Chapter 4
The Founding of Rhode Island
As Rhode Island was founded primarily as a place of refuge for dissenters from the Congregational orthodoxy of the rest of New England, the colony was started after the main New England colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts. This chapter, which covers the tenth generation, still discusses several ancestors in Plymouth, Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. However, the large majority of this generation made Rhode Island their home, so I will provide some historical background to the colony’s formation here. In the early years, present-day Rhode Island was actually two colonies; Providence, founded by Roger Williams, and Rhode Island, which was actually just the town of Portsmouth, founded by Anne Hutchinson. Two additional towns, Newport, part of the Rhode Island colony, and Warwick, were established soon afterwards. Throughout the seventeenth century these four towns bickered and cooperated in various combinations, but ultimately became the foundations for a united Rhode Island colony. Since our ancestors were overwhelmingly based in Portsmouth and Newport, I will focus this background discussion more on those two towns, touching briefly on Providence. Since virtually all migration into Rhode Island, either from Massachusetts or directly from England, was religiously motivated, a brief summary of the religious thinking driving our ancestors is in order before discussing other developments in Rhode Island.
The most important religious dissidents in Rhode Island history are of course Roger Williams, founder of Providence, and Anne Hutchinson, founder of Rhode Island (Aquidneck). However, neither person would consider themselves members of any particular sect, except broadly as true Puritans, differing with their Congregational brethren on some points, but actually more Puritan than the Puritans. Their chief difference with the authorities that exiled them had to do with the relationship between religion and government rather than major theological differences. While Williams and Hutchinson had many followers, neither developed a lasting church (although Williams briefly joined the Baptists). Their beliefs certainly paved the way for Rhode Island’s two main religions, but it would take others to establish formalized church structures. The individual stories of the two leaders are covered elsewhere (Hutchinson’s in Chapter 2’s discussion of Rev. Francis Marbury (#3570) and Williams’ in Chapter 3’s discussion of Richard Scott (#1784).
Baptists
The clearest distinction between Baptists and Congregationalists involves the sacrament of baptism. Congregationalists retained the infant baptism practiced by the Catholic and Anglican churches of their heritage, while Baptists insisted on adult baptism. However, in New England, the Baptists seemed to have arrived at this distinction almost as an afterthought. For Roger Williams, who is credited with establishing the Baptist church in America even though he abandoned it several months after creating it, his main preoccupation was the separation of church and state. He overwhelmingly agreed with the Puritan orthodoxy of Massachusetts, but rejected what he considered the unholy mixture of the divine church with the dirty day to day business of politics. Williams and the Congregationalists wholeheartedly believed that everyone but a small minority, the Elect, would be damned to Hell, and that decision had been made at the beginning of time by an all-powerful God. Williams asked if God has already decided who will get into Heaven and nothing can be done to change that outcome, why are the Congregationalists obsessed with running the government, banning dissent and forcing everyone to join their church? Williams believed that Catholics, Anglicans, Quakers and other wrongthinking people are already damned, and the Congregationalists certainly agreed. But Williams believed the true church shouldn’t care about these people, or anything else in the public sphere, but focus exclusively on ministering to God’s chosen people.
His second key differentiating point was his even more emphatic rejection of religious hierarchy and institutions. Congregationalists had already done away with all forms of hierarchy, and established a series of independent churches. But Williams believed that the ministers retained too much power in their congregations, and their importance was overblown. God had established a direct personal relationship with his Elect, and the symbol of this relationship is the relevatory, “born again” experience. Again, the difference with Congregationalists was one of degree. Both denominations believed in the personal relevation, but for Congregationalists that was a mark of being in the Elect only. For Baptists, this was something stronger; if God was talking to you directly, why not listed to Him rather than the minister?
