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In 1633 the Dutch erected a fort where Hartford now is, but some English emigrants from Plymouth Colony, in defiance of a threatened cannonade, sailed past and built a trading-house at Windsor, where, joined by colonists, from about Boston, they soon effected a settlement. Wethersfield and Hartford were presently founded. In 1630 the Plymouth Company had granted Connecticut to the Earl of Warwick, who turned it over to Lord Brooke, Lord Say-and-Seal, and others. Winthrop the Younger, son of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, commissioned by these last, built a fort at Saybrook. Till the expiration of his commission the towns immediately upon the Connecticut were under the government of Massachusetts. Their population in 1643 was three thousand. A convention of these towns met at Hartford, January 14, 1639, and formed a constitution, like that of Massachusetts Bay, thoroughly republican in nature. Connecticut breathed a freer spirit than either Massachusetts or New Haven, being in this respect the peer of Plymouth. At Hartford Roger Williams was always welcome.
Meantime, in 1638, having touched at Boston the year before, Davenport, Eaton, and others from London began planting at New Haven. The Bible was adopted as their guide in both civil and religious affairs, and a government organized in which only church members could vote or be elected to the General Court. The colony flourished, branching out into several towns. In 1643 it numbered twenty five hundred inhabitants.
As early as 1622, Mason and Gorges were granted land partly in what is now Maine, partly in what is now New Hampshire; and in 1623 Dover and Portsmouth were settled. Wheelwright, a brother-in-law of Mrs. Hutchinson, with others, purchased of the natives the southeast part of New Hampshire, between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, and in 1638 Exeter was founded. In the same year with Wheelwright's purchase, Mason obtained from the council of the Plymouth Company a patent to this same section, and the tract was called New Hampshire. These conflicting claims paved the way for future controversies and lawsuits. The settlers here were not Puritans, nor were they obliged to be church members in order to be deputies or freemen.
The settlement of Maine goes back to 1626, when the Plymouth Company granted lands there both to Alexander and to Gorges. In 1639 Gorges secured a royal charter to re-enforce his claim. Large freedom, civil and religious, was allowed. For many years the Maine settlements were small and scattered, made up mostly of such as came to hunt and fish for a season only.
[1650]
From 1643 to 1684 Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed a confederation under the style of the United Colonies of New England. Maine, Providence, and Rhode Island sought membership, but were refused as being civilly and religiously out of harmony with the colonies named. Connecticut, offensive to the Dutch, and exposed to hostilities from them, was the most earnest for the union, while at the same time the most conservative as to its form. It was a loose league, leaving each colony independent save as to war and peace, Indian affairs, alliances and boundaries. Questions pertaining to these were to be settled by a commission of two delegates from each of the four colonies, meeting yearly, voting man by man, six out of the eight votes being necessary to bind.
The confederacy settled a boundary dispute between New Haven and New Netherland in 1650. It received and disbursed moneys, amounting some years to 600 pounds, for the propagation of the gospel in New England, sent over by the society which Parliament incorporated for that purpose in 1649. It was also of more or less service in securing united action against the savages in Philip's War. The union was, however, of little immediate service, useful rather as an example for the far future. Its failure was due partly to the distance of the colonies apart, and to the strength of the instinct for local self-government, a distinguishing political trait of New England till our day. Its main weakness, however, was the overbearing power and manner of Massachusetts, especially after her assumption of Maine in 1652. In 1653 the Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut commissioners earnestly wished war with New Netherland, but Massachusetts proudly forbade—a plain violation of the articles. After this there was not much heart in the alliance. The last meeting of the commissioners occurred at Hartford, September 5, 1684.
CHAPTER VI.
BALTIMORE AND HIS MARYLAND
[1630]
The very year that witnessed the landing of the Pilgrims records the beginning of another attempt to colonize the New World. While Secretary of State, having been appointed in 1619, Sir George Calvert, a member of the Virginia Company from 1609 until its dissolution in 1624, determined to plant a colony for himself. In the memorable year 1620 he bought of Lord Vaughan the patent to the south-eastern peninsula of Newfoundland, the next he sent colonists thither with a generous supply of money for their support. In 1623 King James gave him a patent, making him proprietary of this region. In 1625 Calvert boldly declared himself a Catholic, and resigned his office of Secretary. Spite of this he was soon afterwards ennobled, and his new title of Lord Baltimore is the name by which he is best known. Visiting his little settlement in 1627 he quickly came to the conclusion that the severity of the climate would make its failure certain. He therefore gave up this enterprise, but determined to repeat the attempt on the more favorable soil of Virginia. Confident of the goodwill of Charles I., to whom he had written for a grant of land there, he did not await a reply, but sailed for Virginia, where he arrived in 1629. In 1632 the king issued a patent granting to Baltimore and his heirs a territory north and east of the Potomac, comprising what we now call Maryland, all Delaware, and a part of Pennsylvania. The name Maryland was given it by the king in, honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria. But before this charter had received royal signature Lord Baltimore had breathed his last, and his son Cecil succeeded to his honors and possessions.
The Maryland charter made the proprietary the absolute lord of the soil. He was merely to acknowledge fealty by the delivery of two Indian arrows yearly to the king at Windsor. He could make laws with the consent of the citizens, declare war or peace, appoint officers of government; in fact, in most respects he had regal power. The colonists were, however, to remain English subjects, with all the privileges of such. If they were not represented in Parliament, neither were they taxed by the Crown. If the proprietary made laws for them, these must not be contrary to the laws of England. And they were to enjoy freedom of trade, not only with England but with foreign countries.
[1634-1635]
This charter, as will be readily seen, could not please the Virginians, since the entire territory conveyed by it was part of the grant of 1609 to the London Company for Virginia. But as this and subsequent charters had been annulled in 1624, the new colony was held by the Privy Council to have the law on its side, and Lord Baltimore was left to make his preparations undisturbed. He fitted out two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, and sent them on their voyage of colonization. They went by the way of the West Indies, arriving off Point Comfort in 1634. Sailing up the Potomac, they landed on the island of St. Clement's, and took formal possession of their new home. Calvert explored a river, now called the St. Mary's, a tributary of the Potomac, and being pleased with the spot began a settlement. He gained the friendship of the natives by purchasing the land and by treating them justly and humanely.
The proprietary was a Catholic, yet, whether or not by an agreement between him and the king, as Gardiner supposes, did not use either his influence or his authority to distress adherents of the Church of England. The two creeds stood practically upon an equality. But if religious troubles were avoided, difficulties of another sort were not slow in arising. About the year 1631, Clayborne, who had been secretary of the Virginia colony, had chosen Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay as a station for trading with the Indians. This post was in the very midst of Maryland, and Calvert notified Clayborne that he should consider it a part of that province. Clayborne at once showed himself a bitter enemy. The Indians became suspicious and unfriendly, Clayborne, so it was believed, being the instigator of this temper. An armed vessel was sent out, with orders from Clayborne to seize ships of the St. Mary's settlement. A fight took place, Clayborne fleeing to Virginia. Calvert demanded that he should be given up. This was refused, and in 1637 he went to England. A committee of the Privy Council decided that Kent Island belonged to Maryland.
[1638]
In 1635 the first Maryland assembly met, consisting of the freemen of the colony and the governor, Leonard Calvert, the proprietary's brother, who was presiding officer. Lord Baltimore repudiated its acts, on the ground that they were not proposed by him, as the charter directed. The assembly which gathered in 1638 retaliated, rejecting the laws brought forward by the proprietary.
[1639]
For a time the colony was without laws except the common law of England. But Baltimore was too wise and conciliatory to allow such a state of affairs to continue. He gave authority to the governor to assent to the acts of the assembly, which he himself might or might not confirm.
Accordingly in 1639 the assembly met and passed various acts, mostly relating to civil affairs. One, however, was specially noteworthy, as giving to the "Holy Church" "her rights and liberties," meaning by this the Church of Rome, for, as Gardiner says, the title was never applied to the Church of England. It was at the same time expressly enacted that all the Christian inhabitants should be in the enjoyment of every right and privilege as free as the natural-born subjects of England. If Roger Williams was the first to proclaim absolute religious liberty, Lord Baltimore was hardly behind him in putting this into practice. As has been neatly said, "The Ark and the Dove were names of happy omen: the one saved from the general wreck the germs of political liberty, and the other bore the olive-branch of religious peace."
[1646]
During the civil war in England the affairs of Maryland were in a very disturbed condition. Clayborne, Maryland's evil genius, seized the opportunity to foment an insurrection, possessed himself once more of Kent Island, and compelled the governor to flee to Virginia. Returning in 1646, Calvert was fortunate enough to recover the reins of government, but the following year witnessed the close of his administration and his short though useful and eventful life. Few men intrusted with almost absolute authority have exercised it with so much firmness and at the same time with so much ability, discretion, and uprightness.
