By arrangementwith theCOLONIAL SOCIETY OF
MASSACHUSETTS,
ENGLAND
the Editors
QUARTERLY
the winning
of THE NEW
are pleased
to publish
essay of the 2006
Walter Muir Whitehill Prize in Early American History
A Key for theGate:
RogerWilliams,Parliament,and Providence
JONATHAN
BEECHER
FIELD
present-day readers,Roger Williams is easier to ad
mire thanmany of his New England contemporaries. In
contrast to other members of the firstgeneration of settlers
Williams is hailed as a
whose names are bywords forbigotry,
prophet of tolerance; in contrast to neighborswho could imag
ine relationswith Indians only in termsof conversion or vio
lence,Williams is celebrated forhis effortsto understand the
natives ofAmerica. Thus, a 199L biographyofWilliams asserts
thatwhile he "had no hand inwriting the First Amendment,
FOR
A versionof thisargumentappeared inmy dissertation,
"TheGroundsofDissent:
Heresies andColonies inNew England,1663-1636" (University
ofChicago, 2004). I
of Janice
am gratefultomy committee
Knight,ClarkGilpin,andEric Slauter.Research
was supportedby grantsfromtheJohnCarterBrownLibrary,the
formy dissertation
JohnNicholas Brown Center, theRhode IslandCouncil for theHumanities,and
theMassachusettsHistoricalSociety.Time to revisethisarticlecame in theformof a
ClemsonUniversity
FacultyResearchFellowshipfromtheCollege ofArt,Architecture,
andHumanities.I am especiallygratefultoAmyMonaghan and the lateDaniel Field,
bothofwhom readmore versionsof thisarticlethanI care to remember.
The New England Quarterly, vol. LXXX, no. 3 (September 2007). ?
Quarterly. All rightsreserved.
2007 by The New England
353
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354
THE
NEW
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[he] "would have taken great pleasure in its guarantees."' In
the contextof Euro-Indian relations,the ethnohistorianJames
Axtell contends thatWilliams knew the Indians "better than
anyone else" and thathe was among the firstto suggest that
the "English had no monopoly on virtue," even that Indians
were "moreChristian thanChristians."2
These views ofWilliams as an open-minded intellectualare
supported by his two best-knownworks, A Key into theLan
guage ofAmerica, an account ofNew England Indian language,
and The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, a defense of religious
freedom.However, identifying
Williams primarilyin termsthat
appeal to latergenerations can obscure his achievement in his
own time.Williams's contributionwas not simply thathe es
poused toleranceof racial and religiousdifferencebut thathe
created a geographical space where those principles could be
put intoaction.Without an instrumentof civil governmentfor
Providence Plantations,Williams's admirable opinions would
have found no means of expression. In this light,
Williams's
grandesthistoricalachievement isnot theBloudy Tenent or the
Key but the 1644 patent he secured fromParliament,which
of Providence Plantations froma rival
preserved the territory
claim made by Thomas Weld and Hugh Peter on behalf of
Massachusetts.
Williams traveled toLondon tomake his case inperson, and
theworks he produced while therewere central to his success.
Indeed, his mission is framedby the publication of the Key
in the fall of 1643, shortlyafter his arrival,and the Bloudy
Tenent in the summerof 1644, at the timeof his departure.By
means of these texts,
Williams forgedconnectionsbetween his
in
troubles New England and England's civil turmoil.The Key,
especially,was also a tourde forceof translationthatconnected
theNorth American experiencewith the intellectualculture of
RevolutionaryLondon.
1
Edwin Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans,
1991), p. xi.
2James Axtell, The European
1981), pp. 135, 203.
and
the Indian
in America
(Grand Rapids,
(New York: Oxford University
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Press,
ROGER WILLIAMS
355
The Removes ofRogerWilliams
The west shoreof theAtlanticwas a turbulentplace forRoger
wave of Puritanmigrants travelingto
Williams. Among the first
New England, he arrived inBoston with hiswife on 9 February
1630/1.3Despite his distinguished intellectual reputation,he
soon began to make enemies among Boston's ministers and
magistrates.Boston's settlerswere building a church and they
solicitedWilliams to be theirminister,but he rejected the call
because that congregationhad not separated itself from the
Church of England.4 After a brief sojourn inBoston,Williams
moved to Salem. Members of the Salem churchwere more
in sympathywith his Separatist views, and they sought out
Williams as well. Salem was stillpart of theBay Colony, how
ever, and rebuffedBostonians discouraged Salem frommak
ing theministerial appointment.Sometime in 1631,Williams
moved toPlymouth,which was outside theprecinctsof theBay
Colony and organized on rigidlySeparatist principles.
In the fall of 1633,Williams returned to Salem. A variety
of controversieswith Bay Colony authorities,most notablyone
about a manuscript he wrote on Anglo-Indian relations,filled
his time.The manuscript does not survive,but the reactionof
Winthrop, governorof theMassachusetts Bay Company,
John
indicates thatWilliams attacked the very premise of the En
glish colonial project. Specifically,he challenged the prevalent
English conviction that,because theAmerican continent lay
beyond the pale of Christendom, the English sovereign had
the prerogative,with a mere strokeof his pen, to grant vast
tractsof it to his subjects.5
3For
Williams
2 vols.
1988),
in this section, I am indebted to Glenn LaFantasie's
"Roger
specific dates
ed. LaFantasie,
in The Correspondence
of Roger Williams,
Chronology,"
Brown University Press/University Press of New England,
(Hanover, N.H.:
i:xcii.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 6-7.
Roger Williams
the research for this article, but it is an
after I had completed
life and work for the general reader.
introduction toWilliams's
4Edwin Gaustad,
This book appeared
excellent
See The
5Consider, for example, the charter of the Massachusetts
Bay Company.
B.
Records of the Governor and Company
of the Massachusetts
Bay, ed. Nathaniel
unconven
Shurtleff, 5 vols, in 6 (Boston, 1853), 1:3. Here, as in other cases, Williams's
tional position on Indian affairswas dictated more by the mandates of his faith than by
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THE
356
NEW
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The Bay Colony magistrates calledWilliams before theGen
eral Court on 27 December 1633. Although theymanaged
to extract a promise fromhim not to repeat his scandalous
arguments,other conflictsbetweenWilliams and Bay Colony
leaders soonmade coexistence untenable forboth parties.6
Controversies followed about the need forwomen towear
veils in church and theproprietyof retainingSt.George's cross
in the flagof England (some deemed ita "relique of antichrist"
because it had been bestowed by the Pope). When Williams
faced themagistrates again inOctober 1635, at issuewere two
lettershe hadwritten,one to thechurch at Salem and theother
to the churches of the Bay at large.He counseled his church
to separate from the churches of the colony,which, he com
plained, sufferedpersecutions from themagistrates. Thomas
Hooker's admonitions to recant these assertions failed tomove
Williams, and so on 9 October 1635, theGeneral Court ban
ished him.7Williams, who had taken ill before his trialand
whose wife had just delivered theirsecond child,was granted
a six-week stayof sentence under the condition thathe cease
disseminatinghis blasphemous opinions.Williams apparently
persisted in his objectionable activities,and in January1635/6,
theBay Colony, dictating thathe be immediatelyarrested and
transportedto England, sent JohnUnderhill to Salem to exe
cute the judgment.Evidentlywarned by John
Winthrop, among
his
Williams
of
fled
Salem, one step
arrest,
others,
impending
ahead of hiswould-be captor.8
On 24 March 1637/8,Williams secured a deed forwhat
would become Providence Plantations from theNarragansett
sachemsMiantonomo and Canonicus, who stated that theyhad
a sense of fair
to this grant not
play for the Indians. Williams
objected
simply because
on
it
it
the humanity and sovereignty of Indians but because
denigrated
depended
"the terms Christian and Christendom
the notion of "Christendom," and forWilliams,
could not properly be applied to a nation, since only the church actually consisted
of God's chosen people"
(W. Clark Gilpin, The Millenarian
Piety of Roger Williams
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979], p. 41).
6LaFantasie,
Correspondence
of Roger Williams,
1:14-16.
