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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
For many years it has been agreed that New England Puritans became Yankees. Although scholars have largely confined their studies of this process to Massachusetts, the titles of two recent books on Connecticut indicate that the interpretation fits that colony as well. Puritanism declined in Connecticut as elsewhere in New England. Fitz-John Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut between 1698 and 1707, suffers by comparison with the standards set by his grandfather, Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, and by the founders of Connecticut, Hooker, Ludwell, and Haynes. In 1680, Governor William Leete of Connecticut judged Fitz by these standards, and found that he lacked his ‘fathers virtues & cordiality of love to this colony’. The accusation was well-founded, for Fitz and his brother Wait had allied themselves with Governor Edmund Andros of New York in pushing the Duke of York's claim to large parts of Connecticut. That they did so in part to protect their land holdings would not have softened Leete's judgement. The Winthrops come out of the affair the archetypal Yankees: not only provincial, but materialistic as well. Yet on balance, there was in Connecticut little of the intense self-criticism so prevalent in Massachusetts, where the spirit of accommodation with the empire was more widespread and produced considerable political strife and the usual crop of doomladen sermons. Fitz's temporary defection was rare in Connecticut and resulted in little more than Leete's rather gentle remonstrance and a short-lived, if acrimonious, correspondence between Fitz and the General Court. As Richard L. Bushman suggests, Connecticut's isolation from the imperial system and its relative homogeneity gave rise to a Puritan society unique in its autonomy and, one might add, unique in its self-confidence.
1 There is some disagreement as to the date of the transition. See Dunn, Richard S., Puritans and Yankees: The Winthrop Dynasty in New England, 1630–1717 (Princeton, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which deals with Connecticut through the careers of the son and grandsons of the first Winthrop, John, and Bushman, Richard L., From Puritan to Yankee; Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1600–1765 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).Google Scholar
2 Leete quoted by Dunn, Puritans and Yankees, p. 210. See also Ibid., pp. 191–211. Miller, Perry, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (Boston, 1961), pp. 136–46.Google Scholar
3 Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. ix–x, 11, 107–8.Google Scholar
4 Nelson, Anne Kusener, ‘King Philip's War and the Hubbard-Mather Rivalry’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 27 (1970), 615, 617–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Trumbull, J. H. and Hoadly, C. J., eds., The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1636–1676 (15 vols., Hartford, 1850–1890), vol. 11, pp. 296–7Google Scholar. See also John Whiting's Connecticut election sermon for 1686, The Way of Israels Welfare… (Boston, 1686, C.K. Shipton Microprints, American Antiquarian Society), pp. 8–9, 13–17, 26–9. Whiting bemoaned increasing sin throughout New England, but could produce no evidences of God's judgment on Connecticut save the increasing rum trade with the Indians.
6 Miller, , From Colony to Province, pp. 30–1, 132–42, 230–2Google Scholar; Breen, T. H., The Character of the Good Ruler: A Study of Puritan Political Ideas in New England (New Haven, 1970), pp. 87–133Google Scholar; Pope, Robert G., The Half-Way Covenant: Church Membership in Puritan New England (Princeton, 1969), pp. 75–131.Google Scholar
7 Miller, Ibid., pp. 93, 105–6, 116; Greene, M. Louise, The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut (Boston, 1905), pp. 106–18, 122–33.Google Scholar
8 Miller, Ibid., p. 116; Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 149–50Google Scholar; Pope, , The Half-Way Covenant, pp. 93–5Google Scholar; Trumbull, Benjamin, A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical (2 vols., Hartford, 1818), vol. 1, pp. 461, 467, 473–81Google Scholar; Sibley, John L., Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University… (vol. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1873). p. 391Google Scholar; Public Records, vol. ii, p. 84Google Scholar; vol. iii, p. 65.
9 Public Records, vol. iii, p. 299.Google Scholar
10 See the minutes of Court proceedings for the years 1675–86 in Public Records, vols. ii and iii, passim. In 1675 and 1679 two laws were passed which did alter the body politic. The first lowered the property qualification for freemanship from £20 to £10 rateable estate. It may have been a device to obligate more men to government in time of war. The second restricted town meeting suffrage to those with a fifty-shilling freehold; its expressed purpose was to prevent transients from voting in town affairs. See ibid., vol. ii, p. 253; vol. iii, p. 34.
