Chapter VII: The World-Wide Influence of Roger Williams’ (1)

IDEAL 137

STUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER
WILLIAMS 145

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 149

AN ITINERARY FOR A HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE 151

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author desires to express his indebtedness to the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I., to the “Providence Magazine,” to the Rhode Island Historical Society, to the Roger Williams Park Museum, and to the New York City Public Library, for valuable assistance rendered in securing illustrations for this book.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

_Statue of Roger Williams_ _Frontispiece_

_Copy of Shorthand Found in Indian Bible_ 4

_Sir Edward Coke_ 5

_Charterhouse School_ 9

“_A Key into the Language of America_” 12

_Boston, 1632_ 13

_The Fort and Chapel on the Hill Where Roger Williams
Preached_ 13

_Pembroke College_ 17

_Fac-simile from Original Records of the Order for the
Banishment of Roger Williams_ 20

_Original Church at Salem, Mass._ 21

_Site of Home of Roger Williams in Providence, R. I._ 21

_Sun-dial and Compass Used by Roger Williams in His Flight_ 30

_Spring at the Seekonk Settlement_ 31

_Tablet Marking Seekonk Site_ 31

_What Cheer Rock. Landing-place of Roger Williams_ 31

_Original Deed of Providence from the Indians_ 35

_Williams’ Letter of Transference to His Loving Friends_ 39

_The Original Providence “Compact”_ 41

_The First Division of Home Lots in Providence_ 45

“_Simplicities Defence_” 47

_The Arrival of Roger Williams with the Charter_ 49

“_Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed_” 52

“_The Bloudy Tenent, ... discussed_” 53

_Roger Williams’ Reference to “An Humble Supplication”
in His “Bloudy Tenent”_ 54

“_Christenings make not Christians_” 63

_First Baptist Church of Providence_ 65

_Roger Mowry’s “Ordinarie.” Built 1653, Demolished 1900_ 65

_Interior of First Baptist Church, Providence_ 69

_Bell of First Baptist Church, Providence_ 73

“_The Fourth Paper, ... by Maior Butler_” 82

“_The Bloudy Tenent, Washed_” 84

“_The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody_” 85

“_The Hireling Ministry_” 87

“_Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health_” 88

“_George Fox Digg’d out of his Burrowes_” 90

_Models of Indian Village in Roger Williams Park Museum_ 91

“_A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched_” 94

_Rhode Island Historical Society Museum_ 95

_Apple Tree Root from the Grave of Roger Williams_ 95

_Grave of Roger Williams_ 95

_New Testament Title-page of Roger Williams’ Indian Bible_ 98

_Indian Bible Used by Roger Williams, the Pioneer Missionary
to the American Indians_ 99

_Original Home of Brown University, in Providence, R. I._ 109

_Brown University in Early Nineteenth Century_ 109

_Capitol Building in Providence, Where the Charter is Kept_ 113

_City Hall, Providence, Where the Compact, Indian Deed, and
Letter of Transference Are Kept_ 113

_Order Banishing the Founders of the First Baptist Church
in Boston_ 123

“_Ill Newes from New-England_” 125

_John Clarke Memorial, First Baptist Church of Newport, R. I._ 127

_Grave of John Clarke_ 127

_The Law in William Penn’s Colony_ 129

_The Law Concerning Religious Toleration in Maryland
Colony_ 130

_Puritan-Religious-Liberty!_ 131

_William Rogers_ 133

_James Manning_ 133

_Isaac Backus_ 133

I

THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY

That body-killing, soul-killing, state-killing doctrine of not permitting but persecuting all other consciences and ways of worship but his own in the civil state.... Whole nations and generations of men have been forced (though unregenerate and unrepentant) to pretend and assume the name of Jesus Christ, which only belongs, according to the institution of the Lord Jesus, to truly regenerate and repentant souls. Secondly, that all others dissenting from them, whether Jews or Gentiles, their countrymen especially (for strangers have a liberty), have not been permitted civil habitation in this world with them, but have been distressed and persecuted by them.--_Roger Williams’ Estimate of Religious Persecution._

The principle of religious liberty did not assert itself, save in one instance, at once that American colonization was begun. For the most part, the founders of these colonies came to this country imbued with the ideas concerning the relations between government and religion, which had been universal in Europe.... This makes the attitude of our American exception, Roger Williams, the more striking and significant. More than one hundred years in advance of his time, he denied the entire theory and practice of the past.--_Sanford Cobb._

Roger Williams advocated the complete separation of Church and State, at a time when there was no historical example of such separation.--_Newman._

THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY

A government of the people, formed by the people for the people, with Church and State completely separate, and with political privileges not dependent on religious belief, was organized and maintained successfully for the first time in Christendom in Rhode Island, the smallest of the American Colonies. Its inspiration and founder was Roger Williams, the apostle of soul-liberty. Because he was the first asserter of the principle which has since been recognized as the distinctive character of our national greatness, he has been called “The First American.”

Little is known of the personal appearance of Roger Williams. His contemporaries describe him as a man of “no ordinary parts,” with “a never-failing sweetness of temper and unquestioned piety.” They also said he was a man of “unyielding tenacity of purpose, a man who could grasp a principle in all its bearings and who could incorporate it in a social compact.” “He was no crude, unlearned agitator, but a scholar and thinker.” Governor Bradford speaks of him as “having many precious parts.” Governor Winthrop refers to him as “a godly minister.”

