The seventeenth century in America was the seedtime of colonization. For
115 years after Columbus discovered America, explorers sailed the
western waters, and the nations of Europe staked out vast empires.
England launched several successful attempts to plant colonies in what
is now the United States. In the years following the landing at
Jamestown in 1607, England laid the foundation for her extensive
colonial system in North America. From these scattered colonies a nation
grew, but a long time passed before the colonies became states and the
states became a nation.
The English colonization of North America did not suffer for want of
reporters to describe it. The people who took part in the enterprise
wrote a great deal about their experiences. Governor Bradford of
Plymouth wrote a history to preserve a record of the colony’s early
days. Captain John Smith of Virginia wrote pamphlets to satisfy the
curiosity of folks back home who might want to come to the New World.
Many of these works were printed immediately; others remained in
manuscript until our day.
Not only the leaders of the colonies wrote of their deeds. Ordinary
people also sent letters home to England and kept diaries for their
personal satisfaction. All in all, the United States had her beginnings
amid ample publicity. We are grateful to these people for preserving
records of the early days, for through their efforts we can get a
first-hand idea of colonial times. We don’t have to guess about the
events that took place in America three hundred years ago. Of course, we
don’t have nearly as many documents as we could wish for, but we do have
plenty of records to draw upon.
This is the first of a series of booklets containing the story of
America, as told by those who were there, the eyewitnesses and
participants. The selections which make up this booklet are a few of the
records that historians use in writing their books. These diaries,
letters, biographies, and narratives are the raw material of history.
These accounts bring us face to face with the Indians of Virginia in
1607, make us feel something of the sufferings of the Pilgrims in
Massachusetts during their “starving time,” tell us about the deep
religious beliefs of the colonists, and the superstitions, like
witchcraft, which were hard to root out. We see life through the eyes of
a prosperous planter in Virginia and a struggling printer’s apprentice
in Philadelphia. History books can provide over-all pictures of a
country’s development, but these eyewitness accounts and first-hand
reports put flesh on the bare bones of history.
In editing this booklet, we have let the authors tell their own story in
their own words, but we have sometimes modernized the spelling and
punctuation and—when it seemed absolutely necessary—words and sentence
structure. Our aim has been to turn the language of these old documents
into English modern enough that what the writers have to say is not
obscured by the way they said it. Occasionally we have made cuts within
selections to save space, but, for the most part, the material used is
complete.
Richard B. Morris
James Woodress