THE GIFT OF

MAY TREAT MORRISON

IN MEMORY OF

ALEXANDER F MORRISON

SCRIBNER'S

THE UNITED STATES

.s v
A -5

4\ y

SCRIBNER'S

POPULAR HISTORY OF
THE UNITED STATES

FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERIES OF THE WESTERN
HEMISPHERE BY THE NORTHMEN TO THE PRESENT TIME

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

SYDNEY HOWARD GAY

NOAH BROOKS

WITH MORE THAN SIXTEEN HUNDRED
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

VOLUME I

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1897

RIGHT OF TRANSLATION- RESERVED

Press of J. J. Little & Co
Astor Place, New York

PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION.
*

^ THE plan of the Popular History of the United States, now finally

o. completed, was laid before Mr. William Cullen Bryant in 1874, and
\ actual work was begun in the following year. It was Mr. Bryant's
t^ ambition and the purpose of the publishers to produce not only the
^ best but the most comprehensive history of the country that had been
C^ or could be written in a popular form.

Under the supervision and leadership of Mr. Bryant, Mr. Sydney
Howard Gay, long Mr. Bryant's chief assistant in the editorial man
agement of the " Evening Post," was selected as the best equipped
of all known to him to undertake the actual writing of such a work.
Mr. Bryant's editorial supervision was to be constant and active
throughout the entire preparation of the history, and the clear and
vigorous Preface which he wrote (still retained in the completed
^ work) laid down the lines of what he had in mind. In fact, how
ever, he was able to read the proofs only of the first and second
\i volumes before his death. Mr. Gay carried on the work to the com-
^ pletion of the original scheme. He had several assistants in the
\x> collection and preparation of material, and one important contributor
N in the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, who wrote the chapters in the
x second volume upon the Spanish Colonization in the Southwest.

^^ Because of the very nearness of the Civil War and its consequences
HA to the time at which the history was begun, much less space was
y^accorded to the latter half of this century than its importance now
^b calls for. Since the rise of the great literature concerning the Civil
War, it has been possible to give to that passage of the great narra
tive a scale equal to that of the rest, and to take advantage of the
invaluable material ungathered or uncodified at the time when Mr.
Gay ended his work. Finally, as it has become evident that the

42747J

viii PUBLISHP:RS' INTRODUCTION.

quarter-century following the war is also to rank as one of the most
momentous, perhaps materially the most momentous of our history,

it has been felt that no book can now fulfil what this originally

aimed to do without bringing the narrative to a very much later time
than was at first thought of.

It was therefore decided a year or two ago by the publishers to
remake the History beyond the chapters in the fourth volume
which treat of the beginning of the war, and to confide the work
of completing the book from that time to the present, and upon a
greatly enlarged scale, to Mr. Noah Brooks, whose qualifications for
such an undertaking need no attestation. The plan adopted, besides
the rewriting of a portion of the fourth volume, has involved the
addition of a fifth, and the narrative is now continued down to within
a year or two of the actual present with a fulness not attempted, it
is believed, in any other history of the same comprehensive scope.

A feature of the history to which from the beginning great care
and expenditure have been devoted is its illustration, with which the
greatest pains have been taken, not only as to historical accuracy but
as to the quality of its art. The illustrators of the original history
were the best men of the day, and the same standard is followed in
the new portion, with the additional advantage of the improved pro
cesses for reproduction and perfected printing. The complete work
contains over 1600 illustrations, which represent practically every
illustrator who has been favorably known for the last twenty years.

PREFACE.

THERE are several excellent histories of the United States
of North America in print, and it will naturally be asked
what occasion there is for another.

The title of this work is in part an answer to the question.
It is intended to be a popular history a work for that large
class who have not leisure for reading those narratives which
aim at setting forth, with the greatest breadth and variety of
circumstance, the annals of our nation's life. At the same
time it is the design of the present work to treat the subject
more at large than is done in those compends, some of them
able in their way, which are used as text-books in the schools.
Unlike these latter, it is not a compilation from histories
already written, but in its narrative of events and its repre
sentation of the state of our country at different epochs, has
derived its materials through independent research from orig
inal sources. It is also within the plan of this work to rely in
part for its attraction on the designs with which it is illus
trated likenesses of men conspicuous in our annals, views
of places and buildings memorable in our history, and repre
sentations of usages and manners which have had their day
and have passed away.

But in saying this, we state but a small part of our plan.
It is our purpose to present within a moderate compass a
view of changes, political and social, occurring within our
Republic, which have an interest for every nation in the civil
ized world, and the history of which could not be fully written
until now. In the two centuries and a half of our existence
as an off-shoot of the great European stock, a mighty drama
has been put upon the stage of our continent, which, after a

x PREFACE.

series of fierce contentions and subtle intrigues, closed in a
bloody catastrophe with a result favorable to liberty and
human rights and to the fair fame of the Republic. Within
that time the institution of slavery, springing up from small
and almost unnoticed beginnings, grew to be a gigantic power
claiming and exercising dominion over the confederacy, and
at last, when it failed in causing itself to be recognized as a
national institution and saw the signs of a decline in its polit
ical supremacy, declaring the Union of the States dissolved,
encountering the free States in a sanguinary five years' war,
and bringing upon itself overthrow and utter destruction.

We stand, therefore, at a point in our annals where the
whole duration of slavery in our country, from the beginning
to the end, lies before us as on a chart ; and certainly no his
tory of our Republic can now be regarded as complete which
should fail to carry the reader through the various stages of
its existence, from its silent and stealthy origin to the stormy
period in which the world saw its death-struggle, and recog
nized in its fall the sentence of eternal justice. It is instruc
tive to observe how in its earlier years slavery was admitted,
by the most eminent men of those parts of the country
where it had taken the deepest root, to be a great wrong ;
and how afterward, when the power and influence of the
slave-holding class were at their height, it was boldly de
fended as a beneficent and just institution, the basis of the
most perfect social state known to the world, so powerfully
and surely do personal interests pervert the moral judgments
of mankind. The controversy assumed a deeper interest as
the years went on. On the side of slavery stood forth men
singularly fitted to be its champions; able, plausible, trained
to public life, men of large personal influence and a fierce
determination of will nourished by the despotism exercised
on their plantations over their bondmen. On the other side
was a class equally able and no less determined, enthusiasts
for liberty as courageous as their adversaries were imperious,
restlessly aggressive, ready to become martyrs, and from time
to time attesting their sincerity by yielding up their lives.
So fierce was the quarrel, and so general was the inclination

PREFACE. xi

even in the free States to take part with the slave-owners,
that the name of Abolitionist was used as a term of reproach
and scorn ; and to point out a man as worthy of wearing it,
was in some places the same thing as to recommend him to
the attentions of the mob. Yet even while this was a name
of opprobrium, the hostility to slavery was gathering strength
under a new form. The friends of slavery demanded that
the authority of the master over his bondman should be rec
ognized in all the territory belonging to the Union not yet
formed into States, in short, that the jurisdiction of the
Republic, wherever established, should carry with it the law
of slavery. A party was immediately formed to resist the
application of this doctrine, and after a long and vehement
contest elected its candidate President of the United States.
Meantime the rapid settlement of our Pacific coast by a
purely free population, in consequence of the opening of the
gold mines, showed the friends of slavery that they were to
be hereafter in a minority, the power of which would dimin
ish with every successive year. They instantly took the res
olution to revolt against the Union, declared it thenceforth
dissolved, and rushed into a war, in which their defeat carried
with it the fall of slavery. It fell, dragging down with it
thousands of private fortunes, and leaving some of the fair
est portions of the region whence it issued its decrees ravaged
and desolate, and others, for a time, given over to a confusion
little short of anarchy.

Writers who record the fortunes of nations have most gen
erally and wisely stopped at a modest distance from the time
in which they wrote, for this reason among others, that the
narrative could not be given with the necessary degree of
impartiality, on account of controversies not yet ended, and
prejudices which have not had time to subside. But in the
case of American slavery the difficulty of speaking impar
tially both of the events which form its history and of the
characters of its champions and adversaries, is far less now
than it ever was before. Slavery has become a thing of the
past ; the dispute as to its rights under our Constitution is
closed forever. The class of active and vigilant politicians

xii PREFACE.

who, a few years since, were ever on the watch for some
opportunity of promoting its interests by legislation, is now
as if it had never been ; slavery is no longer either de
nounced or defended from the pulpits ; the division of polit
ical journals into friends and enemies of slavery exists no
longer, and when a candidate for office is presented for the
suffrages of his fellow citizens, it is no longer asked, " What
does he think of the slavery question ? " So far, indeed, does
this fierce contest seem already removed into the domain of
the past, and separated from the questions and interests of
the present moment, that when a person is pointed out as
having been a distinguished Abolitionist he is looked at with
somewhat of the same historical interest as if it had been
said, " There goes one who fought so bravely at Lundy's
Lane ; " or, " There is one who commanded a company of
riflemen at the battle of New Orleans." The champions of
slavery on one side able men and skilled in the expedients
of party warfare, and in many instances uncorrupt and pure
in personal character, and the champions of the slave on
the other, fearless and ready for the martyrdom which they
sometimes suffered, their faculties exalted by a sense of dan
ger, can now, as they and their acts pass in review before
the historian, be judged with a degree of calmness belonging
to a new era of our political existence.

But the great conclusion is still to be drawn that the exist
ence of slavery in our Republic was at utter variance with
the free institutions which we made our boast ; and that it
could not be preserved in the vast growth which it had at
tained without altering in a great degree their nature, and
communicating to them its own despotic character. Where
half the population is in bondage to the other half there is a
constant danger that the subject race will rise against their
masters, who naturally look to repression and terror as their
means of defence. The later history of slavery in our coun
try is full of examples to show this severe laws against
sedition in the slave States, an enforced silence on the subject
of human liberty, an expurgated popular literature, and vis
itors to the slave States chased back by mobs across the fron-

PREFACE. xin

tier which they had imprudently crossed. It is remarkable
that, not very long before the civil war, certain of the south
ern journals began to maintain in elaborate leading articles
that the time had arrived for considering whether the entire
laboring class of whatever color should not be made the serfs
of the land-owners and others of the more opulent members
of society.

A history like this would have been incomplete and frag
mentary had it failed to record the final fate as well as the
rise and growth of an institution wielding so vast an influence
both in society and politics, with champions so able and reso
lute, organized with such skill, occupying so wide and fertile
a domain, and rooted there with such firmness as to be re^
garded by the friends of human liberty with a feeling scarcely
short of despair. To have broken oft* the narrative before
reaching the catastrophe, would have been like rising from
the spectacle of a drama at the end of the fourth act. Few
episodes in the world's history have been so complete in
themselves as this of American slavery. Few have brought
into activity such mighty agencies, or occupied so vast a
theatre, or been closed, although amid fearful carnage, yet in
a manner so satisfactory to the sense of natural justice.

Here is the place to speak of another important conclusion
to be drawn from the result of our late civil war. It has
proved the strength of our political system. When the slave
States first revolted it is wonderful with what unanimity the
people of the Old World, even those who wished well to the
Northern States, adopted the conclusion that the Union could
endure no longer, and that the bond once broken could never
be reunited. Those powers which had regarded the United
States as a somewhat uncomfortable neighbor, rapidly becom
ing too strong to be reasonable in its dealings with the mon
archies of Europe, fully believed that thereafter there would
exist, on the North American continent, two rival common
wealths of the same origin, yet so diverse from each other in
their institutions as to be involved in frequent disagreements,
and thus to prove effectual checks upon each other, relieving
the European powers from the danger of aggression in this

xiv PREFACE.

quarter. It was sometimes said by Englishmen who thought
that they were speaking in the interest of humanity: "All the
interest we feel in your quarrel is this, that you should go to
pieces as quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible." The
steps taken by Great Britain and France were in accord with
the expectation of which I have spoken ; Britain instantly
declaring the slave States a belligerent power, a virtual
acknowledgment of their independence, and France posting
a dependent Prince in Mexico, with the view of intervening in
that quarter as soon as it might appear politic to do so. Till
the close of our civil war the armed cohorts of France hung
like a thunder-cloud over our southwestern border, but the
Jiour never came when the signal might be given for the
grim mass to move northward.

The period of time at which the nation inhabiting the do
main of our Republic came into being is so recent, that we
may trace its growth with as much distinctness as if we were
the contemporaries of its birth. The records of its early exist
ence have been preserved as those of no other nation have
been which has risen to any importance in the annals of the
world. To the guidance of these the historian may trust
himself securely, with no danger of losing his way among
the uncertain shadows of tradition. It is with a feeling of
wonder that he sees colonies, planted in different parts of the
North American continent so remote from each other, under
such different circumstances, and so entirely without concert
on the part of the adventurers who led them thither, united
at last in a political fabric of such strength and solidity. The
columns of the great edifice were separately laid in the wil
derness amid savage tribes, by men who apparently had no
thought of their future relation to each other ; but as they
rose from the earth it seemed as if a guiding intelligence had
planned them in such a manner that in due time they might
be adjusted to each other in a single structure. Those who
at the outbreak of our civil war administered the govern
ments of Europe had, it is certain, little confidence in the
stability and duration of a political fabric so framed. It was
loosely and fortuitously put together, they thought, of ele-

PREFACE. XV

ments discordant in themselves, whose imperfect cohesion a
shock like that of the southern revolt would destroy forever.

It survived that shock, however, and, in part at least, for
the very reason of its peculiar structure. It survived it be
cause every man in the free States felt that he was a part of
the government ; because in our system of decentralized
power a part of it was lodged in his person. He felt that
he was challenged when the Federal Government was defied,
and that he was robbed when the rebels took possession of the
forts of the Federal Government and its munitions of war.
The quarrel became his personal concern, and the entire
people of the North rose as one man to breast and beat back
this bold attack upon a system of polity which every man of
them was moved to defend by the feeling which would move
him to defend his fireside. Perhaps out of this fortuitous
planting of our continent in scattered and independent settle
ments has arisen the strongest form of government, so far as
respects cohesion and self-maintenance, that the world has
seen. Certainly the experience of the last few years, begin
ning with the civil war, gives plausibility to this idea.

All the consequences of that war have not been equally
fortunate with this. It may be admitted that, in some in
stances, the influence of a military life on the young men
who thronged to our camps was salutary, in bringing out the
better qualities of their character and moulding it to a more
manly pattern, by overcoming the love of ease and accustom
ing the soldier to endure suffering and brave danger for the
common cause. Yet it is certain that in other men it en
couraged brutal instincts which had been held in check by
the restraints of a peaceful order of things ; that it made
them careless of inflicting pain, and indifferent to the taking
of life. Accordingly, after the close of the war, crimes of vio
lence became fearfully numerous, men more often carried
about deadly weapons, quarrels more often led to homicide,
robberies accompanied by assassination were much more
frequent, and acts of housebreaking were perpetrated with
greater audacity. It would seem invidious to say that these
crimes were most frequent in the region which had been the

xvi PREFACE.

seat of the war ; but it is certain that there the peace was
often deplorably disturbed by quarrels between the white race
and the colored which led to bloodshed. Thus the state of
society left by the war may be fairly put to the account of
the great error committed in allowing slavery to have a place
among our institutions.

But while men were watching with alarm these offences
against the public peace, it was discovered, with no little sur
prise, that crimes of fraud had become as numerous, and were
equally traceable to the war as their cause. So many oppor
tunities had presented themselves of making easy bargains
with the agents of the government, and so many chances of
cheating the government offered themselves in the haste and
confusion with which most transactions of this kind were
accomplished, that hundreds of persons of whom little was
known save that they had become suddenly rich, flaunted in
all the splendor of exorbitant wealth, and exercised the in
fluence which wealth commands. The encouragement which
their success and the mystery with which it was accompanied
gave to dishonest dealings was felt throughout the commu
nity, and the evil became fearfully contagious. The city of
New York was a principal seat of these enormities. In that
busy metropolis men are so earnestly occupied with their pri
vate affairs, so absorbed in the competitions of business, that
it is not easy to fix the attention of the greater proportion,
even of the most intelligent, upon matters of public and gen
eral interest as long as the chances of individual success are
left open. But the boundless waste of those who had posses
sion of the public funds, the sudden increase of the city debt,
and the enormous taxation to which the citizens were sub
jected, at length alarmed the entire community; the tax-pay
ers consulted together ; they called in the aid of the most
sagacious and resolute men, who with great pains tracked the
offenders through all their doublings and laid their practices
bare to the public eye. The infamy of those who were con
cerned in these enormities followed their exposure.

I have already spoken of the contagious nature of these
examples of corruption. The determination to effect a reform

PREFACE. xvii

and drag the offenders to justice, when onoe awakened, spread
with equal rapidity. It is remarkable how, immediately after
the exposure of the enormous knaveries committed in New
York, the daily journals were filled with accounts of lesser
villainies in less considerable places. It seemed for a while as
if peculation had been taken up by a large class as a profes
sion, so numerous were the instances of detection. The pub
lic vigilance was directed against every person in a pecuniary
trust ; some who had never before been suspected found
themselves suddenly in the custody of the law, and others,
fearing that their turn might soon come, prudently ran away.
There never has been a time when it was so dangerous for a
public man to make a slip in his accounts. Investigation be
came the order of the day, and a considerable part of the con
tents of every daily paper consisted of the proceedings of
committees formed for examining into the accounts of men
who held pecuniary trusts. At first sight it seemed as if the
world had suddenly grown worse ; on a second reflection it
was clear that it was growing better. A process of purgation
was going on ; dishonest men were stripped of the power of
doing further mischief and branded with disgrace, and men
of whom better hopes were entertained put in their place.
The narrative of these iniquities could not properly stop short
of the punishment which overtook the offenders, and which,
while it makes the lesson of their otherwise worthless lives
instructive, vindicates to some extent the character of the
nation at large.

In reviewing the history of the last hundred years there is
one question which stands out in special prominence : the
policy of encouraging domestic manufactures by high duties
on goods imported from other countries. It was recommended
in the early years of our Republic by Hamilton, whose au
thority had great weight with a large class of his fellow-
citizens; and afterwards, under the name of the American Sys
tem, was made the battle-cry of a great party under a no less
popular leader, Henry Clay. But after a struggle of many
years, during part of which the protective system seemed to
have become thoroughly incorporated into our revenue laws,

xviii PREFACE.

a tendency to freedom of trade began to assert itself. The
tariff of duties on imported commodities became from time
to time weeded of the provisions which favored particular
manufactures, and, although still wanting in simplicity of pro
ceeding and far more expensive in its execution than it should
have been, was in the main liberal and not unsatisfactory to all
parties. The manufacturers had ceased from the struggle for
special duties, and seemed content with those which were laid
merely for the sake of revenue. The question of protection
was no longer a matter of controversy.

But the war revived the old quarrel, and left it a legacy to
the years which are yet to come. When the southern mem
bers at the beginning of the war withdrew from Congress,
there were found, among those whom they left in their seats, a
majority who had been educated in the Henry Clay school of
politics, and were therefore attached to the protective system.
In laying taxes to supply the necessities of the Treasury, they
enacted a tariff of duties more rigidly restrictive and of more
general application than the country had ever before known.
This opened again the whole controversy. The struggle of
forty years, which had ended as we have already related, is
revived under circumstances which 'Strongly imply that we
have the same ground to go over again. The manufacturers
are not likely to give up without a struggle what they believe
so essential to their prosperity ; and the friends of free trade,
proverbially tenacious of their purposes, are not likely to be
satisfied while there is left in the texture of our revenue laws
a single thread of protection which their ingenuity can detect
or their skill can draw out.

The history of our Republic shows that a nation does not
always profit by its own experience, even though it be of an
impressive nature. Our government began the first century
of its existence with a resort to paper money and closed it
with repeating the expedient. In the first of these instances
slips of paper with a peculiar stamp were made to pass as
money by the authority of Congress, -and were known by the
name of Continental money, which soon became a term of op
probrium. The history of this currency is a sad one : a his-

PREFACE. xix

tory of creditors defrauded, families reduced from competence
to poverty, and ragged and hunger-bitten soldiers who were
paid their wages in bits of paper scarcely worth more than the
coarse material on which their nominal value was stamped.
The more of this Continental money was issued the lower it
sank in value. The whole land was filled with discontent, and
the leaders of the Revolution were in the utmost perplexity.
The injustice inflicted and the distress occasioned by this policy
are not merely recorded in our annals, there are many per
sons yet living who have heard of them in their youth at the
firesides of their fathers.

Eighty years afterwards, in the midst of our late civil war,
when the necessity of raising money for the daily expenses of
maintaining and moving our large armies from place to place
upon the vast theatre of our war, began to press somewhat
severely upon our government, the question was again raised
whether the government notes should not be made a legal ten
der in the payment of debts, and the Treasury relieved from the
necessity of providing for their redemption in coin. The Sec
retary of the Treasury applied to some of the most eminent
bankers and men of business, English and American, for their
opinions. Certain of the wisest of these vehemently dissuaded
him from a resort to paper money. They pointed to the dis
asters which experience had shown to have invariably attended
the measure, and urged him to trust to the loyalty of the coun
try, of which he had seen such gratifying proofs already given,
for obtaining the necessary supplies of money for the war. This
could be done by issuing debentures payable at a somewhat
distant date, and for such moderate sums as persons of moder
ate means could conveniently take. At all events they urged
that the expedient of resorting to paper money should be post
poned till every other was tried and the necessity for it became
imminent and unavoidable. These wise counsels were not fol
lowed. Others had given their opinion that a resort to paper
money was unavoidable, and after some hesitation it was re
solved to take the step immediately. The moment that the
project was brought before Congress, it found eager cham
pions, both on the floor of the two chambers and in the lobbies ;

xx PREFACE.

for whenever a measure is proposed which involves a change
of nominal values, there spring up in unexpected quarters hun
dreds of patriotic persons to assist in hurrying it through Con
gress. The government was relieved of the obligation of pay
ing its notes ; but a solemn pledge was given that they should
be paid at the earliest practicable moment. While the war
lasted, we went on making issue after issue of these notes, with
no provision for their payment. Meantime the prices of every
commodity rose, and with them the expenses of the war,
and speculation flourished.

For eight years after the war no approach had been made
towards the fulfilment of the solemn pledge of which I have
spoken, although in that time many millions of the national
debt had been paid off in our depreciated currency. So vast
was the mass of promises to pay, and so small the accumula
tions of gold within the reach of the government, that not
one of those who within that period administered the Treas
ury Department ventured to propose any plan for returning
to specie payments, but, averting his eyes from the difficulty,
allowed our finances to drift toward an uncertain future.
Then came the panic of 1873, which swept so many large
banking and commercial houses to their ruin. Immediately
a loud call was heard for a new issue of paper money, from
those who fancied that they saw in the measure a remedy for
their own pecuniary embarrassments. The question was
hotly debated in Congress ; a majority of both houses was
found to be in its favor ; the pledge which bound the country
to return to specie payments was scouted, as given in igno
rance of the true interests of the country ; and a bill was
passed, adding, as President Grant observed in his message, a
hundred millions to our depreciated currency. Fortunately
for the country he sent back the bill with his objections, and
it failed to become a law ; else the mischiefs and disasters of
the days of Continental money might have returned upon us,
with a violence proportioned to the growth which our com
mercial interests had in the meantime attained.

It is not likely that this question will again be raised in
our day, and the bitter experience which we have had of the

PREFACE. xxi

mischiefs of paper money in these two instances will remain
as a warning to the coming times ; though who shall say
with any confidence that the warning will be duly heeded ?
But there is another controversy bequeathed to us by the
late civil war, which will probably lead to acrimonious and
protracted disputes, and perhaps be made to some extent the
basis of party divisions. Of that I would now speak.

Before the war the boundaries of the powers assigned to
the National Government, and those which remained with the
several States, were pretty sharply defined by usage, and at
tempts were but rarely made to go beyond them. The leaders
of opinion in the Southern States deemed it necessary to the
security and permanence of slavery, that any encroachment
of the National Government on the rights reserved to the
States should be resisted to the utmost ; and it must be ad
mitted that, although many of them pushed the claim of State
sovereignty to an absurd extent, they did good service in
keeping the eyes of the people fixed upon that limit beyond
which, under our Constitution, the National Government has
neither function nor power. When the civil war broke out it
was apparent that the majority of those who remained in Con
gress had not been trained to be scrupulous on this point.
One of their early measures, the creation of a system of
national banks, would, twenty years before, have been
regarded by a majority of the people of the United States as
a direct violation of the Constitution. Other measures were
adopted in the course of the war for which it was impossible
to find any authority in the Constitution, and of which the
sole justification was military necessity. As compared with
the state of opinion which prevailed before the war, it is man
ifest that a certain indifference to the distinction between the
Federal power and that of the States has been creeping into
our politics. Schemes for accumulating power in the govern
ment at Washington, by making it the owner of our rail
ways, for administering telegraphic communication by Federal
agency, for cutting canals between river and river, and for
an extensive system of national education with a central
bureau at Washington, show this tendency. These and kin-

xxil PREFACE.

dred projects will most certainly give ample occasion for pro
tracted disputes on the floor of Congress and in the daily
press. On one hand will be urged, and plausibly, the public
convenience ; and on the other the danger lest our govern
ment of nicely balanced powers should degenerate into a
mere form, and the proper functions of the States be absorbed
into the central authority, a fate like that predicted by
some astronomers for our solar system, when the orbs that
revolve about the sun, describing narrower and narrower cir
cles, shall fall into the central luminary to be incorporated
with it forever.

In looking over this vast array of important questions set
tled, and of new ones just arising on the field of vision, it is
difficult to resist the conclusion that the historian of our Re
public would perform his office but in part who should stop
short of the cycle of a hundred years from the birth of our
nation. In that period great interests have been disposed of
and laid aside forever ; with the next hundred years, we have
a new era with new responsibilities, which we are to meet
with what wisdom we may. It is matter of rejoicing that
among the latest events of this first century, and following
close upon our great civil war, we are able to record a great
triumph of the cause of peace and civilization in the settle
ment of our collateral quarrel with Great Britain, a quarrel
which in other times might easily have been nursed into a
war. Let us hope that this example will be followed by all
the nations of the earth in their future controversies.

To what has been said of the plan of the present history
in the first paragraph of this Introduction, I have yet some
thing to add. The works of the Mound Builders, which lie
scattered by thousands over our territory, from the Gulf of
Mexico to Oregon, and which within the last thirty years
have been even more carefully examined than ever before,
prove clearly, what was previously doubted by many, the
existence of a semi-civilized race dwelling within our borders,
who preceded the savage tribes found here by the discoverers
from the Old World, and who disappeared at some unknown
era, leaving behind them no tradition, nor any record save

PREFACE. xxiii

these remarkable monuments. With what we have learned
of this race, since any history of this country has been pub
lished, and what has been discovered by modern science of
the pre-historic existence of man, pertaining to our continent
as well as to those of the other hemisphere, the present
history naturally begins, and it has been thought important
to record, briefly but clearly and comprehensively, the present
state of our knowledge of the Mound Builders, as well as of
the savage tribes by whom they were succeeded, as prelim
inary to the discovery and settlement of the country by
another race.

The history of the early voyagers and colonists of our con
tinent, both before and after Columbus, is made up of inci
dents which have often been wrought into connected narra
tives, but not in such a manner as to deprive other historians
of the power of giving them, by a due selection of circum
stances, something of a new interest. The adventures of
those whose explorations preceded the permanent settlement
of our territory during three generations of mankind were of
a nature to call into exercise qualities which command our ad
miration, courage, perseverance, patient endurance of hard
ship, and ready resources in times of great emergency. The
recital of these adventures brings us down to the period when
our country began to be peopled from the Old World, by
colonists establishing themselves at different points along our
coast, companies of men and women seeking a home in the
New World for different purposes, but all of them courageous
and adventurous, unapt to quail before discouragement, and
prepared to encounter disaster. It was perhaps owing in
part to a conformity of character in these respects, that, as
they grew in population, these settlements coalesced so readily
into one nation, and presented so united a front in resistance
to the tyrannical pretensions of the mother country. In giv
ing the history of these colonies, in tracing their origin and
growth, and delineating their character, it will be seen that
here, like the future oak wrapped up in the acorn, lay the
peculiar form of government which distinguishes our republic
among the nations, and that from what may be called the

xxiv PREFACE.

accidental formation of these communities, small at first,
distant from one another, and organized independently of each
other, grew the composite structure of our national polity,
which we regard as so important to our liberties. The events
of this period of adolescence and immaturity in our political
institutions, lasting for a century and a half, must, of course,
be given in a condensed form ; but this has been done, it is
hoped, with sufficient fulness to enable the reader to see how
naturally, from the beginnings of which we have, spoken, arose
the confederated Republic now so great and powerful.

The attention of the reader, neither in this part of the
work nor elsewhere, will be occupied with the growth of our
population and our political progress to such an extent as to
neglect the advancement made in the arts of peace and the
refinements of life. The customs and usages of past gen
erations, their modes of living and ways of thinking, their
occupations and amusements, their condition in respect of
public and private morals, will be found described in these
pages, and a portraiture given, so far as its true outlines, its
lights and shades, can now be discerned, of society in the past.
The changes which these at different periods have undergone
will be carefully noted.

The history of the United States naturally divides itself
into three periods, upon the third of which we lately, at the
close of our civil war, entered as a people, with congruous
institutions in every part of our vast territory. The first was
the colonial period ; the second includes the years which
elapsed from the Declaration of Independence to the struggle
which closed with the extinction of slavery. The colonial
period was a time of tutelage, of struggle and dependence,
the childhood of the future nation. But our real growth, as a
distinct member of the community of nations, belongs to the
second period, and began when we were strong enough to
assert and maintain our independence. To this second period
a large space has been allotted in the present work. Not
that the mere military annals of our Revolutionary War would
seem to require a large proportion of this space, but the vari
ous attendant circumstances, the previous controversies with

PREFACE. xxv

the mother country, in which all the colonies were more or
less interested, and which grew into a common cause ; the
consultations which followed ; the defiance of the mother
country, in which they all joined ; the service in an arrnv
which made all the colonists fellow-soldiers; the common
danger, the common privations, sufferings, and expedients, the
common sorrow at reverses and rejoicing at victories, require
to be fully set forth, that it may be seen by how natural a
transition these widely scattered communities became united
in a federal Republic, which has since rapidly risen to take its
place among the foremost nations of the world, with a popu
lation which has increased tenfold, and a sisterhood of States
enlarged from thirteen to thirty-seven.

So crowded with events and controversies is this second
part of our history, and the few years which have elapsed of
the third ; so rapid has been the accumulation of wealth and
the growth of trade ; so great have been the achievements
of inventive art and the applied sciences ; with such celerity
has our population spread itself over new regions, and so
vehement have been the struggles maintained against abuses,
moral and political, that it has not been easy to give due atten
tion to all of them, without exceeding the limits prescribed
for this work. But we have aimed to preserve a due propor
tion in the recital of events and the analysis of causes,
treating the most important with a certain fulness of recital,
and passing rapidly over the rest, and in the meantime not
permitting ourselves in any part of the work to indulge a
boastful vein, nor to overlook the faults and mistakes, the
national sins and wrongs of which we may have been guilty.
We have endeavored to divest ourselves, while engaged in
this task, of all local prejudices, and every influence which
might affect the impartiality of the narrative.

In writing the history of the only great nation on the
globe, the beginnings of which are fully recorded in contem
porary writings, and for which we are not compelled, as in
other cases, to grope in the darkness of tradition, the authors
of this work have ascended to the proper sources, the ancient
records themselves. The narrative has been drawn irnme-

xxvi PREFACE.

diately from these writings, and by them has every statement
and date of our early history been verified. For the later
periods, the materials are of course voluminous and circum
stantial, even to embarrassment. We are not without the
hope that those who read what we have written will see in
the past, with all its vicissitudes, and with all our own short
comings, the promise of a prosperous and honorable future,
of concord at home and peace and respect abroad, and that
the same cheerful piety which leads the good man to put his
personal trust in a kind Providence, will prompt the good
citizen to cherish an equal confidence in regard to the destiny
reserved for our beloved country.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
NEW YORK, 1876.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN.

PAGK

MAN COEVAL WITH EXTINCT ANIMALS. THE CAVE-PEOPLE. SCANDINAVIAN
SHELL-HEAPS. LAKE-DWELLINGS OF SWITZERLAND. HABITS OF THE PRIM
ITIVE MAN. Two STONE AGES. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN STONE RELICS OF
TWO HEMISPHERES. AMERICA THE OLDEST CONTINENT. A ZONE OF PYRA
MIDS. TRADITIONS OF A LOST CONTINENT. SHELL-HEAPS IN UNITED STATES.
A PRE-HISTORIC HUNT IN MISSOURI. HUMAN REMAINS IN GOLD-DRIFT OF
CALIFORNIA. SUPERIOR ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA 1

CHAPTER II.

THE MOUND BUILDERS.

PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN. PRE-HISTORIC RACE
IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. EARTHWORKS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
BIG ELEPHANT MOUND. GARDEN-BEDS. MILITARY WORKS. TEMPLE AND
ALTAR MOUNDS. RELICS FOUND IN THESE TUMULI. ANCIENT COPPEI!-
MINING AT LAKE SUPERIOR. CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS AND LATER CIVILI
ZATIONS. REMAINS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA. SKULLS FOUND IN
THE MOUNDS 19

CHAPTER III.

THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.

EARLY VOYAGES. DISCOVERY OF ICELAND. GREENLAND COLONIZED BY ERIC
THE RED. BJARNI HERJULFSON DISCOVERS AMERICA. SONS OF ERIC THE
RED. LEIF'S VOYAGE TO VINLAND THE GOOD. EXPEDITION OF THORVALD.
His DEATH. COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. FIGHT WITH SKR^L-
LINGS. SUPPOSED IRISH SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. COLONY OF FREYDIS.
THE MASSACHE. GLOOMY WINTER AT VINLAND. ROUND TOWER AT NEW
PORT. DIGHTON ROCK. THE ICELANDIC SAGAS 35

xxviii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

FEE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD.

