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A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

J >> John Bach McMaster >> A School History of the United States




[Illustration: View of New Amsterdam in 1656]

%28. Dutch West India Company.%--On the expiration of the charter (in
1618) it was not renewed, but a new corporation, the Dutch West India
Company (1621), was created with almost absolute political and
commercial power over all the Dutch domains in North America, which were
called New Netherland. In 1623 the company began to send out settlers.
Some went to Albany, or, as they called it, Fort Orange. Others were
sent to the South or Delaware River, where a trading post, Fort Nassau,
was built on the site of Gloucester in New Jersey. A few went to the
Connecticut River; some settled on Long Island; and others on Manhattan
Island, where they founded New Amsterdam, now called New York city.

All these little settlements were merely fur-trading posts. Nobody was
engaged as yet in farming. To encourage this, the company (in 1629) took
another step, and offered a great tract of land, on any navigable river
or bay, to anybody who would establish a colony of fifty persons above
the age of fifteen. If on a river, the domain was to be sixteen miles
along one bank or eight miles along each bank, and run back into the
country as far "as the situation of the occupiers will admit." The
proprietor of the land was to be called a "patroon," [1] and was absolute
ruler of whatever colonies he might plant, for he was at once owner,
ruler, and judge. It may well be supposed that such a tempting offer did
not go a-begging, and a number of patroons were soon settled along the
Hudson and on the banks of the Delaware (1631), where they founded a
town near Lewes. The settlements on the Delaware River were short-lived.
The settlers quarreled with the Indians, who in revenge massacred them
and drove off the garrison at Fort Nassau; whereupon the patroons sold
their rights to the Dutch West India Company.[2]

[Footnote 1: The patroon bound himself to (1) transport the fifty
settlers to New Netherland at his own expense; (2) provide each of them
with a farm stocked with horses, cattle, and farming implements, and
charge a low rent; (3) employ a schoolmaster and a minister of the
Gospel. In return for this the emigrant bound himself (1) to stay and
cultivate the land of the patroon for ten years; (2) to bring his grain
to the patroon's mill and pay for grinding; (3) to use no cloth not made
in Holland; (4) to sell no grain or produce till the patroon had been
given a chance to buy it.]

[Footnote 2: Lodge's _English Colonies_, pp. 295-311; Winsor's
_Narrative and Critical History_, Vol. III., pp. 385-411; Bancroft's
_History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 501-508.]

%29. The Struggle for the Delaware; the Swedes on the Delaware.%--And
now began a bitter contest for the ownership of the country bordering
the Delaware. A few leading officials of the Dutch Company, disgusted at
the way its affairs were managed, formed a new company under the lead of
William Usselinx. As they could not get a charter from Holland, for she
would not create a rival to the Dutch Company, they sought and obtained
one from Sweden as the South Company, and (1638) sent out a colony to
settle on the Delaware River.[1] The spot chosen was on the site of
Wilmington. The country was named New Sweden, though it belonged to
Maryland. The Dutch West India Company protested and rebuilt Fort
Nassau. The Swedes, in retaliation, went farther up the river and
fortified an island near the mouth of the Schuylkill. Had they stopped
here, all would have gone well. But, made bold by the inaction of the
Dutch, they began to annoy the New Netherlanders, till (1655) Peter
Stuyvesant, the governor of New Netherland, unable to stand it any
longer, came over from New Amsterdam with a few hundred men, overawed
the Swedes, and annexed their territory west of the Delaware. New Sweden
then became part of New Netherland.[2]

[Footnote 1: Sweden had no right to make such a settlement. She had no
claim to any territory in North America.]

[Footnote 2: Lodge's _English Colonies_, pp. 205-210; Bancroft's
_History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 509, 510; Hildreth's
_History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 413-442.]


SUMMARY

1. After the discovery of the North American coast by the Cabots,
England made no attempt to settle it for nearly eighty years; and even
then the colonies planted by Gilbert and Ralegh were failures.

2. Successful settlement by the English began under the London Company
in 1607.

3. In 1609 the London Company obtained a grant of land from sea to sea,
and extending 400 miles along the Atlantic; but in 1624 its charter was
annulled, and in 1632 the King carved the proprietary colony of Maryland
out of Virginia.

