EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN NEW ENGLAND, NEW NETHERLAND,
AND NEW SWEDEN.
WHILE the first germ of the now vast American organization was thus
struggling into life in Virginia, the coasts of New England and of
Maine were becoming dotted with settlements of different nationalities,
and the resources of Canada and the districts bounding it on the north
were gradually being revealed by the researches of French and Dutch
explorers.
From the time of Jacques Cartier, the French had claimed possession of
the Atlantic seaboard from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the south
of the modern province of Maine; and as early as 1536, a certain André
Thevet had discovered the mouth of the Penobscot river, and reported
very favorably of the capabilities of the districts watered by it,
and the friendly disposition of the Indians with whom he had come in
contact. No real effort to turn these advantages to account was made,
however, until the close of the sixteenth century, when Henri IV. of
France sent out the Marquis de la Roche with orders to found a new
French empire on the western coast of America. The noble leader of
this expedition, charged with so grand a commission, found himself
hampered in carrying it out by the fact that the followers who
were to form the nucleus of the “empire” were all convicts from the
overcrowded French prisons. He contented himself, therefore, with
landing them on the desolate shores of Sable Island, off the coast of
Nova Scotia, whence they returned home after twelve years of misery,
having accomplished literally nothing.
In the following year (1599) a trip far richer in results was made to
Canada by a merchant of St. Malo named Pontgravé, and a naval officer
named De Chauvin, the latter of whom obtained a commission from Henri
IV. similar to that given De la Roche. The sudden death of De Chauvin,
after a preliminary trip, prevented him from himself reaping any
benefit from the full powers conferred on him; but Pontgravé was so
convinced by what he had seen on the St. Lawrence of the commercial
capabilities of the country watered by it, that he returned in 1603,
this time accompanied by Samuel Champlain, an eager and intelligent
student of geography, with whose aid a very thorough survey of the
great water highway was made.
Provided with trustworthy maps of Canada, Pontgravé and Champlain soon
returned to France, and, as one result of their work, a new expedition
was sent out in 1604, led by De Monts, a Huguenot nobleman, who was
empowered by Henri IV. to take possession of and colonize in his
name, all districts between 40° and 46° N. lat., collectively known
as Acadia.
Illustration: LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
De Monts left France on the 9th March, 1604, taking Champlain with him
as a confidential adviser. A short visit to Nova Scotia was succeeded
by a cruise in the Bay of Fundy, dividing that Peninsula from the
mainland; and after much hesitation, a small island near the mouth of
the St. Croix, a river of New Brunswick, was chosen as the site for
the first settlement. It turned out an unlucky selection, and as soon
as the first winter was over, De Monts and Champlain went down the
coast to try and find a more favorable situation. The harbors of Maine
were visited one after another, and in any one of them a delightful
refuge for the little band of Frenchmen might have been found but
for the hostility of the Indians, who, since the time of Thevet, had
learned to suspect the sincerity of the white man.
Finally the colony was removed to a port of Nova Scotia now known
as Annapolis, but then called Port Royal, where it feebly struggled
for existence, first under De Monts, and then under his successor,
Pourtrincourt, until 1610, when some new life was infused into it by
the arrival of certain Jesuit missionaries, who, at the instance of
the Marquise de Guercheville, to whom De Monts had resigned his claim
to Acadia, proposed making the little colony the nucleus of a church
in the wilderness, into which the natives were to be gradually enticed.
The success of the first missionaries was sufficient to induce others
to follow their example; and, in 1613, an earnest Frenchman named
La Saussaye arrived at Port Royal, with two more Jesuit priests and
thirty-eight men, with whom, having obtained a guide, he started
to sail up the Penobscot, intending to plant a second church at the
Indian village of Kadesquit, now Bangor.
Illustration: MOUNT DESERT ISLE.
A dense fog prevented the mouth of the river being perceived; and,
when it cleared away, La Saussaye found himself opposite the beautiful
island of Grand Manan, already visited by Champlain, and called by
him Mont Desert, with the mighty rock now known as Great Head standing
out against the forest-clad buttresses of the Green and Newport
Mountains. So beautiful did Grand Manan appear to the French visitors,
and so wide a missionary field seemed opened to them on it and the
neighboring islands, that La Saussaye determined to remain there, and
having set up a cross as an emblem of his peaceful intentions, he set
his men to work to build and plant.
But, alas! Grand Manan was within the limits of the New World
already ceded to the English, and before the first crops sown by the
French had had time to germinate, Captain Argall――the same who had
carried off Pocahontas――sailing up the coast on one of his exploring
expeditions from Virginia, heard of the infant settlement, and bore
down upon it, bent on its destruction. The French, dreaming of no
evil, were, some on land, others, to the number of ten, on board their
vessel, at anchor off Bar Harbor.
Boarding the little ship, Argall secretly possessed himself of La
Saussaye’s papers, including the royal commission under which the
Frenchman had acted, and then gave orders for the bombardment of
the group of houses which La Saussaye had hoped would have formed
the nucleus of the church in the wilderness he had set his heart on
founding.
La Saussaye and some of his missionaries were now placed in a boat and
sent adrift, to find their way back to Port Royal as best they could.
Near the coast of Nova Scotia they were picked up by some fishing
vessels, and carried to France. Less fortunate were Father Biard,
one of the Jesuit priests, and the secular members of the settlement
of Mont Desert, for they were taken to Virginia by Argall, and there
thrown into prison by the authorities. They were treated with every
possible indignity, until their captor, fearing the consequences to
himself, confessed his theft of La Saussaye’s commission, and obtained
their release.
This was but the beginning of that strife between the French and
English for territory belonging to neither, which finally resulted in
a world-wide struggle between the two nations. A little later, Argall
was sent north, with orders to “remove every landmark of France south
of the forty-sixth degree;” and he accomplished his work with an
energy and thoroughness worthy of a better cause. First, every trace
of the French occupation was obliterated on Grand Manan; and then Port
Royal, now deserted by all but a little remnant under the leadership
of Biencourt, Pourtrincourt’s son, was burned to the ground.
