the inhabitants of the place, conveyed to twelve of his “friends and neighbors . . . and such others as the major part of us shall admit into the same fellowship of vote with us,” joint right with himself to enjoy and dispose of said lands. Again no attempt was made to state the bounds with accuracy, and in the first memorandum the names of the

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grantees or first proprietors were not written out in full. In a second memorandum, however, which was dated October 8, 1638, the full names were substituted for initials.¹ The effect of the document was to transfer the land to the thirteen—of whom Williams was one—as an association or quasi-corporation, to be held temporarily in trust by them for the rising town. This is clear not only from the language of the memorandum, but from the statement of Williams in the confirmation of the grant which was issued in 1661.²

On October 8, 1638, the date of the second issue of the memorandum of the “initial deed,” an agreement³ was reached between the thirteen proprietors for their joint occupation and ultimate division of the lands of the “Pawtuxet purchase”; but the boundary line between these lands and those of the “Providence purchase” was not specified. In this agreement, moreover, unlike the “initial deed,” no reference is made to the admission of others than the “thirteen” to the fellowship. The implication of the language is that it was already a closed body, that no admissions to it were intended. If this was the intention of the document, it gives us the earliest suggestion of the purpose of Harris and of the leading spirits, with the exception of Williams, among his associates. That purpose became clear at a later time, both in reference to the lands of Providence and Pawtuxet. It was to secure control for these thirteen men, their heirs and assigns, of both the Providence and Pawtuxet purchase, to exclude all others from a share in their management and in the returns that might come from the sale or lease of those lands. Williams’s purpose was to indefinitely enlarge the fellowship, and admit to its advantages many more of those who might flee to Providence as a refuge from persecution. The ideal of Harris was that of the narrow, exclusive town proprietorship, which should enjoy the power and wealth that might come from the settlement within the grant of an increasing body of non-commoners. The ideal of Williams was that of an expanding democratic community, which should preserve

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the consciousness of the humanitarian impulses of its founders. With reference to the Pawtuxet lands an agreement which implied the triumph of Harris’s ideal had already been reached, while the obscure statements of the deeds relating to the boundaries of these lands later revealed to Harris the possibility of enlarging their area till they should include approximately three hundred thousand acres,—nearly all of the northern half of the colony of Rhode Island.

By confirmatory deeds which Harris and his party procured¹ in 1659 from the Narragansett sachems who had succeeded Canonicus and Miantonomi, the expression “up streams without limits” was interpreted as a grant for all purposes of settlement of the immense tract extending twenty miles westward from Fox’s Hill on Providence neck. On March 26, 1660, the town of Providence ordered its southern line run, in accordance with these grants, twenty miles to the westward.² Viewed from the standpoint of Rhode Island interests in general, this was a politic move, because it was calculated to thwart the operations of Massachusetts and Connecticut in the same region. But it was a land-grabbing scheme, the purpose of which was to extend the bounds of Providence and Pawtuxet far beyond what had been contemplated at the time of the purchase. As such, and because Harris and his party had already succeeded in establishing the domination of the thirteen proprietors in Providence, Williams passionately opposed the plan. This he did, notwithstanding the fact that he was one of the thirteen, and he and his heirs were destined to share in the gain. In the end the plan was defeated.

From the conditions which have just been outlined developed one of the most protracted and bitter controversies between proprietors and non-commoners which ever agitated a New England town. As political managers Harris and Olney, the leaders of the proprietary party, were superior to Williams and their other opponents. They consolidated the board of proprietors, controlled the town meeting, and through that the granting of land and the admission of free men. Providence, under their lead and that of their successors,

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developed in general accordance with the New England model, but, in spite of the teachings of Williams, with special emphasis on the proprietary element.

In 1640, controversies about land being on the increase, a plan of settling differences by compulsory arbitration was adopted.¹ A board of five arbitrators or “disposers” was chosen by the town meeting, not only to settle disputes, but to dispose of town lands, fix their bounds, and act as an executive board for the town. This board was the equivalent of selectmen and town justices elsewhere, being ultimately responsible to the town meeting for their acts. That resort to compulsion in civil cases was contemplated as possible is evident from the provision that, if the parties to a controversy refused to choose arbitrators, the board could compel them to do so or select them itself and then “see their determination performed.” This cumbersome machinery furnished a weak substitute for government in a plantation of squatters, that was rent by internal strife and was adjacent to two colonies which were ready to absorb it. Its efficiency was soon tested.

In little more than a year after the institution of the arbitrators Samuel Gorton, who had recently been expelled from Plymouth and from Aquedneck, settled within the limits of Providence. The one consistent feature in his stormy career was his refusal to submit to the authority of any government which had not a charter from the English government. The association of Providence he knew had no strict binding force in law. He also found many newcomers complaining because they had not been admitted to town privileges, to what they considered fair access to the common land, or who were dissatisfied with the administration of justice. The monopoly of the proprietors was probably the source of the difficulty. Finding it impossible after two applications to secure admission into town fellowship² Gorton joined with the disaffected, the unenfranchised, and the result soon was such tumult that Williams feared he would have to retire to “little Patience,” and thirteen persons, including

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Harris and Benedict Arnold, but not Williams, appealed to Massachusetts¹ for protection. Providence was apparently saved from serious complications not by its system of arbitration, but by the opportune removal of Gorton to Shawomet. This experience convinced the leaders that it was time to seek more effective authority for government, and helped to open the way for procuring a colony charter.

The island of Aquedneck was settled by William Coddington, John Clarke, William Hutchinson, and others, who had removed or been banished from Massachusetts as a result of the Antinomian controversy. With the help of Williams and Henry Vane the land was bought from the Indians.² In March, 1638, a plantation covenant was formed at Providence by eighteen original proprietors, together with Randall Holden.³ It ran as follows: “We whose names are underwritten do here solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, incorporate ourselves into a bodie Politick, and, as he shall help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute lawes of his given in his holy word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby—Ex. xxiv. 3, 4; 2 Chron. xi. 3; 2 Kings, xi. 17.”

