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A Brief History of the United States

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Title: A Brief History of the United States

Author: John Bach McMaster


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6896]
                Most recently updated: December 30, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES ***




Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

BY
JOHN BACH McMASTER

[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON. Painted by Rembrandt Peale.]




PREFACE


It is not too much to assert that most of our countrymen acquire at school
all the knowledge they possess of the past history of their country. In
view of this fact it is most desirable that a history of the United States
for elementary schools should present not only the essential features of
our country's progress which all should learn, but also many things of
secondary consequence which it is well for every young American to know.

In this book the text proper consists of the essentials, and these are
told in as few words as truth and fairness will permit. The notes, which
form a large part of the book, include the matters of less fundamental
importance: they may be included in the required lessons, or may be
omitted, as the teacher thinks proper; however, they should at least be
read. Some of the notes are outline biographies of men whose acts require
mention in the text and who ought not to be mere names, nor appear
suddenly without any statement of their earlier careers. Others are
intended to be fuller statements of important events briefly described or
narrated in the text, or relate to interesting events that are of only
secondary importance. Still others call attention to the treatment of
historical personages or events by our poets and novelists, or suggest
passages in standard histories that may be read with profit. Such
suggested readings have been chosen mostly from books that are likely to
be found in all school libraries.

Much of the machinery sometimes used in history teaching--bibliographies,
extensive collateral readings, judgment questions, and the like--have been
omitted as out of place in a brief school history. Better results may be
obtained by having the pupils write simple narratives in their own words,
covering important periods and topics in our history: as, the discovery of
America; the exploration of our coast and continent; the settlements that
failed; the planting of the English colonies; the life of the colonists;
the struggles for possession of the country; the causes of the Revolution;
the material development of our country between certain dates; and other
subjects that the teacher may suggest. The student who can take such broad
views of our history, and put his knowledge in his own words, will acquire
information that is not likely to be forgotten.

No trouble has been spared in the selection of interesting and authentic
illustrations that will truly illustrate the text. Acknowledgment is due
for permission to photograph many articles in museums and in the
possession of various historical societies. The reproduction of part of
Lincoln's proclamation on page 365 is inserted by courtesy of David McKay,
publisher of Lossing's _Civil War in America_.

JOHN BACH McMASTER.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

[Illustration: U. S. BATTLESHIP.]




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION
     I. THE NEW WORLD FOUND
    II. THE ATLANTIC COAST AND THE PACIFIC DISCOVERED
   III. FRANCE AND ENGLAND ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA

THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA
    IV. THE ENGLISH ON THE CHESAPEAKE
     V. THE ENGLISH IN NEW ENGLAND
    VI. THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES
   VII. HOW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED

RIVALS OF THE ENGLISH
  VIII. THE INDIANS
    IX. THE FRENCH IN AMERICA
     X. WARS WITH THE FRENCH
    XI. THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
   XII. THE QUARREL WITH THE MOTHER COUNTRY
  XIII. THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE BEGUN
   XIV. THE WAR IN THE MIDDLE STATES AND ON THE SEA
    XV. THE WAR IN THE WEST AND IN THE SOUTH

DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNION
   XVI. AFTER THE WAR
  XVII. OUR COUNTRY IN 1789
 XVIII. THE NEW GOVERNMENT
   XIX. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY, 1789-1805
    XX. THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE
   XXI. RISE OF THE WEST
  XXII. THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING
 XXIII. POLITICS FROM 1829 TO 1841
  XXIV. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1820 TO 1840

THE LONG STRUGGLE AGAINST SLAVERY
   XXV. MORE TERRITORY ACQUIRED
  XXVI. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREE SOIL
 XXVII. STATE OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1840 TO 1860
XXVIII. THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1863
  XXIX. THE CIVIL WAR, 1863-1865
   XXX. THE NAVY IN THE WAR; LIFE IN WAR TIMES
  XXXI. RECONSTRUCTION

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
 XXXII. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1860 TO 1880
XXXIII. A QUARTER CENTURY OF STRUGGLE OVER INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS, 1872
        TO 1897
 XXXIV. THE WAR WITH SPAIN, AND LATER EVENTS

APPENDIX
  THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
  CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
  TABLE OF STATES
  TABLE OF PRESIDENTS
  INDEX




LIST OF COLORED MAPS


FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700
EASTERN NORTH AMERICA, 1754
BRITISH TERRITORY, 1764
NORTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION--SOUTHERN COLONIES DURING THE
REVOLUTION
THE UNITED STATES, ABOUT 1783, SHOWING STATE CLAIMS
THE UNITED STATES, 1805
THE UNITED STATES, 1824
THE UNITED STATES, 1850
THE UNITED STATES, 1861
THE WEST IN 1870 (ALSO 1860 AND 1907)
THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTLYING POSSESSIONS


[Illustration: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for
which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all."]




COLUMBUS


  Behind him lay the gray Azores,
    Behind the Gates of Hercules;
  Before him not the ghost of shores,
    Before him only shoreless seas.
  The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
    For, lo! the very stars are gone.
  Brave Admiral, speak; what shall I say?"
    "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

  "My men grow mutinous day by day;
    My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
  The stout mate thought of home; a spray
    Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
  "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
    If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
  "Why you shall say at break of day,
    'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"

  They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
    Until at last the blanched mate said:
  "Why, now not even God would know
    Should I and all my men fall dead.
  These very winds forget their way,
    For God from these dread seas is gone,
  Now speak, brave Admiral; speak and say"--
    He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

  They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
    "This mad sea shows its teeth to-night.
  He curls his lips, he lies in wait
    With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
  Brave Admiral, say but one good word;
    What shall we do when hope is gone?"
  The words leapt like a leaping sword:
    "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

  Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
    And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
  Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
    A light! A light! A light! A light!
  It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
    It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
  He gained a world; he gave that world
    Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"

--Joaquin Miller.

Copyrighted and published by The Whitaker & Ray Wiggin Co. San Francisco,
California. Used by permission.




A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES


CHAPTER I

THE NEW WORLD FOUND


The New World, of which our country is the most important part, was
discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. When that great man set sail
from Spain on his voyage of discovery, he was seeking not only unknown
lands, but a new way to eastern Asia. Such a new way was badly needed.

THE ROUTES OF TRADE.--Long before Columbus was born, the people of Europe
had been trading with the far East. Spices, drugs, and precious stones,
silks, and other articles of luxury were brought, partly by vessels and
partly by camels, from India, the Spice Islands, and Cathay (China) by
various routes to Constantinople and the cities in Egypt and along the
eastern shore of the Mediterranean. There they were traded for the copper,
tin, and lead, coral, and woolens of Europe, and then carried to Venice
and Genoa, whence merchants spread them over all Europe. [1] The merchants
of Genoa traded chiefly with Constantinople, and those of Venice with
Egypt.

THE TURKS SEIZE THE ROUTES OF TRADE.--While this trade was at its height,
Asia Minor (from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean) was conquered by the
Turks, the caravan routes across that country were seized, and when
Constantinople was captured (in 1453), the trade of Genoa was ruined.
Should the Turkish conquests be extended southward to Egypt (as later they
were), the prosperity of Venice would likewise be destroyed, and all
existing trade routes to the Orient would be in Turkish hands.

[Illustration: THE KNOWN WORLD IN 1490; ROUTES TO INDIA.]

THE PORTUGUESE SEEK A NEW ROUTE.--Clearly an ocean route to the East was
needed, and on the discovery of such a route the Portuguese had long been
hard at work. Fired by a desire to expand Portugal and add to the
geographical knowledge of his day, Prince Henry "the Navigator" sent out
explorer after explorer, who, pushing down the coast of Africa, had almost
reached the equator before Prince Henry died. [2] His successors continued
the good work, the equator was crossed, and in 1487 Dias passed the Cape
of Good Hope and sailed eastward till his sailors mutinied. Ten years
later Vasco da Gama sailed around the end of Africa, up the east coast,
and on to India, and brought home a cargo of eastern products. A way to
India by water was at last made known to Europe. [3]

[Illustration: A CARAVEL, A SHIP OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]

COLUMBUS PLANS A ROUTE.--Meanwhile Christopher Columbus [4] planned what
he thought would be a shorter ocean route to the East. He had studied all
that was known of geography in his time. He had carefully noted the
results of recent voyages of exploration. He had read the travels of Marco
Polo [5] and had learned that off the coast of China was a rich and
wonderful island which Polo called Cipango. He believed that the earth is
a sphere, and that China and Cipango could be reached by sailing about
2500 miles due westward across the Atlantic.

COLUMBUS SEEKS AID.--To make others think so was a hard task, for nearly
everybody believed the earth to be flat, and several sovereigns were
appealed to before one was found bold enough to help him. He first applied
to the king of Portugal, and when that failed, to the king and queen of
Spain. [6] When they seemed deaf to his appeal, he sent his brother to
England, and at last, wearied with waiting, set off for France. Then Queen
Isabella of Spain was persuaded to act. Columbus was recalled, [7] ships
were provided with which to make the voyage, and on Friday, the 3d of
August, 1492, the _Santa Maria_ (sahn'tah mah-ree'ah), the _Pinta_
(peen'tah), and the _Niña_ (neen'yah) set sail from Palos (pah'los), on
one of the greatest voyages ever made by men. [8]

[Illustration: THE COUNCIL OF SALAMANCA.]

THE VOYAGE WESTWARD.--The little fleet went first to the Canary Islands
and thence due west across the Sea of Darkness, as the Atlantic was
called. The voyage was delightful, but every sight and sound was a source
of new terror to the sailors. An eruption of a volcano at the Canaries was
watched with dread as an omen of evil. They crossed the line of no
magnetic variation, and when the needle of the compass began to change its
usual direction, they were sure it was bewitched. They entered the great
Sargasso Sea and were frightened out of their wits by the strange expanse
of floating vegetation. They entered the zone of the trade winds, and as
the breeze, day after day, steadily wafted them westward, the boldest
feared it would be impossible to return. When a mirage and flights of
strange birds raised hopes that were not promptly realized, the sailors
were sure they had entered an enchanted realm. [9]

[Illustration: SEA MONSTERS DRAWN ON OLD MAPS.]

LAND DISCOVERED.--Columbus, who was above such fear, explained the unusual
sights, calmed the fears of the sailors, hid from them the true distance
sailed, [10] and steadily pursued his way till unmistakable signs of land
were seen. A staff carved by hand and a branch with berries on it floated
by. Excitement now rose high, and a reward was promised to the man who
first saw land. At last, on the night of October 11, Columbus beheld a
light moving as if carried by hand along a shore. A few hours later a
sailor on the _Pinta_ saw land distinctly, and soon all beheld, a few
miles away, a long, low beach. [11]

[Illustration: ANCIENT VIKING SHIP FOUND BURIED IN NORWAY.]

THE VOYAGE AMONG THE ISLANDS.--Columbus thought he had found one of the
islands of the Indies, as the southern and eastern parts of Asia were
called. Dressed in scarlet and gold and followed by a band of his men
bearing banners, he landed, fell on his knees, and having given thanks to
God, took possession for Spain and called the island San Salvador (sahn
sahl-va-dor'), which means Holy Savior. The day was October 12, 1492, and
the island was one of the Bahamas. [12]

After giving red caps, beads, and trinkets to the natives who crowded
about him, Columbus set sail to explore the group and presently came in
sight of the coast of Cuba, which he at first thought was Cipango. Sailing
eastward, landing now and then to seek for gold, he reached the eastern
end of Cuba, and soon beheld the island of Haiti; this so reminded him of
Spain that he called it Hispaniola, or Little Spain.

THE FIRST SPANISH COLONY IN THE NEW WORLD.--When off the Cuban shore, the
_Pinta_ deserted Columbus. On the coast of Haiti the _Santa Maria_ was
wrecked. To carry all his men back to Spain in the little _Nina_ was
impossible. Such, therefore, as were willing were left at Haiti, and
founded La Navidad, the first colony of Europeans in the New World. [13]
This done, Columbus sailed for home, taking with him ten natives, and
specimens of the products of the lands he had discovered.

THE VOYAGE HOME.--The _Pinta_ was overtaken off the Haitian coast, but a
dreadful storm parted the ships once more, and neither again saw the
other till the day when, but a few hours apart, they dropped anchor in the
haven of Palos, whence they had sailed seven months before. As the news
spread, the people went wild with joy. The journey of Columbus to
Barcelona was a triumphal procession. At Barcelona he was received with
great ceremony by the king and queen, and soon afterward was sent back
with many ships and men to found a colony and make further explorations in
the Indies.

[Illustration: THE WEST INDIES--SHOWING THE DISCOVERIES OF COLUMBUS.]

OTHER VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.--In all Columbus made four voyages to the New
World. On the second (1493) he discovered Porto Rico, Jamaica, and other
islands. On the third (1498) he saw the mainland of South America at the
mouth of the Orinoco River. [14] On the fourth (1502-4) he sailed along
the shores of Central America. Returning to Spain, he died poor,
neglected, and broken-hearted in 1506. [15]

COLUMBUS BELIEVED HE REACHED THE INDIES.--To his dying day Columbus was
ignorant of the fact that he had led the way to a new continent. He
supposed he had reached the Indies. The lands he discovered were therefore
spoken of as the Indies, and their inhabitants were called Indians, a name
given in time to the copper-colored natives of both North and South
America.

SPAIN'S CLAIM TO NEW-FOUND LANDS.--One of the first results of the
discoveries of Columbus was an appeal to the Pope for a bull securing to
Spain the heathen lands discovered; for a bull had secured to Portugal the
discoveries of her mariners along the coast of Africa. Pope Alexander VI
accordingly drew a north and south line one hundred leagues west of the
Cape Verde Islands, and gave to Spain all she might discover to the west
of it, reserving to Portugal all she might discover to the east. A year
later (1494) Spain and Portugal by treaty moved the "Line of Demarcation"
to three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands (map,
p. 20), and on this agreement, approved by the Pope, Spain rested her
claim to America.


SUMMARY

1. For many centuries before the discovery of America, Europe had been
trading with the far East.

2. The routes of this trade were being closed by the Turks.

3. Columbus believed a new route could be found by sailing due westward
from Europe.

4. After many years of fruitless effort to secure aid to test his plan, he
obtained help from Spain.

5. On his first voyage westward Columbus discovered the Bahama Islands,
Cuba, and Haiti; on his later voyages, various other lands about the
Caribbean Sea.

6. In the belief that he had reached the Indies, the lands Columbus found
were called the Indies, and their inhabitants Indians.


FOOTNOTES

[1] In the Middle Ages, when food was coarse and cookery poor, cinnamon
and cloves, nutmeg and mace, allspice, ginger, and pepper were highly
prized for spicing ale or seasoning food. But all these spices were very
expensive in Europe because they had to be brought so far from the distant
East. Even pepper, which is now used by every one, was then a fit gift
from one king to another. Camphor and rhubarb, indigo, musk, sandalwood,
Brazil wood, aloes wood, all came from the East. Muslin and damask bear
the names of eastern cities whence they were first obtained. In the
fifteenth century the churches, palaces, manor houses, and homes of rich
merchants were adorned with the rugs and carpets of the East.

[2] Prince Henry was the fourth son of John I, king of Portugal. In 1419
he established his home on Cape St. Vincent, gathered about him a body of
trained seamen, and during forty years sent out almost every year an
exploring expedition. His pilots discovered the Azores and the Madeira
Islands. He died in 1460. His great work was training seamen. Many men
afterward famous as discoverers and navigators, as Dias (dee'ahss), Da
Gama (dah gah'ma), Cabral (ca-brahl'), Magellan, and Columbus, served
under Henry or his successors.

In those days there were neither steamships nor such sailing vessels as we
have. For purposes of exploration the caravel was used. It was from 60 to
100 feet long, and from 18 to 25 feet broad, and had three masts from the
heads of which were swung great sails. Much of the steering was done by
turning these sails. Yet it was in such little vessels that some of the
most famous voyages in history were made.

[3] These voyages were possible because of the great progress which had
recently been made in the art of navigation. The magnetic compass enabled
seamen to set their course when the sun and stars could not be seen. The
astrolabe (picture, p. 35) made it possible roughly to estimate distances
from the equator, or latitude. These instruments enabled mariners to go on
long voyages far from land. Read the account of the Portuguese voyages in
Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I, pp. 294-334.

[4] Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa, Italy, where he was born
about 1436. He was the son of a wool comber. At fourteen he began a
seafaring life, and between voyages made charts and globes. About 1470 he
wandered to Portugal, went on one or two voyages down the African coast,
and on another (1477) went as far north as Iceland. Meantime (1473) he
married a Portuguese woman and made his home at the Madeira Islands; and
it was while living there that he formed the plan of finding a new route
to the far East.

[5] In 1271 Marco Polo, then a lad of seventeen, was taken by his father
and uncle from Venice to the coast of Persia, and thence overland to
northwestern China, to a city where Kublai Khan held his court. They were
well received, and Marco spent many years making journeys in the khan's
service. In 1292 they were sent to escort a royal bride for the khan from
Peking (in China) to Tabriz, a city in Persia. They sailed from China in
1292, reached the Persian coast in 1294, and arrived safely at Tabriz,
whence they returned to Venice in 1295. In 1298 Marco was captured in a
war with Genoa, and spent about a year in prison. While thus confined he
prepared an account of his travels, one of the most famous books of the
Middle Ages. He described China (or Cathay, as it was then called), with
its great cities teeming with people, its manufactures, and its wealth,
told of Tibet and Burma, the Indian Archipelago with its spice islands, of
Java and Sumatra, of Hindustan,--all from personal knowledge. From hearsay
he told of Japan. In the course of the next seventy-five years other
travelers found their way to Cathay and wrote about it. Thus before 1400
Europe had learned of a great ocean to the east of Cathay, and of a
wonderful island kingdom, Cipan'go (Japan), which lay off its coast. All
this deeply interested Columbus, and his copy of Marco Polo may still be
seen with its margins full of annotations.

[6] These sovereigns were just then engaged in the final struggle for the
expulsion of the Moors from Spain, so they referred the appeal to the
queen's confessor, who laid it before a body of learned men. This council
of Salamanca made sport of the idea, and tried to prove that Columbus was
wrong. If the world were round, they said, people on the other side must
walk with their heads down, which was absurd. And if a ship should sail to
the undermost part, how could it come back? Could a ship sail up hill?

[7] On the way to France Columbus stopped, by good luck, at the monastery
of La Rabida (lah rah'bee-dah), and so interested the prior, Juan Perez
(hoo-ahn' pa'rath), in his scheme, that a messenger was sent to beg an
interview for Perez with the queen of Spain. It was granted, and so well
did Perez plead the cause of his friend that Columbus was summoned to
court. The reward Columbus demanded for any discoveries he might make
seemed too great, and was refused. Thereupon, mounting his mule, he again
set off for France. Scarcely had he started when the royal treasurer
rushed into the presence of the queen and persuaded her to send a
messenger to bring Columbus back. Then his terms were accepted. He was to
be admiral of all the islands and countries he might discover, and have a
part of all the gems, gold, and silver found in them.

[8] The vessels were no larger than modern yachts. The _Santa Maria_
was single-decked and ninety feet long. The Pinta and Niña (picture, p.
11) were smaller caravels, and neither was decked amidships. In 1893
reproductions of the three vessels, full size and as exact as possible,
were sent across the sea by Spain, and exhibited at the World's Fair in
Chicago.

[9] The ideas of geography held by the unlearned of those days are very
curious to us. They believed that near the equator was a fiery zone where
the sea boiled and no life existed; that hydras, gorgons, chimeras, and
all sorts of horrid monsters inhabited the Sea of Darkness; and that in
the Indian Ocean was a lodestone mountain that could draw nails out of
ships. Because of the way in which ships disappeared below the horizon, it
was believed that they went down hill, and that if they went too far they
could never get back.

[10] The object of Columbus was not to let the sailors know how far they
were from home.

[11] Columbus was not the first European to reach the New World. About six
hundred years earlier, Vikings from Norway settled in Iceland, and from
the Icelandic chronicles we learn that about 986 A.D. Eric the Red planted
a colony in Greenland. His son, Leif Ericsson, about 1000 A.D., led a
party south-westward to a stony country which was probably the coast of
Labrador or Newfoundland. Going on southward, they came at last to a spot
where wild grapes grew. To this spot, probably on the New England coast,
Leif gave the name Vinland, spent the winter there, and in the spring went
back to Greenland with a load of timber. The next year Leif's brother
sailed to Vinland and passed two winters there. In later years others
went, but none remained long, and the land was soon forgotten. Iceland and
Greenland were looked upon as part of Europe; and the Vikings' discoveries
had no influence on Columbus and the explorers who followed him. Read
Fiske's _Discovery of America_ Vol. I, pp. 148-255; and Longfellow's
_Skeleton in Armor_.

[12] Nobody knows just which of the Bahamas Columbus discovered. Three of
the group--Cat, Turks and Watling--each claim the honor. At present
Watling is believed to have been San Salvador. A good account of the
voyage is given in Irving's _Life and Voyages of Columbus_, Vol. I,
Book iii, and in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I, pp. 408-442.