[1650]
His successor, Greene, a Catholic, was not likely to find favor with the Puritan Parliament of England, and Baltimore, in 1648, to conciliate the ruling powers and to refute the charge that Maryland was only a retreat for Romanists, removed the governor and appointed instead one who was a Protestant and a firm supporter of Parliament. The council was also changed so as to place the Catholics in the minority. The oath of the new governor restrained him from molesting any person, especially if of the Roman Catholic persuasion, on account of religious profession. The way was thus opened for the Act of Toleration passed in 1649. This law, after specifying certain speeches against the Trinity, the Virgin, or the saints as punishable offences, declared that equal privileges should be enjoyed by Christians of all creeds. Whatever the motives of Baltimore, his policy was certainly wise and commendable.
A new and troublesome element was now introduced into the colony. Some Puritans who had not been tolerated among the stanch Church-of-England inhabitants of Virginia were invited by Governor Stone to Maryland. Their home here, which they named Providence, is now known as Annapolis. The new-comers objected to the oath of fidelity, refused to send burgesses to the assembly, and were ready to overthrow the government whose protection they were enjoying. Opportunity soon offered. Parliament had already in 1652 brought Virginia to submission. Maryland was now accused of disloyalty, and when we notice among the commissioners appointed by the Council of State, the name of Clayborne, it is not difficult to understand who was the author of this charge. The governor was removed, but being popular and not averse to compromise, was quickly restored. Then came the accession of Cromwell to power as Protector of England. Parliament was dissolved. The authority of its commissioners of course ceased. Baltimore seized this opportunity to regain his position as proprietary. He bade Stone to require the oath of fidelity to the proprietary from those who occupied lands, and to issue all writs in his name. He maintained that the province now stood in the same relations to the Protectorate which it had borne to the royalist government of Charles I.
So thought Cromwell, but not so Clayborne or the Maryland Puritans. They deposed Stone, and put in power Fuller, who was in sympathy with their designs. There resulted a reversal of the acts of former assemblies, and legislation hostile to the Catholics. The new assembly, from which Catholics were carefully excluded by disfranchisement, at once repealed the Act of Toleration. Protection was withdrawn from those who professed the popish religion, and they were forbidden the exercise of that faith in the province. Severe penalties were threatened against "prelacy" and "licentiousness" thus restricting the benefits of their "Act concerning Religion" to the Puritan element now in power. The authority of the proprietary himself was disputed, and colonists were invited to take lands without his knowledge or consent.
[1656]
Baltimore adopted vigorous measures. By his orders Stone made a forcible attempt to regain control of the province, but was defeated at Providence and taken prisoner. His life was spared, but four of his men were condemned and executed. Baltimore again invoked the powerful intervention of Cromwell, and again were the enemies of Maryland sternly rebuked for their interference in the affairs of that province, and told in plain language to leave matters as they had found them. In 1656, after an inquiry by the Commissioners of Trade, the claims of Baltimore were admitted to be just, and he promptly sent his brother Philip to be a member of the council and secretary of the province. The legislation of the usurping Puritans was set aside, religious toleration once more had full sway, and a general pardon was proclaimed to those who had taken part in the late disturbances.
In the meantime, Fendall, who had been appointed governor by Baltimore, plotted to make himself independent of his master, and, with the connivance of the assembly, proceeded to usurp the authority which was lawfully vested in the proprietary. But the attempt was a miserable failure. Philip Calvert was immediately made governor by the now all-powerful proprietary, who had the favor and support of Charles II., just coming to the throne. Peace and prosperity came back to the colony so sorely and frequently vexed by civil dissensions. The laws were just and liberal, encouraging the advent of settlers of whatever creed, while the rule of the Calverts was wise and benign, such as to merit the respect and admiration of posterity. In 1643 Virginia and Maryland together had less than twenty thousand inhabitants. In 1660 Maryland alone, according to Fuller, had eight thousand. Chalmers thinks there were no fewer than twelve thousand at this date.
CHAPTER VII.
NEW NETHERLAND
[1609]
While the French explorer, Champlain, was sailing along the shores of the lake which bears his name, another equally adventurous spirit, Henry Hudson, was on his way to the western world. Hoping to open a passage to India by a voyage to the north, Hudson, an English navigator, offered in 1609 to sail under the authority of the Dutch East India Company. Driven back by ice and fog from a northeast course, he turned northwest. Searching up and down near the parallel of 40 degrees, he entered the mouth of the great river which perpetuates his name. He found the country inviting to the eye, and occupied by natives friendly in disposition. The subsequent career of this bold mariner has a mournful interest. He never returned to Holland, but, touching at Dartmouth, was restrained by the English authorities, and forbidden longer to employ his skill and experience for the benefit of the Dutch. Again entering the English service and sent once more to discover the northwest passage, he sailed into the waters of the bay which still bears his name, where cold and hunger transformed the silent discontent of his crew into open mutiny, and they left the fearless navigator to perish amid the icebergs of the frozen north.
[1614-1618]
Hudson had sent to Holland a report of the Great River and the country bordering it, rich in fur-bearing animals, and it had excited eager interest. Private individuals sent expeditions thither and carried on a profitable trade with the natives. A few Dutch were here when, in 1613, Captain Argall sailed from Virginia against the French at Port Royal, Acadia, now Annapolis in Nova Scotia, who were encroaching upon the English possessions on the coast of Maine. He compelled them to surrender. On his return, he visited the Dutch traders of Manhattan Island, and forced them also, as it had been discovered by Cabot in 1497, to acknowledge the sovereignty of England over this entire region.
It was in 1614 that the Dutch States-General, in the charter given to a company of merchants, named the Hudson Valley New Netherland. To facilitate trade this company made a treaty with the Five Nations and subordinate tribes, memorable as the first compact formed between the whites and the savages. In it the Indians were regarded as possessing equal rights and privileges with their white brethren. The treaty was renewed in 1645, and continued in force till the English occupation, 1664. In 1618, the charter of the New Netherland Company having expired, the Dutch West India Company was offered a limited incorporation, but it was not until 1621 that it received its charter, and it was two years later that it was completely organized and approved by the States-General. By this company were sent out Mey, as Director, to the Delaware or South River, and Tienpont to the Hudson or North River. Four miles below Philadelphia Fort Nassau was erected, and where Albany now stands was begun the trading-post called Fort Orange.
[1626]
In 1626 Tienpont's successor, Peter Minuit, a German, born at Wesel, was appointed Director-General of New Netherland. He bought of the Indians, for the sum of twenty-four dollars, the entire island of Manhattan, and a fort called New Amsterdam was built. The State of New York dates its beginning from this transaction.
By their usually honest dealing with the natives the Dutch settlers gained the friendship of the Five Nations, whose good-will was partly on this account transferred to the English colonists later. The Dutch were not only friendly to the red men, but tried to open social and commercial relations with the Plymouth colonists as well. Governor Bradford replied, mildly urging the Dutch to "clear their title" to a territory which the English claimed by right of discovery.
[1630-1633]
The present State of Delaware soon became the scene of attempts at settlement. De Vries began, in 1632, a colony on the banks of the Delaware, but it was quickly laid waste by the savages, who had been needlessly provoked by the insolence of the commander left in charge of the colony. In 1633 Minuit was succeeded by Van Twiller, and a fort was erected at Hartford, though the English claimed this country as theirs. Emigrants from the Plymouth colony began the settlement of Windsor, in spite of the protests of the Dutch. Long Island was invaded by enterprising New Englanders, regardless of the claim of New Netherland thereto.
This "irrepressible conflict" between two races was by no means abated by the introduction of a third. As early as 1626, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and the hero of the Thirty Years' War, had entertained the idea of establishing colonies in America, and in pursuance of that object had encouraged the formation of a company, not only for trading purposes but also to secure a refuge for the "oppressed of all Christendom." To Usselinx, an Antwerp merchant, the originator of the Dutch West India Company, belongs the honor of first suggesting to the king this enterprise. The glorious death of Gustavus on the victorious field of Lutzen in 1632 deferred the execution of a purpose which had not been forgotten even in the midst of that long and arduous campaign. But a few days before he fell, the Protestant hero had spoken of the colonial prospect as "the jewel of his kingdom."
[1638]
In 1638 Minuit, who had already figured as governor of New Netherland, having offered his services to Sweden, was intrusted with the leadership of the first Swedish colony to America. After a few days' stay at Jamestown the new-comers finally reached their wished-for destination on the west shore of the Delaware Bay and River. Proceeding up the latter, one of their first acts was to build a fort on a little stream about two miles from its junction with the Delaware, which they named Fort Christina, in honor of the young queen of Sweden. Near this spot stands the present city of Wilmington. The country from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton received the title of New Sweden.
