PIONEER LIFE.
“E’en the best must own,
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth.”
YOUNG, _Night Thoughts_.
Happily, God blessed the Pilgrims with an early and mild spring.[168]
By the middle of March the birds began to sing; the streams shook off
their icy cerements; the rills ran laughing to the sea; Nature put on
her gala drapery; the myriad wild-flowers opened their drowsy eyes;
the time had come for the ever-marvellous resurrection of the year.
The forests seemed instinct with life. On every hill-side nature
hymned her praise.
The settlers shared in the buoyant and joyous feeling. They had met
and mastered the New England winter. Their houses were built. Their
family arrangements were completed; and now “the fair, warm days” of
spring, the idyl of the year, were a harbinger of hope.
Careful and provident, the Pilgrims improved this delightful
weather in planting. “On the 19th and 20th of March,” says the old
chronicler, “we digged our grounds and sowed our garden-seed.”[169]
This done, individual members of the community began to stray into
the bordering forest, incited thereto partly by natural curiosity
to familiarize themselves with the salient local features of their
wilderness homes, and partly by the pursuit of game. Sometimes
the tyro hunters were startled by strange sights and noises; for
to them the dim, still woods were a mystery. “John Goodman was
much frightened this day”—so runs the entry in the Journal on one
occasion—“he went abroad for a little walk with his spaniel. Suddenly
two great wolves ran after the dog, which ran to him and betwixt his
legs for succor. He, having nothing with him, threw a stick at one of
them, and hit him, and they presently both ran away; but they came
again. He got a plain board in his hand, and they sat both on their
tails grinning at him a good time. At last they went their way and
left him. He could not move fast, as he had lame feet.”[170]
On another occasion a storm is recorded: “At one o’clock it
thundered. The birds sang most pleasantly before this. The thunder
was strong, and in great claps, followed by rain very sadly till
midnight.”[171]
Thus far they had seen no Indians since landing at Plymouth. Traces
of them abounded. Pale wreaths of smoke, which curled above the
forest-trees, gave certain token that they lurked in the vicinity.
The settlers knew that they must ere long meet the aborigines, and
they awaited the event with mingled hope and apprehension.
On the 16th of March, one of the warmest, pleasantest days of the
early spring, a number of the Pilgrims—Bradford, Winslow, Hopkins,
and Carver, among the rest—were gathered on the skirts of the
settlement, chatting over their plans and projects for the coming
days, when suddenly a guttural shout was heard, and the words
“_Welcome, Englishmen!_” spoken in broken Saxon, fell on their
ears.[172]
The astonished settlers started to their feet, and glancing in the
direction whence the words had seemed to come, discerned on the edge
of the forest a single dusky figure, waving a hand and advancing
boldly towards them. In deep silence the Pilgrims awaited his
approach. On reaching the group, the Indian greeted them warmly,
repeating his welcome. Reassured by his friendly gestures and hearty
repetition of the familiar English phrase in which only kindness
lurked, the settlers cordially returned his greeting; and knowing
that the way to the heart lies through the stomach, they at once gave
their dusky guest “strong water, biscuit, butter, cheese, and some
pudding, with a piece of mallard.”[173]
The heart of the savage was gained; the taciturnity characteristic
of his race gave way, and he told his entertainers many things which
they had long desired to know.
They ascertained that he was a chief of a tribe of Indians whose
hunting-grounds were distant five days’ journey; that the country
in their vicinity was called Pawtuxet; that some years previous a
pestilence had swept off the tribes that inhabited the district, so
that none remained to claim the soil.
When asked how he came to speak English, he replied that he had
picked up what little he knew from the fishermen who frequented the
coast of Maine. In response to inquiries concerning the interior
of the country and the tribes inhabiting the inland plateaus, he
imparted valuable information.[174]
The Pilgrims gleaned these facts from his recital: A sagamore named
Massasoit was their nearest powerful neighbor. He was disposed to
be friendly; but another tribe, called the Nausets, were greatly
incensed against the English, and with sufficient cause. It seems
that a captain by the name of Hunt, who had been left in charge of a
vessel by Captain Smith in 1614, had lured twenty or thirty of their
brother red men on board his ship on pretence of trading; then, when
they accepted his invitation, he set sail for Spain, where he sold
his victims into slavery.[175]
The whole Nauset tribe panted to avenge the atrocious treachery
of “this wretched man, who cared not what mischief he did for his
profit;” and it was with them that the Pilgrims had had their
skirmish when exploring the coast in the December sleet.[176]
The Indian from whose broken English these things were learned was
Samoset. He was the first of the aborigines who held friendly and
intelligent intercourse with the forefathers. His frank, hearty
“welcome” was the only one the Pilgrims received; and his faithful,
life-long attachment to the English interests, which “made him often
go, in danger of his life, among his countrymen,” won the grateful
recognition of the exiles, and deserves the plaudits of posterity.
