Before calling the present series to a close, I would like
to offer a word or two on the subject of hyperbole. Specifically, there would
seem to be a worthwhile discussion to be had as to Warren’s use of exaggeration
within the text of The Adulterer, not
least of which in regard to the potential for misinterpretation among modern
readers of the same. As noted previously, the tragedy of Brutus, Rapatio, and
their shared homeland of Servia strikes a tone somewhere between satire and a
call to arms. And though plainly intended to represent certain events and
personalities relevant to late 1770s Massachusetts, it scenes and characters
were accordingly rendered with a somewhat broad brush. Its villains – the
aforementioned Rapatio and his cohorts – were not merely corrupt or unthinking,
but bloodthirsty, cruel, and inhumane. By this same token, its heroes – Brutus
and his fellow Patriots – were far more than conscientious and well-intentioned.
Rather, they were virtuous, self-sacrificing, and moved by an inextinguishable
love of country. The conflict that unfolds between them, therefore, is appropriately
stark in it moral contours. Warren gives no indication that she desires her
audience to sympathize with Rapatio or in any way question the motives of
Brutus and his compatriots. Granting that such an unambiguous portrayal of
political conflict surely served her purpose of rousing a people to action, it
also demands a certain amount of caution from those who would read The Adulterer in something other than
its original context. Lest one start to believe that Thomas Hutchinson was as
self-consciously evil as Raptio, or that the Massachusetts opposition was as
united in their opposition to the former as the Patriots of Servia were to the
latter, much of the content of The
Adulterer accordingly warrants further investigation.
To begin, consider a passage spoken by Cassius in Act I,
Scene I amidst his shared lament with Brutus over the pitiful state of to which
their homeland has been reduced. “Oh! Brutus,” he cries,
Our noble ancestors,
Who lived for freedom, and for freedom died:
Who scorned to roll in affluence, if that state
Was sickened over with the dread name of slaves:
Who in this desert stocked with beasts and men,
Whose untamed souls breathed naught but slaughter –
Grasped at freedom, and they nobly won it;
Then smiled and died contended.
Here, in brief, is Warren’s veiled tribute
to the founders of Massachusetts, the suffering they endured, and the personal
qualities of integrity and fortitude which allowed them to prosper amid the
wilderness of 17th century New England. So noble were these men,
Cassius asserts, and so hard they fought to build a home for themselves and
their offspring, that behaving with resignation towards the cruelty and
corruption of Rapatio and his supporters is tantamount to treason against them.
Brutus readily agrees with this sentiment – “Oh! Cassius,” he exclaims, “You
inspire a noble passion” – and several subsequent scenes revisit the theme of
legacy and generational obligation. Inspiring though this description of the
founding of Servia – aka Massachusetts – may have been, however, it represents
something of an oversimplification.
In fairness, the 17th century English Puritans who founded the colonies
of Plymouth (1620) and Massachusetts Bay (1628) were undeniably concerned with
and motivated by both the theoretical and practical significance of freedom.
Born of a movement within the Anglican Church intent on purging the faith of
what they perceived to be the lingering influences of Catholicism, the early
Puritans faced widespread institutional persecution during the reigns of James
I (1566-1625) and Charles I (1600-1649). Members were regularly imprisoned,
monitored, or otherwise harassed, leading many to conclude that their goal of
creating a “purified” church would likely be impossible to achieve from within
the established Anglican power structure. Separation, therefore, became a cause
to which many Puritans rallied, whereby freedom of religious practice could be
combined with isolation from potentially corrupting influences. While the
founders of Plymouth colony first sought refuge in the Netherlands in 1607,
both they and the founders of the colony of Massachusetts Bay ultimately
settled upon North America as the site of their dreamed-of “community of
believers.” Land patents were subsequently obtained via chartered stock
ventures like the New England Company and the London Company of Virginia, passages
were booked on vessels like the Speedwell,
the Arabella, and the celebrated Mayflower, and settlements were
eventually founded at places like Plymouth, Salem, and Charlestown. Between
1630 and 1640, amidst hard winters, bouts of starvation and disease, and intermittent
warfare with neighboring indigenous peoples, thousands more arrived in New
England. By 1643, the Plymouth Colony had swollen from one hundred souls in
1620 to approximately three thousand. During this same period, the
Massachusetts Bay Colony grew from a population of one thousand to twenty
thousand.
