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ETD Abstract Container

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Saints, Sinners, and Subjects: Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in Transatlantic Perspective, 1636-1665

Irwin, Raymond D.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1377874212

Abstract Details

1996, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
The purpose of this study is to explain how a small New England colony survived its first three crucial decades despite being surrounded on all sides by hostile neighbors. Having been founded by dissenters from the ecclesiastical scheme of Puritan Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is known to students of American history as an oddity in a region dominated by "orthodox" men and women, and scholars have thus generally dismissed it. Understanding its early history, however, is vital, since Rhode Island's past underscores the importance of the English context to all North American colonies and suggests how the idea of religious liberty not only survived in the New World, but allowed its proponents to gain political advantage in London, thereby helping the tiny colony survive the onslaughts of Puritan rivals. This dissertation has three main components. Part One shows that the founders of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations represented a cross-section of religious beliefs in early seventeenth-century England, from nonseparating congregationalism to Separatism to General Anabaptism and Anglican mysticism. This Old World diversity was unwelcome in the more homogenous, Puritan colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose leaders sought to construct and maintain ecclesiastical uniformity. Part Two outlines the development of the new "exile" colony on Narragansett Bay. In order to maintain independence from Puritan authorities and to keep order, magistrates in the communities of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations instituted several strategies, including their innovative decoupling of religious and governmental spheres, and their exploitation of the changing religious and political situation in civil war and interregnum England, an environment that in fact mirrored the milieu of the tiny colony. Part Three suggests that the use of these strategies extended well into the 1650s and 1660s, and guaranteed England's protection of the Narragansett colony from the territorial ambitions of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut.
Carla G. Pestana (Advisor)
538 p.
History

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Irwin, R. D. (1996). Saints, Sinners, and Subjects: Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in Transatlantic Perspective, 1636-1665 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1377874212

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Irwin, Raymond. Saints, Sinners, and Subjects: Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in Transatlantic Perspective, 1636-1665. 1996. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1377874212.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Irwin, Raymond. "Saints, Sinners, and Subjects: Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in Transatlantic Perspective, 1636-1665." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1996. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1377874212

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1377874212
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© 1996, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12