The following overview is taken from:

The Limits of Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Connecticut: The Rogerene Heresy

Denise Schenk Grosskopf
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut
1999

Introduction

On the evening of November 16, 1711, the New London sheriff retired to his house with the prison keys. As the darkness wore on, John Rogers, having been in the New London jail since September when Judge Gurdon Saltonstall denied him a jury, suffered dreadfully from the weather. Being in jail was no novelty for Rogers. Since a dramatic religious conversion in the mid-1670, Rogers' challenges to the authority of town and colony officials had kept him in conflict with them for more than three decades. The prison Rogers occupied rested on blocks, with no protection from the icy winds. The green floor boards had shrunk, admitting blasts of frigid air, but the local and colony authorities would not allow Rogers heat. After the sheriff's departure, sixty three-year-old Rogers lay in irons, alone.

That night John Rogers, Jr. traveled the two miles from his house to the jail, climbed the prison house fence, and went to the window to speak to his father. Rogers, Sr., unconscious from the cold, did not respond. Rogers, Jr. scrambled back over the fence and ran into town, shouting that the authorities had murdered his father. His cries awakened the sheriff and the town. The elder Rogers' friends demanded that he be taken to a warm house. This being done, Rogers eventually revived for his rapid exercise of filia1 duty, the authorities rewarded John Rogers, Jr. with a jail cell for causing a riot.

The events of November 16, 1711 typified the severity of treatment accorded Rogers by the Puritan authorities. Although his post-conversion heretical doctrine was not unique, Rogers' public denunciations of the orthodox ministry, and his refusal to abandon provocative means of witnessing focused attention on him and outraged the authorities. They determined to subdue Rogers, but their campaign failed. From the mid-1670s, when he reported a profound religious conversion, until his death in 1721, Rogers continued defiant.

The lack of a clear definition of Puritanism complicates a discussion of John Rogers and seventeenth-century Connecticut. One historian, noting that most scholars of Puritan either described New England society or explored elite ideas, defined Puritanism as "Christian fellowship" between university-educated ministers. This definition has limited application, however, and many scholars have continued to describe New England practices or attitudes in order to explicate Puritanism. Others, the intellectual heirs of Perry Miller, have returned to the exploration of elite ideas. But the problem remains. One scholar has figuratively thrown up his hands in despair, declaring that the "term 'Puritanism' is so lacking in precision that I have tried to do without it."

The evolving nature of Puritanism makes any final definition impossible unless it is tied to a very specific time period. The beliefs and practices of a Connecticut Puritan circa 1640 were different from those of Puritans in 1670. Differences were even more pronounced by 1708. Therefore, in order to define Puritanism I one must consider two things: the date and membership in the orthodox church. Using this form, we can define Puritanism circa 1670 by tenets of the Cambridge Platform and a Puritan as person of any class who joined, not just attended, the established church. Obviously then, the adoption of the authoritarian Saybrook Platform (1708) changed the definition of Puritanism.

Using a definition of Puritanism that relies on changes over time illuminates the increasingly authoritarian and hierarchical nature of Puritanism. Although Puritans were traditionally adherents of authority and hierarchy, this tendency evolved and hardened between 1640 and 1708. As this study demonstrates, the issue of control more than ideas was the basis the Connecticut leaders' struggles with Rogers. The Connecticut government based its claims to legitimate authority on the Charter of 1664 granted by the Crown. Connecticut leaders justified their positions by their class, which derived from the English class system, and their connection to the first generation settlers. Rogers challenged these beliefs, stating that only God could confer authority.

This study is organized in six thematic chapters and a conclusion. Chapter one places Rogers in context and demonstrates that social and economic conditions, coupled with generational anxiety, prompted a struggle for leadership in New London. Rogers, a spiritually-motivated member of the uneasy second generation, challenged the legitimacy of the leadership of the third-generation Winthrops, whose concerns were secular. An examination of Rogers' religious doctrine (chapter two) reveals that Rogers' beliefs were related to English religious radicalism. One might even describe him as an unreconstructed Puritan in the first-generation mold. As such, his criticisms especially stung establishment leaders, who were the grandsons of first-generation saints.

Religious dissent was political rebellion in seventeenth-century Connecticut (chapter three). My examination of the town, colony, and trans-Atlantic political dimensions of Rogers' struggles with the authorities explores the connections between religious dissent and the development of colonial institutions and official policies. Some of Rogers' political battles with established authority were acted out on the stages of gender and race (chapters four and five). Both of these issues made Rogers vulnerable to attack. Within a year of converting, the General Assembly took Rogers' wife and children from him. Rogers' counter-argument that patriarchal rights superceded government authority over women negated the potentia1 of his religious doctrine to suggest a different status for women. Conversely, Rogers' insistence upon equal treatment under the law for persons of color and his practice of emancipating slaves challenged seventeenth-century racial ideology. And Rogers and his followers redefined community (chapter six). Rogers' group of like-minded persons from all social ranks and races formed their own community within New London.

Despite the severe treatment meted out to him, the vitality of Rogers' dissent remained unchecked. Rogers' refusal to accept the domination of the government over religion kept the question of separation of church and state, as well as doctrinal issues under debate. Decades of public discourse, coupled with his publications, meant that Rogers' ideas endured in New London. And although Rogers' beliefs never became part of the majority view during his lifetime, his defiance demonstrated the incompleteness of the hegemony of the Puritan elite. His confrontations were preludes to the challenges that the New Lights would pose in the First Great Awakening.

Return to QUAKERTOWN Online