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MASSACHUSETTS THEOCRACY
IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE: 1630-1686

by

Bessie Katherine Brown

A THESIS
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English
1952

/o-/‘/‘

~...,-.

PREFACE

A knowledge of Puritan society is particularly
important to an understanding of seventeenth century
literature. Probably in no other period of American
literature does so much of the writing concern basic
social or political or economic problems of the day. The
Puritan writers were leading political or church figures.
Their characters and ideas helped shape the young colonies
of the new world but these men were also in turn highly
influenced by the environment surrounding them. What that
environment was is basic to any understanding of Puritan
literature.

Reading in the sources of that period has convinced
me that our present-day knowledge of Puritan society is
far from complete. Life in early Massachusetts as revealed
in the writings of John Winthrop, John Cotton, Nathaniel
Ward and others does not seem to coincide with modern
secondary accounts. And even secondary accounts do not
always agree. Sometimes within a single work gross in-
consistencies appear. The only logical conclusion to be
drawn is that more needs to be known of the period. we
need to dig deeper into the roots of Puritan society and
examine more thoroughly what we find.

My aim in the following study is to dig a bit deeper --

.-1-

ii

as deep as local materials permit -— into Puritan
Massachusetts society. What was the basic social and
political structure of the Bay colony? What was the
relationship between the church and the state? The
writings of the Puritan leaders provide many clues and
those clues can be substantiated by examining the existing
laws, town records, deeds, wills and other documents of
that day. Through such accounts, it is quite possible
to piece together a sketch of colonial Massachusetts in
the early days and as a result to iron out many of the
inconsistencies found in secondary works. It is unfor—
tunate that only printed sources are available here, but
even with these a rough picture of the basic structure of
the society can be outlined.

I wish to thank Dr. Claude Newlin for his kind help
in the preparation and writing of this thesis and I also
would like to thank Dr. Anders Orbeck for his advice

and for his generosity with his time.

TABLE OF CONTENT

Chapter Page

I Interpretations of the Puritan Period . . . . 1
II Aristocracy -- Puritan Brand . . . . . . . . 20
III Legal Qualifications for Freemanship . . . . 31

IV FreemanShip in Praetice o o o o o o o o o o o 64

<

Flexibility in Puritan Society . . . . . . . 87
VI State Supersedes Church in Real Power . . . . 105
VII Conclusion . . . . . . .-. . . . . . . . . . 118
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

CHAPTER I
INTERPRETATIONS OF THE PURITAN PERIOD

One of the difficulties confronting the student of
Puritan literature today is the varied interpretations of
the period found in secondary works. Not only do author-
ities differ among themselves but also they are often
inconsistent on some fundamental points within their own
work. It is important, therefore, to consider these varied
views.

The usual story of the develOpment of the Bay colony
in current literature stresses the consistent rule of the
many by the few. Massachusetts, we are told, was not a
democratic society from its beginning in 1629 until the
arbitrary governor Andros took over in 1686. The colony
was divided into political classes -- the minority who
could vote and the majority who could not. Rigid social
class distinctions also are said to have existed, and these
classes, according to some writers, had a decided economic
flavor. The wealthy gentlemen who were freeman and elders
of the church kept their station and were distinct from
the many inhabitants and servants in the colony. And.the
church and state worked closely together to keep these
political and social lines intact. The official Puritan
church leaders were the interpreters of the law, and as

such, we are told, had very great influence and power.

-1-

A few examples will show what this accepted interpretation
has been.

V. L. Parrington's view of early Massachusetts,
expressed in his widely-used Main Currents 9; American
Thought, might well be taken as typical. The "stewards
of theocracy" wielded vast power and the great majority
had no voice in the government except for "trivial matters"
of a local nature. "It was an oligarchy of Christian
grace," Parrington declared. "The minister was the trained
and consecrated interpreter of the divine law, and the
magistrate was its trained and consecrated administrator;
and both were chosen by free election of the Saints. If
unfortunately the Saints were few and the sinners many,
was not that a special reason for safeguarding the Ark of
the Covenant from the touch of profane hands? Hence all
legislative experiments by annually elected deputies, no
matter how exactly those experiments might fall in with
the wishes of the majority, were sternly frowned upon or
skillfully nullified . . . . Unregenerate and sinful men
must have no share in God's work. The Saints must not
have their hands tied by majority votes. This explains,
quite as much as mere love of power, the persistent
hostility of the leaders to every democratic tendency.”
Even the town meeting, continued Parrington, "was safe-
guarded by limiting the right of voting to freemen [i.e.
church members], except in a few trivial matters; and the

more popular deputies, who inclined to become self-willed,

were forced to accept the principle of magisterial Veto
on their actions."1
Other popular textbooks paint a similar picture of
the Bay colony as a highly undemocratic state. John D.
Hicks writes that in early Massachusetts Bay "Church and
state worked together, each to uphold the other, the state
sustaining the decisions of the church, and the church
proclaiming through its ministers the supremacy of the
state. Early Massachusetts was not a democracy; it was an
aristocratic theocracy.”2 T. J. Wertenbaker describes it
as "an oligarchy, since from its inception it was the
government of the many by the few, a government by the
comparatively small body of Church members."3 And in his
monumental history on the colonial period, C. M. Andrews
claimed that by 1634, "the success of the freemen was
complete and from this time on a limited number of men --
at best a few hundreds in a total of twenty thousand
inhabitants -- controlled the government. A privileged
class was in command, whose deputies in no way represented

the colony as a whole."4

 

1v. L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought,
I, 21 "“"'"

2John D. Hicks, The Federal Uni n, I, 29.

3Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oli arch ,
p. viii.

4Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period 9; American
History, I, 443.

The cornerstone of the seventeenth-century theocracy,
according to most modern authorities, was the religious
restriction placed on the franchise. In 1631, the general
court passed a law declaring "that for time to come noe man
shalbe admitted to the freedome of this body polliticke,
but such as are members of some of the churches within the
lymitts of the same."5 G. H. Haynes, the father of many of
the current theories on Massachusetts theocracy, writing in
1894, described the results of the 1631 restriction in this
way: "But from this time on citizenship was made an inci-
dent of church membership. A small minority here decreed
that for time to come the government should continue in
the hands of a small minority." The aim, he continued, was
moral -- "to establish a genuine aristocracy, a rule of
the best."6 In later years most writers have agreed
essentially with Haynes. As T. J. Wertenbaker phrased it,

the law placed a "drastic restriction on the franchise."7

 

5Records 9; the Governor and Comhany g; the Massachu-

getts Bay 19 New England, I, 87. Hereafter this work will
be cited as Mass. Records.

6G. I. Haynes, Histor 9; Re resentation and éhffrage
;h_hhssachusehh§, 1620-; 91, p. l . For other secondary
views of similar nature on the 1631 restriction see V. L.
Parrington, Maih Currents, I, 24; J. T. Adams, Thg Founding
9; New England, p. 253; Curtis P. Nettels, Th2 Roots 9;
American Civilization, p. 169; Paul Erasmus Lauer, Churgh
2 Q State ;h_New Englahg, p. 57.

7T. J. Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oligarchy, p. 65.

5

A somewhat different attitude is taken by the co-authors
Morison and Commager. They comment that the "franchise
was restricted to church members, which prevented non-
Puritan participation in the government; but this did not
matter in the long run." What did matter, they emphasize,
was the early Massachusetts organization for independence
from Great Britain.8 And still another authority pointed
out that, strange as it may seem, even when the deputies
enacted "their constitutional revolution" in 1634, at which
time the general court wrote down many laws, defined
powers, and established the representative system, they did
not change this religious restriction. So, he concluded,
"at the outset the magistrates more than halved the problem
of domestic rule, and transformed the republican government
of the charter into a sort of religious soviet."9

Even the change in the law in 1664, making possible
freemanship through property qualifications, did not alter
essentially the aristocratic control of the colony, accord-
ing to these writers. In practice, they say, religious
restrictions continued in force until the end of Puritan

10
rule. And J. T. Adams pointed out that the property

 

8Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, The
Growth 2; the Amenhhan Republhg, I, 55.

9PerrZ Miller, Orthodogy 12 Massachusehhh 1630-1650,
pp. 243-24 .

10Thomas Hutchinson, The History 9; the Colony 9;
Massachusetts-Bay . . ., p.26; T. J. Wertenbaker, Thg
Puritan OligarchY. p. 305; Paul E. Lauer, Church hhd
State gh New England, pp. 57-65; G. H. Haynes, Regre-
hsntation and Suffrage, p. 57.

restriction alone would have excluded most men from
freemanship -- "not one man in a hundred was said to have
the property qualification" required.11

Various estimates are given on the percentage of
freemen in the total Massachusetts population, but most
writers agree they were a small minority. J. T. Adams
states that "three quarters of the population" persistently
refused to join the church, and, of course, joining the
church was a prerequisite to becoming a freeman.12 Haynes
asserted that Massachusetts leaders "did not hesitate to
adopt a course which must inevitably exclude three-fourths
of their fellow-colonists from all share in the govern-
ment . . . ."13 Another authority phrased his estimate
in terms of "adult males." From the enactment of the
church restriction law onward to the close of the rigid
Puritan rule, "the male citizens deprived of the full right
of citizenship were increasing in the majority outnumbering
those who enjoyed it. Probably the estimate was correct
which gave the proportions between them as five to one."l#
It should be emphasized that one writer states that three-

fourths of the "population" were excluded from the ”church,"

 

11J. T. Adams, The Founding of New En land, p. 331.

121mm, p. 144.

13G.'H. Haynes, Representation and Suffra e, p. 16;

sez also William Sweet, The Story of Religion in America,
p. 8.

1A‘George Ellis, The Puritan Age and Rule in t e Colony
9; the Massachusetts Ba , 1629-1685, p. _203.

7
another says three-fourths of the "fellow-colonists" were
excluded from the "government," and the third one states
thatxbgzgehifszfive-males were excluded from the franchise,
but all are discussing the same problem. The population
of course included minors and women, and three-fourths of
the total population would add up to quite a different sum
than one out of five adult males.

One writer who takes issue with J. T. Adams and his
statement that four out of five were not Puritans in New
England is S. E. Morison. Morison cites figures to show
that the percentage of church members and voters was much
higher than Adams indicated in the early part of the
century. In Roxbury in 1638-40, he claims, there were 69
men listed as householders, 58 of whom were church members
and Voters}5 Such vast differences in the Opinions of
modern authorities are difficult to reconcile.

Existing political divisions were merely a part of
the general rigid class structure found in Puritan Massa-
chusetts, according to most current authorities. "The
capable leaders who created the early institutions of

Massachusetts Bay colony,”

wrote V. L. Parrington, "were
Jacobean Englishmen of middle station, half-way between
the aristocrat and the burgess, with certain salient

characteristics of both. Fashioned by a caste society,

 

15Samuel Eliot Morison, Builders 9; the Bay Colony,
Appendix, pp. 340-341.

they transported to the little commonwealth an abundant
heritage of class prejudice. They aspired to be reckoned
gentlemen and to live in the new world as they had lived
in the old, in a half feudal state, surrounded by many
servants and with numerous dependents. They honored rank,
were sticklers for precedence, respected class distinctions,
demanded the hereditary rights of the gentry. They had
been bred up in a static order where gentlemen ruled and
the people obeyed, and they could not think in terms of
the Plymouth plantation covenant, subscribed by all heads
of families."16 G. H. Haynes, apparently in agreement
with Parrington, believed that class lines in early
Massachusetts were "much more sharply drawn" than in
Plymouth. In the Bay colony the "gentry" were definitely
distinguished from the "generality" and it was for the
gentry that the assistants' positions were reserved}:7
Some writers prefer to add a touch of economic flavor
to these class divisions. Parrington wrote that Massachu-
setts leaders "cautiously undermined any potential dis-

affection by admitting the wealthiest and most influential

to the rights of freemen, thus allying the ambitious and

 

16V; L. Parrington, Main Currents, I, 18.

17G. H. Haynes, Representation and Suffrage, p. 233

see also Harvey Wish, Society and Thought gh Early
Americ , p. 35.

9
capable members of society with the ruling group, and
laying the foundations of a provincial aristocracy . . . ."18
A local historian of Ipswich, Thomas Franklin Waters, was
very outspoken on this point. "Probably there is no nation
of the Old World where the lines of division between the
rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the master
and the servant were drawn more sharply. The aristocracy
of old Ipswich was asdefinite and as haughty a body, it may

be, as the aristocracy of London."19

Another writer, some-
what less extreme, pointed out that ”genuine power resided
in the hands of an orthodox minority whose leaders acquired
extensive land grants for themselves."20 So according to
some authorities, Puritan Massachusetts had not only a
religious aristocracy but an economic one as well.

While it is true that current historians agree in
general that seventeenth-century Massachusetts was an
aristocratic theocracy, some historians, writing shortly
before the turn of the twentieth century, did not consider
it a society where the sinners were many and the saints few.
Mellen Chamberlain gave a graphic description of the results
of his research on the subject: "My idea of a seventeenth-

century Massachusetts town_is, that it was almost exclusively

an agricultural community, having little or nothing to do

 

18V. L. Parrington, Main Currents, I, 22.

19Thomas Franklin waters, Ipswich $9 the Massachusetts
Bax Colon , I, 106.

3420Harvey Wish, Society and Thought 12 Early America,
p. e

10
with manufactures except of the simplest kind, or trade,
or with anything in which 'stock' could be taken. Beyond
assurance of their own lands, and of their interest in
common lands, the just levy and economical expenditure of
communal taxes, the education of their children and the
care of their souls, their interests, wants, and desires
were few and of the simplest kind, and will not bear being

raised by the imagination;

I.
eeeeeeeeeoeeeeeeeeeeeeeso

"That the whole body of people within a town consisted,
first, of those who had been admitted freemen of the colony;
secondly, of those who by original voluntary association or
by subsequent vote expressed or implied, had become perman- ,
ent residents; thirdly, of that miscellaneous class of
people who, as servants and laborers, were mainly adjuncts
to families and had little stake in society; and lastly,
all other persons, as women and children, not usually
reckoned as members of the body politic of a town;

”That in the early years of towns, as their records
indicate, the first three classes above mentioned, without
strict regard to their several rights, assembled 'in
general meeting of the inhabitants,’ and there, without
much formality in their proceedings, disposed of their
few and simple communal affairs; but as these became more
complicated or of greater magnitude, the legal rights of
these several classes were more sharply defined and strictly

enforced. The freemen, legally inhabitants of the town,

11
were the sole electors of all colonial officers, deputies
to the General Court, and voters on questions of a public
nature as distinct from those merely communal; and though
there seems to have been no uniform rule or practice in
all towns, that which appears to have been most common was
for all adult inhabitants, whether freemen or landholders
or otherwise, to vote on all questions of communal affairs;

and this was made law in 1641."?1

Chamberlain obviously
does not consider an early Bay colony town a highly un-
democratic class-ridden community. And his contemporary,
C. F. Adams, also writing in 1892, believed that in
practice there were probably few attempts to exclude all
but legal voters from town meetings and elections. He
cited among other evidence the language usedin the town
records and the fact that even some of the selectmen were
not listed on the freemen's lists.22 And from this he
concluded that, law or no law, there was a good deal of
democracy practiced in early Massachusetts.

Much emphasis in current writings has been placed on

the highly influential role of the church in Puritan

politics,23 but on this point too a number of writers in

 

21Mellen Chamberlain, "Remarks . . ." in Mass. Hist.
Society Proceedings, 2nd series, VII, 241-242. Jan.1892.

22Charles F. Adams, "Gensis of the Massachusetts Town"
in Mass. Hist. Society Proceedings, 2nd series, VII, 207-210.

23See for example V. L. Parrington, Main Currents, I,
124-125 and Part I and II, passim; J. D. Hicks, The Federhl
Union, I, 29.

12
the late 19th century hold quite a different view. They
stress the fact that the Massachusetts church and state
were in reality quite separate. Ellis claimed that in
Massachusetts "The enterprise and scheme of colonization
were inspired by laymen, and their ministers were called
in to be their advisers and helpers. From first to last
this was the relation here between those two classes of
men."24 C. F. Adams, writing a few years later, declared
the church and state were far from being practically one,

"25 And Mellen

were actually kept "remarkably distinct.
Chamberlain, commenting on Adams' ideas quite agreed.
"However influential the clergy [in Puritan Massachusetts]
may have been, -- and their influence can hardly be over-
estimated, -- they had neither place in government, nor
summons to the General Court, nor voice there unless asked,
and no more political power in the affairs of State, town,

or church than other freemen. Nor was their loss of
comparative influence in later days by reason of their
elimination from the Constitution: they were never in it."26
The role between the Puritan church and state, it seems,

‘

needs some additional investigation.

 

24George Ellis, The Puhhtan Age, p. 190.

25Char1es F. Adams, "Genesis of the Massachusetts
Town" in Mass. Hist. Society Proceedings, 2nd series, VII,
210.

26Mellen Chamberlain, "Remarks . . ." in Mass. Hist.
Society Proceedings, 2nd series, VII, 228. Jan. 1892.