Williams seemed comfortable leaving things at that, and had never spoken out about baptism prior to founding Providence. It is likely that our ancestor Katherine Marbury Scott (#1785) persuaded him on an explicitly Baptist theology. Since Rogers believed that direct relevatory experience was paramount, then it is easy to believe that baptism, the only Baptist sacrament, should wait until an adult experienced it. Persuaded on this point, Williams was baptized in the river at Providence, then proceeded to baptize another eleven men. He soon came to believe, however, that all denominations and ministers were forever corrupted as the link between Jesus and contemporary ministers ran through the corrupt Catholic church. For this reason, he abandoned his newfound church. With the departure of Williams and the arrival of explicitly Baptist refugees from Massachusetts and England, the church in Rhode Island began to look like other Baptist churches around the world. Differentiated by adult baptism, the Baptists also put less emphasis on learned, authoritative ministers. Baptist ministers tended to be less educated, and speak more passionately about their personal revelatory experience rather than study the Bible for inspiration. Because of its organizational flexibility and emphasis on preaching from the heart, the Baptist church eventually grew to be America’s largest denomination, although along the way it fractured into many different sub-denominations. Rhode Island’s Baptists now constitute the American Baptist Church, a much more liberal denomination than the larger Southern Baptists.
Quakers
While today Quakers and Baptists almost represent polar ideological opposites, in the beginning they could be seen as the next step in the decentralization evolution. While Catholic and Anglican priests held the keys to Heaven, all New Englanders believed that only God determined their fates. While Congregationalists followed the lead of their educated minister to help them interpret the Bible and set the rules for godly living, Baptists believed that the revelations God delivered personally to a born-again person were more important than Biblical scholarship. Baptist ministers were powerful orators rather than intellectuals, and inspired the congregation to develop closer relationships with God. Quakers wholeheartedly agreed that the direct revelatory experience was key. But they took the next logical step, and simply dispensed with ministers of any kind. They also solved the infant vs adult baptism controversy by dispensing with sacraments entirely.
While this sounds close to anarchy, the Quakers combined this extreme organizational decentralization with strong social centralization. Quakers were renowned for their social cohesion, the numerous charitable and educational institutions they established, and their strong personal ties that kept them marrying and doing business with each other rather than with non-Quakers. Similarly, Quakers insisted on strong religious discipline as well. A Quaker service consisted of the congregation sitting silently together until one of them was moved by the Holy Spirit to share a personal revelation with fellow members. They each took turns inspiring with their personal experiences, without any clerical intermediation. But for this system to work, everyone had to participate and lead inspirational lives. Quakers practiced strong discipline against members who failed to come to meetings, or lived sinful lives.
While Puritan dress codes were beginning to lighten up, and women began to wear brighter colors and jewelry, the Quakers rejected all such frivolity. Both men and women wore plain dress and no jewelry, with the men keeping their hair short and wearing a round hat. Women wore white aprons over their dark dresses and hoods over their hair. They used an eccentric Biblically based English, refused to take oaths and were pacifists in all but the most extreme circumstances. Ironically, then, their total absence of ministers and rituals was combined with the strictest behavioral code. Their communal cohesion and strong work ethic inspired many converts both in England and New England. Other denominations were particularly harsh toward Quakers, partly due to the challenge they presented to the ruling clerical class. Although Roger Williams personally hated the Quakers, the colony he founded became the first refuge for Quakers, founded on the principle of separation of church and state.
While both Providence and Rhode Island had Quakers and Baptists, Baptists were the majority in Providence, while Quakers came to dominate Rhode Island colony.
Gortonians
In the interest of completeness I should add a word about the followers of Samuel Gorton. Gorton was banished from almost every New England colony, including Rhode Island. Again, Gorton’s beliefs can be viewed as one step further than the Quakers, although they were combined with a quarrelsome nature that loved to goad any and all authority. He agreed with the Quakers that clergy can be dispensed with, but while the Quakers stopped there, he heaped derision on clergy, and his followers demonized ministers at every opportunity. Clergy not only were unnecessary to understand God’s direct revelation, they were actively harmful to its understanding and needed to be banned. To make matters worse, Gorton and his followers actively opposed all government as well. The only orders needed were from God, and governments had no divine mandate to issue laws. It is easy to understand why this basically anarchist position was unpopular throughout New England. He and his followers purchased land from the Indians and founded the new settlement of Warwick. The Massachusetts authorities promptly sent their militia to Warwick to capture the men, who were imprisoned. The situation was eventually resolved, and Gorton returned to Warwick, where, ironically he formed a government, though not a church of any sort. The Gortonite movement continued in Warwick until the end of the eighteenth century.
