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Breen Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Avenue, NewYork, NewYork 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Breen, Louise. Transgressing the bounds : subversive enterprises among the Puritan elite in Massachusetts, 1630–1692 /Louise Breen. p. cm. — (Religion in America series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-513800-7 1. Puritans—Massachusetts—History—17th century. 2. Puritans—Massachusetts— Social conditions—17th century. 3. Elite (Social sciences)—Massachusetts—History —17th century. 4. Civil-military relations—Massachusetts—History—17th century. 5. Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts—History—17th century. 6. Antinomianism—History—17th century. 7. Massachusetts—History— Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775. 8. Massachusetts—Social conditions—17th century. 9. Massachusetts—Church history—17th century. I. Title. II. Religion in America series (Oxford University Press) F67 .B82 2000 974.4'02'08825—dc21 00-026310 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Acknowledgments This is a wonderful opportunity to thank the fine individuals and institu- tions that have helped me along the way. First and foremost, I have been blessed with wonderful teachers. Karen O. Kupperman, mymajor professor during mygraduate career at the University of Connecticut, and a mentor to me in the years thereafter, has shared her enviable knowledge of early American history, and, through her own pursuit of excellence, has been a source of constant inspiration. From the dissertation stage forward, she has read and commented upon successive drafts of this manuscript, offering encouragement and criticism at all the critical junctures. Harry S. Stout, whom I encountered initially as the tremendously enthusiastic instructor of myfirst university-level U.S. Historysurveyclass, showedme that history was an interpretive enterprise, and offered what, at the time, I took to be a preposterous suggestion: that I pursue an advanced degree in the subject. Later on, after I acted on his advice and enrolled in his seminar on New England history, he instilled in me an abiding interest in the Puritans. Harry S. Stout showed me what was possible; his words of encouragement at such an earlystage madea tremendousimpression, andledme ultimately to a career in history. I do not have words sufficient to express my thanks for the time and effort these two generous scholars have expended on my behalf. During the research and writing of the dissertation out of which this book grew, I received short-term research fellowships from the Masachu- vi acknowledgment s setts Historical Society and the John Carter Brown Library, as well as a year-long dissertation fellowship from the HarryFrank GuggenheimFoun- dation. After joining the history department at Kansas State University, I was granted a Faculty Fellowship from the Pew Program in Religion and American History at Yale University, which afforded me the tremendous gift of a free year in which to rethink portions of my work, and to revise the manuscript into its present form. During my time at the University of Connecticut, I benefitedgreatlyfromthe instruction andadvice of Richard D. Brown and Shirley A. Roe, and from the friendship of James F. Cooper Jr., Kenneth P. Minkeman, Cynthia, J. Van Zandt, Walter W. Woodward, and Philip Zwick. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers who commented on my manuscript when it was being considered for publica- tion. On a personal level, I must acknowledge my very supportive family. My parents, Dorothy E. Breen and Robert L. Breen, provided encourage- ment both moral and material as I pursued graduate study. My husband, Saeed M. Khan, sustains me in innumerable ways, and has manifested his affection by somehowlearning to live with the Puritans. Finally, I owemy colleagues in the History Department at Kansas State University a debt of gratitude for providing a stimulating and good-natured atmosphere in which to teach, write, and reflect. I have incorporated into this book materials previously published in Louise A. Breen, “Religious Radicalism in the Puritan Officer Corps: Antinomianism, the Artillery Company, and Cultural Integration in Seventeenth-Century Boston,” New England Quarterly, 68 (March 1995), 3–43; and “Praying with the Enemy: Daniel Gookin, King Philip’s War and the Dangers of Intercultural Mediatorship,”in Empire and Others: Brit- ish Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600–1850, ed. Martin Daunton and Rich Halpern (Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 101– 22. I thank the pulishers for allowing me to use portions of these essaysin this book. Quotations and citations from manuscript collections ownedby the Massachuetts Historical Society and the Massachusetts Archives at Columbia Point appear here by permission of those institutions. L.A.B. Manhattan, Kansas Contents Introduction 3 1 The Antinomian Moment: A Contest of Cultures in Puritan Massachusetts 17 2 “I Ame As Jephthah:” Honor, Heresy, and the Massachusetts Ordeal of John Underhill 57 3 Cosmopolitan Puritans in a Provincial Colony 97 4 Praying with the Enemy: Daniel Gookin, King Philip’s War, and the Dangers of Intercultural Mediatorship 145 5 Epilogue and Conclusion 197 Notes 221 Index 283 Transgressing the Bounds Introduction n February 1638, John Winthrop confided to his journal that he and other magistrates harbored strong misgivings about a petition that had Irecently come before the Massachusetts General Court. The petition, subscribed by some of Boston’s most prominent citizens, requestedpermis- sion to establish a private military companymodeledupon the fashionable “artillery gardens” of London and other English cities. But the Court, said Winthrop, recognizing “how dangerous it might be to erect a standing authority of military men, which might easily, in time, overthrowthe civil power, thought fit to stop it betimes.” For reasons that Winthrop did not explain, these doubtswere overcomewithin a fewmonths’time. The Court not onlygrantedpermission to organizewhat wouldsubsequentlybe known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston but also ex- tended broad privileges to the fledgling organization, providing a one- thousand-acre tract of land for the Company’s support, allowing it to as- semble in any Massachusetts locality, conferring upon it the right to elect its own officers, and instructing towns to schedule military trainings and townmeetingssoasnot to conflict with itsmusters. The ArtilleryCompany emerged rapidly as a key institution in Puritan