A Beginner's History. William H. Mace
was the saddest the Pilgrims had ever seen. Their storehouse was turned into a hospital. They had been used to the gentler winters of England and Holland. Before the warm days of spring came, one half of the little band had perished, among them Governor Carver. But the Pilgrims bore brave hearts, and not a man or woman among those left went back to England when the Mayflower sailed.
MILES STANDISH
From a portrait now in possession of Mrs. A. M. Harrison, Plymouth
True courage
46. Friendship with the Indians. Brave Miles Standish kept his little army—what was left of it—ready for any danger. He built a fort on a hill, and mounted the cannon brought over in the Mayflower.
Samoset introduces them to the Indians
But the Indians were not so bad after all, for had it not been for them, the Pilgrims would have had a much harder time. One day while the leaders were talking over military affairs, they saw a fine-looking Indian coming toward them. He called out in the English language, "Welcome! Welcome!" This was a double surprise. The Indian was Samoset, who had already saved the lives of two white men taken by the Indians.
In a few days Samoset brought other Indians, dressed in deer and panther skins. They made the Pilgrims think of gypsies seen in Holland. Their long black hair was braided and ornamented with feathers and foxtails. They sang and danced for the Pilgrims.
Massasoit visits the Pilgrims
When Samoset came again, he brought Squanto, an Indian who had been captured and carried to London, and who could speak English. They gave the news that the great Indian chief, Massasoit, was coming to visit his strange neighbors.
POUNDING CORN TO MAKE MEAL
A messenger was sent to welcome him and to give him presents. Massasoit, and twenty other Indians without bows and arrows, were met by Captain Standish, and escorted into the presence of Bradford, the longtime governor of Plymouth. They agreed not to harm each other, and to be friends forever.
What the Pilgrims learned from Squanto
Squanto taught the Pilgrims many new things. He showed them how to raise corn by putting dead fish in the hill when planting corn, how to hoe the corn while growing, and how to pound the corn to make meal. Indian corn proved to be the Pilgrims' best food crop.
INDIANS TEACHING THE PILGRIMS HOW TO CATCH EELS
They had no means of fishing, but Squanto taught them how to catch eels by wading into shallow water, and treading them out with their feet. From the Indians the white men also learned how to make Indian shoes or moccasins, and snowshoes, birch-bark canoes, and other useful things.
GOVERNOR CARVER'S LAMP
The first summer was now over and the Pilgrims' first harvest had been gathered. Their houses had been repaired, and the health of the settlers was good. Fish and wild game were plentiful. They decided that the time for rejoicing and thanksgiving had also come, and invited Massasoit and his warriors to join them in the celebration.
The first American Thanksgiving
For three days the games, military movements, feastings, and rejoicing went on, and at the end the Pilgrims and Indians were better friends than before. This was the beginning of our custom of having a day of thanksgiving each year.
More Pilgrims from Holland and England
For a whole year the Pilgrims had not heard a word from the great world across the sea. How eager they must have been for just one word from their old homes! One day the Indians sent runners to tell them that a ship was in sight. The cannon boomed on the hilltop. Captain Standish and his men ran for their guns and stood ready to defend the colony against Spaniards or French. But it was a ship with news and friends from Leiden and England.
After a few weeks this ship returned to England loaded with furs, clapboards, and sassafras to pay those English merchants who had furnished the Pilgrims the Mayflower to bring them to America.
WEDDING SLIPPER WORN BY A MAYFLOWER BRIDE
An Indian's challenge to war
An Indian chief, not far away, decided that he would rather fight with the Englishmen than be friendly with them. So he sent a bundle of arrows, wrapped in a rattlesnake's skin, to the governor of Plymouth. Squanto told the Pilgrims that this was an Indian's challenge to war.
Bradford's answer
The Pilgrims were men of peace, but they were not cowards. Governor Bradford filled the skin with powder and shot and sent it back to the hostile chief. But the Indians would not touch it and the chief would not permit it to be left in his wigwam an hour, but sent it from place to place, until it again reached Plymouth.
Thus the Pilgrims went on year by year, living in peace when they could, but fighting when they must. Every year or so new settlers came from their old homes, and the colony grew slowly, but steadily.
The Pilgrims the most famous of all the Puritans in America
After a few years the new King of England was so hard upon the Puritans in England that thousands of them followed the example of the Pilgrims and came to America, and planted many other colonies in New England. But none have held so warm a place in the hearts of Americans as the little band brought to the New World by the Mayflower.
JOHN WINTHROP, THE FOUNDER OF BOSTON; JOHN ELIOT, THE GREAT ENGLISH MISSIONARY; AND KING PHILIP, AN INDIAN CHIEF THE EQUAL OF THE WHITE MAN
Colony at Salem
47. The Puritans. While the Pilgrims were planting their home on the lonely American shore, the Puritans in England were being cruelly persecuted by Charles I. So great became their sufferings and dangers that the Puritan leaders decided to go to America, where they could worship as they pleased. Charles I, fortunately, gave them a very good charter. But even before this, some of the Puritans had already planted a colony at Salem.
JOHN WINTHROP
From a portrait painted by John Singleton Copley; reproduced by permission of the trustees of Harvard University
John Winthrop founded Boston, 1630
48. John Winthrop. The Puritan leaders elected John Winthrop governor of the new colony. In the spring of 1630, nearly ten years after the Mayflower sailed, more than seven hundred Puritans, in eleven ships, bade good-by to their beautiful English homes, crossed the ocean, and settled in what is now Boston.
John Winthrop, the leader and governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, the name given to the Salem and Boston settlements, was then about forty years old, and had been in college at Cambridge, in England. He was a man of high social position.
What the Puritans gave up
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