joined in a few days by three vessels which had sailed in her company.
The assistants, Ludlow and Rossiter, with a party from the west
country, had landed at Nantasket a fortnight before, and some of the
Leyden people, on their way to Plymouth, had reached Salem a little
earlier yet. Seven vessels from Southampton made their voyages three
or four weeks later. Seventeen in the whole came before winter,
bringing about a thousand passengers....
It is desirable to understand how this population, destined to be the
germ of a state, was constituted. Of members of the Massachusetts
Company, it cannot be ascertained that so many as twenty had come
over. That company, as has been explained, was one formed mainly for
the furtherance, not of any private interests, but of a great public
object. As a corporation, it had obtained the ownership of a large
American territory, on which it designed to place a colony which
should be a refuge for civil and religious freedom. By combined
counsels, it had arranged the method of ordering a settlement, and the
liberality of its members had provided the means of transporting those
who should compose it. This done, the greater portion were content to
remain and await the course of events at home, while a few of their
number embarked to attend to providing the asylum which very soon
might be needed by them all.
The reception of the newcomers was discouraging. More than a quarter
part of their predecessors at Salem had died during the previous
winter, and many of the survivors were ill or feeble. The faithful
Higginson was wasting with a hectic fever, which soon proved fatal.
There was a scarcity of all sorts of provisions, and not corn enough
for a fortnight's supply after the arrival of the fleet. "The
remainder of a hundred eighty servants," who, in the two preceding
years, had been conveyed over at heavy cost, were discharged from
their indentures, to escape the expense of their maintenance. Sickness
soon began to spread, and before the close of autumn had proved fatal
to two hundred of this year's emigration. Death aims at the "shining
mark" he is said to love. Lady Arbella Johnson, coming "from a
paradise of plenty and pleasure, which she enjoyed in the family of a
noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants," survived her arrival only
a month; and her husband, esteemed and beloved by the colonists, died
of grief a few weeks after. "He was a holy man and wise and died in
sweet peace."
[1] From Palfrey's "History of New England." By permission of and
by arrangement with the authorized publishers, Houghton, Mifflin
Co. Copyright, 1873.
LORD BALTIMORE IN MARYLAND
(1633)
BY CONTEMPORARY WRITERS[1]
On Friday the 22 of November 1633, a small gale of winde comming
gently from the Northwest, weighed from the Cowes, in the Ile of
Wight, about ten in the morning; & (having stayed by the way twenty
dayes at the Barbada's, and fourtene dayes at St. Christophers, upon
some necessary occasions,) wee arrived at Point-Comfort in Virginia,
on the 24. of February following, the Lord be praised for it. At this
time one Captaine Claybourne was come from parts where wee intended to
plant, to Virginia, and from him wee vnderstood, that all the natiues
of these parts were in preparation of defence, by reason of a rumour
somebody had raised amongst them, of sixe ships that were come with a
power of Spanyards, whose meaning was to driue all the inhabitants out
of the Countrey.
On the 3. of March wee came into Chesapeake Bay, and made sayle to the
North of Patoemeck river, the Bay running betweene two sweete lands in
the channell of 7. 8. and 9 fathome deepe, 10 leagues broad, and full
of fish at the time of the yeere; It is one of the delightfullest
waters I euer saw, except Potoemeck, which wee named St. Gregories.
And now being in our own Countrey, wee began to give names to places,
and called the Southerne Pointe, Cape Saint Gregory; and the Northerly
Point, Saint Michaels.
This river, of all I know, is the greatest and sweetest, much broader
than the Thames; so pleasant, as I for my part, was never satisfied in
beholding it. Few marshes or swamps, but the greatest part sollid good
earth, with great Curiosity of woods which are not Choaked up with
under-shrubbes, but set commonly one from the other in such distance,
as a Coach and foure horses may easily trauell through them.
At the first loaming of the ship vpon the river, wee found (as was
foretold us) all the Countrey in Armes. The King of the Paschattowayes
had drawen together 1500 bowe-men, which wee ourselves saw, the woods
were fired in manner of beacons the night after; and for that our
vessel was the greatest that euer those Indians saw, the scowtes
reported wee came in a Canoe, as bigge as an Island, and had as many
men as there bee trees in the woods.