[1650]
It was in this very year that Kieft came to supersede Van Twiller, who had given just cause for complaint by his eagerness to enrich himself at the expense of the West India Company. During the administration of Kieft occurred the long and doubtful conflict with the natives detailed in the succeeding chapter. Arbitrary and exacting, he drove the Indians to extremities, and involved the Dutch settlements in a war which for a time threatened their destruction. Not till 1645 was peace re-established, and in 1647 the unpopular governor was recalled. In 1647 not more than three hundred fighting men remained in the whole province. Its total population was between fifteen hundred and two thousand. In 1652 New Amsterdam had a population of seven or eight hundred. In 1664 Stuyvesant put the number in the province at ten thousand, about fifteen hundred of whom were in New Amsterdam.
[1655-1663]
The next governor, Stuyvesant, was the last and much the ablest ruler among those who directed the destinies of New Netherland. His administration embraced a period of seventeen years, during which he renewed the former friendly relations with the savages, made a treaty with New England, giving up pretensions to Connecticut as well as relinquishing the east end of Long Island, and compelled the Swedes, in 1655, to acknowledge the Dutch supremacy. It was while he was absent on his expedition against the Swedes, leaving New Amsterdam unprotected, that the river Indians, watchful of their opportunity, invaded and laid waste the surrounding country. In 1663 the savages attacked the village on the Esopus, now Kingston, and almost destroyed it. It was not until the energetic governor made a vigorous campaign against the Esopus tribe, whom he completely subdued, that peace was established on a firm footing.
[1664]
But the Dutch sway in their little part of the New World was about to end. The English had never given over their claim to the country by virtue of their first discovery of the North American continent. The New Netherlanders, tired of arbitrary rule, sighed for the larger freedom of their New England neighbors. Therefore, when in 1664 Charles II. granted to his brother, the Duke of York, the territory which the Dutch were occupying, and sent a fleet to demand its submission, the English invader was welcomed.
Almost the only resistance came from the stout-hearted governor, who could hardly be dissuaded from fighting the English single-handed, and who signed the agreement to surrender only when his magistrates had, in spite of him, agreed to the proposed terms. But the founders of the Empire State have left an indelible impress upon the Union, which their descendants have helped to strengthen and perpetuate. They were honest, thrifty, devout, tolerant of the opinions of others. As Holland sheltered the English Puritans from ecclesiastical intolerance, so New Netherland welcomed within her borders the victims of New England bigotry and narrowness.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST INDIAN WARS
[1637]
Troubles between the Indians and the whites arose so early as 1636. John Oldham was murdered on Block Island by a party of Pequot Indians. Vane of Massachusetts sent Endicott to inflict punishment. The Pequots in turn attacked the fort at Saybrook, and in 1637 threatened Wethersfield. They were planning a union with the Narragansets for the destruction of the English, when Roger Williams informed the Massachusetts colony of their designs and, at the urgent request of the governor and council, hastened to the chief of the Narragansets and dissuaded him from entering into the alliance.
The moment was critical. Captain Mason with about ninety English and seventy Mohegans, under their sachem, Uncas (a sub chief, who with his district, Mohegan, had rebelled against the Pequot sachem, Sassacus), was sent from Hartford down the Connecticut River. Entering the Sound, he sailed past the mouth of the Thames and anchored in Narragansett Bay, at the foot of Tower Hill, near Point Judith. He knew that keen-eyed scouts from the Pequot stronghold on the west bank of the Mystic River, near Groton, had, as his three little ships skirted the shore, been watching him, to give warning of his approach. He therefore resolved to come upon the enemy from an unlooked-for quarter. This plan was directly contrary to his instructions, which required him to land at the mouth of the Thames and attack the fort from the west side. He hoped, marching westward across the country, to take the enemy by surprise on their unprotected rear, while the Indians, trusting in the strength of their fort, as it fronted the west, should believe themselves secure.
Thirteen men had been sent back to the Thames with the vessels. Two hundred Narragansets had joined the expedition, though their sachem, Miantonomoh, thought the English too weak to fight the dreaded Pequots. Mason's enterprise was admirably planned, and he was as fortunate as he was bold and skilful. He divided his men into two parties. One, led by Underhill, climbed the steep ascent on the south side of the Indian village; the other, directed by Mason himself, mounted the northern slope. The garrison was buried in slumber, made more profound by carousals the preceding night. One Indian was heard to cry out "Englishmen" before the volley of musketry from the attacking force told that the white enemy had come. Mason entered a wigwam and fought, as did the others, hand-to-hand with the now awakened and desperate foe. Coming out with a firebrand and exclaiming "We must burn them," he set fire to the wigwam. The flames were quickly carried through the fort by the northeast wind. Underhill from his side applied powder. So rapidly did the flames spread that the English had difficulty in making good their escape, while the Pequots who escaped the sword were doomed to perish by fire. In an hour's time from four hundred to six hundred had fallen, more than half of them women and children. Of the Englishmen two were killed and about twenty wounded. In this dreadful slaughter the Narragansets had little share, for they had shown such fear that Mason had said to Uncas, "Tell them not to fly, but stand at what distance they please and see whether Englishmen will now fight or not."
With the approach of day three hundred Pequots advanced from a second fort intending to fight, but they were struck with horror at the sight of their dead fellow-warriors. Keeping the enemy at bay, the English marched to the vessels, which had arrived at Pequot Harbor, and, placing the wounded on board, continued their march to Saybrook. The remnant of the Pequots sought to escape from the country, moving westward along the Sound. Captain Stoughton, sent with one hundred and twenty Massachusetts men, was guided by the Narragansets to a swamp in which a little band of those hostile savages had hidden. The men were slain, offering little resistance. The women and children were divided among the Indian allies or sold into slavery by the colonists of Massachusetts Bay.
Mason and Stoughton together sailed from Saybrook along the shore, while Uncas with his men tracked the fugitives by land. At Guilford a Pequot sachem was entrapped, shot, and his head thrust into the crotch of an oak-tree near the harbor, giving the place the name of Sachem's Head. Near the town of Fairfield a last stand was made by the hunted redskins, in a swamp, to which the English were guided by a renegade Pequot. The tribe with whom the Pequots had taken shelter, also the women and children, were allowed to give themselves up. The men were shot down or broke through and escaped. The wife of Mononotto fell into the hands of the English. This Indian squaw had once shown kindness to two captive girls, and by Winthrop's orders she was kindly treated in return. The Pequots, once so powerful, were well-nigh exterminated. Those taken prisoners were spared only to be held in bondage, Mononotto's wife with the rest. Some were absorbed by the Narragansets, others by the Mohegans, while the settlers of Connecticut, upon whom the war had fallen so heavily, came into possession of the Pequot land.
[l638]
For nearly forty years the New England colonies were not again molested, the merciless vigor with which they had fought making a lasting impression upon their blood-thirsty foes. The cruel slavery to which the surviving natives were subjected, the English justified by the example of the Jews in their treatment of the Canaanites.
[1642]
The Narraganset chief, Miantonomoh, had become the friend and ally of the English by a treaty ratified in 1636, mainly through the good offices of Roger Williams, In 1638, after the destruction of the Pequots, there was a new treaty, embracing Uncas with his bold Mohegans, and stipulating that any quarrel between Miantonomoh and Uncas should be referred to the English. In 1642 Miantonomoh was accused of plotting against the English, and summoned before the General Court at Boston. Though acquitted he vowed revenge upon Uncas as the instigator of the charge. His friendship for Roger Williams, as also for Samuel Gorton, the purchaser of Shawomet, or Warwick, R. I., which was claimed by Massachusetts, had perhaps created a prejudice against him. At any rate, when a quarrel arose between Uncas and Sequasson, Miantonomoh's friend and ally, while the latter naturally sided with Sequasson, the sympathies of the English were with Uncas, who had aided them against the Pequots. With the consent of Connecticut and Massachusetts Miantonomoh took the field against Uncas, who had attacked Sequasson. He was defeated and taken prisoner. Carried to Hartford he was held to await the decision of the Commissioners of the United Colonies at Boston. They would not release him, yet had no valid ground for putting him to death. The case was referred to five clergymen, and they voted for his execution. For this purpose the commissioners gave orders to turn the brave warrior over to Uncas, English witnesses to be present and see that no cruelty was perpetrated. The sentence was carried into effect near Norwich. Cutting a piece of flesh from the shoulder of his murdered enemy, Uncas ate it with savage relish, declaring it to be the sweetest meat he had ever tasted.
