Chapter II: Part 2

Among the freebooters most feared and hated by the Spaniards was Sir Francis Drake. This famous English seamen was born about 1540, in Devonshire, England. He was one of the twelve sons of a poor naval chaplain, and it is said that he was educated at the expense of Sir John Hawkins, a famous naval officer who was his kinsman. At the age of eighteen, Drake had become master of a ship that traded between England and France and Holland. This vessel he sold, “the narrow seas not being large enough for his aspiring mind,” and invested all his savings in Hawkins’s expedition to Mexico. This fleet was defeated by the Spaniards, and Drake, who behaved gallantly in action, lost his all. He “vowed the Spaniards should pay him with interest,” and shortly afterwards he made good his word.

In 1572 with three small ships, he attacked and plundered several Spanish settlements on the Isthmus of Panama and brought away as much silver, gold, and jewels, as he could carry. During this expedition, accompanied by eighteen Englishmen and thirty Indians, he made a journey across the Isthmus. From the top of a tree, he beheld the waters of the Pacific, and expressed his resolve to “sail once in an English ship on that sea.” After his return to England, he served four years in Ireland, but he did not forget either the western ocean or his resolve. Secretly encouraged by Queen Elizabeth, he undertook an expedition “to discomfort the Spanish as far as possible.”

A few days before Christmas in 1577, he set sail from Plymouth, intending to pass through the Straits of Magellan and make the circuit of the globe. Drake’s fleet consisted of five small vessels and a crew of a hundred and sixty-six men. In the end, two of these vessels were left on the coast of Brazil. As Drake passed the western coast of America he stopped to attack the Spanish settlements. We are told that his men “being weary, contented themselves with as many bars and wedges of gold as they could carry, burying above fifteen tons of silver in the sand and under old trees.”

In August, 1578, Drake entered the Straits of Magellan. Adverse currents and storms separated the three vessels and only the Golden Hind, originally called the Pelican, passed through to continue the course. Along the coasts of Chili and Peru the Englishmen sailed, plundering till they were weary of spoils. From one ship they got “a prodigious quantity of gold, silver, and jewels,”--“thirteen chests of coin, eighty pounds of gold, twenty-six tons of silver, besides jewels and plate.” The writers of the time who give an exact list of the captured treasures passed lightly over the natural objects and wonders of the New World. “They saw many strange birds, beasts, fishes, fruits, trees, and plants too tedious to mention,” says one.

Drake coasted along the western shore of America, trying to discover a passage to the Atlantic. He landed and claimed the country, which he called New Albion, for Queen Elizabeth and England. Turning from the severe cold of the northern seas, he sailed across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, stopping at Java and other islands. Resuming his voyage, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and sailed along the coast of Africa.

In November, 1579, he re-entered the harbor of Plymouth, having made the circuit of the globe in two years and ten months. He was the first commander to take his ship around the world; Magellan, who had undertaken the same voyage, died on the route. Drake, “the master thief of the unknown world,” at once became a popular hero. He presented to the queen “great stores of silver, gold, and gems,” and received from her the honor of knighthood.

A few years later, war was openly declared between England and Spain. Drake was sent with a fleet to attack the Spanish colonies in America; he captured and plundered several settlements in the West Indies and in Florida, and burned the fort of St. Augustine. Sailing on north to Sir Walter Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke, he brought away the disheartened colonists. It is said that he carried back to England the potato and the tobacco, two plants contributed by the New World to the Old.

Drake reached England in 1586, and the next year he led a fleet to inflict injury on the great Spanish fleet, proudly called the Invincible Armada, which was being collected to invade England. He entered the harbor of Cadiz and burned about a hundred ships. This he called “singeing the beard of the king of Spain.” The Armada, delayed for a year by this mischance, was refitted and sailed to attack England. It is said that when the news of its approach was brought to Plymouth the commanders of the English fleet were playing bowls. Drake, who served as vice-admiral under Lord Howard, insisted on finishing the game, saying, “There is plenty of time to win the game and thrash the Spaniards, too!” The great Armada was defeated by the brave little English fleet, aided by tempests and contrary winds.

In 1589 Drake made an expedition to Portugal and a few years later he and Sir John Hawkins were sent with a fleet to attack the West Indies. He and his old commander could not agree on the plan of action, and their expedition was unsuccessful. Hawkins died at Porto Rico. A few weeks later, Drake died, “his death being supposed to be hastened by his unsuccessfulness in his voyage; his great spirit always accustomed to victory and success, not being able to bear the least check of fortune.”

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Father of American Colonization

You are not to suppose that the English claimed nothing of the New World except what they could plunder from Spain. They were, on the whole, willing to respect the rights of Spain to the West Indies and to the adjacent parts of the continent which Spaniards had discovered and settled.