The artist’s conception, based upon these characteristics, is best expressed by a monument in Roger Williams Park, Providence, R. I. It is the work of Franklin Simmons, and was erected by the city of Providence in 1877. In a beautiful park of over four hundred acres with hills and drives and lakes, surrounded by trees and shrubbery, and on land originally purchased from the Indians by Williams, the illustrious pioneer of a new order is seen in heroic form. He seems to be looking out over the very colony he formed. In his hand he holds a volume, entitled “Soul-Liberty, 1636,” a title which has since become synonymous with his name. History is seen writing “1636,” the birth year of soul-liberty in America. She continues to write with increasing appreciation of the far-reaching influence of this illustrious hero of religious and political democracy.

For many years scholars thought that Roger Williams was born at the close of the sixteenth century at Gwinear, Cornwall, England. Now it is generally believed that he was born in London, England, in the opening years of the seventeenth century. He had two brothers and a sister. His father was a tailor. About this time Timothy Bright and Peter Bales introduced into England a new method of writing which was called “shorthand.” The boy Roger Williams learned it and visited the famous Star Chamber to put it into practice. The judge noticed the lad and inspected his work. To his amazement, the record was complete and accurate. This judge, Sir Edward Coke, the most distinguished lawyer and jurist of his day, immediately took an interest in the lad, and became his patron, securing for Williams admission to the Charterhouse School. This was the school where John Wesley, Thackeray, Addison, and others were educated. He was admitted as a pensioner, in June, 1621. Later, through Coke’s influence, he was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in June, 1623. He was graduated with the degree of bachelor of arts in 1627, and the year following was admitted to holy orders. About this time he was disappointed in a love affair, the lady of his choice being Jane Whalley. He sought permission of her aunt, Lady Barrington, to marry her. When refused, he wrote a striking letter in which he predicted for Lady Barrington a very unhappy hereafter unless she repented.

In 1629, we find him at High Laves, Essex, not far from Chelmesford, where Thomas Hooker, later the founder of Hartford Colony, was minister. Here he also met John Cotton. Men’s views at that time were changing. The people of the Established Church were divided into three classes. One stood by the Established Order in all things; another class of Puritans sought to stay by the Church, but aimed to purify the movement; the third class was for absolute separation. Williams, with hundreds of others, was disturbed. The anger of Lady Barrington and the suspicions of Archbishop Laud started a persecution which drove him out of England. He said:

I was persecuted in and out of my father’s house. Truly it was as bitter as death to me when Bishop Laud pursued me out of the land, and my conscience was persuaded against the national church, and ceremonies and bishops.... I say, it was as bitter as death to me when I rode Windsor way to take ship at Bristol.

Many years later he wrote:

He (God) knows what gains and preferments I have refused in universities, city, country, and court in old England, and something in New England, to keep my soul undefiled in this point and not to act with a doubting conscience.

Before leaving England, he was married. The only information we have in regard to his wife, up to that time, is that her name was Mary Warned. They sailed on the ship Lyon, from Bristol, England, December 1, 1630. After a tempestuous journey of sixty-six days they arrived off Nantasket, February 5, 1631. Judge Durfee speaks thus of this flight:

He was obliged to fly or dissemble his convictions, and for him, as for all noblest natures, a life of transparent truthfulness was alone an instinct and a necessity. This absolute sincerity is the key to his character, as it was always the mainspring of his conduct. It was this which led him to reject indignantly the compromises with his conscience which from time to time were proposed to him. It was this which impelled him when he discovered a truth to proclaim it, when he detected an error to expose it, when he saw an evil, to try and remedy it, and when he could do a good, even to his enemies, to do it.

Upon his arrival in Boston he was invited to become the teacher in the Boston church, succeeding Mr. Wilson who was about to return to England. To his surprise, he discovered that the Boston church was a church _unseparated from_ the Established Church of England, and he felt conscientiously bound to decline their invitation. The Boston people, who believed their church to be the “most glorious on earth,” were astonished at his refusal. Williams would not act as their teacher unless they publicly repented of their relation to the Established Order. It was perfectly natural that a soul with convictions, such as Williams possessed, should desire to be absolutely separated from the Established Order. One incident from many will show the spirit of the Established Church in England toward those within its ranks who had become Puritan, let alone Separatist. Neal, in his “History of the Puritans,” tells, of Doctor Leighton’s persecution in England. He was arrested by Archbishop Laud and the following sentence was passed upon him: That he be

committed to the prison of the Fleet for life, and pay a fine of ten thousand pounds; that the High Commission should degrade him from his ministry, and that he should be brought to the pillory at Westminster, while the court was sitting and be publicly whipped; after whipping be set upon the pillory a convenient time, and have one of his ears cut off, one side of his nose split, and be branded in the face with a double S. S. for a sower of sedition: that then he should be carried back to prison, and after a few days be pilloryed a second time in Cheapside, and have the other side of his nose split, and his other ear cut off and then be shut up in close prison for the rest of his life.