4. Meantime Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch, discovered the
Delaware and Hudson rivers (1609), and the Dutch, ignoring the claims of
England, planted colonies on these rivers and called the country New
Netherland.

5. Then a Swedish company began to colonize the Delaware Bay and River
coast of Virginia, which they called New Sweden.

6. Conflicts between the Dutch and the Swedes followed, and in 1655 New
Sweden was made a part of New Netherland.




CHAPTER IV


THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND

%30. The Beginnings of New England.%--When the Dutch put up their
trading posts where New York and Albany now stand, all the country east
of New York, all of what is now New England, was a wilderness. As early
as 1607 an attempt was made to settle it and a colony was planted on the
coast of Maine by two members of the Plymouth Company, Sir John Popham,
Lord Chief Justice of England, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of
Plymouth. But the colonists were half starved and frozen, and in the
spring of 1608 gladly went home to England.

Six years later John Smith, the hero of Virginia, explored and mapped
the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. He called the country New
England; one of the rivers, the Charles; and two of the promontories,
Cape Elizabeth and Cape Ann. Three times he attempted to lead out a
colony; but that work was reserved for other men.

%31. The Separatists.%--The reign of Queen Elizabeth had witnessed in
England the rise of a religious sect which insisted that certain changes
should be made in the government and ceremonials of the Established or
State Church of England. This they called purifying the Church, and in
consequence they were themselves called Puritans.[1] At first they did
not intend to form a new sect; but in 1580 one of their ministers, named
Robert Brown, urged them to separate from the Church of England, and
soon gathered about him a great number of followers, who were called
Separatists or Brownists. They boldly asserted their right to worship as
they pleased, and put their doctrines into practice. So hot a
persecution followed, that in 1608 a party, led by William Brewster and
John Robinson, fled from Scrooby, a little village in northern England,
to Amsterdam, in Holland; but soon went on to Leyden, where they dwelt
eleven years.[2]

[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 50-71. The
teacher may read "Rise and Development of Puritanism" in Eggleston's
_Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 98-140.]

[Footnote 2: Read Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 141-157;
Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 71-80; Doyle's _Puritan
Colonies_, Vol. I., pp. 47-81; Palfrey's _New England_, Vol. I.,
pp. 176-232.]

%32. Why the Separatists went to New England%.--They had come to
Holland as an organized community, practicing English manners and
customs. For a temporary residence this would do. But if they and their
children's children after them were to remain and prosper, they must
break up their organization, forget their native land, their native
speech, their national traditions, and to all intents and purposes
become Dutch. This they could not bring themselves to do, and by 1617
they had fully determined to remove to some land where they might still
continue to be Englishmen, and where they might lay the foundations of a
Christian state. But one such land could then be found, and that was
America. To America, therefore, they turned their attention, and after
innumerable delays formed a company and obtained leave from the London
Company to settle on the coast of what is now New Jersey.[1]

[Footnote 1: Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 159-176.]

This done, Brewster and Bradford and Miles Standish, with a little band,
sent out as an advance guard, set sail from the Dutch port of Delft
Haven in July, 1620, in the ship _Speedwell_. The first run was to
Southampton, England, where some friends from London joined them in the
_Mayflower_, and whence, August 5, they sailed for America. But the
_Speedwell_ proved so unseaworthy that the two ships put back to
Plymouth, where twenty people gave up the voyage. September 6, 1620,
such as remained steadfast, just 102 in number, reembarked on the
_Mayflower_ and began the most memorable of voyages. The weather was so
foul, and the wind and sea so boisterous, that nine weeks passed before
they beheld the sandy shores of Cape Cod. Having no right to settle
there, as the cape lay far to the northward of the lands owned by the
London Company, they turned their ship southward and attempted to go on.
But head winds drove them back and forced them to seek shelter in
Provincetown harbor, at the end of Cape Cod.

[Illustration: The Mayflower[1]]

[Footnote 1: From the model in the National Museum, Washington.]

