THE COLONIES OF THE NEW WORLD.
We love
The king who loves the law, respects his bounds,
And reigns content within them; him we serve
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free:
But recollecting still that he is a man,
We trust him not too far.
--COWPER.
The Dutch, who still held possession of Manhattan Island and the
territory now known as New York, were not enjoying the peace and
tranquillity promised the just. Because some swine had been stolen from
the plantation of De Vries on Staten Island, the Dutch governor sent an
armed force to chastise the innocent Raritans in New Jersey, believing
that a show of power would disarm the vengeance of the savages. The
event was so grossly unjust that it not only aroused the Raritans, but
all neighboring tribes, and they prepared for war. The hitherto peaceful
Raritans killed the whites whenever they found them alone in the forest.
Fifteen years before some of Minuet's men murdered an Indian belonging
to a tribe seated beyond the Harlem River. His nephew, then a boy, who
saw the outrage and made a vow of vengeance, had now grown to be a lusty
man. He executed his vow by murdering a wheelwright while he was
examining his tool-chest for a tool, cleaving his skull with an axe.
Governor Kieft demanded the murderer; but his chief would not give him
up, saying he had sought vengeance according to the customs of his race.
The governor, who cared little for the "customs of the race," determined
to chastise that tribe as he had the Raritans, and called upon the
people to shoulder their muskets for the fray; but they, seeing the
danger to which the rashness of the governor was leading them, refused.
They had been witnesses of his rapacity and greed, and they now charged
him with seeking war that he might "make a wrong reckoning with the
colony," and reproached him with selfish cowardice.
"It is all well for you," they said, "who have not slept out of a fort a
single night since you came, to endanger our lives and homes in
undefended places."
The autocrat was transformed by the bold attitude of the people. Reason
dawned upon his dull brain, and he invited all the heads of families in
New Amsterdam to meet him in convention to consult upon public affairs.
The result of this invitation was the selection of twelve men to act as
representatives for the people, which formed the first popular assembly
and first representative congress for political purposes in the New
Netherlands. Thus were planted the seeds of a representative democracy,
in the year 1641, almost on the very spot where, a century and a half
later, our great republic, founded upon similar principles, was
inaugurated, when Washington took the oath of office as the first
president of the United States.
These twelve representatives of the people chose De Vries as president
of their number. To that body the governor submitted the question
whether the murderer of the wheelwright ought to be demanded of his
chief, and whether, in case of the chief's refusal, the Dutch ought to
make war upon his tribe and burn the village wherein he dwelt. The
twelve counselled peace and proceeded to consider the propriety of
establishing a government similar to that of the fatherland. To this the
governor cunningly agreed to make popular concessions if the twelve
would authorize him to make war on the offending tribe at the proper
time, to which they foolishly assented. Then the surly governor
dissolved them, saying he had no further use for them, and forbade any
popular assemblage thereafter.
Next spring (1642) Kieft sent an expedition against the offending
tribe, but a treaty disappointed his thirst for military glory. The
river Indians were tributary to the Mohawks, and in midwinter, 1643, a
large party of the Iroquois came down to collect by force of arms
tribute which had not been paid. The natives along the lower Hudson, to
the number of about five hundred, fled before the invaders, taking
refuge with the Hackensacks at Hoboken and craving the protection of the
Dutch. At the same time many of the offending Westchester tribe, and
others fled to Manhattan and took refuge with the Hollanders. De Vries
thought this a good opportunity to establish a permanent peace with the
savages; but Kieft, who still seemed to thirst for blood, made it an
occasion for treachery and death.
One dark, cold night, late in February, 1643, when the snow fell fast,
and the wind blew loud and shrill, and there was not a star to be seen
in the sky, eighty men were sent by Kieft to attack the fugitives at
Hoboken and those at "Colaer's Hook," who were slumbering in fancied
security. Forty of those at the Hook were massacred, while the
Hollanders, who had stealthily crossed the river through floating ice,
were making the snows at Hoboken crimson with blood of confiding Indians
and lighting up the heavens with the blaze of their wigwams. They
spared neither age nor sex. "Warrior and squaw, sachem and child, mother
and babe," says Brodhead, "were alike massacred. Daybreak scarcely ended
the furious slaughter. Mangled victims, seeking safety in the thickets,
were driven into the river, and parents, rushing to save their
children, whom the soldiery had thrown into the stream, were driven into
the waters and drowned before the eyes of their unrelenting murderers."
