The Wordy Shipmates

Each Puritan church employed a pastor and a teacher. Roger Williams, a young English scholar/minister, traveled to Massachusetts in February 1631. Churches in both Boston and Salem sought to hire Williams as teacher, but Williams insulted the colonists “for having ever worshipped in Church of England churches back in England” (100). Williams rejected the non-separatist approach and focused on spiritual concerns more than material ones (hence his disdain for the English government). Williams relocated to Separatist Plymouth, but then criticized them for being “not quite Separatist enough” (103). He left Plymouth for Salem, beginning a career journeying throughout New England.

In 1633, the Boston church hired newly arrived John Cotton as its teacher. For the next two years, Cotton and Williams undertook “the seventeenth-century New England version of a duel: [a] pamphlet fight!” in which they debated matters of theology and society.

Other issues between church and state personnel and policy brewed around the same time. John Winthrop had a tenuous relationship with his Deputy Governor, Thomas Dudley. Vowell characterizes their feuds as a “petty rivalry” (105). In 1634, Dudley became governor, while Winthrop became a gracious, but certainly disappointed deputy.