Free though these resettled Puritans now were to worship as they pleased, and cautious
though they often remained in their relationship with the British Crown, the
cited characterization of Cassius that his ancestors, “Lived for freedom, and
for freedom died” is somewhat wide of the mark when applied to the founders and
early governors of colonial Massachusetts. Though they would not qualify as
theocracies, wherein the Puritan religious establishment also functioned and
the principle organ of government, the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies
– and their combined successor, the Province of Massachusetts Bay – were home
to notably restrictive, censorious, and often draconian legal and social norms.
Not only were such behaviors as smoking, playing cards, certain types of
dancing, and working on the Sabbath grounds for criminal prosecution, but
punishments regularly included whipping, sitting in the stocks, banishment, and
death. Non-Puritan dissenters who had likewise fled England in search of religious
freedom meanwhile found themselves a particular object of scorn. Quakers were
eventually prevented from attaining citizenship in the Plymouth Colony, and
were often subject to arrest pending deportation upon their arrival in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. Under a law passed in 1658 making Quakerism a capital
crime, the latter jurisdiction went so far as to execute Marmaduke Stephenson,
William Robinson, Mary Dyer, and William Leddra in Boston Common between 1659
and 1661. Residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who either expressed unorthodox
religious ideas – like Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) or Rhode Island founder
Roger Williams (1603-1683) – or questioned the authority of the civil or
religions elite – like John Wheelwright (1592-1679) – were also subject to
expulsion, a far from merciful punishment considering the unforgiving nature of
the colonial hinterland and the harshness of New England winters.
As to the, “Desert stocked with beasts and men, / Whose
untamed souls breathed naught but slaughter [,]” Warren’s characterization of
the founding of Massachusetts once again valorizes the founders themselves by creating
a narrative seemingly free of moral ambiguity. The beasts that inhabited
colonial New England aside – whose hostility towards intruders upon their
territory could hardly be resented – the native inhabitants of the region were
far from bloodthirsty, ravenous, or prone to slaughter. Indeed, the first
Native American encountered by the settlers of the Plymouth Colony in 1621 –
members of the Abenaki, Wampanoag, and Patuxet – proved quite welcoming, and peaceful relations
were subsequently established that fostered both trade and mutual defence. Over
the years that followed, Plymouth colonists became increasingly involved in the
inter-tribal warfare that had long been a regular feature of life in
pre-contact New England. A conflict in 1622 between longstanding rivals the
Narragansett and the Wampanoag notably warranted an expedition by Plymouth
military officer Myles Standish (1584-1656) in aid of the latter, while the rumour
of a planned attack on the newly-founded village of Wessagussett led the same
militia leader Standish to orchestrate a pre-emptive strike whose results were
unexpectedly disastrous. Having killed a number of prominent native military
leaders under pretense of negotiation, Standish succeeded in causing a number
of neighboring tribes to flee the area for fear of similar treatment. The
departing natives, having sought refuge in lowland swamps and other areas
devoid of natural resources, then quickly fell victim to disease and starvation
while the Plymouth colonists suffered from the accompanying loss of reliable
partners in the burgeoning fur trade.
Relations
between contemporary Native Americans and the founders of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony proved about as destructive. Competition over access to valuable
European trade goods led to increased competition between already embittered
rivals like the Pequot and the Mohegan, a development skillfully exploited by
both the English colonists that had settled in New England and the Dutch in the
Hudson Valley. As the Europeans jostled for advantage in the fur trade, their
native allies increasingly sought to sabotage one another in an attempt to
attain a dominant position in the regional power dynamic. By the 1630s, this
struggle had led to increasing encroachment by Plymouth and Massachusetts
settlers on Pequot land, raids by Pequot allies on English villages in what had
been Pequot territory, and retaliatory attacks by English colonists on the
Pequot themselves. By 1638, the so-called “Pequot War” had seen an alliance of
New England colonies and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies almost
completely destroy the Pequot, with the surviving warriors either turned over
to their victorious rivals or reduced to slavery in Massachusetts Bay,
Connecticut, or Barbados. Although the Wampanoag – longstanding allies of the
New England colonists – came out ahead in this particular conflict, it was only
a matter of time before they suffered a similar fate as a result of their
relationship with the European newcomers.
Despite repeated promises of
friendship and mutual defense, Wampanoag chief Metacomet (1638-1676) became
embroiled in a dispute with the government of the Plymouth colony in the 1660s
after his brother and predecessor Wamsutta (1634-1662) was arrested by Plymouth
authorities for selling land to exiled Rhode Island founder Roger Williams.
