The Frontier in American History Part 4

The author of a currency tract, in 1716, ent.i.tled "Some Considerations upon the Several Sorts of Banks," remarks that formerly, when land was easy to be obtained, good men came over as indentured servants; but now, he says, they are runaways, thieves, and disorderly persons. The remedy for this, in his opinion, would be to induce servants to come over by offering them homes when the terms of indenture should expire.[60:1] He therefore advocates that townships should be laid out four or five miles square in which grants of fifty or sixty acres could be made to servants.[60:2] Concern over the increase of negro slaves in Ma.s.sachusetts seems to have been the reason for this proposal. It indicates that the current practice in disposing of the lands did not provide for the poorer people.

But Ma.s.sachusetts did not follow this suggestion of a homestead policy.

On the contrary, the desire to locate towns to create continuous lines of settlement along the roads between the disconnected frontiers and to protect boundary claims by granting tiers of towns in the disputed tract, as well, no doubt, as pressure from financial interests, led the General Court between 1715 and 1762 to dispose of the remaining public domain of Ma.s.sachusetts under conditions that made speculation and colonization by capitalists important factors.[60:3] When in 1762 Ma.s.sachusetts sold a group of townships in the Berkshires to the highest bidders (by whole townships),[60:4] the transfer from the social-religious to the economic conception was complete, and the frontier was deeply influenced by the change to "land mongering."

In one respect, however, there was an increasing recognition of the religious and social element in settling the frontier, due in part, no doubt, to a desire to provide for the preservation of eastern ideals and influences in the West. Provisions for reserving lands within the granted townships for the support of an approved minister, and for schools, appear in the seventeenth century and become a common feature of the grants for frontier towns in the eighteenth.[61:1] This practice with respect to the New England frontier became the foundation for the system of grants of land from the public domain for the support of common schools and state universities by the federal government from its beginning, and has been profoundly influential in later Western States.

Another ground for discontent over land questions was furnished by the system of granting lands within the town by the commoners. The principle which in many, if not all, cases guided the proprietors in distributing the town lots is familiar and is well stated in the Lancaster town records (1653):

And, whereas Lotts are Now Laid out for the most part Equally to Rich and poore, Partly to keepe the Towne from Scatering to farr, and partly out of Charitie and Respect to men of meaner estate, yet that Equallitie (which is the rule of G.o.d) may be observed, we Covenant and Agree, That in a second Devition and so through all other Devitions of Land the mater shall be drawne as neere to _equallitie according to mens estates_ as wee are able to doe, That he which hath now more then his estate Deserveth in home Lotts and entervale Lotts shall haue so much Less: and he that hath Less then his estate Deserveth shall haue so much more.[62:1]

This peculiar doctrine of "equality" had early in the history of the colony created discontents. Winthrop explained the principle which governed himself and his colleagues in the case of the Boston committee of 1634 by saying that their divisions were arranged "partly to prevent the neglect of trades." This is a pregnant idea; it underlay much of the later opposition of New England as a manufacturing section to the free homestead or cheap land policy, demanded by the West and by the labor party, in the national public domain. The migration of labor to free lands meant that higher wages must be paid to those who remained. The use of the town lands by the established cla.s.ses to promote an approved form of society naturally must have had some effect on migration.

But a more effective source of disputes was with respect to the relation of the town proprietors to the public domain of the town in contrast with the non-proprietors as a cla.s.s. The need of keeping the town meeting and the proprietors' meeting separate in the old towns in earlier years was not so great as it was when the new-comers became numerous. In an increasing degree these new-comers were either not granted lands at all, or were not admitted to the body of proprietors with rights in the possession of the undivided town lands. Contentions on the part of the town meeting that it had the right of dealing with the town lands occasionally appear, significantly, in the frontier towns of Haverhill, Ma.s.sachusetts, Simsbury, Connecticut, and in the towns of the Connecticut Valley.[63:1] Jonathan Edwards, in 1751, declared that there had been in Northampton for forty or fifty years "two parties somewhat like the court and country parties of England... . The first party embraced the great proprietors of land, and the parties concerned about land and other matters."[63:2] The tendency to divide up the common lands among the proprietors in individual possession did not become marked until the eighteenth century; but the exclusion of some from possession of the town lands and the "equality" in allotment favoring men with already large estates must have attracted ambitious men who were not of the favored cla.s.s to join in the movement to new towns. Religious dissensions would combine to make frontier society as it formed early in the eighteenth century more and more democratic, dissatisfied with the existing order, and less respectful of authority.

We shall not understand the relative radicalism of parts of the Berkshires, Vermont and interior New Hampshire without enquiry into the degree in which the control over the lands by a proprietary monopoly affected the men who settled on the frontier.

