born in England one who was to spread it abroad in the New World. This
was William Penn. His father, Sir William Penn, was an Admiral in the
royal navy and was anxious to see his son master of an estate and a
title. All these plans were upset by the son who at twenty-four joined
the Quakers. His father summoned him to London to argue with him, but
the youth stood firm. He appeared covered before his father. The old
Admiral tried to effect a compromise and get him to take off his hat to
his father, the king, and the Duke of York, but he refused. He would
not yield one point of the Quaker customs, dress, language, or faith.
As he would not yield, his father in the end did so, and paid his fines.
The Quakers were so beset at home that Penn and others wished to
establish for them a refuge in the New World. Penn became one of the
owners of the colony of West New Jersey to which many Quakers went. But
he was not satisfied with his partnership here and desired a province
and colony of his own. This was not difficult to acquire. King Charles
II., who owed Admiral Penn’s estate sixteen thousand pounds, had little
gold or silver in his treasury and claimed much land in the New World.
He willingly settled his debt by granting William Penn the land west
of the Delaware; for this Penn was to pay yearly two beaver skins, and
one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the colony. Penn wished
to call this land of woods Sylvania, and the king added to the name
that of his old friend, the Admiral, calling it Pennsylvania.
The grant was made in 1680; two years later, in order to have an outlet
to the sea, Penn secured a grant of the land which afterwards formed
the state of Delaware. The very year that this second grant was made,
many Quakers sailed to make their home in the new land. In the fall
and winter of 1682, twenty-three ships came, bringing settlers to the
Quaker colony. The next year Penn could say, “I have led the greatest
colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit,
and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be
found among us.” In three years there were more than seven thousand
settlers,--English, French, Dutch, Swedes, men of different races and
various creeds.
Penn made it from the first a “free colony for all mankind,” assuring
the people “You shall be governed by laws of your own making. I
shall not usurp the right of any or oppress his person.” He put the
government in the hands of a governor and of a council and general
assembly chosen by freemen. Laws were passed forbidding drunkenness,
dueling, stage plays, and card playing. Death, which was then in
England the penalty for theft and many other offences, in Pennsylvania
was inflicted only as punishment for wilful murder, according to the
law of God, as the Quakers understood it.
Penn founded his colony on principles of peace and fairness to the
Indians. Under a great elm-tree at Shakamaxon, afterwards Kensington,
he made with the natives, a treaty of peace and friendship “never
sworn to and never broken;” the red man was granted equal rights with
the white, and they were to be friends “while the creeks and rivers
run and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” The Indians with whom
the Pennsylvania colonists were brought in contact were the mild
and peace-loving Delawares. Fortunately for the Quakers, the fierce
Susquehannocks, beaten by the Five Nations, had six years before gone
southward.
Penn laid out the site of a town at the confluence of the Delaware and
Schuylkill Rivers. He named it Philadelphia, the city of brotherly
love. It was laid out with broad fair streets for he wished it to be a
“fair and green country town.”
Two years later, Penn sailed back to England to decide a dispute about
the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was fifteen
years before he revisited his colony. He endeavored to see it governed
well, but from a distance this was difficult. There were men hard to
control. “For the love of God, me, and the poor country, be not so
governmentish, so uneasy, and open in your dissatisfaction,” he wrote.
When Penn returned in 1699 it was with the plan of spending his
remaining days in his colony. But two years later he learned that there
was a plan afoot to turn his province into a crown territory and he
sailed back to England to protect his rights. One matter after another
came up to detain him and he remained in England till his death in
July, 1718.
James Edward Oglethorpe
The Founder of Georgia
The colony of Georgia was the last founded of the thirteen original
colonies. It was established by Oglethorpe, a man of noble birth who
was animated by principles of philanthropy and patriotism.