11 The Council was expected to call the General Court into session on extraordinary occasions. The Court delegated power to the Council at the end of each session. Public Records, vols. ii and iii, passim. Only after 1686 did the Court limit the Council's power. Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 226, 228, 237, 245. For the Charter of 1662, see ibid., vol. ii, pp. 3–11.
12 For estate valuations of assistants and deputies, mainly from Hartford County, see Manwaring, C. W., ed., A Digest of Early Connecticut Probate Records (3 vols., Hartford, 1904–1906)Google Scholar, vols. i and ii, index and passim. Samuel Willys to John Allyn, 5 October 1680, Connecticut Historical Society Collections (CHS Coll.), vol. xxiv, pp. 19–20; Samuel Willys to Fitz Winthrop, September 1693, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections (MHS Coll.), 6th Ser., vol. iii, pp. 16–17.
13 The proprietors were that group of men which, in each town, had the legal right to sell and dispose of all undivided town lands. The following discussion of suffrage and proprietorship depends on information found in the following: Fowler, David H., ‘Connecticut's Freemen: the First Forty Years’, Wm. and Mary Qtly., 3rd Series, 15 (1958), 312–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Akagi, R. H., The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies… (reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass., 1963), pp. 50–159Google Scholar; Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 41–53Google Scholar; Mead, N. P., Connecticut as a Corporate Colony (Lancaster, Pa., 1906), pp. 65–8Google Scholar; and Deming, Dorothy, ‘The Settlement of the Connecticut Towns’, Conn. Tercentenary Committee Publications (New Haven, 1933), vol. vii, pp. 49–51.Google Scholar
14 In New London, an old town but distant from Hartford, only 43% were freemen, a significantly lower proportion than obtained in Hartford County. Perhaps significantly, too, New London was one of the most troubled towns during the years of controversy, 1689–98. Caulkins, Florence M., History of New London… (New London, 1852), p. 190Google Scholar; Mead, N. P., Connecticut, pp. 65–8.Google Scholar
15 The Public Records say only ‘The deputies in Court in the behalfe of the townes…’, vol. iii, pp. 176–8. Bushman suggests that the law was intended primarily to secure land titles against a possible royal Governor. From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 46–7. But in May 1685 when the law was passed Connecticut had only just heard of the vacation of Massachusetts's Charter; proceedings against their own had not even begun; and their surprise when they heard of quo warrantos against their own Charter in May 1686 was genuine, if naive. The rash of land grants to individuals and towns which came after May 1686 had much more to do with the by then very real threat from England. Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 200–1. 217–19, 223–5, 231–3.Google Scholar
16 Some assistants and deputies from the older towns were, like Fitch, involved in land speculation outside their towns, and they may well have voted for their own rather than their towns' interests. For Fitch, see Caulkins, F. M., History of Norwich… (Hartford, 1866), pp. 136–9, 256–7Google Scholar
17 Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 186–7.Google Scholar
18 Population, price trends, and number of towns derived from lists of rateable estates and prices assigned to ‘country pay’ (commodity payment) at every October session of the General Court from 1675 to 1700. Public Records, vols. ii, iii and iv, passim. See also Bidwell, P. and Falconer, J., History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620–1860 (reprint, New York, 1941), pp. 42–8Google Scholar; Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 27–37, 45–51, 83, 291–2.Google Scholar
19 The dispute raged from about 1680 to 1706. Before 1700, the protagonists were largely tenants of the rival speculators. When bona fide sales and settlement began in earnest, the General Court forced a settlement. Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 536–7Google Scholar; vol. v, pp. 4, 10. See Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 249, 317, 328–30Google Scholar; Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 86–95.Google Scholar
20 See the correspondence between Fitz and Wait Winthrop, 1680–90, MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. viii, pp. 404–90. General Court to the Lords of Trade, 1680, Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 298–9Google Scholar; also ibid., pp. 66–7, 308–9.