[13] When Columbus on his second voyage returned to Hispaniola, he found
that every one of the forty colonists had perished. They had been killed
by the natives.

[14] Despite the great thing he did for Spain. Columbus lost favor at
court. Evil men slandered him; his manner of governing the new lands was
falsely represented to the king and queen; a new governor was sent out,
and Columbus was brought back in chains. Though soon released, he was
never restored to his rights.

[15] Columbus was buried at Valladolid, in Spain, but in 1513 his body was
taken to a monastery at Seville. There it remained till 1536, when it was
carried to Santo Domingo in Haiti. In 1796 it was removed and buried with
imposing ceremonies at Havana in Cuba. In 1898, when Spain was driven from
Cuba, his bones were carried back to Seville.




CHAPTER II

THE ATLANTIC COAST AND THE PACIFIC DISCOVERED


THE ATLANTIC COAST LINE EXPLORED.--Columbus having shown the way, English,
Spanish, and Portuguese explorers followed. Some came in search of China
or the Spice Islands; some were in quest of gold and pearls. The result
was the exploration of the Atlantic coast line from Labrador to the end of
South America.

SOME FAMOUS VOYAGES.--In 1497 John Cabot, sailing from England, reached
Newfoundland, which he believed to be part of China. [1] In 1498 John
Cabot and his son Sebastian, while in search of the Spice Islands, sailed
along the coast from Newfoundland to what is now South Carolina. [2]

[Illustration: RECORD OF PAYMENT OF JOHN CABOT'S PENSION FOR 1499. [3]
Photographed from the original accounts of the Bristol customs collectors,
now in Westminster Abbey, London.]

[Illustration: DISCOVERY ON THE EAST COAST OF AMERICA.]

Before 1500 Spaniards in search of gold, or pearls, or new lands had
explored the coast line from Central America to Cape St. Roque. [4]

In 1500 Cabral, while on his way from Portugal to India by Da Gama's route
(p. 11), sailed so far westward that he sighted the coast of the country
now called Brazil. Cabral went on his way; but sent back a ship to the
king of Portugal with the news that the new-found land lay east of the
Line of Demarcation. The king dispatched (1501) an expedition which
explored the coast southward nearly as far as the mouth of the Plata
River.

SOME RESULTS OF THESE VOYAGES.--The results of these voyages were many and
important. They furnished a better knowledge of the coast; they proved the
existence of a great mass of land called the New World, but still supposed
to be a part of Asia; they secured Brazil for Portugal, and led to the
naming of our continent.

WHY THE NEW WORLD WAS CALLED AMERICA.--In the party sent by the king of
Portugal to explore the coast of Brazil, was an Italian named Amerigo
Vespucci (ah-ma'ree-go ves-poot'chee), or Americus Vespucius, who had
twice before visited the coast of South America. Of these three voyages
and of a fourth Vespucius wrote accounts, They were widely read, led to
the belief that he had discovered a new or fourth part of the world, and
caused a German professor of geography to suggest that this fourth part
should be called America. The name was applied first to what is now
Brazil, then to all South America, and finally also to North America, when
it was found, long afterward, that North America was part of the new
continent and not part of Asia.

[Illustration: THE FIRST PRINTED SUGGESTION OF THE NAME AMERICA. [5] Part
of a page from Waldseemüller's book _Cosmographie Introductio_, printed in
1507, now in the Lenox Library, New York.]

BALBOA DISCOVERS THE PACIFIC.--The man who led the way to the discovery
that America was not part of Asia was Balbo'a. [6] He came to the eastern
border of Panama (1510) with a band of Spaniards seeking gold. There they
founded the town of Darien and in time made Balboa their commander. He
married the daughter of a chief, made friends with the Indians, and heard
from them of a great body of water across the mountains. This he
determined to see, and in 1513, with Indian guides and a party of
Spaniards, made his way through dense and tangled forests and from the
summit of a mountain looked down on the Pacific Ocean, which he called the
South Sea. Four days later, standing on the shore, he waited till the
rising tide came rolling in, and then rushing into the water, sword in
hand, he took possession of the ocean in the name of Spain. [7]

[Illustration: SPANISH HELMET AND SHIRT OF MAIL FOUND IN MEXICO.
Now in Essex Hall, Salem, Mass.]

THE PACIFIC CROSSED; THE PHILIPPINES DISCOVERED.--The Portuguese meantime,
by sailing around Africa, had reached the Spice Islands. So far beyond
India were these islands that the Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan
took up the old idea of Columbus, and maintained that they could be most
easily reached by sailing west. To this proposition the king of Portugal
would not listen; so Magellan persuaded the king of Spain to let him try;
and in 1519 set sail with five small ships. He crossed the Atlantic to the
mouth of the Plata, and went south till storms and cold drove him into
winter quarters. [8] In August, 1520 (early spring in the southern
hemisphere), he went on his way and entered the strait which now bears his
name. One of the ships had been wrecked. In the strait another stole away
and went home. The three remaining vessels passed safely through, and out
into an ocean so quiet compared with the stormy Atlantic that Magellan
called it the Pacific. Across this the explorers sailed for five months
before they came to a group of islands which Magellan called the Ladrones
(Spanish for _robbers_) because the natives were so thievish. [9] Ten
days later they reached another group, afterward named the Philippines.
[10]

On one of these islands Magellan and many of his men were slain. [11] Two
of the ships then went southward to the Spice Islands, where they loaded
with spices. One now started for Panama, but was forced to return. The
other sailed around Africa, and in 1522 reached Spain in safety. It had
sailed around the world. The surviving captain was greatly honored. The
king ennobled him, and on his coat of arms was a globe with the motto "You
first sailed around me."

[Illustration: MAGELLAN'S SHIP THAT SAILED AROUND THE WORLD.]

RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE.--Of all the voyages ever made by man up to that
time, this of Magellan and his men was the greatest. It gave positive
proof that the earth is a sphere. It revealed the vast width of the
Pacific. It showed that America was probably not a part of Asia, and
changed the geographical ideas of the time. [12]

THE COAST OF FLORIDA EXPLORED.--What meantime had happened along the coast
of North America? In 1513 Ponce de Leon [13] (pon'tha da la-on'), a
Spaniard, sailed northwest from Porto Rico in search of an island which
the Indians told him contained gold, and in which he believed was a
fountain or stream whose waters would restore youth to the old. In the
season of Easter, or Pascua Florida, he came upon a land which he called
Florida. Ponce supposed he had found an island, and following the coast
southward went round the peninsula and far up the west coast before going
back to Porto Rico. [14]

[Illustration: SPANISH EXPLORATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA TO 1600.]

THE GULF COAST EXPLORED.--In 1519 another Spaniard, Pineda (pe-na'da),
sailed along the Gulf coast from Florida to Mexico. On the way he entered
the mouth of a broad river which he named River of the Holy Spirit. It was
long supposed that this river was the Mississippi; but it is now claimed
to have been the Mobile. Whatever it was, Pineda spent six weeks in its
waters, saw many Indian towns on its banks, traded with the natives, and
noticed that they wore gold ornaments.

THE EXPEDITION OF NARVAEZ.--Pineda's story of Indians with gold ornaments
so excited Narvaez (nar-vah'eth) that he obtained leave to conquer the
country, and sailed from Cuba with four hundred men. Landing on the west
coast of Florida, he made a raid inland. When he returned to the coast the
ships which were sailing about watching for him were nowhere to be seen.
After marching westward for a month the Spaniards built five small boats,
put to sea, and sailing near the shore came presently to where the waters
of the Mississippi rush into the Gulf. Two boats were upset by the surging
waters. The others reached the coast beyond, where all save four of the
Spaniards perished.

FOUR SPANIARDS CROSS THE CONTINENT.--After suffering great hardships and
meeting with all sorts of adventures among the Indians, the four
survivors, led by Cabeza de Vaca (ca-ba'tha da vah'ca), walked across what
is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico to a little Spanish town
near the Pacific coast. They had crossed the continent. [15]

NEW MEXICO EXPLORED.--Cabeza de Vaca had wonderful tales to relate of
"hunchback cows," as he called the buffalo, and of cities in the interior
where gold and silver were plentiful and where the doorways were studded
with precious stones. [16] Excited by these tales, the Spanish viceroy of
Mexico sent Fray Marcos to gather further information. [17] Aided by the
Indians, Marcos made his way over the desert and came at last to the
"cities," which were only the pueblos of the Zuñi (zoo'nyee) Indians in
New Mexico. The pueblos were houses several stories high, built of stone
or of sun-dried brick, and each large enough for several hundred Indians
to live in. But Marcos merely saw them at a distance, for one of his
followers who went in advance was killed by the Zuñi, whereupon Marcos
fled back to Mexico.

[Illustration: PUEBLO, WOODEN PLOW, AND OX CART.]

THE SPANIARDS REACH KANSAS.--Marcos's reports about the seven cities of
Cibola (see'bo-la), as he called them, aroused great interest, and
Corona'do was sent with an army to conquer them. Marching up the east
coast of the Gulf of California and across Arizona, Coronado came at last
to the pueblos and captured them one by one. He found no gold, but did see
doorways studded with the green stones of the Rocky Mountains. Much
disappointed, he pushed on eastward, and during two years wandered about
over the plains of our great Southwest and probably reached the center of
what is now Kansas. [18]

DE SOTO ON THE MISSISSIPPI.--As Coronado was making his way home, an
Indian woman escaped from his army, and while wandering about fell in with
a band of Spaniards belonging to the army of De Soto. [19]

De Soto, as governor of Cuba, had been authorized to conquer and hold all
the territory that had been discovered by Narvaez. He set out accordingly
in 1539, landed an army at Tampa Bay, and spent three years in wandering
over Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In the spring of 1542 he
crossed the Mississippi River and entered Arkansas, and it was there that
one of his bands met the Indian woman who escaped from Coronado's army. In
Arkansas De Soto died of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi River.
His followers then built a few boats, floated down the river to the Gulf,
and following the coast of Texas came finally to the Spanish settlements
in Mexico.

THE FRENCH ON THE COAST.--Far to the northeast explorers of another
European nation by this time were seeking a foothold. When John Cabot came
home from his first voyage to the Newfoundland coast, he told such tales
of cod fisheries thereabouts, that three small ships set sail from England
to catch fish and trade with the natives of the new-found isle. Portuguese
and Frenchmen followed, and year after year visited the Newfoundland
fisheries. No serious attempt was made to settle the island. What Europe
wanted was a direct westward passage through America to Cathay. This John
Verrazano, an Italian sailing under the flag of France, attempted to find,
and came to what is now the coast of North Carolina. There Verrazano
turned northward, entered several bays along the coast, sailed by the
rock-bound shores of Maine, and when off Newfoundland steered for France.

THE FRENCH ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.--Verrazano was followed (1534) by Jacques
Cartier (zhak car-tya'), also in search of a passage to Cathay. Reaching
Newfoundland (map, p. 114), Cartier passed through the strait to the north
of it, and explored a part of the gulf to the west. A year later he came
again, named the gulf St. Lawrence, and entered the St. Lawrence River,
which he thought was a strait leading to China. Up this river he sailed
till stopped by the rapids which he named Lachine (Chinese). Near by was a
high hill which he called Mont Real (re-ahl'), or Mount Royal. At its base
now stands the city of Montreal. [20] From this place the French went back
to a steep cliff where now stands the city of Quebec, and, it is believed,
spent the winter there. The winter was a terrible one, and when the ice
left the river they returned to France (1536).

[Illustration: INDIAN LONG HOUSE.]

Not discouraged, Cartier (1541) came a third time to plant a colony on the
river. But hunger, mutiny, and the severity of the winter brought the
venture to naught. [21]

NO SETTLEMENTS IN OUR COUNTRY.--From the first voyage of Columbus to the
expeditions of De Soto, Coronado, and Cartier, fifty years had passed. The
coast of the new continent had been roughly explored as far north as
Labrador on the east and California on the west. The Spaniards in quest of
gold and silver mines had conquered and colonized the West Indies, Mexico,
and parts of South America. Yet not a settlement had been made in our
country. Many rivers and bays had been discovered; two great expeditions
had gone into the interior; but there were no colonies on the mainland of
what is now the United States.


SUMMARY

1. The voyage of Columbus led to many other voyages, prompted chiefly by a
hope of finding gold. They resulted in the exploration of the coast of
America, and may be grouped according to the parts explored, as follows:--

2. The Atlantic coast of North America was explored (1497-1535) by Cabot
(for England)--from Newfoundland to South Carolina. Ponce de Leon (for
Spain)--peninsula of Florida. Verrazano (for France)--from North Carolina
to Newfoundland. Cartier (for France)--Gulf of St. Lawrence.

3. The Gulf and Caribbean coasts of North America were explored (1502-
1528) for Spain by Columbus--Central America. Ponce de Leon--west coast of
Florida. Pineda--from Florida to Mexico. Narvaez expedition--from Florida
to Texas.

4. The Atlantic coast of South America was explored (1498-1520) by
Columbus--mouth of the Orinoco. Other explorers for Spain--whole northern
coast. Cabral (for Portugal)--part of eastern coast. Vespucius (for
Portugal)--eastern coast nearly to the Plata River. Magellan (for Spain)--
to the Strait of Magellan.

5. The Pacific coast of America was explored (1513-1542) for Spain by
Balboa--part of Panama. Magellan--part of the southwest coast. Pizarro
(note, p. 23)--from Panama to Peru. Cabrillo (note, p. 28)--from Mexico up
the coast of California.

6. The Spaniards early established colonies in the West Indies, South
America, and Mexico; but fifty years after Columbus's discovery there was
no settlement of Europeans in the mainland part of the United States.
Several Spanish expeditions, however, had explored (1534-1542) large parts
of the interior:--Cabeza de Vaca and his companions walked from Texas to
western Mexico, Coronado wandered from Mexico to Kansas. De Soto wandered
from Florida beyond the Mississippi River.


FOOTNOTES

[1] This discovery made a great stir in Bristol, the port from which Cabot
sailed. A letter written at the time states, "Honors are heaped upon
Cabot. He is called Grand Admiral, he is dressed in silk, and the English
run after him like madmen." The king gave him £10 and a pension of £20 a
year. A pound sterling in those days was in purchasing power quite the
equal of fifty dollars in our time.

[2] These voyages of Cabot were not followed up at the time. But in the
days of Queen Elizabeth, more than eighty years later, they were made the
basis of the English claim to a part of North America.

[3] Bristoll--Arthurus Kemys et Ricardus ap. Meryke collectores custumarum
et subsidiorum regis ibidem a festo Sancti Michaelis Archangeli anno XIIII
mo Regis nunc usque idem festum Sancti Michaelis tunc proximo sequens
reddunt computum de MCCCCXXIIII li. VII S. x d. quadr. De quibus.... Item
in thesauro in una tallia pro Johanne Cabot, xx li. Translation: "Bristol
--Arthur Kemys and Richard ap Meryke, collectors of the king's customs and
subsidies there, from Michaelmas in the fourteenth year of this king's
reign [Henry VII] till the same feast next following render their account
of £1424 7_s._ 10-1/4_d._.... In the treasury is one tally for John Cabot,
£20."

[4] On one of these voyages the Spaniards saw an Indian village built over
the water on piles, with bridges joining the houses. This so reminded them
of Venice that they called it Venezuela (little Venice), a name afterward
applied to a vast extent of country.

[5] "But now these parts [Europe, Asia, and Africa] have been more widely
explored, and another fourth part has been discovered by Americus
Vespucius (as will appear in the following pages); so I do not see why any
one should rightly object to calling it Amerige or America, i.e. land of
Americus, after its discoverer Americus, a man of sagacious mind--since
both Europe and Asia are named after women. Its situation and the ways of
its people may be clearly understood from the four voyages of Americus
which follow."

[6] Vasco Nuñez de Balboa had come from Spain to Haiti and settled down as
a planter, but when (1510) an expedition was about to sail for South
America to plant a colony near Panama, Balboa longed to join it. He was in
debt; so lest his creditors should prevent his going, he had himself
nailed up in a barrel and put on board one of the ships with the
provisions.

[7] In the course of expeditions along the eastern coast of Mexico, the
Spaniards heard of a mighty king, Montezuma, who ruled many cities in the
interior and had great stores of gold. In 1519 Cor'tes landed with 450 men
and a few horses, sank his ships, and began inland one of the most
wonderful marches in all history. The account of the great things which he
did, of the marvelous cities he conquered, of the strange and horrible
sights he saw, reads like fiction. Six days after reaching the city of
Mexico, he seized Montezuma and made himself the real ruler of the
country; but later the Mexicans rose against him and he had to conquer
them by hard fighting. Read the story of the conquest as briefly told in
Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. II, pp. 245-293.

The Spaniards also heard rumors of a golden kingdom to the southward where
the Incas ruled. After preliminary voyages of exploration Francisco
Pizarro sailed from Panama in 1531 with 200 men and 50 horses to conquer
Peru. Landing on the coast he marched inland to the camp of the Inca, a
young man who had just seized the throne. The sight of the white strangers
clad in shining armor, wielding thunder and lightning (firearms), and
riding unearthly beasts (horses were unknown to the Indians), caused
wonder and dread in Peru as it had in Mexico. The Inca was made prisoner
and hundreds of his followers were killed. He offered to fill his prison
room with gold as high as he could reach if Pizarro would set him free;
the offer was accepted and in 1533 some $15,000,000 in gold was divided
among the conquerors. The Inca, however, was put to death, and the
Spaniards took possession of the whole country.

[8] None of Magellan's vessels were as large as the _Santa Maria_, and
three were smaller than the _Niña_. The sailors demanded that Magellan
return to Spain. When he refused, the captains and crews of three
ships mutinied, and were put down with difficulty.

[9] Guam, which now belongs to our country, is one of the Ladrones.

[10] The Spaniards took possession of the Philippines a few years later,
and in 1571 founded Manila. The group was named after Philip II of Spain.
In 1555 a Spanish navigator discovered the Hawaiian Islands; but though
they were put down on the early Spanish charts, the Spaniards did not take
possession of them. Indeed, these islands were practically forgotten, and
two centuries passed before they were rediscovered by the English
explorer, Captain Cook, in 1778.

[11] Magellan was a very religious man, and after making an alliance with
the king of the island of Cebu, he set about converting the natives to
Christianity. The king, greatly impressed by the wonders the white man
did, consented. A bonfire was lighted, the idols were thrown in, a cross
was set up, and the natives were baptized. This done, the king called on
Magellan to help him attack the chief of a neighboring island; but in the
attack Magellan was killed and his men put to flight. This defeat so
angered the king that he invited thirty Spaniards to a feast, massacred
them, cut down the cross, and again turned pagan.

[12] Read the account in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. II, pp.
190-211.

[13] Juan Ponce de Leon had sailed with Columbus on his second voyage, and
had settled in Haiti. Hearing that there was gold in Porto Rico, he
explored it for Spain, in 1509 was made its governor, and in 1511 founded
the city of San Juan (sahn hoo-ahn'). After he was removed from the
governorship, he obtained leave to search for the island of Bimini.

[14] He now obtained authority to colonize the supposed island; but
several years passed before he was ready to make the attempt. He then set
off with arms, tools, horses, and two hundred men, landed on the west
coast of Florida, lost many men in a fight with the Indians, and received
a wound of which he died soon after in Cuba.

[15] The story of this remarkable march across the continent is told in
_The Spanish Pioneers_, by C. F. Lummis.

[16] There was a tradition in Europe that when the Arabs conquered Spain
in the eighth century, a certain bishop with a goodly following fled to
some islands far out in the Sea of Darkness and founded seven cities. When
the Spaniards came in contact with the Indians of Mexico, they were told
of seven caves from which the ancestors of the natives had issued, and
jumped to the conclusion that the seven caves were the seven cities; and
when Cabeza de Vaca came with his story of the wonderful cities of the
north, it was believed that they were the towns built by the bishop.

[17] At an Indian village in Mexico, Marcos heard of a country to the
northward where there were seven cities with houses of two, three, and
four stories, and that of the chief with five. On the doorsills and
lintels of the best houses, he was told, were turquoise stones.

[18] Read _The Spanish Pioneers_, by C. F. Lummis, pp. 77-88, 101-143. The
year that Coronado returned to Mexico (1542) an expedition under Cabrillo
(kah-breel'yo) coasted from Mexico along what is now California. Cabrillo
died in San Diego harbor.

[19] Hernando de Soto was born about 1500 in Spain, and when of age went
to Panama and thence to Peru with Pizarro. In the conquest of Peru he so
distinguished himself that on returning to Spain he was made governor of
Cuba.