Growth of the Colony
The following page has the best map I could find showing the growth of Rhode Island and Providence. Unfortunately it’s practically illegible when shrunk to fit the page. Most of the area shown on this map as Rhode Island was in fact disputed territory among Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The large majority of our ancestors lived on the tiny island of Aquidneck, divided into Newport in the south and Portsmouth in the north. We have some ancestral connections to Providence and Warwick as well, the only other towns on Narragansett Bay. While they look quite expansive on the map, the population lived in a much smaller area huddled by the bay. The southern half of the state, labeled Narragansett Country on the map, is where most of our ancestors later moved to, but during the seventeenth century it was disputed territory between Rhode Island and Connecticut, and populated primarily by Indians.
The Founding of Rhode Island
As Rhode Island was founded primarily as a place of refuge for dissenters from the Congregational orthodoxy of the rest of New England, the colony was started after the main New England colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts. This chapter, which covers the tenth generation, still discusses several ancestors in Plymouth, Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. However, the large majority of this generation made Rhode Island their home, so I will provide some historical background to the colony’s formation here. In the early years, present-day Rhode Island was actually two colonies; Providence, founded by Roger Williams, and Rhode Island, which was actually just the town of Portsmouth, founded by Anne Hutchinson. Two additional towns, Newport, part of the Rhode Island colony, and Warwick, were established soon afterwards. Throughout the seventeenth century these four towns bickered and cooperated in various combinations, but ultimately became the foundations for a united Rhode Island colony. Since our ancestors were overwhelmingly based in Portsmouth and Newport, I will focus this background discussion more on those two towns, touching briefly on Providence. Since virtually all migration into Rhode Island, either from Massachusetts or directly from England, was religiously motivated, a brief summary of the religious thinking driving our ancestors is in order before discussing other developments in Rhode Island.
The most important religious dissidents in Rhode Island history are of course Roger Williams, founder of Providence, and Anne Hutchinson, founder of Rhode Island (Aquidneck). However, neither person would consider themselves members of any particular sect, except broadly as true Puritans, differing with their Congregational brethren on some points, but actually more Puritan than the Puritans. Their chief difference with the authorities that exiled them had to do with the relationship between religion and government rather than major theological differences. While Williams and Hutchinson had many followers, neither developed a lasting church (although Williams briefly joined the Baptists). Their beliefs certainly paved the way for Rhode Island’s two main religions, but it would take others to establish formalized church structures. The individual stories of the two leaders are covered elsewhere (Hutchinson’s in Chapter 2’s discussion of Rev. Francis Marbury (#3570) and Williams’ in Chapter 3’s discussion of Richard Scott (#1784).
Baptists
The clearest distinction between Baptists and Congregationalists involves the sacrament of baptism. Congregationalists retained the infant baptism practiced by the Catholic and Anglican churches of their heritage, while Baptists insisted on adult baptism. However, in New England, the Baptists seemed to have arrived at this distinction almost as an afterthought. For Roger Williams, who is credited with establishing the Baptist church in America even though he abandoned it several months after creating it, his main preoccupation was the separation of church and state. He overwhelmingly agreed with the Puritan orthodoxy of Massachusetts, but rejected what he considered the unholy mixture of the divine church with the dirty day to day business of politics. Williams and the Congregationalists wholeheartedly believed that everyone but a small minority, the Elect, would be damned to Hell, and that decision had been made at the beginning of time by an all-powerful God. Williams asked if God has already decided who will get into Heaven and nothing can be done to change that outcome, why are the Congregationalists obsessed with running the government, banning dissent and forcing everyone to join their church? Williams believed that Catholics, Anglicans, Quakers and other wrongthinking people are already damned, and the Congregationalists certainly agreed. But Williams believed the true church shouldn’t care about these people, or anything else in the public sphere, but focus exclusively on ministering to God’s chosen people.
