WEBVTT NOTE 28. The New England Confederation 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.400 Volume 1, Chapter 28, The New England Confederation 2 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:10.920 The experience of the Puritan colonies in the joint aggression against the Pequots added 3 00:00:10.920 --> 00:00:17.200 to the continuing drive of Massachusetts Bay for domination over its neighbors, led to 4 00:00:17.200 --> 00:00:21.040 a more formal bond between them. 5 00:00:21.040 --> 00:00:26.800 As early as 1634, Massachusetts had moved in to establish control over a wholly pilgrim 6 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:32.520 from Trading Post on the Kennebec in Maine. It arrested a Plymouth magistrate there and 7 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:38.560 forced Plymouth leaders to go to Boston to settle the matter. Similarly, the following 8 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:43.420 year Massachusetts forced pilgrims out of land that they had settled on the Connecticut 9 00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:50.420 River to permit Bay settlers to occupy the land. Massachusetts also pressed claims for 10 00:00:50.420 --> 00:00:55.700 large portions of Connecticut and Plymouth territory and we have seen its designs on 11 00:00:55.700 --> 00:00:57.640 on Rhode Island. 12 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:03.440 The first discussion of a confederation between the Puritan colonies occurred at the Synod 13 00:01:03.440 --> 00:01:11.600 of August-September 1637 for the condemnation of Anne Hutchinson. The Synod was attended 14 00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:17.760 by ministers from Connecticut and Massachusetts. Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts suggested 15 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:23.240 to the Connecticut ministers that the Synod become a regular annual meeting of the ministers 16 00:01:23.240 --> 00:01:37.760 In the spring of 1638, Roger Ludlow, an advocate of strong government in Connecticut, inquired 17 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:45.440 further about a confederation, as did John Davenport in Theophilus Eaton of New Haven. 18 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:50.680 Connecticut sent John Haynes to Massachusetts to confer on the matter, but Massachusetts 19 00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:56.480 Massachusetts insisted on control of the Upper Connecticut Valley about Springfield, crucial 20 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:02.240 to the fur trade, which Connecticut refused to acknowledge. 21 00:02:02.240 --> 00:02:06.320 Massachusetts proposed setting up a commission with absolute power to settle all disputes 22 00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:11.740 between the colonies, and without reference to the separate assemblies. 23 00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:18.080 In this way, Massachusetts hoped to gain control of the sister colonies, deeming it 24 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:23.520 It is far easier to dominate a group of magistrates than the elected general courts of the various 25 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:30.040 colonies, but Thomas Hooker pointed out that the terms proposed by Massachusetts exceeded 26 00:02:30.040 --> 00:02:36.880 the limits of that equity which is to be looked at in all combinations of free states. 27 00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:43.320 To prevent oligarchic control by the joint magistrates of the colonies, Hooker insisted 28 00:02:43.320 --> 00:02:46.400 that any such commissioners be elected. 29 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:54.480 The confederation proposed at this time therefore proved abortive. The joint Pequot war effort 30 00:02:54.480 --> 00:03:00.880 and the growing united interest in preventing asylum from being granted to runaway indentured 31 00:03:00.880 --> 00:03:08.280 servants, however, caused the Puritan colonies to draw closer together. Despite this, Massachusetts 32 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:14.080 continued its aggressive expansion, seizing, as we have seen, the New Hampshire settlements. 33 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:25.680 Similarly, Connecticut and New Haven were settling in territory claimed arbitrarily by the Dutch and liked the idea of a confederation for defending it. 34 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:38.320 Furthermore, the civil strife in England was making the New England colonies even more self-governing than before and giving them an opportunity to carry more weight by acting jointly. 35 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:48.820 Finally, in the fall of 1642, Plymouth proposed a confederation provided that the general court of each colony ratify all agreements. 