The Story of Our Country Part 4

While religious people settled in the North, many of the proud Cavalier cla.s.s, who cared very little about religion, came to the South. So we may call the southern settlements the Cavalier colonies, though many of the common people came there too, and it was not long before there was plenty of work.

The first to come after John Smith and the Jamestown people were some shiploads of Catholics. You should know that the Catholics were treated in England even worse than the Puritans and the Quakers. The law said they must go to the English Church instead of to their own. If they did not they would have to pay a large sum of money or go to prison. Was not this very harsh and unjust?

The Catholics were not all poor people. There were rich men and n.o.bles among them. One of these n.o.bles, named Lord Baltimore, asked the King for some land in America where he and his friends might dwell in peace and have churches of their own. This was many years before William Penn asked for the same thing. The King was a friend of Lord Baltimore and told him he might have as much land as he could make use of. So he chose a large tract just north of Virginia, which the King named Maryland, after his wife, Queen Mary, who was a Catholic. All Lord Baltimore had to pay for this was two Indian arrows every year, and a part of the gold and silver, if any were found. This was done to show that the King still kept some claim to Maryland, and did not give away all his rights.

And now comes a story much the same as I have told you several times already. A shipload of Catholics and other people came across the ocean to the new continent which Columbus had discovered many years before.

These sailed up the broad Chesapeake Bay. You may easily find this bay on your maps. They landed at a place they called St. Mary's, where there was a small Indian town. As it happened, the Indians at this town had been so much troubled by fighting tribes farther north that they were just going to move somewhere else. So they were very glad to sell their town to the white strangers.

All they wanted for their houses and their corn fields were some hatchets, knives and beads, and other things they could use. Gold and silver would have been of no value to them, for they had never seen these metals. The only money the Indians used was round pieces of seash.e.l.l, with holes bored through them. Before these people left their town they showed the white men how to hunt in the woods and how to plant corn. And their wives taught the white women how to make hominy out of corn and how to bake johnny-cakes. So the people of Maryland did not suffer from hunger like those of Virginia and New England, and they had plenty to eat and lived very well from the start.

This was in the year 1634, just about the time Roger Williams went to Rhode Island. Lord Baltimore did the same thing that Roger Williams did; he gave the people religious liberty. Every Christian who came to Maryland had the right to worship G.o.d in his own way. Roger Williams went farther than this, for he gave the same right to Jews and all other people, whether they were Christians or pagans.

It was not long before other people came to Maryland, and they began to plant tobacco, as the people were doing in Virginia. Tobacco was a good crop to raise, for it could be sold for a high price in England, so that the Maryland planters did very well, and many of them grew rich. But religious liberty did not last there very long, and the Catholics were not much better off than they had been in England. All the poor people who came with Lord Baltimore were Protestants. Only the rich ones were Catholics. Many other Protestants soon came, some of them being Puritans from New England, who did not know what religious liberty meant.

These people said that the Catholics should not have the right to worship in their own churches, even in Maryland, and they went so far that they tried to take from Lord Baltimore the lands which the king had given him. There was much fighting between the Catholics and the Protestants. Now one party got the best of it, and now the other. In the end the province was taken from Lord Baltimore's son; and when a new king, named King William, came to the throne, he said that Maryland was his property, and that the Catholics should not have a church of their own or worship in their own way in that province. Do you not think this was very cruel and unjust? It seems so to me. It did not seem right, after Lord Baltimore had given religious liberty to all men, for others to come and take it away. But the custom in those days was that all men must be made to think the same way, or be punished if they didn't. This seems queer now-a-days, when every man has the right to think as he pleases.

In time there was born a Lord Baltimore who became a Protestant, and the province was given back to him. It grew rich and full of people, and large towns were built. One of these was named Baltimore, after Lord Baltimore, and is now a great city. And Washington, the capital of the United States, stands on land that was once part of Maryland. But St.

Mary's, the first town built, has gone, and there is hardly a mark left to show where it stood.

Maryland, as I have said, lies north of Virginia. The Potomac River runs between them. South of Virginia was another great tract of land, reaching all the way to Florida, which the Spaniards then held. Some French Protestants tried to settle there, but they were cruelly murdered by the Spaniards, and no one else came there for many years.

About 1660 people began to settle in what was then called "the Carolinas," but is now called North Carolina and South Carolina. Some of these came from Virginia and some from England, and small settlements were made here and there along the coast. One of these was called Charleston. This has now grown into a large and important city.

There were some n.o.blemen in England who thought that this region might become worth much money, so they asked the king, Charles II., to give it to them. This was the same king who gave the Dutch settlement to the Duke of York and who afterwards gave Pennsylvania to William Penn. He was very ready to give away what did not belong to him, and told these n.o.blemen that they were welcome to the Carolinas. There were eight of these men, and they made up their minds that they would have a very nice form of government for their new province. So they went to a famous man named John Locke, who was believed to be very wise, and asked him to draw up a form of government for them.

John Locke drew up a plan of government which they thought very fine, but which everybody now thinks was very foolish and absurd. I fancy he knew more about books than he did about government. He called it the "Grand Model," and the n.o.ble lords thought they had a wonderful government indeed. There were to be earls, and barons, and lords, the same as in Europe. No one could vote who did not hold fifty acres. The poorer people were to be like so many slaves. They could not even leave one plantation for another without asking leave from the lord or baron who owned it.

What do you think the people did? You must not imagine they came across the ocean to be made slaves of. No, indeed! They cared no more for the "Grand Model" than if it was a piece of tissue paper. They settled where they pleased, and would not work for the earls and barons, and fought with the governors, and refused to pay the heavy taxes which the eight n.o.ble owners asked.

In time these n.o.blemen got so sick of the whole business that they gave their province back to the king. It was then divided into two colonies, known as North Carolina and South Carolina. As for the lords and barons, n.o.body heard of them any more.

The people of the Carolinas had other things beside the Grand Model of government to trouble them. There were savage Indians back in the country who attacked them and killed many of them. And there were pirates along the coast who attacked ships and killed all on board. But rice and indigo were planted, and afterwards cotton, and much tar and turpentine were got from the pine trees in North Carolina, and as the years went on these colonies became rich and prosperous, and the people began to have a happy time.

I hope none of my young readers are tired of reading about kings and colonies. I am sure they must have enjoyed reading about John Smith and Miles Standish and William Penn and the rest of the great leaders. At any rate, there is only one more colony to talk about, and then we will be through with this part of our story. This is the colony of Georgia, which lies in the tract of land between South Carolina and Florida.

I am sure that when you are done reading this book you will be glad that you did not live two or three hundred years ago. To-day every one can think as he pleases, and do as he pleases, too, if he does not break the laws. And the laws are much more just and less cruel than they were in former times. Why, in those days, every man who owed money and could not pay it might be put in prison and kept there for years. He could not work there and earn money to pay his debts, and if his friends did not pay them he might stay there till he died. As I have told you, even the good William Penn was put in prison for debt, and kept there till his friends paid the money.

There were as many poor debtors in prison as there were thieves and villains. Some of them become sick and died, and some were starved to death by cruel jailers, who would not give them anything to eat if they had no money to pay for food. One great and good man, named General James Oglethorpe, visited the prisons, and was so sorry for the poor debtors he saw there, that he asked the king to give him a piece of land in America where he could take some of these suffering people.

There was now not much land left to give. Settlements had been made all along the coast except south of the Carolinas, and the king told General Oglethorpe that he could have the land which lay there, and could take as many debtors out of prison as he chose. He thought it would be a good thing to take them somewhere where they could work and earn their living. The king who was then on the throne was named King George, so Oglethorpe called his new colony Georgia.

It was now the year 1733, a hundred years after Lord Baltimore had come to Maryland. General Oglethorpe took many of the debtors out of prison, and very glad they were to get out, you may be sure. He landed with them on the banks of a fine river away down South, where he laid out a town which he named Savannah.

The happy debtors now found themselves in a broad and beautiful land, where they could prove whether they were ready to work or not. They were not long in doing this. Right away they began to cut down trees, and build houses, and plant fields, and very soon a pretty town was to be seen and food plants were growing in the fields. And very happy men and women these poor people were.

General Oglethorpe knew as well as William Penn that the land did not belong to the king. He sent for the Indian chiefs and told them the land was theirs, and offered to pay them for it. They were quite willing to sell, and soon he had all the land he wanted, and what is more, he had the Indians for friends.

But if he had no trouble with the Indians, he had a good deal with the Spaniards of Florida. They said that Georgia was a part of Florida and that the English had no right there. And they sent an army and tried to drive them out.

I fancy they did not know that Oglethorpe was an old soldier, but he soon showed them that he knew how to fight. He drove back their armies and took their ships; and they quickly made up their minds that they had better let the English alone. There was plenty of land for both, for the Spaniards had only one town in Florida. This was St. Augustine.

Before long some Germans came from Europe and settled in the new colony. People came also from other parts of Europe. Corn was planted for food, and some of the colonists raised silkworms and made silk. But in the end, cotton came to be the chief crop of the colony.

General Oglethorpe lived to be a very old man. He did not die till long after the American Revolution. Georgia was then a flourishing state, and the little town he had started on the banks of the Savannah River was a fine city, with broad streets, fine mansions, and beautiful shade trees.

I think the old general must have been very proud of this charming city, and of the great state which owed its start to him.

CHAPTER VI

THE RED MEN, HOW THEY LIVED AND WERE TREATED

NOW that you have been told about the settlement of the colonies, it is well to recall how many of them there were. Let us see. There were the Pilgrim and Puritan settlements of New England, Roger Williams's settlement in Rhode Island, the Dutch settlement in New York, the Quaker one in Pennsylvania, the Catholic settlement in Maryland, the Cavalier ones in Virginia and the Carolinas, and the Debtor settlement in Georgia. Then there were some smaller ones, making about a dozen in all.