His second key differentiating point was his even more emphatic rejection of religious hierarchy and institutions. Congregationalists had already done away with all forms of hierarchy, and established a series of independent churches. But Williams believed that the ministers retained too much power in their congregations, and their importance was overblown. God had established a direct personal relationship with his Elect, and the symbol of this relationship is the relevatory, “born again” experience. Again, the difference with Congregationalists was one of degree. Both denominations believed in the personal relevation, but for Congregationalists that was a mark of being in the Elect only. For Baptists, this was something stronger; if God was talking to you directly, why not listed to Him rather than the minister?
Williams seemed comfortable leaving things at that, and had never spoken out about baptism prior to founding Providence. It is likely that our ancestor Katherine Marbury Scott (#1785) persuaded him on an explicitly Baptist theology. Since Rogers believed that direct relevatory experience was paramount, then it is easy to believe that baptism, the only Baptist sacrament, should wait until an adult experienced it. Persuaded on this point, Williams was baptized in the river at Providence, then proceeded to baptize another eleven men. He soon came to believe, however, that all denominations and ministers were forever corrupted as the link between Jesus and contemporary ministers ran through the corrupt Catholic church. For this reason, he abandoned his newfound church. With the departure of Williams and the arrival of explicitly Baptist refugees from Massachusetts and England, the church in Rhode Island began to look like other Baptist churches around the world. Differentiated by adult baptism, the Baptists also put less emphasis on learned, authoritative ministers. Baptist ministers tended to be less educated, and speak more passionately about their personal revelatory experience rather than study the Bible for inspiration. Because of its organizational flexibility and emphasis on preaching from the heart, the Baptist church eventually grew to be America’s largest denomination, although along the way it fractured into many different sub-denominations. Rhode Island’s Baptists now constitute the American Baptist Church, a much more liberal denomination than the larger Southern Baptists.
Quakers
While today Quakers and Baptists almost represent polar ideological opposites, in the beginning they could be seen as the next step in the decentralization evolution. While Catholic and Anglican priests held the keys to Heaven, all New Englanders believed that only God determined their fates. While Congregationalists followed the lead of their educated minister to help them interpret the Bible and set the rules for godly living, Baptists believed that the revelations God delivered personally to a born-again person were more important than Biblical scholarship. Baptist ministers were powerful orators rather than intellectuals, and inspired the congregation to develop closer relationships with God. Quakers wholeheartedly agreed that the direct revelatory experience was key. But they took the next logical step, and simply dispensed with ministers of any kind. They also solved the infant vs adult baptism controversy by dispensing with sacraments entirely.
While this sounds close to anarchy, the Quakers combined this extreme organizational decentralization with strong social centralization. Quakers were renowned for their social cohesion, the numerous charitable and educational institutions they established, and their strong personal ties that kept them marrying and doing business with each other rather than with non-Quakers. Similarly, Quakers insisted on strong religious discipline as well. A Quaker service consisted of the congregation sitting silently together until one of them was moved by the Holy Spirit to share a personal revelation with fellow members. They each took turns inspiring with their personal experiences, without any clerical intermediation. But for this system to work, everyone had to participate and lead inspirational lives. Quakers practiced strong discipline against members who failed to come to meetings, or lived sinful lives.