36 00:03:48.820 --> 00:04:00.320 Connecticut also agreed to send delegates to a meeting in the spring, quickly making sure that Saybrook was incorporated within its realm before the confederation was formed. 37 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:15.320 In May 1643, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth, and New Haven colonies agreed to form the Confederation of the United Colonies of New England. 38 00:04:15.320 --> 00:04:24.320 The Articles of Confederation declared its purpose to be a firm and perpetual league of friendship for offense and defense, 39 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:32.320 both for preserving and propagating the truths of the gospel and for their mutual safety and welfare. 40 00:04:32.320 --> 00:04:40.320 The general court of each colony was to elect two commissioners to meet once a year and on special occasions. 41 00:04:40.320 --> 00:04:51.320 These eight commissioners had the power to declare war, make peace, and allocate military expenses among the colonies in proportion to their population. 42 00:04:51.320 --> 00:04:57.320 But approval of each colony's general court was needed to levy the tax. 43 00:04:57.320 --> 00:05:04.320 For commissioners to reach any decision, whatever, required an affirmative vote of six of the eight. 44 00:05:04.320 --> 00:05:11.320 The commissioners were also to make recommendations to the specific colonies, settle boundary disputes, 45 00:05:11.320 --> 00:05:16.320 and provide for the capture of fugitives, for example, runaway servants. 46 00:05:16.320 --> 00:05:29.320 There was no executive. Annually one of the commissioners was chosen president and he served merrily as moderator of the proceedings. All the commissioners had to be Puritan Church members. 47 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:35.320 No colony was bound by the Commissioner's decisions unless its general court approved. 48 00:05:35.320 --> 00:05:45.320 Thus, each colony could nullify any decisions affecting it and ensure against aggrandizement by the new centralized power. 49 00:05:45.320 --> 00:05:55.320 One important provision of the confederation was to guarantee the independence in given territory of each member colony. 50 00:05:55.320 --> 00:06:03.240 For this reason, Massachusetts moved to reject a proposal to admit the main settlements to the 51 00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:10.920 Confederation, since Massachusetts was preparing to confiscate them. Rhode Island was not admitted 52 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:16.840 for similar reasons, and also because its individualistic policies were standing reproach 53 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:23.560 to the other colonies. Thus, Rhode Island's continual refusal to coerce the return of fugitives 54 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:37.560 The colony was preserving itself as a haven for the oppressed, was itself a vital blow to the structure of caste and persecution in the other New England colonies. 55 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:51.560 Hence, Rhode Island's application for admission in 1648 was rejected, unless it agreed to become part of Massachusetts Bay, a condition that Rhode Island, of course, angrily rejected. 56 00:06:51.560 --> 00:07:03.560 This first confederation of colonies in the New World was modeled on the United Provinces of the Netherlands, which had been established by the Union of Utrecht in 1579. 57 00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:20.560 The United Provinces was a loose confederation of seven provinces for purposes of defense. Deputies were selected by the autonomous provinces, each of which had to approve the decisions of the Union for it to be bound by the Union's actions. 58 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:28.560 Many New Englanders had experienced the workings of such a confederation during their previous exile in the Netherlands. 59 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:34.560 From the start, the commissioners were clearly extensions of the ruling magistrate of the colonies. 60 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:46.560 First president of the confederation was Governor John Winthrop, and his sons and grandsons became commissioners as well as magistrates in Massachusetts and Connecticut. 61 00:07:46.560 --> 00:08:08.560 The same was true for the other Massachusetts signatory of the Articles of Confederation, Thomas Dudley. He and his sons-in-law were to become governors and commissioners. Similarly, Theophilus Eaton, governor and commissioner from New Haven, his sons-in-law became magistrates and commissioners from New Haven and Connecticut. 62 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:14.560 The requirement that commissioners belong to the Puritan Church soon bore fruit. 63 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:24.560 One of their earliest proposals in 1646 was an answer to a request of Massachusetts for a meeting of the elders of the New England churches 64 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:31.560 to consider some confession of doctrine and discipline with solid grounds to be approved by the churches. 