[Transcriber's Notes]

The appearance of the Word format closely approximates the originaltext, except that sentence fragments are rejoined across page andillustration boundaries. The HTML and TXT formats discard pageboundaries but retain the year references in square brackets. Thus[1492-1495] indicate the following text covers this period, until thenext such appearance. 

Where useful comparisons can be made, a few pictures and contemporarymaps from Google Earth (TM) have been inserted. 

Several books on Columbus are available at Gutenberg. Org, including "TheLife of Columbus" by Arthur Helps. 

A pound sterling in 1600 is worth about 135 pounds or 235 Dollars US in2006. 

Here are some unfamiliar (to me) terms. 

camlets Rich cloth of Asian origin, made of camel's hair and silk and later made of goat's hair and silk or other combinations. A garment made from this cloth. 

contumacy Stubborn perverseness or rebelliousness; obstinate resistance to authority. 

druggets Heavy felted fabric of wool or wool and cotton, used as a floor covering. 

escheated Reversion of property to the state in the absence of legal heirs or claimants. 

fee simple An estate of inheritance in land, either absolute and without limitation to any particular class of heirs (fee simple) or limited to a particular class of heirs (fee tail). 

glebe Plot of land yielding profit to an English parish church or an ecclesiastical office. 

Pascua Florida Feast of flowers; Easter. 

quit rent A land tax imposed on freehold or leased land by a landowning authority, freeing the tenant of a holding from other obligations. 

New Style (dates) Describing dates after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Various nations adopted the Gregorian calendar between 1582 and 1752. 

Old Style (dates) Describing dates before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. 

pompion Pumpkin. 

sedulous Diligent in application or attention; persevering. 

settle Long wooden bench with a high back, often including storage space beneath the seat. 

[End Transcriber's Notes. ]

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

[Illustration: Portrait of Columbus. ]ColumbusAfter a Portrait by Herrer. 

HISTORY OFTHE UNITED STATESFROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERY OFAMERICA TO THE PRESENT TIME

BYE. BENJAMIN ANDREWSCHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKAFORMERLY PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

With 650 Illustrations and Maps

VOLUME I. 

NEW YORKCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS1912

COPYRIGHT, 1894, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

[Illustration: Scribner logo. ]

TO MY WIFE

PREFACE

Notwithstanding the number of United States histories already inexistence, and the excellence of many of them, I venture to think thatno apology is needed for bringing forward another. 

1. The work now presented to the public is believed to utilize, morethan any of its predecessors, the many valuable researches of recentyears into the rich archives of this and other nations. 

2. Most of the briefer treatments of the subject are manuals, intendedfor pupils in schools, the conspicuous articulation so necessary forthis purpose greatly lessening their interest for the general reader. The following narrative will be found continuous as well as of moderatecompass. 

3. I have sought to make more prominent than popular histories haveusually done, at the same time the political evolution of our country onthe one hand, and the social culture, habits, and life of the people onthe other. 

4. The work strives to observe scrupulous proportion in treating thedifferent parts and phases of our national career, neglecting none andover-emphasizing none. Also, while pronouncedly national and patriotic, it is careful to be perfectly fair and kind to the people of allsections. 

5. Effort has been made to present the matter in the most naturalperiods and divisions, and to give such a title to each of these as torender the table of contents a truthful and instructive epitome of ournational past. 

6. With the same aim the Fore-history is exhibited in sharp separationfrom the United States history proper, calling due attention to what istoo commonly missed, the truly epochal character of the adoption of ourpresent Constitution, in 1789. 

7. Copious illustration has been employed, with diligent study to makeit for every reader in the highest degree an instrument of instruction, delight, and cultivation in art. 

8. No pains has been spared to secure perfect accuracy in all referencesto dates, persons, and places, so that the volumes may be used withconfidence as a work of reference. I am persuaded that much success inthis has been attained, despite the uncertainty still attaching to manymatters of this sort in United States history, especially to dates. 

BROWN UNIVERSITY, September 15. 1894. 

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The last edition of President Andrews's History was issued in 1905, infive volumes, and brought the narrative down to the inauguration ofPresident Roosevelt in March of that year. In preparing the extension ofthe work by the addition of a sixth volume, entrusted to the competenthands of Professor James Alton James of Northwestern University, it hasbeen thought desirable to begin this final volume with the chaptersentitled "The Rise of Roosevelt" and "Mr. Roosevelt's Presidency. " Thishas involved some expansion and revision of these chapters as well asthe continuance of the History from 1905 to the present time. TheAppendices, which include public documents of fundamental importance andthe significant results in various fields of the Census of 1910, are anadditional feature of the new edition. 

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS

Age and Origin of Man in America. Primordial Americans unlike Present Asiatics. Resemblances between their Various Branches. Two Great Types. The Mound-builders' Age. Design of the Mounds. DifferentForms. Towns and Cities. Proofs of Culture. Arts. Fate of theMound-builders. The Indians. Their Number. Degree ofCivilization. Power of Endurance. Religion. The VariousNations. Original Brute Inhabitants of North America. Plants, Fruits, and Trees. Indian Agriculture. 

Part First

THE FORE-HISTORY

PERIOD I

DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT

1492-1660

CHAPTER 1. COLUMBUS. 

Bretons and Normans in the New World. The Northmen Question. MarcoPolo's Travels. His Pictures of Eastern Asia. Influence onColumbus. Early Life of Columbus. His Cruises and Studies. Asia to be Reached by Sailing West. Appeals for Aid. Rebuffs. Success. Sails from Palos. The Voyage. America Discovered. Columbus's Later Voyages and Discoveries. Illusion Respecting the New Land. Amerigo Vespucci. Rise of the Name "America. "

CHAPTER II. EARLY SPANISH AMERICA. 

Portugal and Spain Divide the Newly Discovered World. Spain gets most of America. Voyage of de Solis. Balboa Discovers the Pacific. Ponce de Leon on the Florida Coast. Explorations by Grijalva. Cortez Invades Mexico. Subjugates the Country. De Ayllon's Cruise. Magellan Circumnavigates the Globe. Narvaez's Expedition into Florida. Its Sad Fate. De Soto. His March. Hardships. Discovers the Mississippi. His Death. End of his Expedition. French Settlement in Florida. St. Augustine. French-Spanish Hostilities. Reasons for Spain's Failure to Colonize far North. Her Treatment of the Natives. Tyranny over her ownColonies. 

CHAPTER III. EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION BY THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH

Verrazano. "New France. "Cartier Discovers St. Lawrence Gulf and River. Second Voyage. -Montreal. -Third. -De Monts. Champlain. Founds Quebec. Westward Explorations. John Cabot, Discoverer of the North American Main. Frobisher. Tries for a Northwest Passage. Second Expedition for Gold. Third. Eskimo Tradition of Frobisher's Visits. Drake Sails round the World. Cavendish Follows. Raleigh's Scheme. Colony at Roanoke Island. "Virginia. "Second Colony. Its Fate. 

CHAPTER IV. THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA

The Old Virginia Charter. Jamestown Settled. Company and Colony. Character of Early Virginia Population. Progress. Products. Slavery. Agriculture the Dominant Industry. No Town Life. Hardships and Dissensions. John Smith. New Charter. Delaware Governor. The "Starving Time. "Severe Rule of Dale and Argall. The Change of 1612. Pocahontas. Indian Hostilities. First American Legislature. Sir Thomas Wyatt. Self Government. Virginia Reflects English Political Progress. Dissolution of the Company. Charles I. And Virginia. Harvey, Wyatt. Berkeley. Virginia under Cromwell. 

CHAPTER V. PILGRIM AND PURITAN AT THE NORTH

The first "Independents. "John Smyth's Church at Gainsborough. The Scrooby Church. Plymouth Colony. Settles Plymouth. Hardships. Growth. Cape Ann Settlement. Massachusetts Bay. Size. Polity. Roger Williams. His Views. His Exile. Anne Hutchinson. Rhode IslandFounded. Settlement of Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield. Saybrook. New Haven. New Hampshire. Maine. New England Confederation. Its Function. Its Failure. 

CHAPTER VI. BALTIMORE AND HIS MARYLAND

Sir George Calvert Plants at Newfoundland. Is Ennobled. Sails for Virginia. Grant of Maryland. Lord Baltimore Dies. Succeeded by Cecil. Government of Maryland. Conflict with Virginia. Baltimore comes to Maryland. Religious Freedom in the Colony. Clayborne's Rebellion. First Maryland Assembly. Anarchy. Romanism Established. Baltimore and Roger Williams. Maryland during the Civil War in England. Death of Baltimore. Character. Maryland under the Long Parliament. Puritan Immigration. Founds Annapolis. Rebellion. Clayborne again. Maryland and the Commonwealth. Deposition of Governor Stone. Anti-Catholic Laws. Baltimore Defied. Sustained by Cromwell. Fendall's Rebellion. Fails. Maryland at the Restoration. 

CHAPTER VII. NEW NETHERLAND

Henry Hudson and his Explorations. Enters Hudson River. His Subsequent Career. And his Fate. Dutch Trade on the Hudson. "New Netherland. "Dutch West India Company. Albany Begun. New Amsterdam. Relations with Plymouth. De Vries on the Delaware. Dutch Fort at Hartford. Conflict of Dutch with English. Gustavus Adolphus. Swedish Beginnings at Wilmington, Delaware. Advent of Kieft. Maltreats Indians. New Netherland in 1647. Stuyvesant's Excellent Rule. Conquers New Sweden. And the Indians. Conquest of Dutch America by England. "New York. "Persistence of Dutch Influence and Traits. 

CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST INDIAN WARS

Beginning of Indian Hostility. Of Pequot War. Mason's Strategy. And Tactics. Capture of Pequot Fort. Back to Saybrook. Extermination of Pequot Tribe. Peace. Miantonomoh and Uncas. Dutch War with Indians. Caused by Kieft's Impolicy. Liquor. Underhill Comes. Mrs. Hutchinson's Fate. Deborah Moody. New Haven Refuses Aid. Appeal to Holland. Underhill's Exploits. Kieft Removed. Sad Plight of New Netherland. Subsequent Hostilities and Final Peace. 

PERIOD II

ENGLISH AMERICA TILL THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

1660--1763

CHAPTER I. NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE LAST STUARTS. 

Charles II. And Massachusetts. Massachusetts about 1660. Its View of its Political Rights. The King's View. And Commands. Commission of 1664. Why Vengeance was Delayed. Boldness of the Colony. It Buys Maine. Fails to get New Hampshire. The King's Rage. The Charter Vacated. Charles II. And Connecticut. Prosperity of this Colony. Rhode Island. Boundary Disputes of Connecticut. Of Rhode Island. George Fox and Roger Williams. James II. King. Andros Governor. Andros and Southern New England. In Massachusetts. Revolution of 1688. New Charter for Massachusetts. Defects and Merits. 

CHAPTER II. KING PHILIP'S WAR. 

Whites' Treatment of Red Men. Indian Hatred. Causes. Alexander's Death. PhilipKing. Scope of his Conspiracy. Murders Sausaman. War Begun. Nipmucks take Part. War in Connecticut Valley. Bloody Brook. The Swamp Fight at South Kingston, R. I. Central Massachusetts Aflame. The Rowlandson History. Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island again. Connecticut Valley once more Invaded. Turner's Falls. Philip's Death. Horrors of the War. Philip's Character. Fate of his Family. 

CHAPTER III. THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT

New England Home Life. Religion its Centre. The Farmhouse. Morning Devotions. Farm Work. Tools. Diet. Neighborliness. New England Superstitions. Not Peculiar to New England. Sunday Laws. Public Worship. First Case of Sorcery. The Witch Executed. Cotton Mather. His Experiments. His Book. The Parris Children Bewitched. The Manifestations. The Trial. Executions. George Burroughs. Rebecca Nurse. Reaction. Forwardness of Clergy. "Devil's Authority. "The End. 

CHAPTER IV. THE MIDDLE COLONIES

English Conquest of New Netherland. Duke of York's Government. Andros. Revolution of 1688. Leisler. Problems which Teased Royal Governors. New Jersey. Its Political Vicissitudes. William Penn. Character. Liberality of PennsylvaniaCharter. Penn and James II. Penn's Services for his Colony. Prosperity of the Latter. Fletcher's Rule. Gabriel Thomas's History of Pennsylvania. Penn's Trials. And Victory. Delaware. 

CHAPTER V. MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, CAROLINA

Maryland after the Stuart Restoration. Navigation Act. Boundary Disputes. Liberality of Religion. Agitation to Establish Anglicanism. Maryland under William and Mary. English Church Established. Not Oppressive. Fate of Virginia after the Restoration. Virginia's Spirit, Numbers, Resources. Causes of Bacon's Rebellion. Evil of the Navigation Acts. Worthless Officials. Course of the Rebellion. Result. Dulness of the Subsequent History. William and Mary College. Governor Spotswood. Blackbeard. Carolina. Its Constitution. Conflict of Parties. Georgia. 

CHAPTER VI. GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE COLONIES. 

Origin of American Political Institutions. Local Self-Government. Representation. Relation of Colonies to England. Classification of Colonies. Changes. Conflict of Legal Views. Colonists' Contentions. Taxation. 

CHAPTER VII. SOCIAL CULTURE IN COLONIAL TIMES. 

Population of the Colonies at Different Dates. Differences according to Sections. Intellectual Ability. Free Thought. Political Bent. English Church in the Colonies. Its Clergy. In New York. The New England Establishment. Hatred to Episcopacy. Counter-hatred. Colleges and Schools. Newspapers. Libraries. Postal System. Learned Professions. Epidemics. Scholars and Artists. Travelling. Manufactures andCommerce. Houses. Food and Dress. Wigs. Opposition to Them. Social Cleavage. Redemptioners. Penal Legislation. Philadelphia Leads in Social Science. 

CHAPTER VIII. ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA

The French in the Heart of the Continent. Groseilliers, Radisson, La Salle. Joliet and Marquette Reach the Mississippi. Baudin and Du Lhut. La Salle Descends to the Gulf. "Chicago. "The Portages. La Salle's Expedition from France to the Mississippi. Its Fate. French, Indians, and English. France's Advantage. Numbers of each Race in America. Causes of England's Colonial Strength. King William's War. The Schenectady Massacre. Other Atrocities. Anne's War. Deerfield. Plans for Striking Back. Second Capture of Port Royal. Rasle's Settlement Raided. George's War. Capture of Louisburg. Saratoga Destroyed. Scheme to Retaliate. Failure. French Vigilance and Aggression. 

CHAPTER IX. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

Struggle Inevitable. George Washington. Fights at Great Meadows. War Begun. English Plans of Campaign. Braddock's March. Defeat and Death. Prophecy Regarding Washington. The "Evangeline" History. Loudon's Incompetence. Pitt at the Head of Affairs. Will Take Canada. Louisburg Recaptured. "Pittsburgh. "Triple Movement upon Canada. The Plains of Abraham. Quebec Capitulates. Peace of Paris. Conspiracy of Pontiac. 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

COLUMBUS. (After a portrait by Herrera) FrontispieceTEMPLE MOUND IN MEXICOBIG ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSINDIGHTON ROCKTHE OLD STONE MILL AT NEWPORT, R. I. PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL--"THE NAVIGATOR. " (From an old print)QUEEN ISABELLA OF SPAIN. COLUMBUS BEGGING AT THE FRANCISCAN CONVENTEMBARKATION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AT PALOS. (From an old print)AMERIGO VESPUCCI. (Fac-simile of an old print)VASCO DA GAMA. (From an old print)BALBOA DISCOVERING THE PACIFIC OCEANPONCE DE LEONHERNANDO CORTES, (From an old print)MONTEZUMA MORTALLY WOUNDED BY HIS OWN SUBJECTSDEATH OF MAGELLANFERDINAND DE SOTOA PALISADED INDIAN TOWN IN ALABAMABURIAL OF DE SOTO IN THE MISSISSIPPI AT NIGHTFORT CAROLINA ON THE RIVER OF MAYPEDRO MELENDEZINDIANS DEVOURED BY DOGS. (From an old print)VERRAZANO, THE FLORENTINE NAVIGATORJACQUES CARTIER, (From an old print)SEBASTIAN CABOT, (From an old print)AN INDIAN VILLAGE AT THE ROANOKE SETTLEMENTSIR HUMPHREY GILBERTSIR WALTER RALEIGHQUEEN ELIZABETHKING JAMES I. (From Mr. Henry Irving's Collection)TOBACCO PLANT. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. POCAHONTAS SAVING CAPTAIN SMITH'S LIFE. (From Smith's "General History ")THE COUNCIL OF POWHATAN. (From Smith's "General History ")POCAHONTAS. SIGNATURE OF BERKELEY. PLYMOUTH HARBOR, ENGLAND. HARBOR OF PROVINCETOWN, CAPE COD, WHERE THE PILGRIMS LANDED. THE LIFE OF THE COLONY AT CAPE COD. SIGNATURES TO PLYMOUTH PATENT. SITE OF FIRST CHURCH AND GOVERNOR BRADFORD'S HOUSE AT PLYMOUTH. GOVERNOR WINTHROP. FIRST CHURCH IN SALEM. SEAL OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY. ROGER WILLIAMS' HOUSE AT SALEM. EDWARD WINSLOW. MARYLAND SHILLING. HENRIETTA MARIA. SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM CLAYBORNE. CLAYBORNE'S TRADING POST ON KENT ISLAND. FIGHT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND THE ST. MARY'S SHIP. OLIVER CROMWELL. SEAL OF NEW AMSTERDAM. PETER STUYVESANT. SEAL OF NEW NETHERLAND. EARLIEST PICTURE OF NEW AMSTERDAM. DE VRIES. COSTUMES OF SWEDES. THE OLD STADT HUYS AT NEW AMSTERDAM. NEW AMSTERDAM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE DUKE OF YORK, AFTERWARDS JAMES II. THE TOMB OF STUYVESANT. ATTACK ON THE FORT OF THE PEQUOTS ON THE MYSTIC RIVER. ATTACK ON THE PEQUOT FORT. SIGNATURE OF MIANTONOMOH. THE GRAVE OF MIANTONOMOH. TOTEM OR TRIBE MARK OF THE FIVE NATIONS. KING CHARLES II. JOHN WINTHROP THE YOUNGER. SIR EDMOND ANDROS. THE CHARTER OAK AT HARTFORD. BOX IN WHICH THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER WAS KEPT. THE MONUMENT AT BLOODY BROOK. GOFFE AT HADLEY. INCREASE MATHER. COTTON MATHER. OLD TITUBA THE INDIAN. LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR STOUGHTON. FAC-SIMILE OF SHERIFF'S RETURN OF AN EXECUTION. SLOUGHTER SIGNING LEISLER'S DEATH WARRANT. SEAL OF THE CARTERETS. SEAL OF EAST JERSEY. WAMPUM RECEIVED BY PENN IN COMMEMORATION OF THE INDIAN TREATY. WILLIAM PENN. THE TREATY MONUMENT, KENSINGTON. THE PENN MANSION IN PHILADELPHIA. CHARLES, SECOND LORD BALTIMORE. REV, DR. BLAIR, FIRST PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE. GEORGE MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. LORD SHAFTESBURY. SEAL OF THE PROPRIETORS OF CAROLINA. JOHN LOCKE. SAVANNAH. (From a print of 1741)JAMES OGLETHORPE. COSTUMES ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. JAMES LOGAN. KING WILLIAM. QUEEN MARYCHIEF JUSTICE SEWALL. THE PILLORY. SIGNATURE OF JOLLIET. (old spelling)TOTEM OF THE SIOUX. A SIOUX CHIEF. TOTEM OF THE ILLINOIS. THE RECEPTION OF JOLIET AND MARQUETTE BY THE ILLINOIS. LOUIS XIV. COINS STRUCK IN FRANCE FOR THE COLONIES. ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE. NEW ORLEANS IN 1719. SIGNATURE OF D'IBERVILLE. THE ATTACK ON SCHENECTADY. HANNAH DUSTIN'S ESCAPE. QUEEN ANNE. GOVERNOR SHIRLEY. SIR WILLIAM PEPPERRELLTHE AMBUSCADETHE DEATH OF BRADDOCK. MONTCALM. WILLIAM PITT. GENERAL WOLFE. LANDING OF WOLFE. QUEBEC IN 1730. (From an old print)BOUQUET'S REDOUBT AT PITTSBURGH. 

LIST OF MAPS

GLOBUS MARTINI BEHAIM NARINBERGENSIS, 1492EUROPEAN PROVINCES IN 1655. MARQUETTE'S MAP. PLAN OF PORT ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA. MAP SHOWING POSITION OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. BRADDOCK'S ROUTE. MAP OF BRADDOCK'S FIELD. 

INTRODUCTION

AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS

Man made his appearance on the western continent unnumbered ages ago, not unlikely before the close of the glacial period. It is possible thathuman life began in Asia and western North America sooner than on eithershore of the Atlantic. Nothing wholly forbids the belief that Americawas even the cradle of the race, or one of several cradles, though mostscientific writers prefer the view that our species came hither fromAsia. De Nadaillac judges it probable that the ocean was thus crossednot at Behring Strait alone, but along a belt of equatorial islands aswell. We may think of successive waves of such immigration--perhaps theeasiest way to account for certain differences among American races. 

It is, at any rate, an error to speak of the primordial Americans asderived from any Asiatic stock at present existing or known to history. The old Americans had scarcely an Asiatic feature. Their habits andcustoms were emphatically peculiar to themselves. Those in which theyagreed with the trans-Pacific populations, such as fashion of weaponsand of fortifications, elements of folk-lore, religious ideas, traditions of a flood, belief in the destruction of the world by fire, and so on, are nearly all found the world over, the spontaneouscreations of our common human intelligence. 

The original American peoples, various and unlike as they were, agreedin four traits, three of them physical, one mental, which mark them offas in all likelihood primarily of one stock after all, and as differentfrom any Old World men: (1) They had low, retreating foreheads. (2)Their hair was black. (3) It was also of a peculiar texture, lank, andcylindrical in section, never wavy. And (4) their languages werepolysynthetic, forming a class apart from all others in the world. Thepeoples of America, if from Asia, must date back to a time when speechitself was in its infancy. 

[Illustration: Temple Mound In Mexico. ]

The numerous varieties of ancient Americans reduce to two distinct types--the Dolicocephalous or long-skulled, and the Brachycephalous orshort-skulled. Morton names these types respectively the Toltecan andthe American proper. The Toltecan type was represented by the primitiveinhabitants of Mexico and by the Mound-builders of our MississippiValley; the American proper, by the Indians. The Toltecans made far thecloser approach to civilization, though the others possessed a muchgreater susceptibility therefor than the modern Indians of our prairieswould indicate. 

Of the Mound-builders painfully little is known. Many of their moundsstill remain, not less mysterious or interesting than the pyramids ofEgypt, perhaps almost equally ancient. The skeletons exhumed from themoften fly into dust as soon as exposed to air, a rare occurrence withthe oldest bones found in Europe. On the parapet-crest of the Old Fortat Newark, 0. , trees certainly five hundred years old have been cut, andthey could not have begun their growth till long after the earth-workshad been deserted. In some mounds, equally aged trees root in thedecayed trunks of a still anterior growth. 

Much uncertainty continues to shroud the design of these mounds. Somewere for military defence, others for burial places, others for lookoutstations, others apparently for religious uses. Still others, it issupposed, formed parts of human dwellings. That they proceeded fromintelligence and reflection is clear. Usually, whether they are squaresor circles, their construction betrays nice, mathematical exactness, unattainable save by the use of instruments. Many constituteeffigies--of birds, fishes, quadrupeds, men. In Wisconsin is a mound 135feet long and well proportioned, much resembling an elephant; in AdamsCounty, 0. , a gracefully curved serpent, 1, 000 feet long, with jawsagape as if to swallow an egg-shaped figure in front; in Granville, inthe same State, one in the form of a huge crocodile; in Greenup County, Ky. , an image of a bear, which seems leaning forward in an attitude ofobservation, measuring 53 feet from the top of the back to the end ofthe foreleg, and 105-1/2 feet from the tip of the nose to the rear ofthe hind foot. 

[Illustration: Big Elephant Mound, Wisconsin. ]

The sites of towns and cities were artfully selected, near navigablerivers and their confluences, as at Marietta, Cincinnati, and inKentucky opposite the old mouth of the Scioto. Points for defence werechosen and fortified with scientific precision. The labor expended uponthese multitudinous structures must have been enormous, implying a vastpopulation and extensive social, economic, and civil organization. TheCahokia mound, opposite St. Louis, is 90 feet high and 900 feet long. 

The Mound-builders made elegant pottery, of various design and accurateshapes, worked bone and all sorts of stones, and even forged copper. There are signs that they understood smelting this metal. They certainlymined it in large quantities, and carried it down the Mississippihundreds of miles from its source on Lake Superior. They must have beenmasters of river navigation, but their mode of conveying vast burdensoverland, destitute of efficient draft animals as they apparently were, we can hardly even conjecture. 

The Mound-builders, as we have said, were related to the antiquepopulations of Mexico and Central America, and the most probableexplanation of their departure from their Northern seats is that in faceof pestilence, or of some overpowering human foe, they retreated to theSouthwest, there to lay, under better auspices, the foundations of newstates, and to develop that higher civilization whose relics, too littleknown, astound the student of the past, as greatly as do the stupendouspillars of Carnac or the grotesque animal figures of Khorsabad andNimrud. 

So much has been written about the American Indians that we need notdiscuss them at length. They were misnamed Indians by Columbus, whosupposed the land he had discovered to be India. At the time of hisarrival not more than two hundred thousand of them lived east of theMississippi, though they were doubtless far more numerous West andSouth. Whence they came, or whether, if this was a human deed at all, they or another race now extinct drove out the Mound-builders, none cantell. 

Of arts the red man had but the rudest. He made wigwams, canoes, bonefish-hooks with lines of hide or twisted bark, stone tomahawks, arrow-heads and spears, clothing of skins, wooden bows, arrows, andclubs. He loved fighting, finery, gambling, and the chase. Hedomesticated no animals but the dog and possibly the hog. Sometimesbrave, he was oftener treacherous, cruel, revengeful. His power ofendurance on the trail or the warpath was incredible, and if captured, he let himself be tortured to death without a quiver or a cry. Thoughsuperstitious, he believed in a Great Spirit to be worshipped withoutidols, and in a future life of happy hunting and feasting. 

Whether, at the time of which we now speak, the Indians were an oldrace, already beginning to decline, or a fresh race, which contact withthe whites balked of its development, it is difficult to say. Theircareer since best accords with the former supposition. In either case wemay assume that their national groupings and habitats were nearly thesame in 1500 as later, when these became accurately known. In theeighteenth century the Algonquins occupied all the East from Nova Scotiato North Carolina, and stretched west to the Mississippi. At one timethey numbered ninety thousand. The Iroquois or Five Nations had theirseat in Central and Western New York. North and west of them lived theHurons or Wyandots. The Appalachians, embracing Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and a number of lesser tribes, occupiedall the southeastern portion of what is now the United States. West ofthe Mississippi were the Dakotas or Sioux. 

Since the white man's arrival upon these shores, very few changes haveoccurred among the brute inhabitants of North America. A few species, asthe Labrador duck and the great auk, have perished. America thenpossessed but four animals which had appreciable economic value; thedog, the reindeer at the north, which the Mound-builders used as adraft animal but the Indians did not, and the llama and the paco southof the equator. Every one of our present domestic animals originatedbeyond the Atlantic, being imported hither by our ancestors. The Indiansof the lower Mississippi Valley, when De Soto came, had dogs, and alsowhat the Spaniards called hogs, perhaps peccaries, but neither brute wasof any breed now bred in the country. A certain kind of dogs were nativealso to the Juan Fernandez and the Falkland Islands. 

