Roanoke disappears

Part 2 of our short series on the lost colony of Roanoke, deeply indebted to James Horn’s book A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America, finds the group of about 100 Englishmen confronted with a conflict with their neighbors, the Secotans, in the summer of 1585. A few small battles were fought between the two groups, and their chief Wingina was killed. Ralph Lane, captain of the English colonists, decided to abandon the colony, sensing that the Secotans would redouble their efforts to drive away the intruders now that their chief had been killed. In June, all but 15 of the men left Roanoke on a ship sent by their patron Walter Ralegh that had been sent to see how they were doing.

So ended Roanoke mark 1. Roanoake mark 2 followed close on its heels, however, as the sponsors organized by Ralegh immediately made a second attempt to set up a colony. The problem, they felt, with the first try had been that it had not been set near deep waters that could accomodate shipping, and its ground was not fertile enough. They quickly recruited new colonists to settle farther north on the Chesapeake Bay, and appointed John White to lead them.

This would be a mixed group of men and women (and nine children), as the sponsors felt that the soldiers they sent the first time had likely been too aggressive with the local peoples. Average citizens would also be more likely to farm and start creating trade goods to send back to England than the soldiers, who had been mostly looking for gold and other types of easy plunder. The new colonists left in May 1586 and arrived in America in mid-July.

They had their ship’s captain stop briefly at Roanoke Island, site of the first colony, to check on the 15 men who had stayed behind and likely take them along on the trip farther upriver to the Chesapeake Bay. But once they stopped at Roanoke, the captain, Fernandes, suddenly refused to take them upriver, claiming he and his men were missing the privateering season in the Caribbean and had no further time to waste in the mid-Atlantic. Stranded on Roanoke, the new settlers suffered attacks from the Secotans, who saw history repeating itself.

The colonists decided that John White should sail back to England with Fernandes and get more supplies and more people from the colony’s sponsors, and let them know that the plan of moving upriver was going to be delayed. Ideally, with more people and supplies they might be able to make the move, but for now, they would relocate inland, where they could find more food over the winter (White would be back in the spring).

White left. He would not return for three years. In his absence, the colony disappeared.

We have no records, so far, left by the men, women, and children he left on Roanoke Island, except for one word White found carved on a tree at the original settlement when he did return in 1589: Croatoan. Baffled and grieving, White and his group searched for the colonists, especially his daughter, Eleanor Dare, who had given birth to his grand-daughter Virginia Dare—the first English person known to have been born in America—in his absence, to no avail.

What happened, they asked themselves? White had been prevented from returning to the colony by the Spanish Armada attack on England in 1588, when no ship was able to leave an English port. The Armada episode was just one part of the shipping and privateering war between Spain and England that was played out in the Americas. Perhaps the colony had been attacked by the Spanish. But Croatoan did not sound like a Spanish name… the more likely scenario, they felt, was slaughter by the hostile local people.

And so Roanoke mark 2 ended, and to this day most people are not told about some very clear and persuasive evidence pointing to the real fate of the colonists that was reported by the men of Jamestown just a few decades later.

Next time: the fate of the Roanoke colonists

Truth v. Myth: The First Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving: it’s a hallowed phrase that, like “Washington crossing the Delaware“, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” or “Damn the torpedoes!”, does not bring up many solid facts. Unfortunately, “the first Thanksgiving” is usually either completely debunked, with people saying no such thing ever happened, or used as a weapon against the Pilgrims—i.e., they had a lovely Thanksgiving with the Indians and then killed them all.

The truth about the first Thanksgiving is that it did happen, in the fall of 1621. The Pilgrims had landed in what is now Massachusetts the previous November—a terrible time to begin a colony. Their provisions were low, and it was too late to plant anything. It is another myth that they landed so late because they got lost. They had intended to land south of Long Island, New York and settle in what is now New Jersey, where it was warmer, but their ship was almost destroyed in a dangerous area just south of Cape Cod, and the captain turned back. They then had to crawl the ship down the Cape, looking for a suitable place to land. Long story short, they ended up in what is now Plymouth.