In the district in which Roger Williams lived this sentence was carried out in all its hellish cruelty just prior to Williams’ banishment from England. Do we blame the exile Williams for repudiating the movement which at that hour was so wicked in its persecutions? He meant to have a sea between him and a thing so hateful. John Cotton said that Williams looked upon himself as one who “had received a clearer illumination and apprehension of the state of Christ’s kingdom, and of the purity of church communion, than all Christendom besides.” Cotton Mather said that Williams had “a windmill in his head.” Well for America that such a windmill was there and that he was a prophet with clear visions of truth.

After refusing the Boston church, Roger Williams was invited by the Salem church to be assistant to Mr. Skelton, their aged teacher. He accepted their invitation and became Teacher, April 12, 1631. The General Court in Boston remonstrated with the Salem church. The persecution of this court led doubtless to his retirement from Salem at the close of that summer.

He left the Massachusetts Bay Colony and became assistant to Ralph Smith, the pastor at Plymouth. The Plymouth people, being strict Separatists, were more congenial company, since they had withdrawn from the Established Order to form a church after the pattern of the Primitive Church model. Williams remained in Plymouth for about two years. Governor Bradford soon detected his advanced positions, relative to separation of Church and State, but considered it “questionable judgment.” He praised his qualities as a minister, writing thus of him:

His teaching, well approved, for þe benefit whereof I still bless God, and am thankful to him, even for his sharpest admonitions and reproofs, so far as they agreed with truth.

Governor Winthrop, with Mr. Wilson, teacher of the Boston church, visited Plymouth at this time.

They were very kindly treated and feasted every day at several houses. On the Lord’s Day, there was a sacrament which they did partake in; and, in the afternoon, Mr. Roger Williams (according to their custom) propounded a question, to which the Pastor, Mr. Smith, spoke briefly; then Mr. Williams prophesied; and after the Governor of Plymouth spoke to the question. Then the elder (Mr. William Brewster) desired the Governor of Massachusetts and Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they did. When this was ended, the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the congregation in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the Governor and all the rest went down to the deacon’s seat, and put into the box and then returned.

Williams came in contact with the Indians who visited Plymouth from time to time, and gained the confidence of Massasoit, the father of the famous Philip. He studied their language and cultivated their friendship. He writes in one of his letters, “My soul’s desire was to do the natives good!” Near the close of his life he referred to this early experience: “God was pleased to give me a painful patient spirit, to lodge with them in their filthy smoke, to gain their tongue.” Surely the Providence of God was thus preparing the way for the founding of a new colony, to be made possible through these very Indians who had implicit confidence in this man of God.

A KEY into the

LANGUAGE

_OF_

AMERICA:

_OR_,

An help to the _Language_ of the _Natives_
in that part of AMERICA, called
_NEW-ENGLAND_.

Together, with briefe _Observations_ of the Customes,
Manners and Worships, _&c._ of the
aforesaid _Natives_, in Peace and Warre,
in Life and Death.

On all which are added Spirituall _Observations_,
Generall and Particular by the _Authour_, of
chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions,) to
all the _English_ Inhabiting those parts;
yet pleasant and profitable to
the view of all men:

_BY_ ROGER WILLIAMS
of _Providence_ in _New-England_.

_LONDON_,
Printed by _Gregory Dexter_, 1643.

Williams was Pauline in his self-supporting ministry. He wrote: “At Plymouth I spake on the Lord’s Day and week days and worked hard at my hoe for my bread (and so afterward at Salem until I found them to be an unseparated people).” His ministry made friends and foes. His foes feared he would run the same course of Anabaptist behavior as did John Smith, the Se-Baptist, at Amsterdam. Early in August his first child was born, and was named Mary after her mother. Later in the same month, he became for a second time the assistant to Mr. Skelton, at Salem. A number of choice spirits, who had been attracted to his ministry, went with him. He requested a letter of dismission from the Plymouth church to unite with the Salem church. This was granted, but with a caution as to his advanced views. To advocate the separation of Church and State placed a man at that time with the “Anabaptists,” as this was considered their great distinctive doctrine.

He commenced his labors at Salem under this cloud and also with the General Court in Boston very suspicious of his work. Already there was the distant rumbling of a storm which would eventually drive him into exile.

The ministers of the Bay Colony, from the churches of Boston, Newtowne (Cambridge), Watertown, Roxbury, Dorchester, Salem, and elsewhere, were accustomed to meet for discussion and common interest. Roger Williams feared that this might lead to a presbytery or superintendency, to the prejudice of local church liberty. He loathed everything which might make for intolerance.

In December, 1633, he forwarded to the governor and his assistants a document which he had prepared at Plymouth, in which he disputed their right to have the land by the king’s grant. Williams claimed, “they have no title except they compounded with the natives.” He also accused King James of telling a lie in claiming to be “the first Christian prince to discover this new land.” This treatise had never been published or made public. Its appearance now terrified the governor and the assistants, for at that very time they were holding the possession to their colony on a charter originally given for a different purpose. It had been granted in England to a trading company, and its transfer was questionable. They feared the king might withdraw it. This treatise of Williams would be considered treason by the king. They met on December twenty-seventh and counseled with Williams. Seeing the grave danger to the colony, he agreed to give evidence of loyalty. Today we do not question the ethical correctness of the advanced position held by Williams.