[1640-1643]
The Dutch, too, as we have to some extent seen already, felt the horrors of Indian warfare. Kieft, the Dutch director-general, a man cruel, avaricious, and obstinate, angered the red men by demanding tribute from them as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. The savages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to the Dutch when in need of food, but would not pay tribute. Kieft attacked. Some of the Indians were killed and their crops destroyed. This roused their revengeful passions to the utmost. The Raritan savages visited the colony of De Vries, on Staten Island, with death and devastation. Reward was offered for the head of anyone of the murderers. An Indian never forgot an injury. The nephew of one of the natives who twenty years before had been wantonly killed went to sell furs at Fort Amsterdam, and while there revenged his uncle's murder by the slaughter of an unoffending colonist. Spite of warlike preparations by Kieft and his assembly in 1641-42, the tribe would not give up the culprit. The following year another settler was knifed by a drunken Indian. Wampum was indeed offered in atonement, while an indignant plea was urged by the savages against the liquor traffic, which demoralized their young men and rendered them dangerous alike to friend and foe. But remonstrance and blood-money could not satisfy Kieft. At Pavonia and at Corlaer's Hook [footnote: now in the New York City limits, just below Broadway Ferry, East River] the Dutch fell venomously upon the sleeping and unsuspecting enemy. Men, women, and children were slaughtered, none spared. In turn the tribes along the lower Hudson, to the number of eleven, united and desperately attacked the Dutch wherever found. Only near the walls of Fort Amsterdam was there safety. The governor appointed a day of fasting, which it seems was kept with effect. The sale of liquor to the red men was at last prohibited, and peace for a time secured.
Soon, however, the redskins along the Hudson were again up in arms. The noted Underhill, who with Mason had been the scourge of the Pequots, came to the fight with fifty Englishmen as allies of the Dutch. Not waiting to be attacked, the Indians laid waste the settlements, even threatening Fort Amsterdam itself. At a place now known as Pelham Neck, near New Rochelle, lived the famous but unfortunate Mrs. Hutchinson, a fugitive from the persecuting zeal of Massachusetts. Here the implacable savages butchered her and her family in cold blood. Her little granddaughter alone was spared, and led captive to a far-off wigwam prison. Only at Gravesend, on Long Island, was a successful stand made, and that by a woman, Lady Deborah Moody, another exile from religious persecution, who with forty stout-hearted men defended her plantation and compelled the savages to beat a retreat.
[1645]
The colony was in extremity. New Haven refused to aid, because, as a member of the New England confederacy, it could not act alone, and because it was not satisfied that the Dutch war was just. An appeal was made by Kieft's eight advisers to both the States-General and the West India Company in Holland. The sad condition of the colonists was fully set forth, and the responsibility directly ascribed to the mismanagement of Kieft. At the same time, undismayed by the gloomy outlook, the courage of the sturdy Dutchmen rose with the emergency. Small parties were sent out against the Connecticut savages in the vicinity of Stamford. Indian villages on Long Island were surprised and the natives put to the sword. In two instances at least the victors disgraced humanity by torturing the captured.
In these engagements Underhill was conspicuous and most energetic. Having made himself familiar with the position of the Indians near Stamford, he sailed from Manhattan with one hundred and fifty men, landed at Greenwich, and, marching all day, at midnight drew near the enemy. His approach was not wholly unannounced, for the moon was full. The fight was desperate and bloody. The tragedy that had made memorable the banks of the Mystic in the destruction of the Pequot fort was now almost equalled. After the example of his old comrade Mason, Underhill fired the village. By flame, shot, or sword more than five hundred human beings perished.
While New Netherland was awaiting some message of cheer from Holland, a company of Dutch soldiers came from Curacoa, but they did little to follow up the successes already gained. Again the Eight sent a memorial to the company, boldly condemning the conduct of the director and demanding his recall. Their remonstrances were at last heeded, and the removal of the unpopular governor resolved upon. In 1647 Kieft set sail for Holland, but the ship was wrecked, and he with nearly all on board was drowned.
It was high time for a change. In the two years, 1643-45, while sixteen hundred Indians had been slain, Manhattan had become nearly depopulated. In 1645 peace was concluded, not only with the smaller tribes in the vicinity, but also with the powerful Mohawks about Fort Orange, and finally with all the Indians belonging to the Five Nations or acknowledging their authority. A pleasing incident of this treaty was the promise of the Indians to restore the eight-year-old granddaughter of Mrs. Hutchinson, a promise which they faithfully performed in 1646. The great compact was made under the shadow of the Fort Amsterdam walls, and the universal joy was expressed by a day of thanksgiving.
[1650-1660]
An interval of peace for ten years was now enjoyed, when the killing of a squaw for stealing some peaches led to an attack by several hundred of the infuriated savages upon New Amsterdam. They were repulsed here, but crossing to the shore of New Jersey they laid waste the settlements there. Staten Island, too, was swept with fire and sword. One hundred people were slain, 150 more taken captive, 300 made homeless. Peace was again effected and maintained for three years, when fresh quarrels began. It was not until 1660 that a more general and lasting treaty was brought about, on which occasion a Mohawk and a Minqua chief gave pledges in behalf of the Indians, and acted as mediators between the contending parties.
PERIOD II.
ENGLISH AMERICA TILL THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
1660—1763
CHAPTER I.
NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE LAST STUARTS
[1660]
The Commonwealth in England went to pieces at the death of Oliver Cromwell, its founder. The Stuart dynasty came back, but, alas! unimproved. Charles II. was a much meaner man than his father, and James II. was more detestable still. The rule of such kings was destined to work sad changes in the hitherto free condition of Massachusetts. This colony had sympathized with the Commonwealth more heartily than any of the others. Hither had fled for refuge Goffe and Whalley, two of the accomplices in the death of Charles I. Congregational church polity was here established by law, to the exclusion of all others, even of episcopacy, for whose sake Charles was harrying poor Covenanters to death on every hillside in Scotland. Nor would his lawyers let the king forget Charles I.'s attack on the Massachusetts charter, begun so early as 1635, or the grounds therefor, such as the unwarranted transfer of it to Boston, or the likelihood that but for the outbreak of the Civil War it would have been annulled by the Long Parliament itself. Obviously Massachusetts could not hope to be let alone by the home government which had just come in.
At first the king, graciously responding to the colony's humble petition, confirmed the charter granted by his father; but no sooner had he done so than the hot royalists about him began plotting to overthrow the same, and their purpose never slumbered till it was accomplished. Massachusetts was too prosperous and too visibly destined for great power in America to be suffered longer to go its independent way as hitherto.
[1661]
The province—as yet, of course, excluding Plymouth with its twelve towns and five thousand inhabitants—contained at this time, 1660, about twenty-five thousand souls, living in fifty-two towns. These were nearly all on the coast; Dedham, Concord, Brookfield, Lancaster, Marlborough, and the Connecticut Valley hamlets of Springfield, Hadley, and Northampton being the most noteworthy exceptions. Though agriculture was the principal business, fishing was a staple industry, its product going to France, Spain, and the Straits. Pipe-staves, fir-boards, much material for ships, as masts, pitch and tar, also pork and beef, horses and corn, were shipped from this colony to Virginia, in return for tobacco and sugar either for home consumption or for export to England. Some iron was manufactured. The province enjoyed great prosperity. Boston stood forth as a lively and growing centre, and an English traveller about this time declared some of its merchants to be "damnable rich."
As their most precious possession the colonists prized their liberties, which they claimed in virtue of their original patent. In a paper which it put forth on June 10, 1661, the General Court asserted for the colony the right to elect and empower its own officers, both high and low, to make its laws, to execute the same without appeal so long as they were not repugnant to those of England, and to defend itself by force and arms when necessary, against every infringement of its rights, even from acts of Parliament or of the king, if prejudicial to the country or contrary to just colonial legislation. In a word Massachusetts, even so early, regarded itself to all intents and purposes an independent State, and would have proclaimed accordingly had it felt sufficiently strong.
[1664]
Manifestly the king would not grant so much. On the occasion of his confirming the charter he demanded that the oath of allegiance be taken by the people of the colony; that justice be administered there in his name; and that the franchise be extended to all freemen of sufficient substance, with the liberty to use in worship, public and private, the forms of the English Church. The people obeyed but in part, for they would not even appear to admit the king's will to be their law. The franchise was slightly extended, in a grudging way, but no new religious privileges were at this time conceded. Unfortunately political and religious liberty were now in conflict. It was worse for the Baptists and Quakers that the king favored them, and the treatment which they received in the colony inclined them to the royalist side in the controversy.
In July, 1664, commissioners arrived in Boston with full authority to investigate the administration of the New England charters. Such a procedure not being provided for in the Massachusetts document, the General Court, backed by the citizens almost to a man, successfully prevented complainants from appearing before the commission. The commissioners having summoned the colony as defendant in a certain case, a herald trumpeted proclamation through the streets, on the morning set for the trial, inhibiting all from aiding their designs. The trial collapsed, and the gentlemen who had ordered it, baffled and disgusted, moved on to New Hampshire, there also to be balked by a decree of the Massachusetts Governor and Council forbidding the towns so much as to meet at their behest.