Samoset was the first Indian whom many of the Pilgrims had ever
seen. He was therefore scanned with no little curiosity. He is
thus described in the Journal of the Pilgrims: “He was a man free
in speech; a tall, straight man; the hair of his head black, long
behind, short before, and no beard. He was stark naked, save only
a strip of leather about his waist, with a fringe a span long or a
little more. He had a bow and two arrows, the one headed, the other
not.”[177]
The settlers treated Samoset with great hospitality, as duty and
sound policy alike demanded. Nevertheless, when night came they
desired him to leave. This he seemed loath to do. They proposed that
he should lodge on board the “Mayflower.” He assented; but the tide
was so low and the wind was so fresh, that the shallop could not gain
the vessel’s side. Nothing remained but to entertain their guest on
shore. He was conducted to the house of Stephen Hopkins,[178] and
was stealthily watched, “as we feared evil,” comments the narrator;
“which, however, did not come.”[179]
On the following morning, Samoset quitted Plymouth, carrying with him
a variety of presents, a knife, a bracelet, a ring; and he promised
to return soon and bring with him some of Massasoit’s Indians, to
open a trade in furs with the colonists.[180] He also said that he
would do his utmost towards securing an interview between the English
and the Indian sagamore, as preliminary to a lasting treaty and a
prosperous peace.[181]
Samoset, true to his promise, did indeed return within three days,
bringing with him five companions. All were cordially welcomed;
but as it was Sunday, no business was transacted, the guests being
dismissed as early as possible. Samoset remained at Plymouth; his
friends affirmed their purpose to come again on the morrow. The
morrow came but the Indians did not. Samoset was sent in quest of
them. The next day he returned again, this time with four other
warriors, each provided with a few skins and dried herrings, which
they were anxious to barter.
One of these Indians was named Squanto. His history was somewhat
romantic. He belonged to the company kidnapped by Hunt and sold in
Spain. There he, with the others, had been liberated through the
exertions of the monks of Malaga, and he had made his way to England.
He dwelt in Cornhill, London, with an English merchant, for some
time; and thence he had finally made his way back to his forest home,
to be, as the event proved, a valuable friend, interpreter, and ally
to the whites.[182]
Samoset and his friends were but the advance guard of a larger host.
An hour later, Massasoit himself appeared on a neighboring slope,
accompanied by his brother, Quadequina, and a cloud of warriors. At
the outset both Englishman and Indian were shy of each other; but at
last, after much passing to and fro, they came to parley. Massasoit
and Standish saluted each other; after which the soldier conducted
the sachem to an unfinished house in the vicinage, where he laid for
his guest a green rug and four cushions.[183]
Presently the Pilgrim governor advanced, in as great state as he
could command, with beat of drum and blare of trumpet, and a squad
of armed men as a body-guard. Salutations, which consisted of mutual
kisses, being over, the governor and the sagamore seated themselves.
Meat was then served, and the new friends drank to each other’s
health and happiness.[184]
Negotiations ensued; and “a treaty of friendship was soon completed
in few and unequivocal terms. The respective parties promised to
abstain from mutual injuries, and to deliver up offenders; the
colonists were to receive assistance if attacked; to render it,
if Massasoit should be assailed unjustly. The treaty included the
confederates of the sachem: it is the oldest act of diplomacy
recorded in New England; it was concluded in a day, and, being
founded on reciprocal interests, was sacredly kept for more than
half a century. Massasoit desired the alliance, for the powerful
Narragansetts were his enemies; his tribe, moreover, having become
habituated to some English luxuries, were willing to establish a
traffic; while the emigrants obtained peace, security, and the
opportunity of a lucrative commerce.”[185]
Massasoit is thus described by the Pilgrim journalist: “In his person
he is a very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grave of
countenance, and spare of speech; in his attire little or nothing
differing from the rest of his followers, save only in a great chain
of white beads about his neck; behind his neck, attached to the
chain, hangs a pouch of tobacco, which he smoked, and gave us to
smoke. His face was painted with a seal red, and he was oiled both
head and face that he looked greasily.”[186]
The sagamore’s favorite haunts were along the northern shores of
Narragansett Bay, between Taunton and Providence, one of his
principal seats being Mount Hope,[187] that
——“throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pomp and gold.”