7LaFantasie,
Correspondence
of Roger Williams,
1:16-21.
Correspondence
of Roger Williams,
1:22.
8LaFantasie,
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ROGER WILLIAMS
357
conveyed to him "the lands and meadowes, upon the two fresh
riverscalledMooshawsuck andWanassquatucket" and thatthey
"doe now by these presents, establish and confirmthe bounds
of those lands, from the river and lands at Pautuckqut, the
great hill of Notquonckanet, on the northwest,and the town
ofMaushapogue on thewest."9 On 27 July1640, havingprevi
ously apportioned the landhe had purchased among thosewho
accompanied him on the shore of Narragansett Bay,Williams
joinedwith his fellowsettlers in drawingup a civil compact.10
BothPlymouth
andMassachusetts
covetedthesettlement
and
itsport,however,
and someofWilliams'snervousneighbors
wanted to compound with one of those established, royally
sanctionedgovernments.In the face ofmounting pressures on
his settlement,both fromwithin and without,Williams sought
to secure an official
warrant forhis enterprise. In the springof
1643, he sailed forLondon.
The port of Boston was, of course, closed toWilliams. Be
cause Providence was then a port of littleaccount,Williams
was forced to journey overland to New Amsterdam to take
passage forEngland. In June 1643, he debarked in a London
thatwas preoccupiedwith civilwar and theSolemn League and
Covenant,which was approved by Parliamenton 25 September
of thatyear.Under the termsof the covenant,Scots Presbyte
rian soldierswould support the Parliamentarian side against
Charles I's royalist forces; in return, the Parliamentaryop
ponents pledged to place England under a Presbyterian ec
clesiastical establishment.Because many in the Parliamentary
camp resisted the idea of any national churchwhatsoever, the
agreement generated considerable debate. Williams's A Key
into theLanguage ofAmerica appeared on 7 September 1643
and hisMister Cotton's Letter Examined, in response toCot
ton'sA letterofMr. John Cottons, teacherof theChurch in
Boston inNew-England, toMr. Williams ... of that same year,
on 5 February 1643/4.
^Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence
i o vols. (Providence: n.p., 1856), 1:18.
Plantations,
ed. John Russell
Bartlett,
10Bartlett, Rhode
Island Records,
1:27-31.
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358
THE
NEW
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Turning toBritish affairs,
Williams wrote Queries ofHighest
Consideration,which was issued on 9 February 1643/4.Slightly
more than a month later,on 14 March 1643/4, he received
a patent forProvidence Plantations. The Bloudy Tenent was
published on 15 July1644, close to the timewhen Williams
would have leftLondon forthe colonies,which was just aswell
forhim because Parliament ordered the book publicly burned
on 9 August 1644. ChristeningsMake Not Christians, the final
product ofWilliams's transatlantictrip,appeared in January
1644/5. By the time the work was available to the London
public,Williams had been back inAmerica forseveralmonths.
Winthrop notes in his journal that on 17 September 1644,
Williams returned to America, permitted to land at Boston
because he carriedwith him a letterof protection signed by a
number ofmembers of Parliament.
There are several curious featuresabout the sequence, tim
ing,and nature ofWilliams's activitieswhile he was inLondon,
and scholars have not adequately considered them. He is
sued themost sustained articulationof his beliefs,The Bloudy
Tenent, on the eve of his departure fromEngland, and he
arranged to have the most controversialof his publications,
ChristeningsMake Not Christians, appear once he was farfrom
London. The subjects he chose topursue while inLondon are
also curious.Reviving two separate and long-forgotten
disputes
with JohnCotton, he retailed them to a London where scores
of currentcontroversiesclamored forpublic attention.Queries,
his most overtlypolitical effort,seemed as if itwere specially
constructed to antagonize readers: it questioned not only the
actions of theWestminster Assembly but the very validityof
itsexistence,asking "Whatwarrant fromtheLord Jesus for the
Assembly ofDivines?""
Among all of these peculiarities, however,most perplexing
are the timing,form,and content of A Key into theLanguage
of America. Williams had traveled to England on an urgent
11
in Publications
of the Narra
Roger Williams, Queries of Highest Consideration,
2 (Providence:
gansett Club, vol.
Narragansett Club, 1866), p. 256. The Narragansett
Club published an edition ofWilliams's major works.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
359
politicalmission; he also had an intensepersonal stake in the
momentous issues of church and state thatwere being debated
when he arrived.The other works he composed during his
visithad immediateand apparent relevance to currentpolitical
and religious affairsin England, with attendant ramifications
forNew England. However, before he published any of these
tracts,
Williams produced a guide to the languageof the Indians
ofNew England. Itwas a text,one might assume, thatwould be
created by a man of inquisitivespirit,eager toproduce a curios
ityforwhatWilliam Wood called the "mind travellingreader,"
but by an author possessed of considerablymore leisure than
Williamshimself
enjoyed.'2
Reconstructing
Willliams'sactivitiesduringhis trip to
London and his probable motivations for them is critical to
understandinghow he was able to secure thepatent forProv
idencePlantations.
Unfortunately,
allofWilliams'scorrespon
dence from 8 March 1640/1 to 25 June 1645, covering the
entire trip to London and more than a year before and after,
ismissing.13 In the absence of letters,then,William's osten
sible objectives can be reconstructedonly by considering the
relationbetween his survivingpublishedworks, in thiscase his
Key, and the ideas and interestsof their intended audiences.
The Politics of Translation
The best explanation for the formof RogerWilliams's Key
into theLanguage of America lies outside the parameters of
the literatureof American contact and exploration.As com
mentators have observed, it is, in its configurationand con
cerns,unique among themany accounts ofNorth America and
its indigenouspeople that issued fromLondon presses in the
firsthalf of the seventeenthcentury.As Laura Murray points
out, Indian vocabularies,which functionedas "authenticating
and decorative devices,"were a common featureof early colo
nial texts;she cites JohnSmith,William Strachey,andWilliam
New Englands Prospect (London, 1634), t.p.
"Lost
and Incomplete Records,"
13LaFantasie,
Correspondence
1:216.
of Roger Williams,
Correspondence
12William Wood,
editorial note
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in
360
THE
NEW
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QUARTERLY
Wood as typical
purveyors.14
Williams,however,
offers
not a
list of words in the Key but a carefully structured series of
dialogues between English and Indians. As anomalous as the
Key may appear in the context of colonial discourse, in an
other contemporarycontext it fitsquite comfortably,for in
its tabular formatand focus on language, the Key is closely
related to the linguisticmanuals that emerged from the pan
sophistmovement in the 163os and 1640S. This movement,
with Francis Bacon as its intellectualprogenitorand JanAmos
Comenius as its standard-bearer,located utopian assurance in
theprospect
ofuniversal
knowledge
and linguistic
competence.
Comenius sought to arrange all human knowledge according to
scientificprinciples,and he dreamed of founding"a great scien
acrossEuropecouldpursue
tific
college,"
wherescholars
from
underthepansophicsystem.15
research
Although
Comenius's
hisworkinfluenced
larger
ambitions
remained
unfulfilled,
the
i66o foundingof the body chartered in 1663 as theRoyal So
cietyof London for ImprovingNatural Knowledge, which still
existstoday.
As the dearth of recent scholarship in English suggests,
Comenius is not a figurewho engages the interestof intellec
tual historiansof RevolutionaryEngland. The Czech philoso
pher and educatorwas, however,esteemed bymany prominent
members of the Parliamentaryopponents of Charles I, and
his works circulated widely among English-speaking readers
as well as in Europe. His Janua TriliinguarumReserata (The
Gate of Three Languages Opened) was published in 1631 at
Leszno, and in the same year, JohnAnchoran produced an En
glishversion.Comenius himselfobserved that thepopularityof
his book "was testified.., by translationsinto the various pop
ular tongues ... all the European tongues, [and] such Asiatic
A
14Laura J. Murray, "Vocabularies
of Native American Languages:
Literary and
to an Elusive Genre," American
53 (December
2001):
Quarterly
Approach
see also
in
594-95;
Stephen A. Guice, "Early New England Missionary Linguistics,"
Papers in the History of Linguistics: Proceedings of the Third International Conference
on the
Sciences...