Mr. Edward John Payne is doubtless correct in maintaining, in his"History of the New World called America, " that the backwardness of theAmerican aborigines was largely due to their lack of animals suitablefor draft or travel or producing milk or flesh good for food. From theremotest antiquity Asiatics had the horse, ass, ox and cow, camel andgoat--netting ten times the outfit in useful animals which thePeruvians, Mexicans, or Indians enjoyed. 

The vegetable kingdom of Old America was equally restricted, which alsohelps explain its low civilization. At the advent of the Europeans thecontinent was covered with forests. Then, though a few varieties mayhave since given out and some imported ones run wild, the undomesticatedplants and trees were much as now. Not so the cultivated kinds. TheIndians were wretched husbandmen, nor had the Mound-builders at all thediversity of agricultural products so familiar to us. Tobacco, Indiancorn, cocoa, sweet potatoes, potatoes, the custard apple, the Jerusalemartichoke, the guava, the pumpkin and squash, the papaw and thepineapple, indigenous to North America, had been under cultivation herebefore Columbus came, the first four from most ancient times. The maniocor tapioca-plant, the red-pepper plant, the marmalade plum, and thetomato were raised in South America before 1500. The persimmon, thecinchona tree, millet, the Virginia and the Chili strawberry are nativesof this continent, but have been brought under cultivation only withinthe last three centuries. 

The four great cereals, wheat, rye, oats, and rice, constituting all ourmain food crops but corn, have come to us from Europe. So have cherries, quinces, and pears, also hops, currants, chestnuts, and mushrooms. Thebanana, regarded by von Humboldt as an original American fruit, modernbotanists derive from Asia. With reference to apples there may be somequestion. Apples of a certain kind flourished in New England so earlyafter the landing of the Pilgrims that it is difficult to suppose thefruit not to have been indigenous to this continent. Champlain, in1605 or 1606, found the Indians about the present sites of Portland, Boston, and Plymouth in considerable agricultural prosperity, withfields of corn and tobacco, gardens rich in melons, squashes, pumpkins, and beans, the culture of none of which had they apparently learned fromwhite men. Mr. Payne's generalization, that superior food-supplyoccasioned the Old World's primacy in civilization, and also that of theMexicans and Peruvians here, seems too sweeping, yet it evidentlycontains large truth. 

PART FIRST

THE FORE-HISTORY

PERIOD I. 

DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT

1492-1660

CHAPTER I. 

COLUMBUS

[1000]

There is no end to the accounts of alleged discoveries of America beforeColumbus. Most of these are fables. It is, indeed, nearly certain thathardy Basque, Breton, and Norman fishermen, adventuring first far north, then west, had sighted Greenland and Labrador and become well acquaintedwith the rich fishing-grounds about Newfoundland and the Saint LawrenceGulf. Many early charts of these regions, without dates and hithertoreferred to Portuguese navigators of a time so late as 1500, are nowthought to be the work of these earlier voyagers. They found the NewWorld, but considered it a part of the Old. 

Important, too, is the story of supposed Norse sea-rovers hither, derived from certain Icelandic manuscripts of the fourteenth century. Itis a pleasing narrative, that of Lief Ericson's sail in 1000-1001 toHelluland, Markland, and at last to Vineland, and of the subsequenttours by Thorwald Ericson in 1002, Thorfinn Karlsefne, 1007-1009, and ofHelge and Finnborge in 1011, to points still farther away. Such voyagesprobably occurred. As is well known, Helluland has been interpreted tobe Newfoundland; Markland, Nova Scotia; and Vineland, the countrybordering Mount Hope Bay in Bristol, R. I. These identifications arepossibly correct, and even if they are mistaken, Vineland may still havebeen somewhere upon the coast of what is now the United States. 

In the present condition of the evidence, however, we have to doubtthis. No scholar longer believes that the writing on Dighton Rock isNorse, or that the celebrated Skeleton in Armor found at Fall River wasa Northman's, or that the old Stone Mill at Newport was constructed bymen from Iceland. Even if the manuscripts, composed between three andfour hundred years after the events which they are alleged to narrate, are genuine, and if the statements contained in them are true, thelatter are far too indefinite to let us be sure that they are applicableto United States localities. 

[Illustration: Dighton Rock]

[l260]

But were we to go so far as to admit that the Northmen came here andbegan the settlements ascribed to them, they certainly neitherappreciated nor published their exploits. Their colony, wherever it was, endured but for a day, and it, with its locality, speedily passed fromknowledge in Scandinavia itself. America had not yet, in effect, beendiscovered. 

[Illustration: The Old Stone Mill at Newport, R. I. ]

[1300]

We must remember that long anterior to Columbus's day unbiassed andthoughtful men had come to believe the earth to be round. They also knewthat Europe constituted but a small part of it. In the year 1260 theVenetian brothers Niccolo and Maffeo Polo made their way to China, thefirst men from Western Europe ever to travel so far. They returned in1269, but in 1271 set out again, accompanied by Niccolo's son, a youthof seventeen. This son was the famous Marco Polo, whose work, "TheWonders of the World, " reciting his extended journeys through China andthe extreme east and southeast of Asia, and his eventful voyage home bysea, ending in 1295, has come down to our time, one of the mostinteresting volumes in the world. Friar Orderic's eastern travels in1322-1330, as appropriated by Sir John Mandeville, were published before1371. 

Columbus knew these writings, and the reading and re-reading of them hadmade him an enthusiast. In Polo's book he had learned of Mangi and FarCathay, with their thousands of gorgeous cities, the meanest finer thanany then in Europe; of their abounding mines pouring forth infinitewealth, their noble rivers, happy populations, curious arts, and benigngovernment. Polo had told him of Cambalu (Peking), winter residence ofthe Great Khan, Kublai--Cambalu with its palaces of marble, golden-roofed, its guard of ten thousand soldiers, its imperial stablescontaining five thousand elephants, its unnumbered army, navy, andmerchant marine; of oxen huge as elephants; of richest spices, nutslarge as melons, canes fifteen yards long, silks, cambrics, and thechoicest furs; and of magic Cipango (Japan), island of pearls, whosestreets were paved with gold. 

[Illustration: Globus Martini Behaim Narinbergensis 1492. ]

[1456]

Columbus believed all this, and it cooperated with his intense and evenbigoted religious faith to kindle in him an all-consuming ambition toreach this distant Eden by sea, that he might carry the Gospel to thoseopulent heathen and partake their unbounded temporal riches in return. Poor specimen of a saint as Columbus is now known to have been, hebelieved himself divinely called to this grand enterprise. 

Christopher Columbus, or Christobal Colon, as he always signed himselfafter he entered the service of Spain, was born in Genoa about 1456. Little is certainly known of his early life. His father was a humblewool-carder. The youth possessed but a sorry education, spite of his fewmonths at the University of Pavia. At the age of fourteen he became asailor, knocking about the world in the roughest manner, half the timepractically a pirate. In an all-day's sea fight, once, his ship tookfire and he had to leap overboard; but being a strong swimmer he swam, aided by an oar, eight leagues to land. 

[1470]

From 1470 to 1484 we find him in Portugal, the country most interestedand engaged then in ocean-going and discovery. Here he must have knownMartin Behem, author of the famous globe, finished in 1492, whereon Asiais exhibited as reaching far into the same hemisphere with Europe. Prince Henry of Portugal earnestly patronized all schemes forexploration and discovery, and the daughter, Philippa, of one of hiscaptains, Perestrello, Columbus married. With her he lived at PortoSanto in the Madeiras, where he became familiar with Correo, hersister's husband, also a distinguished navigator. The islanders fullybelieved in the existence of lands in the western Atlantic. West windshad brought to them strange woods curiously carved, huge cane-brakeslike those of India described by Ptolemy, peculiarly fashioned canoes, and corpses with skin of a hue unknown to Europe or Africa. 

[Illustration: Prince Henry of Portugal--"The Navigator. " From an oldprint. ]

[1475-1484]

Reflecting on these things, studying Perestrello's and Correo's chartsand accounts of their voyages, corresponding with Toscanelli and othersavans, himself an adept in drawing maps and sea-charts, for a time hisoccupation in Lisbon, cruising here and there, once far northward toIceland, and talking with navigators from every Atlantic port, Columbusbecame acquainted with the best geographical science of his time. 

This had convinced him that India could be reached by sailing westward. The theoretical possibility of so doing was of course admitted by allwho held the earth to be a sphere, but most regarded it practicallyimpossible, in the then condition of navigation, to sail the necessarydistance. Columbus considered the earth far smaller than was usuallythought, a belief which we find hinted at so early as 1447, upon thefamous mappe-Monde of the Pitti Palace in Florence, whereon Europeappears projected far round to the northwest. Columbus seems to haveviewed this extension as a sort of yoke joining India to Scandinavia bythe north. He judged that Asia, or at least Cipango, stretchedtwo-thirds of the way to Europe, India being twice as near westward aseastward. Thirty or forty days he deemed sufficient for making it. Toscanelli and Behem as well as he held this belief; he dared boldly toact upon it. 

[Illustration: Queen Isabella of Spain. ]

But to do so required resources. There are indications that Columbus atsome time, perhaps more than once, urged his scheme upon Genoa andVenice. If so it was in vain. Nor can we tell whether such an attempt, if made, was earlier or later than his plea before the court ofPortugal, for this cannot be dated. The latter was probably in 1484. King John II. Was impressed, and referred Columbus's scheme to a councilof his wisest advisers, who denounced it as visionary. Hence in 1485 or1486 Columbus proceeded to Spain to lay his project before Ferdinand andIsabella. 

On the way he stopped at a Franciscan convent near Palos, begging breadfor himself and son. The Superior, Marchena, became interested in him, and so did one of the Pinzons--famous navigators of Palos. The king andqueen were at the time holding court at Cordova, and thither Columbuswent, fortified with a recommendation from Marchena. The monarchs wereengrossed in the final conquest of Granada, and Columbus had to waitthrough six weary and heart-sickening years before royal attention wasturned to his cause. It must have been during this delay that hedespatched his brother Bartholomew to England with an appeal to HenryVII. Christopher had brought Alexander Geraldinus, the scholar, and alsothe Archbishop of Toledo, to espouse his mission, and finally, at thelatter's instance, Ferdinand, as John of Portugal had done, went so faras to convene, at Salamanca, a council of reputed scholars to passjudgment upon Columbus and his proposition. By these, as by thePortuguese, he was declared a misguided enthusiast. They were too muchbehind the age even to admit the spherical figure of the earth. According to Scripture, they said, the earth is flat, adding that it wascontrary to reason for men to walk heads downward, or snow and rain toascend, or trees to grow with their roots upward. 

[Illustration: Columbus begging at the Franciscan Convent. ]

[1484-1492]

The war for Granada ended, Santangel and others of his converts at courtsecured Columbus an interview with Isabella, but his demands seeming toher arrogant, he was dismissed. Nothing daunted, the hero had startedfor France, there to plead as he had pleaded in Portugal and Spainalready, when to his joy a messenger overtook him with orders to comeonce more before the queen. 

Fuller thought and argument had convinced this eminent woman that theexperiment urged by Columbus ought to be tried and a contract was soonconcluded, by which, on condition that he should bear one-eighth theexpense of the expedition, the public chest of Castile was to furnishthe remainder. The story of the crown jewels having been pledged forthis purpose is now discredited. If such pledging occurred, it wasearlier, in prosecuting the war with the Moors. The whole sum needed forthe voyage was about fifty thousand dollars. Columbus was made admiral, also viceroy of whatever lands should be discovered, and he was to haveten per cent of all the revenues from such lands. For his contributionto the outfit he was indebted to the Pinzons. 

This arrangement was made in April or May, 1492, and on the third of thenext August, after the utmost difficulty in shipping crews for this sailinto the sea of darkness, Columbus put out from Palos with one hundredand twenty men, on three ships. These were the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta. The largest, the Santa Maria, was of not over one hundredtons, having a deck-length of sixty-three feet, a keel of fifty-onefeet, a draft of ten feet six inches, and her mast-head sixty feet abovesea-level. She probably had four anchors, with hemp cables. 

[Illustration: Embarkation of Christopher Columbus at Palos. From an oldprint. ]

From Palos they first bore southward to the Canary Islands, into thetrack of the prevalent east winds, then headed west, for Cipango, asColumbus supposed, but really toward the northern part of Florida. Whena little beyond what he regarded the longitude of Cipango, noticing theflight of birds to the southwest, he was induced to follow these, whichaccident made his landfall occur at Guanahani (San Salvador), in theBahamas, instead of the Florida coast. 

Near midnight, between October 11th and 12th, Columbus, being on thewatch, descried a light ahead. About two o'clock on the morning of the12th the lookout on the Pinta distinctly saw land through the moonlight. When it was day they went on shore. The 12th of October, 1492, therefore, was the date on which for the first time, so far as historyattests with assurance, a European foot pressed the soil of thiscontinent. Adding nine days to this to translate it into New Style, wehave October 21st as the day answering to that on which Columbus firstbecame sure that his long toil and watching had not been in vain. 

[1493-1500]

The admiral having failed to note its latitude and longitude, it is notknown which of the Bahamas was the San Salvador of Columbus, whetherGrand Turk Island, Cat (the present San Salvador), Watling, Mariguana, Acklin, or Samana, though the last named well corresponds with hisdescription. Mr. Justin Winsor, however, and with him a majority of thelatest critics, believes that Watling's Island was the place. Beforereturning to Spain, Columbus discovered Cuba, and also Hayti orEspagnola (Hispaniola), on the latter of which islands he built a fort. 

In a second voyage, from Cadiz, 1493-1496, the great explorer discoveredthe Lesser Antilles and Jamaica. In a third, 1498-1500, he came uponTrinidad and the mainland of South America, at the mouth of the Orinoco. This was later by thirteen months and a week than the Cabots' landfallat Labrador or Nova Scotia, though a year before Amerigo Vespucci sawthe coast of Brazil. It was during this third absence that Columbus, hated as an Italian and for his undeniable greed, was superseded byBobadilla, who sent him and his brother home in chains. Soon free again, he sets off in 1502 upon a fourth cruise, in which he reaches the coastof Honduras. 

To the day of his death, however, the discoverer of America neversuspected that he had brought to light a new continent. Even during thishis last expedition he maintained that the coast he had touched was thatof Mangi, contiguous to Cathay, and that nineteen days of traveloverland would have taken him to the Ganges. He arrived in Spain onSeptember 12, 1504, and died at Segovia on May 20th of the next year. His bones are believed to rest in the cathedral at Santo Domingo, transported thither in 1541, the Columbus-remains till recently atHavana being those of his son Diego. The latter, under the belief thatthey were the father's, were transferred to Genoa in 1887, and depositedthere on July 2d of that year with the utmost ecclesiastical pomp. 

[1500-1507]

As Columbus was ignorant of having found a new continent, so was hedenied the honor of giving it a name, this falling by accident, design, or carelessness of truth, to Amerigo Vespucci, a native of Florence, whose active years were spent in Spain and Portugal. Vespucci made threevoyages into the western seas. In the second, 1501, he visited the coastof Brazil, and pushed farther south than any navigator had yet done, probably so far as the island of South Georgia, in latitude 54 degrees. His account of this voyage found its way into print in 1504, atAugsburg, Germany, the first published narrative of any discovery of themainland. Although, as above noted, it was not the earliest discovery ofthe main, it was widely regarded such, and caused Vespucci to be namedfor many years as the peer, if not the superior of Columbus. Thepublication ran through many editions. That of Strassburg, 1505, mentioned Vespucci on its title-page as having discovered a new"Southern Land. " This is the earliest known utterance hinting at thecontinental nature of the new discovery, as separate from Asia, an ideawhich grew into a conviction only after Magellan's voyage, described inthe next chapter. In 1507 appeared at St. Die, near Strassburg, afour-page pamphlet by one Lud, secretary to the Duke of Lorraine, describing Vespucci's voyages and speaking of the Indians as the"American race. " This pamphlet came out the same year in another form, as part of a book entitled "Introduction to Cosmography, " prepared byMartin Waldseemuller, under the nom de plume of "Hylacomylus. " In thisbook the new "part of the world" is distinctly called "THE LAND OFAMERICUS, OR AMERICA, " There is some evidence that Vespucci at leastconnived at the misapprehension which brought him his renown--asundeserved as it has become permanent--but this cannot be regarded asproved. 

[Illustration: Amerigo Vespucci. Fac-simile of an old print. ]

CHAPTER II. 

EARLY SPANISH AMERICA

[1498]

As we have seen, Spain by no means deserves the entire credit ofbringing the western continent to men's knowledge. Columbus himself wasan Italian. So was Marco Polo, his inspirer, and also Toscanelli, hisinstructor, by whose chart he sailed his ever-memorable voyage. ToPortugal as well Columbus was much indebted, despite his rebuff there. Portugal then led the world in the art of navigation and in enthusiasmfor discovery. Nor, probably, would Columbus have asked her aid in vain, had she not previously committed herself to the enterprise of reachingIndia eastward, a purpose brilliantly fulfilled when, in 1498, Vasco daGama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed to Calicut, on the coastof Malabar. Already before this Spain and Portugal were rivals in thesearch for new lands, and Pope Alexander VI. Had had to be appealed to, to fix their fields. By his bull of May 3, 4, 1493, he ordained as theseparating line the meridian passing through a point one hundred leagueswest of the Azores, where Columbus had observed the needle of hiscompass to point without deflection toward the north star. Portugalobjecting to this boundary as excluding her from the longitude of thenewly found Indies, by the treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, the twopowers, with the Pope's assent, moved the line two hundred and seventyleagues still farther west. At this time neither party dreamed of thecomplications destined subsequently to arise in reference to theposition of this meridian on the other side of the globe. 

[Illustration: Vasco da Gama; From an old print. ]

The meridian of the Tordesillas convention had been supposed still togive Spain all the American discoveries likely to be made, it beingascertained only later that by it Portugal had obtained a considerablepart of the South American mainland Brazil, we know, was, till in 1822it became independent, a Portuguese dependency. Spain, however, retainedboth groups of the Antilles with the entire main about the Gulf ofMexico, and became the earliest great principality in the western world. 

[1506-1513]

Before the death of Columbus, Spain had taken firm possession of Cuba, Porto Rico, and St. Domingo, and she stood ready to seize any of theadjoining islands or lands so soon as gold, pearls, or aught else ofvalue should be found there. Cruises of discovery were made in everydirection, first, indeed, in Central and South America. In 1506 de Solissailed along the eastern coast of Yucatan. In 1513 the governor of acolony on the Isthmus of Darien, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, from the top ofa lofty mountain on the isthmus, saw what is now called the PacificOcean. He designated it the South Sea, a name which it habitually boretill far into the eighteenth century. From this time the exploration andsettlement of the western coast, both up and down, went on with littleinterruption, but this history, somewhat foreign to our theme, we cannotdetail. 

[Illustration: Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean. ]

[Illustration: Ponce de Leon]

The same year, 1513, Ponce de Leon, an old Spanish soldier in the warswith the Moors, a companion of Columbus in his second voyage, and tillnow governor of Porto Rico, began exploration to the northward. LeavingPorto Rico with three ships, he landed on the coast of an unknowncountry, where he thought to find not only infinite gold but also themuch-talked-about fountain of perpetual youth. His landing occurred onEaster Sunday, or Pascua Florida, March 27, 1513, and so he named thecountry Florida. The place was a few miles north of the present town ofSt. Augustine. Exploring the coast around the southern extremity of thepeninsula, he sailed among a group of islands, which he designated theTortugas. Returning to Porto Rico, he was appointed governor of the newcountry. He made a second voyage, was attacked by the natives andmortally wounded, and returned to Cuba to die. 

[1518-1520]

Juan de Grijalva explored the south coast of the Gulf of Mexico, fromYucatan toward the Panuco. Interest attaches to this enterprise mainlybecause the treasure which Grijalva collected aroused the envy and greedof the future conqueror of Mexico, Hernando Cortez. 

In 1518, Velasquez, governor of Cuba, sends Cortez westward, with elevenships and over six hundred men, for the purpose of exploration. Helanded at Tabasco, thence proceeded to the Island of San Juan de Ulua, nearly opposite Vera Cruz, where he received messengers and gifts fromthe Emperor Montezuma. Ordered to leave the country, he destroyed hisships and marched directly upon the capital. He seized Montezuma andheld him as a hostage for the peaceable conduct of his subjects. TheMexicans took up arms, only to be defeated again and again by theSpaniards. Montezuma became a vassal of the Spanish crown, andcovenanted to pay annual tribute. Attempting to reconcile his people tothis agreement he was himself assailed and wounded, and, refusing allnourishment, soon after died. With re-enforcements, Cortez completedthe conquest of the country, and Mexico became a province of Spain. 

[Illustration: Hernando Cortes. From an old print. ]

Vasquez de Ayllon, one of the auditors of the Island of Santo Domingo, sent two ships from that island to the Bahamas for Indians to be sold asslaves. Driven from their course by the wind, they at length reached theshore of South Carolina, at the mouth of the Wateree River, which theynamed the Jordan, calling the country Chicora. Though kindly treated bythe natives, the ruthless adventurers carried away some seventy ofthese. One ship was lost, and most of the captives on the others diedduring the voyage. Vasquez was, by the Emperor Charles V. , King ofSpain, made governor of this new province, and again set sail to takepossession. But the natives, in revenge for the cruel treatment whichthey had previously received, made a furious attack upon the invaders. The few survivors of the slaughter returned to Santo Domingo, and theexpedition was abandoned. These voyages were in 1520 and 1526. 

In connection with the subject of Spanish voyages, a passing noticeshould be given to one, who, though not of Spanish birth, yet did muchto further the progress of discovery on the part of his adopted country. Magellan was a Portuguese navigator who had been a child when Columbuscame back in triumph from the West Indies. Refused consideration fromKing Emmanuel, of Portugal, for a wound received under his flag duringthe war against Morocco, he renounced his native land and offered hisservices to the sagacious Charles V. , of Spain, who gladly acceptedthem, With a magnificent fleet, Magellan, in 1519, set sail fromSeville, cherishing Columbus's bold purpose, which no one had yetrealized, of reaching the East Indies by a westward voyage, Aftertouching at the Canaries, he explored the coast of South America, passedthrough the strait now called by his name, discovered the LadroneIslands, and christened the circumjacent ocean the Pacific. 

[Illustration: Montezuma mortally wounded by his own subjects. ]

The illustrious navigator now sailed for the Philippine Islands, sonamed from Philip, son of Charles V. , who succeeded that monarch asPhilip II. By the Tordesillas division above described, the islands wereproperly in the Portuguese hemisphere, but on the earliest maps, made bySpaniards, they were placed twenty-five degrees too far east, and thiscircumstance, whether accidental or designed, has preserved them toSpain even to the present time. At the Philippine Islands Magellan waskilled in an affray with the natives. One of his ships, the Victoria, after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, arrived in Spain, havingbeen the first to circumnavigate the globe. The voyage had taken threeyears and twenty-eight days. 

[1528-1540]

The disastrous failure of the expedition of Vasquez de Ayllon to Floridadid not discourage attempts on the part of others in the same direction. Velaspuez, governor of Cuba, jealous of the success of Cortez in Mexico, had sent Pamphilo de Narvaez to arrest him. In this attempt Narvaez hadbeen defeated and taken prisoner. Undeterred by this failure he hadsolicited and received of Charles V. The position of governor overFlorida, a territory at that time embracing the whole southern part ofwhat is now the United States, and reaching from Cape Sable to thePanuco, or River of Palms, in Mexico. With three hundred men he, in1528, landed near Appalachee Bay, and marched inland with the hope ofopening a country rich and populous. Bitterly was he disappointed. Swamps and forests, wretched wigwams with their squalid inmateseverywhere met his view, but no gold was to be found. Discouraged, heand his followers returned to the coast, where almost superhuman toiland skill enabled them to build five boats, in which they hoped to workwestward to the Spanish settlements. Embarking, they stole cautiouslyalong the coast for some distance, but were at last driven by a stormupon an island, perhaps Galveston, perhaps Santa Rosa, where Narvaez andmost of his men perished. Four of his followers survived to cross Texasto the Gulf of California and reach the town of San Miguel on the westcoast of Mexico. Here they found their countrymen, searching as usualfor pearls, gold, and slaves, and by their help they made a speedyreturn to Spain, heroes of as remarkable an adventure as historyrecords. These unfortunates were the first Europeans to visit NewMexico. Their narrative led to the exploration of that country byCoronado and others, and to the discoveries of Cortez in LowerCalifornia. 

[Illustration: Death of Magellan. ]

[Illustration: Ferdinand de Soto. ]

Ferdinand de Soto, eager to rival the exploits of Cortez in Mexico, andof his former commander, Pizarro, in Peru, offered to conquer Florida athis own expense. Appointed governor-general of Florida and of Cuba, hesailed with seven large and three small vessels. From Espiritu Santo Bayhe, in 1539, marched with six hundred men into the country of theAppalachians and discovered the harbor of Pensacola. After wintering atAppalachee he set out into the interior, said to abound in gold andsilver. Penetrating northeasterly as far as the Savannah, he found onlycopper and mica. From here he marched first northwest into northerncentral Georgia, then southwest into Alabama. A battle was fought withthe natives at Mavila, or Mobile, in which the Spaniards sufferedserious loss. Ships that he had ordered arrived at Pensacola, but deSoto determined not to embark until success should have crowned hisefforts. He turned back into the interior, into the country of theChickasaws, marched diagonally over the present State of Mississippi toits northwest corner, and crossed the Mississippi River near the lowestChickasaw Bluff. From this point the general direction of the Spanishprogress was southwest, through what is now Arkansas, past the site ofLittle Rock, till at last a river which seems to have been the Washitawas reached. Down this stream de Soto and his decimated forcefloated--two hundred and fifty of his men had succumbed to the hardshipsand perils of his march--arriving at the junction of the Red with theMississippi River on Sunday, April 17, 1542. At this point de Sotosickened and died, turning over the command to Luis de Moscoso. Buryingtheir late leader's corpse at night deep in the bosom of the greatriver, and constructing themselves boats, the survivors of thisill-fated expedition, now reduced to three hundred and seventy-twopersons, made the best of their way down the Mississippi to the Gulf, and along its coast, finally reaching the Spanish town near the mouth ofthe Panuco in Mexico. 

[Illustration: A Palisaded Indian Town in Alabama. ]

[Illustration: Burial of de Soto in the Mississippi at night. ]

[1562]

Thus no settlement had as yet been made in Florida by the Spanish. Thefirst occupation destined to be permanent was brought about throughreligious jealousy inspired by the establishment of a French Protestant(Huguenot) colony in the territory. Ribault, a French captaincommissioned by Charles IX. , was put in command of an expedition by thatfamous Huguenot, Admiral Coligny, and landed on the coast of Florida, atthe mouth of the St. John's, which he called the River of May. This wasin 1562. The name Carolina, which that section still bears, was given toa fort at Port Royal, or St. Helena. Ribault returned to France, wherecivil war was then raging between the Catholics and the Protestants orHuguenots. His colony, waiting for promised aid and foolishly making noattempt to cultivate the soil, soon languished. Dissensions arose, andan effort was made to return home. Famine having carried off the greaternumber, the colony came to an end. In 1564 Coligny sent out Laudonniere, who built another fort, also named Carolina, on the River of May. Againmisfortunes gathered thickly about the settlers, when Ribault arrivedbringing supplies. 