21 Bailyn, Bernard, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1964), pp. 54–8, 95–6Google Scholar. The General Laws and Liberties of Conecticut Colonie (Cambridge, Mass., 1673, facsimile ed., Hartford, , 1865), pp. 42–3Google Scholar. Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 108–12Google Scholar. Giles Hamlin, and his son John, both in their turn assistants from Middletown in Hartford County, owned a ship outright but were themselves farmers. John Allyn, farmer and assistant from Hartford, was a trader of sorts. Manwaring, , ed., Probate Records, vol. i, pp. 395–6, 460Google Scholar.
See also ‘Sir Edmund Andros' answer to his instructions’, April 1690, Sainsbury, W. N. et al. , eds., Calendar of British State Papers, Colonial Series (CSPC) 1659–1692, no. 862.Google Scholar
22 Also, grain embargoes were frequently enacted because of war, the threat of war, or poor harvests, thus protecting small farmers and tradesmen who produced no surplus or no grain at all even in good years.
Public Records, vol. ii, pp. 271, 277, 325, 385Google Scholar; vol. iii, pp. 14, 23, 79, 186–7, 235‐6; vol. v, pp. iv–v. Laws and Liberties, p. 55.
23 Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 238–42.Google Scholar
24 Randolph to Conn. Council; General Court to King James; and Treat to Thomas Dongan (two letters) 14 June and 3 July 1686; all in Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 209–10, 352–6Google Scholar. Council to Randolph, CSPC 1685–1688, no. 728.
25 See for instance their address to King James congratulating him on his peaceful accession, 22 April 1685, Public Records, vol. iii, p. 341.Google Scholar
26 Laws and Liberties, p. ii. See for instance Connecticut's quick response to the Lords of Trade Inquiries; Governor Treat's subscribing to the Navigation oath; Connecticut's piracy law; and the letter to Charles and day of Thanksgiving upon the failure of the Rye House Plot. Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 49, 137–8, 150–5, 167, 294–300.Google Scholar
27 Undated letter quoted in Barnes, Viola, The Dominion of New England (reprint, New York, 1960), p. 6Google Scholar. Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 208–10Google Scholar. CSPC 1685–1688, no. 763.
28 See the writs and Allyn's endorsement of them; Dudley to Treat, 21 July (received 26 July) 1686; Dongan to Treat, 13 August 1686; Public Records, vol. iii, p. 356–9, 366–7Google Scholar. The Court clearly understood the alternatives before it. Ibid., pp. 211–13.
29 The division first appeared in the special session of 28 July 1686 and continued practically to the end. See Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 213, 222n, 226, 227, 237, 375–82Google Scholar; CSPC 1685–1688, no. 1194, no. 1197 iv, vii; and CHS Coll., vol. iii, pp. 134n–5n, vol. xxi, p. 292, for official correspondence and Court minutes relevant to the division. See also the important private correspondence between John Allyn and Fitz-John Winthrop, January and February 1687, MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. viii, pp. 300–2, and 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 478–80.
30 The half-penny rate laid in July would have raised at least £350. On 24 August 1686 the Council sent £60, the last remission to William Whiting, the colony's London agent. Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 212, 372–5, 385Google Scholar; CHS Coll., vol. xxi, p. 292. For the Court's letter to the Earl of Sunderland, 26 January 1687, and the explicit contradiction of that letter at the next meeting, 30 March 1687, see Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 377–8, 381, 381n, and 227.Google Scholar
31 Public Records, vol. iii, p. 238.Google Scholar
32 For a complete list of Dominion officers in Connecticut, see CHS Coll., vol. iii, pp. 140n–1n. Treat and Allyn were appointed to the Dominion Council; the rest of the assistants, including James Fitch, were made quorum justices of the county courts. For Allyn's effectiveness, see his correspondence with Andros and Dominion Secretary West, John, Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 395–8, 436–7Google Scholar; vol. xv, pp. 543–5.
33 Histories of the Glorious Revolution in Connecticut are still based on the Connecticut ‘tory’ Gershom Bulkeley's manuscript, ‘Will and Doom…’, printed in CHS Coll., vol. iii, pp. 79–269. This delightful piece deserves reprinting.