[Illustration: KIEFT, FROM THE RAMPARTS, WATCHED THE BURNING WIGWAMS.]
It has been estimated that fully one hundred perished in this ruthless
butchery. Historians state that Kieft, from the ramparts at Fort
Amsterdam, watched the burning wigwams. This treachery and wholesale
murder roused the fiery hatred of the savages and kindled a war so
fierce that Kieft was frightened by the fury of the tempest which his
wickedness and folly had raised, and he humbly asked the people to
choose a few men again to act as his counsellors. The colonists, who had
lost all confidence in the governor, chose eight citizens to relieve
them from the fearful net of difficulties in which they were involved.
Almost the first these eight advisers did was to ask the states-general
at home to recall Governor Kieft, which was promptly done, and while on
his way to Europe with his ill-gotten gains, his vessel went down, and
the governor perished.
Peter Stuyvesant, the brave soldier who had lost a leg in the West
Indies, was sent as governor to New Amsterdam, and he arrived in May,
1647. The stern, stubborn old soldier was received with great
demonstrations of joy by the Hollanders. Despite all his stubbornness,
Stuyvesant was a man of keen sagacity. He was despotic, yet honest and
wise. He set about some much needed reforms, refusing to sell liquors
and arms to the Indians. He soon taught the Indians to respect and fear
him; but at the same time they learned to admire his honesty
and courage.
By prudent and adroit management, Stuyvesant swept away many annoyances
in the shape of territorial claims. When the Plymouth Company assigned
their American domain to twelve persons, they conveyed to Lord Stirling,
the proprietor of Nova Scotia, a part of New England and an island
adjacent to Long Island. Stirling tried to take possession of Long
Island, but failed. At his death, in 1647, his widow sent a Scotchman to
assert the claim and act as governor. He proclaimed himself as such, but
was promptly arrested by Stuyvesant and put on board a ship bound for
Holland. The vessel touched at an English port, where the "governor"
escaped, and no further trouble with the family of Lord Stirling ensued.
Stuyvesant went to Hartford and settled by treaty all disputes with the
New Englanders which had annoyed his predecessors. Then he turned his
attention to the suppression of the expanding power and influence of the
Swedes on the Delaware. The accession of a new queen to the throne of
Sweden made it necessary to make a satisfactory adjustment of the
long-pending dispute about the territory. Stuyvesant was instructed to
act firmly but discreetly. Accompanied by his suite of officers, he went
to Fort Nassau on the New Jersey side of the Delaware, whence he sent
Printz, the governor of New Sweden, an abstract of the title of the
Dutch to the domain and called a council of the Indian chiefs in the
neighborhood. These chiefs declared the Swedes to be usurpers and by
solemn treaty gave all the land to the Dutch. Then Stuyvesant crossed
over and, near the site of New Castle in Delaware, built a fort, which
he called Fort Cassimer. Governor Printz protested in vain. The two
magistrates held friendly personal intercourse, and they mutually
promised to "keep neighborly friendship and correspondence together."
This strange friendly conquest was in the year 1651. The following year
an important concession was made to the inhabitants of New Amsterdam. A
constant war was waged between Stuyvesant and the representatives of the
people called the "Nine." The governor tried to repress the spirit of
popular freedom; the Nine fostered it. They wanted a municipal
government for their growing capital and, fearing the governor, made a
direct application to the states-general for the privilege. It was
granted, and the people of New Amsterdam were allowed a government like
the free cities of Holland, the officers to be appointed by the
governor. Under this arrangement, New Amsterdam (afterward New York)
was, early in 1653, organized as a city. Stuyvesant was very much
annoyed by this "imprudent entrusting of power with the people."