13
Differences of opinion on some vital issues also
occur among current writers. While most authorities in
recent times seem to agree that the freeman were only a
small percentage of the total population and therefore
provincial government was definitely aristocratic, they
are not in agreement about the local franchise. "The

town meeting,‘ wrote Parrington, "which was extra-legal

under the charter, was safeguarded by limiting the right

of voting to freemen, except in a few trivial matters.. . ."27
But C. M. Andrews did not entirely agree. He stressed that
although until 1648 the commonwealth was controlled by a
small body of freemen, after that time every man who had
taken the oath of fidelity and was twenty-four years old
could vote in town meetings and could move or petition

for anything. So by 1652 all Massachusetts men possessed
some share in local and general government.28 J. D. Hicks,
one of the most popular and influential current historians,
and one who previously characterized Massachusetts as an
"aristocratic theocracy," goes even further than Andrews.
Apparently town government in his view was democratic even
before 1648. "In the government of the Town, these same
ideas of democracy prevailed. All matters of importance

related to local government were at first brought before

the town meeting, to which usually all the church members,

 

27V. L. Parrington, Main Currenth, I, 21; see also
J. T. Adams, The Founding 9; New England, p. 152.

280. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period, I, 459-460.

14
or perhaps even all the citizens, were entitled to come . . . .
The town itself was also the unit from which members were
chosen to the lower house of the colonial legislature, and
for this purpose ordinarily once each year the voters

convened."29

And finally Morison and Commager expressed
the view that "everyone took part" in the town meeting
which settled local affairs.3o

Although recent authorities in general label early
Massachusetts an aristocratic theocracy, there are so many
important inconsistencies found within their own stories
that one cannot help but suspect their entire interpreta-
tions. Part of this confusion results from a frequent
lack of differentiation between local and provincial
previneial political matters. The assumption is often
made that since only the freemen -- supposedly a minority --
could vote in provincial elections, that is sufficient
evidence to say Massachusetts in general was an oligarchy,
and local politics are ignored in the total outline.
Inconsistencies in minor details can readily be forgiven
and overlooked, but when they are found in matters of funda-
mental importance, they should be treated as an indication

that something is wrong.

The fallacies in V. L. Parrington's general interpreta-

 

29J. D. Hicks, The Federh; Union, I. 57.

305. E. Morison and H. s. Commager, The Growth _: the
American Republic, I, 56.

15
tion will become most apparent when compared with the
views found in the sources, a problem to be taken up at
a later point. It is sufficient to point out here one
type of error he made in handling his evidence.- He
succeeded in thoroughly confusing the struggle between the
deputies, who were freemen, and the magistrates, who were
also freemen, with the supposed struggle of the unenfran-

31 It is obvious that the two

chised to gain some power.
controversies cannot be mixed -- the one concerned a
struggle within the "oligarchy" and the other between the
oligarchy and an outside force. And as a result of his
confusing the two disputes he sometimes called the deputies,
who were freemen of course and therefore full-fledged
members-of the oligarchy, "representatives of the people."32
J. T. Adams made a similar logical blunder. He also
confused the struggle between the deputies and magistrates
with the demands for enlarged franchise. "It was clear
that real grievances and the democratic influences at work
in the town meeting were likely to deveIOp into attacks
upon the arbitrary power of the very limited body of
freemen. The form that the struggle assumed was that of
a contest, lasting twenty years, between the deputies and

the magistrates, with the influence of the clergy constantly

on the side of the latter." And later in the same work,

 

31v. L. Parrington, Main Currents. I. 16-50 especially-

321bid., p. 21.

16

in discussing the argument over the adoption of the Cam-
bridge Platform by the general court, he pointed out that
the Assistants adopted the Platform unanimously "but the
.deputies, representing public opinion rather than the
oligarchy, repeated their opposition of several years
earlier.”33 He ignored his major premise that the deputies
were not only part of the oligarchy but leaders of it.

Adams presented another basic contradiction within his
book which should make any student of the period stop and
think. After stressing the fact that one of the two major
elements in the political history of Massachusetts under
the old charter was "the struggle of a part of the colonists
themselves, for toleration and liberty, against the govern-
ing class,"34 and that owing to the church-membership
restriction test for franchise, "the unenfranchised class
was so large, and the disadvantage under which it labored
was so palpably unjust, that the demand for reform was

growing steadily louder,"35

he startles the reader by
concluding that after all,the ordinary man in early Massa-
chusetts probably cared no more about government than the
ordinary man elsewhere. "In fact," he wrote, "at a little
later period, the more accurate election returns would seem

to indicate that he then cared even less. The small minority

 

33J. T. Adams, The Founding _; New England, pp.154-155,
257.

34Ibid., pp. 155-156.
351bid., p. 253.

17
that ran the government and the churches was naturally
active and vocal. But the fact that four-fifths of the
people were reasonably content to join no church, and to
have no voice in the government, certainly does not argue,
in that time and place, any very high degree of political,
religious, or intellectual interest as compared with the
rest of America."36 Such logical somersaults are a bit
alarming when they concern a fundamental issue.

One other writer, whose opinion must be considered by
any student of the period, also presents fundamental in-
consistencies. In discussing how broad was the religious
base of the Massachusetts government, C. M. Andrews wrote;
"White, in The Planter's Plea, written in 1630, says that
at that time 'at least three parts of foure of the men
there planted, are able to justify themselves to have lived
in a constant course of conformity' unto the government
and orders of the Church of England, but the swing toward
nonconformity and separation was undoubtedly rapid as the
years passed and the population increased." In time, he
continued, four classes in the pepulation appeared -- the
freemen "always a minority in every town and in the colony
as a whole," the church members who never offered to become
freemen, the inhabitants who were neither freemen nor
church members "but who had taken the oath of fidelity

and therefore were in accord with the general purpose and

 

351mm, p. 443.

18

aims of the colony,"

and finally those who were neither
freemen nor church members and so were "in the colony

but not of it." "It is impossible," he went on, "to
conjecture, even roughly, what were the relative sizes

of these four groups." But he promptly does the impossible--
he guesses that the third group was the largest, the second
the smallest, "and the fourth the only one, the loyalty

of which to Puritan principles can be seriously questioned."37
So, according to Andrews, Puritan Massachusetts contained
four major groups, the size of which are impossible to
estimate -- "even roughly." But he then proceeded to do
the impossible, made estimates of the relative size of
the groups, and came out with the decision that at least
three of the four groups were in sympathy with Puritan
aims. But after all this, a few pages later he character-
ized Massachusetts from 1634 on as undemocratic, as a
society in which "a privileged class was in command, whose
deputies in no way represented the colony as a whole."38
It is difficult to understand why an authority such as
Andrews would make these flagrant errors in logic, and go
so far as to build a whole interpretation on such a shaky
premise.

Errors such as those found in Parrington, Adams,

Andrews and others should serve as a warning signal that

 

37c. M. Andrews, The Colonial Perigg, I, 437-438.
381bid., p. 443.

19

the current views on the Puritans may need more investiga-
tion. Only one event happens or one condition exists at
any given time and an accurate description of the situation
written in 1890 would still be accurate in 1950. Why then
should seventeenth-century Massachusetts be described by
one writer as a simple agrarian community with much
democracy and by another as a society with sharp class
distinctions both in politics and social groups?

There is only one real way to solve problems of this
nature and that is to investigate as many of the sources
as possible and to base any conclusion on the evidence

found there.

CHAPTER II
ARISTOCRACY -- PURITAN BRAND

Before investigating contemporary works, a few key
terms should be discussed. Unfortunately words sometimes
have a subtle way of changing their meaning without changing
their outer dress. This fact keeps a reader constantly on
his guard, and can cause the historian much trouble. Two
words which have done just that are aristocracy and
democracy. Their radical shift in meaning from the days
of John Cotton to the present has apparently been unrecognized,
but an understanding of this change is necessary before one
can grasp the full meaning of the political ideas expressed
by Cotton and Winthrop.

Today we think of the terms aristocracy and democracy
as contrasting types of states. In an aristocracy, the
state is governed and the laws made by a small privileged
class which is not elected by the people and which retains
power either by custom, force or heredity. 0n the other
hand, democracy is a government in which the supreme power
is retained by the people and exercised generally indirectly
by their representatives. As Webster defined it: "Specifi-
cally, and commonly in modern use, a democracy is a
representative government where there is equality of rights
without hereditary or arbitrary differences in rank or

privilege, and is distinguished from aristocracy. In

-20-

21
modern representative democracies, as the United States
and France, the governing power, that is, the electorate,
is a minority of the total population, but the principle
on which the government is based is popular sovereignty."1
It is important to remember that today we call it democracy
when we delegate authority to elected officials to make
laws and to govern. The Puritans, I find, had another
name for it.

What we call democracy John Cotton would have called
aristocracy. If the people choose representatives to make
their laws and to govern them, that is aristocracy. In a
democracy, said Cotton, the people are the governors. He
clearly explained his understanding of these two political
terms in a letter to Lord Say and Seals written in 1636,
concerning the form of government in Massachusetts. "Nor
neede your Lordship feare (which yet I speaks with sub-
mission to your Lordships better judgment) that this corse
will lay such a foundation, as nothing but mere democracy
can be built upon it. Bodine confesseth, that though it
be status popularig, where a people choose their owne
governors; yet the government is not a democracy, if it
be administred, not by the peOple, but by the governors,

whether one (for then it is a monarchy, though elective)

or by many, for then (as you know) it is aristocracy. In

 

1Webster;h New International Dictionar g; the English
Language, 2nd ed., unabridged, p. 696.

22
which respect it is, that church government is iustly
denyed (even by Mr. Robinson) to be democratical, though
the people choose their owne officers and rulers."2 In
Cotton's view then, the government is defined by who and
how many do the ruling and not by how they came to power.
Our government today by his definition would be quite
aristocratic. And it is worth noting that Cotton did not
consider the church government of his day democratic.

John Winthrop apparently agreed with Cotton's general
interpretation and political philosophy. In Winthrop'g
objection to the type of petition sent to the general court
by some Roxbury freemen, he does not question the right
of the people to choose their leaders but he does resent
their resistance to laws not repugnant to the law of God.
Winthrop's own words best describe the philosophy of
Puritan aristocracy: "for when the peOple have chosen
men to be their rulers, and to make their laws, and bound
themselves by oath to submit thereto, now to combine
together (a lesser part of them) in a public petition to
have any order repealed, which is not repugnant to the law
of God, savors of resisting an ordinance of God; for the
people, having deputed others, have no power to make or
alter laws, but are to be subject; and if any such order

seem unlawful or inconvenient, they were better prefer

 

2Thomas Hutchinson, The History g: the Colony 9;
Massachusets-Bay . . ., 2nd ed., Appendix, p. 500.

23
some reasons, etc., to the court, with manifestation of
their desire to move them to a review, than peremptorily
to petition to have it repealed, which amounts to a plain
reproof of those whom God hath set over them, and putting
dishonor upon them, against the tenor of the fifth com-
mandment."3 On another occasion, Winthrop stated similar
beliefs. In his famous "liberty speech" made after being
acquitted in the Hingham affair, he wrote: "The great
questions that have troubled the country, are about the
authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people.
It is yourselves who have called us to this office, and
being called by you, we have our authority from God, in
way of an ordinance, such as hath the image of God eminently
stamped upon it. . . ." He continued by explaining that
a good servant was one who did not break his covenant. "The
covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of
us, which is to this purpose, that we shall govern you
and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws and our

"I It is obvious that

own, according to our best skill.
Winthrop does not question the peOple's right to elect
their rulers, but once elected, those rulers should be
obeyed. Such an opinion could hardly be expressed by an
aristocrat of modern definition, but this view is most

logical coming from an aristocrat of the Puritan brand.

Another writer of the same period also seemed to agree

 

3John Winthrop, Winthrop's Journal 1630-1649, I, 303.
AWinthrop, Journal, II, 238.

24
with Cotton. In a letter to a friend dated Boston, Octpber
13, 1640, Thomas Lechford discussed the Massachusetts
government and mentioned the election of magistrates and
ministers "in their owne way of popular or Aristocraticall
government."S Apparently Lechford had no sympathy with
Puritan "aristocracy" and feared their popular elections,
for he wrote to a friend: "Here is a good land, and yeilding
many good commodities, especially fish, and furs corne and
other richer things, if well followed, and if that popular
elections destroy us not."6 Popular elections, he believed,
”indanger people with war and a multitude of other in-
conveniences."7 There is no hint in Lechford's writings
that Massachusetts was an aristocracy in the modern sense
of the word.

In one aspect John Winthrop did give a slightly
different twist to the definition of hgistocracy and
democracy. He apparently would have agreed with Cotton
that in a democracy the power and administration is in
the people but he seemed to feel that elected officials
who represented a local area were to be considered a
democratic element. Although Winthrop called the Massa-

chusetts government a "mixt Aristocratie,” he added:

 

5Thomas Lechford, Plain Dealing: 0 Ne res from

New Ehgland (1642), in Mass. Hist. Society CQIIEctions
3 series, III, 123. Hereafter cited as Lechford, Plain

Dealing.
6Thomas Lechford, Note-book, 1638-1641, pp. 287-288.

 

7Lechford, Note-bogh, pp. 274-275-

25

"Where the chief Ordinary power & administration thereof
is in the people, there is a Democratic . . . the Deputies
are the Democraticall p'te of o'r Governmn't."8

Winthrop did not feel that Massachusetts was either a
pure aristocracy or a pure democracy. That he did not
believe it a "mere" aristocracy is evident when he related
the efforts of Lord Say to divert men from Massachusetts
to West Indies in 1640: "and, finding that godly men were un-
willing to come under other governors than such as they
should make choice of themselves, etc., they [1.e. Lord
Say etc.] condescended to articles somewhat suitable to
our form of government, although they had formerly declared
themselves much against it, and for a mere aristocracy, and
an hereditary magistracy to be settled upon some great

9 And in 1643 when he was discussing the

persons, etc."
quarrel between the magistrates and deputies over the
magistrates' negative vote, Winthrop wrote: "The deputies
generally were very earnest to have it taken away; whereupon
one of the magistrates wrote a small treatise wherein he
laid down the original of it from the patent, and the
establishing of it by order of the general court in 1634,

showing thereby how it was fundamental to our government,
10

which, if it were taken away, would be a mere democracy.”

 

8JOhn Winthrop, Life and Letters 9: John hinthrop,
II, 430, quoted in Parrington, Main Currents, I, 47.

9Winthrop, Jourhhl, I, 334.
loWinthrop, Journal, II, 120.

26
Winthrop believed that Massachusetts was a mixture of
aristocracy and democracy -- the magistrates and governor
were the aristocratic elements and the deputies the
democratic part.

There is evidence that Winthrop's definition of
Massachusetts government was a widely accepted view of that
day. In 1644, the Massachusetts elders helped to explain
the Puritan meaning of aristocracy by declaring that the
Massachusetts general court was not a pure aristocracy
but a mixture of aristocracy and democracy. And they
continued: "Accordingly, or patent, notwthstanding it
hath made or govrnmt mixed in respect of ye Genrall Cort,
yet it seemes to have instituted subordinate administrations
of iustice, to be aristocratically dispensed by ye Cort of
Assistants; yet even in these Corts there is some place
for a democraticall dispensation in respect of ye iurors."ll
At this time, the Massachusetts court of assistants acted
as judges but the jurors were elected from among and by
the freemen.12

Edward Johnson, too, agreed with Winthrop's definition
and its application to the Bay colony government. Writing
about 1652, he described the general court as part

aristocracy and part democracy. "The chiefs Court or

supreame power of this little Commonwealth, consists of

 

llMaSSe Records, II. 950

12Mass. Records, I, 118.

27

a mixt company, part Aristocracy, and part Democracy of
Magistrates, that are yearly chosen by the major Vote of
the whole body of the Free-men throughout the Country . . . 3‘13
But, unlike Winthrop, Johnson did occasionally refer to the
colony's government as "our Democracy" thereby emphasizing
the democratic element over the aristocratic.14

Apparently, then, like current writers, the Puritan
fathers believed they had an aristocracy, in part at least,
but their definition of aristocracy differed decidedly from
that of today. In physical makeup, their version of
aristocracy closely resembles our modern idea of democracy.
Officials were elected by the people and given authority
to rule. They also believed, as we do today, that laws
Once made should be obeyed. However, their verbal
definition of the two systems as well as their underlying
philosophy differed. In defining a government, they focused
attention on how many ruled, while today we focus attention
on how those rulers came to power. And they believed the
rulers, once chosen, were the spokesmen of God, while we
believe the rulers, once chosen, are still the servants of
the people. However, there is little doubt in my mind

that in practice the Puritan leaders were also very much

the servants Of the people for when they did not serve

 

13Edward Johnson, The Wonder-Working Providence 9;

§ions Saviour 19 New England 1 2 -1 5;-, pp. 140-141.
14Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, pp. 142-143.

 

28

the people well, out they went.15

In two other aspects -- that of wealth and heredity --
the Puritan "mixed aristocracy" is nearer to our under-
standing of democracy than to our present-day meaning of
aristocracy. In the modern connotation of the word
arippocracy, the small ruling class controls more than
their share of the community wealth and often comes to
power through heredity. Neither wealth nor heredity were
included in the Puritan concept of aristocracy, but a
sense of moral obligation on the part of the rulers was
included, a factor which has generally been pushed aside
in the modern definition. This element was incorporated
into the government structure very early in Massachusetts
by admitting no one to the franchise who was not a member
Of some church within the commonwealth, so that the body
of the commons "may be p'serued of honest & good men."16
Whether this law was actually made to preserve the moral
standard in government, as the Puritans said, or whether
it was a weapon of a few leaders to gain control -- the
common interpretation today -- remains to be seen later.
The important point to be noted here is that the Massa-
chusetts Puritans did include a high moral tone in their

connotation of aristocracy and they did not include riches

and hereditary rank.

 

15For example, see Winthrop, Journal, I, 143-144.
Dec. 11, 1634.

16Mass. Records, I, 87.