Aware of Metacomet’s grievances towards the growing English colonial presence
in formerly Wampanoag territory, and alerted to rumours of a planned native
attack on the vulnerable villages of the New England interior, authorities in
Plymouth had him brought to trial in 1675 to answer the charge of fomenting war.
While eventually forced to concede that there was little hard evidence to
validate suspicions as to Metacomet’s supposedly belligerent intentions,
Plymouth officials did see to the arrest and execution of a trio of Wampanoag
implicated in the death of the native interpreter John Sassamon (1600-1675).
The ensuing exchange of raids and sieges occupied the better part of the next
three years, resulted in approximately three thousand native casualties, and
ended with the death of Metacomet and the destruction of a dozen colonial
settlements. The Narragansett and the Wampanoag – both former allies of the
Plymouth Colony – were almost completely eliminated as independent entities,
and survivors of the defeated tribes were once again carried off into slavery in
New England and the Caribbean. Known to history as King Phillip’s War
(1675-1678) after the name by which Metacomet was commonly known among the
population of New England, this early conflict remains among the bloodiest and
most devastating of the entire European colonial era.
Bearing
all of the above in mind, the cited memorialization by Cassius of the glory of
Servia’s – i.e. Massachusetts’ – founding might now be more clearly understood
for the selective retelling that it truly is. Though it doubtless served
Warren’s intended purpose of inspiring her countrymen to a defence of their
threatened liberties by recalling to them the legacy that current events were
then threatening to despoil, the facts of New England’s founding were hardly
cause for such rapturous veneration. The “noble ancestors” of Warren and her
Massachusetts compatriots could be said to have lived and died for freedom only
if one applies the term selectively. While the founders of the Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay colonies certainly departed England for North America for the
purpose of freely exercising their chosen faith, they also showed themselves to
be about as willing to persecute non-conformists as the Anglican authorities
from whom they themselves had fled. The unorthodox, the sceptical, and the radical
all suffered at the hands of the aforementioned colonial governments – whether
by exile or execution – with a special hatred seemingly reserved for members of
the Quaker faith. At the same time, while it cannot be denied that 17th
century New England suffered extensively at the hands of its Native American
neighbors – approximately one thousand colonists were killed over the course of
King Phillip’s War alone – said indigenous peoples neither instigated the
associated conflicts nor ultimately profited from them. Though the Wampanoag
and the Narragansett were among the first indigenous peoples to offer
assistance to the settlers of the Plymouth colony in the early 1620s, both had
been almost completely destroyed by the end of the 1670s at the hands of this
same community of English transplants. Meanwhile, after helping to encourage
increased competition and conflict between the Pequot and their traditional
rivals in the 1630s, the settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ultimately brought
about this tribe’s eradication and enslavement by the end of 1638.
Even
Warren’s assertion that the people of Servia/Massachusetts scorned to, “Roll in
affluence, if that state / Was sickened over with the dread name of slaves” fails
to entirely capture the complexity of New England’s colonial past. Assuming
that this passage was intended to convey the unwillingness of the founders of
Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth to easily submit to Crown authority out of a
sense of caution and jealously for the rights and liberties that they had
secured for themselves, some credit is due to the notion at its heart. The
first settlers of what by the 1770s had become the Province of Massachusetts
Bay had indeed departed their English homeland out of a refusal to acquiesce to
the spiritual supremacy of the Church of England. The relationship between the
colonies that they subsequently founded in North America and the Crown under
which those colonies were chartered was consequently and understandably given
to tension and suspicion, particularly as concerned the enforcement of commerce
regulations – the Navigation Acts (1651, 1660, 1663, 1670, 1673) – and the
continued refusal of Puritan authorities in Massachusetts Bay to permit the
local establishment of the Church of England. The events of the English Civil
War (1642-1651), the establishment of the Commonwealth (1649-1660), and the
eventual Restoration (1660-1685) further complicated matters by both
temporarily weakening Parliamentary oversight of the England’s colonial empire
in North America – thus permitting individual colonies to broaden the scope of
their various prerogatives – and heralding the ascension of a particularly activist
monarch who sought to streamline colonial administration.