A marked difference appears between this and the Providence compact. The one adopted by Coddington and his associates is profoundly religious, even Mosaic in character. Its language and the biblical quotations show that its authors considered themselves to be in a way reproducing the covenant between Jehovah and the chosen people. Submission is made, not to laws of their own making, but to those of God. Nothing is said about submission in civil things only. So far as the language of this covenant goes, one must infer that those who framed it were men of the genuine Massachusetts type, and might have intended to form an association in which the civil and ecclesiastical power should be united,—an Hebrew commonwealth. The impression is strengthened when we find that William Coddington was

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elected their chief magistrate with the title of Judge, and that he covenanted to administer justice according to the laws of God, while the settlers agreed to honor him according to the same laws. At the same time, by the promise of the judge, recognition was given to the rights and privileges of the body politic, which later were to be “ratified according to God.” We are brought back again into the modern era by the next entry, to the effect that William Aspinwall was chosen secretary and William Dyer clerk of the body.

Soon after the adoption of this covenant the settlers established themselves at Pocasset, near the northern end of the island. There, until April, 1639, they were a town and germinal colony in one. They were a body of associated de facto freemen, calling themselves sometimes a body politic, sometimes a society. Their assembly they called a “general meeting upon the public notice,” or a “general meeting of the body.” It was a town meeting, passing orders like that at Providence or elsewhere, about the laying out and sale of lets, care of the unimproved land, locating the meeting-house, repairing highways, building a mill, local police, and other similar affairs. It controlled its own membership under an order reserving to “the body” the right to receive inhabitants or freemen. But no express religious test was attached to membership, a feature of their plan which later opened the way for their union with Providence. Trained bands were established, trainings and the assize of arms were ordered, functions which, together with the independence of the settlement, suggest the colony more than the town.

Until January, 1639, the only officials referred to in the records of this plantation, besides those already mentioned, were two¹ treasurers and a marshal. Then three elders were elected, “to assist the Judge in the Execution of Justice and Judgment for the regulating and ordering of all offences and offenders, and for the drawing up and determining of all such Rules and Laws as shall be according to God, which may conduce to the good and welfare of the Commonweale,

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. . .” Once every quarter the judge and elders should submit their acts and rules to “the body” for its review, and those which it disapproved should be repealed. It thus appears that it was the intention to allow the judge and his councillors or associates little discretion and to keep them under the close scrutiny of the community. Shortly after the issue of this order the officials were increased by the election of a constable and sergeant, the former to present cases of manifest breaches of the law, and the latter to keep the prison, and serve the judges like a modern sheriff.¹

Within four months after the eldership was created, the elders—Easton, Coggshall, and Brenton—together with Coddington, the judge, and five others, removed to the southern end of the island, where they founded the plantation of Newport. There the leading settlers, among whom a relatively strong aristocratic spirit prevailed, signed a compact² in which they agreed to bear proportionable charges, and to abide by the decisions reached, by the majority vote of judge and elders. The former was given a double voice. The wording of this document would indicate that greater discretion was to be allowed the magistrates than in the Pocasset settlement. The strong Mosaic element was also omitted from the Newport compact, but a later entry shows that the government was still to be administered according to the word of God. Soon provision was made for an annual meeting of the magistrates and “freemen,” which should be called the “general court”³ or assembly. The meeting of the magistrates appears as a “particular Court.” The suggestion of the colony in this is striking.

The abandonment of Pocasset by its magistrates, though a majority of the incorporators and admitted members were left, necessitated a new covenant and the reestablishment of government there. The covenant which was adopted at Pocasset on April 30, 1639, differed remarkably from the one of the year previous. “We . . . acknowledge ourselves the legall subjects of his Majestie King Charles, and in his name doe hereby binde ourzelves into a civill body politicke, unto his lawes according to matters of justice.”⁴ A possible

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explanation of this change has been found¹ in the appearance among the signers of this compact of the names of Samuel Gorton, John Wickes, Sampson Shotton, and Robert Potter, men who were afterwards among the original purchasers of Shawomet or Warwick. Whether or not Gorton’s influence was sufficient to produce the change, it is true that his view of the proper attitude of colonies toward the crown found recognition in the new Pocasset compact. Another indication of English influence was the earliest provision for jury trial which appears among the Narragansett plantations. The agreement was formed for only one year, and for that term officers were chosen. Thus we have on Aquedneck two small plantations, joint owners of the soil of the island, but otherwise independent of each other and of all other colonies; the one acknowledging subjection to the king and the other recognizing no earthly superior.

But in November, 1639, the Newport settlers opened the way for the reunion of the two settlements by acknowledging King Charles as their sovereign, and voting to ask Mr. Vane to help procure a patent for the island. By this act theocracy on the island was abandoned and Newport practically announced its willingness to accept the secularized democratic system which was in vogue in the neighboring town. In March, 1640, ten of the leading inhabitants of Pocasset appeared at Newport and desired to be reunited with that body. Gorton and Mrs. Hutchinson, however, were opposed to the reunion, and Gorton and Wickes were not made freemen, but remained simply as inhabitants. The other friends of Gorton joined in the application² made at Newport. Their offer was accepted and the petitioners were received as “freemen of this Body.” But by that act “the Bodye” became something more than Newport, with its land extending a few miles to the north. “The Body” came now to include all the inhabitants of the island. But they were differently organized from what they were when all lived together at Pocasset. Now there were two settlements or plantations, which by their union formed a colony.

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By virtue also of that union each plantation appears distinctly as a town, and is so called in the records. The name Pocasset was at the same time changed to Portsmouth.

The title of judge also disappears, and the chief magistrate of the colony receives the designation of governor. Provision was made for a deputy governor and four assistants,¹ also for two treasurers, a secretary, and a sergeant. A constable was chosen for each town. Five² men were selected to lay out the lands of Portsmouth and three to lay out those of Newport. A line was drawn between the two towns. It was ordered that each town³ should transact its own special business, and that the magistrates of each should hold monthly courts for the trial of petty cases. All officials were elected. The governor and two assistants should be residents of one town, the deputy and the two remaining assistants should live in the other town. Provision was made for two annual sessions of the general court—that held in the spring being the court of election—and for a court of quarter sessions. An elaborate system of trainings was also established. These orders reveal the fact that the Massachusetts government was imitated in all save its religious test and its failure to expressly acknowledge submission to the crown. In 1641⁴ the government of this colony was solemnly declared to be democratic or popular, because the legislative power and the authority to choose officers to execute the laws resided in the freemen, or the majority of them, orderly assembled. By an order of September 19, 1642, the sale of lands on Aquedneck to outside jurisdictions or to Dutch settlers was forbidden. In 1644 the colony assumed the name Rhode Island, and with its simple democratic system and its two towns it continued to exist till 1647.