29

With the Puritan definition of aristocracy in mind,
I found it easy to reconcile two of John Cotton's opinions
which formerly had seemed a real contradiction. In the
.following often-quoted statement, Cotton seemed antagon-
istic toward democracy to say the least. "Democracy, I
do not conceyve that ever God did ordeyne as fitt govern-
ment eyther for church or commonwealth. If the people
be governors, who shall be governed? As for monarchy, and
aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approoved,
and directed in scripture, yet so as referrsth the
soveraigntie to himself, and setteth up Theocracy in both,
as the best forms of government in the commonwealth, as
well as in the church."17 But if John Winthrop had his
story straight, Cotton advocated a good deal of what we
call democracy today. Winthrop wrote that in a 1634
sermon outlining the powers Of various sections of govern-
ment, Cotton concluded "the ultimate resolution, etc.,
ought to be in the whole body of the people, etc., with
answer to all objections, and a declaration of the people's
duty and right to maintain their true liberties against
any unjust violence, etc., which gave great satisfaction

to the company."18

These two statements appear quite
contradictory on the surface, but after realizing that

Cotton thought of democracy only in the pure and theoretical

 

17"Letter from Mr. Cotton to Lord Say and Seal in
1636,” in Hutchinson, History, Appendix, pp. 497-498.

18Winthrop, Journal, I, 133-134.

30
sense and that he expected the people to elect their
governors in an aristocracy, these opinions are not
contradictory or hypocritical but very consistent.

The need for understanding the Puritan concept of
aristocracy is obvious. Without it we cannot grasp the
true meaning of the political ideas expressed by Winthrop,
Cotton, Ward and other Puritan leaders. But a grasp Of
the general concept is only part of the story. What did
these Puritan theories amount to in practice? Was the
democratic element of Massachusetts government an Athenian
democracy? Would not the Bay colony still be an aristocracy
in the modern sense if freemanship was limited to the few,
if the electorate was a definite minority of the adult
males? What type of government actually did exist in
early Massachusetts can only be solved by finding out
who were the freemen and relatively how many of them

there were.

CHAPTER III
LEGAL QUALIFICATIONS FOR FREEMANSHIP

The early laws of Massachusetts shed some light on
the problem of freemanship. These laws, of course, show
only the legal side of the picture and that, we know,
frequently differs from the practice. But the legal view
of the franchise will help, in part at least, to determine
the voting customs in the colony.

One thing to be kept in mind while attempting to
solve this issue is that even in our democracies today
the voting population is always a minority of the total
population. In the Puritan colony, just as in the United
States until very recently, all women and minors were
excluded from political activities. We still exclude
minors, considering even 18-year-olds too young to vote.
SO when we discuss the voting population in a "mixt Aris-
tocratie" or in a modern democracy, we are including only
a minority of the total population. Consequently any
figures or statements concerning population should be
specific for the sake of accuracy.

One more factor which must be kept in mind constantly
in discussing any phase of Puritan society is that early
Massachusetts was a real frontier. This fact played an
important part in the political thinking and planning of
that day but is easily forgotten in modern times. It is

-31-

32
difficult for us in this day of air travel and television
to transplant ourselves figuratively into a small group
of God-fearing people who had gained a toe-hold on a big
and unknown continent some three thousand miles and a
dangerous two months‘journey from home. A trip from
Cambridge to Boston was a day's journey, not a fifteen
minute ride in the subway. And the constant fear Of
hostile natives on land as well as enemy pirates on the
sea had its influence on Puritan customs and laws.

Furthermore, the religious atmosphere of early
Massachusetts is difficalt for modern readers to comprehend.
Today we readily accept the fact that the neighbor on our
left goes to the Lutheran church and the one on our right
to the Catholic and that our friends across the street
attend no church at all. But in early Massachusetts as
well as in most of the westecn world of that day, such
religious diversity would have been inconceivable. An
official church, sanctioned by the state, was an accepted
idea, not a radical one. Any person who challenged this
idea provided community scandal if not Official action.
We differ today too in another point in religious
psychology: God was much closer to the Puritans than he
is to us today. A great firs today would bring forth a
battery of inspectors who might trace it back to the
carelessness Of a cigarette smoker, but in seventeenth
century Massachusetts a great fire would have been the

punishment of an angry God, and possibly a day of fasting

33

would result. If we translate these attitudes into
political terms, the result is that whereas a law created
today is often looked upon as the result of compromise
between pressure groups, in the Puritan view, a law,
because it came into being, was sanctioned by the hand of
God. This type of thinking is difficult for us to under-
stand but if we are to comprehend Puritan society, we must
keep in mind their religious climate as well as their
physical frontier conditions.

In the Massachusetts franchise laws three words are
of special significance. To the Puritans inhabitant,
church member and freeman had connotations not found today.
The term inhabitant in early Massachusetts had both a
general usage as well as a very definite meaning which,
unlike today, carried with it certain specific rights and
privileges.. In its general usage, inhabitant included 4
all persons -- men, women and children -- either born and
reared in the town or allowed by the town selectmen or by
the town meeting itself to reside there.1 If a child left

town and later wanted to return, he had to be sanctioned

 

1Boston Town Rscordp, II, 97; Town Records 9: Salem,
Massachusetts, III, 100; Dorchester Town Records in Report
p; the Recopg Commissioners 9; php City 9; Boston, IV,
130-131. Hereafter the Salem records will be cited as
Salem Town Records and those of Dorchester as Dorchester
Towh,Recordp.

34
by the town.2 Apparently if a woman married, she auto-
matically became a legal inhabitant of the town where her
husband resided and the sanction Of the town in such cases
was not required.3 In more technical usage (the usage
which is most commonly found in the records), an inhabitant
was a male who had or hoped to have a house in the town,
had certain rights of commonage, had the town's protection
for himself (and for his family of course too), and in
practice at least, had some voice in town affairs.5
Servants, such as local sons, or others joined in covenant
with some neighbor, would of course be inhabitants. In
some towns servants from other places might be inhabitants,6
or, as in Boston, a servant might be allowed an inhabitant
after serving his time.7 Before 1650, the towns were not

too strict about allowing outsiders to become inhabitants,

but in the last half of the century, they were concerned

 

2Dorchester Town Records, pp. 163, 166, 224.
3Dorchester Town Records, p. 185.

4Boston Town Records, II, 51, 59, 63; §a1em Town
Records, II, 21.

5Magpachusetts Records 1, 111, 310; Boston Town
Records, II, 88, 135; Dorchester prn Records, p. 3;
Salem Town Records, II, 243; Thomas Lechford, Note-book,
pp. 242-243; Thp Body pg Liberties p; 1641 in The Colonial
Laws 9;; Massachusetts. Reprintgg from the Edition pi: 1666,
with php Supplements pp 16f2, pp. 35, 45. Hereafter the
1641 Body of Liberties will be cited as Body 9: Liberties
and the laws of 1660 as Mass. Lawp p; 1660.

6Dorchester Town Recordp, pp. 113-114, 131, 185.

7Boston Town Recordp, II, 42.

35

about admitting newcomers and frequently required some
trustworthy inhabitant to be responsible for the new
townsman.8

Church member also had special meaning for the Puritans
and needs some explanation for the modern reader. In the
early Bay colony church and congregation were Often used
synonymously as well as in their strict sense.9 All inhabit-
ants were required in most towns to attend regular church
meetings and as such were considered members of the
congregation.10 Some of those congregation members took
full communion and were then technically members of the
church, that is, they were eligible to receive the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper. However, the term church member was
frequently applied to either group. In the 1641 Body of
Liberties, for example, every "church" was guaranteed free
liberty of admission, recommendation, dismission or deposal

of Officers and members, and we know in practice this was

 

8Dorchester Town Records, p. 145; Boston Town Records,
VII, 64; II, 15, 103; Salem Town Records, III, 100.

98amuel Sewall, The History of Woburn, Middlesex

County, Mass., Appendix No. IV, p. 535 note.

1Onass. Records, I, 216-217, 140, 221; II, 177-178;
Mass. Laws g: 1665, p. 26; Ma or John Childe, "New-Englands
Jonas Cast up at London . . . in Peter Force, Tracts and
Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement,
and Progress of the Colonies in North America . . ., 4 vols.,
No. 3 in IV, p. 13. Hereafter this work will be cited
Childe, New-EnglandsJonap.

36
generally (but not always) done by the congregation as a

11 On the other hand, John Winthrop wrote of a

whole.
magistrate's fourteen-year-old son "being received into
the congregation, upon good proof of his understanding in
the things of God" -- a process necessary when being re-
ceived into full communion.12 And later, in 1669, Rev.
Eliot's church records state very definitely that persons
were admitted "members of this church tho' not to full
Cofiunion."13
There is evidence, however, to indicate that in the
1631 law requiring church membership for the franchise the
idea was to limit the franchise to those in full communion.
This is revealed in the Massachusetts general court's
answer to the British king's letter of 1662 concerning
the colony's admission of freemen. The court related its
repeal of the former church restriction and described its
new order giving the franchise to those "in full comunion

th

w some church amongst vs," or to those who fulfilled

 

llBody of Liberties, p. 57; Winthrop, Journal, I, 53;
Lechford, Plain Dealing, p. 71; John Eliot, The Rev. John
Eliot' 3 Record of Church Members, Roxbury, Mass. in vol. VI
of Report 9; the _Recgrg Commissioners of the Cit y of Boston,
p. 100. Hereafter the latter work will be cited Eliot s
Roxbury Church Records.

12Winthrop, Journal, I, 120-121.

13Eliot' s Roxbury Church Records, pp. 89-90; see also
flilliamw Hubbard, General History of New England(1680) in
MasséBHist. Soc. Collections, 2 series, vols V and VI,
p. 5 .

37
certain other requirements.14 Furthermore, a check of
the list of church members in Roxbury with the official
freeman's list indicates that in Roxbury at least even
after 1650 the custom of taking the full communion before
taking the freeman's oath generally prevailed.15 So it
would seem, then, that although in common usage a church
member might be either just a member of the general con-
gregation or a member in full communion, in legal theory
and practice, church member most often meant a member in
full communion.

The third and final term which needs clarification
is freeman. Today we seldom use the word freeman except
in dealing with the past, but for a Massachusetts Puritan
the word was very much alive and had real meaning. Until
the middle 1640's in the Bay colony freeman was used in
two ways. The 1631 law defined a freeman as a member of
some church who had taken the oath of freedom.16 But it
was also used in this period to mean "a man not in bondage,"
that is, not an indented servant or slave. A close look
at the records reveals this latter usage to be so widespread
during the beginning years in the colony that we should
probably consider it the main usage. In a 1629 letter to

the Governor and Council in Massachusetts from the company

 

14Mass. Records, IV, Pt.II, 117-118; see also Lechford,
Plain Dealin , pp. 71-72.

 

15223293 1912 W. XXIX. 145—151; VI. 80-90.
16Mass. Records, I, 87.

38
headquarters in London, the company expressed the desire
that all men should live in some honest calling and "that
noe man whatsoever, freeman, or servant to any, may haue

"17 This is an indication

iust cause of complaint herein.

that contemporaries recognized primarily two classes --

freemen and servants. The early Watertown records grouped

the men into freemen and foreigners. In 1636 it was agreed

"at a general Town Meeting" that all country and town

charges "shalbe levied both of Freemen & Forrainers."18

Edward Johnson also used the word in a very inclusive

sense. He wrote that in 1633 "the number of Freemen added,

or Souldiers listed was 46," and of course at that period,

all males above 16 were required to attend militia training.19
But perhaps the most conclusive evidence that this

usage was the common one prior to 1648 is found in the

contrast of wording between the Body of Liberties of 1641

and the next edition of laws in 1648. The Body of Liberties

provided a fairly good outline of the classes of society

at the time for it grouped the laws under the following

headings: "Liberties more peculiarlie concerning the

free men," "Liberties of Woemen," "Liberties of Children,"

"Liberties of Servants," "Liberties of Forreiners and

Strangers.‘ There is no mention of nonfreemen; only

 

17Mass. Records, 1, #05.
laflatertogg Records, I, 3.

19Johnaon, Wonder—Working Providence, p. 85.

39

" servants and strangers are named.20 But by

"free men,
1648 (and after the Childe's episode in 1646), the laws
show a definite political division between those who had
taken an oath of freedom and those who had not, although
of course there is no indication of the size of the non-
freeman group.21

Furthermore, in the town records before the 1650's,

freeman and inhabitant were often used interchangeably

 

indicating that freeman was used in the literal sense.

When "not freeman" was used in these town records, it is
difficult to tell whether it referred to legal inhabitants
who were servants or hired men (also called servants) or

in the restricted sense, to inhabitants who had not taken
the oath of freedom.22 Only after 1650 is there any
consistent division in town meeting records between freemen
and inhabitants. In 1653 there appeared a notice in the
Dorchester records "to warns all the freemen to meets for
the choyse of new Maiestrates and the planters inhabtance

"23

for other businesses. But it was 1659 before Boston

 

20Bod d1 of Liberties, pp. 32-61.

21The Laws and Liberties Lf Massachusetts, Reprinted
from the Qgpy Lf the 1648 Edition in the Henry E_. Huntingt_g
Library, p. A2. Hereafter this work will be cited Mass.
Laws Lf 1648.

 

2"’Dorchester Town Records, pp. 34, 289-291; Idas§,Records,
II, 48; I, 116,192; Winthrop, Journal, I, 122.

23Dorchester Town Records, p. 315.

4O
decided "that the Freemen should meete distinctly as to

"24 So the evidence seems to indicate

what concerns them.
that although the 1631 law defined a freeman as a church
member who had taken the oath of freedom, this restricted
usage did not prevail in general until after 1648 and before
that time freeman was most often used in the literal sense

of one not a servant or slave. Keeping in mind this change
in the use of freeman as well as the Puritan meanings of
church member and inhabitant will be helpful in understand-
ing the laws and practices of the day.

The chronological story of Massachusetts legal political
develOpment started with the departure from England of the
Massachusetts settlers. After a successful and rather
uneventful nine-weeks trip, Governor Winthrop and his
company arrived in the-wilderness of Massachusetts late in
June, 1630. And in spite of the many problems that must
have confronted them in locating a suitable place to settle,
building houses, organizing protection, etc., Winthrop and
the assistants "kept a court" on August 23, 1630, two
months after their arrival.25 As one might eipect, their
first business was to provide for a minister. After an
interval of less than two months, during which the seat of

government was changed from Charlestown to Boston, the

first general court was held on October 19th of the same

 

Zfifiasias Town Records, II, 149.
25Winthrop, Journal, I, 51.

41
year. That the leaders of the colony were able to hold a
general court at such an early date after arrival is
remarkable in view of the tremendous task they faced in
establishing homes in a strange land.

The circumstances surrounding this first Massachusetts
general court in October 1630 and the second one in May
1631 are of primary importance in solving the problem of
who was responsible for the church restriction on the
franchise. Did the leaders put this law through before
admitting the freemen to the company in order to keep the
, few in control, as has been suggested by some modern
writers,26 or were the freemen'admitted before passage of
the famOus law and did it pass therefore only with their
consent? In other words, did the law have public support
or was it put over on the people?

Although the evidence on this problem is not too
complete, there is reason to believe that the Massachusetts
leaders did consult the wishes of the people and'very
likely the law was passed with their consent. Winthrop's
description of the search in December, 1630, for the best
place to settle permanently shows that the governor and
assistants did consult others in such important decisions.
He recorded that on December 6, 1630 the governor and

"most of the assistants, and others" met at Roxbury and

 

26See Miller, Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, pp. 243—244;
C. P. Nettels, Roots 9; American Civilization, p. 169.
C. M. Andrews, Colonial Period, I, 433-335 gives a different
version.

42
"there agreed to build a town fortified upon the neck
between that and Boston, and a committee was appointed
to consider of all things requisite, etc."

Furthermore, the wording of the official records of
the first two general court actions show that others besides
the assistants were consulted. At the first court in
October 1630, "for the establishinge of the gou'mt. It
was ppounded if it were not the best course that the
ffreemen should haue the power of chuseing Assistants when
there are to be chosen, & the Assistants from amongst
themselues to chuse a Gou'nr & Deputy Gou'nr . . . . This
was fully assented vnto by the gen'all vote of the people,
& erecgon of hands."28 This meeting sounds much more like

a mass meeting of all the "people" than a "patriarchal
29

undertaking,‘ as described by Parrington. And at the
second general court, May 18, 1631, the above law was
explained in terms that can hardly be called dictatorial.
"For explanaebn of an order made the last Gen'all Court,
holden the 19th of Octobr last, it was ordered nows, with
full consent of all the comons then p'sent, that once in
eu'y years, att least, a Gen'all Court shalbe holden, att

which Court it shalbe lawfull for the Comons to ppounde

 

27Winthrop, Journal, I, 54.
8Mass. Records, I. 79.

29Parrington, Main Currents, I, 20.

43
any pson or psons whome they shall desire to be chosen
Assistants, & if it be doubtfull whithr it be the greatr
pte of the comons or not, it shalbe putt to the poll. The
like course to be holden when they, the said comons, shall
see cause for any defect or misbehavr to remoue any one

tt8 . . . .“30 And the record con-

or more of ye Assis
eluded with the famous church restriction clause. Just
exactly who were the "comons" is revealed when Winthrop
noted in his diary on May 17, 1631 that at the general
court in Boston "all the freemen of the commons were

"31, The evidence seems to

sworn to this government.
indicate, then, that the 1630 court was a mass meeting of
the people or "common!" and that by 1631 they decided to
give legal status to those of the commons who desired-it.