Stuyvesant was a royalist, and for years he struggled with the
increasing spirit of republicanism, which was constantly growing among
his people; but he was not troubled by his domestic affairs alone; his
foreign relations were once more disturbed. Governor Printz returned to
Sweden, and in his place the warlike magistrate John Risingh came to the
Delaware with some soldiers under the bold Swen Schute, and appeared
before Fort Cassimer demanding its surrender.
The Dutch residents fled to the fort demanding protection; but Bikker
the commander said:
"I have no powder. What can I do?"
After an hour's parley, Bikker went out, leaving the gate of the fort
wide open, and shook hands with Schute and his men, welcoming them as
friends. The Swedes fired two shots over the fort in token of its
capture and then, blotting out the Dutch garrison, named it Fort
Trinity, as the surrender was on Trinity Sunday, 1654.
Stuyvesant was enraged and perplexed by this surrender. At that time he
was expecting an attack from the English, and the doughty governor
prepared to wipe out the stain on Belgic prowess caused "by that
infamous surrender." On the first Sunday in September, 1655, with seven
vessels carrying more than six hundred soldiers, he sailed from New
Amsterdam for the Delaware. He landed his force on the beach between
Fort Cassimer and Fort Christina near Wilmington, and an ensign with a
drum was sent to the fort to demand the surrender. The warlike Schute
complied next day, and in the presence of Stuyvesant and his suite he
drank the health of the governor in a glass of Rhenish wine. So ended
the bloodless conquest.
[Illustration: Stuyvesant.]
On his return to Manhattan, Stuyvesant found the wildest confusion
reigning because of a sudden uprising of the Indians. A former civil
officer named Van Dyck had a very fine peach orchard which caused him no
little annoyance on account of the constant pilfering of the Indians.
Van Dyck, had grown exasperated and had vowed to kill the next Indian
whom he should discover stealing his fruit. One day while the stout
Dutchman was at his midday meal, his son ran in to tell him that he had
seen an Indian squaw enter the orchard. Van Dyck sprang from the table
vowing vengeance, and from the rack made of deer's horns he took down
his fusee and rushed into the orchard, taking care to conceal himself
until he was within easy range. The squaw saw him and, with a yell of
fear, wheeled to fly for her life; but Van Dyck was a true shot and,
bringing his gun to his shoulder, killed her as she ran.
[Illustration: THE SQUAW, WITH A YELL OF FEAR, WHEELED TO FLY FOR HER
LIFE.]
The fury of the tribe was kindled, and the long peace of ten years was
suddenly broken. One morning before daybreak almost two thousand river
Indians in sixty large war-canoes landed, distributed themselves through
the town and, under pretence of looking for northern Indians, broke into
several dwellings in search of Van Dyck. A council of the inhabitants
was immediately held at the fort, and the sachems of the invaders were
summoned before them. The Indian leaders agreed to leave the city and
pass over to Nutten (now Governor's Island), before sunset; but they
broke their promise. That afternoon Van Dyck was discovered, and they
opened fire on him. He fled down the street, but was finally shot and
killed, and the lives of others were threatened. The people flew to arms
and drove the savages to their canoes. The Indians crossed the Hudson
and ravaged New Jersey and Staten Island. Within three days a hundred
inhabitants were killed, one hundred and fifty made captives, and the
estates of three hundred utterly desolated by the dusky foe. In the
height of the excitement, Stuyvesant returned and soon brought order out
of chaos, yet distant settlements were still broken up, the inhabitants
in fear flying to Manhattan for safety. To prevent a like calamity in
the future, the governor issued a proclamation ordering all who lived in
secluded places in the country to gather themselves into villages "after
the fashion of our New Engand neighbors." After some desultory fighting
on the frontier, Dutch and Indian hostilities in a great measure ceased,
and for about ten years, beyond the threatenings of the English on the
one hand and the Indians on the other, New Netherland enjoyed a season
of peace and prosperity.
