STAKING OUT CLAIMS
As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by
which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made
was almost as definitely determined by events in the Old World. For
countless centuries, Europe, by many routes and through many
intermediaries, had traded with the vaguely localized countries of the
Orient. Throughout the Middle Ages, not only had she been dependent on
the East for most of her luxuries, but many of these, from long usage,
had become necessities.[47] About the beginning of the fourteenth
century, this commerce, “the oldest, the most extensive, and the most
lucrative trade known to Europe,” began to be interfered with by the
internal changes in the East, mainly due to conquests by the Ottoman
Turks. Beginning about 1300, marked by the fall of Constantinople in
1453, and continuing until all the seaports of the eastern
Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, were in their possession by
1522, the process was a gradual one. At first uneasy, then alarmed,
finally facing commercial ruin by the almost complete strangulation of
her Oriental trade, Europe struggled frantically against geographical
conditions, in her efforts to find a new and unimpeded route to the
East.
Footnote 47:
_Cf._ E. P. Cheyney, _European Background of American History_ (New
York, 1904), pp. 3-41.
During the latter part of the same period, geographical science had been
making many strides; while the theory of the earth's sphericity had been
held, by some at least, since the days of Plato. After nearly two
thousand years, motives developed which led men to turn that idea into
action by use of the new discoveries, and in one generation Columbus
sailed west to America, and Da Gama east to India, and Magellan
circumnavigated the globe. The thought advanced by philosophy, denied by
common sense, and fought by the Church, finally wrought the greatest
change yet known in the world's history through the commonplace
necessities of trade.
Voyaging toward the northwest, in the hope of finding the treasures of
the East, had possibly been undertaken annually from 1491, by certain
citizens of Bristol, England, when the Italian, John Cabot, domiciled in
their city, applied to King Henry VII for letters patent “for the
discovery of new and unknown lands.” The Cabots themselves left no
account of their voyages, and the story must be made up from a few
contemporary documents, some hearsay evidence, and a large amount of
inference. Apparently, John Cabot sailed, some time in 1497, under the
patent granted to himself and his sons, and by the end of August was
back in England, after a voyage of several months. The location of the
landfall, made June 24, is wholly uncertain.[48] A second voyage was
made the following year, and a considerable part of the northeast coast
appears to have been explored, although it is impossible to place the
limits of the discovery. Whether he was accompanied on either or both of
the voyages by his son Sebastian is uncertain, but it is probable that
he was.[49] As for the rest, one is tempted to echo Dawson's remark,
that “as for John Cabot, Sebastian says he died, which is one of the few
undisputed facts in the discussion.”[50] To us, the importance of the
voyage lies in the fact that upon it England based her claims, in later
times, to a portion of the New World, though she made no effort to
colonize for another eighty years, and the immediate effect of the
discovery was not great—The times were not yet ripe. Exploration and
land-grabbing were games for kings, and not for private endeavor, as the
merchants of Bristol had doubtless found; and Henry, as the Milanese
ambassador observed, was “not lavish.”
Footnote 48:
Prowse favors Newfoundland; d'Avezac, Deane, Réclus, Winsor, Brevoort,
Eggleston, Winship, Biggar, and Dawson believe in Cape Breton; Biddle,
Humboldt, Kohl, Stevens, Kretschmer, and Harrisse point to Labrador.
The question is not important, and the alignment is given merely to
show the uncertainties of this and other early voyages. The original
sources are most accessible to the general reader in C. R. Beazley,
_John and Sebastian Cabot_; London, 1898.
Footnote 49:
In regard to the 1497 voyage, opinion ranges from R. Biddle, _Memoir
of Sebastian Cabot_ (Philadelphia, 1831), p. 50, who doubts if the
father went, to H. Harrisse, _John Cabot_ (London, 1896), p. 48, who
doubts if the son did!
Footnote 50:
S. E. Dawson, “Voyages of the Cabots.” _Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada_, Series II, 1894, p. 53.
