DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PLYMOUTH
(1621-1643)
During the winter of 1620-1621 the emigrants suffered greatly from
scurvy and exposure. More than half the company perished, and the
seamen on the _Mayflower_ suffered as much.[1] With the appearance of
spring the mortality ceased, and a friendly intercourse with the
natives began. These Indians were the Pokanokets, whose number had
been very much thinned by the pestilence. After the first hostilities
directed against the exploring parties they avoided the whites, and
held a meeting in a dark and dismal swamp, where the medicine-men for
three days together tried vainly to subject the new-comers to the
spell of their conjurations.
At last, in March, 1621, an Indian came boldly into camp, and, in
broken English, bade the strangers "welcome." It was found that his
name was Samoset, and that he came from Monhegan, an island distant
about a day's sail towards the east, where he had picked up a few
English words from the fishermen who frequented that region. In a
short time he returned, bringing Squanto, or Tisquantum, stolen by
Hunt seven years before, and restored to his country in 1620 by Sir
Ferdinando Gorges. Squanto, who could speak English, stated that
Massasoit was near at hand, and on invitation that chief appeared, and
soon a treaty of peace and friendship was concluded; after which
Massasoit returned to his town of Sowams, forty miles distant, while
Squanto continued with the colonists and made himself useful in many
ways.[2]
In the beginning of April, 1621, the _Mayflower_ went back to England,
and the colonists planted corn in the fields once tilled by Indians
whom the pestilence had destroyed. While engaged in this work the
governor, John Carver, died, and his place was supplied by William
Bradford, with Isaac Allerton as assistant or councilman. During the
summer the settlers were very busy. They fitted up their cabins,
amassed a good supply of beaver, and harvested a fair crop of corn. In
the fall a ship arrived, bringing thirty-five new settlers poorly
provided. It also brought a patent, dated June 1, 1621, from the
Council for New England, made out to John Pierce, by whom the original
patent from the London Company had been obtained. The patent did not
define the territorial limits, but allowed one hundred acres for every
emigrant and fifteen hundred acres for public buildings, in the same
proportion of one hundred acres to every workman.[3]
The ship tarried only fourteen days, and returned with a large cargo
of clapboard and beaver skins of the value of £500, which was,
however, captured on the way to England by a French cruiser. After the
departure the governor distributed the new-comers among the different
families, and because of the necessity of sharing with them, put
everybody on half allowance. The prospect for the winter was not
hopeful, for to the danger from starvation was added danger from the
Indians.
West of the Pokanokets were the Narragansetts, a tribe of two thousand
warriors, whose chief, Canonicus, sent to Plymouth in January, 1622, a
bundle of arrows tied with a snake's skin, signifying a challenge of
war. Bradford knew that it was fatal to hesitate or show fear, and he
promptly stuffed the snake's skin with bullets and returned it to the
sender with some threatening words. This answer alarmed Canonicus, who
thought that the snake's skin must be conjured, and he did not pursue
the matter further. But the colonists took warning, and the whole
settlement was enclosed with a paling, and strict military watch was
maintained. Thus the winter passed and the spring came, but without
the hoped-for assistance from the merchant partners in England.[4]
On the contrary, the arrival in May, 1622, "without a bite of bread,"
of sixty-seven other persons, sent out on his own account under a
grant from the Council for New England, by Thomas Weston, one of the
partners, plunged them into dire distress, from which they were
happily saved by a ship-captain, John Huddleston, from the colony on
James River, who shared his supplies with them, and thus enabled them
to "make shift till corn was ripe again." Weston's emigrants were a
loose set, and before they left in August they stole most of the green
corn, and thus Plymouth was threatened with another famine.
Fortunately, about this time another ship from Virginia, bearing the
secretary of state, John Pory, arrived, and sold the colonists a
supply of truck for trading; by which they bought from the Indians not
only corn, but beaver, which proved afterwards a source of much
profit.
Weston's people removed to Wessagusset (modern Weymouth), on
Massachusetts Bay, where they conducted themselves in so reckless a
manner that they ran the double risk of starvation and destruction
from savages. To save them, Bradford, in March, 1623, despatched a
company under Captain Miles Standish, who brought them corn and killed
several of the Indians. Then Standish helped Weston's "rude fellows"
aboard ship and saw them safely off to sea. Shortly after Weston came
over to look after his emigrants, fell into the hands of the Indians,
escaped to Plymouth, where the colonists helped him away, and returned
in October, 1623, to create more disturbance.
Weston was not the only one of the partners that gave the colonists
trouble. John Pierce took advantage of the prominence given him by the
patent issued in his name for the benefit of all, to get a new one
which made him sole actual owner of the territory. His partners
resented this injustice, and the Council for New England, in March,
1623, was induced to revoke the grant to Pierce.[5]
About this time Bradford made a great change in the industrial system
of the colony. At Plymouth, as at Jamestown, communism was found to
breed "confusion and discontent," and he tried the experiment of
assigning to every family, in proportion to its size, a tract of land.
In July, 1623, arrived sixty other settlers, and the old planters
feared another period of starvation. Nevertheless, when harvest-time
arrived, the wisdom of Bradford's appeal to private interest was
demonstrated, for instead of misery and scarcity there was joyfulness,
and "plentie of corn." Later experience was equally convincing, for,
as Bradford wrote many years after, "any general wante or famine hath
not been known amongst them since to this day."
While the Pilgrim fathers were overcoming their difficulties in
Massachusetts, the Council for New England were struggling with the
London Company to maintain the monopoly of fishing and fur trading on
the North Atlantic coast granted to them by their charter. The London
Company complained to the king in 1620 and to Parliament in 1621, but
the king refused any relief, and prevented Parliament from interfering
by dissolving it.[6] Thereupon, the Council for New England,
appreciating the danger, made a grand effort to accomplish something
in America. As a preliminary step they induced the king to publish a
proclamation, November 6, 1622, against all unlicensed trading and
other infringements upon the rights granted them,[7] and shortly
afterwards sent out Francis West as admiral to reduce the fishermen on
the coast to obedience. West came to America, but found them "stuberne
fellows,"[8] and he returned in about a year to England without
effecting anything.
During his absence the Council for New England set to work to send out
a colony under Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando; and, June 29,
1623, a division was made among twenty patentees, of the North
Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy to Narragansett Bay.[9] In
September, 1623, Gorges arrived at Plymouth attended by an Episcopal
minister, William Morell, and a company of settlers, whom he planted
at Wessagusset. He remained in New England throughout the winter, and
in the effort to exert his authority had a long wrangle with Weston.
In the spring of 1624 he received news from his father that
discouraged his further stay. It seems that in March, 1624, a
committee of Parliament, at the head of which was Sir Edward Coke, had
reported the charter of the Council for New England as a national
grievance, which so discouraged the patentees that most of them
abandoned the enterprise, and it became, in the language of the elder
Gorges, "a carcass in a manner breathless."[10] After Robert Gorges'
departure most of his party dispersed, some going to England and some
to Virginia, but a few remained at Wessagusset, which was never
entirely abandoned.
The relations between the colony and the London merchant adventurers,
never very pleasant, became more unsatisfactory as time went on. The
colonists naturally wanted to bring over their friends at Leyden, but
the partners regarded Robinson as the great leader of the
Independents, and London was already rife with rumors of the heretical
character of the rulers at Plymouth. It seemed to the partners
evidently for their interest to introduce settlers of a different
religious opinion from Bradford and Brewster, and to this was largely
due the fact that the emigrants who came over after the Mayflower's
return in 1621 had little in common with the original band of
Pilgrims.
In January, 1624, arrived another miscellaneous cargo, including a
minister named John Lyford. Upon his arrival he professed intense
sympathy with the settlers, and when they received him as a member of
their church he renounced, pursuant to the extreme tenets of
Separatism, "all universall, nationall, and diocessan churches."[11]
Nevertheless, he joined with John Oldham, who came the year before, in
a conspiracy to overturn the government; but was detected and finally
banished from the colony. In March, 1625, Lyford and Oldham went to
Wessagusset, from which they moved with Roger Conant and other friends
to Nantasket, where, in the mean time, a new settlement had sprung up.
In the division of 1623, the region around Cape Ann fell to Lord
Sheffield, and the same year he conveyed the country to Robert Cushman
and Edward Winslow in behalf of the colonists at Plymouth.[12] The
next year the new owners sent a party to establish a fishing stage at
Cape Ann, but they found other persons on the spot, for in 1623 some
merchants of Dorchester, England, who regularly sent vessels to catch
fish in the waters of New England, had conceived the idea of planting
a colony on the coast, and in the summer of that year landed fourteen
men at Cape Ann, soon increased to thirty-four.
For some months the two parties got along amicably together and fished
side by side. An element of discord was introduced in 1625 when the
Dorchester men invited Roger Conant and Rev. Mr. Lyford from
Nantasket, and made the former manager and the latter minister of
their settlement; while John Oldham was asked to become their agent to
trade with the Indians. A short time after, the crew of a vessel
belonging to the Dorchester adventurers, instigated, it is said, by
Lyford, took from the Plymouth men their fishing stage; whereupon
Miles Standish came with soldiers from Plymouth, and the rival parties
would have come to blows had not Conant interfered and settled the
matter.[13] The Plymouth settlers built a new stage, but, as the war
with Spain affected the sale of fish, they soon abandoned the
enterprise altogether. The Dorchester men had no better fortune, and
the discouraged merchants at home, in 1626, broke up their colony and
sold their shipping and most of their other property.[14] Lyford went
to Virginia, where he soon died, and all the other settlers, except
Conant and three others, returned to England.
The colony at Plymouth, in the mean time, was signally prospering, and
soon felt strong enough to dissolve the troublesome relations with the
merchant partners, who had fallen into dissensions among themselves.
For this purpose the colonists made, in 1627, an agreement by which
for £1800, to be paid in nine annual instalments of £200 each, the
colonists were relieved from all vassalage under their original
contract.[15]
Custodians of their own fortunes, they now established trading-posts
at several places on the coast--at Manomet, on Buzzard's Bay (1627),
at Kennebec (1628), and at Penobscot and Machias Bay (1629). In
addition they made arrangements for reunion with their friends in
Holland, one party of whom arrived in 1629 and another in 1630, though
Robinson, the Moses of the Pilgrims, was never permitted to join them,
having died March 1, 1626,[16] in Leyden.
They tried also to obtain a charter from the king, but they never
could get anything better than a fresh patent from the Council for New
England. This patent,[17] dated January 13, 1630, empowered Bradford
and his associates "to incorporate by some usual and fit name and
title him and themselves, or the people there inhabiting under him or
them, with liberty to them and their successors from time to time to
frame and make orders, ordinances, and constitutions" not contrary to
the laws of England or to any government established by the council.
The patent had the merit of defining the extent of territory belonging
to the Plymouth settlers, and granted "all that part of New England in
America aforesaid and Tracte and Tractes of Land that lye within or
betweene a certaine Reuolett or Runlett there commonly called
Coahassett alias Conahassett towards the North and the Riuer commonly
called Narragansett Riuer towards the South and the great Westerne
Ocean towards the East, and betweene, and within a Streight Line
directly Extending up Into the Maine Land towards the west from the
mouth of the said Riuer called Narragansett Riuer to the utmost bounds
of a Country or place in New England Commonly called Pokenacutt als
Sowamsett, westward, and another like Streight line Extending it Self
Directly from the mouth of the said Riuer called Coahassett als
Conahassett towards the West so farr up into the Main Land Westwards
as the Vtmost Limitts of the said place or Country Commonly called
Pokenacutt als Sowamsett Do Extend togeather with one half of the s^d
Riuer called Narragansett and the s^d Reuolett or Runlett called
Coahassett als Conahassett and all Lands Riuers waters hauens Ports
Creeks ffihings fowlings and all hereditaments Proffitts Commodityes
and Imoluments Whatsoeuer Scituate Lyeing and being or ariseing within
or betweene the said Limitts or bounds or any of them." For trading
purposes the patent also gave them a tract extending fifteen miles in
breadth on each bank of the Kennebec.
Among the "scattered beginnings" in the neighborhood of Plymouth, the
most interesting, because the most contrasted with the Puritan colony
at Plymouth, was Captain Wollaston's settlement, established in 1625 a
little north of Wessagusset. His men were, for the most part,
servants, and Wollaston finding, soon after his arrival, that they
could be used to better advantage in Virginia, transported some of
them to that colony.
During his absence one Thomas Morton, a lawyer of Clifford's Inn,
asserted his authority, freed the rest of the settlers, and engaged in
a successful traffic with the Indians for beaver and other skins. This
circumstance was itself calculated to excite the jealousy of the
Plymouth settlers, but the ceremonies and customs at "Merry Mount,"
which name Morton gave to the settlement in lieu of "Mount Wollaston,"
caused them to regard him with even greater disgust. He instituted the
Episcopal service and planted a May-pole eighty feet high, around
which, for many days together, the settlers "frisked" hand-in-hand
with the Indian girls.
As Morton was outside of the Plymouth jurisdiction, the colonists
there had no right to interfere except in self-defence. But the
Plymouth people asserted that Morton sold arms to the Indians and
received runaway servants. This made him dangerous, and all the other
"straggling settlements," though, like Morton's, of the church of
England, united with the people at Plymouth in suppressing Morton's
settlement. In June, 1628, a joint force under Captain Miles Standish
was sent against Merry Mount, and Morton was captured and shipped to
England in charge of John Oldham, who had made his peace with
Plymouth, and now took with him letters to the Council for New England
and to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in which Morton's offences were duly set
forth.[18]
The settlements besides Plymouth which took part in the expedition
were Piscataqua (Portsmouth); Nantasket (now Hull), then the seat of
John Oldham; Naumkeag (now Salem); Winnisimmet (now Chelsea), where
Mr. Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem lived; Cocheco, on the Piscataqua, where
Edward Hilton lived; Thompson's Island, where the widow of David
Thompson lived; and Shawmut (now Boston), where Rev. William
Blackstone lived. Besides the settlements, there were in the
neighborhood of Plymouth plantations of some solitary settlers whose
names do not appear in this transaction. Thomas Walford lived at
Mishawum (now Charlestown), and Samuel Maverick on Noddle's Island;
Wessagusset also had probably a few inhabitants.
In 1627 De Rasières, the secretary of state of the Dutch colony at New
Netherland, opened a correspondence with Governor Bradford and assured
him of his desire to cultivate friendly relations. Bradford gave a
kind reply, but questioned the right of the Dutch on the coast, and
invited Rasières to a conference. He accepted the invitation, and in
1628 visited the Puritan settlement. A profitable exchange of
merchandise succeeded, and the Dutch taught the Plymouth men the value
of wampum in trading for furs, and sold them £50 worth of it. It was
found useful both as a currency and commodity, and afterwards the
settlers learned to make it from the shells on the sea-shore.[19] It
was not till five years later that this peaceful correspondence with
the Dutch was disturbed.
Unfriendliness characterized, from the first, the relations with the
French. They claimed that Acadia extended as far south as Pemaquid,
and one day in 1631, when the manager of the Penobscot factory was
away, a French privateer appeared in port and landed its crew. In the
story, as told by Bradford, the levity of the French and the solemn
seriousness of the Puritans afford a delightful contrast. The
Frenchmen were profuse in "compliments" and "congees," but taking the
English at a disadvantage forced them to an unconditional surrender.
They stripped the factory of its goods, and as they sailed away bade
their victims tell the manager when he came back "that the Isle of Rhé
gentlemen had been there."[20] In 1633, after Razilly's appointment as
governor-general, De la Tour, one of his lieutenants, attacked and
drove away the Plymouth men at Machias Bay,[21] and in 1635 D'Aulnay,
another lieutenant, dispossessed the English at Penobscot.
The Plymouth people, greatly incensed, sent two armed ships to punish
the French, but the expedition proved a failure. Then they appealed to
Massachusetts for help, but the great men of that colony, hoping, as
Bradford intimates, to arrange a trade with the French on their own
account, declined to be at any expense in the matter,[22] and so the
Penobscot remained in unfriendly hands for many years.
This appeal to Massachusetts showed that another power had stepped to
the front in New England. After John Winthrop set up his government in
1630 on Massachusetts Bay the history of the Plymouth colony ceased to
be of first importance, and therefore the remaining events in her
annals need not take much space. In 1633 the people of Plymouth
established a fort on Connecticut River above the Dutch post, so as to
intercept the Indian trade, and in 1639 they renewed the ancient
league with Massasoit.[23] In 1640 they had a dispute with
Massachusetts over the boundary-line, which was arranged by a
compromise, and in 1641 William Bradford deeded to the freemen of the
corporation of New Plymouth the patent of 1630, granted by the Council
for New England to him as trustee for the colony.[24] Finally, in
1643, Plymouth became a member of the New England confederation.
A survey of these twenty-three years (1620-1643) shows that during the
first eleven years the increase in population was very slow. In 1624
there were one hundred and eighty settlers and in 1630 but three
hundred. The emigration to Massachusetts, beginning in 1629, brought
about a great change. It overflowed into Plymouth, and in twelve years
more the population had increased to three thousand.[25] The new
settlers were a miscellaneous set, composed for the most part of
"unruly servants" and dissipated young men, whose ill conduct caused
the old rulers like Bradford to question "whether after twenty years'
time the greater part be not grown worser."[26] Nevertheless, the
people increased their "outward estate," and as they scattered in
search of fertile land, Plymouth, "in which they lived compactly till
now, was left very thin and in a short time almost desolate." In 1632
a separate church and town of the name of Duxbury was formed north of
Plymouth; and eleven years later the towns of the Plymouth colony were
ten in number: Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Taunton, Sandwich,
Yarmouth, Barnstable, Marshfield, Seeconck, or Rehoboth, and
Nausett.[27]
At the first arrival the executive and judicial powers were exercised
by John Carver, without any authorized adviser. After his death, in
1621, the same powers were vested in William Bradford as governor and
Isaac Allerton as assistant.[28] In 1624 the number of assistants was
increased to five and in 1633 to seven, and the governor was given a
double voice.[29] The elective and legislative powers were vested in a
primary assembly of all the freemen, called the "General Court," held
at short intervals. One of these meetings was called the court of
elections, and at this were chosen the governor and other officers of
the colony for the ensuing year.
