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GREAT EPOCHS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
DESCRIBED BY FAMOUS WRITERS
FROM COLUMBUS TO WILSON
Edited, with Introductions and Explanatory Notes
By FRANCIS W. HALSEY
_Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations"; Associate Editor
of "The Best of the World's Classics"; author of "The Old New York
Frontier"; Editor of "Seeing Europe With Famous Authors"_
IN TEN VOLUMES
ILLUSTRATED
VOL. II
THE PLANTING OF THE FIRST COLONIES: 1562--1733
Current Literature Publishing Company
New York
COPYRIGHT, 1912 AND 1916, by
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
[_Printed in the United States of America_]
[Transcriber's Note: This text retains original spellings. Also,
superscripted abbreviations or contractions are indicated by the
use of a caret (^), such as w^th (with).]
INTRODUCTION
(_The Planting of the First Colonies_)
After the discoverers and explorers of the sixteenth century came
(chiefly in the seventeenth) the founders of settlements that grew
into States--French Huguenots in Florida and Carolina; Spaniards in
St. Augustine; English Protestants in Virginia and Massachusetts;
Dutch and English in New York; Swedes in New Jersey and Delaware;
Catholic English in Maryland; Quaker English and Germans in
Pennsylvania; Germans and Scotch-Irish in Carolina; French Catholics
in Louisiana; Oglethorpe's debtors in Georgia.
To some of these came disastrous failures--to the Huguenots and
Spaniards in Florida, to the English in Roanoke, Cuttyhunk and
Kennebee. Others who survived had stern and precarious first
years--the English in Jamestown and Plymouth, the Dutch in New York,
the French in New Orleans. Chief among leaders stand John Smith,
Bradford, Penn, Bienville and Oglethorpe, and chief among settlements,
Jamestown, Plymouth, New York, Massachusetts Bay, Wilmington,
Philadelphia, New Orleans and Savannah. The several movements, in
their failures as in their successes, were distributed over a century
and three-quarters, but since the coming of Columbus a much longer
period had elapsed. From the discovery to the arrival of Oglethorpe
lie 240 years, or a hundred years more than the period that separates
our day from the years when America gained her independence from
England.
Each center of settlement had been inspired by an impulse separate
from that of others. Alike as some of them were, in having as a moving
cause a desire to escape from persecution, religious or political, or
otherwise to better conditions, they were divided by years, if not by
generations, in time; the settlers came from lands isolated and remote
from one another; they were different as to race, form of government,
and religious and political ideals, and, once communities had been
founded, each expanded on lines of its own and knew little of its
neighbors.
The Spaniards who founded St. Augustine continued long to live there,
but of social and political growth in Spanish Florida there was none.
Spain, in those eventful European years, was fully absorbed elsewhere
in Continental wars which taxed all her strength, especially that
furious war, waged for forty years against Holland, and from which
Spain retired ultimately in failure. In those years also was
overthrown Philip's Armada, an event in which the scepter of
maritime-empire passed from Spain to England.
Of the French settlements the chief was New Orleans, French from the
beginning, and so to remain in racial preponderance, religious
beliefs, and political ideals, for a century and a half after
Bienville founded it--so, in fact, it still remains in our day. But
elsewhere the French gave to the United States no permanent
settlements. Numbers of them came to Florida, only to perish by the
sword; others in large numbers settled in South Carolina, only to
become merged with other races, among whom the English, with their
speech and their laws, became supreme.
On Manhattan Island and in the valleys of the Hudson and lower Mohawk
settled the Dutch a few years after the English at Jamestown. They
erected forts on Manhattan Island and at Albany, Hartford and near
Philadelphia; they partitioned vast tracts of fertile lands among
favorite patroons; they built up a successful trade in furs with the
Indians--and sent the profits home. Real settlements they did not
found--at least, not settlements that were infused with the spirit of
local enterprise, or animated by vital ambitions looking to growth in
population and industry. After forty years of prosperity in trade they
had failed to become a settled and well-ordered colonial state,
looking bravely forward to permanence, expansion and eventual
statehood. The first free school in America is credited to their
initiative, and they were tolerant of other religions than their own,
but they planted no other seeds from which a great State could grow.
As Coligny before him had sought to plant in Florida a colony of
French Huguenots, so Raleigh, who had served under that great captain
in the religious wars of the Continent, sought to found in Virginia a
Protestant state. Much private wealth and many of his best years were
given by Raleigh to the furtherance of a noble ambition, but all to
futile immediate results. Raleigh's work, however, like all good work
nobly done, was not lost. Out of his failure at Roanoke came English
successes in later years--John Smith at Jamestown, the Pilgrims at
Plymouth.
Oldest of permanent English settlements in America is Jamestown, but
the English failures at Cuttyhunk and Kennebec antedate it by a few
years, and the failure at Roanoke by a quarter of a century. At
Jamestown, ten years after the arrival of the first settlers, a
legislative assembly was organized--a minature parliament, modeled
after the English House of Commons, and the first legislative body the
new world ever knew. Here, too, in Jamestown began negro slavery in
the United States, and in the same, or the next, year. Thus
legislative freedom and human slavery had their beginning in America
at the same time and in the same place.
Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, next among the English settlements,
followed in due time the failure of Gosnold at Cuttyhunk and the
description of New England John Smith wrote and printed in 1614 after
a voyage of exploration along her coast. After several years Plymouth
contained only about 300 souls, but the Bay colony, founded ten years
later, increased rapidly. By 1634 nearly 4,000 of Winthrop's followers
had arrived, many of them college graduates. From this great parent
colony went forth Roger Williams to Rhode Island, Hooker to Hartford,
Davenport to New Haven, so that by the middle of the seventeenth
century five English colonies had been planted within the borders of
New England.
Long after all these came the Maryland and Pennsylvania settlements,
founded by Lord Baltimore and William Penn as lords proprietor, owners
of vast tracts of land and possessing privileges more extensive than
ever before were bestowed on British subjects. In the new century
arrived Oglethorpe, with his insolvent debtors, soon to find Spaniards
from St. Augustine hostile to his enterprise. But Oglethorpe was a
soldier as well as a colonizer; he had served in Continental wars,
and, after laying siege to St. Augustine further aggressions from that
source ceased.
Thus at last, in the New World, the English race, their flag, their
language and their laws, had displaced the Spaniards in that
world-important contest for dominion and power, of which the second
issue was soon to be fought out on many bloody fields with France.
F.W.H.
CONTENTS
VOL. II--THE PLANTING OF THE FIRST COLONIES
INTRODUCTION. By the Editor
THE FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE MASSACRE BY MENENDEZ
(1562-1565):
I. The Account by John A. Doyle
II. Mendoza's Account
SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S VIRGINIA COLONIES (1584-1587):
I. The Account by John A. Doyle
II. The Return of the Colonists with Sir Francis Drake. By Ralph
Lane
III. The Birth of Virginia Dare. By John White
BARTHOLOMEW GOSNOLD'S DISCOVERY OF CAPE COD (1602):
I. By Gabriel Archer, One of Gosnold's Companions
II. Gosnold's Own Account
THE FOUNDING OF JAMESTOWN (1607). By Captain John Smith
THE FIRST AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (1819). By John Twine, its
Secretary
THE ORIGIN OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN AMERICA:
I. In the West Indies (1518). By Sir Arthur Helps
II. Its Beginnings in the United States (1620). By John A. Doyle
NEW ENGLAND BEFORE THE PILGRIM FATHERS LANDED (1614). By Captain John
Smith
THE FIRST VOYAGE OF THE "MAYFLOWER" (1620). By Governor William
Bradford
THE FIRST NEW YORK SETTLEMENTS (1623-1628). By Nicolas Jean de
Wassenaer
THE SWEDES AND DUTCH IN NEW JERSEY (1627). By Israel Acrelius
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY (1627-1631). By
Governor Thomas Dudley
HOW THE BAY COLONY DIFFERED FROM PLYMOUTH. By John G. Palfrey
LORD BALTIMORE IN MARYLAND (1633). By Contemporary Writers
ROGER WILLIAMS IN RHODE ISLAND (1636). By Nathaniel Morton
THE FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT (1633-1636). By Alexander Johnston
WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND (1647-1696). By John G. Palfrey
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF NEW YORK (1664). By John H. Brodhead
BACON'S REBELLION IN VIRGINIA (1676). By an Anonymous Writer
KING PHILIP'S WAR (1676). By William Hubbarrd
THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA:
I. Penn's Account of the Colony (1684)
II. Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1683). His Own Account
III. The Reality of Penn's Treaty. By George E. Ellis
THE CHARTER OAK AFFAIR IN CONNECTICUT (1682). By Alexander Johnston
THE COLONIZATION OF LOUISIANA (1699). By Charles E.T. Gayarré
OGELETHORPE IN GEORGIA (1733). By Joel Chandler Harris
THE PLANTING OF THE FIRST COLONIES
1562-1733
THE FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE MASSACRE BY MENENDEZ
(1562-1565)
I.
THE ACCOUNT BY JOHN A. DOYLE[1]
In 1562 the French Huguenot party, headed by Coligny, made another
attempt[2] to secure themselves a refuge in the New World. Two ships
set sail under the command of Jean Ribault, a brave and experienced
seaman, destined to play a memorable and tragic part in the history of
America. Ribault does not seem to have set out with any definite
scheme of colonization, but rather, like Amidas and Barlow, to have
contented himself with preliminary exploration. In April he landed on
the coast of Florida....
After he had laid the foundations of a fort, called in honor of the
king Charlefort, Ribault returned to France. He would seem to have
been unfortunate in his choice alike of colonists and of a commander.
The settlers lived on the charity of the Indians, sharing in their
festivities, wandering from village to village and wholly doing away
with any belief in their superior wisdom and power which might yet
have possest their savage neighbors....