[1668]
Vengeance for such defiance was delayed by Charles II.'s very vices. Clarendon's fall had left him surrounded by profligate aides, too timid and too indolent to face the resolute men of Massachusetts. They often discussed the contumacy of the colony, but went no further than words. Massachusetts was even encouraged, in 1668, forcibly to reassert its authority in Maine, against rule either by the king or by Sir Ferdinanda Gorges's heir as proprietary.
Its charter had assigned to the colony land to a point three miles north of the Merrimac. Bold in the favor of the Commonwealth, the authorities measured from the head-waters of that river. But Plymouth had originally claimed all the territory west of the Kennebec, and had sold it to Gorges. Charles II. favored the Gorges heirs against Massachusetts, and for some years previous to 1668 Massachusetts' power over Maine had been in abeyance. Ten years later, in 1678, to make assurance doubly sure, Massachusetts bought off the Gorges claimants, at the round price of twelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling.
[1673]
From 1641 Massachusetts had borne sway in New Hampshire as well, ignoring John Mason's claim under Charles I.'s charters of 1629 and 1635, still urged by one of Mason's grandsons, backed by Charles II. Here Massachusetts was beaten. In July, 1679, New Hampshire was permanently separated from her, and erected into a royal province, of a nature to be explained in a subsequent chapter, being the earliest government of this kind in New England.
[1662]
These territorial assumptions on the part of Massachusetts much increased the king's hostility. This probably would not have proved fatal had it not been re-enforced by the determination of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother-country to crush what they feared was becoming a rival power beyond seas. They insisted upon full enforcement of the Navigation Laws, which made America's foreign trade in a cruel degree subservient to English interest. So incorrigible was the colony, it was found that this end could be compassed only by the abrogation of the charter, so that English law might become immediately valid in Massachusetts, colonial laws to the contrary notwithstanding. Accordingly, in 1684, the charter was vacated and the colonists ceased to be free, their old government with its popular representation giving way to an arbitrary commission.
The other New England colonies—Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven—had made haste to proclaim Charles II. so soon as restored to the throne, and to begin carrying on their governments in his name. That beautiful and able man, the younger Winthrop, sped to London on Connecticut's behalf, and, aided by his colony's friends at court, the Earls of Clarendon and Manchester and Viscount Say and Seal, in 1662 secured to Connecticut, now made to include New Haven, a charter so liberal that it continued till October 5, 1818, the ground law of the State, then to be supplanted only by a close vote. Under this paper, which declared all lands between the Narragansett River and the Pacific Ocean Connecticut territory, Connecticut received every whit of that right to govern itself which Charles was so sternly challenging in the case of Massachusetts.
From this time on, as indeed earlier, Connecticut was for many years perhaps the most delightful example of popular government in all history. Connecticut and New Haven together had about ten thousand inhabitants. Their rulers were just, wise, and of a mind truly to serve the people. Here none were persecuted for their faith. Education was universal. Few were poor, none very rich. Nearly all supplies were of domestic production, nothing as yet being exported but a few cattle.
Under the second Charles Rhode Island fared quite as well as Connecticut. This was remarkable, inasmuch as the little colony of three thousand souls, in their four towns of Providence, Newport, Portsmouth, and Warwick, insisted on "holding forth the lively experiment"—and it proved lively indeed—"of full liberty in religious concernments." Charles did not oppose this, and Clarendon favored it, a motive of both here, as with Connecticut, being to rear in New England a power friendly to the Crown, that should rival and check Massachusetts. Both these commonwealths were granted absolute independence in all but name. No oath of allegiance to the king was demanded. Appeals to England were not provided for.
[1680]
Though having no quarrel with the king, the two southern colonies were not without their trials. Connecticut, besides continual fear of the Dutch and the Indians, was much agitated by the controversy over the question whether children of moral parents not church members should be baptized, a question at length settled affirmatively by the so-called Half-Way Covenant. It also had its boundary disputes with Massachusetts, with Rhode Island—for Connecticut took the Narragansett River of its charter to be the bay of that name—and with New York, which, by the Duke of York's new patent, issued on the recovery of that province from the Dutch in 1674, reached the Connecticut River. During England's war with Holland, 1672-74, all the colonies stood in some fear of Dutch attacks.
[1685]
Rhode Island had worse troubles than Connecticut. It, too, had boundary disputes, serious and perpetual; but graver by much were its internal feuds, caused partly by the mutual jealousy of its four towns, partly by the numerous and jarring religious persuasions here represented. Government was painfully feeble. Only with utmost difficulty could the necessary taxes be raised. Warwick in particular was for some time in arrears to John Clark, of Newport, for his invaluable services in securing the charter of 1663. Quakers and the divers sorts of Baptists valiantly warred each against other, using, with dreadful address, those most deadly of carnal weapons, tongue and pen. On George Fox's visit to the colony, Roger Williams, zealous for a debate, pursued the eminent Quaker from Providence to Newport, rowing thither in his canoe and arriving at midnight, only to find that his intended opponent had departed, The latter's champion was ready, however, and a discussion of four days ensued.
Before its sentence of death reached Massachusetts Charles II. was no more, and James II., his brother, had ascended the throne. It was for a time uncertain what sort of authority the stricken colony would be called to accept. Already, as Duke of York, James II. had been Proprietary of Maine east of the Kennebec (Sagadahoc), as well as of Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Now that he had the problem of ruling Massachusetts to solve, it naturally occurred to the king to make Sir Edmond Andros, already governor of New York, master also over the whole of English America from the Saint Croix to the Delaware.
In southern New England the reign of Andros wrought no downright persecution. He suspended the charters, and, with an irresponsible council in each colony, assumed all legislative as well as administrative power. Rhode Island submitted tamely. Her sister colony did the same, save that, at Hartford, according to good tradition, in the midst of the altercation about delivering the charter, prolonged into candle-light, suddenly it was dark, and the precious document disappeared to a secure place in the hollow trunk of an oak. This tree, henceforth called the Charter Oak, stood till prostrated by a gale on August 20, 1856.
But in Massachusetts the colonists' worst fears were realized. Andros, with a council of his own creation, made laws, levied taxes, and controlled the militia. He had authority to suppress all printing-presses and to encourage Episcopacy. In the latter interest he opened King's Chapel to the Prayer Book. His permission was required for any one to leave the colony. Extortionate fees and taxes were imposed. Puritans had to swear on the Bible, which they regarded wicked, or be disfranchised. Personal and proprietary rights were summarily set at naught, and all deeds to land were declared void till renewed—for money, of course. The citizens were reduced to a condition hardly short of slavery.
[1688]
There is no describing the joy which pervaded New England as the news of the Revolution of 1688 flew from colony to colony. Andros slunk away from Boston, glad to escape alive. Drums beat and gala-day was kept. Old magistrates were reinstated. Town meetings were resumed. All believed that God had interposed, in answer to prayer, to bring deliverance to his people from popery and thraldom.
This revolution, ushering in the liberal monarchy of William and Mary, restored to Rhode Island and Connecticut their old charter governments in full. New Hampshire, after a momentary union with Massachusetts again, became once more a royal province. As to Massachusetts itself, a large party of the citizens now either did not wish the old state of things renewed, or were too timid to agree in demanding back their charter as of right. Had they been bold and united, they might have succeeded in this without any opposition from the Crown. Instead, a new charter was conferred, creating Massachusetts also a royal province, yet with government more liberal than the other provinces of this order enjoyed. The governor was appointed by the Crown, and could convene, adjourn, or dissolve the Legislature. With the consent of his council he also created the judges, from whose highest sentence appeal could be taken to the Privy Council. The governor could veto legislation, and the king annul any law under three years old.
[1690-1697]
If in these things the new polity was inferior to the old, in two respects it was superior; Suffrage was now practically universal, and every species of religious profession, save Catholicism, made legal. Also, Massachusetts territory was enlarged southward to take in all Plymouth, eastward to embrace Maine (Sagadahoc) and Nova Scotia. Maine, henceforth including Sagadahoc, that is, all land eastward to the Saint Croix, remained part of Massachusetts till March 15, 1820, when it became a member of the Union by itself. Nova Scotia, over which Phips's conquest of Port Royal in 1690 had established a nominal rather than a real English authority, was assigned to France again by the Treaty of Ryswick, 1697.
CHAPTER II.
KING PHILIP'S WAR
[1675]
Simultaneously with the Stuart Restoration another cloud darkened the New England sky. Since the Pequot War, Indians and whites had in the main been friendly. This by itself is proof that our fathers were less unjust to the red men than is sometimes charged. They did assume the right to acquire lands here, and they had this right. The Indians were not in any proper sense owners of New England. They were few—by 1660 not more numerous than the pale-faces—and, far from settling or occupying the land, roamed from place to place. Had it been otherwise they, as barbarians, would have had no such claim upon the territory as to justify them in barring out civilization. However, the colonists did not plead this consideration. Whenever districts were desired to which Indians had any obvious title, it was both law and custom to pay them their price. In this, Roger Williams and William Penn were not peculiar. If individual white men sometimes cheated in land trades, as in other negotiations, the aggrieved side could not, and did not, regard this as the white man's policy.
Yet little by little the Indians came to distrust and hate the rival race. It did not matter to the son of the forest, even if he thought so far, that the neighborhood of civilization greatly bettered his lot in many things, as, for instance, giving him market for corn and peltry, which he could exchange for fire-arms, blankets, and all sorts of valuable conveniences. The efforts to teach and elevate him he appreciated still less. As has been said, he loved better to disfurnish the outside of other people's heads than to furnish the inside of his own. What he felt, and keenly, was that the newcomers treated him as an inferior, were day by day narrowing his range, and slowly but surely reducing his condition to that of a subject people. Dull as he was, he saw that one of three fates confronted him: to perish, to migrate, or to lay aside his savage character and mode of life. Such thoughts frenzied him.
The beautiful fidelity of Massasoit to the people of Plymouth is already familiar. His son Alexander, who succeeded him, was of a spirit diametrically the reverse. Convinced that he was plotting with the Narragansets for hostile action, the Governor and Council of Plymouth sent Major Winslow to bring him to court—for it must be remembered that Massasoit's tribe, the Pokanokets, had through him covenanted, though probably with no clear idea of what this meant, to be subject to the Plymouth government. Alexander, for some reason, became fatally ill while at Plymouth under arrest, dying before reaching home. The Indians suspected poison.
His brother Philip now became sachem. Philip already had a grudge against the whites, and was rendered trebly bitter by the indignity and violence, if nothing worse, to which Alexander had been subjected. He resolved upon war, and in 1675 war was begun.
We shall never certainly know to what extent Philip was an organizer. We believe correct the view of Hubbard, the contemporary historian, that he had prepared a wide-spread and pretty well arranged conspiracy among the main tribes of New England Indians, which might have been fatal but for "the special providence of God," causing hostilities to break out ere the savages were ready. Palfrey challenges this view of the case, but on insufficient grounds.
One Sausaman, an educated Indian, previously Philip's secretary, had left him and joined the Christian Indians settled at Natick. There were by this time several such communities, and also, according to Cotton Mather, many able Indian preachers. At the risk of his life, as he insisted, Sausaman had warned the Plymouth magistrates that danger impended. He was soon murdered, apparently by Philip's instigation. At least Philip never denied this, nor did he after this time ever again court friendly relations with Plymouth, which he had constantly done hitherto. On the contrary, re-enforcements of strange Indians, all ready for the war-path, were continually flocking to his camp, squaws and children at the same time going to the Narraganset country, manifestly for security.
The Plymouth authorities, preparing for war, yet sent a kind letter to the sachem advising him to peace. In vain. At Swanzey, the town nearest Mount Hope, Philip's home, Indians at once began to kill and ravage, and Majors Bradford and Cudworth marched thither with a force of Plymouth soldiers. A Massachusetts contingent re-enforced them there, and they prepared to advance. Seeing it impossible to hold his own against so many, Philip crossed to Pocasset, now Tiverton, and swept rapidly round to Dartmouth, Middleborough, and Taunton, burning and murdering as he went. He then retired again to Tiverton, but in a few days started with all his warriors for central Massachusetts.
Here the Nipmucks, already at war, which indicated an understanding between them and the Pokanokets, had attacked Mendon. The day after Philip joined them there was a fight at Brookfield, the Nipmucks and their allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearly entire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siege in a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in the nick of time.
The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield, Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked the last two having to be abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fast-day. The men rushed from their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand in church, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpected assault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according to tradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared, placed himself at their head and directed their movements. His evident acquaintance with fighting restored order and courage. The savages were driven pell-mell out of town, but the pursuers looked in vain for their deliverer. If the account is correct, it was the regicide, General Goffe, who had been a secret guest in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell. He could not in such danger refrain from engaging once again, as he had so often done during the Civil War in England, in the defence of God's people.
From Hadley a party went to Deerfield to bring in the wheat that had been left when the town was deserted. Ninety picked men, the "flower of Essex," led by Captain Lothrop, attended the wagons as convoy. On their return, about seven o'clock in the morning, by a little stream in the present village of South Deerfield, since called Bloody Brook in memory of the event, the soldiers dispersed somewhat in quest of grapes, then ripe, when a sudden and fatal volley from an ambush was delivered upon them. The men had left their muskets in the wagons and could not regain them. Lothrop was shot dead, and but seven or eight of his company escaped alive. A monument marks the spot where this tragic affair occurred.
So early as July, 1675, Massachusetts and Connecticut, acting for the New England Confederation, had effected a treaty with the strong tribe of the Narragansets in southern Rhode Island, engaging them to remain neutral and to surrender any of Philip's men coming within their jurisdiction. This agreement they did not keep. After the attacks on Springfield and Hatfield in October, great numbers of the Pokanoket braves came to them, evidently welcomed. To prevent their becoming a centre of mischief, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Plymouth despatched a thousand men to punish the Narragansets. They met the foe at the old Palisade, in the midst of a dense swamp in what is now South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The terrible cold which rendered this Narraganset campaign so severe had turned the marsh into a bridge, and at once on their arrival the soldiers, weary and hungry as they were from their long march, and spite of its being Sunday, advanced to the attack. Massachusetts was in front, then Plymouth, then Connecticut. Long and bitter was the fight. The Indians, perfect marksmen, took deadly aim at the leaders. Five captains were killed outright and as many more mortally wounded. The fort was taken, re-taken, and taken again, the whites at last, to make sure work, setting fire to the wigwams. The storming party lost in killed and wounded one-fifth of its number. This Swamp Fight, as it was called, broke forever the strength of the Narragansets, the tribe and its allies dispersing in all directions.
[1676]
In 1676 central Massachusetts was again aflame. Lancaster was sacked and burned, its inhabitants nearly all either carried captive or put to death with indescribable atrocities. Mrs. Rowlandson, wife of the Lancaster Minister, also her son and two daughters, were among the captives. We have this brave woman's story as subsequently detailed by herself. Her youngest, a little girl of six, wounded by a bullet, she bore in her arms wherever they marched, till the poor creature died of cold, starvation, and lack of care. The agonized mother begged the privilege of tugging along the corpse, but was refused. She with her son and living daughter were ransomed, after wandering up and down with the savages eleven weeks and five days.
From Mrs. Rowlandson's narrative we have many interesting facts touching the Indians' habits of life. They carried ample stores from Lancaster, but soon squandered them, and were reduced to a diet of garbage, horses' entrails, ears, and liver, with broth made of horses' feet and legs. The liver they seemed to prefer raw. Their chief food was ground-nuts. They also ate acorns, artichokes, beans, and various sorts of roots. They especially delighted in old bones, which, being heated to drive out maggots and worms, they first boiled for soup, then ground for use as meal.
The captive lady often saw Philip. At his request she made a shirt and a cap for his son, for which he paid her. Says Hubbard, "Such was the goodness of God to these poor captive women and children that they found so much favor in the sight of their enemies that they offered no wrong to any of their persons save what they could not help, being in many wants themselves. Neither did they offer any uncivil carriage to any of the females, nor ever attempt the chastity of any of them." So soon as negotiations were opened for Mrs. Rowlandson's release, Philip told her of this, and expressed the hope that they would succeed. When her ransom had arrived he met her with a smile, saying: "I have pleasant words for you this morning; would you like to hear them? You are to go home to-morrow," Twenty pounds were paid for her, raised by some ladies of Boston, aided by a Mr. Usher.
Hostilities now bore southeastward. Philip was in his glory. All the towns of Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts were in terror, nearly all in actual danger. At Medfield twenty whites were killed. Deserted Mendon was burned. Weymouth was attacked, and eleven persons were massacred in the edge of Plymouth. In Groton and Marlborough every house was laid in ashes, as were all in lower Rhode Island up to Warwick, and in Warwick all but one. Sachem Canonchet of the Narragansets drew into ambush at Pawtuxet a band of Plymouth soldiers, of whom only one escaped. Canonchet was subsequently taken by Captain Denison and executed. Rehoboth lost forty houses, Providence nearly as many.