Owing to the great demand for fish in a Catholic Europe, however, the
shores of Newfoundland soon became the accustomed resort of English,
French, and Portuguese.[51] The coast between Canada and Florida,
nevertheless, remained practically unexplored, and the maps of the
period either break the continent into islands, or connect the two known
portions by a fanciful delineation, considered by some students to
represent the eastern coast of Asia.[52] Where nothing is certain, all
is possible, and it was thought that the passage to the East, so vainly
sought elsewhere, might yet be found in this unknown part of the world.
In 1524, Verrazano, under the flag of France, and, a year later, Gomez,
under that of Spain, undertook again the task of finding a westward
route to Zipangu and Cathay. The Frenchman, apparently, coasted
northward from Carolina to Newfoundland, and the Spaniard seems to have
covered part of the same range, though the limits are not known, nor
even the direction in which he sailed.[53]
Footnote 51:
_Cf._ H. Harrisse, _The Discovery of North America_ (London, 1892),
pp. 180 _ff._; and C. de la Roncière, _Histoire de la Marine
Française_ (Paris, 1906), vol. II, p. 399.
Footnote 52:
_Cf._ H. Stevens, _Historical and Geographical Notes_; New Haven,
1869.
Footnote 53:
For the Verrazano voyage, _vide_ B. Smith, _An Enquiry into the
Authenticity_, etc.; New York, 1864; J. C. Brevoort, _Verrazano the
Navigator_; New York, 1874; H. C. Murphy, _The Voyage of Verrazano_;
New York, 1875; B. F. deCosta, _Verrazano the Explorer_; New York,
1881. The Gomez voyage is important but very obscure. The statement by
Fiske (_The Discovery of America_, vol. II, p. 491) is far too
positive. Harrisse (_Discovery_, pp. 229-43) gives new documents.
The three main contestants for empire in North America had now appeared.
Spain, France, and England had all planted their flags upon our shores,
although their future struggles were as yet hardly foreshadowed. The
fishing grounds, on the high seas and far from the routes of Spain's
gold-laden galleons, were open to all, though the English seem early to
have established some sort of authority over the rough fishermen of the
nations gathered there.[54] The continent itself, however, was merely an
unwelcome barrier, save the Spanish possessions in the south, with
which, as yet, no other nation had thought of meddling. Nevertheless, a
new era had opened, and commerce, which, from the dawn of history, had
clung to the Mediterranean, now abandoned that enclosed sea for the open
highways of the world's oceans. The Oriental trade began to flow through
new channels, and Spain, by the conquest of Mexico, in 1522, tapped
unlimited sources of the precious metals. The enormous import business
from the East, formerly concentrated in the hands of the great
mercantile cities of Italy, passed to the Iberian powers,[55] while
men's horizons were widened by the new discoveries, and old established
methods, routes, and connections had received severe shocks. The example
of Spain and Portugal was making other nations dream of gaining fabulous
wealth by finding their way to the riches of the Orient, or gold in the
wilds of America.
Footnote 54:
“The Englishmen, who commonly are lords of the harbors where they
fish, and do use all strangers helpe in fishing if need require,
accordinge to an old custome of the countrey.” Letter of Anthony
Parkhurst, 1578, in Hakluyt, _Voyages_ (Glasgow, 1904), vol. VIII, p.
10. H. P. Biggar states that the English were so heavily interested in
the American fisheries by 1522, that the Vice-Admiral sent several
men-of-war to the mouth of the Channel to protect the returning
vessels. _Early Trading Companies of New France_ (Toronto, 1901), p.
20.
Footnote 55:
_Cf._ W. Heyd, _Geschichte des Levantehandels in Mittelälter_
(Stuttgart, 1879), vol. II, pp. 514-40.
For the next four centuries, the civilization of Europe, which
throughout the mediæval period had been hemmed within a narrow region by
strong barbaric powers, was able to expand against almost negligible
resistance, until, after having encircled the world, it is again faced
in our own day by a “closed political system.”[56] At the very moment
when new forces were being let loose by the social ferment following the
Renaissance and the Reformation, the new lands offered vents through
which those forces might in part escape, without causing such explosions
as wholly to wreck the social system. Their presence, or, to phrase it
differently, the existence of a practically unlimited frontier, during
the whole of our colonial period, was one of the great formative
elements in our institutions, and in the relations between the colonies
and England.