France was torn asunder by civil war, and had no leisure to think of
an insignificant settlement beyond the Atlantic. No supplies came to
the settlers, and they could not live forever on the bounty of their
savage neighbors. The settlers decided to return home. To do this it
was needful to build a bark with their own hands from the scanty
resources which the wilderness offered. Whatever might have been the
failings of the settlers, they certainly showed no lack of energy or
of skill in concerting means for their departure. They felled the
trees to make planks, moss served for calking, and their shirts and
bedding for sails, while their Indian friends supplied cordage. When
their bark was finished they set sail. Unluckily in their impatience
to be gone, they did not reckon what supplies they would need. The
wind, at first favorable, soon turned against them, and famine stared
them in the face. Driven to the last resort of starving seamen, they
cast lots for a victim, and the lot, by a strange chance, fell upon
the very man whose punishment had been a chief count against De
Pierria. Life was supported by this hideous relief, till they came in
sight of the French coast. Even then their troubles were not over. An
English privateer bore down upon them and captured them. The miseries
of the prisoners seem, in some measure, to have touched their enemies.
A few of the weakest were landed on French soil. The rest ended their
wanderings in an English prison.
The needs of the abandonment of the colony did not reach France till
long after the event. Before its arrival a fleet was sent out to the
relief of the colony. Three ships were dispatched, the largest of a
hundred and twenty tons, the least of sixty tons, under the command of
René Laudonnière, a young Poitevin of good birth. On their outward
voyage they touched at Teneriffe and Dominica, and found ample
evidence at each place of the terror which the Spaniards had inspired
among the natives. In June the French reached the American shore south
of Port Royal. As before, their reception by the Indians was friendly.
Some further exploration failed to discover a more suitable site than
that which had first presented itself, and accordingly a wooden fort
was soon built with a timber palisade and bastions of earthen work.
Before long the newcomers found that their intercourse with the
Indians was attended with unlooked-for difficulties. There were three
tribes of importance, each under the command of a single chief, and
all more or less hostile to the other. In the South the power of the
chiefs seems to have been far more dreaded, and their influence over
the national policy more authoritative than among the tribes of New
England and Canada. Laudonnière, with questionable judgment, entangled
himself in these Indian feuds, and entered into an offensive alliance
with the first of these chiefs whom he encountered, Satouriona....
A new source of trouble, however, soon beset the unhappy colonists.
Their quarrels had left them no time for tilling the soil, and they
were wholly dependent on the Indians for food. The friendship of the
savages soon proved but a precarious means of support. The dissensions
in the French camp must have lowered the new-corners in the eyes of
their savage neighbors. They would only part with their supplies on
exorbitaut terms. Laudonnière himself throughout would have adopted
moderate and conciliatory measures, but his men at length became
impatient and seized one of the principal Indian chiefs as a hostage
for the good behavior of his countrymen. A skirmish ensued, in which
the French were victorious. It was clear, however, that the settlement
could not continue to depend on supplies extorted from the Indians at
the point of the sword. The settlers felt that they were wholly
forgotten by their friends in France, and they decided, tho with heavy
hearts, to forsake the country which they had suffered so much to
win....
Just, however, as all the preparations for departure were made, the
long-expected help came. Ribault arrived from France with a fleet of
seven vessels containing three hundred settlers and ample supplies.
This arrival was not a source of unmixed joy to Laudonnière. His
factious followers had sent home calumnious reports about him, and
Ribault brought out orders to send him home to stand his trial.
Ribault himself seems to have been easily persuaded of the falsity of
the charges, and prest Laudonnière to keep his command; but he, broken
in spirit and sick in body, declined to resume office.
All disputes soon disappeared in the face of a vast common misfortune.
Whatever internal symptoms of weakness might already display
themselves in the vast fabric of the Spanish empire, its rulers showed
as yet no lack of jealous watchfulness against any attempts to rival
her successes in America. The attempts of Cartier and Roberval[3] had
been watched, and the Spanish ambassador at Lisbon had proposed to the
King of Portugal to send out a joint armament to dispossess the
intruders. The king deemed the danger too remote to be worth an
expedition, and the Spaniards unwillingly acquiesced. An outpost of
fur traders in the ice-bound wilderness of Canada might seem to bring
little danger with it. But a settlement on the coast of Florida,
within some eight days' sail of Havana, with a harbor whence
privateers might waylay Spanish ships and even attack Spanish
colonies, was a rival not to be endured. Moreover, the colonists were
not only foreigners but Huguenots, and their heresy served at once as
a pretext and stimulus to Spanish zeal.
The man to whose lot it fell to support the monopoly of Spain against
French aggression was one who, if we may judge by his American career,
needed only a wider field to rival the genius and the atrocities of
Alva. Pedro de Menendez, when he had scarcely passed from boyhood, had
fought both against the French and the Turks, and had visited America
and returned laden with wealth. He then did good service in command of
the Spanish fleet in the French war, and his prompt cooperation with
the land force gave him a share in the glories of St. Quentin.[4] A
second voyage to America was even more profitable than the first, but
his misconduct there brought him into conflict with the Council of the
Indies, by whom he was imprisoned, and heavily fined. His previous
services, however, had gained him the favor of the court. Part of his
fine was remitted, and he was emboldened to ask not merely for pardon,
but for promotion. He proposed to revive the attempt of De Soto and to
extend the Spanish power over Florida. The expedition was to be at
Menendez's own cost; he was to take out five hundred colonists, and in
return to be made Governor of Florida for life and to enjoy certain
rights for free trade with the West Indies and with the mother
country....