The origin and relations of Warwick, the fourth among the group of Narragansett towns, cannot be understood apart from the career of Samuel Gorton and the group of men who attached themselves to him. They exhibited more of the

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spirit of the English Levellers than did the settlers of Providence or Aquedneck. Gorton’s mind and utterances were saturated with the ideas and images of the Hebrew poets and prophets. The imprecatory psalms and the Apocalypse must have been frequent subjects of his perusal. From the few mystical and confused writings which he has left it is impossible to form a definite idea of his religious belief. But it seems to have resembled in many of its features the inspirationism of Anne Hutchinson and her followers, and it was at the time of the excitement over her preaching that Gorton had arrived in New England. Baptists have also laid some claim to kinship with him. He looked upon the Massachusetts churches as akin in spirit to the papal and other state-church systems of Europe,¹ and therefore as wholly blind to the true spiritual significance of Christ’s kingdom. With a tone of contempt worthy of the Antinomian prophetess, he and his followers told the Massachusetts leaders that their salvation was a shadow rather than a substance, that their ordinances were vain,² and that the main object of their system was to aggrandize the magistrates and clergy. They were bringing forth nothing but fruit unto death; true holiness and the spiritual life in its real beauty lay not within their “jurisdiction.” The intolerance of the Puritans came in for its due share of condemnation, as the strongest evidence of their essentially worldly spirit. The use of the oath, to which they so often resorted, was denounced as the assumption of a divine prerogative.

Gorton himself was a constant reader of the Bible, and often acted as lay preacher, both in Old and New England. He was ardent and contentious, always ready to champion the cause of the weak and oppressed. He also firmly refused to recognize the validity of any of the colonial governments which were based simply on agreement, and insisted that the only sufficient basis of authority was a grant from the English government. His opposition to the intolerance and priestcraft of Massachusetts brought him into conflict with that colony, though he never questioned the legality of her government. His sympathy with the weak, together with his contempt for

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magistrates who could trace their authority to nothing more than a civil or social contract, brought him into collision with the various plantations about Narragansett bay. When, therefore, he established a settlement at Shawomet or Warwick, on the western shore of the bay, powers of government were not at first assumed. Its only original and express bond of union was an agreement to settle disputes by means of arbitration.

The difficulties which beset Gorton and his associates in the founding of their plantation admirably illustrate the extreme individualism of the settlers about Narragansett bay, and the delicate relations under which they stood both toward one another and toward the neighboring colonies. After a brief residence in Massachusetts, and when the reaction there against the Hutchinson-Wheelwright faction was gaining irresistible headway, Gorton had sought refuge at Plymouth. But there he took up the cause of one Ellen Aldridge, who he thought was being persecuted for some slight offence committed in church.¹ For his conduct in connection with this Gorton was bound over to appear before the next general court. During the customary informal hearing which occurred there, one of the assistants, who of course was also a judge, at the request of the governor began to state the case against Gorton. Thereupon Gorton bade him come down from the judges” seat, and appealed to the people to stand for their liberties and not act as parties and judges in the same case. For this justifiable, though passionate, protest against the vicious judicial procedure of the time he was sentenced to banishment, and amid the severities of winter removed to Pocasset.

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During his residence of about eighteen months at Plymouth Gorton had apparently been attaching to himself friends who were prepared to share his opinions and his wanderings. In the course of a sojourn of about the same period of time on Aquedneck he added to their number. After the two plantations on the island had been united, Gorton and his friend Wickes violated all the proprieties before the court at Newport, and for what occurred on this occasion Gorton was whipped.¹ Years after he wrote that he respected the government of Plymouth, for he understood that they acted under commission from England, but those on Aquedneck had set up for themselves, and “I thought myself as fit and able to govern myself and family and perform the office of neighborhood as any that then was upon Rhode Island.” To Gorton’s experience at Providence and his subsequent removal to Shawomet reference has already been made.

In January, 1643, Gorton and his associates extinguished, as they thought, the Indian claim to the tract called Shawomet, on which they now proposed to settle. It was located on the west side of Narragansett bay, between Gaspee point and Warwick neck, and comprised the larger part of what were the later towns of Warwick and Coventry. A deed for the land was procured from Miantonomi, the Narragansett sachem, acting on behalf of the tribe whose rights of possession extended over this region. The deed was witnessed by Pumham, the local or subordinate chief.² Gorton was now clearly outside any English colony the jurisdiction of which seemed at all likely to be enforced. But he was not to remain unmolested.

William Arnold and three associates of Pawtuxet, who in 1642 had put themselves under the protection of Massachusetts in order to escape from the molestation of Gorton’s were active enemies of the Shawomet settlers. Arnold and his friends had bought land from Sacononoco,⁴ the chief of

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Pawtuxet, without the consent of Miantonomi, and were thus directly interested in proving, if possible, the independence of the local chiefs. Benedict Arnold, acting as interpreter, soon brought Pumham and Sacononoco to Boston.¹ Pumham declared that he had been forced by Miantonomi, under the influence of Gorton, to sign the deed for Shawomet, and the two chiefs asked to be received under the protection of Massachusetts. Miantonomi was now summoned to Boston, but naturally could not prove to the satisfaction of the magistrates that the two chiefs were his subjects. Others, including Benedict Arnold, affirmed that they were not such. The relations which existed, especially since the decline of the Narragansett tribe had begun, were in reality loose and hard to define, while the interests of the Pawtuxet men led them to actively support the claims of the local chiefs.

At this juncture, as usual, Gorton by his assertiveness played into the hands of his foes. He and twelve of his associates, says Winthrop, “sent a writing to our court of four sheets of paper, full of reproaches against our magistrates, elders and churches, of familistical and absurd opinions, and therein they justified their purchase of the sachems” land, and professed to maintain it to the death.” Passions already ran so high, that the possibility even of an armed conflict was suggested in words.

