A Brief History of the United States Part 5

END OF THE CLAIBORNE TROUBLE.--The nine years that followed formed a stormy period for Maryland. One of the parliamentary commissioners to reduce Virginia to obedience (1652, p. 49) was our old friend Claiborne.

He and the new governor of Virginia forced Baltimore's governor to resign, and set up a Protestant government which repealed the Toleration Act and disfranchised Roman Catholics. Baltimore bade his deposed governor resume office. A battle followed, the Protestant forces won, and an attempt was made to destroy the rights of Baltimore; but the English government sustained him, the Virginians were forced to submit, and the quarrel of more than twenty years' standing came to an end. Thenceforth Virginia troubled Maryland no more.

GROWTH OF MARYLAND.--The population of the colony, meantime, grew rapidly.

Pamphlets describing the colony and telling how to emigrate and acquire land were circulated in England. Many of the first comers wrote home and brought out more men, and were thus enabled to take up more land.

Emigrants who came with ten or twenty settlers were given manors or plantations. Such as came alone received farms.

Most of the work on plantations was done by indented white servants, both convicts and redemptioners. [14] Negro slavery existed in Maryland from the beginning, but slaves were not numerous till after 1700.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAND LOOM. [15]]

Food was abundant, for the rivers and bay abounded with geese and ducks, oysters and crabs, and the woods were full of deer, turkeys, and wild pigeons. Wheat was not plentiful, but corn was abundant, and from it were made pone, hominy, and hoe-cakes.

NO TOWNS.--As everybody could get land and therefore lived on manors, plantations, or farms, there were practically no towns in Maryland. Even St. Marys, so late as 1678, was not really a town, but a string of some thirty houses straggling for five miles along the sh.o.r.e. The bay with its innumerable creeks, inlets, coves, and river mouths, afforded fine water communication between the farms and plantations; and there were no roads.

As in Virginia, there was no need of shipping ports. Vessels came direct to manor or plantation wharf, and exchanged English goods for tobacco or corn. Such farmers or planters as had no water communication packed their tobacco in a hogshead, with an axle through it, and with an ox or a horse in a pair of shafts, or with a party of negro slaves or white servants, rolled it to market.

SUMMARY

1. The struggle of the Jamestown colony for life was a desperate one. For two years it was preserved by Captain John Smith's skillful leadership, and the frequent reinforcements and supplies sent over by the London Company; but in 1610 the settlers started to leave the country.

2. The arrival of Lord Delaware saved the colony. He brought out news of a new charter (1609) which greatly extended the domain of the company.

3. The settlers were now given land of their own, tobacco was grown, more settlements were planted, and prosperity began.

4. In 1619 slavery was introduced; a shipload of young women arrived; and a representative government was established.

5. In 1624 Virginia became a royal colony.

6. During the Civil War in England many Cavaliers came to Virginia.

7. King Charles I cut off a part of Virginia to make (1632) the proprietary colony of Maryland. The new province was given to Lord Baltimore, who founded (1634) a colony at St. Marys.

8. Claiborne, a Virginian, denied the authority of Baltimore, and kept up a struggle against him for many years.

9. In both Maryland and Virginia the people lived on large plantations, and there were few towns. Travel was mostly by water, and there were no good roads.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 96-98.

[2] Captain John Smith was born in England in 1580. At an early age he was a soldier in France and in the Netherlands; then after a short stay in England he set off to fight the Turks. In France he was robbed and left for dead, but reached Ma.r.s.eilles and joined a party of pilgrims bound to the Levant. During a violent storm the pilgrims, believing he had caused it, threw him into the sea. But he swam to an island, and after many adventures was made a captain in the Venetian army. The Turks captured him and sold him into slavery, but he killed his master, escaped to a Russian fortress, made his way through Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco, and reached England in time to go out with the London Company's colony. His career in Virginia was as adventurous as in the Old World. While exploring the Chickahominy River he and his companions were taken by the Indians.

Lest they should kill him at once Smith showed them a pocket compa.s.s with its quivering needle always pointing north. They could see, but could not touch it because of the gla.s.s. Supposing him a wizard, they took him to the Powhatan. According to Smith's account two stones were brought and Smith's head laid upon them, while warriors, club in hand, stood near by to beat out his brains. But suddenly the chief's little daughter, Pocahontas, rushed in and laid her head on Smith's to shield him. He was given his life and sent back to Jamestown.

[3] Smith and Newport visited the old chief at his village of Werowocomoco, took off the Powhatan's racc.o.o.n-skin coat, and put on the crimson robe. When they told him to kneel, he refused. Two men thereupon seized him by the shoulders and forced him to bend his knees, and the crown was clapped on his head. The Powhatan then took off his old moccasins and sent them, with his racc.o.o.n-skin coat, to his royal brother in London.

[4] They were part of a body of some five hundred in nine ships which left England in June. On the way over a storm scattered the fleet; one ship was lost, and another bearing the leaders of the expedition was wrecked on the Bermudas. The shipwrecked colonists spent ten months building two little vessels, in which they reached Jamestown in May, 1610.

[5] Read Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 152-155.

[6] The governor, the council, and the House of Burgesses const.i.tuted the General a.s.sembly. Any act of the a.s.sembly might be vetoed by the governor, and no law was valid till approved by the "general court" of the company at London. Neither was any law made by the company for the colony valid till approved by the a.s.sembly. After 1660 the House of Burgesses consisted of two delegates from each county, with one from Jamestown.

[7] For some years to come the slaves increased in numbers very slowly. So late as 1671, when the population of Virginia was 40,000, there were but 2000 slaves, while the bond servants numbered 6000. Some of these indentured servants, as they were called, were persons guilty of crime in England, who were sent over to Virginia and sold for a term of years as a punishment. Others--the "redemptioners"--were men who, in order to pay for their pa.s.sage to Virginia, agreed to serve the owner or the captain of the ship for a certain time. On reaching Virginia the captain could sell them to the planters for the time specified; at the end of the time they became freemen.

[8] That is, the unoccupied land became royal domain again, and the king appointed the governors and controlled the colony through a committee of his privy council. One unhappy result of the downfall of the London Company was the defeat of a plan for establishing schools in Virginia. As early as 1621 some funds were raised for "a public free school," in Charles City. A tract of land was also set apart in the city of Henricus for a college, and a rector, or president, was sent out to start it. But he was killed by the Indians in 1622, and before the company had found a successor the charter was destroyed. Virginia's first college--William and Mary--was established at Williamsburg in 1693.

[9] Read the description of early Virginia in J. E. Cooke's _Virginia_ (American Commonwealths Series), pp. 141-157; or _Stories of the Old Dominion_; or Fiske's _Old Virginia and her Neighbours_, Vol. I, pp. 223- 232.

[10] Jamestown was long the chief town of Virginia; but in its best days the houses did not number more than 75 or 80, and the population was not more than 250. In 1676 the church, the House of Burgesses, and the dwellings were burned during Bacon's Rebellion (p. 95). In 1679 the Burgesses ordered Jamestown "to be rebuilt and to be the metropolis of Virginia"; but in 1698 the House of Burgesses was again burned and in 1699 Williamsburg became the seat of government. The ruined church tower (p.

40) is the only structure still standing in Jamestown; but remains of the ancient graveyard, of a mansion built on the foundations of the old House of Burgesses, and some foundations of dwellings may also be seen. The site is cared for by the a.s.sociation for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

[11] George Calvert was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, was educated at Oxford, and went to Parliament in 1604. Becoming a favorite of King James I, he was knighted in 1617, and two years later was made princ.i.p.al Secretary of State. He became a Roman Catholic, although Catholics were then bitterly persecuted in England. Just before the king died, he resigned office, and received the t.i.tle of Lord Baltimore, the name referring to a town in Ireland. Finding all public offices closed to him because he was a Catholic, Baltimore resolved to seek a home in America.

[12] Baltimore ordered that any colonist who came in the _Ark_ or _Dove_ and brought five men with him should have 2000 acres of land, subject to an annual rent of 400 pounds of wheat. A settler who came in 1635 could have the same amount of land if he brought ten men, but had to pay 600 pounds of wheat a year as rent. Plantations of 1000 acres or more were manors, and the lord of the manor could hold courts.

[13] Claiborne's London partners took possession of Kent Island, and acknowledged the authority of Baltimore; but after the Civil War broke out in England, Claiborne joined forces with a half pirate named Ingle, and recovered the island. For two years Ingle and his crew lorded it over all Maryland, stealing corn, tobacco, cattle, and household goods. Not till 1646, when Calvert received aid from Virginia, was he able to drive out Claiborne and Ingle, and recover the province.

[14] The redemptioners, when their time was out and they became freemen, received a set of tools, clothes, and a year's provisions from their former masters, and fifty acres from the proprietor of the colony.

[15] On such looms skilled servants wove much of the cloth used on the plantation. Similar looms were used in all the colonies.

CHAPTER V

THE ENGLISH IN NEW ENGLAND

NEW ENGLAND NAMED.--While the London Company was planting its colony on the James River, the Plymouth Company sought to retrieve its failure on the Kennebec (p. 39). In 1614 Captain John Smith, who had returned to England from Jamestown, was sent over with two ships to explore. He made a map of the coast from Maine to Cape Cod, [1] and called the country New England. The next year Smith led out a colony; but a French fleet took him prisoner, no settlement was made, and five years pa.s.sed before the first permanent English colony was planted in the Plymouth Company's grant--by the Separatists.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SMITH'S MAP OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.]

THE SEPARATISTS.--To understand who these people were, it must be remembered that during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Protestant Episcopal Church was the Established Church of England, and that severe laws were pa.s.sed to force all the people to attend its services. But a sect arose which wished to "purify" the church by abolishing certain forms and ceremonies. These people were called Puritans, [2] and were divided into two sects:

1. Those Puritans who wished to purify the Church of England while they remained members of it.

2. The Independents, or Separatists, who wished to separate from that church and worship G.o.d in their own way.

The Separatists were cruelly persecuted during Queen Elizabeth's reign, and afterward. One band of them fled to Holland (in 1608), where they found peace; but time pa.s.sed and it became necessary for them to decide whether they should stay in Holland and become Dutch, or find a home in some land where they might continue to remain Englishmen. They decided to leave Holland, formed a company, and finally obtained leave from the London Company to settle near the mouth of the Delaware River.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREWSTER'S CHAIR. Now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.]

VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER.--Led by Brewster, Bradford, and Standish, a party of Pilgrims sailed from Holland in July, 1620, in the ship _Speedwell_; were joined in England by a party from London in the _Mayflower_; and in August both vessels put to sea. But the _Speedwell_ proved unseaworthy, and all put back to Plymouth in England, where some gave up the voyage.

One hundred and two held fast to their purpose, and in September set sail in the _Mayflower_. The voyage was long and stormy, and November came before they sighted a sandy coast far to the northeastward of the Delaware. For a while they strove hard to go southward; but adverse winds drove them back, and they dropped anchor in Cape Cod Bay. [3]

THE LANDING.--The land here was within the territory of the Plymouth Company. The Pilgrims, however, decided to stay and get leave to settle, but this decision displeased some of them. A meeting, therefore, was held in the ship's cabin (November 21, 1620), and the "Mayflower compact,"

binding all who signed it to obey such government as might be established, was drawn up and signed by forty-one of the sixty-five men on the vessel.