34 Council to Dudley, 4 August 1686, Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 364–5.Google Scholar
35 In 1690, when the Court was short of money, the Governor and Council paid the colony agent out of their own pockets. CHS Coll., vol. xxiv, pp. 25–8. John Allyn, who had every reason to disagree with James Fitch in other matters, co-authored with him a pamphlet defending the unilateral resumption of charter government. Their Majesties Colony of Connecticut Vindicated… (Boston, 1694), reprinted CHS Coll., vol. i, pp. 87–130.
36 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 102, 107Google Scholar; Governor and Council to Fitz Winthrop, 3 October 1693, CHS Coll., vol. xxiv, p. 71; Trumbull, , History of Connecticut, vol. i, p. 391Google Scholar. Before he left, Winthrop made sure of the support of Samuel Willys, William Rosewell and Gershom Bulkeley; Willys to Winthrop, September 1693, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 16–17; Willys to Winthrop, October 1693, quoted in Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 300–1.Google Scholar
37 Treat to Winthrop, 10 October 1693, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, p. 19. Gershom Bulkeley quoted by Allyn, and Fitch, , Their Majesties Colony, CHS Coll., vol. i, p. 96.Google Scholar
38 The relevant correspondence may be found in CHS Coll., vol. xxiv, pp. 79–124; Hinman, R. R., ed., Letters from the English Kings and Queens…to the Governors of Connecticut (Hartford, 1836), pp. 236–55Google Scholar; MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. viii, 6th Series, vol. iii. For a view of Fitz's agency which does him too little justice, see Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 302–14.Google Scholar
39 Dunn, ibid., pp. 287–98, 315–17.
40 Fitz Winthrop to John Allyn, 3 October 1692, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 470–1, and, among a number of Willys's letters, to Winthrop, 25 December 1697, ibid., pp. 31–2, and to Wait Winthrop, 21 April 1697, MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. vi, pp. 27–8.
41 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 535–6Google Scholar; vol. v, pp. 4, 10.
42 For a contrary view, see Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 294–5Google Scholar. Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, p. 90Google Scholar, substantiates partially my interpretation which follows in its essentials that put forward by Bulkeley, Gershom in ‘Will and Doom’, CHS Coll., vol. iii, pp. 159–60Google Scholar. For the laws themselves, see Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 11–12Google Scholar. See also above for the deputies' ‘peculiar constituency’.
43 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 10, 23, 41–2, 65, 91, 120, 138, 196.Google Scholar
44 Public Records, vol. iv, p. 14.Google Scholar
45 During Fitch's ‘ministryr’ grants to individuals and towns of the Colony's public lands practically ceased, to begin again in 1698. Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 129, 275–7Google Scholar. The fullest treatment of Fitch's private land dealings is in Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 86–97.Google Scholar
46 Samuel Willys unsuccessfully tried to pass an adequate ministers' maintenance law in 1690 and 1692. Rebuffed both times, he turned to Winthrop, whom he urged to obtain from the Crown guarantees for the colony's clergy. Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 28, 73Google Scholar; Willys to Winthrop, September 1693, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, p. 16. Bushman–s view (From Puritan to Yankees, p. 158) that the 1697 law was intended for the clergy's benefit was not shared by the ministers of Fairfield County who claimed that if the law were not repealed, ‘we must be starved out of the ministry…’ CHS Coll., vol. xxiv, pp. 155–9. Most ministers were paid in kind, and commodity prices in the ministers' rates were fixed at inflated values (e.g. wheat priced 37% higher in the ministers' rate than in the colony's rate). Public Records, vol. iv, 198–201, 224–5.Google Scholar
47 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 163–4.Google Scholar
48 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 259, 267, 275–7.Google Scholar
49 Samuel Willys to Wait Winthrop, 21 April 1697, MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. vi, pp. 27–8; Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, p. 318.Google Scholar
50 Wheeler's, John ‘Remonstrance of the Present State of New London Towne’, May 1690, CHS Coll., vol. xxi, pp. 319–20Google Scholar; Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, pp. 90–5Google Scholar. Samuel Willys did mention three towns which sent Fitch men to the General Court in place of deputies friendly to or of the oligarchy. Willys to Winthrop, 25 December 1697, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 31–2. Two of the three men replaced became assistants soon after 1698.
51 Caulkins, , History of Norwich, pp. 256–7Google Scholar; Wait Winthrop to Governor Treat, 8 April 1696, MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. viii, pp. 514–6.