Not unnaturally the general court, at the session of May, 1643,² ordered Humphrey Atherton and Edward Tomlins to accompany William Arnold on a visit to Warwick, “to understand how things were,” and to bring back an Indian named Will, if possible. On the same day the magistrates, together with the deputies of the towns along the southern border, were appointed a committee to treat with Pumham and Sacononoco concerning their submission to Massachusetts, “and to receive them under our jurisdiction, if they see cause, and to warne any to desist which shall disturb them.” About the close of June both these chiefs signed a form of submission to the government of Massachusetts, and its protection was extended over them. They at the same

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time professed their willingness to receive religious instruction. Land-jobbing, missionary labors, and defence against Indians and heretics, in a region far south of the limits of Massachusetts, thus went conveniently hand in hand. Gorton, in consequence, found himself within the grasp of a stronger power than any he had before encountered.

Later in the year Gorton and his associates were summoned to appear before the general court at Boston. They refused to go and denied the jurisdiction claimed, and this denial was accompanied by more defiant, or, as Winthrop calls them, more “blasphemous,” messages. Massachusetts, having received from the Commissioners of the United Colonies permission to deal with her new claim as she saw fit,¹ sent a commission—Captain Cook, Lieutenant Atherton, and Captain Edward Johnson—to Shawomet, accompanied by forty soldiers, to bring the offenders to Boston, where they might be tried for religious error and for their alleged violation of the rights of Massachusetts citizens. The commissioners and soldiers, on their approach to Shawomet, were warned away, but replied by threatening an attack if they were not admitted to a conference. By the interposition of some Providence men a truce was concluded and the Gortonists offered to submit to arbitration. A messenger was sent to Boston for further instructions, but came back with word from the magistrates and elders that arbitration would not be allowed, because the Gortonists were not a state, but were under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, because of their blasphemous writings and because the persons from Providence to whom they wished to submit the case for judgment were not recognized as belonging to any government. Upon the reception of this message the siege of the house in which the Gortonists were was begun. Gorton in his Defence gives a very full account of this, and charges the Massachusetts men with bloodthirsty cruelty, but these are denied seriatim by Winslow.

The capture was effected without bloodshed and the prisoners were taken to Boston. There they were tried on

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charges of heresy and sedition. On the first Sabbath which they spent in Boston, Gorton, at his own request, was allowed to speak in church after Cotton had concluded his sermon. He then argued that all the ministers, ordinances, and sacraments of Massachusetts were human inventions intended for display. In his examination Gorton claimed that Shawomet was outside the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, but he did not show his Indian deed. It was answered that, if so, it lay either within Plymouth or Connecticut, and they had yielded their rights in the controversy to Massachusetts. The religious and political doctrines of Gorton’s letters were gone over, but he could not be brought to deny the authority of legal government backed by charter from England. His views, however, were confused and contradictory. The elders made a special effort to controvert and reclaim all the accused, but without success. The magistrates then voted that Gorton should be executed, but the deputies were opposed to this. Gorton and six others were finally sentenced to imprisonment with hard labor. They were dispersed among the different towns of the colony, and were forbidden to depart therefrom or to utter their doctrines, except to an elder or one licensed by the magistrates. Each prisoner was also to wear iron shackles on one leg. But the following year—1644—it was voted to set the prisoners at liberty and to banish them from the colony.¹ The reason for this was, that their heresies were found to be spreading. Massachusetts was thus forced to confess its failure in this matter. The Gortonists took refuge at Aquedneck, where their sufferings since their expulsion gained for them a welcome. They at once renewed intercourse with the Narragansetts and convinced them that in the wars in old England the Gortonogas had conquered the Wattaconogas, or Massachusetts party. Miantonomi had also been put to death, partly because of his connection with Gorton. The Narragansetts were thus induced to put themselves by solemn declaration² under the

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protection of the crown. Soon after Gorton and Holden left for England to carry the submission of the Narragansetts. In 1646 they returned, bringing an order¹ from the Commissioners of Plantations requiring Massachusetts to allow Gorton and his friends to land and pass through its territory to Warwick and settle there. Massachusetts had however taken possession of the land in question, and in 1645 granted it to about twenty families from Braintree. But on the ground that Warwick lay within its limits John Brown, one of the magistrates of Plymouth, had interfered and stopped the settlers from Braintree, when they were going to take possession. The magistrates of Plymouth did not sanction Brown’s act,² neither did they renounce the claim which they had made to Warwick. It was with difficulty that Holden, in 1646, and Gorton, in 1648, obtained permission to pass through Massachusetts. Massachusetts meantime had sent Winslow to England as her representative, furnished with protests. Winslow appeared before the commissioners, and presented the case of Massachusetts. But, though sympathy with the political and ecclesiastical system of Massachusetts was expressed, no attempt was made to settle the question of jurisdiction over Shawomet. It was left to be determined on the place, when the boundaries could be ascertained. The question was not settled till it became involved with that of the boundary of Providence Plantations as a whole. The Gortonists meantime held possession of Warwick, and the English government prohibited molestation of them by any of the neighboring colonies.

Had it not been for outside pressure, these four communities might have remained separate for an indefinite time. The region about Narragansett bay, as occupied by them, possessed no geographical unity, and causes proceeding from that source tended to keep them apart. The bay was the natural boundary between Connecticut and Plymouth, and, had it not been for the specifications of its charter, Massachusetts might very properly have extended its bounds to the northern extremity of the bay. Thus the tendency

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was for Providence to be absorbed by Massachusetts, Warwick by Connecticut, and Aquedneck by Plymouth. They all were menaced by stronger and somewhat ambitious neighbors. As they clung to their respective shores, the danger that they would lose independent existence increased.

The spirit of individualism was so strong that it operated, in connection with geographical tendencies, to keep the plantations apart. The inhabitants of them all, under one form or another, were in revolt against authority. Government from a remote centre seemed to them oppressive, and they demanded that positive restraint in all forms should be reduced to a minimum. The influence of the church and clergy was lacking or seriously weakened in all these communities. Individual choice, caprice, or indifference were given unusually free play. The tendency was to divide into smaller groups, rather than to combine into larger ones. When the elders and magistrates of Massachusetts heard of the disputes which went on in their assemblies, of their failure to organize churches, and of the ideas of individual liberty which were held, they called it anarchy, and considered the Narragansett plantations fit only for subjection and discipline.

