How the States Got Their Shapes Too

by Mark Stein

  In 1641 Williams opted to render unto Cromwell after Parliament enacted laws restricting the authority of the king—notably, the king’s power to dissolve the Parliament and his authority over the colonies. Still, Williams had to proceed carefully. Cromwell, like the Massachusetts Puritans, believed that Christian governments were required to protect the word of God. When Williams arrived in London in 1643, he stayed at the home of Henry Vane, a longtime friend and highly influential Puritan in Parliament. Vane disagreed with Cromwell about many things, including separation of church and state, and in time he would find himself imprisoned by Cromwell after the king had been beheaded and Cromwell had become lord protector of Great Britain. But at this early point in the struggle against the monarchy, the two had joined forces. Through Vane’s offices, Williams got what he wanted:

  By the authority of the aforesaid Ordinance … the Lords and Commons, give, grant and confirm to the aforesaid inhabitants of the towns of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, a free and absolute Charter of Incorporation, to be known by the name of the incorporation of Providence Plantations, in the Narragansett-Bay in New-England, together with full power and authority to rule themselves, and such others as shall hereafter inhabit within any part of the said tract of land, by such a form of civil government as by voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of them, they shall find most suitable to their estate and condition.

  Cromwell died in 1658, and two years later the monarchy was restored under Charles II. Williams was now unsure of the validity of the parliamentary patent granting his colony its land—land that Williams theologically doubted England even had the right to grant. But once again he deemed it best to render unto Caesar—even a Caesar claiming a Christian divine right to rule. Fortunately, Charles II, uncertainly perched on the throne, was not looking for fights. Newly chartered Connecticut, however, was—since its borders included present-day Rhode Island. But Connecticut, being a Puritan colony, limited its protests when, in 1663, Charles II issued a royal charter to Rhode Island. What particularly irked Connecticut was that the boundaries of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations were enlarged by Charles to include other outcast communities that, over the years, had settled near the communities founded by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. The new boundaries were, with some later adjustments, the shape Rhode Island has today.

  In his later years, Williams faced a fundamental church/state challenge in his relations with the colony’s Quakers. He had participated in a public debate of theological issues with the Quakers at their settlement in Newport. Many of the Quakers in attendance, adhering to the Inner Light that was central to their beliefs, began to pray aloud when he spoke, thereby preventing him from expressing his beliefs. Williams subsequently urged Rhode Island’s government to suppress those who would suppress others. The younger generation now running the colony opted instead to take their chances, even with religious expressions others considered rude or potentially dangerous.

  From the founding of Rhode Island to the present, Americans have wrestled with the question, in what instances does divine authority negate civil authority? The fact that, under the Constitution, Americans agree on the validity of the question has not resulted in agreeing on the answer. From prayer in school to the teaching of evolution, to polygamy, same-sex marriage, medical decisions, and even the performance of autopsies, nearly every aspect of life in the United States has confronted questions of divine versus civil authority.

  Did Roger Williams know the answers? If he did, it resides in his one work that seemingly has nothing to do with church or state. In 1643 he published A Key into the Language of America: Or, An Help to the Language of the Natives in that Part of America Called New England. The title suggests that the book is simply a guide to the language of the region’s Indians. Each chapter presents a group of indigenous words and phrases, explaining their meaning within the context of the tribe’s culture, noting their differences from European culture, and concluding with a scriptural reference placing that aspect of the natives’ culture within the context of Christian precepts. Williams’s “dictionary” was in fact a profound effort to increase understanding between the colonists and their Narragansett neighbors. As such, the most significant statement in A Key into the Language of America is its opening words: “I present you with a key.… A little key may open a box, where lies a bunch of keys.” In the life of Roger Williams, there is a key.

  · · · DELAWARE, MARYLAND, PENNSYLVANIA · · ·

  AUGUSTINE HERMAN

  Why We Have Delaware

  By way of a little discourse on the supposed claim or pretence of my Lord Baltimore’s patent unto our aforesaid South River or Delaware … we utterly deny, disown, and reject any power and authority … that may or can legally come to reduce or subdue the said river and subjects.