[20] Landing on this spot, Cartier set forth to visit the great Indian
village of Hochelaga. He found it surrounded with a palisade of tree
trunks set in three rows. Entering the narrow gate, he beheld some fifty
long houses of sapling frames covered with bark, each containing many
fires, one for a family. From these houses came swarms of women and
children, who crowded about the visitors, touched their beards, and patted
their faces. Soon the warriors came and squatted row after row around the
French, for whom mats were brought and laid on the ground. This done, the
chief, a paralyzed old savage, was carried in, and Cartier was besought by
signs to heal him, and when Cartier had touched him, all the sick, lame,
and blind in the village were brought out for treatment. Read Parkman's
_Pioneers of France in the New World_, pp. 187-193.

[21] As Cartier was on his way home he stopped at the harbor of St. Johns
in Newfoundland, a harbor then frequented by fishermen from the Old World.
There he was met by three ships and 200 colonists under Roberval, who
ordered him to return. But one night Cartier slipped away in the darkness.
Roberval went on to the site of Quebec and there planted his colony. What
became of it is not known; but that it did not last long is certain, and
many years passed before France repeated the attempt to gain a foothold on
the great river of Canada.




CHAPTER III

FRANCE AND ENGLAND ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA


THE FRENCH IN SOUTH CAROLINA.--After the failure in Canada twenty years
passed away before the French again attempted to colonize. Then (1562)
Admiral Coligny (co-leen'ye), the leader of the Huguenots, or Protestants
of France, sought to plant a colony in America for his persecuted
countrymen, and sent forth an expedition under Ribaut (ree-bo'). These
Frenchmen reached the coast of Florida, and turning northward came to a
haven which they called Port Royal. Here they built a fort in what is now
South Carolina. Leaving thirty men to hold it, Ribaut sailed for France.
Famine, homesickness, ignorance of life in a wilderness, soon brought the
colony to ruin. Unable to endure their hardships longer, the colonists
built a crazy boat, [1] put to sea, and when off the French coast were
rescued by an English vessel.

[Illustration: THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN THE SOUTH.]

THE FRENCH IN FLORIDA.--Two years later (1564) Coligny tried again, and
sent forth a colony under Laudonnière (lo-do-ne-air'). It reached the
coast of Florida, and a few miles up the St. Johns River built a fort
called Caroline in honor of the French King Charles. The next year there
came more colonists under Ribaut. [2]

[Illustration: FORT CAROLINE. From an old print.]

THE SPANIARDS FOUND ST. AUGUSTINE.--Now it so happened that just at this
time a Spaniard named Menendez (ma-nen'deth) had obtained leave to conquer
and settle Florida. Before he could set off, news came to Spain that the
French were on the St. Johns River, and Menendez was sent with troops to
drive them out. He landed in Florida in 1565 and built a fort which was
the beginning of St. Augustine, the first permanent settlement on the
mainland part of the United States. Ribaut at once sailed to attack it.
But while he was at sea Menendez marched overland, took Fort Caroline, and
put to death every man there, save a few who made good their escape. [3]

SPAIN HOLDS AMERICA.--More than seventy years had now parsed since
Columbus made his great voyage of discovery. Yet, save some Portuguese
settlements in Brazil, the only European colonies in America were Spanish.
From St. Augustine, around the Gulf of Mexico, down South America to the
Strait of Magellan and up the west coast to California, save the foothold
of Portugal, island and mainland belonged to Spain. And all the rest of
North America she claimed.

ENGLISH ATTACKS ON SPAIN IN THE NEW WORLD.--So far in the sixteenth
century England had taken little or no part in the work of discovery,
exploration, and settlement. Her fishermen came to the Banks of
Newfoundland; but not till 1562, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, did the
contact of England with the New World really begin. Then it was that Sir
John Hawkins, one of England's great "sea kings," went to Africa, loaded
his ships with negroes, sold them to planters in Haiti, and came home with
hides and pearls. Such trade for one not a Spaniard was against the law of
Spain. But Hawkins cared not, arid came again and again. When foul weather
drove him into a Mexican port, the Spaniards sank most of his ships, but
Hawkins escaped with two vessels, in one of which was Francis Drake. [4]

Smarting under defeat, Drake resolved to be avenged. Fitting out a little
squadron at his own cost, without leave of the queen, Drake (1572) sailed
to the Caribbean Sea, plundered Spanish towns along the coast, captured
Spanish ships, and went home loaded with gold, silver, and merchandise.
[5]

DRAKE SAILS AROUND THE GLOBE.--During this raid on the Spanish coast Drake
marched across the Isthmus of Panama and looked down upon Balboa's great
South Sea. As he looked, he resolved to sail on it, and in 1577 left
England with five ships on what proved to be the greatest voyage since
that of Magellan. He crossed the Atlantic, sailed down the coast of South
America, and entered the Strait of Magellan. There four ships deserted,
but Drake went on alone up the west coast, plundering towns and capturing
Spanish vessels. To return the way he came would have been dangerous, for
Spanish cruisers lay in wait. Drake, therefore, went on up the coast in
search of a passage through the continent to the Atlantic. Coasting as far
as southern Oregon and finding no passage, Drake turned southward, entered
a harbor, repaired his ship, and then started westward across the Pacific.
He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, came home by way
of the Cape of Good Hope, and won the glory of being the first Englishman
to sail around the globe. [6]

[Illustration: DRAKE'S ASTROLABE. Now in Greenwich Hospital, London.]

THE ENGLISH IN THE FAR NORTH.--While Drake was on his voyage around the
world, Martin Frob'isher discovered Hudson Strait, [7] and Sir Humphrey
Gilbert failed in an attempt to plant a colony somewhere in America. The
failure was disheartening. But the return of Drake laden with spoil
aroused new interest in America, and (in 1583) Gilbert led a colony to
Newfoundland. Disaster after disaster overtook him, and while he was on
his way home with two vessels (all that were left of five), one with
Gilbert on board went down at sea. [8]

THE ENGLISH ON ROANOKE ISLAND.--The work of colonization then passed to
Sir Walter Raleigh, a half-brother of Gilbert. He began by sending out a
party of explorers who sailed along the coast of North Carolina and
brought back such a glowing description of the country that the queen
named it Virginia and Raleigh chose it for the site of a colony. [9]

In 1585, accordingly, a party of men commanded by Ralph Lane were landed
on Roanoke Island (map, p. 44). But the site proved to be ill chosen, and
the Indians were hostile. The colonists were poorly fitted to live in a
wilderness, and were almost starving when Drake, who stopped at Roanoke
(1586) to see how they were getting on, carried them back to England. [10]

[Illustration: RALEIGH'S PIPES.]

THE LOST COLONY.--Not long after Drake sailed away with the colonists, a
party of recruits arrived with supplies. Finding the island deserted,
fifteen men remained to hold the place in the queen's name, and the rest
returned to England. Not disheartened by these reverses, Raleigh summoned
some men of influence to his aid, and (in 1587) sent out a third party of
settlers, both men and women, in charge of John White. This party was to
stop at Roanoke Island, pick up the fifteen men there, and then go on to
Chesapeake Bay. But for some reason the settlers were left on the island
by the convoy, and there they were forced to stay. [11]

[Illustration: INDIANS IN A DUGOUT CANOE. Part of a drawing by John
White.]

White very soon went back to England for help, in the only ship the
colonists had. War with Spain prevented his return for several years, and
then only the ruins of the settlement were found on the island. [12]

[Illustration: ENGLISH DRESS, SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Contemporary portrait of
Raleigh and his son, by Zuccaro.]

SPAIN ATTACKS ENGLAND.--The war which prevented White from promptly
returning to Roanoke began in 1585. The next year, with twenty-five ships,
Drake attacked the possessions of Spain in America, and burned and
plundered several towns. In 1587 he "singed the beard of the king of
Spain" by burning a hundred vessels in the harbor of the Spanish city of
Cadiz.

Enraged by these defeats, King Philip II of Spain determined to invade
England and destroy that nest of sea rovers. A great fleet known as the
Invincible Armada, carrying thirty thousand men, was assembled and in 1588
swept into the English channel. There the English, led by Raleigh, [13]
Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Lane, and all the other great sea kings, met
the Armada, drove it into the North Sea, and captured, burned, and sank
many of the ships. The rest fled around Scotland, on whose coast more were
wrecked. Less than half the Armada returned to Spain. [14]

THE ENGLISH EXPLORE THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.--The war lasted sixteen years
longer (till 1604). Though it delayed, it did not stop, attempts at
colonization. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, with a colony of thirty-two
men, sailed from England, saw the coast of Maine, turned southward, named
Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands, [15] and after a short stay went home.
The next year Martin Pring came with two vessels on an exploring and
trading voyage; and in 1605 George Weymouth was sent out, visited the
Kennebec River in Maine, and brought back a good report of the country.

THE VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1606.--Peace had now been made with Spain; England
had not been forced to stop her attempts to colonize in America; the
favorable reports of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth led to the belief that
colonies could be successfully planted; and in 1606 King James I chartered
two commercial companies to colonize Virginia, as the Atlantic seaboard
region was called.

To the first or London Company was granted the right to plant a colony
anywhere along the coast between 34° and 41° of north latitude (between
Cape Fear River and the Hudson). To the second or Plymouth Company was
given the right to plant a colony anywhere between 38° and 45° (between
the Potomac River and the Bay of Fundy). Each company was to have a tract
of land one hundred miles square--fifty miles along the coast each way
from the first settlement and one hundred miles inland; and to prevent
overlapping, it was provided that the company last to settle should not
locate within one hundred miles of the other company's settlement.

[Illustration: VIRGINIA.]

THE COLONY ON THE KENNEBEC.--The charter having been granted, each company
set about securing emigrants. To get them was not difficult, for in
England at that day there were many people whose condition was so
desperate that they were glad to seek a new home beyond the sea. [16] In a
few months, therefore, the Plymouth Company sent out its first party of
colonists; but the ship was seized by the Spaniards. The next year (1607)
the company sent out one hundred or more settlers in two ships. They
landed in August at the mouth of the Kennebec River, and built a fort, a
church, a storehouse, and fifteen log cabins. These men were wholly unfit
for life in a wilderness, and in December about half went home in the
ships in which they came. The others passed a dismal winter, and when a
relief ship arrived in the spring, all went back, and the Plymouth
Company's attempt to colonize ended in failure.

THE COLONY ON THE JAMES.--Meanwhile another band of Englishmen (one
hundred and forty-three in number) had been sent out by the London Company
to found a colony in what is now Virginia. They set sail in December,
1606, in three ships under Captain Newport, and in April, 1607, reached
the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Sailing westward across the bay, the ships
entered a river which was named the James in honor of the king, and on the
bank of this river the party landed and founded Jamestown (map, p. 44).
With this event began the permanent occupation of American soil by
Englishmen. At this time, more than a hundred years after the voyages of
Columbus, the only other European settlers on the Atlantic coast of the
United States were the Spaniards in Florida.

[Illustration: RUINS AT JAMESTOWN. Church tower as it looks to-day.]


SUMMARY

1. The Huguenots tried to found French colonies on the coast of South
Carolina (1562) and of Florida (1564); but both attempts failed.

2. In 1565 all America, save Brazil, either was in Spanish hands, or was
claimed by Spain and not yet occupied.

3. During the next twenty years English sailors began to fight Spaniards,
Drake sailed around the globe, Frobisher explored the far north, and Sir
Humphrey Gilbert attempted to plant a colony in Newfoundland.

4. Gilbert's half-brother Raleigh then took up the work of colonization,
but his attempts to plant a colony at Roanoke Island ended in failure.

5. The attacks of English buccaneers on the American colonies of Spain led
to a war (1585-1604), in which the most memorable event was the defeat of
the Spanish Armada.

6. After the war two companies were chartered to plant English colonies in
America. The Plymouth Company's colony was a failure, but in 1607 the
London Company founded Jamestown.


FOOTNOTES

[1] The forests supplied the trees for timbers. The seams were calked with
the moss that hung in clusters from the branches, and then smeared with
pitch from the pines. The Indians made them a rude sort of rope for
cordage, and for sails they sewed together bedding and shirts. On the
voyage home they ate their shoes and leather jerkins. Read Kirk Munroe's
_Flamingo Feather_.

[2] These men were adventurers, not true colonists, and little disposed to
endure the toil, hunger, and dreariness of a life in the wilderness. It
was not long, therefore, before the boldest of them seized two little
vessels and sailed away to plunder Spaniards in the West Indies. Famine
drove them into Havana, where to save their necks they told what was going
on in Florida. Sixty-six mutineers presently seized two other vessels and
turned buccaneers. But the survivors were forced to return to Fort
Caroline, where the leaders were put to death.

[3] Some of these and many others, who were shipwrecked with Ribaut,
afterward surrendered and were killed. As Florida was considered Spanish
territory the French had no right to settle there, so the French king did
nothing more than protest to Spain. Read the story of the French in
Florida as told by Parkman, in _Pioneers of France in the New World_,
pp. 28-162.

[4] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 19-20.

[5] Read Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_ and Barnes's _Drake and his Yeomen_. On
returning to England in 1573, Drake reached Plymouth on a Sunday, during
church time. So great was the excitement that the people left the church
during the sermon, in order to get sight of him.

[6] On his return in 1580 Queen Elizabeth knighted Drake on his own deck.
A chair made from the timbers of his vessel (the _Golden Hind_) is now at
Oxford. Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 26-28.

[7] In 1576 Frobisher, when in search of a northwest passage to China,
made his way through Arctic ice to the bay which now bears his name. Two
more voyages were made to the far north in search of gold.

[8] The ships were overtaken off the Azores by a furious gale. Gilbert's
vessel was a very little one, so he was urged to come aboard his larger
consort; but he refused to desert his companions, and replied, "Do not
fear; heaven is as near by water as by land."

[9] Queen Elizabeth had declared she would recognize no Spanish claim to
American territory not founded on discovery and settlement. Raleigh was
authorized, therefore, to hold by homage heathen lands, not actually
possessed and inhabited by Christian people, which he might discover
within the next six years.

[10] The colonists took home some tobacco, which at that time was greatly
prized in England. When Columbus reached the island of Cuba in 1492, two
of his followers, sent on an errand into the interior, met natives who
rolled certain dried leaves into tubes, and, lighting one end with a
firebrand, drew the smoke into their bodies and puffed it out. This was
the first time that Europeans had seen cigars smoked. The Spaniards
carried tobacco to Europe, and its use spread rapidly. There is a story to
the effect that a servant entering a room one morning and seeing smoke
issuing from Raleigh's mouth, thought he was on fire and dashed water in
his face.

[11] On Roanoke Island, August 18, 1587, a girl was born and named
Virginia. She was the granddaughter of Governor White and the daughter of
Eleanor and Ananias Dare, and the first child of English parents born on
the soil of what is now the United States.

[12] The settlers had agreed that if they left Roanoke before White
returned, the name of the place to which they went should be cut on a
tree, and a cross added if they were in distress. When White returned the
blockhouse was in ruins, and cut on a tree was the name of a near-by
island. A storm prevented the ship going thither, and despite White's
protests he was carried back to England. What became of the colony, no man
knows.

[13] Raleigh was an important figure in English history for many years
after the failure of his Roanoke colony. When Queen Elizabeth died (1603),
he fell into disfavor with her successor, King James I. He was falsely
accused of treason and thrown into prison, where he remained during twelve
years. There he wrote his _History of the World_. After a short period of
liberty, Raleigh was beheaded. As he stood on the scaffold he asked for
the ax, and said, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all
diseases."

[14] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 33-38.

[15] The Elizabeth Islands are close to the south coast of Massachusetts.
A few miles farther south Gosnold found another small island which he
named Marthas Vineyard. Later explorers by mistake shifted the name
Marthas Vineyard to a large island near by, and the little island which
Gosnold found is now called No Mans Land (map, p. 59).

[16] The industrial condition of England was changing. The end of the long
war with Spain had thrown thousands of soldiers out of employment; the
turning of plow land into sheep farms left thousands of laborers without
work; manufactures were still in too primitive a state to provide
employment for all who needed it.




CHAPTER IV

THE ENGLISH ON THE CHESAPEAKE


LIFE AT JAMESTOWN.--The colonists who landed at Jamestown in 1607 were all
men. While some of them were building a fort, Captain Newport, with
Captain John Smith and others, explored the James River and visited the
Powhatan, chief of a neighboring tribe of Indians. This done, Newport
returned to England (June, 1607) with his three ships, leaving one hundred
and five colonists to begin a struggle for life. Bad water, fever, hard
labor, the intense heat of an American summer, and the scarcity of food
caused such sickness that by September more than half the colonists were
dead. [1] Indeed, had it not been for Smith, who got corn from the Indians
and directed affairs in general, the fate of Jamestown might have been
that of Roanoke. [2] As it was, but forty were alive when Newport returned
In January, 1608, with the "first supply" of one hundred and twenty men.

[Illustration: SMITH IN SLAVERY. Picture in one of his books.]

[Illustration: POWHATAN'S COAT. Now in a museum at Oxford.]

THE COMPANY'S ORDERS.--Newport was ordered to bring back a cargo. So while
some of the colonists cut down cedar and black walnut trees and made
clapboards, others loaded the ship with glittering sand which they thought
was gold dust. These labors drew the men away from agriculture, and only
four acres were planted with corn.

In September Newport was back again with the "second supply" of seventy
persons; two of them were women. This time he was ordered to crown the
Powhatan, and to find a gold mine, discover a passage to the South Sea, or
find Raleigh's lost colony. Smith laughed at these orders. But they had to
be obeyed; so several parties went southward in search of the lost colony,
but found it not; Newport went westward beyond the falls of the James in
search of the passage; and the Powhatan was duly crowned and dressed in a
crimson robe. [3] No gold mine could be found, so Newport sailed for
England with a cargo of pitch, tar, and clapboards.

SMITH RULES THE COLONY.--By this time Smith had become president of the
council for the government of the colony. He decreed that those who did
not work should not eat; and by spring his men had dug a well, shingled
the church, put up twenty cabins, and cleared and planted forty acres of
corn. Yet, despite all he could do, the colony was on the verge of ruin
when in August, 1609, seven ships landed some three hundred men, women,
and children known as the "third supply." [4]

JAMESTOWN ABANDONED.--And now matters went from bad to worse. The leaders
quarreled; Smith was injured and had to go back to England; the Indians
became hostile; food became scarce; and when at last neither corn nor
roots could be had, the colonists began to suffer the horrors of famine.
During that awful winter, long known as "the starving time," cold, famine,
and the Indians swept away more than four hundred. When Newport arrived in
May, 1610, only sixty famishing creatures inhabited Jamestown. To continue
the colony seemed hopeless; and going on board the ships (June, 1610), the
colonists set sail for England and had gone well down the James when they
met Lord Delaware with three well-provisioned ships coming up. [5]

JAMESTOWN RESETTLED.--Lord Delaware had come out as governor under a new
charter granted to the London Company in 1609. This is of interest because
it gave to the colony an immense domain of which we shall hear more after
Virginia became a state. This domain extended from Point Comfort, two
hundred miles up and two hundred miles down the coast, and then "up into
the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest."

After the meeting between the departing settlers and the newcomers under
Delaware, the whole band returned to Jamestown and began once more the
struggle for existence.

PROSPERITY BEGINS.--Delaware, who soon went back to England, left Sir
Thomas Dale in command, and under him the colony began to prosper.
Hitherto the colonists had lived as communists. The company owned all the
land, and whatever food was raised was put into the public granary to be
divided among the settlers, share and share alike. Dale changed this
system, and the old planters were given land to cultivate for themselves.
The effect was magical. Men who were lazy when toiling as servants of the
company, become industrious when laboring for themselves, and prosperity
began in earnest.

More settlers soon arrived with a number of cows, goats, and oxen, and the
little colony began to expand. When Dale's term as acting governor ended
in 1616, Virginia contained six little settlements besides Jamestown. The
next governor, Yeardley, introduced the cultivation of tobacco, which was
now much used in Europe and commanded a high price.

[Illustration: VIRGINIA (from 1609 to 1624).]

THE FIRST REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY.--Yeardley was succeeded (1617) by
Argall, who for two years ruled Virginia with a rod of iron. So harsh was
his rule that the company was forced to recall him and send back Yeardley.
Yeardley came with instructions to summon a general assembly, and in July,
1619, the first legislative body in America met in the little church at
Jamestown; eleven boroughs were represented. Each sent two burgesses, as
they were called, and these twenty-two men made the first House of
Burgesses, and had power to enact laws for the colony. [6]

SLAVERY INTRODUCED.--Another event which makes 1619 a memorable year in
our history was the arrival at Jamestown of a Dutch ship with a cargo of
African negroes for sale. Twenty were bought, and the institution of negro
slavery was planted in Virginia. This seemed quite proper, for there were
then in the colony many white slaves, or bond servants--men bound to
service for a term of years. The difference between one of these and an
African negro slave was that the white man served for a short time, and
the negro during his life. [7]

A CARGO OF MAIDS.--Yet another event which makes 1619 a notable year in
Virginian history was the arrival of a ship with ninety young women sent
out by the company to become wives of the settlers. The early comers to
Virginia had been "adventurers," that is, men seeking to better their
fortunes, not intending to live and die in Virginia, but hoping to return
to England in a few years rich, or at least prosperous. That the colony
with such a shifting population could not prosper was certain. Virginia
needed homes. The mass of the settlers were unmarried, and the company
very wisely determined to supply them with wives. The ninety young women
sent over in 1619, and others sent later, were free to choose their own
husbands: but each man, on marrying one of them, had to pay one hundred
and twenty pounds of tobacco for her passage to Virginia.

