A Short History of the United States Part 5

[Sidenote: The Pilgrims and the Indians. _Explorers_, 333-337.]

[Sidenote: Success of the colony.]

[Sidenote: New Plymouth colony.]

47. New Plymouth Colony.--Of all the Indians who once had lived near Plymouth only one remained. His name was Squanto. He came to the Pilgrims in the spring. He taught them to grow corn and to dig clams, and thus saved them from starvation. The Pilgrims cared for him most kindly as long as he lived. Another and more important Indian also came to Plymouth. He was Ma.s.sasoit, chief of the strongest Indian tribe near Plymouth. With him the Pilgrims made a treaty which both parties obeyed for more than fifty years. Before long the Pilgrims' life became somewhat easier. They worked hard to raise food for themselves, they fished off the coasts, and bought furs from the Indians. In these ways they got together enough money to pay back the London merchants. Many of their friends joined them. Other towns were settled near by, and Plymouth became the capital of the colony of New Plymouth. But the colony was never very prosperous, and in the end was added to Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Sidenote: Founders of Ma.s.sachusetts.]

[Sidenote: _Explorers_ 341-361; _Source-book_ 45-48, 74-76.]

[Sidenote: Settlement of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1630. _Higginson_, 60-64; _Eggleston_, 39-41.]

48. The Founding of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1629-30.--Unlike the poor and humble Pilgrims were the founders of Ma.s.sachusetts. They were men of wealth and social position, as for instance, John Winthrop and Sir Richard Saltonstall. They left comfortable homes in England to found a Puritan state in America. They got a great tract of land extending from the Merrimac to the Charles, and westward across the continent. Hundreds of colonists came over in the years 1629-30. They settled Boston, Salem, and neighboring towns. In the next ten years thousands more joined them.

From the beginning Ma.s.sachusetts was strong and prosperous. Among so many people there were some who did not get on happily with the rulers of the colony.

[Sidenote: Roger Williams expelled from Ma.s.sachusetts. _Higginson_, 68-70.]

[Sidenote: He founds Providence, 1636. _Source-book_, 52-54.]

49. Roger Williams and Religious Liberty.--Among the newcomers was Roger Williams, a Puritan minister. He disagreed with the Ma.s.sachusetts leaders on several points. For instance, he thought that the Ma.s.sachusetts people had no right to their lands, and he insisted that the rulers had no power in religious matters--as enforcing the laws as to Sunday. He insisted on these points so strongly that the Ma.s.sachusetts government expelled him from the colony. In the spring of 1636; with four companions he founded the town of Providence. There he decided that every one should be free to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as he or she saw fit.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends.]

[Sidenote: They settle Rhode Island, 1637.]

50. The Rhode Island Towns.--Soon another band of exiles came from Ma.s.sachusetts. These were Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers. Mrs.

Hutchinson was a brilliant Puritan woman who had come to Boston from England to enjoy the ministry of John Cotton, one of the Boston ministers. She soon began to find fault with the other ministers of the colony. Naturally, they did not like this. Their friends were more numerous than were Mrs. Hutchinson's friends, and the latter had to leave Ma.s.sachusetts. They settled on the island of Rhode Island (1637).

[Sidenote: The Connecticut colonists.]

[Sidenote: Founding of Connecticut, 1635-36. _Higginson_, 71-72.]

51. The Connecticut Colony.--Besides those Puritans whom the Ma.s.sachusetts people drove from their colony there were other settlers who left Ma.s.sachusetts of their own free will. Among these were the founders of Connecticut. The Ma.s.sachusetts people would gladly have had them remain, but they were discontented and insisted on going away. They settled the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Weathersfield, on the Connecticut River. At about the same time John Winthrop, Jr., led a colony to Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut. Up to this time the Dutch had seemed to have the best chance to settle the Connecticut Valley. But the control of that region was now definitely in the hands of the English.

[Sidenote: Destruction of the Pequods, 1637.]

52. The Pequod War, 1637.--The Pequod Indians were not so ready as the Dutch to admit that resistance was hopeless. They attacked Wethersfield. They killed several colonists, and carried others away into captivity. Captain John Mason of Connecticut and Captain John Underhill of Ma.s.sachusetts went against them with about one hundred men.

They surprised the Indians in their fort. They set fire to the fort, and shot down the Indians as they strove to escape from their burning wigwams. In a short time the Pequod tribe was destroyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN WINTHROP, JR.]

[Sidenote: The Connecticut Orders of 1638-39.]

53. The First American Const.i.tution, 1638-39.--The Connecticut colonists had leisure now to settle the form of their government.

Ma.s.sachusetts had such a liberal charter that nothing more seemed to be necessary in that colony. The Mayflower Compact did well enough for the Pilgrims. The Connecticut people had no charter, and they wanted something more definite than a vague compact. So in the winter of 1638-39 they met at Hartford and set down on paper a complete set of rules for their guidance. This was the first time in the history of the English race that any people had tried to do this. The Connecticut const.i.tution of 1638-39 is therefore looked upon as "the first truly political written const.i.tution in history." The government thus established was very much the same as that of Ma.s.sachusetts with the exception that in Connecticut there was no religious condition for the right to vote as there was in Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Sidenote: The New Haven settlers.]