Most Americans know how so many of those first settlers died from starvation and disease over the winter, and how it was only by raiding Wampanoag food caches that the colony survived at all. By the spring, there were not many colonists left to plant food, but they dragged themselves out to do so. They had good luck, and help from the Wampanoags, who showed them planting techniques—potentially just to keep the Pilgrims from raiding their winter stores again. By November 1621, a very good harvest was in, and Governor William Bradford called for a day of thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims often had days of thanksgiving. In times of trouble, they had fasts, which were sacrifices given for God’s help. In celebration times, they had thanksgivings to thank God for helping them. So thanksgivings were a common part of Pilgrim life, and calling for a thanksgiving to praise God for the harvest would not have been unusual, and would have been a day spent largely in church and at prayer.

So the men went out to shoot some “fowls” for the dinner, and perhaps they ran into some Wampanoags, or maybe a few Wampanoags were visting Plymouth, as they often did, and heard about the day of celebration. At any rate, here is the only—yes, the one and only—eyewitness description of what happened next:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

That’s Edward Winslow, writing about the thanksgiving in his journal of Pilgrim life called “Mourt’s Relation”, published in 1622. We see that Massasoit and 90 of his men arrived at some point, having heard about the feast, and the Pilgrims hosted them for three days, and had some rather Anglican sport firing their guns. Certainly the Wampanoags had a right to feel they should join in, since it was their help that had led to the good harvest. A one-day thanksgiving turned into three days of feasting and games.

And that was it. People often wonder why there wasn’t another thanksgiving the next year—we have seen that thanksgivings were not annual events, but came randomly when the people felt they were needed as a response to current events, and the idea of celebrating the harvest every year didn’t make sense to the Pilgrims. They had only held a thanksgiving for the first good harvest because it was a life-saving change from the previous fall. Once they were on their feet, they expected good harvests, and didn’t have to celebrate them. It was also against their Separatist beliefs to celebrate annual holidays—like the Puritans, they did not celebrate any holidays, not even Christmas. Holidays were a human invention that made some days better than others when God had made all days equally holy. So to hold a regular, annual harvest thanksgiving was not their way. When things were going well, Separatists and Puritans had days of thanksgiving. When things were going badly, they had days of fasting. None of them were annual holidays or cause for feasting (of course fast days weren’t, but even thanksgivings were mostly spent in church, with no special meal).

If only that first thanksgiving–an impromptu, bi-cultural celebration–had set the tone for the rest of the interactions between the English colonizers and the Indigenous peoples of North America. Since it did not, we can only think happily of the Thanksgiving called for by President Lincoln, who made an annual Thanksgiving a holiday in 1863.

The hype around the Pilgrims’ first thanksgiving only began after 1863, when historians noted the tradition of impromptu thanksgivings in the 1600s and made an unwarranted and improper connection to the new holiday to make it seem less new and more traditionally American. Before then, their many days of thanksgiving and fasting were completely forgotten. The Pilgrims certainly weren’t the inspiration for the holiday we celebrate today—they were retroactively brought into that in the worst, most ironic way: after the Civil War, southerners resented Thanksgiving as a “Union” holiday celebrating U.S. victories in the war and so the focus was changed from fighting slavery to the Pilgrims… who supported slavery.

This year, spend Thanksgiving however you like, and share the truth about where the holiday really comes from—the depths of a terrible war fought for the greatest of causes. Let Thanksgiving inspire you to stand up for the founding principles of this nation and re-commit to upholding them in your own daily life of good times and bad.

Roger Williams Transformed

Part the last of Truth v. Myth on Roger Williams, in which Williams draws back from the abyss of isolation and becomes the man we remember so well today.

After creating such high standards for religious and spiritual practice that there were only two people left in the world for him who were worthy of taking communion—himself and his wife—Williams had some sort of breakthrough. He followed his train of thought to its logical conclusion, which is that no church in the fallen world, no church on Earth, can be pure. It’s just not possible. If the Earth is a sinful and fallen place, it cannot create a gathering of people who are entirely holy. One could not escape the “dung heap” of humanity, as Williams had previously described other people to John Winthrop.