As the number of settlements increased, it became inconvenient for
freemen to attend the general courts in person, and in 1638 the
representative system was definitely introduced. Plymouth was allowed
four delegates, and each of the other towns two, and they, with the
governor and his council of assistants, constituted the law-making
body of the colony. To be entitled to hold office or vote at the court
of elections, the person had to be "a freeman"; and to acquire this
character, he had to be specially chosen one of the company at one of
the general courts. Thus suffrage was regarded as a privilege and not
a right.[30]
Although the first of the colonies to establish a Separatist church,
the Puritans of Plymouth did not make church-membership a condition of
citizenship; still, there can be no doubt that this restriction
practically prevailed at Plymouth, since up to 1643 only about two
hundred and thirty persons acquired the suffrage. In the general laws
of Plymouth, published in 1671, it was provided as a condition of
receiving the franchise that "the candidate should be of sober and
peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion,"
which was probably only a recognition of the custom of earlier
times.[31] The earliest New England code of statutes was that of
Plymouth, adopted in 1636. It was digested under fifty titles and
recognized seven capital offences, witchcraft being one.[32]
In the Plymouth colony, as in other colonies of New England, the unit
of government was the town, and this town system was borrowed from
Massachusetts, where, as we shall see, the inhabitants of Dorchester
set the example, in 1633, of coming together for governmental
purposes. Entitled to take part in the town-meetings under the
Plymouth laws were all freemen and persons "admitted inhabitants" of a
town. They elected the deputies of the general court and the numerous
officers of the town, and had the authority to pass local ordinances
of nearly every description.[33]
During the early days, except for the short time of Lyford's service,
Elder William Brewster was the spiritual guide for the people. For a
long time they kept the place of minister waiting for Robinson, but
when he died they secured, in 1628, the services of Mr. Rogers, who
proved to "be crazed in his brain" and had to be sent back the
following year. Then, in 1629, Mr. Ralph Smith was minister, and Roger
Williams assisted him. Smith was a man of small abilities, and after
enduring him for eight years they persuaded him to resign. After
Smith's resignation the office of minister at Plymouth was filled by
Rev. John Rayner.[34]
The educational advantages of the Plymouth colony were meagre, and the
little learning that existed was picked up in the old English way by
home instruction. This deficiency was due to the stern conditions of a
farmer's life on Cape Cod Bay, where the soil was poor and the climate
severe, necessitating the constant labor of the whole family.
Nevertheless, the Plymouth colony was always an example to its
neighbors for thrift, economy, and integrity, and it influenced to
industry by proving what might be done on a barren soil. Its chief
claim to historical importance rests, of course, on the fact that, as
the first successful colony on the New England coast, it was the cause
and beginning of the establishment of the other colonies of New
England, and the second step in founding the great republic of the
United States.
[Footnote 1: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 112.]
[Footnote 2: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 114-117.]
[Footnote 3: Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 4th series, II.,
158-163.]
[Footnote 4: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 130-133; Winslow,
"Relation," in Young, _Chronicles of the Pilgrims_, 280-284.]
[Footnote 5: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 149-168; _Cal. of State
Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 40.]
[Footnote 6: Gorges, _Description of New England_ (Mass. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, 3d series, VI., 80).]
[Footnote 7: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 33.]
[Footnote 8: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 170.]
[Footnote 9: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d. series, VII.,
73-76.]
[Footnote 10: Adams, _Three Episodes of Mass. Hist._, I., 152.]
[Footnote 11: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 238.]
[Footnote 12: Palfrey, _New England_, I., 222, 285.]
[Footnote 13: Hubbard, _New England_ (Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_,
2d series, VI., 110).]
[Footnote 14: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 237; _Planters' Plea_
(Force, _Tracts_, II., No. iii.).]
[Footnote 15: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 237-258.]
[Footnote 16: Ibid., 248.]
[Footnote 17: Hazard, _State Papers_, I., 298.]
[Footnote 18: Bradford, _Letter-Book_ (Mass. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, 1st series, III., 63); _Plimoth Plantation_, 284-292.]
[Footnote 19: Bradford, _Letter-Book_ (Mass. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, 1st series, III., 53).]
[Footnote 20: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 350.]
[Footnote 21: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 139.]
[Footnote 22: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 395-401.]
[Footnote 23: _Plymouth Col. Records_, I., 133.]
[Footnote 24: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 437-444.]
[Footnote 25: Palfrey, _New England_, I., 223, II., 6; Hazard, _State
Papers_, I., 300.]
[Footnote 26: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 459.]
[Footnote 27: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 444.]
[Footnote 28: Ibid., 122.]
[Footnote 29: Ibid., 187.]
[Footnote 30: Palfrey, _New England_, II., 8.]
[Footnote 31: Ibid. In August, 1643, the number of males of military
age was 627.]
[Footnote 32: Brigham, _Plymouth Charter and Laws_, 43, 244.]
[Footnote 33: Palfrey, _New England_, II., 7; Howard, _Local
Constitutional History_, 50-99.]
[Footnote 34: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 314, 418, 419.]