Footnote 56:
H. J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” in _The
Geographical Journal_, April, 1904, pp. 421-44.
We are so accustomed to think of that country as the great trading
nation and mistress of the seas, that it is hard to conceive of a time
when she had not even faintly dreamed that her destiny was to be upon
the water, when her trade was still mainly in the hands of foreigners,
and she herself was merely a producer of raw materials for the
manufacturers on the continent. Such, however, was the situation at the
opening of the sixteenth century. Men, indeed, began to talk of the new
discoveries, which were even introduced into the rude theatre of the
time; but, in the main, they stuck to their last, and fished and grew
wool like their fathers. As yet, there was not the vaguest thought of a
colonial empire—only dreams of gold and spices, and the silent fishermen
catching cod.
The accession of Elizabeth opened the door to imperial ambition. Spain
was, indeed, at the height of her power, whereas England's day was yet
to come. Elizabeth's resources needed careful husbanding, and no open
breach between the two countries could be allowed; but political
interests were still European in the minds of statesmen, and peace,
though many times in jeopardy, was not to be broken lightly for what
English seamen might do “beyond the line.” America was a means to
European ends for Spain, and, until the depredations of the English
became so great as to threaten those ends, murder, robbery, and the
looting of cities passed with no action beyond protests, which Elizabeth
met and parried.
We must pass by the doings of Hawkins, Drake, and the other sea-dogs,
the whole pack of whom were soon in full cry after the hated Spaniards
in their slow-moving galleons, laden with the treasure upon which their
European power was nourished. This latter fact was now recognized, and
wild and, perhaps, unlawful as were these English seamen, we must
remember that, unlike common pirates, their depredations were not alone
for private ends, but were blows struck for their religion, their
country, and their queen. Had it not been for them, the Armada might
indeed have been invincible, and the civilization of North America have
been Latin instead of Anglo-Saxon.[57]
Footnote 57:
If “these thinges be sett downe and executed duelye and with speed and
effecte, no doubte but the Spanishe empire falles to the grounde, and
the Spanishe kinge shall be lefte bare as Aesops proude crowe ... if
you touche him in the Indies, you touche the apple of his eye; for
take away his treasure, which is neruus belli, and which he hath
almoste oute of his West Indies, his olde bandes of souldiers will
soone be dissolved, his purposes defeated, his power and strengthe
diminished, his pride abated, and his tyranie utterly suppressed.” R.
Hakluyt, “A Discourse concerning Western Planting”; _Maine Historical
Society Collections_, vol. II, p. 59.
One of the outstanding characteristics of the later Tudor period was the
remarkable development of individual initiative. Men were no longer
content “ever like sheepe to haunte one trade,” but in every field of
human endeavor were striking across new paths. It was, moreover, an age
of glorious amateurs. As in the best days of Greece, the bars that bound
the individual within narrow limits of professionalism were broken
asunder. It was as if to the nation's mature powers had suddenly been
added the gift of youth. It was a cry of youth which Thorne uttered when
he swept away all objections to the dangers of the Northwest Passage
with his “there is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable.” Elizabeth's
well-known methods, which perhaps temperament, necessity, and policy all
had their share in fashioning, were admirably adapted to bring out, and
to use to the utmost, these qualities in her subjects. Personal loyalty
and individual initiative were largely fostered in place of taxation and
governmental enterprise, and the patriotism of a united nation rose to
new levels. “He is not worthy to live at all,” wrote Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, in 1576, “that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his
countries service, and his owne honour.”[58]
Footnote 58:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VII, p. 190.
This growing national feeling was strengthened by religious motives. The
persecutions under Mary, and the tortures of the Inquisition, to which
English sailors were so often subjected in the ports of Spain, both
played their part in the drama now being enacted. Five thousand English
volunteered for service against the Spaniard in the Netherlands, and the
Queen's hand was being forced by the national feeling that she herself
had aroused. The conquest of Portugal by Spain, in 1580, nominally
transferred to the latter all the colonial possessions of the entire
world she did not already possess, leaving no room open for other
nations, according to Spanish pretensions. The English government at
last spoke, however, and in the same year, in answer to Spain's demand
for the return of Drake's plunder, announced that Spain “by the law of
nations could not hinder other princes from freely navigating those seas
and transporting colonies to those parts where the Spaniards do not
inhabit; that prescription without possession availed nothing.”[59] The
rights of other nations were definitely settled by the defeat of the
Armada eight years later.
