The Beginner's American History Part 6

65. Washing-day; what Standish and his men found on the Cape.--On the first Monday after they had reached the cape, all the women went on sh.o.r.e to wash, and so Monday has been kept as washing-day in New England ever since. Shortly after that, Captain Myles Standish, with a number of men, started off to see the country. They found some Indian corn buried in the sand; and a little further on a young man named William Bradford, who afterward became governor, stepped into an Indian deer-trap. It jerked him up by the leg in a way that must have made even the Pilgrims smile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INDIAN DEER-TRAP.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRADFORD CAUGHT.]

66. Captain Standish and his men set sail in a boat for a blue hill in the west, and find Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Harbor; landing from the _Mayflower_.--On clear days the people on board the _Mayflower_, anch.o.r.ed in Cape Cod Harbor, could see a blue hill, on the mainland, in the west, about forty miles away. To that blue hill Standish and some others determined to go. Taking a sail-boat, they started off.

A few days later they pa.s.sed the hill which the Indians called Manomet,[6] and entered a fine harbor. There, on December 21st, 1620,--the shortest day in the year,--they landed on that famous stone which is now known all over the world as Plymouth Rock.

Standish, with the others, went back to the _Mayflower_ with a good report. They had found just what they wanted,--an excellent harbor where ships from England could come in; a brook of nice drinking-water; and last of all, a piece of land that was nearly free from trees, so that nothing would hinder their planting corn early in the spring. Captain John Smith of Virginia[7] had been there before them, and had named the place Plymouth on his map of New England. The Pilgrims liked the name, and so made up their minds to keep it. The _Mayflower_ soon sailed for Plymouth, and the Pilgrims set to work to build the log cabins of their little settlement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE _Mayflower_ IN PLYMOUTH HARBOR.]

[Footnote 6: Manomet (Man'o-met).]

[Footnote 7: See paragraph 46.]

67. Sickness and death.--During that winter nearly half the Pilgrims died. Captain Standish showed himself to be as good a nurse as he was a soldier. He, with Governor Carver and their minister, Elder Brewster, cooked, washed, waited on the sick, and did everything that kind hearts and willing hands could to help their suffering friends.

But the men who had begun to build houses had to stop that work to dig graves. When these graves were filled, they were smoothed down flat so that no prowling Indian should count them and see how few white men there were left.

68. Samoset,[8] Squanto,[9] and Ma.s.sasoit[10] visit the Pilgrims.--One day in the spring the Pilgrims were startled at seeing an Indian walk boldly into their little settlement. He cried out in good English, "Welcome! Welcome!" This visitor was named Samoset; he had met some sailors years before, and had learned a few English words from them.

The next time Samoset came he brought with him another Indian, whose name was Squanto. Squanto was the only one left of the tribe that had once lived at Plymouth. All the rest had died of a dreadful sickness, or plague. He had been stolen by some sailors and carried to England; there he had learned the language. After his return he had joined an Indian tribe that lived about thirty miles further west.

The chief of that tribe was named Ma.s.sasoit, and Squanto said that he was coming directly to visit the Pilgrims.

In about an hour Ma.s.sasoit, with some sixty warriors, appeared on a hill just outside the settlement. The Indians had painted their faces in their very gayest style--black, red, and yellow. If paint could make them handsome, they were determined to look their best.

[Footnote 8: Samoset (Sam'o-set).]

[Footnote 9: Squanto (Skwon'to).]

[Footnote 10: Ma.s.sasoit (Mas'sa-soit').]

69. Ma.s.sasoit and Governor Carver make a treaty of friendship; how Thanksgiving was kept; what Squanto did for the Pilgrims.--Captain Standish, attended by a guard of honor, went out and brought the chief to Governor Carver. Then Ma.s.sasoit and the governor made a solemn promise or treaty, in which they agreed that the Indians of his tribe and the Pilgrims should live like friends and brothers, doing all they could to help each other. That promise was kept for more than fifty years; it was never broken until long after the two men who made it were in their graves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTAIN STANDISH AND Ma.s.sASOIT.]

When the Pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving, they invited Ma.s.sasoit and his men to come and share it. The Indians brought venison and other good things; there were plenty of wild turkeys roasted; and so they all sat down together to a great dinner, and had a merry time in the wilderness.

Squanto was of great help to the Pilgrims. He showed them how to catch eels, where to go fishing, when to plant their corn, and how to put a fish in every hill to make it grow fast.

After a while he came to live with the Pilgrims. He liked them so much that when the poor fellow died he begged Governor Bradford to pray that he might go to the white man's heaven.