65 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:53.560 After the Westminster Assembly in England adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1647, which espoused Presbyterianism, a Synod was held at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1648, the same year in which the Cambridge Platform of the Church was issued. 66 00:08:53.560 --> 00:09:08.560 The platform accepted the Westminster Confession and provided that adultery, blasphemy, venting corruption and pernicious opinions are to be restrained and punished by the civil authority. 67 00:09:08.560 --> 00:09:31.280 And if any church, one or more, shall grow schismatical, rending itself from the communion of other churches, or shall walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of their own, contrary to the rule of the word, in such case the magistrate is to put forth his coercive power as the matter shall require. 68 00:09:31.280 --> 00:09:37.800 The Massachusetts path of persecution had been confirmed by the United Colonies. 69 00:09:37.800 --> 00:09:42.980 The Commissioners of the Confederation also levied an annual contribution on the towns 70 00:09:42.980 --> 00:09:47.840 of the colonies for the support of Harvard College. 71 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:54.840 After the massacre of the Pequots, the Narragansetts became the main body of Indians in southern 72 00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:56.480 New England. 73 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:02.280 We have seen how Massachusetts and the United Colonies tried to take over Warwick and the 74 00:10:02.280 --> 00:10:08.600 Narragansetts only to be foiled by the submission of the Narragansetts to England through Samuel 75 00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:10.560 Gordon. 76 00:10:10.560 --> 00:10:15.560 The United Colonies, however, struggled hard to conquer the Narragansetts. 77 00:10:15.560 --> 00:10:22.680 In 1645 Miles Standish led a confederation force into Rhode Island to beat the Narragansett 78 00:10:22.680 --> 00:10:29.680 The Confederation scarcely fulfilled the high hopes of its founders, and largely because of continuing difficulties between Massachusetts and its fellow colonies, with Massachusetts aggressively pressing its claims against the other. 79 00:10:52.680 --> 00:10:58.680 Thus, Massachusetts and Connecticut quarreled over the land taken from the Pequots. 80 00:10:58.680 --> 00:11:07.680 For years, Massachusetts claimed the lands, granting large tracts to Governor Winthrop's son, John Jr., an assistant of the colony. 81 00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:12.680 Young Winthrop was even granted governmental power over his plantation. 82 00:11:12.680 --> 00:11:20.800 Finally, after the senior Winthrop's death in 1649, his son accepted Connecticut jurisdiction 83 00:11:20.800 --> 00:11:25.920 and was soon to become a long-term governor of his adopted colony. 84 00:11:25.920 --> 00:11:31.720 A more important rift occurred over Springfield, the northernmost settlement on the Connecticut 85 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:32.720 River. 86 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:38.760 Geographically, one of the Connecticut towns, Springfield, as the uppermost town on the 87 00:11:38.760 --> 00:11:44.920 The River was critically important in the beaver trade with the Indians. In the late 88 00:11:44.920 --> 00:11:52.640 1640s, Connecticut levied a river tax on the various towns to finance its hastily purchased 89 00:11:52.640 --> 00:12:00.600 Fort Saybrook. Springfield, led by its virtual manorial lord, William Pinchon, refused to 90 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:06.080 pay the tax, pointing out that it had joined Massachusetts upon the creation of the New 91 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:13.000 New England Confederation, and was therefore outside Connecticut's jurisdiction. 92 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.120 Massachusetts had appointed Pinchon as Chief Judge and Magistrate. 93 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:22.400 He ruled Springfield and had a right of appeal to the Court of Assistance of the Colony at 94 00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:23.920 Boston. 95 00:12:23.920 --> 00:12:29.720 To strengthen its claim on Springfield, Massachusetts now accepted deputies from the town to its 96 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:31.200 general court. 97 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:37.240 Massachusetts, of course, backed Springfield's refusal to pay and persisted in defying the 98 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:42.360 Confederation agreement to submit all such disputes to arbitration. 99 00:12:42.360 --> 00:12:47.680 Massachusetts also retaliated by taxing products of the other New England colonies entering 100 00:12:47.680 --> 00:12:49.280 Boston. 