The New England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island and a part
of the Mason and Gorges claim, had, in 1644, formed a confederacy. The
New England Confederacy--the harbinger of the United States of
America--was simply a league of independent provinces, as were the
thirteen states under the "Articles of Confederation," each jealously
guarding its own privileges and rights against any encroachments of the
general government. That central body was in reality no government at
all. It was composed of a board of commissioners consisting of two
church members from each colony, who were to meet annually, or oftener
if required. Their duty was to consider circumstances and recommend
measures for the general good. They had no executive or independent
legislative powers, their recommendations becoming laws only after they
had been acted upon and approved by the colonies. The doctrine of state
supremacy was controlling. Though it was not a government, or at least
only a government in embryo, yet the student can see from these
separate colonies, jealous of their rights, the outcoming of the
United States.
Of that famous league, Massachusetts assumed control because of her
greater population and her superiority as a "perfect republic." It
remained in force more than forty years, during which period the
government of England was changed three times. When trouble arose
between King Charles I. and Parliament, the New Englanders, being
Puritans, were in sympathy with the roundheads. In 1649 King Charles
lost his throne and life, and England for a brief time became a
commonwealth. Unlike the Virginians, the New Englanders sympathized with
the English republicans, and found in Oliver Cromwell, the ruler of
England next to the beheaded Charles I., a sincere friend and protector.
The growth of the colony of Massachusetts was particularly healthy. A
profitable commerce between the colony and the West Indies, now that the
obnoxious navigation laws were a dead letter, was created. That trade
brought bullion, or uncoined gold and silver, into the colony, which
led, in 1652, to the exercise of an act of sovereignty on the part of
the authorities of Massachusetts by the establishment of a mint. It was
authorized by the general assembly, in 1651, and the following year
"silver coins of the denomination of threepence, sixpence and
twelvepence, or shilling, were struck. This was the first coinage
within the territory of the United States."
There lived in Boston at this time a family named Stevens. The head of
the family was a white-haired old man named Mathew, whose dark eyes and
complexion indicated southern blood. He was a foster-son of the Pilgrim
Father, Mr. Robinson, and had come to New England in the _Mayflower_
when she made her first memorable voyage to Plymouth, thirty-two
years before.
Mathew Stevens had removed with his family from New Plymouth to Boston
the year before the king of England lost his head. This man was a
brother to the father of John Stevens of Virginia, and though he had
Spanish blood in his veins, he was a Puritan. The Puritan of
Massachusetts was, at this time, the straitest of his sect, an
unflinching egotist, who regarded himself as eminently his "brother's
keeper," whose constant business it was to save his fellow-men from sin
and error, sitting in judgment upon their belief and actions with the
authority of a divinely appointed high priest. His laws, found on the
statute books of the colony, or divulged in the records of court
proceedings, exhibit the salient points in his stern and inflexible
character, as a self-constituted censor and a conservator of the moral
and spiritual destiny of his fellow-mortals. A fine was imposed on
every woman wearing her hair cut short like a man's; all gaming for
amusement or gain was forbidden, and cards and dice were not permitted
in the colony. A father was fined if his daughter did not spin as much
flax or wool as the selectmen required of her. No Jesuit or Roman
Catholic priest was permitted to make his residence within the colony.
All persons were forbidden to run or even walk, "except to and from
church" on Sunday, and a burglar, because he committed his crime on that
sacred day, was to have one of his ears cut off. John Wedgewood was
placed in the stocks for being in the company of drunkards. Thomas
Petit, for "suspicion of slander, idleness and stubbornness," was
severely whipped. Captain Lowell, a dashing ladies' man, more of a
cavalier and modern society fop than a sober Puritan, was admonished to
"take heed of his light carriage." The records show that Josias
Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, was
ordered to return to them eight baskets, to be fined five pounds, and
thereafter to "be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr. Plaistowe,
as formerly." The grand jurors were directed to admonish those who wore
apparel too costly for their income, and, if they did not heed the
warning, to fine them, and in the year 1646 there was enacted a law in
Massachusetts which imposed a penalty of flogging for kissing a woman
on the street, even in the way of honest salute. This law remained in
force for a hundred years, though it was practically ignored.