Footnote 59:
Cited by Alexander Brown, _Genesis of the United States_ (Boston,
1890), pp. 9 _f._ The original source is not indicated.
Business was beginning to improve somewhat after its long decline. The
Muscovy Company had been chartered in 1555, and trade was seeking those
new outlets which Sebastian Cabot had been recalled from Spain to find;
but England felt the effects of the vast injection of American bullion
into the currency system of Europe later than the continental countries.
After the recoinage of the debased money in 1559, however, the advance
in prices, which had already begun, was very rapid, with effects upon
the country gentry and other classes, which were to have a marked
influence upon American colonization.
In the meantime, while Drake was hastening home from the Pacific in the
Pelican, loaded to the gunwales with the spoils of Spanish
treasure-ships, another voyage, the first, except those of fishermen,
since the ill-fated escapade of a London lawyer in 1536, was being made
to the shores of Newfoundland. The motive was the old continuing one of
a passage to the Orient by the northwest, although little is known of
its details. The Queen, however, granted to its leader, Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, a patent to colonize and rule such lands as he might choose
from his new discoveries. This patent, which was issued in 1578, and
marked a new epoch in England's American policy, followed in many
respects the charters of the trading companies granted by the Crown both
previously and subsequently.[60] It had, however, a wholly novel feature
in the clause which permitted Gilbert to transport a colony to his new
possessions. It is probable that this first attempt to plant an English
community beyond the seas was largely based upon the experience being
gained at this very time in the efforts to colonize Ireland. Sir
Humphrey himself, with other west-country gentlemen, had undertaken to
plant colonies on the Crown lands in Ulster, eleven years before, and
various plans and essays had been made, though unsuccessfully.[61] These
colonizing schemes in Ireland were being considered and carried out
during the whole period of the early efforts to plant colonies in
America, and many individuals and city companies were interested in
Irish and American lands at the same time. Both were almost equally wild
and uncivilized, and both were rich and undeveloped.[62] The Irish
Plantation Society, formed in 1613, was a serious rival to the Virginia
Company, and diverted both funds and colonists at a critical time for
the American scheme.[63]
Footnote 60:
It is given in Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, pp. 17-23.
Footnote 61:
W. Cunningham, _The Growth of English Industry and Commerce_
(Cambridge, 1892), vol. II, pp. 31-33.
Footnote 62:
M. J. Bonn, _Die Englische Kolonisation in Irland_ (Stuttgart, 1906),
vol. I, pp. 265-373.
Footnote 63:
Brown, _Genesis_, p. 860.
The beginnings of the continental American colonies, indeed, are too apt
to be considered as isolated events. Their unique importance from the
standpoint of American history has tended to obscure their real nature.
From that standpoint, they are naturally viewed as the founding of a
great nation; but if they are considered solely in that relation, not
only the planting of the colonies themselves, but the subsequent history
of their relations with the mother-country, and the whole course of
England's old colonial policy, are bound to be misunderstood. The
American colonies, in their inception, were largely business ventures of
groups of individuals or joint-stock companies, and, as such, were but
episodes in the expansion of English commerce.
The patents and charters issued to companies for trade and discovery,
prior to that of Gilbert, contained the germs of most of the provisions
which subsequently found their way into the charters of American
colonies, and the ideas of colonial administration. Monopoly of trade
for a definite time was naturally granted, as recompense for the great
expense and risk involved in opening new channels. The trades, moreover,
were also justly regulated for the benefit of England rather than of the
few individuals who were shareholders in the enterprises. Hence, we find
stipulations such as that in the Cabot charter of 1496, requiring all
business done under it to pass through the port of Bristol only; or that
in the charter of 1566, to the Fellowship of English Merchants,
requiring that all goods must be carried solely in English ships, manned
for the most part with English sailors.[64] These and other restrictions
were the germs of a domestic economic policy which, although reasonable
enough in its inception, was to be pregnant with such fatal results when
pursued consistently, and without taking into consideration the altered
conditions brought about by the unexpectedly tremendous growth and
political needs of those particular colonies planted by certain trading
companies or individuals in America.
Footnote 64:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vols. VII, p. 144, and III, p. 89.
Under the system of international intercourse prevailing in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was found necessary to provide
some sort of government and authority for the groups of English
merchants, and their clerks, residing in foreign countries. The problem
was met, in 1404, by Henry IV, who granted a charter to those resident
in the Teutonic countries of northern Europe, permitting them to meet
together to elect their own governors, and to make their own laws, the
king ratifying and requiring obedience to such legislation in
advance.[65] In 1462, Edward IV, in a charter to those resident in the
Netherlands, appointed the governor, but allowed the merchants to elect
twelve “Justiciers,” who were to sit with him as a court. The merchants
were also to make their own laws, which, however, had to be approved by
the royal governor. When it was no longer a question of trading in a
civilized country, but of discovering new ones, unoccupied, or occupied
only by heathen, the discoverer was naturally allowed to take possession
in the name of the king, and was enfeoffed with the new land, the
condition of tenure usually being a fifth of the precious metals found.
Footnote 65:
_Ibid._, vol. II, p. 108; _cf._ also the earlier charter of Richard II
(1391), cited by C. T. Carr, _Select Charters of Trading Companies_
(Selden Society, London, 1913), pp. xi _ff._
In these commercial charters, we thus find the germs of the
commonwealth, royal, and proprietary colonies of the seventeenth
century. There was no break at the beginning of American history. Nor
was there any conscious intention upon England's part of founding an
empire. The English colonies were by-products of British commercial
activity, and English “colonial policy” was but a mere phase of her
commercial policy. It is only by that light that the development of
events can be rightly understood.
The lands conveyed to Gilbert were suitable for Englishmen to dwell in,
and to be made valuable would require to be populated. This, however,
raised a new question. Heretofore, men had lived as merchants in foreign
but civilized countries, or fished or traded in others. If, now, they
were to settle permanently in this barbarous land, would they cease to
be Englishmen without becoming anything else? Elizabeth cut the knot by
decreeing that such new countries should owe personal allegiance to
herself, and, in that way, be united to her “Realmes of England and
Ireland”; and, further, that any one born in the new lands, or
emigrating thither from the old, should have all the privileges of a
free-born native of the Realm.[66] These questions, now first arising,
as to whether the settlers in new lands were within or without the
Realm, and, if without, then whether they could be held as subject to
the government that functioned for the Realm, were to become more and
more insistent of answer in the days to come. But when Elizabeth granted
her patent to Gilbert, little could any one have realized the size of
England's future empire in America, or that that empire would be lost by
civil war, in part because the answers to those questions could not be
found. The main factor that gave rise to this distinction between the
Realm and the Dominions, and that was to be primarily responsible for
the failure satisfactorily to adjust the relations between them, was the
physical distance, in terms of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries, by which they were separated.
Footnote 66:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, p. 20. Professor H. L. Osgood states
that “by the realm was usually meant England, Wales, and Berwick on
Tweed.” _The American Colonies in the 17th Century_ (New York, 1907),
vol. III, p. 6. In Gilbert's charter, the words “realmes of England
and Ireland” are used. Scotland, of course, was a separate realm.
Gilbert's efforts to colonize, however, like those of his half-brother,
Raleigh, resulted only in failure. The time was ill chosen, as there was
still work enough for enterprising spirits, and the employment of
capital, in other directions. Under the stimulus of the defeat of the
Armada, English seamen scoured the sea in search of Spanish prey, and it
has been estimated that eight hundred Spanish vessels were lost in four
years.[67] If in the light of such opportunities, colonizing seemed but
a poor investment, voyaging and discovery, nevertheless, proceeded at a
rapid rate. But New England, in spite of its being so near the field of
English activities in the fisheries, was neglected, although its coast
may occasionally have been visited by enterprising souls like Richard
Strong, who sailed to “Arambec,” in 1593, in search of “sea-Oxen.”[68]
Footnote 67:
Brown, _Genesis_, p. 20.
