A School History of the United States Part 4

This done, Brewster and Bradford and Miles Standish, with a little band, sent out as an advance guard, set sail from the Dutch port of Delft Haven in July, 1620, in the ship _Speedwell_. The first run was to Southampton, England, where some friends from London joined them in the _Mayflower_, and whence, August 5, they sailed for America. But the _Speedwell_ proved so unseaworthy that the two ships put back to Plymouth, where twenty people gave up the voyage. September 6, 1620, such as remained steadfast, just 102 in number, reembarked on the _Mayflower_ and began the most memorable of voyages. The weather was so foul, and the wind and sea so boisterous, that nine weeks pa.s.sed before they beheld the sandy sh.o.r.es of Cape Cod. Having no right to settle there, as the cape lay far to the northward of the lands owned by the London Company, they turned their ship southward and attempted to go on.

But head winds drove them back and forced them to seek shelter in Provincetown harbor, at the end of Cape Cod.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mayflower[1]]

[Footnote 1: From the model in the National Museum, Washington.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS COAST (map)]

%33. The Mayflower Compact%.--Since it was then the 11th of November, the Pilgrims, as they are now called, decided to get permission from the Plymouth Company to remain permanently. But certain members of the party, when they heard this, became unruly, and declared that as they were not to land in Virginia, they were no longer bound by the contracts they had made in England regarding their emigration to Virginia. To put an end to this, a meeting was held, November 21, 1620, in the cabin of the _Mayflower_, and a compact was drawn up and signed.[1] It declared

1. That they were loyal subjects of the King.

2. That they had undertaken to found a colony in the northern parts of Virginia, and now bound themselves to form a "civil body politic."

3. That they would frame such just and equal laws, from time to time, as might be for the general good.

4. And to these laws they promised "all due submission and obedience."

[Footnote 1: The compact is in Poore's _Charters and Const.i.tutions_, p.

931, and in Preston's _Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trative of American History_, pp.

29-31. Read, by all means, Webster's _Plymouth Oration_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plymouth Rock]

%34. The Founding of Plymouth%.--The selection of a site for their home was now necessary, and five weeks were pa.s.sed in exploring the coast before Captain Standish with a boatload of men entered the harbor which John Smith had noted on his map and named Plymouth. On the sandy sh.o.r.e of that harbor, close to the water's edge, was a little granite bowlder, and on this, according to tradition, the Pilgrims stepped as they came ash.o.r.e, December 21, 1620. To this harbor the _Mayflower_ was brought, and the work of founding Plymouth was begun. The winter was a dreadful one, and before spring fifty-one of the colonists had died.[1]

But the Pilgrims stood fast, and in 1621 obtained a grant of land[2]

from the Council for New England, which had just succeeded the Plymouth Company, under a charter giving it control between lat.i.tudes 40 and 48, from sea to sea.[3] It was from the same Council that for fifteen years to come all other settlers in New England obtained their rights to the soil.

[Footnote 1: In the trying times which followed, William Bradford was chosen governor and many times reelected. He wrote the so-called "Log of the Mayflower,"--really a ma.n.u.script _History of the Plymouth Plantation_ from 1602 to 1647,--a fragment of which is reproduced on the opposite page.]

[Footnote 2: This grant had no boundary. Each settler might have 100 acres. Fifteen hundred acres were set aside for public buildings.]

[Footnote 3: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 80-87; Palfrey's _New England_, Vol. I, pp. 176-232; Thatcher's _History of the Town of Plymouth_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fragment of _History of the Plymouth Plantation_.]

%35. A Puritan Colony proposed.%--Among those who obtained such rights was a company of Dorchester merchants who planted a town on Cape Ann. The enterprise failed, and the colonists went off and settled at a place they called Naumkeag. But there was one man in Dorchester who was not discouraged by failure. He was John White, a Puritan rector. What had been done by the Separatists in a small way might be done, it seemed to White, on a great scale by an a.s.sociation of wealthy and influential Puritans. The matter was discussed by them in London, and in 1628 an a.s.sociation was formed, and a tract of land was bought from the Council for New England.