[Illustration: THE MAIDS ARRIVE IN VIRGINIA.]

THE CHARTER TAKEN AWAY.--For Virginia the future now looked bright. Her
tobacco found ready sale in England at a large profit. The right to make
her own laws gave promise of good government. The founding of home ties
could not fail to produce increased energy on the part of the settlers.
But trouble was brewing for the London Company. The king was quarreling
with a part of his people, and the company was in the hands of his
opponents. Looking upon it as a "seminary of sedition," King James secured
(1624) the destruction of the charter, and Virginia became a royal
province. [8]

STATE OF THE COLONY IN 1624.--The colony of Virginia when deprived of its
charter was a little community of some four thousand souls, scattered in
plantations on and near the James River. Let us go back to those times and
visit one of the plantations. The home of the planter is a wooden house
with rough-hewn beams and unplaned boards, surrounded by a high stockade.
Near by are the farm buildings and the cabins of his bond servants. His
books, his furniture, his clothing and that of his family, have all come
from England. So also have the farming implements and very likely the
greater part of his cows and pigs. On his land are fields of wheat and
barley and Indian corn; but the chief crop is tobacco. [9]

EFFECTS OF TOBACCO PLANTING.--As time passed and the Virginians found that
the tobacco always brought a good price in England, they made it more and
more the chief crop. This powerfully affected the whole character of the
colony. It drew to Virginia a better class of settlers, who came over to
grow rich as planters. It led the people to live almost exclusively on
plantations, and prevented the growth of large towns. Tobacco became the
currency of the colony, and salaries, wages, and debts were paid, and
taxes levied, and wealth and income estimated, in pounds of tobacco.

FEW ROADS IN VIRGINIA.--As there were few towns, [10] so there were few
roads. The great plantations lay along the river banks. It was easy,
therefore, for a planter to go on visits of business or pleasure in a
sailboat or in a barge rowed by his servants. The fine rivers and the
location of the plantations along their banks enabled each planter to have
his own wharf, to which came ships from England laden with tables, chairs,
cutlery, tools, rich silks, and cloth, everything the planter needed for
his house, his family, his servants, and his plantation, all to be paid
for with casks of tobacco.

[Illustration: FOUNDATIONS AT JAMESTOWN.]

GOVERNOR BERKELEY.--Despite the change from rule by the company to rule by
the king, Virginia grew and prospered. When Sir William Berkeley came over
as governor (in 1642), her English population was nearly fifteen thousand
and her slaves three hundred, and many of her planters were men of much
wealth. Berkeley's first term as governor (1642-1652) covered the period
of the Civil War in England.

CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND.--When King James died (in 1625) he was succeeded by
Charles I, under whom the old quarrel between the king and the people,
which had caused the downfall of the London Company, was pushed into civil
war. In 1642 Charles I took the field, raised the royal standard, and
called all loyal subjects to its defense. The Parliament of England
likewise raised an army, and after varying fortunes the king was defeated,
captured, tried for high treason, found guilty, and beheaded (1649).
England then became a republic, called the Commonwealth.

THE CAVALIERS.--While the Civil War was raging in England, Virginia
(largely because of the influence of Governor Berkeley) remained loyal to
the king. As the war went on and the defeats of the royal army were
followed by the capture of the king, numbers of his friends, the
Cavaliers, fled to Virginia. After Charles I was beheaded, more than three
hundred of the nobility, gentry, and clergy of England came over in one
year. No wonder, then, that the General Assembly recognized the dead
king's son as King Charles II, and made it treason to doubt his right to
the throne. Because of this support of the royal cause, Parliament
punished Virginia by cutting off her trade, and ordered that steps be
taken to reduce her to submission. A fleet was accordingly dispatched,
reached Virginia early in 1652, and forced Berkeley to hand over the
government to three Parliamentary commissioners. One of them was then
elected governor, and Virginia had almost complete self-government till
1660, when England again became a kingdom, under Charles II.

MARYLAND, THE FIRST PROPRIETARY COLONY.--When Virginia became crown
property (1624), the king could do with it what he pleased. King Charles I
accordingly cut off a piece and gave it to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore.
[11] This Lord Baltimore was a Catholic who had tried in vain to found a
settlement in Newfoundland. He died before the patent, or deed, was drawn
for the land cut off from Virginia, so (1632) it was issued to his son
Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore. The province lay north of the Potomac
River and was called Maryland.

[Illustration: MARYLAND BY THE ORIGINAL PATENT.]

By the terms of the grant Lord Baltimore was to pay the king each year two
arrowheads in token of homage, and as rent was to give the king one fifth
of all the gold and silver mined. This done, he was proprietor of
Maryland. He might coin money, grant titles, make war and peace, establish
courts, appoint judges, and pardon criminals. But he was not allowed to
tax the people without their consent. He had to summon a legislature to
assist him in making laws, but the laws when made did not need to be sent
to the king for approval.

THE FIRST SETTLERS.--The first settlement was made by a company of about
twenty gentlemen and three hundred artisans and laborers. They were led
and accompanied by two of Lord Baltimore's brothers, and by two Catholic
priests. They came over in 1634 in two ships, the _Ark_ and the _Dove_,
and not far from the mouth of the Potomac founded St. Marys. In February,
1635, they held their first Assembly. To it came all freemen, both
landholders and artisans, and by them a body of laws was framed and
sent to the proprietor (Lord Baltimore) for approval.

SELF-GOVERNMENT BEGUN.--This was refused, and in its place the proprietor
sent over a code of laws, which the Assembly in its turn rejected. The
Assembly then went on and framed another set of laws. Baltimore with rare
good sense now yielded the point, and gave his brother authority to assent
to the laws made by the people, but reserved the right to veto. Thus was
free self-government established in Maryland. [12]

TROUBLE WITH CLAIBORNE.--Before Lord Baltimore obtained his grant, William
Claiborne, of Virginia, had established an Indian trading post on Kent
Island in Chesapeake Bay. This fell within the limits given to Maryland;
but Claiborne refused to acknowledge the authority of Baltimore, whereupon
a vessel belonging to the Kent Island station was seized by the
Marylanders for trading without a license. Claiborne then sent an armed
boat with thirty men to capture any vessel belonging to St. Marys. This
boat was itself captured, instead; but another fight soon occurred, in
which Claiborne's forces beat the Marylanders. The struggle thus begun
lasted for years. [13]

THE TOLERATION ACT.--The year 1649 is memorable for the passage of the
Maryland Toleration Act, the first of its kind in our history. This
provided that "no person or persons whatsoever within this province,
professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any ways
troubled, molested, or discountenanced for, or in respect to, his or her
religion."

END OF THE CLAIBORNE TROUBLE.--The nine years that followed formed a
stormy period for Maryland. One of the parliamentary commissioners to
reduce Virginia to obedience (1652, p. 49) was our old friend Claiborne.
He and the new governor of Virginia forced Baltimore's governor to resign,
and set up a Protestant government which repealed the Toleration Act and
disfranchised Roman Catholics. Baltimore bade his deposed governor resume
office. A battle followed, the Protestant forces won, and an attempt was
made to destroy the rights of Baltimore; but the English government
sustained him, the Virginians were forced to submit, and the quarrel of
more than twenty years' standing came to an end. Thenceforth Virginia
troubled Maryland no more.

GROWTH OF MARYLAND.--The population of the colony, meantime, grew rapidly.
Pamphlets describing the colony and telling how to emigrate and acquire
land were circulated in England. Many of the first comers wrote home and
brought out more men, and were thus enabled to take up more land.
Emigrants who came with ten or twenty settlers were given manors or
plantations. Such as came alone received farms.

Most of the work on plantations was done by indented white servants, both
convicts and redemptioners. [14] Negro slavery existed in Maryland from
the beginning, but slaves were not numerous till after 1700.

[Illustration: HAND LOOM. [15]]

Food was abundant, for the rivers and bay abounded with geese and ducks,
oysters and crabs, and the woods were full of deer, turkeys, and wild
pigeons. Wheat was not plentiful, but corn was abundant, and from it were
made pone, hominy, and hoe-cakes.

NO TOWNS.--As everybody could get land and therefore lived on manors,
plantations, or farms, there were practically no towns in Maryland. Even
St. Marys, so late as 1678, was not really a town, but a string of some
thirty houses straggling for five miles along the shore. The bay with its
innumerable creeks, inlets, coves, and river mouths, afforded fine water
communication between the farms and plantations; and there were no roads.
As in Virginia, there was no need of shipping ports. Vessels came direct
to manor or plantation wharf, and exchanged English goods for tobacco or
corn. Such farmers or planters as had no water communication packed their
tobacco in a hogshead, with an axle through it, and with an ox or a horse
in a pair of shafts, or with a party of negro slaves or white servants,
rolled it to market.


SUMMARY

1. The struggle of the Jamestown colony for life was a desperate one. For
two years it was preserved by Captain John Smith's skillful leadership,
and the frequent reinforcements and supplies sent over by the London
Company; but in 1610 the settlers started to leave the country.

2. The arrival of Lord Delaware saved the colony. He brought out news of a
new charter (1609) which greatly extended the domain of the company.

3. The settlers were now given land of their own, tobacco was grown, more
settlements were planted, and prosperity began.

4. In 1619 slavery was introduced; a shipload of young women arrived; and
a representative government was established.

5. In 1624 Virginia became a royal colony.

6. During the Civil War in England many Cavaliers came to Virginia.

7. King Charles I cut off a part of Virginia to make (1632) the
proprietary colony of Maryland. The new province was given to Lord
Baltimore, who founded (1634) a colony at St. Marys.

8. Claiborne, a Virginian, denied the authority of Baltimore, and kept up
a struggle against him for many years.

9. In both Maryland and Virginia the people lived on large plantations,
and there were few towns. Travel was mostly by water, and there were no
good roads.


FOOTNOTES

[1] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 96-98.

[2] Captain John Smith was born in England in 1580. At an early age he was
a soldier in France and in the Netherlands; then after a short stay in
England he set off to fight the Turks. In France he was robbed and left
for dead, but reached Marseilles and joined a party of pilgrims bound to
the Levant. During a violent storm the pilgrims, believing he had caused
it, threw him into the sea. But he swam to an island, and after many
adventures was made a captain in the Venetian army. The Turks captured him
and sold him into slavery, but he killed his master, escaped to a Russian
fortress, made his way through Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco, and
reached England in time to go out with the London Company's colony. His
career in Virginia was as adventurous as in the Old World. While exploring
the Chickahominy River he and his companions were taken by the Indians.
Lest they should kill him at once Smith showed them a pocket compass with
its quivering needle always pointing north. They could see, but could not
touch it because of the glass. Supposing him a wizard, they took him to
the Powhatan. According to Smith's account two stones were brought and
Smith's head laid upon them, while warriors, club in hand, stood near by
to beat out his brains. But suddenly the chief's little daughter,
Pocahontas, rushed in and laid her head on Smith's to shield him. He was
given his life and sent back to Jamestown.

[3] Smith and Newport visited the old chief at his village of
Werowocomoco, took off the Powhatan's raccoon-skin coat, and put on the
crimson robe. When they told him to kneel, he refused. Two men thereupon
seized him by the shoulders and forced him to bend his knees, and the
crown was clapped on his head. The Powhatan then took off his old
moccasins and sent them, with his raccoon-skin coat, to his royal brother
in London.

[4] They were part of a body of some five hundred in nine ships which left
England in June. On the way over a storm scattered the fleet; one ship was
lost, and another bearing the leaders of the expedition was wrecked on the
Bermudas. The shipwrecked colonists spent ten months building two little
vessels, in which they reached Jamestown in May, 1610.

[5] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 152-155.

[6] The governor, the council, and the House of Burgesses constituted the
General Assembly. Any act of the Assembly might be vetoed by the governor,
and no law was valid till approved by the "general court" of the company
at London. Neither was any law made by the company for the colony valid
till approved by the Assembly. After 1660 the House of Burgesses consisted
of two delegates from each county, with one from Jamestown.

[7] For some years to come the slaves increased in numbers very slowly. So
late as 1671, when the population of Virginia was 40,000, there were but
2000 slaves, while the bond servants numbered 6000. Some of these
indentured servants, as they were called, were persons guilty of crime in
England, who were sent over to Virginia and sold for a term of years as a
punishment. Others--the "redemptioners"--were men who, in order to pay for
their passage to Virginia, agreed to serve the owner or the captain of the
ship for a certain time. On reaching Virginia the captain could sell them
to the planters for the time specified; at the end of the time they became
freemen.

[8] That is, the unoccupied land became royal domain again, and the king
appointed the governors and controlled the colony through a committee of
his privy council. One unhappy result of the downfall of the London
Company was the defeat of a plan for establishing schools in Virginia. As
early as 1621 some funds were raised for "a public free school," in
Charles City. A tract of land was also set apart in the city of Henricus
for a college, and a rector, or president, was sent out to start it. But
he was killed by the Indians in 1622, and before the company had found a
successor the charter was destroyed. Virginia's first college--William and
Mary--was established at Williamsburg in 1693.

[9] Read the description of early Virginia in J. E. Cooke's _Virginia_
(American Commonwealths Series), pp. 141-157; or _Stories of the Old
Dominion_; or Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 223-
232.

[10] Jamestown was long the chief town of Virginia; but in its best days
the houses did not number more than 75 or 80, and the population was not
more than 250. In 1676 the church, the House of Burgesses, and the
dwellings were burned during Bacon's Rebellion (p. 95). In 1679 the
Burgesses ordered Jamestown "to be rebuilt and to be the metropolis of
Virginia"; but in 1698 the House of Burgesses was again burned and in 1699
Williamsburg became the seat of government. The ruined church tower (p.
40) is the only structure still standing in Jamestown; but remains of the
ancient graveyard, of a mansion built on the foundations of the old House
of Burgesses, and some foundations of dwellings may also be seen. The site
is cared for by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia
Antiquities.

[11] George Calvert was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, was educated at
Oxford, and went to Parliament in 1604. Becoming a favorite of King James
I, he was knighted in 1617, and two years later was made principal
Secretary of State. He became a Roman Catholic, although Catholics were
then bitterly persecuted in England. Just before the king died, he
resigned office, and received the title of Lord Baltimore, the name
referring to a town in Ireland. Finding all public offices closed to him
because he was a Catholic, Baltimore resolved to seek a home in America.

[12] Baltimore ordered that any colonist who came in the _Ark_ or _Dove_
and brought five men with him should have 2000 acres of land, subject to
an annual rent of 400 pounds of wheat. A settler who came in 1635 could
have the same amount of land if he brought ten men, but had to pay 600
pounds of wheat a year as rent. Plantations of 1000 acres or more were
manors, and the lord of the manor could hold courts.

[13] Claiborne's London partners took possession of Kent Island, and
acknowledged the authority of Baltimore; but after the Civil War broke out
in England, Claiborne joined forces with a half pirate named Ingle, and
recovered the island. For two years Ingle and his crew lorded it over all
Maryland, stealing corn, tobacco, cattle, and household goods. Not till
1646, when Calvert received aid from Virginia, was he able to drive out
Claiborne and Ingle, and recover the province.

[14] The redemptioners, when their time was out and they became freemen,
received a set of tools, clothes, and a year's provisions from their
former masters, and fifty acres from the proprietor of the colony.

[15] On such looms skilled servants wove much of the cloth used on the
plantation. Similar looms were used in all the colonies.




CHAPTER V

THE ENGLISH IN NEW ENGLAND


NEW ENGLAND NAMED.--While the London Company was planting its colony on
the James River, the Plymouth Company sought to retrieve its failure on
the Kennebec (p. 39). In 1614 Captain John Smith, who had returned to
England from Jamestown, was sent over with two ships to explore. He made a
map of the coast from Maine to Cape Cod, [1] and called the country New
England. The next year Smith led out a colony; but a French fleet took him
prisoner, no settlement was made, and five years passed before the first
permanent English colony was planted in the Plymouth Company's grant--by
the Separatists.

[Illustration: SMITH'S MAP OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.]

THE SEPARATISTS.--To understand who these people were, it must be
remembered that during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Protestant
Episcopal Church was the Established Church of England, and that severe
laws were passed to force all the people to attend its services. But a
sect arose which wished to "purify" the church by abolishing certain forms
and ceremonies. These people were called Puritans, [2] and were divided
into two sects:

1. Those Puritans who wished to purify the Church of England while they
remained members of it.

2. The Independents, or Separatists, who wished to separate from that
church and worship God in their own way.

The Separatists were cruelly persecuted during Queen Elizabeth's reign,
and afterward. One band of them fled to Holland (in 1608), where they
found peace; but time passed and it became necessary for them to decide
whether they should stay in Holland and become Dutch, or find a home in
some land where they might continue to remain Englishmen. They decided to
leave Holland, formed a company, and finally obtained leave from the
London Company to settle near the mouth of the Delaware River.

[Illustration: BREWSTER'S CHAIR. Now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.]

VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER.--Led by Brewster, Bradford, and Standish, a party
of Pilgrims sailed from Holland in July, 1620, in the ship _Speedwell_;
were joined in England by a party from London in the _Mayflower_; and in
August both vessels put to sea. But the _Speedwell_ proved unseaworthy,
and all put back to Plymouth in England, where some gave up the voyage.
One hundred and two held fast to their purpose, and in September set sail
in the _Mayflower_. The voyage was long and stormy, and November came
before they sighted a sandy coast far to the northeastward of the
Delaware. For a while they strove hard to go southward; but adverse winds
drove them back, and they dropped anchor in Cape Cod Bay. [3]

THE LANDING.--The land here was within the territory of the Plymouth
Company. The Pilgrims, however, decided to stay and get leave to settle,
but this decision displeased some of them. A meeting, therefore, was held
in the ship's cabin (November 21, 1620), and the "Mayflower compact,"
binding all who signed it to obey such government as might be established,
was drawn up and signed by forty-one of the sixty-five men on the vessel.

This done, the work of choosing a site for their homes began, and for
several weeks little parties explored the coast before one of them entered
a harbor and selected a spot which John Smith had named Plymouth. [4] To
this harbor the _Mayflower_ was brought, and while the men were busy
putting up rude cabins, the women and children remained on the ship.

THE FIRST WINTER was a dreadful one. The Pilgrims lived in crowded
quarters, and the effects of the voyage and the severity of the winter
sent half of them to their graves before spring. But the rest never
faltered, and when the _Mayflower_ returned to England in April, not
one of the colonists went back in her. By the end of the first summer a
fort had been built on a hill, seven houses had been erected along a
village street leading down from the fort to the harbor, six and twenty
acres had been cleared, and a bountiful harvest had been gathered. Other
Pilgrims came over, the neighboring Indians kept the peace, and the colony
was soon prosperous.

[Illustration: SITE OF THE FORT AT PLYMOUTH. In the old "burying ground."]

PLYMOUTH, OR THE OLD COLONY.--As soon as the colony was planted, steps
were taken to buy the land on which it stood. The old Plymouth Company
(pp. 38, 39), organized in 1606, was succeeded in 1620 by a new
corporation called the Council for New England, which received a grant of
all the land in America between 40° and 48° of north latitude. From this
Council for New England, therefore, the Pilgrims bought as much land as
they needed. The king, however, refused to give them a charter, so the
people of Plymouth, or the Old Colony as it came to be called, managed
their own affairs in their own way for seventy years. At first the men
assembled in town meeting, made laws, and elected officers. But when the
growth of the colony made such meetings unwieldy, representative
government was set up, and each settlement sent two delegates to an
assembly.

[Illustration: GRAVE OF MILES STANDISH, near Plymouth.]

THE SALEM COLONY.--Shortly after 1620, attempts were made to plant other
colonies in New England. [5] Most of them failed, but some of the
colonists made a settlement called Naumkeag. Among those who watched these
attempts with great interest was John White, a Puritan rector in England.
He believed that the time had come for the Puritans to do what the
Separatists had done. The quarrel between the king and the Puritans was
then becoming serious, and the time seemed at hand when men who wished to
worship God according to their conscience would have to seek a home in
America. White accordingly began to urge the planting of a Puritan colony
in New England. So well did he succeed that an association was formed, a
great tract of land was obtained from the Council for New England, and in
1628 sixty men, led by John Endicott, settled at Naumkeag and changed its
name to Salem, which means "peace."

THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY.--The members of the association next secured
from King Charles I a charter which made them a corporation, called this
corporation The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England,
and gave it the right to govern colonies planted on its lands. More
settlers with a great herd of cattle were now hurried to Salem, which thus
became the largest colony in New England.

[Illustration: THE EARLY NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.]