The next European visitors to Maine were our old friend John Smith and
Thomas Hunt――the shipmaster who, in 1614, made a cruise up its coasts,
collecting not only the fish so plentiful in its bays and rivers, but
also a number of “savages,” who were sent to Spain by Hunt, and there
sold for slaves. Smith――who, as we have seen in our account of his
work in Virginia was a clear-headed and far-sighted man――turned his
time to better account than did his comrade, and embodied the results
of a careful survey of Maine and the neighboring islands in a map,
which he took to England and submitted to Charles I., urging him to
inaugurate a company for the colonization of a country so rich in
resources, and to give to that country the name of New England.
Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH’S MAP OF NEW ENGLAND.
The latter part of this advice was followed at once, and the districts
now forming the six Eastern States of the Union――namely, Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut――were
long collectively known as New England. Its 65,000 square miles of
fertile country had already been granted to the Plymouth Company by
James I., in 1606, so that no new scheme of colonization was necessary;
but Smith’s report so stimulated the zeal of the English that in
1615, Richard Hawkins, then President of the Northern Company, himself
sailed to Maine. So terrible a civil war was at that time raging among
the natives, that Hawkins effected nothing; but in the following year,
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the most active members of the Company,
sent out a physician named Richard Vines at his own expense, with
instructions to make a settlement somewhere in New England.
Vines, a hero in the best sense of the term, spent the winter of
1616–17 at a place called Winter Harbor, the exact position of which
we have been unable to ascertain, though it was probably somewhere
between the mouth of the Penobscot and Cape Cod. He found the Indians
afflicted with a terrible disease, which had succeeded, perhaps
resulted from, the awful civil war alluded to above; and by the
generous kindness and scientific skill with which he alleviated their
sufferings, he so won upon their affections, that he was able to
travel alone in the wildest forests, secure of a hospitable reception
in every wigwam.
Thus protected by an invisible armor, Vines went up the Saco River
till he came to its source at Crawford’s Notch in the White Mountains
of New Hampshire; and, when the spring permitted navigation, he
cruised in and out of the harbors of Maine till he had acquired a
thorough knowledge of their geography.
In 1619, while Vines was still peacefully at work among the Indians,
a Captain Dermer was sent out by Gorges to explore the coast of New
England. Leaving his vessel at the island of Monhegan, situate about
twenty miles South-west of the mouth of the Penobscot, Dermer made his
coast-survey in an open pinnace, discovering and passing through the
now celebrated Long Island Sound, which divides Long Island from New
York and Connecticut. On his return trip, Dermer landed on Martha’s
Vineyard, where he was severely wounded in a skirmish with the natives,
and crossed the strip of country near Cape Cod destined to be the
first home of the Pilgrim Fathers; but he did nothing to further the
cause of colonization, and of his career after his voyage nothing is
known beyond the fact that he died in obscurity in Virginia soon after
its completion.
In 1620, the indefatigable Sir Ferdinando Gorges succeeded in
obtaining a new patent for the Plymouth Company from the King, which
dissolved its connection with the South Virginia Company, and gave to
it all lands between the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude; thus,
as those who have carefully followed the course of our narrative will
recognize at once, encroaching alike on the rights of the Southern
English Company and of the French, who were now firmly establishing
themselves in Canada. Regardless, however, of the clamor and
excitement caused by the concession it had won from the English
monarch, the new Plymouth Company lost not a moment in availing itself
of its extended privileges; and in 1621, the year of the arrival in
New England of the Pilgrim Fathers, a grant, to which the name of Nova
Scotia was given, was made by it to Sir William Alexander of all lands
between Cape Sable and the St. Lawrence.
The Scotch colonists sent out by Sir William to people his new
territory, found the spots most suitable for settlement already
occupied by fishermen of different nationalities; and, failing to
obtain any recognition of their claims, they shortly returned to
their native country. The sea-coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, and
Massachusetts were, however, still free to the emigrant; and in 1623,
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had hitherto reaped no personal benefit in
return for all his efforts on behalf of his Company, obtained from it,
in conjunction with John Mason, a grant called Laconia, embracing all
lands between the Merrimac and Kennebec, and stretching away to the
great Canadian lakes, of which the first had been discovered by the
Frenchman, Champlain, in 1608. A vessel bearing a number of emigrants
started for New England in the summer of 1623, and, disembarking on
the shores of New Hampshire, founded the two settlements of Portsmouth
and Dover.
In the same year, Robert Gorges, a son of Ferdinando, was appointed
governor-general over the whole of the lands belonging to the Plymouth
Company, and received as his private share in these lands three
hundred square miles on Massachusetts Bay. The governor did not,
however, care for his new possessions, and, after a flying visit to
them, ceded them to Captain Levett, one of his assistants, who made
a thorough exploration of Maine, and built a house on its shores, to
which he gave the name of York. A permanent English settlement was
also founded in Maine, in 1625, by two merchants of Bristol, Robert
Aldworth and Giles Eldridge by name, who, having bought the Monhegan
Island and a neighboring point of the mainland, quickly converted
their desolate shores into flourishing colonies. In 1630, too, we find
our old friend, Richard Vines, rewarded at last for his long years of
work among the Indians by a grant of land on the Saco, while an estate
of similar extent on the other side of the river was given to his
comrade, John Oldham. From these two concessions sprung the towns of
Biddeford and Saco; and looking round upon the results obtained at
various points by different members of the Plymouth Company, under
the energetic superintendence of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, before the
expiration of its patent in 1635, we find English communities growing
up throughout the length and breadth of Maine. It is round the little
band of Puritans, however, who settled, by sufferance as it were,
on the rocky shores of Cape Cod, in the neighboring province of
Massachusetts, that the most absorbing interest gathers; and their
history――as that of men who founded religious and political liberty in
the future United States, and who are proudly claimed as ancestors by
the noblest of our American cousins――must be given in some detail here.
To account for the presence of English Puritans on American shores,
it is necessary to go back a few years, to the beginning of the reign
of James I., when the brief respite from persecution, enjoyed during
the closing years of Elizabeth’s life by the aspirants after a purer
ritual than that sanctioned by the State, was succeeded by yet greater
oppression than any hitherto endured.