%36. The "Sea to Sea" Grant%.--Concerning the interior of our continent absolutely nothing was known. n.o.body supposed it was more than half as wide as it really is. The grant to the a.s.sociation, therefore, stretched from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles south of the Charles River, along these rivers to their sources, and then westward across the continent from sea to sea.[1]

[Footnote 1: You will notice that when this grant was made in 1628 the Dutch had discovered the Hudson, and had begun to settle Albany. To this region (the Hudson and Mohawk valleys) the English had no just claim.]

As soon as the grant was obtained, John Endicott came out with a company of sixty persons, and took up his abode at Naumkeag, which, being an Indian and therefore a pagan name, he changed to Salem, the Hebrew word for "peace."

%37. The Ma.s.sachusetts Charter, 1629%.--The next step was to obtain the right of self-government, which was secured by a royal charter creating a corporation known as the Governor and Company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in New England. Over the affairs of the company were to preside a governor, deputy governor, and a council of eighteen to be elected annually by the members of the company.[2]

[Footnote 2: The charter is printed in Poore's _Charters and Const.i.tutions_, pp. 932-942, and in Preston's _Doc.u.ments_, pp. 36-61.]

Six ships were now fitted out, and in them 406 men, women, and children, with 140 head of cattle, set sail for Ma.s.sachusetts. They reached Salem in safety and made it the largest colony in New England.

%38. Why the Puritans came to New England.%--It was in 1625 that Charles I. ascended the throne of England. Under him the quarrel with the Puritans grew worse each year. He violated his promises, he collected illegal taxes, he quartered troops on the people, he threw those into prison who would not contribute to his forced loans, or pressed them into the army or the navy. His Archbishop Laud persecuted the Puritans with shameful cruelty.

Little wonder then that in 1629 twelve leading Puritans met in consultation and agreed to head a great migration to the New World, provided the charter and the government of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Company were both removed to New England. This was agreed to, and in April, 1630, John Winthrop sailed with nearly one thousand Puritans for Salem.

From Salem he moved to Charlestown, and later in the year (1630) to a little three-hilled peninsula, which the English called Tri-mountain or Tremont. There a town was founded and called Boston.

The departure of Winthrop was the signal, and before the year 1630 ended, seventeen ships, bringing fifteen hundred Puritans, reached Ma.s.sachusetts. The newcomers settled Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now Cambridge). New England was planted.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 75-105.

Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 188-219.]

%39. New Hampshire and Maine.%--When it became apparent that the Plymouth colony was permanently settled, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose interest in New England had never lagged, together with John Mason obtained (1622) from the Council for New England a grant of Laconia, as they called the territory between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers, and from the Atlantic "to the great river of Canada." Seven years later (1629) they divided their property. Mason, taking the territory between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, called it New Hampshire because he was Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire in England. Gorges took the region between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, and called it Maine. After the death of Mason (1635) his colony was neglected and from 1641 to 1679 was annexed to Ma.s.sachusetts. The King separated them in 1679, joined them again in 1688, and finally parted them in 1691, making New Hampshire a royal colony.

Gorges took better care of his part and (in 1639) was given a charter with the t.i.tle of Lord Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine, which extended, as before, from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec, and backward 120 miles from the ocean. But after his death the province fell into neglect, and the towns were gradually absorbed by Ma.s.sachusetts, which, in 1677, bought the claims of the heir of Gorges for 1250 and governed Maine as lord proprietor under the Gorges charter.

%40. Church and State in Ma.s.sachusetts.%--Down to the moment of their arrival in America the Puritans had not been Separatists. They were still members of the Church of England who desired to see her form of worship purified. But the party under Endicott had no sooner reached Salem than they seceded, and the first Congregational Church in New England was founded.

Some in Salem were not prepared for so radical a step, and attempted to establish a church on the episcopal model; but Endicott promptly sent two of the leaders back to England. Thus were established two facts: 1.

The separation or secession of the Colonial Church from that of England.

2. That the episcopal form of worship would not be tolerated in the colony.

In 1631 another step was taken which united church and state, for it was then ordered that "no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."

This was intolerance of the grossest kind, and soon became the cause of troubles which led to the founding of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

%41. The Planting of Rhode Island.%--There came to Salem (from Plymouth), in 1633, a young minister named Roger Williams. He dissented heartily from the intolerance of the people of Ma.s.sachusetts, and, though a minister of the Salem church, insisted

1. On the separation of church and state.

2. On the toleration of all religious beliefs.

3. On the repeal of all laws requiring attendance on religious worship.

To us, in this century, the justice of each of these principles is self-evident. But in the seventeenth century there was no country in the world where it was safe to declare them. For doing so in some parts of Europe, a man would most certainly have been burned at the stake. For doing so in England, he would have been put in the pillory, or had his ears cut off, or been sent to jail. That Williams's teachings should seem rank heresy in New England was quite natural. But, to make matters worse, he wrote a pamphlet in which he boldly stated

1. That the soil belonged to the Indians.

2. That the settlers could obtain a valid t.i.tle only by purchase from the Indians.

3. That accepting a deed for the land from a mere intruder like the King of England was a sin requiring public repentance.

In the opinion of the people of New England such doctrine could not fail to bring down on Ma.s.sachusetts the wrath of the King. When, therefore, a little later, Endicott cut the red cross of St. George out of the colors of the Salem militia, the people considered his act a defiance of royal authority, attributed it to the teachings of Williams, and proceeded to punish both. Endicott was rebuked by the General Court (or legislature) and forbidden to hold office for a year. Williams was ordered to go back to England. But he fled to the woods, and made his way through the snow to the wigwam of the Indian chief, Ma.s.sasoit, on Narragansett Bay, and there in the summer of 1636 he founded Providence. About the same time another teacher of what was then thought heresy, Anne Hutchinson, was driven from Ma.s.sachusetts, and with some of her followers went southward and founded Portsmouth and Newport, on the island of Rhode Island. For a while each of these settlements was independent, but in 1643 Williams went to London and secured a patent from Parliament which united them under the name of "The Incorporation of Providence Plantations on the Narragansett Bay in New England."

%42. Connecticut begun.%--In the same year that Roger Williams began his settlement at Providence, several hundred people from the towns near Boston went off and settled in the Connecticut valley. For a long time past there had been growing up in Ma.s.sachusetts a strong feeling that the law that none but church members should vote or hold office was oppressive. This feeling became so strong that in 1635 some hardy pioneers from Dorchester pushed through the wilderness and settled at Windsor. A party from Watertown went further and settled Wethersfield.

These were small movements. But in 1636 the Newtown congregation, led by its pastor, Thomas Hooker, walked to the Connecticut valley and founded Hartford. The congregations of the Dorchester and Watertown churches soon followed, while a party from Roxbury settled at Springfield. During three years these four towns were part of Ma.s.sachusetts. But in 1639, Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield adopted a const.i.tution and formed a little republic which in time was called Connecticut. Their "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut" was the first written const.i.tution made in America. Their republic was the first in the history of the world to be founded by a written const.i.tution, and marks the beginning of democratic government in our country.

%43. The New Haven Colony.%--Just at the time these things were happening in the Connecticut valley, the beginnings of another little republic were made on the sh.o.r.es of Long Island Sound. One day in the summer of 1637 there came to Boston a company of rich London merchants under the lead of an eloquent preacher named John Davenport. The people of Boston would gladly have kept the newcomers at that town. But the strangers desired to found a state of their own, and so, after spending some months in seeking for a spot with a good harbor, they left Boston in 1638 and founded New Haven. In 1639 Milford and Guilford were laid out, and Stamford was started in 1640. Three years later these four towns joined in a sort of federal union and took the name of the New Haven colony.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 134-137.]