Edward Johnson, one of those made free in the first
group, stated clearly that the freemen were sworn to the
government before the law was made. He related that "at
this Court [that is, the one of October 1630 which he
called the second court] many of the first Planters came,
and were made free, yet afterward none were admitted to
this fellowship, or freedome, but such as were first

Joyned in fellowship with some one of the Churches of

Christ, their chiefest aime being bent to promote his

 

30Mass. Records, I, 87.
31Winthrop, Journ l, I, 63.

44

"32 Since most of the names on the 1630

works altogether.
list of those desiring freedom were duplicated on the
1631 list of freemen, it is possible that for all intents
and purposes those of the 1630 list acted as freemen at
the first meeting but were not formally sworn until the
following meeting. At any rate it is most significant
that Johnson stated clearly that the freemen were sworn
before the church restriction was passed. Since he was
present at the meetings and wrote his history only twenty
years later, his word might well be accurate. And to my
knowledge, there is no evidence to indicate that the
Massachusetts leaders were confronted with an "ominous
petition" to admit men to freedom.

Between 1631 and about 1647 most political rights
were restricted to "freemen.” In 1632 it was "gen'ally
agreed vpon, by erecgon of hands," that the governor,
deputy governor and assistants should be chosen by the
whole court -- the governor, deputy governor, assistants
and'fresmen.33 Two years later, at the 1634 court, many
more rights were defined. As Winthrop noted, "Many
w34

good orders were made at this court. Four general
courts were ordered to be kept each year, and the repre-

sentative system was established. The freemen were to

 

32

33Mass. Records, I, 95.

34Winthrop, Journal, I, 125.

Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, p. 66.

 

45
elect two or three representatives from their town or
plantation to carry out all the necessary business in their
behalf such as making and establishing laws and granting
lands. These deputies only were to meet at three of the
courts but all the freemen were to attend the court of
election where "eu'y freeman is to gyve his owns voyce."35
And in 1635 it was ordered that none but freemen "shall
have any vote in any towns, in any acgon of auctoritie, or

necessity,"

such as in receiving inhabitants and laying
out of lots,etc. This law remained in force until 1647.
Between 1635 and 1647, as might be expected in a new
government, severall minor changes were made in election
procedure as the need arose but in each case the freemen
made the decision and sanctioned the change.3

The one exception to control of all town and
province affairs by the freemen during this early period
was in choice of military officers. At the general court
in March 1637, it was ordered that ”all persons of any
traynsd band, both freemen & others, who have taken the
oath of residents, or shall take the same, & being no
covenant servant in household wth any other" shall have

their vote in nomination of those persons who were to be

appointed military officers, provided "they nominate none

 

35Mass. Records, I, 118-119, 125.

36118.86. Records, I, 333, 343; II, 21, 87-88.

46

but such as shalbe freemen; for it is the intent & order
of the Court that no person shall hencefourth bee chosen
to any office in the comonwealth but such as is a freeman."37
In other words, all males 16 years and older, if not
servants in some household, could vote for military officers
-after taking the oath of residence.

Due to the restriction of almost all franchise rights
to freemen during the period 1631-1647, the exact usage
of the term in the early laws is most significant. As will
be seen later, the practice furing this period did not
restrict the franchise to freemen in the technical sense
of the word and only by interpreting freemen in the literal
sense do most of the laws conform with the practice.

The Body of Liberties of 1641, the first of a series
‘of compilations of the laws, indicated also that in practice
there may have been much wider participation in government
affairs than is intimated by the 1631 franchise law. All
men, including servants, could attend any town meeting or
court. "Every man whether Inhabitant or fforreiner, free
or not free shall have libertie to come to any publique
Court, Counsel, or Towns meeting, and either by speech or
writeing to move any lawfull, seasonable, and materiall
question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint,

petition, Bill or information, whereof that meeting hath

 

37Mass. R cords, I, 188.

 

47
preper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due
order, and respective manner." And furthermore, any
"Inhabitant of the Country" (which would include all
women and minors) had liberty to search any rules or
records of any office and obtain a transcript if they wish,

"38 If these laws

except the office of the "Councell.
were actually practiced, the town meeting must have had
much more of the color of a frontier gathering in the
rural community hall than of a meeting in a class-divided
community controlled by the few against the wishes of the
many.

The wording of the legal oaths required also imply
that freemanship was more inclusive in this early period
than is generally believed. The wording of the 1631 oath
entitled "The Oath of a Freeman, or of a man to be made
ffree" is very similar to the oath ordered for residents
in April, 1634. The court which met in April, 1634, and
which was probably of assistants only, ordered "that
eu'y man of or above the age of twenty yeares, whos hath
bene or shall hereafter be resident within this Juris-
dicgbn by the space of sixe monethss, as an householder
or soiorner, and not infranchised, shall take the oath
herevnder written . . . ." And if he refused he was to

be banished. This oath was titled Just "Oath" and

 

38Body 9; Liberties, pp. 35, 45.

48

started out "I . . ., being nowe an inhabitant" and seemed
to be merely an oath of residence.39 However, a few weeks
later, on May 14,-1634, the next general court, which was
attended by all the freemen, agreed and ordered "that the
former oath of ffreemen shalbe revoked, soe farr as it is
dissonant from the oath of freemen herevnder written, &
that those that receaved the former oath shall stand bound
noe further thereby, to any intent or purpose, then this
news oath tyss those that nowe takes ye same." And the
.oath which immediately follows is entitled "The Oath of

a Freeman" and starts "I, . . . being . . . an inhabitant
& ffreeman." Unlike the April 1634 oath, this one mentions
the responsibility of giving "my vote & suffrage."40 From
1634 this was the official freeman's oath..

Two additional oaths ordered by the court the follow-
ing year lowered the age limit for oath taking to 16 years
and included all the males who were residents above that
age. In March 1635, the court ordered an oath of residence
to be taken by all men "of or above the age of sixteene
yeares" who have been or shall be residents for six months

"(as well servants as others,) & not infranchised.“41‘

At
the same meeting, however, "It is ordered, that the

ffreemens oath shalbe gyven to eu'y man of or above the

 

39Mass. Records, I, 115-116.

4OMass. Records, I, 117.

41Mass. Records, I, 137.

49
age of 16 yearss, the clause for elecgon of magistrates
onely excepted."42 To my knowledge this last order was
never repealed. Apparently the oath of residence was to
be taken by servants and unsettled males 16 years and
older and the freeman's oath by all other free male
inhabitants over 16 years. Certainly if all free males
over 16 were to take the freeman's oath, freemanship can
hardly be called restricted.

In the middle 1640's, public sentiment began to
develop for a change in the franchise law. It seems
reasonable to assume that, as the years went by, there
would be an increase in number of unsettled men and
families in the fast-growing Bay colony, men who lived
in the community but who did not want to Join the church
and accept political responsibilities until they felt
more secure. That this was true is shown by an increase
in sentiment for enlarging the rights of non-freemen in
the colony. This feeling did not appear to originate
entirely with the pro-Church of England men who signed
the famous Childe's petition in 1646. As Winthrop related
it, it seemed more probable that fear of the Indians and
Dutch and Swedes had a big influence.43 After writing
of the alarming news about hostile Dutch activities,

Winthrop noted that at the next court a proposition was

 

42Mass. Records, I, 139.
43Winthrop, Journal, II, 160-161.

50
made "for all the English within the united colonies to
enter into a civil agreement for the maintenance of religion
and our civil liberties, and for yielding some more of the
freeman's privileges to such as were no church members
that should Join in this government." Nothing however was
concluded, but the problem was referred to the next court
"and in the mean time, that letters should be written to
the other colonies to advise with them about it. Nothing
was effected for want of opportunity of meeting, stc."44
Since this proposal was made in 1644, two years before
the Childe's petition and at the time of the united action
by the colonies for defense against the Indians and Dutch,
it seems safe to assume that defense was a primary motive
for the proposal.

The 1644 proposal to enlarge the political rights of
non-freemen was Just the beginning of a movement that was
to result in the 1647 law giving non-freemen equal power
with freemen in all town affairs. In the general court in

1646 another "law was drawn up, and ready to pass,I allowing
non-freemen of such estate, "their votes for magistrate."
Near the end of this court, Dr. Childe presented his
petition and since the matter was so weighty, action on
the petition as well as on the law were referred to the

next session. The petition itself aimed primarily at

obtaining "civil liberty and freedoms" for "all truly

 

44Winthrop, Journal, II, 163-164.

51

En lish, squall to the rest of their Country-men" without
imposing any oaths on them, and wanted "liberty to the
Members of the Churches of Eggland not scandalous in their
lives and conversations (as Members of those Churches) to
be taken into your Congregations, and to enjoy with you
all those liberties and ordinances Christ hath purchased
for them and into whose Name they are baptized . . . ."45

Given the already increasing sentiment in the colony
for enlarging the franchise, Dr. Child's petition might
not have occasioned so much disturbance if it had not
contained a definite threat to apply over the heads of
Massachusetts leaders to Parliament if the general court
refused their requests.46 This was a direct challenge to
the entire position of the Puritan colony and was met with
physical as well as verbal force. Just before some of '
Childe's friends were to leave for England, the court
searched their papers and confiscated a petition "from some
non-freemen, (pretending to be in the name, and upon the
sighs and tears, of many thousands)." This petition was
signed by twenty-five names who, according to WinthrOp,
were mostly fishermen from Marblehsad some of whom had come
from Newfoundland the previous year, or young men servants

who had little religion in them.47 However, it is erroneous

 

45Childe, New-Englands Jonas, pp. 11-13.

46Childe, New-Englands Jonas, pp. ll-l2.

 

47Winthrop, Journal, II, 307.

52
to infer from this that the movement for enlarging the
franchise came from the "lower classes" for the original
petition to the court was signed not only by Dr. Robert
Childe, but by Thomas Fowle of Boston, as well as by
"Mr. Clerk" and Samuel Maverick, two of the leading freemen

of the colony.48

Furthermore, according to Winthrop,
Mr. William Vassall, a gentleman of Plymouth, was the
initiator of the agitation that led to this particular
petition.49
The next court of elections, May 26, 1647, revealed
that not only did the freemen favor giving more political
rights to the non-freemen but they also approved 6f the
court's action against Childe and his followers. According
to Winthrop, there was "great laboring" by the friends of
the petitioners to have a governor and some magistrates
chosen who favored their cause, "but the mind of the
country appeared clearly, for the old governor was chosen
again, with two or three hundred votes more than any other,
and no one new magistrate was chosen but only captain
Robert Bridges."50
The law of 1647 gave the non-freemen a wide measure

of political rights. Any non-freeman 24 years of age and

under no conviction of the commonwealth or church for

 

48Winthrop, Journal, II, 316; Peter Force, Tracts,
IV, No.3, p.11.
49Winthrop, Journal, II, 271.

50Winthrop, Journal, II, 323.

53

"evill carriage" could vote in all town affairs and be
elected one of the selectmen. Once a non-freeman had taken
the oath of fidelity (which of course was required of all
permanent male residents), he could be elected to the jury.
The only restriction to complete democracy in town affairs
here seemed to be that the major part of the body of
selectmen still must be freemen. The freemen, of course,
still retained the right to elect deputies and magistrates,
however,51

The Massachusetts Laws of 1648 seemed to loosen the
restriction on non-freemen even more. The age limit for
non-freemen voting was reduced from 24 to 21 years, and
the law defined town voters as freemen "with such other
Inhabitats as have taken the Oath of fidelitie."52 Since
any chief military officer in any company could administer
the oath of fidelity,53 it would appear that almost any
adult male in the towns could vote in town affairs if he
pleased.

The 1648 laws also point out one other factor which

cannot be ignored as an influence in the widening of the

franchise. Under the heading of "Freemen, Non-Freemen"

 

51Mass. Records, II, 197.

52wass.-Lays 9; 1648, pp. 50, 51.

53Mass. Records, 11, 117.

54

the law reads "Wheras there are within this Jurisdiction
many members of Churches who to exempt themselves from all
publick service in the Common-wealth will not come in,
to be made Freemen, it is therfore ordered" that these
people will not be exempt from such public service, and
"if he refuse to serve when chosen, he must pay the same
fine as freemen are lyabls to in such cases."54 Apparently
some of the freemen had long felt that some men deliberately
avoided becoming freemen because of the responsibilities
involved for as early as 1643 the general court "ordered,
concerning members that refuse to take their freedom, the
churches should bee writ unto, to deals wth them."55

It appears, then, that three factors must be
considered responsible for the loosening of franchise
restrictions in 1647 -- the fear of the Dutch and Indians
which resulted in a desire to join as many English to the
government as possible, the demand of the Church-of—England
men for more consideration, and the desire on the part of
the freemen themselves to have more help in shouldering
government responsibilities.

No change in the franchise law took place for the
next decade, but in 1658 two changes were made. The age
limit was changed again and a property qualification added.

It was ordered "That all Englishmen, that are settled

 

54Mass. Laws 9: 1648, p. 23.

55Mass. Records, II, 38.

55
Inhabitants and house-holders in any town, of the age of
twenty gour yeares, and of honest & good Conversations,
being Rated at twenty pound estate in a single Country
Rate, and that have taken the Oath of Fidelity" and no
other except freemen could be elected to town offices and

vote in town affairs.56

This is the first time a property
qualification for voting had been required but it is
doubtful that it provided much of a real restriction. At
this time a horse was rated at 108, so anyone with two
horses could vote and every householder would be more than
eligible.

In the 1660's, the final major change was made in the
province franchise. Opposition to the Puritan regime by
the Church-of-England men began to crystallize in 1662.
Insistent pressure on the King in England resulted in the
King's demanding greater ecclesiastical freedom and
privileges as well as civil liberties for Church-oféEngland
men in Massachusetts. The King wrote a letter to the
colony requesting "that all persons of good & honest liues
& conuersations be admitted to the sacrsment of the Lords
supper,_according to the Books of Comon Prajer, & their
children to baptisme." Furthermore, he wrote, all laws now
in practice in the colony which are contrary to royal
authority must be annulled, and civil officers chosen for

integrity andxunifor their "opinions & outward professions."57

 

56Mass. Laws pf 1660, p. 76
57Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, pp. 165, 166.

56

Although there was much discussion throughout the colony
about the King's demands and the Salem freemen instructed
their deputies the following year to advocate enlarging
the franchise to some non-church members, nothing was
actually done by the colony to meet the mother-country's
proposal except to appoint a committee to study the
problem.58

In 1664 the issue came to a head. Royal commissioners
had been sent to the colonies to investigate a number of
colonial problems among which were the conditions in the
Massachusetts government. There was great concern in the
colony that their patent would be taken away and persons

were appointed by each house of the court "to keep safe

and secret the sajd patent & duplicate, in two distinct
59

places . . . .” The colony was especially distressed

to have a commission with wide powers put over them "whereby,
instead of being gouerned by rulers of our ouns choosing,
(which is the fundamentall priuiledge of our patent,)

& by lawes of our oune, wee are like to be subjected to

 

58John Hull, The Diaries 9; John Hull; Mint-Master
agngreasursr g; the Colony g: Massachusettg Bay, in
Transactions and Collections 9: Egg American Antiquarian
Society, (Vol. III, pp. 141-250), p. 207; Salem Town
Records, II, 37; Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, p.74.

 

59Mass. Records, IV, Pt. 2, p.102.

57

the arbitrary power of strangers, proceeding not by anyu
established laws, but by their oune discretions'."6O They
complained that there had been "high representations of
great diuissions & discontents amongst vs, & of a necessity
of sending comissioners to releive the agreived, &c.; 4
whereas it plainly appeares that the body of this people
are vnanimously sattisfied in the present gouernment &
abhorrent from change, and that what is now offered will,
instead of releiving, raise vp such greivancss as are
intollsrable. . .'. yet, thro the favour of God, there
are but few amongst vs that are malcontent, & fewer that
haue cause to be so." And, they added ominously, their
liberties were far dearer to them than their lives.61 The
colony's assertion that the "body of people" were satisfied
was probably true, for in the October 1664 general court
many towns sent in petitions upholding the present form
of government in church and commonwealth.62

On August 3, 1664, the general court finally complied
with the King's demand. It repealed the former law
restricting freemen to church members and adOpted a new
franchise requirement. It ordered that from henceforth
"all Englishmen presenting a cirtifficat, vnder the hands

of the ministers or minister of the place where they dwell,

 

60Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, p.130.

61
Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, pp.l32, 133.

62John Hull, Diary, p. 213; Mass. Records, IV,
Pt.2, pp. 136-137.

58
that they are orthodox in religion, & not vitious in their
lines, & also a certifficat, vnder the hands of the select-
men of the place, or of the major part of them, that they
are freeholders, & are for their oune propper estate

(wth

out heads of psons) rateable to the country in a single
country rate, after the vsuall manner of valluation, in

the place where they liue, to the full value of tenne
shillings, or that they are in full comunion wth some
church amongst vs, it shallbe in the liberty of all &

euery such person or persons, being twenty fower yeares

of age, householders and setled inhabitants" to ask for
freedom which was to be given by a vote of the general
court.

This law apparently conformed to the wishes of the
general voters and resulted in no great change in the
complexion of the voting Population. A comparison of
records before and after the change showed no unusual
turnover in office holders.

The new law did not satisfy the King's commissioners,
however. In a letter to the general court on May 18, 1665,
the commissioners wrote: "You haue so tentered the kings

qualliffications as in making him only who pajeth ten

shillings to a single rate to be of competent estate, that

 

6
3Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, pp. 117-118.