[Illustration: THE MASSACHUSETTS COAST (map)]

%33. The Mayflower Compact%.--Since it was then the 11th of November,
the Pilgrims, as they are now called, decided to get permission from
the Plymouth Company to remain permanently. But certain members of the
party, when they heard this, became unruly, and declared that as they
were not to land in Virginia, they were no longer bound by the contracts
they had made in England regarding their emigration to Virginia. To put
an end to this, a meeting was held, November 21, 1620, in the cabin of
the _Mayflower_, and a compact was drawn up and signed.[1] It declared

1. That they were loyal subjects of the King.

2. That they had undertaken to found a colony in the northern parts of
Virginia, and now bound themselves to form a "civil body politic."

3. That they would frame such just and equal laws, from time to time, as
might be for the general good.

4. And to these laws they promised "all due submission and obedience."

[Footnote 1: The compact is in Poore's _Charters and Constitutions_, p.
931, and in Preston's _Documents Illustrative of American History_, pp.
29-31. Read, by all means, Webster's _Plymouth Oration_.]

[Illustration: Plymouth Rock]

%34. The Founding of Plymouth%.--The selection of a site for their
home was now necessary, and five weeks were passed in exploring the
coast before Captain Standish with a boatload of men entered the harbor
which John Smith had noted on his map and named Plymouth. On the sandy
shore of that harbor, close to the water's edge, was a little granite
bowlder, and on this, according to tradition, the Pilgrims stepped as
they came ashore, December 21, 1620. To this harbor the _Mayflower_ was
brought, and the work of founding Plymouth was begun. The winter was a
dreadful one, and before spring fifty-one of the colonists had died.[1]
But the Pilgrims stood fast, and in 1621 obtained a grant of land[2]
from the Council for New England, which had just succeeded the Plymouth
Company, under a charter giving it control between latitudes 40 deg. and
48 deg., from sea to sea.[3] It was from the same Council that for fifteen
years to come all other settlers in New England obtained their rights
to the soil.

[Footnote 1: In the trying times which followed, William Bradford was
chosen governor and many times reelected. He wrote the so-called "Log of
the Mayflower,"--really a manuscript _History of the Plymouth
Plantation_ from 1602 to 1647,--a fragment of which is reproduced on the
opposite page.]

[Footnote 2: This grant had no boundary. Each settler might have 100
acres. Fifteen hundred acres were set aside for public buildings.]

[Footnote 3: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 80-87; Palfrey's
_New England_, Vol. I, pp. 176-232; Thatcher's _History of the Town of
Plymouth_.]

[Illustration: Fragment of _History of the Plymouth Plantation_.]

%35. A Puritan Colony proposed.%--Among those who obtained such
rights was a company of Dorchester merchants who planted a town on Cape
Ann. The enterprise failed, and the colonists went off and settled at a
place they called Naumkeag. But there was one man in Dorchester who was
not discouraged by failure. He was John White, a Puritan rector. What
had been done by the Separatists in a small way might be done, it seemed
to White, on a great scale by an association of wealthy and influential
Puritans. The matter was discussed by them in London, and in 1628 an
association was formed, and a tract of land was bought from the Council
for New England.

%36. The "Sea to Sea" Grant%.--Concerning the interior of our
continent absolutely nothing was known. Nobody supposed it was more than
half as wide as it really is. The grant to the association, therefore,
stretched from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles
south of the Charles River, along these rivers to their sources, and
then westward across the continent from sea to sea.[1]

[Footnote 1: You will notice that when this grant was made in 1628 the
Dutch had discovered the Hudson, and had begun to settle Albany. To this
region (the Hudson and Mohawk valleys) the English had no just claim.]

As soon as the grant was obtained, John Endicott came out with a company
of sixty persons, and took up his abode at Naumkeag, which, being an
Indian and therefore a pagan name, he changed to Salem, the Hebrew word
for "peace."

%37. The Massachusetts Charter, 1629%.--The next step was to obtain
the right of self-government, which was secured by a royal charter
creating a corporation known as the Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay in New England. Over the affairs of the company were
to preside a governor, deputy governor, and a council of eighteen to be
elected annually by the members of the company.[2]

[Footnote 2: The charter is printed in Poore's _Charters and
Constitutions_, pp. 932-942, and in Preston's _Documents_, pp. 36-61.]

Six ships were now fitted out, and in them 406 men, women, and children,
with 140 head of cattle, set sail for Massachusetts. They reached Salem
in safety and made it the largest colony in New England.