1Q84 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia:
History of the Language
John
Historical
1987).
Benjamins,
15Robert Fitzgibbon
Young, Comenius
Press/Harvey Milford, 1932), pp. 27, 61, 4.
in
Engjiand
(London:
Oxford
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University
ROGER WILLIAMS
361
tongues as theArabic, theTurkish, the Persian, and even the
countsfifteen
Mongolian."'6
AdrianJohns
separate
editions,
the
work of various translatorsand printers,appearing inEngland
between 1630,Williams's departure fromEngland, and 1643,
his first
return
visit.17
Comenius was surprised and pleased at the success of his
book, the formofwhich had been inspiredby thatof the 1615
Janua Linguarum ofWilliam Bathe, a Jesuitpriestwho in
tendedhis book tobe an aid to Jesuitmissionaries in theAmer
icas.'8 "It happened, as I could not have imaginedpossible, that
thatpuerile littleworkwas receivedwith a sortof universal ap
plauseby thelearned
world,"Comeniusobserved.'9
Although
itmay appear tobe an affectationof falsemodesty to a modern
not inthesenseof "childish"
reader,
Comeniususes "puerile"
but of "juvenile,"or "immature,"forhe viewed his Janua as an
earlymanifestationof a largereducational project thatwould
extend the structureof theJanua to encompass thingsaswell as
words. Barbara Lewalski, describing theComenian schemepro
moted inEngland by Samuel Hartlib and JohnDrury, explains,
"In theNoble Schools boys fromages eight to thirteenwould
studythe subjects of the common school, as well as Januas for
Latin,Greek and Hebrew."20As Johnshas noted, then,thevery
formof Comenius's Janua,which offeredparallel translations
of a varietyof sentences in threeormore languages, isone rea
sonwhy theworkwent throughsomany editions: enterprising
translatorscould expand Comenius's project to embrace new
languages.2'
as
in David Masson, The Life of
Amos Comenius,
quoted
John Milton, Nar
l6Jan
rated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical,
and Literary History of His Time,
& Co.,
7 vols. (London: MacMillan
1873), 3:200. For an exposition of the larger
Comenian
The Great Instauration: Science,
educational project, see Charles Webster,
Medicine, and Reform, 1626-1660
(New York: Holmes and Meier, 1975), pp. 100-129.
in the
17Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge
Making
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 224-25.
in England, pp. 27, 61.
Comenius
18Young,
19Comenius, as quoted inMasson, Life of John Milton, 3:200.
20
"Milton and the Hartlib Circle: Educational
Barbara K. Lewalski,
Projects and
in
Epic Paideia,"
Literary Milton: Text, Pretext, Context, ed. Diana Trevi?o Benet and
Michael Leib (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press,
21
Johns, The Nature of the Book, pp. 224-25.
1994), pp. 206-7.
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362
THE
NEW
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At least one reader has previouslynoted the similaritiesbe
tween theKey and contemporary linguisticmaterials popular
in Europe, pointing out that "Williams's pedagogical think
ing ... suggestsacquaintancewith themost progressivecontem
porary thinkingabout the teachingof foreignlanguages, such
as thatpromoted by JanComenius in his Janua Linguarum."
Anne Myles remarksthat
Williams and Comenius share an ap
proach for teaching language througha "text that discourses
in simple termson the names of things,"but she interprets
thissimilaritysimplyas a signofWilliams's intellectualsophis
tication.22The Key does demonstrateWilliams's awareness of
current intellectualtrends,but thatawareness has political di
mensions as well. And it isWilliams's ability to comprehend
those political dimensions that is of critical importance to him
in his errand toLondon.
In The IntellectualOrigins of theEnglish Revolution Revis
ited,ChristopherHill names themen who supportedComenius
and his work in the 163os and 1640s; he then goes on to ob
serve, "It is very nearly a listof members of the Providence
Island Company. It is a list of the leaders of the opposition
in theLong Parliament."23As Robert Brenner explains, "many
of theMPs who came in 1640 to form the heart of the Par
liamentaryleadership [opposed to Charles I] learned towork
together,developed theirpolitico-religious ideas ... by means
of their joint activities in theMassachusetts Bay, Bermuda
22
Anne G. Myles, "Dissent and the Frontier of Translation: Roger Williams's A Key
in Possible Pasts: Recoming Colonial
into the Language
in
of America,"
Early America,
ed. Robert Blair St. George
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 96.
23Christopher Hill, The Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution Revisited
Press, 1997), p. 90. Hill writes: "When in the sixteen-thirties
(Oxford: Clarendon
tried to give effect to Bacon's plans, their most enthu
Hartlib, Drury and Comenius
siastic supporter was
John Pym; backed by the Earls of Bedford, Essex, Leicester,
Lord Wharton,
Pembroke, Salisbury and Warwick, by Lord Brooke, Lord Mandeville,
Sir Thomas Roe, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Sir Thomas Barrington, Sir Nathaniel Rich,
SirWilliam Waller,
Sir Arthur Annesley, Sir John Clotworthy, John Seiden, Oliver St.
see Karen Ordahl
of the Providence
Island Company,
John." For the membership
Providence
The Other Puritan Colony
Island, 1630-1641:
Kupperman,
(Cambridge:
of
Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 357-60. Among the thirty-three members
are
men
nine
of
Providence
Island
the eighteen
Hill identifies as sup
the
Company
porters of Comenius.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
363
and Providence Island companies during the 1630s."24 The
group emerges, then, from the nexus of revolutionaryleader
shipBrenner has described as the "aristocraticcolonizing op
position."25Of more immediateconcern toWilliams is thatthe
Committee forForeign Plantations, the body charged by Par
liamentwith regulatingcolonial affairs,
mirrors thecomposition
of theComenians and theProvidence Island Company, an ill
fatedPuritan colonizing venture on an island off the coast of
present-dayNicaragua.26 In short,themembers of Parliament
chargedwithweighingWilliams's suitwere the samemembers
who, in 1641, had supportedComenius's effortsand asked him
to visitEngland.
As Robert Young explains inhis account ofComenius's 164 1
42 sojourn in theBritish Isles, "Comenius genuinelybelieved
thathe had been invitedby Parliament,but the available ev
idence suggests that Samuel Hartlib had summoned him on
behalf of... Lord Mandeville, Pym, Lord Brooke and oth
ers." The summons proceeded, in fact, from a sermon enti
tled The Love of Truth and Peace (printedby order of Parlia
ment in early 1641) thatJohnGauden preached to Parliament
on 29 November 1640 to entreatComenius to come to En
gland. Gauden would laterbecome theBishop of Exeter and
ofWorcester, but at thismoment, he was vicar ofChippenham
and chaplain toRobert Rich, Earl ofWarwick, who threeyears
hence would become the head of theCommittee forForeign
Plantations.27Comenius arrived inEngland inSeptember 1641,
and while in London, he composed Via Lucis, which was not
published until i668. Parliamentarypromoters had solicited
his presence and support for a project to establish a college
forscientificresearch,but itnevermaterialized, likelybecause
24Robert Brenner, Merchants
and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Con
(London: Verso, 2003), p. 243.
flict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653
and Revolution, p. 243.
25Brenner, Merchants
26
men and women
settled on Providence
Island in 1630, but after years of
English
in 1641. See
economic turmoil, the island fell to the
Kupperman,
political and
Spanish
Providence Island, passim and p. 338.
27Young, Comenius
in
England,
pp. 39, 52.