[Illustration: Fort Carolina on the River of May. ]

[1565]

[Illustration: Pedro Melendez. ]

But Spain claimed this territory, and Pedro Melendez a Spanish soldier, was in 1565 sent by Philip II. To conquer it from the French, doublydetested as Protestants. He landed in the harbor and at the mouth of theriver, to both of which he gave the name St. Augustine. Melendez lost notime in attacking Fort Carolina, which he surprised, putting thegarrison mercilessly to the sword. The destruction of the French colonywas soon after avenged by Dominic de Gourgues, who sailed from France topunish the enemies of his country. Having accomplished his purpose bythe slaughter of the Spanish garrison he returned home, but the FrenchProtestants made no further effort to colonize Florida. 

Spain claimed the land by right of discovery, but, although maintainingthe feeble settlement at St. Augustine, did next to nothing after thisto explore or civilize this portion of America. The nation that had sentout Columbus was not destined to be permanently the great power of theNew World. The hap of first landing upon the Antilles, and also the warmclimate and the peaceable nature of the aborigines, led Spain to fix hersettlements in latitudes that were too low for the best health and thegreatest energy. Most of the settlers were of a wretched class, criminals and adventurers, and they soon mixed largely with the natives. Spain herself greatly lacked in vigor, partly from national causes, partly from those obscure general causes which even to this day keepLatin Europe, in military power and political accomplishments, inferiorto Teutonic or Germanic Europe. 

[Illustration: Indians devoured by dogs. From an old print. ]

[1570]

Moreover, the Spaniards found their first American conquests too easy, and the rewards of these too great. This prevented all thought ofdeveloping the country through industry, concentrating expectationsolely upon waiting fortunes, to be had from the natives by the sword orthrough forced labor in mines, Their treatment of the aborigines wasnothing short of diabolical. Well has it been said: "The Spaniards hadsown desolation, havoc, and misery in and around their track. They haddepopulated some of the best peopled of the islands and renewed themwith victims deported from others. They had inflicted upon hundreds ofthousands of the natives all the forms and agonies of fiendish cruelty, driving them to self-starvation and suicide, as a way of mercy andrelease from an utterly wretched existence. They had come to be viewedby their victims as fiends of hate, malignity, and all dark and crueldesperation and mercilessness in passion. The hell which they denouncedupon their victims was shorn of its worst terror by the assurance thatthese tormentors were not to be there. Las Casas, the noble missionary, the true soldier of the cross, and the few priests and monks whosympathized with him, in vain protested against these cruelties. "

To all these causes we must add the narrow colonial policy of Spain. Imitating Venice and ancient Carthage instead of Greece, she held herdependencies under the straitest servitude to herself as conqueredprovinces, repressing all political or commercial independence. Asimilar restrictive policy, indeed, hampered the colonies of othernations, but it was nowhere else so irrational or blighting as inSpanish America. 

CHAPTER III. 

EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION BY THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH

[1534]

How the French fought for foothold in Florida and were routed by theSpaniards has just been related. So early as 1504, and possibly muchearlier, before Cabot or Columbus, French sailors were familiar with thefisheries of Newfoundland. To the Isle of Cape Breton they gave its namein remembrance of their own Brittany. The attention of the FrenchGovernment was thus early directed toward America, and it at lengthdetermined to share in the new discoveries along with the Spanish andthe English. 

In 1524 Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, was sent by Francis I. On avoyage of discovery to the New World. Sighting the shores of Americanear the present Wilmington, North Carolina, he explored the coast ofNew Jersey, touched land near New York Bay, and anchored a few days inthe harbor of Newport. In this vicinity he came upon an island, whichwas probably Block Island. Sailing from here along the coast as farnorth as Newfoundland, he named this vast territory New France. 

[Illustration: Verrazano, the Florentine Navigator. ]

[Illustration: Jacques Cartier. From an old print. ]

[1540]

In 1534 Cartier, a noted voyager of St. Malo, coasted along the north ofNewfoundland, passed through the Straits of Belle Isle into the waternow known as St. Lawrence Gulf, and into the mouth of the St. LawrenceRiver. Erecting a cross, he took possession of the shores in the name ofthe king of France. 

In the following year he made a second voyage, going up as far as themouth of a small river which the year before he had named St. John's. Hecalled the waters the Bay of St. Lawrence. Ascending this, he came to asettlement of the natives near a certain hill, which he called MontRoyal, now modified into "Montreal. " Cartier returned to France in 1536, only a few of his men having survived the winter. 

In 1540 Lord Roberval fitted out a fleet, with Cartier as subordinate. Cartier sailed at once--his third voyage--Roberval following the nextyear. A fort was built near the present site of Quebec. Roberval andCartier disagreed and returned to France, leaving the real foundation ofQuebec to be laid by Champlain, much later. 

In 1604 De Monts arrived on the coast of Nova Scotia and erected a fortat the mouth of the St. Croix, New Brunswick. He also made a settlementon the shore of the present harbor of Annapolis, naming it Port Royal, and the country around it Acadia. De Monts is famous largely becauseunder him the Sieur de Champlain, the real father of French colonizationin America, began his illustrious career. He had entered the St. Lawrence in 1603. In 1608 he founded Quebec, the first permanent colonyof New France. The next year he explored the lake which perpetuates hisname. In 1615 he saw Lake Huron, Le Caron, the Franciscan, preceding himin this only by a few days. Fired with ardor for discovery, Champlainjoined the Hurons in an attack upon the Iroquois. This led him into whatis now New York State, but whether the Indian camp first attacked by himwas on Onondaga or on Canandaigua Lake is still in debate. These werebut the beginning of Champlain's travels, by which many other Frenchmen, some as missionaries, some as traders, were inspired to press far outinto the then unknown West. We shall resume the narrative in Chapter VIIof the next period. Champlain died at Quebec in 1635. 

Turn back now to Columbus's time. England, destined to dominate thecontinent of North America, was also practically the discoverer of thesame. On St. John's day, June 24, 1497, thirteen months and a weekbefore Columbus saw South America, John Cabot, a Venetian in the serviceof King Henry VII. , from the deck of the good ship Matthew, of Bristol, descried land somewhere on the coast either of Labrador or of NovaScotia. Cabot, of course, supposed this prima vista of his to belong toAsia, and expected to reach Cipango next voyage. So late as 1543 JeanAllefonsce, on reaching New England, took it for the border of Tartary. Andre Thevet, in 1515, in a pretended voyage to Maine, places CapeBreton on the west coast of Asia. This confusion probably explains thetradition of Norumbega as a great city, and of other populous andwealthy cities in the newly found land. Men transferred ideas of EasternAsia to this American shore. 

[1516]

The subsequent year Cabot made a second voyage, inspecting the Americancoast northward till icebergs were met, southward to the vicinity ofAlbemarle Sound. Possibly in his first expedition, probably in thesecond, John Cabot was accompanied by his more famous son, Sebastian. For many years after the Cabots, England made little effort to explorethe New World. Henry VII. Was a Catholic. He therefore submitted to thePope's bull which gave America to Spain. Henry VIII. Had marriedCatherine of Aragon. He allowed Ferdinand, her father, to employ theskill and daring of Sebastian Cabot in behalf of Spain. It was reservedfor the splendid reign of Elizabeth to show what English courage andendurance could accomplish in extending England's power. 

[Illustration: Sebastian Cabot. From an old print. ]

[1576]

Like those before him, Martin Frobisher was in earnest to find thenorthwest passage, in whose existence all navigators then fullybelieved. Like Columbus, he vainly sought friends to aid him. At last, after he had waited fifteen years in vain, Dudley, the Earl of Warwick, helped him to an outfit. His little fleet embraced the Gabriel, ofthirty-five tons, the Michael of thirty, and a pinnace of ten. As itswept to sea past Greenwich, the Queen waved her hand in token ofgood-will. Sailing northward near the Shetland Isles, Frobisher passedthe southern shore of Greenland and came in sight of Labrador, 1576. 

He effected a landing at Hall's Island, at the mouth of the bay nowcalled by his name, but which he thought to be a strait, his discoverythus strengthening his belief in the possibility of reaching Asia bythis westward course. He sailed up the bay as far as Butcher's Island, where five of his men were taken prisoners by the natives. All effort torescue them was made, but to no purpose. Among the curiosities which hebrought home was a piece of stone, or black ore, which gave rise to thebelief that gold was to be found in this new country. 

[1577]

A second and larger expedition sailed in 1577. The Queen gave 1, 000pounds and lent the royal ship Aid, of two hundred tons. The Gabriel andthe Michael of the former year were again made ready, besides smallercraft. This voyage was to seek gold rather than to discover thenorthwest passage. The fleet set sail May 27th, and on July 18th arrivedoff North Foreland, or Hall's Island, so named for the man who hadbrought away the piece of black earth. Search was made for this metal, supposed to be so valuable, and large quantities were found. The fleetsailed back to England with a heavy cargo of it. 

In 1578 a third and the last voyage was made to this region, to whichthe name meta incognita was given. Two large ships were furnished by theQueen, and these were accompanied by thirteen smaller ones. 

[1578-1580]

It was now the purpose to found a colony. The expedition set sail May31st, going through the English Channel, and reaching the coast ofGreenland June 21st. Frobisher and a few of his sailors landed where, perhaps, white men had never trodden before. As he came near the bay hewas driven south by stormy weather, and entered, not knowing hiswhereabouts, the waters of Hudson's Straits, which he traversed adistance of sixty miles. He succeeded at length in retracing his course, and anchored on the southern shore of Frobisher's Bay, in the Countessof Warwick's Sound. But the desire for gold, the bleak winds, barrenshores, and drifting icebergs, all combined to dispel the hopes ofmaking a successful settlement, and the adventurers turned their faceshomeward, carrying once more a cargo of ore, which proved, like thefirst, to be of no value whatever. 

Almost three hundred years later Captain Hall, the American explorer, visited the Countess's Island and Sound. Among the Eskimos, from 1860 to1862, he learned the tradition of Frobisher's visits, which had beenpreserved and handed down. They knew the number of ships; they spoke ofthe three times that white men had come; how five of these strangers hadbeen taken captive, and how, after remaining through the winter, theyhad been allowed to build a boat, and to launch themselves upon the icyseas, never to be heard of more. Captain Hall was shown many relics ofFrobisher's voyages, some of which he sent to the Royal GeographicalSociety of London, a part to the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. The small English house of lime and stone on this island was stillstanding in good condition, and there was also a trench where they hadbuilt their ill-fated boat. 

[Illustration: An Indian Village at the Roanoke Settlement. ]

A contemporary of Frobisher, Sir Francis Drake, also entertained theidea of making the northwest passage. While engaged in privateering orpiratical expeditions against the Spanish, Drake landed on the Isthmusof Panama, saw the Pacific for the first time, and determined to enterit by the Straits of Magellan. In 1577 he made his way through thestraits, plundered the Spanish along the coast of Chili and Peru, andsailed as far north as the 48th parallel, or Oregon, calling the countryNew Albion. Steering homeward by the Cape of Good Hope, he arrived atPlymouth, his starting-point, in 1580, having been absent about twoyears and ten months. 

[Illustration: Sir Humphrey Gilbert. ]

Thomas Cavendish had been with Grenville in the voyage of 1585 toVirginia. Frobisher's attempts inspired him with the ambition of theage. In 1586 he, too, sailed through the Straits of Magellan, burningand plundering Spanish ships, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reachedPlymouth in 1588, having been gone about two years and fifty days. 

[Illustration: Sir Walter Raleigh. From a portrait attributed to Zuccaroin the National Portrait Gallery, London. ]

[1584]

These half-piratical attempts against Spain led continually intoAmerican waters, till the notion of forming a permanent outpost here asbase for such adventures suggested to Sir Humphrey Gilbert the plan, which he failed to realize, of founding an American settlement. Gilbertvisited our shores in 1579, and again in 1583, but was lost on hisreturn from the latter voyage. 

In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh sent two captains, Amidas and Barlow, toinspect the coast off what is now North Carolina. They reported sofavorably that he began, next year, a colony on Roanoke Island. Englandwas now a Protestant land, and no longer heeded Spanish claims to thetransatlantic continent, save so far as actual settlements had beenmade. 

[1586]

Sir Richard Grenville commanded this expedition, but was to return onseeing the one hundred and eight colonists who accompanied him wellestablished. Queen Elizabeth gave the name VIRGINIA to the new country. Drake, tending homeward from one of his raids on the Spanish coast, in1586, offered the settlers supplies, but finding them whollydiscouraged, he carried them back to England. 

[Illustration: Queen Elizabeth. ]

[1587]

Determined to plant an agricultural community, Raleigh next time, l587, sent men with their families. A daughter to one of these, named Dare, was the first child of English parents born in America. Becomingdestitute, the colony despatched its governor home for supplies. Hereturned to find the settlement deserted, and no tidings as to the fateof the poor colonists have ever been heard from that day to our own. TheJamestown settlers mentioned in the next chapter found among theirIndian neighbors a boy whose whitish complexion and wavy hair inducedthe interesting suspicion that he was descended from some one of theselost colonists of Roanoke. 

Thus Sir Walter's enterprise had to be abandoned. In the 40, 000 poundsspent upon it his means were exhausted. Besides, England was now at warwith Spain, and the entire energies of the nation were in requisitionfor the overthrow of the Spanish Armada. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA

[1606]

We have now arrived at the seventeenth century. In 1606 King James I. Issued the first English colonial charter. It created a first and asecond Virginia Company, the one having its centre in London, and comingto be known as the London Company; the other made up of Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth men, and gradually taking the title of the PlymouthCompany. This latter company, the second, or Plymouth Company, authorized to plant between 38 degrees and 45 degrees north, effected asettlement in 1607 at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Little came of itbut suffering, the colonists, after a severe winter, returning toEngland. 

[Illustration: King James I. Mr. Henry Irving's Collection. ]

[1607]

A colony of one hundred and five planters sent out by the first orLondon Company, proceeded, also in 1607, to Chesapeake Bay, enteringJames River, to which they indeed gave this name, and planted upon itsbanks Jamestown, the first permanent English colony on the continent. This London Company consisted of a council in England, appointed by theking, having the power to name the members of a local council which wasto govern the colony, the colonists themselves having no voice. 

It is well known that the very earliest population of the Old Dominionwas not of the highest, but predominantly idle and thriftless. Vagabondsand homeless children picked up in the streets of London, as well assome convicts, were sent to the colony from England to be indented asservants, permanently, or for a term of years. Persons of the betterclass, to be sure, came as well, and the quality of the population, onthe whole, improved year by year. Settlement here followed a centrifugaltendency, except as this was repressed by fear of the Indians. In 1616the departments of Virginia were Henrico, up the James above theAppomattox mouth, West and Shirley Hundreds, Jamestown, Kiquoton, andKing's Gift on the coast near Cape Charles--a wide reach of territory tobe covered by a total population of only three hundred and fifty. 

[1608]

A little exporting was immediately begun. So early as May 20, 1608, Jamestown sent to England a ship laden with iron ore, sassafras, cedarposts, and walnut boards. Another followed on June 2d, with a cargo allof cedar wood. This year or the next, small quantities of pitch, tar, and glass were sent. From 1619 tobacco was so common as to be thecurrency. About 1650 it was largely exported, a million and a halfpounds, on the average, yearly. The figure had risen to twelve millionpounds by 1670. At the middle of the century, corn, wheat, rice, hemp, flax, and fifteen varieties of fruit, as well as excellent wine wereproduced. A wind-mill was set up about 1620, the first in America. Itstood at Falling Creek on the James River. The pioneer iron works on thecontinent were in this colony, hailing from about the date last named. Community of property prevailed at Jamestown in all the earliest years, as it did at Plymouth. After the event noted by John Rolfe: "about thelast of August [1619] came in a Dutch man of warre that sold us twentyNegars, " slavery was a continual and increasing curse, as is attestedby the laws concerning slaves. It encouraged indolence and savagery ofhabit and nature. Virginian slaves, however, were better treated thanthose farther south. They were tolerably clothed, fed, and housed. 

[Illustration: Tobacco Plant. ]

[Illustration: Captain John Smith. ]

There was in Virginia little of that healthful social and politicalcontact which did so much to develop civilization at the North. Of townlife there was practically nothing. Even so late as 1716 Jamestown hadonly a sorry half-dozen structures, two of which were church andcourt-house. Fifteen years later Fredericksburg had, besides the manorhouse of Colonel Willis and its belongings, only a store, a tailor shop, a blacksmith shop, a tavern or "ordinary, " and a coffeehouse. Richmondand Petersburg still existed only on paper, and if we come down to themiddle of the eighteenth century, Williamsburg, the capital of theprovince, was nothing but a straggling village of two hundred houses, without a single paved street. Only the College and the governor's"palace" were of brick. The county-seats were mostly mere glades in thewoods, containing each its court-house, prison, whipping-post, pillory, and ducking-stool, besides the wretched tavern where court andattendants put up, and possibly a church. Hardships and dissensionsmarked the whole early history of this infant state. At one time onlyforty settlers remained alive, at another meal and water were the solediet. Hoping for instant riches in gold, poor gentlemen and vagabondshad come, too much to the exclusion of mechanics and laborers. Forrelief from the turbulence and external dangers of this period, thecolony owed much to Captain John Smith, who, after all allowance for hisboasting, certainly displayed great courage and energy in emergencies. He, too, it was who did most to explore the country up the James andupon Chesapeake Bay. 

[Illustration: "King Powhatan commands C:Smith to be flayne his daughterPokahontas beggs his life his thankfullness and how he subiecled 39 oftheir kings reade ye history" Pocahontas saving Captain Smith'sLife. From Smith's "General History. "]

[1609-1610]

A new charter was granted in 1609, the council in England being nowappointed by the stockholders instead of the king, and the governor ofthe colony being named by this council. Lord Delaware was made Governorand Captain-General of Virginia, and many more colonists sent out. By awreck of two of the vessels there was delay in the arrival of the newlychosen officers. Smith, then Percy, meantime continued to exerciseauthority. This, again, was a critical period. Indians were troublesome. Tillage having been neglected from the first, provisions becameexhausted, and a crisis long referred to as "the starving time" ensued. The colony had actually abandoned Jamestown and shipped for England, when met in James River by Lord Delaware, coming with relief. They atonce returned, and an era of hope dawned. This was in June, 1610. Onehundred and fifty new settlers accompanied Delaware. Planting wasvigorously prosecuted, the Indians placated, and still furtheraccessions of people and cattle secured from England. 

[1612]

Delaware's brief, mild sway was always a benediction, in pleasingcontrast with the severities of Dale and Argall, who successivelygoverned after his departure. Under Dale, death was the penalty forslaughtering cattle, even one's own, except with the Governor's leave, also of exporting goods without permission. A baker giving short weightwas to lose his ears, and on second repetition to suffer death. Alaundress purloining linen was to be flogged. Martial law aloneprevailed; even capital punishment was ordained without jury. Sucharbitrary rule was perhaps necessary, so lawless were the mass of thepopulation. It at any rate had the excellent effect of rousing theVirginians to political thought and to the assertion of their rights. In1612 a change took place in the Company's methods of governing itscolony. The superior council was abolished, its authority transferred tothe corporation as a whole, which met as an assembly to elect officersand enact laws for the colony. The government thus became moredemocratic in form and spirit. 

[Illustration: "POWHATAN Held this state & fashion when Capt. ' Smith wasdelivered to him prisoner. 1607"The Council of Powhatan. From Smith's "General History, "]

[1614-1619]

The year 1614 was distinguished by the marriage of Pocahontas, daughterof the native chief Powhatan, to the English colonist Rolfe. With himshe visited England, dying there a few years later. The alliance securedthe valuable friendship of Powhatan and his subjects--only tillPowhatan's death, however. Thenceforth savage hostilities occurred atfrequent intervals. In 1622 they were peculiarly severe, over threehundred settlers losing their lives through them. Another outbreak tookplace about 1650, this time more quickly suppressed. We shall see in alater chapter how Bacon's Rebellion was occasioned by Indian troubles. 

As James I. Broke with Parliament, a majority of the Virginiashareholders proved Liberals, and they wrought with signal purpose andeffect to realize their ideas in their colony. To this politicalcomplexion of the Virginia Company not only Virginia itself, but, in away, all America is indebted for a start toward free institutions. During the governorship of George Yeardley, was summoned an assembly ofburgesses, consisting of two representatives, elected by theinhabitants, from each of the eleven boroughs or districts which thecolony had by this time come to embrace. It met on June 10, 1619, theearliest legislative body in the New World. This was the dawn of anothernew era in the colony's history. 

[Illustration: Pocahantas]

[1622-1625]

In 1622 arrived Sir Thomas Wyatt, bringing a written constitution fromthe Company, which confirmed to the colony representative government andtrial by jury. The assembly was given authority to make laws, subjectonly to the Governor's veto. This enlargement of political rights wasdue to the growth of the sentiment of popular liberty in England. In themeetings of the London Company debates were frequent and spiritedbetween the court faction and the supporters of the political rights ofthe colonists. James I. , dissatisfied with the authority which he hadhimself granted, appointed a commission to inquire into the Company'smanagement, and also into the circumstances of the colony. A change wasrecommended, the courts decided as the king wished, and the Company wasdissolved, The colony, while still allowed to govern itself by means ofits popular assembly, was thus brought directly under the supervision ofthe Crown. Charles I. , coming to the throne in 1625, gave heed to theaffairs of the colony only so far as necessary to secure for himself theprofits of the tobacco trade, It was doubtless owing to his indifferencethat the colony continued to enjoy civil freedom. He again appointedYeardley Governor, a choice agreeable to the people; and in 1628, byasking that the assembly be called in order to vote him a monopoly ofthe coveted trade, he explicitly recognized the legitimacy and authorityof that body. 

[1642]

Yeardley was succeeded by Harvey, who rendered himself unpopular bydefending in all land disputes the claims arising under royal grantagainst those based upon occupancy. Difficulties of this sort pervadedall colonial history. 

In 1639 Wyatt held the office, succeeded in 1642 by Berkeley, duringwhose administration the colony attained its highest prosperity. Virginians now possessed constitutional rights and privileges in even ahigher degree than Englishmen in the northern colonies. The colonistswere most loyal to the king, and were let alone. They were also attachedto the Church of England, ever manifesting toward those of a differentfaith the spirit of intolerance characteristic of the age. 

[1650]

During the civil war in England, Virginia, of course, sided with theking. When Cromwell had assumed the reins of government he sent anexpedition to require the submission of the colony. An agreement wasmade by which the authority of Parliament was acknowledged, while thecolony in return was left unmolested in the management of its ownaffairs. 

[Illustration: Signature of Berkeley. ]

CHAPTER V. 

PILGRIM AND PURITAN AT THE NORTH

[1612]

The Pilgrims who settled New England were Independents, peculiar intheir ecclesiastical tenet that the single congregation of godlypersons, however few or humble, regularly organized for Christ's work, is of right, by divine appointment, the highest ecclesiastical authorityon earth. A church of this order existed in London by 1568; another, possibly more than one, the "Brownists, " by 1580. Barrowe and Greenwoodbegan a third in 1588, which, its founders being executed, went exiledto Amsterdam in 1593, subsequently uniting with the Presbyterians there. These churches, though independent, were not strictly democratic, likethose next to be named. 

Soon after 1600 John Smyth gathered a church at Gainsborough inLincolnshire, England, which persecution likewise drove to Amsterdam. Here Smyth seceded and founded a Baptist church, which, returning toLondon in 1611 or 1612, became the first church of its kind known tohave existed in England. From Smyth's church at Gainsborough sprang oneat Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, and this, too, exiled like its parent, crossed to Holland, finding home in Leyden in 1607 and 1608. Of thischurch John Robinson was pastor, and from its bosom came the PlymouthColony to New England. 

[Illustration: Plymouth Harbor, England. ]

[Illustration: Harbor of Provincetown, Cape Cod, where the Pilgrimslanded. ]

[1620]

This little band set out for America with a patent from the VirginiaCompany, according to James I. 's charter of 1606, but actually beganhere as labor-share holders in a sub-corporation of a new organization, the Plymouth Company, chartered in 1620. Launching in the Mayflower fromPlymouth, where they had paused in their way hither from Holland, theyarrived off the coast of Cape Cod in 1620, December 11th Old Style, December 21st New Style, and began a settlement, to which they gave thename Plymouth. Before landing they had formed themselves into apolitical body, a government of the people with "just and equal laws. "

[Illustration: The Life of the Colony at Cape Cod. ]

They based their civil authority upon this Mayflower compact, practically ignoring England. Carver was the first governor, Bradfordthe second. The colony was named Plymouth in memory of hospitalitieswhich its members had received at Plymouth, England, the name having noconnection with the "Plymouth" of the Plymouth Company. The members ofthe Plymouth Company had none but a mercantile interest in theadventure, merely fitting out the colonists and bearing the expense ofthe passage for all but the first. On the other hand, the stock was notall retained in England. Shares were allotted to the Pilgrims as well, one to each emigrant with or without means, and one for every 10 poundsinvested. 

Plymouth early made a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of theneighboring Wampanoags, the peace lasting with benign effects to bothparties for fifty years, or till the outbreak of Philip's War, discussedin a later chapter. The first winter in Plymouth was one of dreadfulhardships, of famine, disease and death, which spring relieved but inpart. Yet Plymouth grew, surely if slowly. It acquired rights on theKennebec, on the Connecticut, at Cape Ann. It was at first a puredemocracy, its laws all made in mass-meetings of the entire body ofmale inhabitants; nor was it till 1639 that increase of numbers forcedresort to the principle of representation. In 1643 the population wasabout three thousand. 

[Illustration: Signatures to Plymouth Patent. /In witnes whereof the said President & Counsell haue to the one pt ofthis pute Indenture sett their seales* And to th'other pt hereof thesaid John Peirce in the name of himself and his said Associate haue settto his seale geven the day and yeeres first aboue written/]

[1626-1630]

Between 1620 and 1630 there were isolated settlers along the whole NewEngland coast. White, a minister from Dorchester, England, founded acolony near Cape Ann, which removed to Salem in 1626. The PlymouthCompany granted them a patent, which Endicott, in charge of moreemigrants, brought over in 1628. It gave title to all land between theMerrimac and Charles Rivers, also to all within three miles beyond each. These men formed the nucleus of the colony to which in 1629 Charles I. Granted a royal charter, styling the proprietors "the Governor andCompany of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. " Boston was made thecapital. Soon more emigrants came, and Charlestown was settled. 

[Illustration: Site of First Church and Governor Bradford's House atPlymouth. ]

It was a momentous step when the government of this colony wastransferred to New England. Winthrop was chosen Governor, others of theCompany elected to minor offices, and they, with no fewer than onethousand new colonists, sailed for this side the Atlantic. InMassachusetts, therefore, a trading company did not beget, as elsewhere, but literally became a political state. Many of the Massachusetts men, in contrast with those of Plymouth, had enjoyed high consideration athome. Yet democracy prevailed here too. The Governor and his eighteenassistants were chosen by the freemen, and were both legislature andcourt. As population increased and scattered in towns, these chosedeputies to represent them, and a lower house element was added to theGeneral Court, though assistants and deputies did not sit separatelytill 1644. 

[Illustration: Governor Winthrop. ]

[1631]

At this time Massachusetts had a population of about 15, 000. To all NewEngland 21, 200 emigrants came between 1628 and 1643, the total whitepopulation at the latter date being about 24, 000. 