At the little village of Scrooby, in the midland counties of England,
a small body of separatists, under the ministry of William Brewster,
were in the habit of meeting regularly for worship, and by their zeal
and good works were winning to their own persuasion large numbers of
the common people, when their elder and two of their chief members
were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission of York for heresy,
and condemned to pay a fine of £20 each. This was but the beginning of
evils; fines were succeeded by imprisonment and indignities of every
kind; and warned by previous experience――some of their co-religionists
had fled to Holland a few years before――the Scrooby separatists
resolved, like them, to seek a refuge in the Protestant Republic. To
the number of 200, the Puritans, most of them well-to-do men, disposed
as quietly as they could of their lands and houses, and agreeing to
meet at Boston, in Lincolnshire, stealthily made their way from the
homes they were willing to forsake rather than abjure their belief.
A large number succeeded in embarking on board a vessel bound for
Holland in Boston Harbor, but they were betrayed by the captain, who
handed them over to some officers in quest of them. They were searched,
robbed of all their valuables, and marched back to Boston. A month’s
imprisonment was succeeded by a second attempt at escape, ending
even more disastrously than the first. A Dutch ship was this time
engaged to convey the sufferers for their faith to Holland, and it
was arranged that the embarkation should take place at a lonely spot
somewhere between Grimsby and Hull. The women and children were sent
to the rendezvous in a small vessel; the men marched thither in small
parties by land. All seemed likely to go well. The two detachments
met on the low sands of the Lincoln shores, and eager greetings were
exchanged between husbands and wives, fathers and little ones. The men
were embarking on the Dutch vessel, on which their families were to
join them immediately, when a loud tumult suddenly arose on the beach,
and down rushed a mob of country people, wild with delight at having
arrived in time to cut off the heretics.
The few men already on the Dutch vessel were carried off, whether
they would or no, by its affrighted master; and of the remainder, some
endeavored to protect the women and children, while others hurried off
in different directions and escaped. From one magistrate to another
the luckless emigrants who had been taken prisoners were marched,
bearing themselves so nobly and simply in their trial, that many were
won over to their belief, and the hearts of others, even in those
unrelenting days, were touched. No magistrate would convict them of
any worse crime than a desire to be with those belonging to them,
and, after much wandering to and fro, a public subscription was got
up on their behalf, which enabled them to take ship for Amsterdam,
where, in the winter of 1608, nearly the whole of the original Scrooby
congregation met once more. Even in Amsterdam, however, their rest
was not to be; for, in the little English community which had already
settled there, disputes, some of them most trivial in their character,
had arisen, and the Scrooby people had therefore little heart to join
it. They had had enough of conflict with foes at home to make them
sick of strife, and more than sick of strife among brethren; and so,
with their pastor at their head, they moved on to Leyden.
For a time the sufferers enjoyed peace in the land of their exile.
Their pastor, Brewster, and his able coadjutor, Robinson, administered
the affairs of the little community with gentle wisdom. The names of
Carver, Cushman, and Winslow stood out as those of burning and shining
lights in a congregation where all were earnest and zealous. But,
as in all human institutions, there came a change. Not suddenly, but
gradually, almost imperceptibly, error crept in. The purity of the
faith was threatened by foreign error. The young folks growing up,
who had but a dim recollection of the native land where they had
unconsciously borne witness for the truth, were showing an undue
appreciation of the delights of the world.
After many a solemn consultation, it was resolved that the little
church should be transplanted, if possible, to the virgin soil of
America, where it would have room to grow and spread, unhampered by
any of the restrictions by which it was, in the very nature of things,
hedged in in Leyden.
Illustration: (‡ The Mayflower at New Plymouth)
In 1617, when Virginia had already been settled for several years,
and the Dutch had successfully colonized a considerable portion of New
England, Robert Cushman and John Carver were sent to England to try
and obtain from James I. a patent, granting to the Scrooby Puritans
lands in North Virginia, with the assurance of religious liberty. A
whole year was consumed in unsatisfactory negotiations; and finally,
the deputies from Holland were compelled to be content with a private
message from James, that he would connive at the settlement in America
of their brethren, though he could not give them his public sanction.
On the strength of this, however, a patent was obtained from the
Virginia Company in 1619, granting to a certain Mr. John Wincob――who
was to be a kind of lay figure in the transaction, taking no active
share in the matter――some lands on the Hudson. As the Dutch were
already in possession on either side of that river, the Pilgrim
Fathers endeavored to obtain, in addition, some sanction from them for
their presence among them, but they were entirely unsuccessful; and it
was finally agreed that one hundred members of the congregation, many
of them women and children, should embark, under the care of Brewster
as their spiritual pastor, and Carver as their civil governor, and,
take their chance of finding a home in the New World. When they had
done so, the remainder of their brethren, with the beloved Elder
Robinson, were to join them.
Two vessels were chartered for this apparently humble enterprise
――the _Speedwell_, which was to convey the pilgrims from Holland to
Southampton, and the _Mayflower_, which was to await their arrival
at the English port. On the 22d July, 1620, after a day of solemn
humiliation and prayer, the advance guard of the deserted little
church marched out among their brethren, and embarked on the
_Speedwell_ in Delft harbor, arriving in due course at Southampton,
where the _Mayflower_ lay at anchor.
A fortnight later, both vessels set sail for America; but, before
much progress had been made, the _Speedwell_ was compelled to put
into Plymouth Harbor, being found utterly unseaworthy. This caused a
delay of a month; and it was not until the autumn had begun that the
_Mayflower_ made her final and solitary departure from Plymouth, with
all who remained faithful to their purpose on board. A stormy voyage
of sixty-five days brought the now world-famous little vessel in sight
of Cape Cod, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to bear southward for
the mouth of the Hudson, anchor was cast opposite the low coast, which
had already been the refuge of so many tempest-tossed wanderers to the
West.
Illustration: BIBLE BROUGHT OVER IN THE MAYFLOWER,
IN PILGRIM HALL, PLYMOUTH.
