they had first gone out to Narragansett Bay on a trading voyage in
1623, for instance, the Indians there disdained their meagre offerings.
The Narragansett were much too happy with the goods being furnished
by the Dutch traders from Manhattan. Both the Narragansett and their
neighbors, the Pequot, held on to their furs for the Hollanders, and
they were powerful enough to get away with it. They had Dutch guns
and powder, as well as the Hollanders themselves if need be, to back
them up. In fact, by 1625 the Dutch had a fortified trading post on
an island in Narragansett Bay and two similar forts near-by on the
mainland.
Governor Bradford, in exasperation, gave out a warning that all the
region along the coast to the southeast of Plymouth was English
territory. He as much as demanded that the New Netherlanders stop
trading there. But it was useless. The Dutchmen simply ignored the
warnings. However they did offer to enter into direct trading relations
themselves with Plymouth and sent a mission there in 1627, with sugar,
linen and other goods, to talk it over.
This mission was headed up by Isaack de Rasieres, the chief trader as
well as the Secretary of New Netherland. Rasieres appears to have had
an ulterior motive in making the visit. He brought along a stock of
wampum, the strings of highly polished shell-beads that the Dutchmen
had been accustomed to getting from the Narragansett and the Pequot.
With wampum, Rasieres pointed out to the Pilgrims, he had been doing a
great business among Indians who didn’t have the means of manufacturing
it, especially along the Hudson River where Henry Hudson himself had
first discovered strings of shell-beads circulating as a kind of money.
The Hollander cannily suggested that wampum might be used to just as
great advantage on the Kennebec by the Pilgrims. No doubt, by this
means, he hoped to direct their attention more to Maine and away from
the Dutch trading preserves in Long Island Sound and the Narragansett
country. Offering to sell wampum to the Englishmen at a fair price,
probably he hoped also to keep them from dealing direct for it with the
Narragansett and the Pequot.
Although the Pilgrim fathers were a bit suspicious of Rasieres’
motives, nevertheless they did find the shell-money to be most
“vendable” on the Kennebec. So much so, in fact, that in a very
short time with the aid of this medium of exchange they were enabled
to cut off the fur trade of that region from the fishermen and other
independent traders who had been accustomed to barter there. In the
meantime they also developed their own sources of wampum among some of
the Massachusetts coastal tribes who, as it turned out, also possessed
the means of manufacturing it.
The Pilgrims secured their rights up the Kennebec River by obtaining
a patent to a strip of land fifteen miles wide on both sides of that
river. They built a trucking house at Cushenoc (Augusta) which they
kept stocked with coats, shirts, rugs, blankets, corn, biscuit, peas,
prunes, and other supplies. With the help of wampum for exchange they
drove a brisk trade among the Abnaki Indians in those parts. In 1630
they extended their operations even farther north, setting up a trading
post on the Penobscot River at Pentagoet, now Castine, Maine.
The Penobscot trading post originated as a private venture for which
the Pilgrim, Isaac Allerton, along with some partners in England
promoted a patent. Allerton, once a London tailor, had risen in
prominence at Plymouth in New England to stand second only to the
governor. It would appear that he and his overseas partners shared
the rights to trade in the territory north of the Kennebec with other
leading Pilgrims in return for the loan of wampum, shallops, supplies
and servants.
But the partnership accounts became jumbled, because of Allerton’s
financial deceits according to the Pilgrims. And Edward Ashley, the
“profane young man” sent out from England as factor, didn’t help things
by his personal conduct.
Actually, young Ashley did well enough in the bartering department,
acquiring over a thousand pounds of beaver and otter the first season.
However he seems to have gone native in the most offensive sense to
the Pilgrim fathers, living “naked” among the savages and committing
“uncleannes with Indean women.” Also, it was discovered, he was trading
shot and powder with the savages and not even accounting for the
profits from this unholy trade.
Such behavior, of course, could not be countenanced. Ashley was
arrested and shipped back to England by the Plymouth partners, while
they themselves took over complete operating control of the enterprise.
All of which was not to Isaac Allerton’s liking. Deserting the
partnership, he retaliated by setting himself up as a competitor in
Maine. In 1633 he settled some “base fellows” in a new trading post at
the mouth of the Machias River, close by the present Canadian border.
There he did his best to cut off Plymouth’s commerce with the more
northerly tribes who were then taking their furs to the Penobscot and
Kennebec trucking houses.
The Pilgrims had other competitors in Maine also. In 1630 a trading
post was established at Pemaquid Point under a patent obtained by two
English merchants for twelve thousand acres between the Damariscotta
and Muscongus Rivers. About the same time John Oldham and Richard Vines
obtained a grant at the mouth of the Saco River, which remained a most
profitable fur trading center for some years.
Then there was the Laconia Company, organized by Sir Ferdinando Gorges
and Captain John Mason to put new life in their Piscataqua colony.
Laconia, described as a vast hinterland area of rivers and lakes, was
an extension of their original patent to the “Province of Maine.”
Gorges and Mason now planned to send cargoes of Indian trucking goods
up the Piscataqua River into Laconia, to Lake Champlain, to be bartered
for peltries. Thus they hoped to compete with the Dutch and the French
for the hinterland trade.
Captain Walter Neale, as governor of the Laconia Company, and Ambrose
Gibbons, as factor, did very well from 1630 to 1633, establishing
several trading posts on the Piscataqua River. But they never reached
Lake Champlain. Maybe they had it confused with Lake Winnepesaukee.
In any case, as they discovered, the rivers of Maine flowed from the
north, not from the west, and they couldn’t penetrate deep enough into
the interior to tap the hinterland trade of the Dutch and the French.
Probably the most dangerous of the Pilgrims’ rivals in Maine about this
time was the trading post on Richmond’s Island off Cape Elizabeth.
Thomas Morton, the jolly host of Merrymount, had traded here as early
as 1627. After his banishment from America one of his most roguish
associates, Walter Bagnall, took over the island and is said to have
gained 1,000 pounds sterling from his trade in a period of three years.
Then this “wicked fellow” was murdered by the natives.
Bagnall’s successor, John Winter, also did a flourishing business on
Richmond’s Island as factor for some English merchants, employing some
sixty men at one time in both fishing and fur trading activities. The
records indicate that he was about as unscrupulous in his dealings as
was his predecessor, cheating and otherwise mistreating the Indians
at every turn. He charged them at the rate of thirty-three pounds for
a hogshead of brandy which cost him seven. For powder which cost him
twenty pence per pound he raised the rate to three shillings in trade.
But the natives preferred his goods.
In spite of such competition, however, Maine became the Pilgrims’ chief
source of furs. In one period of two years the trading post at Cushenoc
alone is known to have gathered in more than 7,000 pounds of beaver.
The route of the beaver-laden shallops from the Maine coast was indeed
Plymouth’s life-line. Wampum played no small role in the success of
this extended operation which was so vital to the colony’s existence,
although the tight control exercised over the fur trade by the Pilgrim
fathers was the main factor.
Always the peltry traffic had been invested in certain leaders at
Plymouth who managed the whole trade in the interests of the communalty
in order that the Pilgrims’ debt to the merchants in England might be
paid. In 1627 William Bradford, Isaac Allerton, Edward Winslow, Miles
Standish and a few others in partnership undertook to assume this
entire indebtedness. In return, these “undertakers” were to enjoy any
and all profits from the traffic in peltries for six years. They were
empowered to do what they pleased with all furs and trucking goods
in the common store, and they alone were to use the colony’s trading
posts, truck houses and shallops.
From that time forward the Plymouth Plantation enjoyed real economic
success. In 1628 furs to the value of 659 English pounds were exported
in one cargo. Although no total figures are available for 1628 to 1630,
a very large amount of peltry went to England according to Governor
Bradford. From 1631 to 1636 over 12,000 pounds of beaver and 1,000
pounds of otter were shipped, most of which brought 20 shillings a
pound and none less than 14 shillings. Bradford said that the beaver
alone during these years brought 10,000 pounds sterling and that the
otter was more than sufficient to pay all costs of transport and
auction. Considering the size of the plantation this was indeed big
business.
In spite of the financial bungling of the partnership’s agents in
England, and even outright irregularities there, the debt was paid off.
Additional profits from the sale of beaver skins bought many other
things the Pilgrims needed, and in the end it was the earnings from the
fur trade that provided the foundation for Plymouth’s next economic
development, cattle farming.
In the meantime the Pilgrims’ profitable trade in furs on the Maine
coast and on rivers leading to the interior was jealously regarded by
the French who, after all, considered that territory within their own
limits. And neighboring French traders were doing something about it.
X
_A Border Fixed on the Coast of Maine_
The planting of trading posts farther and farther up the coast of Maine
by the New Englanders did not go unchallenged by the French. Although
in English eyes it had been well established ever since Captain
Argall’s raids in the Bay of Fundy that English claims to the coast now
extended well above the 45th parallel, even to the St. Lawrence valley,
no such admission had ever been made by the French. There were always
French traders in Acadia (Nova Scotia) who envisaged their preserves
as extending well down the coast of Maine and who intended to resist
further encroachments in those parts.
In fact, as it came about, these fur traders protected and maintained
the French claim to much of this coastal region during an incident of
the Thirty Years’ War which put most of New France under the English
flag for three years, from 1629 to 1632.
Prior to this episode the affairs of New France had reached a turning
point. In 1627 Samuel de Champlain’s difficulties became acute. That
year the Iroquois, his irreconcilable enemies, renewed their bloody
savagery in the interior, while along the coast the English were
closing off the very entrance to the valley of the St. Lawrence with
their plantations and trading posts and their increased shipping.
Although Champlain’s company had a good season in furs, collecting
22,000 that summer which could be sold in France at ten francs
each, the expense of operation had made the outlook none too bright
relatively for the shareholders who expected huge returns. Besides the
salaries of the Viceroy in France and of Champlain as his lieutenant
governing the colony, interpreters now cost as much as a thousand
francs a season and sailors six hundred, while factors and other
servants came correspondingly high. And there were other increased
expenses that bid fair to cut deep into profits.
As a result the directors of the company made things difficult for
their governor on the St. Lawrence. They particularly balked at his
urgent request for extra funds to strengthen the fortifications of
Quebec, even though only a wooden palisade and a few small cannon
protected the French trading post.
Champlain, with characteristic fortitude, made the best of his
difficulties. But he was most uneasy about the English at his doorway.
And well he might be!
As early as 1620 Sir George Calvert, English Baron of Baltimore, had
adventured a plantation in Newfoundland. Three years later King James
granted him quasi-regal proprietorship of the southeastern peninsula
of that island between Trinity and Placentia Bays. In 1627 he came out
with his family, built a fine house at Ferryland, and showed every
intention of establishing a great fur trading and fishing colony in the
form of a British dominion at this strategic gateway to New France.
Still more alarming were the activities of a Scotsman, Sir William
Alexander, who had been stirred by accounts of the founding of New
Spain, New France, New Netherland and New England to attempt the
founding of a New Scotland. In 1621, with complete disregard for French
claims, the English king had granted to him all the vast peninsula
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of St. Lawrence! Today that
would be Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and part of Quebec Province. This
princely domain was to be divided into feudal-type Scotch baronies
complete with a hierarchy of hereditary titles.
Alexander’s attempts to establish permanent trading posts in New
Scotland, or Nova Scotia, were failures until 1628. That year
seventy-two of his colonists managed to set up for business at
Poutrincourt’s old quarters at Port Royal in the Bay of Fundy. There
they found themselves to be the near neighbors of a young French
fur trader at Cape Sable named Charles de la Tour who was under the
impression that the country belonged to him.
Monsieur La Tour had inherited his rights from Saint Just after that
pioneer finally returned to France in 1623. Since then he had been
living the independent life of a wilderness lord with French retainers
and aboriginal subjects, and he had no intention of yielding his estate
or fur-trading privileges to anyone, much less foreigners.
La Tour did not immediately attempt to oust Alexander’s Scots from Port
Royal as he was on much the weaker side at the time, but he did stand
firm and unsubmissive at Cape Sable and he resisted all efforts of the
English to bring him over to their side. This was not easy, for nearly
all of New France was soon in the hands of the enemy.
In 1628 a French colonizing fleet sent out by the Company of New France
under the aegis of Cardinal de Richelieu was captured by privateers
boldly operating in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with English letters of
marque. In another year Champlain’s worst fears were realized when this
same fleet of privateers, under the leadership of the Kirke brothers,
appeared before Quebec in force enough to insure its capitulation.
Champlain himself was taken prisoner at Quebec. But under the terms
of the surrender he marched out of the fort with his arms and all of
his own furs, as did other head men. The factors, servants and workmen
were allowed to take but one beaver skin each before the English took
over the factory. Then, after running up the English flag, the Kirkes
were said to have driven an immediate trade with Indians and others
remaining about the fort for some 2,000 skins in addition to those they
found in the storehouse. They even ended up with the pelts they had
allowed the starving garrison under the terms of surrender, taking them
in trade for food.
Sir William Alexander, uniting his interests with the Kirkes to form
the Scottish and English Company for the peltry trade of New France,
sent out a second fleet to Port Royal in 1629 under the command of his
son. When the fleet arrived nearly half the people who had been left at
Port Royal the year before were found to have died from one cause or
another. But young Alexander relieved the survivors, strengthened the
fort, and put new life into the colony. His vessels managed to acquire
a satisfactory number of pelts in the Bay of Fundy during that summer.
He also captured a French ship. And as further proof of the substance
of New Scotland he took back on his return voyage an Indian chief of
the region who wanted to conclude an alliance with the English king.
In the meantime it developed that shortly before Champlain’s
capitulation a treaty of peace had been signed between England and
France. But, although King Charles agreed very soon to restore Quebec
to the French under the terms of the treaty, the negotiations dragged
on for three years. During that time the Scottish Company continued
to drive a great trade for pelts on the St. Lawrence and elsewhere,
while the French pressed not only their claims to furs appropriated
from stores at Quebec after the actual signing of the peace treaty
but insisted also upon the return of all of New France. That included
Acadia of course and the evacuation of the fort at Port Royal.
At first, Charles was not disposed to disturb Alexander in his
occupation of “Nova Scotia.” In fact he encouraged the Scot to further
efforts in that direction. However, he needed gold at the time much
more than he needed another Scotland, so he was not reluctant to do a
little bargaining. When his wife’s brother, the French king, agreed to
pay a long overdue and substantial dowry, Charles agreed to return Port
Royal to the French. Sir William’s dream was thereupon finished. The
Scots demolished their fort, and young Alexander surrendered Port Royal
to the Chevalier Isaac de Razilly who had been sent out by the Company
of New France as governor of all Acadia.
This was a tremendous victory for Charles de la Tour and his French
fur traders, who had not only stubbornly maintained themselves during
the incident of the Scottish occupation of Acadia, but had managed
harassments intended to hinder further encroachments up the coast of
Maine by the Englishmen in those more southerly parts.
In 1631 the Frenchmen had paid a visit to the Pilgrims’ most northerly
outpost at Pentagoet on the Penobscot. Taking advantage of the absence
of the factor and most of his company, they were able to surprise a few
“simple” servants by a ruse. First, pretending they had “newly come
from the sea” and that their vessel was in need of repairs, a “false
Scot” among them fell to admiring the Englishmen’s muskets. Then,
talking the servants into letting them examine the guns, they gained
possession of the Englishmen’s weapons and promptly made away with
some four or five hundred pounds worth of Pilgrim goods, including
three hundredweight of beaver.
In time, however, after the ousting of the Scots from the Bay of Fundy,
the Frenchmen were able to do more than simply harass the Englishmen on
the coast of Maine. The truck house at Machias in Maine, built by Isaac
Allerton in 1633, was even more of a challenge than the Penobscot post
had been. Allerton had no sooner settled his traders there than “La
Tour, governor of the French in those parts, making claim to the place,
came to displant them, and finding resistance, killed two of the men
and carried away the other three and the goods.”
Allerton himself later went to Port Royal to protest. But he was
told by La Tour that “he had authority from the king of France, who
challenged all from Cape Sable to Cape Cod, wishing them to take notice
and to certify the rest of the English, that, if they traded to the
east of Pemaquid, he would make prize of them.” When Allerton asked to
see Monsieur La Tour’s commission the Frenchman replied that “his sword
was commission sufficient, where he had strength to overcome; where
that wanted, he would show his commission.”
And the French made good on their challenge, for in 1635 Monsieur
Charles d’Aunay, one of Governor Razilly’s lieutenants, came in a
man-of-war to the Pilgrims’ trading post on the Penobscot. By a show
of this force he took possession of the trucking house in the name of
the King of France. Making an inventory of the goods he found there at
prices he set himself, d’Aunay “made no payment for them, but told them
in convenient time he would do it if they came for it. For the house
and fortification etc. he would not allow nor account anything, saying
that they which build on another man’s ground do forfeit the same.”
Then he put the English traders in a shallop and sent them back to
Plymouth.
The Pilgrim fathers were enough upset about the loss of their goods and
trading post to do something violent about it. With the approval of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but without much in the way of material
assistance from their Puritan brethren, they hired “a fair ship of
above 300 tun well fitted with ordnance” to retake Pentagoet. This
ship was under the command of a Captain Girling. If the captain was
successful he was to have 700 pounds of beaver; if not, nothing. Along
with him went Captain Miles Standish and twenty Plymouth men in their
own bark to resettle their trading post after Girling had driven out
the French.
It would appear, however, that the French must have had notice of the
impending attack. So firmly were they entrenched behind earthworks
that Captain Girling’s gunfire could not dislodge them and all the big
ship’s powder was exhausted without effect. No landing was attempted.
Standish, frustrated, returned to Plymouth in his bark, and Captain
Girling went his own way.
The French now remained in permanent possession of what was soon known
as the “Mission of Pentagoet.” And so the line was finally drawn as a
practical matter between the English and the French on the Maine coast,
although England continued to maintain officially that it was more
northerly, at the 45th parallel.
Mutual distrust, born of the religious differences between
English Puritan and French Catholic, often erupted in charges and
counter-charges that sometimes threatened security on either side of
the line. In fact, fear of possible French aggression was in part
responsible for the eventual formation of the New England Confederation
in 1643. On the other side of the picture however, there was much
guarded trade between Frenchman and Englishman as it suited their
pocketbooks. As a matter of fact the Puritans actually traded with
the French conquerors of Pentagoet shortly after d’Aunay captured the
Pilgrim trading post.
But, even so, this coastal border created by the rival fur traders of
these two nations was maintained with only minor variations for years,
even after competition for the beaver trade was no longer the reason
for its existence.
Acadian fur traders and the rivers of Maine and Massachusetts that ran
in the wrong direction had effectively contained the English on the
northern coasts. The St. Lawrence River route to the interior, to the
great lake country that teemed with fur-bearers, remained safe to the
French traders, who resumed their profitable westward penetration of
the hinterland.
It remained to be seen, however, if the French could prevent the Dutch
of New Netherland and the English of Virginia from draining off this
hinterland trade. The Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehanna
Rivers all ran in the right direction to tap it.
XI
_The Bay of Virginia_
When Sir George Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, founded his province of
“Avalon” in Newfoundland he was partly motivated by religious urgings.
Being a Catholic convert he earnestly wanted to provide a haven in
the new world for the persecuted Catholics of England. But this court
favorite, who as the son of a humble Yorkshire farmer had figuratively
pulled himself up by his own bootstraps to ennoblement, was also a
profit-minded promoter. He expected a rich return on his newly gained
proprietorship.