James, and as characteristic of that monarch as was his treatment of
Raleigh. It was the first of many specimens of absentee landlordism
from which America was to suffer. It began by setting apart an enormous
stretch of territory, bounded on the north by the latitude of the St.
Croix River, and on the south by that of Cape Fear, and extending
westward indefinitely. To this domain was given the general title of
Virginia. It was subdivided into two approximately equal parts, with a
neutral zone between them, which covered the space now occupied by the
cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and the land
adjoining them. The northern division was given in charge to the
"Plymouth Company," and the southern to the "London Company"; they were
separate mercantile and colonizing organizations, but the charter
applied to both alike.
The colonies were to be under the immediate control of a council
composed of residents, but appointed by the king; this council was
subordinate to another, meeting in England; and this in its turn was
subject to the king's absolute authority. The emigrants were to pay a
yearly rent of one-fifth of the gold and silver produced, and a third
as much of the copper. A five per cent duty levied on alien traffic was
for the first five-and-twenty years to inure to the benefit of the
colony, but afterward should be the exclusive perquisite of the Crown.
The right to call themselves and their children English was permitted
to the emigrants; and they were also allowed to defend themselves
against attacks, though it was enjoined upon them to treat the natives
with kindness, and to endeavor to draw them into the fold of the Church.
Such was James's idea of what a charter for an American colony should
be. He was taking much for granted when he assumed the right to control
the emigrants at all; and he was careful to deprive them of any chance
to control in the least degree their own affairs. America was to be the
abode of liberty; but this monarch thought only of making it a field
for his private petty tyranny. The colonists were to be his own
personal slaves, and the deputy slaves of the Companies; after
discharging all their obligations to him and to them, they might do the
best they could for themselves with what was left, provided of course
that they strictly observed the laws which his Majesty was kind enough
also to draw up for them, the provisions of which included the penalty
of death for most offenses above petty larceny. A colony which, amid
the hardships and unfamiliar terrors of a virgin wilderness, could
enjoy all the benefits of a charter like this, and yet survive, would
seem hardy enough for any emergency. But James was king, and kings, in
those days, if they pleased no one else, pleased themselves.
As we have seen, the members of the colony, being persons unused to the
practice of the useful arts, were little apt to succeed even under the
most favoring conditions. But they had Smith, in himself a host, and a
few other good heads and able hands; and to speak truth, the provisions
of their charter do not seem to have unduly embarrassed them. It could
annoy and hamper them occasionally, but only themselves could work
themselves serious injury; there were three thousand miles of perilous
sea water between their paternal monarch and them, and the wilderness,
with all its drawbacks, breeds self-confidence and independence. The
mishaps of the colony were due to the shiftlessness of most of its
members, and to the insalubrity of the site chosen for their city of
Jamestown, whereby more than half of them perished during the first few
months. On the voyage out, Smith, who had probably made himself
distasteful to the gentlemen adventurers by his unconventional manners
and conversation, had been placed under restraint--to what extent is
not exactly known; and when the sealed orders under which they had
sailed were opened, and it was found that Smith was named a member of
the council, he was for some weeks not permitted to exercise his lawful
functions in that office. When the troubles began, however, the
helpless gentlemen were glad to avail themselves of his services, which
he with his customary good humor readily accorded them; and so
competent did he show himself that ere long he was in virtual command
of them all. The usual search for gold and for the passage through the
continent to India having been made, with the usual result, they all
set to work to build their fort and town, and to provide food against
the not improbable contingency of famine. As crops could not be raised
for the emergency, Smith set out to traffic with the natives, and
brought back corn enough for the general need. All this while he had
been contending with a prevalent longing on the part of the colonists
to get back to England; there was no courage left in them but his,
which abounded in proportion to their need for it. Prominent among the
malcontents was the deposed governor, Wingfield, who tried to bribe the
colonists to return; another member of the council was shot for mutiny.