On the 11th November, 1620, after a solemn agreement among all the
pilgrims to hold to each other and submit to their governor, John
Carver, the first landing was effected. Falling on their knees upon
the beach, the emigrants now returned thanks to God for their merciful
deliverance from the perils of the deep, and, this pious duty over,
sixteen men, under the doughty Captain Miles Standish, were sent forth
on a reconnaissance, while the women busied themselves in washing
their travel-soiled garments, and making preparations for the general
comfort.
The result of the reconnaissance was far from satisfactory. Standish
and his men had to cut their way through dense underwood, and were
unable to open any communication with the natives, who fled at their
approach. A little maize which had been buried by the Indians as their
store for the winter was all the wanderers brought back to the vessel
from the promised land.
Later trips being equally unsuccessful, the emigrants re-embarked,
and the _Mayflower_ was taken a little further up the western coast
of Cape Cod, whence excursions were made to different points in an
open boat by a few sturdy explorers, who landed on Clark’s Island――so
called after the first man to step on its shores――and finally, on the
11th December, crossed the modern harbor of Plymouth, and landed on or
near the rock which has since been revered as the sacred “corner-stone
of a nation,” the “altar and bulwark of religion and liberty.”
Illustration: LANDING PLACE OF THE PILGRIMS, AT PLYMOUTH.
Convinced that the fertile, well-watered tract stretching away from
the sea to the pine-clad hills was the very site for a settlement,
the men hastened to report their discovery to their expectant comrades
on board ship, and on the 15th December, the _Mayflower_ left her
anchorage off Cape Cod to sail to Clark’s Island and halt half between
it and the rock of Plymouth, so-called in remembrance of the port in
the south of England from which the little vessel had made her final
start.
Illustration: TOMB OF THE MATE OF THE “MAYFLOWER.”
On Christmas Day, 1620, after the site for the erection of the first
house of the new settlement had been chosen at a spot called by the
Indians Patuxet, and christened Plymouth by the new-comers, the main
body of the emigrants went on shore. Many are the traditions which
have gathered round the rock――of which a portion is still shown to
visitors――on which these founders of a great nation first set foot,
and in all of them the names of the governor, Carver, and the military
captain, Standish, stand out as those of men who were equal to every
emergency. A dreary winter, with starvation and disease staring the
settlers in the face at home, and hostile Indians hovering about in
the outskirts of the little encampment, ready to take advantage of
any sign of weakness, was succeeded by a somewhat brighter spring,
and toward the end of March, 1621, as the leaders of the colony were
discussing their future plans in full conclave, an incident occurred
which inspired them with new hope of the successful realization of
those plans.
A naked Indian suddenly stalked into the midst of the white men,
and greeted them in their native tongue with the words, “Welcome,
Englishmen!” The sensation caused by this may be imagined. The Indian,
who said his name was Samoset, was eagerly plied with questions, and
told how he had been one of the men carried into slavery by Hunt,
who, it will be remembered, had accompanied John Smith on his visit
to Maine. After many vicissitudes, Samoset had got back to his native
land, and, hearing from his comrades that some white men had settled
at Patuxet, he had come to make their acquaintance, and to inquire
if they came with peaceable intent or as man-stealers. Convinced that
they were certainly not the latter, though probably a little puzzled
at the explanations given of their presence so far from home, Samoset
promised to be their messenger to the Wampanoags and Nansets of the
neighborhood, assuring the chiefs of the colony that the hostile
attitude of these tribes had been the result of the ill-treatment
they had received at the hands of Hunt and Dermer.
Illustration: WINSLOW’S VISIT TO MASSASOIT.
A few days after this first interview, Samoset brought some other
friendly Indians to Plymouth, including a certain Squanto, who
had been taken to England by Weymouth fifteen long years before,
and brought back by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The presence of Samoset
and Squanto in their midst was fruitful of the best results to the
colonists. By their means, a treaty, offensive and defensive, was made
between the white men and the greatest chief of the neighborhood, a
stately warrior named Massasoit, dwelling at a village on Rhode Island;
and, free from the fear of surprises, the colonists were now able to
extend their plantations and sow seed for future needs. Small parties
were detailed to explore the bay, the site of the modern Boston
was visited, and the close of the first summer found the affairs of
Plymouth in a very flourishing condition.
In November, 1621, a reinforcement of thirty-five emigrants arrived
from England in the ship _Fortune_, and the first fruits of the labors
of the early colonists, consisting of timber and furs, were sent home
in her. The second winter passed over successfully, but the spring
of 1622 opened gloomily. A terrible massacre of the whites had taken
place in Virginia, and, encouraged by the success of their brethren
in the south, the Narragansetts of Massachusetts sent a message of
defiance to the colonists of Plymouth, thinking that the time had come
to possess themselves of the goods of the intruders in their land. The
war-challenge of the red men consisted in the sending to the camp of
the enemy of a bundle of arrows bound together with a rattlesnake’s
skin; the reply of the English was the return of the same skin full
of powder and ball――a silent indication that they were ready for the
arrows, which the Indians did not fail rightly to interpret.
A lull ensued, and the English were beginning to hope that the real
exchange of arrows and shot would not come off, when there arrived
from England a little party of emigrants who were not Puritans, and
who, while they consumed the stores of their fellow-countrymen, did
nothing to help to replace them, and, moreover, imbittered their
relations with the Indians by stealing their corn and carrying off
their women. After much mischief had been done, the governor, Bradford,
who had taken the place of Carver on his death in the previous spring,
succeeded in weeding out the evil-doers from among his flock, but
not, unfortunately, in warding off the results of their misconduct.
At their young settlement of Weymouth, on the northern shores of the
Bay of Plymouth, the new colonists behaved in a manner which excited
alike the anger and contempt of the natives. It was decided that they
should be exterminated, and as their white comrades at Plymouth would
doubtless try to avenge them, these must be slain at the same time.
All was ready for the massacre of both parties, when Massasoit, who
had made the first treaty with Carver, was taken dangerously ill.