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364
THE
NEW
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QUARTERLY
the strugglebetween king and Parliament placed other,more
pressing demands on itsadvocates. In Juneof 1642, Comenius
returnedtoLeyden; he remained an influentialand peripatetic
scholaruntil his death in 1670.28
When scholars have drawn connections between the ideas
of Comenius and New England, theyhave generally done so
in one of twomisleading ways. In Comenius and the Indi
ans of New England, Robert Young suggests that the Czech
philosopher's parliamentary supporters thought "Comenius's
scheme ... might in someway be associatedwith themissionary
and educational work among the natives inNew England."29
Indeed, lookingback in his Linguarum Methodus Novissima
(1649), Comenius hoped thathis Januawould surpassBathe's
in its ability to help those travelingtoAmerica to learn native
languages and teach the natives English or Latin.30 But until
after the appearance ofNew Englands First Fruits in 1643, the
same yearWilliams arrived inEngland, therewas littlemission
ary and educationalwork to support.As Kristina Bross notes,
"NewEnglands First Fruits inventsratherthan reportsa policy
of evangelism."31Indeed, a ratherdefensive tract,which cele
brates the successes of theBay Colony over the firstdecade of
settlement in the face of metropolitan criticismsof it,New
Englands First Fruits apologizes for the Bay Colony's slow
progress on thatfront:"wonder not thatwee mention no more
instances [of conversion] at present: but consider, first,their
[the Indians'] infinitedistance fromChristianity."32
There are, however, a few traces of Comenius's work to be
found in early New England: the name of a Native Ameri
can student,Joel Jacomis,dated 1665, was inscribed in a copy
in
Comenius
England, pp. 16, 40.
28Young,
29Robert Fitzgibbon Young, Comenius and the Indians of New England
(London:
1929), p. 9.
King's College,
a
in
61. That a form
Jesuit missionary
30Young, Comenius
England, p.
developed by
to teach Latin to Indians could be
to teach
deployed by Protestants
vulgar tongues
suggests the dangerous versatility of the janua genre.
31Kristina
in Colonial
Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians
America
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 7.
32New Englands
First Fruits
(London,
1643), p. A2.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
365
of Comenius's Janua Aurea Linguarum, and a copy of John
Anchoran's pirated edition of Janua Linguarum was among the
books JohnHarvard willed toHarvard College in 1638.33What
ever interestComenius may have taken in the souls of Native
Americans, then,at the timeof his visit toEngland in 1641-42
and thatofWilliams in 1643-44, Comenius's ideas and publica
tionscould have exerted littlepractical influenceon NewWorld
Protestantmissions. A second New England link,reportedby
CottonMather, is thatComenius was offeredthepresidencyof
Harvard College in the 1640s but declined, going to Stockholm
instead.34
Will Monroe demonstrates several reasonswhy this
legend is improbable,but ithas persisted nonetheless.35
Such associations, despite their traditionalrather than fac
tual bases, have the tendency to orient attentionconcerning
Comenius's American context toward these two ratherslender
associationswith Harvard Universityand away fromthedeeper
intellectualengagementWilliams, an apostate from the cleri
cal hierarchy that foundedHarvard, demonstrated in A Key
into theLanguage of America. The Janua offeredWilliams a
powerful vehicle forhis appeal to parliamentaryleaders, and
it brought him success. In the patent theybestowed on him,
theCommittee forForeign Plantationswas explicit in itspraise
forWilliams's "printed Indian labours," leavingno doubt that
theywere a receptiveaudience fortheKey. The knowledgewe
have of the colonial political concerns and thepansophic intel
lectual interestsof thatbody helps us properly appreciate the
complexityofWilliams's enterprise. Positioned as a colonist
addressingmetropolitan authorities,Williams was obliged to
mediate between thepragmaticand ideological concerns of his
mission even as he shaped his text tomove his distinguished
and influentialaudience.
61.
in
33Young, Comenius
England, p.
2 vols. (Hartford: Silas Andrus,
34Cotton Mather, Magnalia
Christii Americana,
1853), 2:14.
35
Will S. Monroe, Comenius and the Reginnings of Educational Reform (New York:
for the legend's persistence,
see, esp., J. B. Conant,
Scribners, 1900), pp. 78-81;
in The Teacher of Nations
"Comenius
and Harvard,"
(Cambridge: The University
Press,
1942), p. 40.
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366
THE
NEW
ENGLAND
QUARTERLY
The Formnof Translation
It is no accident that the title thatWilliams selected forhis
work evokes the language of doors opening. Rendered in the
manuals, theKey works to
familiarformof pansophic linguistic
disrupt a traditionalideologyof conquest and conversion and
to instill,in its stead,Williams's version of the New World.
IfWilliams's claim thathe purchased theNarragansett region
were to carryweight, he had to convince Englishmen of his
radical notion thatNative Americans could and did possess
land and that,therefore,theycould dispose of itas theychose.36
Despite itsdidactic structure,the goal of theKey is, then,not
somuch to teachLondoners how to speak toNative Americans
but ratherto teach themhow to thinkabout America.
Although it takes the unassuming formof a linguisticand
anthropologicalwork, the Key is a tremendouslysubversive
document. The most radical aspect ofWilliams's Indian lexi
con is found in its title:A Key into theLanguage ofAmerica: or
an help to the language of theNatives in thatpart ofAmerica,
called New-England.37 Boldly the title asserts that the "lan
guage ofAmerica" is the language of itsnative inhabitants,not
thatof any of itsEuropean conquerors.Myra Jehlen stresses
thispoint when she observes that theKey's "anomaly lies in
the implication that Indians are human beings with whom it
is importantto speak."38Like theEnglish, Dutch, or Swedes,
Williams affirms,theNarragansett and theirneighbors are au
tonomouspeoples, who have, like theirEuropean counterparts,
sovereigntyover their land. In basing the legitimacyof his
colony at Providence Plantations on an Indian deed of sale
rather thanon royal fiat,
Williams invertsthe usual process of
lands was
36One of the premises underlying the English appropriation of American
a notion that Native Americans could hold no title to land because
not settle
did
they
and inhabit it inways thatwere recognizable to English observers. See William Cronon,
in
New
the
Land:
and
the
Indians, Colonists,
(New York:
Changes
England
Ecology of
Hill and Wang,
1983), chaps. 2-3.
. (London:
A Key into the Language
of America...
Gregory
37Roger Williams,
Dexter, 1643; reprinted, Bedford, Mass.: Applewood
Books, 1997). Further references
to the Key will be to this edition and will be cited in the text.
in The
Writers of Early America,"
Cambridge History of
38Myra Jehlen, "Three
American Literature, ed. Sacvan Bercovitch
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), p. 77.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
367
colonial settlement.Thus, he must present theNarragansetts
as competent to convey and alienate land ifhis claim to the
NarragansettBay is to have merit.
The formof theKey iswell suited to the taskof rhetorically
communicatingtheexistenceof a civilAmerican Indian society.
Each chapter of thevolume is composed of a vocabulary,social
and cultural observations,and a poem, almost always convey
ing a didactic religioustheme.By means of thevocabulary,the
prose observations, and the religiousverse,Williams imbues
his London readerswith a sense of theNarragansetts'human
ity.Each section of the textaffordshim a differentrhetorical
opportunityto do so.
For many scholars,especially those of a literaryorientation,
the principal interestof theKey lies in itspoetic sections. Ivy
Schweitzer, forexample, devotes a chapter to theKey in her
studyof the lyricpoetry of colonial New England.39 This de
sire to treatWilliams as a poet may be motivated, in part, by
thepaucityof verse productions among the sermonsand tracts
New England; however,Williams did
of seventeenth-century
not return to this genre, and on the strengthof the poetic
sections of the Key, even themost charitable readerwould
be hard pressed to regard him as a rivalof Anne Bradstreet
or Edward Taylor. In their critical edition of the Key, John
Teunessen and Evelyn Hinz argue for an integratedreading
of each chapter,which, they insist,establishes thework's sim
ilaritytomedieval emblem books. AlthoughWilliams scholars
owe a debt to Teunessen and Hinz for their editorialwork,
theirgeneric claim is not entirelypersuasive, restingas itdoes
on an assertion thatWilliams's dialogues replace the emblems
(drawingsor pictures expressinga moral fable or allegory) that
are the central featureof emblem books, a literaryformpop
ular in England from its introductionin 1586 until after the
Restoration in 166o.40
39Ivy Schweitzer, The Work of Self-Representation: Lyric Poetry in Colonial New
England
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 181-228.