The Connecticut Valley was invaded afresh. Springfield, Hadley, Northampton, and Hatfield were once more startled by the war-whoop and the whiz of the tomahawk. Captain Turner, hearing of an Indian camp at the falls of the Connecticut, now called by his name, in Montague, advanced with a troop of one hundred and eighty horse, arriving in sight of the encampment at daylight. Dismounting and proceeding stealthily to within sure shot, they beat up the Indians' quarters with a ringing volley of musketry. Resistance was impossible. Those who did not fall by bullet or sword rushed to the river, many being carried over the falls. Three hundred savages perished, the English losing but one man. A large stock of the enemy's food and ammunition was also destroyed. Though so splendidly successful, the party did not return to Hadley without considerable loss, being set upon much of the way by Indians who had heard the firing at the falls and sped to the relief of their friends. Turner was killed in the meadows by Green River; his subordinate, Holyoke, then commanding the retreat.
[1678]
Turner's victory brought the war to a crisis. The red men lacked resources. The whites had learned the secrets of savage warfare. They could no longer be led into ambush, while their foe at no time during the war ventured to engage them in open field. Large parties of Indians began to surrender; many roving bands were captured. Hostilities continued still many months in Maine, the whites more and more uniformly successful, till the Treaty of Casco, April 12, 1678, at last terminated the war.
Hunted by the English backward and forward, Philip was at last driven to his old home upon Mount Hope. Here Captain Church, one of the most practised of Indian fighters, surprised him on the morning of August 12, 1676, encamped upon a little upland, which it is believed has been exactly identified near a swamp at the foot of the mountain. By residents in the neighborhood it is known as Little Guinea. At the first firing Philip, but partially dressed, seized gun and powder-horn and made for the swamp, Captain Church's ambush was directly in his front. An Englishman's piece missed fire, but an Indian sent a bullet through the Great Sachem's heart.
In this fearful war at least six hundred of the English inhabitants either fell in battle or were murdered by the enemy, A dozen or more towns were utterly destroyed, others greatly damaged, Some six hundred buildings, chiefly dwelling-houses, were consumed by fire, and over a hundred thousand pounds of colonial money expended, to say nothing of the immense losses in goods and cattle.
Not without propriety has the Pokanoket chief been denominated a king. If not a Charlemagne or a Louis XIV., he yet possessed elements of true greatness. While he lived his mind evidently guided, as his will dominated and prolonged, the war. This is saying much, for the Indian's disinclination to all strenuous or continuous exertion was pronounced and proverbial. Philip's treatment of Mrs. Rowlandson must be declared magnanimous, especially as, of course, he was but a savage king, who might reasonably request us not to measure him by our rules. The other party to the war we have a right to judge more rigidly, and just sentence in their case must be severe. Philip's sorrowing, innocent wife and son were brought prisoners to Plymouth, and their lot referred to the ministers. After long deliberation and prayer it was decided that they should be sold into slavery, and this was their fate.
CHAPTER III.
THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT
[1675]
The home life of colonial New England was unique. Its like has appeared nowhere else in human history. Mostwise it was beautiful as well. In it religion was central and supreme. The General Court of Plymouth very early passed the following order: "Noe dwelling-howse shal be builte above halfe a myle from the meeting-howse in any newe plantacion without leave from the Court, except mylle-howses and ffermehowses." In laying out a village the meeting-house, as the hub to which everything was to be referred, was located first of all. The minister's lot commonly adjoined. Then a sufficiency of land was parcelled off to each freeholder whereon to erect his dwelling. Massachusetts from the first, and Plymouth beginning somewhat later, also made eminent provision for schools—all in the interest of religion.
The earliest residences were necessarily of logs, shaped and fitted more or less rudely according to the skill of the builder or the time and means at his disposal. There was usually one large room below, which served as kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor, and on the same floor with this one or two lodging-rooms. An unfinished attic constituted the dormitory for the rising generation. A huge stone chimney, terminating below in a still more capacious fireplace, that would admit logs from four to eight feet in length, conveyed away the smoke, and with it much of the heat. This involved no loss, as wood was a drug. Communicating with the chimney was the great stone baking-oven, whence came the bouncing loaves of corn-bread, duly "brown," the rich-colored "pompion" pies, and the loin of venison, beef, or pork.
Over these bounties—and such they were heartily esteemed, however meagre—often as the family drew around the table, its head offered thanks to the heavenly Giver. Each morning, after they had eaten, he read a goodly portion of God's Word, never less than a chapter, and then, not kneeling but standing, led his household in reverent and believing prayer for protection, guidance, stimulus in good, and for every needed grace. What purity, what love of rectitude, what strength of will did not the builders of America carry forth from that family altar! He who would understand the richest side and the deepest moving forces of our national life and development must not overlook those New England fireside scenes.
[1688-1700]
Prayers ended, the "men folks" went forth to the day's toil. It was hard, partly from its then rough character, partly from poverty of appliances. For the hardest jobs neighbors would join hands, fighting nature as they had to fight the Indians, unitedly. Farming tools, if of iron or steel, as axe, mattock, spade, and the iron nose for the digger or the plough, the village blacksmith usually fashioned, as he did the bake-pan, griddle, crane, and pothooks, for indoor use. Tables, chairs, cradles, bedsteads, and those straight-backed "settles" of which a few may yet be seen, were either home-made or gotten up by the village carpenter. Mattresses were at first of hay, straw, leaves, or rushes. Before 1700, however, feather beds were common, and houses and the entire state of a New England farmer's home had become somewhat more lordly than the above picture might indicate. The colonists made much use of berries, wild fruits, bread and milk, game, fish, and shellfish. The stock wandered in the forests and about the brooks, to be brought home at night by the boys, whom the sound of the cow-bell led. In autumn bushels upon bushels of nuts were laid by, to serve, along with dried berries and grapes, salted fish and venison, as food for the winter. Every phase and circumstance of this pioneer life reminded our fathers of their dependence upon nature and the Supreme Power behind nature, while at the same time the continual need and application of neighbor's co-operation with neighbor brought out brotherly love in charming strength and beauty.
But to old New England religion, as a clerical, public, and organized affair, there is a far darker side. In the eighteenth century belief in witchcraft was nearly universal. In 1683 one Margaret Matron was tried in Pennsylvania on a charge of bewitching cows and geese, and placed under bonds of one hundred pounds for good behavior. In 1705 Grace Sherwood was ducked in Virginia for the same offence. Cases of the kind had occurred in New York. There was no colony where the belief in astrology, necromancy, second sight, ghosts, haunted houses and spots, love-spells, charms, and peculiar powers attaching to rings, herbs, etc., did not prevail. Such credulity was not peculiar to America, but cursed Europe as well. It seemed to flourish, if anything, after the Reformation more than before. Luther firmly believed in witchcraft. He professed to have met the Evil One in personal conflict, and to have vanquished him by the use of an inkstand as missile. Perhaps every land in Europe had laws making witchcraft a capital crime. One was enacted in England under Henry VIII., another in James I.'s first year, denouncing death against all persons "invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts." A similar statute was contained in the "Fundamentals" of Massachusetts, probably inspired by the command of Scripture, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This law, we shall see, was not a dead letter.
No wonder such a law was of more effect in New England than anywhere else on earth. The official religion of the Puritans was not only superstitious in general but gloomy in particular, and most gloomy in New England. Its central tenet, here at least, seemed to be that life ought to furnish no joy, men seeking to "merit heaven by making earth a hell." Sunday laws were severe, and rigidly enforced from six o'clock Saturday evening till the same hour the next. Not the least work was allowed unless absolutely necessary, nor any semblance of amusement. Boys bringing home the cows were cautioned to "let down the bars softly, as it was the Lord's day." Sunday travellers were arrested and fined. Men might be whipped for absence from church. A girl at Plymouth was threatened exile as a street-walker for smiling in meeting. Increase Mather traced the great Boston fire of 1711 to the sin of Sunday labor, such as carrying parcels and baking food. In Newport, some men having been drowned who, to say good-by to departing friends, had rowed out to a ship just weighing anchor, Rev. John Comer prayed that others might take warning and "do no more such great wickedness."
Sermons were often two hours long; public prayer half an hour. Worse still was what went by the name of music—doggerel hymns full of the most sulphurous theology, uttered congregationally as "lined off" by the leader—nasal, dissonant, and discordant in the highest imaginable degree. The church itself was but a barn, homely-shaped, bare, and in winter cold as out-of-doors. At this season men wrapped their feet in bags, and women stuffed their muffs with hot stones. Sleepers were rudely awakened by the tithing-man's baton thwacking their heads; or, if females, by its fox-tail end brushing their cheeks. Fast-days were common. Prayer opened every public meeting, secular as well as religious. The doctrine of special providences was pressed to a ridiculous extreme. The devil was believed in no less firmly than God, and indefinitely great power ascribed to him. The Catechism—book second in authority only to the Bible—contained of his Satanic Majesty a cut, which children were left, not to say taught, to suppose as correct a likeness as that of Cromwell, which crowned the mantels of so many homes.