[Illustration: First Church in Salem. ]

So early as 1631 this colony decreed to admit none as freemen who werenot also church members. Thus Church and State were made one, thegovernment a theocracy. The Massachusetts settlers, though in manythings less extreme than the Pilgrims, were decided Puritans, sincerebut formal, precise, narrow, and very superstitious. They did not, however, on coming hither, affect or wish to separate from the Church ofEngland, earnestly as they deprecated retaining the sign of the cross inbaptism, the surplice, marriage with ring, and kneeling at communion. Yet soon they in effect became Separatists as well as Puritans, buildingindependent churches, like those at Plymouth, and repudiating episcopacyutterly. 

[Illustration: Seal of Massachusetts Bay Company. ]

[1635]

Much as these Puritans professed and tried to exalt reason in certainmatters, in civil and religious affairs, where they took the OldTestament as affording literal and minute directions for all sorts ofhuman actions for all time, they could allow little liberty of opinion. This was apparent when into this theocratic state came Roger Williams, afterward the founder of Rhode Island. Born in London, England, about1607, of good family, he was placed by his patron, Coke, at the CharterHouse School. From there he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1631he arrived in Boston. Somewhat finical in his political, moral, andreligious ideas, he found it impossible, having separated from theChurch of England, in which he had been reared, to harmonize here withthose still favoring that communion. At Salem he was invited by a littlecompany of Separatists to become their teacher. His views soon offendedthe authorities. He declared that the king's patent could confer notitle to lands possessed by Indians. He denied the right of magistratesto punish heresy, or to enforce attendance upon religious services. "Themagistrate's power, " he said, "extends only to the bodies, goods, andoutward state of men. "

Alarmed at his bold utterances, the General Court of Massachusetts, September 2, 1635, decreed his banishment for "new and dangerousopinions, against the authority of magistrates. " His fate was not, therefore, merely because of his religious views. The exile soughtrefuge at Seekonk, but this being within the Plymouth jurisdiction, he, on Governor Winslow's admonition, moved farther into the wilderness, settling at Providence. He purchased land of the natives, and, joined byothers, set up a pure democracy, instituting as a part thereof the"lively experiment, " for which ages had waited, of perfect liberty inmatters of religious belief. Not for the first time in history, but moreclearly, earnestly, and consistently than it had ever been done before, he maintained for every man the right of absolute freedom in matters ofconscience, for all forms of faith equal toleration. 

[Illustration: Roger Williams' House at Salem. ]

[1638]

[Illustration: Edward Winslow. ]

Some friends of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson established a colony on Aquidneck, the Indian name for Rhode Island. Williams went to England and securedfrom Parliament a patent which united that plantation with his in onegovernment. Charles II. 's charter of 1663 added Warwick to the first twosettlements, renewing and enlarging the patent, and giving freest scopefor government according to Williams' ideas. Mrs. Hutchinson, a woman ofrare intellect and eloquence, who maintained the right of privatejudgment and pretended to an infallible inner light of revelation, was, like Williams, a victim of Puritan intolerance. She and her followerswere banished, and some of them, returning, put to death, 1659-60. Shecame to Providence, then went to Aquidneck, where her husband died in1642. She next settled near Hurl Gate, within the Dutch limits, whereherself and almost her entire family were butchered by the Indians in1643. 

In 1633 the Dutch erected a fort where Hartford now is, but some Englishemigrants from Plymouth Colony, in defiance of a threatened cannonade, sailed past and built a trading-house at Windsor, where, joined bycolonists, from about Boston, they soon effected a settlement. Wethersfield and Hartford were presently founded. In 1630 the PlymouthCompany had granted Connecticut to the Earl of Warwick, who turned itover to Lord Brooke, Lord Say-and-Seal, and others. Winthrop theYounger, son of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, commissioned bythese last, built a fort at Saybrook. Till the expiration of hiscommission the towns immediately upon the Connecticut were under thegovernment of Massachusetts. Their population in 1643 was threethousand. A convention of these towns met at Hartford, January 14, 1639, and formed a constitution, like that of Massachusetts Bay, thoroughlyrepublican in nature. Connecticut breathed a freer spirit than eitherMassachusetts or New Haven, being in this respect the peer of Plymouth. At Hartford Roger Williams was always welcome. 

Meantime, in 1638, having touched at Boston the year before, Davenport, Eaton, and others from London began planting at New Haven. The Bible wasadopted as their guide in both civil and religious affairs, and agovernment organized in which only church members could vote or beelected to the General Court. The colony flourished, branching out intoseveral towns. In 1643 it numbered twenty five hundred inhabitants. 

As early as 1622, Mason and Gorges were granted land partly in what isnow Maine, partly in what is now New Hampshire; and in 1623 Dover andPortsmouth were settled. Wheelwright, a brother-in-law of Mrs. Hutchinson, with others, purchased of the natives the southeast part ofNew Hampshire, between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, and in 1638Exeter was founded. In the same year with Wheelwright's purchase, Masonobtained from the council of the Plymouth Company a patent to this samesection, and the tract was called New Hampshire. These conflictingclaims paved the way for future controversies and lawsuits. The settlershere were not Puritans, nor were they obliged to be church members inorder to be deputies or freemen. 

The settlement of Maine goes back to 1626, when the Plymouth Companygranted lands there both to Alexander and to Gorges. In 1639 Gorgessecured a royal charter to re-enforce his claim. Large freedom, civiland religious, was allowed. For many years the Maine settlements weresmall and scattered, made up mostly of such as came to hunt and fish fora season only. 

[1650]

From 1643 to 1684 Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Havenformed a confederation under the style of the United Colonies of NewEngland. Maine, Providence, and Rhode Island sought membership, but wererefused as being civilly and religiously out of harmony with thecolonies named. Connecticut, offensive to the Dutch, and exposed tohostilities from them, was the most earnest for the union, while at thesame time the most conservative as to its form. It was a loose league, leaving each colony independent save as to war and peace, Indianaffairs, alliances and boundaries. Questions pertaining to these were tobe settled by a commission of two delegates from each of the fourcolonies, meeting yearly, voting man by man, six out of the eight votesbeing necessary to bind. 

The confederacy settled a boundary dispute between New Haven and NewNetherland in 1650. It received and disbursed moneys, amounting someyears to 600 pounds, for the propagation of the gospel in New England, sent over by the society which Parliament incorporated for that purposein 1649. It was also of more or less service in securing united actionagainst the savages in Philip's War. The union was, however, of littleimmediate service, useful rather as an example for the far future. Itsfailure was due partly to the distance of the colonies apart, and to thestrength of the instinct for local self-government, a distinguishingpolitical trait of New England till our day. Its main weakness, however, was the overbearing power and manner of Massachusetts, especially afterher assumption of Maine in 1652. In 1653 the Plymouth, New Haven, andConnecticut commissioners earnestly wished war with New Netherland, butMassachusetts proudly forbade--a plain violation of the articles. Afterthis there was not much heart in the alliance. The last meeting of thecommissioners occurred at Hartford, September 5, 1684. 

CHAPTER VI. 

BALTIMORE AND HIS MARYLAND

[1630]

[Illustration: Maryland Shilling. ]

The very year that witnessed the landing of the Pilgrims records thebeginning of another attempt to colonize the New World. While Secretaryof State, having been appointed in 1619, Sir George Calvert, a member ofthe Virginia Company from 1609 until its dissolution in 1624, determinedto plant a colony for himself. In the memorable year 1620 he bought ofLord Vaughan the patent to the south-eastern peninsula of Newfoundland, the next he sent colonists thither with a generous supply of money fortheir support. In 1623 King James gave him a patent, making himproprietary of this region. In 1625 Calvert boldly declared himself aCatholic, and resigned his office of Secretary. Spite of this he wassoon afterwards ennobled, and his new title of Lord Baltimore is thename by which he is best known. Visiting his little settlement in 1627he quickly came to the conclusion that the severity of the climate wouldmake its failure certain. He therefore gave up this enterprise, butdetermined to repeat the attempt on the more favorable soil of Virginia. Confident of the goodwill of Charles I. , to whom he had written for agrant of land there, he did not await a reply, but sailed for Virginia, where he arrived in 1629. In 1632 the king issued a patent granting toBaltimore and his heirs a territory north and east of the Potomac, comprising what we now call Maryland, all Delaware, and a part ofPennsylvania. The name Maryland was given it by the king in, honor ofhis queen, Henrietta Maria. But before this charter had received royalsignature Lord Baltimore had breathed his last, and his son Cecilsucceeded to his honors and possessions. 

[Illustration: Henrietta Maria. ]

The Maryland charter made the proprietary the absolute lord of the soil. He was merely to acknowledge fealty by the delivery of two Indian arrowsyearly to the king at Windsor. He could make laws with the consent ofthe citizens, declare war or peace, appoint officers of government; infact, in most respects he had regal power. The colonists were, however, to remain English subjects, with all the privileges of such. If theywere not represented in Parliament, neither were they taxed by theCrown. If the proprietary made laws for them, these must not be contraryto the laws of England. And they were to enjoy freedom of trade, notonly with England but with foreign countries. 

[1634-1635]

This charter, as will be readily seen, could not please the Virginians, since the entire territory conveyed by it was part of the grant of 1609to the London Company for Virginia. But as this and subsequent chartershad been annulled in 1624, the new colony was held by the Privy Councilto have the law on its side, and Lord Baltimore was left to make hispreparations undisturbed. He fitted out two vessels, the Ark and theDove, and sent them on their voyage of colonization. They went by theway of the West Indies, arriving off Point Comfort in 1634. Sailing upthe Potomac, they landed on the island of St. Clement's, and took formalpossession of their new home. Calvert explored a river, now called theSt. Mary's, a tributary of the Potomac, and being pleased with the spotbegan a settlement. He gained the friendship of the natives bypurchasing the land and by treating them justly and humanely. 

[Illustration: Supposed Portrait of William Clayborne. ]

[Illustration: Clayborne's Trading Post on Kent Island. ]

The proprietary was a Catholic, yet, whether or not by an agreementbetween him and the king, as Gardiner supposes, did not use either hisinfluence or his authority to distress adherents of the Church ofEngland. The two creeds stood practically upon an equality. But ifreligious troubles were avoided, difficulties of another sort were notslow in arising. About the year 1631, Clayborne, who had been secretaryof the Virginia colony, had chosen Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay as astation for trading with the Indians. This post was in the very midst ofMaryland, and Calvert notified Clayborne that he should consider it apart of that province. Clayborne at once showed himself a bitter enemy. The Indians became suspicious and unfriendly, Clayborne, so it wasbelieved, being the instigator of this temper. An armed vessel was sentout, with orders from Clayborne to seize ships of the St. Mary'ssettlement. A fight took place, Clayborne fleeing to Virginia. Calvertdemanded that he should be given up. This was refused, and in 1637 hewent to England. A committee of the Privy Council decided that KentIsland belonged to Maryland. 

[1638]

In 1635 the first Maryland assembly met, consisting of the freemen ofthe colony and the governor, Leonard Calvert, the proprietary's brother, who was presiding officer. Lord Baltimore repudiated its acts, on theground that they were not proposed by him, as the charter directed. Theassembly which gathered in 1638 retaliated, rejecting the laws broughtforward by the proprietary. 

[1639]

For a time the colony was without laws except the common law of England. But Baltimore was too wise and conciliatory to allow such a state ofaffairs to continue. He gave authority to the governor to assent to theacts of the assembly, which he himself might or might not confirm. 

[Illustration: Fight between Clayborne and the St. Mary's Ship. ]

Accordingly in 1639 the assembly met and passed various acts, mostlyrelating to civil affairs. One, however, was specially noteworthy, asgiving to the "Holy Church" "her rights and liberties, " meaning by thisthe Church of Rome, for, as Gardiner says, the title was never appliedto the Church of England. It was at the same time expressly enacted thatall the Christian inhabitants should be in the enjoyment of every rightand privilege as free as the natural-born subjects of England. If RogerWilliams was the first to proclaim absolute religious liberty, LordBaltimore was hardly behind him in putting this into practice. As hasbeen neatly said, "The Ark and the Dove were names of happy omen: theone saved from the general wreck the germs of political liberty, and theother bore the olive-branch of religious peace. "

[1646]

During the civil war in England the affairs of Maryland were in a verydisturbed condition. Clayborne, Maryland's evil genius, seized theopportunity to foment an insurrection, possessed himself once more ofKent Island, and compelled the governor to flee to Virginia. Returningin 1646, Calvert was fortunate enough to recover the reins ofgovernment, but the following year witnessed the close of hisadministration and his short though useful and eventful life. Few menintrusted with almost absolute authority have exercised it with so muchfirmness and at the same time with so much ability, discretion, anduprightness. 

[1650]

His successor, Greene, a Catholic, was not likely to find favor with thePuritan Parliament of England, and Baltimore, in 1648, to conciliate theruling powers and to refute the charge that Maryland was only a retreatfor Romanists, removed the governor and appointed instead one who was aProtestant and a firm supporter of Parliament. The council was alsochanged so as to place the Catholics in the minority. The oath of thenew governor restrained him from molesting any person, especially if ofthe Roman Catholic persuasion, on account of religious profession. Theway was thus opened for the Act of Toleration passed in 1649. This law, after specifying certain speeches against the Trinity, the Virgin, orthe saints as punishable offences, declared that equal privileges shouldbe enjoyed by Christians of all creeds. Whatever the motives ofBaltimore, his policy was certainly wise and commendable. 

A new and troublesome element was now introduced into the colony. SomePuritans who had not been tolerated among the stanch Church-of-Englandinhabitants of Virginia were invited by Governor Stone to Maryland. Their home here, which they named Providence, is now known as Annapolis. The new-comers objected to the oath of fidelity, refused to sendburgesses to the assembly, and were ready to overthrow the governmentwhose protection they were enjoying. Opportunity soon offered. Parliament had already in 1652 brought Virginia to submission. Marylandwas now accused of disloyalty, and when we notice among thecommissioners appointed by the Council of State, the name of Clayborne, it is not difficult to understand who was the author of this charge. Thegovernor was removed, but being popular and not averse to compromise, was quickly restored. Then came the accession of Cromwell to power asProtector of England. Parliament was dissolved. The authority of itscommissioners of course ceased. Baltimore seized this opportunity toregain his position as proprietary. He bade Stone to require the oath offidelity to the proprietary from those who occupied lands, and to issueall writs in his name. He maintained that the province now stood in thesame relations to the Protectorate which it had borne to the royalistgovernment of Charles I. 

[Illustration: Oliver Cromwell. ]

So thought Cromwell, but not so Clayborne or the Maryland Puritans. Theydeposed Stone, and put in power Fuller, who was in sympathy with theirdesigns. There resulted a reversal of the acts of former assemblies, andlegislation hostile to the Catholics. The new assembly, from whichCatholics were carefully excluded by disfranchisement, at once repealedthe Act of Toleration. Protection was withdrawn from those who professedthe popish religion, and they were forbidden the exercise of that faithin the province. Severe penalties were threatened against "prelacy" and"licentiousness" thus restricting the benefits of their "Act concerningReligion" to the Puritan element now in power. The authority of theproprietary himself was disputed, and colonists were invited to takelands without his knowledge or consent. 

[1656]

Baltimore adopted vigorous measures. By his orders Stone made a forcibleattempt to regain control of the province, but was defeated atProvidence and taken prisoner. His life was spared, but four of his menwere condemned and executed. Baltimore again invoked the powerfulintervention of Cromwell, and again were the enemies of Maryland sternlyrebuked for their interference in the affairs of that province, and toldin plain language to leave matters as they had found them. In 1656, after an inquiry by the Commissioners of Trade, the claims of Baltimorewere admitted to be just, and he promptly sent his brother Philip to bea member of the council and secretary of the province. The legislationof the usurping Puritans was set aside, religious toleration once morehad full sway, and a general pardon was proclaimed to those who hadtaken part in the late disturbances. 

In the meantime, Fendall, who had been appointed governor by Baltimore, plotted to make himself independent of his master, and, with theconnivance of the assembly, proceeded to usurp the authority which waslawfully vested in the proprietary. But the attempt was a miserablefailure. Philip Calvert was immediately made governor by the nowall-powerful proprietary, who had the favor and support of Charles II. , just coming to the throne. Peace and prosperity came back to the colonyso sorely and frequently vexed by civil dissensions. The laws were justand liberal, encouraging the advent of settlers of whatever creed, whilethe rule of the Calverts was wise and benign, such as to merit therespect and admiration of posterity. In 1643 Virginia and Marylandtogether had less than twenty thousand inhabitants. In 1660 Marylandalone, according to Fuller, had eight thousand. Chalmers thinks therewere no fewer than twelve thousand at this date. 

CHAPTER VII. 

NEW NETHERLAND

[1609]

While the French explorer, Champlain, was sailing along the shores ofthe lake which bears his name, another equally adventurous spirit, HenryHudson, was on his way to the western world. Hoping to open a passage toIndia by a voyage to the north, Hudson, an English navigator, offered in1609 to sail under the authority of the Dutch East India Company. Drivenback by ice and fog from a northeast course, he turned northwest. Searching up and down near the parallel of 40 degrees, he entered themouth of the great river which perpetuates his name. He found thecountry inviting to the eye, and occupied by natives friendly indisposition. The subsequent career of this bold mariner has a mournfulinterest. He never returned to Holland, but, touching at Dartmouth, wasrestrained by the English authorities, and forbidden longer to employhis skill and experience for the benefit of the Dutch. Again enteringthe English service and sent once more to discover the northwestpassage, he sailed into the waters of the bay which still bears hisname, where cold and hunger transformed the silent discontent of hiscrew into open mutiny, and they left the fearless navigator to perishamid the icebergs of the frozen north. 

[Illustration: Seal of New Amsterdam. ]

[Illustration: Peter Stuyvesant. ]

[1614-1618]

Hudson had sent to Holland a report of the Great River and the countrybordering it, rich in fur-bearing animals, and it had excited eagerinterest. Private individuals sent expeditions thither and carried on aprofitable trade with the natives. A few Dutch were here when, in 1613, Captain Argall sailed from Virginia against the French at Port Royal, Acadia, now Annapolis in Nova Scotia, who were encroaching upon theEnglish possessions on the coast of Maine. He compelled them tosurrender. On his return, he visited the Dutch traders of ManhattanIsland, and forced them also, as it had been discovered by Cabot in1497, to acknowledge the sovereignty of England over this entire region. 

[Illustration: Seal of New Netherland. ]

It was in 1614 that the Dutch States-General, in the charter given to acompany of merchants, named the Hudson Valley New Netherland. Tofacilitate trade this company made a treaty with the Five Nations andsubordinate tribes, memorable as the first compact formed between thewhites and the savages. In it the Indians were regarded as possessingequal rights and privileges with their white brethren. The treaty wasrenewed in 1645, and continued in force till the English occupation, 1664. In 1618, the charter of the New Netherland Company having expired, the Dutch West India Company was offered a limited incorporation, but itwas not until 1621 that it received its charter, and it was two yearslater that it was completely organized and approved by theStates-General. By this company were sent out Mey, as Director, to theDelaware or South River, and Tienpont to the Hudson or North River. Fourmiles below Philadelphia Fort Nassau was erected, and where Albany nowstands was begun the trading-post called Fort Orange. 

[1626]

In 1626 Tienpont's successor, Peter Minuit, a German, born at Wesel, wasappointed Director-General of New Netherland. He bought of the Indians, for the sum of twenty-four dollars, the entire island of Manhattan, anda fort called New Amsterdam was built. The State of New York dates itsbeginning from this transaction. 

[Illustration: Earliest Picture of New Amsterdam. ]

By their usually honest dealing with the natives the Dutch settlersgained the friendship of the Five Nations, whose good-will was partly onthis account transferred to the English colonists later. The Dutch werenot only friendly to the red men, but tried to open social andcommercial relations with the Plymouth colonists as well. GovernorBradford replied, mildly urging the Dutch to "clear their title" to aterritory which the English claimed by right of discovery. 

[1630-1633]

[Illustration: De Vries. ]

The present State of Delaware soon became the scene of attempts atsettlement. De Vries began, in 1632, a colony on the banks of theDelaware, but it was quickly laid waste by the savages, who had beenneedlessly provoked by the insolence of the commander left in charge ofthe colony. In 1633 Minuit was succeeded by Van Twiller, and a fort waserected at Hartford, though the English claimed this country as theirs. Emigrants from the Plymouth colony began the settlement of Windsor, inspite of the protests of the Dutch. Long Island was invaded byenterprising New Englanders, regardless of the claim of New Netherlandthereto. 

[Illustration: Costumes of Swedes. ]

This "irrepressible conflict" between two races was by no means abatedby the introduction of a third. As early as 1626, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and the hero of the Thirty Years' War, had entertainedthe idea of establishing colonies in America, and in pursuance of thatobject had encouraged the formation of a company, not only for tradingpurposes but also to secure a refuge for the "oppressed of allChristendom. " To Usselinx, an Antwerp merchant, the originator of theDutch West India Company, belongs the honor of first suggesting to theking this enterprise. The glorious death of Gustavus on the victoriousfield of Lutzen in 1632 deferred the execution of a purpose which hadnot been forgotten even in the midst of that long and arduous campaign. But a few days before he fell, the Protestant hero had spoken of thecolonial prospect as "the jewel of his kingdom. "

[1638]

In 1638 Minuit, who had already figured as governor of New Netherland, having offered his services to Sweden, was intrusted with the leadershipof the first Swedish colony to America. After a few days' stay atJamestown the new-comers finally reached their wished-for destination onthe west shore of the Delaware Bay and River. Proceeding up the latter, one of their first acts was to build a fort on a little stream about twomiles from its junction with the Delaware, which they named FortChristina, in honor of the young queen of Sweden. Near this spot standsthe present city of Wilmington. The country from Cape Henlopen to thefalls at Trenton received the title of New Sweden. 

[1650]

It was in this very year that Kieft came to supersede Van Twiller, whohad given just cause for complaint by his eagerness to enrich himself atthe expense of the West India Company. During the administration ofKieft occurred the long and doubtful conflict with the natives detailedin the succeeding chapter. Arbitrary and exacting, he drove the Indiansto extremities, and involved the Dutch settlements in a war which for atime threatened their destruction. Not till 1645 was peacere-established, and in 1647 the unpopular governor was recalled. In 1647not more than three hundred fighting men remained in the whole province. Its total population was between fifteen hundred and two thousand. In1652 New Amsterdam had a population of seven or eight hundred. In 1664Stuyvesant put the number in the province at ten thousand, about fifteenhundred of whom were in New Amsterdam. 

[Illustration: The old Stadt Huys at New Amsterdam. ]

[Illustration: European Provinces 1655. Map of the eastern NorthAmerica. Latitude 25 to 50 North, Longitude 75 to 95 West. ]

[1655-1663]

The next governor, Stuyvesant, was the last and much the ablest ruleramong those who directed the destinies of New Netherland. Hisadministration embraced a period of seventeen years, during which herenewed the former friendly relations with the savages, made a treatywith New England, giving up pretensions to Connecticut as well asrelinquishing the east end of Long Island, and compelled the Swedes, in1655, to acknowledge the Dutch supremacy. It was while he was absent onhis expedition against the Swedes, leaving New Amsterdam unprotected, that the river Indians, watchful of their opportunity, invaded and laidwaste the surrounding country. In 1663 the savages attacked the villageon the Esopus, now Kingston, and almost destroyed it. It was not untilthe energetic governor made a vigorous campaign against the Esopustribe, whom he completely subdued, that peace was established on a firmfooting. 

[Illustration: New Amsterdam in the middle of the Seventeenth Century. ]

[Illustration: The Duke of York, afterwards James II. ]

[1664]

But the Dutch sway in their little part of the New World was about toend. The English had never given over their claim to the country byvirtue of their first discovery of the North American continent. The NewNetherlanders, tired of arbitrary rule, sighed for the larger freedom oftheir New England neighbors. Therefore, when in 1664 Charles II. Grantedto his brother, the Duke of York, the territory which the Dutch wereoccupying, and sent a fleet to demand its submission, the Englishinvader was welcomed. 

[Illustration: The Tomb of Stuyvesant. "In this Vault lies buried PETRUSSTUYVESANT late Captain Genral & Governor in Chief of Amsterdam, In NewNetherland now called New York and the Dutch West India Islands. DiedA. D. 1672 Aged 80 years. "]

Almost the only resistance came from the stout-hearted governor, whocould hardly be dissuaded from fighting the English single-handed, andwho signed the agreement to surrender only when his magistrates had, inspite of him, agreed to the proposed terms. But the founders of theEmpire State have left an indelible impress upon the Union, which theirdescendants have helped to strengthen and perpetuate. They were honest, thrifty, devout, tolerant of the opinions of others. As Hollandsheltered the English Puritans from ecclesiastical intolerance, so NewNetherland welcomed within her borders the victims of New Englandbigotry and narrowness. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FIRST INDIAN WARS

[1637]

Troubles between the Indians and the whites arose so early as 1636. JohnOldham was murdered on Block Island by a party of Pequot Indians. Vaneof Massachusetts sent Endicott to inflict punishment. The Pequots inturn attacked the fort at Saybrook, and in 1637 threatened Wethersfield. They were planning a union with the Narragansets for the destruction ofthe English, when Roger Williams informed the Massachusetts colony oftheir designs and, at the urgent request of the governor and council, hastened to the chief of the Narragansets and dissuaded him fromentering into the alliance. 

The moment was critical. Captain Mason with about ninety English andseventy Mohegans, under their sachem, Uncas (a sub chief, who with hisdistrict, Mohegan, had rebelled against the Pequot sachem, Sassacus), was sent from Hartford down the Connecticut River. Entering the Sound, he sailed past the mouth of the Thames and anchored in Narragansett Bay, at the foot of Tower Hill, near Point Judith. He knew that keen-eyedscouts from the Pequot stronghold on the west bank of the Mystic River, near Groton, had, as his three little ships skirted the shore, beenwatching him, to give warning of his approach. He therefore resolved tocome upon the enemy from an unlooked-for quarter. This plan was directlycontrary to his instructions, which required him to land at the mouth ofthe Thames and attack the fort from the west side. He hoped, marchingwestward across the country, to take the enemy by surprise on theirunprotected rear, while the Indians, trusting in the strength of theirfort, as it fronted the west, should believe themselves secure. 

[Illustration: Attack on the Fort of the Pequots on the Mystic River"The figure of the Indians fort or Palizado in NEW ENGLAND And the manerof the destroying It by Captayne Underhill and Captayne Manson"]

Thirteen men had been sent back to the Thames with the vessels. Twohundred Narragansets had joined the expedition, though their sachem, Miantonomoh, thought the English too weak to fight the dreaded Pequots. Mason's enterprise was admirably planned, and he was as fortunate as hewas bold and skilful. He divided his men into two parties. One, led byUnderhill, climbed the steep ascent on the south side of the Indianvillage; the other, directed by Mason himself, mounted the northernslope. The garrison was buried in slumber, made more profound bycarousals the preceding night. One Indian was heard to cry out"Englishmen" before the volley of musketry from the attacking force toldthat the white enemy had come. Mason entered a wigwam and fought, as didthe others, hand-to-hand with the now awakened and desperate foe. Comingout with a firebrand and exclaiming "We must burn them, " he set fire tothe wigwam. The flames were quickly carried through the fort by thenortheast wind. Underhill from his side applied powder. So rapidly didthe flames spread that the English had difficulty in making good theirescape, while the Pequots who escaped the sword were doomed to perish byfire. In an hour's time from four hundred to six hundred had fallen, more than half of them women and children. Of the Englishmen two werekilled and about twenty wounded. In this dreadful slaughter theNarragansets had little share, for they had shown such fear that Masonhad said to Uncas, "Tell them not to fly, but stand at what distancethey please and see whether Englishmen will now fight or not. "

[Illustration: Attack on the Pequot Fort. ]

With the approach of day three hundred Pequots advanced from a secondfort intending to fight, but they were struck with horror at the sightof their dead fellow-warriors. Keeping the enemy at bay, the Englishmarched to the vessels, which had arrived at Pequot Harbor, and, placingthe wounded on board, continued their march to Saybrook. The remnant ofthe Pequots sought to escape from the country, moving westward along theSound. Captain Stoughton, sent with one hundred and twenty Massachusettsmen, was guided by the Narragansets to a swamp in which a little band ofthose hostile savages had hidden. The men were slain, offering littleresistance. The women and children were divided among the Indian alliesor sold into slavery by the colonists of Massachusetts Bay. 

