PURITAN UNIFORMITY 65 rest with the upper class. But the popular party was strong and did not cease its efforts until in 1644 it defeated Winthrop's reëlection. But in 1646 he was again successful, and retained the governorship until he died in 1649. We shall not understand Massachusetts history if we do not remember that the colony was long ruled by the ideal of an aristocracy of virtue. chise. To insure the supremacy of the virtuous it was enacted in 1631 that none but members of a church should be freemen. By this means the individual congregations, under the influence of their ministers, regulated the suffrage. Joining the church The Franthus became the means of enfranchisement. Although this practice must have secured the disfranchisement of the most worthless characters, it also excluded those who for conscience sake would not join a church, and those who held other than the Puritan faith. But such people were not desired in the colony. The settlement was planned as a Puritan commonwealth, and if non-Puritans came they might remain as long as they were quiet, but without the suffrage. If they sought to spread another faith, they must be sent away. A word must be said for the men who made such laws. The fathers of many of them remembered the days when "Bloody Mary" burned Protestants at Smithfield, and the religious wars of France were only recently extinguished, while a similar struggle in Germany was then in its worst stage of horror. Believing in the doctrines for which so many lives had been surrendered, they felt justified in safeguarding it in the New World. Massachusetts was not established as a home for toleration, but as a well-defended fortress of the Puritan faith. Roger Wil liams and his Views. There was frequent necessity for enforcing uniformity in the early years of the colony. European Protestantism at the time was beset with schism, and it was natural for the same symptoms to appear in America. They were repressed sternly, and the victims went back to England with loud complaints of intolerance. But one of the dissenting ones would not return. Roger Williams, destined to found Rhode Island as a genuine home of tolerance, was a protégé of Sir Edward Coke, the famous jurist. He had a brilliant career at Cambridge, but refused to take orders because he would not support the Establishment. In 1631 he became minister at Salem, then preached at Plymouth, and at length returned to Salem. He preached the separation of church and state, declared that an oath was only to be enforced morally, and said that it was a sin to worship according to the forms of the established church. His rigid literalness led him to assert that the soil belonged to the Indians, from whom alone the whites could acquire title. All this would have aroused the authorities at any time, but in 1635 it occasioned especial alarm. Excluded schismatics returning to England had pronounced the colony a nest of separatism, F and the Privy Council had in 1634 stopped ten ships about to sail until their passengers agreed to conform with the Prayer Book. The Colony under Suspicion. Meanwhile, a commission headed by Laud was appointed to supervise the colonies in America. The general court of Massachusetts, much alarmed, took steps to fortify the harbors, but in a short time the tide turned. Good diplomacy had thrust the danger aside, but no one knew when it would return. It was not a time for preaching such radicalism as Williams's in the colony. The Puritans, claiming that they held the true English faith, were accustomed at this time to assert rather stoutly their accord with the English Church, although, as a matter of fact, they had no bishop and paid not the slightest attention to the British hierarchy. Williams's views inevitably elicited a response, and one of those polemic conflicts ensued for which the age was noted. The defender of orthodoxy was John Cotton, of Boston, and under his Roger Wilproddings Williams took a still more radical position. liams BanHe began to criticize other ministers; he advised his own ished. flock not to affiliate with other churches, and when some of them ignored him he excommunicated them. This was too much, even for Salem, and it turned against the minister, who felt impelled to resign. He was now summoned before the general court, and refusing to recant he was ordered into exile in October, 1635. As winter was approaching, he was permitted to remain until spring on condition that he did not preach his tenets. He seems to have made no promise in the matter, but when it was known in January that he was instructing a group of twenty persons, perparations were made to send him to England. Learning of this he escaped across the snows to the Narragansett Indians, who received him kindly. Here, outside of Massachusetts, he planted the settlement of Providence. He was followed by a small number of friends. A more important division was occasioned by Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. Of the best social rank in Boston, she had her following among the influential class. She was distinguished for Hutchinson. Mrs. Anne mental acumen and piety and showed much ability in discussion. Her first achievement was to gather a number of women to whom she explained sermons. From that she advanced to the teaching of her own doctrines, and soon she had a large following, among whom were many men of importance. Then the orthodox became alarmed and began to warn the faithful against what they declared were her errors. Attack and counter-attack led to recrimination and intrigues, in which religion and politics were intermingled. At length a council of ministers assembled but did not openly condemn her doctrines. In 1635 young Sir Harry Vane arrived in Boston and became an adherent of her faith. He was exceedingly popular, and in 1636 was elected governor. Thus strength MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 440 67 ened, Mrs. Hutchinson's party had probably a majority in Boston, but in the other towns the orthodox side was stronger. In 1637, when the echoes of the controversy reached all parts of the colony, a synod of ministers convened and laid down eighty-nine points of orthodoxy, all in repudiation of the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson, which were clearly Antinomian. Against an utterance by the ministers the politicians dared not act, and now the weaker of the new sect began to desert it, among them Rev. John Cotton, of Boston, who had once been friendly to the new ideas. In the same year Governor Vane was defeated for reëlection by Winthrop, who took a conservative attitude in the dispute, and a short time afterwards the rejected candidate left Boston for England. In November, 1637, the situation came before the general court, which decided that only one form of religion should exist in the colony, and declared that the newer should go. The affair ended with a trial which seems to moderns a judicial horror; but it was held in conformity with the usage of the English parliament when it sat to investigate a great and danger Hutchinson. ous matter of state. Mrs. Hutchinson was summoned Trial of Mrs. before the court to explain her doctrines. Had she been cautious she might have baffled her opponents; but having a sharp tongue she compromised herself by her replies. Being asked, "How do you know that it is God that did reveal these things to you and not Satan?" she replied, "How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his son?" "By an immediate voice," said one of the court. "So to me by an immediate revelation," was the rejoinder. This was enough. The Puritan held the words of the Bible for the highest authority and had no tolerance for those who claimed special revelations. Winthrop, presiding over the court, put the question: Shall Mrs. Hutchinson be banished from Massachusetts? and only two votes were in the negative. When she asked why she was banished, the governor replied: "Say no more. The court knows wherefore and is satisfied." Her leading followers were fined or disfranchised. In the following spring she was brought before her own church to be dealt with as a church member. Broken in spirit by imprisonment and isolation, she recanted the most extreme of her doctrines, saying they arose from "the height and pride of her spirit." But this availed nothing. Several of the most pious ministers present denounced her as a liar and she was formally excommunicated. With her family she went southward to Narragansett Bay, and when, four years later, she and her family were massacred by the Indians the saints of Massachusetts took it as a judgment from heaven. The next important protest against dogmatic uniformity in Massachusetts came from the Quakers, and it was sternly repressed. The death of Winthrop in 1649 and Rev. John Cotton in 1652 left Endicott, a narrower-minded man, in control. In 1656 came to Boston two Quakers, women, who felt it their duty to "bear witness" in that town. They were sent away, but eight others immediately appeared only to be driven back, also. This caused much anxiety The among the ruling class, who considered Quakerism especially dangerous. Accordingly, letters were sent to the other New England colonies urging that laws be passed for the exclusion of the pestiferous heresy. Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth gave favorable replies, and laws were passed to keep the new sect out of their bounds. Massachusetts passed similar acts, but as they were continuously violated she finally enacted that if any banished Quakers returned to the colony they should suffer death. Immediately William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Mrs. Dyer, wife of the secretary of Rhode Island, appeared in Boston. They were ordered to depart, but at once came back and were sentenced to be hanged. The two men were executed, 1659; but Mrs. Dyer was reprieved at the last moment when her son offered to take her to her home. In 1660 she returned and suffered martyrdom. Other colonies forbade the Quakers to preach, as Virginia and New Netherland, but it was only Massachusetts that put them to death. In striking contrast was the course of Rhode Island, which made no restriction on liberty of speech. Rhode THE SETTLEMENT OF OTHER NEW ENGLAND COLONIES Island Four settlements, at Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick, each made by religious refugees from Massachusetts, make up the early colony of Rhode Island. The first was established by Roger Williams and a small group of followers in 1636 on lands granted by the Indians. The second was made by Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers in 1638, the third by a portion of her followers who left Portsmouth in 1639 and settled along the shore of the excellent harbor of Newport, and the fourth was planted in 1638 by Samuel Gorton, an insurgent from Massachusetts who could not stand the turbulent régime of Providence. There was much discussion among the settlers, as was to be expected from men whose very existence was religious dissent; but out of it came a spirit of democracy which left a lasting impress on the settlements. They began without charters and had no other form of government than what they established by their own agreement. In 1643 Roger Williams, on a visit to England, got an act of incorporation under the government of the Long Parliament, confirming to the people of the four settlements their lands with the right to govern themselves in their own way. Under this act a common system was organized, and it remained the authority for Rhode Island and Providence until in 1663 a more regular charter was issued by the king. SETTLEMENTS IN CONNECTICUT The River 69 Towns of Meanwhile, the lands south of Massachusetts and west of Rhode Island had attracted settlers. On the Connecticut, Dutch trading forts had already been planted where Hartford and Wethersfield later stood, and one object of the English was probably to save this rich valley from the control of New Amsterdam. The migration was begun in 1636 when Rev. Thomas Hooker and a large part of his congregation at Cambridge sold their lands and moved in a body to the upper Connecticut valley. Other groups from Dorchester, Watertown, and Roxbury soon followed, those from the last-named town settling at Springfield, which proved to be within the bounds of Massachusetts. Out of this movement sprang English settlements at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, and later at other places in Connecticut. The newcomers did not drive out the Dutch, but in many ways made life uncomfortable for them. The river towns of Connecticut in 1639 adopted a written form of government with a governor, assistants, and a law-making general court composed of deputies from the towns. The suffrage was to be regulated by the towns. This, it will be seen, was but a copy of the Massachusetts system. The upper river towns were not planted before still another enterprise was launched at the mouth of the Connecticut. In this region the Earl of Warwick held a large tract of land from the Council of New England. In 1631 he transferred it to Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke, and others, who sent out a colony under John Winthrop, Jr. At the mouth of the river it settled the town of Saybrook, and its territory was known as the colony of Connecticut. For many years it languished through lack of funds. A third enterprise was the colony of New Haven, planted in 1638 by Theophilus Eaton and Rev. John Davenport. It was a strong band of immigrants, and they came with great hopes of New Haven making their port the commercial metropolis of the region. Established. But various disasters intervened, and for a time prosperity came slowly. In 1646 they built a ship and sent her away with a cargo worth 5000 pounds, but nothing further was heard of her. Tradition says that once afterwards she appeared as a phantom ship and suddenly disappeared as she seemed about to enter the harbor. Haven Government. The settlement was founded without charter or land grant, and the inhabitants proceeded to constitution-making of their own will. Taking the Bible as guide and law book they transformed the congregation into a body politic to rule in civil as in eccle- The New siastical affairs. Thus none but church members should vote, and a committee of seven members was provided with authority to determine who should be admitted to church membership and consequently to the franchise. This oligarchical government remained in force until in 1662 New Haven was merged into the Connecticut Colony, when that enterprise got a charter from |