James Edward Oglethorpe was born in London, about 1688. When a youth
he entered the army and fought bravely against the Turks for several
years. After his return home his attention was attracted and his
sympathy aroused by the condition of prisoners in England, especially
of poor debtors. In those days debt was regarded and punished as a
crime; debtors were confined in prisons with murderers and thieves.
It is thought that Oglethorpe’s attention was specially drawn to the
matter by the sad case of one of his friends. This man, being unable
to pay his debts, was imprisoned and loaded with chains; unable to pay
even the fees required by the jailer, he was confined in a miserable
prison where smallpox was raging, caught the disease, and died.
[Illustration: JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE]
Oglethorpe investigated the conditions of prison life in England
and found them bad and brutal beyond description. Most of the prisons
were filthy dens in which men, women, and children were herded
together, the child who had stolen a loaf of bread side by side with a
brutal murderer. Oglethorpe brought the subject before parliament and
succeeded in having a committee appointed to investigate the matter and
take steps to limit the corruption and cruelty of the officials.
Besides attempting to relieve their condition at home, Oglethorpe
began to plan an asylum abroad for the poor debtors and for persecuted
sects. He wished to establish a place where those who were unfortunate
and discouraged could begin life anew. It seemed to Oglethorpe that
England would derive many benefits from such a colony as he planned.
The country would be relieved of the burden of supporting unfortunate
men who there would become self-supporting. New industries might be
developed,--especially the culture of silk worms in which he was
much interested. He wished to plant this settlement in the southern
regions claimed by England, making it a military colony to prevent the
encroachments of Spain and to protect the other English colonies.
In June, 1732, Oglethorpe and twenty associates obtained a grant of
the land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers and extending
westward to the Pacific Ocean, according to the usual terms of the
grants of the times. The English claimed this land by virtue of the
expeditions of Sir Walter Raleigh and they were desirous to occupy it
before it was seized by the Spanish in Florida or the French on the
Mississippi. In honor of the reigning King George II., the territory
was named Georgia.
Oglethorpe agreed with Bacon that “it is a shameful and unblessed thing
to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people
whom you plant,” and he tried to select men who were unfortunate rather
than wicked. Every opportunity was to be given the people to reform
and to build up homes and fortunes. Oglethorpe went as governor of the
colony, hoping by his personal aid and supervision to encourage and
direct the people.
For military reasons, Oglethorpe urged that negro slavery be prohibited
and that rum should not be brought into the colony. Among the men who
aided in establishing and directing the colony were John and Charles
Wesley, and George Whitefield, the famous Methodist clergymen.
In the winter of 1733, the colonists reached the New World and selected
for their settlement a place on the Savannah River, a few miles from
the sea. The Indians were conciliated with gifts and kindly treatment
and assurances that their rights should be regarded. One of the desires
of the philanthropic Oglethorpe was to civilize and christianize the
natives. In six months there were one hundred and fifty persons in the
settlement. They were a turbulent people unaccustomed to labor and with
habits of improvidence and idleness. Oglethorpe was kind but firm;
he allowed no idlers and provided tasks for even the children. Their
neighbors in South Carolina were friendly and helpful, and the colony
prospered. In the summer of 1734 Oglethorpe visited England, taking
with him as guests several Indian chiefs. Early in February, 1736, he
returned to Savannah.
Clear-sighted man of affairs that he was, he realized that a contest
with Spain must come sooner or later. He endeavored to put the country
in a position of defense. When war was declared between England and
Spain in 1739, Oglethorpe had already secured the alliance of the
Indian tribes. The Spaniards attacked an English settlement, and in
return Oglethorpe captured a Spanish outpost. With his Indian allies,
he marched against St. Augustine, but it was too strongly defended to
be taken by the forces at his command. Two years later the Spaniards
attacked Georgia; by a fortunate union of good chance and good
generalship, they were defeated. “The pauper colony,” as it had been
called, not only defended itself but saved its neighbor, South Carolina.
After this war was over, Oglethorpe returned to England and never
again revisited his colony. About ten years later, the trustees of the
colony resigned their patent and Georgia became a royal province.