It’s a moment of great danger for Williams. This realization could have led him to complete despair; suicide seems to be the only way out of this terrible situation for the man who cannot accept imperfection. But something pulled him through, whether it was Williams’ basic goodness, his realization of the great love and loyalty his followers had demonstrated in going to Narragansett with him, or perhaps the persuasion of his wife Mary, who so often goes unnamed and unnoticed in her husband’s famous story. Mary had followed Roger from England to America, from Boston to Salem, Salem to Plymouth and back again, and Salem to Narragansett country. Each time she had to help set up a new homestead and a new farm, while raising their many children and bearing many more. It is telling that even as he questioned the purity of everyone on Earth, Roger never once turned against his faithful wife. She must have been a loving and intelligent woman, and perhaps we do have her to thank, at least in part, for Williams’ turnaround.

Because Williams did do a 180 in Narragansett. The basic goodness and love of other people that characterized him broke through and he was able to decide that since he could not escape other, fallen, sinful people, he would join them. “Having a little before refused communion with all, save his own wife,” said Winthrop, Williams’ old friend, “now he would preach to and pray with all comers.”

And so he did. Williams threw open his tiny colony to anyone who wanted to join him and work together as one loving group. Winthrop shook his head once again at his young friend; to Winthrop, this “come one, come all” attitude was just as crazy as Williams’ original “no one is good enough” attitude. Puritans were careful to make sure their churches were attended by people trying to live holy lives. But Williams was welcoming anyone and everyone, even those who did not profess themselves to be trying to achieve holiness. In fact, many of his most loyal followers deserted Williams at this point. They had seen in him a man who would give them perfection, a man who could create a heaven on Earth; now he was throwing that chance away to live with the most sinful of people.

Word of Williams’ policies in Narragansett got around the MBC, and people decided Williams had snapped. He was an extremist, they saw; first seeking pure holiness, now seeking sinfulness. His appeal faded for most Puritans in the colony. But there were always a few people who found their way to what became Rhode Island, where Williams created a society that practiced tolerance for just about all people and beliefs. There were limits. As we have seen, even Williams could not welcome Quakers, and Anne Hutchinson, when banished from Boston, made herself very unwelcome in Providence.

But otherwise, Williams welcomed Native Americans, banishees from other colonies, and anyone seeking freedom to live as they wished so long as they did not harm others. The Roger Williams we know and love was born. His was an epic journey, one that Americans as a people re-enact each generation: moving from intolerance and the demand that everyone be like them to real democracy, liberty, and freedom.

Roger Williams’ banishment

In Part VI of our Truth v. Myth series on Roger Williams, he is at last banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. We left Williams sentenced to banishment in October 1635; he was supposed to leave within 6 weeks, but the General Court, impressed with his willing acceptance of his fate, extended the deadline to the spring, on condition that Williams stay quiet and not “go about to draw others to his opinions.”

Knowing Williams as we do, we can’t be surprised to find out that he was unable to live up to his side of this bargain. By December reports got back to the Court that Williams had inspired a group of about 20 people to go with him to Narragansett Bay and start their own colony. This was alarming to the MBC because from there “the infection would easily spread into [our own] churches, the people being …much taken with the apprehension of his godliness.” There was only one choice left to the General Court: seize Williams and put him on a ship back to England.

This was indeed a sign of desperation on the part of New England, since Williams was bound to spread the word of his treasonous doings back in England, and bring down the displeasure of king and Parliament onto the MBC.

But it was all for nothing, because when the authorities went to Salem in January to seize him, Williams was gone. How could he have known what was going to happen? Who tipped him off? None other than the most orthodox man in MBC, a man who concurred in the judgement of banishment—John Winthrop. Winthrop does not say anything about this in any of his known papers, but he was the one who warned Williams to leave before he was shipped back to a hostile England. We know this because WIlliams wrote a letter in 1670, long after the events, saying,

“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 to me to steer my course to Narragansett Bay and Indians, for many high and heavenly and public ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English claims or patents. I took his prudent motion as a hint and voice from God, and waving all other thoughts and motions, I steered my course from Salem, though in winter snow, which I feel yet, unto these parts.”

Fleeing alone, Williams was not a threat, and the MBC left him alone. Williams wrote later that he had nearly died wandering in the winter snows, until he was found by a Narragansett man who greeted him with “What cheer, netop?” (a nice mixture of Narragansett and English). Helped by the Narragansetts to find a good place to settle, Williams survived. He eventually brought his wife and children down to his outpost, and they lived very much alone there.