ARABIAN SAILORS ON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. WELSH TRADITION OF AMER
ICAN DISCOVERY. VOYAGE OF MADOC, PRINCE OF WALES. EVIDENCE AD
DUCED. SUPPOSED TRACES OF WELSH AMONG DOEGS, MANDANS AND MOUND
BUILDERS. NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. SHIPWRECK OF NICOLO
ZENO AT FRISLAND. His ACCOUNT OF ENGRONELAND. ADVENTURES OF A
FRISLAND FISHERMAN. THE WESTERN VOYAGE OF PRINCE ZICHMNI. CHI
NESE DISCOVERY OF FUSANG. STATE OF NAUTICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL
KNOWLEDGE BEFORE COLUMBUS 64

CHAPTER V.

INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS.

THE KINGDOM OF CATHAY. EFFORTS IN EUROPE TO FIND A SEA-WAY TO
INDIA. PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. His DESIGN OF A WESTERN VOYAGE TO INDIA.
FAITH IN HIS DIVINE MISSION. THE THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY GEOG
RAPHERS. His LIFE IN SPAIN. THE COUNCIL AT SALAMANCA. His FIRST
VOYAGE. His BELIEF THAT HE HAS DISCOVERED INDIA. THE DELUSIOX OF
HIS LIFE. His BRIEF HONOR AND FINAL DISGRACE 92

CHAPTER VI.

COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS.

THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. His DISCOVERY- OF THE MAIN LAND. THE
VOYAGE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI. FIRST PRINTED ACCOUNT OF THE NEW
WORLD. PUBLICATIONS OF ST. DIE COLLEGE. THE PRINTER-MONKS,
WALDSEEMULLER AND RINGMANN. EXPEDITION OF THE CABOTS FROM ENG
LAND. NORTH AMERICA DISCOVERED. MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. JOHN
CABOT'S PATENTS FROM HENRY VII. FIRST ENGLISH COLONY SENT TO THE
NEW WORLD. SEBASTIAN CABOT SAILS DOWN THE AMERICAN COAST . .118

CHAPTER VII.

SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS.

DESIGNS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE TO INDIA. THE

CORTKREAL VOYAGES. VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA REACHES THE PACIFIC

OCEAN. SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. FLORIDA DISCOVERED.
GULF OF MEXICO SAILED OVER. EXPLORATIONS ON THE ATLANTIC SEA-
COAST. ESTAVAN GOMEZ ON THE BORDERS OF THE UNITED STATES. EX
PEDITION OF PAMPHILO DE NARVAEZ TO FLORIDA. ADVENTURES OF CABEgA
DE VACA THE ENTERPRISE OF HERNANDO DE SOTO. THE DISCOVERY OF
THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. DEATH AND DRAMATIC BURIAL OF DE SOTO.
RETURN OF THE TROOPS OF DE SOTO TRISTAN DE LUNA'S ATTEMPT TO
FOUND A COLONY . 139

CONTENTS. xxix

CHAPTER VIII.

FRENCH DISCOVERIES AND ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION.

BRETON FISHERMEN ON NEWFOUNDLAND BANKS. GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO
FIRST ENTERS NEW YORK HARBOR. JACQUES CARTIKR SENT ON AN AMER
ICAN EXPEDITION. EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. CAR-
TIER'S VISIT TO THE INDIAN TOWN OF HOCHELAGA. VOYAGE OF FRANCIS

DE LA ROQUE, LORD OF ROBERVAL. THE HUGUENOTS SEEK AN ASYLUM

IN AMERICA. THE COLONY OF ADMIRAL COLIGNY. JOHN RIBAULT GOES
TO FLORIDA. SETTING UP THE ARMS OF FRANCE. LAUDONNIERE COMMANDS
A SECOND ENTERPRISE. BUILDING or FORT CAROLINE. PROGRESS OF THE
COLONY . . 174

CHAPTER IX.

FRENCH AND SPANISH COLONISTS IN FLORIDA.

PLOTS AGAINST THE FRENCH GOVERNOR LAUDONNIERE. OPEN MUTINY IN

HIS COLONY. FIGHT WITH INDIANS. VISIT OF AN ENGLISH FLEET TO
PORT ROYAL. ARRIVAL OF RIBAULT WITH A FLEET OF SEVEN SHIPS.
CRUSADE OF PEDRO MENENDEZ AGAINST HERETICS. His ATTACK ON FORT
CAROLINE. SLAUGHTER OF RIBAULT AND HIS MEN BY THE SPANIARDS.
FOUNDING OF THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.
INDIGNATION OF THE FRENCH AT THE SPANISH ATROCITIES. DOMINIQUE

DE GOURGUES GOES TO FLORIDA. HE MAKES ALLIES OF THE SAVAGES.

ATTACK ON THE SPANISH FORT. THE BLOODY RETALIATION. A SPANISH
MISSION ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK 200

CHAPTER X.

ENGLISH VOYAGES AND ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.

FIRST IMPULSE IN ENGLAND TOWARD AMERICAN COLONIZATION. UNSUCCESS
FUL VOYAGES. THEORIES OF A NORTHEAST PASSAGE. VOYAGE OF SIR
HUGH WlLLOUGHBY AND RlCHARD CHANCELLOR. FROBISHER AND DAVIS
IN THE NORTHWEST. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S PLAN FOR AMERICAN SET
TLEMENTS. His DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND AND ARRIVAL AT NEWFOUND
LAND. Loss OF SIR HUMPHREY ON HIS RETURN. WALTER RALEIGH SENDS
TWO SHIPS TO EXPLORE IN AMERICA. HlS FlRST COLONY REACHES THE
COAST OF NORTH CAROLINA. TOBACCO INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND. NEW
PLANTATION BEGUN UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN WHITE. MYSTERIOUS DIS
APPEARANCE OF THE SETTLERS. UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR THE LOST COL
ONY. RALEIGH'S ATTEMPT AT COLONIZATION ENDED BY IMPRISONMENT . . 224

CHAPTER XI.

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA.

GOSNOLD'S EXPEDITION. PATENT GRANTED TO LONDON AND PLYMOUTH COM
PANIES. A COLONY SETS OUT FOR VIRGINIA. DISCORD ON SHIPBOARD.
THE BUILDING OF JAMESTOWN. NEWPORT'S EXPLORATION OF THE RIVER.

xxx CONTENTS.

GOVERNORSHIP OF EDWARD WINGFIELD. DISCONTENT AND SUFFERING AMONG
THE COLONISTS. THE INDIAN CHIEF POWHATAN. ACCOUNTS OF SMITHS
CAPTURE BY THE SAVAGES. DISCREPANCIES IN SMITH'S OWN STORY.
RETURN OF NEWPORT FROM ENGLAND. CORONATION OF POWHATAN. SER
VICES OF SMITH TO THK COLONY. THE NEW CHARTER. EXPEDITION OF
GATES AND SOMERS. THE TEMPEST AND THE SHIPWRECK. OPPORTUNE
COMING OF LORD DE LA WAKRE. CODE OF LAWS FOR THE COLONY.
ADMINISTRATION OF GATES AND DALE. CULTIVATION OF TOBACCO. MAR
RIAGE OF POCAHONTAS. SANDYS AND YfiARDLEY. THE COLONY FIRMLY

ESTABLISHED. WHITE AND BLACK SLAVERY. TlJE FlRST AMERICAN LEGIS
LATURE 262

CHAPTER XII.

COLONIZATION UNDER THE NORTHERN COMPANY.

THE SEA-COAST OF MAINE. THE EARLY FISHERMEN. FRENCH TRADERS.
PONTGRAVE AND POUTRINCOURT. GEORGE WEYMOUTH's VOYAGE. COLONY
OF CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM. SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN IN NEW YORK. SETTLE
MENT ON MT. DESERT. ARGALL'S DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH COLONY.
JOHN SMITH IN NEW ENGLAND. EXPEDITIONS OF FERDINANDO GORGES.
.SECOND CHARTER OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. NOVA SCOTIA GIVEN TO SIR
WILLIAM ALEXANDER. GRANT OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY TO GORGES.
FIRST TOWNS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE. THE BREAKING UP OF THE
PLYMOUTH COMPANY. CHARACTER OF GORGES . 308

CHAPTER XIII.

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. SETTLEMENT OF
NEW AMSTERDAM.

COMMERCIAL ENTERPISE AND PROSPERITY OF THE DUTCH. THEIR INTEREST
IN A SHORT ROUTE TO INDIA. EARLY NORTHEAST VOYAGES. HENRY HUD
SON EMPLOYED BY EAST INDIA COMPANY. HlS FlRST VOYAGE TO AMER
ICA. ENTRANCE INTO NEW YORK BAY AND DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON
RIVEK. His RETURN TO ENGLAND. VOYAGE TO HUDSON'S BAY. THE
DUTCH ESTABLISH TRADING-POSTS AT MANHATTAN ISLAND. DUTCH WEST
INDIA COMPANY CHARTERED. EMIGRATION OF WALLOONS. SETTLEMENTS
ON SITES OF ALBANY AND NEW YORK CITY" . .339

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PURITANS.

THE PURITANS UNDER JAMES I. SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH AT
THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE SEPARATISTS OF
NORTH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. BREWSTER AND THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE AT
SCROOBY. PERSECUTION OF THE PURITANS. THEIR ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE
FROM ENGLAND. LONG EXILE IN HOLLAND. MOTIVES FOR A PROPOSED
REMOVAL TO AMERICA. PETITION TO KING JAMES. NEGOTIATIONS WITH
THE DUTCH. EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS AT DELFT-HAVEN. FINAL
DEPARTURE OF THE "MAY FLOWER" FROM ENGLAND. ARRIVAL AT CAPE
COD. FORM OF GOVERNMENT ADOPTED. EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE COAST.
SITE FOR A COLONY SELECTED. CONFUSION OF FACTS AND DATES AS TO THE
LANDING AT PLYMOUTH. THE FIRST WINTER. SUFFERINGS AND DEATHS . 370

CONTENTS. xxxi

CHAPTER XV.

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

THE COMING OP FRIENDLY INDIANS. SAMOSET AND SQUANTO. CAPTAIN
DERMER'S PREVIOUS VISIT TO PLYMOUTH. STANDISH'S VISIT TO BOSTON
HARBOR. REINFORCEMENTS FROM ENGLAND. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AT
PLYMOUTH. -r- HOSTILE MESSAGE FROM THE NARRAGANSETTS. ARRIVAL OF
WESTON'S COLONISTS. THEIR SETTLEMENT AT WESSAGUSSET. AN INDIAN
CONSPIRACY. STANDISH'S EXPEDITION AND THE PLOT DEFEATED. THE
GRIEF OF PASTOR ROBINSON. ARRIVAL OF ROBERT GORGES. FIRST ALLOT
MENT OF LAND IN PLYMOUTH. JOHN PEIRCE'S PATENT. THE LYFORD AND
OLDHAM CONSPIRACY. THEIR BANISHMENT. BREAKING UP OF THE LONDON
COMPANY. THE PILGRIMS THROWN ON THEIR OWN RESOURCES. THE FISH
ING STATION AT CAPE ANN. ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CAPTAIN STANDISH AND
MR. HEWES. THE DORCHESTER SETTLEMENT AT CAPE ANN. CONANT'S
CHARGE OF IT, AND HIS REMOVAL TO NAUMKEAG. SETTLEMENTS ABOUT
BOSTON .HARBOR. MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT. STANDISH'S ARREST OF
MORTON 400

CHAPTER XVI.

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION.

THE ORDER OF PATRONS ESTABLISHED IN NEW NETHERLAND. DIVISION AND
MONOPOLY OF LANDS. THE COMPANY OVERREACHED BY THE PATROONS.
MASSACRE OF THE COLONISTS OF SWAANENDAEL. WOUTER VAN TWILLER
APPOINTED GOVERNOR. WEAKNESS AND ABSURDITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRA
TION. SUPERSEDED BY WILLIAM KIEFT. POPULAR MEASURES OF THE
COUNCIL AT AMSTERDAM. PURCHASE OF LANDS FROM PATROONS. INCREASE
OF IMMIGRATION. PROMISE OF PROSPERITY TO THE COLONY. PORTENTS
OF COMING CALAMITIES. A COUNCIL OF TWELVE APPOINTED 429

CHAPTER XVII.

WAR WITH THE INDIANS. THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE.

REMOVED FROM OFFICE. TERRITORIAL ENCROACHMENTS OF RlVAL CoL-

ONIES. THE ENGLISH AT THE EAST. A SWEDISH SETTLEMENT ON THE
DELAWARE. FORT CHRISTINA. THE SWEDISH GOVERNOP, JOHN PRINTZ . . 450

CHAPTER XVIII.

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

JEALOUSY OF JAMES I. OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY. EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
ELECTED TREASURER. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. MASSACRE OF 1622.
DISSENSIONS IN THE LONDON COUNCIL. CHARTER OF THE COMPANY TAKEN
AWAY. RAPID SUCCESSION OF GOVERNORS OF THE COLONY. LORD BAL-

xxxii CONTENTS.

TIMORE, AND HIS VlSIT TO VIRGINIA. CHARTER OF MARYLAND. CECIL

CALVERT'S COLONY. ITS LANDING IN MARYLAND THE FIRST TOWN.
Sr. MARY'S BLUFF. PURCHASE FROM THE INDIANS. THE FIRST CATHOLIC
CHAPEL. FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS 476

CHAPTER XIX.

MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT.

THE COLONY FIRMLY PLANTED. HOSTILITY OF THE VIRGINIANS. DISPUTE
WITH CLAYBORNE. ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND CORNWALLIS.
GOVERNOR HARVEY DEPOSED AND SENT TO ENGLAND. MEETINGS OF THE
MARYLAND ASSEMBLY. TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. DISSENSIONS BE
TWEEN PAPISTS AND PURITANS. REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. A PARLIA
MENTARY SHIP SEIZED IN MARYLAND. CLAYBORNE'S RECOVERY OF KENT
ISLAND. His RULE IN MARYLAND. RESTORATION OF BALTIMORE. DEATH
OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. MISTRESS MARGARET BRENT 499

CHAPTER XX.

MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
FRESH EMIGRATION TO MASSACHUSETTS.- A NEW CHARTER. ARRIVAL OF

HlGGINSON AND SlvELTON. TlIE FlRST CHURCH AT SALEM. TlIE CASE OF

JOHN AND SAMUEL BROWNE. THEY ARE ORDERED BACK TO ENGLAND BY
ENDICOTT. THE COUNCIL'S REBUKE. PROPOSED TRANSFER OF THE GOV
ERNMENT OF THE COLONY TO NEW ENGLAND. PROBABLE MOTIVES OF THE
COUNCIL IN PROCURING THE PATENT. THE CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE.

WlNTHROP CHOSEN GOVERNOR. DEPARTURE FOR NEW ENGLAND. HlS

FAREWELL ADDRESS TO ENGLISH CHURCHMEN. OLDHAM AND BRERETON'S
PATENTS. SETTLEMENTS IN AND ABOUT BOSTON. OLD SETTLERS ABOUT
THE BAY. THE COMING OF ROGER WILLIAMS. . 517

CHAPTER XXL

NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

LAWS, ECCLESIASTICAL AND POLITICAL. JOHN ELIOT'S WORK AMONG THE
INDIANS. JOHN COTTON ARRIVES IN BOSTON. THE RED CROSS IN THE
KING'S BANNER. PERSECUTION AND BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. SETTLERS FROM PLYMOUTH ON
THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. JOHN WINTHROP, JR., FIRST GOVERNOR OF CON
NECTICUT. HOOKER'S EMIGRATION TO HARTFORD. ANNE HUTCHINSON AND
HER DOCTRINES. MURDER OF JOHN OLDHAM. BEGINNING OF THE PEQUOD
WAR . . 538

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, YOLUME I.

STEEL PLATE.
Title. Engraver. " Tofaoe

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS S. Hollyer . . Title

From Herrera' l 8 History of America.

FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS.

To face
Title. Designer. Engraver. page

SIR WALTER RALEIGH . . 1

After the painting attributed to Federigo Zuccero.

A PRE-HISTORIC MAMMOTH HUNT . E. Bayard . . . Hildibrand . . 16

MOUNDS NEAR MARIETTA, OHIO . . J. D. Woodward . Meeder & Chubb . 24
COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL AT

SALAMANCA E. A. Abbey . . J. Miller . . . 108

SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH . E. Bayard . . . Ch. Barbant . . 146

RIBAULT'S PILLAR ON THE RIVER MAY . W. L. Sheppard . J. Karst . . . 196

THE LOST COLONY W. L. Sheppard . W. J. Linton . . 254

SITE OF GOSNOLD'S FORT .... A. Bierstadt . . W. H. Morse . . 264

From a picture in the possession of Miss Emma Hathaway, Boston.

LAKE CHAMPLAIN T. Moran . . . E. Bookhout . . 320

THE SABBATH ON CLARK'S ISLAND . G. H. Boughton . W. J. Linton . . 392

From a picture in the possession of Robert Hoe, New York.
LANDING OF SWEDES AT PARADISE

POINT T. Moran . . J. A. Bogert . . 466

GEORGE CALVERT, LORD BALTIMORE . . 485

After a copy, in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society, of the
painting ly Daniel My tens.

XXXIV

Title.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Designer.

THE MULBERRY TREE AT ST. MARY'S

POINT T. Moran . .

ENDICOTT CUTTING THE CROSS FROM

THE KING'S BANNER E. A. Abbey .

Engraver. Page.

. Robert Varley . 496
. J. G. Smithwick 542

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

Title. Designer. Engraver. Page.

PRIMEVAL AMERICA Runge Winham . . 1

LONG-HAIRED ELEPHANT " " . . 2

CARVING ON BONE (Long-haired Ele
phant) Hosier .... McDonald . . 3

CARVING ON BONE (Group of Reindeer) " " . . 3

LAKE-DWELLER'S VILLAGE (Restored by

Keller) " Miller . . 4

SAVAGE OF THE STONE AGE .... Runge .... Karst .... 5

STONE IMPLEMENTS Hosier .... Walker ... 6

Flint Awl. Swiss Stone Axe. Spear
Head. Stone Celt. Stone Scra
per. Bone Awl. Stone Dagger.

EARLIEST POTTERY u McDonald . . 6

DRINKING-CUP " " . . 7

THE AGE OF ICE Runge .... Miller ... 8

BRONZE IMPLEMENTS Hosier .... McDonald . . 9

Celt. Bronze Hair-pin (Swiss).
Bronze Razor Knife-blade (Dennak).
Bronze Knife-blade (Danish).

SCULPTURED STONE " McDonald . . 9

LAKE-DWELLER'S LOOM " Miller .... 10

ARROW-HEADS FROM DIFFERENT COUN
TRIES " Karst .... 11

Ireland. France. North America.
Terra del Fuego. Japan.

A ZONE OF PYRAMIDS " Karst .... 12

Egypt. Central America. India.
North America.

DR. KOCH'S ARROW-HEAD " McDonald . . 17

EARTHWORKS IN OHIO " Karst .... 20

ANIMAL MOUNDS " McDonald . . 22

BIG ELEPHANT MOUND " " . . 22

TEMPLE MOUND IN MEXICO .... " Miller .... 26

ALTAR MOUNDS " McDonald . . 27

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxxv

Title. Designer. Engraver. Page.

POTTERY FROM MOUNDS ...... Karst ... 28

STONE AND COPPER RELICS FROM MOUNDS . Hosier .... Eastmead . . 29
Axe. Bracelets. Stone Arrow Points.

Stone Axe. Bronze Knife. '
COPPKR IMPLEMENTS RECENTLY DIS
COVERED IN WISCONSIN Bobbett . . 30

From photographs of specimens in collection of Wisconsin His
torical Society. Selected from photographs taken under the
direction of Lyman C. Draper and J. D. Butler.
Adzes. Arrow-heads. Chisel.

Knife. Awl. Spear-head.

POTTERY AND SUPPOSED IDOLS RECENTLY FOUND WITH
HUMAN REMAINS IN BURIAL MOUNDS IN SOUTHEAST MlS-

SOURI Roberts ... 31

From photographs taken under the direction of A. J. Conant of
St. Louis.

MINING TOOLS Hosier .... McDonald . . 30

CARVED PIPES Eastmead . . 32

SCULPTURED HEADS Juengling . . 32

Mound Builders. Central America.

CLOTH FROM MOUNDS McDonald . . 33

DISCOVERY OF GREENLAND A. R. Waud . . Miller ... 35

FLOKKO SENDING OUT RAVENS ... ... Anthony . . 37

NORSE SHIPS ENTERING BOSTON HARBOR . . . Linton ... 43

BURIAL-PLACE OF THORVALD .... ... Anthony . . 45

NORSE RUINS IN GREENLAND .... Hosier .... Nugent ... 46

SCOUTS RETURNING TO THE SHIP . . A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 48

ESQUIMAUX SKIN-BOAT Hosier .... Speer ... 51

LEIF'S BOOTHS A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 55

NEWPORT TOWER Hosier .... Miller ... 59

CHESTERTON MILL Roberts ... 60

DIGHTOX ROCK Eastmead . . 61

STEUBENVILLE ROCK Roberts ... 61

THE SEA OF DARKNESS A. R. Waud . . . Anthony . . 64

WELSH BARD ... Bookhout . . 67

DAVID, PRINCE OF WALES Eastmead . . 68

From Powell's History of Cambria.

MADOC LEAVING WALES A. R. Waud. . . Linton ... 69

WELSHMAN Hosier .... Miller ... 71

MANDAN BOATS Karst ... 73

From Catlings North American Indians.

WELSH CORACLE A. R. Waud . . Miller ... 74

MANDAN INDIAN Hosier .... " ... 75

SHIPWRECK OF NICOLO ZENO . . . . A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 77

xxxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Title. Designer. Engraver. Page.

GREENLAND GEYSER Hosier .... Juengling . . 79

AZTEC CITY A. R. Waud . . Miller ... 82

CHINESE JUNK Hosier .... " ... 86

THE "FAR CATHAY" <T. Moran . . . Linton ... 92

ASTROLABE Hosier .... Karst ... 96

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR Nichols ... 97

From General Collection of Voyages and Discoveries by Span
ish and Portuguese, London, 1789.

SHIP OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY .... Hosier .... Eastmead . .100

THE CHRIST-BEARER Aikens . . . 102

From a Map of Juan de la Cosa.

COLUMBUS ON SHIPBOARD A. R. Waud . . Bobbett . . .105

ISABELLA, QUKEN OF CASTILE Nichols . . . 109

THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS Hosier Miller . . .110

RECEPTION BY SOVEREIGNS A. R. Waud . . . Anthony . . 115

COLUMBUS ENTERING THE ORINOCO . ... . . 119

COLUMBUS IN CHAINS G. G. White . . Varley . . .120

AMERIGO VESPUCCI Nichols . .122

From a portrait in Hen-era's Hisloria General de las Indias.

VESPUCCI AT THE CONTINENT 123

From De Bry's Duae Navigationes Amend Vespucci, 1619.

PRINTING OF VESPUCCI'S BOOK . . . G. G. White . . Anthony . .125

JOHN CABOT IN LONDON Sheppard . . . Karst . . .135

SEBASTIAN CABOT Nichols . . . 138

From the N. Y. Historical Society's copy of the original by

Holbein.

FAC-SIMILE OF SIGNATURE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI .... McDonald . .138

From Verhagen.

CORTEREAL AT LABRADOR T. Moran .... Bogert . . . 140

VASCO NUNEZ ox SHIPBOARD . . . E. A. Abbey . . Bobbett . . . 143

THE SOUTH SEA A. R. Waud . . Varley . . . 144

FIRST EMBARKATION ON THE SOUTH

SEA " ... Bogert . . .145

JUAN PONCE DE LEON Miller . . .147

From a portrait in Herrera's Historia General de las Indias.

STRAITS OF MAGELLAN A. R. Waud . . Hitchcock . .150

CLAVOS AND ESCLAVOS Sheppard . . . Varley . . .152

RETURN TO THE BEACH " . Boo-ert , .154

UPSET IN THE SURF " .... Andrew . . . 155

DE SOTO Nichols . . .157

From a portrait engraved for the Bradford Club, of New York.

THE MUSTER AT SAN LUCAR . . . . E. A. Abbey . . Varley . . .158

SACRIFICE OF JUAN ORTIZ Sheppard . . . Miller . . .159

THE INDIAN QUEEN .... . Bobbett. . 162

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxxvii

Title. Designer. Engraver. Page.

PALISADED TOWN Hosier Miller . . . 16$

From De Bry's Brevis Narratio, 1591.

FLEET OF THE CACIQUE A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . 165

BURIAL OF DE SOTO ' ... " ... 168

DEPARTURE OF THE SPANIARDS ... " ... " ... 170

FISHING FLEET AT NEWFOUNDLAND. . T. Moran . . . Miller . . .174

PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO Nichols . . .176

INDIANS MAKING A CANOE Hosier .... Varley . . .177

From De Bry's Admiranda Narratio, 1590.

VERRAZANO IN NEWPORT HARBOR . . A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . .179

JACQUES CARTIER Nichols . . . 180

From the portrait in Histoire de la Colonie Franfaise en Canada.

SETTING UP THE ARMS OF FRANCE . . Bayard .... Hildibrand . .182

DONNACONA'S STRATEGY " ... Laplante . . 184

CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA E. A. Abbey . . Varley . . . 186

CARTIER'S DEPARTURE FROM ST. MALO A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . 188

FRENCH COSTUMES (16th Century) . . . W. Waud . . . Langridge . . 189

ENTERING THE ST. JOHN RIVER . . . T. Moran . . . Bogert . . .191

BUILDING THE PINNACE A. R. Waud . . Fay . . . .195

FORT CAROLINE Hosier .... Roberts . . .198

From De Bry's Brevis Narratio, 1591.

ARREST OF THE PIRATES E. Bayard . . . Laplante . . 201

FIGHT WITH INDIANS ".... . . 203

PEDRO MENENDEZ Nichols . . . 205

From Shea's Charlevoix's New France.

RESCUE OF LAUDONNIERE E. Bayard . . . Laplante . . 208

MASSACHE OF RIBAULT " ... " . . 211

LAYING OUT OF ST. AUGUSTINE . . . Sheppard . . . Anthony . .213

DEATH OF THE SENTINEL E. Bayard . . . Barbant . .217

THE FRENCH FIFER A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 223

WILLOUGHBY'S SHIPS IN ARCTIC SEAS A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . 228

FROBISHER'S DEPARTURE " ... King . . . 230

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT Nichols . . .232

VIEW ON COAST NEAR TORQUAY . . . A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . 233

DARTMOUTH HARBOR " ... " ... 234

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT READING HIS

COMMISSION Fredericks . . . Bobbett . . .237

WRECK OF THE "DELIGHT" . . . . A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 238

SIR WALTER RALEIGH Nichols . . . 240

From a portrait in Prince's Worthies of Devon.

LANDING ON THE ISLAND T. Moran . . . Anthony . . 242

LORD AND LADY OF SECOTAN .... Hosier .... Winham . . 244

From De Bry's Admiranda Narratio, 1590.

QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND Walker . . . 245

From an original by Zuccero in Lodge's Portraits.

xxxviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Title. Designer. Engraver. Page.

SIGNATURE OF RALPH LANE McDonald . , 246

AN INDIAN VILLAGE Hosier Aikens . . . 248

From De Bry's Admiranda Narratio, 1590.

TOBACCO PLANT " ... 250

BARTHOLOMEW GILBERT'S DEATH . . Sheppard . . . . Linton . . . 260

SIGNATURE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 261

SIGNATURE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 261

ENTRANCE TO CHESAPEAKE BAY . . T. Moran .... Mecder . . 262

PROVINCETOWN A. R. Waud . . . McCracken . . 263

JAMES I Nichols . . . 268

From a portrait in Goodman's History of Court of James I.
JOHN SMITH ' " ... 269

From Smith's Map in his General History of Virginia.
Fac-simile.

NEWPORT'S EMBARKATION Sheppard .... Varley . . . 271

DEPOSITION OF WINGFIELD .... E. A. Abbey . . . Bobbett . . . 277
JOHN SMITH TAKEN PRISONER Richardson . . 280

From Smith's General History. Fac-simile.

POCAHONTAS SAVING LlFE OF SMITH " . . 282

From Smith's General History. Fac-simile.

POWHATAN AND HIS WlVES " . . 284

From Smith's General History. Fac-simile.

CORONATION OF POWHATAN .... Sol Eytinge . . . J. P. Davis . . 288
TAKING KING OF PAMUNKEY PRISONER Richardson . . 290

From Smith's General History.

SIGNATURE OP SIR THOMAS GATES 292

SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM STRACHEY 292

WRECK OF THE " SEA ADVENTURE" . A. R. Waud . . King .... 293

SIGNATURE OF GEORGE PERCY 295

SIGNATURE OF LORD DE LA WARRE 296

ARRIVAL OF DE LA WARRE .... Sheppard . . . Smithwyck . .297

THE IDLE COLONISTS Fredericks . . . Bobbett . . . 299

POCAHONTAS Hosier Eastmead . . 303

PRESENTATION OF POCAHONTAS AT

COURT Sol Eytinge . . . J. P. Davis . . 304

SIGNATURE OF JAMES 1 307

INDIANS AT A PORTAGE Sheppard . . . W. J. Linton . 308

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN Hosier .... Aikens . . .312

From portrait in (Euvres-de Champlain, Quebec, 1870.

SIGNATURE OF CHAMPLAIN 313

THE MOUTH OF THE KENNEBEC . . . W. Waud . . . W. J. Linton . 315

INDIANS IN LONDON Cary . . . . , Varley . . .317

MEETING OF NAHANADA AND SKIT-

WARROES Sheppard . . . Bogert . . .318

SETTING DOGS ON THE INDIANS ... " ... " ... 320

GREAT HEAD T. Moran . . . Bookhout . . 323

BAR HARBOR .... " . Hitchcock . 324

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxxix

Title. Designer. Engraver. Page.

SOMES'S SOUXD T. Moran . . . Anthony . . 325

ARGALL'S ATTACK ON THE FRENCH . Sheppard . . . Gray .... 326

COD-FISHING Perkins . . . Andrew . . . 328

RICHARD VINES AT CRAWFORD NOTCH Waud .... Anthony . . .330

SIGNATURE OF FERDINANDO GORGES ;j32

VIEW AT THE MOUTH OF THE Pis-

CATAQUA T. Moran . . . Varley .... 334

MEDAL [Time of Charles V.] . . . . Hosier .... Aikens . . . 340
DUTCH SHIPPING [16th Century] . . . A. R. Waud . . Varley . . . 342
BARENTZ AT NOVA ZEMBLA .... " . . Bookhout . . . 344

HUDSON'S ATTACK ON THE INDIAN

VILLAGE Sol Eytinge . . Andrew . . . 349

THE APPROACH TO THE NARROWS . . E. Perkins . . King .... 350

ROBYN'S RIFT A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . . 352

VERDRIETIG HOECK J. D. Woodward . Morse .... 353

LIMIT OF HUDSON'S VOYAGE .... " . . Annin .... 354

NAHANT T. Moran . . . Bookhout . . . 359

BLOCK ISLAND A. R. Waud . . Hoey .... 360

UPPER WATERS OF THE DELAWARE . W. H. Gibson . Harley . . . 362

TRADING SCOUTS A. R. Waud . . Richardson . . 363

FIRST SETTLEMENT AT ALBANY ... " . . French . . . 366
EARLIEST PICTURE OF NEW AMSTER
DAM Hosier .... McDonald . . 368

From a map of the period.

FIRST SEAL OF PLYMOUTH COLONY Maurice . . .370

VIKW OF SCROOBY VILLAGE .... Warren . . . Gray .... 372
FIRE-PLACE IN 16TH CENTURY ... " ... French . . .373

SITE OF SCROOBY MANOR " ... " ... 374

SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM BREWSTER 375

ATTEMPTED FLIGHT OF PURITANS . . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . .377
CHURCH AT AUSTERFIELD, BRADFORD'S

BIRTHPLACE Hosier .... Karst .... 380

LEYDEN Woodward . . Juengling . . . 384

DELFT-HAVEN Hosier .... Karst .... 386

PLYMOUTH HARBOR, ENGLAND . . . T. Moran . . . Varley. . . . 387
HARBOR OF PROVINCETOWN . . . . A. R. Waud . . Harley . . . 388
THE LANDING ON CAPE COD .... " . . Langridge . . 390

SIGNATURE OF MILES STANDISH 391

RELICS FROM THE "MAYFLOWER" Hosier. . . . Juengling. . . 395

John Alden's Bible. William Clark's

Mug and Wallet, etc.
LANDING OF JOHN ALDEN AND MARY

CHILTON Abbey .... Varley . . . 396

STONE CANOPY OVER PLYMOUTH ROCK Hosier .... Bookhout . . . 397

xl LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Title. Designer. Engraver. Paye.

FIRST BURIAL PLACE NEAR THE LAND
ING Gibson .... McCracken . . 398

GOVERNOR CARVER'S CHAIR .... Hosier .... McDonald . . 399
VISIT OF SAMOSET TO THE COLONY . A. R. Waud . . J. P. Davis . . 400

SIGNATURES TO PLYMOUTH PATENT 403

CHRISTMAS REVELLERS Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 404

BURIAL HILL Hosier .... Miller .... 406

SWORD OF MILES STANDISH 408

SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM BRADFORD 410

SITE OF FIRST CHURCH AND GOV
ERNOR BRADFORD'S HOUSE . . . A. R. Waud . . French . . .411

SIGNATURE OF EDWARD WINSLOW 413

EXPULSION OF OLDHAM Abbey .... Langridge . .415

BARRICADE AT CAPE ANN .... " ... French . . .418

STANDISH'S POT AND PLATTER . . . Hosier .... Maurice . . . 419

SPINNING WHEEL " ... Karst .... 422

FESTIVITIES AT MERRY MOUNT . . . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 425

PLYMOUTH ROCK Hosier .... Richardson . . 428

AMSTERDAM W. Waud . . . Langridge . . 429

SEAL OF NEW NETHERLAND 430

DUTCH COSTUMES W. Waud . . . Langridge . . 431

TRADING FOR FURS A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . .434

INDIAN TAKING DOWN THE ARMS OF

HOLLAND ' . . " ... 436

PORTRAIT OF DE VRIES Bross .... 437

From a photograph of an old print in 1st edition of De Vries's Voyages.
VAN TWILLER'S DEFIANCE .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 438
DE VRIES ON THE EAST RIVER . . . A. R. Waud . . Bookhout . . . 439

DUTCH WINDMILL 442

GOVERNOR'S HOUSE AND CHURCH . . Hosier .... McDonald . . 442
THE OBSTINATE TRUMPETER .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 443
LANDING OF DUTCH COLONY ON

STATEN ISLAND A. R. Waud . . J. P. Davis . .447

SELLING ARMS TO THE INDIANS . . . . Langridge . . 450

DE VKIKS IN THE ICE A. R. Waud . . Morse .... 453

DINNER AT VAN DAM'S M. A. Hallock . Anthony . . . 454

INDIAN FUGITIVES FROM PAVONIA . . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 455
MASSACRE OF ANN HUTCHINSON . Sheppard . . . Richardson . .457

THE BINNENHOF Hosier .... Hitchcock . . 459

MARCH AGAINST THE INDIANS IN CON
NECTICUT Winslow Homer . W. J. Linton . 461

HALL OF THE STATES GENERAL . . Hosier .... Avery .... 463
SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE . . . Sheppard . . . Bogert .... 464
COSTUMES OF SWEDES W. Waud . . . Langridge . .467

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xli

Title, Designer. Engraver. Page.