Footnote 68:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, p. 157.
The land itself seems not to have been thought worth investigating until
Bartholomew Gosnold made a clandestine voyage thither, to his own
profit, and to Raleigh's annoyance, in 1602. Formerly, this little
trading trip of Gosnold's, undertaken for the Earl of Southampton, Lord
Cobham, and others, was thought to have been a serious attempt at
colonization with the consent of Raleigh, the sphere of operations lying
within the limits of his patent. The voyage thus secured more attention
from historians than it deserved. Apparently some sort of permanent
trading-post was, indeed, intended, as of the thirty-two persons who
went to America, twenty were expected to “remayne there for
population.”[69] None did, however; and after having visited
Massachusetts Bay, christened Cape Cod, and spent some time on the
island of Cuttyhunk, where they built a fort, and loaded their ship with
sassafras, the whole company returned to England, after an absence of
four months. Raleigh, ignorant of the episode, but finding the
“sassephrase” market taking a sudden drop, investigated, and the fact of
the voyage came to light. Although he confiscated the cargo, he became
reconciled with both Gosnold and his own nephew, Bartholomew Gilbert,
who also had had a hand in the business, and both were subsequently
employed in Virginia.[70]
Footnote 69:
S. Purchas, _Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes_ (ed.
Glasgow, 1905), vol. XVIII, p. 302.
Footnote 70:
The clandestine nature of the voyage is proved by B. F. deCosta,
“Gosnold and Pring,” in _N. E. Historical and Genealogical Register_,
1878, vol. XXXII, pp. 76-80.
In the following year, Raleigh's consent was obtained by Hakluyt and
some merchants of Bristol, to the sending out of another expedition,
under Martin Pring, with some of Gosnold's men aboard, for the purposes
of trade.[71] The little company, in their two vessels, coasted along
the shores of Maine, explored Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Harbor,
overlooked by Gosnold, and having loaded their ships with the
much-desired sassafras, went back to England, to confirm Gosnold's good
opinion of the country. This was to receive still further confirmation
from Weymouth two years later.
Footnote 71:
Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XVIII, pp. 322-28.
During these two years Elizabeth had died, and Raleigh had been
convicted of treason. Such rights as he may have possessed to the land
of North Virginia were ignored, therefore, when the Earl of Southampton,
Thomas Arundell, and others dispatched Weymouth to find a suitable place
for colonizing in the parts visited by Gosnold and Pring. This was the
real intent of the expedition, although it was given out that it was for
the discovery of the Northwest Passage.[72] There is some evidence that
the proposed colony was to be for Roman Catholics. At least, Sir George
Peckham and Sir Thomas Gerrard, who claimed to be assignees of the
Gilbert patent, had secured the privilege for Romanists of becoming
colonists, and the Earl of Southampton and his leading associates in the
present venture were of that faith.[73] Weymouth spent about a month on
the coast, exploring the shores about the St. George's Islands and the
river of the same name.[74]
Footnote 72:
“We found the land a place answerable to the intent of our discovery,
viz. fit for any nation to inhabit.” “Rosier's Relation,” in Burrage,
_Early English and French Voyages_ (New York, 1906), p. 371. Sir F.
Gorges, “A Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings, etc.,
1658,” in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VI, p. 50.
Footnote 73:
_Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies,
1574-1660_, p. 695 (hereafter cited as _Cal. State Pap., Col._); J. P.
Baxter, _Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine_ (Prince
Society, Boston, 1890), vol. I, p. 65.
Footnote 74:
The river was formerly thought to be the Kennebec. Cf. Burrage, _Early
Voyages_. In Burrage's edition of _Rosier's Relation_ (Gorges Society,
Portland, 1887), there is an exhaustive survey of the literature.
The English, however, had not been the only explorers upon the New
England coast, nor to them only had it begun to appeal as a possible
place for colonizing. For the French, as well as the English, the
sixteenth century in America had been a period of exploration, of
staking out of vague claims, and of unsuccessful efforts to establish
permanent settlements. The first decade of the seventeenth was to
witness the success of both nations in the latter undertaking, the
English at Jamestown in 1607, and the French at Quebec but one year
later, so close was the race between them. In the territory of New
England, however, both nations were to try, and fail, within the same
period; and citizens of both countries had already, from time to time,
received grants of undefined extension in that general part of the
world, when finally a charter with definite bounds was assigned by the
French King to the Sieur de Monts, in 1603. This grant embraced all the
territory between the 40th and 46th degrees of latitude, or from
Philadelphia to Montreal.
