A History of the United States - Charles Kendall Adams

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but full of passions and prejudices that often brought him into conflict with the colonists. His opposition to all efforts to make the colonial government more liberal was intense. He disliked Roman Catholics and hated Puritans; hence such followers of Baltimore and such New Englanders as happened to enter Virginia’s borders, were soon made uncomfortable, as were also the Indians, who were vigorously put down in 1644. Berkeley and most of the Virginians sympathized with Charles I. in his struggle against Parliament to such an extent that after the death of that monarch the governor invited Charles II. to come to America. Charles was too wise to accept, but several thousand cavaliers did come, and thus the colony waxed strong.[32] Parliament did not fail, however, to assert its supremacy. It appointed, as its commissioners, William Claiborne, who had played such a disturbing part in Maryland affairs and was an enterprising trader, and Richard Bennett, a man of prominence and excellent character. It also sent a frigate to the Chesapeake; and with no struggle Berkeley was superseded in 1652 by Bennett, who was elected by the Burgesses. He and his successors ruled well, on the whole, and the colony prospered.

      44. Bacon’s Rebellion.—At this juncture, Nathaniel Bacon, a young member of the council, brave, honest, and hot-headed, raised, without orders, a private force and defeated the Indians (1676). Berkeley resented this unauthorized action and declared Bacon and his followers rebels. For several months a petty civil war went on, good fortune being with Bacon, who drove Berkeley out of Jamestown, and burned the place. The revolt would not have reached such dimensions had not the general situation been intolerable; but it was bound to be practically local, whatever may have been Bacon’s schemes for a general colonial uprising against the Crown. Even as a local movement it was soon ended, for Bacon’s premature death (October, 1676), whether from poison or fever, left no one to oppose Berkeley. The latter returned to power and continued his tyrannical course, executing no less than twenty-three of the leading rebels. This disgusted Charles II., who had shown much mildness toward his rebellious subjects in Great Britain. So Berkeley was recalled to England in 1677, and died there shortly after in disgrace.

      45. Berkeley’s Successors.—The Virginians hailed his departure with bonfires; but in spite of his faults, Berkeley’s career is a pathetic one. He had not moved with the times. His successors in office, on the other hand, moved too fast, for they imitated the corruption of the court at London and overawed the colonists in addition to taking money from them. There were six of these governors in twenty-one years. They quarreled with the Burgesses and kept the colonists in a ferment of riots and hangings; yet the population grew, and some progress was made. A new capital was established at Williamsburg, and the College of William and Mary was founded there in 1692 by Rev. James Blair.

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      Sir Henry Vane.

      47. Troubles between Massachusetts and the Crown.—Meanwhile persons who had been driven out for not conforming with the ideas of church and religion held by the majority of the citizens of Massachusetts, had complained to Archbishop Laud, and that prelate and other councilors had passed laws for securing religious uniformity, obviously aimed at Massachusetts. The colony was soon up in arms, but dispatched Edward Winslow to England to try first the force of pleading. The breaking up of the Plymouth Company complicated matters, and after legal proceedings the colony’s charter was declared null and void. The colonists silently refused, however, to surrender their charter, and were saved from further external trouble, for a time, by the civil turmoils in England itself.

      48. Domestic Difficulties.—Internal troubles beset them also, for they were as determined as their persecutors to have religious uniformity of their own kind. They drove out the noble pastor of Salem, Roger Williams, because he was opposed to giving political power to church members only. They disliked, moreover, his advocacy of liberal principles of toleration, as well as his theories limiting the king’s power to grant lands in America. Williams escaped in the winter of 1636, thanks partly to the kindness of Indians, to whom he was always a friend; in the spring of the same year he founded Providence Plantation on Narragansett Bay. Then Massachusetts was thrown into a ferment by a Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who preached certain theological doctrines distasteful to the mass of the Puritans, although agreeable to some of their leading ministers. In 1637 she was banished; whereupon some of her adherents betook themselves to the island of Aquidneck, afterward called Rhode Island, where she subsequently joined them. The affair seems ridiculous now, but it disturbed the colony and marked the beginning of a tyrannical policy of repression that had evil results (§ 55).

      49. Foundation of Rhode Island.—This intolerance led, however, to the more rapid settlement of New England, and was thus in part a power for good. The Hutchinsonians founded a town which they called Portsmouth, and thither, as well as to Providence, many discontented people flocked from Massachusetts, both settlements receiving bad names in consequence. In 1639 Newport was founded by Portsmouth people who dissented from Mrs. Hutchinson; but the next year the two towns united to form the colony of Rhode Island. In 1644 all the towns in the region joined to form the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, under a charter obtained by Roger Williams from the Parliamentarians. A separate charter was later obtained by a faction for Newport and Portsmouth; but finally, in 1654, the single colony was restored under Williams. It was a home of toleration, and as such reflects credit upon Roger Williams, its founder; but it was for a long time a home also of fanatics of all sorts.

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