Mason and Stoughton together sailed from Saybrook along the shore, whileUncas with his men tracked the fugitives by land. At Guilford a Pequotsachem was entrapped, shot, and his head thrust into the crotch of anoak-tree near the harbor, giving the place the name of Sachem's Head. Near the town of Fairfield a last stand was made by the hunted redskins, in a swamp, to which the English were guided by a renegade Pequot. Thetribe with whom the Pequots had taken shelter, also the women andchildren, were allowed to give themselves up. The men were shot down orbroke through and escaped. The wife of Mononotto fell into the hands ofthe English. This Indian squaw had once shown kindness to two captivegirls, and by Winthrop's orders she was kindly treated in return. ThePequots, once so powerful, were well-nigh exterminated. Those takenprisoners were spared only to be held in bondage, Mononotto's wife withthe rest. Some were absorbed by the Narragansets, others by theMohegans, while the settlers of Connecticut, upon whom the war hadfallen so heavily, came into possession of the Pequot land. 

[l638]

For nearly forty years the New England colonies were not again molested, the merciless vigor with which they had fought making a lastingimpression upon their blood-thirsty foes. The cruel slavery to which thesurviving natives were subjected, the English justified by the exampleof the Jews in their treatment of the Canaanites. 

[Illustration: Signature of Miantonomoh. ]

[1642]

The Narraganset chief, Miantonomoh, had become the friend and ally ofthe English by a treaty ratified in 1636, mainly through the goodoffices of Roger Williams, In 1638, after the destruction of thePequots, there was a new treaty, embracing Uncas with his bold Mohegans, and stipulating that any quarrel between Miantonomoh and Uncas should bereferred to the English. In 1642 Miantonomoh was accused of plottingagainst the English, and summoned before the General Court at Boston. Though acquitted he vowed revenge upon Uncas as the instigator of thecharge. His friendship for Roger Williams, as also for Samuel Gorton, the purchaser of Shawomet, or Warwick, R. I. , which was claimed byMassachusetts, had perhaps created a prejudice against him. At any rate, when a quarrel arose between Uncas and Sequasson, Miantonomoh's friendand ally, while the latter naturally sided with Sequasson, thesympathies of the English were with Uncas, who had aided them againstthe Pequots. With the consent of Connecticut and MassachusettsMiantonomoh took the field against Uncas, who had attacked Sequasson. Hewas defeated and taken prisoner. Carried to Hartford he was held toawait the decision of the Commissioners of the United Colonies atBoston. They would not release him, yet had no valid ground for puttinghim to death. The case was referred to five clergymen, and they votedfor his execution. For this purpose the commissioners gave orders toturn the brave warrior over to Uncas, English witnesses to be presentand see that no cruelty was perpetrated. The sentence was carried intoeffect near Norwich. Cutting a piece of flesh from the shoulder of hismurdered enemy, Uncas ate it with savage relish, declaring it to be thesweetest meat he had ever tasted. 

[Illustration: The Grave of Miantonomoh. ]

[1640-1643]

The Dutch, too, as we have to some extent seen already, felt the horrorsof Indian warfare. Kieft, the Dutch director-general, a man cruel, avaricious, and obstinate, angered the red men by demanding tribute fromthem as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. Thesavages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to theDutch when in need of food, but would not pay tribute. Kieft attacked. Some of the Indians were killed and their crops destroyed. This rousedtheir revengeful passions to the utmost. The Raritan savages visited thecolony of De Vries, on Staten Island, with death and devastation. Rewardwas offered for the head of anyone of the murderers. An Indian neverforgot an injury. The nephew of one of the natives who twenty yearsbefore had been wantonly killed went to sell furs at Fort Amsterdam, andwhile there revenged his uncle's murder by the slaughter of anunoffending colonist. Spite of warlike preparations by Kieft and hisassembly in 1641-42, the tribe would not give up the culprit. Thefollowing year another settler was knifed by a drunken Indian. Wampumwas indeed offered in atonement, while an indignant plea was urged bythe savages against the liquor traffic, which demoralized their youngmen and rendered them dangerous alike to friend and foe. Butremonstrance and blood-money could not satisfy Kieft. At Pavonia and atCorlaer's Hook [footnote: now in the New York City limits, just belowBroadway Ferry, East River] the Dutch fell venomously upon the sleepingand unsuspecting enemy. Men, women, and children were slaughtered, nonespared. In turn the tribes along the lower Hudson, to the number ofeleven, united and desperately attacked the Dutch wherever found. Onlynear the walls of Fort Amsterdam was there safety. The governorappointed a day of fasting, which it seems was kept with effect. Thesale of liquor to the red men was at last prohibited, and peace for atime secured. 

Soon, however, the redskins along the Hudson were again up in arms. Thenoted Underhill, who with Mason had been the scourge of the Pequots, came to the fight with fifty Englishmen as allies of the Dutch. Notwaiting to be attacked, the Indians laid waste the settlements, eventhreatening Fort Amsterdam itself. At a place now known as Pelham Neck, near New Rochelle, lived the famous but unfortunate Mrs. Hutchinson, afugitive from the persecuting zeal of Massachusetts. Here the implacablesavages butchered her and her family in cold blood. Her littlegranddaughter alone was spared, and led captive to a far-off wigwamprison. Only at Gravesend, on Long Island, was a successful stand made, and that by a woman, Lady Deborah Moody, another exile from religiouspersecution, who with forty stout-hearted men defended her plantationand compelled the savages to beat a retreat. 

[1645]

The colony was in extremity. New Haven refused to aid, because, as amember of the New England confederacy, it could not act alone, andbecause it was not satisfied that the Dutch war was just. An appeal wasmade by Kieft's eight advisers to both the States-General and the WestIndia Company in Holland. The sad condition of the colonists was fullyset forth, and the responsibility directly ascribed to the mismanagementof Kieft. At the same time, undismayed by the gloomy outlook, thecourage of the sturdy Dutchmen rose with the emergency. Small partieswere sent out against the Connecticut savages in the vicinity ofStamford. Indian villages on Long Island were surprised and the nativesput to the sword. In two instances at least the victors disgracedhumanity by torturing the captured. 

In these engagements Underhill was conspicuous and most energetic. Having made himself familiar with the position of the Indians nearStamford, he sailed from Manhattan with one hundred and fifty men, landed at Greenwich, and, marching all day, at midnight drew near theenemy. His approach was not wholly unannounced, for the moon was full. The fight was desperate and bloody. The tragedy that had made memorablethe banks of the Mystic in the destruction of the Pequot fort was nowalmost equalled. After the example of his old comrade Mason, Underhillfired the village. By flame, shot, or sword more than five hundred humanbeings perished. 

While New Netherland was awaiting some message of cheer from Holland, acompany of Dutch soldiers came from Curacoa, but they did little tofollow up the successes already gained. Again the Eight sent a memorialto the company, boldly condemning the conduct of the director anddemanding his recall. Their remonstrances were at last heeded, and theremoval of the unpopular governor resolved upon. In 1647 Kieft set sailfor Holland, but the ship was wrecked, and he with nearly all on boardwas drowned. 

It was high time for a change. In the two years, 1643-45, while sixteenhundred Indians had been slain, Manhattan had become nearly depopulated. In 1645 peace was concluded, not only with the smaller tribes in thevicinity, but also with the powerful Mohawks about Fort Orange, andfinally with all the Indians belonging to the Five Nations oracknowledging their authority. A pleasing incident of this treaty wasthe promise of the Indians to restore the eight-year-old granddaughterof Mrs. Hutchinson, a promise which they faithfully performed in 1646. The great compact was made under the shadow of the Fort Amsterdam walls, and the universal joy was expressed by a day of thanksgiving. 

[Illustration: Totem or Tribe Mark of the Five Nations. ]

[1650-1660]

An interval of peace for ten years was now enjoyed, when the killing ofa squaw for stealing some peaches led to an attack by several hundred ofthe infuriated savages upon New Amsterdam. They were repulsed here, butcrossing to the shore of New Jersey they laid waste the settlementsthere. Staten Island, too, was swept with fire and sword. One hundredpeople were slain, 150 more taken captive, 300 made homeless. Peace wasagain effected and maintained for three years, when fresh quarrelsbegan. It was not until 1660 that a more general and lasting treaty wasbrought about, on which occasion a Mohawk and a Minqua chief gavepledges in behalf of the Indians, and acted as mediators between thecontending parties. 

PERIOD II. 

ENGLISH AMERICA TILL THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

1660--1763

CHAPTER I. 

NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE LAST STUARTS

[1660]

The Commonwealth in England went to pieces at the death of OliverCromwell, its founder. The Stuart dynasty came back, but, alas!unimproved. Charles II. Was a much meaner man than his father, and JamesII. Was more detestable still. The rule of such kings was destined towork sad changes in the hitherto free condition of Massachusetts. Thiscolony had sympathized with the Commonwealth more heartily than any ofthe others. Hither had fled for refuge Goffe and Whalley, two of theaccomplices in the death of Charles I. Congregational church polity washere established by law, to the exclusion of all others, even ofepiscopacy, for whose sake Charles was harrying poor Covenanters todeath on every hillside in Scotland. Nor would his lawyers let the kingforget Charles I. 's attack on the Massachusetts charter, begun so earlyas 1635, or the grounds therefor, such as the unwarranted transfer of itto Boston, or the likelihood that but for the outbreak of the Civil Warit would have been annulled by the Long Parliament itself. ObviouslyMassachusetts could not hope to be let alone by the home governmentwhich had just come in. 

At first the king, graciously responding to the colony's humblepetition, confirmed the charter granted by his father; but no sooner hadhe done so than the hot royalists about him began plotting to overthrowthe same, and their purpose never slumbered till it was accomplished. Massachusetts was too prosperous and too visibly destined for greatpower in America to be suffered longer to go its independent way ashitherto. 

[Illustration: King Charles II. ]

[1661]

The province--as yet, of course, excluding Plymouth with its twelvetowns and five thousand inhabitants--contained at this time, 1660, abouttwenty-five thousand souls, living in fifty-two towns. These were nearlyall on the coast; Dedham, Concord, Brookfield, Lancaster, Marlborough, and the Connecticut Valley hamlets of Springfield, Hadley, andNorthampton being the most noteworthy exceptions. Though agriculture wasthe principal business, fishing was a staple industry, its product goingto France, Spain, and the Straits. Pipe-staves, fir-boards, muchmaterial for ships, as masts, pitch and tar, also pork and beef, horsesand corn, were shipped from this colony to Virginia, in return fortobacco and sugar either for home consumption or for export to England. Some iron was manufactured. The province enjoyed great prosperity. Boston stood forth as a lively and growing centre, and an Englishtraveller about this time declared some of its merchants to be "damnablerich. "

As their most precious possession the colonists prized their liberties, which they claimed in virtue of their original patent. In a paper whichit put forth on June 10, 1661, the General Court asserted for the colonythe right to elect and empower its own officers, both high and low, tomake its laws, to execute the same without appeal so long as they werenot repugnant to those of England, and to defend itself by force andarms when necessary, against every infringement of its rights, even fromacts of Parliament or of the king, if prejudicial to the country orcontrary to just colonial legislation. In a word Massachusetts, even soearly, regarded itself to all intents and purposes an independent State, and would have proclaimed accordingly had it felt sufficiently strong. 

[1664]

Manifestly the king would not grant so much. On the occasion of hisconfirming the charter he demanded that the oath of allegiance be takenby the people of the colony; that justice be administered there in hisname; and that the franchise be extended to all freemen of sufficientsubstance, with the liberty to use in worship, public and private, theforms of the English Church. The people obeyed but in part, for theywould not even appear to admit the king's will to be their law. Thefranchise was slightly extended, in a grudging way, but no new religiousprivileges were at this time conceded. Unfortunately political andreligious liberty were now in conflict. It was worse for the Baptistsand Quakers that the king favored them, and the treatment which theyreceived in the colony inclined them to the royalist side in thecontroversy. 

In July, 1664, commissioners arrived in Boston with full authority toinvestigate the administration of the New England charters. Such aprocedure not being provided for in the Massachusetts document, theGeneral Court, backed by the citizens almost to a man, successfullyprevented complainants from appearing before the commission. Thecommissioners having summoned the colony as defendant in a certain case, a herald trumpeted proclamation through the streets, on the morning setfor the trial, inhibiting all from aiding their designs. The trialcollapsed, and the gentlemen who had ordered it, baffled and disgusted, moved on to New Hampshire, there also to be balked by a decree of theMassachusetts Governor and Council forbidding the towns so much as tomeet at their behest. 

[1668]

Vengeance for such defiance was delayed by Charles II. 's very vices. Clarendon's fall had left him surrounded by profligate aides, too timidand too indolent to face the resolute men of Massachusetts. They oftendiscussed the contumacy of the colony, but went no further than words. Massachusetts was even encouraged, in 1668, forcibly to reassert itsauthority in Maine, against rule either by the king or by Sir FerdinandaGorges's heir as proprietary. 

Its charter had assigned to the colony land to a point three miles northof the Merrimac. Bold in the favor of the Commonwealth, the authoritiesmeasured from the head-waters of that river. But Plymouth had originallyclaimed all the territory west of the Kennebec, and had sold it toGorges. Charles II. Favored the Gorges heirs against Massachusetts, andfor some years previous to 1668 Massachusetts' power over Maine had beenin abeyance. Ten years later, in 1678, to make assurance doubly sure, Massachusetts bought off the Gorges claimants, at the round price oftwelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling. 

[1673]

From 1641 Massachusetts had borne sway in New Hampshire as well, ignoring John Mason's claim under Charles I. 's charters of 1629 and1635, still urged by one of Mason's grandsons, backed by Charles II. Here Massachusetts was beaten. In July, 1679, New Hampshire waspermanently separated from her, and erected into a royal province, of anature to be explained in a subsequent chapter, being the earliestgovernment of this kind in New England. 

[1662]

These territorial assumptions on the part of Massachusetts muchincreased the king's hostility. This probably would not have provedfatal had it not been re-enforced by the determination of the merchantsand manufacturers of the mother-country to crush what they feared wasbecoming a rival power beyond seas. They insisted upon full enforcementof the Navigation Laws, which made America's foreign trade in a crueldegree subservient to English interest. So incorrigible was the colony, it was found that this end could be compassed only by the abrogation ofthe charter, so that English law might become immediately valid inMassachusetts, colonial laws to the contrary notwithstanding. Accordingly, in 1684, the charter was vacated and the colonists ceasedto be free, their old government with its popular representation givingway to an arbitrary commission. 

The other New England colonies--Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, andNew Haven--had made haste to proclaim Charles II. So soon as restored tothe throne, and to begin carrying on their governments in his name. Thatbeautiful and able man, the younger Winthrop, sped to London onConnecticut's behalf, and, aided by his colony's friends at court, theEarls of Clarendon and Manchester and Viscount Say and Seal, in 1662secured to Connecticut, now made to include New Haven, a charter soliberal that it continued till October 5, 1818, the ground law of theState, then to be supplanted only by a close vote. Under this paper, which declared all lands between the Narragansett River and the PacificOcean Connecticut territory, Connecticut received every whit of thatright to govern itself which Charles was so sternly challenging in thecase of Massachusetts. 

[Illustration: John Winthrop the Younger. ]

From this time on, as indeed earlier, Connecticut was for many yearsperhaps the most delightful example of popular government in allhistory. Connecticut and New Haven together had about ten thousandinhabitants. Their rulers were just, wise, and of a mind truly to servethe people. Here none were persecuted for their faith. Education wasuniversal. Few were poor, none very rich. Nearly all supplies were ofdomestic production, nothing as yet being exported but a few cattle. 

Under the second Charles Rhode Island fared quite as well asConnecticut. This was remarkable, inasmuch as the little colony of threethousand souls, in their four towns of Providence, Newport, Portsmouth, and Warwick, insisted on "holding forth the lively experiment"--and itproved lively indeed--"of full liberty in religious concernments. "Charles did not oppose this, and Clarendon favored it, a motive of bothhere, as with Connecticut, being to rear in New England a power friendlyto the Crown, that should rival and check Massachusetts. Both thesecommonwealths were granted absolute independence in all but name. Nooath of allegiance to the king was demanded. Appeals to England were notprovided for. 

[1680]

Though having no quarrel with the king, the two southern colonies werenot without their trials. Connecticut, besides continual fear of theDutch and the Indians, was much agitated by the controversy over thequestion whether children of moral parents not church members should bebaptized, a question at length settled affirmatively by the so-calledHalf-Way Covenant. It also had its boundary disputes with Massachusetts, with Rhode Island--for Connecticut took the Narragansett River of itscharter to be the bay of that name--and with New York, which, by theDuke of York's new patent, issued on the recovery of that province fromthe Dutch in 1674, reached the Connecticut River. During England's warwith Holland, 1672-74, all the colonies stood in some fear of Dutchattacks. 

[1685]

Rhode Island had worse troubles than Connecticut. It, too, had boundarydisputes, serious and perpetual; but graver by much were its internalfeuds, caused partly by the mutual jealousy of its four towns, partly bythe numerous and jarring religious persuasions here represented. Government was painfully feeble. Only with utmost difficulty could thenecessary taxes be raised. Warwick in particular was for some time inarrears to John Clark, of Newport, for his invaluable services insecuring the charter of 1663. Quakers and the divers sorts of Baptistsvaliantly warred each against other, using, with dreadful address, thosemost deadly of carnal weapons, tongue and pen. On George Fox's visit tothe colony, Roger Williams, zealous for a debate, pursued the eminentQuaker from Providence to Newport, rowing thither in his canoe andarriving at midnight, only to find that his intended opponent haddeparted, The latter's champion was ready, however, and a discussion offour days ensued. 

[Illustration: Sir Edmond Andros]

Before its sentence of death reached Massachusetts Charles II. Was nomore, and James II. , his brother, had ascended the throne. It was for atime uncertain what sort of authority the stricken colony would becalled to accept. Already, as Duke of York, James II. Had beenProprietary of Maine east of the Kennebec (Sagadahoc), as well as ofDelaware, New Jersey, and New York. Now that he had the problem ofruling Massachusetts to solve, it naturally occurred to the king to makeSir Edmond Andros, already governor of New York, master also over thewhole of English America from the Saint Croix to the Delaware. 

In southern New England the reign of Andros wrought no downrightpersecution. He suspended the charters, and, with an irresponsiblecouncil in each colony, assumed all legislative as well asadministrative power. Rhode Island submitted tamely. Her sister colonydid the same, save that, at Hartford, according to good tradition, inthe midst of the altercation about delivering the charter, prolongedinto candle-light, suddenly it was dark, and the precious documentdisappeared to a secure place in the hollow trunk of an oak. This tree, henceforth called the Charter Oak, stood till prostrated by a gale onAugust 20, 1856. 

[Illustration: The Charter Oak at Hartford. ]

But in Massachusetts the colonists' worst fears were realized. Andros, with a council of his own creation, made laws, levied taxes, andcontrolled the militia. He had authority to suppress allprinting-presses and to encourage Episcopacy. In the latter interest heopened King's Chapel to the Prayer Book. His permission was required forany one to leave the colony. Extortionate fees and taxes were imposed. Puritans had to swear on the Bible, which they regarded wicked, or bedisfranchised. Personal and proprietary rights were summarily set atnaught, and all deeds to land were declared void till renewed--formoney, of course. The citizens were reduced to a condition hardly shortof slavery. 

[1688]

There is no describing the joy which pervaded New England as the news ofthe Revolution of 1688 flew from colony to colony. Andros slunk awayfrom Boston, glad to escape alive. Drums beat and gala-day was kept. Oldmagistrates were reinstated. Town meetings were resumed. All believedthat God had interposed, in answer to prayer, to bring deliverance tohis people from popery and thraldom. 

This revolution, ushering in the liberal monarchy of William and Mary, restored to Rhode Island and Connecticut their old charter governmentsin full. New Hampshire, after a momentary union with Massachusettsagain, became once more a royal province. As to Massachusetts itself, alarge party of the citizens now either did not wish the old state ofthings renewed, or were too timid to agree in demanding back theircharter as of right. Had they been bold and united, they might havesucceeded in this without any opposition from the Crown. Instead, a newcharter was conferred, creating Massachusetts also a royal province, yetwith government more liberal than the other provinces of this orderenjoyed. The governor was appointed by the Crown, and could convene, adjourn, or dissolve the Legislature. With the consent of his council healso created the judges, from whose highest sentence appeal could betaken to the Privy Council. The governor could veto legislation, and theking annul any law under three years old. 

[1690-1697]

If in these things the new polity was inferior to the old, in tworespects it was superior; Suffrage was now practically universal, andevery species of religious profession, save Catholicism, made legal. Also, Massachusetts territory was enlarged southward to take in allPlymouth, eastward to embrace Maine (Sagadahoc) and Nova Scotia. Maine, henceforth including Sagadahoc, that is, all land eastward to the SaintCroix, remained part of Massachusetts till March 15, 1820, when itbecame a member of the Union by itself. Nova Scotia, over which Phips'sconquest of Port Royal in 1690 had established a nominal rather than areal English authority, was assigned to France again by the Treaty ofRyswick, 1697. 

[Illustration: Box in which the Connecticut Charter was kept. ]

CHAPTER II. 

KING PHILIP'S WAR

[1675]

Simultaneously with the Stuart Restoration another cloud darkened theNew England sky. Since the Pequot War, Indians and whites had in themain been friendly. This by itself is proof that our fathers were lessunjust to the red men than is sometimes charged. They did assume theright to acquire lands here, and they had this right. The Indians werenot in any proper sense owners of New England. They were few--by 1660not more numerous than the pale-faces--and, far from settling oroccupying the land, roamed from place to place. Had it been otherwisethey, as barbarians, would have had no such claim upon the territory asto justify them in barring out civilization. However, the colonists didnot plead this consideration. Whenever districts were desired to whichIndians had any obvious title, it was both law and custom to pay themtheir price. In this, Roger Williams and William Penn were not peculiar. If individual white men sometimes cheated in land trades, as in othernegotiations, the aggrieved side could not, and did not, regard this asthe white man's policy. 

Yet little by little the Indians came to distrust and hate the rivalrace. It did not matter to the son of the forest, even if he thought sofar, that the neighborhood of civilization greatly bettered his lot inmany things, as, for instance, giving him market for corn and peltry, which he could exchange for fire-arms, blankets, and all sorts ofvaluable conveniences. The efforts to teach and elevate him heappreciated still less. As has been said, he loved better to disfurnishthe outside of other people's heads than to furnish the inside of hisown. What he felt, and keenly, was that the newcomers treated him as aninferior, were day by day narrowing his range, and slowly but surelyreducing his condition to that of a subject people. Dull as he was, hesaw that one of three fates confronted him: to perish, to migrate, or tolay aside his savage character and mode of life. Such thoughts frenziedhim. 

The beautiful fidelity of Massasoit to the people of Plymouth is alreadyfamiliar. His son Alexander, who succeeded him, was of a spiritdiametrically the reverse. Convinced that he was plotting with theNarragansets for hostile action, the Governor and Council of Plymouthsent Major Winslow to bring him to court--for it must be remembered thatMassasoit's tribe, the Pokanokets, had through him covenanted, thoughprobably with no clear idea of what this meant, to be subject to thePlymouth government. Alexander, for some reason, became fatally illwhile at Plymouth under arrest, dying before reaching home. The Indianssuspected poison. 

His brother Philip now became sachem. Philip already had a grudgeagainst the whites, and was rendered trebly bitter by the indignity andviolence, if nothing worse, to which Alexander had been subjected. Heresolved upon war, and in 1675 war was begun. 

We shall never certainly know to what extent Philip was an organizer. Webelieve correct the view of Hubbard, the contemporary historian, that hehad prepared a wide-spread and pretty well arranged conspiracy amongthe main tribes of New England Indians, which might have been fatal butfor "the special providence of God, " causing hostilities to break outere the savages were ready. Palfrey challenges this view of the case, but on insufficient grounds. 

One Sausaman, an educated Indian, previously Philip's secretary, hadleft him and joined the Christian Indians settled at Natick. There wereby this time several such communities, and also, according to CottonMather, many able Indian preachers. At the risk of his life, as heinsisted, Sausaman had warned the Plymouth magistrates that dangerimpended. He was soon murdered, apparently by Philip's instigation. Atleast Philip never denied this, nor did he after this time ever againcourt friendly relations with Plymouth, which he had constantly donehitherto. On the contrary, re-enforcements of strange Indians, all readyfor the war-path, were continually flocking to his camp, squaws andchildren at the same time going to the Narraganset country, manifestlyfor security. 

The Plymouth authorities, preparing for war, yet sent a kind letter tothe sachem advising him to peace. In vain. At Swanzey, the town nearestMount Hope, Philip's home, Indians at once began to kill and ravage, andMajors Bradford and Cudworth marched thither with a force of Plymouthsoldiers. A Massachusetts contingent re-enforced them there, and theyprepared to advance. Seeing it impossible to hold his own against somany, Philip crossed to Pocasset, now Tiverton, and swept rapidly roundto Dartmouth, Middleborough, and Taunton, burning and murdering as hewent. He then retired again to Tiverton, but in a few days started withall his warriors for central Massachusetts. 

Here the Nipmucks, already at war, which indicated an understandingbetween them and the Pokanokets, had attacked Mendon. The day afterPhilip joined them there was a fight at Brookfield, the Nipmucks andtheir allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearlyentire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siegein a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in thenick of time. 

The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield, Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked the last two having tobe abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fast-day. The men rushedfrom their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand inchurch, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpectedassault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according totradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared, placed himself at their head and directed their movements. His evidentacquaintance with fighting restored order and courage. The savages weredriven pell-mell out of town, but the pursuers looked in vain for theirdeliverer. If the account is correct, it was the regicide, GeneralGoffe, who had been a secret guest in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell. He could not in such danger refrain from engaging once again, as he hadso often done during the Civil War in England, in the defence of God'speople. 

From Hadley a party went to Deerfield to bring in the wheat that hadbeen left when the town was deserted. Ninety picked men, the "flower ofEssex, " led by Captain Lothrop, attended the wagons as convoy. On theirreturn, about seven o'clock in the morning, by a little stream in thepresent village of South Deerfield, since called Bloody Brook in memoryof the event, the soldiers dispersed somewhat in quest of grapes, thenripe, when a sudden and fatal volley from an ambush was delivered uponthem. The men had left their muskets in the wagons and could not regainthem. Lothrop was shot dead, and but seven or eight of his companyescaped alive. A monument marks the spot where this tragic affairoccurred. 

