A Brief History of the United States Part 7

6. Between 1638 and 1640 other towns were planted on Long Island Sound, and four of them united (1643) and formed the New Haven Colony.

7. Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven joined in a league --the United Colonies of New England (1643-84).

8. New Haven was united with Connecticut (1662), and Plymouth with Ma.s.sachusetts (1691), while New Hamps.h.i.+re was made a separate province; so that after 1691 the New England colonies were New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

9. The New England colonists lived largely in villages. They were engaged in farming, manufacturing, and commerce.

10. For twenty years, during the Civil War and the Puritan rule in England, the colonies were left to themselves; but in 1660 Charles II became king of England, and a new era began in colonial affairs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHARTER OAK, HARTFORD, CONN. From an old print.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] On his map Smith gave to Cape Ann, Cape Elizabeth, Charles River, and Plymouth the names they still retain. Cape Cod he called Cape James.

[2] The Puritans were important in history for many years. Most of the English people who quarreled and fought with King James and King Charles were Puritans. In Maryland it was a Puritan army that for a time overthrew Lord Baltimore's government (p. 52).

[3] Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 79-82.

[4] The little boat or shallop in which they intended to sail along the coast needed to be repaired, and two weeks pa.s.sed before it was ready.

Meantime a party protected by steel caps and corselets went ash.o.r.e to explore the country. A few Indians were seen in the distance, but they fled as the Pilgrims approached. In the ruins of a hut were found some corn and an iron kettle that had once belonged to a European s.h.i.+p. The corn they carried away in the kettle, to use as seed in the spring. Other exploring parties, after trips in the shallop, pushed on over hills and through valleys covered deep with snow, and found more deserted houses, corn, and many graves; for a pestilence had lately swept off the Indian population. On the last exploring voyage, the waves ran so high that the rudder was carried away and the explorers steered with an oar. As night came on, all sail was spread in hope of reaching sh.o.r.e before dark, but the mast broke and the sail went overboard. However, they floated to an island where they landed and spent the night. On the second day after, Monday, December 21, the explorers reached the mainland. On the beach, half in sand and half in water, was a large bowlder, and on this famous Plymouth Rock, it is said, the men stepped as they went ash.o.r.e.

[5] As to the early settlements read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 90-95.

[6] The Ma.s.sachusetts charter granted the land from within three miles south of the Charles River, to within three miles north of the Merrimac River, and all lands "of and within the breadth aforesaid" across the continent.

[7] Roger Williams was a Welshman, had been educated at Cambridge University in England, and had some reputation as a preacher before coming to Boston. There he was welcomed as "a G.o.dly minister," and in time was called to a church in Salem; but was soon forced out by the General Court.

He then went to Plymouth, where he made the friends.h.i.+p of Mas'sasoit, chief of the Wam-pano'ags, and of Canon'icus, chief of the Narragansetts, and learned their language. In 1633 he returned to Salem, and was again made pastor of a church.

[8] The fate of John Endicott shows to what a result Williams's teaching was supposed to lead. The flag of the Salem militia bore the red cross of St. George. Endicott regarded it as a symbol of popery, and one day publicly cut out the cross from the flag. This was thought a defiance of royal authority, and Endicott was declared incapable of holding office for a year.

[9] Anne Hutchinson held certain religious views on which she lectured to the women of Boston, and made so many converts that she split the church.

Governor Vane favored her, but John Winthrop opposed her teachings, and when he became governor again she and her followers were ordered to quit the colony.

[10] The first written const.i.tution made in our country, and the first in the history of the world that was made by the people, for the people.

Other towns were added later, among them Saybrook, which had grown up about an English fort built in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut.

[11] Besides New Hamps.h.i.+re, which in 1643 was practically part of Ma.s.sachusetts; and Maine, which became so a few years later.

[12] The Dutch, as we shall see in the next chapter, had planted a colony in the Hudson valley, and disputed English possession of the Connecticut.

[13] Students at Harvard College for many years paid their term bills with produce, meat, and live stock. In 1649 a student paid his bill with "an old cow," and the steward of the college made separate credits for her hide, her "suet and inwards." On another occasion a goat was taken and valued at 30 s.h.i.+llings. Taxes also were paid in corn and cattle.

