As they had been warned, however, to establish this settlement far up
a navigable river, out of danger from wandering vessels of the Spanish
Main, they entered the beautiful river of Powhatan, which they called
the James, and sailed up it for some fifty miles until they came to a
wooded island, which they chose as the site of their colony. There they
cut logs and built the rude huts which marked the site of Jamestown,
the first permanent English settlement within the limits of what we now
know as the United States of America.
[Illustration: THE MAYFLOWER
_The pilgrim ship is shown as it entered Plymouth Harbor bringing the
first New England settlers._]
Through sorrow and privations, surrounded by the nameless terrors of an
unknown wilderness, harassed by savages, and disheartened by sickness,
the little colony survived as by a miracle, and became the nucleus of a
nation. Of the old Jamestown nothing now remains but an ancient church
tower overgrown with ivy and a few crumbling tombstones. But its honor
remains, secure in the hearts of a grateful people.
[Illustration: EDWARD WINSLOW
_From the only portrait of a “Mayflower” pilgrim in existence. Edward
Winslow was one of the governors of Plymouth colony._]
The failure of the Popham colony had discouraged the Plymouth Company,
and it was not until Jamestown was a flourishing village that a
permanent settlement was made in the northern part of the region which
King James had granted to the Virginia Company. Those years had been
years of strife and sorrow in England. The king in the narrow bigotry
of his ecclesiastical views, had declared that if any refused to
conform to the rules of worship prescribed by the established Church
of England, he would “harry them out of the land,” and King James had
kept his word. Many Englishmen had been “harried out of the land,”
and had taken refuge on the continent of Europe; but the band for
whom history was reserving the largest place had escaped from Scrooby
in Nottinghamshire and established themselves at Leyden, Holland.
Here they had prospered; but they were still English, and, seeing
their children growing up with distinctly Dutch characteristics, they
determined to migrate to a land where the son of an Englishman would
grow up an Englishman. It is often said that the chief aim of the
Puritans was to settle in a land where they could worship God as they
pleased. This, however, they were quite at liberty to do in Holland.
It might be said with greater truthfulness that they desired to settle
in a land where they could compel others to worship God as they
commanded--and this they managed quite effectively for some years after
their landing.