In this school of rigid Puritanism lived the northern family of Stevens,
of the same Spanish branch as the Virginia family. The head of the
family, having been trained by such devout men as John Robinson and
William Brewster, of course grew up in the law and customs of the
Puritans. Puritanism to-day has a semblance of fanaticism; but in the
age of pioneers, when civilization was in its infancy, the frontierman
naturally went to some extreme. Extreme Puritanism is better than the
reign of lawlessness which characterized many frontier settlements in
later years. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between fanaticism
and the keenest sagacity, and the folly of one age may become the wisdom
of a succeeding century. Fanatic as the Puritan may be called, he was
the sage of New England and gave to that land an impetus in the arts,
literature, and science, which has enabled that country to eclipse any
other part of the New World.
While New England was steadily progressing, despite changes in the home
government, Maryland was without any historical event worth mentioning,
save the trouble with Claybourne.
That portion of the United States known as New Jersey and Delaware
consisted at this time of only a few trading settlements hardly worthy
of being called colonies. Except for the Swedish and Dutch troubles and
the Indian wars mentioned, these countries were in the last decade
wholly without historical interest. After all, territory is but the body
of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul,
its spirit and its life.
All south of Virginia was a wilderness occupied by tribes of Indians
until the Spanish settlements were reached. That portion now known as
Carolinia and Georgia was claimed by Spain. In 1630, a patent for all
this territory was issued to Sir Robert Heath, and there is room to
believe that, in 1639, permanent plantations were planned and
contemplated by his assign William Howley, who appeared in Virginia as
"Governor of Carolinia." The Virginia legislature granted that it might
be colonized by one hundred persons from Virginia, "freemen, being
single and disengaged of debt." The attempts were unsuccessful, for the
patent was declared void, because the purpose for which it was granted
had never been fulfilled. Besides, more stubborn rivals were found to
have already planted themselves on the Cape Fear River. Hardly had New
England received within her bosom a few scanty colonies, before her
citizens began roaming the continent and traversing the seas in quest of
untried fortune. A little bark, navigated by New England men, had
hovered off the coast of Carolinia. They had carefully watched the
dangers of its navigation, had found their way into the Cape Fear River,
had purchased of the Indian chiefs a title to the soil, and had boldly
planted a little colony of herdsmen far to the south of any English
settlement on the continent. Already they had partners in London, and
hardly was the grant of Carolinia made known before their agents pleaded
their discovery, occupancy and purchase, as affording a valid title to
the soil, while they claimed the privilege of self-government as a
natural right. A compromise was offered, and the proprietaries, in their
"proposal to all that would plant in Carolinia," promised emigrants from
New England a governor and council to be elected from among a number
whom the emigrants themselves should nominate; a representative
assembly, independent legislation, subject only to the negative of the
proprietaries, land at a rent of half a penny per acre and such freedom
from customs as the charter would warrant.
Notwithstanding all these offers, but few availed themselves of them,
and the lands were for most part abandoned to wild beasts and natives.
From Nansemond, Virginia, a party of explorers was formed to traverse
the forests and rivers that flow into the Albemarle Sound. The company
which started in July, 1653, was led by Roger Green, whose services
were rewarded by a grant of a thousand acres, while ten thousand acres
were offered to any colony of one hundred persons who would plant on the
banks of the Roanoke, or the south side of the Chowan and its tributary
streams. These conditional grants seem not to have taken effect, yet the
enterprise of Virginia did not flag, and Thomas Dew, once the speaker of
the assembly, formed a plan for exploring the navigable rivers still
further to the south, between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear. How far this
spirit of discovery led to immediate emigration, it is not possible to
determine. The country of Nansemond had long abounded in nonconformists,
and the settlements on Albemarle Sound were the result of spontaneous
overflowings from Virginia. A few vagrant families were planted within
the limits of Carolinia; but it is quite certain that no colony existed
until after the restoration.