40See
Roger Williams, A Key into the Language
of America, ed. John J.Teunessen
State University Press, 1973), pp. 14-23. For a
and Evelyn J. Hinz
(Detroit: Wayne
survey of the structure and function of emblem books in this era, see Peter M. Daly,
in Light of the Emblem:
Literature
Structural Parallels between the Emblem and
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THE
368
NEW
ENGLAND
QUARTERLY
IfWilliams's poetry has attracted themost sustained schol
arlyattention,his dialogues,which appear to be themost inert
and normative aspect of his text,have generated the greatest
puzzlement. In "Directions for the use of the language," his
account of the formhe chose,Williams allows, "A dictionaryor
GrammerWay I had consideration of, but purposely avoided,
as not so accommodate to the Benefit of all, as I hope this
Forme is."He goes on, explaining that "ADialogue also I had
thoughtsof but avoided forbrevities sake, and yet (with no
small paines) I have so framedeveryChapter of it, as I may
call it an ImpliciteDialogue" (preface). The layout of these
"implicit dialogues" seems to privilege Narragansett, for the
text flows fromNarragansett intoEnglish, in contrast to John
Eliot's translationof theBible, which flowsfromEnglish into
Algonkian.The salient featureofWilliams's lexicon,however, is
itsbilateral quality. "Translate" etymologically
means "to carry
across." Eliot's translation,forexample, carries theGospel to
the Indians but findsnothing in their languageworth carrying
back. Jehlencomments thatEliot's works are "true to thepur
pose of thecatechism,which is to repeatverbatimwhat one has
been taught."41The Key, by comparison, can be used to open
the door fromeither side.While Eliot's Bible, in otherwords,
is an instrumentdeployed to christianizeand thus regulate the
Indian frontier,theKey ismore the artifactof a transcultural
"contact zone."42
Williams's notion of an implicitdialogue helps us understand
how English readerswould have read the linguisticportionsof
theKey. Indeed, two understandingsof theword implicitex
tendWilliams's meaning. Obviously, the dialogue is "implicite"
in the sense that it runsboth horizontally(translating)and ver
tically(conversing)on each page of text-the vertical reading
Literature
Toronto
Octagon
in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 2nd ed. (Toronto:
University of
1998). See also Rosemary Freeman, English Emblem Rooks (New York:
Books, 1966), p. 9; and OED
online, s.v. "emblem."
Press,
41Jehlen, "Three Writers of Early America," p. 79.
42Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing
1992), p. 6.
Routledge,
and Transculturation
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(London:
ROGER WILLIAMS
369
implyinga conversation takingplace on the horizontal axis as
well. There is also an obsolete use of theword meaning entan
gled, entwined, or overlapping.43In this sense, readerswere
able to translatethe language of England into the language of
America or vice versa as theyread across thepage inone direc
tionor the other.Only themost patient reader, though,would
have read down the Indian language column, carefullysound
ingout each Indian phrase before translatingit.Thus, readers
inseventeenth-century
London,likereaderstoday,
wouldhave
been inclined to run theireyes down thecolumn of English. As
theydid so, theywould have eavesdropped on a putative con
versationbetween an Englishman and an Indian, each equally
engaged in the formalitiesof civil discourse,whether thatdis
course was proceeding in English (as read byWilliams's au
dience) or inNarragansett (as depicted for them).An excerpt
fromthe first
chapter,"Of Salutation,"
indicatestheeffect,
which recurs throughoutthe text (see fig.1). Literally as well
as figuratively,
theLondoner and theNarragansett are on the
same page, just as theMoravian, Roman, and Turk could share
thepagesof a Janua(see fig.2).
The formof the dialogue allowsWilliams to conjure two
characterswith extraordinaryabilities-the English speaker of
Narragansett, and theNarragansettwriter of English. As the
passage above shows, the text provides elaborate diacritical
guides to pronunciation. IfWilliams had intended his Indian
vocabulary to be simply"decorative," to use Murray's term, it
is unlikely thathe would have been so precise.44 In fact,as his
"Directions for the use of the language" indicate,his intention
was not decorative but functional. "Because the life of all
languages is in thePronuntiation,"he declares, "I have been at
thepaines and charges toCause theAccents, Tones or sounds
43OED, online, s.v. "implicit."
44
of Native American Languages,"
p. 594; see also Karen
Murray, "Vocabularies
Ordahl Kupperman,
Indians and English: Facing off in Early America
(Ithaca, N.Y.:
took great pains to
Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 81, who observes thatWilliams
include diacritical marks to guide the English reader in the correct pronunciation of
the Indian language.
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370
%4
THE
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ENGLAND
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FIG. 1.-[Jan AmosComeniusi,TheGate ofTonguesUnlockedand Opened, 2nd ed.,
enlargedby John
Anchoran(London:Tho. Coates forThomasSlater,1633),pp. 24-25.
CourtesyHoughtonLibrary,
HarvardUniversity.Image source:EarlyEnglishBooks
Online.
tobe affixed."
He specifically
mentionsthe"Acutes,
Graves,
Circumfiexes"
he hasemployed
andoffers
severalexamples
of
theirimportance,
suchas in"thewordEwo He: thesoundor
tone
mustnotbe putonE, butw6wherethegrave
Accentis"
(n.p.).
Justas he instructs
Englishspeakers
on theidiosyncrasies
of
Narragansett
speech,
Williamssimultaneously
bestowsthegift
on a peoplewho reputedly
ofwriting
topictograms
resorted
theirsignatures
re
torepresent
ondeeds.Europeanobservers
peatedly
citedIndians'lackofawritten
language
as evidence
of
uncivilized
state.
But,asGordonSayreshows,
generations
their
ofEuropeanethnographers
stubbornly
refused
toacknowledge
ofgraphic
communication
were legitimate
thatIndiansystems
forms
ofwriting.
Jean-Jacques
Rousseauwouldlaterinsist,
"the
depicting
toa savagepeople;signsof
ofobjectsisappropriate
words and propositions to a barbaric people, and the alphabet
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
96X
ROGER
WILLIAMS
371
: rteof
Of sheflt-6 FrFirmish&eaf,
Otf sth rtbd Fr
9&
:
OyIe?oodformaxsy
e
( Wudwipo
3 (
] arpCia
u%!s,but e4?eeia.Uy
of etiri,caNds.4n4tof r
P Aij 8:4'
aheirmantlnoyrb
n&k,jJ
n^+;taAf?
chiP of thwWfiut.-Trw (the bic 4tak, Ssww
othr hiearp
tooliZo, t-u
oil ComeLsn'th in the Cauntrsr make cx. ;oWla;g il b;f aWrers all the
MvstJer"EX
C2lan't Beat
boch fr Taf
fireng solorJ aielas: Linconrdsrveag 'iFe
olb$we oew
andiqU
o,erarb
?on:., ittr. | mominea4tW
T Thfha
'st
r
(aaipaimuc
jt
Sfi
iun
Cifi-. ,
B
Nliqu}iwtuck.
a'
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.
r
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rkrr
Numnatiwh?innetus
sj
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.owsnc.Cg
1, ?s wt
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iu
Wcnompi`tagtA,
micu ck ae
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er
Nruvrac
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7/rcbuk,orr;
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gna?Uzr7
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therearc djver3 orts,fivccre
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,tclLCrmats,
[infab
fomnvopteipean;l
r
injierure.
1;tonteof ircechick Sts'!E4 'ar teftCCurtrmt died ty t
1DI'oaars of bEdfe.)waswont toiy
h
ll th yara. wkwa
Itl,vd
trM
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beat topowder
and- inil': itwrt thiri
tmak a bett-terB
rts
tt whiCh
meal1 rnid
jsrrwt
Brry: (npf e iojtvhcr
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cycSarnkrif
theA7/suen
haveplnired ThaiErwary
h b 'I.fy'etLtothcitn
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f.1 asmany aswoul filla
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e
C,AIci te ti
4
podA
.dha or:Cfpic
in finvmila
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thc hdsias ri(eiTfrY
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ma-cCx
Vndaakt Scrat6erry
&rcad.
FIG.
2.-Roger
Dexter,
Williams,
1643), pp. 98-99.