Knowing nothing of the plot laid by him against them, the English of
Plymouth sent two of their members, Edward Winslow and John Hamden,
to express their sympathy with him, and, if possible, relieve his
sufferings. Arrived, all unsuspicious of the danger they were running,
at the village of Pokanoket, on Rhode Island, the two Christian
emissaries found Massasoit in what seemed a dying condition, but
Winslow suggested several remedies, which had an apparently miraculous
effect. The strength of the dying chief returned to him, and, to
the astonishment of all, he sat up and called for food, which he had
not been able to swallow for several days. In a short time he was
completely restored to health, and in his gratitude to his visitors he
revealed to them the plot against the two colonies, adding that he had
been urged to join in it himself, but had refused. He recommended the
white men to return home without delay, and to defeat the plot against
their people by slaying the ringleaders, whose names he gave at once.
Back again in their camp, Winslow and Hamden lost no time in laying
the information of which they were possessed before their leaders, and
it was at once resolved to send out a small party under Miles Standish,
first to warn the colonists at Weymouth, and then to get the Indians
named by Massasoit into their power.
Illustration: MILES STANDISH’S SWORD, POT, AND PLATTER――PRESERVED
IN PILGRIM HALL, NEW PLYMOUTH.
With eight men――he refused to take more, lest his object should be
guessed at by the natives――Miles Standish started on his hazardous
enterprise in a little shallop, and went by sea to Weymouth, where he
found the colonists in a terrible condition, scarcely able to subsist
on the scanty supplies which were all they had brought with them,
and subject to perpetual insults from the Indians, who appeared to
be determined to get as much sport as possible out of them before the
final blow was struck.
Having relieved the immediate necessities of his unlucky
fellow-countrymen, and directed them to keep together as much as
possible, Standish endeavored to open negotiations with the Indians,
but they had lost all fear of the white men, and met his advances
with ridicule. Seeing that it was absolutely necessary to make an
example, although hitherto no blood had been shed by the Puritans,
the Christian captain succeeded in enticing two of the ringleaders,
Peeksuot and Wituwamat by name, into a house, and there slew them,
assisted by two or three of his men. The result was what he had
anticipated――the heads being gone, the minor members of the conspiracy
fled. A few English, who had neglected the advice to keep together,
were murdered, and one or two other Indians fell in a fitful struggle
between scattered parties at isolated points. The general massacre
was averted, however, and out of consideration for the benefit to all
obtained by his severe measure, Captain Miles Standish was forgiven
by his superiors for the shedding of blood, though, on hearing of the
affair, Mr. Robinson wrote from Holland, “Concerning the killing of
those poor Indians ... oh, how happy a thing had it been if you had
converted some before you had killed any.”
Illustration: FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON.
The energetic conduct of Standish, however it may have been judged by
those who were not on the spot, was, so to speak, the foundation-stone
of the prosperity of the Plymouth colony, which henceforth grew with
wonderful rapidity, sending out offshoots in various directions,
which in their turn, became in due course parent communities. Internal
difficulties with certain schismatic members, named Lyford and Oldham,
were dealt with in the same rigorous manner as those with the Indians;
and though the first result――condemnation of the conduct of the
settlers by the London members of the Plymouth Company――seemed, by
cutting off their supplies, to threaten their very existence, it
resulted in the breaking up of a confederation which had long held
within its heterogeneous elements the seeds of dissolution. Left
entirely to their own resources, the Puritans developed new energies;
and they were already carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians, when
there came news of the settlement of some rival colonists on Cape Ann,
which the Plymouth people considered to be within their territory.
Captain Standish was sent out to deal with the intruders, and found
that they consisted of a little band of fishermen sent out by an
obscure Company known as the Dorchester, and included among them, not
only Lyford and Oldham of troublous memory, but also the sufferer for
righteousness’ sake, Roger Conant, who had long ago left Plymouth on
account of his religious opinions, and was now a leader among the new
colonists. Brought face to face with his fellow-countrymen, Standish
seems to have hesitated how best to deal with them, and to have
been persuaded by Conant to leave them unmolested. From this slight
incident arose great results. No longer in dread of their lives,
Conant and his companions presently removed from the dreary shores of
Cape Ann to Naumkeag, now Salem, on the mainland, and there throve so
well, that the Dorchester Company was moved to send forth others to
their assistance. A patent was obtained from the original New England
Company, granting to its rival a tract of country between the rivers
Charles and Merrimac, and to this new home a sturdy reformer named
John Endicott led forth a few Puritan pilgrims in 1628. In 1629――by
which time the numbers of his colony had been doubled, though by what
means is not explained――Endicott was joined by John Winthrop with
no less than 800 emigrants, who, after resting a while at Salem,
dispersed in small parties in various directions within the limits
of the territory assigned to them, some among them settling at the
Indian village of Mishawan, or the Great Spring, to which the name of
Charlestown had been given by a few of Endicott’s settlers a year or
two before.
In the course of the ensuing year, 1630, when the Dorchester had
developed into the more imposing Massachusetts Bay Company, the
emigrants received many fresh additions to their numbers; and early
in the summer a little party moved from Charlestown to Shawmut
Point, where the modern city of Boston now stands. The capital of
Massachusetts――which still retains in its quaint, irregular streets
something of the impress of its rugged founders, the Puritans――was
begun, says Bryant, in a frolic, the first settlers to land on its
beach having been a boat-load of young people, who, after a playful
struggle as to who should first disembark, yielded that honor to “Anne
Pollard, a lively young girl, the first white woman who ever stepped
on the spot” so memorable in the history of the United States.
Illustration: HOUSE IN BOSTON WHERE THE TEA PLOT IS SUPPOSED TO
HAVE ORIGINATED.
The earliest settlement of Europeans at Shawmut was begun in August,
1630, and was at first called Tri-mountain, on account of the three
summits then crowning one of the high hills overlooking the harbor,
and which, now known as Beacon Hill, bears the imposing State House.
On the 7th September, the settlement being then considerably advanced,
it was resolved that it should be called Boston, in memory of the
city of that name in Lincolnshire, from which many of its inhabitants
had come. To complete the early history of Boston, we must add
that its site, with all the surrounding country, was claimed by a
certain Blackstone, an Englishman, who had long before settled near a
“fountain of sweet waters,” which in those days bubbled up somewhere
on the present Common. His title as original occupier was considered
to be superseded by the royal grant to the Pilgrims, but in many
accounts of the matter we find it recorded that in 1635 John
Blackstone received £35 for the relinquishment of his “right.”