  —AUGUSTINE HERMAN, 16591

  Delaware is a little rectangle with a scoop on top that occupies what would otherwise be the eastern end of Maryland. Since Maryland wouldn’t be that big even if it included Delaware, why do we have Delaware?

  We have Delaware for the same reason the world had Bohemia—the birthplace of Augustine Herman, who grew up to become the man responsible for the existence of Delaware as a separate colony. Bohemia’s core was the western half of today’s Czech Republic, though at times it included various adjacent regions. Its population was a mix of Germanic people (among whom many, in the wake of Martin Luther, had left the Catholic Church to become Protestants), Slavic people (who adhered to the teachings of the Orthodox Church), and a sizable number of Jews. For Bohemia, creating a sense of itself as an entity was further complicated by the fact that it was periodically ruled by far more powerful entities that were sometimes Catholic, sometimes Protestant.

  Delaware too began as a mix of people—Dutch, Swedes, Finns, and British Marylanders—living in a region that was periodically claimed by far more powerful colonies, both Catholic and Protestant. The Dutch laid claim to Delaware in 1624. They considered it the southern end of the New Netherlands, Holland’s vast North American colony that extended up from the Delaware Bay, crossed the Hudson River, and continued northeastward to the Connecticut River. England too laid claim to Delaware in its 1607 charter for Virginia, which included all the land from the top of New Jersey to the bottom of North Carolina, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. England’s King Charles I, figuring Virginia could spare 12,000 or so square miles, created Maryland as a colony for Catholics in 1632. The boundaries stipulated in its royal charter included what is now Delaware.

  Augustine Herman (ca. 1621-1686) (photo credit 2.1)

  Even though Delaware was claimed by both Holland and England, no Europeans lived there, with the brief exception of a failed Dutch settlement in 1631. Not until 1638 did Europeans settle permanently in Delaware, and they were Swedes. In time the Swedes branched out, and Dutch settlements were established. As in Bohemia, the two primary groups were gradually joined by minority populations of other groups.

  Dutch New Netherlands

  For twenty years Delaware’s settlements prospered and grew, their conflicts confined to fighting local Indians and each other. But in 1659 all the settlements were threatened by the larger colony of Maryland. In August of that year, Maryland sent word to the Dutch along Delaware Bay that they must depart from the colony. The danger resulted in a response from Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the entire New Netherlands. Stuyvesant dispatched two emissaries from Manhattan: a native-born Dutchman named Resolved Waldron and a Bohemian-born immigrant, Augustine Herman. In selecting Herman, Stuyvesant made an astute choice. Herman’s efforts—commencing here but enduring for the remainder of his life, and then continued by his son—displayed insights and instincts that were likely connected to the similarities Delaware shared with Bohemia.

  Herman had been born in Prague in 1621, a critical time in Bohemian history. One year earlier, German Catholics had regained ruling power in the region. In the wake of this event, 36,000 Bohemian Protestants emigrat
ed, many of them to Holland. Herman’s family was among those emigrants.

  Herman’s parents oversaw an education that endowed their son with skills that would be of value both regardless and because of borders. He became a businessman in the import-export trade and a highly skilled cartographer and surveyor. As an adult he relocated to Manhattan, where his skills led to his becoming a member of the Board of Nine, assisting Governor Stuyvesant in his decisions and actions.

  Herman’s relations with Stuyvesant were bumpy. Herman had, at one time, written to Stuyvesant’s superiors in Holland complaining of the governor’s high-handedness, vengefulness, and morals: “The basket maker’s daughter, whom he seduced in Holland on a promise of marriage, coming and finding that he was already married, hath exposed his conduct even in public court.”2

  While the two apparently patched things up sufficiently for Stuyvesant to appoint Herman as an emissary to Maryland, here too the younger man’s approach differed markedly (or more aptly perhaps, “Bohemianly”) from the governor’s instructions. Stuyvesant had told Herman and Waldron to assert that Lord Baltimore’s demands were “contrary to the 2nd, 3rd, and 16th articles of the confederation of peace made between the Republic of England and the Netherlands in 1654.” They were then to demand that Maryland, by virtue of that treaty, pay reparations and damages caused by its “frivolous demands and bloody threatenings.”