Events growing out of these conditions gradually made it evident to the plantations themselves that union of some kind was necessary to the preservation of their distinct existence. These events were: the encroachments of Massachusetts as evidenced by the surrender of the Pawtuxet men to her, and the submission made to her by Pumham; the imminence of an Indian war in 1643, in which event the Narragansett country would be most exposed of all to attack; the refusal of the United Colonies, though on the eve of this Indian war, to receive Rhode Island as a member of their confederacy; the claims advanced by Plymouth in 1644, under the Bradford patent, to jurisdiction over Aquedneck.¹ The attitude of opposition on the part of the neighboring colonies was strengthened by the fact that nearly all the settlers in the Narragansett towns were exiles from their own borders.

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The first step which the plantations took toward union, and at the same time toward the rescue of themselves and their principles from destruction, was the despatch of Roger Williams, in 1643, to England to procure a charter. In March, 1644, the patent was granted, and with it Williams returned to the colony the following September. The charter was issued by the Earl of Warwick, the governor-in-chief and lord high admiral of the plantations, together with the Commissioners of Plantations, both of whom derived their authority from an ordinance of the Lords and Commons. Of this board Viscount Say and Sele, the younger Vane, and Samuel Vassall were members, all of whom, together with Warwick, had been interested in the colonization of New England. But among the eighteen members Vane and Cromwell were the two who had most sympathy with the ideas of Williams and the experiment in religious freedom, the faint beginnings of which it was his desire to cherish. The majority of the board was much more inclined to approve the polity of Massachusetts.

While Williams was negotiating for the charter, influences were brought to bear by Thomas Welde and Hugh Peters to thwart his plan. They secured the signatures of nine of the eighteen commissioners to a document, the purpose of which was to add to the territory of Massachusetts all the land¹ about Narragansett bay, including the Island of Aquedneck. But as the ordinance creating the Commissioners of Plantations required, for such transactions, the assent of a majority of the board, the so-called Narragansett patent was never legally issued. In 1645, however, it was sent over to Massachusetts, though that colony never clearly made it the basis of a claim to jurisdiction.

The patent² which was procured by Williams designated the settlements collectively as Providence Plantations in the Narragansett bay in New England, and purported to incorporate

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them under that name. In the most general terms it declared that these were bounded by Massachusetts on the north, Plymouth on the east, and the Narragansett country and Pequot or Pawcatuck river on the west.¹ It also referred expressly to the towns of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport. It gave the plantations the authority to rule themselves and future settlers within their limits by such form of civil government as by the consent of the majority they should find most suitable to their condition. The separation of church from state was implicitly recognized in the patent by the exclusive use of the term “civil government.” The only restriction laid upon the plantations was the one of such general conformity to English law as their condition and government would admit. The commissioners also reserved the right, which was theirs from the outset, to adjust the relations between this and the other colonies in such way as they should consider to be for the advantage of the realm and dominions.

This is noteworthy as the earliest attempt to incorporate a colony on the place, but it afforded no immediate guaranties against the kingship in England, though it did give some protection against other colonies as long as the government which issued it maintained itself. But it imposed no government or governing body on the Narragansett settlements, and left it wholly to them to decide whether or not they would unite and organize a government under the charter. This all was in keeping with the character and methods of Williams, as well as with those of most of the patentees concerned. Three years passed after the charter reached America before the tendencies toward union became so strong as to lead to the organization of government under it.

In May, 1647, a court of election, attended by the majority of the freemen of the colony, was held at Portsmouth.² This body included members from Warwick, as well as from the other towns, and it was voted that Warwick should have the same privileges as Providence. By Providence,³ and

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perhaps by the other towns, representatives were chosen to attend the court, but in addition to these the freemen attended numerously in their own right;¹ it was both a primary and a representative assembly. So far as Rhode Island was concerned, it is probable that the towns, rather than the joint or colony government, were represented. Scarcely any evidence of that government appears in the proceedings of the assembly. By one of its acts² Portsmouth and Newport were empowered to pass and enforce local orders either jointly or apart. But it seems that, after a vote in Newport favorable to continued joint action, Portsmouth voted unanimously to act apart. Thus the joint government on Rhode Island disappeared, except so far as it was revived by the Coddington episode. The colony then which was organized in 1647 was formed by the union of a people which had previously for a decade been organized as towns. Providence instructed its delegates to the Portsmouth assembly, reserving to itself full power to elect and control its own officers, to transact all its town business, to try all cases save those which should be reserved for the colony courts, and to keep³ its officers and their powers distinct from those of the colony. Utterances of this character, when compared with any which proceeded from towns in the other colonies, illustrate the peculiarity of the Rhode Island system.

By the colonists in court of election at Portsmouth the charter was accepted. This was done by means of an express “engagement,”⁴ which was embodied in the preamble to the code of laws. “Wee whose names are here underwritten, doe engage ourselves to the uttmost of our estates and strength to maintayne the authority and to enjoy the Libertie granted to us by our Charter, in the extent of itt according to the Letter.” While acknowledging the source whence their patent had come, yet, since it gave them a free hand, they expressly formed a social compact: “We do joyntlie agree to incorporate ourselves, and soe to remaine a Body Politicke by

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the authoritie thereof, and therefore do declare to own ourselves and one another to be members of the same Body, and to have right to the Freedome and priviledges thereof, etc.” By virtue of the same authority they declared themselves a democracy, “that is to say, a Government held by ye free and voluntarie consent of all, or the greater parte of the free Inhabitants.”

Though Roger Williams was the agent who procured the charter, Rhode Island seems to have taken the lead in the organization of government under it. This appears in part from the fact that, after the above engagement and declaration had been adopted, a code of laws, selected from those of England so far as they were known or thought to be adapted to the conditions of the place, was accepted, and this code seems to have been prepared and submitted by the islanders.¹ Providence expressed in advance its assent to “that model that hath lately been shown unto us by our worthy friends of the Island.” To these “Lawes” was prefixed a reaffirmation of the clause in Magna Carta which prohibited arbitrary arrests and punishments, and a declaration that in this case the law of the land (lex terrae) was the law ratified and confirmed by the general assembly of the colony. That alone was declared to be law in the colony which was made such by assemblies called and held according to the charter. This meant the exclusion of English law when unconfirmed by the general assembly, and a claim that the colony courts should have the exclusive right to administer justice. Only legally constituted officers—meaning those of the colony—could execute the laws. The principle that public officials should be supported by salaries and fined when they refused to serve was also affirmed. After reciting the more familiar provisions of the English criminal law and those for the probate of wills, the code concluded with provisions concerning the organization and powers of the courts of the colony, the powers of judicial officers, and a few clauses about the jury and pleading.