It was not long before this pioneer of soul-liberty raised a new question concerning “the propriety of administering an oath, which is an act of worship, to either the unwilling or the unregenerate.” Williams’ position was peculiarly obnoxious to the magistrates who were then on the point of testing the loyalty of the colonists by administering an oath of allegiance which was to be, in reality, allegiance to the colony instead of to the king. The Court was called to discuss the new objection to its policy. Mr. Cotton informs us that the position was so well defended by Williams that “it threatened the court with serious embarrassment.” The people supported Williams’ position, and the court was compelled to desist. On the death of Skelton, in August, 1634, the Salem church installed Roger Williams as their teacher. This act gave great offense to the General Court in Boston. Williams commenced anew his agitation against the right to own land by the king’s patent. The Salem church and Williams were both cited to appear before the General Court, July 18, 1635, to answer complaints made against them.

The elders gave their opinion:

He who would obstinately maintain such opinions (whereby a church might run into heresy, apostasy, or tyranny, and yet the civil Magistrates may not intermeddle) ought to be removed, and that the other churches ought to request the Magistrates so to do.

The church and the pastor were notified “to consider the matter until the next General Court, and then to recant, or expect the court to take some final action.” At this same court, the Salem people petitioned for a title to some land at Marblehead Neck, which was theirs, as they believed, by a just claim. The court refused even to consider this claim, “until there shall be time to test more fully the quality of your allegiance to the power which you desire should be interposed on your behalf.” Professor Knowles says:

Here is a candid avowal that justice was refused to Salem, on the question of civil right, as a punishment for the conduct of church and pastor. A volume could not more forcibly illustrate the danger of a connection between the civil and ecclesiastical power.

Teacher and people at Salem were indignant, and a letter was addressed to the churches of the colony in protest against such injustice. The churches were asked to admonish the magistrates and deputies within their membership. These churches refused or neglected to do this. In some cases the letters never came before the church. Williams then called on his own church to withdraw communion with such churches. It declined to do this, and he withdrew from the Salem church, preaching his last sermon, August 19, 1635. Here was a repetition of the first conflict. Straus writes:

Here stood the one church already condemned, with sentence suspended over it. Against it were arrayed the aggregate power of the colony--its nine churches, the priests, and the magistrates. What could the Salem church and community do, threatened with disfranchisement, its deputies excluded from the General Court, and its petition for land to which it was entitled, denied? Dragooned into submission it had to abandon its persecuted minister to struggle alone against the united power of Church and State. To deny Williams the merit of devotion to a principle in this contest, wherein there was no alternative but retraction or banishment, is to belie history in order to justify bigotry, and to convert martyrdom into wrong-headed obstinacy. This is exactly what Cotton sought to do in his version of the controversy given ten years later in order to vindicate himself and his church brethren from the stigma of their acts in the eyes of a more enlightened public opinion in England. Williams pursued no half-hearted or half-way measures. He stood unshaken upon the firm ground of his convictions, and declared to the Salem church that he could no longer commune with them, thereby entirely separating himself from them and them from him.

He went so far as to refuse to commune with his own wife in the new communion which he formed in his own home, until she would completely withdraw from the Salem church.

The time for the next General Court drew near. The Salem church letter and Williams’ withdrawal from his church made his foes determined to crush him. They had thoughts of putting him to death.

[Sidenote: 1635. 3rd Sept.]

Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against the aucthorite of magistrates, as also with others of defamcon, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any conviccon, and yet maintaineth the same without retraccon, it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depte out of this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing, wch if hee neglect to pforme, it shall be lawfull for the Gouv’r and two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to returne any more without licence from the Court.

The General Court convened in the rude meeting-house of the church in Newtowne (Cambridge), on the corner of Dunster and Mill Streets. Williams maintained his positions. He was asked if he desired a month to reflect and then come and argue the matter before them. He declined, choosing “to dispute presently.” Thomas Hooker, minister at Newtowne, was appointed to argue with him on the spot, to make him see his errors. Williams’ positions had a “rockie strength” and he was ready, “not only to be bound and banished, but to die also in New England; as for the most holy truths of God in Christ Jesus.” He would not recant. So the Court met the following day, Friday, October 9, 1635, and passed the following sentence:

Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against the aucthorite of magistrates, as also with letters of defamcon, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any conviccon, and yet maintaineth the same without retraccon, it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depte out of this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing, wch if hee neglect to pforme, it shall be lawfull for the Gouv’r and two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to returne any more without licence from the Court.

Although Williams had withdrawn from the church at Salem, yet his character was such that the town was indignant at this decree of the court. About this time, his second child was born. Like the prophets of old, he gave the child a significant name, calling her “Freeborn.” Mr. Williams’ health at this time was far from being robust. A stay of sentence was therefore granted, and he was to be allowed to remain until the following spring. He did not refrain from advocating his opinions, and soon the authorities heard of meetings in his house at Salem and of twenty who were prepared to go with him to found a new colony at the head of the Narragansett Bay. At its January meeting, the Court decided to send him to England at once in a ship then about to return. He was cited to appear in Boston, but reported inability due to his impaired health. They then sent a pinnace for him by sea. Being forewarned, he fled to the wilderness in the depths of which, for fourteen weeks, he suffered the hardships of a New England winter.