In the latter part of March, 1621, an event occurred which evinced
alike the promptitude and the decision of the self-governed Puritan
colony. It has been said that “God sifted three kingdoms to get
the Pilgrim wheat” of the New England enterprise; yet despite this
care the chaff was not all gotten rid of. It seems that one John
Billington, a “lewd fellow of the baser sort,” had come from London
and smuggled himself on board the “Mayflower,” for the purpose of
stealing a voyage to the new world. He had no sympathy with the
religious feelings of the Pilgrims, nor did he share their love of
order and civil liberty.[188] He had frequently given offence, and
now he was convicted of “contempt of the captain’s lawful command,
and of making opprobrious speeches.”[189] His sentence was peculiar:
“he was to have his neck and heels tied together.”[190] He begged so
hard that he was forgiven on this occasion; but he continued to be a
profane, ungovernable, vicious knave, and finally came to a bad end.
At about this same time another offence was committed against the
civil peace of the colony. Two servants of Stephen Hopkins met and
fought a duel with sword and dagger. Both combatants were wounded;
but they were immediately seized, convicted, and sentenced “to have
their head and feet tied together, and so to lie for twenty-four
hours without meat or drink.”[191]
The hostile lackeys were bound, in exact accordance with the verdict;
but “after lying an hour they begged piteously for mercy; whereon
the governor, on the entreaty of their master, released them, they
promising to keep the peace in future.”[192]
These sentences convinced the refractory that the colonial government
was something more than the shadow of a name; and it held them in awe
of provoking its severity.
Through all these months disease was busy among the Pilgrims. But
though pain racked many a weakened form, no one spoke of returning to
England. As winter faded into spring the mortality became dreadful.
Every house was a hospital.
“There was no hearthstone, howsoe’er defended,
But had one vacant chair.”
“Death,” says Elliot, “had reaped a ripe, fat harvest, and of the
one hundred scarce fifty remained. Six had died in December; eight
in January; seventeen in February; thirteen in March.”[193] Yet the
Pilgrims kissed the rod; and though “the searching sharpness of that
pure climate had crept into the crevices of their crazed bodies,
causing death,”[194] they said “the Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The dead were buried in a bank, at a little distance from Plymouth
rock; and lest the Indians should learn the weakened condition of
the colony, the graves were levelled, and sown with grass.[195] Over
these the unflinching survivors locked hands, and wiping their eyes,
looked up, firm, devout, hopeful as ever.
In April, 1621, Governor Carver died. “Whilst they were busy about
their seed, he came out of the field very sick, it being a hot day.
He complained greatly of his head, and lay down; within a few hours
his senses failed, and he never spoke more. His death was much
lamented, and caused great heaviness, as there was cause.”[196]
Shortly after, William Bradford, the historian of the colony, was
elected governor, “and being not yet recovered from a severe illness,
in which he had been near the point of death, Isaac Allerton was
chosen to be an assistant unto him.”[197]
On the very day of Carver’s death, the 5th of April, the “Mayflower”
sailed for England.[198] Not a soul returned in her of that devoted
band. It has been well said that the departure of the “Mayflower”
surpasses in dignity, though not in desperation, the burning of
his ships by Cortez. Through the struggles of the winter she had
always been in sight, a place of refuge and relief in any desperate
emergency. While the good ship lay moored in Plymouth harbor, they
had a hold upon the outer world. But now, as grouped upon the shore
they stood and watched her, as she slowly spread her sails and crept
out of the bay and from their sight, they felt inexpressibly dreary
and bereaved: when the sun set in the western forest, the “Mayflower”
had disappeared in the distant blue.[199]
“Can ye scan the woe
That wrings their bosoms, as this last frail link
Binding to man and habitable earth
Is severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there,
What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,
What yearning o’er their forfeit land of birth;
Their distant dear ones?”[200]
But they did not long despair. “The sky was not inky, nor their
future desperate,” says Elliot; “the sun still shone gloriously; the
moon still bathed the earth with light; and the stars kept their
ceaseless vigils. Spring here, as of old, followed winter, the
murmuring of streams was heard, and the song of the turtle; birds
builded their nests, the tender grass sprang up under their feet, and
the trees budded and burst forth in wondrous beauty. God was over
all—God, their God, their Friend—their protector here as in the older
world; nay, more their helper now than ever before,”[201] for they
were the orphans of humanity.