[14] The coins were the s.h.i.+lling, sixpence, threepence, and twopence. On one side of each coin was stamped a rude representation of a pine tree.

[15] On which the yarn was wound after it was spun. For a picture of the loom used in weaving, see p. 52.

[16] On the board were a saltcellar, wooden plates or trenchers, wooden or pewter spoons, and knives, but no china, no gla.s.s. Forks, it is said, were not known even in England till 1608, and the first ever seen in New England were at Governor Winthrop's table in 1632. Those who wished a drink of water drank from a single wooden tankard pa.s.sed around the table; or they went to the bucket and used a gourd.

[17] This was a large sum in those days, and about as much as was raised by taxation in a year. The General Court which voted the money, it has been said, was "the first body in which the people, by their representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education."

[18] The Friends, or Quakers, lived pure, upright, simple lives. They protested against all forms and ceremonies, and against all church government. They refused to take any oaths, to use any t.i.tles, or to serve in war, because they thought these things wrong. They were much persecuted in England.

[19] Another incident which gives us an insight into the character of these early times is the witchcraft delusion of 1692. Nearly everybody in those days believed in witchcraft, and several persons in the colonies had been put to death as witches. When, therefore, in 1692, the children of a Salem minister began to behave queerly and said that an Indian slave woman had bewitched them, they were believed. But the delusion did not stop with the children. In a few weeks scores of people in Salem were accusing their neighbors of all sorts of crimes and witch orgies. Many declared that the witches stuck pins into them. Twenty persons were put to death as witches before the craze came to an end.

[20] The New Haven Colony was destroyed as a distinct colony because its people offended the king by sheltering Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the regicides, or judges who sat in the tribunal that condemned Charles I. When they fled to New England in 1660, a royal order for their arrest was sent over after them, and a hot pursuit began. For a month they lived in a cave, at other times in cellars in Milford, Guilford, and New Haven; and once they hid under a bridge while their pursuers galloped past overhead. After hiding in these ways about New Haven for three years they went to Hadley in Ma.s.sachusetts, where all trace of them disappears.

CHAPTER VI

THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES

THE COMING OF THE DUTCH.--We have now seen how English colonies were planted in the lands about Chesapeake Bay, and in New England. Into the country lying between, there came in 1609 an intruder in the form of a little Dutch s.h.i.+p called the _Half-Moon_. The Dutch East India Company had fitted her out and sent Captain Henry Hudson in her to seek a northeasterly pa.s.sage to China. Driven back by ice in his attempt to sail north of Europe, Hudson turned westward, and came at last to Delaware Bay.

Up this the _Half-Moon_ went a little way, but, grounding on the shoals, Hudson turned about, followed the coast northward, and sailed up the river now called by his name. He went as far as the site of Albany; then, finding that the Hudson was not a pa.s.sage through the continent, he returned to Europe. [1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANDING OF HUDSON. From an old print.]

DISCOVERIES OF BLOCK AND MAY.--The discovery of the Hudson gave Holland or the Netherlands a claim to the country it drained, and year after year Dutch explorers visited the region. One of them, Adrien Block, (in 1614) went through Long Island Sound, ascended the Connecticut River as far as the site of Hartford, and sailed along the coast to a point beyond Cape Cod; Block Island now bears his name. Another, May, went southward, pa.s.sed between two capes, [2] and explored Delaware Bay. The Dutch then claimed the country from the Delaware to Cape Cod; that is, as far as May and Block had explored.

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

THE FUR TRADE.--Important as these discoveries were, they interested the Dutch far less than the prospect of a rich fur trade with the Indians, and in a few years Dutch traders had four little houses on Manhattan Island, and a little fort not far from the site of Albany. From it buyers went out among the Mohawk Indians and returned laden with the skins of beavers and other valuable furs; and to the fort by and by the Indians came to trade.

So valuable was this traffic that those engaged in it formed a company, obtained from the Dutch government a charter, and for three years (1615- 18) enjoyed a monopoly of the fur trade from the Delaware to the Hudson.

THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY.--When the three years expired the charter was not renewed; but a new a.s.sociation called the Dutch West India Company was chartered (1621) and given great political and commercial power over New Netherland, as the Dutch possessions in North America were now called.

More settlers were sent out (in 1623), some to Fort Orange on the site of Albany, some to Fort Na.s.sau on the South or Delaware River, some to the Fresh or Connecticut River, some to Long Island, and some to Manhattan Island, where they founded the town of New Amsterdam.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUTCH MERCHANT (1620).]

THE PATROONS.--All the little Dutch settlements were forts or strong buildings surrounded by palisades, and were centers of the fur trade. Very little farming was done. In order to encourage farming, the West India Company (in 1629) offered an immense tract of land to any member of the company who should take out a colony of fifty families. The estate of a Patroon, as such a man was called, was to extend sixteen miles along one bank or eight miles along both banks of a river, and back almost any distance into the country. [3] A number of these patroons.h.i.+ps were established on the Hudson.

THE DUTCH ON THE CONNECTICUT.--The first attempt (in 1623) of the Dutch to build a fort on the Connecticut failed; for the company could not spare enough men to hold the valley. But later the Dutch returned, nailed the arms of Holland to a tree at the mouth of the river in token of owners.h.i.+p, and (1633) built Fort Good Hope where Hartford now stands. When the Indians informed the English of this, the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts bade the Dutch begone; and when they would not go, built a fort higher up the river at Windsor (1633), and another (1635) at Saybrook at the river's mouth, so as to cut them off from New Amsterdam. The English colony of Connecticut was now established in the valley; but twenty years pa.s.sed before Fort Good Hope was taken from the Dutch.

DUTCH AND SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE.--The Dutch settlers on the Delaware were driven off by Indians, but a garrison was sent back to hold Fort Na.s.sau.

Meantime the Swedes appeared on the Delaware. After the organization of the Dutch West India Company (1623), William Usselinex of Amsterdam went to Sweden and urged the king to charter a similar company of Swedish merchants. A company to trade with Asia, Africa, and America was accordingly formed. Some years later Queen Christina chartered the South Company, and in 1638 a colony was sent out by this company, the west bank of the Delaware from its mouth to the Schuylkill (skool'kill) was bought from the Indians, and a fort (Christina) was built on the site of Wilmington. The Dutch governor at New Amsterdam protested, but for a dozen years the Swedes remained unmolested, and scattered their settlements along the sh.o.r.es of Delaware River and Bay, and called their country New Sweden. Alarmed at this, Governor Peter Stuyvesant (sti've-sant) of New Netherland built a fort to cut off the Swedes from the sea. But a Swedish war vessel captured the Dutch fort; whereupon Stuyvesant sailed up the Delaware with a fleet and army, quietly took possession of New Sweden, and made it once more Dutch territory (1655).

DUTCH RULE.--The rulers of New Netherland were a director general, or governor, and five councilmen appointed by the West India Company. One of these governors, Peter Minuit, bought Manhattan (the island now covered by a part of New York city) from the Indians (1626) for 60 guilders, or about $24 of our money. [4]

DEMAND FOR POPULAR GOVERNMENT.--As population increased, the people began to demand a share in the government; they wished to elect four of the five councilmen. A long quarrel followed, but Governor Stuyvesant at last ordered the election of nine men to aid him when necessary. [5]

POPULATION AND CUSTOMS.--Though most of the New Netherlanders were Dutch, there were among them also Germans, French Huguenots, English, Scotch, Jews, Swedes, and as many religious sects as nationalities.

The Dutch of New Netherland were a jolly people, much given to bowling and holidays. They kept New Year's Day, St. Valentine's Day, Easter and Pinkster (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday the seventh week after Easter), May Day, St. Nicholas Day (December 6), and Christmas. On Pinkster days the whole population, negro slaves included, went off to the woods on picnics.

Kirmess, a sort of annual fair for each town, furnished additional holidays. The people rose at dawn, dined at noon, and supped at six. In no colony were the people better housed and fed.