101 00:12:49.280 --> 00:12:55.480 For the remainder of the century, Springfield continued as a virtually independent republic, 102 00:12:55.480 --> 00:13:02.360 loosely under Massachusetts and governed by Pinchon and his son John. Springfield indeed 103 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:09.400 set up its own frontier trading post at such new settlements as Westfield, Hadley and Northampton. 104 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:16.920 Massachusetts also took the lead in aggressive actions of the united colonies against other 105 00:13:16.920 --> 00:13:23.640 English colonies, for example, breaking off trade with Virginia, Bermuda and Barbados, 106 00:13:23.640 --> 00:13:28.280 for daring to continue their support of the royalist cause. 107 00:13:28.280 --> 00:13:32.440 Most of the friction between Massachusetts and the other colonies 108 00:13:32.440 --> 00:13:37.000 occurred over acts of imperial aggression by one or the other 109 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:40.520 against their French neighbors to the north or 110 00:13:40.520 --> 00:13:46.600 the Dutch to the south. The first confrontation occurred with the French. 111 00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:50.920 After the Virginians had sacked the French Jesuit settlement at Port Royal 112 00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:58.080 In 1613, the French created the Company of New France, with Cardinal Richelieu, Chief 113 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:05.760 Minister to Louis XIII, as President. Richelieu granted his own company feudal rule of the 114 00:14:05.760 --> 00:14:13.040 land and a monopoly of the fur trade. England conquered the Acadian and some other Canadian 115 00:14:13.040 --> 00:14:19.600 and Settlements from France in the War of 1627-29, but these areas were restored in 116 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:27.600 1632 in return for a large dowry from the French Bride of the English King Charles I. 117 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:34.080 By 1643 a virtual war had broken out between two French claimants to the rich prize of 118 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:41.600 Acadia, especially to the fur monopoly and the feudal tenure. The losing claimant, Claude 119 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:49.080 de la Tour appeared at Boston in 1643, and Governor Winthrop and a few of the ruling oligarchs 120 00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:55.880 decided to give de la Tour secret support for an expedition against the French governor. 121 00:14:55.880 --> 00:15:01.560 In defiance of legality, this crucial matter was referred neither to the General Court 122 00:15:01.560 --> 00:15:07.320 nor to the commissioners of the new Confederation of the United Colonies. Winthrop and the others 123 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:13.680 did not submit the issue because they knew that this rash interference in French affairs 124 00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:16.260 would have been rejected. 125 00:15:16.260 --> 00:15:21.560 The purpose of the affair was to have a clique of Boston merchants join in plunder and gain 126 00:15:21.560 --> 00:15:26.800 a share in the fisheries and the tempting Acadian fur monopoly. 127 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:32.320 The ignominious failure of the expedition swelled the rising opposition to the scheme 128 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:37.960 in Massachusetts, an opposition led by the competing merchants from Salem and other outlying 129 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:44.960 towns, and Winthrop was temporarily deposed in the 1644 election. Leader of the opposition 130 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:52.360 to the Acadian adventure was Richard Saltonstall, a merchant of Ipswich, north of Salem. Still, 131 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:59.040 the raiders did manage to plunder the plantation of the French governor, Charles Darnay, and 132 00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:03.400 To bring back the booty to be sold at auction in Boston. 133 00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:06.880 The proceeds of the auction were divided among the raiders. 134 00:16:06.880 --> 00:16:12.200 The new governor, John Endicott, however, proclaimed the neutrality of Massachusetts 135 00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:17.920 in the intra-French war and offered dolnet satisfaction. 136 00:16:17.920 --> 00:16:23.320 The commissioners of the United Colonies met in the fall of 1644 and sternly forbade all 137 00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:26.680 such secret plundering expeditions in the future. 