he
Indians, and laying the groundwork for permanent homes and organized
communities. In this way were begun the colonies of Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New Haven, and New Hampshire, each of which sprang in part
from the desire for separate religious and political life and in part
from the migratory instinct which has always characterized the
Englishman in his effort to find a home and a means of livelihood.
Sometimes individuals wandered alone or in groups of two or three, but
more frequently covenanted companies of men and women of like minds
moved across the face of the land, followed Indian trails, or voyaged
by water along the coast and up the rivers, usually remaining where they
first found satisfaction, but often, in new combinations, taking up the
burden of their journeying and moving on, a second, a third, and even a
fourth time in search of homes. Abraham Pierson and his flock migrated
four times in thirty years, seeking a place where they might find rest
under a government according to God.

The frontier Puritan was neither docile nor easily satisfied. He was
restless, opinionated, and eager to assert himself and his convictions.
The controversies among the elect regarding doctrines and morals often
became so heated that complete separation was the only remedy; and
wherever there was a migrating leader followers were sure to be found.
Hence, despite the dangers from cold, famine, the Indian, and the
wilderness, the men of New England were constantly shifting in these
earlier years as one motive or another urged them on. Land was
plentiful, and, as a rule, easily obtained; opportunities for trade
presented themselves to any one who would seek them; and the freedom of
earth and sky and of nature unspoiled offered an ideal environment for
a closer communion with God. Owing to the many varieties of religious
opinion that prevailed among these radical pioneers, each new grouping
and consequent settlement had an individuality of its own, determined by
the personality of its leader and by the ideas that he represented. Thus
Williams, Clarke, Coddington, and Gorton influenced Rhode Island;
Hooker, Haynes, and Ludlow, Connecticut; Davenport, Eaton, and Pierson,
New Haven; and Wheelwright and Underhill, New Hampshire.

Roger Williams, the founder of Providence--the first plantation to be
settled in what was later the colony of Rhode Island--was driven out of
Boston because he called in question the authority of the gove