During this time, Williams wrote frequently to Winthrop. It is still touching to see the kindness and broad-mindedness of the governor, who, while abhorring Williams’ views, never lost sight of or respect for the man’s goodness and honesty. Winthrop asked him in October 1636 if he really believed everyone else in the MBC was fallen away, and whether he was not grieved to have made so many people so unhappy. Williams wrote back that he did still believe this, and that he was not grieved, and that Winthrop should follow his example and join him in total isolation: “Abstract yourself with a holy violence from the Dung heap of this Earth.”

Strong language. Here Williams has come full circle in his separatism. Now out of the entire world, only he, his wife, and potentially Winthrop, were holy enough to be acceptable company. Everyone else on the earth was human excrement before God—and before Williams. Winthrop’s argument that there is no escape from the human condition of imperfection, and that imperfection must be addressed lovingly, fell on deaf ears.

There was a small community that joined Williams in Narragansett territory, and they created a small church, but even this dedicated group was not good enough. Williams stopped the practice of infant baptism, since the babies had not proven their sanctity, and began to wonder aloud if any church could be truly holy without God returning through the Apocalypse and cleansing the world. The low point was when he decided that only he and his wife were fit for Communion. The only possible next step would be to find himself completely alone in the world, with not even his wife fit to accompany him.

Next time: Williams as we know, remember, and love him

Roger Williams makes trouble in Salem—again

Part V of the Truth v. Myth series on Roger Williams finds him once again before the General Court, this time in April 1635. His unique brand of Separatism was causing him to deny more and more people the benefit of a doubt in a few ways: when the colony decided all inhabitants who were not freemen should take an oath to support the colony and its government, Williams complained (to all who would hear him) that since oaths were taken before God, if unregenerate (unsaved) men took the oath along with the godly, those godly men would as a result “have communion” with the wicked and therefore be taking God’s name in vain. He also stated that a godly man should not stoop to pray with the ungodly, even if that meant his own wife and children.

Williams was able to persuade the church-goers of Salem in these cases, again because of his charisma and because he himself seemed to be so undoubtedly good. Such a godly man could not be wrong. When the minister at Salem died, Williams was chosen by the congregation to take his place.

Not long after, in July 1635, he was summoned again to the General Court, but this time it was different. As a legally chosen minister of the colony, Williams could not be forced to change his views. In Puritan New England, the independence of the individual congregation was paramount—their faith was called Congregationalism. No one—not the government, not other ministers—had control over a church, or the right to interfere with its decisions. Only a church’s congregation could rebuke or remove its minister. The General Court could not force Williams to leave the pulpit in Salem.

The Court could, however, take the advice of other ministers, and in this case a group of them concluded that Williams was leading Salem to heresy and ought to be removed. To implement this advice, the Court told Salem that it would not grant its petition to claim land in nearby Marblehead if Williams was not dismissed. Salem’s church immediately wrote furious letters to the other churches in the colony, asking for their help in withstanding this clear breach of congregational independence.

This could have become a serious crisis for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. If the churches had united to challenge the government, the whole basis of the colony—a political unit supporting a religious society that agreed to be governed by civil law—would have collapsed. Churches would most certainly have been divided over the issue, some feeling that defying the civil authorities was justified, others feeling it was not. It’s important to remember that at this moment, MBC was fighting with the English government to keep its charter (the legal document allowing it to govern itself independently), and expecting a flotilla of English warships in the harbor at any moment. Everything seemed to be at stake.

So the ministers obfuscated. The ministers who had delivered the opinion against Williams to the court received the letters from Salem and simply pocketed them, not telling their congregations about them.

Williams figured this out and in his anger he finally went too far even for Salem. He claimed publicly that the churches of Massachusetts, by helping the government to oppress the Salem church, were no longer pure. If Salem did not separate from the other churches, Williams would leave its pulpit.

Salem could not do it. To withdraw itself from the help, fellowship, and support not only of the government of the colony but of all other churches and towns in the MBC was too much. The people of Salem did not want to separate from the rest of the world and go it completely alone, having spiritual and earthly communion with no one but themselves. They refused.

Williams was called for the last time to the Court in October 1635, where he gladly accepted the charges of denying the court’s authority and writing seditious letters calling for rebellion against the government. He was sentenced to banishment, and told to leave the colony within six weeks.