138 00:16:26.680 --> 00:16:33.680 Finally, Massachusetts signed the Treaty of Boston with Darnay in the fall of 1644, providing 139 00:16:33.680 --> 00:16:39.280 that the English in Massachusetts and the French in Acadia have a right to trade freely 140 00:16:39.280 --> 00:16:45.040 with each other and with any other peoples, and also providing that any disputes between 141 00:16:45.040 --> 00:16:50.080 the two parties be settled by peaceful means. 142 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:55.280 In the conflicts with the Dutch, on the other hand, it was the southern New England colonies 143 00:16:55.280 --> 00:17:02.280 The original Dutch fort at Hartford was surrounded by English settlers, and the English pressed on to eastern Long Island. Such settlement was in itself highly legitimate, but this was not true of the accompanying political claims for governing the Dutch. 144 00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:42.280 New Haven also clashed with the Dutch and Swedes in the Delaware Settlements and was bitter not only at the Swedish and Dutch fur monopoly but also at the Dutch for granting of asylum to runaway servants of the New Haven colonists. 145 00:17:42.280 --> 00:17:58.280 The governor of Dutch New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, and the commissioners of the United Colonies concluded the Treaty of Hartford in 1650, supposedly settling the large part of the disputes between them. 146 00:17:58.280 --> 00:18:10.280 The English were granted sovereignty over all land east of Greenwich, Connecticut, except for Fort Good Hope, Hartford, and over all of Long Island, east of Oyster Bay. 147 00:18:10.280 --> 00:18:25.280 England, however, refused to ratify the treaty or to recognize any Dutch territory in America and within a year, New Haven, backed by the United Colonies, attempted further expansion on the Delaware. 148 00:18:25.280 --> 00:18:35.280 What is more, the commissioners played a role in the passage of the Anti-Dutch Navigation Act of 1651 in the English Parliament. 149 00:18:35.280 --> 00:18:43.160 The following year Cromwell launched his War of Aggression against Holland, and New Haven 150 00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:49.440 and Connecticut whooped for war in earnest. They even stirred up false rumors of an alleged 151 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:56.920 plot by Stuyvesant to incite the Indians to attack. Violating the Treaty of 1650, Connecticut 152 00:18:56.920 --> 00:19:04.240 seized the Dutch fort at Hartford and forcibly incorporated the territory. And even a quidnik, 153 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:34.240 The English settlers in the New Netherland portion of Long Island, in the towns of Oyster Bay, Hempstead, Flushing, Jamaica, Newtown and Gravesend, formed their own independent union. Connecticut and New Haven, yearning for war, swung all but one of the commissioners to declare war against the Dutch, but Massachusetts coolly vetoed them. 154 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:40.160 Road to the Scheme, Massachusetts asserted in its own curious but convenient interpretation 155 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:46.960 of the Articles of Confederation that the commissioners had no power to declare an offensive 156 00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:47.960 war. 157 00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:54.760 However, the Bay Colony was on completely solid legal ground in insisting on its right 158 00:19:54.760 --> 00:19:59.200 of nullification of the war decision as applied to itself. 159 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:05.320 The Dutch model of the confederation, incidentally, had also stressed this right of nullification 160 00:20:05.320 --> 00:20:12.320 by each constituent province. Why did Massachusetts balk at war? For one thing, it had no desire 161 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:19.520 to put up two-thirds of the forces and the bulk of the finances for a war in which it 162 00:20:19.520 --> 00:20:25.880 could not gain. In fact, any Connecticut or New Haven accession to the lucrative Dutch 163 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:33.880 The Dutch fur trade with the Iroquois might well have been detrimental to Massachusetts trading interest. 164 00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:43.880 Massachusetts was successful in blocking the war and the English war with the Dutch ended in 1654 without New England's entering the fray. 165 00:20:43.880 --> 00:20:51.880 Ironically, a British fleet sent to America to act against the Dutch arrived after the end of the war. 166 00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:59.120 Thwarted, it decided not to waste its preparations and it promptly seized Acadia from the French. 167 00:20:59.120 --> 00:21:04.360 It is no coincidence that the leader of the Massachusetts force that helped conquer Acadia 168 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:11.840 was Major Robert Sedgwick, a prominent Boston fish merchant, eager to obtain access to the 169 00:21:11.840 --> 00:21:13.840 for the Acadian Fisheries.