Illustration: (‡ Roger Williams)
The foundation of Boston was succeeded by that of many other now
famous towns of Massachusetts, and, ten years after the arrival of
Conant at Salem, 21,000 emigrants are said to have settled in New
England, one and all being Puritans, most of whom had been driven from
their homes in their native land by the intolerance of the Government.
Among those Puritans, however, were many who were unable to conform
to the rigid practices or subscribe to the stern tenets of the
Massachusetts churches, and to this fact was due the foundation of the
first settlement in the neighboring state of Rhode Island. In 1631,
a certain “godly minister,” named Roger Williams, arrived at Boston
with his wife, Mary, and, finding the congregation there not entirely
to his taste, he repaired to the older community of Salem, and for
some little time acted there as assistant preacher, winning much love
from the people by his earnest zeal and loving sympathy, but shortly
becoming involved in serious trouble with the elders of the church on
account of his heretical opinions.
Banished to Plymouth, and there but coldly received, Williams employed
his exile in learning the Indian dialects, and printing a work on
them which created great astonishment in England. In 1634 he returned
to Salem, where he was eagerly received by his people, but was soon
again compelled to flee, for questioning the right of the settlers to
take the lands of the Indians without purchase. Our old acquaintance,
Winthrop, now Governor of Massachusetts, who appears to have had a
private leaning toward the enthusiastic young reformer, gave him a
hint that he would do well to go to Narragansett Bay in the South,
that being without the jurisdiction of any English Company, while
it was within reach of the Indians, whose love he had won by his
championship of their cause. To the Bay, therefore, though it was now
mid-winter, Roger directed his course, and, early in 1636, he found
a refuge with the chief, Massasoit, whose life had been saved by the
English nine years before, and who now gave his white brother some
land on the Seekonk River, east of the modern Providence, where in the
early spring the lonely hero built himself a home. He was soon joined
by a few friends from Salem; and, having received a kindly hint from
Governor ♦Winthrop of Plymouth, that he would be less likely to be
interfered with on the other side of the river, the site of his house
being within the original grant to the Pilgrim Fathers, he removed
with his companions to the Indian village of Mooshausick, to which
he gave the name of Providence, in “gratitude to God’s merciful
providence to him in his distress, and also because he hoped his new
home might be a shelter for those distressed in conscience.”
♦ ‘Williams’ replaced with ‘Winthrop’
Illustration: PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND.
The dream of Williams was realized. “Slate Rock,” as the stone on
which he landed from his boat on the Seekonk in his search for a new
home was called, soon became worn with the tread of the oppressed, who
came to him for help in their troubles, fleeing, some from the bigotry
of the Boston Puritans, some from the vengeance of the authorities
for civil offenses. As a matter of necessity, the Providence colony,
recruited from such sources, was not only a thorn in the side of the
Massachusetts Company, but one presenting special difficulties to
its founder, who, however, in spite of much trouble in the flesh,
was pre-eminently successful in all he undertook. Two years after his
first arrival, he bought extensive tracts of land on Rhode Island,
and in 1642 his little community was so prosperous, that he went to
England to obtain a charter for the colony he had founded. On his
return to Providence, he was able to be of great use to the other
colonies in their dissensions with the Indians, who looked upon him as
their champion; but his heresy was never forgiven, and when, in 1643,
a confederation for mutual protection was made between the New England
colonies, Rhode Island was left out.
Roger Williams was, however, but one of many to go forth from the
original Massachusetts colonies and found new communities, each of
which, while sharing the general character of the Puritan settlements,
was distinguished by some special religious peculiarity, into
the nature of which none but the initiated could enter with full
appreciation. In 1631, intercourse with the Indians of the Connecticut
Valley――already, as we shall presently see, colonized by the
Dutch――was opened by a visit to Boston of Wahginnacut, a sagamore, or
chief, from the river Quonchtacut, on the west of Narragansett, who
gave the whites a general invitation to settle in his country, which
he reported to be very fruitful.
In 1633, one William Holmes, taking with him a few sturdy followers,
and also the frame of a house ready to set up in a suitable locality,
left Plymouth in obedience to the call of the sagamore, and, in
spite of the opposition of the Dutch, opened a successful trade with
the Indians, although, so far as we have been able to ascertain, he
failed to make any permanent settlement in the new district. This
was, however, atoned for by the emigration to the Connecticut Valley,
in the fall and winter of 1634, of several different parties from
Massachusetts, who made their way on foot, driving their cattle before
them through the pathless forests, and settled on the various rivers,
enduring terrible hardships in the first winter, but holding their own
through privations which would have daunted any but the stern Pilgrim
Fathers, already inured to suffering.
The little town of Windsor was already a thriving community, carrying
on a brisk trade with the natives in furs, when, in 1635, John
Winthrop, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, arrived from England,
bearing a commission as Governor of Connecticut under the patent of
Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and others, to whom the district had
previously been granted. Winthrop’s first care was to build a fort at
the mouth of the Connecticut, to which he gave the name of Saybrook,
in honor of his two noble patrons. The Dutch, who claimed the whole
of Connecticut――in right of prior discovery and possession, and, best
title of all, purchase from the Indians――had, three years previously,
fastened the arms of the States-General to a tree, at a spot they had
named Kievit’s Hoeck and now dispatched two vessels from the South to
maintain their rights.
Before the vessels could arrive, however, the Dutch arms had been torn
down, and a hideous, grinning face carved on the tree-trunk in their
stead, while the landing-place was defended by two cannon, which were
enough, in those primitive days, to scare away a whole party of
warriors.
This energetic beginning was followed up by other vigorous proceedings,
and so prosperous did the colonies founded by Winthrop become,
that a tide of emigration to Connecticut rapidly set in, alike from
the mother country and from her dependencies. In the latter end of
1635, thousands of pilgrims arrived from England, and in June, 1636,
the whole of the church of Newton, one of the later communities of
Massachusetts, led by its ministers, Hooker and Stone, went forth
to seek, in the fruitful lands in the South, a freer field for their
spiritual growth. The narrative of their journey reads like a chapter
of romance. Their cattle were driven before them, and Mrs. Hooker, who
was an invalid, was carried in a litter in their midst. The leaders
on horseback, the remainder on foot, threaded their way slowly through
the vast forests of Massachusetts, and, after a tramp of many weeks,
they reached the site of the present town of Hartford, so called after
the English home of Stone.