These stretched all along the coast, from Canada, the French country in the north, to Florida, the Spanish country in the south. The British were a long time in settling these places, for nearly 250 years pa.s.sed after the time of Columbus before General Oglethorpe came to Georgia.

While all this was going on, what was becoming of the native people of the country, the Indians? I am afraid they were having a very hard time of it. The Spaniards made slaves of them, and forced them to work so terribly hard in the mines and the fields that they died by thousands.

The French and the English fought with them and drove them away from their old homes, killing many of them.

And this has gone on and on ever since, until the red men, who once spread over all this country, are now kept in a very small part of it.

Some people say there are as many of them as there ever were. If that is so, they can live on much less land than they once occupied.

What do you know about these Indians? Have you ever seen one of them?

Your fathers or grandfathers have, I am sure, for once they were everywhere in this country, and people saw more of them than they liked; but now we see them only in the Wild West shows or the Indian schools, except we happen to go where they live. Do you not want to know something about these oldest Americans? I have been busy so far talking about the white men and what they did, and have had no chance to tell you about the people they found on this continent and how they treated them. I think I must make this chapter an Indian one.

Well, then, when the Spanish came to the south, and the French to the north, and the Dutch and the Swedes and the British to the middle country, they found everywhere a kind of people they had never seen before. Their skin was not white, like that of the people of Europe, nor black like that of the Africans, but of a reddish color, like that of copper, so that they called them red men. They had black eyes and hair, and high cheek-bones, and were not handsome according to our ideas; but they were tall and strong, and many of them very proud and dignified.

These people lived in a very wild fashion. They spent much of their time in hunting, fishing, and fighting. They raised some Indian corn and beans, and were fond of tobacco, but most of their food was got from wild animals killed in the woods. They were as fond of fighting as they were of hunting. They were divided into tribes, some of which were nearly always at war with other tribes. They had no weapons but stone hatchets and bows and arrows, but they were able with these to kill many of their enemies. People say that they were badly treated by the whites, but they treated one another worse than the whites ever did.

The Indians were very cruel. The warriors shaved off all their hair except one lock, which was called the scalp lock. When one of them was killed in battle this lock was used to pull off his scalp, or the skin of his head. They were very proud of these scalps, for they showed how many men they had killed.

When they took a prisoner, they would tie him to a tree and build a fire round him and burn him to death. And while he was burning they would torture him all they could. We cannot feel so much pity for the Indians when we think of all this. No doubt the white men have treated them very unjustly, but they have stopped all these terrible cruelties, and that is something to be thankful for. In this country, where once there was constant war and bloodshed, and torturing and burning of prisoners, now there is peace and kindness and happiness. So if evil has been done, good has come of it.

At the time I am speaking of, forests covered much of this great continent. They spread everywhere, and the Indians lived under their shade, and had wonderful skill in following animals or enemies through their shady depths. They read the ground much as we read the pages of a book. A broken twig, a bit of torn moss, a footprint which we could not see, were full of meaning to them, and they would follow a trail for miles through the woods where we would not have been able to follow it a yard. Their eyes were trained to this kind of work, but in time some of the white men became as expert as the Indians, and could follow a trail as well.

The red men lived mostly in little huts covered with skins or bark, which they called wigwams. Some of the tribes lived in villages, where there were large bark houses. But they did not stay much in their houses, for they liked better to be in the open air. Now they were hunting deer in the woods, now fishing or paddling their bark canoes in the streams, now smoking their pipes in front of their huts, now dancing their war dances or getting ready to fight.

The men did nothing except hunting and fighting. The women had to do all other work, such as cooking, planting and gathering corn, building wigwams, and the like. They did some weaving of cloth, but most of their clothes were made of the skins of wild animals.

In war times the warriors tried to make themselves as ugly as they could, painting their faces in a horrid fashion and sticking feathers in their hair. They seemed to think they could scare their enemies by ugly faces.

I have spoken of the tribes of the Indians. Some of these tribes were quite large, and were made up of a great number of men and women who lived together and spoke the same language. Each tribe was divided up into clans, or small family-like groups, and each clan had its sachem, or peace-chief. There were war-chiefs, also, who led them to battle. The sachems and chiefs governed the tribes and made such laws as they had.

Every clan had some animal which it called its totem, such as the wolf, bear, or fox. They were proud of their totems, and the form of the animal was tattooed on their breast; that is, it was picked into the skin with needles. All the Indians were fond of dancing, and their war dances were as fierce and wild as they could make them.

The tribes in the south were not as savage as those in the north. They did more farming, and had large and well-built villages. Some of them had temples and priests, and looked upon the sun as a G.o.d. They kept a fire always burning in the temple, and seemed to think this fire was a part of their sun-G.o.d. They had a great chief who ruled over the tribe, and also a head war-chief, a high-priest, and other rulers.