England in America, 1580-1652 Part 25

In 1632 Lord Baltimore obtained a patent for Maryland which included all the south side of Delaware Bay and river; and a month later Sir Edmund Plowden obtained a grant from the English king for "Long Isle and also forty leagues square of the adjoining continent," including the very site of Manhattan.[20] In April, 1633, Jacob Eelkens, in command of an English vessel, forced his way past Fort Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island, and traded with the Indians, until the incompetent Van Twiller at length stripped him of his goods and drove him from the river.[21] The same year Van Twiller, as we have seen, planted a fort near the site of the present city of Hartford, which served as the seed of future troubles.

In 1634 Captain Thomas Young visited the Delaware and lorded it over the Dutch vessels which he found in the river.[22] Then in 1635, while settlers from Ma.s.sachusetts poured into Connecticut, and the Council for New England, preliminary to its dissolution, a.s.signed Long Island, despite the Dutch claim, to Sir William Alexander, men came from Virginia to Delaware Bay and seized Fort Na.s.sau, then abandoned by the Dutch; but Van Twiller soon drove them away.[23] Thus step by step English progress encroached upon the territories of the Dutch.

In 1638 Van Twiller was recalled and William Kieft was sent over. He had to deal with Swedes as well as English, for in 1626 King Gustavus Adolphus was persuaded by Usselinx, an Amsterdam merchant, to form the Swedish West India Company, and after his death Oxenstierna, his prime-minister, renewed the scheme. In 1638 he sent out a Swedish expedition under Peter Minuit, the late governor of New Netherland, who established a fort on the Delaware near the present Wilmington, and called it "Christina," and the Swedes paid no attention to the protest of Governor Kieft.[24]

In 1640 a party of English settlers from New Haven obtained deeds to the soil on Long Island from Farrett, agent of Sir William Alexander, and settled at Southold; and another party from Ma.s.sachusetts, more daring still, settled at Schouts Bay, almost opposite to Manhattan.

When a force of Dutch troops was sent against them they retired to the east end of the island and settled Southampton. A more adventuresome proceeding was attempted in 1641 when another party from New Haven took the Dutch in the flank by settling on the Delaware. Dutch and Swedes united to drive the intruders away. As if these were not troubles enough, Kieft, in 1642, provoked war with the Indians all along the Hudson.

[Footnote 1: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 8.]

[Footnote 2: Bourne, _Spain in America_, chap. x.]

[Footnote 3: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 75, 85, 98.]

[Footnote 4: Charlevoix, _New France_ (Shea's ed.), I., 106.]

[Footnote 5: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 250-297; Charlevoix, _New France_ (Shea's ed.), I., 129-131; cf. Bourne, _Spain in America_, chap. x.]

[Footnote 6: Parkman, _Pioneers of France in the New World_, 213, 218.]

[Footnote 7: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 2-6.]

[Footnote 8: Charlevoix, _New France_ (Shea's ed.), I., 247-263.]

[Footnote 9: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 57.]

[Footnote 10: Ibid., 82.]

[Footnote 11: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 119, 130.]

[Footnote 12: Hannay, _Acadia_, 140.]

[Footnote 13: Winthrop, _New England_, II., 106, 109.]

[Footnote 14: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, III., 581-596.]

[Footnote 15: Brodhead, _New York_, I., 57-62.]

[Footnote 16: _N.Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist._, III., 6-8.]

[Footnote 17: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 53-56.]

[Footnote 18: N.Y. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, III., 16, 22.]

[Footnote 19: Brodhead, _New York_, I., 222.]

[Footnote 20: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 154.]

[Footnote 21: Brodhead, _New York_, I., 230.]

[Footnote 22: Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 4th series, IX., 125-128.]

[Footnote 23: N.Y. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, III., 77.]

[Footnote 24: Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._, IV., 443-452.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW SWEDEN AND NEW NETHERLAND]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION

(1643-1654)

These Dutch settlements brought about a political union of the New England colonies, although the first cause of the New England confederation was the Indian tribes who lay between the Dutch and the English. In August, 1637, during the war with the Pequots, some of the Connecticut magistrates and ministers suggested to the authorities at Boston the expediency of such a measure. The next year Ma.s.sachusetts submitted a plan of union, but Connecticut demurred because it permitted a mere majority of the federal commissioners to decide questions. Thereupon Ma.s.sachusetts injected the boundary question into the discussions, and proposed an article not relished by Connecticut, that the Pequot River should be the line between the two jurisdictions.[1] Thus the matter lay in an unsettled state till the next year, when jealousy of the Dutch stimulated renewed action.

