England in America, 1580-1652 Part 24

[Footnote 26: Winthrop, _New England_, II., 11.]

[Footnote 27: Hazard, _State Papers_, I., 470.]

[Footnote 28: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 152.]

[Footnote 29: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, I., 272.]

[Footnote 30: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 133-136.]

[Footnote 31: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 69, II., 186.]

[Footnote 32: Winthrop, _New England_, II., 186, 313, 390.]

[Footnote 33: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 266, 267.]

[Footnote 34: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 266, 267; Williamson, _Maine_, I., 326.]

[Footnote 35: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, IV., pt. i., 70.]

[Footnote 36: Williamson, _Maine_, I., 336.]

[Footnote 37: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VII., 273.]

[Footnote 38: Ibid., 274; _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, IV., pt. i., 122-126.]

[Footnote 39: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, IV., pt. i., 129.]

[Footnote 40: Williamson, _Maine_, I., 340, 341.]

[Footnote 41: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, IV., pt. i., 157-165, 359-360.]

CHAPTER XVII

COLONIAL NEIGHBORS

(1643-1652)

Although the successive English colonies--Virginia, Maryland, Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Haven, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Maine--each sprang from separate impulses, we have seen how one depended upon another and how inextricably their history is connected each with the other. Even the widely separated southern and northern groups had intercourse and some transmigration. Thus the history of each colony is a strand in the history of England in America.

In the same way the history of each colony and of the colonies taken together is interwoven with that of colonies of other European nations--the Spaniards, French, and Dutch--planted at first distant from the English settlements, but gradually expanding into dangerous proximity. It was from a desire to protect themselves against the danger of attack by their foreign neighbors and to press their territorial claims that the New England group of English colonies afforded the example of the first American confederation.

Danger to the English colonization came first from the Spaniards, who claimed a monopoly of the whole of North America by virtue of discovery, the bull of Pope Alexander VI., and prior settlement. When Sir Francis Drake returned from his expedition in 1580 the Spanish authorities in demanding the return of the treasure which he took from their colonies in South America vigorously a.s.serted their pre-emptive rights to the continent. But the English government made this famous reply--"that prescription without possession availed nothing, and that every nation had a right by the law of nature to freely navigate those seas and transport colonies to those parts where the Spaniards do not inhabit."[1]

The most northerly settlement of the Spaniards in 1580 was St.

Augustine, in Florida, for, though in 1524 Vasquez de Ayllon had planted a settlement called San Miguel on James River, starvation, disease, and Indian tomahawk soon destroyed it. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the subsequent terrible punishment inflicted on the Spanish marine England was less disposed than ever to listen to the claims of Spain.[2] Reduced in power, the Spaniards subst.i.tuted intrigue for warlike measures, and while they entangled King James in its web and hastened a change in the form of government for Virginia, they did not inflict any permanent injury upon the colony.

In 1624 England declared war against Spain, and English emigrants invaded the West Indies and planted colonies at Barbadoes, St.

Christopher, Nevis, Montserrat, and other islands adjoining the Spanish settlements. Till the New England Confederation the chief scene of collision with the Spanish was the West Indies. In 1635 the Spanish attacked and drove the English from the Tortugas, and Wormeley, the governor, and many of the inhabitants took refuge in Virginia.[3]

Because of their proximity the danger from the French colonies was far more real. Small fis.h.i.+ng-vessels from Biscay, Brittany, and Normandy were in the habit of visiting the coast of Newfoundland and adjacent waters from as early as 1504. Jean Denys, of Honfleur, visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1506, and in 1508 Thomas Aubert sailed eighty leagues up the St. Lawrence River.[4] In 1518 Baron de Lery attempted to establish a colony on Sable Island, and left there some cattle and hogs, which multiplied and proved of advantage to later adventurers.

Then followed the great voyage of John Verrazzano, who, in 1524, in a search for the East Indies, sailed up the coast from thirty-four to fifty-four degrees. In 1534 Jacques Cartier visited Newfoundland and advanced up the river St. Lawrence till he reached the western part of Anticosti Island. The next year Cartier came again and ascended the great river many miles, visiting Stadacone (Quebec) and Hochelaga (Montreal). At Quebec he encamped with his men, and, after a winter rendered frightful by the cold and the ravages of the scurvy, he returned in the spring to St. Malo.[5]

No further attempt was made till a short peace ended the third desperate struggle between Charles V. and Francis I. In 1540 King Francis created Francis de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, lord of Norumbega and viceroy of "Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Bell Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, Great Bay, and Baccalaos"; and Cartier was made "captain-general." The expedition sailed in two divisions, Cartier commanding the first, which left St. Malo May 23, 1541. Again he pa.s.sed a winter of gloom and suffering on the St. Lawrence, and in June of the following year set out to return.