The final aspect of this frontier to be examined, is the att.i.tude of the conservatives of the older sections towards this movement of westward advance. President Dwight in the era of the War of 1812 was very critical of the "foresters," but saw in such a movement a safety valve to the inst.i.tutions of New England by allowing the escape of the explosive advocates of "Innovation."[63:3]

Cotton Mather is perhaps not a typical representative of the conservative sentiment at the close of the seventeenth century, but his writings may partly reflect the att.i.tude of Boston Bay toward New England's first Western frontier. Writing in 1694 of "Wonderful Pa.s.sages which have Occurred, First in the Protections and then in the Afflictions of New England," he says:

One while the Enclosing of _Commons_ hath made Neighbours, that should have been like Sheep, to _Bite and devour one another_... . Again, Do our _Old_ People, any of them _Go Out_ from the Inst.i.tutions of G.o.d, Swarming into New Settlements, where they and their Untaught Families are like to _Perish for Lack of Vision_? They that have done so, heretofore, have to their Cost found, that they were got unto the _Wrong side of the Hedge_, in their doing so. Think, here _Should this be done any more?_ We read of Balaam, in Num. 22, 23. He was to his Damage, _driven to the_ Wall, when he would needs make an unlawful Salley forth after the _Gain_ of this World... . Why, when men, for the Sake of Earthly Gain, would be _going out_ into the _Warm_ Sun, they drive _Through the Wall_, and the _Angel of the Lord_ becomes their Enemy.

In his essay on "Frontiers Well-Defended" (1707) Mather a.s.sures the pioneers that they "dwell in a Hatsarmaneth," a place of "tawney serpents," are "inhabitants of the Valley of Achor," and are "the Poor of this World." There may be significance in his a.s.sertion: "It is remarkable to see that when the Unchurched Villages, have been so many of them, _utterly broken up_, in the _War_, that has been upon us, those that have had _Churches_ regularly formed in them, have generally been under a more _sensible Protection_ of Heaven." "Sirs," he says, "a _Church-State_ well form'd may fortify you wonderfully!" He recommends abstention from profane swearing, furious cursing, Sabbath breaking, unchast.i.ty, dishonesty, robbing of G.o.d by defrauding the ministers of their dues, drunkenness, and revels and he reminds them that even the Indians have family prayers! Like his successors who solicited missionary contributions for the salvation of the frontier in the Mississippi Valley during the forties of the nineteenth century, this early spokesman for New England laid stress upon teaching anti-popery, particularly in view of the captivity that might await them.

In summing up, we find many of the traits of later frontiers in this early prototype, the Ma.s.sachusetts frontier. It lies at the edge of the Indian country and tends to advance. It calls out militant qualities and reveals the imprint of wilderness conditions upon the psychology and morals as well as upon the inst.i.tutions of the people. It demands common defense and thus becomes a factor for consolidation. It is built on the basis of a preliminary fur trade, and is settled by the combined and sometimes antagonistic forces of eastern men of property (the absentee proprietors) and the democratic pioneers. The East attempted to regulate and control it. Individualistic and democratic tendencies were emphasized both by the wilderness conditions and, probably, by the prior contentions between the proprietors and non-proprietors of the towns from which settlers moved to the frontier. Removal away from the control of the customary usages of the older communities and from the conservative influence of the body of the clergy, increased the innovating tendency. Finally the towns were regarded by at least one prominent representative of the established order in the East, as an undesirable place for the re-location of the pillars of society. The temptation to look upon the frontier as a field for investment was viewed by the clergy as a danger to the "inst.i.tutions of G.o.d." The frontier was "the Wrong side of the Hedge."

But to this "wrong side of the hedge" New England men continued to migrate. The frontier towns of 1695 were hardly more than suburbs of Boston. The frontier of a century later included New England's colonies in Vermont, Western New York, the Wyoming Valley, the Connecticut Reserve, and the Ohio Company's settlement in the Old Northwest Territory. By the time of the Civil War the frontier towns of New England had occupied the great prairie zone of the Middle West and were even planted in Mormon Utah and in parts of the Pacific Coast. New England's sons had become the organizers of a Greater New England in the West, captains of industry, political leaders, founders of educational systems, and prophets of religion, in a section that was to influence the ideals and shape the destiny of the nation in ways to which the eyes of men like Cotton Mather were sealed.[66:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[39:1] Publications of the Colonial Society of Ma.s.sachusetts, April, 1914, xvii, 250-271. Reprinted with permission of the Society.

[39:2] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, x.x.xvi, p. 150.

[40:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Colony Records, ii, p. 122.

[40:2] _Ibid._, vol. iv, pt. ii, p. 439; Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cvii, pp. 160-161.

[40:3] See, for example, Ma.s.sachusetts Colony Records, v, 79; Green, "Groton During the Indian Wars," p. 39; L. K. Mathews, "Expansion of New England," p. 58.

[40:4] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxviii, pp. 174-176.

[40:5] Osgood, "American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century," i, p.

501, and citations: cf. Publications of this Society, xii, pp. 38-39.