The issuance of this patent was immediately followed by an attempt at
settlement, de Monts and Champlain, both of whom had previously been in
Canada, sailing with a hundred and twenty men in the spring following
the receipt of the grant. Buildings were erected, and the first winter
passed on the island of St. Croix, in the mouth of the river of the same
name, which empties into Passamaquoddy Bay.[75] It was thus the first
authorized attempt to colonize any part of New England. The choice of a
site had been unfortunate, and in the following spring, the colony
removed to Nova Scotia, where it lasted two years more before the
cancellation of the grant resulted in its abandonment. A lively and
entertaining account of life in the colony was written by a genial
lawyer, who was one of its members, and the attention with which
American affairs were then being watched is indicated by the appearance
of an English translation in the same year in which the original came
out in Paris.[76] During the three years of his stay, Champlain was
indefatigable in exploring the coast, making three principal voyages
along the shores of New England, which he described and mapped as far
south as the present settlement of Chatham, in Massachusetts.
Footnote 75:
H. S. Burrage, _Beginnings of Colonial Maine_ (Portland, 1914), p. 32.
Footnote 76:
Marc Lescarbot, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_; Paris, 1609.
The coast of Maine and the shores of Massachusetts Bay were carefully
studied for sites for settlement, and the former was for long to form a
debatable land between French and English. These years also saw the
foundation laid of the friendship between French and Indian, which was
to cost the English dear. De Monts's patent contemplated trade with the
natives, rather than an agricultural colony; and the French empire in
America, as has already been noted, consisted mainly of a series of
trading-posts. It was to the interest of the French that the Indian
should remain, as he himself wished, a hunter; whereas the growth of the
English agricultural colonies denied him the possibility of continuing
his savage life, without, on the other hand, absorbing him into
civilization. It was not merely that the French, in the main, were
tactful and friendly, accepting the Indian as he was, and even
intermarrying, while the English were harsh and disdainful. It may be
said that one Indian required to sustain his life approximately as many
square miles as the English agriculturist, with his domestic animals,
needed acres. On the other hand, the uses to which the French put the
soil were identical with those for which it served the savage. The
English, indeed, “bought” land, which the French never did; but the
French and the Indian shared the soil to the profit of both, while the
English deprived the native of his means of subsistence, in exchange for
coats and beads.[77] Not that they did so intentionally; but the
consequence was inevitable. Nor was it the Indian alone who was to fall
before the farmer and founder of towns. The French _coureurs des bois_,
and traders in the scattered posts, were likewise to fall and, in part,
for the same reason.
Nevertheless, at the time of the first authorized English attempt to
colonize New England, the French were, if anything, ahead in the race.
Champlain's knowledge of the coast and its possibilities was quite as
accurate, probably, as that of Gosnold or Pring or Weymouth, though
English writers usually give many pages to the latter trio while
dismissing Champlain in a line or two. A definite grant of the territory
had been made, and the first colony of their hereditary enemy was
seemingly successfully started within the limits of the English patent,
when King James affixed his signature to that document. A struggling
little settlement in Virginia, however, was to prove the undoing of the
French in the north, and win the New England coast for the English,
though not without further effort on the part of its future settlers.
But, whatever the local successes of French or English, it must not be
forgotten that the colonies of both nations were mere pawns in the game
of European policy, and that the allegiance of the colonist was to be
determined in the last analysis, not by their own comparative strength
on faraway shores, but by the strength which the two nations could put
forth in their navies on the sea.
Footnote 77:
Ellis, _The Red Man_, p. 242; J. Winsor, “The Rival Claimants for
North America,” _American Antiquarian Society Proceedings_, 1894, pp.
415-17.
[Illustration:
Manuscript Map of the New England Coast, 1607-8, believed to have been
drawn by Champlain
Original in [Library] of Congress.
]