Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  Land was initially distributed not to individuals but to towns. A group of people (usually a congregation) pooled their resources and applied to the council for a grant of land. This was given in freehold or fee simple without the payment of a quitrent as specified in the royal charter, an extraordinarily secure form of land tenure that few English farmers possessed. The group members then repaired to their site, made a covenant to create a godly community, and began to build a church and clear enough land to support themselves. Once enough land had been cleared, they distributed plots of one to four acres and in 1635 began the permanent division of much larger areas, according to the amount invested by each family. Hence major contributors to the initial capital of the company, like Winthrop, were given 200 acres, the lesser settlers from 30 to 100 acres.6 One result of these policies was that settlers in New England inhabited towns instead of isolated farms, as in the Chesapeake. Another was that settlers here would devote considerable energy to their town governments and develop strong local commitments.7

  This method of distributing land combined with other factors enabled the settlers to thrive. English people generally emigrated to Massachusetts for material as well as spiritual reasons. Large numbers of Puritan settlers had been spinners, weavers, and small farmers before they left England. Their occupations placed them in the middling ranks of English society, unlike the vast majority of settlers in Virginia who were members of the landless poor. However, the downturn in the English textile industry and the prolonged economic depression that accompanied it were painful reminders to these artisans and small farmers of their vulnerability to the ups and downs of England's increasingly commercial economy. What most ordinary Puritan settlers desired was a “competency,” or a comfortable independence, thereby avoiding the dilemma of too much wealth, which would lead them into sin, and too little sustenance, which would inhibit the leading of a godly life.8 The abundant land available in North America offered them a source of economic security that could not be equaled at home.

  The lure of a competency combined with a strong sense of religious mission brought more than 14,000 English Puritans to New England between 1629 and 1642. The total number of immigrants was actually smaller than the total number of emigrants to either the Chesapeake or the West Indies (see Chapter 5, part 4) during the same period. However, Englishmen emigrating to New England were much more likely to survive and have children once they arrived, so the population grew rapidly. New England's demographic stability and success was so striking in comparison with the disastrous experience in Virginia that historians often describe the two colonial ventures as fundamentally different enterprises. Indeed, the New England colonies did represent something new: the transplantation of entire communities of English people seeking a religious environment where they could control their own mode of worship.

  While the motivation and drive of the settlers thus helped their colony to succeed, other historical contexts contributed as well to New England's viability. The Indians in New England were much more deeply divided than the Indians in Virginia, making them much more eager to build peaceful relationships with the English. The English companies which settled New England were able to imitate models being developed by the Virginia Company for spreading the financial risk of colonial ventures and inducing permanent settlement. By recruiting settlers in family groups, Massachusetts was able to create stable, cohesive societies in short order, since families provided vital sources of support in a difficult environment. Also working in the new colonists' favor was the climate, which, though harsh, was healthy, resulting in fewer diseases than in Virginia. A final advantage was that settlers themselves learned from the experiences of earlier English colonies. As a result, the Puritans had come well equipped with livestock and every kind of tool. They could also rely on the support of Plymouth.

  4 Establishing and Defending Order

  In creating a government and a legal system, the Puritans who founded Massachusetts were more committed than most colonizers to creating a new order consistent with the word of God, as they perceived it. Since they were religious reformers this was of course a problem of church government as much as civil government. Thus they immediately put into place various desired reforms, such as limiting church membership and communion to those who were truly part of God's elect. The problem, of course, was how to determine just who belonged to the elect. Now that the Puritan ministers were effectively independent from the oversight of the bishops, they developed a special process to decide who qualified for church membership. The process entailed a public examination before the congregation and consisted of four main stages. First, the intending saint had to acknowledge humanity's innate depravity – God alone could save. Next the individual had to show true repentance and a desire to be saved. Then followed the hardest part of the examination, justification, whereby the examinee had to convince the interrogators that the Holy Spirit had entered their soul and that they were open to God's covenant of grace. If the answers were satisfactory the fourth stage, sanctification, followed, indicating that the person was of the elect. Even then no relaxation was possible, for sin could quickly lead to a loss of grace. Godliness had to be worked at constantly until the saint was called to a higher place.

  Having worked out the problem of identifying the saints, as they came to be called, Puritan leaders next confronted the problem of how to maintain God's laws in a commonwealth that included both saints and sinners. Among those who had crossed the Atlantic were servants who had not come by choice, and settlers who had come primarily for economic reasons. Consequently, in 1631 the general court ruled that none but the saints could participate in public affairs or vote. The godly must not be put at risk. Winthrop and the assistants also began issuing various edicts for the better government of the colony. All gaming, blasphemy, sexual misconduct, excessive drinking, and lascivious entertainment like the theater were to be severely punished, while church attendance was compulsory. Restrictions were also placed on commerce to ensure that prices were just and that profiteering and hoarding were avoided. Although many of the same restrictions had been imposed in Virginia, the difference in Massachusetts was that the majority of the population wanted to abide by them so that they might join the elect.