64Magg. Rppprgg, IV, Pt.2, pp. 1, 116-117, 141-143, 294.

59
when the king shall be enformd, as the trueth is, that
not one church member in an hundred payee so much, & yt
in a toune of an hundred inhabitants, scarce three such
men are to be found, wee fears the king will rather finds

himself deluded then satisfied by your late act."65

The
court retorted that the qualifications for freemanship in
the new law "are not exclusive" and declared that some
ecclesiastical discipline is required in any Christian
society and "is no other then what is required of his
majestjss subjects in England; & as for the manner of
the exercise of ecclesiasticall discipline, although the
godly orthodox are variously minded therein, yet this is
no barr to any in the enjoyment of any civil priuiledge
heere."66 However, war between the English and Dutch
prevented the royal commissioners from carrying on the
debate, and the law continued in force until the charter
was revoked in 1686.

In view of current interpretations on the franchise,
the new property qualification for the franchise put in in
1664 deserves some special attention. The commissioners'
statement that only "him who pajeth ten shillings to a
single rate" can vote and that in a town of 100 inhabitants

hardly three men are to be found who pay that much has been

 

65Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, p.205.

66Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, p.222.

60
used by historians since that time as evidence that the
_property restriction alone was sufficient to keep most people
from voting. One modern writer described the qualification
as "high" and J. T. Adams distorted the commissioners'
statement even more by claiming that "not one man in a
hundred was said to have the property qualification
required."67 What Adams and others like him have failed
to recognize was that the commissioners' analysis of the
law was in error and that the court's reply that the law
was not exclusive is in fact correct.

The actual wording of the law along with a check on
the tax customs of the day provides the answer to the
problem. The law said those fresholders are qualified to
vote who are ratgd in a single country rate to the value
of ten shillings, not those who paid ten shillings. This
makes quite a difference. A tax rating is the assessed
valuation of a man's taxable property. The Commissioners
were quite correct in saying few men in a town paid ten
shillings tax, but a check on the valuations for taxing
of that day reveals that it would be rare indeed if a
man did not own enough property to be gatgd at 10 shillings.
Ten shillings was of course only half a pound and in 1653

all single persons in Watertown "that line at their owns

 

67Haynes, Representation and Suffra e, p. 57;
J. T. Adams, The Founding Qf_New England, p. 331.

61
hands and haue not 152 visable estate shall be rated to
minestry and Town charges at 152 estate."68 After the
early 1650's the amount paid in the country (that is, the
province) tax was one penny for every twenty shillings
rateable estate.69 And a law in 1657 showed clearly
how estates were to be valued. Because there had been
injustices and inequalities in assessments, it was ordered
"that howses & lands of all sorts shall be rated at an
squall and indifferent value, according to theirs worth
in the tounes and places where they lye" and the law
continued with a list of exact values for the rating of
livestock. Every three-year-old horse was to be rated
at 10$, those between two and three years at 78, those
between one and two years at 58. Cows were rated at 33;
sheep at 25s., swine at 20s., every ass of one year at
40 s. and so on.70 And except for a revision of the
rating value for horses from 10£ to 52 in 1668, this law
provided the rule for rating for the rest of the Puritan
period. In other words, anyone who owned 1/2 of a swine
or 1/6 of a cow would be rated enough to qualify for the
franchise, and in Watertown,at 1east,even young men with
no visible estates were rated many times the needed amount.

Not only is the valuation law itself evidence that

 

68Watertown Records, I, 33.
69Boston Town Records, X, 48.
7°Mas_s_. Records, IV, Pt.l, pp.288-289.

62
few would be excluded from the vote by a ten-shilling
property qualification, but a check of the valuation records
for Boston in 1676 shows that 95 per cent of the men
listed on the Boston tax list had ample property to qualify
for the franchise. A very few houses were valued as low
as 58, and none lower. Most of them were rated lO£ or
over and a few as high as 3002, and of course most of
the inhabitants owned their own houses. But even if they
couldn't qualify with real estate, such items as horses,
cows, swine, sheep, mills and other estates(money at
interest, or trades) were also rated.71 And since
all males over 16 years were listed for poll tax on the
tax records, it is quite possible that some of the dis-
qualified five per cent would be younger sons and servants
under the voting age.

The error on the part of the commissioners becomes
more understandable after checking over early Massachusetts
tax lists and other valuation records. Sometimes the lists
contained only the tax paid, and at other times they
contained only total valuations, valuations which were used
as a basis for determining the tax. Since these lists often
appear very similar except in range of total amounts listed,
the commissioners, just like present-day researchers, could

be easily confused.

 

71gpston Town Records, I, 60-67.

63

The legal story of freemanship has indicated that
possibly the restrictions placed on the franchise by the
1631 church restriction law and later by property qualifi-
cations were not as formidable a barrier to the average
Massachusetts man as they look to us some three hundred
years later. There is evidence that before 1648 the term
freeman was most often used in its literal sense and only
after that time was there real evidence of segregation of
freemen and non-freemen on a wide scale. The laws also
show that during the early period, 1631-1647, the freemen
controlled both town and province affairs but in the 1640's
pressure was developing in the colony for enlarging
political rights of the non-freemen. And the evidence
indicates that the pressure was from local as well as
from English sources. From a legal view there was almost
complete democracy in town affairs from 1647 and in 1664
the franchise was enlarged to include certain non-freemen
in province voting.

Although the laws give a rough sketch of freemanship,
the picture is far from complete. The laws hint that much
more democracy, in the modern sense, prevailed in the
Puritan regime than is usually conceded by modern writers,
but other sources must be investigated to determine how
much the customs conformed with the laws, and how large
was the group of non-freemen who were excluded from the

franchise.

CHAPTER IV
FREEMANSHIP IN PRACTICE

The legal aspect of freemanship is only part of the
picture. Whether Massachusetts was an aristocracy in the
modern sense or much nearer a representative democracy
can best be determined by finding out what franchise
customs were actually practiced, not just what the laws
said. Who participated in the town meetings? Who were
the freemen? And, what percentage of the adult males
were disqualified from the franchise?

Contrary to C. M. Andrews' assertion that it is
impossible to conjecture, even roughly, the number of
freemen in the colony, statistics on the problem can be
found and a rough estimate at least can be determined.
Along with statistics we can find many statements by
contemporaries as well as the evidence of language used
in town records, diaries, and other similar sources.

After sifting over materials of this type, a fairly reliable
estimate of the number of voters in the colony can be
arrived at -- an estimate far more accurate than one based
on mere guesswork.

Underlying the problem of how many were freemen is
the question of the extent of church membership. And in
this chapter I shall use this term in its restricted legal
sense -- as a member in full communion. The statistics on

Puritan church membership are limited but what few there

-54-

65

are, along with other available evidence, will give some
picture of the extent of religious uniformity in the colony.

From the beginning, the Massachusetts Bay company
aimed at uniformity in religion in the colony. As early
as April 17, 1629, the governor of the company in England
wrote that among those hired for the company's service,
he heped they would find "many religious, discreete, &

well ordered psons, wCh yow must sett over the rest

devyding them into famylies,‘ placing some under ministers
and others under honest men. "And wheras amongst such
a nomber'(notwthstanding or care to purge them) there may
still remains some libertines, wee desire you to be care-
full that such (if any bee) may bee forced" to conform by
inflicting on then such punishment as they deserve --
both planters and serVants. And if any be incorrigible
they were to be sent home to England. The company urged
that "the cheife in the familie (at least some of them)
bee grounded in religion; wherby morning and evening
famylie dutyes may bee duely pformed." At least one in
each family was to be appointed to hold a watchful eye
over the others and consequently "ill weeds nipt before
they take too great a head."1

That the colonists took this advice seriously is

shown by the cars they took about admitting newcomers into

 

1Mass. Records, I, 393, 397.

66
the colony and into the towns. On September 7, 1630, the
Massachusetts court of assistants ordered "that noe pson
shall plant in any place within the lymitts of this

pattsnt, without the sanction of the governor and assist-
ants or the major part of them.2 Boston provides a good
example of the cars taken by towns in this matter. In

_ 1635, the Boston town meeting agreed "that nos further
allotments shalbe graunted unto any new comers, but such

as may be likely to be received members of the Congregation."3
The following year it was ordered that strangers were not

to be entertained by townsmen in Boston over fourteen days
without sanction of the town.4 Later a fine was levied

on any inhabitant who failed to report any newcomer who

5 And while fear of new-

intendsd to reside in the town.
comers becoming town charges no doubt provided much of the
motive for the town's concern, especially at a later
period, the desire for religious conformity was also a
major factor.

Some statistics on Watertown reveal that even in the
later period very few families in that town did not conform
to the accepted religious beliefs of the day. On January 29,

1661, the Watertown selectmen reported on a "Suruey of»

 

2Mass. Records, 1, 76.

3Boston Town Records, II, 5
4

5

Boston Town Records, II, 10.

 

Boston Town Recordg, II, 90.

67
the Inhabitants of the towns wt’h reffsrence to the
answering of yt law wCh requires the knowledg of God &
excerising reading to the advancing of Catachising, & in
there returns among other defects, they find diuers pore
Families, yt must be in the first place releeued, and
afterwards care to be taken yt such Families (be, ye &

there children) improued yt

negligence or want of
prouidence, be noe ocasion of such pouertie." A list of
the "diuers" families followed and it included only four
names with the number of children in each family.6 Ten
years earlier, Johnson had listed 160 families and 250
church members in Watertown.7 If only four out of about
160 families neglected their religion, it is quite safe to
conclude that most of the people of the town were in
sympathy with the established Puritan way, if not full-
fledged members of the church.

One other bit of statistical evidence available
indicated also that Massachusetts was predominanitaly
congregational. In Magnalia ghgisti Americana, Cotton
Mather listed all the churches in Massachusetts. While
this list is for the year 1696, it does show the state of
religion only ten years after the theocracy was active

in the colony, and it would be safe to assume that the

congregational church was stronger before this date than

 

6Watertown Records, I, 71.

7Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, p. 74.

68
after. According to the list, only in Boston were there
any organized churches other than congregational. Boston
had three congregational churches with settled ministers,
plus "a small congregation that worship God with the
ceremonies of the Church of England; served generally by
a change of persons, occasionally visiting these parts of
the world," "another small congregation of Antipedo-
Baptists, wherein Mr. Emblin is the settled minister,"
and a French congregation of "Protestant Refugees."8 So
in all of Massachusetts as late as 1696, Boston alone had
a mixed religious population and even there the congrega-
tionalists predominated.

In addition to the actual figures on church membership,
many general estimates by contemporary observers show
either extensive church membership or sympathy with the
Puritan way. John Cotton observed that in the Bay colony
"for the heads of families those that are admitted are
far more in number than the other . . . ."9 And Edward
Johnson, writing about 1652 noted that in Braintree "the
people are purged by their industry from the sowre levsn
of those sinful opinions that began to spread, and if

"10

any remain among them it is very covert . . . . There

 

8Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The
Ecclesiastical History 9: New-England, I, 86487.

9John Cotton, "The Way of the Congregational Churches
Clegred," p.70, quoted in Wsrtenbaksr, Puritan Oligarchy,
p0 7»

0
Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, p. 197.

69
is no reason to assume Braintree was unique in this
respect. John Winthrop apparently felt that the Boston
community was fairly uniform too. In 1646, he compayined
that some men of Boston were taking offense at a court
order for a synod and desired more liberty of conscience.
But, he explained, the principal objectors were men lately
from England plus some few from the Boston churches "but

not above thirty or forty in all."11

Forty objectors in
Boston congregations would not have been many.

Other contemporaries also described Massachusetts as
quite uniform in religious beliefs. In 1678, William
Stoughton and Peter Bulkeley reported to government
authorities in London on conditions in Massachusetts and
stated that "the number of those who are not church members

"12 A few days later they elaborated on

is inconsiderable.
this statement: "In religion there is a full agreement
with the Articles of the Church of England, but the practice
is congregational: some few Presbyterians, some Ana-
baptists and Quakers there are, but not in considerable
number."13 Their analysis agreed in general with the
figures given a few years later by Cotton Mather.

Furthermore, a foreign traveller confirmed this opinion.

 

11Winthrop, Journal, II, 279.

12Calendar 9: §tats Papers, Colonial Series, Ameriga
and west Indies, 1677-1680, p. 261. Hereafter this work
will be cited Calendar a; State Papers.

13W 9.: Stats Papers, p. 269.

70
After a visit to Boston in July 1680, Jasper Danckaerts
noted in his journal: "They are all Independents in
matters of religion, if it can be called religion; many
of them perhaps more for the purposes of enjoying the
benefit of its privileges than for any regard to truth
and godliness."14

Thomas Lechford, a Church-of-England man who resided

in Boston for a few years, described the religious situation
there in somewhat different terms. In his famous letter
to a friend dated Boston, October 13, 1640, Lechford
pointed out that in Massachusetts "is required such
confessions, and professions, both in private and publique,
both by men and women, before they be admitted, that three
parts of the people of the Country remains out of the
Church, so that in short time most of the people will
remains unbaptized, if this course hold . . . ."15 And
two years later he complained that in twenty years the
major part will be unbaptised if the present course is
continued.16 It is very important to note that Lechford
used Church in the strict sense, and that he meant by
"the people" the whole population, not just the adult
males. With this in mind, his estimate of church

membership in 1640 does not contradict the statements of

 

4Jasper Danckaerts, Journal a; Jasper Danckaerta,
1679-1680 , p e 274 e

15Lechrord, Plain Dealin , pp. 122-123.

16Lechford, Plain Dealiag, p. 60.

71
other contemporaries, for at least one-half of the popu-
lation would be minors who seldom were full church members,
and it was the custom of the day for male heads of families
to indulge in more church activities and attend more meet-

17 so it is entirely plausible

ings than for the women,
that more men than women were members in full communion.

That Lechford's fear about the majority of the people
remaining unbaptised in twenty years was unwarranted is
evident from a report by another Church-of—England man
in 1678 to authorities in London. One Captain Bresdon
observed that "one-fourth of the children there are not
christened for they neither baptiss nor give the sacrament
to other than those of their congregation in fellowship.
The most come to Church for fear of the 58. per Sunday.
They must enter covenant."18

It seems reasonably safe to conclude that throughout
the seventeenth century the vast majority of peeple in
Massachusetts were either in sympathy with or full-fledged
members of the congregational church. However, of these
how many were freemen?

Contemporary opinion about the extent of freemanship

in Massachusetts in the 1640's varies. Lechford declared

that "most of the persons at New-England are not admitted

 

17Winthrop, Journal, I, 286.

18"Papers about Captain Breedon" in CalenQEE.Q£.§E2£2
Pa ers, pp. 284-285.

72
of their Church, and therefore are not Freemen."19 And
a few years later, Dr. Childe and others in petitioning
the General Court complained that "there are many thousands
in these Plantations" who are debarred from all civil
employment.20 On the other hand, John Winthrop described
a "contention" in Hampton in 1644 which had grown to
such a height that the whole town was divided into two
factions -- one with Mr. Batchellor, their late pastor,
and the other with Mr. Dalton, their teacher. "Mr.
Dalton's party being the most of the church, and so
freemen, had great advantage of the other, though a
considerable party, and some of them of the church also."
From Winthrop's statement it would appear that the
majority at least of the adult males in the town were of
the church and so freemen.21 And in 1647, Edward
Winslow, Massachusetts agent, wrote that "however there
are many that are not free amongst us, yet if under-
standing men and able to be helpful it's more their own
faults than otherwise oft-times who will not take up
their freedom lest they should be sent on these
services . . . ."22 The colony laws, as we have seen,

back up WinsECW's statement that many were not freemen

 

19Lechrord, Plain Dealing, p. 81.

 

2OChilds, New Englands Jonas, p. 11.

21Winthrop, Journal, II, 179.

22"New England's Salamander Discovered," Mass. Hist.
Society Collections, 2 series, III, 137.

73
by choice.

According to the report of Captain Breedon, who was
summoned to appear before the Council for Foreign Planta-
tions in London, March 11, 1660, almost all adult males
were freemen. He related that very many in Massachusetts
looked upon themselves as a free state and many were
against any dependence on England. "Many of the soldiers
would be glad to have officers by the King's commission,
two-thirds being now freemen, and a Governor sent from
the King; others fear it, and say they will die before
they lose their liberties, by which it may appear how
difficult it is to reconcile monarchy and independency."23
If two-thirds of the soldiers, which included all men
over 16 years,24 were freemen in 1660, then almost all
adult males in 1660 would have been freemen, for
approximately 34 per cent of all settled males over 16
years were minors or servants.25 This, it should be
remembered, was four years before the 1664 law enlarging
freemanship.

Another contemporary who contributed to the view that
the majority at least had the franchise was Nathaniel
Ward. In 1639 Ward wrote to John Winthrop, that among

other things, he had earnestly requested "That you would

 

23galengag 9; State Pa ers, p. 297.

24Mass. Laws 9; 1660, p. 57(177).

QSBoston Town Recorga, I, 46-48.

74
please to advise thoroughly with the counsell, whether it
will not be of ill consequence to send the Court business
to the common consideration of the freemen. I fears it
will too much exauctorate the power of that Court to
prostrate matters in that manner. I suspect both Common-
wealth & Churches haue discended to lows already; I see
the spirits of the people runne high & what they get they
hould. They may not be denyed their proper & lawfull
liberties, but I question whether it be of.God to interest
the inferiour sort in that which should be reserved" for
the better element of society.26 It is of interest that
Ward objected to the power of the freemen. He did not
seem concerned about those who were disfranchised and
wanted freedom. In fact, his interchangeable usage of
"freemen" and "people" inferred extensive freemanship.