70. Canonicus[11] dares Governor Bradford to fight; the palisade; the fort and meeting-house.--West of where Ma.s.sasoit lived, there were some Indians on the sh.o.r.e of Narragansett Bay,[12] in what is now Rhode Island. Their chief was named Canonicus, and he was no friend to Ma.s.sasoit or to the Pilgrims. Canonicus thought he could frighten the white men away, so he sent a bundle of sharp, new arrows, tied round with a rattlesnake skin, to Governor Bradford: that meant that he dared the governor and his men to come out and fight. Governor Bradford threw away the arrows, and then filled the snake-skin up to the mouth with powder and ball. This was sent back to Canonicus.

When he saw it, he was afraid to touch it, for he knew that Myles Standish's bullets would whistle louder and cut deeper than his Indian arrows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARROWS BOUND WITH SNAKE-SKIN.]

But though the Pilgrims did not believe that Canonicus would attack them, they thought it best to build a very high, strong fence, called a palisade, round the town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PALISADE BUILT ROUND PLYMOUTH.]

They also built a log fort on one of the hills, and used the lower part of the fort for a church. Every Sunday all the people, with Captain Standish at the head, marched to their meeting-house, where a man stood on guard outside. Each Pilgrim carried his gun, and set it down near him. With one ear he listened sharply to the preacher; with the other he listened just as sharply for the cry, Indians!

Indians! But the Indians never came.

[Footnote 11: Canonicus (Ka-non'i-kus).]

[Footnote 12: Narragansett (Nar'a-gan'set): see map, paragraph 84.]

71. The new settlers; trouble with the Indians in their neighborhood; Captain Standish's fight with the savages.--By and by more emigrants came from England and settled about twenty-five miles north of Plymouth, at what is now called Weymouth. The Indians in that neighborhood did not like these new settlers, and they made up their minds to come upon them suddenly and murder them.

Governor Bradford sent Captain Standish with a few men, to see how great the danger was. He found the Indians very bold. One of them came up to him, whetting a long knife. He held it up, to show how sharp it was, and then patting it, he said, "By and by, it shall eat, but not speak." Presently another Indian came up. He was a big fellow, much larger and stronger than Standish. He, too, had a long knife, as keen as a razor. "Ah," said he to Standish, "so this is the mighty captain the white men have sent to destroy us! He is a little man; let him go and work with the women."[13]

The captain's blood was on fire with rage; but he said not a word.

His time had not yet come. The next day the Pilgrims and the Indians met in a log cabin. Standish made a sign to one of his men, and he shut the door fast. Then the captain sprang like a tiger at the big savage who had laughed at him, and s.n.a.t.c.hing his long knife from him, he plunged it into his heart. A hand-to-hand fight followed between the white men and the Indians. The Pilgrims gained the victory, and carried back the head of the Indian chief in triumph to Plymouth.

Captain Standish's bold action saved both of the English settlements from destruction.

[Footnote 13: See Longfellow's _The Courtship of Miles Standish_.

This quotation is truthful in its rendering of the _spirit_ of the words used by the Indian in his insulting speech to Standish; it should be understood, however, that the poem does not always adhere closely either to the chronology, or to the exact facts, of history.]

72. What else Myles Standish did; his death.--But Standish did more things for the Pilgrims than fight for them; for he went to England, bought goods for them, and borrowed money to help them.

He lived to be an old man. At his death he left, among other things, three well-worn Bibles and three good guns. In those days, the men who read the Bible most were those who fought the hardest.

Near Plymouth there is a high hill called Captain's Hill. That was where Standish made his home during the last of his life. A granite monument, over a hundred feet high, stands on top of the hill. On it is a statue of the brave captain looking toward the sea. He was one of the makers of America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MYLES STANDISH'S KETTLE, SWORD, AND PEWTER DISH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COPY OF MYLES STANDISH'S SIGNATURE.]

73. Governor John Winthrop founds[14] Boston.--Ten years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, a large company of English people under the leadership of Governor John Winthrop came to New England. They were called Puritans,[15] and they, too, were seeking that religious freedom which was denied them in the old country. One of the vessels which brought over these new settlers was named the _Mayflower_. She may have been the very ship which in 1620 brought the Pilgrims to these sh.o.r.es.

Governor Winthrop's company named the place where they settled Boston, in grateful remembrance of the beautiful old city of Boston,[16] England, from which some of the chief emigrants came.

The new settlement was called the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay[17] Colony,[18]

Ma.s.sachusetts being the Indian name for the Blue Hills, near Boston.

The Plymouth Colony was now often called the Old Colony, because it had been settled first. After many years, these two colonies were united, and still later they became the state of Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Footnote 14: Founds: begins to build.]

[Footnote 15: See footnote 4 in paragraph 62.]