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No act was passed creating a general court, but the assembly which was called together to organize the government of the colony was assumed to be that body. In the legislation of May, 1648, it appears as a representative body, and continues to be such thereafter. It consisted of six deputies chosen from each town, and was frequently called the “representative committee,” as well as a “general court of commissioners.”¹ In it the governor and assistants appear to have had no seats, and it was distinct from the May assembly or court of election, in which these and the other officials of the colony were elected. Two general courts were thus in existence: the general court of election, which was attended by outgoing magistrates and freemen, and the general court of commissioners, which was representative. They met in different towns in succession. Though, as in the other corporate colonies, authority proceeded wholly from the freemen through election, the executive and legislature were kept distinct.² Under such an arrangement there could be no question of a negative voice, and the political power of the executive would be seriously limited. The term “freeman” approximated also much more closely to inhabitant than it did in the other³ colonies.

The prominence of the towns in this colony, as well as the prevailing jealousy of delegated power, is reflected in the method of legislation prescribed by the general court of 1647. It was a crude combination of initiative and referendum.

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Bills might originate in the towns, as well as in the general court. If in the former, and all the four towns should approve, the bill should be submitted to a “Committee¹ for the General Courte,” consisting of six members chosen from each town. In this provision possibly appears the first sign of the general court in representative form. However, by this body of twenty-four the bill or bills were to be ordered to stand till the next general assembly, or court of election. It then might make the bills permanent law or reject them. When legislation was initiated in the general court, it should be submitted to the towns, discussed and voted on by them, and their votes returned to the general court. If the majority, apparently of the popular vote taken by towns, was favorable to the legislation, it should stand as law till confirmed or repealed by the next general assembly. At first no time limit was set within which the towns must act; but in 1650 and 1658 it was enacted that they must send in their votes to the general recorder within ten days after the bills had been read to them. In 1660 the time limit was extended to three months.² This experiment continued in operation until the issue of the royal charter. Then the towns began to assume the subordinate position of administrative units which they had held from the first in the other corporate colonies, and the particularistic conditions of the early time to an extent disappeared.

In the code³ to which reference has been made, the number and titles of officers of the colony were specified. They were the president, four assistants, a general recorder, general treasurer, and general sergeant. Later an attorney-general and solicitor-general were added. Of the board of four assistants one should be a resident in each town. In the code it was also declared that these officials should be annually chosen in the general assembly, by which was meant the court of election. For president, recorder, treasurer, and sergeant each town should present a nominee, and he who received the majority of votes should be declared elected. For the office of assistant each town should present two names, and the one who received the majority of

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votes should be elected. Voting should be by ballot. By another clause it was provided that the military officers¹ should be chosen in each town by the majority of the inhabitants thereof. By these enactments the universality of tenure by election was secured. The principle thus guarantied was stated in the preamble of an order of 1647² requiring officials whose terms had expired to surrender the public records in their possession. “And now forasmuch as the choice of all the officers that are to be employed in this Colonie, like the Colonies about us, (occurs) once a year, whereby it may be easily collected that he that hath an office or charge this yeare may have none another.”

In the records the functions of officials to which reference is chiefly made are judicial. The president, whose title was later changed to governor, together with the assistants, constituted the court³ of trials, the highest regular tribunal of the colony. It met in two sessions annually, one of which was held just after the court of election and the other in October. Its jurisdiction appears to have been substantially the same as that of the court of assistants in other colonies. That the board also performed the ordinary administrative functions is also certain, though little positive evidence of the fact appears in the records. The president was empowered by writ to the general sergeant to notify the colony of the approach of a general assembly. There is also express evidence that he called special sessions of the general court. Once in 1658 and twice the following year a “general council” met.⁴ It consisted of the president, the assistants, and certain local officers, in one case wardens of Providence and Warwick. There is no record of the creation of such a body, or of its meeting subsequent to the three times mentioned. The business it then did was executive, such as a board of governor and assistants might regularly have done.⁵

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The reasonable inference would seem to be that we have in these entries a fragment of the records of the magistrates as an executive board. Whether or not that be true, one should not infer from the absence of such records that Providence Plantations had no executive. The fact rather would be that they kept no records of administrative action, or, if they did keep them, they have been lost. The same is true to a considerable extent of the other corporate colonies, and we are left in the same position with reference to them all as that we should have occupied in the case of Massachusetts if Governor Winthrop had not written his Journal.

As in the other corporate colonies, the assembly of Providence Plantations kept resorting to committees for the performance of executive duties, like those which might have, fallen to a board of assistants. In 1655 a committee was appointed to treat with the Narragansett sachems, because the latter contrary to agreement had deprived the inhabitants of Rhode Island of the use of grass on¹ Conanicut. The same year a committee was appointed to consider how to prevent the sale of ammunition to the Indians. Treaties with the natives were usually negotiated by such committees.² Committees were frequently chosen to frame letters to be sent to England or to the other colonies.³ In 1657 a committee was appointed to take the bonds of William Harris and his son to perform the orders of the court concerning the charge of high treason which had been preferred against him.⁴ In 1660 a committee was instructed to maturely consider the purchase of Narragansett territory by men from Massachusetts and to report thereon; a little later another was selected to treat with the purchasers.⁵ In 1661 a committee was appointed to raise money in the towns to send to John Clarke, the agent in England, and in 1663 another committee was engaged on the same subject.⁶ Not infrequently also committees were chosen to audit the accounts of officials; ⁷ occasionally also to consider petitions before the

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assembly and formulate a course of action upon them.¹ Committees also continued to be a prominent feature in Rhode Island government after 1664.

Unity in the colony, so far as it had been attained, was soon interrupted. William Coddington, as the leading representative of the aristocratic tendencies² which existed at Newport, had for some time been planning the separation of the island from the mainland settlements. Not only in 1644, but in 1648, the year after the union of the Narragansett towns had been effected, he had proposed an alliance of the island with the United Colonies³ of New England. But the commissioners refused to agree to the proposal, unless the island came in as a part either of Plymouth or of Massachusetts. After the second refusal Coddington resolved to carry his demand to England, and, if possible, to secure a commission as proprietary governor of the island. This plan was promptly executed.⁴ With the assistance, it has been conjectured, of Hugh Peters, Coddington, in April, 1651, procured a life commission to govern Rhode Island and Conanicut. It empowered him to administer the law, to raise forces for defence, and upon nominations by the freeholders of the towns to appoint not more than six councillors and tender the engagement both to them and to the electors. In order to procure this commission Coddington represented himself as the discoverer and purchaser of the two islands involved, a statement in which he was as much in error as he was in his estimate of the reception with which his move was likely to meet from his fellow-colonists.