In a people thus trained the miracle is not that witchcraft and superstition did so much mischief, but so little. Had it not been for their sturdy Saxon good sense its results must have proved infinitely more sad. The first remarkable case of sorcery in New England occurred at Boston, in 1688. Four children of a pious family were affected in a peculiar manner, imitating the cries of cats and dogs, and complaining of pains all over their bodies. These were the regulation symptoms of witch-possession, which presumably they had often heard discussed. An old Irish serving-woman, indentured to the family, who already bore the name of a witch, was charged with having bewitched them, and executed, the four ministers of Boston having first held at the house a day of prayer and fasting.
Young Cotton Mather, grandson of the distinguished Rev. John Cotton, a man of vast erudition and fervent piety, was at this time colleague to his father, Increase Mather, as pastor of the Boston North Church. His imagination had been abnormally developed by fasts and vigils, in which he believed himself to hold uncommonly close communication with the Almighty. His desire to provide new arms for faith against the growing unbelief of his time led him to take one of the "bewitched" children to his house, that he might note and describe the ways of the devil in her case. The results he soon after published in his "Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions." This work admitted no doubt as to the reality of the demoniac possessions, which indeed it affected to demonstrate forever. All the Boston ministers signed its preface, certifying to its "clear information" that "both a God and a devil, and witchcraft" existed. "Nothing too vile," it alleged, "can be said of, nothing too hard can be done to, such a horrible iniquity as witchcraft is." The publication excited great attention, and to it in no small measure the ensuing tragedy may be traced.
In February, 1692, three more subjects, children of Rev. Mr. Parris, minister at Danvers, then called Salem Village, exhibited bad witchcraft symptoms. The utmost excitement prevailed. Neighboring clergymen joined the village in fasting and prayer. A general fast for the colony was ordered. But the "devilism," as Cotton Mather named it, spread instead of abating, the children having any number of imitators so soon as they became objects of general notice and sympathy. Old Tituba, an Indian crone, who had served in Parris's family, was the first to be denounced as the cause. Two other aged females, one crazy, the other bed-ridden, were also presently accused, and after a little while several ladies of Parris's church. Whoso uttered a whisper of incredulity, general or as to the blameworthiness of any whom Parris called guilty, was instantly indicted with them.
On April 11th, the Deputy Governor held in the meeting-house in Salem Village a court for a preliminary examination of the prisoners. A scene at once ridiculous and tragic followed. When they were brought in, their alleged victims appeared overcome at their gaze, pretending to be bitten, pinched, scratched, choked, burned, or pricked by their invisible agency in revenge for refusing to subscribe to a covenant with the devil. Some were apparently stricken down by the glance of an eye from one of the culprits, others fainted, many writhed as in a fit. Tituba was beaten to make her confess. Others were tortured. Finally all the accused were thrown into irons. Numbers of accused persons, assured that it was their only chance for life, owned up to deeds of which they must have been entirely innocent. They had met the devil in the form of a small black man, had attended witch sacraments, where they renounced their Christian vows, and had ridden through the air on broomsticks. Such were the confessions of poor women who had never in their lives done any evil except possibly to tattle.
On June 2d, a special court was held in Salem for the definite trial. Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, a man of small mind and bigoted temper, was president. The business began by the condemnation and hanging of a helpless woman. A jury of women had found on her person a wart, which was pronounced to be unquestionably a "devil's teat," and her neighbors remembered that many hens had died, animals become lame, and carts upset by her dreadful "devilism." By September 23d, twenty persons had gone to the gallows, eight more were under sentence, and fifty-five had "confessed" and turned informers as their only hope. The "afflicted" had increased to fifty. Jails were crammed with persons under accusation, and fresh charges of alliance with devils were brought forward every day.
Some of the wretched victims displayed great fortitude. Goodman Procter lost his life by nobly and persistently—vainly as well, alas!—maintaining the innocence of his accused wife. George Burroughs, who had formerly preached in Salem Village, was indicted. His physical strength, which happened to be phenomenal, was adduced as lent him from the devil. Stoughton browbeat him through his whole trial. What sealed his condemnation, however, was his offer to the jury of a paper quoting an author who denied the possibility of witchcraft. His fervent prayers when on the scaffold, and especially his correct rendering of the Lord's Prayer, shook the minds of many. They argued that no witch could have gotten through those holy words correctly—a test upon which several had been condemned. Cotton Mather, present at the gallows, restored the crowd to faith by reminding them that the devil had the power to dress up like an angel of light. Rebecca Nurse, a woman of unimpeachable character hitherto, unable from partial deafness to understand, so as to explain, the allegations made against her, was convicted notwithstanding every proof in her favor.
Reaction now began. Public opinion commenced to waver. No one knew whose turn to be hanged would come next. Emboldened by their fatal success, accusers whispered of people in high places as leagued with the Evil One. An Andover minister narrowly escaped death. The Beverly minister, Hale, one of the most active in denouncing witches, was aghast when his own wife was accused. Two sons of Governor Bradstreet were obliged to flee for their lives, one for refusing, as a magistrate, to issue any more warrants, the other charged with bewitching a dog. Several hurried to New York to escape conviction. The property of such was seized by their towns. A reign of terror prevailed.
People slowly awoke to the terrible travesty of justice which was going on. Magistrates were seen to have overlooked the most flagrant instances of falsehood and contradiction on the part of both accusers and accused, using the baseless hypothesis that the devil had warped their senses. The disgusting partiality shown in the accusations was disrelished, as was the resort that had been had to torture. One poor old man of eighty they crushed to death because he would plead guilty to nothing. The authorities quite disregarded the fact that everyone of the self-accusations had been made in order to escape punishment. These considerations effected a revolution in the minds of most people. Remonstrances were presented to the courts, securing reprieve for those under sentence of death at Salem. This so irritated the despicable Stoughton that he resigned.
The forwardness of the ministers therein turned many against the persecution, After the first victims had fallen at Salem, Governor Phips took their advice whether or not to proceed. Cotton Mather indited the reply. It thankfully acknowledges "the success which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to defeat the abominable witch crafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. It is pleasant to note, after all, the ministers' advice to the civil rulers not to rely too much on "the devil's authority"—on the evidence, that is, of those possessed. The court heeded this injunction all too little, but by and by it had weight with the public, who judged that, as the trials appeared to be proceeding on devil's evidence alone, the farce ought to cease. The Superior Court met in Boston, April 25, 1693, and the grand Jury declined to find any more bills against persons accused of sorcery. King William vetoed the Witchcraft Act, and by the middle of 1693 all the prisoners were discharged.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIDDLE COLONIES
[1686]
The English conquest of New Netherland from the Dutch speedily followed the Stuarts' return to the throne. Cromwell had mooted an attack on Dutch America, and, as noticed in Chapter I., Connecticut's charter of 1662 extended that colony to include the Dutch lands. England based her claim to the territory on alleged priority of discovery, but the real motives were the value of the Hudson as an avenue for trade, and the desire to range her colonies along the Atlantic coast in one unbroken line. The victory was not bloody, nor was it offensive to the Dutch themselves, who in the matter of liberties could not lose. King Charles had granted the conquered tract to his brother, the Duke of York, subsequently James II., and it was in his honor christened with its present name of New York.
The Duke's government was not popular, especially as it ordered the Dutch land-patents to be renewed—for money, of course; and in 1673, war again existing between England and Holland, the Dutch recovered their old possession. They held it however for only fifteen months, since at the Peace of 1674 the two belligerent nations mutually restored all the posts which they had won.
The reader already has some idea of Sir Edmond Andros's rule in America. New York was the first to feel this, coming under the gentleman's governorship immediately on being the second time surrendered to England. Such had been the political disorder in the province, that Andros's headship, stern as it was, proved beneficial. He even, for a time, 1683-86, reluctantly permitted an elective legislature, though discontinuing it when the legislatures of New England were suppressed. This taste of freedom had its effect afterward.
[1690]
When news of the Revolution of 1688 in England reached New York, Andros was in Boston. Nicholson, Lieutenant-Governor, being a Catholic and an absolutist, and the colony now in horror of all Catholics through fear of French invasion from Canada, Jacob Leisler, a German adventurer, partly anticipating, partly obeying the popular wish, assumed to function in Nicholson's stead. All the aristocracy, English or Dutch, and nearly all the English of the lower rank were against him. Leisler was passionate and needlessly bitter toward Catholics, yet he meant well. He viewed his office as only transitory, and stood ready to surrender it so soon as the new king's will could be learned; but when Slaughter arrived with commission as governor, Leisler's foes succeeded in compassing his execution for treason. This unjust and cruel deed began a long feud between the popular and the aristocratic party in the colony. |
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