Here a final halt was made. Building and cultivating at once began,
and Hartford bid fair soon to rival Windsor in prosperity, when the
first low muttering of the storm which was to involve old and new
settlements in one common ruin was heard in the distance. The natives,
alarmed by the rapid growth of the power of the English, began that
series of aggressions which resulted in the first great Indian war;
but before we enter into its details, we must turn for a moment to the
South, and account for the presence of the Dutch as neighbors of the
New England settlers.
The close of the sixteenth century witnessed the overthrow of the
Spanish power in the Netherlands, and, relieved from the oppression
under which it had so long groaned, the Dutch republic was able, like
the rest of the world, to turn its attention to that golden prize, the
short passage to India, the supposed existence of which had instigated
so many important expeditions from other countries. Already, long
before their independence was acknowledged by the Spanish, the United
Netherlands possessed a navy second to none in Europe, and, in the
very year (1597) of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, the advanced
guard of Dutch geographers were struggling for their lives in the
dreary solitudes of Nova Zembla.
Leaving the adventures of Barentz, Heemskerk, and others, we join, as
the first Dutchman to travel in the districts now under consideration,
the celebrated Henry Hudson, who, after one or two unsuccessful
voyages to the North-east, under the auspices of the English Muscovy
Company, was invited, in 1609, to take service with the Dutch East
India Company. He consented, and was appointed by his new employers
to the command of yet another expedition to the extreme North, his
instructions, however, being this time of a sufficiently elastic
nature to admit of his altering his course if desirable.
Hudson set sail from Amsterdam on his new trip, on the 4th April, 1609,
in a modest little vessel named the _Half Moon_, with a crew of some
sixteen or eighteen Dutch and English sailors, and, having crossed the
Atlantic in safety, he steered due north for Nova Zembla. Before long,
the ice, as he had expected, effectually barred his progress, and,
after a consultation with his men, he determined to alter his course,
and seek for a south-west passage somewhere to the north of the
English colony of Virginia. A flying visit for fresh water was then
paid to the Faroe Islands, and, after touching at Newfoundland, the
_Half Moon_ sailed down the coast of North America, anchoring on the
18th July, in a large bay, probably that of Penobscot. Here a party of
Indians, already used to peaceful trading with the French, came out in
two canoes to make acquaintance with their visitors, and were met――to
the shame of the Dutch be it spoken――by a boat-load of armed sailors,
who took many of them prisoners, and afterward burned their village.
This outrage completed, the _Half Moon_ proceeded on her voyage,
passing Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and even, it is supposed,
entering Chesapeake Bay, though without holding any intercourse with
the Europeans there established.
At Chesapeake Bay, Hudson once more turned his vessel’s head northward,
and, cruising along the coast, discovered what was afterward, in honor
of the first governor of Virginia, called Delaware Bay. No south-west
passage had yet been found, but on the 3d August the watchers on deck
saw what they took to be the mouth of three rivers, and which turned
out to be the beautiful harbor now forming the entrance to the capital
of the New World.
Foiled in his attempt to enter the broadest of the three “rivers” by
the bar at its mouth, Hudson ordered the _Half Moon_ to be steered
into the deeper bay, now known as Sandy Hook, and there passed the
night in anxious expectation as to what the morning would bring
to light. That morning dawned on a scene of exquisite, and still,
in spite of its changed aspect, of world-famous beauty. The island
of Manhattan, Long Island, the Narrows, and many another familiar
physical feature of the Bay of New York, were there; but instead of
the bristling fortifications and the well-built residences of wealthy
citizens of New York of the present day, the shores of mainland and
islands were dotted with native wigwams――instead of the fiery little
gunboats and stately men-of-war now guarding the entrance to the great
metropolis, the canoes of Indians were shooting hither and thither, in
undisguised astonishment at the sudden apparition of the _Half Moon_.
A quarrel with the Indians inaugurated the first day’s work at the
mouth of the Hudson, as it had done that on the Penobscot; but the
death of one Englishman, a certain John Colman, was in this case the
only untoward result. The whole of the shores of the Bay of New York
were thoroughly explored, and the great river itself, named after its
discoverer, was then entered.
Past the low shores of Manhattan Island, and into the vast expanses
of the Tappan Zee and Haverstroo, sailed the _Half Moon_, entering
beyond them the lovely scenery of the Highlands, which rise abruptly
to a height of some 1,200 to 1,600 feet on either side of the broad
waters of the Hudson, until at last the mighty Catskill Mountains,
stretching away in silent grandeur on the right bank of the river
near its junction with the Mohawk, were sighted, and navigation became
difficult, the stream daily growing shallower and shallower.
Illustration: THE HALF MOON AT THE MOUTH OF THE HUDSON.
On the 18th August, 1609, Hudson landed near the site of a town now
bearing his name, where he was most hospitably entertained by an old
chieftain. On the 19th he passed the site of the present Albany, and
on the 22d he came to the rocky promontory close to which the modern
village of _Half Moon_ now stands, at which point he decided to
retrace his steps, the river being apparently too shallow for further
navigation.
The return trip down the Hudson was, alas! darkened by a terrible act
of oppression on the part of the white men. An Indian, one of a crowd
of visitors who had come down from the mountain to see the wonders
on board the _Half Moon_, was carrying off a few trifling articles
he had stolen, when he was detected by the mate, who at once shot
him dead. A general _mêlèe_ ensued, the natives were hotly pursued by
Hudson’s men, and, though only one other was then killed, the next day
a party of dusky warriors bore down upon the European vessel; a fierce
struggle took place, and though the Dutch were victorious, all hope
of further exploration was at an end. Differences with his superior
officers, and quarrels among his crew, added to the difficulties of
Hudson; and when, in November, 1609, he put into Dartmouth Harbor
after having made one of the greatest discoveries of the day, he found
himself in disgrace both with the English Government and his Dutch
employers, who were each jealous of the other.
