A Brief History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
House of Burgesses consisted of two delegates from each county, with one from Jamestown.
[7] For some years to come the slaves increased in numbers very slowly. So late as 1671, when the population of Virginia was 40,000, there were but 2000 slaves, while the bond servants numbered 6000. Some of these indentured servants, as they were called, were persons guilty of crime in England, who were sent over to Virginia and sold for a term of years as a punishment. Others—the "redemptioners"—were men who, in order to pay for their passage to Virginia, agreed to serve the owner or the captain of the ship for a certain time. On reaching Virginia the captain could sell them to the planters for the time specified; at the end of the time they became freemen.
[8] That is, the unoccupied land became royal domain again, and the king appointed the governors and controlled the colony through a committee of his privy council. One unhappy result of the downfall of the London Company was the defeat of a plan for establishing schools in Virginia. As early as 1621 some funds were raised for "a public free school," in Charles City. A tract of land was also set apart in the city of Henricus for a college, and a rector, or president, was sent out to start it. But he was killed by the Indians in 1622, and before the company had found a successor the charter was destroyed. Virginia's first college—William and Mary—was established at Williamsburg in 1693.
[9] Read the description of early Virginia in J. E. Cooke's Virginia (American Commonwealths Series), pp. 141–157; or Stories of the Old Dominion; or Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 223- 232.
[10] Jamestown was long the chief town of Virginia; but in its best days the houses did not number more than 75 or 80, and the population was not more than 250. In 1676 the church, the House of Burgesses, and the dwellings were burned during Bacon's Rebellion (p. 95). In 1679 the Burgesses ordered Jamestown "to be rebuilt and to be the metropolis of Virginia"; but in 1698 the House of Burgesses was again burned and in 1699 Williamsburg became the seat of government. The ruined church tower (p. 40) is the only structure still standing in Jamestown; but remains of the ancient graveyard, of a mansion built on the foundations of the old House of Burgesses, and some foundations of dwellings may also be seen. The site is cared for by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
[11] George Calvert was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, was educated at Oxford, and went to Parliament in 1604. Becoming a favorite of King James I, he was knighted in 1617, and two years later was made principal Secretary of State. He became a Roman Catholic, although Catholics were then bitterly persecuted in England. Just before the king died, he resigned office, and received the title of Lord Baltimore, the name referring to a town in Ireland. Finding all public offices closed to him because he was a Catholic, Baltimore resolved to seek a home in America.
[12] Baltimore ordered that any colonist who came in the Ark or Dove and brought five men with him should have 2000 acres of land, subject to an annual rent of 400 pounds of wheat. A settler who came in 1635 could have the same amount of land if he brought ten men, but had to pay 600 pounds of wheat a year as rent. Plantations of 1000 acres or more were manors, and the lord of the manor could hold courts.
[13] Claiborne's London partners took possession of Kent Island, and acknowledged the authority of Baltimore; but after the Civil War broke out in England, Claiborne joined forces with a half pirate named Ingle, and recovered the island. For two years Ingle and his crew lorded it over all Maryland, stealing corn, tobacco, cattle, and household goods. Not till 1646, when Calvert received aid from Virginia, was he able to drive out Claiborne and Ingle, and recover the province.
[14] The redemptioners, when their time was out and they became freemen, received a set of tools, clothes, and a year's provisions from their former masters, and fifty acres from the proprietor of the colony.
[15] On such looms skilled servants wove much of the cloth used on the plantation. Similar looms were used in all the colonies.
CHAPTER V
THE ENGLISH IN NEW ENGLAND
NEW ENGLAND NAMED.—While the London Company was planting its colony on the James River, the Plymouth Company sought to retrieve its failure on the Kennebec (p. 39). In 1614 Captain John Smith, who had returned to England from Jamestown, was sent over with two ships to explore. He made a map of the coast from Maine to Cape Cod, [1] and called the country New England. The next year Smith led out a colony; but a French fleet took him prisoner, no settlement was made, and five years passed before the first permanent English colony was planted in the Plymouth Company's grant—by the Separatists.
[Illustration: SMITH'S MAP OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.]
THE SEPARATISTS.—To understand who these people were, it must be remembered that during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Protestant Episcopal Church was the Established Church of England, and that severe laws were passed to force all the people to attend its services. But a sect arose which wished to "purify" the church by abolishing certain forms and ceremonies. These people were called Puritans, [2] and were divided into two sects:
1. Those Puritans who wished to purify the Church of England while they remained members of it.
2. The Independents, or Separatists, who wished to separate from that church and worship God in their own way.
The Separatists were cruelly persecuted during Queen Elizabeth's reign, and afterward. One band of them fled to Holland (in 1608), where they found peace; but time passed and it became necessary for them to decide whether they should stay in Holland and become Dutch, or find a home in some land where they might continue to remain Englishmen. They decided to leave Holland, formed a company, and finally obtained leave from the London Company to settle near the mouth of the Delaware River.
[Illustration: BREWSTER'S CHAIR. Now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.]
VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER.—Led by Brewster, Bradford, and Standish, a party of Pilgrims sailed from Holland in July, 1620, in the ship Speedwell; were joined in England by a party from London in the Mayflower; and in August both vessels put to sea. But the Speedwell proved unseaworthy, and all put back to Plymouth in England, where some gave up the voyage. One hundred and two held fast to their purpose, and in September set sail in the Mayflower. The voyage was long and stormy, and November came before they sighted a sandy coast far to the northeastward of the Delaware. For a while they strove hard to go southward; but adverse winds drove them back, and they dropped anchor in Cape Cod Bay. [3]
THE LANDING.—The land here was within the territory of the Plymouth Company. The Pilgrims, however, decided to stay and get leave to settle, but this decision displeased some of them. A meeting, therefore, was held in the ship's cabin (November 21, 1620), and the "Mayflower compact," binding all who signed it to obey such government as might be established, was drawn up and signed by forty-one of the sixty-five men on the vessel.
This done, the work of choosing a site for their homes began, and for several weeks little parties explored the coast before one of them entered a harbor and selected a spot which John Smith had named Plymouth. [4] To this harbor the Mayflower was brought, and while the men were busy putting up rude cabins, the women and children remained on the ship.
THE FIRST WINTER was a dreadful one. The Pilgrims lived in crowded quarters, and the effects of the voyage and the severity of the winter sent half of them to their graves before spring. But the rest never faltered, and when the Mayflower returned to England in April, not one of the colonists went back in her. By the end of the first summer a fort had been built on a hill, seven houses had been erected along a village street leading down from the fort to the harbor, six and twenty acres had been cleared, and a bountiful harvest had been gathered. Other Pilgrims came over, the neighboring Indians kept the peace, and the colony was soon prosperous.
[Illustration: SITE OF THE FORT AT PLYMOUTH. In the old "burying ground."]
PLYMOUTH, OR THE OLD COLONY.—As soon as the