Williams resigned as minister when he returned to Salem, and because he did not try to whip up support against his banishment, and in fact seemed to accept it happily, the Court changed its ruling to say he could wait to leave until the next spring, rather than set out in late fall. The one condition was that Williams stop spreading his seditious opinions. That, of course, was impossible.

Next time: Williams makes a narrow escape

Roger Williams commits treason

Here in part IV of our Truth v. Myth series on Roger Williams, we look at the period when his religious unorthodoxy led him to commit political treason.

John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, asked Williams on his return to Salem from Plymouth to clarify or confirm for him whether Williams had indeed questioned the settlers’ right to claim land in New England while Williams was in Plymouth. Williams wrote Winthrop back and sent him a copy of an “argument” he had written about it. The argument was dynamite: the colonists had no right to the land because they claimed that right by virtue of a charter from the English King (Charles I), and since that king was not a Separatist, he was an unregenerate sinner who could not claim any authority from God to issue such a charter. The king was also a blasphemer because he called Europe “Christendom” when Europe was populated by sinners who belonged to evil and ungodly churches (i.e., not Separatist), and basically the English king was one of those harbingers of the apocalypse, a fallen and evil king leading his people to ruin and damnation.

This was, to say the least, a problem for the MBC, whose charter did indeed come from the English king, who could immediately revoke it once he heard of these treacherous charges from Williams. People today, thinking only of the later Williams, assume that he questioned the colonists’ right to settle American lands on the basis of Native Americans’ first rights to them, but this was not the case. Williams at this point was not thinking about Native Americans at all. He was as willing as any colonists to claim Native American land, just not under the authority of the English king.

Winthrop summoned Williams to appear at the next meeting of the General Court in Boston to explain himself, but Winthrop was careful. He wanted to avoid two things: Williams being attacked at the meeting, unprepared for the charges against him; and reports of the meeting being published abroad, turning the meeting into a kind of show trial that would get back to England and the king. So Winthrop wrote to John Endecott in Salem and told Endecott what charges would be made against Williams; Winthrop also gave Endecott some strategies to get through to Williams about the gravity of his situation and lead Williams to repent before the Court.

This must have had some effect, because when he did appear in Boston Williams declared his loyalty and seemed penitent, and Winthrop dimissed his case. And there the matter could have rested, but Williams was unable to stay on a moderate path at this point. Six months later, in November 1634, news came that Williams was publicly preaching against the king in Salem, and this time Winthrop could not help him. A new governor was in charge, one who was not charmed by Williams.

Williams’ specific charges against the Puritan settlers were that they were taking land under false pretences by accepting the authority of the sinner-king’s charter, and that they ought to send back the charter and have the king himself write a new one that renounced his power to grant land; and also that if the settlers did not do this, they ought to dissolve the MBC, return to England, and do public penance as liars and evil-doers.

Unsurprisingly, the General Court of March 1635 saw Williams brought once more before the bench. The ministers of the colony had asked Governor Dudley for permission to talk with Williams instead of bringing him to court (something Winthrop would have allowed), but Dudly refused. “We were deceived in him, if we thought he would condescend to learn from any of us,” declared Dudley, and in this case he was most likely right. At this point, Williams would not be truly swayed by anyone. However, the Assistants (the board of magistrates helping to govern the colony) overruled Dudley, the ministers met with Williams, and once again Williams seemed to back down. Incredibly, he had been about to send a letter to the king outlining his beliefs, and was very lucky to have been stopped.

Williams never agitated against the king on the same level, but he was not done alienating himself from his fellow humans. He would only go further in his separatism before he finally came out the other side.

Next time: trouble in Salem

Roger Williams in Plymouth

Here in Part 3 of our Truth v. Myth series on Roger Williams, we follow his time in Plymouth. We saw last time that Williams had left Boston because its church had not separated from the Church of England, which Williams, like all English Separatists, saw as a failed church. So he went to Plymouth, which was a Separatist colony.