THE GREAT PURITAN MIGRATION.--The same year (1629) that the charter was
obtained, twelve leading Puritans signed an agreement to head an
emigration to Massachusetts, provided the charter and government of the
company were removed to New England. One of the signers was John Winthrop,
and by him in 1630 nearly a thousand Puritans were led to Salem. Thence
they soon removed to a little three-hilled peninsula where they founded
the town of Boston. More emigrants followed, and before the end of 1630
seventeen ships with nearly fifteen hundred Puritans reached
Massachusetts. They settled at Boston, Charlestown, Roxbury, Dorchester,
Watertown, and Cambridge.

The charter was brought with them, the meetings of the company were now
held in the colony, and so many of the colonists became members of the
company that Massachusetts was practically self-governing. Before long a
representative government was established in the colony, each town
electing members of a legislature called the General Court. Every town
also had its local government carried on by town meetings; but only church
members were allowed to vote.

MAINE AND NEW HAMPSHIRE.--About two years after the founding of Plymouth,
the Council for New England granted to John Mason and Sir Ferdinando
Gorges (gor'jess) a large tract of land between the rivers Merrimac and
Kennebec. In it two settlements (now known as Portsmouth and Dover) were
planted (1623) on the Piscat'aqua River, and some fishing stations on the
coast farther north.

In 1629 the province was divided. Mason obtained a patent (or deed) for
the country between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, and named it New
Hampshire. Gorges received the country between the Piscataqua and the
Kennebec, which was called Maine.

[Illustration: ENGLISH ARMOR. Now in Essex Hall, Salem.]

UNION WITH MASSACHUSETTS.--The towns on the Piscataqua were small fishing
and fur-trading stations, and after Mason died (1635) they were left to
look out for themselves. With two other New Hampshire towns (Exeter and
Hampton) they became almost independent republics. They set up their own
governments, made their own laws, and owed allegiance to nobody save the
king. Massachusetts, however, claimed as her north boundary an east and
west line three miles north of the source of the Merrimac River. [6] She
therefore soon annexed the four New Hampshire towns, and gave them
representation in her legislature.

If the claim of Massachusetts was valid in the case of the New Hampshire
towns, it was equally so for those of Maine. But it was not till 1652,
after Gorges was dead and the settlers in Maine (at York, Wells, and
Kittery) had set up a government of their own, that these towns were
brought under her authority. Later (1677), Massachusetts bought up the
claim of the heirs of Gorges, and came into possession of the whole
province.

[Illustration: ROGER WILLIAMS FLEES TO THE WOODS.]

RHODE ISLAND.--Among those who came to Salem in the early days of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, was a Puritan minister named Roger Williams. [7]
But he had not been long in the colony when he said things which angered
the rulers. He held that all religions should be tolerated; that all laws
requiring attendance at church should be repealed; that the land belonged
to the Indians and not to the king; and that the settlers ought to buy it
from the Indians and not from the king. For these and other sayings
Williams was ordered back to England. But he fled to the woods, lived with
the Indians for a winter, and in the following summer founded Providence
(1636). [8]

And now another disturber appeared in Boston in the person of Anne
Hutchinson, [9] and in a little while she and her followers were driven
away. Some of them went to New Hampshire and founded Exeter (p. 60), while
others with Anne herself went to Rhode Island in Narragansett Bay, and
founded Portsmouth and Newport.

For a time each of the little towns, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport,
arranged its own affairs in its own way, but in 1643 Williams obtained
from the English Parliament a charter which united them under the name of
The Incorporation of Providence Plantations on the Narragansett Bay in New
England.

CONNECTICUT FOUNDED.--Religious troubles did not end with the banishment
of Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Many persons objected to the law
forbidding any but church members to vote or hold office. So in 1635 and
1636 numbers of people, led by Thomas Hooker and others, went out (from
Dorchester, Watertown, and Cambridge) and founded Windsor, Wethersfield,
and Hartford in the Connecticut River valley. Later a party (from Roxbury)
settled at Springfield. For a while these four towns were part of
Massachusetts. But in 1639 Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield adopted a
constitution [10] and founded a republic which they called Connecticut.

THE NEW HAVEN COLONY.--As the quarrel between the Puritans and the king
was by this time very bitter, the Puritans continued to come to New
England in large numbers. Some of them made settlements on Long Island
Sound. A large band under John Davenport founded New Haven (1638). Next
(in 1639) Milford and Guilford were started, and then (in 1640) Stamford.
In 1643 the four towns joined in a sort of union and took the name New
Haven Colony.

[Illustration: PURITAN DRESS.]

THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND.--Thus there were planted in New
England between 1620 and 1643 five distinct colonies, [11] namely: (1)
Plymouth, or the Old Colony, (2) Massachusetts Bay Colony, (3) Rhode
Island, or Providence Plantations, (4) Connecticut, and (5) the New Haven
Colony.

In 1643 four of them--Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven
--united for defense against the Indians and the Dutch, [12] and called
their league "The United Colonies of New England." This confederation
maintained a successful existence for forty-one years.

EFFECT OF THE CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND.--When the New England confederation
was formed, the king and the Puritans in old England had come to blows,
and civil war was raging there. During the next twenty years no more
English colonies were planted in America. War at once stopped the stream
of emigrants. The Puritans in England remained to fight the king, and
numbers went back from New England to join the Parliamentary army. For the
next fifteen years population in New England increased slowly.

TRADE AND COMMERCE.--Life in the New England colonies was very unlike that
in Virginia. People dwelt in villages, cultivated small farms, and were
largely engaged in trade and commerce. They bartered corn and peas, woolen
cloth, and wampum with the Indians for beaver skins, which they sent to
England to pay for articles bought from the mother country. They salted
cod, dried alewives and bass, made boards and staves for hogsheads, and
sent all these to the West Indies to be exchanged for sugar, molasses, and
other products of the tropics. They built ships in the seaports where
lumber was cheap, and sold them abroad. They traded with Spain and
Portugal, England, the Netherlands, and Virginia.

[Illustration: STONE HAND MILL. Brought from England in 1630 and used for
grinding flour. Now in Essex Hall, Salem, Mass.]

SCARCITY OF MONEY.--The colonists brought little money with them, and much
of what they brought went back to England to pay for supplies. Buying and
trading in New England, therefore, had to be done largely without gold or
silver. Beaver skins and wampum, bushels of corn, produce, cattle, and
even bullets were used as money and passed at rates fixed by law. [13] In
the hope of remedying the scarcity of money, the government of
Massachusetts ordered that a mint should be set up, and in 1652 Spanish
silver brought from the West Indies was melted and coined into Pine Tree
currency. [14]

[Illustration: SPINNING WOOL.]

MANUFACTURES.--That less gold and silver might go abroad for supplies,
home manufactures were encouraged by gifts of money, by exemptions of
property from taxation, and by excusing workmen from military duty. The
cultivation of flax was encouraged, children were taught to spin and
weave, and glass works, salt works, and iron furnaces were started.

[Illustration: YARN REEL. [15] In Essex Hall, Salem, Mass.]

On the farms utensils and furniture were generally made in the household.
Almost everything was made of wood, as spoons, tankards, pails, firkins,
hinges for cupboard and closet doors, latches, plows, and harrows. Every
boy learned to use his jack-knife, and could make brooms from birch trees,
bowls and dippers and bottles from gourds, and butter paddles from red
cherry. The women made soap and candles, carded wool, spun, wove, bleached
or dyed the linen and woolen cloth, and made the garments for the family.
They knit mittens and stockings, made straw hats and baskets, and plucked
the feathers from live geese for beds and pillows.

THE HOUSES.--On the farms the houses of the early settlers were of logs,
or were framed structures covered with shingles or clapboards. The tables,
chairs, stools, and bedsteads were of the plainest sort, and were often
made of puncheons, that is, of small tree trunks split in half. Sometimes
the table would be a long board laid across two X supports. This was "the
board," around which the family sat at meals. [16] In the better houses in
the towns the furniture was of course very much finer.

THE VILLAGES.--The center of village life was the meetinghouse, or church.
Near by was the house of the minister, the inn or tavern, and the
dwellings of the inhabitants. In early times, if the village was on the
frontier or exposed to Indian attack it was guarded by blockhouses
surrounded by a high stockade. These "garrison houses," as they were
called, were of stone or logs, with the second story projecting over the
first, and had loopholes in place of windows. Most of them have long since
disappeared, but a few still remain, turned into dwellings. Sometimes
there were three or more blockhouses in a village, and to these when the
Indians were troublesome the farmers and their families came each night to
sleep.

SCHOOLS.-Among the acts passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in
early days were several in regard to education. In 1636 four hundred
pounds [17] was voted for a public school. Two years later, John Harvard,
a former minister, left his library and half his fortune to this school,
and in grateful remembrance it was called Harvard College. Thus started,
the good work went on. Parents and masters were by law compelled to teach
their children and apprentices to read English, know the important laws,
and repeat the orthodox catechism. Another law required every town of
fifty families to maintain a school for at least six months a year, and
every town of two hundred householders a primary and a grammar school,
wherein Latin should be taught.

[Illustration: FAIRBANKS HOUSE, NEAR BOSTON. As it looks to-day. Built
partly in 1650.]

PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS.--Though the Puritans suffered persecution in
the Old World, they had not learned to be tolerant. As we have seen, no
man could vote in Massachusetts who was not a member of their church. They
drove out Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, and again and again, in
later times, banished, or fined, imprisoned, and flogged men and women who
wished to worship God in their own way. When two Quaker women arrived
(1656), they were sent away and a sharp law was made against their sect.
[18] But in spite of all persecution, the Quakers kept coming. At last (in
1659-61) three men and a woman were hanged on Boston Common because they
returned after having once been banished. Plymouth and Connecticut also
enacted laws against the Quakers. [19]

CONNECTICUT CHARTERED (1662).--By this time the days of Puritan rule in
old England were over. In 1660 King Charles II was placed upon the throne
of his father. Connecticut promptly acknowledged him as king, and sent her
governor, the younger John Winthrop, to London to obtain a charter. He
easily secured one (in 1662) which spread the authority of Connecticut
over the New Haven Colony, [20] gave her a domain stretching across the
continent to the Pacific, and established a government so liberal that the
charter was kept in force till 1818. New Haven Colony for a time resisted;
but one by one the towns which formed the colony acknowledged the
authority of Connecticut.

THE SECOND CHARTER OF RHODE ISLAND.--Rhode Island, likewise, proclaimed
the king and sought a new charter. When obtained (in 1663), it defined her
boundaries, and provided for a form of government quite as liberal as that
of Connecticut. It remained in force one hundred and seventy-nine years.

THE NEW COLONIAL ERA.--From 1640 to 1660 the English colonies in America
had been left much to themselves. No new colonies had been founded, and
the old ones had managed their own affairs in their own way. But with
Charles II a new era opens. Several new colonies were soon established;
and though Rhode Island and Connecticut received liberal charters, all the
colonies were soon to feel the king's control. As we shall see later,
Massachusetts was deprived of her charter; but after a few years she
received a new one (1691), which united the Plymouth Colony,
Massachusetts, and Maine in the one colony of Massachusetts Bay. New
Hampshire, however, was made a separate royal province.


SUMMARY

1. In 1620 a body of Separatists reached Cape Cod and founded Plymouth,
the first English settlement north of Virginia.

2. Two years later the Council for New England granted land to Gorges and
Mason, from which grew Maine and New Hampshire.

3. Between 1628 and 1630 a great Puritan migration established the colony
of Massachusetts Bay, which later absorbed Maine and New Hampshire.

4. Religious disputes led to the expulsion of Roger Williams and Anne
Hutchinson from Massachusetts. They founded towns later united (1643) as
Providence Plantations (Rhode Island).

5. Other religious disputes led to the migration of people who settled
(1635-36) in the Connecticut valley and founded (1639) Connecticut.

6. Between 1638 and 1640 other towns were planted on Long Island Sound,
and four of them united (1643) and formed the New Haven Colony.

7. Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven joined in a league
--the United Colonies of New England (1643-84).

8. New Haven was united with Connecticut (1662), and Plymouth with
Massachusetts (1691), while New Hampshire was made a separate province; so
that after 1691 the New England colonies were New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

9. The New England colonists lived largely in villages. They were engaged
in farming, manufacturing, and commerce.

10. For twenty years, during the Civil War and the Puritan rule in
England, the colonies were left to themselves; but in 1660 Charles II
became king of England, and a new era began in colonial affairs.

[Illustration: THE CHARTER OAK, HARTFORD, CONN. From an old print.]


FOOTNOTES

[1] On his map Smith gave to Cape Ann, Cape Elizabeth, Charles River, and
Plymouth the names they still retain. Cape Cod he called Cape James.

[2] The Puritans were important in history for many years. Most of the
English people who quarreled and fought with King James and King Charles
were Puritans. In Maryland it was a Puritan army that for a time overthrew
Lord Baltimore's government (p. 52).

[3] Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 79-82.

[4] The little boat or shallop in which they intended to sail along the
coast needed to be repaired, and two weeks passed before it was ready.
Meantime a party protected by steel caps and corselets went ashore to
explore the country. A few Indians were seen in the distance, but they
fled as the Pilgrims approached. In the ruins of a hut were found some
corn and an iron kettle that had once belonged to a European ship. The
corn they carried away in the kettle, to use as seed in the spring. Other
exploring parties, after trips in the shallop, pushed on over hills and
through valleys covered deep with snow, and found more deserted houses,
corn, and many graves; for a pestilence had lately swept off the Indian
population. On the last exploring voyage, the waves ran so high that the
rudder was carried away and the explorers steered with an oar. As night
came on, all sail was spread in hope of reaching shore before dark, but
the mast broke and the sail went overboard. However, they floated to an
island where they landed and spent the night. On the second day after,
Monday, December 21, the explorers reached the mainland. On the beach,
half in sand and half in water, was a large bowlder, and on this famous
Plymouth Rock, it is said, the men stepped as they went ashore.

[5] As to the early settlements read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_,
pp. 90-95.

[6] The Massachusetts charter granted the land from within three miles
south of the Charles River, to within three miles north of the Merrimac
River, and all lands "of and within the breadth aforesaid" across the
continent.

[7] Roger Williams was a Welshman, had been educated at Cambridge
University in England, and had some reputation as a preacher before coming
to Boston. There he was welcomed as "a godly minister," and in time was
called to a church in Salem; but was soon forced out by the General Court.
He then went to Plymouth, where he made the friendship of Mas'sasoit,
chief of the Wam-pano'ags, and of Canon'icus, chief of the Narragansetts,
and learned their language. In 1633 he returned to Salem, and was again
made pastor of a church.

[8] The fate of John Endicott shows to what a result Williams's teaching
was supposed to lead. The flag of the Salem militia bore the red cross of
St. George. Endicott regarded it as a symbol of popery, and one day
publicly cut out the cross from the flag. This was thought a defiance of
royal authority, and Endicott was declared incapable of holding office for
a year.

[9] Anne Hutchinson held certain religious views on which she lectured to
the women of Boston, and made so many converts that she split the church.
Governor Vane favored her, but John Winthrop opposed her teachings, and
when he became governor again she and her followers were ordered to quit
the colony.

[10] The first written constitution made in our country, and the first in
the history of the world that was made by the people, for the people.
Other towns were added later, among them Saybrook, which had grown up
about an English fort built in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut.

[11] Besides New Hampshire, which in 1643 was practically part of
Massachusetts; and Maine, which became so a few years later.

[12] The Dutch, as we shall see in the next chapter, had planted a colony
in the Hudson valley, and disputed English possession of the Connecticut.

[13] Students at Harvard College for many years paid their term bills with
produce, meat, and live stock. In 1649 a student paid his bill with "an
old cow," and the steward of the college made separate credits for her
hide, her "suet and inwards." On another occasion a goat was taken and
valued at 30 shillings. Taxes also were paid in corn and cattle.

[14] The coins were the shilling, sixpence, threepence, and twopence. On
one side of each coin was stamped a rude representation of a pine tree.

[15] On which the yarn was wound after it was spun. For a picture of the
loom used in weaving, see p. 52.

[16] On the board were a saltcellar, wooden plates or trenchers, wooden or
pewter spoons, and knives, but no china, no glass. Forks, it is said, were
not known even in England till 1608, and the first ever seen in New
England were at Governor Winthrop's table in 1632. Those who wished a
drink of water drank from a single wooden tankard passed around the table;
or they went to the bucket and used a gourd.

[17] This was a large sum in those days, and about as much as was raised
by taxation in a year. The General Court which voted the money, it has
been said, was "the first body in which the people, by their
representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education."

[18] The Friends, or Quakers, lived pure, upright, simple lives. They
protested against all forms and ceremonies, and against all church
government. They refused to take any oaths, to use any titles, or to serve
in war, because they thought these things wrong. They were much persecuted
in England.

[19] Another incident which gives us an insight into the character of
these early times is the witchcraft delusion of 1692. Nearly everybody in
those days believed in witchcraft, and several persons in the colonies had
been put to death as witches. When, therefore, in 1692, the children of a
Salem minister began to behave queerly and said that an Indian slave woman
had bewitched them, they were believed. But the delusion did not stop with
the children. In a few weeks scores of people in Salem were accusing their
neighbors of all sorts of crimes and witch orgies. Many declared that the
witches stuck pins into them. Twenty persons were put to death as witches
before the craze came to an end.

[20] The New Haven Colony was destroyed as a distinct colony because its
people offended the king by sheltering Edward Whalley and William Goffe,
two of the regicides, or judges who sat in the tribunal that condemned
Charles I. When they fled to New England in 1660, a royal order for their
arrest was sent over after them, and a hot pursuit began. For a month they
lived in a cave, at other times in cellars in Milford, Guilford, and New
Haven; and once they hid under a bridge while their pursuers galloped past
overhead. After hiding in these ways about New Haven for three years they
went to Hadley in Massachusetts, where all trace of them disappears.




CHAPTER VI

THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES


THE COMING OF THE DUTCH.--We have now seen how English colonies were
planted in the lands about Chesapeake Bay, and in New England. Into the
country lying between, there came in 1609 an intruder in the form of a
little Dutch ship called the _Half-Moon_. The Dutch East India Company had
fitted her out and sent Captain Henry Hudson in her to seek a
northeasterly passage to China. Driven back by ice in his attempt to sail
north of Europe, Hudson turned westward, and came at last to Delaware Bay.
Up this the _Half-Moon_ went a little way, but, grounding on the
shoals, Hudson turned about, followed the coast northward, and sailed up
the river now called by his name. He went as far as the site of Albany;
then, finding that the Hudson was not a passage through the continent, he
returned to Europe. [1]

[Illustration: LANDING OF HUDSON. From an old print.]

DISCOVERIES OF BLOCK AND MAY.--The discovery of the Hudson gave Holland or
the Netherlands a claim to the country it drained, and year after year
Dutch explorers visited the region. One of them, Adrien Block, (in 1614)
went through Long Island Sound, ascended the Connecticut River as far as
the site of Hartford, and sailed along the coast to a point beyond Cape
Cod; Block Island now bears his name. Another, May, went southward, passed
between two capes, [2] and explored Delaware Bay. The Dutch then claimed
the country from the Delaware to Cape Cod; that is, as far as May and
Block had explored.

[Illustration: NEW NETHERLAND.]

THE FUR TRADE.--Important as these discoveries were, they interested the
Dutch far less than the prospect of a rich fur trade with the Indians, and
in a few years Dutch traders had four little houses on Manhattan Island,
and a little fort not far from the site of Albany. From it buyers went out
among the Mohawk Indians and returned laden with the skins of beavers and
other valuable furs; and to the fort by and by the Indians came to trade.
So valuable was this traffic that those engaged in it formed a company,
obtained from the Dutch government a charter, and for three years (1615-
18) enjoyed a monopoly of the fur trade from the Delaware to the Hudson.

THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY.--When the three years expired the charter
was not renewed; but a new association called the Dutch West India Company
was chartered (1621) and given great political and commercial power over
New Netherland, as the Dutch possessions in North America were now called.
More settlers were sent out (in 1623), some to Fort Orange on the site of
Albany, some to Fort Nassau on the South or Delaware River, some to the
Fresh or Connecticut River, some to Long Island, and some to Manhattan
Island, where they founded the town of New Amsterdam.

[Illustration: DUTCH MERCHANT (1620).]

THE PATROONS.--All the little Dutch settlements were forts or strong
buildings surrounded by palisades, and were centers of the fur trade. Very
little farming was done. In order to encourage farming, the West India
Company (in 1629) offered an immense tract of land to any member of the
company who should take out a colony of fifty families. The estate of a
Patroon, as such a man was called, was to extend sixteen miles along one
bank or eight miles along both banks of a river, and back almost any
distance into the country. [3] A number of these patroonships were
established on the Hudson.