On the coast of Newfoundland he met Roberval, who had charge of the second division of the s.h.i.+ps and two hundred colonists. The viceroy ordered him to return, but Cartier slipped past him at night and left Roberval to hold the country the best he could. Undismayed, Roberval pursued his way, entered the St. Lawrence, and established his colony at Quebec. He sent Jean Alefonse to explore Norumbega, a term applied to the coast of Maine, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; and he himself explored the river Saguenay. Lescarbot tells us that in the course of 1543 the king sent out Cartier, who brought home the wretched survivors of the company.

Then for nearly fifteen years the civil wars in France prevented any further effort at settlement on the St. Lawrence. Scores of French vessels, however, visited the region of the northwest for fish and furs, and as soon as the civil wars were ended the work of colonization was taken up anew. Failure as of old attended the first experiments. In 1598 Marquis de la Roche landed forty convicts at Sable Island, but after seven years the few survivors received a pardon and returned home. In 1600 Chauvin and Pontgrave promised to establish a colony on the St. Lawrence, and obtained from King Henry IV. a grant of the fur trade, but Chauvin died and the undertaking came to an end.[6]

In 1603 the first systematic effort to found French colonies in America was made. A company was formed at the head of which was Aymar de Chastes, governor of Dieppe, who sent over Samuel Champlain. He visited the St. Lawrence, and after careful exploration returned to France with a valuable cargo of furs. On his arrival he found De Chastes dead, but Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, a patriotic Huguenot, took up the unfinished work. He received from Henry IV. a patent[7] "to represent our person as lieutenant-general in the country of Acadia from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree," with governmental authority, and the exclusive privileges of traffic with the Indians.

April 7, 1604, De Monts, accompanied by Champlain, sailed from Havre de Grace, and May 1 came in sight of Sable Island. They sailed up the Bay of Fundy and entered a harbor on the north coast of Nova Scotia.

Poutrincourt, one of the leading men, was so pleased with the region that he obtained a grant of it from De Monts, and named it Port Royal (now Annapolis). After further exploration De Monts planted his settlement on the Isle of St. Croix, at the mouth of the St. Croix River, where he pa.s.sed the winter; but half the emigrants died from exposure and scurvy, and in the spring the colony was transferred to Port Royal. After three years spent in the country, during which time the coast was explored thoroughly by Champlain and Poutrincourt as far as Nausett Harbor, the Acadian emigrants went back to France, which they reached in October, 1607.

The design was not abandoned. Poutrincourt returned in 1610 and re-established his colony at Port Royal, which he placed in charge of his son. In 1611 two Jesuit priests, Biard and Ma.s.se, came over, under the patronage of Madame de Guercheville, and in 1613 they planted a Jesuit station at Mount Desert Island, on the coast of Maine.[8]

Champlain did not return to Port Royal, but was employed in another direction. In April, 1608, De Monts sent out Champlain and Pontgrave to establish a colony on the St. Lawrence and traffic with the Indians of that region. Of this expedition Champlain was const.i.tuted lieutenant-governor, and he was successful in planting a settlement at Quebec in July, 1608. It was a mere trading-post, and after twenty years it did not number over one hundred persons. But Champlain looked to the time when Canada should be a prosperous province of France, and he was tireless and persistent. Aided by several devout friars of the Franciscan order, he labored hard to Christianize the Indians and visited lakes Champlain, Nip.i.s.sing, Huron, and Ontario. While he made the fur trade of great value to the merchant company in France, he committed the fatal mistake of mixing up with Indian quarrels. Between the Five Nations of New York and the Hurons and their allies, the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence, perpetual war prevailed, and Champlain by taking sides against the former incurred for the French the lasting hatred of those powerful Indians.

The progress of the colony was not satisfactory to Champlain or to the authorities in France, and in 1627 Cardinal Richelieu dissolved the company which had charge of affairs, and inst.i.tuted a new one with himself at its head. In the spring of 1628 he despatched to Canada four armed vessels and eighteen transports laden with emigrants, stores, and cannon, but war had broken out between the English and French the year before, and on their way the fleet was intercepted and the s.h.i.+ps and goods confiscated.

The English had not recognized the claims of the French to any part of the North American continent, and the very year that the Jesuit station was planted at Mount Desert Island Samuel Argall came twice from Virginia and burned the houses of the intruding French at all of their settlements in Acadia: Mount Desert Island, Isle de Croix, and Port Royal. The French rebuilt Port Royal, and at the death of Poutrincourt's son Biencourt, about the year 1623, his possessions and claims fell to his friend and companion Claude de la Tour.