For a while things went well, as Williams again charmed the people of Plymouth with his winning personality and his goodness, and impressed them with the occasional preaching he did (he did not earn a living as a minister, but worked his family farm). But fairly soon Williams began to feel even Plymouth was not separated enough. When members of the colony visited England, they went to Anglican (Church of England) services there, then came back and worshipped in the Plymouth church, thus contaminating it. He also, to some degree or other, began to object to using the common term “Goodman”—equivalent to “Mr.” today—to address men who were not revealed to have been saved by God’s grace. How could a man who was not truly good be given the title of Goodman?

Williams stirred up enough fuss about using “Goodman” that when John Winthrop came to visit Plymouth, its leaders asked his opinion. So Winthrop learned that once again, Williams was falling into that trap of shutting out more and more of the world in an attempt to create a purely holy world of one’s own. He reassured the Plymouthers that “Goodman” was appropriate, but Williams made the decision to leave Plymouth. The governor of the colony, William Bradford, wrote later that Williams left “abruptly”, in 1633.

He returned once more to Salem, where the people welcomed him happily, and made him a full member of their church. Williams was willing to join the church, even though it was Anglican, because he saw that most members of the Salem church were open to his ideas; he must have hoped/thought he could lead them to Separatism. He began teaching unofficially, urging the people to aim for the heights of spiritual perfection.

But it wasn’t just his religion that made Williams a problem. While in Salem he would ignite a political scandal that would engulf and endanger the entire Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Next time: Williams commits treason

Roger Williams: A Dangerous Man

Welcome to Part II of our Truth v Myth series on Roger Williams. Here we look at his early life in New England.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, Puritans were always on the verge of deciding the world was too sinful and withdrawing from it to maintain their own purity and safety. The first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, was wise enough to see that this was both an insult and a danger. An insult because it left the unsaved to their doom, and a danger because once people decide they must withdraw from the world, they go quickly down an endless spiral, rejecting more and more people as unfit, until they are completely isolated and literally alone.

Winthrop, like all good Puritans, knew that the righteous had a responsibility to live in the world and help other people achieve righteousness (if not salvation; only God could give that). He was constantly talking extremists down from the ledge of withdrawal.

Roger Williams was one of those extremists. Winthrop, who had known Williams slightly in England, thought well of the young minister. When Williams was invited to serve as temporary minister in the Boston church while its usual minister went back to England to get his wife, Winthrop approved. But Williams refused the offer to lead this very prestigious church; he was already a Separatist, done with the Church of England that the Puritans were trying to improve. While Williams was universally well-liked, and a very appealing person, he was beginning to harbor dark thoughts about humanity. He felt he had soiled himself by taking communion in the Church of England because it was not a true church. His purpose now in New England was to regain his purity. Even though the church in Boston did not allow anyone to take communion unless they had gone through the rigorous process of demonstrating the saving grace of God in them, Williams still would not worship there. Even though the Bostonians were pure themselves, they had not renounced the impure Church of England. Williams demanded that the congregation “make a public declaration of their repentence for having communion with the churches of England, while they lived there.” It would not, and Williams moved on.

As Edmund Morgan puts it so well, “Here was a Separatist indeed, who would separate not only from erroneous churches but also from everyone who would not denounce erroneous churches as confidently as he did.”

Winthrop put forward the corrective idea that people could reform corrupt bodies like the Church of England rather than abandon them; to leave sinners without the “Care” that they needed was a refusal to do one’s God-ordained duty. Winthrop deplored the “spiritual pride” that led people to abandon those who needed them.

But Williams was unmoved by such arguments. He was beginning to see the world in very black and white terms of good and evil, and the number of those who could be considered evil was ever-growing. Williams was also rejecting temporal law: before leaving Boston, which he did after just a few weeks, he had questioned whether the government of the colony (or any government) had any power to address religious matters. While we take this for granted as the separation of church and state, it was anathema to the Puritans of New England, who had come to America expressly to create a government that supported their religion.

On Williams went to Salem, where he was also received with kindness and happiness. Williams was so likable that he could say things that were terrible to the Puritans and still maintain their goodwill–excusing the young minister for his radicalism quickly became a habit in Salem and elsewhere. He seemed so clearly to be saved, he exuded such goodness and personal piety, that no one wanted to believe he was a divisive and alienating zealot.

Winthrop, however, wrote a letter to Salem asking how they could allow a Separatist to be their minister, and his dose of objectivity led Salem to rescind the offer, and Williams went finally to Plymouth, which was a Separatist colony. He should have lived happily ever after in Plymouth, but he did not.