%idc
A Key
Courtesy
source: Early English Books Online.
ah
aiC3nnakr
at
Ic 9f
their Straw'
rr
j hai mn uctk
d te an. am,
ai'nac
i S rawrr,
aridhait no othe
into the Language
(London: Gregory
of America
Clements Library, University of Michigan.
Image
to civilized peoples."45
Patiently transcribing the Narragansetts
into roman characters as if that writing were
in fact their own, Williams
constructs a civil Indian interlocutor,
spoken
language
one who
The
possesses
didactic
equal standing with his English partner.
options Williams
rejected as he composed
his
implicitdialogues furtherclarifyhis text'spolitical intentions.
He
had considered
in a "dictionary or
presenting his material
he informs the reader, but he declined
to do
so in favor of the dialogue-driven
model. Thus, if one imag
Grammer
Way,"
in terms of contemporary approaches
to language
text ismore like a tourist's phrasebook
teaching, Williams's
than
ines the Key
in Gordon
45Rousseau, quoted
Sayre, Les Sauvages Am?ricains: Representations
N.C.:
in French and English Colonial Literature
of Native Americans
(Chapel Hill,
University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 198.
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372
THE
NEW
ENGLAND
QUARTERLY
a comprehensive textbook,which builds a student's ability to
communicate in a foreignlanguage step by step as itprogres
sivelyintroducesthe fundamentalsof grammarand vocabulary.
The chapters of theKey correspond to given situations,edify
the reader on particularsof Indian culture,and provide appro
priate phrases for"Salutation ... Travell ... Sports and Gaming"
and so on. They do not, however,offerthe reader the requisite
tools to constructphrases forsituationsnot found in the book.
By insistingthata dictionaryor grammarwould not lend itself
to "the benefitof all," then,Williams dissembles; in fact, it is
his own purposes thatwould not be advanced by a lexiconor
grammar of theNarragansett language. As anyone can attest
who has attempted to communicate in a foreignlanguagewith
the sole aid of a phrasebook, the idioms one requires are sel
dom at hand, and so the traveler is forced into the role of a
reluctantactor, recitinga series of only tangentiallyrelevant
scripts thathave been prepared by the text'sauthor. In pro
Williams
vidingprescribed
phrasesforprescribedsituations,
deliberately shapes the character of the discourse theEnglish
can conductwith the Indians inNew England-or about them
in England. The phrases he composes are for the traveleror
trader,not for the soldier or evangelist.Substitutingconversa
tionforcatechism,Williams regulateshow theEnglish language
will be applied to foreignsubjects by teachingEnglish subjects
a foreignlanguage.
Williams's dialogues allow English readers to conceive of
a conversationwith a far-off,fascinatingpeople, just as his
protoanthropologicalobservationsconjure an image of them as
members of a civil,humane, andwell-ordered society.Thus, in
the firstchapter on salutation,
Williams predisposes his readers
to approach the Indians respectfully."From these courteous
Salutations Observe in generall: There is a savour of civility
and courtesie even amongst thesewild Americans both amongst
themselvesand towardsstrangers"(pp. 9-10).
Williams's depiction of the civil Indian is at odds with pre
vailing representationsthatwere issuing fromNew England,
themost nearly contemporaneous being New Englands First
Fruits,which was published inearly 1643. The Indians are at an
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ROGER WILLIAMS
373
"infinitedistance fromChristianity,"the author of First Fruits
asserts, because theyhave "never been prepared there unto
by any civilityat all."46Given his millennial beliefs,Williams,
however,
denouncedthenotionof universal"Christendom"
and, therefore,did not see the civilityof his Native Ameri
can neighbors as contingentupon theirbeing Christianized. If
Christianityand civilityare not coextensive, in otherwords, it
is possible to be civilwithout being Christian.
In ensuing chapters of theKey,Williams extends this idea.
He labors to constructan image of Narragansett society that
is, inmany respects, like that of London: "They are of two
sorts, (as the English are) rude and clownish ... or sober and
grave" (p. 1). And elsewhere: "theirDesire of, and delight
in newes, is great, as the Athenians, and all men" (p. 54).
Thus does Williams seek to narrow the differencebetween
theEnglish and theNarragansetts,observing "Nature knowes
no differencebetween Europe and Americans in blood, birth,
bodies.... God havingof one blood made allmankind,Acts 17,
and all by nature being childrenofwrath, Ephes 2" (p. 53).
Williams repeatedly offers evidence of his Narragansett
neighbors'
andworthiness.
probity,
civility,
DescribingIndian
timekeeping, he comments, "They are punctuall in their
promises of keeping time, and sometimes have charged mee
with a lye fornot punctually keeping time, thoughhindred"
(p. 64). On a moral issue ofmoment, he observes, in contrast
toThomasMorton's saltyimagesof "lasses inbeaver coats," that
"TheirVirgins are distinguishedby a bashfull fallingdowne of
haire over theireyes" (p. 29).47 The positive imagesmultiply
until the reader cannot help but view the Indians as civilbeings
4&New Englands First Fruits, p. A2. This comment is one of many examples that
might furnish of the automatic equation of Christianity and civilization, which
our own time. More
persists into
recently, Alden Vaughn describes early missionary
efforts thusly: "James, sagamore of the Lynn and Marblehead
region, appeared willing
to be civilized and converted" (New
England Frontier, 3rd ed. [Norman: University of
Oklahoma
Press, 1995], p. 241). Today, one imagines, most scholars of Native Ameri
cans would not make this kind of mistake, but the
persistent conflation of Christianity
as
and civilization in the historiography can obscure the
possibility of their separation,
Williams was able to do.
one
47Thomas Morton, New English
Canaan
(London,
1631), p. 135.
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THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
374
ratherthansavage creatures.Even in thematter of theirmoney,
Williams stresses the Indians' capacity forculturalexchange. In
describing their"coyne,"not only does he use an English word
alsoserve
or "wampum,"
buthistranslations
instead
of"peage,"
to establish equivalencies between Indian shell-moneyand En
glishpenceand shillings.
Having rhetoricallyclothed Indianswith the civilvirtues of,
Williams
modesty,and economy,
amongothers,punctuality,
can proceed towhat is, forhim, theheart of thematter. In "Of
theEarth and the fruitsthereof,"he declares that"The Natives
are very exact and punctuall, in the bounds of theirLands, be
longingto thisor thatPrince or People.... And I have knowne
them tomake bargaine and sale amongst themselvesfora small
piece, or quantityof ground" (p. 95). Maintaining an objective
distance,Williams does notmention his own purchase; rather,
he obliquely challenges the familiarnotion of vacuum domi
cilium as articulated byWinthrop from the deck of theAr
bella and laterdefended by JohnCotton. Calling the standard
view "a sinfullopinion amongstmany thatChristians have right
to Heathens lands" (p. 95), he refers the reader to another
of his works for a fuller explication of his position. But this
pamphlet, ChristeningsMake Not Christians, did not appear
until 1645, afterWilliams had returned to Providence.While
pressing his suit to Parliament,Williams apparentlywanted to
suppress, or at least set aside, his attitudes on evangelizing
Indians.
Considering his pessimism on the subject, it is no wonder
Williams chose towithhold his beliefs fromLondon read
that
ers until he was safelyback home with his patent in hand.
Indeed, ChristeningsMake Not Christians expands on themil
lennial concerns that are present in the concluding poem of
more in
each chapter of theKey and thatgrow increasingly
sistent as it draws to a close. Initially,the poems work to el
evate the Indians by posing them against theircallous Puritan
neighbors:
Ifnaturessonsbothwild and tame,
Humane andCourteousbe:
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ROGER WILLIAMS
375
How illbecomes theSonnesofGod
To wantHumanity?
[P. lo]
As theKey progresses, though, thismoral calculus givesway
to an understanding that Indian and Englishman are similarly
vulnerable
beforethecomingJudgment:
How manymillionsnow alive,
Within fewyeeresshallrot?
0 Blest thatsoulewhose portionis,
That Rock thatchangethnot.