It is true that the colony government had resulted from a union of the people of the four towns, established under a charter which was merely permissive. It was a federation which had originated in the consent of the parties who formed it. It had existed but a few years, and was beset by many perils. It was of course possible that the union might be broken and the parts fall asunder. But, if they did so,

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it was not at all likely that the people would willingly submit to a proprietary system in any form. Their spirit and tendencies were as strongly opposed to a government of that type as it is possible to conceive. Of the truth of this Coddington received a vivid impression as soon as he returned to Rhode Island.

The immediate effect of Coddington’s act was to separate the colony again into two parts. Two commissioners” courts met, one for Providence and Warwick and the other for Newport and Portsmouth, the former holding the larger number of sessions.¹ This situation continued from November, 1651, until May, 1654. Massachusetts and Plymouth now revived before the Commissioners of the United Colonies the question of again asserting their claims² to Narragansett territory, a subject which had been allowed to sleep since Williams had procured his charter. The legality of sessions held by commissioners from Providence and Warwick alone was quite open to attack, and the colony seemed to be in imminent peril of dissolution.

But the proposal to accept Coddington as governor of Rhode Island on a life tenure found few supporters. The mainland towns were, of course, a unit in opposition to it. Williams was sent to England as their agent to procure a confirmation of the charter. John Clarke was also sent as the agent of the opposition in the island towns to procure the recall of Coddington’s commission. On the island meetings were held by the opponents of Coddington, and an attempt was made to break up a court which he was holding. So hard beset was Coddington that he even intrigued with the Dutch to procure soldiers to aid him in subduing the opposition on Rhode Island.³ So strong did that opposition become that Coddington found it expedient to retire to Boston, where, in the spring of 1652, he signed a paper surrendering the Indian deed of Rhode Island to the purchasers, and admitting that he had no more share in the purchase than did the rest of his associates.⁴ Before the

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close of the same year the agents, assisted by Sir Henry Vane, had successfully overcome such influence as the friends of Coddington were able to exert in England, and had procured a recall of the commission. Early in 1653 efforts toward the reuniting of the colony began on the part of the mainland towns. Providence and Warwick empowered commissioners¹ to meet with representatives from the island, for the purpose of reestablishing the government of the colony. But for a long time no response came. During the interval the war between England and the Netherlands broke out, and the settlements on the island issued commissions to Captain Underhill, William Dyer, and Edward Hull to prey on the Dutch. A court of admiralty was established for the trial of prizes.² Privateers from Rhode Island operated in Long Island Sound. At this the mainland towns were much disturbed, because they feared it would involve them in an offensive war with the Dutch. The town of Warwick forbade its inhabitants to join “the French or Dutch, and disfranchised John Warner because he, as the result of a quarrel with the town, invited Massachusetts to assume jurisdiction.³

In May, 1654, the four towns united once more in a general court of election.⁴ But the appointment by this body of a committee to prepare “some course concerning our dissenting friends” would indicate that all were not reconciled. Of this committee Williams, who had now returned from England, was a member. In the following August the union was fully restored. They agreed to resume government under the charter,⁵ with the existing body of laws, and to allow the acts done by the towns separately during the interval to retain their validity in the localities for which they were intended. On September 12th a court of election was held at Warwick by which officers were chosen to hold till the next spring. Williams was chosen president at this time and also at the succeeding spring election. Now Williams appears more distinctly than formerly as a leader of

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the colony. The Protectorate in England was fully acknowledged, and an engagement of obedience to it was ordered to be administered to the inhabitants by the town officers;¹ a letter of warning against internal dissensions was received from Oliver Protector, under the influence of which an order was issued that those found to be ringleaders of faction should be sent to England for trial before the Protector and Council. In 1656 Coddington made full submission before the general assembly to the “authoritie of his Highness in this Colonie as it is now united.”² He at that time took his seat as commissioner from Newport. A committee of investigation reported favorably on his conduct, and it was recommended that a letter be sent to the agent in England giving reasons for receiving his submission, and asking that the charges against him, which were pending before the Council of State, be dismissed.³ Coddington also resigned his Indian deeds and other records into the keeping of the settlers of Rhode Island. Thus his great plan was totally abandoned, and the peril which had seemed to threaten the union of the Narragansett towns from that quarter disappeared.

Boundary disputes furnished another perennial cause of disturbance to the Narragansett settlements. To all colonies which had no charters or other guaranties from the crown the question of boundary was a vital one. Unless boundaries could be determined and maintained by peaceful agreement with neighbors, separate existence was seriously imperilled. Because of its location and of the friendly feeling which for the most part existed between it and Massachusetts, Connecticut experienced little difficulty of this kind. The most serious menace to her territorial integrity came from the Dutch and later from New York. But New Haven, because she had no charter, or bounds which had been recognized by mutual agreement, was absorbed by Connecticut. The question between the two was largely a territorial one. The Narragansett settlements seemed for a time to be exposed to even greater peril from this cause than did New

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Haven. As Connecticut had enclosed New Haven, so they were surrounded by Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The bounds of none of those colonies had been definitely settled, and they all were eager to secure territory on the shores of Narragansett bay. In consequence of the submission of Arnold and his friends to Massachusetts, that colony appointed justices of the peace for their territory, and sixteen years passed before her claim to control over them was abandoned. What occurred in this instance might also occur in others. Boundary disputes occupy a larger place in the history of Rhode Island than in that of any other colony.

The efforts to settle the eastern boundary of Connecticut and the southern boundary of Massachusetts occasioned the most serious struggle, and this involved the question of the right to the Narragansett country. This tribe with its dependents occupied all of the territory of the modern state of Rhode Island west of Narragansett bay. The boundary of the region on the southwest was the Pawcatuck river. To the westward, but originally extending a short distance to the east of the Pawcatuck, lay the Pequot country. To this region both Connecticut and Massachusetts, after the Pequot war, laid claim by right of conquest. Connecticut, after she had bought out Fenwick, claimed also by patent and purchase, and began to settle the region.