THE DUTCH ON THE CONNECTICUT.--The first attempt (in 1623) of the Dutch to
build a fort on the Connecticut failed; for the company could not spare
enough men to hold the valley. But later the Dutch returned, nailed the
arms of Holland to a tree at the mouth of the river in token of ownership,
and (1633) built Fort Good Hope where Hartford now stands. When the
Indians informed the English of this, the governor of Massachusetts bade
the Dutch begone; and when they would not go, built a fort higher up the
river at Windsor (1633), and another (1635) at Saybrook at the river's
mouth, so as to cut them off from New Amsterdam. The English colony of
Connecticut was now established in the valley; but twenty years passed
before Fort Good Hope was taken from the Dutch.

DUTCH AND SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE.--The Dutch settlers on the Delaware were
driven off by Indians, but a garrison was sent back to hold Fort Nassau.
Meantime the Swedes appeared on the Delaware. After the organization of
the Dutch West India Company (1623), William Usselinex of Amsterdam went
to Sweden and urged the king to charter a similar company of Swedish
merchants. A company to trade with Asia, Africa, and America was
accordingly formed. Some years later Queen Christina chartered the South
Company, and in 1638 a colony was sent out by this company, the west bank
of the Delaware from its mouth to the Schuylkill (skool'kill) was bought
from the Indians, and a fort (Christina) was built on the site of
Wilmington. The Dutch governor at New Amsterdam protested, but for a dozen
years the Swedes remained unmolested, and scattered their settlements
along the shores of Delaware River and Bay, and called their country New
Sweden. Alarmed at this, Governor Peter Stuyvesant (sti've-sant) of New
Netherland built a fort to cut off the Swedes from the sea. But a Swedish
war vessel captured the Dutch fort; whereupon Stuyvesant sailed up the
Delaware with a fleet and army, quietly took possession of New Sweden, and
made it once more Dutch territory (1655).

DUTCH RULE.--The rulers of New Netherland were a director general, or
governor, and five councilmen appointed by the West India Company. One of
these governors, Peter Minuit, bought Manhattan (the island now covered by
a part of New York city) from the Indians (1626) for 60 guilders, or about
$24 of our money. [4]

DEMAND FOR POPULAR GOVERNMENT.--As population increased, the people began
to demand a share in the government; they wished to elect four of the five
councilmen. A long quarrel followed, but Governor Stuyvesant at last
ordered the election of nine men to aid him when necessary. [5]

POPULATION AND CUSTOMS.--Though most of the New Netherlanders were Dutch,
there were among them also Germans, French Huguenots, English, Scotch,
Jews, Swedes, and as many religious sects as nationalities.

The Dutch of New Netherland were a jolly people, much given to bowling and
holidays. They kept New Year's Day, St. Valentine's Day, Easter and
Pinkster (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday the seventh week after Easter), May
Day, St. Nicholas Day (December 6), and Christmas. On Pinkster days the
whole population, negro slaves included, went off to the woods on picnics.
Kirmess, a sort of annual fair for each town, furnished additional
holidays. The people rose at dawn, dined at noon, and supped at six. In no
colony were the people better housed and fed.

[Illustration: DUTCH DOOR AND STOOP.]

THE HOUSES stood with their gable ends to the street, and often a beam
projected from the gable, by means of which heavy articles might be raised
to the attic. The door was divided into an upper and a lower half, and
before it was a spacious stoop with seats, where the family gathered on
warm evenings.

Within the house were huge fireplaces adorned with blue or pink tiles on
which were Bible scenes or texts, a huge moon-faced clock, a Dutch Bible,
spinning wheels, cupboards full of Delft plates and pewter dishes, rush-
bottom chairs, great chests for linen and clothes, and four-posted
bedsteads with curtains, feather beds, and dimity coverlets, and
underneath a trundle-bed for the children. A warming pan was used to take
the chill off the linen sheets on cold nights. In the houses of the
humbler sort the furniture was plainer, and sand on the floors did duty
for carpets.

[Illustration: FOUR-POSTED BED, AND STEPS USED IN GETTING INTO IT. In the
Van Cortland Mansion, New York city.]

TRADE AND COMMERCE.--The chief products of the colony were furs, lumber,
wheat, and flour. The center of the fur trade was Fort Orange, from which
great quantities of beaver and other skins purchased from the Indians were
sent to New Amsterdam; and to this port came vessels from the West Indies,
Portugal, and England, as well as from Holland. There was scarcely any
manufacturing. The commercial spirit of the Dutch overshadowed everything
else, and kept agriculture at a low stage.

THE ENGLISH SEIZE NEW NETHERLAND.--The English, who claimed the continent
from Maine to Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, regarded the
Dutch as intruders. Soon after Charles II came to the throne, he granted
the country from the Delaware to the Connecticut, with Long Island and
some other territory, to his brother James, the Duke of York.

In 1664, accordingly, a fleet was sent to take possession of New
Amsterdam. Stuyvesant called out his troops and made ready to fight. But
the people were tired of the arbitrary rule of the Dutch governors, and
petitioned him to yield. At last he answered, "Well, let it be so, but I
would rather be carried out dead."

NEW YORK.--The Dutch flag was then lowered, and New Netherland passed into
English hands. New Amsterdam was promptly renamed New York; Fort Orange
was called Albany; and the greater part of New Netherland became the
province of New York. [6]

GOVERNMENT OF NEW YORK.--The governor appointed by the Duke of York drew
up a code of laws known later as the Duke's Laws. No provision was made
for a legislature, nor for town meetings, nor for schools. [7] Government
of this sort did not please the English on Long Island and elsewhere.
Demands were at once made for a share in the lawmaking. Some of the people
refused to pay taxes, and some towns to elect officers, and sent strong
protests against taxation without their consent. But nearly twenty years
passed before New York secured a representative legislature. [8]

EDUCATION.--In the schools established by the Dutch, the master was often
the preacher or the sexton of the Dutch church. Many of the Long Island
towns were founded by New Englanders, who long kept up their Puritan
customs and methods of education. But outside of New York city and a few
other large towns, there were no good schools during the early years of
the New York colony.

[Illustration: NEW JERSEY, DELAWARE, AND EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA.]

NEW JERSEY.--Before the Duke of York had possession of his province, he
cut off the piece between the Delaware River and the lower Hudson and gave
it to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley (1664). They named this land
New Jersey, and divided it by the line shown on the map into East and West
Jersey. Lord Berkeley sold his part--West Jersey--to some Quakers, and a
Quaker colony was planted at Burlington. Carteret's portion--East Jersey--
was sold after his death to William Penn [9] and other Quakers, who had
acquired West Jersey also. In 1702, however, the proprietors gave up their
right to govern, and the two colonies were united into the one royal
province of New Jersey.

PENNSYLVANIA.--Penn had joined the Friends, or Quakers, when a very young
man. The part he took in the settlement of New Jersey led him to think of
founding a colony where not only the Quakers, but any others who were
persecuted, might find a refuge, and where he might try a "holy
experiment" in government after his own ideas. The king was therefore
petitioned "for a tract of land in America lying north of Maryland," and
in 1681 Penn received a large block of land, which was named Pennsylvania,
or Penn's Woodland. [10]

[Illustration: CHARLES II AND PENN.]

PHILADELPHIA FOUNDED.--Having received his charter, Penn wrote an account
of his province and circulated it in England, Ireland, Wales, Holland, and
Germany. In the autumn of 1681 three shiploads of colonists were sent
over. Penn himself came the next spring, and made his way to the spot
chosen for the site of Philadelphia. The land belonged to three Swedish
brothers; so Penn bought it, and began the work of marking out the streets
and building houses. Before a year went by, Philadelphia was a town of
eighty houses.

PENN AND THE INDIANS.--In dealing with the Indians the aim of Penn was to
make them friends. Before coming over he sent letters to be read to them..
After his arrival he walked with them, sat with them to watch their young
men dance, joined in their feasts, and, it is said, planned a sort of
court or jury of six whites and six Indians to settle disputes with the
natives. In June, 1683, Penn met the Indians and made a treaty which,
unlike most other treaties, was kept by both parties.

THE GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA.--As proprietor of Pennsylvania it became
the duty of Penn to provide a government for the settlers, which he did in
the _Frame of Government_. This provided for a governor appointed by
the proprietor, a legislature of two houses elected by the people, judges
partly elected by the people, and a vote by ballot. [11] In 1701 Penn
granted a new constitution which kept less power for his governor, and
gave more power and rights to the legislature and the people. This was
called the _Charter of Privileges_, and it remained in force as long
as Pennsylvania was a colony.

THE "TERRITORIES," OR DELAWARE.--Pennsylvania had no frontage on the sea,
and its boundaries were disputed by the neighboring colonies. [12] To
secure an outlet to the sea, Penn applied to the Duke of York for a grant
of the territory on the west bank of the Delaware River to its mouth, and
was granted what is now Delaware. This region was also included in Lord
Baltimore's grant of Maryland, and the dispute over it between the two
proprietors was not settled till 1732, when the present boundary was
agreed upon. Penn intended to add Delaware to Pennsylvania, but the people
of these "territories," or "three lower counties," objected, and in 1703
secured a legislature of their own, though they remained under the
governor of Pennsylvania.

[Illustration: PENN'S RAZOR, CASE, AND HOT WATER TANK. Now in the
possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]

THE PEOPLING OF PENNSYLVANIA.--The toleration and liberality of Penn
proved so attractive to the people of the Old World that emigrants came
over in large numbers. They came not only from England and Wales, but also
from other parts of Europe. In later times thousands of Germans settled in
the middle part of the colony, and many Scotch-Irish (people of Scottish
descent from northern Ireland) on the western frontier and along the
Maryland border.

As a consequence of this great migration Pennsylvania became one of the
most populous of the colonies. It had many flourishing towns, of which
Philadelphia was the largest. This was a fine specimen of a genuine
English town, and was one of the chief cities in English America.

Between the towns lay some of the richest farming regions in America. The
Germans especially were fine farmers, raised great crops, bred fine
horses, and owned farms whose size was the wonder of all travelers. The
laborers were generally indentured servants or redemptioners.

[Illustration: CAROLINA BY THE GRANT OF 1665.]

CAROLINA.--When Charles II became king in 1660, there were only two
southern colonies, Virginia and Maryland. Between the English settlements
in Virginia and the Spanish settlements in Florida was a wide stretch of
unoccupied land, which in 1663 he granted for a new colony called Carolina
in his honor. [13]

Two groups of settlements were planted. One in the north, called the
Albemarle Colony, was of people from Virginia; the other, in the south,
the Carteret Colony, was of people from England, who founded Charleston
(1670). John Locke, a famous English philosopher, at the request of the
proprietors drew up a form of government, [14] but it was opposed by the
colonists and never went into effect. Each colony, however, had its own
governor, who was sent out by the proprietors till 1729, when the
proprietors surrendered their rights to the king. The province of Carolina
was then formally divided into two colonies known as North and South
Carolina.

LIFE IN NORTH CAROLINA.--The people of North Carolina lived on small farms
and owned few slaves. In the towns were a few mechanics and storekeepers,
in whose hands was all the commerce of the colony. They bought and sold
everything, and supplied the farms and small plantations. In the northern
part of the colony tobacco was grown, in the southern part rice and
indigo; and in all parts lumber, tar, pitch, and turpentine were produced.
Herds of cattle and hogs ran wild in the woods, bearing their owner's
brands, to alter which was a crime.

There were no manufactures; all supplies were imported from England or the
other colonies. There were few roads. There were no towns, but little
villages such as Wilmington, Newbern, and Edenton, the largest of which
did not have a population of five hundred souls. As in Virginia, the
courthouses were the centers of social life, and court days the occasion
of social amusements. Education was scanty and poor, and there was no
printing press in the colony for a hundred years after its first
settlement.

Much of the early population of North Carolina consisted of indented
servants, who, having served out their term in Virginia, emigrated to
Carolina, where land was easier to get. Later came Germans from the Rhine
country, Scotch-Irish from the north of Ireland, and (after 1745)
Scotchmen from the Highlands. [15]

SOUTH CAROLINA.--In South Carolina, also, the only important occupation
was planting or farming. Rice, introduced about 1694, was the chief
product, and next in importance was indigo. The plantations, as in
Virginia, were large and lay along the coast and the banks of the rivers,
from which the crops were floated to Charleston, where the planters
generally lived. At Charleston the crops were bought by merchants who
shipped them to the West Indies and to England, whence was brought almost
every manufactured article the people used. Slaves were almost the only
laborers, and formed about half the population. Bond servants were nearly
unknown. Charleston, the one city, was well laid out and adorned with
handsome churches, public buildings, and fine residences of rich merchants
and planters.

[Illustration: CHARLESTON IN EARLY TIMES. From an old print.]

THE PIRATES.--During the early years of the two Carolinas the coast was
infested with pirates, or, as they called themselves, "Brethren of the
Coast." These buccaneers had formerly made their home in the West Indies,
whence they sallied forth to prey on the commerce of the Spanish colonies.
About the time Charleston was founded, Spain and England wished to put
them down. But when the pirates were driven from their old haunts, they
found new ones in the sounds and harbors of Carolina, and preyed on the
commerce of Charleston till the planters turned against them and drove
them off. [16]

GEORGIA CHARTERED.--The thirteenth and last of the English colonies in
North America was chartered in 1732. At that time and long afterward, it
was the custom in England and the colonies to imprison people for debt,
and keep them in jail for life or until the debt was paid. The sufferings
of these people greatly interested James Oglethorpe, a gallant English
soldier, and led him to attempt something for their relief. His plan was
to have them released, provided they would emigrate to America. Others
aided him, and in 1732 a company was incorporated and given the land
between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers from their mouths to their
sources, and thence across the continent to the Pacific. The new colony
was called Georgia, in honor of King George II.

The site of the new colony was chosen in order that Georgia might occupy
and hold some disputed territory, [17] and serve as a "buffer colony" to
protect Charleston from attacks by the Spaniards and the Indians.

[Illustration: SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER.]

THE SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA.--In 1732 Oglethorpe with one hundred and thirty
colonists sailed for Charleston, and after a short stay started south and
founded Savannah (1733). The colony was not settled entirely by released
English debtors. To it in time came people from New England and the
distressed of many lands, including Italians, Germans, and Scottish
Highlanders. Oglethorpe's company controlled Georgia twenty years; but the
colonists chafed under its rule, so that the company finally disbanded and
gave the province back to the king (1752).

Under the proprietors the people were required to manufacture silk, plant
vineyards, and produce oil. But the prosperity of Georgia began under the
royal government, when the colony settled down to the production of rice,
lumber, and indigo. Importation of slaves was forbidden by the
proprietors, but under the royal government it was allowed. The towns were
small, for almost everybody lived on a small farm or plantation.


SUMMARY

1. While the English were planting the Jamestown colony, the Dutch under
Hudson explored the Hudson River (1609), and a few years later the
Dutchmen May and Block explored also Delaware Bay and the Connecticut
River.

2. The Dutch fur trade was profitable, and in 1621 the Dutch West India
Company was placed in control of New Netherland.

3. Settlements were soon attempted and patroonships created; but the chief
industry of New Netherland was the fur trade.

4. In 1638 a Swedish colony, called New Sweden, was planted on the
Delaware; but it was seized by the Dutch (1655).

5. The English by this time had begun to settle in New England. This led
to disputes, and in 1664 New Netherland was seized by the English, arid
became a possession of the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II.

6. Most of the province was called New York; but part of it was cut off
and given to two noblemen, and became the province of New Jersey.

7. In 1663 and 1665 Charles II made some of his friends proprietors of
Carolina, a province later divided into North and South Carolina.

8. In 1681 Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn as a proprietary
colony.

9. In order to obtain the right of access to the sea, Penn secured from
the Duke of York what is now Delaware.

10. The last of the colonies was Georgia, chartered in 1732.

11. Education scanty and poor. No printing presses for one hundred years
after first settlement.

[Illustration: POUNDING CORN.]


FOOTNOTES

[1] Henry Hudson was an English seaman who twice before had made voyages
to the north and northeastward for an English trading company. Stopping in
England on his return from America, Hudson sent a report of his discovery
to the Dutch company and offered to go on another voyage to search for the
northwest passage. He was ordered to come to Amsterdam, but the English
authorities would not let him go. In 1610 he sailed again for the English
and entered Hudson Bay, where during some months his ship was locked in
the ice. The crew mutinied and put Hudson, his son, and seven sick men
adrift in an open boat, and then sailed for England. There the crew were
imprisoned. An expedition was sent in search of Hudson, but no trace of
him was found.

[2] One of these, Cape May, now bears his name; the other, Cape Henlopen,
is called after a town in Holland.

[3] The first patroonship was Swandale, in what is now the state of
Delaware; but the Indians were troublesome, and the estate was abandoned.
The second, granted to Michael Pauw, included Staten Island and much of
what is now Jersey City; it was sold back to the company after a few
years. The most successful patroonship was the Van Rensselaer (ren'se-ler)
estate on the Hudson near Albany. It extended twenty-four miles along both
banks of the river and ran back into the country twenty-four miles from
each bank. The family still occupies a small part of the estate.

[4] New Amsterdam was then a cluster of some thirty one-story log houses
with bark roofs, and two hundred population engaged in the fur trade. The
town at first grew slowly. There were no such persecution and distress in
Holland as in England, and therefore little inducement for men to migrate.
Minuit was succeeded as governor by Van Twiller (1633), and he by Kieft
(1638), during whose term all monopolies of trade were abandoned. The fur
trade, heretofore limited to agents of the company, was opened to the
world, and new inducements were offered to immigrants. Any farmer who
would go to New Netherland was carried free with his family, and was given
a farm, with a house, barn, horses, cows, sheep, swine, and tools, for a
small annual rent.

[5] From these nine men in time came an appeal to the Dutch government to
turn out the company and give the people a government of their own. The
first demand was refused, but the second was partly granted; for in 1653
New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city with a popular government.

[6] Read Fiske's _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_, Vol. I, pp. 286-291. In
1673, England and Holland being at war, a Dutch fleet recaptured New York
and named it New Orange, and held it for a few months. When peace was made
(1674) the city was restored to the English, and Dutch rule in North
America was over forever.

[7] Each town was to elect a constable and eight overseers, with limited
powers. Several towns were grouped into a "riding," over which presided a
sheriff appointed by the governor. In 1683 the ridings became counties,
and in 1703 it was ordered that the people of each town should elect
members of a board of supervisors.

[8] In 1683 Thomas Dongan came out as governor, with authority to call an
assembly to aid in making laws and levying taxes. Seventeen
representatives met in New York, enacted some laws, and framed a Charter
of Franchises and Privileges. The duke signed this as proprietor in 1684;
but revoked it as King James II.

[9] William Penn was the son of Sir William Penn, an admiral in the navy
of the Commonwealth and a friend of Charles II. At Oxford young William
Penn was known as an athlete and a scholar and a linguist, a reputation he
maintained in after life by learning to speak Latin, French, German,
Dutch, and Italian. After becoming a Quaker, he was taken from Oxford and
traveled in France, Italy, and Ireland, where he was imprisoned for
attending a Quaker meeting. The father at first was bitterly opposed to
the religious views of the son, but in the end became reconciled, and on
the death of the admiral (in 1670), William Penn inherited a fortune.
Thenceforth all his time, means, and energy were devoted to the interests
of the Quakers. For a short account of Penn, read Fiske's _Dutch and
Quaker Colonies_, Vol. II, pp. 114-118, 129-130.

[10] Penn intended to call his tract New Wales, but to please the king
changed it to Sylvania, before which the king put the name Penn, in honor
of Penn's father. The king owed Penn's father £16,000, and considered the
debt paid by the land grant.

[11] All laws were to be proposed by the governor and the upper house; but
the lower house might reject any of them. At the first meeting of the
Assembly Penn offered a series of laws called _The Great Law_. These
provided that all religions should be tolerated; that all landholders and
taxpayers might vote and be eligible to membership in the Assembly; that
every child of twelve should be taught some useful trade; and that the
prisons should be made houses of industry and education.

[12] Pennsylvania extended five degrees of longitude west from the
Delaware. The south boundary was to be "a circle drawn at twelve miles'
distance from Newcastle northward and westward unto the beginning of the
fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by a straight line
westward." This was an impossible line, as a circle so drawn would meet
neither the thirty-ninth nor the fortieth parallel. Maryland, moreover,
was to extend "unto that part of Delaware Bay on the north which lieth
under the fortieth degree of north latitude."

Penn held that the words of his grant "beginning of the fortieth degree"
meant the thirty-ninth parallel. The Baltimores denied this and claimed to
the fortieth. The dispute was finally settled by a compromise line which
was partly located (1763-67) by two surveyors, Mason and Dixon. In later
days this Mason and Dixon's line became the boundary between the seaboard
free and slave-holding states. The north boundary of Pennsylvania was to
be "the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude,"
which, according to Penn's argument in the Maryland case, meant the forty-
second parallel, and on this New York insisted.

[13] The grant extended from the 31st to the 36th degree of north
latitude, and from the Atlantic to the South Sea; it was given to eight
noblemen, friends of the king. In 1665 strips were added on the north and
on the south, and Carolina then extended from the parallel of 29 degrees
to that of 36 degrees 30 minutes.