EARLY SWEDISH CHURCH Hosier .... Cocheu . . . 469

PRINTZ AND THE SAILOR Sheppard . . . Bogert . . . . 472

TAKING WARNING TO JAMESTOWN . . Warren . . . J. P. Davis . . 480

DESERTED SETTLEMENT W. H. Gibson . Harley .... 483

SCENERY IN THE CHESAPEAKE . . . T. Moran . . . W. J. Linton . 485

HENRIETTA MARIA Bross .... 487

From Lodge's portraits.

CECIL CALVERT [From an old print] " ... 489

COWES IN THE ISLE OP WIGHT . . . Woodward . . Bogert .... 490

LANDING OF THE COLONY Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 492

GOVERNOR CALVERT AND THE INDIAN

CHIEF Sheppard . . . J. P. Davis . . 493

ST. GEORGE'S ISLAND T. Moran . . . Anthony . . . 495

THE BLUFF AT ST. MARY'S .... " . . " . . 496

RETURN FROM A HUNT Woodward . . Mecder . . .497

MARYLAND SHILLING . . 499

CLAYBORNE'S TRADING-POST ON KENT

ISLAND A. R. Waud . . Richardson . . 500

FIGHT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND CORN-

WALLIS " . . Bookhout . . . 502

EXCITEMENT AT JAMESTOWN .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 503

CLAYBORNE'S PETITION " . . " . . 507

INDIAN ATTACK ON AN OUTLYING PLAN
TATION Sheppard . . . Harley .... 509

CHANCELLOR'S POINT FROM ST. INI-

GOE'S T. Moran . . . Varley . . . 512

CHURCH NEAR THE SITE OF THE FIRST

JESUIT CHAPEL ' . . W. J. Linton . . 513

FAC-SIMILE OF MS. RECORDS 515

SHAWM UT Woodward . . Meeder . . .517

PORTRAIT OF ENDICOTT Nichols . . . 520

SIGNATURE OF ENDICOTT 521

THE OLD PLANTER'S HOUSE Roberts . . .522

COLONIAL RELICS Hosier .... French . . . 523

Endicott's Sundial, etc.
SEAL OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY COM
PANY Hosier 525

PORTRAIT OF JOHN WINTHROP, SENIOR Nichols . . . 527

SIGNATURE OF WINTHROP 527

COLONIAL FURNITURE Lathrop . . . Marsh .... 530

COLONIAL RELICS " ... " .... 531

OLD HOUSE, BOSTON, ENGLAND . . . Hosier .... Miller . . . .533

MAP OF BOSTON HARBOR 534

SIGNATURE OF ROGER WILLIAMS ... 534

xlii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Title. Designer. Engraver. Paye.

FIRST CHURCH, SALEM Hosier .... Juengling . . 535

SIGNATURE OF JOHN COTTON 540

ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH, BOSTON, ENG
LAND Hosier .... Karst .... 541

ROGER WILLIAMS'S HOUSE, SALEM Bobbett . . . 545

ROGER WILLIAMS BUILDING HOUSE Anthony . . . 546

SITE OF FORT GOOD HOPE A. R. Waud . . Annin .... 548

SIGNATURE OF LORD SAY AND SEAL 550

TEARING DOWN THE DUTCH ARMS . . Sheppanl . . . Bogert . . . 550

PORTRAIT OF JOHN WINTHROP, JUNIOR Bross .... 551

HOOKER'S EMIGRATION TO CONNECTI
CUT Sheppard . . . Bogert . . . 552

HENRY VANE 553

TRIAL OF ANN HUTCHINSON .... Abbey .... Marsh .... 555
RECAPTURE OF OLDHAM'S VESSEL . . A. R. Waud . . Langridge . . 557

LIST OF MAPS.

Title. Page.

MAP OF CAPE COD AND NAWSET ISLE 41

THE ZENI MAP 84

GLOBE OF MARTIN BEHAIM, 1492 103

SEBASTIAN CABOT'S MAP, 1544 132

MAP OF VIRGINIA 243

From Harlot's Relation.

MAP OF CAPE COD 264

MAP OF PLYMOUTH HARBOR 394

MAP OF NEW ENGLAND 519

Fac-simile. From Smith's General History.

WALTER RALEIGH.
(From the jmrtrait attributed to Federigo Zuccero.)

Primeval America.

CHAPTER I.

THE FEE-HISTORIC MAN.

MAN COEVAL WITH EXTINCT ANIMALS. THE CAVE-PEOPLE. SCANDINAVIAN SHELL-
HEAPS. LAKE-DWELLINGS OF SWITZERLAND. HABITS OF THE PRIMITIVE MAN.
Two STONE AGES. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN STONE RELICS OF Two HEMISPHERES.
AMERICA THE OLDEST CONTINENT. A ZONE OF PYRAMIDS. TRADITIONS OF
A LOST CONTINENT. SHELL-HEAPS IN UNITED STATES. A PRE-HISTORIC HUNT
IN MISSOURI. HUMAN REMAINS IN GOLD-DRIFT OF CALIFORNIA. SUPERIOR AN
TIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA.

THE period and the conditions of the early existence of man have,
within the last half century, been the subject of fresh and interesting
investigation. The recognition of human relics in certain geological
relations has established the fact that there once prevailed in Europe
a barbarism essentially like that belonging to the lower type

J m . . J . Antiquity of

of savages of our own time. 1ms primeval state ot man in man in EU-
that portion of the world existed too long ago to be included
within the historic period ; and, so far as careful observation has been
made, similar evidence of the antiquity of the race is found in the

THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN.

[CHAP. I.

imperishable signs of human habitation and the rude arts of savage
life in all other parts of the globe.

Northern Europe at one period was buried in an Arctic winter for
many centuries. On the ^ summits of lofty mountain ranges, great
glaciers of; iqe an<J -ghQW=' were piled, which advanced by slow degrees,
and cohered, land. .avvd. sea., -^hen at length this long and dreary
period''-dr:e\v-itc)wk' > d'ife.4l6si8, the glaciers receded, and the earth be
came habitable, then, although a period of intense cold was long con
tinued, there appeared many great and strange animals, now known

only by their fossil
remains. Among
them, wandering in
herds over the region
which afterwards was
shaped into the pres
ent continent of Eu
rope, feeding upon
the vegetation of a
virgin world, were
the elephant, with
long hair and mane,
a rhinoceros clad in
fur, a gigantic elk
ten feet in height,
with antlers measur
ing eleven feet from tip to tip, the cave-bear, the cave-lion, and other
ferocious beasts after their kind, hiding themselves and their prey in
dens and caverns. In caves and gravel drifts in France, in Belgium,
and in England, man has left the indubitable witnesses of his life, in
association with the bones of these extinct animals, of which whole
races perished while he survived through periods of successive sub
mersions and upheavals of land, of floods from slowly receding gla
ciers, of alterations in climate due, perhaps, to the changing relative
positions of the earth to the sun, perhaps to the relative areas of land
and sea in different portions of the globe at different periods.

These people who first appeared, or the first, at least, who are
known to have appeared, in Europe, were mere naked sav
ages with an instinct to kill and to eat, to creep under a rock
as a shelter from the cold and the rain ; who in the course of time
learned that fire would burn and cook, that there was warmth in the
skin of a beast, that a sharpened stone would kill and would scrape
much better than a blunt one. From generation to generation they
lived and died in the caves where they have left the evidences of their

Long-haired Elephant.

The cave
men.

REMAINS IN SHELL-HEAPS.

Carving on Bone. (Long-haired Elephant.)

existence ; and it is a curious and interesting mark of their progress
that some of these troglodytes in the south of France made tolerable
carvings in bone and
drawings of various
animals upon horns
and tusks of ivory.
Pictures of the long
haired elephant and
of groups of reindeer
show the possession
of that artist -sense
which seems as pe
culiar to and inher
ent in man as the power to laugh and the faculty of articulate speech ;
and they prove also that these artists were familiar with the animals
they sketched, of which one is known to the modern world only by
its fossil remains, and another, though still extant, is able to live only
in latitudes of extreme cold.

On the coast of Denmark there are immense shell-heaps called

K j okken-Moddings kitchen
middings or kitch- RemainsiQ
en-refuse - heaps ^en-heaps.
differing little, if at all, from
similar heaps on other coasts,
all over the world, except
that they have been dug
into, turned up, sifted, stud
ied, inch by inch, atom by
atom, with that sagacity, pa
tience, and minuteness which
distinguish modern science. In these are found, mingled with stone im
plements, bones of various beasts and birds and shells of different fish,
the bones of a certain species of grouse, a bird known to have fed
upon the buds of the pine tree. But the pine tree does not grow, and
has not grown within the historic period, in Denmark. It is found,
however, in the peat-bogs, thirty feet beneath the present surface of
the soil. Above these buried pines are the trunks of the oak and white
birch that followed the pine forests, flourished for centuries, and then
in their turn died out. On the upper surface of the bogs grows the
beech, the common forest tree of Denmark now, as it has been so far
back as either history or tradition goes. Thus forest after forest of dif
ferent species, to which the climate and the soil were adapted, has come
and gone since the people of the Kjokken-Moddings fed upon this bird,
the capercailzie, which lived upon the buds of those buried pines.

Carving on Bone. (Group of Reindeer.)

THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN.

[CHAP. I.

Nor are these men of the caves and of the Kjokken-Moddings the
only representatives of the ancient race or races who left their relics
in their actual habitations. In the years 1853-54, two successive dry
seasons reduced the waters of the lakes of Switzerland to a lower point
than was ever known before. It was discovered, first by accident and
afterward by careful search, that dwellings built upon piles had once

Lake-dweller's Village. (Restored by Keller.)

stood in these lakes near their shores. Continued systematic and pa
tient examination of the sites of these habitations proves that some of
them belonged to an ancient people, and that, as their relics show,
they lived in them, from century to century, from the earliest appear
ance of man down, probably, to the historic period.

With these last discoveries the case seems complete. In the dark
caves of various regions, for whose possession these early men doubt
less contended with the cave-lion, the cave-bear, and the cave-hyena ;
by the sea-shore in the Kjokken-Moddings of Denmark; in the huts
of the Lake region where they put water between themselves and all
danger from wild beasts or other enemies, their history is read in the
simple implements of the infancy and childhood of the race.

When the human creature learned that he could avail himself of
his hands in a way and witli an intelligent purpose to which

Implements . i i r t t

of the prim- no other animal had attained, and of which mere paws and
claws seemed incapable, his first use, probably, of that dis
covery was. to hurl a stick or a stone at an enemy or a wild beast in

IMPLEMENTS OF THE STONE AGE. 5

defence or attack. Observation and experience would soon lead him
to some contrivance better than a mere missile, and to combine the
stick and the stone into an artificial weapon. So, also, from bruising
or crushing with a pebble, the transition is equally natural to a rude

Savage of the Stone Age.

hammer or hatchet, the stone prepared, in some way, to receive a
handle, or sharpened at one end to an edge, so that a blow could be
struck to break or cut with careful limitations. In the first period of
this early age, therefore, when man is supposed to have begun to learn
that he had the faculty of invention which might make him superior
to all other animals, are found the first rude weapons and implements,
arrow-heads and spear-heads, knives, hatchets, hammers, and tools
sharpened to edges of different shapes and for various purposes, all
made of stone or bone, but all only roughly chipped, unground, and
unpolished.

It must have taken generations, it may have taken centuries, before
even this much of culture was secured by the man, whose wants were
few, whose intellect was as feeble as the intellect of a modern child,
but whose mere brute force of muscular strength and whose power of
endurance were probably so great as alone to suffice, for the most
part, to satisfy all his wants. Certainly, as the relics he has left be
hind him show, a long time elapsed before he much improved his con
dition. Slowly and gradually he added to the number of his tools, and
improved upon their shape and capability. Among the most common

THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN.

[CHAP. I.

of these improved implements is what the antiquary calls a celt
celtis, a chisel and which may have been used either as a chisel, a
hatchet, or an adze ; he contrived a scraper, with which he cleaned

Stone Implements.

Fig. 1, flint awl. 2, Swiss stone axe. 3, spear-head. 4, stone celt. 5, stone scraper. 6, bone awl.

7, stone dagger.

the adhering flesh from the skins of the beasts he killed ; he invented
bodkins and needles of bone, to pass through them the sinews that
served for thread when he made clothing of these skins ; and he fash
ioned harpoons for fishing. To his offensive weapons he added dag
gers ; his axe he improved in size and shape; and he cut jagged teeth
in long flakes of flint for saws. Such of these implements as were for

use once or twice only in war or in the
chase, or for rough and infrequent purposes,
he left still rudely chipped.

But with the exercise of the inventive
power came the sense of beauty, the con
sciousness of increased effectiveness in the
perfection of a tool, and perhaps the de
velopment of a new satisfaction in the per
manent possession of personal property of
his own creation. Then he was no longer
Earnest Pottery. content with the rough pebble that he

picked up on the beach, but sought for better material ; he studied the
grain and the cleavage of different flints and obsidians ; bestowed time

THE PRIMITIVE MAN. 7

and much labor upon the perfecting of his implements ; contrived new
and more convenient handles : gave grace and outline to their shapes ;
ground their edges to keen sharpness, and
polished them with studious care. So in
the lapse of centuries he attained at length
to the age of Polished Stone. With it
come the first evidences of the manufac
ture of a rude pottery, learned, perhaps,
by some observant savage from the acci-
dental baking of clay, who conceived therefrom a better drinking-
cup, or vessel to hold his food, than a clam-shell or the hollow of his
hand. 1

From all the varied relics of the man of the early, and so far as
is yet known the earliest epoch, the ethnologist has deduced His mode of
that he was of small brains, retreating forehead, projecting Ufe>
jaws, low in intellect, but of great strength of bone and muscle,
which enabled him to encounter and overcome the formidable dangers
of his time. He lived near the sea-shore or on the banks of lakes
and rivers, from which he drew, in part, his subsistence. A hunter
and fisherman, compelled to a constant struggle for bare subsistence,
he did not at first cultivate the earth, and it is doubted if even he
bestowed much labor upon gathering the fruits and vegetables which
nature unassisted might have afforded him. His food was flesh ; the
incisors of the jaws that have been found are, like those of the Esqui
maux of the present day, worn smooth, and it is surmised that, like
that people, he preferred to eat raw perhaps because he was slow in
learning how to cook the flesh of the animals he killed. His front
teeth did not overlap as ours do, but met one another like those of the
Greenlanders, and he could therefore the more easily tear and gnaw
the flesh from the bones. 2 Sometimes on the bones of children, as well
as of adults, the marks of such human teeth have been observed, and
it is supposed that failing other food, he fed, not only upon his enemies
whom he killed in battle, but upon those whom he could only be led
to eat by the extremity of hunger or the mere fondness for human flesh.
But he was not always a cannibal, or at least the testimony to this
propensity is not always present among the other evidences of his way
of life. The skins of the beasts he killed in the chase or trapped,
perhaps served for tents, and no doubt for clothing ; their flesh and
the marrow of their bones, for which he seems to have had a special
fondness, were his food. These skins he dressed with his unpolished
stone scraper, shaped them with his stone knife, sewed them with

1 See Tylor, Lubbock, Lyell, Vogt, Dawkins, Gustaldi, Busk, Keller, Figuier, et al.

2 Pre-historic Times. By Sir John Lubbock.

THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN.

[CHAP. I.

threads of sinews in needles of bone. A flatness or compression of
the shin-bone, differing from the shape of the tibia of civilized man,
is sometimes found, which permitted, it is suggested, of a disposition
of the muscles peculiarly adapted to men living by hunting in a rough
and mountainous country. 1 He found a shelter at first in natural
caves, and in huts of the simplest construction, partly because the con
vulsions of nature, however gradual they may have been, were still
too frequent and too tremendous to admit of any pretermission of the
struggle with the elements by which alone he could maintain exist
ence ; or to leave any leisure for the development of the architectural
faculty.

To the beginning of that remote and long continued epoch has

been given the name of the Stone Age, because then men
and Ground had only learned to fashion from the pebbles they picked up

at their feet, a rude weapon for warfare or a ruder imple
ment for domestic use. And this era of the childhood of the race is
divided into two periods, the Unground Stone Age (Palaeolithic), and
the Ground Stone (Neolithic) Age. But the dividing line between

The Age of Ice.

1 See Broca upon the Ossemens des Azies ; Busk on Human Remains, etc., in the Caves
of Gibraltar. Report of the International Congress of Pre-historic Archaeology, 1868;
Dawkins' Cave Hunting, London, 187*1.

THE LAKE-DWELLERS.

these two periods is so vague and uncertain that it is thought by
some impossible to define it in any other way than by the recurrence
of a second glacial era when all Europe was wrapped in an Arctic
winter, and buried in Arctic ice, probably for hundreds of years. 1

At any rate a long period passed away before these rude men
learned to grind and polish the
stones which at first they only
chipped, and it is doubted if
their stone axes were pierced to
receive a handle till working in
metals in later times had taught
them a method for the process.
For the Stone Age overlapped
the Bronze, and even when they
had come to know how to smelt
copper and had learned that
nine parts of that metal to one
of tin would make a combina
tion hard enough for a useful
tool, or sword, or spear, they

i i i j ji in- i Bronze Implements.

long held to their old imple- ,,. , ,. , , . . , . , .

Fig. 1, celt. 2, bronze hair-pm (Swiss). 3, bronze razor
Of Stone, nO doubt, be- knife-blade (Dennak). 4, bronze knife-blade (Danish.)

cause of the cost of material and slow growth of skill. But when man
began to smelt ores he began to make history ; and there is a visible

connection between the Bronze Age and our
own, in traditions, oral and written, in in
scriptions upon sculptured stones, in picture-
writing in temples and on ancient monu
ments.

The Lake- dwellers, however, though some
of them were in the condition of the earliest
Stone Age, were generally of that more re
cent period when the continent had settled
into its present form ; their population was
numerous enough to gather into communi
ties sufficient for the felling of trees with
their stone axes ; these trees, sharpened with
the aid of fire, they drove into the muddy
bottoms of the lakes as piles for the support
of the platforms of their houses. With their relics, in beds three feet
in thickness, the accumulation of centuries, are found the first evi
dences of agriculture and horticulture. Among the charred remains

1 The Great Ice Age; and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. By James Geikie. ]874.

Sculptured Stone.

THE PKE-HISTORIC MAN.

[CHAP. I.

Relics of
Lake-dwell
ers.

Lake-dweller's Loom.

of their villages, which seem to have often been destroyed by fire,

are wheat, barley, and linseed, ap
ples and pears cut in halves as if
for winter use, the seeds of straw
berries, raspberries, elderberries, blackber
ries, loaves of bread, fragments of woven
cloth. 1 But the earlier men of the caves,
and probably of the Kjokken-Moddings, had
reached to no such point of culture. Nor
was it till he had attained to the Age of
Polished Stone that man domesticated ani
mals. With the implements of that time
are found also the bones of the dog, the hog,
the horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat, ani
mals made useful for labor as well as for
food. 2

The earliest of these peoples inhabited
Europe at that remote period, when, as geologists believe, the lands
now called Italy and Spain were joined to Africa, and in
the place of the Mediterranean Sea were only a few land
locked basins ; when the British Islands, as far north as the
Shetlands, were a part of the continent ; when the present bottom of
the North Sea was a low, wide plain covered, probably, by magnifi
cent forests, through which the Rhine, with the Elbe and the Thames
as its tributaries, wound its way to discharge its waters at length into
the ocean north of Scandinavia ; and when the western boundary of
Europe was far out in the Atlantic beyond the present coasts of Ire
land and France, extending in an unbroken line from the Arctic Ocean
to Africa.

Was this primeval savage, as his story is thus read in the relics he
has left behind him in imperishable stone, a man of a dark or a white
skin ? In what tongue did he speak ? Was he the ancestor of any of
the cultivated European races of to-day ? To these questions there is
no satisfactory, perhaps no possible, answer. We only know that his
condition was evidently not unlike that of the dark-skinned barbarians
of our own time, and that there is no record in history of a

Traces of . i mi i

the pre-his- white race at so low a point of culture. Ihere is, apparently.

toric man i i T-T-I l

among mod- no trace or his lineage in any living European race, unless

it be in the small, black-eyed, dark-haired, swarthy people

of the Basque provinces of France, of Ireland west of the Shannon,

and of the mountains of Wales, who, it is supposed, may have

Geologic
changes in
Europe.

1 Keller's Lake Dwellings. Desor's Lacustrine Constructions.

2 Cave Hunting, Researches on the Evidences of Caves, etc. By W. Boyd Dawkiiis.

SIMILARITY IN SAVAGE RELICS.

descended from Neolithic ancestors. 1 Otherwise he either perished
in the course of nature, like many species of plants and animals of
former eras, or was exterminated by a stronger and wiser people,
migrating from the East, who came with weapons of bronze in their
hands, bringing with them that germ from which has grown the civili
zation of Europe and America.

It is a curious and interesting inquiry what bearing this new-found
evidence of the antiquity of man has upon the question of the origin
of the first inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere and of the time of
their first appearance. There is a remarkable resemblance in the
relics of all pre-historic races, as there is a similarity in the rude works
of art of barbarous people in all parts of the world, and in all ages.
So great is this resemblance, that, it is said, a skilful observer of stone
implements could not, from an unticketed heap, tell within thousands

Arrow-heads from different Countries.
Fig. 1, Ireland. 2, France. 3, N. America. 4, Terra del Fuego. 5, Japan

of years or thousands of miles when and where they were made. 2 It
is only by their positions and the relations in which they are found,
that it is possible to assign to them any value as to their age, or as
to the condition of the people to whom they once belonged. But as
they are, in certain positions and relations, accepted as proving the
antiquity of man, it is difficult to believe that in one half the world,
where they may be as plentiful as in the other half, they are without
any such significance. However puzzling it may be to distinguish
between the stone-hatchet or arrow-head of the modern Indian and
that dropped by some earlier savage before the Indian possessed the
land, it is possible that such a distinction may yet be clearly estab
lished.

" First-born among the continents," says Agassiz, " though so much
later in culture and civilization than some of more recent

. . Antiquity

birth, America, so far as her physical history is concerned, of American

has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was

the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed

1 See W. Boyd Dawkins, in Cave Hunting, and in Fortnightly Review, September, 1874,
who, on this point, follows Dr. Thurnam and Professor Huxley.
a Tylor's Early History, etc., j,. 206.

THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN.

[CHAP. I.

by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside ; and while Europe
was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea,
America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia
to the Far West." l

If then an antiquity of the human race, till recently supposed to
be incredible, be accepted as true, a door is thrown wide open for
speculation the farther we go back in time. The hypothesis of a
Mongolian migration is no longer indispensable to account for the
earliest appearance of man on that half the globe which the most

A Zone of Pyramids.
Fig. 1, Egypt. 2, Central America. 3, India. 4, North America.

eminent geologist of this country held to be the older half. Com
munication between the two hemispheres, it is conjectured, may have
been, long ages ago, quite as possible in other ways as in our era across
the sea of Kamtschatka. To account for the resemblance in the works
of art, the temples, the pyramids, the hieroglyphics of Central America
and Mexico, to those of Asia, it has been suggested that the Eastern
and Western Continents once approached each other where the ocean
now rolls between, and that a zone or circle of the earth was at that
period occupied by a pyramid-building people. And to strengthen the
supposition, it is alleged that there are many points of resemblance
between the Guanches, the aboriginal but now extinct people of the
Canary Isles, and the ancient Egyptians on this parallel zone. 2 In the
form of the skull the Guanches are said to have been allied to the

1 Geological Sketches, by L. Agassiz, p. 1.

2 The Races of Men. By Robert Knox. London, 1862.

TRADITIONS OF A LOST CONTINENT. 13

Caribs of the Antilles, and both to the tribes of the whole eastern coast
of America from its extreme northern limit to Paraguay and Uruguay
in the south. 1 Humboldt suggests 2 that the summits of the Madeira
and of the Canary Islands may have once been the western extremity
of the chain of the Atlas mountains. Others go farther and assume
that these islands and those of the West Indies are the summits of
mountain chains that once crowned an Atlantic continent which was
afterward submerged and disintegrated by some great cataclysm. The
similarity of the flora on the islands of the coast of Africa and Western
Europe, and those of Central Europe and Eastern America can only
be accounted for, according to some geologists, by the supposition of
such a continent before the human period. 3 The bolder theorists are
disposed to accept the fact without the limitation, as the time of the
destruction of such a continent, if it ever existed, and the first appear
ance of man are alike uncertain.

In curious coincidence with these mingled facts and conjectures
the story is recalled which Plato says was related to Solon
by an Egyptian priest of the island called Atlantis, "larger an Atlantic
than Asia [Minor] and Libya combined," lying beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, inhabited by a powerful and warlike people, and
which was destroyed by earthquakes and floods nine thousand years
before his time. In later times the " Island of Antilia," the " Island
of the Seven Cities," the "Island of the Holy Bishop Brandon,"
placed midway in the " Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic was then
called, found its place in the earliest maps of the world, sometimes
under one name, sometimes another, when the geography of one half
the globe was merely guessed at.

These speculations, traditions, and supposed fables are not history ;
but it is not impossible that in them may yet be found some aid in
putting together the unwritten story of the early human race on this
continent. It is not indeed yet established upon unquestioned evi
dence that man is as old here as anywhere else ; but that such evi
dence is forthcoming is hardly a subject of doubt now even among
those slowest to believe.

The natives of North America, when first visited by Europeans a
few centuries ago, belonged as distinctly to the Stone Age as the ear
liest inhabitants of Europe did at an epoch too remote to be accu
rately measured in years. It is not easy, therefore, to distinguish in
this country between the possible relics of a primeval race and those
of the modern Indians, where, whatever the difference of time be-

1 Professor Retzius of Stockholm. Smithsonian Report, 1859.

2 Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America. By Alexander von Humboldt.

3 See Lecture by Edward Suess, in Vienna, translated for Smithsonian Report, 1872.
Opinions of Professors Unger and Heer, quoted by Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 492.

14 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. [CHAP. I

tween them, there was none of culture. Thus Lyell repeatedly refers,
in different works, 1 to the shell-heaps along the American coast from
Massachusetts to Georgia as identical with the Kjokken-Moddings, the
kitchen refuse-heaps, of Denmark. As witnesses to the existence of a

people in an early stage of barbarism, these refuse heaps of
on e coast a of S shells on the coasts of different countries are undoubtedly

identical, but it may be questioned whether those upon our
own are the work of the modern Indian, or of a race that long pre
ceded them, and coeval, perhaps, with those primitive savages who fed
in Denmark upon shell-fish which can no longer live in the waters of
the Baltic, and upon the birds whose food was the buds of trees
buried now in the bogs beneath successive forests. Such heaps are
found from Nova Scotia to Florida, upon all the Sea Islands of the
Southern States, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and upon the
banks of fresh-water streams. Their number and their size suggest
the former presence of a large population and its long continuance.
One upon Stalling's Island, in the Savannah River, two hundred
miles above its mouth, is three hundred feet in length by one hun
dred and twenty in width, and with an average elevation of more
than fifteen feet. 2 Did the scattered tribes of Indian hunters accum
ulate these huge relics of their summer fishing? Perhaps when
longer studied, and with a definite purpose, they may shed new light
here, as the shell-heaps of Denmark, the caves of Germany, France,
and England, the remains of human habitation beneath the lakes of
Switzerland, have done in Europe, upon the antiquity of the early
inhabitants. 3

But where the fact to be observed depends upon geological evi
dence, the question is simply one of verification of that evidence.
This involves, ordinarily, scientific knowledge and accurate observa
tion. Such observation and knowledge will, in the long run, be
brought to bear upon the subject and to dispel all doubts, if that is
possible, either one way or the other. Meanwhile the progress of the
accumulation of such evidence, whether more or less conclusive, is nei
ther valueless nor without interest.

1 Visit to the United States. Antiquity of Man.

2 Antiquities of the Southern Indians. C. C. Jones, Jr.

3 The late Professor Jeffries Wyman, of Cambridge, who had examined the structure
and contents of these refuse-heaps with the careful habit and rigid method of scientific
research, asserts, in a private letter, that no glass beads or tools of metal have hitherto been
found in them, though such articles were largely distributed among the Indians by the
earliest European visitors ; that some of the older mounds are wanting in any traces of
pottery ; that no pipes or fragments of pipes have been found in them by him and other
accurate explorers, though smoking was the universal custom of the Indians when first
known ; that trees have been observed upon them, which showed by their annular growth
an age antedating from one to three centuries the landing of Columbus ; and that there
is no record, with a single exception, in the narratives of the early voyagers of these heaps
marking the dwelling-places of the Indians. f

FOSSILS FOUND IN AMERICA. 15

Thus, near Natchez, Mississippi, there was found about thirty years
ago, a fragment of a human bone, the pelvis, in association with the
bones of the mastodon, the megalonyx, and other extinct animals.
Were the man and the beasts to whom these bones belonged living
at the same time ? That time was about a hundred thousand years
ago, 1 when the mastodon and megalonyx, whose remains must have
been buried beneath the present valley and delta of the

-,,... . i i* mi f 11 Fossil re-

Mississippi, were certainly alive. Ine fissure at the bot- mains in
torn of which the bones were found was made during the
earthquakes of 181112, which extended through a portion of the Mis
sissippi Valley, heaving the earth up into long hillocks, and tearing it
open into deep ravines. Sir Charles Lyell, on his visit to this coun
try in 1846, carefully examined the locality and these fossils, with a
stronger bias, he has since said, against the probability " of the con
temporaneous entombment of man and the mastodon than any geolo
gist would now be justified in entertaining." 2 He suggested that the
human bone may have fallen from the surface of the soil, while those
of the fossil beasts came from strata underneath. Other scientific men
afterward adopted this suggestion, though he has since candidly ac
knowledged that " had the pelvic bone belonged to any recent mam-
mifer other than man, such a theory would never have been resorted
to." 3

So in New Orleans, in 1852, a human skeleton was dug from an
excavation, made for the foundation of gas-works, at a depth of six
teen feet, and beneath four successive buried forests of cypress. Dr.
Dowler, into whose possession this skeleton came, believed, from its
position, that it had lain there not less than fifty thousand years, but
whether this be correct or not, depends upon intricate calculations as
to the yearly deposits of the river, about which there is great differ
ence of opinion among geologists. There is on Petit Anse Island, in
Louisiana, a bed of almost pure rock salt, found in every part of it at
a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet. On this spot have been disin
terred the fossil bones of the mastodon and the elephant, and under
neath them lay fragments of matting and bits of broken pottery in
great profusion. The people to whom this refuse once belonged had
resorted to the island for salt, before, it is assumed, the superimposed
mud of fifteen or twenty feet in depth, and in which the mastodons
and elephants were buried, was deposited ; on the other hand, it is
doubted whether the whole mass of soil and all it contained may not
have been washed down from the surrounding hills, mingling together
indiscriminately the remains of various ages.

1 Sir Charles Lyell, Second Visit to the United States, vol. ii. p. 151.

2 Lyell's Antiquity of Man, p. 236.
8 Ibid., p. 239.

16 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. [CHAP. I.

Evidence still more interesting and conclusive that man and the ex
tinct animals were contemporaneous is alleged to have been found in
Missouri nearly forty years ago. A Dr. Koch, of St. Louis, an enthu
siastic, though not a scientific, collector and exhibitor of fossil remains,
affirmed that in 1839 he dug up, in the bottom lands of the Bour-
beuse River, in Missouri, from a depth of eight or nine feet, the bones
of a mastodon, in such juxtaposition with human relics as
mastodon in to show that man and this beast, whose race is no longer
in existence, met upon that spot in deadly hostility. He
asserted that, when the exhumation was made, the great bones of the
legs of the animal stood erect as if the creature had become im
movably mired in the deep and tenacious clay. Around it had been
kindled a fire by human hands, and in the ashes that lay about the
skeleton to the depth of from two to six inches were scattered bits
of charred wood and half-burnt bones, stone arrow-heads, stone axes,
and rough stones, these last brought evidently from the beach of
the river at some distance, where in a stratum of the bank, and there
only in the neighborhood, are similar stones still found. All these
missiles unquestionably had been hurled at the creature, whose gigan
tic strength, stimulated by pain and rage and fear, the torments of
the flames, the shouts of the pursuers, the sharp wounds from their
stone weapons, was not enough to extricate him from the slough into
which his great weight had sunk him.

There are in this case two considerations to be borne in mind. If
man and the mastodon did not live at the same time, a discovery of
their remains in the alleged relations is necessarily impossible. But
there is no inherent improbability in the story if they were contem
poraneous ; so huge a beast might easily become mired in a swamp,
and then be surrounded and put to death by the savages by such
means as were at their command. 1 The only remarkable thing about
the incident would be that subsequent deposits of earth should have so
completely covered these fossil remains, without disturbing them, that
they could be exhumed in their original condition so long afterward. 3

1 Savages are alike in all ages and countries. " The people," in the Lake region of
Eastern Africa, says the great traveller, Livingstone, "employ these continuous or set-w
rains for limiting the elephant, which gets bogged and sinks in from fifteen to eighteen
inches in soft mud ; then even he, the strong one, feels it difficult to escape." Tlie Last
Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, p. 143.