[41:1] Hening, "Statutes at Large," iii, p. 204: cf. 1 Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections, v, p. 129, for influence of the example of the New England town. On Virginia frontier conditions see Alvord and Bidgood, "First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny Region," pp. 23-34, 93-95. P. A. Bruce, "Inst.i.tutional History of Virginia," ii, p. 97, discusses frontier defense in the seventeenth century. [See chapter iii, _post_.]

[42:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxx, 240; Ma.s.sachusetts Province Laws, i, pp. 194, 293.

[42:2] In a pet.i.tion (read March 3, 1692-3) of settlers "in Sundry Farms granted in those Remote Lands Scituate and Lyeing between Sudbury, Concord, Marlbury, Natick and Sherburne & Westerly is the Wilderness,"

the pet.i.tioners ask eas.e.m.e.nt of taxes and extension into the Natick region in order to have means to provide for the worship of G.o.d, and say:

"Wee are not Ignorant that by reason of the present Distressed Condition of those that dwell in these Frontier Towns, divers are meditating to remove themselves into such places where they have not hitherto been conserned in the present Warr and desolation thereby made, as also that thereby they may be freed from that great burthen of public taxes necessarily accruing thereby, Some haveing already removed themselves.

b.u.t.t knowing for our parts that wee cannot run from the hand of a Jealous G.o.d, doe account it our duty to take such Measures as may inable us to the performance of that duty wee owe to G.o.d, the King, & our Familyes" (Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cxiii, p. 1).

[42:3] In a pet.i.tion of 1658 Andover speaks of itself as "a remote upland plantation" (Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cxii, p. 99).

[42:4] Ma.s.sachusetts Province Laws, i, p. 402.

[43:1] Convenient maps of settlement, 1660-1700, are in E. Channing, "History of the United States," i, pp. 510-511, ii, end; Avery, "History of the United States and its People," ii, p. 398. A useful contemporaneous map for conditions at the close of King Philip's War is Hubbard's map of New England in his "Narrative" published in Boston, 1677. See also L. K. Mathews, "Expansion of New England," pp. 56-57, 70.

[44:1] Weeden, "Economic and Social History of New England," pp. 90, 95, 129-132; F. J. Turner, "Indian Trade in Wisconsin," p. 13; McIlwain, "Wraxall's Abridgement," introduction; the town histories abound in evidence of the significance of the early Indian traders' posts, transition to Indian land cessions, and then to town grants.

[44:2] Weeden, _loc. cit._, pp. 64-67; M. Egleston, "New England Land System," pp. 31-32; Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, pp. 37, 206, 267-268; Connecticut Colonial Records, vii, p. 111, ill.u.s.trations of cattle brands in 1727.

[44:3] Hutchinson, "History" (1795), ii, p. 129, note, relates such a case of a Groton man; see also Parkman, "Half-Century," vol. i, ch. iv, citing Maurault, "Histoire des Abenakis," p. 377.

[45:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp. 4, 84, 85, 87, 88.

[45:2] Hoosatonic.

[45:3] Connecticut Records, iv, pp. 463, 464.

[45:4] Ma.s.sachusetts Colony Records, v, p. 72; Ma.s.sachusetts Province Laws, i, pp. 176, 211, 292, 558, 594, 600; Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp. 7, 89, 102. Cf. Publications of this Society, vii, 275-278.

[45:5] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 290.

[46:1] Judd, "Hadley," p. 272; 4 Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections, ii, p. 235.

[46:2] Farmer and Moore, "Collections," iii, p. 64. The frontier woman of the farther west found no more extreme representative than Hannah Dustan of Haverhill, with her trophy of ten scalps, for which she received a bounty of 50 (Parkman, "Frontenac," 1898, p. 407, note).

[46:3] For ill.u.s.trations of resentment against those who protected the Christian Indians, see F. W. Gookin, "Daniel Gookin," pp. 145-155.

[47:1] For example, Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxx, p. 261; Bailey, "Andover," p. 179; Metcalf, "Annals of Mendon," p. 63; Proceedings Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, xliii, pp. 504-519. Parkman, "Frontenac" (Boston, 1898), p. 390, and "Half-Century of Conflict"

(Boston, 1898), i, p. 55, sketches the frontier defense.

[48:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, cvii, p. 155.

[48:2] _Ibid._, cvii, p. 230; cf. 230 a.

[48:3] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxviii, p. 156.

[48:4] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 189.

[48:5] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, 46-48, 131, 134, 135 _et pa.s.sim_.

[50:1] Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, lxxi, p. 107: cf. Metcalf, "Mendon," p.

130; Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 288. The frontier of Virginia in 1755 and 1774 showed similar conditions: see, for example, the citations to Washington's Writings in Thwaites, "France in America," pp. 193-195; and frontier letters in Thwaites and Kellogg, "Dunmore's War," pp. 227, 228 _et pa.s.sim_. The following pet.i.tion to Governor Gooch of Virginia, dated July 30, 1742, affords a basis for comparison with a Scotch-Irish frontier: