A School History of the United States Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: All that is left of Jamestown]

Bad as matters were, they became worse when a little fleet arrived with many new settlers, making the whole number about 500. The newcomers were a worthless set picked up in the streets of London or taken from the jails, and utterly unfit to become the founders of a state in the wilderness of the New World. Out of such material Smith in time might have made something, but he was forced by a wound to return to England, and the colony went rapidly to ruin. Sickness and famine did their work so quickly that after six months there were but sixty of the 500 men alive. Then two small ships, under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, arrived at Jamestown with more settlers; but all decided to flee, and had actually sailed a few miles down the James, when, June 8, 1610, they met Lord Delaware with three ships full of men and supplies coming up the river. Delaware came out as governor under a new charter granted in 1609.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read "The Jamestown Experiments," in Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation,_ pp. 25-72.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vicinity of Jamestown]

%21. The Virginia Charter of 1609% made a great change in the boundary of the company's property. By the 1606 charter the colony was limited to 100 miles along the seaboard and 100 miles west from the coast. In 1609 the company was given an immense domain reaching 400 miles along the coast,--200 miles each way from Old Point Comfort,--and extending "up into the land throughout _from sea to sea_, west and northwest." This description is very important, for it was afterwards claimed by Virginia to mean a grant of land of the shape shown on the map.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read Hinsdale's _Old Northwest_, pp. 74, 75.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

%22. The First Representative a.s.sembly in America.%--Under the new charter and new governors Virginia began to thrive. More work and less grumbling were done, and a few wise reforms were introduced. One governor, however, Argall, ruled the colony so badly that the people turned against him and sent such reports to England that immigration almost ceased. The company, in consequence, removed Argall, and gave Virginia a better form of government. In future, the governor's power was to be limited, and the people were to have a share in the making of laws and the management of affairs. As the colonists, now numbering 4000 men, were living in eleven settlements, or "boroughs," it was ordered that each borough should elect two men to sit in a legislature to be called the House of Burgesses. This house, the first representative a.s.sembly ever held by white men in America, met on July 30, 1619, in the church at Jamestown, and there began "government of the people, by the people, for the people."

%23. The Establishment of Slavery in America.%--It is interesting to note that at the very time the men of Virginia thus planted free representative government in America, another inst.i.tution was planted beside it, which, in the course of two hundred and fifty years, almost destroyed free government. The Burgesses met in July, and a few weeks later, on an August day, a Dutch ship entered the James and before it sailed away sold twenty negroes into slavery. The slaves increased in numbers (there were 2000 in Virginia in 1671), and slavery spread to the other colonies as they were started, till, in time, it existed in every one of them.

%24. Virginia loses her Charter, 1624.%--The establishment of popular government in Virginia was looked on by King James as a direct affront, and was one of many weighty reasons why he decided to destroy the company. To do this, he accused it of mismanagement, brought a suit against it, and in 1624 his judges declared the charter annulled, and Virginia became a royal colony.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the Virginia colony in general read Doyle's volume on _Virginia_, pp. 104-184; Lodge's _English Colonies in America_, pp.

1-12; of course, Bancroft and Hildreth. For particular epochs or events consult Channing and Hart's _Guide to American History_, pp. 248-253.]

%25. Maryland begun.%--A year later James died, and Charles I. came to the throne. As Virginia was now a royal colony, the land belonged to the King; and as he was at liberty to do what he pleased with it, he cut off a piece and gave it to Lord Baltimore. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, was a Roman Catholic n.o.bleman who for years past had been interested in the colonization of America, and had tried to plant a colony in Newfoundland. The severity of the climate caused failure, and in 1629 he turned his attention to Virginia and visited Jamestown. But religious feeling ran as high there as it did anywhere. The colonists were intolerantly Protestant, and Baltimore was ordered back to England.

Undeterred by such treatment, Baltimore was more determined than ever to plant a colony, and in 1632 obtained his grant of a piece of Virginia.

The tract lay between the Potomac River and the fortieth degree of north lat.i.tude, and extended from the Atlantic Ocean to a north and south line through the source of the Potomac.[1] It was called Maryland in honor of the Queen, Henrietta Maria.

[Footnote 1: It thus included what is now Delaware, and pieces of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORIGINAL BOUNDARY OF MARYLAND]

The area of the colony was not large; but the authority of Lord Baltimore over it was almost boundless. He was to bring to the King each year, in token of homage, two Indian arrowheads, and pay as rent one fifth of all the gold and silver mined. This done, the "lord proprietary," as he was called, was to all intents and purposes a king.

He might coin money, make war and peace, grant t.i.tles of n.o.bility, establish courts, appoint judges, and pardon criminals; but he was not permitted to tax his people without their consent. He must summon the freemen to a.s.sist him in making the laws; but when made, they need not be sent to the King for approval, but went into force as soon as the lord proprietary signed them. Of course they must not be contrary to the laws of England.

%26. Treatment of Catholics.%--The deed for Maryland had not been issued when Lord Baltimore died. It was therefore made out in the name of his son, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, who, like the first, was a Roman Catholic, and was influenced in his attempts at colonization by a desire to found a refuge for people of his own faith.

At that time in England no Roman Catholic was permitted to educate his children in a foreign land, or to employ a schoolmaster of his religious belief; or keep a weapon; or have Catholic books in his house; or sit in Parliament; or when he died be buried in a parish churchyard. If he did not attend the parish church, he was fined 20 a month. But it is needless to mention the ways in which he suffered for his religion. It is enough to know that the persecution was bitter, and that the purpose of Lord Baltimore was to make Maryland a Roman Catholic colony. Yet he set a n.o.ble example to other founders of colonies by freely granting to all sects full freedom of conscience. As long as the Catholics remained in control, toleration worked well. But in the year 1691 Lord Baltimore was deprived of his colony because he had supported King James II., and in 1692 sharp laws were made in Maryland against Catholics by the Protestants. In 1716 the colony was restored to the proprietor.

The first settlement was made in 1634 at St. Marys. Annapolis was founded about 1683; and Baltimore in 1729.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read Scharf's _History of Maryland_; Doyle's _Virginia_; Lodge's _English Colonies_; Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation,_.]

%27. The Dutch on the Hudson.%--Meantime great things had been happening to the northward. In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English sailor in the service of Holland, was sent to find a northwest pa.s.sage to India.

He reached our coast not far from Portland, Maine, and abandoning all idea of finding a pa.s.sage, he sailed alongsh.o.r.e to the southward as far as Cape Cod. Here he put to sea, and when he again sighted land was off Delaware Bay. In attempting to sail up it, his ship, the _Half-Moon,_ grounded, and Hudson turned about. Running along the Jersey coast, he entered New York Bay, and sailed up the river which the Dutch called the North River, but which we know as the Hudson. Hudson's voyage gave the Dutch a claim to all the country drained by the Delaware or South River and the Hudson River, and some Dutch traders at once sent out vessels, and were soon trading actively with the Indians. By 1614 a rude fort had been erected near the site of Albany, and some trading huts had been put up on Manhattan Island. These ventures proved so profitable that numbers of merchants began to engage in the trade, whereupon those already in it, in order to shut out others, organized a company, and in 1615 obtained a trading charter for three years from the States General of Holland, and carried on their operations from Albany to the Delaware River.

[Ill.u.s.tration: View of New Amsterdam in 1656]

%28. Dutch West India Company.%--On the expiration of the charter (in 1618) it was not renewed, but a new corporation, the Dutch West India Company (1621), was created with almost absolute political and commercial power over all the Dutch domains in North America, which were called New Netherland. In 1623 the company began to send out settlers.

Some went to Albany, or, as they called it, Fort Orange. Others were sent to the South or Delaware River, where a trading post, Fort Na.s.sau, was built on the site of Gloucester in New Jersey. A few went to the Connecticut River; some settled on Long Island; and others on Manhattan Island, where they founded New Amsterdam, now called New York city.

All these little settlements were merely fur-trading posts. n.o.body was engaged as yet in farming. To encourage this, the company (in 1629) took another step, and offered a great tract of land, on any navigable river or bay, to anybody who would establish a colony of fifty persons above the age of fifteen. If on a river, the domain was to be sixteen miles along one bank or eight miles along each bank, and run back into the country as far "as the situation of the occupiers will admit." The proprietor of the land was to be called a "patroon," [1] and was absolute ruler of whatever colonies he might plant, for he was at once owner, ruler, and judge. It may well be supposed that such a tempting offer did not go a-begging, and a number of patroons were soon settled along the Hudson and on the banks of the Delaware (1631), where they founded a town near Lewes. The settlements on the Delaware River were short-lived.

The settlers quarreled with the Indians, who in revenge ma.s.sacred them and drove off the garrison at Fort Na.s.sau; whereupon the patroons sold their rights to the Dutch West India Company.[2]

[Footnote 1: The patroon bound himself to (1) transport the fifty settlers to New Netherland at his own expense; (2) provide each of them with a farm stocked with horses, cattle, and farming implements, and charge a low rent; (3) employ a schoolmaster and a minister of the Gospel. In return for this the emigrant bound himself (1) to stay and cultivate the land of the patroon for ten years; (2) to bring his grain to the patroon's mill and pay for grinding; (3) to use no cloth not made in Holland; (4) to sell no grain or produce till the patroon had been given a chance to buy it.]

[Footnote 2: Lodge's _English Colonies_, pp. 295-311; Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History_, Vol. III., pp. 385-411; Bancroft's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 501-508.]

%29. The Struggle for the Delaware; the Swedes on the Delaware.%--And now began a bitter contest for the ownership of the country bordering the Delaware. A few leading officials of the Dutch Company, disgusted at the way its affairs were managed, formed a new company under the lead of William Usselinx. As they could not get a charter from Holland, for she would not create a rival to the Dutch Company, they sought and obtained one from Sweden as the South Company, and (1638) sent out a colony to settle on the Delaware River.[1] The spot chosen was on the site of Wilmington. The country was named New Sweden, though it belonged to Maryland. The Dutch West India Company protested and rebuilt Fort Na.s.sau. The Swedes, in retaliation, went farther up the river and fortified an island near the mouth of the Schuylkill. Had they stopped here, all would have gone well. But, made bold by the inaction of the Dutch, they began to annoy the New Netherlanders, till (1655) Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Netherland, unable to stand it any longer, came over from New Amsterdam with a few hundred men, overawed the Swedes, and annexed their territory west of the Delaware. New Sweden then became part of New Netherland.[2]

[Footnote 1: Sweden had no right to make such a settlement. She had no claim to any territory in North America.]

[Footnote 2: Lodge's _English Colonies_, pp. 205-210; Bancroft's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 509, 510; Hildreth's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 413-442.]

SUMMARY

1. After the discovery of the North American coast by the Cabots, England made no attempt to settle it for nearly eighty years; and even then the colonies planted by Gilbert and Ralegh were failures.

2. Successful settlement by the English began under the London Company in 1607.

3. In 1609 the London Company obtained a grant of land from sea to sea, and extending 400 miles along the Atlantic; but in 1624 its charter was annulled, and in 1632 the King carved the proprietary colony of Maryland out of Virginia.

4. Meantime Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch, discovered the Delaware and Hudson rivers (1609), and the Dutch, ignoring the claims of England, planted colonies on these rivers and called the country New Netherland.

5. Then a Swedish company began to colonize the Delaware Bay and River coast of Virginia, which they called New Sweden.

6. Conflicts between the Dutch and the Swedes followed, and in 1655 New Sweden was made a part of New Netherland.

CHAPTER IV

THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND

%30. The Beginnings of New England.%--When the Dutch put up their trading posts where New York and Albany now stand, all the country east of New York, all of what is now New England, was a wilderness. As early as 1607 an attempt was made to settle it and a colony was planted on the coast of Maine by two members of the Plymouth Company, Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth. But the colonists were half starved and frozen, and in the spring of 1608 gladly went home to England.

Six years later John Smith, the hero of Virginia, explored and mapped the coast from the Pen.o.bscot to Cape Cod. He called the country New England; one of the rivers, the Charles; and two of the promontories, Cape Elizabeth and Cape Ann. Three times he attempted to lead out a colony; but that work was reserved for other men.

%31. The Separatists.%--The reign of Queen Elizabeth had witnessed in England the rise of a religious sect which insisted that certain changes should be made in the government and ceremonials of the Established or State Church of England. This they called purifying the Church, and in consequence they were themselves called Puritans.[1] At first they did not intend to form a new sect; but in 1580 one of their ministers, named Robert Brown, urged them to separate from the Church of England, and soon gathered about him a great number of followers, who were called Separatists or Brownists. They boldly a.s.serted their right to worship as they pleased, and put their doctrines into practice. So hot a persecution followed, that in 1608 a party, led by William Brewster and John Robinson, fled from Scrooby, a little village in northern England, to Amsterdam, in Holland; but soon went on to Leyden, where they dwelt eleven years.[2]

[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 50-71. The teacher may read "Rise and Development of Puritanism" in Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 98-140.]

[Footnote 2: Read Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 141-157; Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 71-80; Doyle's _Puritan Colonies_, Vol. I., pp. 47-81; Palfrey's _New England_, Vol. I., pp. 176-232.]

%32. Why the Separatists went to New England%.--They had come to Holland as an organized community, practicing English manners and customs. For a temporary residence this would do. But if they and their children's children after them were to remain and prosper, they must break up their organization, forget their native land, their native speech, their national traditions, and to all intents and purposes become Dutch. This they could not bring themselves to do, and by 1617 they had fully determined to remove to some land where they might still continue to be Englishmen, and where they might lay the foundations of a Christian state. But one such land could then be found, and that was America. To America, therefore, they turned their attention, and after innumerable delays formed a company and obtained leave from the London Company to settle on the coast of what is now New Jersey.[1]

[Footnote 1: Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 159-176.]