* * * * *

The original Roger Williams Church is still preserved at Salem. The first church in the first town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets. There is a brick structure there now and a marble tablet marks it as the site of the first church in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. On another tablet, is the inscription:

The frame of the first Meeting House in which the civil affairs of the Colony were transacted, is preserved and now stands in the rear of Plummer Hall.

Plummer Hall is on Essex Street not very far from the First Church. In the rear is the Roger Williams Church, a small building, measuring twenty feet long by seventeen wide by twelve high at its posts. Originally it had a gallery over the door at the entrance and a minister’s seat in the opposite corner. On the wall opposite to the entrance is a list of its succession of pastors and the years of their service:

Francis Higginson 1629-1630
Samuel Skelton 1629-1634
Roger Williams 1631-1635
Hugh Peters 1636-1641 etc., etc.

It could accommodate about one hundred people. There were only forty families in Salem in 1632. There were only six houses, besides that of Governor Endicott, when Higginson arrived in 1629. Here in this ancient meeting-house Roger Williams preached those truths which led to his banishment. From its pulpit came, clearly stated, the ideals that millions have since accepted. The glory of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, or the Royal Sancte Chapella, of Paris, can never equal the glory of this crude edifice, the cradle of religious liberty in the New World.

The Roger Williams Home at Salem is still preserved. It is better known as “the Witch House” because it was occupied by Judge Carwin, one of the judges connected with the tragedy of 1692. It stands at the western corner of Essex and North Streets. It was built by the founder of Rhode Island and was at that time second only to the Governor’s home. Though it has been altered and repaired, the original rooms in this building are as follows: The eastern room on the first floor, 18 × 21½, and the room directly over it, 20 × 21½; the western room on the first floor, 16½ × 18, and the room over it, 16½ × 20. The chimney is 8 × 12. The part of the house which retains its original appearance is the projecting corner of the western part, fronting on Essex Street. Roger Williams mortgaged this house, “for supplies,” to establish the colony at Providence.

Mr. Upham, in his report to the Essex Institution, says of this wonderful house:

Here, within these very walls, lived, two hundred and fifty years ago, that remarkable and truly heroic man, who, in his devotion to the principle of free conscience, and liberty of belief, untrammeled by civil power, penetrated in midwinter in the depths of an unknown wilderness to seek a new home, a home which he could find only among savages, whose respect for the benevolence and truthfulness of his character made them, then and ever afterward, his constant friends. From this spacious and pleasant mansion, he fled through the deep snows of a New England forest, leaving his wife and young children to the care of Providence, whose silent “voice” through the conscience, was his only support and guide. The State which he founded may ever look back with a just pride upon the history of Roger Williams.

II

THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE

A community on the unheard-of principles of absolute religious liberty combined with perfect civil democracy.--_Professor Mason._

Thus for the first time in history a form of government was adopted which drew a clear and unmistakable line between the temporal and the spiritual power, and a community came into being which was an anomaly among the nations.--_Prof. J. L. Diman._

No one principle of political or social or religious policy lies nearer the base of American institutions and has done more to shape our career than this principle inherited from Rhode Island, and it may be asserted that the future of America was in a large measure determined by that General Court which summoned Roger Williams to answer for “divers new and dangerous opinions,” and his banishment became a pivotal act in universal history.--_Prof. Alonzo Williams._

In summing up the history of the struggle for religious liberty it may be said that papal bulls and Protestant creeds have favored tyranny. Theologians of the sixteenth century and philosophers of the seventeenth, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes, favored the State churches. It was bitter experience of persecution that led jurists, and statesmen of Holland and France, in face of the opposition of theologians and philosophers, to enforce the toleration of dissent. While there was toleration in Holland and France, there was, for the first time, in the history of the world in any commonwealth, liberty and equality and separation of Church and State in Rhode Island.--_W. W. Evarts, in “The Long Road to Freedom of Worship.”_

In the code of laws established by them, we read for the first time since Christianity ascended the throne of the Cæsars, the declaration that conscience should be free and men should not be punished for worshiping God in the way they were persuaded he requires.--_Judge Story._

THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE

Roger Williams left Salem on or about January 15, 1636, making the journey alone through the forests. With a pocket compass, and a sun-dial to tell the hours, he set out, probably taking the road to Boston for some distance. Nearing Boston, presumably at Saugus, he went west for a while and then straight south until he reached the home of Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem, at Mount Hope, near Bristol. The ground was covered with snow, and he must have suffered sorely on this journey of eighty or ninety miles. Thirty-five years later in a letter to Major Mason, he refers to this experience:

First, when I was unkindly and unchristianly, as I believe, driven from my house and land, and wife and children (in the midst of a New England winter, now about thirty-five years past), at Salem, that ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote me to steer my course to Narragansett Bay and the Indians, for many high and public ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English claims or patents. I took his prudent notion as a hint and voice from God, and waving all other thoughts and notions, I steered my course from Salem (though in winter snow, which I feel yet) unto those parts wherein I may say “Peniel”; that is, I have seen the face of God.