More and more the English thought that it would be a good thing to have colonies in the New World to hold the land which they claimed by virtue of Cabot’s discoveries. Reasons for “western planting,” or establishing colonies in America, were given by Hakluyt, an Englishman of the sixteenth century. Among its advantages, he said, were these,--(1) the soil yields products needed for England, (2) the passage was so easy “it may be made twice in the year,” (3) “this enterprise may stay the Spanish king from flowing over all the face of that waste firm of America,” (4) it may enlarge the glory of God and “provide safe and sure place” for religious refugees, (5) poor men and those of evil life may there begin anew, (6) wandering beggars “may there be unladen.”

The “Father of American Colonization” was an English gentleman, a soldier, courtier, and author, Sir Walter Raleigh. He was born in 1552 in Devonshire, a fair coastland, the home of Drake and many other bold seamen. In Raleigh’s home were several children, an own brother and three half-brothers, the children of his mother by a former marriage. One of these half-brothers, thirteen years his senior, was Humphrey Gilbert who grew to be a brave and enterprising gentleman.

Walter Raleigh seems to have had little schooling in his youth. He chose war as his profession and spent several years fighting in France and the Netherlands. Meanwhile his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, obtained from Queen Elizabeth a grant of land for “planting and inhabiting certain northern parts of America which extended beyond the twenty-fifth degree of north latitude.” Raleigh returned to England and sailed with Gilbert in 1579 to Newfoundland; storms and perhaps an encounter with the Spanish forced them to return without landing.

Raleigh spent two years in Ireland, fighting to suppress the risings there, then returned to England and became a favorite at court. There is a pretty story of the way in which he was first brought to Queen Elizabeth’s notice and favor. It is said that one day the queen was walking with her attendants along the London streets, then rough and unpaved. She came to a mudhole, and hesitated for fear of soiling her shoes. Among the bystanders was Raleigh, a handsome, graceful, gentleman-soldier. He took off his new velvet mantle and spread it upon the ground so that the queen might pass dry-shod.

However he first won the queen’s notice, he had by 1583 become such a favorite that she was not willing for him to join Sir Humphrey Gilbert on a second expedition to Newfoundland. He contributed a large share of the expenses of this expedition, which was even more ill-fated than the former one. Sir Humphrey, it is true, reached Newfoundland and took possession of it, but on the return voyage the fleet was overtaken by storm, and two vessels, in one of which was Sir Humphrey, were lost.

These disasters did not destroy Sir Walter’s interest in discoveries. He got the queen to transfer to him the grant made to his half-brother, giving him for six years the privilege of sending out expeditions “to discover such remote barbarous lands as were not actually possessed by any Christian people,” and to take possession of them in the name of the queen.

Several expeditions were sent out under this grant, or patent, as it was called. The first, in 1584, consisted of two vessels under Captains Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. They reached the coast of North Carolina and cast anchor on the island of Roanoke, which they claimed in the queen’s name and for Sir Walter’s use. The name Virginia was given to this land in honor of Elizabeth, the virgin queen. No settlement was made at that time but the next year seven vessels under Sir Richard Grenville were sent out with about a hundred colonists. They entered Chesapeake Bay and James River and explored the country. Homesickness and hardships discouraged these colonists, and when Sir Francis Drake came to the settlement, after his expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies, they embarked with him and returned to England. A few days after their departure, reinforcements and supplies sent by Raleigh reached the deserted colony.

About this time tobacco, introduced into England by Lane, Hawkins, or Drake, was brought into use by Sir Walter Raleigh. Tytler says, “There is a well-known tradition that Sir Walter first began to smoke it privately in his study, and his servant coming in as he was intent upon his book, seeing the smoke issuing from his mouth, threw all the liquor in his face by way of extinguishing the fire; and running down stairs alarmed the family with piercing cries that his master, before they could get up, would be burnt to ashes.”

In 1587 another colony of two hundred and fifty men under John White was sent by Sir Walter Raleigh. That summer a child was born to Eleanor Dare, John White’s daughter; this girl, the first English child born in America, received the name of Virginia Dare.

Fears of the Spanish invasion which threatened England kept Sir Walter for several years from sending aid to the colony. When at last ships reached Roanoke Island the colonists and all signs of them had disappeared; on a tree was found carved the word “Croatoan,” but what this meant no one ever knew.

Raleigh now gave up his patent to a company in London, from which he was to receive one-fifth of gold and silver found in the lands discovered. He gave up his colonizing plans in order to fight the Spaniards. The queen, however, would not consent to his going, as he wished, on the English expedition to seize the Spanish treasure-fleet. His place was taken by Sir Richard Grenville, the story of whose gallant death is told in Lord Tennyson’s ballad, “The Revenge.”

Later, Raleigh sent out an expedition to the interior of South America; he believed that in Guiana was situated El Dorado, a fabled land of gold and treasure. He himself on a later voyage went four hundred miles up the Orinoco River and brought back some gold and the first mahogany wood seen in England. He wrote an account of his “Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana.”

In 1603 James I. succeeded Elizabeth on the English throne, and from that time Raleigh was in disfavor. He was accused of treason; on the unproved charge he was condemned to death and was kept in prison about thirteen years with the sentence hanging over him. During this time he devoted himself to study and wrote his noble “History of the World.”