The general lack of concern by contemporaries for
sharp segregation of freemen and non-freemen is another
indication that the disfranchised group was not large.
Edward Johnson, in his statistical analysis of the towns
about 1650, did not mention any sharp division in political
affairs, although he did give population statistics and
church member estimates for each town. If there had been
a large disfranchised group who were fighting for power,

surely he would have mentioned it. He was one of the

 

26"Letter of Rev. Nathaniel Ward" in Thomas Franklin
Waters, Ipswich Ia the Massachusetts Bay Colony,
Appendix C.

75

"aristocracy" and was very active politically and would
have been personally concerned if such a struggle did
exist. Furthermore, Samuel Sewall, who lived during the
end of the theocracy and was active in affairs during the
beginning of the new charter government, gave no indication
in his diary that there was a large disfranchised group
under the theocracy. Nor does he mention any change when
the new charter came in in 1691. According to his figures
of the number of votes cast in Boston and province elections
in 1686 (the last year of the theocracy) and 1692 (the

year after the new charter came into being), there was no
significant change in the number of those who actually
voted. In fact the actual number of votes cast on March 14
and May 4, 1692, was less than on March 8 and April 13,

1686.27

One other estimate on the extent of freemanship in
Boston supported Captain Breedon‘s report in general. In
1665 Boston declared that "In as much as the number of
Free men in this Towns of Boston (consisting of two distinct
churches) is very lardg," the town wanted another repre-
sentativs.28 "Very lardg" is far from exact evidence but

this statement does indicate that possibly the modern

 

27Samuel Sewall, Samuel Sewall's Diary, I, 125, 132,
358. 360.

28§oston prn Recorda, VII, 26.

76
estimate that only one out of four men were freemen is
subject to revision.

Available statistics for Boston at a later date show
that at least the majority of adult men in the town were
freemen. In 1679, Boston was still objecting that their
town was under-represented. "By our Lawes," the town
meeting declared, "euery Deputie in Generall Court repre-
sents but 10 Freemen because euery Towns that haue aboue
10 Freemen may send a Deputie and euery towns yt haue 20
may send 2 Deputies (& noe Towns more then two) soe yt
all the Freemen in each Towns more then 20 haue nos vote
in ya Generall Court, neither by themselues or any
representatiue. And shall 20 Freemen haue squall priui-
ledge with our greats Towns, yt consists of users twentis
times twentis freemen & bearss theirs full proportion of
all publique charges."29 So Boston had twenty times
twenty or about 400 freemen in 1679. Figures found in
Boston tax records for 1674 show that 66-68% of the total
rateable males (that is, over 16 years old) were masters
of families.30 In 1678 and 1679, a total of 991 males
over 16 years took the oath of allegiance in Boston. If
66 per cent of the males over 16 years were masters of
families, there would be 654 masters of families or

householders in Boston in 1678-79. If 400 of the 654

 

29Boston Town Records, VII, 134.
30Epston Town Recorda, I, 38-39, 49-53, 46-48.

77
were freemen, at least 61 per cent of all adult men in
Boston would have been freemen in 1679. And it should be
remembered that Boston was the only town with any organized
churches other than congregational and therefore would
probably have had the lowest percentage of freemen among
the adult male residents of any town in the colony. But
even 61 per cent freemen is quite different from one out
of four or five men, as most modern authorities assume.

One other approach to the problem of who could vote
is to determine, if possible, who participated in town
meetings. The laws have given us the legal side of the
picture, but in practice how did the voting customs work?

A check of town records with the official freemen's
lists indicate that many others besides the few freemen
on the list participated in town meetings before 1647
when, theoretically at least, only freemen had any vote.
Watertown provided a good example. On November 30, 1635,
it was "Agreed by the Consent of the Freemen that these
11 freemen shall order all the Civill Affaires for the
Toune for the years following, & to divide the Lands."

31 A check

And then the names of the 11 men are listed.
with the official freemen's list showed that four of
those eleven men were not legally freemen at this time.
Two of the four were made free six months later on May 25,

1636, and the names of the remaining two never were

 

31Watsrtown Recorda, I, 2.

78
32

recorded on the list. In other words, the town apparently
used the word freemen in the literal sense and disregarded
the law that only church members who had taken the oath
of freedom were to vote in town affairs.

Watertown was not alone in the practice. On May 25,
1636, the general court fined "the freemen of Neweberry"
for choosing and sending a deputy to the court who "was
nos ffrssman," and on March 12, 1638, it fined "the ffreemen
of Concord, & those that were not free, wCh had hand in
the vndswe election of Mr Flint." Just why the election
33 In

of Mr. Flint was "vndewe" is not revealed. Boston,

too, there is evidence that there was not strict regard
for the law about freemanship. In 1639 Mr. William Tynge
was chosen a deputy to the general court from Boston and

he was very active in town affairs after 1640 but his

34

name does not appear on the freemen's list. And in

1645 two of the selectmen elected, "Tho. Fowle" and
35

"Y

filliam Frankling" were not listed as freemen. The

Wenham Town Records reveal that their two officers were

36

both freemen. But to have all officers freemen seemed

to be more the exception than the rule in this early period.

 

32Boston Town Records, XXIX, 133. 134, 136, 137.
33Mass. Records, 1, 174, 221.

 

34Boston Town Records II, 46; Mass. Records, List of
Freemen, vols. I and II.

35Boston Town Records, II, 86; Mass. Records, List of
Freemen, vols. I and II.

 

 

 

 

36Wenham Town Records, I, 6; Mass. Records, II, 291.

 

79
The town of Marblehsad deserves some special attention.
In 1644 the general court ordered that "In regard of the
defect of freemen at Marblehsad" the Salem inhabitants
should appoint some honest and able man to be constable
there "though hes be not a freeman."37 This bit of
evidence has been used by some later historians to show
the dearth of freemen in Massachusetts towns. These writers
however.ignors the fact that Marblehsad was not yet a town
in 1644, that it was merely a rural village without even
a church of its own.38 7
Other evidence shows discrepancies between the

official lists and the voters in province records. .In the
upheaval occasioned_by Mrs. Hutchinson in 1637, many of
her sympathizers were disfranchised. Of those, two were
-never enfranchised, if being listed among the freemen is
any evidence.39 Another bit of evidence is to be found
in checking on the colony's leaders. There is no doubt
that Mr. Richard Bellingham, Mr. John Winthrop, Sr.,
Mr. John Humfry, Mr. Thomas Dudley, Mr. William Coddington,
Increase Nowell, and Simon Bradstreet played important
roles in the Bay colony politics before 1636 but they
were never made free, according to the records, until

May 25, 1636.40 John Cotton, in a letter to Lord Say

 

37Mass. Records, II, 57.

38Lechford, Plain Dealing, p. 75; Felt, Annals 9;
Salem, I, 207. Salem was made a town in 1649.

 

39Mass. Records, I, 207 and list of freemen.

4OMass. Recorga, I, 372.

80
and Seals, explained that "Mr. Humfrsy was chosen for an
assistant (as I hears) before the colony came over hither:
and, though he be not as yet joyned into church fellowship
(by reason of the unsstledness of the congregation where
he liveth) yet the commonwealth doe still continue his
magistrady to him, as knowing he waitheth for the oppertun-
ity of eninying church fellowship shortly."41 It does
seem strange that these leaders would not have become
freemen long before 1636 if there was as strict an in-
terpretation of freemanship in practice as modern historians
believe.

Not only do statistcs and other evidence reveal that

much more democracy was practiced in Massachusetts than
is generally believed, but also that the terminology in
the town records showed wide participation in political
affairs. Dorchester records provide a picture of how
local laws were framed in the earliest days. It should
be remembered this was after the law of 1631 restricting
voting and office holding to church members only. The
records read: "An agreement made by the whole consent
and vote of the Plantation made Mooneday 8th of October
1633." It was ordered "that for the gensrall good and
well ordering of the affayres of the Plantation their
shall be every Mooneday before the Court by eight of the

Clocks in the morning, and prsently upon the beating of

 

41Letter of John Cotton to Lord Say and Seal, 1636,
in Hutchinson, History, Appendix, p. 498.

81
the drum, a generall meeting of the inhabitants of the
Plantation att the msetsing house, there to settle (and
sett downs) such orders as may tend to the generall good
as aforesayd; and every man to be bound thereby without
gaynesaying or resistance. It is also agreed that there
shall be twelve men selected out of the Company that may
or the greatest p't of them meets as aforesayd to deter-
mine as aforssayd, yet so as it is desired that most of
the Plantation will keeps the msetsing constantly . . . ."42
There is no hint here of restricted franchise or even
of restricted office holding.

Later evidence showed clearly that "inhabitants"
were expected to attend Dorchester town meetings and
even to be elected totown offices before 1647. In 1638,
four of the ten selectmen and one of the raters chosen
were not on the list of freemen.43 A further check on
two important selectmen in Dorchester in 1644, Robert
Howard and Tho: Wisewall, men who were very active in
town affairs, revealed that they were not made free until
February 25, 1653.44 On January 27, 1646, the town

recorded a new order about town meetings which was

 

42Dorchester Town Records, p.3.

43Dorchester Town Records, p. 35; Mass. Records, I,
566, 574.

44
Dorchester Town Records, pp. 46, 52, 57, 308, 313;
Mass. Regards, IV, Pt.l, p. 460.

82
occasioned by "the intemperate Clashings in our Towns
msettingss as also the vnorderlie dep'tings of sundry
before other brethsren and Neyghbours." It was ordered
that whenever the seven selectmen needed to call a meeting
"of the Towns or frsmen" it was adequate notice "if it
be one a lecture day that soe many as are prsent shall
take it for notice or if it be by sendings a speciall
Messenger from house to house that if notice be left at
the house with wife of Child aboue the age of twelue
yeares the husband or father not beings within or not at

home,"

such notice is adequate. If the man should not
attend nor give adequate excuse to the selectmen, he was
to be fined 6 pence for the first offence.45 And that
"Towns or frsmen" meant all inhabitants is shown by the
wording of records of other meetings. One typical notice
read: "Upon a general and lawfull warning of all the
Inhabitants."46

Early records for Boston also indicate that political
activities involved most of the peepls. On May 13, 1639,
the records read: "Att a General Meeting upon particular
or private Generall notice giveing from house to house."
And at this meeting deputies to the general court were

chosen as well as new selectmen for the town. It is of

interest that the meeting was called by notice "from house

 

45Dorchester Town Records, p. 292.

Dorchester Town Records, pp. 54, 55.

83
to house." Church membership or freemanship was not
mentioned as a factor.“7 Of greater significance is the
fact during the 1646 disturbance about the petition by
Dr. Childe and others, a nonfreeman attended the town
meeting and was apparently very vocal. During a discussion
of the general court's answer to the petition, "Mr.
[Thomas] Burton, one of the petitioners, being in the
town meeting at Boston, when the Court's declaration about

the petition was there read, was much moved, and spake
48

in high language . . . . Mr. Burton was not on the
list of freemen, but obviously he made himself heard in
town meeting.

Woburn records show very clearly that even before
1647 inhabitants as well as freemen participated in town
meetings. In 1643, the town ordered "That if any man
shall absent himselfe from a publike meeting without a
lawfull excuse, hse shall pay 18a. to the use of the

"49 And in 1644, it was voted "with the general

Towns.
consent of all the freemen and other inhabitants then
present" that a choice be made annually from among the

"freemen of the town,” of seven men to act as selectmen.50

 

 

 

47Bgaton Town Recorda, II, 41.

:8William Hubbard, General History 93 New England,
p. 51 . ""‘“’

49

Quoted in Sewall, History a: WCburn, p. 46.

50Sewall, History 9; Woburn, p. 24.

84'
In this election, all of the names of the selectmen could
be found on the official freemen's list. However, one
Ralph Hill, who was elected surveyor of highways, was
not made free until 1647, three years later, and the
name of another surveyor, Michael Bacon, never did appear
on the list.51 It would seem that in the town of Woburn
inhabitants as well as freemen participated in the meet-
ings and even were elected to minor offices, but the
selectmen were chosen from the freemen.

In Salem, too, apparently the custom was to disregard
the law that only freemen (in the strict usage of the
term) vote in town affairs before 1647. In the Annals
a; S lem, a quotation from the town records showed that
it was "Ordered and agreed, 1646, that all the towne's
men and freemen shall meet suerie second day for four
weeks together . . . to consider of the public good of

the towns."52

So widespread was this custom of including
all male inhabitants in town meetings before 1647 that
it can safely be assumed the legal church membership
restriction was generally disregarded by the people of
that day.

After 1647 and the widening of the franchise in

town affairs, there was not much change in the wording

 

51Mass. Records, I, 366, 369, 374; II, 294; Sewall,
History 9; Woburn, p. 25.

52Felt, Annals 9: Salem, I, 350.

85

of the records to indicate increased attendance. The
Quakers of course were disfranchised as were any others
who "refused to attend upon the Publick Worship of God
here Established" -- whether freemen or not.53 About
1660 some of the larger towns began to have separate
meetings for province and town elections. Boston started
this practice, as mentioned before, in 1658 and continued
separate meetings from that time on. However, it is
significant, I believe, that the wording in the records
showed that the warningsfor both the meetings of freemen
and those of inhabitants were given "from house to house."
And since town business was sometimes transacted at free-
men's meetings, it is possible that there was little
difference in the two groups.54 Salem, too, started holding
separate meetings for freemen and inhabitants in 1660.55
While this custom did not develop in all the smaller towns,
in the larger towns of Salem and Boston the practice of
holding separate meetings prevailed after 1660.56

It would seen then, that freemanship was not nearly

as restricted as believed by many modern writers. Before

1647 almost all adult males participated in town meetings.

 

 

 

oston Town Records, VII, 24, 29.

-:—

Salem Town Records, II, 4, 8, 9.

56Topsfield Town Records, I, 48-49; Braintree Town
Records, p. 13; Wenham Town Records, I, 23.

 

86
Some towns, like Woburn, apparently elected only freemen
as selectmen, but far more widespread was the practice of
ignoring the church restriction law. After the 1640's
there was more segregation of freemen and non-freemen in
some of the town meetings but, even then, there is evidence
that freemen constituted the majority at least of the
adult males. In fact the evidence just does not show a
tightly controlled Puritan aristocracy as so many writers
today describe. There was remarkable uniformity in
religious feeling and the current generalization that only
one out of four or five adult males were freemen during

the theocracy must be revised to a much higher figure.

CHAPTER V
FLEXIBILITY IN PURITAN SOCIETY

Although much more democracy was practiced in early
Massachusetts politics than is generally believed by
modern writers, what of the social structure of the
society? Was early Massacnusetts a rigid class society?
Were the freemen predominantly of the upper classes, of
the wealthy? Did they actually prefer the half-feudal
state? Were the "gentry" definitely distinguished from
the "generality?" Determining who were Puritan gentlemen
and who were servants and how rigid was the line between
the two will give some valid indication of social structure
in the society in general.

The concept of “gentlemen" which was brought with
the first settlers to Puritan New-England was fairly wide
in scope and became wider under the pioneer conditions of
Massachusetts. One English writer observed: "'As for
gentlemen, they be made goodcheap in England; for whosoever
studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the
universities, who professeth liberal sciences, and to be
short, who can live idly and without manual labor, and will
bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he ,
shall be called Master, for that is the title which men

1
give to Esquires and other gentlemen.'" In the‘colony of

 

1Smith's Commonwealth of En land, quoted in Joseph
Felt, Annals 9; Salem, I, 165-1 .

-87-

88
Massachusetts, according to historian Joseph Felt, the
title of Mr. or Master was applied to captains and sometimes
to mates of vessels, to military captains, to eminent
merchants, to schoolmasters, doctors, magistrates and
clergyman, to those who received a second degree at college
and to those who had been made freemen.2 If Felt's state-
ment is correct, the term could be applied in early
Massachusetts to a considerable number of men.

There is evidence in the early records that some
concept of "gentlemen" as a class apart from the "generality"
did exist in the public mind. Winthrop noted that at a
court "one Josias Plaistowe and two of his servants were
censured for stealing corn . . . , the master to restore
two fold, and to be degraded from the title of a gentleman,
and fined five pounds, and his men to be whipped." And
the court sentence read that hereafter Josias Plaistowe
was "to be called by the name of Josias and not Mr. as
formerly he used to be."3 The Body of Liberties also
included evidence that separate punishment was reserved
for true gentlemen or any man equal to a gentleman. "No

" the law read,

man shall be beaten with above 40 stripes,
"nor shall any true gentleman, nor any man equall to a

gentleman be punished with whipping, unles his crime be

 

I 2Felt, Annals of Salem, I, 165-166.

3Winthrop, Journal, I, 68.

89
very shamefull, and his course of life vitious and
profligate."4 It is significant that by 1641 the law
recognized not only "true gentlemen" but also those who
were equal to true gentlemen. Obviously the true gentle-
man was having to share his exalted position with many
newcomers.

That the position of a gentleman in early Massachusetts
had undergone a change from old world views was certainly
understood by the Englishman Thomas Ledhford. Lechford
came to Massachusetts in 1638 and refused to agree with or
to join the congregational church. For this, he complained,
he had suffered much: "I am kept from the Sacrament, and
all places of preferment in the Commonwealth, and forced
to get my living by writing petty things, which scarce
finds me bread; and therefore sometimes I took to plant-
ing of corne, but have not yet here an house of my owne
to put my head in or any stock going . . . ."5 Lechford
wanted to return to the old world immediately but his wife
persuaded him to stay a bit longer. However, he did
eventually return and the colony lost one more gentleman.