[14] This plan, the _Grand Model_, as it was called, was intended to
introduce a queer sort of nobility or landed aristocracy into America. At
the head of the state was to be a "palatine." Below him in rank were
"proprietaries," "landgraves," "caciques," and the "leetmen" or plain
people. Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. II, pp.
271-276.

[15] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. II, pp.
310-319.

[16] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. II, pp.
361-369.

[17] Ever since the early voyages of discovery Spain had claimed the whole
of North America, and all of South America west of the Line of
Demarcation. But in 1670 Spain, by treaty, acknowledged the right of
England to the territory she then possessed in North America. No
boundaries were mentioned, so the region between St. Augustine and the
Savannah River was left to be contended for in the future. England, in the
charter to the proprietors of Carolina (1665), asserted her claim to the
coast as far south as 29°. But this was absurd; for the parallel of 29°
was south of St. Augustine, where Spain for a hundred years had maintained
a strong fort and settlement. The possessions of England really stopped at
the Savannah River, and sixty-two years passed after the treaty with Spain
(1670) before any colony was planted south of that river.




CHAPTER VII

HOW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED


GROUPS OF COLONIES.--It has long been customary to group the colonies in
two ways--according to their geographical location, and according to their
form of government.

Geographically considered, there were three groups: (1) the Eastern
Colonies, or New England--New Hampshire, Massachusetts (including Plymouth
and Maine), Rhode Island, and Connecticut; (2) the Middle Colonies--New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; and (3) the Southern
Colonies--Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. (Map,
p. 134.)

Politically considered, there were three groups also--the charter, the
royal, and the proprietary. (1) The charter colonies were those whose
organization was described in a charter; namely, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island. (2) The royal colonies were under the
immediate authority of the king and subject to his will and pleasure--New
Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and
Georgia. [1] (3) In the proprietary colonies, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and
Maryland, authority was vested in a proprietor or proprietaries, who owned
the land, appointed the governors, and established the legislatures.

[Illustration: COLONIAL CHAIR. In the possession of the Concord
Antiquarian Society.]

THE FIRST NAVIGATION ACT.--It was from the king that the land grants, the
charters, and the powers of government were obtained, and it was to him
that the colonists owed allegiance. Not till the passage of the Navigation
Acts did Parliament concern itself with the colonies.

The first of these acts, the ordinance of 1651, was intended to cut off
the trade of Holland with the colonies. It provided that none but English
or colonial ships could trade between England and her colonies, or trade
along the coast from port to port, or engage in the foreign trade of the
plantations.

THE SECOND NAVIGATION ACT was passed in 1660. It provided (1) that no
goods should be imported or exported save in English or colonial ships,
and (2) that certain goods [2] should not be sent from the colonies
anywhere except to an English port. A third act, passed in 1663, required
all European goods destined for the colonies to be first landed in
England. The purpose of these acts was to favor English merchants.

THE LORDS OF TRADE.--That the king in person should attend to all the
trade affairs of his colonies was impossible. From a very early time,
therefore, the management of trade matters was intrusted to a committee
appointed by the king, or by Parliament during the Civil War and the
Commonwealth. After the restoration of the monarchy (in 1660) this body
was known first as the Committee for Foreign Plantations, then as the
Lords of Trade, and finally (after 1696) as the Lords of the Board of
Trade and Plantations. It was their duty to correspond with the governors,
make recommendations, enforce the Navigation Acts, examine all colonial
laws and advise the king as to which he should veto or disallow, write the
king's proclamations, listen to complaints of merchants,--in short, attend
to everything concerning the trade and government of the colonies.

THE COLONIAL GOVERNOR.--The most important colonial official was the
governor. In Connecticut and Rhode Island the governor was elected by the
people; in the royal colonies and in Massachusetts (after 1684) he was
appointed by the king, and in the proprietary colonies by the proprietor
with the approval of the king. Each governor appointed by the king
recommended legislation to the assemblies, informed the king as to the
condition of the colony, sent home copies of the laws, and by his veto
prevented the passage of laws injurious to the interests of the crown.
From time to time he received instructions as to what the king wished
done. He was commander of the militia, and could assemble, prorogue
(adjourn), and dismiss the legislature of the colony.

[Illustration: COLONIAL PARLOR (RESTORATION).]

THE COUNCIL.--Associated with the governor in every colony was a Council
of from three to twenty-eight men [3] who acted as a board of advisers to
the governor, usually served as the upper house of the legislature, and
sometimes acted as the highest or supreme court of the colony.

THE LOWER HOUSE of the legislature, or the Assembly,--called by different
names in some colonies, as House of Delegates, or House of Commons,--was
chosen by such of the people as could vote. With the governor and Council
it made the laws, [4] levied the taxes, and appointed certain officers;
but (except in Rhode Island and Connecticut) the laws could be vetoed by
the governor, or disallowed by the king or the proprietor.

There were many disputes between governor and Assembly, each trying to
gain more power and influence in the government. If the governor vetoed
many laws, the Assembly might refuse to vote him any salary. If the
Assembly would not levy taxes and pass laws as requested by the governor,
he might dismiss it and call for the election of a new one.

[Illustration: COLONIAL PEWTER DISHES.]

THE LAWS.--Many of the laws of colonial times seem to us cruel and severe.
A large number of crimes were then punishable with death. For less serious
offenses men and women had letters branded on their foreheads or cheeks or
hands, or sewed on their outer garments in plain sight; or were flogged
through the streets, ducked, stood under the gallows, stood in the
pillory, or put in the stocks. In New England it was an offense to travel
or cook food or walk about the town on the Sabbath day, or to buy any
cloth with lace on it.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT was of three systems: the town (township) in New England;
the county in the Southern Colonies; and in the Middle Colonies a mixture
of both.

TOWN MEETING.--The affairs of a New England town were regulated at town
meeting, to which from time to time the freemen were "warned," or
summoned, by the constable. To be a freeman in Massachusetts and
Connecticut a man had to own a certain amount of property and be a member
of a recognized church. If a newcomer, he had to be formally admitted to
freemanship at a town meeting. These meetings were presided over by a
moderator chosen for the occasion, and at them taxes were levied, laws
enacted, and once a year officers were elected. [5] The principal town
officers were the selectmen who managed the town's affairs between town
meetings, the constables, overseers of the poor, assessors, the town
clerk, and the treasurer.

THE COUNTY.--In the South, where plantations were numerous and where there
were no towns of the New England kind, county government prevailed. The
officers were appointed by the royal governor, formed a board called the
court of quarter sessions, and levied local taxes, made local laws, and as
a court administered justice.

In the Middle Colonies there were both town and county governments. In New
York, each town (after 1703) elected a supervisor, and county affairs were
managed by a board consisting of the supervisors of all the towns in the
county. In Pennsylvania the county officers were elected by the voters of
the whole county.

NO REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT.--The colonies sent no representatives to
Parliament. In certain matters that body legislated for the colonies, as
in the case of the Navigation Acts. But unless expressly stated in the
act, no law of Parliament applied to the colonies. Having no
representation in Parliament, the colonies often sent special agents to
London to look after their affairs, and in later times kept agents there
regularly, one man acting for several colonies. [6]

A UNION OF THE COLONIES.--The idea of uniting the colonies for purposes of
general welfare and common defense was proposed very early in their
history. In 1697 Penn suggested a congress of delegates from each colony.
A little later Robert Livingston of New York urged the grouping of the
colonies into three provinces, from each of which delegates should be sent
to Albany to consider measures for defense. As yet, however, the colonies
were not ready for anything of this sort.

THE CHARTERS ATTACKED.--The king, on the other hand, had attempted to
unite some of the colonies in a very different way--by destroying the
charters of the northern colonies and putting them under one governor. The
first attack was made by King Charles II, on Massachusetts, and after a
long struggle her charter (p. 58) was taken away by the English courts in
1684. The charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were next annulled, and
King James II [7] sent over Edmund Andros as governor of New England.

CONNECTICUT SAVES HER CHARTER.--Andros reached Boston in 1686, and assumed
the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. [8] He next ordered
Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to submit and accept annexation.
Plymouth and Rhode Island did so, but Connecticut resisted. Andros
therefore came to Hartford (1687), dissolved the colonial government, and
demanded the Connecticut charter. Tradition says that the Assembly met
him, and debated the question till dusk; candles were then lighted and the
charter brought in and laid on the table; this done, the candles were
suddenly blown out, and when they were relighted, the charter could not be
found; Captain Wadsworth of Hartford had carried it off and hidden it in
an oak tree thereafter known as the Charter Oak.

But Andros ruled Connecticut, and in the following year New York and East
and West Jersey also were placed under his authority. Andros thus became
ruler of all the provinces lying north and east of the Delaware River. [9]
His rule was tyrannical: he abolished the legislatures, and with the aid
of appointed councilmen he made laws and levied taxes as he pleased.

THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1689.--In 1689 King James II was driven from his
throne, William and Mary became king and queen of England, and war broke
out with France. News of these events caused an upheaval in the colonies.
The people in Boston promptly seized Andros and put him in jail;
Connecticut and Rhode Island resumed their charter governments; the
Protestants in Maryland overthrew the government of the proprietor and set
up a new one in the name of William and Mary [10]; and in New York Leisler
raised a rebellion.

MASSACHUSETTS RECHARTERED.--Massachusetts sent agents to London to ask for
the restoration of her old charter; but instead William granted a new
charter in 1691, which provided that the governor should be appointed by
the king. Plymouth and Maine were united with Massachusetts, but New
Hampshire was made a separate royal colony. The charters of Rhode Island
and Connecticut were confirmed, so that they continued to elect their own
governors.

[Illustration: THE FORT AT NEW YORK.]

LEISLER'S REBELLION.--Andros had ruled New York through a deputy named
Nicholson, who tried to remain in control. A rich merchant named Jacob
Leisler denied the right of Nicholson to act, refused to pay duty on some
wine he had imported, and, aided by the people, seized the fort and set up
a temporary government. A convention was then called, a committee of
safety appointed, and Leisler was made commander in chief. Later he
assumed the office of lieutenant governor. When King William heard of
these things, he appointed a new governor, and early in 1691 three ships
with some soldiers reached New York. Leisler at first refused to give up
the fort; but was soon forced to surrender, and was finally hanged for
rebellion. [11]

BACON'S REBELLION.--Massachusetts and New York were not the first colonies
in which bad government led to uprisings against a royal governor. In
Virginia, during the reign of Charles II, the rule of Governor Berkeley
was selfish and tyrannical. In 1676 the planters on the frontier asked for
protection against Indian attacks, but the governor, who was engaged in
Indian trade, refused to send soldiers; and when Nathaniel Bacon led a
force of planters against the Indians, Berkeley declared him a rebel,
raised a force of men, and marched after him. While Berkeley was away, the
people in Jamestown rose and demanded a new Assembly and certain reforms.
Berkeley yielded to the demands, and was also compelled to give Bacon a
commission to fight the Indians; but when Bacon was well on his way,
Berkeley again proclaimed him a rebel, and fled from Jamestown.

Bacon, supported by most of the people, now seized the government and sent
a force to capture Berkeley. The governor and his followers defeated this
force and occupied Jamestown. Bacon, who was again on the frontier,
returned, drove Berkeley away, burned Jamestown lest it should be again
occupied, and a month later died. The popular uprising then subsided
rapidly, and when the king's forces arrived (1677) to restore order,
Berkeley was in control. [12]

GROWTH OF POPULATION.--During the century which followed the restoration
of monarchy (1660) the colonies grew not only in number but also in
population and in wealth. In 1660 there were probably 200,000 people in
the English colonies; by 1760 there were nearly 2,000,000--all east of the
Appalachian watershed. The three great centers were Virginia,
Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Sparse as the population seems to us,
the great march across the continent had begun. [13]

CITIES AND TOWNS.--The century (1660-1760) had seen the rise of but one
real city in the South--Charleston. Annapolis was a village, Baltimore a
hamlet of a hundred souls, Williamsburg and Norfolk were but towns, and no
place in North Carolina was more than a country village. Philadelphia,
which did not exist in 1660, had become a place of 16,000 people in 1760,
neat, well-built, and prosperous. Near by was German town, and further
west Lancaster, the largest inland town in all the colonies. Between
Philadelphia and New York there were no places larger than small villages.
New York had a population of some 12,000 souls; Boston, the chief city in
the colonies, some 20,000; and in New England were several other towns of
importance.

LIFE IN THE CITIES.--In the cities and large towns from Boston to
Charleston in 1760 were many fine houses. Every family of wealth had
costly furniture, plenty of silver, china, glass, and tapestry, and every
comfort that money could then buy. The men wore broadcloth, lace ruffles,
silk stockings, and silver shoe buckles, powdered their hair, and carried
swords. The women dressed more elaborately in silks and brocades, and wore
towering head-dresses and ostrich plumes. Shopkeepers wore homespun,
workingmen and mechanics leather aprons.

[Illustration: COLONIAL SIDEBOARD, WITH KNIFE CASES, CANDLESTICK,
PITCHERS, AND DECANTER. In the possession of the Concord Antiquarian
Society.]

THINGS NOT IN USE IN 1660.--Should we make a list of what are to us the
everyday conveniences of life and strike from the list the things not
known in 1660, very few would remain. A business man in one of our large
cities, let us suppose, sets off for his place of business on a rainy day.
He puts on a pair of rubbers, takes an umbrella, buys a morning newspaper,
boards a trolley car, and when his place of business is reached, is
carried by an elevator to his office floor, and enters a steam-heated,
electric-lighted room. In 1660 and for many years after, there was not in
any of the colonies a pair of rubbers, an umbrella, a trolley car, a
morning newspaper, an elevator, a steam-heated room, [14] an electric
light.

[Illustration: COLONIAL FOOT STOVE.]

The man of business sits down in a revolving chair before a rolltop desk.
In front of him are steel pens, India rubber eraser, blotting paper,
rubber bands, a telephone. He takes up a bundle of typewritten letters,
dictates answers to a stenographer, sends a telegram to some one a
thousand miles away, and before returning home has received an answer. In
1660 there was not in all the land a stenographer, or any of the articles
mentioned; no telephone, no telegraph, not even a post office.

TRAVEL AND COMMUNICATION.--If business calls him from home, he travels in
comfort in a steamboat or a railway car, and goes farther in one hour than
in 1660 he could have gone in two days, for at that time there was not a
steamboat, nor a railroad, nor even a stagecoach, in North America. Men
went from one colony to another by sailing vessel; overland they traveled
on horseback; and if a wife went with her husband, she rode behind him on
a pillion. The produce of the farms was drawn to the village market by ox
teams.

[Illustration: TRAVELING IN 1660.]

NEWSPAPERS AND PRINTING.--In 1660 no newspaper or magazine of any sort was
published in the colonies. The first printing press in English America was
set up at Cambridge in 1630, and was long the only one. The first
newspaper in our country was the _Boston News Letter_, printed in 1704,
and there was none in Pennsylvania till 1719, and none south of the
Potomac till 1732.

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS did not exist. No book, pamphlet, or almanac could be
printed without permission. In 1685, when a printer in Philadelphia
printed something in his almanac which displeased the Council, he was
forced to blot it out. Another Philadelphia printer, Bradford, offended
the Quakers by putting into his almanac something "too light and airy for
one that is a Christian," whereupon the almanac was suppressed; and for
later offenses Bradford was thrown into jail and so harshly treated that
he left the colony.

In New York (1725) Bradford started the first newspaper in that colony.
One of his old apprentices, John Peter Zenger, started the second (1733),
and soon called down the wrath of the governor because of some sharp
attacks on his conduct. Copies of the newspaper were burned before the
pillory, Zenger was put in jail, and what began as a trial for libel ended
in a great struggle for liberty of the press; Zenger's acquittal was the
cause of great public rejoicings. [15]

CHANGES BETWEEN 1660 AND 1760.--By 1760 the conditions of life in the
colonies had changed for the better in many respects. Stagecoaches had
come in, and a line ran regularly between New York and Philadelphia. Post
offices had been established. There were printing presses and newspapers
in most of the colonies, there were public subscription libraries in
Charleston and Philadelphia, and six colleges scattered over the colonies
from Virginia to Massachusetts.

EDUCATION.--What we know as the public school system, however, did not yet
exist. Children generally attended private schools kept by wandering
teachers who were boarded around among the farmers or village folk; and
learned only to read, write, and cipher. But a few went to the Latin
school or to college, for which they were often prepared by clergymen.

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.--Amusements in colonial days varied somewhat with the
section of the country and the character of the people who had settled it.
Corn huskings, quilting parties, and spinning bees were common in many
colonies. A house raising or a log-rolling (a piling bee) was a great
occasion for frolic. Picnics, tea parties, and dances were common
everywhere; the men often competed in foot races, wrestling matches, and
shooting at a mark. In New England the great day for such sports was
training day, which came four times a year, when young and old gathered on
the village green to see the militia company drill.

In New York there were also fishing parties and tavern parties, and much
skating and coasting, horse racing, bull baiting, bowling on the greens,
and in New York city balls, concerts, and private theatricals. In
Pennsylvania vendues (auctions), fairs, and cider pressing (besides
husking bees and house raisings) were occasions for social gatherings and
dances. South of the Potomac horse racing, fox hunting, cock fighting, and
cudgeling were common sports. At the fairs there were sack and hogshead
races, bull baiting, barbecues, and dancing. There was a theater at
Williamsburg and another in Charleston.

[Illustration: A MILL OF 1691. The power was furnished by the great
undershot water wheel.]

MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE.--Little manufacturing was done in 1760, save
for the household. A few branches of manufactures--woolen goods, felt
hats, steel--which seemed likely to flourish in the colonies were checked
by acts of Parliament, lest they should compete with industries in
England. But shipbuilding was not molested, and in New England and
Pennsylvania many ships were built and sold.

Land commerce in 1760 was still confined almost entirely to the Indian fur
trade. In sea-going commerce New England led, her vessels trading not only
with Great Britain and the West Indies, but carrying on most of the
coasting trade. In general the Navigation Acts were obeyed; but the
Molasses Act (1733), which levied a heavy duty on sugar or molasses from a
foreign colony, was boldly evaded. The law required that all European
goods must come by way of England; but this too was evaded, and smuggling
of European goods was very common. Tobacco from Virginia and North
Carolina often found its way in New England ships to forbidden ports.


SUMMARY

1. The English colonies were of three sorts--charter, royal, and
proprietary; but before 1660 each managed its affairs much as it pleased.

2. Charles II and later kings tried to rule the colonies for the benefit
of the crown and of the mother country. They acted through the Lords of
Trade in England and through colonial governors in America.

3. In 1676 Bacon led an uprising in Virginia against Governor Berkeley's
arbitrary rule.

4. In 1684 Massachusetts was deprived of her charter, and within a few
years all the New England colonies, with New York and New Jersey, were put
under the tyrannical rule of Governor Andros.

5. When James II lost his throne, Andros was deposed, and Massachusetts
was given a new charter (1691).

6. The government of each colony was managed by (1) a governor elected by
the people (Rhode Island, Connecticut) or appointed by the king or by the
proprietor; (2) by an appointed Council; and (3) by an Assembly or lower
house elected by the colonists.

7. Local government was of three sorts: in New England the township system
prevailed; in the Southern Colonies the county system; and in the Middle
Colonies a mixture of the two.

8. In 1660-1760 the population increased nearly tenfold; stagecoaches,
post offices, and newspapers were introduced; commerce increased, but
little manufacturing was done.


FOOTNOTES

[1] New Hampshire after 1679, New York after 1685 (when the Duke of York
became king), New Jersey after 1702, Virginia after 1624, North and South
Carolina after 1729, Georgia after 1752.

[2] These goods were products of the colonies and were named in the act--
such as tobacco, sugar, indigo, and furs. There was a long list of such
"enumerated goods," as they were called.

[3] In the royal colonies they were appointed by the crown; in
Massachusetts, by the General Court; in the proprietary colonies, by the
proprietor.

[4] In Massachusetts as early as 1634 the General Court consisted of the
governor, the assistants, and two deputies from each town. During ten
years they all met in one room; but a quarrel between the assistants and
the deputies led to their meeting as separate bodies. For an account of
this curious quarrel see Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 106-108.
In Connecticut and Rhode Island also the towns elected deputies. Outside
of New England the delegates to the lower branch of the legislature were
usually elected from counties, but sometimes from important cities or
towns.

[5] The first government of Plymouth Colony was practically a town
meeting. The first town to set up a local government in Massachusetts was
Dorchester (1633). Thus started, the system spread over all New England.
Nothing was too petty to be acted on by the town meeting. For example, "It
is ordered that all dogs, for the space of three weeks after the
publishing hereof, shall have one leg tied up.... If a man refuse to tye
up his dogs leg and he be found scraping up fish [used for fertilizer] in
the corn field, the owner shall pay l2_s._, besides whatever damage the
dog doth." The proceedings of several town meetings at Providence are
given in Hart's _American History told by Contemporaries_, Vol. II,
pp. 214-219.