While Puritan dress codes were beginning to lighten up, and women began to wear brighter colors and jewelry, the Quakers rejected all such frivolity. Both men and women wore plain dress and no jewelry, with the men keeping their hair short and wearing a round hat. Women wore white aprons over their dark dresses and hoods over their hair. They used an eccentric Biblically based English, refused to take oaths and were pacifists in all but the most extreme circumstances. Ironically, then, their total absence of ministers and rituals was combined with the strictest behavioral code. Their communal cohesion and strong work ethic inspired many converts both in England and New England. Other denominations were particularly harsh toward Quakers, partly due to the challenge they presented to the ruling clerical class. Although Roger Williams personally hated the Quakers, the colony he founded became the first refuge for Quakers, founded on the principle of separation of church and state.
While both Providence and Rhode Island had Quakers and Baptists, Baptists were the majority in Providence, while Quakers came to dominate Rhode Island colony.
Gortonians
In the interest of completeness I should add a word about the followers of Samuel Gorton. Gorton was banished from almost every New England colony, including Rhode Island. Again, Gorton’s beliefs can be viewed as one step further than the Quakers, although they were combined with a quarrelsome nature that loved to goad any and all authority. He agreed with the Quakers that clergy can be dispensed with, but while the Quakers stopped there, he heaped derision on clergy, and his followers demonized ministers at every opportunity. Clergy not only were unnecessary to understand God’s direct revelation, they were actively harmful to its understanding and needed to be banned. To make matters worse, Gorton and his followers actively opposed all government as well. The only orders needed were from God, and governments had no divine mandate to issue laws. It is easy to understand why this basically anarchist position was unpopular throughout New England. He and his followers purchased land from the Indians and founded the new settlement of Warwick. The Massachusetts authorities promptly sent their militia to Warwick to capture the men, who were imprisoned. The situation was eventually resolved, and Gorton returned to Warwick, where, ironically he formed a government, though not a church of any sort. The Gortonite movement continued in Warwick until the end of the eighteenth century.
Growth of the Colony
The following page has the best map I could find showing the growth of Rhode Island and Providence. Unfortunately it’s practically illegible when shrunk to fit the page. Most of the area shown on this map as Rhode Island was in fact disputed territory among Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The large majority of our ancestors lived on the tiny island of Aquidneck, divided into Newport in the south and Portsmouth in the north. We have some ancestral connections to Providence and Warwick as well, the only other towns on Narragansett Bay. While they look quite expansive on the map, the population lived in a much smaller area huddled by the bay. The southern half of the state, labeled Narragansett Country on the map, is where most of our ancestors later moved to, but during the seventeenth century it was disputed territory between Rhode Island and Connecticut, and populated primarily by Indians.
(THE MAP AT TOP IS SUPPOSED TO GO HERE)
From a collection of muddy log cabins strung along a river bank in the case of Providence or the shore in the case of Aquidneck, each town was developing rapidly in the latter part of the seventeenth century. While Providence had a bit of a head start, it suffered from poor location, away from main shipping routes. It was also poorly set up, as each settler wanted land along the river, so the result was a town two miles long and one street wide. Lastly, it was heavily exposed to Indian attacks, an isolated settlement surrounded by the Narragansett Indians, the strongest tribe in New England. This vulnerability was made clear in King Philip’s War, when Providence was burned to the ground.
Portsmouth was settled next, and had several advantages over Providence. The soil on Aquidneck island was fertile, and largely cleared of trees, making it an ideal farming location. Its island location protected it from Indian attacks, and made it a more convenient shipping and fishing location. These advantages, however, also caused its inhabitants to spread around the island building large farms, since the protection of a walled town center was unnecessary. This in turn meant economic development beyond farming was difficult relative to its more urbanized neighbor, Newport.