Meanwhile, in 1621, Sir William Alexander obtained a grant from King James for New Scotland, being that part of Acadia now comprising the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick;[9] and he sent over from time to time a few Scotch emigrants. De la Tour and the French submitted, and English rule seemed firmly established in Acadia when war was declared in 1628. In February, 1629, Alexander received a patent for St. Lawrence River and "fifty leagues of bounds on both sides thereof," and on both sides of its tributary lakes and rivers as far as the Gulf of California.[10]

After the failure of the expedition sent by Cardinal Richelieu, Alexander and his partners despatched an English fleet commanded by David Kirke, which appeared before Quebec in July, 1629. Champlain and his small garrison were compelled to surrender, and all New France fell under English power. Unfortunately for Alexander and Kirke, war between the two nations had ceased, and the articles of peace provided that all conquests made subsequent to April 24, 1629, should be restored to the former owner. This insured the loss of Quebec and was the forerunner of other misfortunes. In 1632 a treaty was made at St.

Germain by which, despite the protest of Sir William Alexander and a memorial from the Scottish Parliament, King Charles consented "to give up and restore all the places occupied in New France, Acadia, and Canada" by his subjects.[11]

In 1632 Champlain returned to his government at Quebec, and with him arrived a number of zealous Jesuit priests, who began that adventurous career of exploration which, after Champlain's death in 1635, connected the fame of their order with the great lakes and the Mississippi. The king of France appointed Chevalier Razilly governor of Acadia, who designated as his lieutenants Claude de la Tour's son Charles, for the portion west of St. Croix; and Charles de Menou, Sieur d'Aulnay Charmise, for the portion to the east.[12] They claimed dominion for France as far as Cape Cod.

Subsequently the two rivals quarrelled, and in 1641 D'Aulnay obtained an order from the king deposing De la Tour, but the latter refused obedience and sent an envoy to Boston in November, 1641, to solicit aid. This envoy was kindly treated, and some of the Puritan merchants despatched a pinnace to trade with De la Tour; but they met with D'Aulnay at Pemaquid, who threatened to make prize of any vessel which he caught engaged in the fur trade in Acadia.[13]

The Dutch claim to America was comparatively recent, as it was not until 1597 that voyages were undertaken from Holland to the continent.

In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was chartered, and in 1609 sent out Henry Hudson, an Englishman by birth, to seek a way to India by the northeast. After sailing to Nova Zembla, where fogs and fields of ice closed against him the strait of Veigatz, he changed his course for Newfoundland and coasted southward to Chesapeake Bay. Returning on his path he entered the Hudson in September, 1609, and stayed four weeks exploring the river and trafficking with the natives.[14]

The reports brought by him to Europe of a newly discovered country abounding in fur-bearing animals created much interest, and in 1612 some merchants in Holland sent Christiansen and Blok to the island of Manhattan, where they built a little fort, which, it is stated, Argall attacked in 1613. Losing his s.h.i.+p by fire, Blok built a yacht of sixteen tons at Manhattan, and with this small craft was the first explorer (1614) of the Connecticut River. He also visited Narragansett Bay, and gave to its sh.o.r.es the name of Roode Eiland (now Rhode Island).

After his return home the merchants obtained from the States-General a charter for three years' monopoly of the trade of New Netherland, as the present New York was now first formally called. It was defined as extending between New France and Virginia, from the fortieth to the forty-fifth degree of north lat.i.tude.[15] After this New Netherland continued to be resorted to by Dutch traders, though no regular settlement was formed for some years.

In 1619 Thomas Dermer visited the Hudson and brought news to England of the operations of the Dutch and the value of the fur trade.

Thereupon Captain Samuel Argall, with many English planters, prepared to make a settlement on the Hudson, and when the Dutch government, in June, 1621, chartered the Dutch West India Company, the English court, on Argall's complaint, protested against Dutch intrusion within what was considered the limits of Virginia. The States-General at first evaded a reply, but finally declared that they had never authorized any settlement on the Hudson.[16] The charter,[17] in fact, gave the company only an exclusive right to trade for twenty-four years on the coasts of Africa and America.

Nevertheless, the company proceeded to send over, in 1622, a number of French Walloons, who const.i.tuted the first Dutch colony in America.

One party, under the command of Captain Cornelius Jacobson May, the first Dutch governor, sailed to the South, or Delaware River, where, four miles below the present Philadelphia, they erected a fort called Na.s.sau; and another party under Adrian Joris went up the Hudson, and on the site of Albany built Fort Orange. Peter Minuit succeeded May in 1626, and bought from the Indians the whole of Manhattan Island, and organized a government with an advisory council.

The population of New Netherland was only two hundred, and though trade was brisk there was little agriculture. The company met this difficulty by obtaining a new charter and seeking to promote emigration by dividing up the country among some great patroons: Samuel G.o.dyn, Killiaen van Renssalaer, Michael Pauw, David Pieterson de Vries, and other rich men. In 1631 De Vries settled Swaanendael, on the South River, as the Dutch called the Delaware; but in a few months the Indians attacked the place and ma.s.sacred the settlers.[18] Soon the patroons became rivals of the West India Company in the fur trade, and in 1632 Minuit, who favored them, was recalled and Wouter van Twiller was made governor. His accession marks the first real clash between the rival claims of the Dutch and English.[19]