[Illustration: The Monument at Bloody Brook. ]

So early as July, 1675, Massachusetts and Connecticut, acting for theNew England Confederation, had effected a treaty with the strong tribeof the Narragansets in southern Rhode Island, engaging them to remainneutral and to surrender any of Philip's men coming within theirjurisdiction. This agreement they did not keep. After the attacks onSpringfield and Hatfield in October, great numbers of the Pokanoketbraves came to them, evidently welcomed. To prevent their becoming acentre of mischief, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Plymouth despatcheda thousand men to punish the Narragansets. They met the foe at the oldPalisade, in the midst of a dense swamp in what is now South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The terrible cold which rendered this Narraganset campaignso severe had turned the marsh into a bridge, and at once on theirarrival the soldiers, weary and hungry as they were from their longmarch, and spite of its being Sunday, advanced to the attack. Massachusetts was in front, then Plymouth, then Connecticut. Long andbitter was the fight. The Indians, perfect marksmen, took deadly aim atthe leaders. Five captains were killed outright and as many moremortally wounded. The fort was taken, re-taken, and taken again, thewhites at last, to make sure work, setting fire to the wigwams. Thestorming party lost in killed and wounded one-fifth of its number. ThisSwamp Fight, as it was called, broke forever the strength of theNarragansets, the tribe and its allies dispersing in all directions. 

[Illustration: Goffe at Hadley. ]

[1676]

In 1676 central Massachusetts was again aflame. Lancaster was sacked andburned, its inhabitants nearly all either carried captive or put todeath with indescribable atrocities. Mrs. Rowlandson, wife of theLancaster Minister, also her son and two daughters, were among thecaptives. We have this brave woman's story as subsequently detailed byherself. Her youngest, a little girl of six, wounded by a bullet, shebore in her arms wherever they marched, till the poor creature died ofcold, starvation, and lack of care. The agonized mother begged theprivilege of tugging along the corpse, but was refused. She with her sonand living daughter were ransomed, after wandering up and down with thesavages eleven weeks and five days. 

From Mrs. Rowlandson's narrative we have many interesting facts touchingthe Indians' habits of life. They carried ample stores from Lancaster, but soon squandered them, and were reduced to a diet of garbage, horses'entrails, ears, and liver, with broth made of horses' feet and legs. Theliver they seemed to prefer raw. Their chief food was ground-nuts. Theyalso ate acorns, artichokes, beans, and various sorts of roots. Theyespecially delighted in old bones, which, being heated to drive outmaggots and worms, they first boiled for soup, then ground for use asmeal. 

The captive lady often saw Philip. At his request she made a shirt and acap for his son, for which he paid her. Says Hubbard, "Such was thegoodness of God to these poor captive women and children that they foundso much favor in the sight of their enemies that they offered no wrongto any of their persons save what they could not help, being in manywants themselves. Neither did they offer any uncivil carriage to any ofthe females, nor ever attempt the chastity of any of them. " So soon asnegotiations were opened for Mrs. Rowlandson's release, Philip told herof this, and expressed the hope that they would succeed. When her ransomhad arrived he met her with a smile, saying: "I have pleasant words foryou this morning; would you like to hear them? You are to go hometo-morrow, " Twenty pounds were paid for her, raised by some ladies ofBoston, aided by a Mr. Usher. 

Hostilities now bore southeastward. Philip was in his glory. All thetowns of Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts were in terror, nearlyall in actual danger. At Medfield twenty whites were killed. DesertedMendon was burned. Weymouth was attacked, and eleven persons weremassacred in the edge of Plymouth. In Groton and Marlborough every housewas laid in ashes, as were all in lower Rhode Island up to Warwick, andin Warwick all but one. Sachem Canonchet of the Narragansets drew intoambush at Pawtuxet a band of Plymouth soldiers, of whom only oneescaped. Canonchet was subsequently taken by Captain Denison andexecuted. Rehoboth lost forty houses, Providence nearly as many. 

The Connecticut Valley was invaded afresh. Springfield, Hadley, Northampton, and Hatfield were once more startled by the war-whoop andthe whiz of the tomahawk. Captain Turner, hearing of an Indian camp atthe falls of the Connecticut, now called by his name, in Montague, advanced with a troop of one hundred and eighty horse, arriving in sightof the encampment at daylight. Dismounting and proceeding stealthily towithin sure shot, they beat up the Indians' quarters with a ringingvolley of musketry. Resistance was impossible. Those who did not fall bybullet or sword rushed to the river, many being carried over the falls. Three hundred savages perished, the English losing but one man. A largestock of the enemy's food and ammunition was also destroyed. Though sosplendidly successful, the party did not return to Hadley withoutconsiderable loss, being set upon much of the way by Indians who hadheard the firing at the falls and sped to the relief of their friends. Turner was killed in the meadows by Green River; his subordinate, Holyoke, then commanding the retreat. 

[1678]

Turner's victory brought the war to a crisis. The red men lackedresources. The whites had learned the secrets of savage warfare. Theycould no longer be led into ambush, while their foe at no time duringthe war ventured to engage them in open field. Large parties of Indiansbegan to surrender; many roving bands were captured. Hostilitiescontinued still many months in Maine, the whites more and more uniformlysuccessful, till the Treaty of Casco, April 12, 1678, at last terminatedthe war. 

Hunted by the English backward and forward, Philip was at last driven tohis old home upon Mount Hope. Here Captain Church, one of the mostpractised of Indian fighters, surprised him on the morning of August 12, 1676, encamped upon a little upland, which it is believed has beenexactly identified near a swamp at the foot of the mountain. Byresidents in the neighborhood it is known as Little Guinea. At the firstfiring Philip, but partially dressed, seized gun and powder-horn andmade for the swamp, Captain Church's ambush was directly in his front. An Englishman's piece missed fire, but an Indian sent a bullet throughthe Great Sachem's heart. 

In this fearful war at least six hundred of the English inhabitantseither fell in battle or were murdered by the enemy, A dozen or moretowns were utterly destroyed, others greatly damaged, Some six hundredbuildings, chiefly dwelling-houses, were consumed by fire, and over ahundred thousand pounds of colonial money expended, to say nothing ofthe immense losses in goods and cattle. 

Not without propriety has the Pokanoket chief been denominated a king. If not a Charlemagne or a Louis XIV. , he yet possessed elements of truegreatness. While he lived his mind evidently guided, as his willdominated and prolonged, the war. This is saying much, for the Indian'sdisinclination to all strenuous or continuous exertion was pronouncedand proverbial. Philip's treatment of Mrs. Rowlandson must be declaredmagnanimous, especially as, of course, he was but a savage king, whomight reasonably request us not to measure him by our rules. The otherparty to the war we have a right to judge more rigidly, and justsentence in their case must be severe. Philip's sorrowing, innocent wifeand son were brought prisoners to Plymouth, and their lot referred tothe ministers. After long deliberation and prayer it was decided thatthey should be sold into slavery, and this was their fate. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT

[1675]

The home life of colonial New England was unique. Its like has appearednowhere else in human history. Mostwise it was beautiful as well. In itreligion was central and supreme. The General Court of Plymouth veryearly passed the following order: "Noe dwelling-howse shal be builteabove halfe a myle from the meeting-howse in any newe plantacion withoutleave from the Court, except mylle-howses and ffermehowses. " In layingout a village the meeting-house, as the hub to which everything was tobe referred, was located first of all. The minister's lot commonlyadjoined. Then a sufficiency of land was parcelled off to eachfreeholder whereon to erect his dwelling. Massachusetts from the first, and Plymouth beginning somewhat later, also made eminent provision forschools--all in the interest of religion. 

The earliest residences were necessarily of logs, shaped and fitted moreor less rudely according to the skill of the builder or the time andmeans at his disposal. There was usually one large room below, whichserved as kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor, and on thesame floor with this one or two lodging-rooms. An unfinished atticconstituted the dormitory for the rising generation. A huge stonechimney, terminating below in a still more capacious fireplace, thatwould admit logs from four to eight feet in length, conveyed away thesmoke, and with it much of the heat. This involved no loss, as wood wasa drug. Communicating with the chimney was the great stone baking-oven, whence came the bouncing loaves of corn-bread, duly "brown, " therich-colored "pompion" pies, and the loin of venison, beef, or pork. 

Over these bounties--and such they were heartily esteemed, howevermeagre--often as the family drew around the table, its head offeredthanks to the heavenly Giver. Each morning, after they had eaten, heread a goodly portion of God's Word, never less than a chapter, andthen, not kneeling but standing, led his household in reverent andbelieving prayer for protection, guidance, stimulus in good, and forevery needed grace. What purity, what love of rectitude, what strengthof will did not the builders of America carry forth from that familyaltar! He who would understand the richest side and the deepest movingforces of our national life and development must not overlook those NewEngland fireside scenes. 

[1688-1700]

Prayers ended, the "men folks" went forth to the day's toil. It washard, partly from its then rough character, partly from poverty ofappliances. For the hardest jobs neighbors would join hands, fightingnature as they had to fight the Indians, unitedly. Farming tools, if ofiron or steel, as axe, mattock, spade, and the iron nose for the diggeror the plough, the village blacksmith usually fashioned, as he did thebake-pan, griddle, crane, and pothooks, for indoor use. Tables, chairs, cradles, bedsteads, and those straight-backed "settles" of which a fewmay yet be seen, were either home-made or gotten up by the villagecarpenter. Mattresses were at first of hay, straw, leaves, or rushes. Before 1700, however, feather beds were common, and houses and theentire state of a New England farmer's home had become somewhat morelordly than the above picture might indicate. The colonists made muchuse of berries, wild fruits, bread and milk, game, fish, and shellfish. The stock wandered in the forests and about the brooks, to be broughthome at night by the boys, whom the sound of the cow-bell led. In autumnbushels upon bushels of nuts were laid by, to serve, along with driedberries and grapes, salted fish and venison, as food for the winter. Every phase and circumstance of this pioneer life reminded our fathersof their dependence upon nature and the Supreme Power behind nature, while at the same time the continual need and application of neighbor'sco-operation with neighbor brought out brotherly love in charmingstrength and beauty. 

But to old New England religion, as a clerical, public, and organizedaffair, there is a far darker side. In the eighteenth century belief inwitchcraft was nearly universal. In 1683 one Margaret Matron was triedin Pennsylvania on a charge of bewitching cows and geese, and placedunder bonds of one hundred pounds for good behavior. In 1705 GraceSherwood was ducked in Virginia for the same offence. Cases of the kindhad occurred in New York. There was no colony where the belief inastrology, necromancy, second sight, ghosts, haunted houses and spots, love-spells, charms, and peculiar powers attaching to rings, herbs, etc. , did not prevail. Such credulity was not peculiar to America, butcursed Europe as well. It seemed to flourish, if anything, after theReformation more than before. Luther firmly believed in witchcraft. Heprofessed to have met the Evil One in personal conflict, and to havevanquished him by the use of an inkstand as missile. Perhaps every landin Europe had laws making witchcraft a capital crime. One was enacted inEngland under Henry VIII. , another in James I. 's first year, denouncingdeath against all persons "invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding anyevil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used inany witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwisehurting any person by such infernal arts. " A similar statute wascontained in the "Fundamentals" of Massachusetts, probably inspired bythe command of Scripture, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. " Thislaw, we shall see, was not a dead letter. 

No wonder such a law was of more effect in New England than anywhereelse on earth. The official religion of the Puritans was not onlysuperstitious in general but gloomy in particular, and most gloomy inNew England. Its central tenet, here at least, seemed to be that lifeought to furnish no joy, men seeking to "merit heaven by making earth ahell. " Sunday laws were severe, and rigidly enforced from six o'clockSaturday evening till the same hour the next. Not the least work wasallowed unless absolutely necessary, nor any semblance of amusement. Boys bringing home the cows were cautioned to "let down the bars softly, as it was the Lord's day. " Sunday travellers were arrested and fined. Men might be whipped for absence from church. A girl at Plymouth wasthreatened exile as a street-walker for smiling in meeting. IncreaseMather traced the great Boston fire of 1711 to the sin of Sunday labor, such as carrying parcels and baking food. In Newport, some men havingbeen drowned who, to say good-by to departing friends, had rowed out toa ship just weighing anchor, Rev. John Comer prayed that others mighttake warning and "do no more such great wickedness. "

Sermons were often two hours long; public prayer half an hour. Worsestill was what went by the name of music--doggerel hymns full of themost sulphurous theology, uttered congregationally as "lined off" by theleader--nasal, dissonant, and discordant in the highest imaginabledegree. The church itself was but a barn, homely-shaped, bare, and inwinter cold as out-of-doors. At this season men wrapped their feet inbags, and women stuffed their muffs with hot stones. Sleepers wererudely awakened by the tithing-man's baton thwacking their heads; or, iffemales, by its fox-tail end brushing their cheeks. Fast-days werecommon. Prayer opened every public meeting, secular as well asreligious. The doctrine of special providences was pressed to aridiculous extreme. The devil was believed in no less firmly than God, and indefinitely great power ascribed to him. The Catechism--book secondin authority only to the Bible--contained of his Satanic Majesty a cut, which children were left, not to say taught, to suppose as correct alikeness as that of Cromwell, which crowned the mantels of so manyhomes. 

[Illustration: Increase Mather. ]

In a people thus trained the miracle is not that witchcraft andsuperstition did so much mischief, but so little. Had it not been fortheir sturdy Saxon good sense its results must have proved infinitelymore sad. The first remarkable case of sorcery in New England occurredat Boston, in 1688. Four children of a pious family were affected in apeculiar manner, imitating the cries of cats and dogs, and complainingof pains all over their bodies. These were the regulation symptoms ofwitch-possession, which presumably they had often heard discussed. Anold Irish serving-woman, indentured to the family, who already bore thename of a witch, was charged with having bewitched them, and executed, the four ministers of Boston having first held at the house a day ofprayer and fasting. 

[Illustration: Cotton Mather. ]

Young Cotton Mather, grandson of the distinguished Rev. John Cotton, aman of vast erudition and fervent piety, was at this time colleague tohis father, Increase Mather, as pastor of the Boston North Church. Hisimagination had been abnormally developed by fasts and vigils, in whichhe believed himself to hold uncommonly close communication with theAlmighty. His desire to provide new arms for faith against the growingunbelief of his time led him to take one of the "bewitched" children tohis house, that he might note and describe the ways of the devil in hercase. The results he soon after published in his "Memorable ProvidencesRelating to Witchcrafts and Possessions. " This work admitted no doubt asto the reality of the demoniac possessions, which indeed it affected todemonstrate forever. All the Boston ministers signed its preface, certifying to its "clear information" that "both a God and a devil, andwitchcraft" existed. "Nothing too vile, " it alleged, "can be said of, nothing too hard can be done to, such a horrible iniquity as witchcraftis. " The publication excited great attention, and to it in no smallmeasure the ensuing tragedy may be traced. 

[Illustration: Old Tituba the Indian. ]

In February, 1692, three more subjects, children of Rev. Mr. Parris, minister at Danvers, then called Salem Village, exhibited bad witchcraftsymptoms. The utmost excitement prevailed. Neighboring clergymen joinedthe village in fasting and prayer. A general fast for the colony wasordered. But the "devilism, " as Cotton Mather named it, spread insteadof abating, the children having any number of imitators so soon as theybecame objects of general notice and sympathy. Old Tituba, an Indiancrone, who had served in Parris's family, was the first to be denouncedas the cause. Two other aged females, one crazy, the other bed-ridden, were also presently accused, and after a little while several ladies ofParris's church. Whoso uttered a whisper of incredulity, general or asto the blameworthiness of any whom Parris called guilty, was instantlyindicted with them. 

On April 11th, the Deputy Governor held in the meeting-house in SalemVillage a court for a preliminary examination of the prisoners. A sceneat once ridiculous and tragic followed. When they were brought in, theiralleged victims appeared overcome at their gaze, pretending to bebitten, pinched, scratched, choked, burned, or pricked by theirinvisible agency in revenge for refusing to subscribe to a covenant withthe devil. Some were apparently stricken down by the glance of an eyefrom one of the culprits, others fainted, many writhed as in a fit. Tituba was beaten to make her confess. Others were tortured. Finally allthe accused were thrown into irons. Numbers of accused persons, assuredthat it was their only chance for life, owned up to deeds of which theymust have been entirely innocent. They had met the devil in the form ofa small black man, had attended witch sacraments, where they renouncedtheir Christian vows, and had ridden through the air on broomsticks. Such were the confessions of poor women who had never in their livesdone any evil except possibly to tattle. 

[Illustration: Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton. ]

On June 2d, a special court was held in Salem for the definite trial. Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, a man of small mind and bigoted temper, was president. The business began by the condemnation and hanging of ahelpless woman. A jury of women had found on her person a wart, whichwas pronounced to be unquestionably a "devil's teat, " and her neighborsremembered that many hens had died, animals become lame, and carts upsetby her dreadful "devilism. " By September 23d, twenty persons had gone tothe gallows, eight more were under sentence, and fifty-five had"confessed" and turned informers as their only hope. The "afflicted" hadincreased to fifty. Jails were crammed with persons under accusation, and fresh charges of alliance with devils were brought forward everyday. 

[Illustration: Fac-simile of Sheriff's Return of an Execution. ]

Some of the wretched victims displayed great fortitude. Goodman Procterlost his life by nobly and persistently--vainly as well, alas!--maintaining the innocence of his accused wife. George Burroughs, who had formerly preached in Salem Village, was indicted. His physicalstrength, which happened to be phenomenal, was adduced as lent him fromthe devil. Stoughton browbeat him through his whole trial. What sealedhis condemnation, however, was his offer to the jury of a paper quotingan author who denied the possibility of witchcraft. His fervent prayerswhen on the scaffold, and especially his correct rendering of the Lord'sPrayer, shook the minds of many. They argued that no witch could havegotten through those holy words correctly--a test upon which several hadbeen condemned. Cotton Mather, present at the gallows, restored thecrowd to faith by reminding them that the devil had the power to dressup like an angel of light. Rebecca Nurse, a woman of unimpeachablecharacter hitherto, unable from partial deafness to understand, so as toexplain, the allegations made against her, was convicted notwithstandingevery proof in her favor. 

Reaction now began. Public opinion commenced to waver. No one knew whoseturn to be hanged would come next. Emboldened by their fatal success, accusers whispered of people in high places as leagued with the EvilOne. An Andover minister narrowly escaped death. The Beverly minister, Hale, one of the most active in denouncing witches, was aghast when hisown wife was accused. Two sons of Governor Bradstreet were obliged toflee for their lives, one for refusing, as a magistrate, to issue anymore warrants, the other charged with bewitching a dog. Several hurriedto New York to escape conviction. The property of such was seized bytheir towns. A reign of terror prevailed. 

People slowly awoke to the terrible travesty of justice which was goingon. Magistrates were seen to have overlooked the most flagrant instancesof falsehood and contradiction on the part of both accusers and accused, using the baseless hypothesis that the devil had warped their senses. The disgusting partiality shown in the accusations was disrelished, aswas the resort that had been had to torture. One poor old man of eightythey crushed to death because he would plead guilty to nothing. Theauthorities quite disregarded the fact that everyone of theself-accusations had been made in order to escape punishment. Theseconsiderations effected a revolution in the minds of most people. Remonstrances were presented to the courts, securing reprieve for thoseunder sentence of death at Salem. This so irritated the despicableStoughton that he resigned. 

The forwardness of the ministers therein turned many against thepersecution, After the first victims had fallen at Salem, Governor Phipstook their advice whether or not to proceed. Cotton Mather indited thereply. It thankfully acknowledges "the success which the merciful Godhas given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorablerulers to defeat the abominable witch crafts which have been committedin the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysteriousand mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. It is pleasant to note, after all, the ministers' advice to the civil rulers not to rely toomuch on "the devil's authority"--on the evidence, that is, of thosepossessed. The court heeded this injunction all too little, but by andby it had weight with the public, who judged that, as the trialsappeared to be proceeding on devil's evidence alone, the farce ought tocease. The Superior Court met in Boston, April 25, 1693, and the grandJury declined to find any more bills against persons accused of sorcery. King William vetoed the Witchcraft Act, and by the middle of 1693 allthe prisoners were discharged. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

[1686]

The English conquest of New Netherland from the Dutch speedily followedthe Stuarts' return to the throne. Cromwell had mooted an attack onDutch America, and, as noticed in Chapter I. , Connecticut's charter of1662 extended that colony to include the Dutch lands. England based herclaim to the territory on alleged priority of discovery, but the realmotives were the value of the Hudson as an avenue for trade, and thedesire to range her colonies along the Atlantic coast in one unbrokenline. The victory was not bloody, nor was it offensive to the Dutchthemselves, who in the matter of liberties could not lose. King Charleshad granted the conquered tract to his brother, the Duke of York, subsequently James II. , and it was in his honor christened with itspresent name of New York. 

The Duke's government was not popular, especially as it ordered theDutch land-patents to be renewed--for money, of course; and in 1673, war again existing between England and Holland, the Dutch recoveredtheir old possession. They held it however for only fifteen months, since at the Peace of 1674 the two belligerent nations mutually restoredall the posts which they had won. 

The reader already has some idea of Sir Edmond Andros's rule in America. New York was the first to feel this, coming under the gentleman'sgovernorship immediately on being the second time surrendered toEngland. Such had been the political disorder in the province, thatAndros's headship, stern as it was, proved beneficial. He even, for atime, 1683-86, reluctantly permitted an elective legislature, thoughdiscontinuing it when the legislatures of New England were suppressed. This taste of freedom had its effect afterward. 

[1690]

When news of the Revolution of 1688 in England reached New York, Androswas in Boston. Nicholson, Lieutenant-Governor, being a Catholic and anabsolutist, and the colony now in horror of all Catholics through fearof French invasion from Canada, Jacob Leisler, a German adventurer, partly anticipating, partly obeying the popular wish, assumed tofunction in Nicholson's stead. All the aristocracy, English or Dutch, and nearly all the English of the lower rank were against him. Leislerwas passionate and needlessly bitter toward Catholics, yet he meantwell. He viewed his office as only transitory, and stood ready tosurrender it so soon as the new king's will could be learned; but whenSlaughter arrived with commission as governor, Leisler's foes succeededin compassing his execution for treason. This unjust and cruel deedbegan a long feud between the popular and the aristocratic party in thecolony. 

[Illustration: Sloughter signing Leisler's Death Warrant. ]

[1700]

From this time till the American Revolution New York continued aprovince of the Crown. Royal governor succeeded royal governor, some ofthem better, some worse. Of the entire line Bellomont was the mostworthy official, Cornbury the least so. One of the problems whichchiefly worried all of them was how to execute the navigation acts, which, evaded everywhere, were here unscrupulously defied. Another careof the governors, in which they succeeded but very imperfectly, was toestablish the English Church in the colony. A third was thedisfranchisement of Catholics. This they accomplished, the legislatureconcurring, and the disability continued during the entire colonialperiod. 

Hottest struggle of all occurred over the question of the colony's rightof self-taxation. The democracy stood for this with the utmostfirmness, and even the higher classes favored rather than opposed. Thegovernors, Cornbury and Lovelace, most frantically, but in vain, expostulated, scolded, threatened, till at last it became admitted bylaw in the colony that no tax whatever could, on any pretext, be leviedsave by act of the people's representatives. 

Dutch America, it will be remembered, had reached southward to theDelaware River, and this lower portion passed with the rest to the Dukeof York in 1664. The territory between the Hudson and the Delaware, under the name of New Jersey, he made over to Lord Berkeley and SirGeorge Carteret, proprietaries, who favored the freest institutions, civil and religious. The population was for long very sparse and, as itgrew, very miscellaneous. Dutch, Swedes, English, Quakers, and Puritansfrom New England were represented. 

[Illustration: Seal of the Carterets. ]

After the English recovery Berkeley disposed of his undivided half ofthe province, subsequently set off as West Jersey, to one Bylling, aQuaker, who in a little time assigned it to Lawrie, Lucas, Penn, andother Quakers. West Jersey became as much a Quaker paradise asPennsylvania. Penn with eleven of his brethren, also bought, ofCarteret's heirs, East Jersey, but here Puritan rather than Quakerinfluence prevailed. 

[Illustration: Seal of East Jersey. ]

The Jersey plantations came of course under Andros, and after his fallits proprietors did not recover their political authority. For twelveyears, while they were endeavoring to do this, partial anarchy cursedthe province, and at length in 1702 they surrendered their rights to theCrown, the Jerseys, now made one, becoming directly subject to QueenAnne. The province had its own legislature and, till 1741, the samegovernors as New York. It also had mainly the same politicalvicissitudes, and with the same result. 

William Penn, the famous Quaker, received the proprietorship ofPennsylvania in payment of a claim for sixteen thousand pounds againstthe English Government. This had been left him by his father, SirWilliam Penn, a distinguished naval commander in the Dutch war of1665-67, when he had borne chief part in the conquest of Jamaica. 

[Illustration: Wampum received by Penn in Commemoration of the IndianTreaty. ]

William Penn was among the most cultivated men of his time, polished bystudy and travel, deeply read in law and philosophy. He had fortune, andmany friends at court, including Charles II. Himself. He needed but toconform, and great place was his. But conform he would not. True to theinner light, braving the scoffs of all his friends, expelled from OxfordUniversity, beaten from his own father's door, imprisoned now ninemonths in London Tower, now six in Newgate, this heroic spiritpersistently went the Quaker way. In despair of securing in Englandfreedom for distressed consciences he turned his thoughts towardAmerica, there to try his "holy experiment. "

[Illustration: William Penn; From the copy by Francis Race in theNational Museum, Philadelphia. ]

The charter from Charles II. Was drawn by Penn's own hand and was noblyliberal. It ordained perfect religious toleration for all Christians, and forbade taxation save by the provincial assembly or the EnglishParliament. Under William and Mary, greatly to his grief, Penn wasforced to sanction the penal laws against Catholics; but they were mostleniently administered, which brought upon the large-minded proprietarymuch trouble with the home government. 

As Pennsylvania, owing to the righteous and loving procedure of Penntoward them, suffered nothing from the red men to the west, so was itfortunately beyond Andros's jurisdiction on the east. Once, from 1692, for two years, the land was snatched from Penn and placed under a royalcommission. Returning to England in 1684, after a two years' sojourn inAmerica to get his colony started, the Quaker chief became intimate anda favorite with James II. , devotedly supporting his Declaration ofIndulgence toward Catholics as well as toward all Protestant dissenters. He tried hard but vainly to win William and Mary to the same policy. This attitude of his cost him dear, rendering him an object of suspicionto the men now in power in England. Twice was he accused of treasonablecorrespondence with the exiled James II. , though never proved guilty. From 1699 to 1701 he was in America again, thereafter residing inEngland till his death in 1718. He had literally given all for hiscolony, his efforts on its behalf having been to him, so he wrote in1710, a cause of grief, trouble, and poverty. 

[Illustration: The Treaty Monument, Kensington. ]

But the colony itself was amazingly prosperous. There were internalfeuds, mainly petty, some serious. George Keith grievously divided theQuakers by his teachings against slavery, going to law, or service asmagistrates on the part of Quakers, thus implying that only infidels orchurchmen could be the colony's officials. 

Fletcher's governorship in 1693-94, under the royal commission, evokedcontinual opposition, colonial privileges remaining intact in spite ofhim. The people from time to time subjected their ground-law to changes, only to render it a fitter instrument of freedom. In everything save thehereditary function of the proprietary, it was democratic. For manyyears even the governor's council was elective. The colony grew, immigrants crowding in from nearly every European country, and wealthmultiplied to correspond. 