In the end, Smith's will prevailed, and he was governor and council and
King James all in one; and when, at the beginning of winter, he had
brought the settlement to order and safety, he started on a journey of
exploration up the Chickahominy. He perceived the immense importance of
understanding his surroundings, and at the same time of establishing
friendly relations with the neighboring tribes of Indians; and it was
obvious that none but he (for the excellent Gosnold had died of fever
in the first months of the settlement) was capable of effecting these
objects. Accordingly he proceeded prosperously toward the headwaters of
the river, a dozen miles above its navigable point; but there, all at
once, he found himself in the midst of a throng of frowning warriors,
who were evidently resolved to put an end to his investigations, if not
to his existence, forthwith.
Another man than Smith would have committed some folly or rashness
which would have precipitated his fate; but Smith was as much at his
ease as was Julius Caesar of old on the pirate's ship. His two
companions were killed, but he was treated as a prisoner of rank and
importance by the brother of the great chief Powhatan, by whom he had
been captured. He interested and impressed his captors by his
conversation and his instruments; and at the same time he kept his eyes
and ears open, and missed no information that could be of use to
himself and his colony. Powhatan gave him an audience and seems to have
adopted a considerate attitude; at all events he sent him back to
Jamestown after a few days, unharmed, and escorted by four Indians,
with a supply of corn. But precisely what occurred during those few
days we shall never certainly know; since we must choose between
accepting Smith's unsupported story, only made public years afterward,
and believing nothing at all. Smith's tale has charmed the imagination
of all who have heard it; nothing could be more prettily romantic; the
trouble with it is, it seems to most people too pretty and romantic to
be true. Yet it is simple enough in itself, and not at all improbable;
there is no question as to the reality of the dramatis personae of the
story, and their relations one to another render such an episode as was
alleged hardly more than might reasonably be looked for.
The story is--as all the world knows, for it has been repeated all over
the world for nearly three hundred years, and has formed the subject of
innumerable pictures--that Powhatan, for reasons of high policy
satisfactory to himself, had determined upon the death of the
Englishman, rightly inferring that the final disappearance of the
colony would be the immediate sequel thereof. The sentence was that
Smith's brains were to be knocked out with a bludgeon; and he was led
into the presence of the chief and the warriors, and ordered to lay his
head upon the stone. He did so, and the executioners poised their clubs
for the fatal blow; but it never fell. For Smith, during his captivity,
had won the affection of the little daughter of Powhatan, a girl of
ten, whose name was Pocahontas. She was too young to understand or fear
his power over the Indians; but she knew that he was a winning and
fascinating being, and she could not endure that he should be
sacrificed. Accordingly, at this supreme crisis of his career, she
slipped into the dreadful circle, and threw herself upon Smith's body,
so that the blow which was aimed at his life must kill her first. She
clung to him and would not be removed, until her father had promised
that Smith should be spared.
So runs the Captain's narrative, published for the first time in 1624,
after Pocahontas's appearance in London, and her death in 1617. Why he
had not told it before is difficult to explain. Perhaps he had promised
Powhatan to keep it secret, lest the record of his sentimental clemency
should impair his authority over the tribes. Or it may have been an
embellishment of some comparatively trifling incident of Smith's
captivity, suggested to his mind as he was compiling his "General
History of Virginia." It can never be determined; but certainly his
relations with the Indian girl were always cordial, and it seems
unlikely that Powhatan would have permitted him to return to Jamestown
except for some unusual reason.
Pocahontas's life had vicissitudes such as seldom befall an Indian
maiden. Some time between the Smith episode of 1607, and the year 1612,
she married one of her father's tributary chiefs, and went to live with
him on his reservation. There she was in some manner kidnapped by one
Samuel Argall, and held for ransom. The ransom was paid, but Pocahontas
was not sent back; and the following year she was married to John
Rolfe, a Jamestown colonist, and baptized as Rebecca. He took her to
London, where she was a nine days' wonder; and they had a son, whose
blood still flows in not a few American veins to-day. If she was ten
years old in 1607, he must have been no more than twenty at the time of
her death in Gravesend, near London. But her place in American history
is secure, as well as in the hearts of all good Americans. She was the
heroine of the first American romance; and she is said to have been as
beautiful as all our heroines should rightly be.
