Since the end of May, this blog has been exploring how our personal Story influences, and is impacted by our own, our culture’s, our family, our corporate and religious stories. I’ve offered some thoughts on how we/I may be able to more forward and learn how to understand someone else’s story. As I noted last week, one way I do this, personally, is to enter a story by telling that story from the viewpoint of a real or imagined person’s life. So, over the next few weeks, I’ll be offering imagined stories of historical events as seen by the conquered, the disenfranchised, the overlooked, the poor.
Maybe as I explore these lives, and try to see with fresh
eyes, I (and we) can come to the beginning of an understanding of the hurt and harm,
buried in the generational memories that each of us has.
In this first vignette, I’m entering the story of Mary
Williams, firstborn daughter of Roger Williams*. Her father’s firm
beliefs about freedom for all forms of religion, his missionary work with the
indigenous peoples, and his powerful preaching would all have impacted her
childhood and life. His legacy of separation of church and state led to the First
Amendment, but his conflicted actions as Indian slave catcher as well as
advocate for the local tribes must have been confusing to his family, esp. his
oldest child, leaving Mary with a legacy of internal conflict and unresolved
trauma to carry forward.
Mary Williams, the oldest child of Roger and Mary Barnard
Williams was born at Plymouth in 1633. She had 3 sisters and 2 younger
brothers. Mary would have been a toddler when her father was expelled from
Plymouth. The experience of winter among the Wampanoags probably left her with
exciting memories, as did her observations of her father’s work with the leaders
of both the colony and the surrounding areas. We join her in 1643 as she, her
pregnant mother, and 4 siblings remain in their home in Providence after Roger
Williams sails to England in search of the charter for his colony. She keeps
her siblings and mother distracted with her recollections.
Even though I was barely old enough to walk, I do remember
the deep snow when we left Plymouth in the middle of the night. Father was
still coughing.
I didn’t really understand why Mother begged him, “Just
don’t preach, and we can stay until spring.”
His reply was hoarse. It was a tone I later came to
associate with suppressed rage whenever anyone opposed him. “I won’t wait for
them to throw me out. I’m leaving of my own free will!”
Father always said it was God who led him to the village
of Sachem Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag nation. The Wampanoag people took
us in. I remember sleeping on soft, warm furs in the nush wetu with its curved
sapling frame and woven roof to keep out the snow. The women boiled something
and gave it to Father. It eased and cured the lingering cough. Over the winter,
Mother learned more herbal healing skills from the women.
Massasoit and Father were gone overnight. When they
returned, he told Mother, “Massasoit and I have agreed on a price for land near
the Seekonk River. It will be the start of a new colony.”
Our native friends helped us erect a small wetu to
serve until what Mother called a “real house” could be built. We didn’t live
there long enough to build anything, even though other men and families joined
us. Father came in one evening.
“They say we are on Plymouth land,” Father spoke in the
same hoarse, angry voice I heard before. It frightened me now. I burrowed under
the skins to hide. He continued to rage. “I bought this land. They
stole the land from the Wampanoag, claiming the King gave it to them. As
if a King in England can give away land in the New World. If anyone owns
land here, it is me.”
I shuddered, though I wasn’t sure what he was talking
about. I felt, rather than saw, Father go outside. I heard Mother singing to
Freeborn and eventually fell asleep hidden under the skins. Father left our
small encampment a couple days later with a Wampanoag guide and two other men.
“We’ll find a spot that isn’t ‘Plymouth land’,” he announced.
The way he said it was as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. I knew he was
still raging because his voice had the frightening hoarseness in it.
Later I learned a little of why we had to leave Plymouth
that winter. It was all about how Father defended his beliefs in religious
freedom and in the rights of the local nations. I was proud that Father wasn’t
afraid to stand up for what he knew was right. It has made our life uncomfortable
sometimes.
When the group returned, Father proclaimed, “We have a
place to call home. God’s providence led us to a perfect bay. We will start a
town there and name it Providence to remind us of God’s goodness. I have
purchased the land from the sachems of the Narragansett nation.”
He seemed happy, so I was happy even though it was sad to
leave the little weta. I had grown comfortable sleeping on the skins
laid over saplings suspended on the walls. In Providence, the men began
building the wood and thatch homes I vaguely remembered from my infancy in Plymouth.
More and more men and families came to Providence.
“People are coming here because they know we won’t
persecute them for worshiping differently,” he stated to anyone who would
listen. I wondered why that was so important until I overheard him talking to
Mother when I was five. It was just before the men finished building the Baptist
church in Providence. It was right after you were born, Providence.
Mother asked, “Why is it so important to let all the
Quakers and Separatists, and even Jews live here?”
“Each man has a right to seek God in their own way. The native
peoples have their way, the Jews find God in the commandments, and the Quakers
do it in silence. No human has the right to banish or burn or maim another human
based on their belief in God. God’s ways are not fully known to anyone, no
matter what those in Plymouth or elsewhere may say. Civil government can not be
tied to any one religious belief, either.”
It was that stance that got him into conflict with
William Coddington. I don’t understand it, really, being just a girl.
Coddington and Minister Cotton talk about “Free Grace” and think that should
rule the way people worship God. I know it makes Father angry. He talks about
Coddington in that hoarse voice, and says he wishes he would move away.
It makes me frightened, a little. Now, Father has gone to
England now so he can get an official charter…I think that means he’ll be
designated governor by the rulers of England. I wish he wasn’t gone. I wonder
what might happen if he doesn’t get the charter. How can a ten-year-old girl
understand these things?
I am usually proud of the way Father deals with the local
native nations. He even wrote a book that he took with him to England. He
called it A Key into the Language of America. He read us parts of it. One
of my favorite parts is about how the native people are God’s, too. I can quote
it “Boast not proud English, of thy birth & blood; Thy brother Indian is by
birth as Good. Of one blood God made Him, and Thee and All, As wise, as fair,
as strong, as personal.” I’m sure he believes that, but I’ve seen him return
Pequot people to their English masters. It’s very confusing and he refuses to answer
when I ask. Instead, he gets that hoarse sound in his voice and tells me
“Little girls shouldn’t worry about such things.”
We must trust that God will take care of Father, and of
us. If he gets the charter, maybe there won’t be any more trouble with Mister Coddington
and Father won’t be stern and angry. Then maybe he’ll explain his actions. I
feel so sorry for the recaptured Pequots. I remember our time with the Wampanoags.
I don’t think there really is any difference. Both are people, just like in his
book. Maybe I really can’t understand because I’m a girl.
But, now it is time for us to help with our meal. The
rest of you can help so Mother doesn’t have to get up. Freeborn, slice the
bread, Providence you can get the plates. Mercy and Daniel get the spoons for
our stew. It should be ready after cooking over the fire all afternoon.
*Roger Williams was born in England in 1603. He probably saw
Protestants and Catholics burned at the stake for their beliefs. Williams
studied for Holy Orders in the Church of England, but after becoming a Puritan
he deemed the practice of the Anglican church corrupt and became a
“Separatist.” He married Mary Barnard December 15, 1629. A year later the
couple sailed for the New World, arriving in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in
February of 1631. They had 6 children—4 daughters and 2 sons. (Mary-1633,
Freeborn-1635, Providence-1638, Mercy-1640, Daniel-1641, and Joseph-1643)
Williams was an advocate for what he called “soul liberty,”
believing that each person should be free to worship as their conscience
dictates. Thinking he would be a missionary to the indigenous peoples, Williams
studied their language, customs, and religion. He realized they were not the
savages portrayed and began to question colonial charters because they didn’t
include purchase of native lands. Governor Bradford of Plymouth wrote that
Williams had “some strange opinions which caused some controversy between the
church and him.” He was tried by the General Court in Plymouth in October of
1635, convicted of sedition and heresy and banished because of his “diverse,
new, and dangerous opinions.”
After leaving Plymouth, Williams stayed with the Wampanoag
tribe with Sachem (chief) Massasoit. In the spring of 1636, Massasoit gave
Williams land on the Seekonk River, but this was inside the Plymouth grant, so
he, and the group now gathered around him, traveled along the river until they
found a suitable spot. He purchased the land from Canonicus and Miantonomi,
sachems of the Narragansett nation. They named the settlement Providence.
This new colony (which became Rhode Island) offering
“liberty of conscience,” attracting Quakers, Baptists, Jews, and many others
seeking freedom to practice their faith in their own way. Civil governance of
the colony was by majority vote of heads of households. In 1638, Williams
established what is considered the first Baptist church in America in
Providence. A 1640 agreement provided for “liberty of conscience,”—the
separation of church and state. Although against chattel slavery, and
supportive of many native rights, Williams supported slavery of indigenous
peoples and worked for the recapture of escaped enslaved Pequot peoples.
After conflict with William Coddington about governance of
the colony, Williams traveled to England in 1643 to obtain an official charter.
His first book A Key into the Language of America proved instrumental in
getting the charter as it provided a look at the culture of the Native
Americans in New England, showing them as human. Williams wrote, “Boast not
proud English, of thy birth & blood; Thy brother Indian is by birth as
Good. Of one blood God made Him, and Thee and All, As wise, as fair, as strong,
as personal.” In 1647 the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
formed which included Providence, Newport, Portsmouth, and Aquidneck Island.
Coddington then obtained his own patent to be ‘Governor for Life’ of Aquidneck
and Conanicut Islands.
The colony grew and prospered until the 1670’s when
relations with the Native Americans deteriorated over land annexation and
disease. “King Philip’s War” started in 1675. Williams, as captain of the
Providence militia saw his work for the colony and with the local peoples fail
when Providence was burned in 1676. The town and colony rebounded after the
conflict. Williams died in 1683 leaving the legacy of the separation of church
and state to be taken up by the new nation 100 years later as the First
Amendment to the Constitution.