Oglethorpe made his home in London where he was the friend of Walpole,
Goldsmith, Johnson, and other famous men. He died at a ripe old
age, having lived to see the colony which he had founded win its
independence in the War of the Revolution. When John Adams came to
England as minister from the United States, Oglethorpe called “to pay
his respects to the first American ambassador and his family, whom he
was glad to see in England; he expressed a great esteem and regard for
America and much regret at the misunderstandings between the countries
and felt very happy to have lived to see a termination of it.”
Philip
An Indian King
The Pilgrims were not the first white men who had visited
Massachusetts. Explorers and trading parties had landed on the coast.
At one time a fishing party had come to trade for furs and skins, and
had carried off five Indians, one of whom was Squanto. Later, another
vessel carried off twenty-seven Indians. The red men early learned to
distrust and fear the pale faces.
The settlers of Plymouth endeavored to win the friendship of the
Indians. They presented knives, copper chains, and other trinkets
to Massasoit who was sachem, or chief, of the Indian tribes of the
neighborhood, and made a treaty of friendship with him. As long as
Massasoit lived, the Indians and the English lived in comparative peace.
But year after year the natives and the colonists became less friendly
to each other. The white men came in constantly-increasing numbers and
occupied the best of the land. When the Indians had sold it for beads
or knives or trinkets, they thought that the English wished it for a
season’s hunting and fishing. But the English established farms and
villages and towns and took permanent possession. Game and fish grew
less plentiful and as the English prospered the Indians grew poorer.
The Indians resented being treated as an inferior race by the white
people. The Pilgrims resented the savages’ lack of regard for property
rights, their gathering fruit and grain and shooting cows like deer.
The two races were too different to thrive and prosper side by side.
Some of the natives adopted the faith of the white men. These “praying
Indians,” as they were called, identified themselves to a great extent
with the white people and were regarded as traitors to their own race.
However, there was no open outbreak till after the death of Massasoit.
The old sachem left two sons whom the English called Alexander and
Philip. Alexander, the elder, succeeded his father as sachem. The
English suspected that Alexander was plotting with a hostile tribe
against them, and they seized him and carried him as a prisoner to
Plymouth. Nothing could be proved against him and he was soon released,
but on the way home he died--probably of fever. The Indians, however,
thought that he had been poisoned by the white men.
Philip succeeded his brother in authority. He was a renowned warrior,
as wise and prudent as he was brave. We are told that instead of
treating his wife as a slave, according to Indian custom, he made her
his friend and companion. Next to his wife and child, Philip loved the
people of his tribe. He saw with grief that his people were constantly
growing weaker and the English were constantly increasing in numbers
and in strength. He protested against the wrongs of the Englishmen but
these wrongs were unredressed. Still, we are told, that he did not
favor war; he realized that his people were unable to withstand the
English and war would only hasten their ruin.
Against the wishes and commands of Philip, war began, brought on by the
excesses of bad men on both sides. In June, 1675, some young Indians
burned a village and were attacked by the settlers. The aroused savages
went from one bloody deed to another, burning houses and villages,
murdering men, women, and children. About the time that the war began,
Philip crossed Narragansett Bay and went to a tribe in the Connecticut
valley. For nearly a year he was not seen by the English, and we do not
know to what extent he countenanced and directed the war that was being
waged.
The town of Deerfield was burned and Hadley and Hatfield were attacked.
While the settlers at Hadley were in confusion, it is said that a
venerable old man suddenly appeared and led them forward to repel the
foe. When victory was gained, he disappeared as mysteriously as he
had come. It was asserted that this was Goffe, one of the men who had
sentenced Charles I. to death. When Charles II. became king, Goffe fled
to the New World and lived in seclusion in Connecticut. In “The Gray
Champion” Hawthorne tells this story with some changes.
The Narragansett Indians went on the war-path against the white men.
