A Brief History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
[1] On his map Smith gave to Cape Ann, Cape Elizabeth, Charles River, and Plymouth the names they still retain. Cape Cod he called Cape James.
[2] The Puritans were important in history for many years. Most of the English people who quarreled and fought with King James and King Charles were Puritans. In Maryland it was a Puritan army that for a time overthrew Lord Baltimore's government (p. 52).
[3] Read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 79–82.
[4] The little boat or shallop in which they intended to sail along the coast needed to be repaired, and two weeks passed before it was ready. Meantime a party protected by steel caps and corselets went ashore to explore the country. A few Indians were seen in the distance, but they fled as the Pilgrims approached. In the ruins of a hut were found some corn and an iron kettle that had once belonged to a European ship. The corn they carried away in the kettle, to use as seed in the spring. Other exploring parties, after trips in the shallop, pushed on over hills and through valleys covered deep with snow, and found more deserted houses, corn, and many graves; for a pestilence had lately swept off the Indian population. On the last exploring voyage, the waves ran so high that the rudder was carried away and the explorers steered with an oar. As night came on, all sail was spread in hope of reaching shore before dark, but the mast broke and the sail went overboard. However, they floated to an island where they landed and spent the night. On the second day after, Monday, December 21, the explorers reached the mainland. On the beach, half in sand and half in water, was a large bowlder, and on this famous Plymouth Rock, it is said, the men stepped as they went ashore.
[5] As to the early settlements read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 90–95.
[6] The Massachusetts charter granted the land from within three miles south of the Charles River, to within three miles north of the Merrimac River, and all lands "of and within the breadth aforesaid" across the continent.
[7] Roger Williams was a Welshman, had been educated at Cambridge University in England, and had some reputation as a preacher before coming to Boston. There he was welcomed as "a godly minister," and in time was called to a church in Salem; but was soon forced out by the General Court. He then went to Plymouth, where he made the friendship of Mas'sasoit, chief of the Wam-pano'ags, and of Canon'icus, chief of the Narragansetts, and learned their language. In 1633 he returned to Salem, and was again made pastor of a church.
[8] The fate of John Endicott shows to what a result Williams's teaching was supposed to lead. The flag of the Salem militia bore the red cross of St. George. Endicott regarded it as a symbol of popery, and one day publicly cut out the cross from the flag. This was thought a defiance of royal authority, and Endicott was declared incapable of holding office for a year.
[9] Anne Hutchinson held certain religious views on which she lectured to the women of Boston, and made so many converts that she split the church. Governor Vane favored her, but John Winthrop opposed her teachings, and when he became governor again she and her followers were ordered to quit the colony.
[10] The first written constitution made in our country, and the first in the history of the world that was made by the people, for the people. Other towns were added later, among them Saybrook, which had grown up about an English fort built in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut.
[11] Besides New Hampshire, which in 1643 was practically part of Massachusetts; and Maine, which became so a few years later.
[12] The Dutch, as we shall see in the next chapter, had planted a colony in the Hudson valley, and disputed English possession of the Connecticut.
[13] Students at Harvard College for many years paid their term bills with produce, meat, and live stock. In 1649 a student paid his bill with "an old cow," and the steward of the college made separate credits for her hide, her "suet and inwards." On another occasion a goat was taken and valued at 30 shillings. Taxes also were paid in corn and cattle.
[14] The coins were the shilling, sixpence, threepence, and twopence. On one side of each coin was stamped a rude representation of a pine tree.
[15] On which the yarn was wound after it was spun. For a picture of the loom used in weaving, see p. 52.
[16] On the board were a saltcellar, wooden plates or trenchers, wooden or pewter spoons, and knives, but no china, no glass. Forks, it is said, were not known even in England till 1608, and the first ever seen in New England were at Governor Winthrop's table in 1632. Those who wished a drink of water drank from a single wooden tankard passed around the table; or they went to the bucket and used a gourd.
[17] This was a large sum in those days, and about as much as was raised by taxation in a year. The General Court which voted the money, it has been said, was "the first body in which the people, by their representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education."
[18] The Friends, or Quakers, lived pure, upright, simple lives. They protested against all forms and ceremonies, and against all church government. They refused to take any oaths, to use any titles, or to serve in war, because they thought these things wrong. They were much persecuted in England.
[19] Another incident which gives us an insight into the character of these early times is the witchcraft delusion of 1692. Nearly everybody in those days believed in witchcraft, and several persons in the colonies had been put to death as witches. When, therefore, in 1692, the children of a Salem minister began to behave queerly and said that an Indian slave woman had bewitched them, they were believed. But the delusion did not stop with the children. In a few weeks scores of people in Salem were accusing their neighbors of all sorts of crimes and witch orgies. Many declared that the witches stuck pins into them. Twenty persons were put to death as witches before the craze came to an end.
[20] The New Haven Colony was destroyed as a distinct colony because its people offended the king by sheltering Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the regicides, or judges who sat in the tribunal that condemned Charles I. When they fled to New England in 1660, a royal order for their arrest was sent over after them, and a hot pursuit began. For a month they lived in a cave, at other times in cellars in Milford, Guilford, and New Haven; and once they hid under a bridge while their pursuers galloped past overhead. After hiding in these ways about New Haven for three years they went to Hadley in Massachusetts, where all trace of them disappears.
CHAPTER VI
THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES
THE COMING OF THE DUTCH.—We have now seen how English colonies were planted in the lands about Chesapeake Bay, and in New England. Into the country lying between, there came in 1609 an intruder in the form of a little Dutch ship called the Half-Moon. The Dutch East India Company had fitted her out and sent Captain Henry Hudson in her to seek a northeasterly passage to China. Driven back by ice in his attempt to sail north of Europe, Hudson turned westward, and came at last to Delaware Bay. Up this the Half-Moon went a little way, but, grounding on the shoals, Hudson turned about, followed the coast northward, and sailed up the river now called by his name. He went as far as the site of Albany; then, finding that the Hudson was not a passage through the continent, he returned to Europe. [1]
[Illustration: LANDING OF HUDSON. From an old print.]
DISCOVERIES OF BLOCK AND MAY.—The discovery of the Hudson gave Holland or the Netherlands a claim to the country it drained, and year after year Dutch explorers visited the region. One of them, Adrien Block, (in 1614) went through Long Island Sound, ascended the Connecticut River as far as the site of Hartford, and sailed along the coast to a point beyond Cape Cod; Block Island now bears his name. Another, May, went southward, passed between two capes, [2] and explored Delaware Bay. The Dutch then claimed the country from the Delaware to Cape Cod; that is, as far as May and Block had explored.
[Illustration: NEW NETHERLAND.]
THE FUR TRADE.—Important as these discoveries were,