He was released in 1616 to lead an expedition to the Orinoco. There he had a skirmish with the Spaniards and brought back no treasure to appease the king for this attack on the enemy with which James was trying to keep on friendly terms. The old charge of treason was revived, and Sir Walter was beheaded in 1618, really as a sacrifice to gain the good will of Spain. “We have not such another head to be cut off,” said a bystander at the execution.

Captain John Smith

“Let him not boast who puts his armor on
As he who puts it off, the battle done,”

says an American poet. To the credit of John Smith--soldier, leader, reformer, discoverer, author--be it remembered that he never “talked big” till he had “acted big,”--that his deeds ever went before his words.

He was the first Englishman who wrote a book in the United States. His “True Relation of Virginia” was written in the intervals between tree-cutting, house-building, exploration, and adventure, and sent by the vessel which returned to England in June, 1608. Much doubt has been cast--Fiske and other historians assert that it has been unjustly cast--on Smith’s statements. In details--dates and figures--we may believe that the soldier-author was not always accurate. Had he misrepresented facts, or misstated essentials, however, we may be sure he would have been promptly and eagerly contradicted by the “gentlemen of rank” who were actors and eye-witnesses with him, and who never missed an opportunity to vent their jealous hate on plain John Smith who outshone them all.

John Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England, about 1580. As a child he longed for a life of adventure, and when he was thirteen he sold his school-books and planned to go to sea; however, he thought better of the matter and remained at home two years longer with his mother. After her death he went to the Continent and became a soldier. He served in France and in Holland and then drifted East to fight against the Turks. There, he tells us, he had wonderful adventures. During a siege he fought three Turkish soldiers, one after another, and killed them all. Later, he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave, but escaped. He made his way home, through Russia, Austria, Spain, and Morocco. When he reached England in 1605, he found an expedition being planned to settle the New World and he resolved to join it.

The first English expeditions to make settlements in America were sent out under the authority of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other individuals. Later on, the difficult and expensive work of colonization was undertaken by companies. These had regular trading agents and workmen, and expected rich profits from trade with the colonies. The colonies in the New World were encouraged by the sovereign, also, who regarded them as a check on the power of Spain to the south and on that of France to the north.

A band of about a hundred men sent out by the London Company, left England in December, 1606, in three little vessels, the Discovery, the Good Speed, and the Susan Constant. The party was led by Christopher Newport who had served under Raleigh and had himself captured Spanish treasure-ships. After a roundabout voyage by the West Indies, further delayed by contrary winds, in the spring of 1607 the colonists entered a noble bay. “The low shores were covered with flowers of divers colors; the goodly trees were in full foliage, and all nature seemed kind and benignant.”

The Englishmen called the capes on either side of the bay Cape Henry and Cape Charles, in honor of the king’s two sons; the river up which they sailed and the settlement they founded were named for King James. The landing at Jamestown was made May 13, 1607.

The band was ill fitted for the work before it. In it there were only a few workmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons, and many “gentlemen”--men “that never did know what a day’s work was,” and that came for adventure or in search of gold. There had been, it seems, jealous disputes on the way out, and John Smith had been put under arrest. After they landed, the settlers opened the sealed instructions given when they left England and found that Smith was appointed one of the directors of the colony; at first he was not allowed to take his place, but in course of time he became not only a director, but president, of the colony.

Some of the colonists busied themselves those spring days planting gardens as in England, and planting also cotton and orange trees, we are told. Others looked around for gold and set out to discover the Pacific Ocean, which they thought was near at hand. Unfortunately a malarial site had been chosen for the colony, and in the hot, wet summer, the men, unaccustomed to the climate, fell sick.

Their ill-health was increased by bad water and lack of food. By September half of the hundred colonists had died of famine and fever: there were not enough able-bodied men to bury the dead in decent fashion; the bodies were “trailed out of their cabins like dogs to be buried.” Fortunately the Indians did not choose this time for an attack; instead, they brought corn and game to trade for beads, bells, and other trinkets.

The Indians of this section were Algonquins, like those later encountered in Massachusetts, but these were stronger and more hostile. They attacked the white men, “creeping from the hills like bears, with their bows in their mouths.” They were repulsed, but for many years there was the fear and danger of them for the colonists.

The Jamestown colony, like many of the other early ones, was managed by a “common-store system.” All food and supplies raised or bought were put into a common store-house and dealt out in equal portions. All articles collected for export were put into a common store and sent back to England. There was no reward for individual effort, and many of the colonists shirked work or labored in a half-hearted fashion.

There was one man who was always ready to do his part and do it well. This was John Smith. He helped cut trees, and build cabins, and erect a log palisade around the settlement. He was liked and feared by the Indians from whom he secured corn needed by the colonists. He was a sober and upright man and endeavored to establish law and order in the colony. In order to check the use of bad language, he had account kept of the oaths uttered by each man and at night for each one a can of cold water was poured down his sleeve. Strict as he was, he was always just and reasonable; he set the example of working hard, and never required of others more than he was willing to perform himself.