During the conflict with the Pequot tribe, the Narragansetts aided the English. Roger Williams, as early as 1634 and 1635, established friendly relations with the chiefs of the Narragansetts and, as we have seen, made from them his purchases. Both before and after the Pequot war Massachusetts frequently negotiated with the Narragansett sachems, but never gained their friendship. The degree of success which she had with them was largely due to the mediation and aid of Williams. When, soon after the Pequot war, the feud between the Mohegans and the Narragansetts developed, in which Uncas and Miantonomi were leaders, the English of the United Colonies adopted decisively the cause of the Mohegans. Williams, Gorton, and their associates of the Narragansett settlements always

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sympathized with Miantonomi. The animosity which Massachusetts showed toward Gorton and that which she felt toward the Narragansett chief had a related origin. With her crusade against them both was involved a desire to secure influence among the Narragansett Indians and also territory within the region which they inhabited.

Through the settlement of Warwick the Narragansett colonists were the first to secure a foothold within the country west of the bay. From their settlement Massachusetts was not able to dislodge them. Soon after 1640 Richard Smith, who removed from Taunton in Plymouth colony, bought a tract from the Indians at Wickford, some distance south of Shawomet. There he built a house and took up his permanent residence. With him Williams was from the first somewhat closely associated, and later he too built a trading house in the same region. These houses were near the old Pequot path, which skirted the shore from the vicinity of Providence round to the former home of the Pequots.

Early in 1657 a company, consisting of Samuel Wilbore and three associates from Newport, and John Hull, the mintmaster from Boston, bought a track just north of Point Judith, which was known as the Pettiquamscott Purchase. In October, 1658, the general court of Massachusetts, in the prosecution of its plan to occupy a part of the Pequot country, declared a small settlement which had been made just west of the Pawcatuck to be a plantation with the name of Southertown (now Stonington), and annexed it to Suffolk county. Special commissioners and a constable were appointed to administer it.¹ These events seemed to threaten the peace of the Narragansett towns. Therefore, in November, 1658, the assembly passed an act forbidding any one to introduce a foreign jurisdiction, or to put his lands under the government of any other colony, under pain of confiscation.²

But this did not check the encroachments of Massachusetts parties within the Narragansett country. In 1659 the Atherton company was formed, consisting of Humphrey

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Atherton, John Winthrop, Jr., Edward Hutchinson, Jr., Richard Smith, and others, largely Massachusetts men. This company bought a large tract north of the Pettiquamscott Purchase, and adjoining Richard Smith’s estate. Rhode Island protested against this before the Commissioners of the United Colonies, but without result. In 1660, as security for the payment of a heavy fine which had been imposed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies because of outrages which had been committed by certain of the Niantics, the chiefs mortgaged to the Atherton company all of the unsold land in the Narragansett country.¹ If the company was not reimbursed in two years for their outlay, the land was to be fully conveyed to it. The actual transfer was made in 1662.

Meantime the Narragansett settlements bought from the Indians, under the name of the Westerly Purchase, land a part of which lay in Southertown, and began to settle it. In October, 1661,² three of the settlers in Westerly were arrested by the order of Massachusetts, and two of them were taken to Boston. There they were fined and imprisoned till the fine should be paid, and were then required to give bonds of £100 each to keep the peace. In the course of its correspondence over this affair the Massachusetts government reasserted the claim under its alleged charter from the commissioners of parliament to “all that tract of land from Pequot River to Plymouth line.” She warned all the Rhode Island settlers to withdraw, or they would be arrested. But Rhode Island replied with a similar demand upon Massachusetts settlers in the region and denied that the Pequot country extended east of the Pawcatuck. She also insisted that the Atherton purchasers should submit to her jurisdiction. When we remember that Connecticut was also claiming the entire region which was thus in dispute, it will be seen that the situation was becoming complex. The claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut were also supported by the Commissioners of the United Colonies against any steps

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which Rhode Island could take. The danger that the Narragansett settlements would lose all west of the bay thus became imminent.

The situation was to an extent cleared by the issue of the Connecticut charter. By fixing the eastern boundary of that colony at Narragansett bay, Massachusetts was excluded, and she soon retired from the race. The Atherton company, on being offered the choice of submitting to the Narragansett settlements or to Connecticut, of course without hesitation chose the latter. Connecticut named the plantation of the Atherton patentees Wickford, and appointed magistrates for it, the first in the list of whom was Richard Smith.

But the provision of the Connecticut charter relating to the boundary made it especially imperative that the Narragansett settlements should secure a guaranty of equal strength. Their agent, John Clarke, was instructed to offer a resignation of the existing charter¹ and to procure a grant from the crown. Attention was called to the joy with which the colonists about Narragansett bay had welcomed the Restoration and to their speedy acknowledgment of submission to the king. By agreement between Winthrop and Clarke in England,² a clause was introduced into the Rhode Island charter specifying that the Pawcatuck river should be the boundary between the two colonies, any provision in the earlier patent of Connecticut to the contrary notwithstanding. The western boundary of Rhode Island was completed by a line drawn due north from the source of that river to Massachusetts. On the east the boundary should be the shore of Narragansett bay and Seekonk river, to Pawtucket falls, and thence a line extending due north to the Massachusetts bounds. All adjacent islands, including Block island, were made a part of the colony.

Except in minute details, the provisions of the charter relating to government were the same as those of the Connecticut patent. In deference to the opinions of the colonists, and to the reasons for their establishing a distinct colony, as set forth in Clarke’s petitions, the following notable clause

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guarantying religious freedom was introduced: “Noe person within the sayd colonye, at any tyme hereafter, shall bee anywise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences in opinione in matters of religion, and (he) doe not actually disturb the civill peace of our sayd colony; but that all and everye person and persons may, from tyme to tyme, . . . freelye and fullye have and enjoy his and theire own judgments and consciences in matters of religious concernments; . . . they behaving themselves peaceablie and quietlie, and not useing libertie to lycentiousnesse and profanenesse, nor to the civill injurye or outward disturbance of others; any lawe, statute, or clause therein contayned, or to be contayned, usage or custome of this realme, to the contrary hereof, in anywise, notwithstanding.”¹

The charter was received by a general assembly at Newport in March, 1664, and put into force. Such laws as were inconsistent with it were repealed. Among them were the laws requiring that measures should be submitted by the general court to the towns for approval.