  Herman’s report of his and Waldron’s meetings with Maryland governor Josiah Fendall and the colony’s proprietor, Phillip Calvert (the Maryland-based younger brother of Lord Baltimore), reveals that such demands and counterthreats were virtually absent from their discussions.3 The two emissaries did reference the 1654 treaty, but Herman’s efforts were far more focused on documents issued by England itself, which supported the view that England had long recognized the right of the Dutch to their settlements along the Delaware Bay. Most effectively, Herman cited the English charter that had created Maryland, which stated that it was to be a British colony “in a country hitherto uncultivated in the parts of America, and partly occupied by savages having no knowledge of the Divine Being.” Herman argued that the land had been hitherto cultivated by people with knowledge of the Divine Being—namely, the Dutch who had attempted a settlement in 1631. Admittedly, they had been entirely wiped out by Indians within a few months, but their settlement predated Maryland’s 1632 charter.

  Fendall and Calvert did not buy this argument. Twenty-three years later, however, Charles II bought it, invoking it to refute a later effort by Maryland to claim Delaware. Herman thus pointed the way for future generations to defend Delaware’s independence from Maryland.

  Though Calvert did not cotton to the claim, he did cotton to the man who made it. His good feelings toward Herman were sufficient to defuse the preparations Maryland had been making for an invasion of Delaware. In this respect, Herman and Waldron’s mission succeeded, which in itself was a considerable accomplishment.

  In addition, Calvert’s good feelings gave the canny Herman an opportunity to further ingratiate himself with the government of Maryland. He offered his services as a cartographer to make a detailed map of the colony and the adjoining regions for Lord Baltimore in return for a grant of land in Maryland on which he and his family could live (and thereby put some distance between himself and his frequent nemesis, Peter Stuyvesant).

  Herman’s offer was accepted, and the grant of land was made shortly thereafter. But not just any land. Lord Baltimore, himself quite canny, saw an opportunity presented by Herman’s offer to acquire more than just a map. He issued Herman a grant for land in which the eastern portion lay in the disputed area but the western portion was indisputably within Maryland. Lord Baltimore was thus undermining Herman’s loyalty to the Dutch. Herman, for his part, named the tract of land Little Bohemia—which is exactly what it was.

  It took ten years for Herman to complete the map he had promised—but they were a particularly eventful ten years, not conducive to concentration. During that period he relocated his family to the land he had been granted. England and Holland went to war, resulting in the ouster of all Dutch authorities in the New Netherlands. Charles II deeded most of Holland’s former claims to his brother, the Duke of York—but, aiming to avoid conflict with his Maryland colony, the king did not include Delaware in the land deeded to his brother. Delaware was not, however, subsumed under the government of Maryland, since Catholic and Anglican tensions were so hair-trigger tense in England at that time. Consequently, the Duke of York became the de facto proprietor of Delaware, extending the “Duke of York’s Laws” to the region and overseeing the appointment of its British officials. With this ascendancy of British rule, Herman opted to become a citizen of Maryland.

  The map Herman ultimately delivered in 1670 was a masterpiece of its era. So appreciative was Lord Baltimore that he granted additional land to Herman, who now possessed some 30,000 acres.

  Meanwhile, rapid political change continued. In 1672 England and Holland went to war again. This time the Dutch initially ousted the British from Delaware and other settlements. But in 1674 control once again reverted to England. A year later, Lord Baltimore died and his title passed to his son Charles Calvert, who repressed the rights of the colony’s Protestants, among whom was Herman.

  It was in this era that aging Augustine Herman passed the “Bohemian” baton to his eldest son, Ephraim. One year after Calvert became proprietor of Maryland and commenced repressing the rights of Protestants, Ephraim Herman became a court official in Delaware. Five years later, he was at the helm, navigating Delaware’s status in the wake of the region’s next major political shift—the 1681 British charter creating Pennsylvania.