His chief relaxation was an adventurous journey in boat or afoot through the country, of which he gave a glowing description. “Here are mountains, hills, plains,” he said, “and rivers and brooks all running most pleasantly into a fair bay, compassed but for the mouth, with fruitful and delightsome land.... The vesture of the earth in most places doth manifestly prove the nature of the soil to be lusty and very rich.”

On one of the expeditions, in December, 1607, into Powhatan’s country he and the men with him were captured. He was carried to the chief Powhatan--an old man who was “well beaten with many cold and stormy winters,” said Captain Smith. Captain Smith tells us that he was released at the request of the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, just as he was about to be killed. This story has been doubted. Nothing is said about it in the “True Relation” sent from Virginia in 1608. But this book was brought out by the directors of the Company. It was not to their interest to publish an incident which showed that the settlers had the hostility of the great Indian chief. The Company wished the colony to be thought successful and prosperous so as to induce men to go out. Later, settlers found it impossible to inform their friends at home of their sufferings.

In 1608 came more colonists, including some women and children. In this year Captain Smith set out in an open boat and explored Chesapeake Bay, of which he made a map that remained the authoritative one for over a hundred years. Smith returned to Jamestown in September, and was elected president of the colony which was in sore straits, needing a firm and able man at its head. “You must obey this now for a law,” he said, “He that will not work shall not eat.” Under this rule disorder was suppressed and idlers were forced to labor. Smith’s prudence and wisdom saved the colony from ruin.

In 1609 five hundred new colonists came out, commanded by men hostile to Smith. He seems to have been in frequent conflict with them, and finally he returned to England to defend himself against their charges and to have treatment for a painful wound. After his departure, took place the terrible “Starving Time.” The colonists refused to work, they were attacked by the Indians, and laid waste by disease. By famine, fever, and war, the colonists in a few months were reduced in numbers from five hundred to sixty. They embarked to leave the scene of misery, but met a ship containing food and supplies and turned back. Thus near failure came the colony which laid the foundation of English civilization, and religious and civil liberty in America. After a time the common-store system was abolished and each man was given land to cultivate for himself; then “three men did more than thirty before.” In 1612 John Rolfe began the cultivation of tobacco and this became the currency of the colony, the source of its wealth and prosperity.

Captain Smith never revisited the Jamestown colony. In 1614 he came as “Admiral of New England” to explore North Virginia, as the northern part of America was called, and made a map of the country which he called New England. The next year Smith set out with the intention of planting a colony in New England. But he was taken prisoner by the French, and finally made his way back to England. There he spent quietly the sixteen years remaining to him. He wrote in 1616 a “Description of New England;” in 1624 he contributed a description of Virginia to a “General History of Virginia,” which was compiled at the request of the London Company. At the time of his death, in 1631, he was busy writing a “History of the Sea.”

Pocahontas

An Indian Princess

The white men who came to America naturally felt much interest in the new race of people which they called Indians. These were divided into tribes, differing in dialects, habits, and customs, but resembling one another in many respects. They lived, for the most part, in tents, called wigwams, made of skins or bushes. Their garments were usually made of the skins of buffaloes, deer, and other animals; they wore, also, beautiful mantels of feathers, strings of pearl, and ornaments of copper, silver, and gold. Their food was the game and fish obtained by the skill of the men, and the maize and beans raised in the fields tilled by the women and children. Their tools and weapons were made of sharp stones and of sticks hardened in the fire; the use of iron was unknown.

Powhatan was the chief of the strong and warlike tribes of Indians which the English colonists found dwelling on the banks of the River James. Powhatan had many children, one of whom, a daughter, called Pocahontas, was about twelve years old when the English settled in Jamestown. Captain Smith says that when he was a prisoner in one of her father’s wigwams she visited and made friends with him. When he was sentenced to death, he tells us that she interceded for him and that his life was spared at her request. According to Indian custom, the enemy whose life was thus granted became a son of the tribe; and Captain Smith lived for awhile with Powhatan’s tribe. In the course of time he was allowed to return to his countrymen at Jamestown.

There were few farmers among the English settlers and they had to learn to adapt their methods to the crops and climate of the new land. Their crops were scanty at first and they often suffered for food. In times of need, the Indian maiden, Pocahontas, more than once came to their relief, bringing food. She went, too, at night to warn the people of an intended Indian attack. No wonder the English called her “the dear and blessed Pocahontas.”

Powhatan seems to have been from the first suspicious of the white men; as time passed he came more and more to dislike and fear them. He had allowed them to settle on his land, thinking that they wanted it, Indian-fashion, for a season of hunting and fishing. But year after year passed and the white men remained in possession. Many died and some returned to England, but for every one that died or went away ten came. Powhatan would have liked to drive them away, but the Indians, with bows and war clubs, were no match for the white men, with guns and swords. Powhatan resolved to get guns and swords and make them fight against the white men. In one way and another, he got possession of many weapons,--some were bought with corn, some were stolen, some were taken from prisoners.