%38. Why the Puritans came to New England.%--It was in 1625 that
Charles I. ascended the throne of England. Under him the quarrel with
the Puritans grew worse each year. He violated his promises, he
collected illegal taxes, he quartered troops on the people, he threw
those into prison who would not contribute to his forced loans, or
pressed them into the army or the navy. His Archbishop Laud persecuted
the Puritans with shameful cruelty.

Little wonder then that in 1629 twelve leading Puritans met in
consultation and agreed to head a great migration to the New World,
provided the charter and the government of the Massachusetts Bay Company
were both removed to New England. This was agreed to, and in April,
1630, John Winthrop sailed with nearly one thousand Puritans for Salem.
From Salem he moved to Charlestown, and later in the year (1630) to a
little three-hilled peninsula, which the English called Tri-mountain or
Tremont. There a town was founded and called Boston.

The departure of Winthrop was the signal, and before the year 1630
ended, seventeen ships, bringing fifteen hundred Puritans, reached
Massachusetts. The newcomers settled Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury,
Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now Cambridge). New England was
planted.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 75-105.
Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 188-219.]

%39. New Hampshire and Maine.%--When it became apparent that the
Plymouth colony was permanently settled, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose
interest in New England had never lagged, together with John Mason
obtained (1622) from the Council for New England a grant of Laconia, as
they called the territory between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers,
and from the Atlantic "to the great river of Canada." Seven years later
(1629) they divided their property. Mason, taking the territory between
the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, called it New Hampshire because he
was Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire in England. Gorges took the region
between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, and called it Maine. After the
death of Mason (1635) his colony was neglected and from 1641 to 1679 was
annexed to Massachusetts. The King separated them in 1679, joined them
again in 1688, and finally parted them in 1691, making New Hampshire a
royal colony.

Gorges took better care of his part and (in 1639) was given a charter
with the title of Lord Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine,
which extended, as before, from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec, and
backward 120 miles from the ocean. But after his death the province fell
into neglect, and the towns were gradually absorbed by Massachusetts,
which, in 1677, bought the claims of the heir of Gorges for L1250 and
governed Maine as lord proprietor under the Gorges charter.

%40. Church and State in Massachusetts.%--Down to the moment of their
arrival in America the Puritans had not been Separatists. They were
still members of the Church of England who desired to see her form of
worship purified. But the party under Endicott had no sooner reached
Salem than they seceded, and the first Congregational Church in New
England was founded.

Some in Salem were not prepared for so radical a step, and attempted to
establish a church on the episcopal model; but Endicott promptly sent
two of the leaders back to England. Thus were established two facts: 1.
The separation or secession of the Colonial Church from that of England.
2. That the episcopal form of worship would not be tolerated in
the colony.

In 1631 another step was taken which united church and state, for it was
then ordered that "no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body
politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the
limits of the same."

This was intolerance of the grossest kind, and soon became the cause of
troubles which led to the founding of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

%41. The Planting of Rhode Island.%--There came to Salem (from
Plymouth), in 1633, a young minister named Roger Williams. He dissented
heartily from the intolerance of the people of Massachusetts, and,
though a minister of the Salem church, insisted

1. On the separation of church and state.

2. On the toleration of all religious beliefs.

3. On the repeal of all laws requiring attendance on religious worship.

To us, in this century, the justice of each of these principles is
self-evident. But in the seventeenth century there was no country in the
world where it was safe to declare them. For doing so in some parts of
Europe, a man would most certainly have been burned at the stake. For
doing so in England, he would have been put in the pillory, or had his
ears cut off, or been sent to jail. That Williams's teachings should
seem rank heresy in New England was quite natural. But, to make matters
worse, he wrote a pamphlet in which he boldly stated

1. That the soil belonged to the Indians.

2. That the settlers could obtain a valid title only by purchase from
the Indians.

3. That accepting a deed for the land from a mere intruder like the King
of England was a sin requiring public repentance.

In the opinion of the people of New England such doctrine could not fail
to bring down on Massachusetts the wrath of the King. When, therefore, a
little later, Endicott cut the red cross of St. George out of the colors
of the Salem militia, the people considered his act a defiance of royal
authority, attributed it to the teachings of Williams, and proceeded to
punish both. Endicott was rebuked by the General Court (or legislature)
and forbidden to hold office for a year. Williams was ordered to go
back to England. But he fled to the woods, and made his way through the
snow to the wigwam of the Indian chief, Massasoit, on Narragansett Bay,
and there in the summer of 1636 he founded Providence. About the same
time another teacher of what was then thought heresy, Anne Hutchinson,
was driven from Massachusetts, and with some of her followers went
southward and founded Portsmouth and Newport, on the island of Rhode
Island. For a while each of these settlements was independent, but in
1643 Williams went to London and secured a patent from Parliament which
united them under the name of "The Incorporation of Providence
Plantations on the Narragansett Bay in New England."

%42. Connecticut begun.%--In the same year that Roger Williams began
his settlement at Providence, several hundred people from the towns near
Boston went off and settled in the Connecticut valley. For a long time
past there had been growing up in Massachusetts a strong feeling that
the law that none but church members should vote or hold office was
oppressive. This feeling became so strong that in 1635 some hardy
pioneers from Dorchester pushed through the wilderness and settled at
Windsor. A party from Watertown went further and settled Wethersfield.
These were small movements. But in 1636 the Newtown congregation, led by
its pastor, Thomas Hooker, walked to the Connecticut valley and founded
Hartford. The congregations of the Dorchester and Watertown churches
soon followed, while a party from Roxbury settled at Springfield. During
three years these four towns were part of Massachusetts. But in 1639,
Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield adopted a constitution and formed a
little republic which in time was called Connecticut. Their "Fundamental
Orders of Connecticut" was the first written constitution made in
America. Their republic was the first in the history of the world to be
founded by a written constitution, and marks the beginning of democratic
government in our country.

%43. The New Haven Colony.%--Just at the time these things were
happening in the Connecticut valley, the beginnings of another little
republic were made on the shores of Long Island Sound. One day in the
summer of 1637 there came to Boston a company of rich London merchants
under the lead of an eloquent preacher named John Davenport. The people
of Boston would gladly have kept the newcomers at that town. But the
strangers desired to found a state of their own, and so, after spending
some months in seeking for a spot with a good harbor, they left Boston
in 1638 and founded New Haven. In 1639 Milford and Guilford were laid
out, and Stamford was started in 1640. Three years later these four
towns joined in a sort of federal union and took the name of the New
Haven colony.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 134-137.]

[Illustration: NEW ENGLAND AND NEW NETHERLAND]

%44. "The United Colonies of New England."%--There were now five
colonies in New England; namely, Plymouth, or the "Old Colony,"
Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.
Geographically, they were near each other. But each was weak in numbers,
and if left without the aid of its neighbors, might easily have fallen
a prey to some enemy. Of this the settlers were well aware, and in 1643
four of the colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New
Haven[1] united for defense against the Indians and the Dutch, who
claimed the Connecticut valley and so threatened the English colonies
on the west.

[Footnote 1: Rhode Island was not allowed to come in, for the feeling
against the followers of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson was still
very strong.]

The name of this league was "The United Colonies of New England," and it
was the first attempt in America at federal government. All its affairs
were managed by a board of eight commissioners,--two from each
colony,--who must be church members. They had no power to lay taxes or
to meddle with the internal concerns of the colonies, but they had
entire control over all dealings with Indians or with foreign powers.

%45. The Year 1643.%--The year 1643 is thus an important one in
colonial history. It was in that year that the New Haven colony was
founded; that the league of The United Colonies of New England was
formed; and that Roger Williams obtained the first charter of
Rhode Island.

%46. New Charters.%--During the next twenty years no changes took
place in the boundaries of the colonies. This was the period of the
Civil War in England, of the Commonwealth, of the rule of Cromwell and
the Puritans; and affairs in New England were left to take care of
themselves. But in 1660 Charles II. was restored to the throne of
England, and a new era opens in colonial history. In 1661 the little
colony of Connecticut promptly acknowledged the restoration of Charles
II. and applied for a charter. The application was more than granted;
for to Connecticut (1662) was given not only a charter and an immense
tract of land, but also the colony of New Haven.[1] The land grant was
comprised in a strip that stretched across the continent from Rhode
Island to the Pacific and was as wide as the present state.[2] In 1663
Rhode Island was given a new charter.