There are also indications that in Puritan Massa-
chusetts the concept of "gentleman" was not rigid. The

laws and court records are not consistent in the use of

"Mr." Many times the names of masters of servants and

 

4Mass. Laws 2: 1660, p. 43.

5Lechford, Note-book, pp. 287-288.

90
even magistrates names are recorded without the title.6
And that an increasing number of people in the colony
were ignoring the title is shown by the law of 1651
prohibiting extravagant apparel being worn by people
"of mean condition, to the dishonour of God . . . and

altogether unsuitable to our 'poverty." Although the

legislators recognized the difficulty of ruling out such

 

things, they felt it necessary "to declare our utter.

detestation a dislike, that men or women of mean condition,

 

should take vpon them the garb 93 Gentlemen by wearing
gold or silvar lace, or buttons, or points at their knees,
or to walk in great boots, g§_wgm§n_of the same ranke, to
Egg; silk or tyffany hoods or scarfes, which though
allowable £2 persona of greater estates, 9; more liberal

'education, yet wee cannot but Judg it intollerable in

 

 

persons of gggh like condition." It was therefore ordered
that no person within the colony whose real and personal
estate did not exceed two hundred pounds in true value
should wear such laces and other gaudy apparel. And this
should also be true for dependents of those people.
However, the law was not to extend to "the restraint of
any Magistrate or publicke Officer of the Jurisdiction,
their wvies and children, who are left to their discretion
in wearing apparrel, or any settled Millitary Officer or

Souldier in the time of Millitary Service, or any other

 

6See for example Mass. Records, I, 144, 153.

91
whose education or imployment have been above the ordinary
degree, or whose estate have been considerable, though

now decayed."7

It would seem that a great variety of
persons were among the exceptions and that a sizeable
number were beginning to wear the trappings of the titled
group.

At the opposite end of the social scale from the
gentleman was the servant. Some analysis of the social
standing of the servant will show how wide was the gap
between the two groups.

Modern historians have fostered the idea of the
"servant" as an individual whose low state of finances,
and frequently of intelligence too, placed him in the
unenviable position of signing a contract to serve a
"master" for several years for his subsistence and occasion-
ally for a small amount of money, or for training in a
trade. Louis Hacker estimated that about one-fourth of
the immigrants came to America as indentured servants
who "were not paid, receiving only food, clothing and
shelter" during their service. At the end of their bondage
they received "freedom dues" -- a small tract of land and
a few agricultural implements -- and with these they set

up themselves as farmers. "By and large, Hacker wrote,

"they became absorbed into the numerous lower middle classes

 

7Mass. Laws f 1660, p. 3(123).

_———

 

 

92

of the period."8

C. P. Nettels gave a more concise and
accurate account of colonial servants but concluded:
"What treatment the servants received depended upon the
disposition of their masters, although it is safe to assume
that most of them endured a pretty hard lot."9 And finally,
C. M. Andrews suggested that the servant group in general
was hostile to the Puritans and freemen.lO

The sources, however, reveal that this general
interpretation and impression is not accurate and further-
more they show that over the years the meaning of the word
servant has changed, which might account for some of our
present day misconceptions about colonial servants.

Servant was a very common word in the 1600's and
did not carry the derogatory connotation that it has today.
To end a letter with "I remain, Your servant" was the
polite and accepted form in the seventeenth century. The
original draft of the oath of freedom adopted by the colony
bears two titles: "The Oath of a man free or to be made
free," and also "The Oath of a Servt."11 For a man to be
a servant to the king or some great lord was still a mark

of honor and in the religious atmosphere of the seventeenth

 

8Louis M. Hacker, The Shaping g: the American Tradition,
pp 0 17-180

9Nettels, Roots 9; American inilization, pp. 319-322.
10Andrews, The Colonial Period, I, 437.

11Charles Evans, American Bibliography, 1, 2.

93
century being a "servant of the Lord" was a much-used
phrase.12 About 1800, Americans began to resent being
called serVant. As one observer noted in 1784: "Those
ignorant backwoodsmen [in Kentucky] . . . would conceive
it an indelible disgrace and infamy to be styled servants,
even to his Majesty."13 Most historians seem to have
ignored this change in the connotation of the word and
perhaps in so doing have missed the full meaning of the
social implications of being a servant in early Massa-
chusetts.

The words servant and apprentice were used inter-
changeably in Puritan Massachusetts from the earliest days.
Lechford recorded in his notebook in 1640: "Robert Brad-
dish of Cambridge places Hannah his daughter apprentice
unto Thomas Hawkins for 4 yeareg . . . or to Hannah his
wife meat drinks & cloathes & dolble apparell in the end."llIL
Here is a simple indenture using the term apprentice
instead of servant. In another instance, Lechford used
the terms together: " . . . the said Edward as the

n

Apprentice or servant of Anthony Stanyon . . . . Later

in the 1670's the Watertown records generally used

 

12For example see Roger Clap, Memoirs g§_Roger
Cla , p. 17.

1BSir William A. Craigie and James R. Hulbert,
A Dictionary 9; American English pp Historical Principles,
IV, 2072.

laLechford, Note-book, pp. 363, 428.

94

apprentice instead of servant when discussing indenturing

15

 

a child to a master. If there was a difference in
connotation between the two words, the difference was not
marked and it is certain that the words were frequently

if not always used interchangeably.

The Puritan sergent from the earliest days was 100ked
upon as a member of the family, and in no sense was the
modern derogatory connotation applicable to him. In lo29
the Company's court in London wrote to Mr. Endicott in
New England: "Wee haue devyded the servants, belonging
to the company, into seuerall famylies, as wee desire and
intend they should liue togeather . . . ." The court
explained that they wanted the chief in each family to be
grounded in religion and to hold morning and evening
family services.16 The Massachusetts towns were originally
granted "vast bounds," the general court explained in 1645,
"that (when the towns should be increased by their children
and servants, &c.,) they might have place to erect

villages . . . ."17

In other words, the servants and

children -- on an equal basis -- were expected to be

granted community lands and to become active citizens.
The 1648 laws, which used servant and apprentigg

interchangeably, also definitely placed the children and

 

15Watertown Records, I, 129 especially.
15Q.uoted in Felt, Annals 9: Salem, I, 86-87.

17Hubbard, General History, p. 417.

 

95
servants as equals under family rule. "Egg asmuch ap phg
ggod educatign pf children lg singular . . . benefit 39
any Common-wealth;" the law read, "apg E222 gp many parents

é masters are too indulgent and negligent 9: their duty in

 

that kinda," the selectmen of each town are ordered to see

 

that there is no barbarism in any family as not to endeavor
to teach "their children & apprentices" to speak english
and to know the capital laws, that "all masters of families
doe once a week(at the least) catechize their children and
servants" in religion, "that then at the least they procure
such children or apprentices to learn some short orthodox
catechism without book." And furthermore, the law continued,
all parents and masters should bring up their "children
& apprentices" in some honest calling, and if any masters
of families be negligent in these duties "wherby children
and servants become rude, stubborn & unruly" the selectmen
with the magistrates' help should take "such children or
apprentices" and place them with some master who would be
more strict.18

This legal concern over the family government, including
both children and servants, continued in the later years of
the Puritan regime. In 1668 the court sent letters to the
constables of each town ordering them to see that "all
children & youth, vnder family government, be taught to

roads perfectly the English tongue . . . ." And because

 

18Mass. Laws f 1648, p. 11.

 

96
the court records showed much sin among the children and
servants, "you are also required to take a list of the

thin the bounds of your toune,

names of those young persons w
& all adjacent farmes, throughout of all toune bounds, who
doe liue from vnder family government, viz, doe not serve
their parents or masters as children, apprentices, hired
servants, or journeymen ought to doe, & vsually did in our
native country, being subject to their comands and

"19

discipline . . . That the towns took this command

seriously is revealed in the town records.20

Other evidence also shows that servants were looked
upon as having an equal part in the family life in Puritan
Massachusetts. Hubbard in his General History discussed
the product of the 1657 consultations on baptism as printed
in "A Disputation concerning Church Members . . .(1659)."
One question proposed was "Whether adopted children and
bondservants be covenant seed?" It was answered that,
according to the judgment of many godly learned, the
scriptures "extend to them the same covenant privileges
with their natural seed." But, it was added, at present

it was best to leave this question open to further

21 -
discussion. So apparently to most Puritan leaders, but

 

19

20Watertown Reoordg, I, 92; Dorchester Town Recordg,
pp. 176, 177, 182; Boston Town Records, VII, 67.

21

Mass. Records, IV, Pt.2, pp. 395-396.

Hubbard, General History, p. 565.

97
not all, servants were equal with children even in the
matter of baptism. There is also evidence that servants
were sent to the public schools just as other children in
the family. In Dorchester, in 1659, at a meeting of the
selectmen, "ther was a warent giuen William Trescot for
to gather of those parents and Maisters that sent ther
children ore seruants to the free scole those summs that
are in his list."22

It seems quite clear, then, that the servant was
accepted as equal in the Puritan family. He had the same
rights and restrictions as other members of the family,
group, he generally was baptised with the children, and he
was sent to the same school.

Furthermore, there is much evidence to show that the
servant in the seventeenth century Massachusetts had as
respected a place in community affairs as any other minor
or any worker. His place would be comparable today to
that of a young man training to be an architect or an
electrician, or working for any employer in industry or as
a hired man on the farm. In the seventeenth century even
more than today, the period of training -- of servitude --
was merely a means-to-an-end. The Massachusetts laws and

town records are full of records of servants receiving

 

22Dorche§ter Town Records, p. 96.

98
grants of land after serving out their time.23 In fact,
sometimes servants received land before finishing their
service. In Boston in 1640, a great Lott" at the Mount
was granted to "John Moore, the Governors servant, for
3 heads."24 That servants were sometimes settled house-
keepers is shown by the 1aw of 1631 "that noe man within
the limits of this jurisdiccon shall hire any pson for a

servt for lesse time then a years, vnles has be a setled

housekeep . . . ."25 Furthermore, church records show that
many servants joined the church}6 and in the earliest
years a few of them at least became freemen before finish-
ing their time of service. At a Quarter Court in Boston
on March 7, 1637, "James Hayden was admited to be free,
because of his mr his former pmise, before the act of the
Courts made against it." Hayden's name appeared on the
freemen's list of March 9, 1637. No doubt the law referred
to was the one of December 13, 1636, ordering that no
servant should be set free or have any land granted him
until he had served out his covenanted time.27

The wages of servants in the early Bay colony varied

 

23Mass. Records, I, 127, 186, 206; Boston Town Records,
II, 22, 31, 42, 43, 49.

eaflggton Town Racords, II, 49.

25Mass. Records, I, 88.

26Eliot's Roxbury Church Recordg, pp. 75, 77 for example.
27Mass. Records, I, 186, 193, 373.

99
greatly. As we have seen, some servants were put to a
master for no wages, only their keep and training. Many
however received regular pay. One Henry Hobson, for example,
received four pounds a year and was to have 2s. 8d. at the
end of his time. oh the other hand, "Elizabeth Hasnet is
put to William Wilson, for 503. wages, for the years."28
Hubbard wrote of a young fellow, servant to one Williams
of Dorchester, being out of service in 1643, "fell to work
for himself, and by his excessive wages, working only for
ready money, in a little more than a year he had scraped
together £25 in money."29 When one considers that land
in Salem that same year was selling for 5s. an acre in
the principal part of town and in 1645, unimproved land on
the outskirts of the town sold for Is. an acre, it is
obvious that even 503. a year would enable a servant to
save enough to start out in business for himself after
serving his time.

Servants were also put on an equal basis with others
in the matter of taxation. It was ordered in 1646 that
every male in the colony, "servant or othr," of the age
of 16 or above, should pay yearly the sum2 of 20d. poll

30

tax. And the 1648 laws clarify this somewhat by

 

28Mapg. Court pf Assistants Records, II, 122, 129;.
see also Lechford, Note-book, pp. 251-252.

29Hubbard, General History, p. 423.
30Mass. Records, II, 173-174.

100
explaining that "for such servants & children as take not
wages, theirparents and masters shall pay for them, but
such as take wages shal pay for themselves."31

Perhaps one of the primary reasons why the seventeenth
century servant held a respected place in community affairs
was that servants came from all social classes. In recent
times the idea of the poor indentured servant being sold
into bondage three thousand miles from home has been stress-
ed so much that it has overshadowed the fact that probably
the majority of servants were local sons and daughters put
to service and training under a friend or neighbor. In
1659, John Hull noted in his diary, "I received into my
house Jeremie Dummer and Samuel Paddy, to serve me as
apprentices eight years. The Lord make me faithful in
discharge of this new trust committed to me, and let his
blessing be to me and them!"32 Samuel Paddy was the son
of Deacon William Paddy of Boston and Jeremie Dummer was
mentioned later as "Mr. Jeremiah Dummer." Furthermore,

a traveller recorded that when he was in Boston in 1680
"four ministers' sons were learning the silversmith's

trade."33

And in 1634 John Winthrop described a l4-year-
old son of one of the magistrates and told how the boy

became a member of the church. He added, "he went on

 

31Mass. Laws 2: 1648, p. 10.

32John Hull, Diary, p. 150.

33Danckaerts, gppppal, p. 275.

101
cheerfully in a Christian course, falling daily to labor,
as a servant, . . . ."34

Even gentlemen were sometimes servants. At a Boston
town meeting in 1638, lots were granted to a number of men
and among the list was one granted "to Mr. John Mansfield,
having served his brother Mr. Robte Keayne, to have a

"35 Also, in a letter copied in Lechford's

housplott.
notebook appeared the following sentence: "Wthall I
beseech you to peruse this inclosed to Mr. Coventry servant

to my Lord Brooke . . . ."36

This use of servant reveals
the feudal flavor the word carried at that time and explains,
in part at least, why it was not yet considered a term of
derogation.

Not only did gentlemen have servants in Puritan days
but also artisans and tenants had servants of their own.
In the list of early Salem settlers one finds a maltster,
a weaver, and a tailor, each of whom had a servant apiece.
And in 1640 a copy of an agreement between Boston merchant
Richard Parker and one John Parker for lease of the

merchant's farm and cattle in Dedham included the item that

the "said John Parker shall & will keepe & imploy on the

 

34Winthrop, Journal, I, 120-121.
35

36

Boston Town Records, II, 33.

 

Lechford, Note-book, p. 380.
37Felt, Annals pf Salem, I, Appendix, p. 516.

102
premises two men servants a one mayd servant" in addition
to his own labor.38

A check of a few of the individuals who were servants
in the early period in Massachusetts illustrates the rapid
progress financially and socially of the ordinary servant
of that day. In 1632 the general court ordered "that
Alex: Miller and John Wipple shall giue . . . to their
maister, Israell Stoughton" so much money a piece for
their wasteful use of powder and shot.39 Since Israell
Stoughton was a Dorchester resident, the Dorchester town
records furnish additional material on his two servants.
On September 1, 1634, "Alexander Miller servant to Mr
Stoughton" was granted three acres. In 1635 he was granted
three more acres and four years later he was listed among
the inhabitants in the division of town lands and received
a total of 8 acres and 40 rods. On May 2, 1638, he was
made a freeman, and about six months later was granted
another six acres. In other words, it took a little more
than two years for wayward servant Miller to become a 4

O
freeholder and four more years to become a freeman.4 The

record of servant John Wipple is very similar although he

 

38
39

40Dorchester Town Records, pp. 7, 10, 30. 37; Mass.
Records, 1. 374.

Lechford, Note-book, p. 245.

Mass. Records, I, 100.

 

103
41

was not a freeman until 1640. It is obvious that the
gap between servitude and freemanship was not great in
early Massachusetts.

In fact there is a great deal of evidence indicating
that freemanship was not limited to any one social or
economic class. Such a man as John Cotton had to take the

42

oath on an equal level with all others. As some of the
more eminent men in Massachusetts explained it: "For,
excepting the old planters . . ., none are admitted freemen
of this commonwealth but such as are first admitted members
of some church or other in this country, and of such, none
are excluded from the liberty of freemen."43 As we have
just seen, being a servant did not deter freemanship very
long. The records are full of the names of men -- ship-
carpenters, tailors and other artisans -- who after serving
their time, became inhabitants and freemen.

Perhaps the most conclusive evidence that freemanship
was not limited to gentlemen or to any one social cldss is

the description of a freeman found in the records. On

May 26, 1647, one Mighill Smith was made a freeman according

 

41Dorchester Town Records, pp. 27, 76, 140, 295, 376.-
4 42Mass. Records, I, 368; Hutchinson, Histor , Appendix,p.
93. '

43

44See for example Mass. Records, 1, 206, 255, 374, 331,
336; II, 4 and 294, 32 and 294; Boston Town Records, II,
22, 43, 45, 51; Mass. Records, I, 3767 378, 379.

Ibid.

104

to the official list. And on that date appeared the follow-
ing: "It is ordered, yt ye fine of Mighill Smith, for his
puting in of three beanes at once for one mans election,
it being done in simplicity, & he being pore & of an
harmles disposition, it is ordred his fine is suspended
till furthr ordr from ya Genrall Corte."45

It would seem, then, that Puritan Massachusetts did
not have a rigid class society. Although the laws show
some distinction between the gentlemen and the generality
in the earliest days, the jump from one group to the other
was not difficult and the distinction was not sharp enough
to exclude servants from being freeholders and becoming
freemen in a short time. In fact, our modern derogatory
concept of servitude must be cast aside when we think of
the Puritan social structure. The custom of servitude was
a respected part of the social, educational, and disciplinary
structure of the society. It was not a thing reserved for
the lower elements; it was much more of a means-to-an-end
than it is even today. As a result, Massachusetts society
in the seventeenth century apparently had a great deal of

flexibility, at least as much as we have today if not more.