The matter became so serious that Captain Argall devised a plan to get back the weapons and also some prisoners taken by Powhatan. At this time, 1614, Pocahontas was visiting some friends who lived near the Potomac River. Captain Argall persuaded an Indian named Japazaws, and his wife, to entice Pocahontas on board his vessel. The Indian woman pretended that she wished to go on board to see the ship and her husband told her she could not go alone. To gratify her, Pocahontas agreed to accompany her. Captain Argall “secretly well rewarded Japazaws with a small copper kettle” and some other articles, which we are told he valued so highly that “doubtless he would have betrayed his own father for them.”

Pocahontas was carried to Jamestown, and messages were sent to her father that “Powhatan’s delight and darling” would be held prisoner until the English men and weapons were surrendered. “This news was unwelcome and troublesome unto him partly for the love he bore to his daughter and partly for the love he bore to our men, his prisoners ... and those swords and firearms of ours,” says an old historian. After three months delay, Powhatan sent seven men and some guns and offered these and a store of corn for his daughter’s release; the English, however, refused to release Pocahontas till all that they required was done.

Month after month passed. It was now eight years since Pocahontas, the child, had first seen English faces. She was a woman grown--gentle, generous, and noble of nature. John Rolfe, “a gentleman of approved behavior and honest carriage,” loved the Indian maiden and his love was returned. Pocahontas was baptized and given the Christian name of Rebecca. Then she and Rolfe were married in the church at Jamestown, April 5, 1614. “Ever since then,” says the historian Hamor, “we have had friendly commerce and trade, not only with Powhatan, but also with all his subjects round about us.”

About two years after Pocahontas and Rolfe were married they went to England, carrying with them their little son. John Smith wrote a letter to the queen telling how Pocahontas had saved his life and the colony and bespeaking for her the queen’s favor. She was received at court like a princess. “She did not only accustom herself to civility,” says a writer of the time, “but carried herself as the daughter of a king.” The Indian princess never returned to her native land. On the eve of her departure, she was taken ill and died in England, leaving one little son.

Miles Standish

A Pilgrim Leader

Early in the seventeenth century, James I. was king of England. He was a very self-willed man and was unwilling for his subjects to differ from him in religious or political matters. Naturally, all men were not willing to accept his opinions. Some were so unwilling to be dictated to by the king that they preferred to leave their homes in England and go where they could worship according to their own preferences. Some of these men, called Separatists because they had separated themselves from the established church of England, went in 1607 to Holland.

There they had full liberty in religious matters, but after a time they became dissatisfied.

The Dutch people were not strict enough in the observance of Sunday to please them, and their children were learning Dutch language and customs and would grow up to be Dutch men and women instead of English. These Separatists loved their native land and wanted their children to grow up English, but with their own religious views. Moreover, fighting between Spain and Holland was beginning again after ten years of peace and the Englishmen did not wish to become involved in this war.

So they resolved to go to the New World and establish a settlement there. They discussed many places before they decided where to go. They thought of Guiana which Raleigh had described as being fertile of soil and mild of climate, but they remembered his fights with the Spaniards and wished to avoid so troublesome a neighbor. There was the same objection to Florida, where a French colony had been destroyed by the Spaniards. They did not care to go to the English settlement at Jamestown, where the people were devoted to the Established Church of England and observed its forms even more strictly than people in England. They did not wish to go to the far north, for some Englishmen had already tried to settle in Maine and had come home with pitiful tales of their suffering during the severe winters. The Pilgrims, as these English religionists began to be called, from traveling about so much, at last decided to settle between Jamestown and Maine, about the coast of what is now New Jersey. They obtained a charter from the “North Virginia Company,” the Plymouth branch of the Virginia Company, which controlled from 41 to 45 degrees, giving them permission to settle in the southern part of North Virginia.

One hundred and two Pilgrims sailed in the Mayflower from Plymouth, England, in September, 1620. One of the men on board the Mayflower was Miles Standish, who was to be the soldier-savior of the northern English colony as John Smith was of the southern one.

Miles Standish was born about 1584 in England; he is said to have been the heir of a noble English family who was deprived of his rights. He entered the army and was sent by Queen Elizabeth to help the Dutch in their war against Spain. He was probably about nineteen or twenty then, and he seems to have remained in Holland after peace was made, and there he met the Pilgrims. His portraits represent him as a small man clad in leathern jacket and high boots, wearing a cartridge belt across his shoulder. He did not adopt the Pilgrims’ faith or ever become a member of their church, but he was a brave and faithful comrade.

The voyage was a long and stormy one. During it one member of the party died and was consigned to an ocean grave. Two months after leaving England, land was sighted, November 20, 1620. This land was a point marked Cape James on Captain Smith’s map; the name Cape Cod was given it later on account of the quantity of codfish caught there by Gosnold’s men in the expedition of 1602. Cape Cod was farther north than the Pilgrims had intended to go, and they sailed southward but were turned back by “dangerous shoals and roaring breakers” and unfavorable winds.