[Illustration: The Penn Mansion in Philadelphia. ]

We have, dating from 1698, a history of Pennsylvania by one GabrielThomas, full of interesting information. Philadelphia was already a"noble and beautiful city, " containing above 2, 000 houses, most of them"stately, " made of brick; three stores, and besides a town house, amarket house, and several schools. Three fairs were held there yearly, and two weekly markets, which it required twenty fat bullocks, besidesmany sheep, calves, and hogs, to supply. The city had large trade to NewYork, New England, Virginia, West India, and Old England. Its exportswere horses, pipe-staves, salt meats, bread-stuffs, poultry, andtobacco; its imports, fir, rum, sugar, molasses, silver, negroes, salt, linen, household goods, etc. Wages were three times as high as inEngland or Wales. All sorts of "very good paper" were made atGermantown, besides linen, druggets, crapes, camlets, serges, and otherwoollen cloths. All religious confessions were represented. 

In 1712, such his poverty, the good proprietary was willing to sell tothe Crown, but as he insisted upon maintenance of the colonists' fullrights, no sale occurred. English bigots and revenue officials wouldgladly have annulled his charter, but his integrity had gotten himinfluence among English statesmen, which shielded the heritage he hadleft even when he was gone. 

It is particularly to be noticed that till our Independence Delaware wasmost intimately related to Pennsylvania. Of Delaware the fee simplebelonged not to Penn, but to the Duke of York, who had conquered it fromthe Dutch, as they from the Swedes. Penn therefore governed here, not asproprietary but as the Duke's tenant. In 1690-92, and from 1702, Delaware enjoyed a legislature by itself, though its governors wereappointed by Penn or his heirs during the entire colonial period. 

CHAPTER V. 

MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, CAROLINA

[1675]

The establishment of Charles II. As king fully restored Lord Baltimoreas proprietary in Maryland, and for a long time the colony enjoyed muchpeace and prosperity. In 1660 it boasted twelve thousand inhabitants, in1665 sixteen thousand, in 1676 twenty thousand. Plantation life wasuniversal, there being no town worthy the name till Baltimore, which, laid out in 1739, grew very slowly. Tobacco was the main production, toonearly the only one, the planters sometimes actually suffering for food, so that the raising of cereals needed to be enforced by law. For longthe weed was also the money of the province, not disused for this evenwhen paper currency was introduced, being found the less fluctuating invalue of the two. Partly actual over-production and partly thenavigation acts, forcing all sales to be effected through England, fatally lowered the price, and Maryland with Virginia tried to establisha "trust" to regulate the output. 

[Illustration: Charles, Second Lord Baltimore. ]

In its incessant and on one occasion bloody boundary disputes withPennsylvania and Delaware, Maryland had to give in and suffer itsnorthern and eastern boundaries to be shortened. 

[1689]

One of the most beautiful traits of early Maryland was its perfecttoleration in religion. Practically neither Pennsylvania nor RhodeIsland surpassed it in this. Much hostility to the Quakers existed, yetthey had here exceptional privileges, and great numbers from Virginiaand the North utilized these. All sorts of dissenters indeed flockedhither out of all European countries, including many Huguenots, and weremade welcome to all the rights and blessings of the land. 

But from the accession of Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, in1675, the colony witnessed continual agitation in favor of establishingthe English Church. False word reached the Privy Council that immoralitywas rife in the colony owing to a lack of religious instruction, andthat Catholics were preferred in its offices. This movement succeeded, in spite of its intrinsic demerit, by passing itself off as part of therising in favor of William and Mary in 1688-89. 

[1690]

James II. Had shown no favor to Maryland. If its proprietary, as aCatholic, pleased him, its civil and religious liberty offended himmore. He was hence not popular here, and the Marylanders would readilyhave proclaimed the new monarchs but for the accidental failure of theproprietary's commands to this effect to reach them. This gave occasionfor one Coode, with a few abettors, to form, in April, 1689, an"Association in Arms for the Defence of the Protestant Religion, and forAsserting the Right of King William and Queen Mary to the Province ofMaryland. " The exaggerated representations of these conspiratorsprevailed in England. The proprietary, retaining his quit rents andexport duty, was deprived of his political prerogatives. Maryland becamea Crown province, Sir Lionel Copley being the first royal governor, andthe Church of England received establishment therein. 

The new ecclesiastical rule did not oppress Protestant dissenters, though very severe on Catholics, whom it was supposed necessary, here asall over America, to keep under, lest they should rise in favor of JamesII. , or his son the Pretender. 

[1660]

The third Lord Baltimore died in 1714-15. The proprietaries after thisbeing Protestants, were intrusted again with their old politicalheadship. By this time a spirit of independence and self-assertion hadgrown up among the citizens, enforcing very liberal laws, and the vicesof the sixth Lord, succeeding in 1751, made his subjects more thanwilling that he should, as he did, close the proprietary line. 

Virginia, passionately loyal, at first gloried in the Restoration. Thisproved premature. It was found that the purely selfish Charles II. Caredno more for Virginia than for Massachusetts. The Commonwealth's men weredisplaced from power. Sir William Berkeley again became governor, thistime, however, by the authority of the assembly. A larger feeling ofindependence from England had sprung up in the colony in consequence ofrecent history at home and in the mother-land. It was developed stillfurther by the events now to be detailed. 

[1676]

The Old Dominion contained at this time 40, 000 people, 6, 000 being whiteservants and 2, 000 negro slaves, located mainly upon the lower waters ofthe Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers. Between 1650 and 1670, throughlarge immigration from the old country, the population had increasedfrom 15, 000 to 40, 000, some of the first families of the State insubsequent times arriving at this juncture. About eighty ships ofcommerce came each year from Great Britain, besides many from NewEngland. Virginia herself built no ships and owned few; but she couldmuster eight thousand horse, had driven the Indians far into theinterior, possessed the capacity for boundless wealth, and had begun toexperience a decided sense of her own rights and importance. The lastfact showed itself in Bacon's Rebellion, which broke out in 1676, justone hundred years before the Declaration of Independence. The causes ofthe insurrection were not far to seek. 

[1673]

The navigation acts were a sore grievance to Virginia as to the othercolonies. Under Cromwell they had not been much enforced, and theVirginians had traded freely with all who came. Charles enforced themwith all possible rigor, confining Virginia's trade to England andEnglish ships manned by Englishmen. This gave England a grindingmonopoly of tobacco, Virginia's sole export, making the planterscommercially the slaves of the home government and of English traders. Duties on the weed were high, and mercilessly collected without regardto lowness of price. All supplies from abroad also had to be purchasedin England, at prices set by English sellers. Even if from other partsof Europe, they must come through England, thus securing her a profit atVirginia's expense. 

This was not the worst. The colonial government had always been abusedfor the ends of worthless office-holders from England. Now it was farmedout more offensively than ever. In 1673 Charles II. Donated Virginia totwo of his favorites, Lords Arlington and Culpeper, to be itsproprietaries like Penn in Pennsylvania and Baltimore in Maryland. Theywere to have all the quit rents and other revenues, the nomination ofministers for parishes, the right of appointing public officers, theright to own and sell all public or escheated lands; in a word, they nowowned Virginia. This shabby treatment awoke the most intense rage in soproud a people. The king relented, revoked his donation, made out andwas about to send a new charter. But it was too late; rebellion hadalready broken out. 

The Indians having made some attacks on the upper plantations, oneNathaniel Bacon, a spirited young gentleman of twenty-eight, recentlyfrom England, applied to Sir William Berkeley for a commission againstthem. The governor declined to give it, fearing, in the present excitedcondition of the colony, to have a body of armed men abroad. Bacon, enraged, extorts the commission by force. The result is civil war in thecolony. The rebels are for a time completely victorious. Berkeley isdriven to Accomac, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, but, succeeding in capturing a fleet sent to oppose him, he returns with thisand captures Jamestown. Beaten by Bacon in a pitched battle, he againretires to Accomac, and the colony comes fully under the power of hisantagonist, the colonists agreeing even to fight England should itinterpose on the governor's side, when a decisive change in affairs isbrought about by the rebel leader's death. 

[Illustration: Reverend Dr. Blair, First President of William and MaryCollege. ]

[1690]

The rebellion was now easily subdued, but it had soured and hardened oldGovernor Berkeley's spirit. Twenty-three in all were executed forparticipation in the movement. Charles II. Remarked: "That old fool hashanged more men in that naked country than I for the murder of myfather. "

After Bacon's Rebellion the colonial annals show but a dull successionof royal governors, with few events specially interesting. Under thegovernorship of Lord Howard of Effingham, which began in 1684, greatexcitement prevailed in Virginia lest King James II. Should subvert theEnglish Church there and make Catholicism dominant, which indeed mightpossibly have occurred but for James's abdication in 1688. 

Under Governor Nicholson, from 1690, the capital was removed fromJamestown to Williamsburg, and the College of William and Mary founded, its charter dating from 1693. The Attorney-General, Seymour, opposedthis project on the ground that the money was needed for "betterpurposes" than educating clergymen. Rev. Dr. Blair, agent and advocateof the endowment, pleading: "The people have souls to be saved, " Seymourretorted: "Damn your souls, make tobacco. " But Blair persisted andsucceeded, himself becoming first president of the college. The initialcommencement exercises took place in 1700. 

[Illustration: George Monk, Duke of Albemarle. ]

[1710]

Governor Spotswood, who came in 1710, did much for Virginia. He builtthe first iron furnaces in America, introduced wine-culture, for whichhe imported skilled Germans, and greatly interested himself in thecivilization of the Indians. He was the earliest to explore theShenandoah Valley. It was also by his energy that the famous pirate"Black beard" was captured and executed. Lieutenant Maynard, sent withtwo ships to hunt him, attacked and boarded the pirate vessel in PamlicoSound, 1718. A tough fight at close quarters ensued. Blackbeard was shotdead, his crew crying for quarter. Thirteen of the men were hung atWilliamsburg. Blackbeard's skull, made into a drinking-cup, is preservedto this day. The great corsair's fate, Benjamin Franklin, then aprinter's devil in Boston, celebrated in verse. 

Carolina was settled partly from England, France, and the Barbadoes, andpartly from New England; but mainly from Virginia, which colonyfurthermore furnished most of its political ideas. 

[1663]

[Illustration: Lord Shaftesbury. ]

In March, 1663, Carolina was constituted a territory, extending from 36degrees north latitude southward to the river San Matheo, and assignedto a company of seven distinguished proprietaries, including GeneralMonk, who had been created Duke of Albemarle, and John Locke's patron, the famous Lord Ashley Cooper, subsequently Earl of Shaftesbury. Governor Sir William Berkeley, of Virginia, was also one of theproprietaries. 

[1720]

[Illustration: Seal of the Proprietors of Carolina. ]

Locke drew up for the province a minute feudal constitution, but it wastoo cumbersome to work. Rule by the proprietaries proved radically bad. They were ignorant, callous to wrongs done by their governors, andindifferent to everything save their own profits. Many of the settlerstoo were turbulent and criminals, fugitives from the justice of othercolonies. The difficulty was aggravated by Indian and Spanish wars, bynegro slavery, so profitable for rice culture, especially in SouthCarolina, by strife between dissenters and churchmen, by the question ofrevenue, and by that of representation. 

[Illustration: John Locke. ]

[1730-1752]

A proprietary party and a larger popular party were continually at feud, not seldom with arms, support of the Church allying itself mainly withthe former, dissent with the latter, Zealots for the Church wished toexclude dissenters from the assembly. Their opponents would keepHuguenot immigrants, whom the favor of the proprietaries renderedunwelcome, entirely from the franchise. The popular party passed lawsfor electing representatives in every county instead of at Charlestonalone, and for revenue tariffs to pay the debt entailed by war. Theproprietaries vetoed both. They even favored the pirates who harried thecoast. Civil commotions were frequent and growth slow. Interference bythe Crown was therefore most happy. From the time the Carolinas passedinto royal hands, 1729, remarkable prosperity attended them both. 

Assuming charge of Carolina, the Crown reserved to itself the Spanishfrontier, and here, in 1732, it settled Oglethorpe, the able andunselfish founder of Georgia, under the auspices of an organization inform much like a mercantile company, but benevolent in aim, whose mainpurpose was to open a home for the thousands of Englishmen who were inprison for debt. Many Scotch and many Austrians also came. Full civilliberty was promised to all, religious liberty to all but papists. Political strife was warm here, too, particularly respecting theadmission of rum and slaves. Government by the corporators, thoughwell-meaning, was ill-informed and a failure, and would have beenruinous to the colony but for Oglethorpe's genius and exertions. To theadvantage of all, therefore, on the lapse of the charter in 1752, Georgia, like the Carolinas, assumed the status of a royal colony. 

[Illustration: Savannah, from a Print of 1741. ]

[Illustration: James Oglethorpe. ]

CHAPTER VI. 

GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE COLONIES

[1750]

The political life, habits, and forms familiar to our fathers were suchas their peculiar surroundings and experience had developed out ofEnglish originals. This process and its results form an interestingstudy. 

The political unit at the South was the parish; in the North it was thetown. Jury trial prevailed in all the colonies. Local self-governmentwas vigorous everywhere, yet the most so in the North. The townregulated its affairs, such as the schools, police, roads, the publiclands, the poor, and in Massachusetts and Connecticut also religion, atfirst by pure mass meetings where each citizen represented himself andwhich were both legislative and judicial in function, then by combiningthese meetings in various ways with the agency of selectmen. Where andso soon as a colony came to embrace several towns, representativemachinery was set in motion and a colonial legislature formed, havingtwo chambers nearly everywhere, like Parliament. The county, with thesame character as at present, was instituted later than the oldest townsand parishes, but itself subsequently became, in thinly settled parts, the unit of governmental organization and political action, beingdivided into towns or parishes only gradually. Voting was subject to aproperty qualification, in some colonies to a religious one also; but nonobility of blood or title got foothold. 

The relation of the colonial governments to England is a far moreperplexing matter. From the preceding chapters it appears that we maydistinguish the colonies, if we come down to about 1750, as either (1)self-governing or charter colonies, in which liberty was most completeand subjection to England little more than nominal; and (2)non-self-governing, ruled, theoretically at any rate, in considerablemeasure from outside themselves. Rhode Island and Connecticut made upthe former class. Of the latter there were two groups, the royal orprovincial, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts; New York, NewJersey, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, and the proprietary, viz. , Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. 

Yet we are to bear in mind that many important constitutional andgovernmental changes had occurred by 1750. Massachusetts, as we haveseen, had ceased to be self-governing as at first, yet it retained acharter which conferred large liberty. All the provincial colonies beganas proprietary, and all the proprietary were for a time provincial. 

Under Andros, New England stretched from the St. Croix to Delaware Bay. After 1689 the tendency in all parts of the country was strong towardcivil freedom, which, favored by the changes and apathy of proprietariesand the ignorance and quarrels of the English ministry, graduallyrendered the other colonies in effect about as well off in this respectas Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

But unfortunately the legal limits and meaning of this freedom werenever determined. Had they been, our Revolution need not have come. Monarchs continually attempted to stretch hither the royal prerogative, but how far this was legal was not then, and never can be, decided. Theconstitutional scope of a monarch's prerogative in England itself wasone of the great questions of the seventeenth century, and remainedserious and unsettled through the eighteenth. Applied to America theproblem became angrier still, partly because giving a charter--and thecolonies were all founded on such gift--was an act of prerogative. 

English lawyers never doubted that acts of Parliament were valid in thecolonies. The colonists opposed both the king's and the Parliament'spretensions, and held their own legislatures to be coordinate with theHouses at Westminster. They claimed as rights the protection of habeascorpus, freedom from taxation without their consent, and all the GreatCharter's guarantees. It was the habit of English theorizing on thesubject to allow them these, if at all, as of grace. Repudiating thepretence that they were represented in Parliament, they likewise deniedall wish to be so, but desired to have colonial legislatures recognizedas concurrent with the English--each colony joined to the mother-countryby a sort of personal union, or through some such tie as exists betweenEngland and her colonies to-day. Massachusetts theorists used as a validanalogy the relation of ancient Normandy to the French kings. Though nolonger venturing to do so at home, monarchs freely vetoed legislation inall the colonies except Rhode Island and Connecticut. It was held thateven these colonies were after all somehow subject to England'soversight. 

On the subject of taxation there was continual dispute, misunderstanding, recrimination. The colonies did not object toproviding for their own defence. They were willing to do this underEnglish direction if asked, not commanded. Direct taxation for England'sbehoof was never once consented to by America, and till late neverthought of by England. The English navigation laws, however, thoughamounting to taxation of America in aid of England, and continuallyevaded as unjust, were allowed by the colonies' legislative acts, andnever seriously objected to in any formal way. 

CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIAL CULTURE IN COLONIAL TIMES

[1750]

American society rose out of mere untitled humanity; monarchy, guilds, priests, and all aristocracy of a feudal nature having been left behindin Europe. The year 1700 found in all the American colonies togethersome 300, 000 people. They were distributed about as follows: New Englandhad 115, 000; New York, 30, 000; New Jersey, 15, 000; Pennsylvania andDelaware, 20, 000; Maryland, 35, 000; Virginia, 70, 000; the Carolinacountry, 15, 000. Perhaps 50, 000 were negro slaves, of whom, say, 10, 000were held north of Mason and Dixon's line. What is now New York Cityhad, in 1697, 4, 302 inhabitants. 

Passing on to 1754, we find the white population of New Englandincreased to 425, 000; that of the middle colonies, including Maryland, to 457, 000; that of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, to 283, 000. Massachusetts alone now had 207, 000; Rhode Island, 35, 000; Connecticut, 133, 000; New York State (1756), 83, 744. There were now not far from263, 000 negroes, of whom 14, 000 lived in New England, 4, 500 in RhodeIsland. The total population of the thirteen colonies amounted to nearlya million and a half. At this time Philadelphia about equalled Boston insize, each having 25, 000 inhabitants. At the Revolution Boston had grownto be the larger. New York, with from 15, 000 to 18, 000, constituted thecentre of trade and of politics. The city and county of New Yorktogether numbered 13, 046 inhabitants in 1756; 21, 862 in 1771; 23, 614 in1786. The whole State, in 1771 had 146, 144. Connecticut, in 1774, had197, 856. There are said to have been, so late as 1763, woods where theNew York City Hall now stands. 

From North to South the population decreased in density, but itincreased in heterogeneity and non-English elements, and in illiteracy. The South had also the stronger aristocratic feeling. Slaves, as theabove figures show, were far more numerous in that section. Theircondition was also worse there. 

A large proportion of the white population everywhere was ofSaxon-Teutonic blood. The colonial leaders, and many others, at least inthe North, were men who would have been eminent in England itself. Not afew New England theologians and lawyers were peers to the ablest oftheir time. Numbers of the common people read, reflected, debated. Whileprofoundly religious, the colonists, being nearly all Protestants, werebold and progressive thinkers in every line, prizing discussion, preferring to settle questions by rational methods rather than throughauthority and tradition. We have observed that there are exceptions tothis rule, like the treatment of Roger Williams, but they wereexceptions. The colonists possessed in eminent degree energy, determination, power of patient endurance and sacrifice. Their politicalgenius, too, was striking in itself, and it becomes surprising if onecompares Germany, in the unspeakable distraction of the Thirty Years'War, with America at the same period, 1618-1648, successfully solving bypatience and debate the very problems which were Germany's despair. 

[Illustration: Costume about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. ]

[Illustration: Costume about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. ]

In all the southern colonies the English Church was established, amajority of the people its members, its clergy supported by tithes andglebe. William and Mary secured it a sort of establishment also in NewYork and Maryland. Yet at no moment of the colonial period was there abishop in America. No church building was consecrated with episcopalrites, no resident of America taken into orders without going to London. [footnote: See, for these facts, The Century for May, 1888. ] Even inVirginia, till a very late colonial period, the clergy retained manyPuritan forms. Some would not read the Common Prayer. For more than ahundred years the surplice was apparently unknown there, sacramentsadministered without the proper ornaments and vessels, parts of theliturgy omitted, marriages, baptisms, churchings, and funeralssolemnized in private houses. In some parishes, so late as 1724, thecommunion was partaken sitting. Excellent as were many of the clergymen, there were some who never preached, and not a few even bore an ill name. It was worst in Maryland, and "bad as a Maryland parson" became aproverb. The yearly salary in the best Virginia parishes was tobacco ofabout 100 pounds value. 

The Carolina clergy at first formed a superior class, as nearly all theearly ministers were men carefully selected and sent out from England bythe Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Here there was specialinterest in the religious welfare of the slaves. All Over the South theChurch ministers owed much to competition with those of sects, especially those of the Presbyterians, to which body belonged many ofthe Scotch and Irish immigrants after 1700. Dissent was dominanteverywhere at the North. A vast majority of the people even in New Yorkwere dissenters, though the Episcopal clergy there successfully resistedall efforts against the Church tax, notwithstanding the fact that thesame injustice in Massachusetts and Connecticut oppressed their brethrenin those colonies. The New York clergy also fought every sort of liberallaw, as to enable dissenting bodies of Christians to hold property. Itwas in good degree this attitude of theirs that filled the country, Virginia too, with such hatred of bishops. 

But this spirit was fully matched by that of the Independent ministersin New England. Their dissent was aggressive, persecuting, puritanical. Meeting-houses were cold, sermons long and dry, music vocal only. Religious teaching and the laws it procured, foolishly assumed toregulate all the acts of life. Extravagance was denounced and fined. In1750, the Massachusetts Assembly forbade theatres as "likely toencourage immorality and impiety. " Rhode Island took similar action in1762. 

[Illustration: Costume about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. ]

The ministers of Boston viewed bishops almost as emissaries of thedevil. Herein in fact lay the primary, some have thought the deepest andmost potent cause of the Revolution, since kings and the bishops ofLondon incessantly sought to establish Anglicanism in Massachusetts, andEnglish politicians deemed it outrageous that conformists should bedenied any of that colony's privileges. For some time, under William andMary's charter, in this province where Congregationalism had till nowhad everything its own way, only Church clergymen could celebratemarriage. In New York and Maryland, too, hostility to the establishmentgreatly stimulated disloyalty. This was true even in Anglican Virginia, where the Church found it no easier to keep power than it was inMassachusetts to get power, and where the clergy were unpopular, concerned more for tithes than for souls. 

[Illustration: Costume about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. ]

Colleges were founded early in several colonies. Harvard dates from1638; William and Mary, in Virginia, from 1693; Yale, from 1701; theCollege of New Jersey, from 1746, its old Nassau Hall, built in 1756 andnamed in honor of William III. Of the House of Nassau, being then thelargest structure in British America. The University of Pennsylvaniadates from 1753; King's College, now Columbia, from 1754; Rhode IslandCollege, now Brown University, from 1764. Educational facilities ingeneral varied greatly with sections, being miserable in the southerncolonies, fair in the central, excellent in the northern. In Virginia, during the period now under our survey, schools were almost unknown. InMaryland, from 1728, a free school was established by law in eachcounty. These were the only such schools in the South before 1770. Philadelphia and New York had good schools by 1700; rural Pennsylvanianone of any sort till 1750, then only the poorest. A few New York andNew Jersey towns of New England origin had free schools before theRevolution. Many Southern planters sent their sons to school in England. In popular education New England led not only the continent but theworld, there being a school-house, often several, in each town. Everynative adult in Massachusetts and Connecticut was able to read andwrite. In this matter Rhode Island was far behind its next neighbors. 

Newspapers were distributed much as schools were. The firstprinting-press was set up at Cambridge in 1639. The first newspaper, Publick Occurrences Foreign and Domestic, was started in Boston in1690. The first permanent newspaper, the Boston News Letter, began in1704, and it had a Boston and a Philadelphia rival in 1719. The MarylandGazette was started at Annapolis in 1727, a weekly at Williamsburg, Va. , in 1736. In 1740 there were eleven newspapers in all in the colonies;one each in New York, South Carolina, and Virginia (from 1736), three inPennsylvania, one of them German, and five in Boston. The ConnecticutGazette was started at New Haven in 1755; The Summary, at New London in1758. The Rhode Island Gazette was begun by James Franklin, September27, 1732, but was not permanent. The Providence Gazette and CountryJournal put forth its first issue October 20, 1762. In 1775, Salem, Newburyport, and Portsmouth had each its newspaper. The first daily inthe country, the Pennsylvania Packet, began in 1784. 

[Illustration: James Logan. ]

Other literature of American origin flourished in New England nearlyalone. It consisted of sermons, social and political tracts, poetry, history, and memoirs. The clergy were the chief but not the soleauthors. Of readers, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston had many. Much reading matter came from England. Charleston enjoyed a publiclibrary from 1700. About 1750 there were several others. That left toPhiladelphia in 1751, by James Logan, comprised 4, 000 volumes. 

William and Mary had established a postal system for America, placingThomas Neale, Esquire, at its head. The service hardly became a systemtill 1738. In ordinary weather a post-rider would receive thePhiladelphia mail at the Susquehannah River on Saturday evening, be atAnnapolis on Monday, reach the Potomac Tuesday night, on Wednesdayarrive at New Post, near Fredericksburg, and by Saturday evening atWilliamsburg, whence, once a month, the mail went still farther south, to Edenton, N. C. Thus a letter was just a week in transit betweenPhiladelphia and the capital of Virginia. In New England, from here toNew York, and between New York and Philadelphia, despatch was muchbetter. 

[Illustration: King William. ]

[Illustration: Queen Mary. ]

The learned professions also were best patronized and had the ablestpersonnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy, were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers andphysicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated andlittle respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy. Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the landonce in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half thepopulation, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, almost to a man, decried vaccination when first vented, proclaiming it an effort tothwart God's will. Clergymen, except perhaps in Carolina and Virginia, were somewhat better educated, yet those in New England led all othersin this respect. 

Colonial America boasted many great intellectual lights. PresidentEdwards won European reputation as a thinker, and so did Franklin as astatesman and as a scientist. Linnaeus named our Bartram, a Quakerfarmer of Pennsylvania, the greatest natural botanist then living. Increase Mather read and wrote both Greek and Hebrew, and spoke Latin. He and his son Cotton were veritable wonders in literary attainment. Theone was the author of ninety-two books, the other of three hundred andeighty-three. The younger Winthrop was a member of the Royal Society. Copley, Stuart, and West became distinguished painters. 

Except for mails, there were in the colonies no public conveyances byland till just before the Revolution. After stage lines were introduced, to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh required seven days; fromPhiladelphia to New York, at first three, later two. The earliest coachto attain the last-named speed was advertised as "the flying machine, "From Boston one would be four days travelling to New York, two toPortsmouth. Packet-boats between the main points on the coast were asregular and speedy as wind allowed. Stage-drivers, inn-keepers, andship-captains were the honored and accredited purveyors of news. 

Everywhere was great prosperity, little luxury. Paucity of money gaverise to that habit of barter and dicker in trade which was a mannerismof our fathers. Agriculture formed the basal industry, especially in theSouthern colonies; yet in New England and Pennsylvania both manufacturesand commerce thrived. Pennsylvania's yearly foreign commerce exceeded1, 000, 000 pounds sterling, requiring 500 vessels and more than 7, 000seamen. From Pennsylvania, in 1750, 3, 000 tons of pig-iron wereexported. The annual production of iron in Maryland just before theRevolution reached 25, 000 tons of pig, 500 of bar. The business ofmarine insurance began in this country at Philadelphia in 1721, fireinsurance at Boston in 1724. New England produced timber, ships, rum, paper, hats, leather, and linen and woollen cloths, the first three forexport. 

In country places houses were poor save on the great estates, south, butin the cities there were many fine mansions before 1700. From this yearstoves began to be used. Glass windows and paper hangings were firstseen not far from 1750. 

The colonists ate much flesh, and nearly all used tobacco and liquorfreely. Finest ladies snuffed, sometimes smoked. Little coffee wasdrunk, and no tea till about 1700. Urban life was social and gay. In thecountry the games of fox and geese, three and twelve men morris, huskingbees and quilting bees were the chief sports. Tableware was mostly ofwood, though many had pewter, and the rich much silver. The people'sordinary dress was of homemade cloth, but not a few country people stillwore deerskin. The clothing of the rich was imported, and often gaudywith tasteless ornament. Wigs were common in the eighteenth century, andall head-dress stupidly elaborate. 