Next time: Williams makes waves in Plymouth

Truth v. Myth: Roger Williams

Roger Williams is a rarity: a Puritan minister who is viewed with great sympathy by modern Americans. How did this happen?

In this T v M series, we’ll look at Williams and learn his full story, and surprisingly, the basic outcome will remain unchanged, in that Williams did become a sympathetic and visionary leader we can all admire today. But it was a long road for him, and most Americans would not recognize the early Roger Williams. His struggles involved many important Puritan leaders, the powerful church at Salem, and at one point the attention of the entire Puritan population in New England. Williams was the closest thing to a celebrity—a rule-breaking, emotional celebrity with devoted fans and bitter enemies—that ever existed in early Puritan New England, and he came close to self-destructing before he found his way.

Williams was born to wealthy London parents (his father was a merchant) in 1603. He graduated from Cambridge in 1627 as an Anglican minister but he could not take up a position in an Anglican church because sometime during college, Williams had become a Puritan. This was not completely surprising; Puritanism was active in the universities, where bright and inquiring men were exposed (whether deliberately or by accident) to the newest ideas. Puritanism was also a very intellectual faith, well-suited to scholarly men.

Since he could not stand in a pulpit, Williams took a position as private chaplain to the family of Puritan lord Sir William Macham. In December 1629, he married Mary Barnard. Williams knew that the first group of Puritans were planning their journey to America, due to launch just four months later in April 1630. In fact, he had been made aware of those plans by the Puritan leaders themselves, showing that Williams was already becoming a well-known and well-esteemed Puritan leader himself. But he did not join them. Why? There are likely several reasons. First, Williams had a good position in the Puritan household of an influential man, and might have hoped to effect change at home in England. Second, he had not yet been persecuted for his faith. Third, and significantly, Williams was already finding Puritanism too compromised; he was becoming a Separatist (someone who wanted to leave the Church of England rather than reform it as the Puritans wanted to do).

By the time Williams left for America with his wife Mary later in 1630, he was an opponent of the Anglican Church and the Puritan program. How was he to fare in Puritan New England?

Next time: Williams makes waves in Salem.

“The City upon a Hill” by John Winthrop: what is it about?

The “City upon a Hill” section of the essay called “A Model of Christian Charity” was written in 1630 by the Puritan leader John Winthrop while the first group of Puritan emigrants was still onboard their ship, the Arbella, waiting to disembark and create their first settlement in what would become New England. The “City” section of this essay was pulled out by later readers–in the 19th century–as a crystallization of the Puritan mission in the New World.

Of course, as with any topic touching on the Puritans, there’s some myth-busting to be done. By now, the “City upon a Hill” excerpt has come to represent irritating Puritan pridefulness—they thought they were perfect, a city on a hill that everyone else would admire and want to emulate. In reality, the excerpt is far from a back-patting exercise. It is a gauntlet laid down to the already weary would-be settlers. Let’s go through it:

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow the Counsel of Micah, to do Justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God:

The “shipwreck” Winthrop refers to is the wrath of God that falls on peoples or nations who fail to do God’s will. Earlier in the essay, Winthrop has been at once warning the people that they must not fail in their efforts to set up a godly state in the new World and reassuring them that this does not mean they can never make a mistake. God is with them, and will suffer small failings. But if, like the government and church of England, the Puritans forsake their mission to create a truly godly society, they will suffer the wrath of God. This is the shipwreck to be avoided.

…for this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly Affection, we must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, we must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality, we must delight in each other, make others Conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labour, and suffer together, always having before our eyes our Commission and Community in the work, our Community as members of the same body, so shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his own people and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways…:

This is a beautiful passage, reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount in its focus on mercy, kindness, sharing, and other selfless qualities. The Puritans will not succeed by harrying out the sinner or otherwise smiting evil, but by loving each other, caring for each other, and “abridging our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities” (that is, there will be equality of wealth, with no one living in luxury while others starve). They will delight in each other, making others’ conditions their own, and they will do all this to create a natural community of faith. The point here is that religious faith will not be mandated or policed or forced on anyone. It will be generated naturally by the hope and love and faith of the people themselves. It will be an effect, not a cause. The Quakers would try to live out this same philosophy decades later.