Wee sayled vp the river till wee came to Heron Ilands, so called from
the infinite swarmes of that fowle there. The first of those Ilands we
called Saint Clement's: The second Saint Katharine's; And the third,
Saint Cicilie's. We took land first in Saint Clement's, which is
compassed about with a shallow water, and admitts no accesse without
wading; here by the overturning of the Shallop, the maids which had
been washing at the land were almost drowned, beside the losse of much
linnen, and amongst the rest, I lost the best of mine which is a very
maine losse in these parts. The ground is couered thicke with
pokickeries (which is a wild Wall-nut very hard and thick of shell;
but the meate (though little) is passing sweete,) with black
Wall-nuts, and acorns bigger than Ours. It abounds with Vines and
Salletts, hearbs and flowers, full of Cedar and Sassafras. It is but
400 acres bigg, & therefore too little for vs to settle vpon.
Heere we went to a place, where a large tree was made into a Crosse;
and taking it on our shoulders, wee carried it to the place appointed
for it. The Gouernour and Commissioners putting their hands first vnto
it, then the rest of the chiefest adventurers. At the place prepared
wee all kneeled downe, & said certain Prayers; taking possession of
the Countrey for our Saviour, and for our soueraigne Lord the King of
England... The Gouernour being returned, wee Came some nine leagues
lower to a river on the North Side of that land, as bigg as the
Thames: which wee called Saint Gregorie's river.[2] It runs vp to the
North about 20 miles before it comes to the fresh. This river makes
two excellent Bayes, for 300 sayle of Shippes of 1000. tunne, to
harbour in with great safety. The one Bay we named Saint George's; the
other (and more inward) Saint Marie's. The King of Yaocomico, dwells
on the left-hand or side thereof: & we tooke vp our Seate on the
right, one mile within the land. It is as braue a piece of ground to
set down on as most is in the Countrey, & I suppose as good, (if not
much better) than the primest parcel of English ground.
Our Town we call Saint Marie's; and to auoid all iust occasion of
offence, & collour of wrong, wee bought of the King for Hatchets,
Axes, Howes, and Cloathes, a quantitie of some 30 miles of Land, which
wee call Augusta Carolina; And that which made them the more willing
to sell it, was the warres they had with the Sasqusa-han-oughs,[3] a
mighty bordering nation, who came often into their Countrey, to waste
& destroy; & forced many of them to leaue their Countrey, and passe
ouer Patoemeck to free themselues from perill before wee came. God no
doubt disposing all this for them, who were to bring his law and light
among the Infidells. Yet, seeing wee came soe well prepared with
armes, their feare was much lesse, & they could be content to dwell by
vs: Yet doe they daily relinquish their houses, lands, & Cornefields,
& leaue them to vs. Is not this a piece of wonder that a nation, which
a few dayes before was in armes with the rest against vs, should yeeld
themselues now vnto vs like lambes, & giue vs their houses, land &
linings, for a trifle? _Digitus Dei est hic_: and surely some great
good is entended by God to his Nation. Some few families of Indians,
are permitted to stay by vs till next yeere, & then the land is
free....
And now to returne to the place itself, chosen for our plantation. Wee
have been vpon it but one month, and therefore can make no large
relation of it. Yet thus much I can say of it allready; For our own
safety, we haue built a good strong Fort or Palizado, & haue mounted
vpon it one good piece of Ordnance, and 4 Murderers, and haue seuen
pieces of Ordnance more, ready to mount forthwith. For our prouision,
heere is some store of Peasen, and Beanes, and Wheate left on the
ground by the Indians, who had satisfaction for it.
Wee haue planted since wee came, as much Maize (or Indian Wheate) as
will suffice (if God prosper it) much more company than we haue. It is
vp about knee high aboue ground allready, and wee expect return of
1000. for one, as wee have reason for our hope, from the experience of
the yeelde in other parts of this Countrey, as is very credibly
related to vs.
Wee haue also English Peasen, & French-beanes, Cotten, Oringes,
Limons, Melocotunes, Apples, Peares, Potatos, and Sugar-Canes of our
owne planting, beside Hortage comming vp very finely.
But such is the quantity of Vines and Grapes now allready vpon them
(though young) as I dare say if wee had Vessells and skill, wee might
make many a tonne of Wine, euen from about our Plantation; and such
Wine, as those of Virginia say (for yet we can say nothing) as is as
good as the Wine of Spaine. I feare they exceede; but surely very
good. For the Clime of this Countrey is neere the same with Sivill and
Corduba: lying betweene 38 & 40 degrees of Northerlie latitude.
Of Hoggs wee haue allready got from Achomack (a plantation in
Virginia) to the number of 100, & more: and some 30 Cowes; and more
wee expect daily, with Goates and Hennes; our Horses and Sheepe wee
must have out of England, or some other place by the way, for wee can
haue none in Virginia.
[1] This account was compiled from letters written to friends in
England by some of the original settlers about a year after their
arrival. George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, founder of Maryland,
had sent a group of colonists to Newfoundland in 1621, but the
venture being unsuccessful he secured a new grant north of the
Potomac, to which, at the request of Charles I, he gave the name of
Maryland, in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria. Calvert, after a visit
to Virginia, returned to England and there died before his charter
was actually issued. In consequence the grant was made out to
Calvert's son, Cecil. Cecil Calvert at once organized a company of
more than two hundred men, who effected a permanent settlement at
St. Mary's, which for sixty years was the capital of the colony of
Maryland, Annapolis being afterward chosen. Baltimore was not
founded until 1729.
The account here given was published in London in 1634, and is the
first extant description of the province. It has been conjectured
that Cecil Calvert prepared it from letters written by his
brothers, Leonard and George. The account is believed to preserve
the exact language of the original writers of the letters. Printed
in "Old South Leaflets."
[2] Now called the Susquehanna.
[3] The Susquehanna Indians.
ROGER WILLIAMS IN RHODE ISLAND
(1636)
BY NATHANIEL MORTON[1]
In the year 1634 Mr. Roger Williams removed from Plymouth to Salem: he
had lived about three years at Plymouth, where he was well accepted as
an assistant in the ministry to Mr. Ralph Smith, then pastor of the
church there, but by degrees venting of divers of his own singular
opinions, and seeking to impose them upon others, he not finding such
a concurrence as he expected, he desired his dismission to the Church
of Salem, which though some were unwilling to, yet through the prudent
counsel of Mr. Brewster (the ruling elder there) fearing that his
continuance amongst them might cause division, and [thinking that]
there being then many able men in the Bay, they would better deal with
him then [than] themselves could ... the Church of Plymouth consented
to his dismission, and such as did adhere to him were also dismissed,
and removed with him, or not long after him, to Salem....
But he having in one year's time filled that place with principles of
rigid separation, and tending to Anabaptistry, the prudent Magistrates
of the Massachusetts Jurisdiction, sent to the Church of Salem,
desiring them to forbear calling him to office, which they not
hearkening to, was a cause of much disturbance; for Mr. Williams had
begun, and then being in office, he proceeded more vigorously to vent
many dangerous opinions, as amongst many others these were some; That
it is not lawful for an unregenerate man to pray, nor to take an Oath,
and in special, not the Oath of Fidelity to the Civil Government; nor
was it lawful for a godly man to have communion either in Family
Prayer, or in an Oath with such as they judged unregenerate: and
therefore he himself refused the Oath of Fidelity, and taught others
so to do; also, That it was not lawful so much as to hear the godly
Ministers of England, when any occasionally went thither; & therefore
he admonished any Church-members that had done so, as for hainous sin:
also he spake dangerous words against the Patent, which was the
foundation of the Government of the Massachusets Colony: also he
affirmed, That the Magistrates had nothing to do in matters of the
first Table [of the commandments], but only the second; and that there
should be a general and unlimited Toleration of all Religions, and for
any man to be punished for any matters of his Conscience, was
persecution....