  Massachusetts has often been accused of being a theocracy in its early years, as proudly affirmed by one of its leading ministers, John Cotton; but most writers today dispute this charge, since the clergy in the settlement were not granted temporal authority, and were indeed specifically forbidden from wielding such power. Nevertheless, in these early years the dividing line between minister and magistrate was thin. The minister was essentially the most learned member of the congregation; his sacerdotal authority was limited. Second, many magistrates, not least Winthrop himself, had pretensions to theological expertise; if there was no actual priestly caste, the saints were close to being one. Third, punishments for breaches of the moral code were imposed according to biblical, not common, law. Lastly, the settlement's whole ethos was religious, its purpose to establish a godly community. Church and state were thus inextricably intertwined. The church existed to enunciate the moral law, the state to enforce it. Those who deviated from the accepted path could expect to be punished.

  Puritan leaders in the general court were convinced that they needed to rule with a firm hand in order to control the reprobate, and therefore in October 1630 they changed the colony's governing structure so as to increase the governor's control over the venture. From now on the freemen would elect the assistants, as provided under the charter, but the assistants alone would elect the governor and deputy governor. The governor and the assistants would henceforth “have the power of making laws and choosing officers to execute the same,” a change which represented a huge increase in their power. During the next 18 months, Winthrop and the magistrates directed the settlement themselves, confident that the meeting of October 1630 had given them a complete mandate including the right to levy taxes on the towns.

  T
he settlers, however, were not persuaded that a godly commonwealth should be run autocratically. They challenged the council's assumption of power, being determined from the beginning to assert a right to participate in the government of the venture. The first challenge came from the town of Watertown whose inhabitants argued in 1632 that under the charter the magistrates had no power to levy taxes. Winthrop and his colleagues grudgingly restored the freemen's right to elect the governor and deputy governor and allowed every town to send two representatives to the general court each year to confer about the assessment of taxes. Next, critics within the colony called for more frequent meetings of the general court and greater participation by the freemen in the government of the colony. At the annual meeting of the general court in May 1634, Winthrop's critics demanded that he produce the charter, which confirmed the right of the general court to raise money, make laws, and dispose of lands. Dissatisfaction was so widespread that Winthrop was defeated for the governorship in 1635 and 1636, although he maintained his seat on the council and was re-elected as governor in 1637. As settlements became too dispersed for most freemen to attend the general court, settlers further demanded that in the future each town would be represented by two deputies on all matters, not just taxation.

  The result was that Massachusetts, like Virginia, now had a representative system of government. The political system was in no real sense democratic, for the franchise was still limited to freemen who not only owned property but were full church members. In a town like Dedham 70 percent of the adult males may have been communicants; in Boston the figure was about 50 percent. Thus up to half the adult males – and all females – remained disenfranchised. Nevertheless, the percentage of men who had won the right to vote was considerably higher here than in England. The colonists in Massachusetts had further reinforced the principle first established in Virginia: English settlers in the North American colonies could expect not only the opportunity to obtain property of their own, but also the right to a significant voice in the government of the ventures in which they were taking part.

  Other challenges to the authority of Puritan leaders concerned their attempts to enforce religious orthodoxy. Since the Puritans taught that every believer was responsible for identifying hypocrisy and calling for reform, such challenges were perhaps inevitable. The English Puritan minister Roger Williams, who had come to Massachusetts in 1631, believed that outward conformity did not mean salvation. His quest for religious purity led him into separatism and a two-year stay at Plymouth and then to Salem, where a number of the original settlers had similar leanings. Between 1633 and 1635 Williams began calling for the complete separation of his church from the other New England congregations, which had not disavowed the Church of England. He also publicly tore the English flag because it contained the cross of St. George, a popish symbol. The general court responded by expelling Salem's deputies until they saw the error of their ways.

  At this point Williams revealed his radical tendencies by denying both the religious and political authority of the Puritan establishment. He denied that the general court had any authority at all in spiritual matters, arguing that church and state should be totally separate. Furthermore he challenged the court's power to sequestrate Indian lands merely because of a charter from the king. Winthrop and his council refused to tolerate such schismatic behavior, and in October 1635 they banished Williams from the colony. The episode underlined a major difficulty for the Puritan church. How could orthodoxy be preserved without compromising the rights of the congregation? One solution was the formation of a ministerial synod similar to that of the Presbyterian church, but the congregationally minded Puritans loathed the idea of undermining the authority of the laity in favor of the ministry. The matter was a perplexing one.

  While the threat posed by Williams was being successfully contained, another, more difficult challenge emerged in Boston, in the person of Mrs Anne Hutchinson, who had arrived in 1634 with her family. Hutchinson had joined the church where John Cotton was minister and as of 1636, the new governor Sir Henry Vane was a member of the congregation. Her formidable intellect and love of argument soon made her influential, not least with Cotton and Vane, whom she met at private gatherings.