He also wrote: “I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean!” In his old age he exclaimed, “I bear to this day in my body the effects of that winter’s exposure.” In one of his books he refers to “hardships of sea and land in a banished condition.”

The precious relics of this flight are the sun-dial and compass, now in the possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Williams finally reached Seekonk Cove, about the twenty-third of April. The spot was at Manton’s Neck, near the cove, where there was a good spring of water. Here he was joined by four companions, his wife, and two children. “I gave leave to William Harris, then poor and destitute,” said Williams, “to come along in my company. I consented to John Smith, miller at Dorchester (banished also), to go with me, and, at John Smith’s desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wickes, as also a lad of Richard Waterman’s.” The latter was doubtless Thomas Angell. Joshua Verein came later. Some historians think that others joined them at the Seekonk before they were compelled to leave. Here they remained for two months. After providing rude shelters and sowing seeds, they received a warning to move on. “I received a letter,” said Williams,

from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and others’ love for me, yet lovingly advising me, since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loathe to displease the Bay, to remove to the other side of the water, and there, he said, I had the country free before me, and might be free as themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together.

His removal cost him the “loss of a harvest that year.” Historians are agreed that about the end of June he left Seekonk. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary was celebrated, June 23 and 24, 1886. Embarking in a crude Indian canoe, Williams and his companions, six in all, crossed over the river to a little cove on the west side, where they were halted by a party of Indians, with the friendly interrogation, “What cheer?” Here the party landed on a rock which has been known ever since as “What Cheer Rock.” The cove is now filled and the rock covered from sight. A suitable monument has been erected over the rock. It is in an open park space at the corner of Roger and Williams Streets, Providence. A piece of this rock is preserved at the First Baptist Church of Providence, and another has recently been placed in cross form in the lobby floor of the new Central Baptist Church of the same city. It is hoped that a piece of this rock will be worked into the National Baptist Memorial in our country’s capital.

After friendly salutations with the Indians, they reembarked and made their way down the river around the headland of Tockwotten and past Indian and Fox points, where they reached the mouth of the Moshassuck River. Rowing up this beautiful stream, then bordered on either side with a dense forest, they landed on the east side of the river, where there was an inviting spring. Here, on the ascending slopes of the hill, they commenced a new settlement, which Williams called “Providence,” in gratitude to God’s merciful Providence to them in their distress. Later, when they spread out in larger numbers and in all directions from this place, it was called “Providence Plantations.” They prepared shelters for their families, probably wigwams made of poles covered with hemlock boughs and forest leaves. We can in imagination see them climb the hill to a point where Prospect Street now runs, to enjoy a wider view of their new territory.

From that height of almost two hundred feet they saw to the westward, through openings in the forest, the cove at the head of the great salt river with broad sandy beaches on the eastern and northern shores and salt marshes bordering the western and southern. From the north the sparkling waters of the Moshassuck River came leaping over the falls as it emptied itself into the estuary at its mouth. Bordering this stream was a valley of beauty and fertility. The clear waters of the Woonasquatucket threaded their way from the west through another fertile valley. Between these rivers and also southward (of the Woonasquatucket) was a sandy plateau, covered with pine forests stretching to the Indian town of Mashapaug on the southwest and Pawtuxet Valley to the south. Between the edge of the tidal flow and the open waters of the great salt river there was a salt marsh dotted with islands, beyond which rose the bold peak of Weybosset Hill. Down the river to the south they saw the steep hills of Sassafras and Field’s Point, beyond which could be seen the lower bay and its forest-covered shores and islands. The eastern slope of the hill stretched a mile toward the shore of the Seekonk. To the northeast the view was cut off by a higher eminence covered with oak and pine. In all directions, save that of the bay itself, the farther distances were lost in an indistinguishable maze of forest-crowned heights. At the feet of the spectators was the place of their immediate settlement, where the western slope of the hill gradually diminished in height toward the south. At its lowest extremity, Fox Point projected into the bay. This slope was covered with a growth of oak and hickory.

A PURCHASED POSSESSION

Roger Williams differed from the ordinary colonists of his age, who held that the Indian, being heathen, had no real ownership of the land. It belonged to the Christians who might first claim it by right of discovery. Williams, who “always aimed to do the Indians only good,” recognized Indian ownership and secured his colony from them by purchase. Here among them he first sought to apply his doctrine of soul-liberty. To him they were humans with equal rights and privileges. He bitterly fought the Puritan position that the pagan heathen had no property rights which the Christian, with his superior culture, was bound to respect. Roger Williams insisted that the land should be purchased from the Indians, the original owners. He gained the lasting respect of the Indian and the undying animosity of the Puritan for holding to ideals which have since come to be recognized as American. He thus laid the foundation for the belief in America that the weaker and smaller powers have rights which the greater powers must respect, a belief which led us into the recent great war. While this principle is receiving world-wide application, let us not forget that Roger Williams was the pioneer of international justice in America, if not in the world. The land viewed from the top of the hill was owned by five distinct Indian tribes. The Narragansetts dominated over all the lands now occupied by Rhode Island, and ruled over all other lesser tribes in this territory. In the northern part of this State, the Nipmucs lived in the place now occupied by Smithfield, Glocester, and Burrilville. On the southern seacoast border dwelt the Niantics. Part of the Wampanoag tribe dwelt in Cumberland and extended to the western side of the river which we now call the Blackstone. The Pequots lived in Connecticut Colony. Indian government was monarchial, and became extinct with the slaughter of the last of the line of rulers or sachems in the massacre of July 2, 1676. Canonicus was the ruling sachem when the English first came. As he grew old he needed an assistant and his nephew, Miantonomo, was appointed. Miantonomo worked well with the elder chief. He never succeeded to the position of ruling chief, being murdered in 1643. Roger Williams secured his land from these sachems. Williams wrote in 1661 as follows:

I was the procurer of the purchase, not by monies, nor payments, the natives being so shy and jealous, that monies could not do it, but by that language, acquaintance, and favor with the natives and other advantages which it pleased God to give me, and also bore the charges and venture of all the gratuities which I gave to the great Sachems and natives round about us, and lay engaged for a loving and peaceable neighborhood with, to my great charge and travel.

He found Indian gifts very costly. Presents were made frequently. He allowed the Indians to use his pinnace and shallop at command, transporting and lodging fifty at his home at a time. He never denied them any lawful thing. Canonicus had freely what he desired from Roger Williams’ trading-post at Narragansett. William Harris stated in 1677 that Roger Williams had paid thus one hundred and sixty pounds ($800) for Providence and Pawtucket.

Mr. Williams generously admitted the first twelve proprietors of the Providence Purchase to an equal share with himself, without exacting any remuneration. The thirty pounds which he received were paid by succeeding settlers, at the rate of thirty shillings each. This was not a payment for the land but what he called “a loving gratuity.” Straus says:

He might have been like William Penn, the proprietor of his colony, after having secured it by patent from the rulers in England, and thus have exercised a control over its government and enriched himself and family. But this was not his purpose, nor was it directly or remotely the cause for which he suffered banishment and misery. Principle--not profit; liberty--not power; conviction--not ambition, were his impelling motives which he consistently maintained, theoretically and practically then, and at all times.

Williams’ own words were:

I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. I then considering the conditions of divers of my distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends (whom he names) who desired to take shelter with me.

He afterward purchased, jointly with Governor Winthrop, the Island of Prudence from Canonicus. He also purchased, a little later, the small islands of Patience and Hope, afterward selling his interest in them to help pay his expenses to England on business for the colony.

Following is a true copy of the Original Deed of Land for Providence from _Canonicus_ and _Miantonomo_:

At Nanhiggansick, the 24th of the first month, commonly called March, in the second year of the Plantations of Plantings at Mooshausick or Providence. Memorandum that we Caunaunicus and Meauntunomo, the two chief sachems of Nanhiggansick, having two years since sold unto Roger Williams, the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called Mooshausick and Wanasquatucket, do now by these presents, establish and confirm the bounds of those lands, from the river and fields at Pawtucket, the great hill of Neotackonkonutt, on the northwest, and the town of Mashapauge on the west. As also in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us, both with our friends of Massachusetts, as also at Quinickicutt and Apaum, or Plymouth, we do now freely give unto him all the land from those rivers reaching to Pawtuxet River, as also the grass and meadows upon the said Pawtuxet River. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands.

In the presence of

The Mark * of Setash,
The Mark * of Assotenewit,
The Mark * of Caunaunicus,
The Mark * of Meauntunomo.

This original deed is preserved, as a precious relic, in the City Hall at Providence.

EARLY EXPERIENCES IN PROVIDENCE

The Providence planters soon built their crude homes. The Indian name of the plantation was Notaquonchanet. In their early records of Providence this name is spelt in at least forty-two different forms. Other settlers came and swelled their numbers. The original six were bound together by a compact. It was verbal, or if written, the copy has been lost. When new settlers came and Wickes and Angell had reached majority, a copy of the original agreement was drawn up and signed by those not included in the first compact. Williams was familiar with the great compact signed in the Mayflower by the Pilgrims and probably it suggested to his mind the need of one in Providence. This Providence Compact is as follows:

We, whose names are hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves in active or passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a township, and such others whom they shall admit unto the same, ONLY IN CIVIL THINGS.

Edmund J. Carpenter says of this Compact:

A compact of government, which in its terms, must be regarded as the most remarkable political document theretofore executed, not even excepting the Magna Charta. It was a document which placed a government, formed by the people, solely in the control of the civil arm. It gave the first example of a pure democracy, from which all ecclesiastical power was eliminated. It was the first enunciation of a great principle, which years later, formed the corner-stone of the great republic. It was the act of a statesman fully a century in advance of his time.

At the west entrance to the street railroad tunnel in Providence a bronze tablet commemorates the fact that there in the open air the first town meetings were held.

Roger Williams’ house was opposite the spring, forty-eight feet to the east of the present Main Street and four feet north of Howland Street. Next, to the north of his residence, was the house and lot of Joshua Verein. North of this was Richard Scott’s. The first house south of Williams’ was that of John Throckmorton and, beyond, that of William Harris. At first the struggle for existence was hard, more so because of the loss of the crops planted at Seekonk. Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, conscious of the wrong Plymouth Colony had done to Williams, visited the little settlement that first summer and left a gift of gold with Mrs. Williams. In the spring and summer of the following year, new houses were built along the street. The new settlers brought money with them, and Williams enlisted outside capital to help develop the colony.