Newport, the last of the original three towns, developed as a result of a schism in Portsmouth. The governor and his allies were thrown out of Portsmouth, and they established a new town at the southern tip of the island. This was the most convenient location for shipping, and afforded the best port. The inhabitants wisely decided to focus on trading rather than agriculture, becoming the logistics and supply hub for the farmers of Portsmouth. As Rhode Island attracted more and more Quaker and Baptist refugees, they tended to favor Newport as a base, since the best farming land in the other towns had already been allocated. The Quakers, in particular, flocked to Newport, bringing strong business skills and valuable trading networks with other Quaker communities. Newport became the favored gateway for trading with Barbados and other English colonies in the Caribbean. The infamous slave trade, to which Rhode Island made a major contribution, soon followed. As the largest town, Newport became the capital when the various towns were united as “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”, which further reinforced its comparative advantage.
The overall population of the combined Rhode Island colony was 3000 in 1675. Portsmouth and Providence each had 200 houses, with Newport having twice that. Housing stock was becoming better quality, and the “Connecticut model” of a large two story house built around a central chimney was replacing the earlier pioneer stock of smaller homes with a chimney on the side. All Rhode Island towns busied themselves with minute regulations of the economy. Prices were fixed for almost all consumer goods, licenses restricted the number of blacksmiths, bakers, pubs and other businesses to ensure limited competition. Inspectors regularly visited businesses to ensure goods were sold at the weight indicated, and no tipping of scales took place. Each town allocated its land under different systems, but regardless of the system the process gave rise to many disputes. While town governments, with varying degrees of success, managed to regulate their economic affairs, they failed miserably to construct a workable governing structure across the towns. Rhode Island towns battled each other over land rights and tax obligations, and tried as hard as possible to ignore whatever dictates came down from the governor and general assembly. The colonial government in Newport was largely obeyed on Aquidneck Island, but found it difficult to extend its power to the mainland. It had much greater success in preventing any interference from England. While other colonies reported on a regular basis to royal councils and received English delegations cordially, Rhode Island basically ignored whatever England attempted to do with its most ungovernable colony. Given this frosty relationship, the colonial government should be given great credit for warding off the constant encroaches of its neighbors, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The three colonies were engaged in constant border disputes, and, amazingly, Rhode Island was able to win repeatedly by enlisting English support. This support is of course surprising given the way Rhode Island treated her nominal overlord. When King James II tired of the insubordination of Rhode Island and, to a lesser extent, the other New England colonies, he ordered them to combine in a Dominion of New England, to be run by royally appointed overseers. Rhode Island even managed to ignore this closer regulatory regime, which lasted all of two years and ended when King James was overthrown and the inhabitants of Boston rebelled and imprisoned Sir Edmund Andros, the supposed overseer of the hated Dominion.
King Philip’s War
The New England colonies did manage to put aside their differences during the most traumatic event in the seventeenth century, King Philip’s War. One of Roger Williams’ key differences with Massachusetts was over relations with the Indians. He insisted on fair dealings with them in land purchases, and maintained good relations with them throughout his lifetime. The Massachusetts and Connecticut authorities were indifferent to the Indians, and viewed them as a source for advantageous land sales and profitable business transactions. This constant friction boiled over in King Philip’s War in 1675, which has been estimated to be the most destructive war in American history based on the percentage of the population killed or wounded. During the three years of the war over half of all English settlements were attacked across New England, and as you will read, many of our relatives died during the war. While war raged across New England, Rhode Island and its main Indian tribe, the Narragansetts, stayed neutral. However, the Connecticut, Plymouth and Massachusetts militias decided to launch a preemptive attack on the neutral Narragansetts, marching into Rhode Island and slaying hundreds of Indians in the Great Swamp Fight. This had the unsurprising effect of enlisting Narragansetts in the war, and dragging Rhode Island along as well. While Newport and Portsmouth were protected by their island location, all the other settlements in Rhode Island were attacked, with Providence burned to the ground. The war was effectively over with the slaying of the Indian leader at Mt.Hope in 1676, although skirmishes continued in northern New England for another year.
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Well, the comment was posted by me and said "just testing", because Cheryl said she was having trouble posting. So I censored it because it was boring, not nasty.
ReplyDeletelike the blog?
ReplyDeletejust joshin'! I find it all fascinating.