When Smith, with his Indian escort, got back to Jamestown, he was just
in season to prevent the colony from running away in the boat. Soon
after a new consignment of emigrants and supplies arrived from England;
but again there were fewer men than gentlemen, and Smith sent back a
demand for "rather thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen,
blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots, well provided,
than a thousand of such as we have." There spoke the genuine pioneer,
whose heart is in his work, and who can postpone "gentility" until it
grows indigenously out of the soil. The Company at home were indignant
that their colony had not ere now reimbursed them for their
expenditure, and much more; and they sent word that unless profits were
forthcoming forthwith (one-fifth of the gold and silver, and so forth)
they would abandon the colony to its fate. One cannot help admiring
Smith for refraining from the obvious rejoinder that to be abandoned
was the dearest boon that they could crave; but a sense of humor seems
to have been one of the few good qualities which the Captain did not
possess. He intimated to the Company that money was not to be picked up
ready made in Virginia, but must be earned by hard work with hands and
heads in the field and forest. It is his distinction to have been the
first man of eminence visiting the new world who did not think more of
finding gold, or the passage to India, or both, than of anything else.
Smith knew that in this world, new or old, men get what they work for,
and in the long run no more than that; and he made his gentlemen
colonists take off their coats and blister their gentlemanly hands with
the use of the spade and the ax. It is said that they excelled as
woodcutters, after due instruction; and they were undoubtedly in all
respects improved by this first lesson in Americanism. The American ax
and its wielders have become famous since that day; and the gentlemen
of Jamestown may enjoy the credit of having blazed the way.
Fresh emigrants kept coming in, of a more or less desirable quality, as
is the case with emigrants still. Some of them had been sent out by
other organizations than the London Company, and bred confusion; but
Smith was always more than equal to the emergency, and kept his growing
brood in hand. He had the satisfaction of feeling that he was the right
man in the right place; and let the grass grow under neither his feet
nor theirs. The abandonment threat of the London Company led him to
take measures to make the colony independent so far as food was
concerned, and a tract of land was prepared and planted with corn.
Traffic for supplies with the Indians was systematized; and by the time
Smith's year of office had expired the Jamestown settlement was
self-supporting, and forever placed beyond the reach of
annihilation--though, the very year after he had left it, it came
within measurable distance thereof.
He now returned to England, and never revisited Jamestown; but he by no
means relaxed his interest in American colonization, or his efforts to
promote it. In 1614 he once more sailed westward with two ships, on a
trading and exploring enterprise, which was successful. He examined and
mapped the northern coast, already seen by Gosnold, and bestowed upon
the country the name of New England. Traditions of his presence and
exploits are still told along the shores of Maine, New Hampshire and
Massachusetts. In the year following he tried to found a small colony
somewhere in these regions, but was defeated by violent storms; and at
a subsequent attempt he fell in with French pirates, and his ship and
fortune were lost, though he himself escaped in an open skiff: the
chains were never forged that could hold this man. Nor was his spirit
broken; he took his map and his description of New England, and
personally canvassed all likely persons with a view to fitting out a
new expedition. In 1617, aided perhaps by the interest which Pocahontas
had aroused in London, he was promised a fleet of twenty vessels, and
the title of Admiral of New England was bestowed upon him. Admiral he
remained till his death; but the fleet he was to command never put
forth to sea. A ship more famous than any he had captained was to sail
for New England in 1620, and land the Pilgrims on Plymouth. Rock.
Smith's active career was over, though he was but eight-and-thirty
years of age, and had fifteen years of life still before him. He had
drunk too deeply of the intoxicating cup of adventure and achievement
ever to be content with a duller draught; and from year to year he
continued to use his arguments and representations upon all who would
listen. But he no longer had money of his own, and he was forestalled
by other men. He was to have no share in the development of the country
which he had charted and named. At the time of his death in London in
1632, poor and disappointed, Plymouth, Salem and Boston had been
founded, Virginia had entered upon a new career, and Maryland had been
settled by the Catholics under Lord Baltimore. The Dutch had created
New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in 1623; and the new nation in the
new continent was fairly under way.
Jamestown, as has been said, narrowly escaped extinction in the winter
of 1609. The colonists found none among their number to fill Smith's
place, and soon relapsed into the idleness and improvidence which he
had so resolutely counteracted. They ate all the food which he had laid
up for them, and when it was gone the Indians would sell them no more.
Squads of hungry men began to wander about the country, and many of
them were murdered by the savages. The mortality within the settlement
was terrible, and everything that could be used as food was eaten; at
length cannibalism was begun; the body of an Indian, and then the
starved corpses of the settlers themselves were devoured. Many crawled
away to perish in the woods; others, more energetic, seized a vessel
and became pirates. In short, such scenes were enacted as have been
lately beheld in India and in Cuba. The severity of the famine may be
judged from the fact that out of five hundred persons at the beginning
of the six months, only sixty diseased and moribund wretches survived.
And this in a land which had been described by its discoverers as a
very Garden of Eden, flowing with milk and honey.
Meanwhile, great things were preparing in England. Smith's warning that
America must be regarded and treated as an agricultural and industrial
community, and not as a treasure-box, had borne fruit; and a new
charter was applied for, which should more adequately satisfy the true
conditions. It was granted in 1609; Lord Salisbury was at the head of
the promoters, and with him were associated many hundreds of the lords,
commoners and merchants of England. The land assigned to them was a
strip four hundred miles in breadth north and south of Old Point
Comfort, and across to the Pacific, together with all islands lying
within a hundred miles of shore. In respect of administrative matters,
the tendency of the new charter was toward a freer arrangement; in
especial, the company was to exercise the powers heretofore lodged with
the king, and the supreme council was to be chosen by the shareholders.
The governor was the appointee of the corporation, and his powers were
large and under conditions almost absolute. The liberties of the
emigrants themselves were not specifically enlarged, but they were at
least emancipated from the paternal solicitude of the stingy and
self-complacent pettifogger who graced the English throne.
Lord Delaware was chosen governor; and Newport, Sir Thomas Gates and
Sir George Somers were the commissioners who were to conduct the
affairs of the colony until his arrival. A large number of emigrants,
many of whom contributed in money and supplies to the expedition, were
assembled, and the fleet numbered altogether nine vessels. But Newport
and his fellow commissioners suffered shipwreck on the Bermudas, and
did not reach Jamestown till nine months later, in May, 1610. The
calamitous state of things which there awaited them was an unwelcome
surprise; and the despairing colonists would be contented with nothing
short of exportation to Newfoundland. But before they could gain the
sea, Lord Delaware with his ships and provisions was met coming into
port; and the intending fugitives turned back with him. The hungry were
fed, order was restored, and industry was re-established. A wave of
religious feeling swept over the little community; the rule of Lord
Delaware was mild, but just and firm; and all would have been well had
not his health failed, and compelled him, in the spring of 1611, to
return to England. The colony was disheartened anew, and the arrival of
Sir Thomas Dale in Delaware's place did not at first relieve the
depression; his training had been military, and he administered affairs
by martial law. But he believed in the future of the enterprise, and so
impressed his views upon the English council that six more ships, with
three hundred emigrants, were immediately sent to their relief. Grates,
who brought these recruits to Jamestown, assumed the governorship, and
a genuine prosperity began. Among the most important of the
improvements introduced was an approximation to the right of private
ownership in land, which had hitherto been altogether denied, and which
gave the emigrants a personal interest in the welfare of the
enterprise. In 1612 a third charter was granted, still further
increasing the privileges of the settlers, who now found themselves
possessed of almost the same political powers as they had enjoyed at
home. It was still possible, as was thereafter shown, for unjust and
selfish governors to inflict misery and discontent upon the people; but
it was also possible, under the law, to give them substantial freedom
and happiness; and that was a new light in political conceptions.
More than thirty years had now passed since Raleigh first turned his
mind to the colonizing of Virginia. He was now approaching the
scaffold; but he could feel a lofty satisfaction in the thought that it
was mainly through him that an opportunity of incalculable magnitude
and possibilities had been given for the enlargement and felicity of
his race. He had sowed the seed of England beyond the seas, and the
quality of the fruit it should bear was already becoming apparent to
his eyes, soon to close forever upon earthly things. The spirit of
America was his spirit. He was for freedom, enlightenment, and
enterprise; and whenever a son of America has fulfilled our best ideal
of what an American should be, we find in him some of the traits and
qualities which molded the deeds and colored the thoughts of this
mighty Englishman.
Nor can we find a better example of the restless, practical,
resourceful side of the American character than is offered in Captain
John Smith; even in his boastfulness we must claim kinship with him.
His sterling manhood, his indomitable energy, his fertile invention,
his ability as a leader and as a negotiator, all ally him with the
traditional Yankee, who carries on in so matter-of-fact a way the
solution of the problems of the new democracy. Both these men, each in
his degree, were Americans before America.
And with them we may associate the name of Columbus; to him also we
must concede the spiritual citizenship of our country; not because of
the bare fact that he was the first to reach its shores, but because he
had a soul valiant enough to resist and defy the conservatism that will
believe in no new thing, and turns life into death lest life should
involve labor and self-sacrifice. Columbus, Smith, and Raleigh stand at
the portals of our history, types of the faith, success and honor which
are our heritage.
CHAPTER SECOND
THE FREIGHT OF THE MAYFLOWER
The motive force which drove the English Separatists and Puritans to a
voluntary exile in New England in 1620 and later, had its origin in the
brain of the son of a Saxon slate cutter just a century before. Martin
Luther first gave utterance to a mental protest which had long been on
the tongue's tip of many thoughtful and conscientious persons in
Europe, but which, till then, no one had found the courage, or the
energy, or the conviction, or the clear-headedness (as the case might
be) to formulate and announce. Once having reached its focus, however,
and attained its expression, it spread like a flame in dry stubble, and
produced results in men and nations rarely precedented in the history
of the world, whose vibrations have not yet died away.
Henry VIII. of England was born and died a Catholic; though of religion
of any kind he never betrayed an inkling. His Act of Supremacy, in
1534, which set his will above that of the Pope of Rome, had no
religious bearing, but merely indicated that he wanted to divorce one
woman in order to marry another. Nevertheless it made it incumbent upon
the Pope to excommunicate him, and thus placed him, and England as
represented by him, in a quasi-dissenting attitude toward the orthodox
faith. And coming as it did so soon after Luther's outbreak, it may
have encouraged Englishmen to think on lines of liberal belief.
Passionate times followed in religious--or rather in
theological--matters, all through the Sixteenth Century. The
fulminations of Luther and the logic of Calvin set England to
discussing and taking sides; and when Edward VI. came to the throne, he
was himself a Protestant, or indeed a Puritan, and the stimulus of
Puritanism in others. But the mass of the common people were still
unmoved, because there was no means of getting at them, and they had no
stomach for dialectics, if there had been. The new ideas would probably
have made little headway had not Edward died and Mary the Catholic come
red-hot with zeal into his place. She lost no time in catching and
burning all dissenters, real or suspected; and as many of these were
honest persons who lived among the people, and were known and approved
by them, and as they uniformly endured their martyrdom with admirable
fortitude and good-humor, falling asleep in the crackling flames like
babes at the mother's breast, Puritanism received an advertisement such
as nothing since Christianity had enjoyed before, and which all the
unaided Luthers, Melanchthons and Calvins in the world could not have
given it.