The Wordy Shipmates Part 4

Williams finds the kind of civic harmony Winthrop strives for to be overrated, a "false peace" that is no measurement of a society's G.o.dliness. In The Bloudy Tenent The Bloudy Tenent he writes that even American Indians and "the wildest pagans keep the peace of their towns or cities, though neither in one nor the other can any man prove a true church of G.o.d in these places, and consequently no spiritual and heavenly peace." he writes that even American Indians and "the wildest pagans keep the peace of their towns or cities, though neither in one nor the other can any man prove a true church of G.o.d in these places, and consequently no spiritual and heavenly peace."

Williams goes on to remark that it is the state that is guilty of true disturbance of the peace by inflicting corporeal punishment on people who question the state. He writes, "Such persons only break the city's or kingdom's peace, who cry out for prison and swords against such who cross their judgment or practice in religion."

Williams would concur with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, a.s.sertion in his "Letter from the Birmingham Jail" that "I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' " Williams is up for verbal battles and argumentative civil wars in lieu of physical violence and corporeal punishment.

The tragedy of Williams is that he was born about 350 years too early to pursue his true calling-television punditry. What he needs is his own show on cable news. That's essentially how he acts before the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, as if he and Winthrop and Dudley are squabbling around some big round table on a Sunday-morning show and when they unhook their contact mikes at the end of the broadcast, they'll all go out for a gentlemanly brunch.

Williams will later write that the Ma.s.sachusetts Puritans' disagreements with him are reminiscent of the very disagreements those Puritans had with the Church back home, disagreements that led them to the extreme measure of emigrating to the New World. He poses the question of how can they expect him to tow their party line when they came here because they were unwilling to do the same for Bishop Laud? Williams points out, "Alas, who knows not what lamentable differences have [they had with] the same ministers of the Church of England," causing them to abandon "their livings, friends, country, life, rather than conform?"

Williams takes this logic a step further, putting his conflict with the settlers of Ma.s.sachusetts and their conflict with the Church of England within the larger context of the history of Christianity from its beginnings. He points out that the apostles' preaching caused "uproars and tumults wherever they came." When the Protestant Elizabeth I succeeded the Catholic b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, Williams notes that Catholics were suddenly out of fas.h.i.+on and out of favor: "The fathers made the children heretics and the children the father."

Williams a.s.serts that disagreement is inherent in religion. The state has jurisdiction over violations against persons and property but not over the soul. He figures that sinners and unbelievers will get more than what's coming to them at world's end, when angels "shall bind them into bundles, and cast them over the everlasting burnings" of h.e.l.l. But until then, he posits, let's just try not to kill each other: G.o.d requireth not an uniformity of religion to be inacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravis.h.i.+ng of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in His servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

Is it just me, or is this point still worth lingering over? It's one thing for nonviolent nonbelievers to throw up their hands at the way the faithful of various religious faiths seem to come to blows over dogma. But Williams, a diehard zealot, is unflinching in his recognition that other diehard zealots are equally set in their ways. And while he would happily-happily!-harangue any other persons of faith for days on end about how wrong they are, he does not think they should be jailed or hit or stabbed or shot for their stupidity, the eternal flames of h.e.l.l being punishment enough.

Stranger still, Williams does not mean that a civil state should allow merely all the variations of Christianity, from Catholicism on down. He means that a civil state should permit all forms of religion, including "the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish [Islamic] or Antichristian consciences." These forms of wors.h.i.+p should be legal for "all men in all nations and countries." Not that Williams will be hosting any interfaith prayer breakfasts. He insists other religions should be "fought against." It's just that the only weapon used to fight them should be "the sword of G.o.d's spirit, the Word of G.o.d."

According to Winthrop's journal, on July 8, 1635, the court summons Williams to New Town to explain his "dangerous opinions" to "the magistracy and the churches." They grill him on the following beliefs: the notion that magistrates "ought not to punish the breach of the first table" of the Ten Commandments; that oaths should only be administered to visible saints; that visible saints should not pray with the unclean, even their own wives and children. The court also discussed admonis.h.i.+ng the church of Salem for once again calling Williams to be its teacher. Winthrop notes: The said opinions were adjudged by all, magistrates and ministers, (who were desired to be present,) to be erroneous, and very dangerous, and the calling of him to office, at that time, was judged a great contempt of authority. So, in fine, time was given to him and the church of Salem to consider of these things till the next general court, and then either to give satisfaction to the court, or else to expect the sentence; it being professedly declared by the ministers, (at the request of the court to give their advice,) that he who should obstinately maintain such opinions . . . were to be removed.

There is a lot going on in that pa.s.sage. For starters, the ultimatum, obviously, that unless Williams recants by the next court he will be banished. Notice they are in no hurry to carry out this sentence. Williams is not some outsider mope like Philip Ratcliffe. Williams is one of them, a visible saint (albeit an exasperating one). So they give him the seventeenth-century equivalent of a time-out to think through his opinions and come around to theirs. As Winthrop put it in "Christian Charity," they remain "knit together in a bond of love."

Notice also that in Winthrop's description of the hearing, when he brings up the presence of the ministers, he makes it clear that they were invited, and that their role is purely advisory. The colonists actually agree with Williams on the separation of church and state-kind of. It's just that Williams wants a wall between them and Winthrop is happy with a wisp of velvet rope. Ma.s.sachusetts Bay is not a true theocracy in that the colony would not dream of letting the ministers hold office. Winthrop and his s.h.i.+pmates came here to get away from Bishop Laud, not create another one, and Laud's recent attacks on the Charter only confirm that clergymen should not moonlight as magistrates. The a.s.sistants make their decision in consultation with the ministers, but the ministers' advice is not legally binding. Cotton and the others act as a human law library, a source for interpreting the Bible's legal instructions. To Williams, however, this liaison means the ministers are dragging the snow-white robes of Christ through the wilderness muck of government; that's probably why Cotton, more than any of his other Boston critics, becomes the object of Williams's lifelong scorn.

Winthrop writes that at the same meeting some Salem residents pet.i.tioned the court for the deed to "some land in Marblehead Neck," near their town. The court refuses them because, says Winthrop, "they had chosen Mr. Williams their teacher, while he stood under question of authority, and so offered contempt to the magistrates." On its face, this retaliation is just plain petty. But the court also displays a troubling disregard for one of its own deeply held principles. Namely, that a Congregationalist church is its own authority and therefore is not beholden to magistrates in their own or any other town. It is an abuse of power for the court to strong-arm a town because said town's congregation picked its own minister-a congregation choosing its own minister being the definition of a Congregationalist church. Recall that the court had pulled this four years earlier, when Salem first tried to hire Williams. Salem backed down back then, but at some point the townspeople got the nerve to protest. Winthrop notes that the court's decision prompts the Salem church to "write to other churches, to admonish the magistrates of this as a heinous sin." Out of spite, then, the magistrates bar John Endecott and the other Salem men from the next court "until they should give satisfaction about the letter."

According to Winthrop, by the end of August, Roger Williams is so sick he is "not able to speak." It happens. Williams is under a great deal of stress. It's understandable his body would give out and he would lose his voice.

But common sense is hardly the only means to diagnose Williams's illness. The Ma.s.sachusetts Bay colonists scrutinize every one of life's ups and downs to deduce a message from G.o.d. Like that day in 1632 when some people in Watertown watched a mouse fight a snake and win. For me, the moment the mouse kills the snake would be just another gross but engrossing highlight on the Discovery Channel. For them, it is a big, whopping omen. Winthrop happily records the minister John Wilson's interpretation: "That the snake was the devil; the mouse was a poor contemptible people, which G.o.d had brought hither, which should overcome Satan here, and dispossess him of his kingdom."

Thus John Cotton later harangues Williams about his post-showdown laryngitis, "When you over-heated yourself in reasoning and disputing against the light of [G.o.d's] truth, it pleased him to stop your mouth by a sudden disease, and to threaten to take your breath from you." Get well soon!

Meanwhile, in October 1635, Winthrop's journal marks the arrival in Boston of one of the most endearing and sane men of the seventeenth century, Henry Vane the Younger. Vane will have a long career and meet a sad and unfair end, but wherever he turns up-New England now and the English Parliament later-he is usually a voice of reason, moderation, liberty, and love.

Winthrop describes Vane as "a young gentleman of excellent parts." Harry Vane is hands down the fanciest person yet to set foot in New England, the twenty-three-year-old son of the financial advisor to King Charles. Vane is of such high birth and immense wealth, his decision to cast off the trappings of his background-castle included-and move to this slapdash shantytown at the edge of the world says a lot about his piety. Winthrop, clearly impressed, praises Vane as "being called to the obedience of the gospel, forsook the honors and preferments of the court, to enjoy the ordinances of Christ in their purity here."

To the dismay of his overly Anglican parents, Vane the Younger converted to Puritanism as a teenager and made stops on his postcollegiate tour of Europe in Leiden and Geneva, world capitals of Calvinist thought. When he returned to England, his father asked Bishop Laud himself to talk some sense into the boy, but as one of his father's acquaintances described young Vane in a letter, "No persuasion of our bishops, nor authority of his parents could prevail with him." Kids today! Vane the Elder had hoped the Younger would go into the family business and work for the king instead of ditching his birthright for some ashram in the woods.

In a letter Vane the Younger sent to Vane the Elder before s.h.i.+pping out to Ma.s.sachusetts, he is keenly aware that his father feels betrayed by his defection. He just hopes his father comes to terms with his decision "before you die," otherwise "the jealousy you have of me would break my heart." "My heart," he writes, "I am sure is sincere, and from hence flows the sweet peace I enjoy with my G.o.d amidst these many and heavy trials which now fall upon me." Thinking of the Atlantic crossing ahead, and the unknown wilderness of the New World, Vane rea.s.sures his father that this spiritual calm "is my only support in the loss of all other things."

If Harry Vane is on his way to Ma.s.sachusetts to nurture the sweet peace he enjoys with his G.o.d, boy is he in for a surprise. He will spend only two years in New England, but they are the two most turbulent, action-packed years in the history of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony. He will witness the havoc wrought by an Indian war and an outspoken female heretic and, at the moment of his autumn landing, the controversy with Roger Williams.

Recall that in the summer of 1635 Williams is laid up sick. He couldn't talk, but he could still write. Come fall, the General Court summons Williams to answer for two incendiary letters, one he sent to the colony's churches complaining about the magistrates' treatment of him and Salem, and another addressed to his Salem church, urging the congregation to "renounce communion with all the churches in the bay, as full of antichristian pollution."

By continuing to agitate, John Cotton informs Williams, he has missed the point of his illness, has failed to learn the lesson that when G.o.d takes away one's voice one should take the hint and shut the h.e.l.l up. Cotton: But instead of recoiling . . . you chose rather to persist in your way, and to protest against all the churches and brethren that stood in your way: and thus the good hand of Christ that should have humbled you, to see and turn from the error of your way, hath rather hardened you therein, and quickened you only to see failings (yea intolerable errors) in all the churches and brethren, rather than in yourself.

Before the court, Williams "justified both these letters, and maintained all his opinions," writes Winthrop. The court offers Williams the option of taking a few weeks to reflect and hopefully repent-"a month's respite," Winthrop calls it. I'm guessing there is no small amount of love and mercy in this offer. All the magistrates must have looked at Williams so longingly, hoping that the ride home would soften him. How could he not come around, pa.s.sing through their rough-hewn New Jerusalem, going by all the humble cabins of good people who try so hard to hate themselves but love their G.o.d? How could he wave h.e.l.lo to the men and women with whom he sailed from England and not notice they were all in the same boat still? This cajoling had worked many times before. John Endecott, for example, had caved. He appeared before the court and "acknowledged his fault" in questioning the magistrates and Salem was granted the land in Marblehead Neck.

But Williams must have known that no amount of time, no ministerial interventions, no amount of waving h.e.l.lo to well-scrubbed townspeople was going to change his mind. Williams believed that a conviction, even one that is "groundless, false, and deluded . . . is not by any arguments or torments easily removed." He tells the court that he doesn't need any more time. He thinks what he thinks. Reverend Thomas Hooker is asked to debate Williams and talk him out of what Winthrop calls "his errors." Williams does not back down.

The next morning, they banish him. According to the court record, the grounds for his expulsion include spreading "new and dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates," issuing "letters of defamation," and maintaining the aforementioned dangerous opinions "without retraction." He has six weeks to "depart out of this jurisdiction." In his journal, Winthrop adds that all the ministers (except for one, whom he fails to identify) approved the sentence.

By January, Winthrop's journal notes that, it being winter, the court had deferred Williams's expulsion until spring on the condition that he lay low and not foment unpleasantness. And yet, Winthrop writes, Williams's voice had returned and he had been preaching in his house in Salem, spewing "such points as he had been censured for." Williams "had drawn about twenty persons to his opinion . . . the people being much taken with the apprehension of his G.o.dliness." This was more than mere insubordination. There were rumors, said Winthrop, that Williams and his followers "were intended to erect a plantation about the Narragansett Bay, from whence the infection would easily spread into these churches."

Williams was no longer a member of their body-he was an infection that needed to be surgically removed. The court dispatched some men under the command of John Underhill, the Bay's militia captain, to Salem so as to drag Williams to the dock and stick him on a s.h.i.+p bound for England. But, writes Winthrop in his journal, "when they came at his house he had been gone three days before; but whither they could not learn."

Thirty-four years after his banishment, in a letter, Williams revealed the ident.i.ty of the mole who tipped him off that the militia was coming for him to s.h.i.+p him back to England. Winthrop! He wrote: that ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote to me to steer my course to Narragansett Bay and Indians, for many high and heavenly public ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English claims or patents. I took his prudent motion as a hint and voice from G.o.d, and waving all other thoughts and motions, I steered my course from Salem, (though in winter snow, which I feel yet) unto these parts.

Winthrop never admits to warning Williams. As quoted above, in his journal, which he wrote with posterity in mind, Winthrop pretended to be surprised by Williams's absence and ignorant of his final destination. Obviously, if the truth came out, Winthrop's comrades on the court would have found his actions contemptible, if not downright treasonous.

This is a sappy way to put it, but the Winthrop who warns Williams is the Winthrop I fell in love with, the Winthrop Cotton Mather celebrates for sharing his firewood with the needy, the Winthrop who scolds Thomas Dudley for overcharging the poor, the Winthrop of "Christian Charity," who called for "enlargement toward others" and "brotherly affection," admonis.h.i.+ng that "if thy brother be in want and thou canst help him . . . if thou lovest G.o.d thou must help him."

Winthrop acknowledged that if the people of Ma.s.sachusetts were to stick together as members of the same body, Williams needed to be clipped off like a toenail. But Winthrop is a true Nonseparatist. Just as he refuses to give up on his old friends in the Church of England out of loyalty, affection, and respect, he must have a lingering soft spot for Williams, that "G.o.dly minister" whose arrival in Boston Winthrop recorded five years earlier. Williams apparently forgave Winthrop for being one of the magistrates who banished him; as an old man, Williams recalled fondly that Winthrop had "personally and tenderly loved me to his last breath."

In a letter he wrote in 1670, thirty-four years after his banishment, the elderly Roger Williams is clear that his icy flight from Salem that January long before was the defining event of his life, a source of strength and sorrow. "I was unkindly and unchristianly (as I believe) driven from my house and land, and wife and children (in the midst of a New England winter)," he writes.

At first, he settled down on land he purchased near present-day Rehoboth, Ma.s.s., from the Wampanoag sachem (or chief) Ma.s.sasoit, remembered for the First Thanksgiving, whom Williams had befriended during his stay in Plymouth. But it turned out Ma.s.sasoit was mistaken about the property line, and Williams was trespa.s.sing on Plymouth land. He soon received a letter from his old friend Edward Winslow, the Plymouth governor, "advising me (since I was fallen into their bounds, and they were loathe to displease the Bay) to remove to the other side of the water." Winslow added that once Williams vacated Plymouth's jurisdiction "we should be loving neighbors together."

Did he mention it was winter? Again from Williams's letter of 1670: "Between those my friends of the Bay and Plymouth I was sorely tossed for fourteen weeks (in a bitter winter season) not knowing what bread or bed did mean."

Apart from the humiliation of banishment and enduring-we get it!-the cold, Williams points out he suffered financial hards.h.i.+p since he forfeited his Salem business. He writes, "Beside the yearly loss of no small matter in my trading with English and natives, [I was] debarred from Boston (the chief mart and port of New England)." He continues, "G.o.d knows that many thousand pounds cannot repay the very temporary losses I have sustained."

His poverty must have been apparent, because when Winslow visited Williams after his family had joined him a few months later, Williams reports that Winslow "put a piece of gold into the hands of my wife for our supply."

Along with Winthrop's initial advice that Rhode Island was outside the bounds of the Ma.s.sachusetts Charter, the Plymouth governor's directing him also to Rhode Island confirmed to him "the freedom and vacancy of this place, which in this respect and many other providences of the most holy and only wise, I called Providence."

Legend has it that when Williams sailed down the Seekonk River and landed at the present site of Providence, a local Narragansett greeted him, "What cheer, netop?" (a combination of the old English phrase for "How's it going?" and the Algonquian word for "friend").

The supposed site of this momentous occasion, Slate Rock, is remembered by a little monument in Providence's Slate Rock Park. Don't bother looking for the rock, though. In 2007, a Providence Parks Department official told the Providence Journal, Providence Journal, "Unfortunately, in 1877, Slate Rock itself was mistakenly blown up, by city workers trying to uncover more of the rock and preserve the symbol of Williams' arrival." "Unfortunately, in 1877, Slate Rock itself was mistakenly blown up, by city workers trying to uncover more of the rock and preserve the symbol of Williams' arrival."

Williams asked the two Narragansett sachems, the elderly Canonicus, and his younger nephew, Miantonomi, for permission to settle. Williams drew up a deed and the two men signed with their marks-a bow for Canonicus and an arrow for Miantonomi. Williams was proud of the fact that he did not buy the land. Rather it was a gift and a grant. He later boasted, "It was not price nor money that could have purchased Rhode Island. . . . Rhode Island was purchased by love."

The site of the original settlement is preserved in downtown Providence as the Roger Williams National Memorial. There, the compa.s.s and sundial Williams probably carried with him on the traumatic nature hike that got him here are on display.

Williams was soon joined by a few followers who had bolted from Ma.s.sachusetts and he divided the land into equal eleven-acre plots. On August 20, 1637, these settlers signed what came to be called the Providence Agreement. It says: We whose names are hereunder desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active and pa.s.sive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good for the body, in an orderly way, by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellows.h.i.+p, and others whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things.

The two most important words in the agreement were, of course, "civil things." There will be no religious obedience required here.

As Williams points out in a letter to John Endecott in 1651, "My letters are not banished!" From his crude settlement, Williams keeps up an ample correspondence with his acquaintances back in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, especially John Winthrop.

Winthrop and Williams will write each other letters until Winthrop dies in 1649. Winthrop's letters to Williams have been lost, but many of Williams's many notes to Winthrop survive. They remind me a little of the letters Herman Melville sends to Nathaniel Hawthorne a couple of centuries later; Williams, like Melville, is a tad too excited, too lonely, too longwinded, too strange. At one point Melville even dreams of installing a paper mill in his house so as to provide him an endless supply of paper on which "I should write a thousand-a million-billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you." That sort of talk must have terrified Hawthorne. Recall Williams's apology to Winthrop for writing so many sentences "as thick and over busy as mosquitoes."

Many of Williams's letters are very hard to read. But their very difficulty might hint at why Winthrop doesn't write off his younger, weirder friend. I do not envy Glenn W. LaFantasie, editor of The Correspondence of Roger Williams; The Correspondence of Roger Williams; Williams's letters are often theologically dense, to put it mildly. One four-and-a-half-page letter to Winthrop, probably written a year or so after Williams's banishment, requires thirty-seven footnotes to explain Williams's allusions to more than thirty biblical pa.s.sages. If Winthrop disagrees with many of Williams's interpretations of said pa.s.sages, he cannot deny Williams's knowledge of and devotion to the Word of G.o.d. Williams's letters are often theologically dense, to put it mildly. One four-and-a-half-page letter to Winthrop, probably written a year or so after Williams's banishment, requires thirty-seven footnotes to explain Williams's allusions to more than thirty biblical pa.s.sages. If Winthrop disagrees with many of Williams's interpretations of said pa.s.sages, he cannot deny Williams's knowledge of and devotion to the Word of G.o.d.

In that letter, Williams attempts to answer a series of queries posed by Winthrop in a sort of post-banishment follow-up questionnaire. Winthrop wants to know what Williams has gained by his "newfound practices." Williams answers that he has traded in such things as "friends" and "esteem" for the "honor" of being one of Christ's witnesses, that he is "ready not only to be banished, but to die in New England for the name of the Lord Jesus." If Winthrop was hoping that a few months in exile had made Williams rethink his questionable opinions, he would have been disappointed with Williams's response, especially since Williams beseeches Winthrop to remove himself "with a holy violence from the dung heap of this earth," by which he means the Boston church. Even so, Williams is cordial toward Winthrop, addressing him as "worthy and well beloved," acknowledging that Winthrop poses his questions in the spirit of healing their rift, "as a physician to the sick."

The tone of Williams's letters and tracts addressed to John Cotton, on the other hand, is accusatory. Even Williams admits, "Some letters then pa.s.sed between us, in which I proved and expressed that if I had perished in that sorrowful winter's flight, only the blood of Jesus Christ could have washed him from the guilt of mine."

Naturally, the most esteemed theologian in New England is unaccustomed to being accused of attempted manslaughter. "As if," Cotton writes Williams soon after his banishment; Williams claims to have gotten the letter in the "time of my distressed wanderings amongst the barbarians." This is the letter someone, probably Williams, published later, without Cotton's consent. In it, Cotton beseeches Williams to halt his accusations, "as if I had hastened forward the sentence of your civil banishment; for what was done by the magistrates . . . was neither done by my council nor consent." Not that Cotton has a problem with the verdict: "I dare not deny the sentence pa.s.sed to be righteous in the eyes of G.o.d."

Winthrop is clear in his journal that the court consulted the ministers, Cotton included. In Williams's published "Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered," Williams claimed one of the court's a.s.sistants confided in him-in tears-that the court never would have issued the verdict of banishment "had not Mr. Cotton in private given them advice." His point? Ministers in general are too influential in civil justice, and John Cotton in particular makes grown men cry.

In 1643, seven years after his banishment, Roger Williams writes a book, A Key into the Language of America. A Key into the Language of America. Written by the light of "a rude lamp at sea," Williams was on his way back to England to acquire a legal charter for Providence. He worried that he would lose his Algonquian language skills abroad, skills that "I had so dearly bought in some few years of hards.h.i.+p and charges among the barbarians." (If the term "barbarian" seems a tad indelicate, Williams reports that the natives have an equally pejorative though more colorful name for the English: "knive-men.") Written by the light of "a rude lamp at sea," Williams was on his way back to England to acquire a legal charter for Providence. He worried that he would lose his Algonquian language skills abroad, skills that "I had so dearly bought in some few years of hards.h.i.+p and charges among the barbarians." (If the term "barbarian" seems a tad indelicate, Williams reports that the natives have an equally pejorative though more colorful name for the English: "knive-men.") Basically, A Key A Key is a souped-up dictionary arranged in chapters devoted to such subjects as sickness, fish, and the seasons of the year. There are stretches of Algonquian words and phrases arranged on the left side of the page, matched up with a column of English equivalents on the right. In between vocabulary lists, Williams makes observations about the native way of life. He ends many chapters with terrible poems in which "righteousness" rhymes with "wilderness," and "sinned" with "wind." is a souped-up dictionary arranged in chapters devoted to such subjects as sickness, fish, and the seasons of the year. There are stretches of Algonquian words and phrases arranged on the left side of the page, matched up with a column of English equivalents on the right. In between vocabulary lists, Williams makes observations about the native way of life. He ends many chapters with terrible poems in which "righteousness" rhymes with "wilderness," and "sinned" with "wind."

Though A Key A Key was written long after Williams was forced out of Ma.s.sachusetts to live amongst the Narragansett, it reads almost like a memoir of his banishment, giving clues about what Williams's first few months on the lam were like. Given the Algonquian words and phrases he imparts years later-such as "Sit by the fire," "Come hither, friend," and "Welcome, sleep here"-the Narragansett come off as a collective G.o.dsend. "In wilderness, in great distress," he writes, "these ravens have fed me." was written long after Williams was forced out of Ma.s.sachusetts to live amongst the Narragansett, it reads almost like a memoir of his banishment, giving clues about what Williams's first few months on the lam were like. Given the Algonquian words and phrases he imparts years later-such as "Sit by the fire," "Come hither, friend," and "Welcome, sleep here"-the Narragansett come off as a collective G.o.dsend. "In wilderness, in great distress," he writes, "these ravens have fed me."

Williams admits that within a two-hundred-mile radius of his home, various Algonquian-speaking tribes' "dialects do exceedingly differ, yet . . . a man may, by this help, converse with many thousands of natives all over the country." Apparently, that was still true into the twentieth century. According to Howard M. Chapin's introduction to the Rhode Island Tercentenary edition of A Key, A Key, published in 1936, William Brooks Cabot carried Williams's book in his knapsack as he tramped around northern Canada, wandering "the lonely wastes of Labrador with Indians who are unacquainted with the English language," and who were "Algonquians and of the same linguistic stock" as the Narragansett. In Cabot's 1912 book published in 1936, William Brooks Cabot carried Williams's book in his knapsack as he tramped around northern Canada, wandering "the lonely wastes of Labrador with Indians who are unacquainted with the English language," and who were "Algonquians and of the same linguistic stock" as the Narragansett. In Cabot's 1912 book In Northern Labrador, In Northern Labrador, he declares, "My objective was Indians," echoing the statement Williams made in his first surviving letter to John Winthrop way back in 1632, pining that "the Lord grant my desires . . . what I long after, the natives' souls." he declares, "My objective was Indians," echoing the statement Williams made in his first surviving letter to John Winthrop way back in 1632, pining that "the Lord grant my desires . . . what I long after, the natives' souls."

Williams intends for A Key A Key to help missionaries spread the gospel to American Indians, hoping "it may please the Father of Mercies to spread civility and . . . Christianity; for one candle will light ten thousand." to help missionaries spread the gospel to American Indians, hoping "it may please the Father of Mercies to spread civility and . . . Christianity; for one candle will light ten thousand."

We will get to the Christianity spreading shortly. As for civility, Williams avows it is hardly unknown in New England's back country. "There is a favor of civility and courtesy," he says, "even amongst these wild Americans, both amongst themselves and toward strangers."

After teaching how to say "first eat something" and "bring hither some victuals," Williams writes, "If any stranger come in, they presently give him to eat of what they have." Recall that when Williams was banished he had next to nothing. He goes on, "Many a time, and at all times of the night (as I have fallen in travel upon their houses) when nothing hath been ready, have themselves and their wives, risen to prepare me some refres.h.i.+ng."

There is real and plain warmth in Williams's tone when he talks up Indian generosity. Relating knowledge he learned by experience, compared to the biblical minutiae he acquired by hitting the books at Cambridge, A Key A Key is Williams's best writing-modest, gripping, and down to earth. is Williams's best writing-modest, gripping, and down to earth.

Indians make good listeners. "A deep silence they make," he writes, "and attention give to him that speaketh." Unlike some people, who throw you out of their colony just for talking.

One side effect of Williams's admiration for the natives is that they make Englishmen, including the Boston variety, look bad. That is frequently his intent. For example, in this hospitality poem, he sings, I have known them leave their house and mat to lodge a friend or stranger, When Jews and Christians oft have sent Christ Jesus to the manger.

Among his many commendations: The Narragansett enjoy a low crime rate. Natives commit "fewer scandalous sins than Europe." One "never hear[s] of robberies, rapes, murders." Also, "they never shut their doors, day nor night, and 'tis rare that any hurt is done." Plus, "Their wars are far less b.l.o.o.d.y, and devouring than the cruel wars of Europe; and seldom twenty slain in a pitch field."

Such enlargement toward others, making others' conditions their own, entertaining each other in brotherly affection-Williams's description of the Narragansett way of life sounds a lot like Winthrop's ideal of a city on a hill (just without Jehovah).

While A Key A Key is the first substantive book devoted to deciphering the Algonquian language, William Wood, most likely one of the early settlers who accompanied John Endecott to Salem, had published is the first substantive book devoted to deciphering the Algonquian language, William Wood, most likely one of the early settlers who accompanied John Endecott to Salem, had published New England's Prospect, New England's Prospect, a guidebook for would-be settlers, in 1634. Wood included a short glossary of Algonquian terms. Wood's descriptions of native culture generally agree with Williams's portrayal. Which is to say that Wood's interpretations of Indian society also echo Winthrop's utopian yearnings in "Christian Charity" for a caring community rejoicing and suffering together. Wood writes, "As he that kills a deer sends for his friends and eats it merrily, so he that receives but a piece of bread from an English hand parts it equally between himself and his comrades, and eats it lovingly." Wood continues, "They are love-linked thus in common courtesy." a guidebook for would-be settlers, in 1634. Wood included a short glossary of Algonquian terms. Wood's descriptions of native culture generally agree with Williams's portrayal. Which is to say that Wood's interpretations of Indian society also echo Winthrop's utopian yearnings in "Christian Charity" for a caring community rejoicing and suffering together. Wood writes, "As he that kills a deer sends for his friends and eats it merrily, so he that receives but a piece of bread from an English hand parts it equally between himself and his comrades, and eats it lovingly." Wood continues, "They are love-linked thus in common courtesy."

Wood's and Williams's appreciation for the civility of New England Indians rubs off on the reader, but not as some treacly ode to n.o.ble savagery. Williams is especially interesting-and refres.h.i.+ng-because he regards the natives in his midst as people. In one of the goofy little poems he sprinkles throughout A Key, A Key, he writes, "Boast not proud English, of thy birth & blood, / thy brother Indian is by birth as good." And by "as good" he means equally deplorable, unworthy, and disgusting in the eyes of G.o.d as any of the swells in Europe: "Nature knows no difference between Europe and Americans in blood, birth, bodies, etc. G.o.d having of one blood made all mankind . . . and all by nature being children of wrath." he writes, "Boast not proud English, of thy birth & blood, / thy brother Indian is by birth as good." And by "as good" he means equally deplorable, unworthy, and disgusting in the eyes of G.o.d as any of the swells in Europe: "Nature knows no difference between Europe and Americans in blood, birth, bodies, etc. G.o.d having of one blood made all mankind . . . and all by nature being children of wrath."

I can admire the inherent friendliness of native culture, just as I admire the inherent bookishness of Puritan culture, without fantasizing for one second about living in either world. I'm an indoorsy, urban woman partial to my cozy little desk job and the odd night on the town. I tend not to romanticize traditional societies-some people just aren't cut out for that way of life. In fact, when I was forced, as a child in Oklahoma, to help out picking potatoes on what was left of my Cherokee grandfather's Indian allotment land, one day it was so humid my sweat turned the dirty field around me to mud. So I made a solemn, silent vow then and there that when I grew up I was going to buy my potatoes in a store.

In A Key, A Key, it's obvious, at least to me, that being a native woman in seventeenth-century New England was tough, way more difficult than being a white person or Indian man-which is saying something. it's obvious, at least to me, that being a native woman in seventeenth-century New England was tough, way more difficult than being a white person or Indian man-which is saying something.

For starters, being female was literally isolating. In the chapter "Of the Family Businesses," Williams gives the words for "knife," "spoon," "wash this," and "house," along with the phrase "a woman keeping alone in her monthly sickness." The latter being a handy translation given that, in his introduction, Williams notes that during menstruation, native women are quarantined "in a little house alone by themselves four or five days, and hold it an irreligious thing for either father or husband or any male to come near them."

Indian women grind their corn by hand. Williams points out, " They plant it, dress it, gather it, barn it, beat it, and take as much pains as any people in the world, which labor is questionless one cause of their extraordinary ease of childbirth." In other words, these women's lives involved such constant, backbreaking toil and pain that delivering a baby does not faze them.

In the chapter devoted to "Eating and Entertainment," Williams points out that tobacco is the only plant tended by men, with "women managing all the rest." I.e., all nonsmok able agriculture is performed by women. In New England's Prospect, New England's Prospect, William Wood actually writes that while native women are "very industrious," native men "had rather starve than work." Williams doesn't entirely share Wood's dismissal of the Algonquin division of labor. Probably because Williams tags along with native men on their often harrowing hunting and fis.h.i.+ng trips. Sounds like the former Cambridge scholar isn't exactly G.o.d's gift to the canoe. Grateful to his Narragansett lifeguards, he admits, "When sometimes in great danger I have questioned safety they have said to me: Fear not, if we be overset I will carry you safe to land." William Wood actually writes that while native women are "very industrious," native men "had rather starve than work." Williams doesn't entirely share Wood's dismissal of the Algonquin division of labor. Probably because Williams tags along with native men on their often harrowing hunting and fis.h.i.+ng trips. Sounds like the former Cambridge scholar isn't exactly G.o.d's gift to the canoe. Grateful to his Narragansett lifeguards, he admits, "When sometimes in great danger I have questioned safety they have said to me: Fear not, if we be overset I will carry you safe to land."

Williams, however, is not a joiner. Considering that he is such a Separatist he won't wors.h.i.+p with other Puritans who refuse to repent for wors.h.i.+pping at Anglican churches back in England, it stands to reason that he opts out of native religious ceremonies. In A Key, A Key, he admits that he acquired most of the facts for the chapter "Of Their Religion" by asking natives, not by observation. He tried it once and won't be doing that again: "Once being in their houses and beholding what their wors.h.i.+p was, I durst never be an eye witness, spectator or looker on, least I should have been partaker of Satan's inventions and wors.h.i.+ps." he admits that he acquired most of the facts for the chapter "Of Their Religion" by asking natives, not by observation. He tried it once and won't be doing that again: "Once being in their houses and beholding what their wors.h.i.+p was, I durst never be an eye witness, spectator or looker on, least I should have been partaker of Satan's inventions and wors.h.i.+ps."

The man who was such a Ten Commandments stickler that he raised a stink about taking G.o.d's name in vain when Winthrop and the other magistrates administered oaths to nonbelievers, must have wanted to gouge out his own eyes looking upon what he believed to be Indians engaged in actual devil wors.h.i.+p-a textbook violation of "You shall have no other G.o.ds before Me."

Probably one of the most useful, or at least the most telling, Algonquian phrases Williams translates in A Key A Key is is Mat nowawtau hette mina Mat nowawtau hette mina-"We understand not each other." Also helpful: "You trouble me."

The Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony talked a big game by putting that Indian pleading "Come over and help us" on its official seal, but few Puritans actually got around to converting Indians (much to the natives' dismay, I'm sure). Williams was the rare Englishman to take that charge seriously. But in order to talk the Narragansett into Christianity, he had to talk them out of their own religion, which he found baffling and dangerous, but nevertheless well-established and complex.

Williams notes that one of the natives' most important G.o.ds resides in the Southwest. "At the Southwest are their forefathers' souls," he writes. "To the Southwest they go themselves when they die; from the Southwest came their corn and beans."

For these beliefs, Williams concludes that "they are lost." His only hope is that a few of them "shall be found to share in the blood of the Son of G.o.d"-a very few. In a pamphlet he writes two years after A Key, A Key, t.i.tled t.i.tled Christenings Make Not Christians, Christenings Make Not Christians, he dismisses the idea of ma.s.s conversions of natives because he doesn't believe in ma.s.s conversion of any sort. For all his eccentricities, Williams is a conventional Calvinist regarding salvation-it's predetermined before a person is born. There is an Elect amongst Algonquian-speakers, just like there is an Elect amongst Anglophones. In the pamphlet, he points out that Jesus "abhors . . . an unwilling spouse, and to enter into a forced bed: the will in wors.h.i.+p, if true, is like a free vote." Thus, imposing Christianity on American Indians (or anyone else) is, to Williams (and, according to Williams, Jesus) a rape of the soul. "A true conversion (whether of Americans or Europeans)," he writes, "must be by the free proclaiming or preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins." Only then will the believer be born again, as "G.o.d's new creation in the soul." he dismisses the idea of ma.s.s conversions of natives because he doesn't believe in ma.s.s conversion of any sort. For all his eccentricities, Williams is a conventional Calvinist regarding salvation-it's predetermined before a person is born. There is an Elect amongst Algonquian-speakers, just like there is an Elect amongst Anglophones. In the pamphlet, he points out that Jesus "abhors . . . an unwilling spouse, and to enter into a forced bed: the will in wors.h.i.+p, if true, is like a free vote." Thus, imposing Christianity on American Indians (or anyone else) is, to Williams (and, according to Williams, Jesus) a rape of the soul. "A true conversion (whether of Americans or Europeans)," he writes, "must be by the free proclaiming or preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins." Only then will the believer be born again, as "G.o.d's new creation in the soul."

Williams tallies up at least thirty-seven native G.o.ds-the fire G.o.d, the house G.o.d, the moon G.o.d, the sea. He even compares the natives' polytheism to the habits of "papists," who pray to such "saint protectors as St. George, St. Patrick, St. Denis, Virgin Mary, etc."

Some of the vocabulary lists in A Key A Key read like transcripts of Williams's conversations: read like transcripts of Williams's conversations: How many G.o.ds be there?

Many, great many.

Friend, not so.

There is only one G.o.d.

You are mistaken.

Apparently, some of Christianity's more unusual articles of faith prove to be a bit of a hard sell. Williams informs one native about Christ's resurrection: "When I spoke of the rising again of the body, he cried out, 'I shall never believe this.' "

If anything, though, the New England Indians seem strangely similar to the New England Puritans. In both societies the supernatural seeps into every single facet of life on earth. Just as Ma.s.sachusetts whipped up a parable of good triumphing over evil thanks to the fluke of a mouse outsmarting a snake, and John Cotton accused Roger Williams of ignoring the divine "shushhh" of his bout of laryngitis, the Narragansett also interpret their own luck as messages from their deities. One phrase in his dictionary that's equally useful in Boston or the wilderness is: "G.o.d is angry with me?"

Williams recalls one Indian man whose child had died gathering his wife and the rest of his children around him. With "an abundance of tears," the man hollered, "O G.o.d thou hast taken away my child! Thou art angry with me. O turn thine anger from me, and spare the rest of my children." On the other hand, Williams notes, "If they receive any good in hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, harvest, etc., they acknowledge G.o.d in it."

The most intriguing Algonquian term Williams tries to explain is Manitou. Manitou. Manitou isn't a G.o.d per se. It's more of a supernatural force that animates certain people or things. He writes, "There is a general custom amongst them, at the apprehension of any excellency in men, women, birds, beasts, fish, etc., to cry out, 'Manitou,' that is, a G.o.d." He continues, "Thus if they see one man excel others in wisdom, valor, strength, activity, etc., they cry out, 'Manitou.' " He notes that natives are in awe of English technology. "Therefore, when they talk amongst themselves of the English s.h.i.+ps and great buildings, of the plowings of their fields, and especially books and letters, they will end thus: Manitou isn't a G.o.d per se. It's more of a supernatural force that animates certain people or things. He writes, "There is a general custom amongst them, at the apprehension of any excellency in men, women, birds, beasts, fish, etc., to cry out, 'Manitou,' that is, a G.o.d." He continues, "Thus if they see one man excel others in wisdom, valor, strength, activity, etc., they cry out, 'Manitou.' " He notes that natives are in awe of English technology. "Therefore, when they talk amongst themselves of the English s.h.i.+ps and great buildings, of the plowings of their fields, and especially books and letters, they will end thus: Mannittowock, Mannittowock, They are G.o.ds. They are G.o.ds. c.u.mmanitoo, c.u.mmanitoo, You are a G.o.d." You are a G.o.d."

A comedian I know, if he hears a joke that perfectly sums up some situation, comments, "You solved that." Doesn't the word Manitou Manitou solve the problem of accurately describing a certain kind of mysterious achievement? There's no single English word that really gets at that moment in the 1997 NBA Finals when the game was tied and Steve Kerr of the Chicago Bulls scored the winning shot with five seconds left on the clock; or this herd of elk I saw once, appearing out of the mist at twilight on a golf course in Banff; or Elliott Gould's performance in solve the problem of accurately describing a certain kind of mysterious achievement? There's no single English word that really gets at that moment in the 1997 NBA Finals when the game was tied and Steve Kerr of the Chicago Bulls scored the winning shot with five seconds left on the clock; or this herd of elk I saw once, appearing out of the mist at twilight on a golf course in Banff; or Elliott Gould's performance in The Long Goodbye; The Long Goodbye; or the catch in Ralph Stanley's voice when he sings "O Death." or the catch in Ralph Stanley's voice when he sings "O Death."

Obviously, Williams would have his native friends exchange Manitou Manitou for its Judeo-Christian equivalent, divine providence. He writes of for its Judeo-Christian equivalent, divine providence. He writes of A Key A Key that "this book (by G.o.d's good providence) may come into the hand of many fearing G.o.d, who may also have many an opportunity of occasional discourse with some of these their wild brethren and sisters." And so he offers a blow-by-blow translation of how to tell the story of Creation, from the book of Genesis, in Algonquian. that "this book (by G.o.d's good providence) may come into the hand of many fearing G.o.d, who may also have many an opportunity of occasional discourse with some of these their wild brethren and sisters." And so he offers a blow-by-blow translation of how to tell the story of Creation, from the book of Genesis, in Algonquian.

He explains how to insist that "one only G.o.d . . . made all things" in six days. "The first day, He made the light," is followed by the creation of the earth and sea, the sun and the moon, the stars, birds, fish, on down to the sixth day, when "last of all He made one man of red earth and called him Adam." Then "G.o.d took a rib from Adam . . . and of that rib he made one woman."

Which is to say that Williams teaches white do-gooders how to introduce American Indians to the inheritance of original sin. Williams boasts how he ruined the peace of mind of at least one native; he recalls visiting the deathbed of a Pequot friend named Wequash. Williams had previously witnessed to Wequash about the Bible. The brokenhearted Wequash cried out in broken English, "Me so big naughty heart all one stone!"

Honestly, the idea that all human beings are corrupt vessels of evil is oppressive enough when one is born into that way of thinking. I was exposed, from infancy on, to so much wretch-like-me, original-sin talk that I spent my entire childhood believing I was as depraved as Charles Manson when in reality I might have been the best-behaved nine-year-old of the twentieth century. But how jarring it must have been to be an adult Narragansett and this strange white man shows up out of the blue and shatters his lifelong peace of mind with what the stranger calls the "good news" that the native is in fact a wicked, worthless evildoer and so was his mother. So said native dies terrified by his big, naughty, unchristian heart of stone instead of, say, as the Shawnee Tec.u.mseh would later advise, "Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

In A Key, A Key, Williams's language cus.h.i.+ons the blow of making the acquaintance of this new deity by translating "G.o.d" as "manit," as in Manitou. But in 1663, when the Puritan John Eliot publishes his "Indian Bible," a translation of the Bible into Algonquian, G.o.d is called "G.o.d." Which is blunt. This G.o.d is different from the native G.o.ds, and Eliot does not pretend otherwise. Williams's language cus.h.i.+ons the blow of making the acquaintance of this new deity by translating "G.o.d" as "manit," as in Manitou. But in 1663, when the Puritan John Eliot publishes his "Indian Bible," a translation of the Bible into Algonquian, G.o.d is called "G.o.d." Which is blunt. This G.o.d is different from the native G.o.ds, and Eliot does not pretend otherwise.