[P. 85]
By the end of the Key, themillennial rhetoricofWilliams's
verses has become strident.The finaltwo stanzas explicate the
nature of the coming Judgment:
TwoWorlds ofmen shallriseand stand
'ForeChristsmost dreadfullbarre;
Indians,andEnglishnaked too
That nowmost gallantare.
True Christmost gloriousthenshallmake
New Earth andHeavens New
False Christs,falseChristiansthenshallquake,
O blessed thentheTrue.
[P. 204]
More
thanmanners, customs, or civility,then, the impend
ingwrathofGod erasesworldly
distinctions
betweenEnglish
subject and savage Indian.
With theKey,Williams legitimatedhimselfas theproprietor
of a plantation he had acquired by means of a civil transac
tionwith a civil people. Inscribing theNarragansett Indians
within a Comenian linguisticframework,
he extended theEu
ropean Janua, and throughthatgate, he found a transatlantic
means to connect his political aimswith the intellectualinter
ests of theparliamentaryoverseersof colonization.His "printed
Indian Labours," as the Committee for Foreign Plantations
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376
THE
NEW
ENGLAND
QUARTERLY
called them,had succeeded in securing thepolitical autonomy
ofProvidence.
The Act of Translation
When he returned toAmerica,Williams's prestigewith Par
liamentwas at a high point. Landing at Boston, he presented,
in addition to the patent he had received, his letterof safe
Wor
passage throughtheBay Colony. Addressed to the "Right
shipful the Governour and Assistants ... in the Plantation of
Massachusetts Bay, in New England," the letterwas signed
by severalmembers of Parliament, includinghis formerpa
tronWilliam Masham as well as Cornelius Holland and Miles
Corbet, and it informedBay officialsof Parliament's regard
forWilliams, "Having taken notice, some of us long time, of
Mr. RogerWilliams his good affectionsand conscience, and of
his sufferings
by our common enemies, theprelates."48This de
scriptionofWilliams's sufferingsis curious, formost of his tra
vails had been endured inNew England, farfromBishop Laud
and his henchmen.Those who signed the letter,then,may have
been issuingeither a call to solidarityagainst a common foe or
a tacitreproofto the clerical leaders ofMassachusetts.
The lettergoes on topraiseWilliams's "great industryand tra
vail inhis printed Indian Labours, the likewhereofwe have not
seen extant fromany part ofAmerica." Indeed, these "printed
Indian Labours" had prompted "both houses of Parliament to
grant unto him and his friendswith him a free and absolute
charterof civil governmentfor those parts of his abode," thus
48Howard
M.
A Documentary History of Rhode Island, 2 vols. (Providence:
Chapin,
and Rounds, 1916), 1:217, 212; The Journal of John Winthrop,
ed.
i630-i64g,
Richard S. Dunn,
James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle
(Cambridge: Belknap Press
of Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 540?41. The date ofWilliams's
is
departure
an
the vagaries of weather and shipping could dra
approximation because
necessarily
a
matically affect the duration of passage. David Cressy pegs the typical cross-Atlantic
and Communi
voyage at "eight to twelve weeks or more"
(Coming Over: Migration
in the Seventeenth Century
and New England
cation between England
[Cambridge
even ifWilliams's
Cambridge University Press, 1987], p. 151). Given those estimates,
passage were particularly uneventful, he could not have hung around London for long
of the Bloudy Tenent, and he may well have been gone before it
after the appearance
Preston
appeared.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
377
rebuffing
theclaimsadvanced
byWeld andPeter.49
Moreover,
the patent, conferred specificallyfor the establishment of a
"civilgovernment,"includes no provisos about religion. In the
patent, ifnot inEngland at large,Williams's cries against state
religion
hadbeenheeded.
The letterto thegovernorof theBay Colony concludeswith
a reference toNew England's contentiousatmosphere, stating
that"amongstgood men, driven to the ends of theworld, exer
cisedwith the triallsof a wilderness . . . there should be such a
distance;we thoughtitfit ... to expressour greatdesires of both
yourutmostendeavours of nearer closing and of readyexpress
ingof thosegood affections... in the actual performanceof all
your friendlyoffices."50In the immediate context, the state
ment guaranteesWilliams safepassage home toProvidence; in
a largersense, itproclaims that the governmentof Providence
Plantationswill enjoy equal statuswith thatofMassachusetts,
an announcement that surelywould have humiliatedBay offi
cials.
The patentcarefully
delineatesProvidence'slegitimacy.5'
Following a preamble detailing the authorityof theCommit
tee forForeign Plantations in thismatter-that Parliamentary
49Chapin, Documentary
History
of Rhode
Island,
1:212.
5?Chapin, Documentary History of Rhode Island, 1:212-13.
51The Committee
of the following men.
for Foreign Plantations was composed
Names appearing on theWilliams
charter are underlined,
those on the Weld-Peter
charter, which was never granted, are italicized:
Lords: Robert, Earl ofWarwick, Governor-in Chief: Philip Earl of Pembroke:
Ed
ward, Earl of Manchester; William. Viscount Save and Seale: Philip. Lord Wharton;
John, Lord Roberts.
Peers: Sir Gilbert Gerard, Baronet; Sir Arthur
Hasselrige, Raronet: Sir Henry Vane.
Jr.Knight: Sir Renjamin Rudyer, Knight.
Commons:
(John Pym, Dec'd); Oliver Cromwell; Dennis Rond; Miles Corbet: Cornelius
Holland: Samuel Vassal
Spurstow. Some members appear to have
John Rolle. William
charter
signed both documents, but since many aspects of the validity of theWeld-Peter
are in
sure that the
are authentic (see
question, it is hard to be
signatures
Raymond
to
Mission
Steams, "The Weld-Peter
of the Colonial
England," Publications
Society
In his
vol. 32 [Boston: The Society, 1937], pp. 221-23, 233-36).
of Massachusetts,
Samuel Brockunier observes, "The influence of Vane, Wharton,
biography ofWilliams,
and Saye was probably decisive inwinning over Sir Arthur Hasselrige,
and the Earl of
Warwick, who had previously signed theWeld
patent" (The Irrepressible Democrat,
[New York: Ronald Press, 1940], p. 88).
Roger Williams
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THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
378
body had, in fact,recentlysecured thispower fromthe king
thepatent opens with an act of translation:
And whereas
there is a tract of land in the Continent
of Amer
ica aforesaid,called by the name of NarragansettsBay Bordering
North and North East on the Pattent of theMassachusetts East and
South East on Plymouth Pattent South on the Ocean and on the
West and NorthWest Inhabitedby IndiansCalled Nahigganzuks
aliasNarragansetts....52
With thesewords,Parliament
translates
Williams'spurchase
of "the lands and meadowes, upon the two freshriverscalled
Mooshawsuck andWanassquatucket" intoEnglish law.Against
the natural landmarksof the Indian deed, thepatent inscribes
Providence into an English colonial juridiscape that also in
cludesMassachusetts and Plymouth.That redefinedjuridiscape
also now acknowledges, possibly for the firsttime in English
law, the ongoing presence and propertyof American Indians,
and in doing so it representsa conception of native property
rightsquite differentfromthat,just fifteenyears before,which
had establishedMassachusetts as a "tracteof lande ... not then
actualie possessed by any other Christian Prince or State."53
Indeed, in a laterprovision, it even authorizes the Providence
inhabitantsto purchase amongst the said Natives some other
places, which may be convenientboth forPlantations,and also
for theBuilding of Ships."54 In thisway, Parliament not only
Williams's original acquisitions but also empowers
legitimates
him and his fellows to treatwith the Indians to obtainmore.
The second "whereas" (theword introducingeach warrant
for thepatent) detailsWilliams's peculiar engagementwith the
Indians.He and other "diverswell affectedand industriousEn
glish inhabitantsof theTownes of Providence, Portsmouthand
Newport ... have adventured tomake a neerer neighborhood
and sociatywith thatgreat body of Narragansettswhich may
in time by the blessing of God upon theireendeavours Lay a
52Chapin, Documentary History of Rhode Island,
53Shurtleff, Massachusetts
Bay Records, 1:3.
54Chapin, Documentary History of Rhode Island,
1:215.