52 Bulkeley, , ‘Will and Doom’, CHS Coll., vol. iii, pp. 151–5Google Scholar. See the correspondence between Allyn, John, Woodbridge, Reverend Timothy and Winthrop, Fitz-John, May 1689, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 33, 498–501.Google Scholar
53 Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 329–30Google Scholar; Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 391–2, 430–1.Google Scholar
54 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 9–10, 17, 18, 29, 34–7, 64–5Google Scholar. The weakness had one salutary effect. In 1602 the Court of Assistants refused to put a convicted witch to death and called off further trials in Fairfield because they feared they had not the necessary authority, the validity of the Charter still being in doubt. Taylor, John M., The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut, 1647–1697 (New York, 1908), pp. 62–78Google Scholar; Bulkeley, , ‘Will and Doom’, CHS Coll., vol. iii, pp. 233–5Google Scholar; Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 76–7, 79.Google Scholar
55 Willys to Winthrop, September 1693, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 16–17.
56 Saltonstall, , An Election Sermon… (Boston, 1697, AAS microprint), see especially pp. 6–7, 15–16, 19, 22–3, 28–30, 38, 40, 53–5, 63–4.Google Scholar
57 Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 315–16.Google Scholar
58 Dunn, ibid., pp. 323–8, 335–52.
59 Winthrop to Pierson, 15 February 1698, quoted in Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 316–17Google Scholar. This interpretation of Fitz Winthro's legislative programme differs from Dunn's, but see Dunn's final (and fairer) summing up of Fitz, Ibid., p. 355, as a ‘genuine yankee’.
60 Fitz Winthrop to John Allyn, March 1690, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 507–8.
61 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 238–40, 245–6, 247, 249Google Scholar. Willys to Winthrop, 5 December 1699, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 44–5.
62 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 259–63.Google Scholar
63 The Court's nominees included Samuel Mason, whom Winthrop could not have been pleased with, but also nominated were William Pitkin, John Chester and John Wolcott, all Winthrop's allies. See Public Records, vol. iv, p. 253Google Scholar; and the correspondence between Fitz and the committees in 1698 in MHS Coll., 5th Series, vol. viii, 6th Series, vol. iii.
64 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 266–9Google Scholar; petition of Lower House to Governor Winthrop, October 1699, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 41–4; Fitz to Wait Winthrop, 1699, quoted in Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, p. 322.Google Scholar
65 Caulkins, , History of New London, Chapter xvGoogle Scholar; Dunn, , Puritans and Yankees, pp. 295, 330–2, 335, 352, 391, 430–1Google Scholar See also Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar
66 Winthrop to Sir Henry Ashurst, 15 July 1703, MHS Coll., 6th Series, vol. iii, pp. 133–4; Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 320, 348, 379, 399, 407, 442–3, 489Google Scholar; vol. xv, p. 548.
67 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 375–6.Google Scholar
68 Public Records, vol. iii, pp. 30, 157–8Google Scholar; vol. iv, pp. 30–1, 80–1, 97, 331–2. Towns of fewer than seventy families were required to keep a school for six months out of each year.
69 Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 363–5.Google Scholar
70 Also in 1699 ministers were exempted from paying rates on their estates and in 1706 from paying the poll tax. Public Records, vol. iv, pp. 287, 316Google Scholar; vol. v, p. 2. Before, the Governor was elected from the body of assistants. At a special session in January 1708, the General Court ordered that henceforth the Governor had only to be a freeman of the colony. Saltonstall had not been an assistant. Public Records, vol. v, pp. 38–9.Google Scholar
71 For a text of the Platform, see Walker, Williston, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (New York, 1893), pp. 495–507.Google Scholar
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74 Miller, ibid., pp. 252–67, 290–2. Wise, however, detested the guiding principle behind the Saybrook Platform. Mather would have approved. Once again, one finds that Connecticut docs not fit Massachusetts categories. Pope, , The Halj-Way Covenant, pp. 266–9Google Scholar, also argues that in Connecticut battles over church government and baptismal rules were fought along lines fundamentally different from those obtaining in Massachusetts. For a different interpretation of Winthrop's Governorship, see Breen, T. H.. The Character of the Good Ruler, pp. 209–22.Google Scholar