William Lang, of Boston, advertises in 1767 to provide all who wish withwigs "in the most genteel and polite taste, " assuring judges, divines, lawyers, and physicians, "because of the importance of their heads, thathe can assort his wigs to suit their respective occupations andinclinations. " He tells the ladies that he can furnish anyone of themwith "a nice, easy, genteel, and polite construction of rolls, such asmay tend to raise their heads to any pitch they desire. "

"Everybody wore wigs in 1750, except convicts and slaves. Boys worethem, servants wore them, Quakers wore them, paupers wore them. Themaking of wigs was an important branch of industry in Great Britain. Wigs were of many styles and prices. Some dangled with curls; and theywere designated by a great variety of names, such as tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, foxtails, twists, tetes, scratches, full-bottomed dress bobs, cues, and perukes. The people of Philadelphia dressed as the actors ofour theatres now dress in old English comedy. They walked the streets inbright-colored and highly decorated coats, three-cornered hats, ruffledshirts and wristbands, knee-breeches, silk stockings, low shoes, andsilver buckles. " [footnote: Mrs. M. J. Lamb, in Magazine of Am. History, August. 1888. ] Lord Stirling, one of Washington's generals, had aclothing inventory like a king: a "pompidou" cloth coat and vest, breeches with gold lace, a crimson and figured velvet coat, sevenscarlet vests, et cetera, et cetera. 

The wigs encountered the zealous hostility of many, among these JudgeSamuel Sewall. His highest eulogy on a departed worthy was: "The welfareof the poor was much upon his spirit, and he abominated periwigs. " Amember of the church at Newbury, Mass. , refused to attend communionbecause the pastor wore a wig, believing that all who were guilty ofthis practice would be damned if they did not repent. A meeting ofMassachusetts Quakers solemnly expressed the conviction that the wearingof extravagant and superfluous wigs was wholly contrary to the truth. 

[Illustration: Chief Justice Sewall. ]

There was an aristocracy, of its kind, in all the colonies, but it wasfar the strongest in the South. Social lines were sharply drawn, an"Esquire" not liking to be accosted as "Mr. , " and each looking downsomewhat upon a simple "Goodman. " These gradations stood forth incollege catalogues and in the location of pews in churches. The Yaletriennial catalogue until 1767 and the Harvard triennial till 1772arrange students' names not alphabetically or according to attainments, but so as to indicate the social rank of their families. Memoranda ofPresident Clap, of Yale, against the names of youth when admitted tocollege, such as "Justice of the Peace, " "Deacon, " "of middling estatemuch impoverished, " reveal how hard it sometimes was properly to gradestudents socially. At the South, regular mechanics, like all freelaborers, were few and despised. The indentured servants, very numerousin several colonies, differed little from slaves. David Jamieson, attorney-general of New York in 1710, had been banished from Scotland asa Covenanter and sold in New Jersey as a four years' redemptioner to paytransportation expanses. Such servants were continually running away, which may have aided in abolishing the system. Paupers and criminalswere fewest in New England. All the colonies imprisoned insolventcriminals, though dirt and damp made each prison a hell. All felonieswere awarded capital punishment, and many minor crimes incurredbarbarous penalties. Whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were in frequentuse. So late as 1760 women were publicly whipped. At Hartford, in 1761, David Campbell and Alexander Pettigrew, for the burglary of two watches, received each fifteen stripes, the loss of the right ear, and thebrand-mark "B" on the forehead. Pettigrew came near losing his life fromthe profuse bleeding which ensued. A husband killing his wife washanged. A wife killing her husband was burned, as were slaves who slewtheir masters. 

[Illustration: The Pillory. ]

In care for the unfortunate and in the study and in all applications ofsocial science, Philadelphia led. The Pennsylvania Hospital, the firstinstitution of the kind in America, was founded in 1751. ThePhiladelphia streets were the first to be lighted; those of New Yorknext; those of Boston not till 1773. Before the end of the period nowbefore us Philadelphia and New York also had night patrols. 

[Illustration: Signature of Jolliet (old spelling). ]

CHAPTER VIII. 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA

[Illustration: Totem of the Sioux. ]

[1659-1672]

Working upward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the source of thisand of the Mississippi, and then down the latter river, Franciscans andJesuits their pioneers, braving dreadful hardships and dangers inefforts, more courageous than successful, to convert the Indians, theFrench had come to control that great continental highway and boldly toclaim for France the entire heart of North America. 

[Illustration: A Sioux Chief. ]

In 1659, Groseilliers and Radisson penetrated beyond Lake Superior, anddwelt for a time among the Sioux, who knew of the Mississippi River. Next year Groseilliers went thither again, accompanied by the JesuitMenard and his servant, Guerin. In 1661 Menard and Guerin pushed intowhat is now Wisconsin, and may have seen the Mississippi. Theseexplorations made the French familiar with the copper mines of LakeSuperior, and awakened the utmost zeal to see the Great River of whichthe Indians spoke. La Salle probably discovered the Ohio in 1670, andtraced it down to the falls at Louisville. His main eulogist holds thathe even reached the Mississippi at that time, some three years earlierthan Joliet, but this is not substantiated. We also reject the beliefthat he reached the stream by way of the Chicago portage in 1671. 

[Illustration: Totem of the Illinois. ]

[1676]

In 1672 Count Frontenac, Governor of New France, despatched Louis Jolietto discover the Great River. He reached the Strait of Mackinaw inDecember, and there Pere Marquette joined him. In May, next year, theypaddled their canoes up the Fox River and tugged them across the portageinto the Wisconsin, which they descended, entering the Father of WatersJune 17, 1673. They floated down to the mouth of the Arkansas and thenreturned, their journey back being up the Illinois and DesplainesRivers. Joliet gave his name to the peak on the latter stream which thecity of Joliet, Ill. , near by, still retains. Joliet arrived at Quebecin August, 1674, having in four months journeyed over twenty-fivehundred miles. 

It thus became known how close the upper waters of the great rivers, St. Lawrence and Mississippi, were to each other, and that the latteremptied into the Gulf of Mexico instead of the South Sea (Pacific); yet, as the Rocky Mountains had not then been discovered, it was for longbelieved that some of the western tributaries of the Great River led tothat western ocean. 

[Illustration: The Reception of Joliet and Marquette by the Illinois. ]

[1682]

In 1676 Raudin, and three years later, Du Lhut, visited the Ojibwas andSioux west of Lake Superior. Du Lhut reached the upper waters of theMississippi at Sandy Lake. He went there again in 1680. In 1682 La Sallecrossed the Chicago portage and explored the lower Mississippi all theway to the Gulf, taking possession of the entire valley in the name ofFrance and naming it Louisiana. Nicholas Perrot travelled by way of theFox and Wisconsin Rivers to the upper Mississippi in 1685, and again in1688. It is in his writings that the word "Chicago" first appears inliterature. 

There were thus between the two great valleys, 1, the Superior route; 2, the Wisconsin and Fox route; 3, the Illinois River route, whether by theKankakee, La Salle's way, or by the south branch of the Chicago River, Joliet's way; and 4, the route by the Wabash and Ohio. The Wabash, too, could be approached either from Lake Erie or from Lake Michigan, throughSt. Joseph's River. At high water, canoes often passed from LakeMichigan into the Mississippi without portage. 

[Illustration: A Part of the Map Published in Paris by Thevenot as"Marquette's Map. " It shows the route taken by Joliet across Wisconsinfrom the Baie des Puans (now Green Bay) to the Mississippi River, alsopart of the return journey, that is, from the present site of Chicago, northward along lake Michigan. ]

[1685-1690]

[Illustration: Louis XIV. ]

La Salle had the ambition to get to the South Sea from the Mississippi. Governor De la Barre, who followed Frontenac, opposing him, he repairedto France, where he succeeded in winning Louis XIV. To his plan. At thehead of a well-equipped fleet he sailed for the mouth of theMississippi, reaching land near Matagorda Bay on the first day of theyear 1685. Not finding the Mississippi, La Salle's officers mutinied. The expedition broke up into parties, wandering here and there, distressed by Indian attacks and by treachery among themselves. La Sallewas shot by his own men. Nearly all his followers perished, but a smallparty at last discovered the river and ascended it to Fort St. Louis onthe Illinois, reaching France via Quebec. In this expedition Francetook possession of Texas, nor did she ever relinquish the claim till, in1763, the whole of Louisiana west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain, La Salle's ill-starred attempt led later to the planting of Frenchcolonies by D'Iberville at Biloxi Island, in Mobile Bay, soon abandoned, and at Poverty Point, on the Mississippi; and still later to thesettlement of New Orleans and vicinity. Growth in these parts was slow, however. So late as 1713 there were not over three hundred whites in theentire Mississippi Valley. 

[Illustration: Coins Struck In France for the Colonies. ]

[Illustration: Assassination of La Salle. ]

[Illustration: New Orleans in 1719. ]

By this time French traders had set foot on every shore of the greatlakes and explored nearly every stream tributary thereto. The English, pushing westward more and more, were trying to divide with them thelucrative business of fur-trading, and each nation sought to win toitself all the Indians it could. The Mohawks and their confederates ofthe Five Nations, now equipped and acquainted with fire-arms, spite ofalternate overtures and threats from the French, remained firm friendsto the English, who more and more invaded those vast and fertile westernranges. It grew to be the great question of the age this side theAtlantic, whether England or France should control the continent. KingWilliam's war, declared in 1689, was therefore certain to rage inAmerica as well as in Europe. 

[Illustration: Signature of D'Iberville. ]

One sees by a glance at the map what advantage France had in thisstruggle. It possessed the best fishing grounds and fur-producingdistricts, and fish and furs were at first the only exports of valuefrom the north of America. The French, too, held all the water-ways tothe heart of the continent. Coming up Lake Champlain they could threatenNew York and New England from the rear. The colonies farther south theyshut in almost as straitly, French bullets whistling about anyEnglishman's ears the instant he appeared beyond the mountains. 

In other respects England had the advantage. In population EnglishAmerica had become as superior as French America was territorially, having 1, 116, 000 white inhabitants in 1750, to about 80, 000 French. TheEnglish colonies were also more convenient to the mother-country, andthe better situated for commerce both coastwise and across the ocean. Among the English, temper for mere speculation and adventure decayedvery early, giving way to the conviction that successful plantingdepended wholly upon persistent, energetic toil. 

A piece of fortune more important yet was their relatively freereligious and political system. Toleration in religion was large. Self-government was nearly complete internally, and indeed externally, till the navigation acts. Canada, on the other hand, was oppressed by afeudal constitution in the state, settlers being denied the fee simpleof their lands, and by Jesuits in Church. "New France could not grow, "says Parkman, "with a priest on guard at the gate to let in none butsuch as pleased him. In making Canada a citadel of the state religion, the clerical monitors of the Crown robbed their country of atransatlantic empire. " Thus the Huguenots, France's best emigrants toAmerica, did not come to New France, but to New England and the otherProtestant colonies. 

[Illustration: The Attack on Schenectady. ]

The Indian hostilities which heralded King William's War began August13, 1688. Frontenac prepared to capture Albany and even Manhattan. Hedid not accomplish so much; but on the night of February 8, 1689-90, hisforce of ninety Iroquois and over a hundred Frenchmen fell uponSchenectady, killed sixty, and captured eighty or ninety more. Only acorporal's guard escaped to Albany with the sad news. This attack hadweighty influence, as occasioning the first American congress. Sevendelegates from various colonies assembled at New York on May 1, 1690, todevise defence against the northern invaders. 

The eastern Indians were hardly at rest from Philip's War when roused bythe French to engage in this. An attack was made upon Haverhill, Mass. , and Hannah Dustin, with a child only a few days old, another woman, anda boy, was led captive to an Indian camp up the Merrimac. The savageskilled the infant, but thereby steeled the mother's heart for revenge. One night the three prisoners slew their sleeping guards and, seizing acanoe, floated down to their home. Dover was attacked June 27, 1689, twenty-three persons killed, and twenty-nine sold to the French inCanada. Indescribable horrors occurred at Oyster River, at Salmon Falls, at Casco, at Exeter, and elsewhere. 

[Illustration: Hannah Dustin's Escape. ]

[1702]

In 1702 Queen Anne's War began, and in this again New England was thechief sufferer. The barbarities which marked it were worse than those ofPhilip's War. De Rouville, with a party of French and savages, proceededfrom Canada to Deerfield, Mass. Fearing an attack, the villagers meantto be vigilant, but early on a February morning, 1704, the wily enemy, skulking till the sentinels retired at daylight, managed to effect asurprise. Fifty were killed and one hundred hurried off to Canada. Amongthese were the minister, Mr. Williams, and his family. Twenty yearslater a white woman in Indian dress entered Deerfield. It was one of theWilliams daughters. She had married an Indian in Canada, and now refusedto desert him. Cases like this, of which there were many in the courseof these frightful wars, seemed to the settlers harder to bear thandeath. Massachusetts came so to dread the atrocious foe, that fifteenpounds were offered by public authority for an Indian man's scalp, eightfor a child's or a woman's. 

[1705]

[Illustration: Plan of Port Royal, Nova Scotia. ]

Governor Spotswood urged aggression on the French to the west; GovernorHunter of New York had equal zeal for a movement northward. New Yorkraised 600 men and the same number of Iroquois, voting 10, 000 pounds ofpaper money for their sustenance. Connecticut and New Jersey sent 1, 600men. A force of 4, 000 in all mustered at Albany under Nicholson of NewYork. They were to co-operate against Montreal with the naval expeditionof 1711, commanded by Sir Hoveden Walker. Walker failed ignominiously, and Nicholson, hearing of this betimes, saved himself by retreating. 

Sir William Phips had captured Port Royal in 1690, and Acadia wasannexed to Massachusetts in 1692. In 1691 the French again took formalpossession of Port Royal and the neighboring country. In 1692 anineffectual attempt was made to recover it, but by the Treaty ofRyswick, 1697, it was explicitly given back to France. 

[1710]

At the inception of Queen Anne's War, in 1702, there were severalexpeditions from New England to Nova Scotia; in 1704 and 1707 withoutresult. That of 1710 was more successful. It consisted of four regimentsand thirty-six vessels, besides troop and store ships and some marines. Port Royal capitulated, and its name was changed to Annapolis, in honorof Queen Anne. Acadia never again came under French control, and wasregularly ceded to England by the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713. Notwithstanding this, however, French America still remainedsubstantially intact. 

[Illustration: Queen Anne. ]

[1714]

If the great struggle for the Ohio Valley now became a silent one, itwas none the less earnest. Spotswood had opened a road across the BlueRidge in 1716. In 1721 New Yorkers began settling on Oswego River, andthey finished a fort there by 1726. Closer alliance was formed with theFive Nations. The French governor of Quebec in 1725 pleaded that Niagaramust be fortified, and on his successor was urged the necessity ofreducing the Oswego garrison. It was partly to flank Oswego that theFrench pushed up Lake Champlain to Crown Point and built Fort St. Frederick. 

The Treaty of Utrecht had left Cape Breton Island to France. The Frenchat once strongly fortified Louisburg and invited thither the Frenchinhabitants of Acadia and Newfoundland, which had also been ceded toGreat Britain. Many went, though the British governors did much tohinder removal. This irritated the French authorities, and the Indianatrocities of 1723-24 at Dover and in Maine are known to have beenstimulated from Montreal. Father Rasle, an astute and benevolent FrenchJesuit who had settled among the Indians at Norridgewock, became anagent of this hostile influence. In an English attack, August 12, 1724, Rasle's settlement was broken up and himself killed. The Indians nextyear made a treaty, and peace prevailed till King George's War. 

[Illustration: Governor Shirley. ]

[1745]

[Illustration: Sir William Pepperrell. ]

This opened in 1744, England against France once more, and in 1745 camethe capture of Louisburg, then the Gibraltar of America. This wasbrought about through the energy of Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, the most efficient English commander this side the Atlantic. Thatcommonwealth voted to send 3, 250 men, Connecticut 500, New Hampshire andRhode Island each 300. Sir William Pepperrell, of Kittery, Me. , commanded, Richard Gridley, of Bunker Hill fame, being his chief ofartillery. The expedition consisted of thirteen armed vessels, commandedby Captain Edward Tyng, with over 200 guns, and about ninety transports. The Massachusetts troops sailed from Nantasket March 24th, and reachedCanso, April 4th. "Rhode Island, " says Hutchinson, "waited until abetter judgment could be made of the event, their three hundred notarriving until after the place had surrendered. " The expedition was verycostly to the colonies participating, and four years later Englandreimbursed them in the sum of 200, 000 pounds. Yet at the disgracefulpeace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, she surrendered Louisburg and allCape Breton to France again. 

[1746-1748]

In 1746 French and Indians from Crown Point destroyed the fort andtwenty houses at Saratoga, killing thirty persons, and capturing sixty. Orders came this year from England to advance on Crown Point andMontreal, upon Shirley's plan, all the colonies as far south as Virginiabeing commanded to aid. Quite an army mustered at Albany. Sir WilliamJohnson succeeded in rousing the Iroquois, whom the French had beencourting with unprecedented assiduity. But D'Anville's fleet threatened. The colonies wanted their troops at home. Inactivity discouraged thesoldiers, alienated the Indians. At last news came that the Canadaproject was abandoned, and in 1748 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle wasdeclared. 

This very year France began new efforts to fill the Ohio Valley withemigrants. Virginia did the same. To anticipate the English, the Frenchsent Bienville to bury engraved leaden plates at the mouths of streams. They also fortified the present sites of Ogdensburg and Toronto. Evennow, therefore, France's power this side the Atlantic was not visiblyshaken. The continental problem remained unsolved. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

[1748]

The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been made only because the contestantswere tired of fighting. In America, at least, each at once began takingbreath and preparing to renew the struggle. Not a year passed that didnot witness border quarrels more or less bloody. The French authoritiesfilled the Ohio and Mississippi valleys with military posts; Englishsettlers pressed persistently into the same to find homes. In thismovement Virginia led, having in 1748 formed, especially to aid westernsettlement, the Ohio Company, which received from the king a grant offive hundred thousand acres beyond the Alleghanies. A road was laid outbetween the upper Potomac and the present Pittsburgh, settlements werebegun along it, and efforts made to conciliate the savages. 

[Illustration: Map showing Position of French and English Forts andSettlements. ]

[Illustration: The Ambuscade. ]

[1754]

One of the frontier villages was at what is now Franklin, Penn. , and thelocation involved Virginia with the colony of Pennsylvania. Ascommissioner to settle the dispute George Washington was sent out. 

The future Father of his Country was of humble origin. Born inWestmoreland County, Va. , "about ten in ye morning of ye 11th day ofFebruary, 1731-32, " as recorded in his mother's Bible, he had been anorphan from his earliest youth. His education was of the slenderest. Atsixteen he became a land surveyor, leading a life of the roughest sort, beasts, savages, and hardy frontiersmen his constant companions, sleeping under the sky and cooking his own coarse food. No better mancould have been chosen to thread now the Alleghany trail. 

Washington reported the French strongly posted in western Pennsylvaniaon lands claimed by the Ohio Company. Virginia fitted out an expeditionto dislodge them. Of this Washington commanded the advance. Meeting atGreat Meadows the French under Contrecoeur, commander of Fort Du Quesne(Pittsburgh); he was at first victorious, but the French werere-enforced before he was, and Washington, after a gallant struggle, hadto capitulate. This was on July 3, 1754. The French and Indian War hadbegun. 

[Illustration: Baddock's Route. ]

[1755]

The English Government bade the colonies defend their frontier, and inthis interest twenty-five delegates from the seven northern colonies metat Albany on June 19, 1754. Benjamin Franklin represented Pennsylvania, and it was at this conference that he presented his well-consideredplan, to be described in our chapter on Independence, for a generalgovernment over English America. The Albany Convention amounted tolittle, but did somewhat to renew alliance with the Six Nations. [footnote: Increased from five to six by the accession of theTuscaroras. ]

In this decisive war England had in view four great objects of conquestin America: 1. Fort Du Quesne; 2. The Ontario basin with Oswego and FortNiagara; 3. The Champlain Valley; 4. Louisburg. The British ministryseemed in earnest. It sent Sir Edward Braddock to this side with sixthousand splendidly equipped veterans, and offered large sums forfitting out regiments of provincials. Braddock arrived in February, 1755, but moved very languidly. This was not altogether his fault, forhe had difficulties with the governors and they with their legislatures. 

[Illustration: Map of Braddock's Field. ]

At last off for Fort Du Quesne, he took a needlessly long route, throughVirginia instead of Pennsylvania. He scorned advice, marching andfighting stiffly according to the rules of the Old World military art, heeding none of Franklin's and Washington's sage hints touching savagemodes of warfare. The consequence was this brave Briton's defeat anddeath. As he drew near to Fort Du Quesne, he fell into a carefullyprepared ambuscade. Four horses were shot under him. Mounting a fifth hespurred to the front to inspire his men, forbidding them seek theslightest cover, as Washington urged and as the provincials successfullydid. The regulars, obeying, were half of them killed in their tracks, the remainder retreating, in panic at first, to Philadelphia. Braddockdied, and was buried at Great Meadows, where his grave is still to beseen. 

[Illustration: The Death of Braddock. ]

Washington was the only mounted officer in this action who was notkilled or fatally wounded, a fact at the time regarded speciallyprovidential. On his return, aged twenty-three, the Rev. Samuel Davies, afterward President of the College of New Jersey, referred to him in hissermon as "that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hopeProvidence has preserved in so signal a manner for some importantservice to his country. "

[1757]

The early part of this war witnessed the tragic occurrence immortalizedby Longfellow's "Evangeline, " the expulsion of the French from Acadia. The poem is too favorable to these people. They had never becomereconciled to English rule, and were believed on strong evidence to beactive in promoting French schemes against the English. It was resolvedto scatter them among the Atlantic settlements. The act was savage, andbecame doubly so through the unmeant cruelties attending its execution. The poor wretches were huddled on the shore weeks too soon for theirtransports. Families were broken up, children forcibly separated fromparents. The largest company was carried to Massachusetts, many toPennsylvania, some to the extreme South. Not a few, crushed in spirit, became paupers. A number found their way to France, a number toLouisiana, a handful back to Nova Scotia. 

Braddock was succeeded by the fussy and incompetent Earl of Loudon, 1756-57, whom Franklin likened to Saint George on the sign-posts, "always galloping but never advancing. " He gathered twelve thousand menfor the recapture of Louisburg, but exaggerated reports of the Frenchstrength frightened him from the attempt. Similar inaction lost him FortWilliam Henry on Lake George. The end of the year 1757 saw the Englishcause on this side at low ebb, Montcalm, the tried and brilliant Frenchcommander, having outwitted or frightened the English officers at everypoint. 

[Illustration: Montcalm. ]

From this moment all changes. William Pitt, subsequently Lord Chatham, now became the soul of the British ministry. George III. Had dismissedhim therefrom in 1757, but Newcastle found it impossible to get onwithout him. The great commoner had to be recalled, this time to takeentire direction of the war. 

[Illustration: William Pitt. ]

[1758]

Pitt had set his mind on the conquest of Canada. He superseded Loudonearly in 1758 by General Amherst, who was seconded by Wolfe and byAdmiral Boscawen, both with large re-enforcements. They were to reduceLouisburg. It was an innovation to assign important commands like theseto men with so little fame and influence, but Pitt did not care. Hebelieved his appointees to be brave, energetic, skilful, and the eventproved his wisdom. Louisburg fell, and with it the whole of Cape BretonIsland and also Prince Edward. 

Unfortunately General Abercrombie had not been recalled with Loudon. Thesame year, 1758, he signally failed to capture Ticonderoga, leaving theway to Montreal worse blocked than before. Fort Du Quesne, however, General Forbes took this year at little cost, rechristening itPittsburgh in honor of the heroic minister who had ordered theenterprise. 

[1759]

In the year 1759 occurred a grand triple movement upon Canada. Amherst, now general-in-chief, was to clear the Champlain Valley, and Prideauxwith large colonial forces to reduce Fort Niagara. Both had orders, being successful in these initial attacks, to move down the St. Lawrenceand unite with Wolfe, who was to sail up that river and beset Quebec. Prideaux was splendidly successful, as indeed was Amherst in time, though longer than he anticipated in securing Ticonderoga and CrownPoint. 

[Illustration: General Wolfe. ]

Meantime Wolfe at Quebec was trying in all ways to manoeuvre the craftyMontcalm out of his impregnable works. Failing, he in his eagernesssuffered himself to attempt an assault upon the city, which proved notonly vain but terribly costly. A weaker commander would now have givenup, but Wolfe had red hair, and the grit usually accompanying. Undaunted, he planned the hazardous enterprise of rowing up the St. Lawrence by night, landing with five thousand picked men at the foot ofthe precipitous ascent to the Plains of Abraham, and scaling thoseheights to face Montcalm from the west. The Frenchman, stunned at thesight which day brought him, lost no time in attacking. In the hotbattle which ensued, September 13, 1759, both commanders fell, Wolfecheering his heroes to sure victory, Montcalm urging on his forlorn hopein vain. The English remained masters of the field and in five daysQuebec capitulated. 

[Illustration: Landing of Wolfe. ]

[1760-1763]

[Illustration: Quebec in 1730--From an old Print. ]

Vaudreuil, the French commander at Montreal, sought to dislodge theEnglish ere the ice left the river in the spring of 1760, and succeededin driving them within their works. Each side then waited and hoped forhelp from beyond sea so soon as navigation opened. It came the earlierto the English, who were gladdened on May 11th by the approach of aBritish frigate, the forerunner of a fleet. They now chased Vaudreuilback into Montreal, where they were met by Haviland from Crown Point andby Amherst from Oswego. France's days of power in America were ended. Her fleet of twenty-two sail intended for succor met total destructionin the Bay des Chaleurs and by the Peace of Paris, 1763, she surrenderedto her victorious antagonist every foot of her American territory eastof the Mississippi, save the city of New Orleans. 

The Indians were thus left to finish this war alone. Pontiac, the braveand cunning chief of the Ottawas, aghast at the rising might of theEnglish, and the certain fate of his race without the French forhelpers, organized a conspiracy including nearly every tribe this sidethe Mississippi except the Six Nations, to put to the sword all theEnglish garrisons in the West. Fatal success waited upon the plan. Itwas in 1763 Forts Sandusky, St. Joseph (southeast of Lake Michigan), Miami (Fort Wayne), Presque Isle (Erie, Pa. ), Le Boeuf, Venango, andPittsburgh were attacked and all but the last destroyed, soldiers andsettlers murdered with indescribable barbarities. Pittsburgh held outtill re-enforced, at dreadful cost in blood, by Colonel Bouquet and hisHighlanders, who marched from Philadelphia. 

[Illustration: Bouquet's Redoubt at Pittsburgh. ]

The hottest and longest conflict was at Detroit, Major Gladwyncommanding, where Pontiac himself led the onset, heading perhaps athousand men. The siege was maintained with fearful venom from May 11thtill into October. The English tried a number of sallies, brave, fatal, vain, and were so hard pressed by their bloodthirsty foe that onlytimely and repeated re-enforcements saved them. At last the savages, becoming, as always, disunited and straitened for supplies, sullenlymade peace; and at the call of the rich and now free Northwest, caravansof English immigrants thronged thither to lay under happiest auspicesthe foundations of new States. 

END OF VOLUME l.