The Portsmouth Compact was a document signed on March 7, 1638 that established the settlement of Portsmouth, which is now a town in the state of Rhode Island.
The Portsmouth Compact was a document signed on March 7, 1638 that established the settlement of Portsmouth, which is now a town in the state of Rhode Island.
The document was written and signed by a group of Christian dissidents who were seeking religious freedom from the governmental oversight of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by moving to Aquidneck Island to set up a new colony. Among this group was Anne Hutchinson, who had been banished from Massachusetts Bay following the Antinomian Controversy there.
The purpose of the Portsmouth Compact was to set up a new, independent colony that was Christian in character but non-sectarian in governance. It has been called "the first instrument for governing as a true democracy."[ citation needed ]
The text of the Portsmouth Compact:
In the margin are the following Bible citations:
It was signed by 23 men:
The last four names show erasure marks or strikethroughs for unknown reasons: Thomas Clarke, John Johnson, William Hall, and John Brightman. The first three of those four were among the first settlers of Newport, arriving in 1638, and the same may be true of John Brightman. William Hall's name may have erasure marks due to his disagreement with Portsmouth authorities soon after the town's establishment. Hall is said to have stated, "A pastor is not needed to figure out one's religion as I can read the bible for myself" and "one's deeds and action ye are known in Heaven."
The Compact of Loyalty [4] was written and signed April 30, 1639.
"We whose names are underwritten do acknowledge ourselves the legal subjects of His Majesty King Charles, and in his name do hereby bind ourselves into a civil body politic, unto his laws according to matters of justice."
Signatories
The names of the signatories above were copied verbatim from the Compact of Loyalty. Note that the only names in common with the signatories of the Portsmouth compact is that of William Hutchinson and Philip Shearman/Sherman.
The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the Mayflower, consisting of Separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. Although the agreement contained a pledge of loyalty to the King, the Puritans and other Protestant Separatists were dissatisfied with the state of the Church of England, the limited extent of the English Reformation and reluctance of King James I of England to enforce further reform.
Anne Hutchinson was a Puritan spiritual advisor, religious reformer, and an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy which shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Her strong religious formal declaration were at odds with the established Puritan clergy in the Boston area and her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism that threatened the Puritan religious community in New England. She was eventually tried and convicted, then banished from the colony with many of her supporters.
Aquidneck Island, officially known as Rhode Island, is an island in Narragansett Bay in the state of Rhode Island. The total land area is 37.8 sq mi (98 km2), which makes it the largest island in the bay. The 2020 United States Census reported its population as 60,109. The state of Rhode Island is named after the island; the United States Board on Geographic Names recognizes Rhode Island as the name for the island, although it is widely referred to as Aquidneck Island in the state and by the island's residents.
John Clarke was a physician, politician, and Baptist minister, who was co-founder of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, author of its influential charter, and a leading advocate of religious freedom in America.
Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant, commonly known as the Ulster Covenant, was signed by nearly 500,000 people on and before 28 September 1912, in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill introduced by the British Government in the same year.
William Coddington was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He served as the judge of Portsmouth and Newport in that colony, governor of Portsmouth and Newport, deputy governor of the four-town colony, and then governor of the entire colony. Coddington was born and raised in Lincolnshire, England. He accompanied the Winthrop Fleet on its voyage to New England in 1630, becoming an early leader in Boston. There he built the first brick house and became heavily involved in the local government as an assistant magistrate, treasurer, and deputy.
Philip Sherman (1611–1687) was a prominent leader and founding settler of Portsmouth in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Coming from Dedham, Essex in southeastern England, he and several of his siblings and cousins settled in New England. His first residence was in Roxbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he lived for a few years, but he became interested in the teachings of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, and at the conclusion of the Antinomian Controversy he was disarmed and forced to leave the colony. He went with many followers of Hutchinson to establish the town of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, later called Rhode Island. He became the first secretary of the colony there, and served in many other roles in the town government. Sherman became a Quaker after settling in the Rhode Island colony, and died at an advanced age, leaving a large progeny.
William Hutchinson (1586–1641) was a judge at Portsmouth in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He sailed from England to New England in 1634 with his large family. He became a merchant in Boston and served as both Deputy to the General Court and selectman. His wife was Anne Hutchinson who became embroiled in a theological controversy with the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which resulted in her banishment in 1638. The Hutchinsons and 18 others departed to form the new settlement of Pocasset on the Narragansett Bay, which was renamed Portsmouth and became one of the original towns in the Rhode Island colony.
John Coggeshall Sr. was a British colonial statesman who was one of the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the first President of all four towns in the Colony. He was a successful silk merchant in Essex, England, but he emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632 and quickly assumed a number of roles in the colonial government. In the mid-1630s, he became a supporter of dissident minister John Wheelwright and of Anne Hutchinson. Hutchinson was tried as a heretic in 1637, and Coggeshall was one of three deputies who voted for her acquittal. She was banished from the colony in 1638, and the three deputies who voted for her acquittal were also compelled to leave. Before leaving Boston, Coggeshall and many other Hutchinson supporters signed the Portsmouth Compact in March 1638 agreeing to form a government based on the individual consent of the inhabitants. They then established the settlement of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, one of the four towns comprising the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Nicholas Easton (c.1593–1675) was an early colonial President and Governor of Rhode Island. Born in Hampshire, England, he lived in the towns of Lymington and Romsey before immigrating to New England with his two sons in 1634. Once in the New World, he lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony towns of Ipswich, Newbury, and Hampton. Easton supported the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy, and was disarmed in 1637, and then banished from the Massachusetts colony the following year. Along with many other Hutchinson supporters, he settled in Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, later a part of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was in Portsmouth for about a year when he and eight others signed an agreement to create a plantation elsewhere on the island, establishing the town of Newport.
Henry Bull (1610–1694) was an early colonial Governor of Rhode Island, serving for two separate terms, one before and one after the tenure of Edmund Andros under the Dominion of New England. Sailing from England as a young man, Bull first settled in Roxbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but soon became a follower of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, and was excommunicated from the Roxbury church. With many other followers of Hutchinson, he signed the Portsmouth Compact, and settled on Aquidneck Island in the Narragansett Bay. Within a year of arriving there, he and others followed William Coddington to the south end of the island where they established the town of Newport.
John Gardner served for more than eight years as the deputy governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and was also a Chief Justice of the colony's Superior Court.
Samuel Wilbore was one of the founding settlers of Portsmouth in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He emigrated from Essex, England to Boston with his wife and three sons in 1633. He and his wife both joined the Boston church, but a theological controversy began to cause dissension in the church and community in 1636, and Wilbore aligned himself with John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, signing a petition in support of dissident minister Wheelwright. In so doing, he and many others were disarmed and dismissed from the Boston church. In March 1638, he was one of 23 individuals who signed a compact to establish a new government, and this group purchased Aquidneck Island, then known as "Rhode Island", from the Narragansett Indians at the urging of Roger Williams, establishing the settlement of Portsmouth.
John Porter was an early colonist in New England and a signer of the Portsmouth Compact, establishing the first government in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He joined the Roxbury church with his wife Margaret in 1633, but few other records are found of him while in the Massachusetts Bay Colony until he became involved with John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson during what is known as the Antinomian Controversy. He and many others were disarmed for signing a petition in support of Wheelwright and were compelled to leave the colony. Porter joined a group of more than 20 men in signing the Portsmouth Compact for a new government, and they settled on Rhode Island where they established the town of Portsmouth. Here Porter became very active in civic affairs, serving on numerous committees over a period of two decades and being elected for several terms as Assistant, Selectman, and Commissioner. He was named in Rhode Island's Royal Charter of 1663 as one of the ten Assistants to the Governor.
William Freeborn (1594–1670) was one of the founding settlers of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, having signed the Portsmouth Compact with 22 other men while still living in Boston. Coming from Maldon in Essex, England, he sailed to New England in 1634 with his wife and two young daughters, settling in Roxbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He soon moved to Boston where he became interested in the preachings of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, and following their banishment from the colony during the Antinomian Controversy, he joined many of their other followers in Portsmouth.
Samuel Wilbur Jr. was an early settler of Portsmouth in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and one of seven original purchasers of the Pettaquamscutt lands which would later become South Kingstown, Rhode Island. His father, Samuel Wilbore, had been an early settler in Boston who was dismissed from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for supporting the dissident ministers Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright, becoming one of the signers of the compact that established the town of Portsmouth. The subject Samuel was willed his father's Rhode Island lands, and appears to have lived in Portsmouth most of his life. He married Hannah Porter, the daughter of another signer of the Portsmouth Compact, John Porter. Beginning in 1656 Wilbur held a number of important positions within the colony, including Commissioner, Deputy to the General Assembly, Assistant to the Governor, and Captain in a Troop of Horse. He wrote his will in August 1678, though it was not probated until more than three decades later. Wilbur was held in high esteem within the colony and was one of a small group of men named in the Royal Charter of 1663, signed by King Charles II of England, and becoming the guiding document of Rhode Island's government for nearly two centuries.
The Antinomian Controversy, also known as the Free Grace Controversy, was a religious and political conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. It pitted most of the colony's ministers and magistrates against some adherents of Puritan minister John Cotton. The most notable Free Grace advocates, often called "Antinomians", were Anne Hutchinson, her brother-in-law Reverend John Wheelwright, and Massachusetts Bay Governor Henry Vane. The controversy was a theological debate concerning the "covenant of grace" and "covenant of works".
Edward Hutchinson was a mercer and a resident of Lincolnshire, England, most noted for the careers of his children in New England. While his father and several of his uncles and brothers became prominent as clergymen, aldermen, sheriffs, and mayors in the city of Lincoln, Edward focused his efforts on his business after moving to the town of Alford. Remarkably, not a single record for him has been found in Alford, other than his burial and the baptisms of his 11 children, but he likely gained a considerable estate, and his children married into prominent families. What was most exceptional about Edward Hutchinson occurred following his 1632 death. Beginning in 1634, five of his nine surviving children and his widow immigrated to New England, and all six of them were exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a result of the events of the Antinomian Controversy from 1636 to 1638. From Boston two of his children went south and became founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and three of them, with his widow, went north to establish Exeter in the Province of New Hampshire, and then proceeded to Wells, Maine. Because of their involvement in the controversy, his children had a disproportionately large role in the establishment of these new settlements in New England.
William Baulston (c.1605—c.1678) was a colonial New England innkeeper who was active in the civil and military affairs of both the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a founding settler of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was continuously elected to the highest positions in the colony, and was one of the ten Assistants named in the Rhode Island Royal Charter.