Charles II (1630-1685) took a far
greater interest in colonial affairs than his father Charles I (1600-1649) ever
had, with a focus on eliminating waste, enforcing existing law, and resolving
longstanding conflicts or inconsistencies. From this perspective, New England
was ripe for reform. The aforementioned Navigation Acts were being continually
flouted by merchants who had grown accustomed to trading with agents in other English
colonies, the colonies of other European powers, or those European powers
themselves. The Massachusetts Bay Colony also continued to refuse the Anglican
Church the right to establish itself in the territory of the former, with the
government thereof stubbornly resisting all attempts at accommodation. The
Plymouth Colony had meanwhile yet to formally secure a governing charter –
having existed for forty years on nothing more than a land patent – the
ownership of land in what is now Maine was being disputed by multiple grantees,
and the New Haven Colony (est. 1638) was actively harboring Edward Whalley
(1607-1675) and William Goffe (1605-1679), two of the so-called “regicides” that
had sentenced Charles I to death in 1649. Seeking to eliminate all of these
problems at a single stroke, Charles II and his ministers set about revoking
the charters of the various colonies in New England so that they could be
collectively reconstituted under a single, centralized government. The charter
of Massachusetts Bay, granted by Charles I in 1629, was consequently annulled
in June, 1684.
The resulting union of colonies –
established in 1686 as the Dominion of New England – proved something less than
the ringing success that Charles II and his ministers might have hoped. Owing
to his death in 1685, the unpopularity of his brother and successor James II
(1685-1689), the ensuing overthrow of the Stuart dynasty – subsequently
referred to as the “Glorious Revolution” – and the rather heavy-handed rule of
the Dominion’s appointed governor Sir Edmund Andros (1637-1714), Crown
authority in New England essentially collapsed in 1689 following popular
revolts in Boston and New York City. While most of the affected colonies
successfully reverted to their previous charters – indeed, Connecticut claimed
never to have recognized the Dominion government – Plymouth and Massachusetts
Bay subsequently found themselves in something of a quandary. As mentioned
previously, Plymouth had no charter to fall back on, and popular opposition to
the restoration of the 1629 charter of Massachusetts Bay – in no small part
awakened by the break with Puritan rule witnessed during the years of the
Dominion – placed the government thereof on shaky legal ground in attempting to
re-establish its authority. In consequence, agents from both colonies spent
several years petitioning the newly-installed joint-monarchs William III
(1650-1702) and Mary II (1662-1694) to grant them new charters. Aware that the
recreation of the previous government in Massachusetts Bay would almost
certainly result in the Puritan elite once again asserting their accustomed
hegemony – to the detriment of the Church of England, of which they were now
the Supreme Governors – William and Mary thus determined instead to combine the
two petitioning colonies under a single charter as the Province of
Massachusetts Bay in 1691.
Returning
once more to the cited speech by Cassius, the extent of Warren’s rhetorical
streamlining becomes clearer still. Though she attempted to assure her fellow
countrymen that their shared ancestors had scorned the wealth and preferment
presumably offered by the Crown in exchange for the submission of their
accustomed liberties, the facts of the matter paint a far more complicated
picture. Far from rejecting affluence, the ministers and merchants of
Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth doubtless understood that freedom from external
regulation was in fact crucial to securing the wealth and well-being of their
respective colonies. Acquiescing to the Navigation Acts – and in a larger sense
to the authority of Parliament – would have surely reduced the profit margins
of New England traders by restricting their market access and increasing the
number of tariffs they would be obliged to pay. Historical rejection of Crown
authority, therefore, had perhaps about as much to do with prosperity as it
ever did with principle. And furthermore, as the aftermath of the Dominion of
New England would seem to demonstrate, even principle had its breaking point.
Granting that the relevant authorities in Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay sought to re-assert their accustomed modes of government
rather than usher in a wholly new one, the fact remains that both colonies
spent the latter years of the 1680s actively seeking out royal sanction. This
was, of course, in spite of the numerous conflicts Plymouth and Massachusetts
Bay had endured over the course of their existence vis-à-vis the Crown, the
generally obstinate character of New England’s Puritan leadership, and the
rather unabashed power grab that was the Dominion experiment. At a moment of
crisis, and notwithstanding the fact that the English monarchy and its
government had often shown themselves to be either suspicious of or hostile to
the entire New England colonial project, contemporary authorities in Plymouth
and Massachusetts Bay turned to royal validation as a source of stability and
support. From resisting close official oversight, they had taken to inviting
it. Thus, for the first time in its existence as an independent entity,
Massachusetts Bay became a Crown Colony, with a Royal Governor and Crown-appointed
officers. The Puritan grandees responsible may not have sought this outcome,
but in light of the weakness of their position – on uncertain legal ground and
in the midst of the North American theatre of the Nine Year’s War (1688-1697) –
they would have been exceedingly short-sighted not to have foreseen it. The
result, while constituting a status far from the “dread name of slaves” to
which Warren referred, was neither the rapturous, hard-fought freedom to which
text of The Adulterer so often
alluded.
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