The military genius of Menendez rose to the new demands made upon it.
He at once decided on a bold and comprehensive scheme which would
secure the whole coast from Port Royal to Chesapeake Bay, and would
ultimately give Spain exclusive possession of the South Seas and the
Newfoundland fisheries. The Spanish captain had a mind which could at
once conceive a wide scheme and labor at the execution of details. So
resolutely were operations carried on that by June, 1565, Menendez
sailed from Cadiz with thirty-four vessels and four thousand six
hundred men. After a stormy voyage he reached the mouth of the St.
John's river. Ribault's party was about to land, and some of the
smaller vessels had crossed the harbor, while others yet stood out to
sea. Menendez hailed the latter, and after some parley told them that
be had come there with orders from the king of Spain to kill all
intruders that might be found on the coast. The French being too few
to fight, fled. Menendez did not for the present attack the
settlement, but sailed southward till he reached a harbor which be
named St. Augustine. There the Spaniards disembarked and threw up a
fortification destined to grow into the town of St. Augustine, the
first permanent Spanish settlement north of the Gulf of Mexico.
Various attempts had been made, and with various motives. The
slave-hunter, the gold-seeker, the explorer had each tried his
fortunes in Florida, and each failed. The difficulties which had
baffled them all were at length overcome by the spirit of religious
hatred.
Meanwhile a council of war was sitting at the French settlement,
Charlefort. Ribault, contrary to the wishes of Laudonnière and the
rest, decided to anticipate the Spaniards by an attack from the sea. A
few sick men were left with Laudonnière to garrison the fort; all the
rest went on board. Just as everything was ready for the attack, a
gale sprang up, and the fleet of Ribault, instead of bearing down on
St. Augustine, was straggling in confusion off an unknown and perilous
coast. Menendez, relieved from immediate fear for his own settlement,
determined on a bold stroke. Like Ribault, he bore down the opposition
of a cautious majority, and with five hundred picked men marched
overland through thirty miles of swamp and jungle against the French
fort. Thus each commander was exposing his own settlement in order to
menace his enemies.
In judging, however, of the relative prudence of the two plans, it
must be remembered that an attack by land is far more under control,
and far less liable to be disarranged by unforeseen chances than one
by sea. At first it seemed as if each expedition was destined to the
same fate. The weather was as unfavorable to the Spanish by land as to
the French by sea. At one time a mutiny was threatened, but Menendez
succeeded in inspiring his men with something of his own enthusiasm,
and they persevered. Led by a French deserter, they approached the
unprotected settlement. So stormy was the night that the sentinels had
left the walls. The fort was stormed; Laudonnière and a few others
escaped to the shore and were picked up by one of Ribault's vessels
returning from its unsuccessful expedition. The rest, to the number of
one hundred and forty, were slain in the attack or taken prisoners.
The women and children were spared, the men were hung on trees with an
inscription pinned to their breasts: "Not as to Frenchmen, but as to
Lutherans."
The fate of Ribault's party was equally wretched. All were
shipwrecked, but most apparently succeeded in landing alive. Then
began a scene of deliberate butchery, aggravated, if the French
accounts may be believed, by the most shameless treachery. As the
scattered bands of shipwrecked men wandered through the forest,
seeking to return to Fort Caroline, they were mercilessly entrapped by
friendly words, if not by explicit promises of safety. Some escaped to
the Indians, a few were at last spared by the contemptuous mercy of
the foes. Those of the survivors who profest themselves converts were
pardoned, the rest were sent to the galleys. Ribault himself was among
the murdered. If we may believe the story current in France, his head,
sawn in four parts, was set up over the corners of the fort of St.
Augustine, while a piece of his beard was sent as a trophy to the king
of Spain....
Dominic de Gourgues had already known as a prisoner of war the horrors
of the Spanish galleys. Whether he was a Huguenot is uncertain.
Happily in France, as the history of that and all later ages proved,
the religion of the Catholic did not necessarily deaden the feelings
of the patriot. Seldom has there been a deed of more reckless daring
than that which Dominic de Gourgues now undertook. With the proceeds
of his patrimony he bought three small ships, manned by eighty sailors
and a hundred men-at-arms. He then obtained a commission as a slaver
on the coast of Guinea, and in the summer of 1567 set sail. With these
paltry resources he aimed at overthrowing a settlement which had
already destroyed a force of twenty times his number, and which might
have been strengthened in the interval....
Three days were spent in making ready, and then De Gourgues, with a
hundred and sixty of his own men and his Indian allies, marched
against the enemy. In spite of the hostility of the Indians the
Spaniards seem to have taken no precaution against a sudden attack.
Menendez himself had left the colony. The Spanish force was divided
between three forts, and no proper precautions were taken for keeping
up the communications between them. Each was successively seized, the
garrison slain or made prisoners, and as each fort fell those in the
next could only make vague guesses as to the extent of the danger.
