Connecticut's early infrastructure

Daily life in colonial Connecticut was unique among the other colonies of the British crown. It was comparable in form to other colonies but in function it did not entirely comport. In fact, the contrast of social infrastructure grew as time moved on. This contrast grew due to the noticeable lack of progression that characterized the other colonies, especially in the realm government. One can look macroscopically at colonial Connecticut to understand the microscopic daily level.

Connecticut was from the beginning an offshoot of three Massachusetts towns. These towns sought not to defect in a defiant sense, but to re-establish themselves as a theocracy in part and practice. Scholars and theologians debate whether Connecticut was throwing off a yoke of monarchial rule in favor of church autonomy. Most lucid arguments are in favor of a Connecticut desire to be self-governed in practice, but still adhered to a hierarchal submission to the sovereign crown. The social and political world in colonial Connecticut was intertwined into one; the church-centered religious experiment.

This “Puritan Experiment” had most of the practical characteristics common of colonial life in America during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. With over 80% of the population residing on farms or small farming communities, Connecticut was primarily agricultural. It did have a small exportation to other colonies growing as the colony itself grew. It seems that Connecticut was not in need of materials from the motherland herself; Connecticut traded for goods and supplies from within the colonies, with trade even into British interests in the Caribbean. The macrocosm does explain the microcosm quite appropriately in colonial Connecticut.

Whatever the vocation of the colonial Connecticut man, if he was a husband, father, and Christian, his family modeled Puritanical ethic based on Biblical models. It seems a large number of Puritans settled first in Connecticut, and set the standard of family life to a large degree. Cotton Mather, a Massachusetts Puritan pastor, said that families are the nurseries of all societies, and the first combinations of all mankind. Out of the nuclear family, with a male headship hierarchy resonating Biblical precepts, came the social and (early) political structure that would determine Connecticut’s course from colony through even statehood. This structure was built on the foundation of the congregational church. Ever town was built around one, with the pastor and lay elders in a social and governing authoritative position. This church-centered society dramatically contrasted with other colonies such as Virginia, where a taut relationship existed with England and the Anglican Church system.

All was not utopian in the sense of the Bible-based young commonwealth. Connecticut endured its share of internal strife with native Indians as much as any other of the colonies did. As mentioned in the last brog, the war and skirmishes with the Peguot Indians caused much colonial consternation. A benefit from the Pequot War was the alliance it wrought with Narrangasat and Mohegan Indians in the area. This coalition was give and take over the years, with the colonists eventually coming out on top as the dominating presence in the area.

The Pequot War was destructive to the colony. It was in fact the most destructive was per capita in United States history. The colonist reeled for ruined farms, crops, and livestock stolen or slaughtered. This conflict did prepare Connecticut for the presently unseen future of more Indian conflicts.

Andrews, Charles M.. "On Some Early Aspects of Connecticut History." The New ENgland Quarterly 17 no. 1 (1944): 3-24.

Graham, Judith S.. Puritan Family Life. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000.

Trumball, Benjamin. A complete history of Connecticut. New Haven: Maltby, Goldsmith and Co. and Samuel Wadsworth, 1818.

Interactions with natives and a solid foundation

The story of early Connecticut was unique to the colonies incorporated under the Great Seal of the English monarchy. Two cultures collided when Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay colony pushed westward into the Connecticut River Valley. These Puritans met a myriad of native tribes, ranging from the Pequots and their offshoot the Mohegans, to the Narrangansetts who traversed the border of Connecticut and Massachusetts. These were all tribes under the umbrella term of Algonquian, which the colony’s namesake was kept from. “Quanet-ta-cut”, meaning “on the long tidal river” was transliterated into the English “Connecticut”.

The intermingling of the Indians and English met both amicably and with opposition. A more latent account would be the Pequot War in 1637, a delayed colonial response to the murder of a Virginian captain, John Stone. The Pequot were aggressive and savage people, not able to make allies with even other Indians because of their acquisitional desires for land and power. They helped formulate a negative stereotype of Indians for the Puritan colonists. Pequot is an Algonquian term that means “destroyers of men”. The English did have interlopers that labored on their behalf, if only in part.

Uncas was sachem of the Mohegan tribe that had seceded from the Pequots and also was a brother-in-law to the Pequot sachem Sassacus. Scholar Robert Erwin states that Uncas was a consummate statesman and befriended several colonial Connecticutians of prominent postitions. These men included military savvy Captain John Mason, and Thomas Hooker who led the initial migration west from Massachusetts. His espionage and counter-surveillance against the Pequot tribe aided an English victory and secured footing for further towns to flourish there. It is recorded however, that Uncas was quoted as saying “I am no little dog of the English”. This was in response to expectations of his succor on behalf of his new English allies. The Uncas situation was a big part of an even larger picture that explains a thriving English colony in Connecticut.

The first 25 years of the infant colony were spent as an autonomous civic venture, operating under the auspices of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. The Fundamental Orders were for all intents and purposes a constitution for the towns that made up Connecticut. It had not authority of even legal allegiance to the crown or the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This was an assembly at first of people from the Massachusetts towns of Dorchester, Watertown and Newton. Thomas Hooker directed the mini-migration west and out of the Massachusetts towns, established Windsor, Wethersfield and Hartford. The town names are certainly indicative of the nostalgic ties to England.

Along with resonating names brought over from the motherland, Connecticutians also brought the civic structural idea of parishes, where a town was localized around a church body, which in turn was the ancillary governing body. The difference in the colony was that the church was not subordinate to any authority, except God and His word. These churches became congregational in their modus operandi. More on governmental and church structure later. The colony did eventually became an ancillary to the crown in 1662, and by then the town/church infrastructure had successfully be able to facilitate a viable and growing community.

Sources:

Erwin, Robert. "Uncas the Mohegan: No Little Dog of the English." The Antioch Review 65 no. 2 (2007): 352-361.

Hull, Moran, Brooks B., Gerald F. . "The Churching of Colonial Connecticut: A Case Study." Review of Religious Research 41 no. 2 (1999): 165-183.

Jones, Mary Jeanne Anderson. Congregational Connecticut, 1636-1662. Middletown. Wesleyan University Press. 1968.