He persisted, and grew more violent in his way, insomuch as he staying
at home in his own house, sent a Letter, which was delivered and read
in the publick Church assembly, the scope of which was to give them
notice, That if the Church of Salem would not separate not only from
the Churches of Old-England, but the Churches of New-England too, he
would separate from them: the more prudent and sober part of the
Church being amazed at his way, could not yield unto him: whereupon he
never came to the Church Assembly more, professing separation from
them as Antichristian, and not only so, but he withdrew all private
religious Communion from any that would hold Communion with the Church
there, insomuch as he would not pray nor give thanks at meals with his
own wife nor any of his family, because they went to the Church
Assemblies ... which the prudent Magistrates understanding, and seeing
things grow more and more towards a general division and disturbance,
after all other means used in vain, they passed a sentence of
Banishment against him out of the Massachusets Colony, as against a
disturber of the peace, both of the Church and Commonwealth.
After which Mr. Williams sat down in a place called Providence, out of
the Massachusets Jurisdiction, and was followed by many of the members
of the Church of Salem, who did zealously adhere to him, and who cried
out of the Persecution that was against him: some others also resorted
to him from other parts. They had not been long there together, but
from rigid separation they fell to Anabaptistry, renouncing the
Baptism which they had received in their Infancy, and taking up
another Baptism, and so began a Church in that way; but Mr. Williams
stopt not there long, for after some time he told the people that had
followed him, and joyned with him in a new Baptism, that he was out of
the way himself, and had mis-led them, for he did not finde that there
was any upon earth that could administer Baptism, and therefore their
last Baptism was a nullity, as well as their first; and therefore they
must lay down all, and wait for the coming of new Apostles: and so
they dissolved themselves, and turned Seekers, keeping that one
Principle, That every one should have liberty to Worship God according
to the Light of their own Consciences; but otherwise not owning any
Churches or Ordinances of God any where upon Earth.
[1] From Morton's "New England Memorial," published at the request
of the Commismoners of the Four United Colonies of New England.
Morton lived in the family of Governor Bradford and served as
secretary of the court at Plymouth. This fact should be kept in
mind when reading his account.
THE FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT
(1633-1636)
BY ALEXANDER JOHNSTON[1]
During the ten years after 1620, the twin colonies of Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay had been fairly shaken down into their places, and
had even begun to look around them for opportunities of extension. It
was not possible that the fertile and inviting territory to the
southwest should long escape their notice. In 1629, De Rasières, an
envoy from New Amsterdam, was at Plymouth. He found the Plymouth
people building a shallop for the purpose of obtaining a share in the
wampum trade of Narragansett Bay; and he very shrewdly sold them at a
bargain enough wampum to supply their needs, for fear they should
discover at Narragansett the more profitable peltry trade beyond. This
artifice only put off the evil day.
Within the next three years, several Plymouth men, including Winslow,
visited the Connecticut River, "not without profit." In April, 1631, a
Connecticut Indian visited Governor Winthrop at Boston, asking for
settlers, and offering to find them corn and furnish eighty beaver
skins a year. Winthrop declined even to send an exploring party. In
the midsummer of 1633, Winslow went to Boston to propose a joint
occupation of the new territory by Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay; but
the latter still refused, doubting the profit and the safety of the
venture.
Three months later Plymouth undertook the work alone. A small vessel,
under command of William Holmes, was sent around by sea to the mouth
of the Connecticut River, with the frame of a trading house and
workmen to put it up. When Holmes had sailed up the river as far as
the place where Hartford was afterward built, he found the Dutch
already in possession. For ten years they had been talking of erecting
a fort on the Varsche River; but the ominous and repeated appearance
of New Englanders in the territory had roused them to action at last.
John Van Corlear, with a few men, had been commissioned by Governor
Van Twiller, and had put up a rude earthwork, with two guns, within
the present jurisdiction of Hartford. His summons to Holmes to stop
under penalty of being fired into met with no more respect than was
shown by the commandant of Rensselaerswyck to his challengers,
according to the veracious Knickerbocker. Holmes declared that he had
been sent up the river, and was going up the river, and furthermore he
went up the river. His little vessel passed on to the present site of
Windsor. Here the crew disembarked, put up and garrisoned their
trading house, and then returned home. Plymouth had at least planted
the flag far within the coveted and disputed territory.
In December of the following year a Dutch force of seventy men from
New Amsterdam appeared before the trading house to drive out the
intruders. He must be strong who drives a Yankee away from a
profitable trade; and the attitude of the little garrison was so
determined that the Dutchmen, after a few hostile demonstrations,
decided that the nut was too hard to crack, and withdrew. For about
twenty years thereafter the Dutch held post at Hartford, isolated from
Dutch support by a continually deepening mass of New Englanders, who
refrained from hostilities, and waited until the apple was ripe enough
to drop.
With respect to the claims of the Indians, the attitudes of the two
parties to the struggle were directly opposite. The Dutch came on the
strength of purchase from the Pequots, the conquerors and lords
paramount of the local Indians. Holmes brought to the Connecticut
River in his vessel the local sachems, who had been driven away by the
Pequots, and made his purchases from them. The English policy will
account for the unfriendly disposition of the Pequots, and, when
followed up by the tremendous overthrow of the Pequots, for
Connecticut's permanent exemption from Indian difficulties. The
Connecticut settlers followed a straight road, buying lands fairly
from the Indians found in possession, ignoring those who claimed a
supremacy based on violence, and, in ease of resistance by the latter,
asserting and maintaining for Connecticut an exactly similar
title,--the right of the stronger. Those who claimed right received
it; those who preferred force were accommodated.
One route to the new territory by Long Island Sound and the
Connecticut River, had thus been appropriated. The other, the overland
route through Massachusetts, was explored during the same year, 1633,
by one John Oldham, who was murdered by the Pequots two years
afterward. He found his way westward to the Connecticut River, and
brought back most appetizing accounts of the upper Connecticut Valley;
and his reports seem to have suggested a way out of a serious
difficulty which had come to a head in Massachusetts Bay.
The colony of Massachusetts Bay was at this time limited to a district
covering not more than twenty or thirty miles from the sea, and its
greatest poverty, as Cotton stated, was a poverty of men. And yet the
colony was to lose part of its scanty store of men. Three of the eight
Massachusetts towns, Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now
Cambridge), had been at odds with the other five towns on several
occasions; and the assigned reasons are apparently so frivolous as to
lead to the suspicion that some fundamental difference was at the
bottom of them. The three towns named had been part of the great
Puritan influx of 1630. Their inhabitants were "newcomers," and this
slight division may have been increased by the arrival and settlement,
in 1633, of a number of strong men at these three towns, notably
Hooker, Stone, and Haynes at Newtown. Dorchester, Watertown, and
Newtown showed many symptoms of an increase of local feeling: the two
former led the way, in October, 1633, in establishing town governments
under "selectmen;" and all three neglected or evaded, more or less,
the fundamental feature of Massachusetts policy,--the limitation of
office-holding and the elective franchise to church-members. The three
towns fell into the position of the commonwealth's opposition, a
position not particularly desirable at the time and under all the
circumstances.
The ecclesiastical leaders of Dorchester were Warham and Maverick; of
Newtown, Hooker and Stone; of Watertown, Phillips. Haynes of Newtown,
Ludlow of Dorchester, and Pynchon of Roxbury, were the principal lay
leaders of the half-formed opposition. Some have thought that Haynes
was jealous of Governor Winthrop, Hooker of Cotton, and Ludlow of
everybody. But the opposition, if it can be fairly called an
opposition, was not so definite as to be traceable to any such
personal source. The strength which marked the divergence was due
neither to ambition nor to jealousy, but to the strength of mind and
character which marked the leaders of the minority.
Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone were of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Hooker began to preach at Chelmsford in 1626, and was silenced for
non-conformity in 1629. He then taught school, his assistant being
John Eliot, afterward the apostle to the Indians; but the chase after
him became warmer, and in 1630 he retired to Holland and resumed his
preaching. In 1632 he and Stone came to New England as pastor and
teacher of the church at Newtown; and the two took part in the
migration to Hartford. Here Hooker became the undisputed
ecclesiastical leader of Connecticut until his death in 1647. John
Warham and John Maverick, both of Exeter in England, came to New
England in 1630, as pastor and teacher of Dorchester. Maverick died
while preparing to follow his church, but Warham settled with his
parishioners at Windsor, and died there in 1670. George Phillips, also
a Cambridge man, came to New England in 1630, as pastor of the church
at Watertown. He took no part in the migration, but lived and died at
Watertown. Fate seems to have determined that Wendell Phillips should
belong to Massachusetts.