Even when divided into three the Spanish force outnumbered that of De
Gourgues, and savages with bows and arrows would have counted for
little against men with firearms and behind walls. But after the
downfall of the first fort a panic seemed to seize the Spaniards, and
the French achieved an almost bloodless victory. After the death of
Ribault and his followers nothing could be looked for but merciless
retaliation, and De Gourgues copied the severity, though not the
perfidy, of his enemies. The very details of Menendez's act were
imitated, and the trees on which the prisoners were hung bore the
inscription: "Not as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and
murderers." Five weeks later De Gourgues anchored under the walls of
Rochelle, and that noble city, where civil and religious freedom found
a home In their darkest hour, received him with the honor he deserved.
[1] From Doyle's "English Colonies in America." By permission of
the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.
[2] Coligny's first attempt was made in 1555, when two shiploads of
Huguenot immigrants (290 persons), under Villegagnon, were sent to
Brazil. This settlement was soon destroyed by the Portuguese.
Menendez's expedition of 1565 followed the earlier Spanish
expeditions by Ponce de Leon, Narvaez and De Soto. It sailed from
Cadiz and comprized eleven ships. Twenty-three other vessels
followed, the entire company numbering 2,646 persons. The aim
of Menendez was to begin a permanent settlement in Florida. On
arrival he found a colony of French Huguenots already in
possession, having been there three years. A conflict was
inevitable, and one which forms a most melancholy chapter in the
early history of American colonization. Menendez hanged Huguenots,
"not as Frenchmen, but as heretics," while Gourgues hanged
Spaniards "not as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers and
murderers." After the conflicts closed the Spaniards maintained
themselves in St. Augustine until 1586, when St. Augustine was
completely destroyed by Sir Francis Drake. Two years later the
Armada of Spain was overthrown in the English Channel, largely as
the work of Drake.
[3] In the valley of the St. Lawrence as described in Volume I.
[4] St. Quentin is a town in northeastern France, near which on
August 10, 1557, the army of Philip II, Spain, won a great victory
over the combined armies of France and England.
II
MENDOZA'S ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE[1]
We saw two islands, called the Bahama Islands. The shoals which lie
between them are so extensive that the billows are felt far out at
sea. The general gave orders to take soundings. The ship purchased at
Porto Rico got aground that day in two and a half fathoms of water. At
first we feared she might stay there; but she soon got off and came to
us. Our galley, one of the best chips afloat, found herself all day in
the same position, when suddenly her keel struck three times violently
against the bottom. The sailors gave themselves up for lost, and the
water commenced to pour into her hold. But, as we had a mission to
fulfil for Jesus Christ and His blessed mother, two heavy waves, which
struck her abaft, set her afloat again, and soon after we found her in
deep water, and at midnight we entered the Bahama Channel.
On Saturday, the 25th, the captain-general (Menendez) came to visit
our vessel and get the ordnance for disembarkment at Florida. This
ordnance consisted of two rampart pieces, of two sorts of culverins,
of very small caliber, powder and balls; and he also took two soldiers
to take care of the pieces. Having armed his vessel, he stopt and made
us an address, in which he instructed us what we had to do on arrival
at the place where the French were anchored. I will not dwell on this
subject, on which there was a good deal said for and against, although
the opinion of the general finally prevailed. There were two thousand
(hundred) Frenchmen in the seaport into which we were to force an
entrance. I made some opposition to the plans, and begged the general
to consider that he had the care of a thousand souls, for which he
must give a good account....
On Tuesday, the 4th, we took a northerly course, keeping all the time
close to the coast. On Wednesday, the 5th, two hours before sunset, we
saw four French ships at the mouth of a river.[2] When we were two
leagues from them the first galley joined the rest of the fleet, which
was composed of four other vessels. The general concerted a plan with
the captains and pilots, and ordered the flag-ship, the _San Pelayo_,
and a _chaloupe_ to attack the French flag-ship, the _Trinity_, while
the first galley and another _chaloupe_ would attack the French
galley, both of which vessels were very large and powerful. All the
ships of our fleet put themselves in good position; the troops were in
the best of spirits, and full of confidence in the great talents of
the captain-general. They followed the galley; but, as our general is
a very clever and artful officer, he did not fire, nor seek to make
any attack on the enemy. He went straight to the French galley, and
cast anchor about eight paces from her. The other vessels went to the
windward, and very near the enemy. During the maneuvers, which lasted
until about two hours after sunset, not a word was said on either
side. Never in my life have I known such stillness. Our general
inquired of the French galley, which was the vessel nearest his,
"Whence does this fleet come?" They answered, "From France." "What are
you doing here?" said the Adelantado. "This is the territory of King
Philip II. I order you to leave directly; for I neither know who you
are nor what you want here."
The French commander then replied, "I am bringing soldiers and
supplies to the fort of the King of France." He then asked the name of
the general of our fleet, and was told, "Pedro Menendez de Aviles,
Captain-general of the King of Spain, who have come to hang all
Lutherans I find here." Our general then asked him the name of his
commander, and he replied, "Lord Gasto." While this parleying was
going on, a long-boat was sent from the galley to the flag-ship. The
person charged with this errand managed to do it so secretly that we
could not hear what was said; but we understood the reply of the
French to be, "I am the admiral," which made us think he wished to
surrender, as they were in so small a force. Scarcely had the French
made this reply, when they slipped their cables, spread their sails,
and passed through our midst. Our admiral, seeing this, followed the
French commander, and called upon him to lower his sails, in the name
of King Philip, to which he received an impertinent answer. Immediatly
our admiral gave an order to discharge a small culverin, the ball from
which struck the vessel amidship, and I thought she was going to
founder. We gave chase, and some time after he again called on them to
lower their sails. "I would sooner die first than surrender!" replied
the French commander. The order was given to fire a second shot, which
carried off five or six men; but, as these miserable devils are very
good sailors, they maneuvered so well that we could not take one of
them; and, notwithstanding all the guns we fired at them, we did not
sink one of their ships. We only got possession of one of their large
boats, which was of great service to us afterward. During the whole
night our flag-ship (the _San Pelayo_) and the galley chased the
French flag-ship (_Trinity_) and galley....
The next morning, being fully persuaded that the storm had made a
wreck of our galley, or that, at least, she had been driven a hundred
leagues out to sea, we decided that so soon as daylight came we would
weigh anchor, and withdraw in good order, to a river (Seloy) which was
below the French colony, and there disembark, and construct a fort,
which we would defend until assistance came to us.
On Thursday, just as day appeared, we sailed toward the vessel at
anchor, passed very close to her, and would certainly have captured
her, when we saw another vessel appear on the open sea, which we
thought was one of ours. At the same moment, however, we thought we
recognized the French admiral's ship. We perceived the ship on the
open sea: it was the French galley of which we had been in pursuit.
Finding ourselves between these two vessels, we decided to direct our
course toward the galley, for the sake of deceiving them and
preventing them from attacking us, so as not to give them any time to
wait. This bold maneuver having succeeded, we sought the river Seloy
and port, of which I have spoken, where we had the good fortune to
find our galley, and another vessel which had planned the same thing
we had. Two companies of infantry now disembarked: that of Captain
Andres Soyez Patino, and that of Captain Juan de San Vincente, who is
a very distinguished gentleman. They were well received by the
Indians, who gave them a large house belonging to a chief, and
situated near the shore of a river. Immediately Captain Patino and
Captain San Vincente, both men of talent and energy, ordered an
intrenchment to be built around this house, with a slope of earth and
fascines, these being the only means of defense possible in that
country, where stones are nowhere to be found. Up to to-day we have
disembarked twenty-four pieces of bronze guns of different calibers,
of which the least weighed fifteen hundred weight. Our fort is at a
distance of about fifteen leagues from that of the enemy (Fort
Carolin). The energy and talents of those two brave captains, joined
to the efforts of their brave soldiers, who had no tools with which to
work the earth, accomplished the construction of this fortress of
defence; and, when the general disembarked he was quite surprized with
what had been done.
On Saturday, the 8th, the general landed with many banners spread, to
the sound of trumpets and salutes of artillery. As I had gone ashore
the evening before, I took a cross and went to meet him, singing the
hymn _Te Deum laudamus_. The general marched up to the cross, followed
by all who accompanied him, and there they all kneeled and embraced
the cross. A large number of Indians watched these proceedings and
imitated all they saw done. The same day the general took formal
possession of the country in the name of his Majesty, and all the
captains took the oath of allegiance to him, as their general and
governor of the country....
Our general was very bold in all military matters, and a great enemy
of the French. He immediately assembled his captains and planned an
expedition to attack the French settlement and fort on the river with
five hundred men; and, in spite of the opinion of a majority of them,
and of my judgment and of another priest, he ordered his plan to be
carried out. Accordingly, on Monday, September 17, he set out with
five hundred men, well provided with fire-arms and pikes, each soldier
carrying with him a sack of bread and supply of wine for the journey.
They also took with them two Indian chiefs, who were the implacable
enemies of the French, to serve as guides....
I have previously stated that our brave captain-general set out on the
17th of September with five hundred arquebusiers and pikemen, under
the guidance of two Indian chiefs, who showed them the route to the
enemy's fort. They marched the whole distance until Tuesday evening,
the 17th of September, 1565, when they arrived within a quarter of a
league of the enemy's fort (Carolin), where they remained all night up
to their waists in water. When daylight came, Captains Lopez, Patino,
and Martin Ochoa had already been to examine the fort, but, when they
went to attack the fort, a greater part of the soldiers were so
confused they scarcely knew what they were about.
On Thursday morning our good captain-general, accompanied by his
son-in-law, Don Pedro de Valdes, and Captain Patino, went to inspect
the fort. He showed so much vivacity that he did not seem to have
suffered by any of the hardships to which he had been exposed, and,
seeing him march off so brisk, the others took courage, and without
exception followed his example. It appears the enemy did not perceive
their approach until the very moment of the attack, as it was very
early in the morning and had rained in torrents. The greater part of
the soldiers of the fort were still in bed. Some arose in their
shirts, and others, quite naked, begged for quarter; but, in spite of
that, more than one hundred and forty were killed. A great Lutheran
cosmographer and magician was found among the dead. The rest,
numbering about three hundred, scaled the walls, and either took
refuge in the forest or on their ships floating in the river, laden
with treasures, so that in an hour's time the fort was in our
possession, without our having lost a single man, or even had one
wounded. There were six vessels on the river at the time. They took
one brig, and an unfinished galley and another vessel, which had been
just discharged of a load of rich merchandise, and sunk. These vessels
were placed at the entrance to the bar to blockade the harbor, as they
expected we would come by sea. Another, laden with wine and
merchandise, was near the port. She refused to surrender, and spread
her sails, when they fired on her from the fort, and sunk her in a
spot where neither the vessel nor cargo will be lost.
The taking of this fort gained us many valuable objects, namely, two
hundred pikes, a hundred and twenty helmets, a quantity of arquebuses
and shields, a quantity of clothing, linen, fine cloths, two hundred
tons of flour, a good many barrels of biscuit, two hundred bushels of
wheat, three horses, four asses, and two she-asses, hogs, tallow,
books, furnace, flour-mill, and many other things of little value. But
the greatest advantage of this victory is certainly the triumph which
our Lord has granted us, and which will be the means of the holy
Gospel being introduced into this country, a thing necessary to
prevent the loss of many souls....
When we had reached the sea, we went about three leagues along the
coast in search of our comrades. It was about ten o'clock at night
when we met them, and there was a mutual rejoicing at having found
each other. Not far off we saw the camp fires of our enemies, and our
general ordered two of our soldiers to go and reconnoiter them,
concealing themselves in the bushes, and to observe well the ground
where they were encamped, so as to know what could be done. About two
o'clock the men returned, saying that the enemy was on the other side
of the river, and that we could not get at them. Immediately the
general ordered two soldiers and four sailors to return to where we
bad left the boats, and bring them down the river, so that we might
pass over to where the enemy was. Then he marched his troops forward
to the river, and we arrived before daylight. We concealed ourselves
in a hollow between the sandhills, with the Indians who were with us;
and, when it became light, we saw a great many of the enemy go down to
the river to get shell-fish for food. Soon after we saw a flag
hoisted, as a war-signal.
Our general, who was observing all that, enlightened by the Holy
Spirit, said to us, "I intend to change these clothes for those of a
sailor, and take a Frenchman with me (one of those whom we had brought
with us from Spain), and we will go and talk with these Frenchmen.
Perhaps they are without supplies, and would be glad to surrender
without fighting." He had scarcely finished speaking before he put his
plan into execution. As soon as he had called to them, one of them
swam toward and spoke to him; told him of their having been
shipwrecked, and the distress they were in; that they had not eaten
bread for eight or ten days; and, what is more, stated that all, or at
least the greater part of them, were Lutherans. Immediately the
general sent him back to his countrymen, to say they must surrender,
and give up their arms, or he would put them all to death. A French
gentleman, who was a sergeant, brought back the reply that they would
surrender on condition their lives should be spared. After having
parleyed a long time, our brave captain-general answered "that he
would make no promises, that they must surrender unconditionally, and
lay down their arms, because, if he spared their lives, he wanted them
to be grateful for it, and, if they were put to death, that there
should be no cause for complaint." Seeing that there was nothing else
left for them to do, the sergeant returned to the camp; and soon after
he brought all their arms and flags, and gave them up to the general,
and surrendered unconditionally. Finding they were all Lutherans, the
captain-general ordered them all to be put to death; but, as I was a
priest, and had bowels of mercy, I begged him to grant me the favor of
sparing those whom we might find to be Christians. He granted it; and
I made investigations, and found ten or twelve of the men Roman
Catholics, whom we brought back. All the others were executed, because
they were Lutherans and enemies of our Holy Catholic faith. All this
took place on Saturday (St. Michael's Day), September 29, 1565.[3]
[1] Francisco Lopez de Mendoza was the chaplain of the expedition.
His account is printed in "Old South Leaflets."
[2] These ships, commanded by Ribault,--seven in number, with 500
men besides families of artizans on board,--had arrived at the
mouth of the St. John's River on August 29, 1565. The four left
outside, as seen by Menendez, were at the time disembarking their
passengers.
[3] When the French Government learned of this massacre, the event
did not arouse any particular interest. Indeed, the colony seems
not to have had any special protection from the home authorities.
Had the contrary been the case, it would have been easily possible
for the French to have built up a flourishing colony in America
nearly half a century before the English were ever established in
the new world.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S VIRGINIA COLONIES
(1584-1587)
I
THE ACCOUNT BY JOHN A. DOYLE[1]
The task in which Gilbert[2] had failed was to be undertaken by one
better qualified to carry it out. If any Englishman in that age seemed
to be marked out as the founder of a colonial empire, it was Raleigh.
Like Gilbert, he had studied books; like Drake, he could rule men. The
pupil of Coligny, the friend of Spenser, traveler-soldier, scholar,
courtier, statesman, Raleigh with all his varied graces and powers
rises before us, the type and personification of the age in which he
lived. The associations of his youth, and the training of his early
manhood, fitted him to sympathize with the aims of his half-brother
Gilbert, and there is little reason to doubt that Raleigh had a share
in his undertaking and his failure.
In 1584 he obtained a patent precisely similar to Gilbert's. His first
step showed the thoughtful and well-planned system on which he began
his task. Two ships were sent out, not with any idea of settlement,
but to examine and report upon the country. Their commanders were
Arthur Barlow and Philip Amidas. To the former we owe the extant
record of the voyage: the name of the latter would suggest that he was
a foreigner. Whether by chance or design, they took a more southerly
course than any of their predecessors....
Coasting along for about a hundred and twenty miles the voyagers
reached an inlet and with some difficulty entered. They solemnly took
possession of the land in the Queen's name, and then delivered it over
to Raleigh according to his patent. They soon discovered that the land
upon which they had touched was an island about twenty miles long and
not above six broad, named, as they afterward learned, Roanoke.
Beyond, separating them from the mainland, lay an enclosed sea,
studded with more than a hundred fertile and well-wooded islets....
Barlow and Amidas returned to England in the middle of September. With
them they brought two of the savages, named Wanchese and Manteo. A
probable tradition tells us that the Queen herself named the country
Virginia, and that Raleigh's knighthood was the reward and
acknowledgement of his success. On the strength of this report Raleigh
at once made preparations for a settlement. A fleet of seven ships was
provided for the conveyance of a hundred and eight settlers. The fleet
was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, who was to establish
the settlement and leave it under the charge of Ralph Lane....
On the 20th of June the fleet reached the coast of Florida, and three
days later narrowly escaped being cast away off Cape Fear. In a few
days more they anchored at Wococon, an island near Roanoke. In
entering the harbor the largest ship, the _Tiger_, struck a sand-bar,
and was nearly lost, either through the clumsiness or treachery of the
pilot, Simon Fernando, a Portuguese. On the 11th of July Grenville,
with forty others, including Lane, Amidas, and the chief men of the
expedition, crossed over to the mainland. Taking northerly direction,
they explored the coast as far as Secotan, an Indian town some sixty
miles mouth of Roanoke, where they were hospitably received by the
savages. It is melancholy, after the bright picture of the intercourse
between the natives and the English drawn by Barlow, to have to record
hostilities, in which by far the greater share of blame lay with our
countrymen. On the voyage back to Roanoke a silver cup was stolen from
the English at one of the Indian villages. In revenge the English put
the inhabitants to flight, burnt the village and destroyed the crops.
On the 3d of August one ship sailed home, and on the 25th Grenville
left the colony, followed, as it would seem, during the course of the
next month by the rest of the fleet[3]....
The site of the settlement was at the northeast corner of the island
of Roanoke, whence the settlers could command the strait. There, even
now, choked by vines and underwood, and here and there broken by the
crumbling remains of an earthen bastion, may be traced the outlines of
the ditch which enclosed the camp, some forty yards square, the home
of the first English settlers in the New World....
If the failure of his colony was likely to deter Raleigh from further
efforts, this was more than outweighed by the good report of the
country given both by Lane and Heriot. Accordingly, in the very next
year, Raleigh put out another and a larger expedition under the
leadership of John White. The constitution of White's expedition would
seem to show that it was designed to be more a colony, properly
speaking, than Lane's settlement at Roanoke. A government was formed
by Raleigh, consisting of White and twelve others, incorporated as the
governor and assistants of the city of Raleigh. Of the hundred and
fifty settlers seventeen were women, of whom seven seem to have been
unmarried. The emigrants evidently did not go as mere explorers or
adventurers; they were to be the seed of a commonwealth....
On the 2d of July the fleet reached Haterask, the port at which
Grenville had landed on his last voyage. There White took fifty men
ashore to search for the fifteen whom Grenville had left there. They
found nothing but the bones of one man, slain, as they afterward
learned, by the Indians. The rest had disappeared, and it was not till
some time afterward that their countrymen learned any tidings of their
fate. Ignorant, no doubt, of the altered feelings of the natives,
Grenvile's men had lived carelessly, and kept no watch. Pemissapan's
warriors had seized the opportunity to revenge the death of their
chief, and had sent a party of thirty men against the English
settlement. Two of the chief men were sent forward to demand a parley
with two of the English. The latter fell into the trap, and sent out
two of their number. One of these was instantly seized and killed,
whereupon the other fled. The thirty Indians then rushed out and fired
the house, in which the English settlers took refuge. The English,
thus dislodged, forced their way out, losing one man in the skirmish,
and at last, after being sorely prest by the arrows of their enemies,
and by their skill in fighting behind covert, they reached the boat
and escaped to Haterask. After this neither Indians nor English ever
heard of them again....
A more hopeful omen might be drawn from the birth of a child five days
later, the first born to English parents in the New World. Her father,
Ananias Dare, was one of the twelve assistants, and her mother,
Eleanor, was the daughter of John White. Each event, the birth of
Virginia Dare, the baptism and ennobling of Manteo, was trivial in
itself, yet when brought together, the contrast gives a solemn
meaning. It seemed as if within five days the settlement of Roanoke
had seen an old world pass away, a new world born.