2 See Article XXXV., Silliman's Journal, May, 1875, by James D. Dana; which is de
voted to a discussion of this case. Professor Dana considers Koch's statement " very
doubtful , " but his doubt is evidently as to Koch's truthfulness and character, and not as
to any inherent improbability in such a discovery, as he says, " it is to be hoped that the
geologists of the Missouri Geological Survey now in progress will succeed in settling the
question positively." And on the essential point which aloue gives the story anv impor
tance, he adds : " The contemporaneity claimed will probably be shown to be true for
North America by future discoveries, if not already established ; for Man existed in Eu
rope long before the extinction of the American mastodon."

THE CALAVERAS SKULL. 17

At this exhumation, Dr. Koch always affirmed that twenty persons
of the vicinity were present ; others have vouched for his integrity
and general truthfulness ; l and though he had little knowledge of
scientific facts and methods, and made grave mistakes in the classifica
tion of fossil bones, his experience and success in recovering them was
greater than that of any other explorers. 2 If such a scene, then, the
evidences of which he claims to have uncovered, ever occurred a
scene in itself by no means improbable if man and the mastodon
lived at the same time in the same region of country a picture is
presented of a hunt by pre-historic men on this continent vivid enough
to appeal to the dullest imagination, and more remarkable than any
similar incident yet found anywhere else.

A year later than this asserted discovery on the Bourbeuse River,
the same diligent collector claimed to have made another
which must be considered on the same grounds. In the
bottomlands of the Pomme de Terre River, in Benton
County, Missouri, he dug up, he asserts, an almost en
tire skeleton of another mastodon, beneath which were
two stone arrow-heads in such a position that they must
have been there when the animal fell. They lay in a
bed of vegetable mould, covered by twenty feet of Dr. Koch's Arrow-
alternate strata of sand, clay, and gravel, hitherto
undisturbed, and on the surface of the ground grew a forest of old
trees.

Later discoveries of other fossils are not less significant, in the con
troversies to which they have given rise, of growing interest
in the importance of the subject. In 1857, the fragment manskuiiin
of a human skull was taken, it is asserted, from the gold
drift of California, one hundred and eighty feet below the surface of
Table Mountain, in association with the fossil bones of extinct ani
mals. More recently, in 1867 or 1868, another human cranium was
found in a mining shaft in Calaveras County, which Professor Whit
ney, of the State Geological Survey, believes to have been an
authentic " find." To all the alleged circumstances in regard to it
he gave a careful examination, and his testimony is accepted as conclu
sive by many eminent scientific men. 3 The shaft in which the bone
was buried is one hundred and fifty feet deep, and was sunk through
five beds of lava and volcanic tufa, and four beds of gold-bearing

1 Pre-historic Races of the United States, by J. W. Foster, p. 62. Charles Kau, in Smith,
nnian Report for 1872.

2 The Mastodon giganteus mounted in the British Museum was found in Missouri hy Dr.
Koch, and a representation of it, copied from Owen, is given in Dana's Manual of Geology,
1875, p. 566.

. 8 Among others, by the late Professor Jeffries Wyman.

18 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. [CHAP. I.

quartz. In this superincumbent mass no crack or crevice was appar
ent through which the bone could have fallen to so great a depth,
and the inference therefore is that it was deposited in the place where
it lay when that was on the surface of the earth's crust, and that over
it in subsequent ages were piled up the successive beds of gravel and
volcanic cinders. If this be true of these skulls, then the men whom
they represent lived before the human race appeared in Europe, so
far as is yet ascertained; and before the stupendous peaks of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains of California were lifted from the sea.

Though the number of alleged facts bearing upon the antiquity of
the human family on this continent are still few and need unques
tioned confirmation, the inclination of scientific belief is that the evi
dence exists and will yet be found. 1 When this shall be done beyond
cavil a new foundation will be laid on which to base the inquiry as to
the earliest people of the Western World. However strong may be
the probability of the Asiatic origin of the North American Indians,
behind them appears another race which must have been displaced
by that Mongolian migration. If here as elsewhere there were races
more ancient than has hitherto been supposed, we can no longer look
upon the Western Hemisphere as solitary and unpeopled, unknown
and useless to man till he, grown old in the East, was numerous
enough and far enough advanced in intelligence and wants to wander
abroad upon the face of the earth in search of a new home.

1 See ante, p. 16. Note from Silliman's Journal.

CHAPTER II.

THE MOUND BUILDERS.

PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN. PRE-HISTORIC RACE IN
THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. EARTHWORKS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. BIG
ELEPHANT MOUND. GARDEN-BEDS. MILITARY WORKS. TEMPLE AND ALTAR
MOUNDS. RELICS FOUND IN THESE TUMULI. ANCIENT COPPER-MINING AT LAKE
SUPERIOR. CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS AND LATER CIVILIZATIONS. REMAINS IN
MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA. SKULLS FOUND IN THE MOUNDS.

THE North American Indians are, as a race, in no higher plane of
culture now than they were three hundred years ago. If
they have any inherent capability for progress if they AnferiCan
could, had they remained isolated and unmolested, have ever
raised themselves above the conditions of the second age of stone
implements, that progress was arrested when they came into subjec
tion to another and a higher race. It has been easy enough to inten
sify the weaknesses which distinguished them as savages, by adding
to these the most sensual and degrading vices acquired from the
whites ; and in that process of degradation has been lost whatever of
stern and manly virtue is supposed to be the compensation in the
simple child of nature for the minor morals of civilized life.

It seems irrational to assume that such a people, whose contact for
two centuries and a half with the culture of another race has been
unproductive of any good, can have once fallen from a semi-civilization
possessed by their ancestors, but of which they have neither distinct
inheritance nor even dim tradition. There is no influence visible or
conceivable to account for a change so remarkable. They had evi
dently never lost their physical vigor ; no enemy had ever before come
to dispossess them of the soil which they claimed as their own, or to
trample out by conquest and servitude the feeble sparks of nascent
development ; and no higher civilization had invaded and overwhelmed
the feeble efforts of the childhood of a race. It is to set aside all the
facts of history, as well as all rational conjecture, to suppose that a
race now apparently so hopelessly incapable of improvement had,
without cause, at some former period, fallen from the condition of a
partially cultivated people, to that of savage hunters in a country

THE MOUND BUILDERS.

[CHAP. II.

Race in
America an
terior to
Indians.

which had become a wilderness through their own voluntary degrada
tion.

But behind these Indians, who were in possession of the country
when it was discovered by Europeans, is dimly seen the
shadowy form of another people who have left many remark
able evidences of their habits and customs and of a singular
degree of civilization, but who many centuries ago disappeared, either
exterminated by pestilence or by some powerful and pitiless enemy,
or driven from the country to seek new homes south and west of the
Gulf of Mexico.

The evidences of the presence of this ancient people are found
almost everywhere upon the North American Continent, except,
perhaps, upon the Atlantic coast. They consist of mounds sometimes
of imposing size, and other earthworks, so numerous that in Ohio

Earthworks in Ohio.

alone there are, or were till quite recently, estimated to be not less
than ten thousand of the Mounds, and fifteen hundred enclosures of
earth and stone all evidently the work of the same people. In other
parts of the country they were found in such numbers that no attempt
has ever been made to count them all.

There are no data by which the exact age of these singular relics
of a once numerous and industrious people, living a long-sustained,
agricultural life, can be fixed. But it is evident from certain estab
lished facts that this must date from a very remote period. The chief
seat of their power and population seems to have been in the Missis-

GREAT AGE OF MOUXDS. 21

sippi Valley. The signs of their occupation are many along the banks
of its rivers, but they are rarely found upon the last formed
terraces of those streams, those which have been longest Mississippi

Valley

in formation, and which were the beds of the rivers when
most of the earthworks were built. It is very seldom that the human
bones found in them, except those of later and evidently intrusive
burial, are in a condition to admit of their removal, as they crumble
into dust on exposure to the air ; while bones in British tumuli, known
to belong to the Roman period and to ages older than the Christian
era, are frequently taken entire from situations, as regards soil and
moisture, much less conducive to their preservation, than those of the
mounds. 1 They are often, also, covered by the primeval forests, which
are known to have grown undisturbed since the country was first
occupied by the whites, and the annular growth of these trees has
been ascertained to be sometimes from five to eight centuries.

But this, so far from fixing the date of the occupation of these
works, does not even indicate the time when they were abandoned ;
for a considerable period must have elapsed before the ground was
occupied by trees of any kind, and before the forest, in its gradual
and slow encroachment, obtained complete possession of the ground ;
and then forest after forest may have grown, and fallen, and mingled
with the soil through the progress of many centuries, before the seed
of the latest growth was sown, five hundred or a thousand years ago.
The first President Harrison, who was considered an authority on ques
tions of arboriculture, and who has been quoted by almost every writer
on this subject, maintained, in an address before the Ohio Historical
Society, that a long period elapsed before the growth which came in
upon abandoned cleared land became assimilated in kind to the trees
of the surrounding forest. For that reason alone he believed the works
of the Mound Builders to be of " immense age."

Even the purpose for which they were erected is often doubtful ;
and one class of them baffles all rational conjecture. In the State
of Wisconsin, occupying the region between Lake Michigan and the
Mississippi River, are many earthworks of a peculiar character, which
find few parallels in other parts of the country, while in the same
region is remarked the absence of the circumvallations and immense
mounds so numerous elsewhere. The significance of these works in
the northwest seems to be in their configuration alone, though what
that significance could have been is altogether inexplicable.

Generally, these figures are in groups, though sometimes they stand
alone ; they represent animals, usually in relief, though frequently the

1 Squier and Davis: Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Pre-historic Man, etc., Dr.
Daniel Wilson, p. 228.

THE MOUND BUILDERS.

[CHAP. II.

reverse, and the figures are varied enough and distinct enough, to

show that they were
meant to be the effigies
of perhaps every quad
ruped then known in
the country, of birds
with outstretched
wings, of fishes with
fins extended, of rep
tiles, of man ; and of
inanimate things, the
war-club, the bow ana
arrow, the pipe, the
cross, the crescent, the
circle, and other mathe
matical forms. They
rise above the surface two, four, sometimes six feet in height ; the
Shapes of animal figures vary from ninety to one hundred and twenty

\/V

Animal Mounds.

the mounds.

m } en g^ n>

Big Elephant Mound.

there are rectangular embankments, only
a few feet in height and width, that stretch out to a length of several
hundred feet. Among all these representations of animals there is
no one more remarkable than
that recently described, called
the Big Elephant Mound, found
in Wisconsin a few miles below
the mouth of the Wisconsin
River. Its name indicates its
form ; its length is one hun
dred and thirty-five feet, and its
other proportions are in accord
ance with that measurement. 1 It
does not seem probable that the people who piled up these mysterious
earthworks could represent a mastodon or elephant if it were not a
living creature with which they were familiar.

In other parts of the country walls of stone and earth were raised
Objects of f r defence ; mounds of great or small dimensions were
the builders. nea p e( j U p o COV er the dead, or erected to their memory, or
set up as monuments where some mysterious rites of incremation,
or sacrifice, or worship had been celebrated ; or they marked the
former site of temples or of habitation. The precise object of the
builders, or how they attained it, can often be only guessed at ; but
that there was a purpose connected, in some way, with the civil or
1 Smithsonian Report, 1872.

EARTH-WORKS IN MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 23

religious life, or the hostile or the social relations of a very numerous
people, is evident. But of these works in Wisconsin there is no such
explanation. It does not seem possible that they could have been
the foundations either of dwellings or of temples for worship ; they
certainly could not have been for defence ; they were rarely places of
sepulture, and no probable conjecture has as yet been advanced that
assigns to them any conceivable human intent. Yet they exist in
great numbers, scattered over a broad extent of country. They must
have cost a vast deal of labor, and they indicate the presence, when
they were made, of a large population.

In a portion of Wisconsin, as well as in some other places, are found
earthworks of another kind, but quite as remarkable, which, from
their supposed use, have been called " garden-beds." These are ridges,
or beds, about six inches in height and four feet in width, methodically
arranged in parallel rows, sometimes rectangular in shape, sometimes
of various but regular and symmetrical curves, and occupying fields of
from ten to a hundred acres. It has been suggested that these were
beds for the cultivation of maize by a people subsequent to those who
made the animal mounds, and who had no knowledge either of their
origin or purpose. But they may have been the results of the labor
of the same people and parts of some general design ; or, if they were
really " garden-beds," the fact that they were carried across the effigies
would show that no sacred character attached to those works.

Elsewhere works of a similar character, though in some respects
still a subject of conjecture, are better understood. Long walls of
earth and rough stone, often carried in connecting lines for many
miles, mark, if not sites of towns or cities, at least the presence of a
dense population. The selection of these sites was plainly guided by
convenience of access to navigable streams and the possession of lands
best suited for cultivation ; and it has been observed that the places
where the remains of this ancient people are most abundant, are those
which the pioneers of modern civilization selected as the natural cen
tres of settlement and trade. They understood the advantages of sit
uations like those of Cincinnati and St. Louis, and they crowded the
pleasant valleys of the Scioto, the Miami, the Wabash, the Kentucky,
the Cumberland, and others through which run the tributaries to the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers, where the bottom-lands are broadest, the
soil most fertile, and means of communication by water-carriage the
most available.

The ruins of the works which mark this occupation are generally
in groups ; the walls, however, are not continuous like those Fort iflca-
of a walled town, even where most extensive, but mark *
different enclosures devoted to various purposes. Thus at the mouth

24 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II.

of the Scioto there are embankments which measure in the aggregate
about twenty miles, though the area actually enclosed in its avenues,
squares, and circles, is only about two hundred acres. But the points
most capable of defence, where defence was evidently intended, were
selected with military skill. The summits of hills were made inacces
sible to attack by lines of circumvallation ; peninsulas, surrounded on
three sides by a deep stream or precipitous bluffs, and only to be
approached on one side, were there made difficult, if not impossible
of access ; and in these citadels, doubtless, the outlying populations,
in case of danger, warned by the smoke or flame rising from mounds
placed on the loftiest hills, in sight of each other for many miles,
found safe refuge. Nor were these walls made in haste, or for a tem
porary purpose. In height, they vary from five to five and twenty
feet ; at their base they are often twenty feet and more in width ; and
frequently outside the wall is a moat measuring twenty-five or fifty,
or eighty feet in width, according to the importance of the position or
the difficulty of defending it. Military works like these, built not far
apart, and with so much care and labor, enclosing areas from five to
about a hundred and fifty acres, in a country no doubt thickly settled,
indicate that this was .a people skilful in military affairs, subject,
probably, to frequent attack from a powerful and much dreaded
enemy, but quite capable of making a long and sturdy defence.

So far, seems plain enough. Defensive earthworks are not uncom
mon with other savage or semi-civilized peoples, though their complete
ness is a measure, in some degree, of the density of the population,
the supply of labor, and of skill in its use. But with these Mound
Builders the skill of the soldier and the engineer was used for the pro
tection of a people who had apparently developed a degree of civil, and
perhaps religious culture, altogether above anything that the red man
has ever been known to possess, or that belongs to any merely barbar
ous race. Their works of circumvallation, other than those meant
merely for defence, were singular in design and, in some respects, re
markable in construction. They are usually upon the table-lands, and
often in groups extending for several miles, but connected with each
other directly, or showing a relation by propinquity, the groups
made up of squares, circles, and other mathematical figures, ranging
from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in diameter to a mile
in circuit.

Near these enclosures, or within them, are mounds, some large, some
small, some pyramids, others parallelograms, generally truncated, some
times terraced, or their summits approached by inclined planes. Ave
nues of imposing width, between embankments several feet in height,
often connect these enclosed areas, extending, in one instance, in obvi-

DIMENSIONS OF MOUNDS. 25

ous connection from both banks of the Ohio River for a total length
of sixteen miles. Other graded roads lead from terrace to

,i , .-i ... Mathemati-

terrace, apparently to secure access to the streams ; while cai correct-
others still, so far as can now be discerned, lead from nothing
to nowhere, the significance of the avenue being apparently in its
existence, and not in its direction. The squares in these works are
perfect squares ; the circles, perfect circles ; and as some of these are
a mile in circuit, there must have been brought to their construction
much engineering skill and knowledge, and the use of instruments.
They bear, moreover, such relations to each other as to show unmis
takably some fixed and general design ; and similarity of proportions
in places sixty or seventy miles apart seem to indicate the application
or some common geometrical rule to their construction. Thus in Ohio
is often found a combined work of a square with two circles, and they
usually agree in this, that each of the sides of the squares measures
exactly 1,080 feet, and the adjacent circles 1,700 and 800 feet respect
ively. This identity of measurement in similar works in different
parts of the country can hardly have been accidental. Within these
walls, instead of outside of them, are occasionally moats or ditches,
and this is accepted as conclusive proof that such works were not
defensive. They may have surrounded the houses and estates of chiefs
and other men of power and consideration ; they may have been public
parks and places of public games ; or they may have been, as is gen
erally concluded by explorers, the metes and bounds within which was
enclosed the ground held sacred to the superstitions and the religious
rites of a people who found room elsewhere for the duties, the avoca
tions, and the exigencies of their every-day life.

These witnesses to the occupation of the land by a numerous and
busy population long ago, can only be considered as the ruins which
mark the site of that ancient habitation. The solid earth has with
stood the inroads of time ; whatever was perishable and once bore the
impress of such degree of culture as the people may have acquired,
has perished. In the mounds, however, we gain some farther insight
into their character, though they are themselves as remarkable, and
almost as inexplicable, as the extensive system of circumvallations,
embankments, and excavations of which they make a part. These
mounds are of all dimensions, from that of Cahokia, Illinois, one of a
group of sixty which covered six acres of ground, and that of Seltzer-
town, Mississippi, of about equal extent, and others of like imposing
dimensions, to those of the region extending from the Gulf of Mexico
to the Valley of the Arkansas, and westward into Texas, which are
described as " from one foot to five feet in height, with a diameter
from thirty feet to one hundred and forty feet, and as numbered by

THE MOUND BUILDERS..

[CHAP. II.

Mounds for

various

purposes

millions," 1 and innumerable smaller mounds found in Missouri. If
these were the foundations of human dwelling-places, the country
must have been one vast town ; and if it is difficult to believe this,
it is no less difficult to conceive of their being raised in such immense
numbers and in such close proximity, for any other purpose.

Of the character of other mounds, many of which have been care
fully explored, there is less doubt. They are divided by Squier and
Davis, and their classification is usually followed by other observers,
into Altar or Sacrificial Mounds, Mounds of Sepulture,
Temple Mounds, and Mounds of Observation, though there
are many, such as the "Animal Mounds " of Wisconsin and
a few of a similar character found in Ohio, and those of the Arkansas
Valley, that defy all conjecture as to their use.

The Temple Mounds are so called either because there are similar

elevations in Mexico on
which temples were
erected, or because, hav
ing level summits which
may be reached by ter
races, by inclined planes,
or by spiral pathways,
they may be supposed to
have been convenient
sites for such edifices, or
to have been used for
religious purposes with
out buildings. There was
certainly ample room for
either mode of worship
on such a mound as that
at Cahokia, whose truncated top measured two hundred by four hun
dred and fifty feet, and on many others in the Southern States of
equal dimensions ; and that they were the sites of buildings, of some
sort, seems probable also from the fact that there are many plat
forms of earth, acres in extent, though only a few feet high, similar
in every respect to the larger elevations, except in height, which
could hardly have been used for any other purpose.

But as these mounds have none of the peculiarities of those con
taining the singular structures called Altars, and as they evidently
were not places of sepulture, their use must have been different from
either. As they are usually found, however, with the Altar Mounds
within the enclosures, it has been conjectured that all the extensive

1 Statement of Professor Forshey in Foster's Pre-historic Races of the United States.

Temple Mound in Mexico.

TEMPLE AND ALTAR MOUNDS. 27

works of circumvallation, except those evidently erected for defence,
with the many and various elevations enclosed within them, whatever
their character or shape, had some intimate relation to the religious
faith and ceremonies of those who constructed them. If the grounds
of such a supposition may be considered rational and sufficient, and
in the absence of any other theory it seems the most obvious, it is
only the more remarkable that at a period so remote that much, if not
the whole of Europe was still in the darkness of primeval barbarism,
so large a part of North America should be inhabited by a numerous
population so advanced in a civilization developed by themselves, that
they could expend upon a single phase of life so much evident reflec
tion and accurate knowledge, and devote to it an amount of manual
labor so immense and so continuous.

These so-called Temple 'Mounds, whether temples really crowned
their summits, or whether religious ceremonies were performed upon
them under no other roof than the over-arching sky, are in themselves
sufficiently remarkable, if only for their great size. The cubic con
tents of that of Cahokia are estimated as equal to one fourth of the
great pyramid of Ghizeh, and of that at Grave Creek, Virginia, as
nearly equal to the third pyramid of Mycerinus. 1

But the Altar Mounds are still more interesting. They are always
symmetrical, but not always
uniform in shape, and in
height they do not generally
exceed eight feet. Unlike
all other mounds, whether
used for burial or as places
of worship, they are laid up
in different strata of earths,

not in horizontal lines, but Altar Mounds

in conformity with the curve

of the surface of the mound. Of these strata, from one to four, though
usually two or three only, are invariably of fine white sand, and be
neath the whole, upon a level with the surrounding plain, is found a
hard-baked hearth or basin, which explorers call an altar. In shape
these altars differ ; but that form, whatever it may be, is always sym
metrical and carefully constructed. They bear always the marks of
the fires that had been kindled upon them, and the cremation may
have been of dead or living subjects or of burnt-offerings of animals
or material things. But whether such fires were for sacrifices or were
only a method of disposing of the dead, the places where they were
made were important enough and sacred enough to require that they
1 Foster's Pre-historic Races, p. 346.

28 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II.

should be, not the careless heaping up of earth, but the construction of
a rude work of art. The character is invariable ; wherever a mound
is found thus made with successive strata of carefully imposed earth
and sand, conforming to its outward shape, an altar is beneath ; and
wherever the altar or hearth is found, if covered at all, the alternate
beds of earth and sand are carefully laid over it ; all others are un-
stratified.

Beneath these mounds are found chiefly the specimens of pottery, of

implements of war and
the chase, and of do
mestic life, which al
ways indicate, in some
degree, the condition
and progress of the
people who used them ;
but this curious fact is
dwelt upon by Squier,
that, though the num-

Pottery from Mounds. ~ .

ber or such articles in

any one deposit may be large, the variety is limited ; a collection of
Keiics found pip es may be found upon one altar, a heap of pottery, or
of arrow-heads, or of pearls, or of copper tools, upon others ;
but a single kind predominates in each, with little mingling of other
implements. The most plausible explanation of these structures is,
that they were places of sacrifice, with a religious meaning, for the
altars were, in some cases, evidently used repeatedly before they were
finally covered with so much care. They may have been places of
human sacrifice ; but probably were not for the burning of those who
died from natural causes, as the disposition of their bodies is other
wise accounted for. Thousands of other mounds are raised over the
remains of one or two persons in each, while the common multitude
received only that ordinary burial which the immense accumulation
of human bones in some places indicates.

It is unfortunate for the archaeologist that the depositories of arti
cles of personal use among these people were exposed to an intense
heat. Only stone or clay could resist it, for it melted copper and
lead and destroyed almost entirely whatever was perishable. But for
this something more might be learned than we are ever likely to
know of their habits and customs, and of the advance they had made
in arts of which there are found some indications. But there is cer
tainly enough to show that they had developed a civilization of a vig
orous and original growth, though as yet in its earlier stages, and
enough to justify a belief that there must have been much else in theii

RELICS OF STONE AND COPPER.

culture to answer to those evidences of combined labor and abstract
thought exhibited in their public works of defence, and their apparent
devotion to some ceremonial system. " The art of pottery " among
them, says Squier, who is peculiarly qualified to give an opinion upon
the subject, had " attained to a considerable degree of perfection. Va
rious, though not abundant specimens of their skill have been recov
ered, which, in elegance of model, delicacy, and finish, as also in fine
ness of material, come fully up to the best Peruvian specimens, to
which they bear, in many respects, a close resemblance. They far
exceed anything of which the existing Indian tribes are known to
have been capable."

If their arrow-heads and hammers, and other articles of bone, of

Stone and Copper Relics from Mounds.
Fig. 1, axe. 2, bracelets. 3, stone arrow-points. 4, stone axe. 5, bronze knife.

polished porphyry, granite, jasper, quartz, obsidian this they could
only have got from Mexico and other minerals, show that they were
still in the Stone Age, their implements of copper prove that they
were gradually approaching to the age of metals. The late Professor
Foster believed that many of their implements clearly show the marks
of being cast ; 1 but if that point needs to be confirmed by farther in
vestigation, it is at least plain that they had advanced beyond the age
when tools and weapons of stone are made only by chipping, to that
of pounding a malleable metal into shape with a hammer. They
could hardly have failed to observe the effect which the fire of their
altars had upon this material which was superseding stone, and a
people so intelligent would not have delayed long in availing them
selves of that knowledge, had their progress not been arrested by some
sudden and violent interruption.

The copper was already in common use, and extensive and syste
matic mining was established on the southern shores of Lake Superior.

1 Pre-historic Races of the United States, p. 259.

30 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II.

The miners of our time find excavations and trenches in that region
from eighteen to thirty feet deep, where these primitive
LakeSupe- workmen had preceded them, and half -finished work and
their scattered tools of stone, and wood, and copper, buried
beneath the accumulations of many centuries of vegetable and forest
growth, attest at once to their active and intelligent labor and to its
apparently abrupt abandonment. So numerous are their stone ham
mers some of such weight that they must have been wielded, by
the help of handles of withe, by two men that they have been
removed by the cart-load, and in one spot they were so plentiful as
to be sufficient for the walls of a well. 1 In a deserted trench in the
Minnesota mine was found, eighteen feet beneath the surface of the
ground, a mass of copper of about six tons, raised upon a frame of
wood five feet in height, preparatory to removal. From these ancient
mines, of whose workings the Indians had no
tradition, was supplied the metal used by the
Mound Builders, a thousand miles distant in the
Valley of the Mississippi. From that agricul
tural region, probably, the miners came with
their supplies for their summer's support ; and
the method of conveyance which took them and
their provisions to the mines sufficed, no doubt,
for carrying back the ore to market across the
lakes and the long land journey. They must
Mining Tools. have had boats of more capacity than canoes for

such cargoes, and better fitted for the navigation

of waters not much less perilous than the open sea ; but how they pro
vided, without animals, for the carriage of such heavy burdens over
hundreds of miles of land travel it is not so easy to understand, un
less they depended upon a servile population whose presence seems
otherwise indicated by the immense amount of manual labor which
all their works required. Of this copper-mining the Indians had
even no tradition, and among them, at the time of European discov
ery, copper was only used, and that rarely, for purposes of rude orna
ment.

This dead and buried culture of the ancient people of North Amer-
cuiture of ^ ca -> to whose memory they themselves erected such curious
b^fidTn^ nd " monuments, is specially noteworthy in that it differs from all
people. other extinct civilizations. Allied, on the one hand, to the
rude conditions of the Stone Age, in which the understanding of man
does not aim at much beyond some appliance that shall aid his naked
hands in procuring a supply of daily food, it is yet far in advance of

1 Wilson's Pre-historic Man, p. 161.

COPPER IMPLEMENTS RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN WISCONSIN.

[From the Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society. ]

No. 1. An Adze, with "wings" for fit-

No. 2. An Arrow-head, with "wings" for
fitting to arrow.

No. 3. An Arrow-head, with "wings" for
fitting to arrow.

No. 4. A Knife, with socket for handle.

No. 5. A Chisel, apparently cast, the rough
ness showing sand-mould and white spots of
melted silver.

No. 6. An Awl.

No. 7. A Spear-head, 11 inches in length,
with socket for handle.

No. 8. An Adze.

POTTERY AND SUPPOSED IDOLS

RECENTLY FOUND WITH HUMAN REMAINS IN BURIAL MOUNDS
IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI.

OBJECT OF THE MOUND BUILDERS. 31

that rough childhood of the race; and while it touches the Age of
Metal, it is almost as far behind, and suggests the semi-civilization
of other pre-historic races who left in India, in Egypt, and the centre
of the Western Continent, magnificent architectural ruins and relics
of the sculptor's art, which, though barbaric, were nevertheless full of
power peculiar to those parallel regions of the globe.

It is hardly conceivable that these imposing earthworks were meant
for mere out-door occupation. A people capable of erecting fortifica
tions which could not be much improved upon by modern military
science, as to position, and, considering the material used, the method
of construction ; and who could combine for religious observances en
closures in groups of elaborate design, extending for more than twenty
miles, would probably crown such works with structures in harmony
with their importance and the skill and toil bestowed upon their erec
tion. Such wooden edifices, for wood they must have been, would long
ago have crumbled into dust ; but it is not a fanciful suggestion that
probably something more imposing than a rude hut once stood upon
tumuli evidently meant for occupation, and sometimes approaching the
Pyramids of Egypt in size and grandeur. These circumvallations of
mathematical figures, bearing to each other certain well-defined rela
tions, and made, though many miles apart, in accordance with some
exact law of measurement, no doubt surrounded something better than
an Indian's wigwam. That which is left is the assurance of that which
has perished ; it is the scarred and broken torso bearing witness to
the perfect work of art as it came from the hands of the sculptor.

Nor is this the only conclusion which is forced upon us. These peo
ple must have been very numerous, as otherwise they could not have
done what we see they did. They were an industrious, agricultural
people; not, like the sparsely scattered Indians, nomadic tribes of
hunters ; for the multitude employed upon the vast system of earth
works, and who were non-producers, must have been supported by
the products of the labor of another multitude who tilled the soil.
Their moral and intellectual natures were so far developed that they
devoted much time and thought to occupations and subjects which
could have nothing to do with their material welfare a mental con
dition far in advance of the savage state. And the degree of civiliza
tion which they had reached, trifling in some respects, in others full
of promise, was peculiarly their own, of which no trace can be dis
cerned in subsequent times, unless it be among other and later races
south and west of the Gulf of Mexico.

Doing and being so much, the wonder is that they should not have
attained to still higher things. But the wonder ceases if we look for
the farther development of their civilization in Mexico and Central

THE MOUND BUILDERS.

[CHAP. II.

America. If they did not die out, destroyed by pestilence or famine ;
if they were not exterminated by the Indians, but were, at last,

driven away by a savage foe
against whose furious onslaughts
they could contend no longer
even behind their earthen ram
parts, their refuge was probably,
if not necessarily, farther south
or southwest. In New Mexico
they may have made their last
defence in the massive stone for
tresses, which the bitter experi
ence of the past had taught
them to substitute for the earth
works they had been compelled
to abandon. Thence extending
southward they may, in succes
sive ages, have found leisure, in
the perpetual summer of the
tropics where nature yielded a
subsistence almost unsolicited,
for the creation of that archi
tecture whose ruins are as re
markable as those of any of the
pre-historic races of other continents. The sculpture in the stone of
those beautiful temples may be only the outgrowth of that germ of
Their sculp- ar ^ shown in the carvings on the pipes which the Mound
Builders left on their buried altars. In these pipes a striking
fidelity to nature is shown in the delineation of animals. It is reason

able to suppose that they
were equally faithful in por
traying their own features in
their representations of the
human head and face ; and
the similarity between these
and the sculptures upon the
ancient temples of Central
America and Mexico is seen

afc & g l ance .

mi i i i

Ihere also it may be that
they discovered how to fuse and combine the metals, making a harder
and better bronze than the Europeans had ever seen ; learned to exe
cute work in gold and silver which the most skilled European did not

Carved Pipes.

Sculptured Heads.
Fig. 1, Mound Builders. 2, Central America.

SKULLS EXHUMED FROM MOUNDS. 33

pretend to excel; to manufacture woven stuffs of fine texture, the
rude beginnings whereof are found in the fragments of coarse cloth ;
in objects of use and ornament wrought
in metals, left among the other relics in
the earlier northern homes of their race.
In the art of that southern people there
was nothing imitative ; the works of the
Mound Builders stand as distinctly orig
inal and independent of any foreign in. Cloth from Mounds '
flueiice. Any similarity in either that can be traced to anything else
is in the apparent growth of the first rude culture of the northern
race into the higher civilization of that of the south. It certainly
is not a violent supposition, that the people who disappeared at one
period from one part of the continent, leaving behind them certain
unmistakable marks of progress, had reappeared again at another
time, in another place where the same marks were found in larger
development.

There can hardly be a doubt that there is yet something to be
learned of the character of this singular people. Some recent ex
plorers believe that they find new traces of their mode of worship and
of their religious faith, and others that new facts are coming to light
from a study of their skulls. Hitherto but little has been learned
from this last source, so great is the difficulty of recovering any com
plete crania from deposits where the decay of all perishable things is
so thorough. Till quite recently the number of authentic skulls, that
is, of those free from all suspicion of being of later and
intrusive burial in the mounds, was less than half a dozen, humedfrom

. . mounds.

Their shape and capacity show no uncommon type. But
those lately recovered from different places in Illinois, Indiana, and
Iowa indicate, like the Neanderthall skull found in a cave in Prussia,
and the Dorreby skull of the Stone Age of Denmark, a very low
order of intellect. 1 General H. G. Thomas, U. S. A., has exhumed
from some mounds in Dakota Territory a number of skulls of the
lowest type, "unlike," he says, "that of any human being to-day
alive on this continent," but " like those of the great Gibbon
monkey." 2 It is easier to believe that the mounds are the burial-
places of more than one extinct race than that their builders were not
far from idiots.

Future explorations may shed more light upon this inquiry. Man
is older on other continents than was till quite recently supposed. If

1 See Foster's Pre-historic Races of the United States, chap, vii., for collation of the evi
dence on these crania.
a Sixth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, by F. B. Hayden, p. 656.

