WEBVTT NOTE 25. The Planting of Connecticut 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.720 Volume 1, Chapter 25, The Planting of Connecticut 2 00:00:05.720 --> 00:00:11.440 Rhode Island was not the only New England colony settled by former residents of Massachusetts 3 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:19.200 Bay, but whereas Rhode Island was peopled by exiles and refugees, the exodus to Connecticut, 4 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:24.920 the other area of southern New England not covered by charter or other royal grant of 5 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:29.200 ownership, was largely voluntary. 6 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:36.200 In the early 1630s, the Connecticut Vacuum proved to be a magnet for settlers from several 7 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:37.960 of the colonies. 8 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:44.880 The first settlers were Dutch from New Amsterdam, who in mid-1633 established a trading post 9 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:50.720 for trade with the Indians at Fort Good Hope, now Hartford. 10 00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:55.880 The preceding fall, Edward Winslow, a leader of Plymouth, had explored the Connecticut 11 00:00:55.880 --> 00:01:02.000 River Valley. After unsuccessfully trying to promote a joint Plymouth, Massachusetts 12 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:08.880 expedition in the summer, he organized a trading post on the river at Windsor, north of Hartford, 13 00:01:08.880 --> 00:01:17.240 in the fall of 1634. John Oldham from Massachusetts founded a small settlement at about the same 14 00:01:17.240 --> 00:01:25.120 time at Pikewog, Weathersfield, south of Hartford on the Connecticut River. In the following 15 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:30.780 Here other groups from the Bay settled around Hartford and even at Windsor, in defiance 16 00:01:30.780 --> 00:01:35.640 of Plymouth's claim to engrossment of the area. 17 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:42.260 In the summer of 1635, a Dutch vessel, erecting a fort and trading post at the mouth of the 18 00:01:42.260 --> 00:01:49.420 Connecticut River, was forcibly driven off by John Winthrop, Jr., a son of the Massachusetts 19 00:01:49.420 --> 00:02:06.420 Winthrop was governor and an agent of Lord Say and Sell, Lord Brooke and other lords who had jointly received a grant of the territory from the Council for New England. Winthrop named the conquered settlement Saybrooke in his patron's honor. 20 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:14.420 One of the most important founders of Connecticut was Reverend Thomas Hooker, minister at Newton in the Bay Colony. 21 00:02:14.420 --> 00:02:20.140 While Hooker was scarcely a libertarian, he was a moderate who was highly critical of 22 00:02:20.140 --> 00:02:26.100 the rigors of the Massachusetts theocracy. Hooker especially objected to the policy of 23 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:32.940 admitting only a minority to membership in the approved Puritan churches and of the virtually 24 00:02:32.940 --> 00:02:40.100 automatic re-election of state officials that had been instituted by the ruling oligarchy. 25 00:02:40.100 --> 00:02:45.580 Hooker also urged a clearer definition of the laws in order to limit the arbitrary rule 26 00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:53.540 of the magistrates. Finally, Hooker and his followers left Massachusetts in 1636 to settle 27 00:02:53.540 --> 00:02:59.820 at Hartford, his associates being led by the wealthy John Haynes, and the lawyer Roger 28 00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:06.860 Ludlow, who moved southwestward in three years to found the Connecticut towns of Fairfield 29 00:03:06.860 --> 00:03:12.500 and Stratford. These and the previous river towns had all been settled with the permission 30 00:03:12.500 --> 00:03:18.580 of Massachusetts, but now a conflict arose between the claims of the English lords to 31 00:03:18.580 --> 00:03:26.260 the entire Connecticut Valley as well as to Saybrook and the right of the settlers themselves. 32 00:03:26.260 --> 00:03:33.360 In March 1636 the Massachusetts General Court, in a decision agreed upon by Hooker, the Connecticut 33 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:39.620 Settlers and Winthrop, who had been regarded as governor of the territory, created a commission 34 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:46.140 to govern the Connecticut River towns. In the joint agreement, Massachusetts and Winthrop 35 00:03:46.140 --> 00:03:51.660 ceded all governmental powers to the commission. All commissioners were to be residents of 36 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:58.020 the territory, which was empowered to govern with the consent of all the inhabitants, thereby 37 00:03:58.020 --> 00:04:05.460 by at least formally widening the base of government beyond the body of church membership. 