A Short History of the United States for School Use Part 4

32. Founding of Jamestown, 1607. The first colonists sailed for Virginia in December, 1606. They were months on the way and suffered terrible hards.h.i.+ps. At last they reached Chesapeake Bay and James River and settled on a peninsula on the James, about thirty miles from its mouth. Across the little isthmus which connected this peninsula with the mainland they built a strong fence, or stockade, to keep the Indians away from their huts. Their settlement they named Jamestown. The early colonists of Virginia were not very well fitted for such a work. Some of them were gentlemen who had never labored with their hands; others were poor, idle fellows whose only wish was to do nothing whatever. There were a few energetic men among them as Ratcliffe, Archer, and Smith. But these spent most of their time in exploring the bay and the rivers, in hunting for gold, and in quarreling with one another. With the summer came fevers, and soon fifty of the one hundred and five original colonists were dead. Then followed a cold, hard winter, and many of those who had not died of fever in the summer, now died of cold. The colonists brought little food with them, they were too lazy to plant much corn, and they were able to get only small supplies from the Indians. Indeed, the early history of Virginia is given mainly to accounts of "starving times." Of the first thousand colonists not one hundred lived to tell the tale of those early days.

[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Dale.]

[Sidenote: His wise action.]

33. Sir Thomas Dale and Good Order.--In 1611 Sir Thomas Dale came out as ruler, and he ruled with an iron hand. If a man refused to work, Dale made a slave of him for three years; if he did not work hard enough, Dale had him soundly whipped. But Sir Thomas Dale was not only a severe man; he was also a wise man. Hitherto everything had been in common. Dale now tried the experiment of giving three acres of land to every one of the old planters, and he also allowed them time to work on their own land.

[Sidenote: Tobacco.]

[Sidenote: Prosperity.]

34. Tobacco-growing and Prosperity.--European people were now beginning to use tobacco. Most of it came from the Spanish colonies.

Tobacco grew wild in Virginia. But the colonists at first did not know how to dry it and make it fit for smoking. After a few years they found out how to prepare it. They now worked with great eagerness and planted tobacco on every spot of cleared land. Men with money came over from England. They brought many workingmen with them and planted large pieces of ground. Soon tobacco became the money of the colony, and the whole life of Virginia turned on its cultivation. But it was difficult to find enough laborers to do the necessary work.

[Sidenote: White servants.]

[Sidenote: Criminals.]

[Sidenote: Negro slaves, 1619.]

35. Servants and Slaves.--Most of the laborers were white men and women who were bound to service for terms of years. These were called servants. Some of them were poor persons who sold their labor to pay for their pa.s.sage to Virginia. Others were unfortunate men and women and even children who were stolen from their families and sold to the colonists. Still others were criminals whom King James sent over to the colony because that was the cheapest thing to do with them. In 1619 the first negro slaves were brought to Virginia by a Dutch vessel. The Virginians bought them all--only twenty in number. But the planters preferred white laborers. It was not until more that twenty-five years had pa.s.sed away that the slaves really became numerous enough to make much difference in the life of the colony.

[Sidenote: Sir Edwin Sandys.]

[Sidenote: The first American legislature, 1619.]

36. The first American Legislature, 1619.--The men who first formed the Virginia Company had long since lost interest in it. Other men had taken their places. These latter were mostly Puritans (p. 29) or were the friends and workers with the Puritans. The best known of them was Sir Edwin Sandys, the playmate of William Brewster--one of the Pilgrim Fathers (p. 29). Sandys and his friends sent Sir George Yeardley to Virginia as governor. They ordered him to summon an a.s.sembly to be made up of representatives chosen by the freemen of the colony. These representatives soon did away with Dale's ferocious regulations, and made other and much milder laws.

[Sidenote: End of the Virginia Company, 1624.]

[Sidenote: Virginia a royal province.]

37. Virginia becomes a Royal Province, 1624.--The Virginians thought this was a very good way to be governed. But King James thought that the new rulers of the Virginia Company were much too liberal, and he determined to destroy the company. The judges in those days dared not displease the king for he could turn them out of office at any time. So when he told them to destroy the Virginia charter they took the very first opportunity to declare it to be of no force. In this way the Virginia Company came to an end, and Virginia became a royal province with a governor appointed by the king.

[Sidenote: Intolerance in Virginia.]

[Sidenote: Persecution of the Puritans.]

38. Religious Intolerance.--In 1625 King James died, and his son Charles became king. He left the Virginians to themselves for the most part. They liked this. But they did not like his giving the northern part of Virginia to a Roman Catholic favorite, Lord Baltimore, with the name of Maryland. Many Roman Catholics soon settled in Lord Baltimore's colony. The Virginians feared lest they might come to Virginia and made severe laws against them. Puritan missionaries also came from New England and began to convert the Virginians to Puritanism. Governor Berkeley and the leading Virginians were Episcopalians. They did not like the Puritans any better than they liked the Roman Catholics. They made harsh laws against them and drove them out of Virginia into Maryland.

[Sidenote: Maryland given to Baltimore, 1632.]

[Sidenote: Settlement of Maryland. _Higginson_, 121-123; _Eggleston_, 50-53; _Source-book_, 48-51.]

