the qualifications for membership in their own select circle. Under the charter, strictly interpreted as it always was, violated outright 0 as it could be and was for years at a time, there was not very much room for democracy. The right to vote was strictly limited to church members, and approved church members at that.

It is not surprising that affairs in this Puritan theocracy should have attracted the attention of the government in England. The Plymouth Colony had been left alone, because it had made itself neither conspicuous nor troublesome. The Bay Colony challenged investigation.

Among those who demanded an inquiry into the affairs of Massachusetts was Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who insisted that the Bay Colony charter was a direct violation of his own proprietary rights. He suggested that the charter be brought before the Privy Council. Partly as a result of his complaints, in 1634 the Privy Council appointed a commission, with Archbishop Laud at the head, to check further Puritan emigration, and to revoke charters "surreptitiously and unduly obtained." This same commission was likewise authorized to make laws for the government of the English colonies, to remove colonial governors, and to hear and decide complaints from the colonies.

In 1635, the commission secured a writ of quo warranto against the Massachusetts Bay Company, but because of the growing trouble in England the writ was never served. There is little doubt that the approach of the Civil War in England saved the life of the Massachusetts Bay Company. It was not until after 1660 that the Privy Council was able to turn its attention once more to Massachusetts, and, during that long interval, the foundations of the Puritan Commonwealth were solidly laid.

Perhaps the most striking difference between Massachusetts and Virginia was in the land system. In the southern colony, because of the peculiar requirements of tobacco culture, the large plantation had become the rule. In Massachusetts, and in New England generally, the agricultural unit was the small farm. And, when the Massachusetts Company made land grants, it generally made them not to individuals, but to groups. A number of more or less congenial people would agree to try their fortunes somewhere outside of Boston. They would get a grant of land, and then, as a community, they would distribute it to the individual members of the group. The

customs governing this distribution were taken over from the medieval villages in England. Instead of getting his land in a single parcel, each individual received a share of the various kinds of land available. Thus each member of the new village had a tract of meadow land, a tract of upland pasture, and a wood lot. Because of these scattered holdings, it seemed easier to build all the houses near together, generally around a piece of common land, or "green.” In this manner many new towns were started, each one organized in about the same way, and each one with the same general characteristics. Every grantee owned his land outright, free from quitrents, or any dues beyond the taxes voted in town meeting. These groups of free proprietors met to transact town affairs, and so got considerable training in matters of government. The towns constituted a natural unit for local government, and while the county system was introduced, it never played the important part that it did in Virginia. The ecclesiastical system was founded on the Congregational Church, with each congregation independent of any other, but with all under the control of the General Court. Church and state, as well as Church and town, were so intimately bound up that the lines separating these institutions are hard to find.

The New Englanders were as different from the Virginians in temperament as in their land system and local government. Not all the settlers were Puritans, by any means, but the Puritan character permeated the whole population. There was during the first generation of New England, less color and less geniality than could be found among the planters in the southern colony. On the other hand, in the small towns there was far more room for the development of a genuine democracy than there was in Virginia, with its large proportion of white indented servants and negro slaves.

CHAPTER V

THE EXPANSION OF NEW ENGLAND

The greatest force in American history can be seen at a glance on any seventeenth century map of the new world. The settlements. were all made on the edge of a vast area of virtually unoccupied land. As a consequence, the opportunity for expansion was really without parallel, and, down to 1890 at least, there was almost continuous movement away from the older communities toward the more promising frontier. The gradual occupation of this land is the foundation of American history.

As the frontier was pushed steadily westward, the same story was repeated time and time again during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Men who were displeased with the government, with economic or social conditions, or men who were simply restless found new places waiting for them, in which they could have a hand in framing the social structure. Along with the merely restTess and the genuinely ambitious went the debtors, who were trying to get away from their creditors, and the criminals, who were trying to find a land without sheriffs This westward movement began almost at once. In Virginia, settlers were pushing up into the Piedmont long before the end of the seventeenth century, while in New England barely six years had passed when the first settlements were made in the Connecticut valley.

ROGER WILLIAMS

Both Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony sent out offshoots from the first settlements in the very beginning, but no new colony was started until Roger Williams went to Providence, in the winter of 1635 and 1636. The Rhode Island enterprise was distinctly the product of discontent in and with Massachusetts Bay. Roger Williams was an independent in religion, somewhat outspoken in his criticisms of the established order in church and state. In addition to finding fault with the Puritan church, he questioned the validity of the land grants in Massachusetts, on the ground that the king had

no right to dispose of the land of the Indians without their consent. This sort of philosophy was naturally not popular in a primarily agricultural community. Because he was too free in voicing his opinions, he was ordered out of the province.

Once out of Massachusetts, Williams bought land enough for himself and his followers from the Indians who were living near Narragansett Bay. As a matter of fact, the title which he got was absolutely worthless. It had no validity under English law, and almost none under Indian custom. The Indians owned their land in common, and the few who sold to Williams, even if they were fully aware of what they were doing, had no right to alienate land belonging to the tribe. Legally, therefore, Williams and his friends were squatters.

The arrangements regarding religion in Providence were considerably more modern than in Massachusetts. There was no established church, and consequently no compulsory attendance, and no forced

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contributions for church support. Roger Williams had so much confidence in his convictions that he worked them out in practice.

For government, the settlers drew up a compact, similar to the Plymouth Compact of 1620. Thus Williams felt himself safely away from Massachusetts, and easy both in conscience and in mind.

ANNE HUTCHINSON

The second of the Rhode Island settlements, the Portsmouth colony on Rhode Island proper, was started by another heretic and refugee from Massachusetts. One of the most conspicuous of the early radicals in Massachusetts was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson She objected to the theology expounded in the Boston church, and to the government instituted by John Winthrop. Her criticism was not merely negative, and therein lay her offense. She evolved a religious system of her own, based upon direct divine revelation, so she said. Now to have any one question the soundness of Puritan government and Puritan theology was bad enough, but to have a woman lay claim to divine inspiration was the sin against the Holy Ghost. Any critic of any established order can always get a following, and some of Mrs. Hutchinson's admirers were among the most prominent in the colony. Something had to be done, so she was placed on trial before the General Court, with Governor Winthrop presiding. At the trial, which was the completest farce, the defendant had not the slightest chance of even a fair hearing. Her case was settled beforehand. The Court emphasized "the troublesomeness of her spirit, and the danger of her course amongst us, which is not to be suffered," and decreed that she should be banished, and imprisoned until she could be sent away.

Banishment from the colony was followed by excommunication from the church. This second sentence was pronounced by the Reverend John Wilson, whom Mrs. Hutchinson had gravely offended. Whenever he rose to preach, she ostentatiously marched out of church, followed by her band of enthusiastic admirers. As a commentary on the Puritan state of mind, Wilson's words are unsurpassed.

"Forasmuch as you, Mrs. Hutchinson, have highly transgressed and offended and forasmuch as you have so many ways troubled the church with your errors and have drawn away many a poor soul, and have upheld your revelations; and forasmuch as you have made a lie, etc. Therefore in the name of