…so that we shall see much more of his wisdom power goodness and truth than formerly we have been acquainted with:

And how. That’s an understatement. The projected society would be almost unequalled anywhere in the known world.

…we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations: the lord make it like that of New England:

Here comes the crux of the excerpt. Why will later settlers hope their societies will be like New England? Because of the love and comradeship, care and goodwill in New England. Notice that so far Winthrop has been urging his people to be caring and loving and selfless. He isn’t saying they already are all those things. He isn’t boasting about a pre-existing condition. He is urging them to become caring and loving and selfless, in the name of their godly mission, so that they will truly succeed. If—and it’s a big if—they succeed in becoming all those good things, their society will be admired. It’s not really that the Puritans will be admired so much as their society will be admired. There’s no self in this for Winthrop; it’s all about serving God as a society, and not about individuals becoming famous for their virtue. To him, there’s a difference. Fame may come as a result of serving God, but it’s the serving of God that matters.

…for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the way of God and all professors for God’s sake; we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going:

First, we see what “city on a hill” really means: it doesn’t mean perfect, it means visible. They will be under a microscope, unable to hide their failures from all the eyes trained on them. No one wants to live in a city on a hill, because all of your faults and failings are in plain view.

Second, Winthrop wasn’t just speculating. This fate of becoming a byword for failure had already befallen every English colony in North America by 1630. Roanoake had disappeared, and Jamestown was so well-known in England for the horrors its unprepared settlers suffered that by the time the Puritans sailed their main goal was to avoid Jamestown’s very well-publicized failures. Among the many reasons the Puritans did not want to settle in Virginia was to avoid contamination with Jamestown’s perpetual bad luck (which the Puritans put down in large part to the colony’s lack of a commission from God). Even Plimoth Plantation, founded by Separatists just 10 years earlier, wasn’t exactly thriving. The Puritans settled far from the Pilgrims. So there was evidence, to Winthrop, that God had already withdrawn his support from all previous English settlements. The stakes were high.

…And to shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israel [in] Deut. 30. Beloved there is now set before us life, and good, death and evil in that we are Commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandements and his Ordinance, and his laws, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it:

In closing (“to shut up this discourse”), Winthrop dramatically positions his group on the very edge of life and death, good and evil; they have never been more free to choose which way they will go. It’s all up for grabs. If Winthrop was sure that it would be easy for the Puritan to make the right choice, because they were so much better than everyone else in the world, he wouldn’t have hammered this point home. He wouldn’t have had to show them how high the stakes were, and he wouldn’t have supposed there was even a choice to be made. Since he was a realist, albeit a compassionate one, Winthrop reiterated the fact that the Puritans too, like everyone else, had to choose good over evil.

… But if our hearts shall turn away so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship other Gods, our pleasures, and profits, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good Land whither we pass over this vast Sea to possess it:

Again, high stakes. The important thing to note here is what Winthrop considers to be the threat: “our pleasures and profits”. Colonies were founded to make money. Everyone knew that. And even the Puritans would have to repay their investors. They were business people, many of them London merchants, and they would set about creating industry in New England. They were also normal people who loved dancing, music, alcohol, sex, and love, and they would enjoy all those things in their new land. Being a Puritan was not about denial. It was about balance. Enjoy without attachment, enjoy without letting pleasure become your master—this was the Puritan ideal (it’s also very Buddhist—see The Bhagavad Gita).

Therefore let us choose life, that we, and our Seed, may live; by obeying his voice, and cleaving to him, for he is our life, and our prosperity:

Let us choose life: it’s a very positive, very idealistic, beatific closing to the excerpt and the sermon. Winthrop even wrote it out in verse (I didn’t do that here for space reasons). Choose life that we may live, choose God for God is life. This sermon must have truly inspired the Puritans who heard it, in part because it did not confirm their virtue but challenged it. It is an exhortation to do better than they normally would, to try harder, to aim higher. It is not a smug confirmation that they are the best people in the world and that whatever they do will be better than what anyone else does. It is a call to virtue and effort, love and compassion, sharing and helping that does Winthrop and his group credit. In that sense, it is the first of many other great American calls to idealism and justice, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation.