Errands Into the Metropolis: New England Dissidents in Revolutionary London

by Jonathan Beecher Field (contributor), Chris Onstad (Illustrations)

Errands into the Metropolis offers a dramatic new interpretation of the texts and contexts of early New England literature. Jonathan Beecher Field inverts the familiar paradigm of colonization as an errand into the wilderness to demonstrate, instead, that New England was shaped and re-shaped by a series of return trips to a metropolitan London convulsed with political turmoil. In London, dissidents and their more orthodox antagonists contended for colonial power through competing narratives of their experiences in the New World. Dissidents showed a greater willingness to construct their narratives in terms that were legible to a metropolitan reader than did Massachusetts Bay's apologists. As a result, representatives of a variety of marginal religious groups were able to secure a remarkable level of political autonomy, visible in the survival of Rhode Island as an independent colony. Through chapters focusing on John Cotton, Roger Williams, Samuel Gorton, John Clarke, and the Quaker martyrs, Field traces an evolving discourse on the past, present, and future of colonial New England that revises the canon of colonial New England literature and the contours of New England history. In the broader field of early American studies, Field's work demonstrates the benefits of an Atlantic perspective on the material cultures of print. In the context of religious freedom, Errands into the Metropolis shows Rhode Island's famous culture of toleration emerging as a pragmatic response to the conditions of colonial life, rather than as an idealistic principle. Errands into the Metropolis offers new understanding of familiar texts and events from colonial New England, and reveals the significance of less familiar texts and events.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Alan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book departs from customary historiographical method in a very interesting manner. The author is not a professional historian but rather a professor of American literature. Although he has a sure grasp of the principal historical developments of seventeenth-century New England and England, he does not focus on minutiae but rather selects relevant and significant historical facts to weave into his interpretative narrative of the founding texts of the colony and eventual state of Rhode Island. This procedure enables him to show the interrelationships of these texts and their historical circumstances and consequences. Specifically, he establishes, quite convincingly, that Rhode Island founders Roger Williams, Samuel Gorton, and John Clarke each crafted certain of their writings in a careful rhetorical manner to achieve and maintain the political independence and principles (most importantly, liberty of conscience) of their emerging colony in opposition to the designs of other colonies, most notably Massachusetts Bay. In each instance, they were successful with the government du jour of England. I found especially interesting the discussion of Williams's Key into the Language of America in chapter 2. The author explains how Williams brilliantly constructed this work to support his unorthodox theory that land acquisition in America should proceed by purchase from the Native Americans and not by proclamation from a Christian king.

Chapter 5 contains something of a digression from the Rhode Island focus of the book in discussing the remarkable rhetorical efforts of the persecuted religious group called Quakers, resulting in the prohibition, in 1661, by King Charles II of any further executions in Massachusetts Bay of Quakers. Although Massachusetts Bay soon circumvented that order by passing a law (the Cart and Whip Act) that effectuated extreme torture on Quakers by means of severe whipping, the 1661 royal order was a step in the right direction. This and other episodes in the book show that English rule was not always inimical to the just rights of colonists. Indeed, during the seventeenth century, the threat to what we now call democratic principles originated more from the New England theocracies than from the various republican and monarchical governments of England. The Rhode Island Charter that John Clarke obtained in 1663 from Charles II was the most enlightened constitutional document of its time.

Additional historical information about these and related developments is discussed in my book The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience.

(Originally published 10/26/2014; revised 8/19/2015)

[University of Chicago Magazine]

Jonathan Beecher Field, AM’93, PhD’04
Author

From our pages (Nov–Dec/09): "Focusing on early colonial literature, Field contextualizes the fight for space and religious tolerance in the American colonies. He shows competing groups—including marginal religious sects like the Quakers—constructing narratives of their colonial experiences and taking them back to metropolitan London to contend for colonial power."