 

45Mass. Records, II, 189.

CHAPTER VI
STATE SUPERSEDES CHURCH IN REAL POWER

One additional problem in the Massachusetts theocracy
is the relative power of the church and state. The general
impression given by many current writers is that the clergy
and church were dominant political powers. V. L. Parrington
for example states that "Rulership in the new church-state
[Mass.], while nominally the function of lay officers, in
reality was quite as much ecclesiastical as political."

The very term "theocracy,"

which is usually applied by
modern writers to the Puritan regime in Massachusetts,
implies that the church had the greatest power in the
colony. How great and how real was that power?

From the beginning the church and state in Puritan
Massachusetts were separate but aimed at mutual support.
Edward Johnson related that the church and civil power
were separate but both worked to keep religion unspotted.
He claimed the aim of the planters in coming to New England
was “to injoy the liberties of the Gospell of Christ" and
so they chose men in civil gpvernment who would endeavor
to keep these "truths of Christ pure and unspotted." The

errorists tried to persuade men "it is not for civill

Government to meddle with matters of Religion; and also

 

1Parrington, Main Currents, I, 38; see also Nettels,
Roots g; Amergpan Civilization, p. 169.

-105-

106
to helps out with their damnable Doctrines, they report
it in all places, where they come, that New England
Government doth persecute the people and Churches of
Christ; which to speake truth they have hitherto beene
so far from that they have indeavoured to expell all such
beasts of pray,(who will not be reclaimed) that here might
' be none left to hurt or destroy in all Gods holy Mountain."
Johnson went on to say that the civil leaders did not aim
to bring all under their obedience to a uniformity in
every point in religion, but to keep them in a unity of
spirit and a bond of peace. Furthermore they have never
mixed their civil powers with the authority peculiarly
given by Christ to his churches and church officers, but
only commune with them. As John Hull later expressed it
in his public diary, the "churches and civil state thus
mutually embracing and succoring each other," God had
blessed the colony with great prosperity and success.2
In other words, church and state have separate powers but
uphold each other through mutual support.

The preface to the 1648 laws stated very clearly that
the aim from the beginning was for the civil and religious
states, though separate, to support each other. The laws
described the civil and religious states in Massachusetts

as "two tvvinnes" and stated that the civil polity and

 

. 2Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, p. 140; John Hull,
Diary, p. 168.

 

107
laws were framed "according to the rules of his most holy
word whereby each do help and strengthen the other (the
Churches the civil Authoritie, and the civil Authoritie
the Churches)" and so both prosper without the contention
for priviledge and priority so common in some other places.

Although the general overall aim of the church and
state was mutual support, their duties were segregated, and
they each had their proper functions. In the Hutchinson
affair, for example, Johnson emphasized that "the Synod,
Civil Government, and the Churches of Christ, kept their
proper place, each moving in their own sphear, and acting
by their own light, or rather by the revelation of Jesus
Christ, witnessed by his Word and Spirit, yet not refusing
the help of each other (as some would willing have it)."3

On less basic issues too, their functions were segre-
gated. In 1639, the general court declared that it was
the duty of the church, not the court, to prohibit excess
in apparel -- a development of much concern to the founding
fathers.4 In 1644 another issue brought out the fact that
contemporaries, at least, believed the church and state
had separate spheres. John Winthrop was somewhat perturbed
at the actions of some of the church fathers in the dispute

over the power of the magistrates. He complained that

 

3Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, p. 175.

4Mass. Records, I, 274.

108

"some of the elders had done no good offices in this matter,
through their misapprehensions both of the intentions of
the magistrates, and also of the matters themselves, being
affairs of state, which did not belong to their calling."5

Not only did the church and state have recognized
separate spheres but they did not always agree on some
issues of mutual concern. When a magistrate accused mer-
chant Robert Keayne, a church member and a freeman, of
overcharging him for some merchandise, the matter was
brought up both in church and in the general court. In
his will of 1653, Keayne related how the magistrate
"obtained his desire againest me in the Court, though not
so fully as he would have had it," but he was disappointed
of his expectation in the church, "they not looking upon
the complaints & witnesses as the Court had . . . ."6

Aiming at mutual support and having separate special
functions does not imply, however, that the church and
state were equal in power. They may have been "tvvinnes"
but in this case they were not identical. Throughout the
entire period, the state was always the ultimate ruler for
church as well as civil disputes, and the church was the
advisor only in civil affairs.

From the beginning the civil authorities had much to

say about organization and maintenance of the Puritan

 

5Winthrop, Journal, II, 190.

6Boston Town Records, X, 32.

109
churches. The first act of the court of assistants on
August 23, 1630, was to provide for their minister.7 Two
years later the court ruled against an unauthorized minister
preaching in the colony. On October 3, 1632, the court
at Boston prohibited one Mr. Batcheler "exerciseing his
guifts as a pastr or teacher publiquely, in or pattent."8
And even after the magistrates entreated the elders in
1635, to advise them "hows farr the magistrates are bound
to interpose for the preservacon of that vniformity &
peace of the churches," the magistrates continued to
require their approval before any churches could be started
in the colony.9 The court also ordered fasts and in the.
earliest days of the church even set lecture times.10 The
town meetings felt it their duty to deal with some of the
more mundane aspects of church affairs, such as repairing
the meeting houses, punishing the young people for idling
on the Sabbath during church, and for keeping "a vigilent
eie to see that mens Cheldren and such as are within their
Charge be Catechized in som Orthodox Catechisme in familes."ll

The civil power also usually had the final say in any

 

7Mass. Records, I, 73.

8Mass. Records, I, 100, 103.

9Mass. Records, I, 143-144, 168; II, 67-68.

 

10Mass. Records, I, 109-110; Winthrop,Journal, I, 135.

11Boston Town Records, VII, 28; II, 131; Dorchester
Town Records, p. 73; also see galem Town Records, II, 195.

 

 

llO
serious church disputes. According to historian Hubbard,
the churches usually settled their differences by calling
in the help of neighboring churches for advice. If the
decision of the advisors was unanimous, all parties con—
cerned were always ready to acquiesce. But when the
advisors differed, or "in case of any contumacy in any of
the offending parties, the civil magistrates' help being
implored by them that are aggrieved, that useth always
to put a final end to all matters of controversy amongst

"12 And Hubbard illustrated his

any of their churches.
point by citing several towns where differences had recently
occurred.

An incident in 1646 revealed how great was the power
of the civil authority over church affairs. When the
general court called a synod in 1646, there was some
objection that the civil authority was overstepping its
bounds in church affairs. Winthrop recalled that some
deputies objected to passing a bill for a synod because
1) "civil authority did require the churches to send their
messengers to it, and divers among them were not satisfied
of any such power given by Christ to the civil magistrate
over the churches in such cases;secondly, whereas the main

end of the synod was propounded to be, an agreement upon

one uniform practice in all churches, the same to be

 

12Hubbard, General History, pp. 608-609.

 

111
commended to the general court, etc., this seemed to giue
power either to the synod or the court to compel the churches
to practice what should so be established." To these
objections it was answered that the civil power does have
power upon just occasions to require the churches to send
messengers to advise on such ecclesiastical matters,

"either of doctrine or discipline," for the magistrate was
bound by God to maintain the churches in purity and truth.

To this the objecting deputies agreed. And it was further:
declared in answer "that the end of the synod was not to
proceed by way of power, but only of counsel from the word

of God, and the Court was at liberty either to establish

or disannul such agreement of the synod, as they see cause,
which could put no more power into the court's hand than

it had by the word of God and our own Laws and Liberties."l3
There seemed to be little doubt among these contemporaries
that the general court was the ultimate interpreter of

God's word and most of the leading ministers sanctioned

this attitude. Mr. Norton, teacher of the church of Ipswich,
spoke to the Boston lecture the Sunday following the
agitation and showed "the power of the civil magistrate

in calling such assemblies, and the duty of the churches

in yielding to the same."14

 

13Winthrop, Journal, II, 274; see also Mass. Records,
II, 154-156; Hubbard, General History, p. 533.

l4Winthrop, Journal, II, 281; also Nathaniel Ward,
Thg Simple Cobbler pf Aggawam, p. 12.

112

Other incidents showed the concern and ultimate power
of civil authorities in matters of doctrine as well as
discipline. In 1631 the governor and deputy went to
Watertown to confer with the pastor and one of the elders
there about an opinion which they had published "that the
churches of Rome were true churches."15 A little later
the upheaval in the colony over the Anne Hutchinson affair
and the final ousting of Roger Williams indicated how
deeply concerned the civil authorities were over church
doctrine and how powerful they were in dealing with such
situations. Also, in 1635, one John Smyth was given six
weeks to get out of the colony "for dyvers dangerous

opinions, wCh hee holdeth, & hath dyvulged."l6

And on
March 13, 1639, "Mr Ambros Marten, for calling the church
covenant a stinking carryon & a humane invention, & saying
hee wondered at Gods patience, feared it would end in the
sharpe, a said the ministers did dethrone Christ, & set

Vp themselues; hee was fined 103, & counselled to go to

1
Mr Mather to be instructed by him." 7

In other words, the
civil authorities not only demanded uniformity in doctrine,
but had much influence in the final analysis of what the
doctrine was to be. They could accept or reject even a

synod's decision on baptism as well as physically oust

 

15winthrop, Journal, I, 66, 71-72.

16Mass. Records, I, 159-

17M§§§, Bpgggdg, I, 252; see also p. 312 for another
case.

113

members of their society for disagreeing with the doctrine.

Although the civil authorities had much power in
church affairs, the role of the clergy in civil matters
was purely advisory. And furthermore, they usually did not
give advice unless asked. In 1635, for example, the
ministers were called together by the governor and assistants
to consider, among other things, what should be done if a
general governor was sent from England. The ministers
all agreed that if a general governor was sent, "we ought
not to accept him, but defend our lawful possessions, (if
we were able) otherwise to avoid or protract."18 This of‘
course was just what the civil authorities wanted to hear.
Woburn also gave us a good exanple of clerical advice.
Among the instructions given by the town to their first
elected selectmen was the following: "When any scruples
should arise in their minds, in the transaction of the
affairs of the town, they should repair to the elder or
elders of the church in the said town for advice."19

Although many such examples exist of civil authorities
calling in the church ministers or elders for advice,

there are also instances in such disputes when one party

 

18Winthrop, Journal, I, 145.

19Sewall, History pf Wopupp, p.25, quoted from Woburn
Records, I, 5-6.

208ee Winthrop, Journal, I, 145, 170-171; II, 121,
211-218; Boston Town Records, II, 5; Hubbard, General History,
pp. 385-389; Mass. Records, II, 90-96.

114
involved refused to call in the elders. In the dispute
over the rights of the governor and magistrates, the
deputies refused to call in the elders to arbitrate because
they felt they would be prejudiced in favor of the magis-
trates.21 And in 1680, Increase Mather complained that
even in'bolemn & difficult Cases" before the general court,
the court would not or did not desire advice from the elders
as had been the custom in such cases.

Furthermore, in cases where the decisions of church
advisors and civil authorities differed, civil leaders had
the final say. For example, in the case of Harvard's
schoolmaster mistreating scholars in 1639, the elders
recommended letting the schoolmaster return to his employment
after confessing his sins, but the court, consulting after
the elders left, decided to censure him and put him from
his employment. He was fined and ordered never to teach
in Massachusetts again.23 And in 1644 when the elders were
called in to arbitrate the long standing dispute between
magistrates and deputies, most of their advice was accepted,
but a minor portion of it was refused.

There seemed to be little doubt in the minds of

contemporaries that the state was the final power in

 

21Winthrop, Journal, II, 235-

22..Diary of Increase Mather," Mass. Hist. Society
Proceedingg 1899,1900, 2 series, XIII, 408.
23Winthrop, Journal, I, 313-

24Winthrop, Journal, II, 217.

115

Massachusetts. The Body of Liberties, as well as later
laws, recognized this by stating that no church censure
can degrade or depose any man from a civil office or
authority?5 Thomas Lechford, much discouraged over
religious regulations in Massachusetts, complained that
no church or officers have power over one another but by
way of counsel or advice, voluntarily given or besought,
"saving that the general Court, now and then, over-rule
some Church matter." He was disturbed over the fact that
in Massachusetts "an elected Magistrate excommunicate may
hold his place," and that a magistrate "though excommunicate,
is to be obeyed still in civill things."26

John Cotton was perhaps the most explicit of all
about the state having greater power than the church. In
a letter to Lord Say and Scale in 1636, he wrote: "When
your Lordship doubteth, that this corse will draw all
things under the determination of the church . . . (seeing
the church is to determine who shall be members, and none
but a member may have to doe in the government of a common-
wealth) be pleased (I pray you) to conceyve, that magistrates
are neyther chosen to office in the church, nor doe governe
by directions from the church, but by civill lawes, and
those enacted in generall corts, and executed in corts of

iustice, by the governors and assistants. In all which,

 

25Mass. Laws 9: 1660, pp. 47, 25.
26Lechford, §;ain Dealing, pp. 73, 74.

116
the church (as the church) hath nothing to doe: onely:
it prepareth fitt instruments both to rule, and to choose
rulers, which is no ambition in the church, nor dishonor
to the commonwealth . . . ." And later Cotton added,
"For, the church submitteth itself to all the lawes and
ordinances of men, in what commonwealth soever they come

to dwell."27

In 1644, in his famous gpygp 39 the Kipgdom
'2; Heaven, Cotton discussed the relative power of church
and state and pointed out the realm of each. He wrote

"we willingly acknowledge a power in the Civill Magistrate,
to establish and reform Religion, according to the Word-6f
God: yet we would not be so understood, as if we judged
it to belong to the civill power, to compel all men to

come and sit down at the Lords Table, or to enter into

the communion of the Church, before they be in some

measure prepared of God for such fellowship."28

So, in
Cotton‘s view, the church only prepares the people for
political activities but has no power otherwise over the
state while, on the other hand, the state may establish
and reform religion but the church reserves the right to
say who is prepared to enter full communion.

It seems quite evident, then, that although there

was mutual support between church and state from the

beginning of the colony, in the final analysis the state

 

27Hutchinson, History, Appendix, pp. 498-499, 500.

28John Cotton, Keyes 39 the Kingdom pf Heaven, p.97.

117
was the most powerful by far. Parrington's statement that
the minister was the trained and consecrated interpreter
of the divine law, and the magistrate was its trained and
consecrated administrator is in need of some revision.

It would probably be more nearly correct to say the
magistrate was not only the administrator of divine law
but also its interpreter, and the minister was merely his

helper.

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

Puritan society, as revealed in the sources, had
a surprising amount of democracy. Applying the modern
terms aristocracy or theocracy to the early Bay colony
gives an erroneous view of the entire situation. As the
Puritan leaders described it, the Massachusetts "mixt
Aristocratie" closely resembled our modern representative
democracy. All adult males had the right to attend town
meetings and apparently the custom was for most of them
to do so -- or be fined for not attending. Freemen, in
the strict sense, had some privileges in office-holding
and voting in province affairs, but as the group of non-
freemen became larger the laws changed to accommodate
their growth and give them more political privileges..
There is plenty of evidence that the 1631 law was very
loosely applied, especially in town affairs, and there
is also no doubt that the property qualifications of the
1664 law excluded few, if any, from the franchise. Figures
show that at least 61 per cent of the adult men in Boston
were freemen as late as 1679 and other evidence indicates
that this figure would have to be revised upward if anything.

On the religious side of the picture, sources reveal
a large amount of uniformity in feeling. The colony was
predominantly congregational and those who violently dis-
agreed with this way found a haven in neighboring colonies,

-118-

119
or, as Thomas Lechford did, returned to the mother country.
The evidence certainly does not show that the "Saints
were few and the sinners many." That is a well-turned
phrase but certainly should not be applied to Puritan
Massachusetts.

Furthermore, the sources do not show a class-ridden
society from the social standpoint. In fact they show
quite the opposite. Notions of class structures brought
from the old world faded fast in the pioneer Bay state.
The jump from servant to freeman was a short one and
landowning was the common thing. Servants were not social
outcasts.~ Servitude was an accepted respectable part of
the educational and economic side of Puritan society.
Gentlemen there were, but servants could fast become
gentlemen, and titles were frequently ignored by con-
temporary scribes. If, at this period, gentlemen could
be "made goodcheap" in England, they were even more
plentiful in Massachusetts.

And, as for the relationship between the church and
state, the evidence shows clearly that the state, not the
church, was the most powerful. While Massachusetts was
predominantly congregational and the political leaders
almost uniformly Puritan, the term theocracy does not
really apply to the early Bay colony. Although in theory
the Puritan leaders believed their government was under

the immediate direction of God -- and in that sense it

120
could be called a theocracy -- the lay leaders, not the
ministers, ruled the state. The clergy never held more
than an advisory capacity in political affairs.

Much more work remains to be done to understand early
Massachusetts completely.l But one thing seems certain:
Massachusetts was not an aristocracy with a class-ridden
society, as it is so frequently described today. In fact,
except for the dominant religious tone, it bore a close

resemblance to our modern representative democracy.

121
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Ilmmmmlmmuummmmm:umifiifliiu?»

 

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