1:215-16.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
379
surer foundationof happiness to all America."55The "neerer
neighborhood and sociaty" the patent commends conforms to
the cultural exchangeWilliams describes in theKey; and the
mutual "endeavours" it envisions are not evangelical but,with
the "blessingofGod," may fosterAnglo-Indian amity in such a
way as to advance thewelfare of all inAmerica. The absence of
any evangelical charge is striking,considering theBay Colony's
recentlyresurgentinterestin the field,not tomention itschar
ter's stipulationthat the "People were to be so governed as to
win the natives to the Christian faith,which is the principal
end of the plantation."56
The patent's final provision explicitlyacknowledgesWill
iams's suit and alludes toWeld and Peter's competing claim:
Andwhereas thesaidEnglishhave represented
theirdesiretothesaid
Earle and commissioners
tohave theirehopefullbeginnings
aprooved
unto thema freecharterof civillincor
and confirmed,
by granteing
porationandGovernment... they
mayorderand governethemselves
insuchmanneras tomaintaineJusticeandpeace bothamongstthem
selvesand towardsallmen withwhome theyshallhave todoe.57
"[A]ll men with whome they have to doe" would mean, of
course, the residentsof Plymouth and Massachusetts. Given
thehostilitythatpersisted towardtheir"hopefullbeginnings,"it
behooved Providence Plantations toobtain a sanction to "main
taine justice."Also of note is the latitudeaffordedthe govern
ment of Providence Plantations,which Parliament "doe give,
grant and confirme to the aforesaid Inhabitants,"defined as
"fullpower and authoritieto govern and rule themselves ... by
such a formof civil governmentas by voluntaryconsent of all
or the greatest part of them shall be foundmost suitable to
theireestates and conditions."58
Previous chartershad been drawn up for colonies not yet
extant and given a royal seal, but Providence Plantations had
55Chapin, Documentary History of Rhode Island,
56Shurtleff,Massachusetts
Bay Records, 1:17.
57Chapin, Documentary History of Rhode Island,
s8Chapin, Documentary
History
of Rhode
Island,
1:216.
1:216.
1:216.
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380
THE
NEW
ENGLAND
QUARTERLY
already designed a frameof government.Thus, on one hand,
Parliamentwould have feltno need to delineate the admin
istrationof power. On the other hand, however, "voluntary
consent of all or thegreatestpart of them" is a broad franchise
for1644, and thegovernmentsowarranted had announced, in
one of its firstactions, that "Wee agree, as formerlyhath bin
the libertiesof the town,so still,to hould forthlibertyof Con
science."59Williams's flightthroughthewilderness, theprinci
ples forwhich he was forced to flee,and his refugeamong the
Narragansetts are rewardedwith "A freeand absolute Charter
of Civill incorporationto be knowne by thename of the Incor
poracion of Providence Plantacions in theNarragansettsBay in
New England." In its confirmationof an Indian land transfer
and itsguarantee of libertyof conscience, thepatent echoes the
arguments
Williams retailed inLondon, distilled intoa formhe
could carryback toAmerica.
The Power of Translation
Williams had to be patient,but he ultimatelysecured politi
cal sanction forhis religiousprinciples.The physical space he
created on the shore of Narragansett Bay became the ground
fromwhich furtherreligiousdissent could be promulgated.The
Key, as well as other documentsWilliams composed, is an un
wieldymedium of appeal, but it realized itsend. His dissenting
message did not alter church and state inEngland, but Parlia
ment did give him the opportunityto implementhis reforms
inAmerica. In the contextof colonialNew England,Williams's
largeraccomplishmentwas to open up an alternatechannel for
transatlanticdiscourse.
RereadingWilliams's earlywritings as part of an integrated
political campaign topreserve Providence Plantations fromthe
Bay Colony's territorialambitionsdoes more than simplyclar
ifyhis effortson behalf of his colony; itmust change theway
we read collateral documents fromMassachusetts. Williams's
achievement remindsus thathismore orthodoxneighborswere
59Bartlett, Rhode
Island Records,
1:28.
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ROGER WILLIAMS
381
never "leftalonewithAmerica" but facedongoing challenges to
Inpartic
thepolity,
ecclesiology,
andsurvival
of their
colony.60
ular,New Englands First Fruits appearsmuch more apologetic
and defensive in the contextof theKey.
thegeographic
stakesofWilliams'sideological
Considering
work also challenges the notion that theMassachusetts Bay
itselfby feasting
Colony was a hegemonic entityable to fortify
on dissent.6' FollowingWilliams's 1644 appeal to Parliament,
a range of heterogeneous views of New England competed
formetropolitan attention and credit, and those ideological
contests shaped the physical boundaries of colonies as well as
the latitude they enjoyed within theirprecincts.The success
thatWilliams realizedwith his published appeal to London's
metropolitan authorities,and that Samuel Gorton and John
Clarke did later,demonstrates that considering narrativesof
New England that do not issue fromBoston can enrich and
complicate our understandingof New England in the seven
teenth
century.
Williams's millennial politics inaugurateda genre of colonial
dissent thatshaped life inNew England forgenerations.From
a historiographicperspective,his accomplishmentalso extends
Sharon Achinstein's concept of the "revolutionaryreader" to
embrace a colonial framework.As a participant in the print
cultureof revolutionary
London,Williams sharedwith the rad
ical pamphleteer JohnLilburne the "idea of public opinion as
the collective consciences of English citizens indesignatinghis
own readershipas a national jury."62
Unlike Lilburne,Williams
was not on trial,and the judicial imageryis not as pronounced
inhiswork, but he frameshis appeals as addresses to a deliber
ativebody ratherthanas petitions topatrons. In a similarvein,
in Errand
into the Wilderness,"
into the Wilderness
"Errand
Miller,
^Perry
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 15.
61
inNew England,
See Philip Gura, A Glimpse of Sion's Glory: Puritan Radicalism
1620-1660
(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan
University Press, 1984), p. 303; Stephen
Foster, The Long Argument: English Puritanism and the Shaping of New England
Culture
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early
American History and Culture, 1991), p. 189.
62
Sharon Achinstein, Milton and the Revolutionary Reader
(Princeton: Princeton
University Press,
1994), p. 57.
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382
THE
NEW
ENGLAND
QUARTERLY
Williams's triumphalso suggests a seventeenth-centurypre
American Habermasian models
lude to the eighteenth-century
of discursiveaction thatMichael Warner sketches inLetters of
theRepublic.63
That thisdiscursivenetworkspans theAtlanticOcean makes
it harder to identifybut no less important.The Atlantic has
emerged as a popular rubric for scholars in recent years, and
thisheuristichas offered importantinsightsinto thehistoryand
culture of populations on both sides of the ocean. While the
Atlantic linksthedisparate communitieson itsshores, thephys
ical and temporalbarrier thisbody ofwater imposed shaped
the discourse thatcirculated among far-flung
members of the
Atlanticworld.Williams's success in London shows the pecu
liar importanceof thephysicalpresence of theAtlanticOcean
in themiddle of theAtlanticworld.Writing fromAmerica for
London readers presented both challenges and opportunities
forNew England colonists. InWilliams's case, a presence in
person on one side of theAtlantic, and a presence inprint on
theother,was essential tohis effortto serveboth his colony and
his conscience. Using Old World literaryforms,he rendered
the New World comprehensible to London readers, and in
making the civility,and thus the autonomy,of heathen Indians
legible to theParliamentaryleadership,he secured an English
patent for the land he purchased from Indians. Providence,
the nucleus of colonial Rhode Island and thepresent-daystate
capital, remains as testimonyto Roger Williams's intellectual
acumen and political guile.
63Michael
and the Public
Warner, Letters of the Republic: Publication
America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).
Sphere
in
Eighteenth-Century
JonathanBeecher Field is Assistant Professor of English at
Clemson University.The article above proceeds from his book
manuscript, "Errands into theMetropolis: New England Au
thors inRevolutionaryLondon." He ispresentlycompletingan
essay titled"TheAntinomianControversyDid Not Take Place,"
and thisfall hewill dofieldworkforan articleon Boston's Duck
Tourstitled"Ducking
History."
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