34 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II.

older elsewhere he may, by parity of reasoning, be older here. We
are permitted to go behind the Indians in looking for the earliest in
habitants of North America, wherever they may have come from or
whenever they may have lived. In such an inquiry, relieved of some
of the limitations which have hitherto obstructed it, we may find in the
relics of an early and rude culture much to dispel the obscurity and
mystery which till within four centuries have shrouded the New World
in darkness.

Discovery of Greenland.

CHAPTER III.

THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.

COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. FIGHT WITH SKR^ELLINGS. SUPPOSED
IRISH SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA COLONY OF FREYDIS THE MASSACRE.
GLOOMY WINTER AT VINLAND. ROUND TOWER AT NEWPORT. DIGHTON ROCK.

THE ICELANDIC SAGAS.

WERE these great Western continents, stretching almost from pole
to pole, unknown till 1492 to the nations who had made the world's
history ? The pride of human knowledge has for nearly four centuries
resented such an imputation. If facts were wanting, ingenious sup
positions of more or less probability were made to take the place of
facts. Even before Flavio Gioia introduced the use of the magnetic
needle into maritime Europe some unlucky vessel may have

"' J Pre-Colum-

been driven across the Atlantic and stranded upon strange bianNaviga-

& tion.

shores ; or some Phoenician navigator who understood " night-
sailing " may have boldly turned his ship's head to the West, after
passing the Pillars of Hercules, in search of new fields of adventure
and of traffic ; or some of the fearless navigators who steered into the
Sea of Darkness in search of Antilia, or the Island of the Seven
Bishops, may have landed for a night upon coasts which some super
natural power was supposed to guard from the intrusion of man. Or

36 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

it may be that the lost Tribes of Israel wandered, through Asia to
the Northwest coast and were the progenitors of the North American
Indians and the ancient Mexicans ; that the Malays crossed the Poly
nesian Archipelago and invaded the Western Hemisphere on the
South ; that a vast army of Mongols came with their elephants, whose
bones are left as a witness of their invasion from Brazil to Rhode
Island ; that the Apostle St. Thomas preached Christianity in Peru ;
or that St. Patrick sent Irish missionaries to the Isles of America.
All these theories have had their advocates.

But there was one ancient people whose warriors were the dread
The North- ^ a ll Europe, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and
whose long experience as pirates made them fearless and
successful sailors, who, there seems no good reason for doubting, did
cross the Atlantic from coast to coast, almost five hundred years be
fore Columbus stept upon and knelt down to kiss the sands of the
beach of San Salvador. The Northmen had a genius for discovering
new countries by accident, and having approached and settled within
a few hundred miles of the coast of the Western Continent, it would
have been strange rather than otherwise if such bold rovers had not
found their way thither. They made, indeed, no permanent settle
ment, and if it may be held as an argument against the probability of
their having made the discovery at all that it is hard to find a conti
nent, it may, with quite as much force, be urged that it is still harder
to lose one, when found. But here again the Northmen are not with
out a parallel in their own experience, for it is certain that they dis
covered and held Greenland for more than four hundred years, and
lost it again for more than two centuries.

It was by accident the Northmen discovered Iceland ; Naddod, an
Theydiscov- illustrious sea-rover, having been driven, about the year 860,
er Iceland. U p On its coasts by a storm. He called it Snreland Snow-
land. Four years later, one Gardar Svafarson was also carried thither
by tempest, and finding it by circumnavigation an island, gave it the
name of Gardar-h6lm Gardar's Isle. His account of it was so pleas
ant that soon after Floki, or Flokko, another famous viking, went out
to plant a colony. 1 Not trusting to the chances which had befallen
and befriended his predecessors, he took with him three ravens, which
he was careful before starting to have consecrated to the gods, and to

1 There is some little discrepancy as to those first discoverers. The editor of Mallet's
Northern Antiquities, Bohn's edition, puts Naddod first and Gardar second; De Costa
Pre-Columbian Discovery in America gives the precedence to Gardar; while Crantz
History of Greenland who cites as his authority " the learned Icelander, Arngrim Jonas,"
says Naddok (Naddod) was first driven on the coast by a storm, and that he was followed
" by a certain pyrate whose name was Flokko," and omits any mention whatever of Gar
dar.

DISCOVERY OF ICELAND.

these he trusted to guide him to the land he sought. The first he
let loose returned toward the islands of Faroe, which Flokko con
cluded, therefore, must still be the nearest land ; the second, sent out
some days later, returned to the vessel, which was accepted as a proof
that there was no land within a raven's flight ; but the third, when let
loose, circling into the air, turned its course at length steadily west
ward, and him Flokko followed, till he reached the island. For one
winter he and his colony lived there ; but his cattle all perished with
cold. In the spring, when he would have sown seed, thick ice still

Flokko sending out Ravens.

covered the coasts and rivers ; so when the summer came he sailed
back to Norway, declaring that the land, which he called Island,
Iceland was unfit for the habitation of either man or beast. Ten
years later, however, another colony was taken out from Norway by
the Earl Ingolf, who sought in Iceland a refuge from the tyranny of
King Harold Haarfager, who no doubt was a despot, but whose offence
in this case seems to have been some intolerant notions he held about
a manslaughter that Ingolf had committed. The attempt at coloniza
tion was this time successful, and a state was founded which for sev
eral centuries was the most remarkable community of that age for the
simplicity and freedom of its political institutions, for the license, not
to say the licentiousness, of its social life, and for the intelligence and
cultivation of its people.

Greenland was discovered by another, almost inevitable accident,
for, from mid-channel between it and Iceland, both are at the same
time visible. 1 Gunnbiorn, or Gunbioern, one of the early settlers of

/ 1 Crantz's Greenland, book iv. p. 245.

437471

38 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

Iceland, was driven westward by a storm, when he saw land which
was held in remembrance for the next century as Gunnbiorn's Rocks.
Eric the Red, a man disposed to acts of violence which he was too
weak to sustain when resented, was compelled to find safety in exile.
Gunnbiorn's Rocks seemed to him a good place to go to, and thither
he went.

In three years he was back in Iceland, full of glowing descriptions
of this country, which he called Greenland, " because, quoth

Eric the Red 1 1 i i i i

settles he, people will be attracted hither it the land has a good

Greenland. TT n )

name. He returned to Greenland with large additions to
his colony. It was the sons of this Eric the Red who were the first
Europeans, so far as is positively known, to set foot upon this conti
nent.

But this came about by still another accident. Among those who
followed Eric to Greenland was Herjulf, who had a son, " a

Bjarni sails . . , , , i? T T-.

for Green- promising young man, oi the name of Bjarni, or Biarne.
They were both in the habit of making trading voyages to
Norway in the summer, and passing the winter together at home in
Iceland. On returning from Norway in the year 985, Bjarni, who was
a dutiful son as well as a promising youth, found that his father had
followed Eric. He instantly proposed, without unloading his ship, to
go after him, though, as he said to his crew, " Our voyage will be
thought foolish, as none of us have been on the Greenland sea be
fore." But this did not daunt them ; they set sail, and in three days
lost sight of land.

Then thick fogs beset them, and "for many days" they were driven
by a north wind they knew not whither. When the weather cleared,
they made all sail for another day and night, and then welcomed the
sight of land again. It was, they said, a country covered with woods,
without mountains, and with small hills inland. This they were sure
could not be Greenland ; so they turned seaward on'ce more, and for
these Northmen knew how to sail on a wind " left the land on their
larboard side, and let the stern turn from the land." After sailing two
days and two nights they again approached the coast, which, they saw
as they neared it, was low and wooded. Bjarni refused to go on shore,
at which his crew grumbled ; for this, he said, can no more be Green
land than the land we saw before, "because in Greenland are said
to be very high ice-hills."

Then for three nights and days they went on their way as before,
with a southwest wind, when for the third time they made land ahead,
and it was "high and mountainous, with snowy mountains." Once
more said Bjarni, " In my opinion this land is not whac we want ; "
and again he refused to leave his ship, but sailed along the coast and
found it was an island. Standing out to sea again, still with the

BJARNl'S VOYAGE. 39

southwest wind, after three days and nights they once more sighted
land. " This," said Bjarni, " is most like what has been told me of
Greenland ; and here we shall take to the land." He had made what
sailors would call a good landfall, for the cape before him was called
Herjulfness, where his father, Herjulf, had built him a house. Here
Bjarni went on shore and made it his home for the rest of his days. 1

Bjarni was blamed both in Norway and at home, that he made no
exploration of the country that he had thus discovered. But Vo a e of
the voyage was the subject, no doubt, of many a tale, and Bussed fn 8 "
of much discussion in the long winter evenings of Greenland, Greenland -
among a race of bold and hardy sailors, themselves hardly yet settled
in a region which, till within a few years, was only known by the
name of one who had looked at it from the deck of his ship. Bjarni
seems to have preferred an annual visit to Norway, and the pleasures
of the court of Earl Eric, to any more voyages in unknown seas ; but
in the house of Eric the Red in Greenland., whose sons were growing
up, the story was, no doubt, often told of that dreary drift in the fog
for many days before the northerly wind ; of the low wooded shores
and the pleasant green hills stretching inland, that greeted the long
ing eyes and brought hope again to the desponding hearts of the lost
mariners ; of the runs of two and three days each from coast to coast,
and that wonderful landfall at last, when they dropped their anchor
right under the cape where the father, whom the son was in search of,
had built his house. Thorvald, the grandfather of these boys, was
among the early Norwegian pioneers in Iceland; Eric, his son, had led
the first colony to Greenland ; so the sons of Eric longed to throw
their seat-posts 2 overboard in their turn on some unknown coast.

It was long debated, doubtless, in family councils, and finally deter
mined that this new adventure should be undertaken. In the year
1000, Leif, the eldest son, went to Herjulfness and bought his ship of
Bjarni, manned her with a crew of thirty-five men, Bjarni among them,
perhaps as pilot. When he was ready to sail, Leif prayed his father
to go with them as the most fitting commander for such an expedition,
and the old viking, objecting that he was too old, consented. On the
way to the ship, however, his horse stumbled and threw him, and look
ing upon the mishap as a warning, he said, " It is not ordained that I
should discover any more countries than that which we now inhabit,

1 This, and the following narratives of the voyages to Vinland, we condense from the
Antiquitates Americance, by Professor C. C. Rafn, and published by the Antiquarian Society
of Copenhagen, 1837 ; collated with the translations in Beamish's Discovery of America by
the Northmen, and De Costa's Pre-Columbian Discorery.

' 2 The seat-posts were the columns of a chieftain's seat, which, when he went to sea, he
took with him and threw overboard when he approached a coast ; where they landed, di
rected by the gods, he followed, it was assumed, in safety.

40 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

and we should make no further attempt in company." He returned
to his home at Brattahlid, and the expedition sailed with Leif as its
leader.

Leif reversed the order of Bj ami's voyage, and sought first for the
voyage of land which the other saw last Newfoundland. When they
Lucky, son reached it they went ashore and found it a country without
Red. nc grass ; snow and ice covered it, and from the sea to the
mountains it was a plain of flat stones. Said Leif, " We have not
done like Bjarni about this land, that we have not been upon it ; now
will I give the land a name, and call it Helluland." 1 Again they
put to sea, and sought the next land that Bjarni had seen Nova
Scotia. Here also they went on shore, and found a country covered
with woods, with low and flat beaches of white sand. " This land,"
said Leif, " shall be named after its qualities, and called Markland ; "
that is, woodland. They set sail again with a northeast wind, and in
two days once more made the land, as Bjarni had done, sailing in the
opposite direction with a southwest wind ; and the land now before
them was that which Bjarni had first seen when driven in from the
sea. There can be little doubt they were now on the coast of New
England, but precisely where is a disputed question, for there are cer
tain incongruities in the original narratives which it is difficult, if not
impossible, to reconcile.

Their first landing-place was an island north of the main. The

weather was pleasant ; the dew was upon the grass, and this

land coast they tasted, and it was very sweet. 2 When they embarked

explored. . ~ i i

again, it was to sail through a sound between the island and
a cape that ran out northward from the main, past which they went
westward. To find where and what this island was, is the chief
source of difficulty. Professor Rafn, who says that by northward the
Northmen meant eastward, according to their compass, 3 believes that
it was the island of Nantucket, and that they sailed thence across the
entrance to Buzzard's Bay, to Seaconet Passage, and then up the
Pocasset River to Mount Hope Bay. But this is unsatisfactory to
other interpreters of the Saga, and an island and a cape on the out
side of Cape Cod, between Orleans and Chatham, which long ago
disappeared, are substituted for Nantucket. 4 If it be said that Nan-
tucket can be called neither east or north of any main land in
sight ; that the waters between it and the neighboring coast can hardly
be called a sound ; so it may be objected to the other theory that it

1 From Hell a, a flat stone.

2 Honey-dew, it is said, is still found on the grass at Nantucket.
8 Antiquitatfs Americans, p. 428.

* Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen, B. F De Costa, p. 29.

VOYAGE OF LEIF THE LUCKY.

is impossible to reconcile the incidents of the narrative to so long a
distance between the first
landing-place and the place
of final settlement; and
that if an island must be
brought up from the bot
tom of the sea to meet the
exigency, it would be quite
as easy to place it where it
would answer to all the dif
ficulties of the case. Yet
there is no doubt that
marked changes have tak
en place within the last few
centuries along the outer
coast of Cape Cod ; that an
island called Nawset, and a
cape called Point Gilbert,
once existed at the points
indicated, and were knotvn
to Capt. John Smith and
Bartholomew Gosnold early
in the seventeenth century. 1
Making due allowance, then,
for possible inaccuracies in a narrative written long after the event,
it is by no means improbable that some discrepancies may be ac
counted for by changes along the coast line of Massachusetts within
the last eight hundred years.

It is now, however, generally conceded that this was a veritable
discovery of the coast of Rhode Island by the Northmen, and
that they landed at some point either in Mount Hope Bay or and in loth
in Narragansett Bay. They went up a river that came
through a lake, says the narrative, and this is in accordance with the
appearance of those waters. Here they cast anchor, went ashore, and
built a house in which to pass the winter. According to the latest
explanation of the Scandinavian calendar, their description of the
shortest day gave the sun as rising at 7.30 A. M., and setting at 4.30
p. M., thus fixing the latitude at 41 24' 10", which is about that of
Mount Hope Bay. " There came," they said, " no frost in winter,
and little did the grass wither there ; " and " the nature of the coun-

1 See an article by Amos Otis, of Yarmouth, Mass., on The Discovery of an Ancient Ship
on Nawset Beach, Orleans, Cape Cod, in May, 1863. New England Genealogical Register
vol. 18, p. 37, et seq.

Map of Cape Cod and Nawset Isle.

42 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

try was, as they thought, so good, that cattle would not require house-
feeding." Such a season would be exceptional now, even for the
neighborhood of Newport ; but any ordinary New England winter
would seem mild to these hardy Greenlanders.

Leif divided his company into two parties, one of which was alter
nately to explore the country. On one of these expeditions a man
named Tyrker, a German, and who was Leif's foster-father, was miss
ing. A party had just started to search for him, with Leif at its
head, when the German reappeared in a state of great excitement.
He gesticulated wildly, spoke for a long time in his native tongue,
and " Leif saw that his foster-father was not in his right senses." But
Leif was mistaken ; the poor German, who had lived long in the ice
fields of the frozen North, had only been carried back for the moment
to the Vaterland, for he said at length in Norsk," 'I have not been
much farther off, but still I have something new to tell of ; I found
vines and grapes ! ' ' But is that true, my fosterer ? ' quoth Leif.
' Surely it is true,' replied he, ' for I was bred up in a land where
there is no want of either vines or grapes.' '

Then, no doubt, he led them to the woods, that they might see
with their own eyes the climbing vines and, the clustering fruit, and
it may well have seemed to them that in a country where these grew
wild there could be no real winter. So precious were they to Leif
that thenceforward one duty of his men was to gather grapes, and he
filled his long-boat with them to take back to Greenland. What bet
ter evidence could he bring of the value of the land to a people whose
greatest delight, next to fighting, was drinking ? They had not yet
forgotten, notwithstanding their new religion, that the chief of their
old Pagan gods, Odin, had no need of food only because wine was
to him both meat and drink ; that all the heroes of Valhalla drank
daily of the wonderful flow of milk from the she-goat Heidrun, and
that the milk was mead. So heaping up on deck the grapes of this
viniand the beautiful land where in winter was no frost, and which he
Qood- named Viniand (Vineland), and filling the hold of his vessel

with timber, about which, at least, there could be no questionable value
in treeless Greenland, Leif returned home in the spring. It was on
this return voyage, or one of the year before from Norway, that he
saved a shipwrecked crew ; but whenever it was, for that and the dis
covery of Viniand he was thereafter known as Leif the Lucky.

The voyage, as we can readily believe, made "much talk" in Green
land, and another of the sons of Eric thought the country
goes to New had not been sufficiently explored. "Thou canst go with
my ship, brother, if thou wilt, to Viniand," said Leif ; for
Eric the Red having died that winter, he was now (1002) the head

THORVALD IN NEW ENGLAND.

of the house, and not disposed just then for maritime adventures.
Thorvald accepted the offer, and with a crew of thirty men sailed for
the new country.

The booths which his brother had put up were still standing, and
he went into winter quarters, his men fishing for their support ; the
waters, as Leif had found two years before, abounding with salmon
and other fish. In the spring, Thorvald sent some of his men in the
ship's long-boat to explore to the westward. They spent the summer
in this pleasant excursion, coasting along the shores of Rhode Island,
Connecticut, and Long Island, the whole length of the Sound, pene
trating, probably, to New York, and finding there another lake through
which a river flowed to the sea. They landed on many islands ; they

Norse Ships entering Boston Harbor.

beached their boat many times on the broad, wide, shallow sands, down
to the edge of which grew the green grass and the great trees which
made this pleasant land seem a very garden to these wanderers from
a country all rocks, and ice-mountains, and fields of snow. But once
only did they see any sign of human habitation, and that was a corn-
shed built of wood,

The next spring (1004), Thorvald started for a more extended trip,
as he went in his ship. Standing first eastward, he then sailed north
ward along the sea-coast of Cape Cod, where a heavy storm caught
him off a ness (cape), and drove his ship ashore, perhaps at Race
Point. Here they remained a long time to repair damages, putting
in a new keel ; the old one they set up in the sand, and the place they
called Kjalarness (Keel-ness or Keelcape), in commemoration of the
disaster. Then they cruised along the opposite shore of what is now

44 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

Plymouth County, Massachusetts, and sailed into its bays till they
came to " a point of land which stretched out and was covered with
wood." l " Here," said Thorvald, " is beautiful, and here I would like
to raise my dwelling." Before the day was out he looked upon his
words as prophetic.

For the first time the Northmen here met with the natives met

them as Europeans so often did in subsequent centuries,
the skrsei- Looking about them at this beautiful spot, they saw in a

secluded nook three skin-boats set up as tents, beneath which
were nine Skrasllings, 2 on whom they stole unawares and captured
eight of them. The ninth escaped; the eight they immediately killed
in cold blood. This cruel deed done, they lay down to sleep upon
the grass under the trees ; but it was not to pleasant dreams. " There
came a shout over them so that they all awoke. Thus said the shout :
' Wake thou ! Thorvald ! and all thy companions, if thou wilt preserve
life, and return thou to thy ship, with all thy men, and leave the land
without delay.' '' It was the savage war-whoop of the enraged Ski-sel
lings, come to avenge the murder of their fellows. The Northmen
fled to their ship to defend themselves behind their battle- skreen. 3
" Fight little against them," was Thorvald's order, mindful now of
the mercy he should have shown before. When the fight was over,
and the Skra3llings had retired, the answer to Thorvald's inquiry as

1 It is conjectured that this point is Nantasket Beach, at the end of which is Point Alder-
ton, a noble promontory opposite the narrow entrance to Boston Harbor. But this can
hardly be, for Nantasket Beach is not " a point," but a peninsula between three and four
miles long, not " stretching out " into the sea, but making a continuation of the coast line
from Cohasset Rocks to the channel connecting Boston Harbor with the sea, and inclosing
on one side the inner bay into which various rivers empty south of Boston. This peninsula
is, most of it, a long, narrow beach of white sea sand, and can never have been covered
with wood. Point Alderton, moreover, is a hill several hundred feet in height, and is one
of a group of similar hills within a mile or two. The description in the Saga does not in
the least conform to the natural features of this locality, and the " remarkable grove of
trees" referred to in Antiquitates Americana; as mentioned in Laurie and Whittie's Sailing
Directions, and the Duke of Saxe Weimar's Travels, is a singular grove of small wild crab
trees covering an acre or two of ground, but not visible from Point Alderton or Nantasket
Beach. There is at Cohasset, about ten miles south of Point Alderton, a point of land, a
bold, rocky promontory, jutting out from beautiful wooded hills, which might well have im
pressed Thorvald with its beauty, and have been a favorite place of resort, in its sheltered
nooks and for its neighborhood to good fishing-grounds, to the Skrallings.

2 The Northmen were used to calling the Esquimaux Skrsellings, a term of contempt,
meaning, says Crantz, "chips, parings, i. e., dwarfs." The assumption is that these people
of the Vinland vicinity were Esquimaux. If that be true, and the term was not used merely
for want of any other to apply to copper-colored natives, then we are to conclude that the
Indians were later comers in that part of the country. Did they first displace the Mound-
building people, and then, in the course of time, move upon and displace the Esquimmix
of the Atlantic coast ? Was it this race who were not smokers, and who made the shell-
heaps where no pipes are found ?

3 A shield made of large planks of wood.

THORSTEIN OF ERICSFIORD.

gotten

Burial-place of Thorvald.

to who was wounded was, None. Then said he, " I have
a wound under the arm, for an arrow fled between the edge
of the ship and the shield, in under my arm, and here is the killed -
arrow, and it will prove a mortal wound to me. Now counsel I ye,
that ye get ready in
stantly to depart, but ye
shall bear me to that cape
where I thought it best to
dwell ; it may be that a
true word fell from my
mouth, that I should dwell
there for a time ; there
shall ye bury me, and
set up crosses at my head
and feet, and call the
place Krossaness forever,
in all time to come." And
it was as he said ; he died, and they buried him on the pleasant cape
that looked out upon the shores and waters of Massachusetts Bay ;
at his head and feet they planted crosses, and then sailed back to Vin-
land to their companions with the heavy tidings of the death of their
young commander. In the spring the colony, with another load of
grapes and timber, returned to Greenland.

There was still another son of Eric, Thorstein of Ericsfiord. He
had married Gudrid, the widow of Thorer, captain of that Eric , 8 gon
crew of shipwrecked mariners whom Leif had rescued. Thor- Thorstein -
stein, taking his wife with him, sailed in the spring or- summer of
1005 for Vinland, chiefly, however, to find Krossaness and bring home
the body of his unfortunate brother Thorvald. But Vinland he did
not find, nor Krossaness ; and after cruising about for months without
once seeing land, they returned early in the winter and landed in the
western settlement, at some distance from Ericsfiord. It was not long
before sickness broke out here among the crew ; many died, and among
them Thorstein. Wonderful marvels attended this season of death ;
the dead sat up in their beds and talked ; they shook the house, as
they lay down again, till all its timbers creaked ; and they made them
selves preternaturally heavy when taken out for burial. Thorstein
was one of these ghostly performers. He prophesied to the weeping
Gudrid, telling her, first, for her comfort, that he had " come to a good
resting-place." She would be married again, he said, and from her
and her husband would descend " a numerous posterity, powerful,
distinguished, and excellent, sweet, and well - favoured." Many

THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.

[CHAP. III.

Thorfinn

Karisrfnc's

ExpeJition.

Norse Ruins in Greenland.

other pleasant things he told her, all of which came to pass in due
season. 1

The next and most important expedition of all those to Vinland,
next to Leif's first voyage, was made bv Thorfinn, surnamed

, . , . . . J .

Karlseine, that is, the promising, or the man destined to be-

TT . T

come great. He was a merchant or Iceland, wealthy, and
of distinguished lineage. A trading voyage had brought him to Green
land in 1006, and he remained for the winter at Brattahlid, the family

seat and old home of Eric,
which Leif had inherited.
It was a winter of festivi
ties. " They set up the
game of chess " to beguile
the long winter evenings,
and " sought amusement
in the reciting of history,
and in many other things,
and were able to pass life
joyfully." The Yule feast
was of more than usual
profusion and richness, and
that was speedily followed by a marriage, which was celebrated with
great rejoicings. Gudrid, who had returned home in the spring with
the body of her late husband, Thorstein, had found favor in the eyes
of Karlsefne, for she was " a grave and dignified woman, and there
with sensible, and knew well how to carry herself among strangers."
Thus, before the first year of her widowhood was over, was brought
to pass the first item in her late husband's prophecy, by her marriage
to an Icelander.

Vinland the Good was not forgotten ; the conversation often turned
upon it, and " it was said that a voyage thither would be particularly
profitable by reason of the fertility of the land." With Karlsefne
from Iceland had come three other merchants, Snorri Thorbrandson,
in the ship with Karlsefne, and Bjarni (or Biarne) Grimolfson and
Thorhall Gamlason, in a ship of their own. The talk of the new land
had its due effect on these strangers, and an expedition was planned to
consist of these two Iceland vessels, and a third commanded by a
Greenlander, Thorvard. This man had married Freydis, a natural

1 Sir Walter Scott, in his Abstract of the Eyrbyggia Saga, alluding to stories of this sort
among the Icelanders, many of which are curiously like the alleged phenomena of modern
" Spiritualism," says, " Such incidents make an invariable part of the history of a rude
age, and the chronicles which do not afford these marks of human credulity may be griev
ously suspected as being deficient in authenticity." Beamish (Discovery of the Northmen)
cites this remark as peculiarly applicable to the narratives relating to Vinland.

COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 47

daughter of Eric the Red, who had a conspicuous part to play in the
subsequent attempts at colonization. Thus in one winter, at a Green
land fireside, was organized a voluntary expedition, to consist of three
ships and one hundred and forty men and women, 1 about equalling in
size that for which, four centuries later, Columbus waited seven years,
with prayers and in poverty, upon the Spanish sovereigns.

The adventurers sailed in the spring of 1007. Gudrid and Freydis
embarked with their husbands ; and there were on board many other
women, married and unmarried ; which was not, as it turned out,
fortunate, for among their subsequent troubles, and when they divided
into parties, " the women," says one of the narratives, " were the
cause of it, for those who were unmarried would injure those who were
married, and hence arose great disturbance." But the object evi
dently was to make a permanent settlement, and that, of course, was
out of the question without women. They took with them also cattle
of all kinds.

The enterprise was plainly full of promise at its beginning ; but it
met with various misfortunes, and, at the end of three years, was
abandoned. It does not seem certain at what precise spot the colony
was planted. The first landfall of the fleet after leaving Markland
for they touched there as well as at Helluland was Kjalarness,
which they recognized by the keel set up there by the unfortunate
Thorvald three years before. They ran past Cape Cod, and because
" it was long to sail by," they called it Furdustrands, or Wonder-
strands. Somewhere along this coast they put in at a cove, and Karl-
sefne sent out as scouts two Scotch slaves, who were very swift of foot,
and who had been given, years before, to Leif the Lucky by the King
of Norway, as one of the inducements to persuade him to become a
Christian. The historians are careful to describe the apparel of these
Scots, a man and a woman, which must have been good for
running, as it consisted of only one garment, and was a happy combi
nation of a hat and a breech-cloth, covering the head, buttoning be
tween the legs, but open everywhere else, and without sleeves. These
scouts were gone three days, and came back with encouraging reports
of the pleasantness and fruitfulness of the country, one carrying a
bunch of grapes, the other an ear of corn. Nan tucket, or Martha's
Vineyard, which the fleet next reached, and where eider-ducks 2 were

1 The Northmen counted by the long and the short hundred. If the number of Karl-
sefne's expedition were reckoned by the long hundred, they counted one hundred and sixty
persons.

2 Though the eider-duck is no longer known on those shores, the Northmen are not likely
to have made any mistake as to the birds they saw in such numbers. That particular duck
was as familiar to them, no doubt, as to the modern Greenlanders and Icelanders, to whom
the down has long been held as so precious an article of traffic that the bird is under uni'

THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.

[CHAP. III.

so plentiful that it was difficult to walk without treading on their eggs,
they called Stream Island, and the bay beyond Buzzard's Bay
Stream Frith, because of the rapid currents around their shores. On
the shores of this bay they spent the first winter.

And with this winter their troubles began. They had improvidently
neglected to lav in a sufficient stock of provisions, and when,

Malcontents

n the coi- the next summer, the fishing was poor there came absolute
scarcity. Now in Thorvard's ship was one Thorhall, who
had been the huntsman in summer, and in winter the steward of Eric
the Red. He was, it is said, " a large man, and strong, black, and
like a giant, silent, and foul-mouthed in his speech, and always egged

Scots Returning to the Ship.

on (^eggjadi) Eric to the worst ; he was a bad Christian." Perhaps
it was only hunger that first drove him to desert ; but he pretended,
after three days' absence in the wilderness, and the others believed
him, that while they were praying to God for food without an answer,
his invocations to Thor had caused a whale to be cast upon the beach
during this season of scarcity, of which they all eat, and were all made
sick. But he was insubordinate as well as morose and impious, for
when soon after it was proposed to seek a new and better habitation,
and Karlsefne thought it best that they should go southward, Thor
hall refused, and would go northward. It was made plain presently

versal protection. See Letters on Iceland, during the Banks' Expedition in 1772. London,
1780, p. 144, et seg. Crantz's Greenland, book ii. chap. 1. Description of Greenland, by
Hans Egede, chap. v.

COLONY OF THORFLNN KARLSEFNE. 49

that he meant to abandon the expedition and return to Greenland,
and he persuaded nine others of the company to follow him. As the
manner was with these old vikings, in times of unusual excitement,
he took to verse, and jeered at and satirized Vinland the Good. As
he carried water to his ship, of which they seem to have allowed him
to take possession, he sang,

" People told me when I came
Hither, all would be so fine ;
The good Vinlaud, known to fame,
Rich in fruits and choicest wine ;
Now the water-pail they send ;
To the fountain I must bend ;
Nor from out this land divine
Have I quaffed one drop of wine."

And once more, as he hoisted his sails to desert his comrades in dis
tress, he sang another song, mocking at their disaster and reminding
them how, by the help of the " red-bearded " Thor, he had poisoned
them with boiled whale, thus :

" Let our trusty band
Haste to Fatherland ;
Let our vessel brave
Plough the angry wave,
While those few who love
Vinland here may rove,
Or, with idle toil,
Fetid whales may boil,
Here on Furdustrand
Far from Fatherland." 1

But disaster attended these deserters. After doubling Cape Cod a
gale from the west struck their vessel, and merchants from Ireland
afterward reported that she was driven before the wind to the coast
of that country, where Thorhall and his companions were seized by the
natives and reduced to slavery.

After the departure of the malcontents, the two other ships, com
manded by Karlsefne and Biarni (Biarne^) Grimolfson, set

* v . Karlsefne

sail from the settlement at Buzzard's Bay upon an exploring explores

,. . Ill T f COaSt f

expedition southward along the coast. According to two or Rhode isi-
the three narratives, and these the best and most circum
stantial, they sailed " a long time " before they came " to a river that
ran out from the land through a lake to the sea." The other account
is, that they went directly on their arrival to Leif's booths, and Leif,
it will be. remembered, we.nt also up a river that flowed through a
lake. The supposition is that Karlsefne and his companions anchored

1 Beaniish'a Translations.

50 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

in Mount Hope Bay, where, it is supposed, Leif had passed the winter,
partly because of this river and lake, the sandy shoals and the ebb of
the tide, which answer to the character of that bay ; and partly be
cause they called the place where they landed Hop, and a hill near
Bristol, Rhode Island, the seat of the Indian chief, King Philip, was
known to the first English settlers as Mount Hope. 1 The Indians,
it is assumed, had preserved the name, and thus the settlement of the
Northmen is fixed, a fanciful and rather violent supposition, which
will hardly bear close examination. As they " sailed long to the
south," and as their course from Buzzard's Bay to Mount Hope Bay
would be first southwest, and then northward, it seems quite as likely
that they finally reached some other point on the coast ; where, is and
always must be a matter of conjecture.

But wherever it was, they set themselves down on the upper side
First winter ^ * ne ^ke or k<iy, some putting up houses directly on the
inviniand. s [i Ore an( ] others going farther inland. For one winter, at
least, it proved a pleasant abiding place. The streams were full of
fish; on the meadows they found fields of "self-sown wheat," that
is, of maize or Indian corn, sown probably by the natives ; on the
uplands, the trees were festooned with grape-vines, so precious in their
eyes; and the woods were full of game. All the winter long there
was no snow upon the ground, and the cattle sustained themselves
upon the still green and juicy grasses of the fields. 2 There seemed to

1 " How, when, or by whom this noted point received the name of Mount Hope, does not
appear. Dr. Stiles notes, in his edition of Church's History, that ' its name is Mont-
haup, a mountain in Bristol.' The editor of Yamoden says, ' The Indians called it Mont-
aup or Mont-hau]> ; ' and Alden, Epitaphs, iv. 77, that, 'according to authentic tradition,
however, Mon Top was the genuine Aboriginal name of this celebrated eminence.' But
these are most likely all corruptions of Mount Hope." Drake's edition of Hubbard's In
dian Wars, Eoxbury, 1865, vol. i. p. 46; note by the editor.