  Hutchinson's views veered towards an antinomian form of predestination, which affirmed that God had decided from the beginning of time who would be saved; nothing the individual did could change this, not even the strictest observance of the moral law. Hutchinson, like many Puritans, believed that the church still contained many unregenerate persons even among the clergy, who disguised their lack of belief by a veneer of good works and outward conformity to the moral law. She therefore denounced some ministers for preaching a covenant of deeds rather than one of grace.

  Hutchinson's antinomian views posed a number of challenges. First, her argument that God revealed directly to the elect whether they were saved in effect denied the need for a minister's spiritual guidance. No established church could allow such bypassing of its authority, as the Pharisees had demonstrated when confronted by Christ. Second, she challenged the authority of the Scriptures as the revealed word of God on which the whole religious polity of the Puritans was based. Lastly, Hutchinson's beliefs implied that if salvation were predetermined, then logically no one need bother even to demonstrate the possession of faith. This view completely contradicted the Puritan emphasis on the need to live by God's law and to prepare for the gift of his grace. Although it was not Hutchinson's intention to do so, her arguments could equally justify the life of a libertine, which posed a threat to society itself.

  Hutchinson had powerful supporters and for a time was permitted to express her views. In 1637, though, Winthrop was re-elected governor, convened the general court, and purged two of its errant deputies from Boston. Then a meeting of the church elders and magistrates was held to reaffirm the view that grace was a state that had to be constantly sought and prepared for by living in accordance with moral laws. Following these proceedings, the general court began to take action against the antinomians for heresy. First, Anne Hutchinson's brother-in-law, the Reverend John Wheelwright, was banished, along with one of the errant deputies. Then Cotton was persuaded to retract. Finally, in November 1637 Hutchinson herself was called to face her accusers before the general court. When she claimed that her views had been revealed by God, basically admitting that she had no need for the ministry, she was duly condemned and banished.

  To some extent, Hutchinson appears to have received this treatment because she was a woman and encouraged other women to discuss religion independently of their husbands. While in Boston she had presided over a weekly gathering of some 60 women. Although the Puritans went further than most churches in admitting women to full membership, women were still barred from the ministry; a woman could not become a freeman, vote, or be elected a deputy or magistrate. The Puritans' patriarchal model of authority conceived the female role as strictly subordinate, and even in religious matters a woman was supposed to derive her “ideas of God from the contemplation of her husband's excellencies.” The assumption of male superiority was expressed most bluntly by Winthrop himself when he told Anne Hutchinson, “We do not mean to discourse with your sex.” She had offended against not only God's laws but those of men, preferring, as one minister commented, to be “a husband than a wife, a preacher than a hearer, and a magistrate than a subject.” Her fate was sealed.9

  Document 8

  The examination of Mrs Hutchinson, November 1637, reprinted in Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, edited by Lawrence Shaw Mayo (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), Vol. 2, 366–91

  Mrs Hutchinson gave a spirited and able defense until her confession that she had been directly instructed by God. Questions to consider: Which of Hutchinson's ideas was the most troubling to the magistrates? To what extent were the magistrates concerned that their authority was being challenged by a woman?

  GOVERNOR WINTHROP: “Mrs Hutchinson, you are called here as o
ne of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here; you are known to be a woman that hath had a great share in the promoting and divulging of those [antinomian] opinions that are the causes of this trouble, and to be nearly joined not only in affinity and affection with some of those the court had taken notice of and passed censure upon, but you have spoken divers things as we have been informed very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding that was cried down you have continued the same, therefore we have thought good to send for you to understand how things are, that if you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you so you may become a profitable member here among us, otherwise if you be obstinate in your course that then the court may take such course that you may trouble us no further … ”

  MRS HUTCHINSON: “I am called here to answer before you but I hear no things laid to my charge.”

  WINTHROP: “I have told you some already and more I can tell you.”

  MRS HUTCHINSON: “Name one Sir … What have I done?”

  WINTHROP: “Why for your doings, this you did harbour and countenance those that are parties in this faction [the antinomians].”

  MRS HUTCHINSON: “That's a matter of conscience, Sir … ”

  WINTHROP: “Your conscience you must keep or it must be kept for you.”

  MRS HUTCHINSON: “Must not I then entertain the saints [church members] because I must keep my conscience?”

  [THOMAS DUDLEY] DEPUTY GOVERNOR: “I would go a little higher with Mrs Hutchinson … it appears by this woman's meeting that Mrs Hutchinson hath so forestalled the minds of many … that she now hath a potent party in the country. Now if all these things have endangered us … and if she in particular hath disparaged all our ministers in the land that they have preached a covenant of works and only Mr Cotton a covenant of grace, why this is not to be suffered … ”