The Dutch and English at Variance in the Connecticut Valley

The twelve men were chosen, and after due deliberation they selected the "seven pillars." After another pause, these "pillars" proceeded to organize a church. Their assistants, nine in number, were regarded as freemen or "free burgesses," and the sixteen elected Theophilus Eaton as magistrate for one year. Four other persons were chosen to be deputies, and these constituted the executive and legislative departments of the new-born state of Quinnipiack. To these Mr. Davenport gave a "charge," grounded upon Deuteronomy i. 16, 17. A secretary and sheriff were appointed. The "Freeman's Charge," which was a substitute for an oath, gave no pledge of allegiance to king or Parliament, nor any other authority on the face of the earth, excepting that of the civil government here established. "It was a state independent of all others. It was resolved that there should be an annual General Court or meeting of the whole body, in the month of October, and that "the word of God [the Bible] should be the only rule to be attended unto in ordering the affairs of government." Then orders were issues for building a meeting-house; for the distribution of house-lots and pasturage; for regulating the prices of labor and commodities, and for taking measures to resist the attacks of savages. They resolved, also, to choose their own company, and it was ordained that "none should come to dwell as planters without their consent and allowance, whether they came in by purchase or otherwise." In 1640 they named the settlement New Haven.

In the meantime, the planters in the Connecticut Valley had been perfecting a system of government, and preparing to possess the land westward as far as the Hudson River. People from Quinnipiack and the valley planted themselves at Fairfield, Norwalk, Guilford, and Stratford and Milford on the Housatonic. Captain Patrick, the commander of a part of the forces sent from Massachusetts against the Pequods, and who had married a Dutch wife, settled as far westward as Greenwich, with a son-in-law of the elder Governor Winthrop. At that time there were no Dutch settlers east of the Harlem River excepting Bronck and his lessees or tenants. The Dutch, however, continued in possession of their lands at Fort Good Hope, and a small garrison was kept up there under Commissary Guysbert op Dyck. But the English, when they became strong in numbers, paid little respect to the rights of the Netherlanders. They ploughed up their lands excusing themselves for the intrusion with the plea that the soil was lying idle and ought to be cultivated by somebody. When the Commissary attempted to resist these encroachments, his soldiers were cudgelled by the planters, who said they (the English) were Israelites, while the Dutch in New Netherland and the English in Virginia were Egyptians.

The troubles with their neighbors, pale and dusky, and the necessity which called for fundamental laws, induced the planters of the valley to meet in convention at Hartford at the middle of January, 1639, to form a constitution of government. Like that of the New Haven colony, it was framed without the slightest reference to any other government. It provided that all persons in the commonwealth should be freemen, and should take an oath of allegiance to the general government; that the governor, to be elected at each spring meeting of the freemen, should be a member of some church; that there should be as many magistrates (not less than six) and other officers as should be found necessary; that there should be a house of deputies, composed of four from each of the then existing towns, and as many as the General Court or legislature should determine from towns that might be created; and that the governor, four magistrates, and a majority of the deputies, should be competent to make all laws and deal generally for the good of the commonwealth. In the absence of special laws, "the rule of the word of God" was to be followed.

"This instrument which has been spoken of as the "first example in history of a written constitution-a distinct organic law, constituting a government and defining its powers," and which recognized no authority out-side of its own inherent potency, continued in force as the fundamental law of Connecticut one hundred and eighty years. It secured for that common-wealth a degree of social order and general prosperity rarely equalled in the life of nations. The political organization under it was called the Connecticut Colony, and the domain acquired the title of "the land of steady habits." Notwithstanding the two colonies were not united until twenty-six years afterward, now, in the year 1639, was laid the foundations of the commonwealth of Connecticut.