Their headquarters were on an island in a swamp which was thought to
be inaccessible. Here, in five hundred wigwams, were sheltered the
women and children of the tribe and were stored their supplies of corn.
By the treachery of one of Philip’s warriors, the path to the island
was betrayed to the white men. In the depth of winter the colonists
made their way through the swamp to the island, killed men, women, and
children without mercy, and burned the fort and the whole settlement.
King Philip’s wife and son had been taken prisoners and sent to the
Bermudas where they were sold as slaves. Still the Indians refused
to submit. One of the warriors who advised surrender was killed by
King Philip’s own hand. At last in August, 1676, he was surrounded at
his old home, Mount Hope, not far from Providence, Rhode Island, and
was shot. His body was cut to pieces and fastened on trees, and his
head was exposed on the top of a pole in Plymouth. The Puritans held
a thanksgiving to celebrate their victory in King Philip’s War. The
inevitable conflict between the white men and the red had come and the
whites were the victors. But nearly one-tenth of the fighting force
had been killed, and there was hardly a village or even a home in New
England which had not suffered loss.
Nathaniel Bacon
The Leader of the Great Rebellion
It was not only with outsiders--French, Dutch, Spaniards, and
Indians--that the English settlers had trouble. One faction in the
colonies warred against another. In Virginia the established order was
almost overthrown in the seventeenth century by the “Great Rebellion.”
For many years the governor of the colony was Sir William Berkeley,
an aristocrat who would not allow the people to have any share in the
government of the colony. He feared that if the House of Burgesses was
dismissed and new members elected he would lose control of it. So he
adjourned it from one session to another, and year after year called
together men whom he could trust to obey his will. A very stubborn and
overbearing will it was, opposed to all progress and firmly set against
granting rights to common people. He approved of high taxes and did not
wish the common people to vote; above all, he opposed public education
and the liberty of the press. “I thank God there are no free schools
nor printing presses,” he said in 1671, “and I hope we shall not have
them these hundred years.”
There were now about forty thousand people in Virginia, many of whom
had been born and reared there. For the most part, they disapproved
of Berkeley’s high-handed course and of his disregard of the rights
and privileges of the colonists. But he was the lawful governor and
they were loyal, law-abiding people; probably they would have gone on
submitting and grumbling had it not been for the Indian attacks and
Governor Berkeley’s failure to protect the outlying settlements. Fierce
Indian tribes from Pennsylvania had come south; they were now on the
borders of the Virginia colony--murdering, burning, and pillaging,
making life and property unsafe. In the spring of 1676 the House of
Burgesses voted to send five hundred men to protect the frontiers, but
instead of ordering them to march Berkeley disbanded the little army.
There was at this time in Jamestown an Englishman as brave and resolute
as Berkeley himself and as devoted to the rights of the people as
Berkeley was to those of the king. This was Nathaniel Bacon. He had
been in Virginia only a few months, but he was so popular and so
talented that soon after his arrival he was chosen a member of the
governor’s council.
A few weeks after the governor disbanded the army which should have
marched to protect the frontier settlements, Bacon received news that
the Indians had attacked his plantation on the James and had killed the
overseer and a servant. Immediately he collected a little band of his
friends and neighbors and servants, and marched against the Indians.
He sent to ask Berkeley for a commission; this was refused and Bacon
marched on without it. He defeated the Indians and returned home in
triumph.
Governor Berkeley was angry because Bacon had assumed authority without
a commission and would have liked to punish him as a traitor. But the
sympathies of the people were with the young Englishman; the governor
had to give up and in the end had to promise Bacon a commission to
fight against the Indians. He delayed drawing up the paper, however,
until Bacon at the head of several hundred planters marched to
Jamestown and required it by force.
At the head of these troops, Bacon marched from Jamestown into the
Indian country. The governor, meanwhile, declared Bacon a traitor,
raised forces, and prepared to fight. Bacon and his men pledged
themselves to stand together in defence of the rights of the people.
