A School History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
England and began to build a town on Roanoke Island. They were ill suited for this kind of pioneer life, and were soon in such distress that, had not Sir Francis Drake in one of his voyages happened to touch at Roanoke, they would have starved to death. Drake, seeing their helplessness, carried them home to England. Yet their life on the island was not without results, for they took back with them the potato, and some dried tobacco leaves which the Indians had taught them to smoke.
Ralegh, of course, was greatly disappointed to see his colonists again in England. But he was not discouraged, and in 1587 sent forth a second band. The first had consisted entirely of men. The second band was composed of both men and women with their families, for it seemed likely that if the men took their wives and children along they would be more likely to remain than if they went alone. John White was the leader, and with a charter and instructions to build the city of Ralegh somewhere on the shores of Chesapeake Bay he set off with his colonists and landed on Roanoke Island. Here a little granddaughter was born (August 18, 1587), and named Virginia. She was the child of Eleanor Dare, and was the first child born of English parents in America.
[Illustration: Roanoke Island and vicinity]
Governor White soon found it necessary to go back to England for supplies, and, in consequence of the Spanish war, three years slipped by before he was able to return to the colony. He was then too late. Every soul had perished, and to this day nobody knows how or where. Ralegh could do no more, and in 1589 made over all his rights to a joint-stock company of merchants. This company did nothing, and the sixteenth century came to an end with no English colony in America.[1]
[Footnote 1: Doyle's English Colonies in America, Virginia, pp. 56–74; Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 60–79; Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 80–87.]
%18. Gosnold in New England.%—With the new century came better fortune. Ralegh's noble efforts to plant a colony aroused Englishmen to the possibility of founding a great empire in the New World, and especially one named Bartholomew Gosnold.
Instead of following the old route to America by way of the Canary Islands, the West Indies, and Florida, he sailed due west across the Atlantic,[2] and brought up on the shore of a cape which he named Cape Cod.[3] Following the shore southward, he passed through Nantucket Sound and Vineyard Sound, till he came to Cuttyhunk Island, at the entrance of Buzzards Bay. On this he landed, and built a house for the use of colonists he intended to leave there. But when he had filled his ship with sassafras roots and cedar logs, nobody would remain, and the whole company went back to England.[4]
[Footnote 2: By thus shortening the journey 3000 miles, he practically brought America 3000 miles nearer to Europe.]
[Footnote 3: Because the waters thereabout abounded in codfish. For a comparison of Gosnold's route with those of the other early explorers see the map on p. 15.]
[Footnote 4: Bancroft's United States, Vol. I., pp. 70–83. Hildreth's United States, Vol. I., p. 90.]
%19. The Two Virginia Companies.%—As a result of this voyage, Gosnold was more eager than ever to plant a colony in Virginia, and this enthusiasm he communicated so fully to others that, in 1606, King James I. created two companies to settle in Virginia, which was then the name for all the territory from what is now Maine to Florida.
1. Each company was to own a block of land 100 miles square; that is, 100 miles along the coast—50 miles each way from its first settlement—and 100 miles into the interior.
2. The First Company, a band of London merchants, might establish its first settlement anywhere between 34° and 41° north latitude.
3. The Second Company, a band of Plymouth merchants, might establish its first settlement anywhere between 38° and 45°.
4. These settlements were to be on the seacoast.
5. In order to prevent the blocks from overlapping, it was provided that the company which was last to settle should locate at least 100 miles from the other company's settlement.[1]
[Footnote 1: Over the affairs of each company presided a council appointed by the King, with power to choose its own president, fill vacancies among its own members, and elect a council of thirteen to reside on the company's lands in America. Each company might coin money, raise a revenue by taxing foreign vessels trading at its ports, punish crime, and make laws which, if bad, could be set aside by the King. All property was to be owned in common, and all the products of the soil deposited in a public magazine from which the needs of the settlers were to be supplied. The surplus was to be sold for the good of the company. The charter is given in full in Poore's Charters and Constitutions, pp. 1888–1893.]
%20. The Jamestown Colony.%—Thus empowered, the two companies made all haste to gather funds, collect stores and settlers, and fit out ships. The London Company was the first to get ready, and on the 19th of December, 1606, 143 colonists set sail in three ships for America with their charter, and a list of the council sealed up in a strong box. The Plymouth Company soon followed, and before the year 1607 was far advanced, two settlements were planted in our country: the one at Jamestown, in Virginia, the other near the mouth of the Kennebec, in Maine. The latter, however, was abandoned the following year (see Chapter IV).
The three ships which carried the Virginia colony reached the coast in the spring of 1607, and entering Chesapeake Bay sailed up a river which the colonists called the James, in honor of the King. When about thirty miles from its mouth, a landing was made on a little peninsula, where a settlement was begun and named Jamestown.[1] It was the month of May, and as the weather was warm, the colonists did not build houses, but, inside of some rude fortifications, put up shelters of sails and branches to serve till huts could be built. But their food gave out, the Indians were hostile, and before September half of the party had died of fever. Had it not been for the energy and courage of John Smith, every one of them would have perished. He practically assumed command, set the men to building huts, persuaded the Indians to give them food, explored the bays and rivers of Virginia, and for two dreary years held the colony together. When we consider the worthless men he had to deal with, and the hardships and difficulties that beset him, his work is wonderful. The history which he wrote, however, is not to be trusted.[2]
[Footnote 1: Nothing now remains of Jamestown but the ruined tower of the church shown in the picture. Much of the land on which the town stood has been washed away by the river, so that its site is now an island.]
[Footnote 2: Read the Life and Writings of Captain John Smith, by Charles Dudley Warner; also John Fiske in Atlantic Monthly, December, 1895; Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation, pp. 31–38. Smith's True Relation is printed in American History Leaflets, No. 27, and Library of American Literature Vol. I.]
[Illustration: All that is left of Jamestown]
Bad as matters were, they became worse when a little fleet arrived with many new settlers, making the whole number about 500. The newcomers were a worthless set picked up in the streets of London or taken from the jails, and utterly unfit to become the founders of a state in the wilderness of the New World. Out of such material Smith in time might have made something, but he was forced by a wound to return to England, and the colony went rapidly to ruin. Sickness and famine did their work so quickly that after six months there were but sixty of the 500 men alive. Then two small ships, under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, arrived at Jamestown with more settlers; but all decided to flee, and had actually sailed a few miles down the James, when, June 8, 1610, they met Lord Delaware with three ships full of men and supplies coming up the river. Delaware came out as governor under a new charter granted in 1609.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read "The Jamestown Experiments," in Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation, pp. 25–72.]
[Illustration: Vicinity of Jamestown]
%21. The Virginia Charter of 1609% made a great change in the boundary of the company's property. By the 1606 charter the colony was limited to 100 miles along the seaboard and 100 miles west from the coast. In 1609 the company was given an immense domain reaching 400 miles along the coast—200 miles each way from Old Point Comfort—and