  Pennsylvania’s charter caused immediate conflict with Maryland regarding the location of their mutual border. This conflict raised William Penn’s concerns regarding Pennsylvania’s access to the sea. His colony’s only waterway to the ocean was the Delaware River (Pennsylvania’s eastern boundary) down into the Delaware Bay (dividing Delaware and New Jersey), then out to the Atlantic. If Maryland should prevail in its continued claim that Delaware was within its borders, it could block Pennsylvania’s access to the sea.

  Penn, whose Quaker beliefs prohibited warfare and the forms of aggression that led to war, did not seek to possess Delaware. The semicircular top that Delaware has today originated in Pennsylvania’s charter, when Penn urged that it include a southeastern border with a twelve-mile radius away from the Dutch town of New Castle, so as not to create conflict. He did, however, seek proprietorship over Delaware, to assure that Pennsylvania had free navigation to the sea. By seeking proprietorship, Penn left Maryland no choice but to contest the issue again. For Delaware’s mostly Protestant residents, the choice of incorporation into Maryland under the anti-Protestant Charles Calvert or proprietorship under the pacifist William Penn was a no-brainer.

  England, not wanting colonial conflicts it could avoid, ruled in favor of Penn. In granting him proprietorship over Delaware, England implicitly recognized Delaware as an entity unto itself. The Board of Trades and Plantations, which arbitrated the case for the king, cited the reasoning first posited by Augustine Herman regarding Maryland’s charter excluding land previously cultivated by Europeans.

  Following this act, Penn journeyed to Delaware, where he was officially greeted at New Castle by John Moll and Ephraim Herman, who presented Penn with the key to the town’s fort. Augustine Herman, now an elderly man quietly living out his final years on his vast manor, had succeeded in achieving what Bohemia did not.

  · · · FLORIDA, GEORGIA · · ·

  ROBERT JENKINS’S EAR

  Fifteen Minutes of Fame

  Official persons … endeavored to deny, to insinuate in their vile newspapers, that Jenkins lost his ear nearer home, and not for nothing.… Sheer calumnies we now find. Jenkins’ account was doubtless abundantly emphatic; there is no ground to question the substantial truth of him and it.

  —THOMAS CARLYLE1

  In today’
s society, people often refer to “fifteen minutes of fame,” pop artist Andy Warhol’s notion that mass media have become so prevalent that everyone will be in the spotlight at some point in their lives. Warhol actually said that in the future everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame, but in fact there is nothing new in this phenomenon. Mass media have created fleeting fame for as long as mass media have existed—which is to say, since the printing press or even the politically charged graffiti of ancient Rome.

  Such was the case with one Robert Jenkins, the captain of a British merchant ship in the eighteenth century. At a key moment, the newspapers of the day put the spotlight on Jenkins—technically, on his ear, or more technically, on the absence of his ear—and in so doing provoked a war between England and Spain. Though the war had nothing to do with Florida and Georgia, it resulted in the boundary between those two states that exists to this day.

  In April 1731 Jenkins was at the helm of the Rebecca, carrying a cargo of sugar from the British colony of Jamaica to London. While off the coast of Cuba, Jenkins’s ship was overtaken by the Spanish coast guard, which boarded and searched for contraband goods from Spanish ports. Finding none, Captain Juan de León Fandino brandished his cutlass and ordered Jenkins to reveal where he’d hidden the contraband. When Jenkins continued to insist he had none, Fandino sliced his sword across Jenkins’s ear. Still, Jenkins maintained he could not confess to what was not there. Fandino then had his men tie Jenkins to the yardarm using a neck halter. But even as the Spanish captain ordered the halter incrementally raised, thereby approaching the point of a lynching, Jenkins maintained there was nothing to tell. Frustrated and furious, Fandino took hold of Jenkins’s wounded ear and tore it off, handing it to Jenkins and saying (depending on which version one reads), “Carry that to your king, and tell him of it!” Clearly an act of war.