This was in August, 1676, a hundred years before the American
Revolution, which, like the Great Rebellion, was undertaken to uphold
the people’s rights.
When Bacon returned from war with the Indians he found war awaiting him
at home. The people of the colony were divided in their interests and
sympathies. Some sided with Bacon for people’s rights, some sided with
Berkeley because that was the cause of the king and lawful authority.
There was a stubborn fight in which Bacon was victor and became master
of Jamestown. Fearing that they could not hold it and unwilling for it
to fall into Berkeley’s hands, the rebels burned the town, the capitol
of Virginia, the first seat of English power on this continent. It is
said that Bacon and other gentlemen who had houses there fired them
with their own hands.
Bacon showed no disposition to take power into his own hands, only
wishing to put down the tyranny of Berkeley. After a brief course of
victory, he died of fever, October, 1676. His followers buried him in
the forest and the place of his grave remains unknown to this day.
A few months later, troops from England came as reinforcements to
Berkeley. He made himself again master of the colony and took swift and
bloody revenge oil his enemies. More than twenty persons were hanged
for their share in the rebellion.
“As I live,” said Charles II., angrily, when the news reached him, “the
old fool has put to death more people in that naked country than I did
for the murder of my father.”
Benjamin Franklin
A Great Typical American
The men about whom we have been reading were all natives of
Europe--Englishmen, Italians, Frenchmen, Dutchmen,--adventurers seeking
wealth or power, settlers intent on gaining national or personal power,
religious or civil liberty. It is not until the eighteenth century
that we come across our first, our great typical American. This is
Benjamin Franklin, keen and quick of wit, shrewd and energetic, a man
of business and a scholar, a politician and a scientist.
Benjamin Franklin was the son of an English tradesman of plain
respectable family, who came to New England in order to enjoy the free
exercise of his religion. He made his home in Boston. There Benjamin
was born in 1706 and there his childhood was passed. Many incidents
of it are familiar to us all. You remember how when he was a child
of seven he gave all his pennies for a whistle. But the money was
not wasted, for the incident taught him to consider the real value
of things and not to spend too much time, thought, or, money for
trifles,--in other words, “Don’t give too much for the whistle.”
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]
When a little older he led his companions in taking some
building-stones to construct a wharf to stand on while fishing; he
tried to justify his conduct to his father, saying that his wharf was
a public benefit but his father taught him a great truth: “My son,
nothing can ever be truly useful, which is not at the same time truly
honest.”
Benjamin learned to read almost as soon as he learned to talk, and
he was so fond of books that his father wished to have him educated
for the ministry. This plan had to be given up for lack of money. Mr.
Franklin was a poor man with seventeen children, and when Benjamin
was only ten years old he had to leave school and help his father in
the shop. Mr. Franklin made and sold soap and candles, and it was
Benjamin’s duty to cut candle-wicks and to pour tallow into molds to
make candles. He did not like this work, and when he was twelve years
old he was apprenticed to his brother James to learn the trade of a
printer. He was so fond of books that it was thought he would like
this work. He had read with interest his father’s few books, among
which were Bunyan’s wonderful “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Plutarch’s
Lives.” With his brother James, Benjamin had access to more books and
more opportunity for reading, but the two brothers did not get on
well together. Partly this was James’s fault, for he was harsh and
overbearing; partly it was Benjamin’s, for he tells us that he was pert
and provoking.
Although Benjamin Franklin’s school days had ended so early, his
education was just beginning; he appreciated the value of learning and
was spending his leisure in study. When he was an old man he wrote
for his son the story of his life. In this autobiography he tells
how he trained himself. He read carefully one of the papers of the
“Spectator,” a model of good English, and afterwards wrote it down
in his own words. Sometimes he changed it into verse and then later
turned it back into prose. By comparing his version with the original,
he discovered and corrected his faults. This is of interest because
Franklin became one of our best writers of good English. His command of
clear, simple, strong English won attention for what he had to say.