[Sidenote: New Haven founded, 1638. _Higginson_, 72-73.]

54. New Haven, 1638.--The settlers of New Haven went even farther than the Ma.s.sachusetts rulers and held that the State should really be a part of the Church. Ma.s.sachusetts was not entirely to their tastes.

They pa.s.sed only one winter there and then moved away and settled New Haven. But this colony was not well situated for commerce, and was too near the Dutch settlements (p. 41). It was never as prosperous as Connecticut and was finally joined to that colony.

[Sidenote: Reasons for union.]

[Sidenote: Articles of Confederation, 1643.]

[Sidenote: New England towns. _Higginson_, 47-79.]

55. The New England Confederation, 1643.--Besides the settlements that have already been described there were colonists living in New Hamps.h.i.+re and in Maine. Ma.s.sachusetts included the New Hamps.h.i.+re towns within her government, for some of those towns were within her limits.

In 1640 the Long Parliament met in England, and in 1645 Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans destroyed the royal army in the battle of Naseby. In these troubled times England could do little to protect the New England colonists, and could do nothing to punish them for acting independently.

The New England colonists were surrounded by foreigners. There were the French on the north and the east, and the Dutch on the west. The Indians, too, were living in their midst and might at any time turn on the whites and kill them. Thinking all these things over, the four leading colonies decided to join together for protection. They formed the New England Confederation, and drew up a const.i.tution. The colonists living in Rhode Island and in Maine did not belong to the Confederation, but they enjoyed many of the benefits flowing from it; for it was quite certain that the Indians and the French and the Dutch would think twice before attacking any of the New England settlements.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHILD'S HIGH CHAIR, ABOUT 1650.]

[Sidenote: Education.]

56. Social Conditions.--The New England colonies were all settled on the town system, for there were no industries which demanded large plantations--as tobacco-planting. The New Englanders were small farmers, mechanics, s.h.i.+p-builders, and fishermen. There were few servants in New England and almost no negro slaves. Most of the laborers were free men and worked for wages as laborers now do. Above all, the New Englanders were very zealous in the matter of education. Harvard College was founded in 1636. A few years later a law was pa.s.sed compelling every town to provide schools for all the children in the town.

CHAPTER 7

NEW NETHERLAND AND NEW SWEDEN

[Sidenote: The Dutch East India Company.]

57. The Dutch.--At this time the Dutch were the greatest traders and s.h.i.+powners in the world. They were especially interested in the commerce of the East Indies. Indeed, the Dutch India Company was the most successful trading company in existence. The way to the East Indies lay through seas carefully guarded by the Portuguese, so the Dutch India Company hired Henry Hudson, an English sailor, to search for a new route to India.

[Sidenote: Henry Hudson.]

[Sidenote: He discovers Hudson's River, 1609. _Higginson_, 88-90; _Explorers_, 281-296.]

[Sidenote: His death. _Explorers_ 296-302.]

58. Hudson's Voyage, 1609.--He set forth in 1609 in the _Half-Moon_, a stanch little s.h.i.+p. At first he sailed northward, but ice soon blocked his way. He then sailed southwestward to find a strait, which was said to lead through America, north of Chesapeake Bay. On August 3, 1609, he reached the entrance of what is now New York harbor.

Soon the _Half-Moon_ entered the mouth of the river that still bears her captain's name. Up, up the river she sailed, until finally she came to anchor near the present site of Albany. The s.h.i.+p's boats sailed even farther north. Everywhere the country was delightful. The Iroquois came off to the s.h.i.+p in their canoes. Hudson received them most kindly--quite unlike the way Champlain treated other Iroquois Indians at about the same time, on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Champlain (p. 20). Then Hudson sailed down the river again and back to Europe. He made one later voyage to America, this time under the English flag. He was turned adrift by his men in Hudson's Bay, and perished in the cold and ice.

[Sidenote: The Dutch fur-traders.]

[Sidenote: Settle on Manhattan Island.]

[Sidenote: New Netherland.]

59. The Dutch Fur-Traders.--Hudson's failure to find a new way to India made the Dutch India Company lose interest in American exploration. But many Dutch merchants were greatly interested in Hudson's account of the "Great River of the Mountain." They thought that they could make money from trading for furs with the Indians. They sent many expeditions to Hudson's River, and made a great deal of money.

Some of their captains explored the coast northward and southward as far as Boston harbor and Delaware Bay. Their princ.i.p.al trading-posts were on Manhattan Island, and near the site of Albany. In 1614 some of the leading traders obtained from the Dutch government the sole right to trade between New France and Virginia. They called this region New Netherland.