1633-6]

The Pequod war

19

bottom of trouble with the savages. First of all, in 1633, a Virginian ship's captain named Stone was killed near the mouth of the Connecticut river. Two years later John Oldham, a trader who had previously given trouble to the authorities at Plymouth, was murdered. Neither Stone nor Oldham was a man of good character; and it may well be that they provoked their fate. The former outrage was set down to the score of the Pequods, the latter to that of the Narragansetts-two tribes whose mutual relations were unfriendly. The murder of Oldham was avenged by Massachusetts in a raid which made little discrimination between the guilty and the innocent. The punishment for this fell, not where it was deserved, on Massachusetts, but on the weaker colony of Connecticut. Desultory slaughter of settlers went on, and communication with the coast became impossible. Worst of all, tidings reached the English that the Pequods and Narragansetts were about to join hands. There was one man in New England, the exile Roger Williams, who knew how to earn the good-will and confidence of the savages. Forgetting his grievances he went as an ambassador to the Narragansetts and secured their neutrality.

Connecticut naturally turned for help to Massachusetts and Plymouth. The rulers at Boston were too busy persecuting Mrs Hutchinson and her associates to give heed to aught else; the men of Plymouth had been exasperated by the grasping policy of Massachusetts in matters of trade and refused to cooperate. Connecticut had to rely on her own courage and soldiership; and happily these qualities did not fail her. A force of ninety men was raised; and an old soldier trained in the Netherlands, John Mason, was placed at their head. Mason's original intention was to make straight inland against the Pequods. With the intuition of real military genius, he at the last moment changed his plan and by a forced march fell upon the flank of the Pequods and assailed their chief fort. The defenders had a vast superiority in numbers; but bows and arrows were profitless against firearms and corslets. It is said that six hundred Pequods fell, and only two English, though of the latter more than one-fourth were wounded. The slaughter was no doubt merciless; but the conditions of savage warfare make forbearance impossible. The few scattered bands that remained made but slight resistance; and the Pequods ceased to exist as an independent nation.

When Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts he purchased from the Indians a tract on the mainland. This in 1636 he shared with twelve other householders, forming a settlement which he named Providence. In four years the growing colony formed a second township; and a simple form of government was instituted. Five "select men were to transact all executive business, while the whole body of freemen were to hold quarterly meetings and to settle any judicial questions that might arise. About the same time some of those who had been banished from Massachusetts with Mrs Hutchinson purchased the island

20

Settlement of New Haven

[1636-43

of Aquednok, opposite to Providence. Their constitution was even simpler than that of Providence, since they had no "select men," but only a judge, William Coddington. In 1639 this settlement divided. The original settlers moved to Newport, and the island was shared between the two townships. In 1640 they reunited, and then a regular government was introduced, with two assistants chosen from each township.

In 1637 another colony was formed, which practically secured to the English race the whole sea-board from the Kennebec to Long Island. The man who had the chief hand in bringing this about was Theophilus Eaton, a leading man in the Baltic Company. As agent for that Company he had sojourned abroad, and had subsequently acted as English ambassador in Denmark. He was accompanied by men of better station and larger means than the generality of emigrants to New England. They established themselves at the mouth of the Quinipiac river, south of the Connecticut. It is noteworthy that neither they nor the settlers at Providence and Aquednok secured any title except by purchase from the Indians. This illustrates the fashion in which New England was, as it were spontaneously and half unconsciously, emancipating itself from the control of the mother-country. Of all the Puritan settlements, this most definitely and uncompromisingly asserted a religious basis for civil society. Not only were the rights of a freeman limited to Church members, but, when the community met to frame a constitution the minister, Davenport, preached a sermon in which he formally laid down the doctrine that Scripture is a perfect and sufficient rule for the conduct of civil affairs.

As the community consisted of a single township no system of representation was at first necessary. The executive power was vested in an elected governor and four assistants. The town received the name of New Haven. Other settlements soon came into existence in the neighbourhood, at first, like New Haven, independent townships. The advantages of union however soon became manifest, and what a Greek would have called a process of synoikismos took place. The exact steps are not recorded, but by 1643 New Haven was a colony with five townships and a representative system. The founders of New Haven were, in comparison with their neighbours, wealthy men; and the town at the outset impressed visitors from Massachusetts with a sense of its dignity and even luxury. This however was short-lived; and, before the colony had existed ten years, there were symptoms of commercial decline.

Though Puritanism was the dominant influence in bringing about the settlement of New England, yet we are not to suppose that it was the only one. New Hampshire, like New Haven, was formed by a process of consolidation out of a number of small independent settlements, some of them founded by men who were by no means in sympathy

1633-9]

Maine and New Hampshire

21

with the dominant Puritanism of Massachusetts. The most noteworthy of these men were Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. They, with certain other associates, founded a body called the Laconia Company, which obtained a grant of land at the mouth of the Piscataqua. There they set up trading houses not altogether without success, and made some fruitless attempts to discover mines. Mason seems himself to have been liberal and energetic, and to have spent money freely in furnishing his colony with the needful equipment.

In 1635 the territory in question was divided between Gorges and Mason, Gorges taking the northern moiety, Mason that next to Massachusetts. On this Mason appears to have bestowed the name of New Hampshire. It will be convenient to use this name; but it must be remembered that it had as yet only a territorial signification, and that it was not till later that it designated a political community. Mason died soon after 1635. His heirs made no attempt to carry on his work, and the colonists were left to take care of their own interests.

There were at this time two settlements in occupation of the district over which Mason had proprietary rights. One, near the mouth of the river Piscataqua, had been founded by David Thompson, an independent settler who had originally established himself in Boston Bay, but had withdrawn when Winthrop and his associates occupied that district. This had served as the nucleus of the colony formed by the Laconia Company. The other settlement was fifteen miles up the river at Cocheco, on land acquired by certain Bristol and Shrewsbury merchants. In 1633 they transferred their interest to Lord Saye and Sele and Lord Brook, with the result that an Independent congregation established itself there. Subsequently many of those who were driven from Massachusetts after the great religious strife found their way into New Hampshire. Some joined the settlers at Cocheco or, as it was now called, Dover; the others formed a settlement called Exeter further south. Shortly after this a settlement called Hampton was formed in the same neighbourhood under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The men of Exeter protested against this as an intrusion on their territory, but the protest went unheeded.

It was soon evident that the best thing which could befall these settlements was incorporation with Massachusetts. Separate agreements were drawn out in each case; and the three townships of Piscataqua, Dover, and Hampton became part of Massachusetts, retaining certain rights of local government more extensive than those enjoyed by the other townships of that colony.

The territory assigned to Gorges went through much the same history as that of Mason. In addition to his territorial grant from the New England Company, Gorges obtained a charter of proprietorship from the King (1639). On the strength of this he drafted a grotesquely elaborate constitution, with more offices than there were citizens to fill

22

New Netherlands

[1626-47 them. All that resulted was two small settlements, one at Agamenticus, afterwards York, the other at Saco. At the same time other independent settlements sprang up within the proper limits of Gorges' patent. The New England Company, through carelessness and imperfect surveying, made many conflicting and overlapping grants of land. This had a very important effect on the future history of New England, since it was by annexing these that Massachusetts acquired its control over Maine.

The foundation of Connecticut and New Haven brought New England into contact with the settlements of another civilised power. In 1626 the Dutch West India Company had established a settlement, which extended up the valley of the Hudson and on to Long Island. The settlement, as a whole, bore the name of New Netherlands: the chief town, on Manhattan Island, was called New Amsterdam. This colony enjoyed nothing like the highly organised civic life of New England, nor even that of Virginia. It was at first little more than a trading station, with a scattered community of farmers attached to it, holding under non-resident landowners. The governor had almost despotic power: such control as was enjoyed by the citizens was doled out grudgingly by instalments and fenced in by checks which rendered it well-nigh valueless. The community depended largely on the Indian fur-trade. This and its paucity of numbers made it needful to secure the good-will of the savages, or, in default of that, to overawe them; yet the rulers of the colony and the Dutch settlers were conspicuously wanting in the capacity to do either. Nor was the colony happy in its governors. Peter Stuyvesant, who succeeded to office in 1647, was by far the best. He was brave, pious, and disinterested, but an austere martinet, utterly without that sympathy and flexibility needed in one who has to govern a young and expanding community. Between New Netherlands and New England there could not but be mutual jealousy. Before Connecticut became an organised community, there were quarrels between English and Dutch traders in the Connecticut valley. It was the settled policy of the English to press on southward and to occupy the land to which the Dutch made a de jure claim under their patent from the States-General. To this local source of strife was added another from abroad. Englishmen had been deeply impressed by the unscrupulous slaughter of their countrymen by the Dutch at Amboyna (1626); and it was not surprising if the next generation believed that the Dutch were capable of inciting the Indians to attack the New England settlements. Every movement which suggested the possibility of such an attempt was viewed with suspicion and alarm.

Thus a combination of motives, desire for religious and political unity, dread not only of Dutch and Indian attacks but of encroachment by the British government, and the want of machinery for deciding territorial disputes, all seemed to force upon the settlers the need for

1638-53]

The New England Confederation

23

some union between the various colonies. Negotiations for a federal union began in 1638, but it was not till 1643 that a confederation. was actually formed. It included the four colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth. The settlers at Aquednok and Rhode Island more than once applied for admission, but were refused. This was reasonable enough, since their political status was wholly different from that of any of the four constituent members. The affairs of the confederacy were to be managed by eight commissioners, two from each colony. Each colony was to make a contribution proportionate to its population, to be levied as seemed good to itself.

There were two obviously weak points in this system. The largest colony, Massachusetts, contributed more than the other members of the confederacy, but it neither possessed a larger share of control nor derived more benefit from the union than the rest. This begat a sense of injustice, which constantly showed itself in arrogant and high-handed treatment of the other confederates. Moreover the federal government had no means of acting directly on the individual citizens. They remained wholly and exclusively citizens of their own colony. The confederation was in fact no more than a permanent league. It is significant as showing how far the colonies had already learnt to regard themselves as independent communities, that throughout the business of confederation there was no reference to the government at home.

The natural ascendancy of Massachusetts, an ascendancy due to her superior numbers and resources and in no way softened by the manner in which it was used, soon made itself felt. Two Frenchmen were engaged in dispute over the governorship of the province of Acadia; one, Charles de la Tour, turned to Massachusetts for help. It was given, though in a half-hearted and ineffectual fashion, without any consultation with the other federated colonies, and in clear violation, if not of the letter, at least of the spirit of the federal constitution. Subsequently De la Tour applied to Plymouth, and was promised, though it is not certain whether he received, support. The proceedings of the two colonies were implicitly though not formally condemned by a resolution of the federal commissioners, to the effect that no federated colony should allow its subjects to volunteer in any cause unless with the approval of the commissioners. A few years later, it was rumoured abroad that the Dutch were stirring up one of the native tribes, the Nyantics, against the English. In 1653 seven of the eight commissioners actually voted for declaring war on the Dutch and their supposed allies. One commissioner only, Bradstreet, stood fast for peace; his colony supported him, and their influence prevailed. Again, in the following year, although Massachusetts actually consented to make war on the Nyantic Indians, yet the half-hearted spirit in which, under a Massachusetts captain, the campaign was conducted, gave rise