39. Settlement of Maryland.--Maryland included the most valuable portion of Virginia north of the Potomac. Beside being the owner of all this land, Lord Baltimore was also the ruler of the colony. He invited people to go over and settle in Maryland and offered to give them large tracts of land on the payment of a small sum every year forever. Each man's payment was small. But all the payments taken together, made quite a large amount which went on growing larger and larger as Maryland was settled. The Baltimores were broad-minded men. They gave their colonists a large share in the government of the colony and did what they could to bring about religious toleration in Maryland.

[Sidenote: Roman Catholics in England.]

[Sidenote: Roman Catholics and Puritans in Maryland.]

[Sidenote: The Toleration Act, 1649.]

40. The Maryland Toleration Act, 1649.--The English Roman Catholics were cruelly oppressed. No priest of that faith was allowed to live in England. And Roman Catholics who were not priests had to pay heavy fines simply because they were Roman Catholics. Lord Baltimore hoped that his fellow Catholics might find a place of shelter in Maryland, and many of the leading colonists were Roman Catholics. But most of the laborers were Protestants. Soon came the Puritans from Virginia. They were kindly received and given land. But it was evident that it would be difficult for Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Puritans to live together without some kind of law to go by. So a law was made that any Christian might wors.h.i.+p as he saw fit. This was the first toleration act in the history of America. It was the first toleration act in the history of modern times. But the Puritan, Roger Williams, had already established religious freedom in Rhode Island (p. 33).

[Sidenote: Tobacco and grain.]

[Sidenote: Commerce.]

[Sidenote: Servants and slaves.]

41. Maryland Industries.--Tobacco was the most important crop in early Maryland. But grain was raised in many parts of the colony. In time also there grew up a large trading town. This was Baltimore. Its s.h.i.+powners and merchants became rich and numerous, while there were almost no s.h.i.+powners or merchants in Virginia. There were also fewer slaves in Maryland than in Virginia. Nearly all the hard labor in the former colony was done by white servants. In most other ways, however, Virginia and Maryland were nearly alike.

CHAPTER 6

NEW ENGLAND

[Sidenote: The English Puritans.]

[Sidenote: Non-Conformists.]

[Sidenote: Separatists.]

42. The Puritans.--The New England colonies were founded by English Puritans who left England because they could not do as they wished in the home land. All Puritans were agreed in wis.h.i.+ng for a freer government than they had in England under the Stuart kings and in state matters were really the Liberals of their time. In religious matters, however, they were not all of one mind. Some of them wished to make only a few changes in the Church. These were called Non-Conformists. Others wished to make so many changes in religion that they could not stay in the English State Church. These were called Separatists. The settlers of Plymouth were Separatists; the settlers of Boston and neighboring towns were Non-Conformists.

[Sidenote: The Scrooby Puritans. _Higginson, 55-56; Eggleston_, 34.]

[Sidenote: They flee to Holland.]

[Sidenote: They decide to emigrate to America.]

43. The Pilgrims.--Of all the groups of Separatists scattered over England none became so famous as those who met at Elder Brewster's house at Scrooby. King James decided to make all Puritans conform to the State Church or to hunt them out of the land. The Scrooby people soon felt the weight of persecution. After suffering great hards.h.i.+ps and cruel treatment they fled away to Holland. But there they found it very difficult to make a living. They suffered so terribly that many of their English friends preferred to go to prison in England rather than lead such a life of slavery in Holland. So the Pilgrims determined to found a colony in America. They reasoned that they could not be worse off in America, because that would be impossible. At all events, their children would not grow up as Dutchmen, but would still be Englishmen. They had entire religious freedom in Holland; but they thought they would have the same in America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREWSTER'S HOUSE AT SCROOBY. The Pilgrims held their services in the building on the left, now used as a cow-house.]

[Sidenote: The voyage of the _Mayflower_, 1620.]

[Sidenote: The _Mayflower_ at Cape Cod.]

44. The Voyage across the Atlantic.--Brewster's old friend, Sir Edwin Sandys, was now at the head of the Virginia Company. He easily procured land for the Pilgrims in northern Virginia, near the Dutch settlements (p. 41). Some London merchants lent them money. But they lent it on such harsh conditions that the Pilgrims' early life in America was nearly as hard as their life had been in Holland. They had a dreadful voyage across the Atlantic in the _Mayflower_. At one time it seemed as if the s.h.i.+p would surely go down. But the Pilgrims helped the sailors to place a heavy piece of wood under one of the deck beams and saved the vessel from going to pieces. On November 19, 1620, they sighted land off the coast of Cape Cod. They tried to sail around the cape to the southward, but storms drove them back, and they anch.o.r.ed in Provincetown harbor.

[Sidenote: The Pilgrims Compact, 1620.]

45. The Mayflower Compact, 1620.--All the pa.s.sengers on the _Mayflower_ were not Pilgrims. Some of them were servants sent out by the London merchants to work for them. These men said that as they were outside of Virginia, the leaders of the expedition would have no power over them as soon as they got on land. This was true enough, so the Pilgrims drew up and signed a compact which obliged the signers to obey whatever was decided to be for the public good. It gave the chosen leaders power to make the unruly obey their commands.