In 1639 John Haynes, of Connecticut, and Rev. Thomas Hooker came to Boston, and again the plan of a confederation was discussed, but Plymouth and Ma.s.sachusetts quarrelled over their boundary-line, and the desirable event was once more postponed. Nearly three more years pa.s.sed, and the founding of a confederacy was still delayed. Then, at a general court held at Boston, September 27, 1642, letters from Connecticut were read "certifying us that the Indians all over the country had combined themselves to cut off all the English."

At this time the war between De la Tour and D'Aulnay was at its height, and the Dutch complaints added to the general alarm. Thus the Connecticut proposition for a league received a more favorable consideration and was referred to a committee "to consider" after the court. At the next general court which met in Boston, May 10, 1643, a compact of confederation in writing was duly signed by commissioners from Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven.[2] The settlement of Gorges and Mason at Piscataqua and the plantations about Narragansett Bay were denied admission into the confederacy--the former "because they ran a different course from us both in their ministry and administration,"[3] and the latter because they were regarded as "tumultuous" and "schismatic."

After a preamble setting forth that "we live encompa.s.sed with people of several nations and strange languages," that "the savages have of late combined themselves against us," and that "the sad distractions in England prevent the hope of advice and protection," the doc.u.ment states that the contracting parties' object was to maintain "a firm and perpetual league of friends.h.i.+p and amity, for offence and defence, mutual advice and succor upon all just occasions both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel, and for their own mutual safety and walfare." It then declared the name of the new confederation to be "the United Colonies of New England," and in ten articles set out the organization and powers of the federal government. The management was placed in the hands of eight commissioners, two for each colony, "all in church-fellows.h.i.+p with us," who were to hold an annual meeting in each of the colonies by rotation, and to have power by a vote of six "to determine all affairs of war or peace, leagues, aids, charges, and number of men for war, division of spoils, or whatever is gotten by conquest," the admission of new confederates, etc. All public charges were to be paid by contributions levied on the colonies proportioned to the number of inhabitants in each colony between sixteen and sixty; and for this purpose a census was to be taken at stated times by the commissioners.

In domestic affairs the federal government was not to interfere, but each colony was guaranteed the integrity of its territory and local jurisdiction.

Two defects were apparent in this const.i.tution: the federal government had no authority to act directly upon individuals, and thus it had no coercive power; the equal number of votes allowed the members of the confederation in the federal council was a standing contradiction of the measure of contribution to the burdens of government. The confederacy contained a population of about twenty-three thousand five hundred souls, of which number fifteen thousand may be a.s.signed to Ma.s.sachusetts, three thousand each to Connecticut and Plymouth, and two thousand five hundred to New Haven. Ma.s.sachusetts, with two out of eight commissioners, possessed a population greater than that of the other three colonies combined.

There was really no Indian combination in 1643 against the colonists, but the rivalry between the Narragansetts and the Mohegans gave grounds for uneasiness. After the death of Miantonomoh, under the circ.u.mstances already related, the fear of an Indian attack was temporarily removed. But the Narragansetts were grief-stricken over the loss of their chieftain and thought only of revenge upon the hated Uncas and his Indians, at whose door they laid all the blame. To give opportunity for intended operations, they made Gorton and others intermediaries for a complete cession of their country to the king of England in April, 1644. Then, when summoned by the general court of Ma.s.sachusetts to Boston, Canonicus and Pessacus, the two leading chiefs, pleaded the king's jurisdiction and declined to appear.[4] Two envoys sent by the general court in May, 1644, to the wigwam of Canonicus, were compelled to stay out in the rain for two hours before being admitted, and Pessacus, instead of giving them satisfaction, persisted in his threat of hostilities against Uncas, agreeing only not to attack Uncas "till after next planting-time," nor then till after due notice given to the English.[5]

The truce did not restrain the Narragansetts, and in the spring of 1645 they attacked the Mohegans and defeated them, and thereupon the federal commissioners, in July, 1645, met at Boston, and upon the refusal of the Narragansetts to make peace with Uncas they made preparations for war. A force of three hundred men was raised, one hundred and ninety from Ma.s.sachusetts, forty each from Plymouth and Connecticut, and thirty from New Haven.

Upon the question of appointment of a commander-in-chief colonial independence came in conflict with federal supremacy. In 1637 Ma.s.sachusetts was the champion of the principle that all questions should be decided by a simple majority vote of the commissioners; but now the Ma.s.sachusetts general court a.s.serted that no appointment of a commander should be valid without their confirmation. The federal commissioners stood stoutly for their rights, and the issue was evaded for a time by the appointment of Major Gibbons, who was a citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts.

The report of these warlike preparations brought the Narragansetts to terms; but uneasiness still continued, and the subsequent years, though free from bloodshed, were full of rumors and reports of hostilities, compelling frequently the interference of the commissioners in behalf of their friend Uncas. In all these troubles[6] the question is not so much the propriety of the particular measures of the federal commissioners as their conduct in making the confederation a party to the disputes of the Indians among themselves. The time finally came when Uncas, "the friend of the white man," was regarded by his former admirers as a hopeless marplot and intriguer.

More commendable were the services of the federal commissioners with the Indians in another particular. One of the professed designs of the charter of Ma.s.sachusetts was to Christianize the heathen savages, but more than twelve years elapsed after the coming of Winthrop and his colonists before New England was the scene of anything like missionary work. Then the first mission was established in 1643 by Thomas Mayhew at the island of Martha's Vineyard, which was not included in any of the New England governments and was under the jurisdiction of Sir William Alexander. In 1651 Mayhew reported that one hundred and ninety-nine men, women, and children of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket were "wors.h.i.+ppers of the great and ever living G.o.d."

His example was followed by John Eliot, the minister of Roxbury, in Ma.s.sachusetts, who learned to speak the Indian tongue, and in 1646 preached to the Indians near Watertown. The Ma.s.sachusetts general court a week later endorsed the purposes of Eliot by enacting that the church should take care to send two ministers among the Indians every year to make known to them by the help of an interpreter "the heavenly counsel of G.o.d." In four years two colonies of Indians were established, one at Nonantum and the other at Concord. But the converts were still under the influence of their sagamores, who were hostile to Eliot's schemes, and in 1651 he removed his Indians to Natick, on the Charles River, where they might be free from all heathenish subjection.

In the mean time, the intelligence of what was taking place was communicated to Edward Winslow, the agent of the colony in England. He brought the matter to the attention of Parliament, and July 19, 1649, an ordinance was pa.s.sed incorporating "the society for the promoting and propagating of the gospel of Jesus Christ in New England." This society selected the federal commissioners as the managers of the fund which flowed into them from persons charitably inclined, and in seven years the sums which were remitted to New England amounted to more than 1700. The commissioners laid out the money in paying Eliot and Mayhew and other teachers, in printing catechisms in the Indian language, and providing the Indian converts with implements of labor.

By 1674 the number of these "praying Indians," as they were called, was estimated at four thousand.[7]

The commissioners also rendered many services in the domestic affairs of the colonies. In order to secure the claim which she had advanced in 1637 to the Pequot River as her southern boundary, Ma.s.sachusetts in 1644 authorized John Winthrop, Jr., to plant a colony on Pequot Bay at a spot called Nameaug, now New London.[8] The Connecticut government protested against the authority of Ma.s.sachusetts, and in 1647 the commissioners decided that "the jurisdiction of the plantation doth and ought to belong to Connecticut."[9] This decision, however, only settled the owners.h.i.+p of a particular place, and the exact southern and northern boundaries of Connecticut remained for several years a matter of contention.

In another matter of internal interest the influence of the confederacy was manifested. Among other considerations for the cession of the Saybrook fort, Fenwick was promised the proceeds for the term of ten years of a duty on all corn, biscuit, beaver, and cattle exported from the Connecticut River.[10] March 4, 1645, the general court of Connecticut pa.s.sed an act to carry out their promise; but as the law affected the trade of Springfield on the upper waters of the Connecticut River as much as that of the Connecticut towns, Springfield protested, and appealed to the protection of Ma.s.sachusetts. Thereupon the general court of that colony lodged a vigorous complaint with the federal commissioners, and the cause was patiently heard by them at two separate meetings. Ma.s.sachusetts had, doubtless, the right on her side, but the Connecticut contention rested on what was international usage at the time.

The result of the deliberation of the commissioners was a decision in July, 1647, in favor of Connecticut. This was far from satisfying Ma.s.sachusetts, and she reopened the question in September, 1648. To enforce her arguments, she offered certain amendments to the confederation, which, if adopted, would have shorn the commissioners of pretty nearly all their authority. But the commissioners stood firm, and declared that "they found not sufficient cause to reverse what was done last year."[11]