38 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:11.360 The commission was to be temporary, lasting only a year, but the effect was to relinquish 39 00:04:11.360 --> 00:04:18.080 all of Massachusetts and Winthrop's claims to the river towns and to leave Winthrop in 40 00:04:18.080 --> 00:04:20.760 charge of Saybrook. 41 00:04:20.760 --> 00:04:26.920 Early the following year, three river towns, Hartford, Windsor, which had bought out Plymouth's 42 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:33.920 claim and Weathersfield elected three men from each town to meet as a general court 43 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:40.360 and act as the sovereign governmental authority. In the spring of 1638, the Reverend Mr. Hooker 44 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:47.120 declared in an election day sermon that the foundation of authority is laid in the free 45 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:53.760 consent of the people. In January 1639, the three towns established their own permanent 46 00:04:53.760 --> 00:05:00.240 government based on a written constitution, the fundamental orders of Connecticut. The 47 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:08.200 most northerly river town of Agawam, Springfield, led by William Pinchon, refused to join in 48 00:05:08.200 --> 00:05:14.120 this constitution and instead submitted itself permanently, as it eventually turned out, 49 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:22.220 to Massachusetts' rule. The fundamental orders, largely inspired by Hooker, provided for our 50 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:31.220 There were a unicameral general court of four deputies from each of the towns, as well as an annually elected governor and assistant. 51 00:05:31.220 --> 00:05:39.220 The governor was to be subordinate to the general court, which had the legislative power not subject to any gubernatorial veto. 52 00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:44.220 Furthermore, the governor and the assistants could not serve for two consecutive years. 53 00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:53.220 These provisions, however, did not prevent the assistance from forming an oligarchy by obtaining a veto power over the general court. 54 00:05:53.220 --> 00:06:07.220 Yet the United Colony of Connecticut still remained a federation of independent towns, since all power not expressly granted to the general court continued to be reserved to the separate towns. 55 00:06:07.220 --> 00:06:13.100 Let it not be thought, however, that the more democratic Connecticut framework was significantly 56 00:06:13.100 --> 00:06:17.340 less intolerant than Massachusetts Bay. 57 00:06:17.340 --> 00:06:22.900 The Connecticut leaders agreed with Massachusetts that a major task of the state was to compel 58 00:06:22.900 --> 00:06:27.020 uniformity of religious creed. 59 00:06:27.020 --> 00:06:34.020 Connecticut's Law of 1642 provided that if any man, after legal conviction, shall have 60 00:06:34.020 --> 00:06:57.020 In 1644 the General Court established the Puritan Church by taxing all residents for its support, and failure to attend a Puritan Church or speaking critically of its official doctrine was outlawed and punished by stiff fines. 61 00:06:57.020 --> 00:07:02.500 While there was no official religious test for voting in Connecticut, as there was in 62 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:09.120 the Bay, suffrage was restricted to free men. Admission to the ranks of free men was in 63 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:15.020 effect restricted to orthodox churchmen, the admission being decided by the general court 64 00:07:15.020 --> 00:07:21.180 itself. And one of the requirements for admission was that the person be of peaceable and honest 65 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:33.640 The chief difference between Massachusetts and Connecticut rule was that Hooker and Connecticut 66 00:07:33.640 --> 00:07:39.900 based the government of the colony on the body of Orthodox Church members, while Massachusetts 67 00:07:39.900 --> 00:07:47.340 government was far more centered in the hands of an oligarchy of magistrates and ministers. 68 00:07:47.340 --> 00:07:51.840 Whereas local town government was guarded against any invasion by central government 69 00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:58.940 power, the same cannot be said for the liberty of the individual in Connecticut. 70 00:07:58.940 --> 00:08:05.280 Land allocation was, as in Massachusetts, under the control of the local oligarchy. 71 00:08:05.280 --> 00:08:10.660 Land reverted to the ownership of the town if the individual owner moved away. 72 00:08:10.660 --> 00:08:16.160 Forced labor was imposed for road building, and strangers had to be admitted by the town 73 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:22.640 on Government. Glaspamy, drunkenness and the like were outlawed and indentured servants' 74 00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:30.520 jealousy guarded. Speech critical of the government was severely punished. One woman was duly executed 75 00:08:30.520 --> 00:08:37.060 for expressing anti-Christian sentiments. A score of women were punished for alleged witchcraft 76 00:08:37.060 --> 00:08:45.100 and several hanged. The persecution of witches reached a peak in the early 1660s. Repeatedly 77 00:08:45.100 --> 00:08:51.860 Early in the late 1640s and 1650s, the Connecticut government took steps to overrule the towns 78 00:08:51.860 --> 00:08:59.820 so as not to admit supposed undesirables to residents. Minimum requirements of property 79 00:08:59.820 --> 00:09:07.620 for freemen and for admitted inhabitants were imposed. By the 1660s, oligarchy in Connecticut 80 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:14.220 had grown considerably and at the expense of the originally more democratic framework 81 00:09:14.220 --> 00:09:17.020 envisioned by Thomas Hooker. 82 00:09:17.020 --> 00:09:20.740 Meanwhile, what of Saybrook? 83 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:26.500 By the early 1640s, the English lords had lost interest in their claims and had, at 84 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:29.620 least de facto, abandoned them. 85 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:35.500 The only proprietor living at Saybrook was George Fenwick, who illegally and without 86 00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:41.580 consulting his partners, sold the ownership of Saybrook to Connecticut in exchange for 87 00:09:41.580 --> 00:09:47.580 for the privilege of exacting tolls on goods passing through the mouth of the Connecticut River. 88 00:09:47.580 --> 00:09:56.580 From the time of this agreement, in 1643-44, Connecticut assumed complete jurisdiction over Saybrook. 89 00:09:56.580 --> 00:10:02.580 By 1662, fifteen towns had associated themselves in the Connecticut Colony. 90 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:06.580 Most of them were situated on the Connecticut River. 91 00:10:06.580 --> 00:10:16.580 The others were in the Fairfield-Stratford area to the southwest on Long Island Sound or eastward in the New London area. 92 00:10:16.580 --> 00:10:26.580 In addition, several townships on Long Island had joined Connecticut, including Southampton, Huntington and Oyster Bay. 93 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:33.580 Completely separate from the Connecticut towns for over a generation was the Colony of New Haven. 94 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:47.580 The founder of New Haven was the Reverend John Davenport, who arrived in Boston from England with his followers just in time to play a leading role in the persecution of Anne Hutchinson. 95 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:56.580 To Davenport, Mirabele, too, Massachusetts Bay, was lax and soft and not nearly theocratic enough. 96 00:10:56.580 --> 00:11:07.580 And so the Reverend Mr. Davenport, along with the wealthy merchant Theophilus Eaton, founded New Haven as an independent town in the spring of 1638. 97 00:11:07.580 --> 00:11:21.580 The land was purchased from the Indians. Davenport and Eaton made sure that their ruling theocracy would be really oligarchic, without any of the Bay Colony's democratic taint. 98 00:11:21.580 --> 00:11:31.580 In mid-1639, they selected twelve men, who in turn chose seven men, to begin the church and government of the town. 99 00:11:31.580 --> 00:11:37.580 This committee of seven had absolute power over admission of any member to the church, 100 00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:42.580 and only church members, of course, could vote in governmental elections. 101 00:11:42.580 --> 00:11:49.580 The result was that at the outset, over one-half of the inhabitants of New Haven town were disfranchised. 102 00:11:49.580 --> 00:11:56.080 Franchised, an achievement which Massachusetts took a score of years of growth and immigration 103 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:57.820 to emulate. 104 00:11:57.820 --> 00:12:03.860 The laws of New Haven were expressly to be confined to the laws of God, as interpreted 105 00:12:03.860 --> 00:12:05.580 by the ruling clique. 106 00:12:05.580 --> 00:12:10.900 The seven committeemen, known as the Pillars of the Church, chose nine or more additional 107 00:12:10.900 --> 00:12:14.600 men to constitute the general court of the town. 108 00:12:14.600 --> 00:12:19.600 This court elected a magistrate and four deputies who served as judges. 109 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:25.560 There was no need for jury trial as the answers were to be found by the judges in the Bible. 110 00:12:25.560 --> 00:12:29.560 The town's general court was the sole town meeting. 111 00:12:29.560 --> 00:12:36.320 In short, there was little for even the restricted voting list to vote about. 112 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:43.360 The New Haven settlers soon founded other towns in 1639 nearby Milford and Guilford 113 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:50.080 on the Coast, followed by Stamford, some distance to the southwest, in 1641. 114 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:57.080 Milford, founded by Reverend Peter Pruden, was more democratic than the other towns. 115 00:12:57.080 --> 00:13:01.960 The rules on church membership and voting were relaxed, so that only less than one-fifth 116 00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:07.920 of the populace was disfranchised, and at least a handful of local leaders remained outside 117 00:13:07.920 --> 00:13:09.260 the church. 118 00:13:09.260 --> 00:13:14.860 A more rigid deviation from the New Haven norm characterized the town of Guilford, founded 119 00:13:14.860 --> 00:13:21.380 by Reverend Henry Whitfield, a friend of Hooker and Fenwick. In Guilford, political privileges 120 00:13:21.380 --> 00:13:27.820 were restricted not simply to Puritan church members, but to members of Whitfield's own 121 00:13:27.820 --> 00:13:29.380 church. 122 00:13:29.380 --> 00:13:34.140 Stamford was settled in a manner completely different from the settling of other towns. 123 00:13:34.140 --> 00:13:39.840 New Haven had recently acquired a tract of land via one of the usual arbitrary purchases 124 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:46.260 from the Indians. Anxious to settle the land, Davenport persuaded a group of dissidents 125 00:13:46.260 --> 00:13:53.620 in Weathersfield, Connecticut, headed by Reverend Richard Denton, to found a settlement, Stamford, 126 00:13:53.620 --> 00:14:00.120 there. In return, Stamford would submit to the jurisdiction of New Haven, send deputies 127 00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:08.480 to New Haven's Town Court and accept magistrates and officials chosen by the New Haven Court. 128 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:15.080 Another town settled by New Haven was South Hold in 1640 on the northeastern tip of Long 129 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:21.280 Island. The tract had been purchased from someone who had a dubious grant from the Old 130 00:14:21.280 --> 00:14:27.200 Council for New England. On that tract, South Hold was founded by Reverend John Youngs. 131 00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:35.820 Again, New Haven retained jurisdiction. In 1643, these five towns, New Haven and its 132 00:14:35.820 --> 00:14:42.520 cluster of two, Stamford and South Old, and the two independent towns of Milford and Guilford, 133 00:14:42.520 --> 00:14:48.960 united to form the Colony of New Haven. The frame of government of the colony restricted 134 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:54.960 suffrage in the same way as in the original New Haven town. Indeed, each town's government 135 00:14:54.960 --> 00:15:01.580 was similar to New Haven's. Over each government was the central government of the colony. 136 00:15:01.580 --> 00:15:06.580 The approved church members, the freemen, elected the deputies from each town, a governor 137 00:15:06.580 --> 00:15:13.200 and a court of magistrates. All of these constituted the unicameral general court, which exercised 138 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:19.660 the colony's legislative, executive and judicial functions. The colony, however, was a loose 139 00:15:19.660 --> 00:15:25.820 and the first confederation of towns, each town being autonomous in its own affairs. 140 00:15:25.820 --> 00:15:32.820 So entrenched was the original oligarchy that Theophilus Eaton had no difficulty in remaining 141 00:15:32.820 --> 00:15:39.380 magistrate of New Haven town and governor of the colony from the beginning until his 142 00:15:39.380 --> 00:15:43.060 death in 1658. 143 00:15:43.060 --> 00:15:49.160 Other towns added later to New Haven colony were Branford near New Haven and Greenwich 144 00:15:49.160 --> 00:15:55.600 as an addition to Stamford. No further foothold was gotten on Long Island. The towns there 145 00:15:55.600 --> 00:16:01.640 decided to join Connecticut. The failure of Southampton, hunting in an oyster bay to join 146 00:16:01.640 --> 00:16:08.640 New Haven Colony, was a particularly bitter blow, since New Haven had helped finance their 147 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:14.680 settlement. The Long Island towns, however, objected particularly to New Haven's highly 148 00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:44.680 As we might expect, the theocratic rigors of New Haven Colony were severe indeed. Drunkenness and sexual misdeeds were not only outlawed but regulated minutely by the authorities. Even card playing, dancing and singing were partially prohibited because they tended to corrupt the youth and were a misspense of precious time. Smoking in public was prohibited. 149 00:16:44.680 --> 00:16:52.680 The laws were enforced with particular severity against the lower classes, servants and seamen especially. 150 00:16:52.680 --> 00:17:01.680 Punishment was inflicted by stalks, pillories, whipping and imprisonment, and some persons were executed for the crime of adultery. 151 00:17:01.680 --> 00:17:12.680 In a typical sentence in New Haven town, Goodman Hunt and his wife were banished from the town because he allowed someone else to kiss Mrs. Hunt on a Sunday. 152 00:17:12.680 --> 00:17:21.680 New Haven did not turn out to be a flourishing colony, and much of the capital of the merchants was dissipated in unprofitable ventures. 153 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:32.680 Not the least of these were the repeated and unsuccessful attempts to plant New Haven colonies far to the southwest, along the banks of the Delaware River. 154 00:17:32.680 --> 00:17:38.680 One trouble was that the Delaware already had settlements, and non-English ones at that. 155 00:17:38.680 --> 00:17:49.680 Sweden's New Sweden Company had planted a settlement at Fort Christina, Wilmington, in 1637, headed by the Dutchman Peter Minuet. 156 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:53.680 The Dutch established their own settlements on the river shortly thereafter. 157 00:17:53.680 --> 00:18:05.680 New Haven merchants organized the Delaware Company and in 1640, their expedition, headed by Captain George Lamberton and Captain Nathaniel Turner, 158 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:41.840 the way for their own colonial expansion. Massachusetts, however, wisely refused to 159 00:18:41.840 --> 00:18:47.600 be persuaded to war upon the Dutch for New Haven's advantage, and the New Haveners were 160 00:18:47.600 --> 00:18:54.760 bitterly disappointed when Cromwell made peace with Holland. Discontent against the tight 161 00:18:54.760 --> 00:19:01.440 oligarchic rule was manifest in the colony by the 1650s, especially outside the town 162 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:03.160 of New Haven. 163 00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:09.580 When war loomed against the Dutch in the mid-1650s, citizens of Stamford, Milford and Southolt 164 00:19:09.580 --> 00:19:15.400 demanded an extension of the highly restricted suffrage and the substitution of regular English 165 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:19.500 law for the rigors of the Bible Commonwealth. 166 00:19:19.500 --> 00:19:25.060 Robert Bassett of Stamford was a particularly vocal dissident, attacking the government 167 00:19:25.060 --> 00:19:30.600 as tyrannical and one under which justice could not possibly be obtained. 168 00:19:30.600 --> 00:19:35.880 The colony cracked down severely on all dissidents, hauling them into court and charging them 169 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:42.680 with an attempt to change, undermine and overthrow constituted authority and with breaking their 170 00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:45.960 loyalty oaths by stirring up rebellion. 171 00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:51.720 All were convicted and heavily fined and made haste to confess their sins. 172 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:57.440 After this suppression, loyalty oaths were more widely imposed upon the inhabitants. 173 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:03.900 Even so, grumbling continued against the high taxes and heavy debts, stemming from increased 174 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:10.900 governmental expenses for schools, meeting houses, watch houses, and so forth, and there 175 00:20:10.900 --> 00:20:14.800 was widespread tax evasion in the colony.