[6] Penn's charter required him to keep an agent in or near London.

[7] Charles II died in 1685 and was succeeded by his brother, the Duke of
York (proprietor of the colony of New York), who reigned as James II.

[8] New Hampshire, which had been annexed by Massachusetts in 1641, was
made a separate province in 1679; but during the governorship of Andros it
was again annexed.

[9] These were Massachusetts (including Maine), New Hampshire, Plymouth,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey--eight
in all. The only other colonies then in existence were Pennsylvania
(including Delaware), Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina. For an account of
the attack on the New England charters, read Fiske's _Beginnings of New
England_, pp. 265-268.

[10] The Protestant Episcopal Church of England was established in the
colony (1692), and sharp laws were made against Catholics. From 1691 till
1715 Maryland was governed as a royal province; but then it was given back
to the fifth Lord Baltimore, who was a Protestant.

[11] Read Fiske's _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_, Vol. II, pp. 199-208. _In
Leisler's Times_, by Elbridge Brooks, and _The Segum's Daughter_, by Edwin
L. Bynner, are two interesting stories based on the events of Leisler's
time.

[12] Berkeley put so many men to death for the part they bore in the
rebellion that King Charles said, "The old fool has put to death more
people in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father."
Berkeley was recalled. Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_,
Vol. II, pp. 44-95; or the _Century Magazine_ for July, 1890.

[13] In New Hampshire settlers had moved up the valley of the Merrimac to
Concord. In Massachusetts they had crossed the Connecticut River and were
well on toward the New York border (map, p. 59). In New York settlement
was still confined to Long Island, the valley of the Hudson, and a few
German settlements in the Mohawk valley. In Pennsylvania Germans and
Scotch-Irish had pressed into the Susquehanna valley; Reading had been
founded on the upper Schuylkill, and Bethlehem in the valley of the Lehigh
(map, p. 78). In Virginia population had gone westward up the York, the
Rappahannock, and the James rivers to the foot of the Blue Ridge; and
Germans and Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania had entered the Great Valley
(map, p. 50). In North Carolina and South Carolina Germans, Swiss, Welsh,
and Scotch-Irish were likewise moving toward the mountains.

[14] Houses were warmed by means of open fireplaces. Churches were not
warmed, even in the coldest days of winter. People would bring foot stoves
with them, and men would sit with their hats, greatcoats, and mittens on.

[15] Read Fiske's _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_, Vol. II, pp. 248-257.




CHAPTER VIII

THE INDIANS


Wherever the early explorers and settlers touched our coast, they found
the country sparsely inhabited by a race of men they called Indians. These
people, like their descendants now living in the West, were a race with
copper-colored skins, straight, jet-black hair, black eyes, beardless
faces, and high cheek bones.

MOUNDS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS.--Who the Indians were originally, where they
came from, how they reached our continent, nobody knows. Long before the
Europeans came, the country was inhabited by a people, probably the same
as the Indians, known as mound builders. Their mounds, of many sizes and
shapes and intended for many purposes, are scattered over the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys in great numbers. Some are in the shape of animals, as
the famous serpent mound in Ohio. Some were for defense, some were village
sites, and others were for burial purposes.

[Illustrations: RUINS OF CLIFF DWELLINGS.]

In the far West and Southwest, where the rivers had cut deep beds, were
the cliff dwellers. In hollow places in the rocky cliffs which form the
walls of these rivers, in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, are found to-
day the remains of these cliff homes. They are high above the river and
difficult to reach, and could easily be defended. [1]

[Illustration: TOTEM POLE IN ALASKA.]

TRIBES AND CLANS.--The Indians were divided into hundreds of tribes, each
with its own language or dialect and generally living by itself. Each
tribe was subdivided into clans. Members of a clan were those who traced
descent from some imaginary ancestor, usually an animal, as the wolf, the
fox, the bear, the eagle. [2] An Indian inherited his right to be a wolf
or a bear from his mother. Whatever clan she belonged to, that was his
also, and no man could marry a woman of his own clan. The civil head of a
clan was a "sachem"; the military heads were "chiefs." The sachem and the
chiefs were elected or deposed, and the affairs of the clan regulated, by
a council of all the men and women. The affairs of a tribe were regulated
by a council of the sachems and chiefs of the clans. [3]

CONFEDERACIES.--As a few clans were united in each tribe, so some tribes
united to form confederacies. The greatest and most powerful of these was
the league of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, in central New York. [4] It
was composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida (o-ni'da), and Mohawk
tribes. Each managed its own tribal affairs, but a council of sachems
elected from the clans had charge of the affairs of the confederacy. So
great was the power of the league that it practically ruled all the tribes
from Hudson Bay to North Carolina, and westward as far as Lake Michigan.
Other confederacies of less power were: the Dakota and Blackfeet, west of
the Mississippi; the Powhatan, in Virginia; and the Creek, the Chickasaw,
and the Cherokee, in the South.

[Illustration: INDIAN HATCHET AND ARROWHEAD, MADE OF STONE.]

HUNTING.--One of the chief occupations of an Indian man was hunting. He
devised traps with great skill. His weapons were bows and arrows with
stone heads, stone hatchets or tomahawks, flint spears, and knives and
clubs. To use such weapons he had to get close to the animal, and to do
this disguises of animal heads and skins were generally adopted. The
Indians hunted and trapped nearly all kinds of American animals.

ANIMALS AND IMPLEMENTS UNKNOWN TO THE INDIANS.--Before the coming of the
Europeans the Indians had never seen horses or cows, sheep, hogs, or
poultry. The dog was their only domesticated animal, and in many cases the
so-called dog was really a domesticated wolf. Neither had the Indians ever
seen firearms, or gunpowder, or swords, nails, or steel knives, or metal
pots or kettles, glass, wheat, flour, or many other articles in common use
among the whites.

[Illustration: INDIANS IN FULL DRESS.]

CLOTHING.--Their clothing was of the simplest kind, and varied, of course,
with the climate. The men usually wore a strip of deerskin around the
waist, a hunting shirt, leggings, moccasins on the feet, and sometimes a
deerskin over the shoulders. Very often they wore nothing but the strip
about the waist and the moccasins. These garments of deerskin were cut
with much care, sewed with fish-bone needles and sinew thread, and
ornamented with shells and quills.

Painting the face and body was a universal custom. For this purpose red
and yellow ocher, colored earths, juices of plants, and charcoal were
used. What may be called Indian jewelry consisted of necklaces of teeth
and claws of bears, claws of eagles and hawks, and strings of sea shells,
colored feathers, and wampum. Wampum consisted of strings of beads made
from sea shells, and was highly prized and used not only for ornament, but
as Indian money.

[Illustration: WAMPUM.]

HOUSES.--The dwelling of many Eastern Indians was a wigwam, or tent-shaped
lodge. It was formed of saplings set upright in the ground in the form of
a circle and bent together at their tops. Branches wound and twisted among
the saplings completed the frame, which was covered with brush, bark, and
leaves. A group of such wigwams made a village, which was often surrounded
with a stockade of tree trunks put upright in the ground and touching one
another.

On the Western plains the buffalo-hunting Indian lived during the summer
in tepees, or circular lodges made of poles tied together at the small
ends and covered with buffalo skins laced together. The upper end of the
tepee was left open to let out the smoke of a fire built inside. In winter
these plains Indians lived in earth lodges.

FOOD.--For food the Eastern Indians had fish from river, lake, or sea,
wild turkeys, wild pigeons, deer and bear meat, corn, squashes, pumpkins,
beans, berries, fruits, and maple sugar (which they taught the whites to
make). In the West the Indians killed buffaloes, antelopes, and mountain
sheep, cut their flesh into strips, and dried it in the sun. [5]

[Illustration: INDIAN JAR, OF BAKED CLAY.]

Fish and meat were cooked by laying the fish on a framework of sticks
built over a fire, and hanging the meat on sticks before the fire. Corn
and squashes were roasted in the ashes. Dried corn was also ground between
stones, mixed with water, and baked in the ashes. Such as knew how to make
clay pots could boil meat and vegetables. [6]

CANOES.--In moving from place to place the Indians of the East traveled on
foot or used canoes. In the northern parts where birch trees were
plentiful, the canoe was of birch bark stretched over a light wooden
frame, sewed with strips of deerskin, and smeared at the joints with
spruce gum to make it watertight. In the South tree trunks hollowed out by
fire and called dugouts were used. In the West there were "bull boats"
made of skins stretched over wooden frames. For winter travel the Northern
and Western Indians used snowshoes.

[Illustration: MAKING A DUGOUT.]

After the Spaniards brought horses to the Southwest, herds of wild horses
roamed the southwestern plains, and in later times gave the plains Indians
a means of travel the Eastern Indians did not have.

INDIAN TRAILS.--The Eastern Indians nevertheless often made long journeys
for purposes of war or trade, and had many well-defined trails which
answered as roads. Thus one great trail led from the site of Boston by way
of what is now the city of Springfield to the site of Albany. Another in
Pennsylvania led from where Philadelphia stands to the Susquehanna, then
up the Juniata, over the mountains, and to the Allegheny River. There were
thousands of such trails scattered over the country. As the Indians always
traveled in single file, these trails were narrow paths; they were worn to
the depth of a foot or more, and wound in and out among the trees and
around great rocks. As they followed watercourses and natural grades, many
of them became in after times routes used by the white man for roads and
railroads.

Along the seaboard the Indians lived in villages and wandered about but
little. Hunting and war parties traveled great distances, but each tribe
had its home. On the great plains the Indians wandered long distances with
their women, children, and belongings.

[Illustrations: WESTERN INDIANS TRAVELING.]

WORK AND PLAY.--The women did most of the work. They built the wigwam, cut
the wood, planted the corn, dressed the skins, made the clothing, and when
the band traveled, carried the household goods. The brave made bows and
arrows, built the canoe, hunted, fished, and fought.

Till a child, or papoose, was able to run about, it was carefully wrapped
in skins and tied to a framework of wicker which could be carried on the
mother's back, or hung on the branch of a tree out of harm's way. When
able to go about, the boys were taught to shoot, fish, and make arrows and
stone implements, and the girls to weave or make baskets, and do all the
things they would have to do as squaws.

For amusement, the Indians ran foot races, played football [7] and
lacrosse, held corn huskings, and had dances for all sorts of occasions,
some of them religious in character. Some dances occurred once a year, as
the corn dance, the thanksgiving of the Eastern tribes; the sun dance of
the plains Indians; and the fish dance by the Indians of the Columbia
River country at the opening of the salmon-fishing season. The departure
of a war party, the return of such a party, the end of a successful hunt,
were always occasions for dances. [8]

INDIAN RELIGION.--The Indians believed that every person, every animal,
every thing had a soul, or spirit, or manitou. The ceremonies used to get
the good will of certain manitous formed the religious rites. On the
plains it was the buffalo manitou, in the East the manitou of corn, or
sun, or rain, that was most feared. Everywhere there was a mythology, or
collection of tales of heroes who did wonderful things for the Indians.
Hiawatha was such a hero, who gave them fire, corn, the canoe, and other
things. [9]

WARFARE.--An Indian war was generally a raid by a small party led by a
warrior of renown. Such a chief, standing beside the war post in his
village, would publicly announce the raid and call for volunteers. No one
was forced to go; but those who were willing would step forward and strike
the post with their tomahawks. Among the plains Indians a pipe was passed
around, and all who smoked it stood pledged to go.

The weapons used in war were like those used in the hunt. Though the
Indians were brave they delighted to fight from behind trees, to creep
through the tall grass and fall upon their enemy unawares, or to wait for
him in ambush. The dead and wounded were scalped. Captive men were
generally put to death with torture; but captive women and children were
usually adopted into the tribe.

INDIAN WARS IN VIRGINIA.--The first Europeans who came to our shores were
looked on by the Indians as superior beings, as men from the clouds. But
before the settlers arrived this veneration was dispelled, and hostility
took its place. Thus the founders of Jamestown had scarcely touched land
when they were attacked. But Smith brought about an alliance with the
Powhatan, and till after his death there was peace.

Then (1622), under the lead of Opekan'kano, an attack was made along the
whole line of settlements in Virginia, and in one day more than three
hundred whites were massacred, their houses burned, and much property
destroyed. The blow was a terrible one; but the colonists rallied and
waged such a war against the enemy that for more than twenty years there
was no great uprising.

But in 1644 Opekankano (then an old and grizzled warrior) again led forth
his tribes, and in two days killed several hundred whites. Once more the
settlers rallied, swept the Indian country, captured Opekankano, and drew
a boundary across which no Indian could come without permission. If he
did, he might be shot on sight. [10]

EARLY INDIAN WARS IN NEW ENGLAND.--In New England the experience of the
early settlers was much the same. Murders by the Pequot Indians having
become unendurable, a little fleet was sent (1686) against them. Block
Island was ravaged, and Pequots on the mainland were killed and their corn
destroyed. Sassacus, sachem of the Pequots, thereupon sought to join the
Narragansetts with him in an attempt to drive the English from the
country; but Roger Williams persuaded the Narragansetts to form an
alliance with the English, and the Pequots began the war alone. In the
winter (1636-37) the Connecticut River settlements were attacked, several
men killed, and two girls carried off.

DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.--In May, 1637, a force of seventy-seven
colonists from Connecticut and Massachusetts, led by John Mason and John
Underhill, marched to the Pequot village in what is now the southeast
corner of Connecticut. Some Mohicans and Narragansetts went along; but
when they came in sight of the village, they refused to join in the
attack. The village was a cluster of wigwams surrounded by a stockade,
with two narrow openings for entrance. While some of the English guarded
them, the rest attacked the stockade, flung torches over it, and set the
wigwams on fire. Of the four hundred or more Indians in the village, but
five escaped.

[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.]

KING PHILIP'S WAR.--For thirty-eight years the memory of the destruction
of the Pequots kept peace in New England. Then Philip, a chief of the
Wampanoags, took the warpath (1675) and, joined by the Nipmucks and
Narragansetts, sought to drive the white men from New England. The war
began in Rhode Island, but spread into Massachusetts, where town after
town was attacked, and men, women, and children massacred. Roused to fury
by these deeds, a little band of men from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and
Connecticut in the dead of winter stormed the great swamp fortress of the
Narragansetts, destroyed a thousand Indians, and burned the wigwams and
winter supply of corn. The power of the Narragansetts was broken; but the
war went on, and before midsummer (1676) twenty villages had been attacked
by the Nipmucks. But they, too, were doomed; their fighting strength was
destroyed in two victories by the colonists. In August Philip was shot in
a swamp. These victories ended the war in the south, but it broke out
almost immediately in the northeast, and raged till the summer of 1678.

During these three years of war New England suffered terribly. Twelve
towns had been utterly destroyed, forty had been partly burned, and a
thousand men, besides scores of women and children, had perished. As for
the New England Indians, their power was gone forever. [11]

INDIAN WARS IN NEW NETHERLAND.--The Dutch in New Netherland were on
friendly terms with the Iroquois, to whom they sold fire-arms; but the
Tappans, Raritans, and other Algonquin tribes round about New Amsterdam
were enemies of the Iroquois, and with these the Dutch had several wars.
One (1641) was brought on by Governor Kieft's attempt to tax the Indians;
another (1643-45) by the slaughter, one night, of more than a hundred
Indians who had asked the Dutch for shelter from their Mohawk enemies.
Many Dutch farmers were murdered, and a great Indian stronghold in
Connecticut was stormed one winter night and seven hundred Indians killed.
[12] After ten years of peace the Indians rose again, killed men in the
streets of New Amsterdam, and harried Staten Island; and again, after an
outbreak at Esopus, there were several years of war (1658-64).

IN NORTH CAROLINA some Algonquin tribes conspired with the Tuscarora tribe
of Iroquois to drive the white men from the country, and began horrid
massacres (1711). Help came from South Carolina, and the Tuscaroras were
badly beaten. But the war was renewed next year, and then another force of
white men and Indians from South Carolina stormed the Tuscaroras' fort and
broke their power. The Tuscaroras migrated to New York and were admitted
to the great Iroquois confederacy of the Five Nations, which thenceforth
was known as the Six Nations. [13]

IN SOUTH CAROLINA.--Among the Indians who marched to the relief of North
Carolina were men of the Yam'assee tribe. That they should turn against
the people of South Carolina was not to be expected. But the Spaniards at
St. Augustine bought them with gifts, and, joined by Creeks, Cherokees,
and others, they began (in 1715) a war which lasted nearly a year and cost
the lives of four hundred white men. They, too, in the end were beaten,
and the Yamassees fled to Florida.

The story of these Indian wars has been told not because they were wars,
but because they were the beginnings of that long and desperate struggle
of the Indian with the white man which continued down almost to our own
time. The march of the white man across the continent has been contested
by the Indian at every step, and to-day there is not a state in the Union
whose soil has not at some time been reddened by the blood of both.

WHAT WE OWE TO THE INDIAN.--The contact of the two races has greatly
influenced our language, literature, and customs. Five and twenty of our
states, and hundreds of counties, cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, and
bays, bear names derived from Indian languages. Chipmunk and coyote,
moose, opossum, raccoon, skunk, woodchuck, tarpon, are all of Indian
origin. We still use such expressions as Indian summer, Indian file,
Indian corn; bury the hatchet, smoke the pipe of peace. To the Indians we
owe the canoe, the snowshoe, the toboggan, lacrosse. Squanto taught the
Pilgrims how to plant corn in hills, just as it is planted to-day, and
long before the white man came, the Indians ate hominy, mush, and
succotash, planted pumpkins and squashes, and made maple sugar.


SUMMARY

1. The Indians were divided into tribes, and the tribes into clans.

2. Each tribe had its own language or dialect, and usually lived by
itself.

3. Members of a clan traced descent from some common imaginary ancestor,
usually an animal. The civil head of a clan was the sachem; the military
heads were the chiefs.

4. As the clans were united into tribes, so the tribes were in some places
joined in confederacies.

5. The chief occupations of Indian men were hunting and waging war.

6. Their ways of life varied greatly with the locality in which they
lived: as in the wooded regions of the East or on the great plains of the
West; in the cold country of the North or in the warmer South.

7. The growth of white settlements, crowding back the Indians, led to
several notable wars in early colonial times, in all of which the Indians
were beaten:--
  In Virginia: uprisings in 1622 and in 1644; border war in 1676.
  In New England: Pequot War, 1636-37; King Philip's War, 1675-78.
  In New Netherland: several wars with Algonquin tribes.
  In North Carolina: Algonquin-Tuscarora uprising, 1711-13.
  In South Carolina: Yamassee uprising, 1715-16.


FOOTNOTES

[1] Read Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I, pp. 85-94, 141-146.

[2] The sign or emblem of this ancestor, called the totem, was often
painted on the clothing, or tattooed on the body. On the northwest coast,
it was carved on a tall pole, made of a tree trunk, which was set up
before the dwelling.

[3] Scientists have grouped the North American tribes into fifty or more
distinct families or groups, each consisting of tribes whose languages
were probably developed from a common tongue. East of the Mississippi most
of the land was occupied by three groups: (1) Between the Tennessee River
and the Gulf of Mexico lived the Muskho'gees (or Maskoki), including the
Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes. (2) The Iroquois (ir-o-kwoi'),
Cherokee', and related tribes occupied a large area surrounding Lakes Erie
and Ontario, and smaller areas in the southern Appalachians and south of
the lower James River. (3) The Algonquins and related tribes occupied most
of the country around Lakes Superior and Michigan, most of the Ohio
valley, and the Atlantic seaboard north of the James River, besides much
of Canada.

[4] Read Fiske's _Discovery of America_, vol. I, pp. 72-78.

[5] The manner of drying was called "jerking." Jerked meat would keep for
months and was cooked as needed. Sometimes it was pounded between stones
and mixed with fat, and was then called pemmican.

[6] Fire for cooking and warming was started by pressing a pointed stick
against a piece of wood and turning the stick around rapidly. Sometimes
this was done by twirling it between the palms of the hands, sometimes by
wrapping the string of a little bow around the stick and moving the bow
back and forth as if fiddling. The revolving stick would form a fine dust
which the heat caused by friction would set on fire.

[7] A game of football is thus described: "Likewise they have the exercise
of football, in which they only forcibly encounter with the foot to carry
the ball the one from the other, and spurn it to the goal with a kind of
dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honor of it. But they never
strike up one another's heels, as we do, not accounting that praiseworthy
to purchase a goal by such an advantage."

[8] One who was with Smith in Virginia has left us this account of what
took place when the Powhatan was crowned (p. 42): "In a fair plain field
they made a fire before which (we were) sitting upon a mat (when) suddenly
amongst the woods was heard ... a hideous noise and shouting. Then
presently ... thirty young women came out of the woods ... their bodies
painted some white, some red, some black, some particolor, but all
differing. Their leader had a fair pair of buck's horns on her head, and
an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a quiver of arrows
at her back, a bow and arrows in her hand. The next had in her hand a
sword, another a club ... all horned alike.... These fiends with most
hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in
a ring about the fire, singing and

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