The men met in the cabin of the Mayflower to discuss the situation. The shore they were approaching was not the land granted by their charter and therefore its laws did not apply there. They decided to establish their colony on the coast and they signed an agreement to obey such laws as they should make for their guidance. John Carver was chosen governor.

The Pilgrims made several trips ashore to get wood and water and to explore the country. Captain Standish led his party of sixteen soldiers, in warlike array, armed with muskets and swords; they had no need to use their weapons, as the only Indians they saw fled at their approach. The chief event of the expedition was finding some corn in a mound; they carried it to the ship and later, when they were informed to whom it belonged, they paid the owners for it.

Other expeditions were made along the coast and up the streams in a shallop, or small boat. Often the spray froze on their clothes and “made them many times like coats of iron.”

While the Pilgrims tarried on the coast a child was born, son of William White and they called him Peregrine from a Latin word meaning “pilgrim.”

After exploring the country for several weeks, the Pilgrims determined to settle at a place called on Captain Smith’s map Plymouth, which was the name of the city from which they had sailed. On December 21, 1620, the men landed on the great boulder known as Plymouth Rock. Their first work was to build a “Common House”; January 31, 1621, this was completed and the women and children landed. The Pilgrims were not molested by Indians, but cold and famine were enemies that almost destroyed them. During the winter most of the colonists were ill and more than half of the hundred died; of eighteen women, only four survived the winter. One of those who died was Captain Standish’s wife.

At one time only seven men--one of whom was Captain Standish--were able to work. These seven, says Bradford their historian, tended the sick, cooked, washed, and did all the work indoors and outdoors. Rude houses were built of logs, with thatched roofs and windows of oiled paper. A church was erected which had cannon on top of it, so that at need it might serve as a fort.

To keep the Indians from suspecting their weakness, the Pilgrims leveled the graves and in the spring planted corn over them. On the whole, the Indians were friendly. One day an Indian approached the settlement and “saluted us in English and bade us ‘welcome.’” This was Samoset, “a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind and short before and no beard. He was naked except for a strip of leather about his waist, which had a fringe a span long or more. He had a bow and two arrows, the one bended the other not.” Samoset had learned broken English from fishermen who came to the coast of Maine. With him came later Squanto, the only survivor of the tribe which had lived near Plymouth and which had been destroyed by plague. Squanto showed the English how to plant corn and to enrich the soil with fish. Another of the visitors was Massasoit, an Indian chief, who made a “treaty of friendship” which was kept fifty years.

In April the Mayflower returned to England, but despite the hardships and sufferings of that terrible winter, not one of the Pilgrims went back. They were busy making cabins, cultivating gardens and fields, getting fish and game for food, building up a home in the wilderness. They traded with the Indians for beaver skins, collected sassafras, and sent furs and lumber back to England, laboring to repay the money borrowed to defray their expenses. At first and for several years the Pilgrims, like the Jamestown settlers, labored together; they prospered more after the land was divided and each man worked for himself.

They had a prosperous season and good crops and in the fall they celebrated their harvest and the end of their first year in the new land by a feast,--the first Thanksgiving. Fish and wild fowl and game were cooked in the big fireplaces or on wood fires out of doors. Massasoit came with about ninety men, bringing five deer as his contribution to the feast. There was a military drill and a shooting match, and three days were spent in merry-making. Year after year the Pilgrims observed this festival, and it came at last to be a national holiday.

The Narragansett Indians were unfriendly and the Pilgrims had to be on their guard against them. At one time Canonicus, their chief, sent the settlers a rattlesnake skin filled with arrows as a declaration of war; it was sent back filled with powder and balls, in token that the white men were ready to defend themselves. A strong fence, or palisade, was built around the settlement. In many ways the Pilgrims lived like soldiers on duty. Sunday morning at beat of drum, people marched to church. Each man had his weapon near in case of Indian attack.

More than once Indians tried to kill Miles Standish, the brave and prudent little captain. One gigantic Indian, Pecksuot, ridiculed him because he was small; in a fight soon after Pecksuot was killed. “I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground,” said one of the Indians.

About 1623 Captain Standish married a second time, his wife being an English woman, the sister of his first wife. In “The Courtship of Miles Standish” Longfellow tells a romance--for so far as we know it had no foundation in fact--about the fiery little Captain’s unsuccessful wooing by proxy of a maiden named Priscilla Mullins. The poem gives a vivid picture of Captain Standish and of life in the New England colony.

In 1625 Captain Standish made a voyage to England on business for the colony, but he returned in a few months. He subdued the English settlers at Merrymount who were selling arms to the Indians, and were living idle, drunken lives.

