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Updated: May 4, 2025
In March, 1644, Gorton and his friends were liberated, but banished on pain of death from all places claimed to be within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. They departed to Shawomet, but Governor Winthrop forbade them to stay there; and in April, 1644, Gorton and his friends once more sought refuge at Aquidneck.
In the summer of 1640 Patuxet was marked off as a separate township; and in 1643 Samuel Gorton and others, fleeing from the wrath of Massachusetts, made a settlement called Shawomet, or Warwick, about twelve miles distant from Providence. The tendency of these various towns was to combine in a commonwealth, but on account of their separate origin the process of union was slow.
Though differing from the system as developed in Massachusetts, the Newport government at the beginning had a decidedly theocratic character. The last of the Rhode Island settlements was at Shawomet, or Warwick, on the western mainland at the upper end of the Bay.
Punham, also, the Shawomet vassal of Massachusetts, still zealously carried on the war, but was presently killed. Philip was watched and followed by Church, who surprised his camp, killed upward of a hundred of his people, and took prisoners his wife and boy. The disposal of this child was a subject of much deliberation. Several of the elders were urgent for putting him to death.
They of course regarded the summons as a flagrant usurpation of authority, and instead of obeying it they withdrew to Shawomet, on the western shore of Narragansett bay, where they bought a tract of land from the principal sachem of the Narragansetts, Miantonomo.
No sooner, however, was he settled at Shawomet, than the Massachusetts authorities laid claim to the territory, and it was only after arrest, imprisonment, and a narrow escape from the death penalty, followed by a journey to England and the enlisting of the sympathies of the Earl of Warwick, that he made good his claim.
Nevertheless, he and his party left Patuxet and removed to Shawomet, a tract beyond the limits of Providence, and purchased in January, 1643, from Miantonomoh, the great sachem of the Narragansetts. Gorton's letter had secured for him the thorough hatred of the authorities in Massachusetts, and his removal by no means ended their interference.
After a formal warning, which passed unheeded, a company of forty men, under Edward Johnson of Woburn and two other officers, was sent to Shawomet. Some worthy citizens of Providence essayed to play the part of mediators, and after some parley the Gortonites offered to submit to arbitration. The proposal was conveyed to Boston, and the clergy were again consulted.
He declined to commit himself to an opinion as to the merits of the quarrel, but Gorton's title to Shawomet was confirmed. He returned to Boston with an order to the government to allow him to pass unmolested through Massachusetts, and hereafter to protect him in the possession of Shawomet.
Gorton and his men were now peremptorily summoned to Boston to show cause why they should not surrender their land at Shawomet and to answer the charges against them. Meanwhile the unfortunate Miantonomo had rushed upon his doom. The annihilation of the Pequots had left the Mohegans and Narragansetts contending for the foremost place among the native tribes.
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