To make our story complete, we may add that, after a vexatious delay
at Dartmouth, Hudson resumed service under the Muscovy Company,
and, with its sanction, sailed in the spring of 1610 on the fatal
voyage which resulted in the discovery of the great bay bearing his
name. Sailing north-westward, in an English vessel, with a crew of
twenty-three men, Hudson reached Greenland in June, and made his way
thence without delay to the wide strait giving access to the vast
inland sea now known as Hudson’s Bay.
Astonished at a discovery so little expected, and convinced that
great results might ensue from the thorough exploration of the country
around, our hero resolved to winter in these desolate latitudes, and
pursue his work in the spring of 1611. The failure of his provisions
compelled him, however, to relinquish this grand scheme, and the
belief which obtained among his men, that he intended to return home,
leaving some of them behind to perish miserably, caused a mutiny.
Hudson, his young son, and one or two sailors who remained true to him,
were overpowered, placed in a boat, and cast adrift on the waters of
the bay he had discovered at so terrible a cost; and of his further
sufferings, or of his final fate, no rumor has ever reached Europe,
though an expedition was sent in quest of him from England.
Meanwhile the Dutch, eager to precede the English in taking possession
of the fertile districts watered by the Hudson, lost not a moment
in following up the discoveries inaugurated by their Government, and
in the three years succeeding Hudson’s first voyages, one private
merchant after another sent out agents to trade with the natives and
found colonies among them. As early as 1613, Manhattan Island owned
its Dutch fort and surrounding buildings, and was chief among many
stations for the collection of peltries, or furs, and their dispatch
to European ports; while the bays of the mainland as far south as the
mouth of the Delaware, were dotted with clusters of the huts of the
Dutch fishermen.
Among the leaders of the various early Dutch enterprises in these
regions, Hendrick Christansen, Adriaen Block, and Cornelis Jacobsen
May stand out pre-eminent: the first as having founded the first
large fort――that called Nassau――on the Hudson; the second for his
exploration of Long Island Sound, and discovery of the Connecticut
river; and the third for his survey of the coast of New Jersey, still
commemorated by the name given to New Jersey’s southern headland――Cape
May.
On the 11th October, 1614, after long and tedious preliminary
negotiations, a charter, insuring to them a monopoly of the fur
trade for three years, was granted to the Dutch, and the name of New
Netherland given to the region between New France and Virginia――_i.e._,
the Atlantic seaboard between 40° and 45° N. lat. These three years,
during which no rival European power interfered, were turned to
the best account by the sturdy colonists from Holland, and their
scouts penetrated far into the interior on the west, one party, it
is supposed, having reached the upper waters of the Delaware, and
descended it in native canoes to the mouth of its tributary, the
Schuylkill, which is now known to rise in the carboniferous highlands
of Pennsylvania, and to join the Delaware five miles below the capital
of that state.
The story goes, that, on this last named expedition, three traders
were taken prisoners by the Indians, and held by them as hostages,
until their prolonged absence exciting the anxiety of their comrades,
an expedition was sent in quest of them, under the command of Cornelis
Hendricksen, who, in a little yacht named the _Restless_, explored the
whole of Delaware Bay, ascended one of the rivers flowing into it, and
brought back his fellow-countrymen in triumph.
On Hendricksen’s return to the parent settlement, he gave such glowing
accounts of the capabilities of the new “havens, lands, and places”
visited, that his employers――their original charter being then on the
eve of expiration――determined if possible to obtain another, giving
them more ample powers. Their petition was refused; but, in 1621,
a far more important enterprise than theirs was sanctioned by the
States-General of the Netherlands, who granted to the now famous West
India Company a monopoly of all the lands known by the Dutch as New
Netherland, and which included much of the territory to which the
English had given the name of New England.
The first emigrants to take advantage of the extensive privileges
of the West India Company were a little band of Walloons, members of
that much-persecuted and sturdy race, descended from the old Gallic
Belgæ, whose brave struggle against the Germans in the old mountain
fastnesses of the Ardennes had saved them from extermination. The same
constitutional impulsiveness and perseverance, activity and skill,
which kept the Walloons alive and prosperous throughout all subsequent
changes in their native land, rendered them well fitted to fight
their own battle in a new scene; and when the Dutch authorities heard
of their expulsion from their homes on account of their religious
opinions, they most wisely invited them to settle in New Netherland.
The first city founded by the Dutch under the new charter――or, to
be more strictly accurate, by the Walloons, under the West India
Company――was the modern Albany, the capital of the present State of
New York, which was at first called Fort Orange, and was the second
town of importance built within the limits of the United States,
Jamestown having been the first. The foundations were laid in 1623,
and in less than a year it had become a flourishing settlement, while
trading stations established at the same time on Manhattan Island,
the Delaware, Connecticut, and other rivers, grew with equal rapidity.
In course of time, difficulties with the Indians led to the temporary
abandonment of Fort Orange, and the building on Manhattan Island, on
a site purchased for twenty-four dollars, of Fort Amsterdam, round
which clustered the town long known as New Amsterdam, and now under
its English name of New York――it having been taken by the British in
1664――the chief city and most important seaport of America.
The climax of Dutch prosperity in America was reached about 1635, when
the settlers in New Amsterdam became involved in difficulties with the
English of Connecticut, who drove them, step by step, and little by
little, from every outpost they had gained. In 1636 began the terrible
Indian war in which the English and Dutch were alike involved, and
all the Dutch inhabitants of Staten Island were murdered by the fierce
Algonquins; and in 1637 a company of Swedes and Finns, most of them
religious refugees, arrived in Delaware Bay, where, having purchased
extensive territories from the Indians, they quietly established
themselves, calling their American home New Sweden, and their first
fort, built at the mouth of the Delaware, Fort Christiana, after the
young Swedish Queen.
In vain did the Dutch protest against what they looked upon as an
invasion of their rights. Settlement after settlement of Swedes was
established on both banks of the Delaware, and not until 1665 were the
Dutch able to gain possession of New Sweden, which, however, ten years
later, fell, with the whole of the Dutch territories of America, into
the hands of the English.
Illustration: INTERIOR OF A DUTCH HOUSEHOLD IN EARLY NEW YORK.