In eight years the Plymouth colony had grown so that Elder Brewster, John Alden, and Miles Standish went one summer to Duxbury on the north side of the bay; Standish made his home there on a high hill called Captain’s Hill. His sword and musket were now laid aside and he was busy plowing and tending his farm, settling sites for mills, practicing his skill in medicine, and serving the public welfare in peaceful ways. The brave, honorable, helpful man died October 3, 1656, and was buried at his home on Captain’s Hill. For forty years he had been the leading spirit in every undertaking requiring courage and military skill.

“For Standish no work was too difficult or dangerous, none too humble or disagreeable. As captain and magistrate, as engineer and explorer, as interpreter and merchant, as a tender nurse in pestilence, a physician at all times, and as the Cincinnatus of his colony, he showed a wonderful versatility of talent and the highest nobility of character.”

John Winthrop

A Puritan Governor

After the death of King James, his son Charles became king. Like his father, he was bent on having his own way; as often happens, his stubbornness made those opposed to him more stubborn. The people refused to submit to his dictation, and many of those who differed from the king in matters of religion and politics came to America, where a new England was being built up. From 1628 to 1640 there were more emigrants from England to America than came during the whole of the century which followed.

In 1628 a company of men secured from the Council of New England a patent to a tract of land in Massachusetts between the Merrimac and Charles Rivers and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean which was thought to be near the Hudson River. John Endicott was sent out that year with a small colony which settled at Salem, Massachusetts. He was a self-willed, blunt man and tried to regulate the affairs of the colony according to his ideas. He made laws against wearing wigs, for instance, and required women to wear veils to church.

The first winter was a hard one for the colonists and they were “forced to lengthen out their own food with acorns.” Like the Pilgrims, however, the Puritans, whose religious belief was similar to that of the Pilgrims, held fast their resolution and endured hardship rather than return to old England where they were not free to worship according to their own faith.

In March, 1629, a company of prominent and wealthy Puritans secured a charter from the king, giving them the right to make for their colony such laws as they pleased provided they were not contrary to the laws of England. Under this charter six ships came, bringing men, women, children, cattle, arms, and tools, to establish a Puritan commonwealth. One of the six ships was the Mayflower which had brought over the Pilgrims nine years before. The six-weeks voyage seemed “short and speedy” in those days, and the Puritans landed on a June day when the land was fair with summer. How unlike the wintry landing of the Pilgrims! In one year the Salem colony outnumbered the Plymouth colony which had been established nearly ten years.

The Puritans had obtained a charter from the king, but the question was would they be able to keep it? The king was as ready to break as to make a promise, and the Puritan leaders feared that he would call for and withdraw the much-prized charter. How could they keep it safe? At last they devised a plan. It was not stipulated where the Company should meet, so they resolved to move its headquarters and carry the charter to the New World. The Puritans took good care not to let the king know of this plan. The members who did not wish to leave England resigned, and in their places were elected men who were willing to emigrate to secure civil and religious privileges.

The king was much displeased when he learned that the Massachusetts Company and its charter had gone across the ocean, but just then nothing was done about the matter. Later on, an unsuccessful attempt was made to get the charter from the people.

The governor elected by the Massachusetts company was John Winthrop, one of the noblest men who aided in the making of New England. Winthrop was a gentleman by birth, gracious, gentle, and charitable in private life, intense--and sometimes intolerant--in his religious views. When he joined the “great emigration” of 1630, he was forty-one years of age, having been born the very year that the Spanish Armada was destroyed. With eight hundred men and the precious charter, Winthrop sailed to the New World. A few days were spent at Salem, and then it was decided to make a settlement at Charlestown. But the site proved unfortunate. There was much sickness the first summer, caused, it was thought, by impure drinking water.

Not far from the little settlement was what was called Shawmut peninsula; here lived a Mr. Blackstone who had come from England to lead a hermit’s life. He pitied the sufferings of his neighbors and countrymen, and invited them to come to Shawmut where the air and water were excellent. They came and found the situation so favorable that they bought land from Mr. Blackstone; in September they laid there the foundations of a city which they called Boston for the English city of Boston from which many of them came. Shawmut peninsula was called Trimountain Peninsula from its three hills.

Like the settlers at Plymouth, the Salem colonists were often in want of food during the first years. Until they could cultivate farms and raise crops, food had to be brought from England, for there was no farmers and no tradespeople in the New World from whom it could be obtained. The loss or delay of a ship bearing supplies meant want and suffering for the colonists. On one occasion, expected supplies failed to come to the Puritans and a fast day was appointed to pray for relief. As Governor Winthrop was dividing his last handful of meal with a needy neighbor, a ship laden with food entered the harbor. The devout people went to church to give thanks and changed the appointed fast to a feast.

Not all the people who had come to Massachusetts were willing to endure the hardships of the new life. About a hundred went back to England, but Governor Winthrop, with the more unselfish and zealous Puritans, remained.

Governor Winthrop endeavored to set the people an example of a sober and upright life. He became convinced that the drinking of healths at meals according to the English custom led to intemperance. He restrained it at his own table and thus became the leader of temperance reform in the New World.