Drawn up by the men of Providence, August 20, 1638, and now contained in the City Hall. One of the most valuable documents in existence, under which Williams and his companions promised to subject themselves in active and passive obedience, but “Only in Civil Things.”

“You must look to the Magna Charta, for another such epoch-making decree, for these, with the Declaration and the Emancipation Proclamation, are the four great dynamic forces of American Freedom.”--R. B. BURCHARD.

Courtesy of “Providence Magazine,” October, 1915

The number of town lots increased. The land lay between the present Main Street and Hope Street. Each lot was of equal width and ran eastward. Eventually there were one hundred and two of these lots extending from Mile End Brook, which enters the river a little north of Fox Point, to Harrington’s Lane, now the dividing line between Providence and North Providence. Meeting and Power Streets were the dividing streets in those early days. In addition to the home lot, each proprietor had an “out six-acre lot” assigned to him. Williams’ “out lot” was at “What Cheer Rock.”

THE THREATENED INDIAN TROUBLE

Williams, although suffering from Puritan persecution, had an opportunity that first year of doing good to his persecutors. He became the savior of all the New England Colonies. The Pequot Indians planned the annihilation of the English. Williams, hearing of this, did his utmost to break up an Indian league, and kept the Narragansetts from joining the Pequots and Mohicans. He describes this experience in the following statement:

The Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hands, and scarce acquainting my wife, to ship alone, in a poor canoe, and to cut through a stormy wind, with great seas, every minute in hazard of life, to the sachem’s house. Three days and nights my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambassadors, whose hands and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered and massacred by them on the Connecticut River, and from whom I could not but nightly look for their bloody knives at my own throat also. God wondrously preserved me, and helped me to break the Pequod’s negotiation and design; and to make and finish, by many travels and charges, the English league with the Narragansetts and Mohegans against the Pequods.

As a result of this, the tribe of Pequots was obliterated completely and a danger hanging over all the colonies was removed.

The Indian villages of southern New England were composed at times of as many as fifty houses or wigwams. Most of these wigwams were shaped like the half of an orange, with the flat or cut surface down. They were ten to twelve feet in diameter and could accommodate two families. Other houses were like the half of a stovepipe cut lengthwise, twenty to thirty feet long, and accommodated from two families in the summertime to fifty in the winter, when the people crowded together for the sake of warmth. The council-chamber was often as long as one hundred feet with a width of thirty feet. It was used only for councils. A fortified stockade in the center of the village was made of logs set into the ground. Such was the shelter afforded Williams when he fled from Salem, and such was the place when he met the Indian sachems in council seeking to avert the massacre of the whites. In these villages he preached the everlasting gospel of the Son of God. He had the constant confidence of Indian sachems because he applied to them the principle of soul-liberty which he sought to practise among the whites.

In the autumn of 1638, Roger Williams’ third child and first son was born and named “Providence.” He was the first white male child born in this colony. In the year 1639-1640 the town grew and felt the need of a system of town government. On July 23, 1640, an organization was decided upon in which they vested the care of the general interests of the town in five “disposers” or arbitrators. The people retained the right to appeal from the “disposers” to the general town meeting. They were careful to provide that as “formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still to hold for the liberty of conscience.”

In 1638 a settlement had been made at Portsmouth on Rhode Island. John Clarke and Mrs. Ann Hutchinson were the leaders of this new band who were looking for a place where they might have religious freedom, which was denied them at Boston. They went first to New Hampshire, but, finding it too cold there, turned to the south. By the friendly assistance of Mr. Williams, they secured from Canonicus and Miantonomo, for a consideration of forty fathoms of white beads, Aquidneck and other islands in Narragansett Bay. The natives residing on the island itself were induced to remove for a consideration of ten coats and twenty hoes. The new settlers chose Mr. Coddington to be their judge and united in a covenant with each other and with their God. They made Mr. Coddington their governor in 1640.

About this same time a number of Providence people settled in Pawtuxet, four miles south of Providence in territory ceded to Williams. Warwick and Shawomet were settled by Samuel Gorton and his friends. Gorton was a strange character who did not find things congenial for him at Boston, Plymouth, and Newport in turn. Roger Williams, however, gave him shelter in Providence. Finally he went to Pawtuxet and later to Shawomet, for which he paid four fathoms of wampum to the Indians. At once Boston Colony claimed that Shawomet was under their jurisdiction. Gorton and his associates refused to come to Boston at the bidding of the authorities. Forty soldiers came to Shawomet and seized Gorton and ten of his friends and imprisoned them in Boston. They were tried for their lives, escaping only by two votes. They were then imprisoned in the various towns. Each one was compelled to wear a chain fast bolted around his legs. If they spoke to any person, other than an officer of the Church or of the State, they were to be put to death. They were kept at labor that winter and then banished in the spring. Gorton escaped to England and secured an order from the Earl of Warwick and the Commissioners of the Colonies requiring Massachusetts not to molest the settlers at Shawomet. Thereafter Gorton and his friends occupied their lands in peace.