One winter day he was informed that a poor man who lived near him was taking fuel from his woodpile. “Go call that man to me,” he said, “I’ll warrant I’ll cure him of stealing.” When the man came he said, “Friend, it is a severe winter and I doubt you are but meanly provided with wood; wherefore I would have you supply yourself at my woodpile till this cold season be over.” He then asked his friends whether he had not cured this man of stealing his wood.

Winthrop’s charity, however, did not extend to matters of religion. He wished to have those of unlike religious views “well whipt.” The Puritans had come to America to establish a colony which should be ruled according to their own views and faith. They did not tolerate in it men who differed from them in belief. “Let such go elsewhere,” they thought; “there is room enough.”

The Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Company encouraged colonists of their own faith to emigrate. By 1634 four thousand had come and about twenty villages had been founded on or near the bay. Houses, churches, and shops were built; farms were tilled; fur, lumber, and salt fish were sent to England and manufactured goods were brought back.

The laws of the Massachusetts colony were very strict. People were taxed to support the church, and only men who were church members were allowed to vote or to hold office as magistrates. Everyone was required to attend church services. If any one was absent without good reason the “tithing man” was sent after him. In church men sat on one side and women on the other; there was a man to keep order and he had a long stick with which to tap people who slept or children who fidgeted during the service which lasted two, or three, or even four hours. Children were whipped and grown people were fined if they talked in church.

A young clergyman of Salem, Roger Williams, of whom you will hear more later, thought that these laws were too strict. He thought people ought to enjoy civil and religious liberty, but Governor Winthrop advised him to leave the colony as no one with such views was wanted there.

Governor Winthrop spent much of his fortune in helping the colony he had founded and had the joy of seeing it grow and prosper. He died March 26, 1649.

In 1692 the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies were united under the name of Massachusetts, and thus was founded the colony which in time became the state of Massachusetts.

Roger Williams

An Advocate of Religious Liberty

You have learned that the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonists came to America to found colonies governed according to their own views. This was because they were convinced these views were right, not because they believed that every man should be free to worship as he pleased. Liberty of faith and worship, they thought, would destroy all law and order.

Roger Williams, however, believed in civil freedom and religious liberty. He was a clever young Welshman who had been educated as a clergyman and had adopted Baptist views. He and his wife came from England to America in 1631. For a while he was pastor of a church in Boston, but his views were so different from those of his congregation that he did not stay there long. He went to Salem, then to Plymouth, and then back to Salem. He had much influence and won many people to his views. The Massachusetts Bay Puritans began to dislike him and to fear his influence; there were long debates and discussions as to what should be done about him. They objected to both his political and his religious beliefs.

Roger Williams thought that the laws of a country should prevent and punish crime and should not direct religious matters; these, he urged, should be left to men’s own consciences. He said that every man should be free to believe what he chose, and that it was wrong to tax people to support a certain church or to compel them to attend it. He said that every man ought to be allowed to vote, and that for magistrates sensible, upright men ought to be chosen without regard to their church membership. These things were contrary to the belief of the Massachusetts Bay colony and to its practices.

Williams said, moreover, that the king of England had no right to grant lands in America to any one; these belonged to the Indians and should be secured from them. This assertion was regarded as a defiance of the king’s authority. Finally it was resolved to send Williams away from the colony, and in January, 1636, the General Court ordered him to come to Boston to get on a ship that was about to sail to England. Williams knew well that return to England meant imprisonment or punishment for his views. Instead of going to Boston, he left his home in Salem one bleak, snowy day and took refuge in the forest. From his first coming to the colony he had made friends with the Indians. Now he made his way to the wigwam of Massasoit, where he spent the winter, trying to teach the savages the truths of the Christian religion. For weeks he was “sorely tost in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.”

He then settled on Seekonk River and planted corn, thinking that he was beyond the bounds of the Plymouth colony. But he was still within its limits; in the spring Governor Winthrop informed him that he would be let alone if he would “steer his course” to Narragansett Bay.

With a few companions who had adopted his views, Williams crossed the bay in an Indian canoe, made a covenant of peace with the natives, and established a settlement which he called Providence. This colony became a place of refuge for people oppressed on account of their religious views. “I desired it might be a shelter for persons distressed for conscience,” said Williams. It was to be free to “Baptists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks,” he said, “to all men of all nations and countries.”

Among the people who took refuge there was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. She was a woman preacher, claiming to have the spirit of prophecy, who had been driven out from the Massachusetts colony. After some peaceful years in Rhode Island, she moved westward to a settlement of her own. Here she, her children, and servants were murdered by Indians.

Roger Williams refused to persecute Quakers who were very unpopular in all the other colonies. The religious liberty enjoyed in this colony seems to us to-day, when it is the general custom, entirely right and reasonable, but it seemed very strange and unreasonable to people at that time. Among the people of different religious views who took refuge in Rhode Island, there was a great deal of arguing and quarreling. It was said “any man who had lost his religion would be sure to find it again at some village in Rhode Island.”