2 As the mildness of the winter and absence of snow are dwelt upon in the narratives of
the different vo'yages, it is probable that the climate of North America was, nine centuries
ago, more moderate than now, as it is positively known that of Greenland and Iceland
was. And this would be entirely in accordance with the astronomical theory of that grad
ual change whereby, through the precession of the equinoxes, the order of the seasons
is completely reversed in every period of 10,500 years. If we are now in that cycle which
is slowly bringing longer winters and more intense cold to the northern hemisphere, as
some astronomers suppose, one tenth of that period would make quite change enough to
account for these statements of the Northmen. Even six hundred years later, Edward
Winslow, who was exceedingly careful and conscientious in all his statements, wrote in
1624 (Narrative of the Plantations : Purchas, vol. iv. ), "Then for the temperature of the air.
in almost three years' experience I can scarce distinguish New England from Old England
in respect of heat and cold, frost, snow, rain, wind, etc. ; .... if it (the heat) do exceed
England, it is so little as must require better judgments to discern it. And for the winter,
I rather think (if there be difference) it is both sharper and longer in New England than
Old ; and yet the want of those comforts in the one, which I have enjoyed in the other,

may deceive my judgment also I cannot conceive of any (climate) to agree better

with the constitutions of the English, not being oppressed with the extremity of heat, nor

COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 51

be none in this pleasant land to molest them or make them afraid, for
when, soon after their arrival, a great number of the natives came
upon them suddenly, they came with signs of peace. They landed
from their canoes, and loitered about the settlement, gazing in wonder
upon the strangers and all that belonged to them, but they had appar
ently no hostile intent, and neither meddled nor were they meddled
with. When they left, they disappeared beyond the cape, and nothing
more was seen of them till the following spring. They are described
as " black and ill-favored (or fierce), and with coarse hair on the
head ; they had large eyes and broad cheeks."

But in the spring (1009) they came back again in much augmented
numbers, " so many," it is related, " as if the sea was sowen Trade with
with coal." But still they came in amity, and a brisk trade the natives
at once sprung up between them and the colonists. Red cloth was
exchanged, as long as it lasted, for skins, sables, and other furs ; when
that was all gone the women made milk porridge, which satisfied the
savages quite as well and brought quite as much as the bits of red
cloth, though, as the Saga says, they only carried away in their bellies
the results of a barter of which the Northmen gained the more sub
stantial benefit. But this pleasing state of things was interrupted by
an unfortunate incident. A bull belonging to Karlsefne rushed out
of the woods with a hideous bellow, and so frightened the Skrasllings
that they fled to their boats and paddled away with all the strength
that a new terror could give them. It was a ludicrous interruption
to the profitable traffic of por
ridge for peltries ; but the na
tives evidently looked upon it
as a hostile demonstration,
having the same dread of this
huge, unknown beast, that
the Indians of Hispaniola had
some centuries later of the Esquimaux skin-boat.

horses of the Spaniards.

For weeks, perhaps for months, for the accounts differ, nothing more
was seen of the Skrallings ; but when they returned again, they came
" like a rushing torrent," with the poles of their boats now turned
away from the sun, whereas in their previous visit they had been
turned toward it. The Northmen looked upon this as a sign of hos
tility, and accepted the challenge, holding up to them the red shield of
war instead of the white shield of peace.

nipped by biting cold." No truthful and accurate observer could write thus now of the
bitter climate of Massachusetts, with its extremes of temperature in summer and winter.

52 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

Then began a furious battle. The Northmen had the advantage of
Battle with weapons, for they fought with swords. But they were over-
Skrreiiings. p Owerec { by numbers, and soon fled. Something like a panic,
moreover, seized upon them, even more senseless than the fright which
overcame the Skrgellings the spring before at the bellowings of the
bull. It is said that a huge ball at the end of a pole was flourished
over them, and thrown to the ground with a horrid noise. The noise
and the novelty of this method of warfare, with the accompaniment of
shouts and yells, seem to have been the only frightful thing about it,
for it did the Northmen no harm, though they fled before it like
affrighted children. But there was one among them who was not
frightened ; this was Freydis, the natural daughter of Eric the Red,
and wife of Thorvard. Rushing out among the combatants, she
shrieked, "Why do ye run, stout men as ye are, before these mis
erable wretches, whom I thought ye would knock down like cattle ?
And if I had weapons, methinks I could fight better than any of
ye." But they gave no heed to the dauntless woman, still seeking
safety in flight to the shelter of the woods. Freydis, who was heavy
with child, followed closely behind, pursued by the Skraellings. Com
ing presently to the dead body of a countryman, dead with a stone
arrow in his brain, she seized his sword and was ready to defend
herself.

She did more than this, for she completely turned the tide of bat-
Bravery of tie, an( ^ that ^ n a wav which h as no parallel in any other
Freydis. record of Amazonian exploits. She turned and faced the
advancing savages ; but instead of attacking them, she tore open her
dress, and exposing her naked breasts, beat them with the sword with
the aspect and the cries of a. fury. The Skrjellings, terrified at this
strange action, turned and ran with all speed to the canoes, and seiz
ing the paddles, flew, like a flock of startled wild duck just skimming
the surface of the water in their swift flight, down the bay. Perhaps
they thought the woman some powerful priestess whose incantations
and imprecations would bring upon them swift destruction ; or it may
be that her frantic gestures and cries, her courageous defiance, and
the exposure of her bare bosom to their attacks, daunted them be
cause it was something they could not understand ; but this picture of
the fierce Norse warriors flying before a sheep's paunch tied to the
end of a pole, and owing their safety to the fury of a woman beside
herself with rage, is in ludicrous contrast with the tradition of their
reckless and invincible courage.

The colony This was virtually the end of Karlsefne's attempt at colo-
abandoned. n i za ti O n, though it was not absolutely abandoned till the
following spring, of 1010. He and his companions were not again mo-

COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 53

lested by the Skraellings, but they thought it not worth while to
remain in a country, however otherwise desirable, where they were
liable to such attacks. This decision was probably confirmed by meet
ing, on one of their excursions, with a Uniped, who, after killing one
of their number, fled out to sea. Such marvels were believed in even
in a much later and more enlightened age. 1 Other natives were
sometimes met and generally killed, no doubt without much com
punction. Two boys they took as prisoners were carried back to
Greenland, taught Norse, and baptized. From them it was learned
that there were two kings over the Skraellings, one named Avalidania,
the other, Valldidia ; their people had no houses, but lived in dens
and caves. In another part of the country, however, there was, they
said, another people, who " wore white clothes, and shouted loud, and
carried poles with flags." And this was supposed to be the White
Man's Land, a mythical colony of Irish somewhere south of Vinland. 2

1 Charlevoix (History of New France, vol. i. pp. 124, 128, Shea's edition) repeats the
stories told five centuries later, of voyagers who saw or heard of Unipeds, men with only
one leg and foot, and with two hands on the same arm, of pygmies, of giants, of men
who never eat, of headless men, and of other monsters, of which, he says, " it is easy to
believe that there is some exaggeration, but it is easier to deny extraordinary facts than to
explain them."

' 2 The Northmen called the country somewhere south of Vinland the White Man's Land,
or Great Ireland, and believed that it was occupied by the Irish. Professor Eafn supposes
it to have extended from Chesapeake Bay to East Florida. One of their narratives relates
that in the year 928, one Ari Marson, an Icelander, was driven there by an easterly storm,
and was not permitted to go away again. The story came from a Limerick merchant and
from the Earl of the Orkneys, and it is therefore presumed that occasional intercourse was
kept up between the people of this Hvitramanna-land and Europe. A romantic story is
also told of one Bjarni Asbrandson, a famous viking, who was always fighting, or singing
songs, or making love. The marital bond sat loosely upon the women of Iceland, and it
was nothing unusual that Bjarni should overstep the limits of morality and propriety in
his attentions to another man's wife, and that her husband and his friends should therefore
attempt to kill him. The husband of this woman Thurid, Bjarni seems to have held in
great contempt ; but for her brother, Snorri, the high-priest, he entertained a very different
feeling. After an encounter with him, in which they botli showed a good deal of magna
nimity, Snorri trying to kill Bjarni and failing, but frankly acknowledging his intention,
and Bjarni having it in his power to kill Snorri but choosing not to do so, it was agreed
between them that Bjarni should go abroad and not see Thurid for a year. He went, and
the vessel he sailed in was never heard of afterward. Thirty years later an Icelandic ship
was driven westward by a storm upon an unknown coast, where all her people were made
prisoners. They were surrounded by a great crowd, and " it rather seemed to them that
they spoke Irish." The prisoners were bound and taken inland, where they met, sur
rounded by a large number of persons, a white-haired and martial-looking chieftain, with
a banner borne before him, whom all treated with the greatest deference. He spoke to the
strangers in the Northern tongue, and when he learned that they came from Iceland and
the district of Bogafiord, he asked for all the principal men of those parts by name, and
was especially minute in inquiries about Snorri the priest, Thurid his sister, and her son
Kjartan. The prisoners were soon released by his orders, with injunctions to depart with
all speed from that country and never to return again, or to permit others to come thither.
As they were about to leave, he took from his finger a gold ring, and putting that, and also

54 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

Karlsefne and his ship reached Greenland in safety. On board of
First Euro- ner was the first child, so far as is known, born of European
bomon'this psu'entage on this continent. This was Snorri, the son of
continent. Karlsefne and Gudrid, born in Vinland, A. D. 1007. He was
their only child, and in him was fulfilled another of the prophecies of
Gudrid's former husband, as he lay dead in his bed, for in Snorri
began a long line of distinguished descendants. 1

There remains to be briefly told the story of Freydis, with whom
ends all positive history of these attempted settlements on the coast
of the North American continent. Other voyages, it is supposed, were
made at different times for the next two centuries, as allusions to such
adventures, though there are no distinct narrations, are, according to
Professor Rafn, scattered through Icelandic literature. It is even con
jectured that the colony at Vinland may have been kept alive, not
withstanding the gloomy memory of the deeds of Freydis, which
would, it might be supposed, have made the spot dreaded as one
haunted by the victims of the savage fury of a cruel and unrelenting
woman. If any efforts, however, were made to found future colonies,
they must needs have been feeble and desultory, or they would have
left some permanent signs behind them.

That Freydis was a fearless woman we have seen already in her
encounter with the savages. It was with her, at least, no dread of
them that induced her to return with her countrymen to Greenland.
Greenland, with its savage rocks, its ice-bound waters, its mountains
of perpetual snow, its gloomy fiords, its barren soil, its long winters
where the sun just crept above the horizon, was to her a poor ex
change for the fair, bright land where the winters were sunshiny and
mild ; where the pleasant waters of its sequestered bays washed, all the
seasons through, the smooth beaches of clean, white sand ; where the
great oaks, and elms, and pines, and maples cast their grateful shadows

a good sword, into the hands of the Icelandic captain, he said, " If the fates permit you to
come to your own country, then shall you take this sword to the yeoman, Kjartan of Froda,
but the ring to Thurid his mother." When asked from whom it should be said these gifts
came, he answered, " Say, he sends them who loved the lady of Froda better than her
brother, the priest of Helgafell ; but if any man therefore thinks that he knows who has
owned these gifts, then say these my words, that I forbid any one to come to me, for it is the
most dangerous expedition, unless it happens as fortunately with others at the landing-
place as with you ; but here is the land great, and bad as to harbours, and in all part
may strangers expect hostility, when it does not turn out as has been with you." So say
ing, he turned away with his banner waving over him. Gudlief, the Icelandic captain, on
his return, faithfully delivered the ring to Thurid, the lady of Froda, and the sword to
Kjartan her son, who was now supposed to be the son of Bjarni nlso. For it was plain
that the stately, white-hnired chieftain of Hvitramanna-land was Bjarni Asbrandson, who,
thirty years before, had disappeared from Iceland.

1 Thorvaldsen, the eminent Danish sculptor, and Finn Magnusson, the distinguished
Danish scholar, are among the later descendants of Snorri.

COLONY OF FREYDIS.

over the rich verdure of the meadows, and in the deep woods the
long vines, climbing to the tops of the lofty trees, festooned them
with clusters of rich fruit.

The restless woman had hardly reached home before she set her ac
tive brain at work to plan a return to that land of promise,

, Colony of

to reap a fresh harvest in the trade for furs with the natives, **<
in shiploads of timber, in boat-loads of dried grapes. Such persua
sions, however, were futile with her own people, either because they
knew as much about Vinland as she did and cared less, or because they
knew her ; but they succeeded with two strangers. There came that
summer (1010) to Greenland from Norway two brothers, Helgi and
Finnbogi, Icelanders, in a ship of their own, laden with merchandise.

Leif's Booths.

Freydis was at home at Garde when she heard of their arrival, but
she sought them out at once, and laid a proposition before them. An
expedition was agreed upon on joint and equal account. The brothers
were to have thirty fighting men on board their ship, and Freydis
the same number, among whom she permitted her husband, Thor-
vard, to count one. Of Leif, her brother, she asked the gift of the
houses or booths in Vinland, built by him ten years before, a gift
he declined to make, though he was quite willing to lend them to this
expedition as he had to others. It was a question fraught with future
trouble, for Freydis meant that these shelters should belong exclu
sively to her and not to the enterprise.

They set sail in the spring of 1011. On board of Freydis's ship
went five more fighting men than the stipulated number, stowed

56 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

away out of sight. Helgi and Finnbogi were the first to reach Vin-
land, and before the other ship arrived they had landed goods and
Leifs stored them in Leif's booths, assuming that joint occupation

Booths. wag a p ar t o f the agreement. But when Freydis came and
found the buildings thus partially occupied, she resented it as an
unauthorized intrusion, and high words followed between her and the
brothers.

" Leif lent the houses to me, not to you," the woman asserted.

" We thought it was to both," said the brothers.

They had discovered by this time that she had cheated them as to
the number of fighting men which each party was to take, and they
added that she was more than a match for them with her sharp prac
tices. So they left the booths to which Freydis claimed that she had
the exclusive right, built a house for themselves, and into it moved
their company and their goods.

The brothers were clearly of a sociable and cheerful disposition,
desiring nothing so much as harmony and peace. It was they who
yielded always, and Freydis who encroached. Winter amusement is
no less a duty than a pleasure with those who live in high latitudes,
when without it men would sink into apathy and despair in the long
dark night of months, as all Arctic voyagers know. The good Ice
landic custom of " passing life joyfully" in the winter time Helgi and
Finnbogi maintained in Vinland, more, of course, to keep their people
occupied than because of any exigency of climate. They contrived
games and sports within doors and without, inviting the Freydis peo
ple to these diversions, doing all they could to keep up a pleasant in-
Discord in tercourse between the two houses. But discord crept in ;
the colony. ey ^ re p O rts were circulated ; jealousies and enmities were
aroused on the right hand and on the left ; perhaps more even than
in Karlsefne's time, two years before, women were implicated in these
troubles ; one at least was at the bottom of them all, and she was
unsparing of the rest. The games first languished, then dropped ;
visits, friendly greetings, intercourse of any kind between the two com
panies became less and less frequent, and finally ceased altogether.
The evil influence was at last triumphant. The colony of perhaps
seventy-five people divided into two hostile camps, hating each other,
ready to fly at each other's throats. Such was the miserable state of
feeling nearly all winter, growing worse the longer it lasted ; none the
less bitter and implacable that it was without any visible and suffi
cient cause.

When the alienation was complete, and the mutual exasperation at
its height, Finnbogi was surprised, one day, to see, in the dim twilight
of the early morning, Freydis standing, silent and alone, in the door-

COLONY OF FREYDIS. 57

way of his house. He was shocked, perhaps, as well as surprised, at
a visit at such an unseemly hour ; but raising himself in his bed, he
said,

" What wilt thou here, Freydis ? "

She answered, " I wish that thou wouldst get up, and go out with
me, for I would speak with thee."

Finnbogi rose and followed her to the trunk of a tree, not far from
the house, but out of hearing of any one within, where they sat down.

" How art thou satisfied here ? " asked Freydis.

The answer which Finnbogi gave was unfortunate even fatal; for
the question was a leading one, and Freydis hoped to hear him say
that he was not satisfied at all, and longed to be gone. But he
said,

" Well think I of the land's fruitfulness, but ill do I think of the
discord that has sprung up betwixt us, for it appears to me that no
cause has been given."

She artfully agreed to this, for her purpose evidently was to show
that so great was that discord, either one party or the other must go
away. Finnbogi's assertion gave little hope that, his would be that
party. For she said,

" Thou sayest as it is, and so think I ; but my business here with
thee is, that I wish to change ships with thy brother, for ye have a
larger ship than I, and it is my wish to go from hence."

" That must I agree to, if such is thy wish," was the reply. Then
the conference broke up.

This acquiescence in her departure and readiness to expedite it, on
the part of Finnbogi, and his avowed satisfaction with the country,
which had no drawback except this discord which would be removed
by that departure, were not what she meant to get by that early visit.
She must find some other way, however desperate, of gaining her end.
Returning to her house and bed, this misplaced woman, so clearly fitted
to be a queen, determined to move her husband to a desperate deed.
She had gone barefooted through the dew to Finnbogi's house. The
Saga is careful to relate that when she got up " she dressed herself,
but took no shoes or stockings, and the weather was such that much
dew had fallen ; " but it was also such that " she took her husband's
cloak." So now on her return, exasperated at the failure of her
errand, she got into bed cold and wet, and the sleeping Thorvard,
awakened in this unpleasant way, demanded resentfully why she was
in this condition. She retorted angrily,

" I was gone to the brothers, to make a bargain with them about
their ship, for I wished to buy the large ship ; but they took it so
ill, that they beat me and used me shamefully ; but thou ! miserable

58 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

man ! wilt surely neither avenge my disgrace or thine own, and it is
easy to see that I am no longer in Gi'eenland, and I will separate from
thee if thou avengest not this."

Such approaches and reproaches could nc fc be withstood by the pla-
Murder of cable and obedient Thorvard. V r ith all speed he called his
S}gf i 'and nn ~ men to arms, and went at once to the house of the brothers,
their people j^ was y e f. ear } v , f or Freydis had lost no time, and Helgi and
Finnbogi, and all their people, were still asleep. By a sudden and
stealthy attack Thorvard and his men overwhelmed and bound them ;
one by one they were led from the building, and one by one they
were dispatched as they came out. Not a man was left.

But among them were five women, and on these no man would lay
his hands.

" Give me an axe ! " shrieked Freydis.

The axe was given her ; she fell upon the five women, and no man
stayed her hand ; and " she did not stop till they were all dead."

This cruel and cowardly work finished, they returned to their own
dwelling ; and Freydis, says the faithful chronicle, " did not appear
otherwise than as if she had done well." But, nevertheless, it was a
deed to be concealed, and she was not the woman to forget that neces
sity even at such a moment. Turning, therefore, to her people, she
gave them this assurance of her future conduct :

k ' If it be permitted us," she said, " to come again to Greenland, I
will take the life of that man who tells of this business ! Now should
we say this that they remained behind when we went away."

She was now in sole command and in sole possession, for Thorvard,
the husband, can hardly be supposed to possess any will or authority
of his own in such a vigorous presence. None ventured to disobey the
imperious and desperate woman. Under her stern rule the rest of the
winter was spent in cutting timber and gathering together such other
commodities as the country afforded; and so successful were they in
this work, that when the spring came and they were ready for depart
ure, the larger ship of the two brothers, which Freydis had so coveted
and had obtained at such bloody cost, was loaded with all that she
could carry.

It was, it is to be hoped, a gloomy winter, though thus crowded with
oioom work. The silent and empty house of Helgi and Finnbogi,
lowed t f h!f where, for many weeks, "life had passed joyfully" with games,
massacre. an( j S p Or ^ Si anc j tale, and song, after the manner of their coun
try, was always before them ; in the murmurs of the lonely sea, in the
sighs and sobs of the winds in the deep solitude of the melancholy
woods, they heard the voices of those late comrades; the graves of
almost as many dead as they could count of their living company

SUPPOSED RELICS OF THE NORTHMEN. 59

reminded them continually of that cowardly and cruel slaughter of
defenceless men ; and visions would come to sleepless eyes, in the long
winter nights, of the relentless woman in her naked, bloody feet, with
her bare arms red with blood, as she' cut down the helpless creatures
whom none else would kill, and they were not men enough to save.

But their consciences were stronger than the threats or the blan
dishments of Freydis ; for though she lavished many gifts upon them
on their return to Greenland, though she had assured them she " would
take the life of that man who told of this business," whispers, never
theless, were soon abroad of frightful deeds done in Vinland, and cir
culating swiftly from mouth to mouth. These soon reached the ears
of Leif, who, seizing two of his sister's followers, put them to the
torture and extorted a confession of all the atrocities which, under
the leadership of Freydis, had been done in the colony. Then said
Leif, " I like not to do that to Freydis, my sister, which she has
deserved, but this will I predict, that their posterity will never thrive."
It certainly was not a severe punishment for the murder of thirty-two
men and five women, that no one from that time forth thought other
wise than ill of Freydis and her accomplices. But she disappears from
history with this mark of execration, and with her ends also essentially
the history of the Northmen in Vinland the Good.

Enthusiastic antiquaries have sought to find in the region supposed

to be Vinland some visible relics of its several colonies. If

^ e i' cs ^
there were any it would be much more remarkable than Northmen

sought in

that there are none, after the lapse of nine hundred years. NewEng-

A land.

Leif's booths, though they were probably solid structures of
hewn timber, would hardly abide the onslaughts of the elements for
so many centuries ; and there is no
intimation in any of the narratives
that the Northmen erected more last
ing monuments, to become, in

" Unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time,"

the witnesses of their former presence.

There is at Newport, R. I., a round

stone tower, which Professor Rafn

and others believed was built by the

Northmen ; but Palfrey, in his " His- Newport Tower.

tory of New England," shows quite

conclusively that this is only an old stone mill, erected by Governor
Arnold late in the seventeeth century, who in his will referred to it
as " my stone-built wind-mill." " Without doubt," says Dr. Palfrey,
with peculiar force, " it is extraordinary that no record exists of the

THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.

[CHAP. III.

erection of so singular an edifice by early English inhabitants of
Rhode Island. But it would be much more strange that the first
English settlers should not have mentioned the fact, if, on their arri
val, they had found a vestige of 4 a former civilization, so different from
everything else within their view." Beside, the harbor of Newport
was undoubtedly visited by more than one voyager before
at Newport any permanent settlement was made, and it is incredible, if
AmoWs the tower was in existence, that it should never have been
alluded to by anybody in log-book or journal, till Governor
Arnold speaks of it as his windmill. Dr. Palfrey says, moreover,
that the Arnold family is supposed to have come from Warwick
shire, England. Governor Arnold
had a farm which he called " Lem-
mington Farm;" and in Warwick
shire there is a Leamington, three
miles from which, at Chesterton, is
a round stone mill, the counterpart
of that at Newport. The tradition
in regard to this mill is that it was
from a design by Inigo Jones. If
so, it was probably built when Arnold
was a boy, or not long before, and
would be, as the work of an emi
nent architect, the admiration of the
country round about. What more
natural than that Governor Arnold,
when advanced in life, should re
produce, as nearly as he could, an
edifice supposed to be a master
piece of architecture of its kind, and
endeared to him by all the memories
and associations of his early home? 1

The Danish antiquaries adduce also the Dighton Rock, as it is called,
as an evidence of the visits of the Northmen to New Eng
land. This rock is on the bank of the Tauntoii River, in the
town of Berkeley, Mass., opposite Dighton. Upon it are carved rude
hieroglyphics, which have been an object of curious interest for nearly
two centuries. Various copies, differing much from each other, have
been taken at different times during all bhat period, and some of them
have been sent to Europe for the consideration of learned societies.
The characters have been assumed to be Phoenician, Scythian, Roman,
and even Hebrew, until the Danish antiquaries pronounced them to

1 See Palfrey's History of Neiv England, p. 56, et seq.

Chesterton Mil

Dighton
Rock.

SUPPOSED RELICS OF THE NORTHMEN.

be Runic. They profess to find the name of Thorfinn in the middle
of the inscription, in certain rude characters, some of which are clearly
Roman letters ; other marks above are interpreted as signifying the
Roman numerals, CXXXL, the number of Thorfinn Karlsefne's com
pany after the desertion of Thorhall and his companions ; below is the
figure of an animal of some sort, perhaps, if we may make a sug
gestion, the bull that frightened the Skraellings, and a ship, which
one must be an antiquary to find ; on the right are Gudrid and her son
Snorri, born in Vinland ; on the left Karlsefne himself, with a com
panion. These and other fanciful interpretations are held to be a com
plete record of the expedition of Karlsefne and its leading incidents.

Dighton Rock.

On the other hand, the rude pictures have been declared by more
than one Indian chief to be the record only of a successful Indian hunt 5
and General Washington, when ^

taken to the rock, said the figures
resembled those he had often
seen upon the buffalo robes of
the Western Indians. The let
ters and numerals were probably
added by another and later art
ist. Such picture-writings upon
rocks, to commemorate successful
hunts or successful fights, were
not uncommon among the In
dians, and they have been found
in various parts of the country. There is an instance of it on the
Virginia shore of the Ohio River, near Steubenville, Ohio, 1 bearing

1 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. By Squier and Davis.

Steubenville Rock.

62 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III.

a marked resemblance to that of the Dighton Rock. In 1850, Mr.
J. G. Bruff found, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a defile fifteen or
twenty miles in length, where the face of the precipices was covered
with picture-writing, some of it on the under surface of rocks, where
it could have been done only by the aid of platforms. These sculp
tured hieroglyphics are so numerous that it is estimated to have painted
them with a brush would have required the labor of many workmen
for several months. 1

But the claim for the discovery of America by the Northmen re
quires no support from such questionable evidence, and is

Icelandic

sagas. Their rather injured than otherwise by a resort to it. Its real
strength lies in the narratives themselves, which, if what is
claimed for them be true, decide the question beyond controversy.
The Icelanders, like all the Scandinavians, were excessively fond of
listening to the poems of their Skalds and the stories of their Saga-
men. In Iceland and Greenland, especially, condemned by the rigor
of the climate to live an in-door life for the larger part of the year,
it was necessary, not merely " to make life pass joyfully," but to
render it tolerable, to have some other resource than merely eating
and drinking. They resorted to " recitals of history " and of songs
or poems, often of inordinate length; sometimes mythological, some
times imaginative, more generally tales of the deeds of dead and living
heroes ; often, no doubt, exaggerated and adorned, when the deeds
related were of heroes listening to the praises of their own achieve
ments ; but nevertheless these were faithful relations, in the main,
of actual occurrences. This habit of the people, degenerating on the
one hand into a mere love of gossip, feeding an insatiable appetite
for details of the affairs of their neighbors, on the other hand pre
served every event of interest or importance to be handed down by
word of mouth from generation to generation. When with Chris
tianity the Roman alphabet was introduced, these Sagas were reduced
to writing by diligent and studious men ; inestimable treasures laid up
for the use of future historians.

Such records in regard to the settlement of the Northmen on the
American coast were known to have been made, and the fact was
frequently referred to by early writers. Thus Adam of Bremen, who
wrote an ecclesiastical history about the middle of the eleventh cen
tury, has a passage relating to the subject which, if it be not a sub
sequent interpolation, of which there is no evidence, is an incontestible
proof of the discovery of Vinland. He made a visit to Denmark, and
was informed, he says, by the king, " that a region called Vinland had
been found by many in that ocean, because there vines grew spon-

1 Smithsonian Report, 1873, p. 409.

EVIDENCE OF THE ICELANDIC SAGAS. 63

taneously, making the best wine ; for that fruits grow there which
were not planted, we know, not by mere rumor, but by the positive
report of the Danes." But, though several historians of different coun
tries, who have written within the last two hundred years, have rec
ognized that this discovery was actually made, the details of so inter
esting a fact were not fully known until the different narratives were
gathered together by the Northern Antiquarian Society of Denmark,
and published in a single volume. 1

The fullest and most important of these relations exist in manu
script, in a collection known as the "Codex Flatoiensis," written be
tween the years 1387 and 1395. These, now preserved in the Royal
Library at Copenhagen, were found in a monastery on the Island of
Flato on the west coast of Iceland, where they had lain forgotten
and unnoticed for centuries. There is no serious question now of the
authenticity of these Sagas, as whatever doubt may, at one time, have
been entertained has been effectually put to rest. Like other chron
icles, relating to the early history of Greenland and Iceland, of Swe
den and Norway, they were long preserved by oral tradition, from cen
tury to century, and at length committed to writing, long after the
time to which they referred. The main facts related in them are un
questionably true ; the incongruities, discrepancies, and even absur
dities which can be pointed out, are such as would inevitably occur in
verbal repetitions, for nearly three centuries, of the circumstantial
details of distant voyages and adventures ; and such errors, moreover,
are incontestible evidence that the narratives were not constructed for
a purpose long after the date of a pretended event, but are veritable
relations of actual occurrences told by those who took part in them,
and unconsciously changed by those who repeated them, from time
to time, on points which seemed to them of little interest or im
portance. Not less conclusive is the simplicity, sometimes even child
ishness, of the narratives, the preservation of unimportant partic
ulars, remarkable only for their singularity, so characteristic of all
uncultivated people, who, like children, delight in marvels and are
captured by novelty.

1 Antiquilates Americana, sive Scriptores Septentrlonales Rerum Columbianarum in America.
Samling afde i Nordens Old-skrifter, etc., etc. Edidit Societas Regia Antiquariorum Sep.
teutrionalium. Copenhagen: Hafhiae, 1837.

The Sea of Darkness.

CHAPTER IV.

FEE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD.

ARABIAN SAILORS ON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. WELSH TRADITION OF AMERICAN
DISCOVERY. VOYAGE OF MADOC, PRINCE OF WALES. EVIDENCE ADDUCED.
SUPPOSED TRACES OF WELSH AMONG DOEGS, MANDANS, AND MOUND BUILDERS.
NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. SHIPWRECK OF NICOLO ZENO AT FRISLAND.
His ACCOUNT OF ENGRONELAND. ADVENTURES OF A FRISLAND FISHERMAN.
THE WESTERN VOYAGE OF PRINCE ZICHMNI. CHINESE DISCOVERY OF FUSANG.
STATE OF NAUTICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE BEFORE COLUMBUS.

IN the town of Bristol, England, there is a suburb called Cathay,
so preserving the memory of that prosperous time when Bristol, next
to London, was the richest and most important city of the kingdom,
of that proud period when her merchants carried on a thriving
trade with the Indies, before Columbus sailed to find a Western pas
sage to the far East. So in Lisbon, as late as the beginning of the
thirteenth century, there was a street called Almagrurin, which
means in English "Those that go astray," so named in commem
oration of a bold adventure of some Arab sailors, who had ventured

ARABIAN SAILORS ON THE SEA. OF DARKNESS. 65

further toward the Sea of Darkness than any others were known to
have sailed before. 1

. The Arab geographers relate the incident, the memory of which
the street preserves, and some historians have found in it a sugges
tion of possible American discovery, as early as the twelfth century,
and far south of the colony at Vinland. Lisbon was then still in pos
session of the Arabs, who, above all other people of that period, were
students of geometry and astronomy, applied those sciences to geog
raphy and navigation, and were the boldest sailors of the age. Eight
of these hardy and well-instructed men, bound together by
ties of relationship, determined to explore that mighty and of^ghYlrab
mysterious ocean which stretched from the coast of Portugal Ba
to the setting sun, on whose western horizon no sail ever crept up
against the sky, or disappeared from sight beneath its waters.

Building themselves a vessel, they put on board provisions for sev
eral months, showing thereby a determination that their explorations
should not be cut short for want of time. Taking an east wind they
steered fearlessly westward, and after eleven days their ship ploughed
into a sea thick with grass, concealing, as they thought, many reefs
of sunken rocks, and giving forth a fetid smell. They imagined that
the light of the sun was failing them as they approached the confines
of that dreary sea, whose mysterious waters, they did not doubt, in
accordance with the belief of the time, were concealed in perpetual
night, haunted by demons, and filled with strange creatures of mon
strous shapes. Alarmed at these portents, they turned their vessel's
head southward, and in twelve days more reached an island which
they named El Ghanam, meaning "small cattle," because they found
upon it numerous flocks of sheep. Here they landed, but saw no
people. Some of the sheep they killed, but the flesh was so bitter as
to be unfit for food, and they found nothing else worth taking except
figs and fresh water.

Then they sailed away again southward ; at the end of twelve days,
on approaching an island the people came out to meet them
in boats and made them all prisoners. When taken on shore incidents of
they were carried before the king of the country, who, on
hearing through an interpreter, who spoke Arabic, the object of their
voyage, laughed at them heartily for their folly. His father, he told
them, had once sent slaves into that Western Ocean, who, after cruis
ing about for a month, lost sight of the sun, and thus were compelled
to return without the voyage profiting them anything. From this
interview the Arabs were dismissed to prison ; but as soon as the wind

1 Notices et Extraits de la Bibliotheque du Roi, cited in The History of The New World by
Don Juan Baptista Munoz, p. 119

66 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

veered to the west they were put, blindfolded and pinioned, into a
boat, carried out to sea, and abandoned to the mercy of the winds
and waves. They drifted, within three days, upon the mainland of
Africa, where they were kindly treated by the natives Berbers
and whence they returned to Lisbon. Thereafter they were known
among their countrymen as u the strayed ones." l

From the direction in which these Arabs had sailed, and from the
length of their voyage, the most reasonable supposition is that they
first reached the Madeira group, where the flesh of the wild goat is
bitter, as the animals browse on a plant called la coquerel? and
that the next land they saw was the Cape Verde Islands. But
the natives of that country they described as of a red color, with
straight black hair, and for this reason, and because some of the ac
counts have given the voyage as being thirty or five and thirty days,
instead of twelve, before land was reached, it has been supposed that
these wanderers had touched the shores of America or some of the
islands upon its coast. If, however, the narrative of Edrisi, the
Arabian geographer, be accepted as authentic, according to the trans
lation which we have followed, the course pursued by these Arabs
from Lisbon could hardly have taken them to the westward of the
Azores. One claim, therefore, to the discovery of the western world,
whether by accident or design, before the voyages of the navigators
of the fifteenth century, may be held to be disposed of.

The tradition that America was discovered about the year 1170 by
a Welsh prince named Madog, or Madoc, is still more cir-
O f America cumstantial, and attempts to support it by later evidence
have been made from time to time for the last two hundred
years. Even so cautious and judicial a critic as Humboldt says in
allusion to it : " I do not share the scorn with which national tradi
tions are too often treated, and am of the opinion that with more
research the discovery of facts, entirely unknown, would throw much
light on many historical problems."

Certainly we are not to forget the distinction between a tradition
and an invention ; it is impossible to establish the one, and, as a lie
can never be made the truth, it is not worth repeating ; but the other
is an honest relation, accepted as such by those who first repeated it,
and which may yet be sustained by evidence. This tradition re
lating to Madoc had, no doubt, some actual basis of truth, however
much it may have been misapprehended ; the evidence adduced from
time to time in support of it has been believed by many, and is curious

1 Edrisi, the Arabian geographer's account of The Voyage of the Arabs, in Major's Life of
Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 147 et seq. Humboldt's Examen Critique, p. 137, T. 2.

2 Berthelot's Natural History of the Canaries, quoted from M. d'Avezac by Major,

THE WELSH TRADITION.

and entertaining ; the tradition itself in its original baldness has found
a place in historical narrative for three hundred years ; for each and
all of these reasons it demands brief consideration.

The story was first related in Caradoc's " History of Wales," pub
lished by Dr. David Powell in 1584. Caradoc's history, however,
came down only to 1157, and Humphrey Llwyd (Lloyd), who trans
lated it, added the later story of Madoc. Lloyd received
it from Guttun Owen, a bard who, about the year 1480, t^th "*"
copied the registers of current events which, as late as the
year 1270, were kept in the Abbeys of Conway, North Wales, and
StratFlur, South
Wales, and com
pared together
every three years
by the bards be
longing to the
two houses. An-

Welsh Bard.

other bard, Cynfrig ab Gronow, referred to the tradition of western
discovery by Madoc about the same time with Owen ; and another
allusion to it is claimed in the following lines literally translated
written three years earlier by Sir Meredyth ab Rhy :

" On a happy Hour, I, on the water,
Of Mannaers mild, the Huntsman will be,
Madog bold of pleasing Countenance,
Of the true Lineage of Owen Gwyned.
I coveted not Land, my Ambition was,
Not great Wealth, but the Seas." 1

This may certainly be accepted as conclusive evidence, at least, that
the mild-mannered and good-looking prince was fond of the sea ; but
it is difficult to find anything else in it that can be supposed to refer
to the discovery of America. The only real authorities may properly

1 Williams's Enquiry.

PltE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

be considered as reduced to two the bards Guttun Owen and Cyn-
frig ab Gronow. 1

The story is briefly this : When Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North
Wales, was gathered to his fathers, a strife arose among his sons as to
who should reign in his stead. The eldest legitimate son, Edward,
was put aside, or put himself aside, as unfit to govern, " because of

the inaime upon his face," ho was known
as u Edward with the broken-nose," and
the government was seized by Howel who
was illegitimate, " a base son begotten of
an Irish woman." But the next brother,
David, refused allegiance to this Howel,
and civil war followed. At length the
usurper was killed in battle, and the right
ful heritage established, David holding the
reins of government as regent till the son
of Edward, the eldest brother, was of age.
In this contention Madoc took no part, but
endeavored to escape from it ; which, in-
oavid, Prince of Wales. a smuc h a s it was a struggle for the lineal

succession of his family, was not much to his credit. Leaving his

1 Compare Lyttleton's History of Henry 1 1., vol. vi. An Enquiry Concerning the First Dis
covery of America, by John Williams, LL. D. London, 1791. Jones's Musical RelicTcs of
Welsh Bards, vol. i. From Dr. Powell's History, Hakluyt copied the story at length,
referring also to Guttun Owen, asserting, however, in his first edition, of 1589, that the
land which Madoc reached was, in his opinion, Mexico ; in his second edition, of 1600, that
it was some part of the West Indies. In this, as in most other accounts of early voyagers,
later writers have followed Hakluyt. But here, Dr. Belknap interposes a word of caution.
"The design," he says, " of his (Hakluyt) bringing forward the voyage of Madoc appears,
from what he says of Columbus, to have been the asserting of a discovery prior to his, and
consequently the right of the Crown of England to the sovereignty of America ; a point at
that time warmly contested between the two nations. The remarks which the same author
makes on several other voyages, evidently tend to the establishment of that claim." [Amer
ican Bioi/raphy, etc., by Jeremy Belknap, p. 65. J While of Powell, from whom Hakluyt
copies, Robertson says : " The memory of a transaction so remote must have been very im
perfectly preserved, and would require to be confirmed by some author of greater credit,
and nearer to the sera of Madoc's voyage than Powell." [Robertson's History of America,
vol. ii., note 17.] Thus the story at the outset has to contend with a reflection upon the
credibility of the author who first promulgated it, and upon the motive of him on whose
authority it has generally been repeated. But, on the other hand, it is the registers of the
Welsh abbeys of Conway and Strat Flur, copied by Guttun Owen, and the statement of Cyn-
frig ab Gronow, upon which Powell, or rather Humphrey Llwyd, the translator of Caradoc's
History, relied as authority for the tradition. The writings of these bards are supposed to
be lost ; but if they really related the story, the trustworthiness of Powell, and the motives
of Hakluyt, are of no importance whatever, as it was told by the earlier writers twelve
years before Columbus made his first voyage. If Madoc's discovery supposing there were
any was made upon knowledge, that knowledge could only have come from Iceland or
Greenland.

MADOC'S VOYAGE AND HIS COLONY.

brothers (about 1170) to fight it out among them, he got together a
fleet and put to sea in search of adventures. He sailed

IT TIT i Historical

westward, leaving Ireland to the north, which, it mav be acc unt of

Madoc's

remarked, is nearly the only thing he could do in sailing yage-
from Wales, unless he laid his course northward through the Irish
Sea. But at length he came to an unknown country, where the
natives differed from any people he had ever seen before, and all
things were strange and new. Seeing that this land was pleasant and
fertile, he put on shore and left behind most of those in his ships
and returned to Wales.

Coming among his friends again, after so eventful a voyage, he told
them of the fair and extensive region he had found ; there, he assured
them, all could live in peace and plenty, instead of cutting each other's

Madoc leaving Wales.

throats for the possession of a rugged district of rocks and mountains.
The advantages he offered were so obvious, or his eloquence The Welgh
so persuasive, that enough determined to go with him to fill Colony,
ten ships. There is no account of their ever having returned to
Wales ; but on the contrary, it is said, " they followed the manners of
the land they came to, and used the language they found there,"
a statement which, if true, shows, not only that they did not return,
but that some intercourse was preserved with their native land.
Their numbers, nevertheless, must have been sufficient to have formed
a considerable colony, and if, as the narrative asserts, the new country
" was void of inhabitants " meaning, probably, that it was only
sparsely peopled it is difficult to believe that they could have
become so entirely assimilated to the savages as to lose their own cus
toms and their own tongue.

70 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

Moreover, if such were the fact it destroys all other evidence, which
was supposed to be subsequently found, of the existence of such a
colony. That supposed evidence is, that a tribe of Indians of light
complexion and speaking the old British language, was found within
the present limits of the United States in the seventeenth century, and
that traces of such a people were still evident at a quite recent period.

The earliest testimony on this point is a letter 1 to Dr. Thomas
Lloyd, of Pennsylvania, and by him transmitted to his brother, Mr.
C. H. S. Lloyd, in Wales. The letter purported to have been written
by the Rev. Morgan Jones, and was dated New York, March
to its exist- 10th, 1685-6, more than half a century before its publication
in the Magazine. The Rev. Mr. Jones declares that in the
year 1660 twenty-five years before the date of the letter he was
sent as chaplain of an expedition from Virginia to Port Royal, South
Carolina, where he remained eight months. Suffering much from
want of food, he and five others at the end of that time started to
return to Virginia by land. On the way they were taken prisoners
by an Indian tribe, the Tuscaroras, and condemned to die. On hear
ing this sentence, Mr. Jones " being very much dejected," exclaimed
" in the British (i. e. Welsh) tongue," " Have I escaped so many
dangers, and must I now be knocked on the Head like a Dog." Im
mediately he was seized around the waist by a War Captain, belong
ing to the Doegs, and assured in the same language that he should
not die. He was immediately taken to the " Emperor of the Tusca
roras," and, with his five companions, ransomed. The providential
Doeg took them to his own village, where they were kindly welcomed
and hospitably entertained. For four months Mr. Jones remained
among these Indians, often conversing with them, and preaching to
them three times a week in the British language. The conclusion is
that these Indians were descendants of the Welsh colonists under
Madoc.

The Mr. Lloyd to whom this letter was sent, subsequently adduced
some oral and hearsay testimony, to the same effect ; as, for ex
ample, that a sailor declared he had met with some Indians on the
coast, somewhere between Virginia and Florida, who informed him
in good Welsh, that their people came from Gwynedd, North Wales.
But such testimony is so vague that it may be set aside without hesi
tation, leaving the letter of Mr. Jones the sole evidence of this Welsh
survival on this continent, within the first century of its settlement by
the English. In the next century, however, there came forth fresh
witnesses.

First. A missionary from New York, a Mr. Charles Beatty, travel-

1 First published in The (London) Gentleman's Magazine, vol. x., 1740.

SUPPOSED TRACES OF THE WELSH. 71

ling in 1776, to the Southwest, four or five hundred miles, though he
did not himself see any of these Welsh Indians, met with several
others who had seen and talked with them. A Mr. Benjamin Sutton
assured him that he had visited an Indian town on the west side of
the Mississippi, whose people were not so tawny as other natives,
and whose language was the Welsh. They had a book which they
cherished with great care, though none among them could read it,
which Mr. Sutton assumed to be a Welsh Bible, manuscript, it must
have been, as the art of printing was not invented when Madoc is
supposed to have left Wales, in 1170. One Levi Hicks, who had
been among Indians from his youth, also told Mr. Beatty that he had
visited such a town west of the Mississippi, where the language
spoken, he was informed, was Welsh ;
and Joseph, Mr. Beatty's interpreter,
had seen natives whom he supposed
to be of the same tribe, and who,
he was sure, spoke Welsh, because
he had some little knowledge of that
tongue. Mr. Beatty, in repeating
these statements, relates, in corrobo-
ration of them, the story of the Rev.
Mr. Jones, adding to it, however,
that that clergyman had also found
a Welsh Bible in possession of the
Doegs, which they could not read,
but held him in all the more esteem

1 . Welshman.

because he could, a circumstance

which Mr. Jones does not mention in his letter, but would hardly

have omitted had it been true.

Second. In 1785 was published a narration by a Capt. Isaac Stew
art, to the effect that, having been taken prisoner by the Indians, with
a Welshman named David, about the year 1767, they were carried
seven hundred miles up the Red River, when they came to " a nation
of Indians remarkably white, and whose hair was of a red color, at
least, mostly so." The Welshman found these people were of his own
race. Their story was that their forefathers came from a foreign
country and landed on a coast east of the Mississippi, which, from the
description, must have been Florida. When afterward the Spaniards
took possession of Mexico they fled west of the Mississippi, and up
the Red River ; and, as an evidence of the truth of this account, they
showed to Captain Stewart some rolls of parchment, covered with
writing in blue ink, which they kept wrapped up in skins with great
care. Unfortunately neither Captain Stewart nor his Welsh com
panion could read these precious documents.

72 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

Third. Mr. Williams, the author of " An Enquiry Concerning the
First Discovery of America by the Europeans," from whose book we
condense these narratives, asserts on an authority for which he vouches
as respectable and truthful, that a Welshman, living on the banks of
the Ohio, declares, in a letter dated October 1, 1778, that he had been
several times among Indians who spoke the old British, and that he
knew of another person in Virginia who had visited a tribe of Welsh
Indians living on the Missouri River, four hundred miles above its
junction with the Mississippi.

Such, it has been assumed, is the conclusive evidence that the de
scendants of Madoc and his companions, who migrated from Wales in
1170, were seen about five hundred years later in 1660 some
where between Jamestown, Virginia, and Port Royal, South Caro
lina, having carefully preserved their nationality and language. That
about one hundred years afterward in 1767 the same tribe, or
others of the same lineage, were living on the Red River, seven hun
dred miles from its mouth, still speaking the Welsh tongue ; that ten
years afterward a similar people, with the same language, were seen
by two witnesses somewhere in the same region ; that ten years later
still, another person knew of a similar tribe on the Missouri ; and that
Indians had been met with by other persons at various times and in
various places, who spoke Welsh. The discrepancies in the accounts,
save the one remarkable fact that some of the witnesses observe
that these Indians were white, while others do not mention a pe
culiarity so striking that it could hardly fail, if it existed, to excite
their wonder, are not greater than are consistent with truth under
the ordinary rules of evidence. But the one point on which they all
agree the speaking of ancient British is the most formidable
argument, and by the probability of its truth all these narratives can
be most conclusively tested.

The thorough exploration of all the territory of the United States
within the last half century has left little to be learned of any of the
Indian tribes, and there are none among them known to speak a
tongue which would be recognized as Welsh. Yet if there was such
a tribe a hundred, or even two hundred years ago, who had for six
hundred years preserved their language when surrounded by a savage,
alien race, it is hardly possible that a century later, such a people
could have become so utterly extinct, or so absorbed by savages whose
influence they had so long resisted, as to leave no certain trace of their
origin.

But all that is pretended by the later inquirers is, that a tribe of
Indians, the Mandans, showed, if not traces of an intermixture with
the blood of the whites, at least a marked difference between themselves

SUPPOSED TRACES OF THE WELSH. 73

and other native tribes. Among them were in use certain words in
which is a resemblance, or a fancied resemblance, to the old British
language. In the manufacture of their pottery, and in the making of
blue beads, they are said to have shown a superiority over
the ordinary savage. Mr. Catlin believed them to be a cross theory and 8
between the Indians and the Welsh, and is inclined to ac- argument
cept a theory, favored also by some other writers, that the Mandans
are the descendants of the Mound Builders, and that the builders
of those numerous earth- works were the people originating in Madoc's
Colony. 1 The boat they used, Catlin says, was more like the coracle
of the Welsh than the canoe of other Indians ; and he asserts that in
complexion, in the color of their hair and eyes, they seemed rather

Mandan Boats.

to be allied to the white than the red race. Even the late Albert
Gallatin, deservedly a high authority on any point relating to the
North American Indians, acknowledges that a chief of this tribe whom

1 Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, in their expedition across the continent, passed the winter of
1 804-5, among the Mandans and other Indians on the Upper Missouri ; but there is nothing
in their journal to indicate that they observed those striking differences in complexion, in
character, and customs, between the Mandans and other tribes, which Catlin describes
at great length. The method of making the beads which Mr. Catlin considers so sig
nificant a fact, Lewis and Clarke say was known to the Ricarees as well as to the Man-
dans. As the material used was pounded glass, the process must have come into use since
the introduction of glass by modern Europeans, and not have been handed down from the
Welsh. To pound up glass, however, and make it into a new form, is an indication of ex
traordinary intelligence in a North American Indian. The Mandan tradition of their
origin is, that the nation once lived under ground, near a lake. A grape-vine extending its
root through the earth reached their village and let in the light of day. Some of the
more daring climbed up this root, and, to their astonishment and delight, came out upon
a country charming to look upon, rich in fruits of various kinds, and covered with great
herds of buffaloes. The grapes which they carried back, and their report of the delights of
that upper region, set the whole nation wild to ascend and take possession of a land so
bountiful and so beautiful. Immediately, men, women, and children rushed to the root of
the vine, and about half the people had climbed up in safety, when the weight of a woman
of unusual corpulence broke the tough root from the stem, and the light of the sun was
shut out forever from those who were left behind. Nevertheless, the Mandans believed that
when they died the good among them would return across the lake to this subterranean vil
lage, and rejoin their kindred ; but that the wicked would never reach that ancient home,
for the heavy burdens of their sins would sink them beneath the waters of the lake. The
tradition is essentially Indian in character.

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

Welsh Coracle.

he saw in Washington, was of a lighter shade of complexion than
other red men, and that he was the only full-blooded Indian he had
ever seen with blue eyes. But he nevertheless rejects the suppo
sition that they are descendants from the Welsh, and speaking their
tongue, " a fable " he considers set at rest by a knowledge of the
Indian dialects. Certainly it is not pretended that any Indian tribe
living within the memory of man has used the old British tongue, as
was asserted to be the fact by the witnesses of a century and two
centuries ago. The slight resemblances in certain Mandan words to

Welsh, which Mr. Cat-
lin found, but which
had no weight with
Mr. Gallatin, are not
enough to have en
abled the Rev. Mr.
Jones to converse fa
miliarly with the
Doegs, or preach to
them three times a
week for four months
in their own tongue
and his.

The supposition that the Mound Builders and the Welsh were iden
tical, is equally untenable. Some of the works of the former
identify are known, by the trees growing upon them, to have been
the Mound erected before the date of Madoc's leaving Wales ; and a
colony of a few hundred persons could not have so increased
and multiplied to the number of the millions who must have been
engaged in the erection of the Mound Builders' works, and have ut
terly perished and disappeared again within a period of four hundred
years. 1 The Welsh tradition of Madoc's adventure may nevertheless
be true, notwithstanding a failure to sustain it by evidence of its
subsequent existence within the present limits of the United States.
Such a colony may have been founded, and have perished as other
colonies have done since ; or a mere remnant of it may have survived
to be absorbed by some tribe of Indians, on which it stamped in lan
guage and in look some feeble impression of its own origin. But the
story must rest upon whatever intrinsic probability of truth it pos-

1 The Mandan tribe contained about two thousand persons. As a tribe it was completely
extinguished by the small-pox, in 1838, the few whom the pestilence spared being made
captives of by the Ricarees, who took possession of their village. This the Sioux soon
after attacked, and, in the thick of the fight the unhappy Mandans rushed out beyond the
pickets and called upon the Sioux to kill them, for " they were Ricaree dogs, their friends
were all dead, and they did not wish to live." They fell upon the besiegers at the same
time with such impetuosity, that they were to a man destroyed. Catlin's North American
Indians, vol. ii , Appendix A.

SUPPOSED TRACES OF THE WELSH.

sesses, rather than upon any evidence that a people whose color in
clined to white, and whose tongue was Old British, can be traced
on this continent from the middle of the
seventeenth century to our own time.
Should the original sources of the narra
tive, the registers of the Welsh bards, be
ever recovered, or should other manu
scripts be found touching this subject, in
the diligent search of later years for fresh
knowledge on these old voyages of dis
covery, there may be some further light
let in upon this of the Welsh prince. If
his course was westward, leaving Ireland
to the north, it may be that he and his
people settled, not in Florida, but in
one of the Azores or of the West India

Islands ^ Mandan Indian.

It is a superficial objection to the truth of any narrative, that no
mention is made of the event it relates by any contemporaneous
writer. It is, nevertheless, true that an event which when it happened
was not worth a newspaper paragraph, or, if there were R .
no newspapers, wanted the vitality to get itself repeated, values of
may, a century or two afterward, from its consequences or facts -
its relations, be of intense interest, and of the highest importance.
That the ancient annalist, who did not believe that the author of
History should ever condescend to anything that was not an affair of
state, should have no ear for the adventures of a petty Welsh
prince, of some gallant private gentleman, or of some rough master-
mariner, can hardly excite surprise, however much it may be regretted
that treaties and protocols, and the enactment of laws were not for
gotten for a moment, and the details of incidents so interesting in
quired into and recorded. There is to be considered always, not only
the old historians' lofty notion of the dignity of history, but that the
circumstances of time and place may not have been favorable to the

1 It is a curious fact that this story of the Welsh should have recently appeared in a new
form still further west. Among the Zuni of New Mexico, there are said to be white Indians
with fair complexions, Hue eyes, and light hair. Among the New Mexicans is a tradition
that long ago some Welsh miners wandered into that country with their wives and chil
dren, and that the Zuni killed the men and married the women. The Zuni deny the truth
of the tradition ; but there is, nevertheless, a remarkable resemblance between some of the
words of the Zuni language and the English. Thus, "Eat-a," is to eat; " Eat-on-o-way,"
is eaten enough ; and the Zunians, to express admiration, exclaim, " Look ye ! " or " Look ye
here ! " The surveyors of a route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific
coast, in whose Report (vol. iii., part 1, p. 63), we find this statement, "did not see those
white Indians at the time of their visit, as the small-pox was raging among the Zuni, nor
did they give much heed to the tradition of the New Mexicans."

76 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

rapid transmission of intelligence, and that the intelligence itself may
not have been supposed to be worthy of transmission. And especially
where a question of American discovery is concerned, another im
portant fact must have its due weight, that it was not till long after
the death of Columbus that any historian thought it worth while to
inquire into the truth of any report of a pre-Columbian voyage, or
even that there were any such reports to inquire into. If, then, we
are in earnest search after the truth, we shall first seek to know if, in
regard to any alleged voyage, there is any contemporaneous record or
clear tradition of it ; and failing these, if the report be above all sus
picion of having been invented, exaggerated, or perverted, that it
might aid in robbing one of the greatest and most unfortunate of men
of the immortal fame which he hoped might at length rest upon his
name, a hope which was almost the sole compensation and consola
tion for a life of many sorrows.

The story of the brothers Zeni, resting upon no tradition, and upon
no contemporary testimony, is open to all these considerations. The
The zeni Zeni were a noble and distinguished family of Venice ; in
family. uer wars with her ..neighbors, these brothers, and others of
their kindred, had won renown, and were thought worthy of a place
in history for their deeds of valor and their services to the state. But
no contemporaneous historian had seen fit to relate other achievements
of theirs, which, apart from the special importance afterward attached
to them, were full of romantic interest ; no Skald, or Saga-man of the
North, had even mentioned that island of their Northern seas, where
these achievements were said to have been performed. One hundred
and seventy-eight years later, in the middle of the sixteenth century,
when nations were approaching that great power and opulence which
their discoveries and possessions in the New World had given them ;
when national jealousies as well as national interests were aroused
for the honor of having originated, or of sharing in the most marvel
lous accomplishment of human genius the world had ever seen, then it
was that a claim was put forth, unheard of before, that these Venetian
brothers, by more than a century, preceded Columbus, and that his
laurels must be shared with them.

In 1558, Francisco Marcolini, of Venice, published a volume of

letters, arranged and edited by Nicolo Zeno, purporting to be those

of his ancestors, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, written between the years

1380 and 1404. The letters and a map had remained in the family

archives, apparently unnoticed and unknown, till coining

Publication . J . ' to

of the zeni mto the possession of this Nicolo the younger in his child-

letters

hood, as playthings, he had torn them into fragments.
When he came at an age to understand their value, he put together

NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI.

such of these torn and scattered fragments as he could recover, and
gave them to the world. The little volume was afterward included
in Ramusio's " History of Early Voyages," but not till after Ram-
usio's death, and was subsequently translated and transferred by
Hakluyt to his own works. From that day to this it has been, and is
still, a controverted question whether the story is true or false. By

Their story.

Shipwreck of Nicolo Zeno.

some writers it is denounced as a fraud, easily compiled from infor
mation not difficult to be got from various sources in the middle of the
sixteenth century ; by others it is accepted on internal evidence, and
especially on the testimony of the restored map, as worthy of belief. 1
In the year 1380, according to the Nicolo Zeno of 1558, his ances
tor of the same name, who was wealthy, brave, eager to see the world,
and who found at home no occupation suited to his active and daring
disposition, fitted out a ship at his own charges, and sailed
away northward for England and Flanders in search of
adventures. Nor did he seek long, for a storm overtook him, drove
his ship out of her course, casting her, at length, on an unknown and
inhospitable coast. He and his crew escaped with their lives the perils
of the shipwreck only to run a new risk, as they were thrown help
less and exhausted on the shore, in an attack from the natives. But
from this they were saved by the appearance, at the critical moment,
of the king of the neighboring island of Porland at the head of an
army, who rescued the strangers from the hands of the people. Ad
dressing them in Latin, and learning that they were Venetians, he not

1 The latest essay on the subject, and in favor of the Zeni Narrative, is by R. H. Major,
published by the Hakluyt Society of London. His argument, however, is, for the most part,
An elaboration of that of Reiuholdt Forster in his Northern Voyages.

78 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

only gave them a hearty welcome, but begged them to remain in his
service. To this they consented, and served him so well by their
courage and their skill in seamanship that Nicolo Zeno was made a
knight and the captain of the king's navy. Then Nicolo sent to
Venice for his brother Antonio, who soon joined him to share in his
prosperity, leaving behind, at home, the third brother, Carlo, to whom
all the subsequent letters were written. The name of the king whom
the two Venetians followed, and who had saved their lives, was
Zichmni, and the country was called the island of Frisland. This
island he had, not long before Nicole's shipwreck, wrested, or was
about to wrest by conquest from the king of Norway.

It is a notable fact that this island of Frisland, which was said to
be larger than Iceland, and which carried on a brisk trade in fish and
other merchandise with " Britain, England, Scotland, Flanders, Norway,
and Denmark," and between which and Venice there seems to have
been not infrequent communication, should never have been mentioned
anywhere but about the time of these letters of the brothers Zeni, and
that it certainly has had no existence for some hundreds of years. 1 And
not only Frisland ; there were various other islands in those northern
seas held by this Zichmni, " a prince," says Antonio Zeno, in one of
his letters, " as worthy of immortal memory as any that ever lived for
his great valiance and singular humanitie." By those who accept the
account as true, some suppose that Frisland must have been one of the
Faroe Islands, and that among the Hebrides, the Shetland, and the
Orkney Islands may be found the rest of the dominion subdued by
the prowess of this great prince ; but others suppose that Frisland and
the rest were long ago swallowed up by the sea in some mighty cata
clysm, which is the reason why they have been so difficult to find. 2

With Zichmni the Zeni remained, Nicolo four years, till he died,
and Antonio ten years longer. So long as Nicolo lived he did the
king good service in aiding in the subjection of a number of the islands
of an Icelandic archipelago. But he also sailed as far westward as
Engroneland, which is supposed to mean Greenland. He gives a mi
nute and interesting account of a monastery of friars of the order of

the Preachers, and of a church dedicated to St. Thomas,
in Engrone- which he found in that distant country. These friars lived

in that severe climate with a remarkable degree of comfort,
and even of luxury. Their monastery was built near a hill from
which gushed forth a perennial fountain of hot water ; this they

1 The name was sometimes applied to Iceland; but the Zeni letters speak of it as an isl
and distinct from Iceland.

2 See Frobisher's Voyages, Hakluyt, vol. ii. ; Forster's Northern Voyages ; Belknap's History,
vol. ii. ; Captain C. C. Zahrtman in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. v. ; and
particularly the Voyar/e of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno to the Northern Seat
in the 14th Centitry, translated and edited by R. H. Major, Hakluyt Society publications, 1873,

NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI.

Greenland Geyser.

turned to many useful purposes by conveying it in pipes into the
church and monastery, warming their
cells, cooking their food, heating their
covered winter gardens, cultivating the
fruits and flowers of more temperate
zones, putting it to all uses for which
heat is requisite as a substitute for fire.
Thus they so modified the rigor of
that hyperborean region with little
or no labor or trouble to themselves,
that those jolly monks made their
homes as cheerful as if they were be
neath the sunny sky of Italy. Even
for the buildings of the monastery this
volcanic mountain furnished them with
ample material ; for on the stones
which were cast out of its crater they
had only to throw water when " burning hot " to reduce them to
excellent lime, which on being used so hardened as to last forever. 1

i A German writer, Dethmar Blefkins, a minister sent to Iceland from Hamburg in 1 563,
tells much the same story, which he learned from a monk who entered this monastery of St.
Thomas in 1546. Blefkins, whose tract is in Purchas, vol. iii., says: "This Monke told
us marvellous strange things, that there was in the Monastery of St. Thomas (where he
lived) a Fountaine, which sent forth burning and flaming water, that this water was con
veyed through Pipes of stone, to the several Gels of the Monks, and that it made them
warme as stoves do with us, and all kinds of meats might be boyled in this Fountaine, and
fiery water, and no otherwise than if it had bin on a fire indeed, he advertised moreover,
that the walls of the Monastery were made with Pumice stones, out of a certain mountain
not farre from the Monastery : like to Hecla in Iceland, for if you powre this water upon
the Pumice stone, there will follow a slymie matter, which instead of lyme they use for
mortar."

Crantz, in his History of Greenland (p. 265 et seq.), in treating of " lost " Greenland, refers
to this statement of the monk as related by Blefkin, but says " it is confessed that the story
is told a little incoherently, and its truth is much doubted." " But yet," he adds, " I find a
sort of voucher for it in Ccesar Longinus's Extracts of all Journies and Voyages." There, it
is said that an English sailor, Jacob (or James) Hall, in the service of Denmark, made sev
eral voyages to Iceland and Greenland and wrote a description of the wild Greenlanders,
the most particular, ample, and conformable to truth of all that had written : this man
affirms that he also had spoken with the aforesaid monk in Iceland in the presence of the
Governor, and had inquired of him about the state of Greenland. He told him, likewise,
several things about St. Thomas's cloyster, particularly " that there was a fountain of hot
water conveyed by pipes into all their apartments, so that not only their sitting-rooms, but
also their sleeping-chambers were warmed by it, and that in this same water meat might be
boiled as soon as in a pot over the fire. The walls of the cloyster were all made of pumace-
stone, and if they poured this hot water upon the stones, they would become clammy and
viscid, and so they used them instead of lime." The Danish Chronicle of Greenland [con
tinues Crantz] also makes mention of this cloyster, and speaks besides of a garden through
which a rivulet of this hot fountain flowed, and made the soil so fruitful that it produced
the most beautiful flowers and fruits.

Thus this monk of the German author, Blefken, and the English sailor, Hall, told in 1546

80 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

But discoveries more interesting still were yet to be made. Nicolo
died soon after his return from Engroneland, and Antonio proposed
to return to Venice, but was not permitted to do so by Zichmni, who
retained him for further service. There had arrived at Frisland an
ancient fisherman, who had been absent many years in
of a fisher- strange lands, and the tale he told was one which might well
arouse so bold a navigator and adventurous a Viking as
Zichmni. Six and twenty years before, he said, four fisher-boats from
Frisland were driven by a mighty tempest a thousand miles to the
westward, when one of them was wrecked upon an island called Esto-
tiland supposed to be Newfoundland and taken prisoners by the
inhabitants. They were led to " a faire and populous city " and
brought before the king, who, learning who and what they were,
through an interpreter also a shipwrecked sailor who spoke Latin,
determined they should be retained in his service. Five years they
lived there and found it to be a rich country, " with all the com
modities of the world," with mines of all manner of metals, and
especially abounding in gold. In the middle of it was a high moun
tain from which sprung four great rivers that went forth and
watered all the land. The inhabitants they found to be a
" witty people," having " all the arts and faculties " of civilized
nations, speaking a language of their own, with letters and characters
peculiar to themselves. Yet they had intercourse with other countries,
for in the king's library there were Latin books which, however, none
could read, and they imported merchandise of various kinds from
Engroneland. Southward of this kingdom was another great and
populous country, very rich in gold, where there were many cities and
castles, and where the people raised corn and brewed ale. They were
also a maritime people, though they did not understand the use of
the compass ; but seeing this wonderful instrument in the hands of
the fishermen, and discerning its great utility at sea, they held these
strangers in such esteem that they fitted out twelve barks and sent
them southward, under their direction, to that other land called
Drogeo.

precisely the same story, in almost identical language, of the Monastery and Church of St.
Thomas, in Greenland, and the ingenious hot-water works, supplied from a geyser, which
was told by Nicolo Zeno nearly two hundred years before. The monk could not have bor
rowed from the Venetian book, for that was not published till twelve years after he is saic.
to have entered the Monastery of St. Thomas, in Greenland, where he saw this remarkable
oasis in the arctic wilderness, but which nobody but he and Nicolo Zeno had ever thought
worthy of description. If, therefore, Blefken and Caesar Longinus may be relied upon,
and there really was such a monk, telling such a story, about the time of the publication of
the Zeni letters, it shows, at least, that other sources of information in regard to Greenland,
were open to Nicolo Zeno the younger, than the mutilated fragments of his ancestor's letters.

NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. 81

It was an unhappy expedition ; for though the fishermen escaped
death at sea in their storm -tossed vessels, they met on land a fate
more cruel. Helpless and exhausted, they were made prisoners as
they were thrown upon the shore, and most of them were immedi
ately eaten by the savage people " which feed upon man's flesh as the
sweetest meat in their judgment, as is." But the man who had got
back to Frisland, and some of his companions, were saved ; for however
excellent they might be for eating, they were held as better still for
slaves. He taught these people the art of taking fish with nets, and so
grew presently into great favor ; so great, indeed, that powerful chiefs
quarrelled for the possession of his person, and went to war about him,
so that he was the royal fisher in turn to no less than twenty-five of
these copper-colored lords. For thirteen years he lived among them
and thus saw many parts of the country. It was, he said,
a very great country, as it were a new world ; " but the
people were very rude, very fierce and cruel, and voide of all good
ness;" so savage that they all went naked ; so wanting in intelligence
that they had not even the wit to cover themselves with the skins of
the beasts they killed with their wooden spears and arrows, though
they suffered from the cold. Yet they had laws peculiar to each tribe,
and one custom that was universal, that they should kill all they
could in constant wars, and eat all they killed. It is not an attractive
picture, but is thought by those who maintain the Zeni letters to be
authentic, to answer accurately to the character of the Indians after
ward found within the present limits of the United States.

But farther to the southwest the fisherman found a people of more
" civility," as he found a more temperate climate, where they had
cities and temples for their idols. To these idols they sacrificed men
whom they afterward ate. They understood the use of gold and
silver, whereas the more northern people knew nothing of metals.
This, it is assumed, is a description of Mexico and her semi-civiliza
tion, thus giving to the fisherman a wide field of observation, who
must have travelled, granting the truth of the narrative, down the
Atlantic coast, along the whole of the northern, and part of the west
ern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery, if discovery it was,
was more extensive than that of Columbus himself, and of other navi
gators, in the next two centuries ; and the marvel is, that there should
be no record or tradition of an event so interesting as this finding
" as it were of a new world," except in these forgotten letters to Carlo
Zeno, of Venice, and that such letters should have been unknown for
nearly two hundred years.

For the fisherman, after his twenty-six years absence and travel in
these strange lands and among these barbarous people, returned to

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

Frisland, where his tale was generally believed and even confirmed
by other mariners who also knew something; of that far

Expedition ,-, . .

of Prince country, ho intense was the interest excited that the prince

Zichmni. . 1 , -. .

Zrichmm resolved at once to fit out an expedition, and so
many came forward to join it, that Antonio believed that it would be

Aztec City.

at no cost to the state. Zichmni commanded in person, setting forth
with many barks and men. Two days before sailing, the fisherman,
who was to have piloted the fleet, unfortunately died, and his place
had to be supplied by other sailors who had returned with him from
Estotiland. Soon after leaving the last island which owed Zichmni
allegiance, he encountered a gale which lasted for eight days and
wrecked most of his vessels. Nevertheless, pushing boldly westward,
he reached, at length, an island where he found a safe and com
modious harbor, but where " an infinite number of people came rush
ing furiously to the water-side " and forbade a landing. Zichmni
made signs of peace, when ten men came off to him, speaking ten dis
tinct languages, none of which could he understand except that of one
from Iceland. From him the prince learned that the island was called
Icaria, and the people Icari, after the first king of the place, who was
the son of Daedalus, a king of Scotland. This Deedalus had formerly
conquered the island, and left his son there to reign in his stead,
while he, setting forth in search of new conquests, was overwhelmed
by a tempest, and the sea, in memory of him who was drowned in

NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. 83

it, was thenceforth called the Icarian Sea. The laws and the land
which he had given them they valued far more than life, and they
would not tolerate the presence of strangers. One man only from the
fleet would they permit to come among them, and he must speak
Italian that they might add that to the ten other tongues of their ten
interpreters.

The prince, making a pretence of departing in compliance with the
commands of the natives, circumnavigated Icaria, but a multitude of
armed men watched the vessels from the hill-tops, kept pace along the
beaches with its progress, and menaced it continually ; and when a
second attempt was made to go on shore, the Frislanders were re
pulsed, many killed, and more wounded. Against this fierce obsti
nacy Zichmni was convinced at last that it was useless to contend.
Once more he set sail, still steering to the west.

He steered to the west for five days with a fair breeze ; then the
weather changed, and the wind came out from the southwest.
With this " wind in the powpe " he sailed four days more iand S e dL
sailed, that is, before the wind for four days to the northeast,
when once more land loomed up above the sea-line. On what part of
the American coast this land may have been, it is not considered
prudent even to conjecture; for, given a starting-point, Frisland,
which never existed ; a voyage thence westward of not less than ten
days to another fabulous island, Icaria ; thence still westward for five
days more ; thence for four days in a northeast direction, and the
imagination need submit to no trammels of latitude and longitude.
But wherever it was, it was so pleasant a country, its days of June
were so delicious, its soil was so fruitful, its rivers so fair, its fish and
its fowl in such abundance, that here Zichmni resolved to remain, to
build a city, to found a state. The harbor where he anchored he
called Trin, and the point which stretched out into the sea and em
braced it, he called Capo di Trin. In the centre of the island was an
active volcano, visible from the coast, and out of the base of it ran a
certain matter like pitch, that flowed into the sea. The country was
densely populated by a people small of stature, timid, half wild, and
living in caves of the earth. Zichmni sent his ships back to Frisland,
under the command of Antonio Zeno, retaining only his boats and a
portion of his people ; but whether he himself ever returned thence,
or what was the subsequent fate of him and his colony, except that he
built his town and explored much of the neighboring region, there is
no account. The last letter of Zeno declares that he has written many
interesting things in a book, which he should bring home with him,
respecting the adventures of his brother and himself, of the prince
Zichmni, the many islands he reigned over, and the new lands he dis-

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

covered ; but this the younger Zeno had destroyed in his youth, and
here, therefore, the narrative ends.

The warmest defenders of this irreconcilable story do not venture
to deny that much of it is fable, and of that which they accept as

THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN BY ANTONIO ZENO IN THE YEAR 1400

Objections
to this
narrative.

The Zeni Map.

true, some of its essential facts of geography and navigation stand in
need of the most ingenious explanation. It is difficult to believe that
any actual navigator should have described so many islands
that had no existence in the places where he put them, both
in the narrative and on a map ; and quite as hard to believe
that they have all been since sunk in the sea, if they ever had an
existence. If it is assumed that the requisite number, and the con
quest and discovery of those referred to, may be found by looking for
them among the Faroe Islands, the Orkneys, or the Hebrides, it is
hard to reconcile such a supposition to the known facts of history
that Norway, at the end of the 14th century was governed not by a
king, but by a queen, Margaret ; that the Orkneys and Shetland
isles were never wrested from that crown, but belonged to it till late
in the 15th century ; that Henry Sinclair. Earl of Orkney, held pos
session of the islands of that name as a loyal subject of Norway at
the very time that Zichmni is said to have conquered Frisland ; that
the Hebrides have been in continual possession of Scotland since the
latter part of the 13th century. While it is exceedingly difficult to

CHINESE DISCOVERY. 85

adjust the main statements of the narrative to any reasonable theory
consistent with their truth, the meagre information it gives in regard
to the Western Continent was possibly accessible from various sources
when the letters were published. The most rational conclusion, there
fore, seems to be that if the story were not a clumsy attempt to patch
up an account of a voyage, some record of which had been preserved
in mutilated and unintelligible fragments of old letters, then it was a
bold, but still clumsy, fabrication, whereby it was hoped that the glory
of the great discovery might be snatched from Spain and Columbus.
In nothing, in either case, is that clumsiness so apparent as in the
adaptation of the Grecian names and fables of Dsedalus and Icarus to
persons and places in the frozen North.

There is a still older claim to the discovery of the western hemis
phere than can be made either for Northmen, Arabs, Welsh, or Vene
tians. In the Chinese Year-Books, in which are recorded ,

, . Chinese

from year to year tor many centuries, every event of interest claim to

, -i i American

that occurred m the empire, is the relation of a Buddhist Discovery.
priest named Hoei-Shin, who, in the last year of the fifth century,
visited a country fifteen thousand U east of Tahan. Precisely the
distance measured by twenty thousand U in the year 499, and whether
by Tahan was meant Kamtschatka, Alaska, or Siberia, are questions
about which there is a good deal of doubt, while on a clear under
standing of them depends any application of the narrative to Amer
ican discovery.

The country which the priest reached, however, he called Fusang,
from its most remarkable product, a tree possessed of many valuable
qualities. Its sprouts were like those of the bamboo, and Degcription
were used for food ; it bore an excellent fruit, red in color, in of Fusan s-
shape like a pear, and which would keep the whole year round ; its
bark was fibrous, and from it the natives made a kind of linen for
their clothing, and the paper on which they wrote ; for they were so
cultured a people that they used written characters. Another fruit
they had was apples ; from a kind of reed they made mats. As
beasts of burden they used horses, oxen, and stags ; these were har
nessed to wagons. The hinds were kept also for their milk, from
which cheese was made ; and the oxen had horns so large that they
would hold ten bushels, and were useful as receptacles of household
goods. Iron they had not ; but copper, gold, and silver were plentiful,
though but little valued.

Fusang was governed by a king, who when he appeared in public
was heralded by the music of horns and trumpets ; he clothed himself
apparently in accordance with some astronomical theory, as the color
of his garments was changed every two years for a cycle of ten years,

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

when the same order was begun again. The title of this king was
Ichi, and he was surrounded by a nobility divided into three ranks.
The people were peaceful and had no weapons of war. Offences
against the law were punished by imprisonment ; when this was for
life, the offenders were allowed to marry, but their children were sold
as slaves.

A thousand li east of Fusang, the monk said, the people were
white, were covered with hair, and were all women. When they

wished to become mothers
they had only to bathe in
a certain river. Their chil
dren they nourished, not
from the breast but from
a tuft of hair upon the
shoulder. Other wonderful
things he related, but these
the learned translator, the
late Professor Neumann of
the University of Munich,
thought too absurd to re
peat. The old Chinese
poets found a potent stimu-

Chinese Junk. , , .

lant to their imaginations

in these stories of Hoei-Shin, and made of Fusang a delightful region
of many marvels where the mulberry trees were thousands of feet in
height, and the silk- worms more than six feet in length. In a land
blessed with such capabilities for making silk, a Chinaman could con
ceive of nothing wanting.

Not the least remarkable of the observations of Hoei-Shin is that
the people of this distant land were all Buddhists. For he was not
the first discoverer ; twenty-nine years before his visit, he said, five
beggar-monks from China had reached Fusang and introduced the
religion of Buddha, with his holy books and images, instructed the
people in the principles of monastic life, and thus wrought a great
change in those few years in their belief and their manner of living.

This alleged discovery has been the subject of a good deal of con
troversy. There is nothing incredible in the supposition that the
Chinese may have sailed across the Pacific long before Europeans
ventured over the Atlantic Ocean ; for they were early navigators ;
knew in the second century of our era the use of the mariner's compass ;
and their junks, which have changed little in form since they were
first known to Europeans, have been found wrecked upon the west
coast of America, at different periods, from the time of the first Span
ish voyages in the Pacific.

CHINESE DISCOVERY. 87

While there is no intrinsic improbability, then, of such a discovery,
those who see in Hoei-Shin's narrative a record of it, maintain that
Fusang was either California or Mexico; that the Fusang-tree was
the great American aloe, or " Maguey," as the Indians call it; that
the oxen with enormous horns were bison ; that the stags were rein
deer, which may have once been used farther south than now ; that
the horses were of a race that afterward became extinct, and whose
fossil remains have been found by geologists in the western territories
of the United States ; that the ancient Mexicans were accustomed to
milk the bison-cows and hinds, and to manufacture cheese ; that
though Peru was not Mexico, from one the people may have gone to
the other ; and Ichi may have meant Inca, the title of the sovereign
of Peru, which may have been brought from Mexico ; that orders of
nobility were known both in Mexico and Peru ; that the Mexicans had
some knowledge of astronomy, and the cycle of ten years, the obser
vance of which determined the Ichi in the color of his garments, may
have been a subdivision of the Mexican astronomical period of fifty-two
years ; and finally, that Tahan was Alaska, and according to the most
reasonable computation of the length of a li of the fifth century, the
coast of Mexico is about twenty thousand li from Alaska.

On the other hand, it is observed that the monk speaks of no long
voyage to the country he calls Fusang ; that in using the vague term
20,000 li, he meant to indicate a great distance rather than any definite
measurement in miles ; and that he may have referred to no region
farther off than Kamtschatka, the island of Saghalien or than Japan ;
that by Tahan he may have meant Siberia ; that as his narrative is
acknowledged to be largely made up of fables, so that which is true is
composed of facts and rumors in regard to various countries ; as, for
example, a tree similar in its characteristics to those ascribed to the
Fusang is found in one of the Aleutian islands ; the reindeer are com
mon to Asia as well as America, and other peoples beside the Mexi
cans are known to have been ignorant of the use of iron and to have
used copper instead.

If the story of Hoei-Shin was not meant to deceive and some
Oriental scholars do not hesitate to call him "a lying priest," it is
too indefinite, until supported by further evidence, to be accepted as
an authentic narrative of a veritable discovery of the Western conti
nent. Its meagre statement of the character and manners of the peo
ple of Fusang and of the productions of the country can hardly be
made to apply to the ancient Mexicans by seeking for similarities from
the Arctic regions to Peru. 1

1 See Humboldt's Examen Critique, tome 2, p. 62, et seq., and Fusang, or The Discovery of
America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century, by Charles G. Leland.

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

We have devoted these earlier chapters to periods which, in previous
histories of the United States and of America, have either had no
place at all, or have been dismissed in a page or a paragraph.
these pre- Should it ever be possible to penetrate the mystery and
periods on darkness which shrouded one half the world almost as com
pletely as if it had been another planet, from the time of
its creation to a thousand years after Jesus Christ, such an addition
to human knowledge would be of inestimable value and intense inte
rest. Modern science has only begun to read this story of races and
of civilizations that long since disappeared, leaving no other record
than those relics which till recently have been either overlooked or
misunderstood.

What point in time, or what degree of knowledge, may be thus
reached by future discoveries and deductions from them in a field as
yet but little explored, it would be rash to hazard even a guess. But
it is well to know what ground there is for presuming that it is possi
ble to learn anything of that pre-historic period. And still more in
actual history, even though its records be obscure and imperfect, or
only traditions reduced to writing ; even though the period of which
we can gain only such imperfect information be, in some respects,
legendary and romantic, we may, nevertheless, profitably and prop
erly go further back than the ordinary starting-point by five hundred
years.

Hitherto the legitimate commencement of American history has
been held to be toward the end of the fifteenth century, and all
beyond fabulous or inscrutable. But there were bold men and skilful
sailors before Columbus. Ever since men sailed upon the sea, or
possessed a literature, there have been glimpses, sometimes transient
or illusory, at other times distinct, of a mysterious world in the
Western Ocean, the subject of curious conjecture, of vague prophecy,
and oftener, perhaps, than is supposed, of attempted discovery.
Though there was no permanent occupation and no positive recogni
tion of this as a new quarter of the globe till the Columbian era, the
real or supposed approaches to its possession for the five hundred pi-e-
vious years appeal as much to human sympathy, and are as pertinent
to human progress, as the mythical periods of the historical nations of
the Old World.

From discoveries made without design and in ignorance of their
real character, we are led, in the gradual progress of events and the
Va ue slow advance of knowledge, to that later time when the
eari 01 navi- cean was traversed with a distinct and intelligent purpose
gators. an( j w ith unhesitating faith. The Northmen, the Welsh,
the Venetians assuming their narratives to be wholly or partially

NAUTICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 89

true while they were certain that they had sailed into unknown
seas, and were cast upon new lands and among strange peoples beyond
the accredited limits of the inhabited world, also believed, no doubt,
that they had only reached the farther shores or the out-lying islands
of the continent whence they came. The notions as to the shape and
the extent of the earth were, at that period, so vague, even among the
learned, and the art of navigation was so little developed, that there
was not much speculation as to the possibility of penetrating beyond
the known limits of the continents and out of the accustomed tracks
of ships. All that mariners dared to do was to creep along the coast
from headland to headland, with a fair wind, to go to places fre
quently visited.

The boldest who first ventured out of sight of land, had only the
sun by day and the stars by night to steer by ; when these were ob
scured for more than a day or two they lost all reckoning
and were at the mercy of the winds and currents. They o^nautlcai 011

. ,1 5 t , f .1 instruments

were without the mariner s compass or later times, tor the and knowi-
magnetic needle was not in general use till early in the four
teenth century, either because a knowledge of its properties was con
fined to a few, or because there was a timid hesitation to spread the
knowledge of an instrument which, it was supposed, would certainly
be looked upon among the ignorant as belonging to the Black Art,
and one with which no sensible seaman, who thought of his salvation,
would trust himself at sea. It was impossible to ascertain the position
of a ship out of sight of land, for it was the middle of the fifteenth
century before there was any nautical instrument by which the alti
tude of the sun and stars could be taken with any approach to accu
racy. Even sailing on a wind is supposed to have been unknown till
the Northmen found it possible, with the wind on the quarter, to still
keep the ship on her course if they ventured to haul their tacks
aboard. Before that time the sailor was no wiser than the nautilus,
which can only sail with a breeze from astern. What little knowledge
there was of distant parts of the earth was gained by a few travellers
over land in search of information ; by priests devoted to the propa
gation of the Christian faith among the heathen ; by travelling mer
chants of different countries, who, meeting each other at certain great
marts for the exchange of merchandise, exchanged information also as
to the regions whence they came, or others which they had visited in
the pursuit of their calling.

Of the three continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, into which the world
was then supposed to be divided, the boundaries were unknown, and
the extreme parts, if not uninhabited, at the north, because of the
intensity of the cold ; in the torrid zone, because of the intensity of

90 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV.

the heat, were believed to be either absolutely impenetrable by
those born in more temperate climates, or to be entered only at the
risk of life. It was death from cold to go too far northward ; to ven
ture too far southward might be worse than death, for if heat did
not at once consume the flesh and bones of the unhappy traveller, it
would singe his hair to a crispy wool, and tan his skin to the black
ness of a coal.

But when, at length, vessels were driven by the fury of tempests,
or drifted by irresistible currents westward upon unknown coasts,
though the bewildered crews may have believed that they had only
reached the farther confines of the continent of Europe, extending
northward to the pole, thence southward and westward to some un
approachable boundary, such voyages were, nevertheless, the natural
consequence of that boldness which, little by little, ventured farther
out to sea, and led at length to such grand results. They were the
pioneers of subsequent discovery, and the traditions, speculations, and
prophecy scattered through ancient literature, of islands and conti
nents in and beyond the Sea of Darkness, arose in part at least from
vague reports of ships having sometimes sailed into those mysterious
waters and touched upon distant shores.

Then in the fifteenth century came the revival of learning in Europe.
Enthusiasm was kindled in the study of science ; especially was this
true in regard to cosmography. All that the scholars of the earlier
Effect of a S es na( ^ t au ght was diligently learned ; and the new the-
scTe'ntific* ories which the student formed in his closet, the adventurous
learning. voyager sought to test by actual experiment. To the polit
ical jealousy of states was added a nobler rivalry in efforts to enlarge
the boundaries of geographical knowledge and to augment the com
merce of the world. Sailing upon the sea grew into an art ; it be
came possible to ascertain with some precision the position of a ship
out of sight of land ; to tell almost with absolute certainty the direc
tion in which she should be steered, though blackest clouds and dark
est night obscured the sky. It is not easy now to conceive how
immense an impulse this was to the activity and intelligence of that
age ; but it opened the whole world to those who could avail them
selves of these means of knowledge, and was the dawn of a new
era in civilization. New wants were created ; luxury increased, as
the products of different and distant countries became known ; a
demand arose which gave a new importance and power to commerce
and to expeditions to find out new and shorter routes to those distant
lands. 1

And there was no discovery which offered so magnificent a return,

1 See Robertson's History of America, book ii.

EFFECT OF REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 91

none which was sought for with so much intrepidity and eagerness, as
a shorter way to that marvellous India, with its fabulous riches and
strange peoples, which such travellers as Marco Polo and Sir John
Mandeville had visited and written of, but which, as yet, could only
be reached by adventurous merchants through long and perilous jour
neys overland. The pursuit of this chimera, rendered possible by the
fresh acquisitions of knowledge, and the wants of the age, was the
crowning event which revealed a New World, whose existence had
been held to be one of the curious fables of ancient philosophers.

The " Far Cathay."

CHAPTER V.

INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS.

THE KINGDOM OF CATHAY. EFFORTS IN EUROPE TO FIND A SEA-WAY TO INDIA.
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS. His DESIGN OF A WESTERN VOYAGE TO INDIA. FAITH IN HIS
DIVINE MISSION. THE THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHERS. His LIFE
IN SPAIN. THE COUNCIL AT SALAMANCA. His FIRST VOYAGE. His BELIEF

THAT HE HAS DISCOVERED INDIA. TlIE DELUSION OF HIS LlFE. HlS BRIEF

HONOR AND FINAL DISGRACE.

IN the far East had reigned for centuries a line of mighty monarchs
of the race of Kublai Khan. Among many provinces owing them

THE CITY OF QUINSAI. 93

allegiance was that of Mangi, bordering on the sea. In this province
alone, Marco Polo said, there were twelve thousand cities, all within a
few days' travel of each other. Quinsai, whose circuit was a
hundred miles, was only one of a hundred and forty cities of M^ngi" 10 '
standing in such contiguity that they seemed but one. A
permanent garrison of thirty thousand soldiers guarded Quinsai alone ;
a police force of some hundreds of thousands of men was always on
duty to preserve its domestic peace and order. Spanning its many
streets were twelve thousand noble bridges, some of them so lofty that
ships could sail beneath without interruption to the passage of the
multitudes that were continually crossing them, to and fro. Its prin
cipal street, forty paces in width, bridged in many places by these
works of beautiful architecture, extended from one side of the city to
the other in a straight line. At intervals of every four miles on this
magnificent avenue of thirty-three miles were market-places, each two
miles in compass ; behind them ran a canal, on the banks of which
were great stone warehouses always filled with precious merchandise.
In these spacious marts from forty to fifty thousand people met three
days in the week to trade, thronging through the streets that radiated
in every direction. These thoroughfares were all of great width and
length, and paved with stone, as indeed were all the highways, in
city and country, of the province of Mangi.

The sewerage of Quinsai was more perfect than that of any modern
city, for the waters of a river, that bounded it on one side, Cit of
were led through the streets and washed completely away Q" 50841 -
all filth and waste matter to a lake on the other side, whence they
were carried out to sea. Besides this system of thorough drainage, for
the preservation of the public health, there were free baths of hot and
cold water, with attendants, male and female, for daily bathing was
the habit of this luxurious people from earliest childhood ; and for
the sick and feeble the hospitals were " exceeding many," where all
were taken care of who were not able to work. A trained fire-depart
ment was in constant readiness to protect the city from conflagrations,
and at a fixed hour of the night the putting out of domestic lights
and fires was enforced by severe penalties, as a safeguard against
accident. All the inhabitants were required to be within their
houses at a certain time, and from every guard-house and on every
bridge each hour of the day and night was struck on great resounding
basons or gongs.

The marble palace of the king, with its arcades and corridors, its ter
races and courts, its lakes and groves and gardens, filled a circuit of
ten miles ; its wide expanse of roof, profusely wrought in gold, rested
upon hundreds of pillars of pure gold cunningly adorned in arabesque

94 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

of azure, to heighten the native richness of the yellow metal. Here on
holydays, sacred to their gods, were feasts of ten and twelve days' con
tinuance, with guests ten thousand at a time.

The annual revenue of the king from salt alone, from Quinsai and
its associated cities, comprising only one ninth of Mangi, was six mil
lion, four hundred thousand ducats ; from other products, sixteen mil
lion eight hundred thousand more. The population of this one of the
one hundred and forty contiguous cities was one million and six hun
dred thousand families ; they consumed daily nine thousand four hun
dred and sixty pounds of pepper, and " hence," says Polo, " may be
guessed the quantity of victuals, flesh, wine, and spices were there
spent." So wealthy and prosperous and luxurious were these people,
that a part of every day was given up to pleasure in boats and barges
fitted up for banquets on the lake ; in driving about the long and
beautiful streets in chariots lined with cushions and cloths of silk ; in
feasting in palaces gorgeously furnished and kept for public use ; in
loitering in public gardens, or resting in inviting bowers scattered
through them at convenient distances. And this city, " for the ex
cellency thereof," said Marco Polo, " hath the name of the city of
Heaven ; for in the world there is not the like, or a place in which
are found so many pleasures, that a man would think he were in
Paradise."

Of all the provinces of the East, Mangi was the richest, as it was
also the most accessible from the sea. But all the kingdoms, both of
Mangi and Cathay, teemed with people, abounded in precious com
modities of nature and of art, and their cities, villages, fortresses, and
palaces were tens upon tens of thousands. Armenia the Greater was,
)ike Mangi and Cathay, tributary to the great Khan. There also were
many opulent communities ; out of its soil sprang wholesome hot wa
ters for the curing of all diseases ; on the top of one of its mountains
Noah's Ark still rested. At the city of Cambalu, on the northeast of
Cathay, where the Khan resided for three winter months, his palace
was of marble with a roof of gold, so blazoned in many colors that
nothing but gold and imagery met the eye. It stood in the centre of
the city, which was a succession of courts from one to six miles in
width, each surrounded with a wall, the outer wall of all extending
eight miles on each side of a square. In one of these courts stood al
ways a guard of ten thousand soldiers ; in the imperial stables near
by were five thousand elephants.

From Cambalu radiated roads to the most distant bound-
of the Great aries of the empire ; at every twenty-five or thirty miles on
these highways were post-houses, wherein were many cham
bers fit to lodge a king, and relays of horses were kept always in readi*

THE GREAT KHAN. 95

ness for the use of the royal messengers. Of these post-houses there
were about ten thousand in the whole empire, and the number of
horses kept in them exceeded two hundred thousand. Between these
houses, at intervals of three or four miles, were other stations where
runners swift of foot always stood ready to carry letters on the king's
business, having at their girdles little bells, the ringing whereof gave
notice of their coming, and as they met, the letters were handed from
one to another and thus hurried forward without a moment's delay.
The bridges on these roads, over the many rivers and canals which
watered this wonderful country, were noble works of art, built some
times of polished serpentine, sometimes of beautiful marbles, stately
with many columns, ornamented with great stone lions and other
sculptures, curiously and beautifully wrought.

In another city, Ciandu, the Khan made his residence for three of
the summer months, and there also was " a marvellous palace of
marble and other stones," in an enclosure of sixteen miles. So large
was the banquet-hall of this royal residence, that the Khan's table in
the centre was eighty yards high. Here the royal stud was a herd of
white horses and mares to the number of ten thousand, which were in
a manner sacred ; for none dared to go before or to hinder these
animals wherever they went, and none were allowed to drink of the
milk of the mares except they were of the imperial blood.

The Khan's army was almost like the sands of the sea for numbers,
and so magnificent was the state of its many generals that they sat
in chairs of solid silver. The royal fleet was fifteen thousand sail,
and each vessel carried fifteen horses and twenty men, or two hun
dred and twenty-five thousand horses and three hundred thousand
men for the fleet. But the merchant marine far exceeded this, for in
a single port Polo saw five thousand ships engaged in trade, and there
were many cities that numbered still more.

In one province a mountain of turquoises pierced the clouds ; in a
valley of another nestled a lake where pearls were so plentiful that
had there been freedom to gather them, pearls would have been so
common as to be of little worth. There were many mines of silver,
many rivers whose beds were spangled with gold. The beasts and
birds were various and wonderful : serpents with two little feet near
their heads, with claws like lions, with eyes bigger than a loaf ; hens
that had no feathers, but were covered with hair ; birds of gorgeous
plumage ; oxen as large as elephants, with manes as fine as silk ;
game of all kinds, which the Khan hunted with hawks and with
leopards seated on the backs of horses, whence they sprang at the
prey. Spices grew everywhere ; and of fruit there were nuts as large
as a child's head, filled with a delicious milk, pears that weighed ten

INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

pounds, peaches two pounds each ; canes fifteen paces long and four
palms thick, somewhat, no doubt, like those washed up on the beach
of the island of Porto Santo and seen by Columbus, grew everywhere
in abundance. The people of this favored land clothed themselves in
cloth of gold, in silks, in lawns and cambrics of the finest fabric, in
furs of ermine and of sable, which they called " the Queen of Furs."

Fifteen hundred miles from the coast of Mangi was the island of
Cipango, Japan, where gold was so plentiful that the palace of
the king was covered with golden plates, as the churches of Europe
were roofed with lead ; the windows were gilded ; the floors even
were paved with gold. There also were many precious pearls. In
the surrounding sea there were four hundred and forty other islands,
most of them peopled, whereon grew not a tree that yielded not a good
smell, while many bore spices, and where also gold abounded.

All the people of these numerous and opulent kingdoms were infi
dels and idolaters, and whoever should make of them and their rich pos
sessions a prey would be doing a service to God and the true Church.
Of the right to do so there was no question, for it was held to be as
much the duty of the Christian as the privilege of the conqueror, to
spoil the unbelievers. Even if they were not spoiled, a power and
prosperity hitherto unknown would surely come to the nation that
should open easy communication with a people whose riches seemed

inexhaustible, whose commerce exceeded
that of all the world beside, whose arts
were far beyond anything known in
Europe, whose luxury was of a refine
ment and magnificence hardly to be con
ceived of by the ordinary European
mind.

The great problem of the age was to
reach this " far Cathay " by sea. Navi
gation grew to a science, drawing all
ether sciences to its aid. Dominion
over the sea increased with the com
mon use of the magnetic needle in the
new mariners' compass ; with the im
proved methods of drawing sea-charts ;
with the additions made to the astrolabe
- which the quadrant afterwards superseded by Martin Behaim and
Endeavors to ^ od "g ancl Joseph the Jew, the king's physicians, the three
b^sea lnd ' a a kl est astronomers and geographers of Portugal. But how
ever much this increase of knowledge advanced the commerce
and civilization of Europe, to push out beyond its confines and find the

Astrolabe.

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. 97

way to that " East " of marvels and mysteries was the impelling mo
tive of the most enlightened and most energetic minds of the fifteenth
century. It was only in royal treasure-chests, however, that the
means could often be found for the expenditure involved in long
expeditions ; still more the civil conditions, and moral and intellectual
subservience of the age, suppressed all individual effort that wanted
a regal sanction. But fortunately in the fifteenth century there came
forward a princely adventurer, Henry of Portugal, surnamed Henr of
The Navigator, who not only was willing to listen to and to ^g^e
aid all those who proposed voyages of discovery, but was Navi g ator
himself diligent above all other men of his time in forwarding such
enterprises. By his energy, generosity, and success, an impulse was
given to cosmographical studies, and ex
peditions under his auspices or by his ex
ample were pushed to parts where hitherto
it was supposed impossible to penetrate. 1
Rejecting the absurdities which 'some of
the wisest of men then accepted as true,
that human life could hardly be sustained
in the intense heat of the torrid zone, and
that it was impossible the antipodal regions
could be inhabited, because it was absurd
to suppose that there could be a people
that went about their ordinary business

with their heads downward, rejecting Prince Henry the Navigator '
all such conjectures as unphilosophical, he devoted his princely rev
enues and all the energies of a richly endowed character, to enlarging
the boundaries of geographical knowledge. <

The love of science was, perhaps, the primal motive which ruled
Prince Henry ; but to this was added a desire to enhance the glory
of Portugal, and to extend the blessings of the Christian religion
for the salvation of souls. A desire to do good " talent de bien
faire " was his chosen motto, and such, undoubtedly, was the aim
of his life. The particular good, however, that he never lost sight of,
was India. He gathered men learned in the sciences about him in
his secluded home on the promontory of Sagres, where the unmeas
ured, restless sea was always before his eyes, and the melancholy mur
mur or the mighty roar of those mysterious waters never left his ears.
Of his princely court he made a sort of geographical college ; he pro
posed that his seamen should fearlessly cross the line and breathe the
heated air which none, it was said, could breathe and live ; he would

1 See Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed The Navigator ; and its Results. By
Richard Henry Major. London, 1 868.

98 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

pass Cape Nam or Non so called because, according to the proverb,
" Whoever passes Cape Not will return or not ; " he would bring the
benighted heathen of Africa, from its Mediterranean coast to its far
thest southern limit, to a knowledge of Christ and the true Church ;
but the end of all was to double that southern extremity and open a
new route to India.

India always India. It was well to win souls to God ; it was
well to dispel the clouds of human ignorance, whether Christian or
heathen ; it was well to augment the glory of states and dynasties,
and add to the sum of human happiness, by the discovery of strange
countries. But commerce with the gorgeous East, so teeming with
all precious things, would enrich kingdoms and make states and
princes powerful. Courts and palaces, lords and ladies, the increasing
wealth, refinement, and luxury of the age, demanded its rich stuffs,
its precious stones, its aromatic spices, all its costly merchandise.
Now they could be had only in some small degree by tedious, dan
gerous, and expensive travel, partly overland through wide deserts,
through hostile countries, a devious and a doubtful way. Great, then,
would be, not the glory only, but the profit also, of that man or that
people who should shorten that way in distance, remove its difficulties
and its perils, and pour the precious commodities of Asia in unstinted
abundance into the lap of Europe.

The devotion of a long life and of his great revenues by Henry did
not solve this problem while he lived ; but the success and importance
of the many expeditions undertaken by his orders, and the mari
time policy he established, so extended the knowledge of the globe,
so added to the power and wealth of Portugal, and led generally to
results so brilliant, that thenceforward for nearly two hundred years,
the spirit of adventure and the zeal for discovery animated every
maritime state of Europe, and opened a new world to the races and
the civilization of the old. Not, indeed, that the modern discoverers
of the Western Hemisphere were in search of another continent ; they
were as far from being guided by any such definite purpose as their
predecessors of earlier centuries were innocent of all knowledge that
they had made such a discovery when accident threw them upon
strange shores.

Columbus, like the navigators of Prince Henry, meant to find a
new route to the East, only in a fresh direction ; and he died in the
belief, after four voyages to the New World, that the countries he
had discovered were literally the Western Indies the coasts of Asia
reached by sailing west. The difference between him and those
who by chance crossed the Atlantic before him was that he, impelled
by a fervid religious faith and by conclusions drawn from scientific

EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 99

study, had boldly sought to explore the unknown on which they had
only been ignorantly driven.

The father of Columbus had followed the humble calling of a
carder of wool. But among his kindred were some who led -

Christopher

a seafaring life, and with them from the age of fourteen a Columbus,
ship was the home of the son. One or two of these relatives were
the servants of any state that would give them a roving commission
to fight against its enemies ; and if a commission were wanting, they
sought and found a foe in any ship carrying a cargo worth the taking.
They did not differ much from what in later times was called a
pirate ; but in their own age they had the reputation which a priv
ateer has had in ours. It was with such sea rovers that the great cap
tain learned the practice of navigation ; learned how to carry himself
in fight when, sword in hand, he sprang over the bulwarks of a hostile
vessel ; learned how to control the rough and lawless men with whom
he sailed, now by the enforcement of an iron discipline, now by those
arts of persuasion of which, with his winning speech and commanding
presence, he was master. In one of these sea fights, off the coast of
Portugal, which lasted from morning till night, the vessels, lashed
together by iron grapplings, became enveloped in flames, and the only
escape from the fire was to jump into the sea. Columbus went over
board with the rest, and, being an expert swimmer, swam, with the
aid of an oar, eight leagues to land. He found himself not far from
Lisbon, where there were many of his countrymen, Genoese, who
received him kindly. The incident is related on the authority of his
son Fernando, and if there is an anachronism, as there seems to be,
as to the date of the particular naval battle referred to and the time
of the residence of Columbus in Lisbon, the mistake, probably, is in
confounding one engagement with another. In Lisbon, at any rate,
he was living before he was thirty years of age, having abandoned his
roving life, and supporting himself and his father's family at home in
Genoa by drawing maps and sea-charts.

Here in Lisbon he became acquainted with, and soon married, the
Doila Felipa Moniz Perestrello, a daughter of a late governor of
Porto Santo, one of the Madeira Islands, and a renowned navigator
under Prince Henry. The charts and journals of Perestrello thus
came into possession of Columbus ; and going afterward to Residence of
Porto Santo, with his wife, he was brought into familiar t 01 t ? bus
intercourse with Pedro Correo, a navigator of some distinc- Ma^"" 18 -
tion, who had married another daughter of the late governor. This
family connection was both an incentive and a help to his cosmograph-
ical studies, and it was at this period of his life that he became per
suaded of the feasibility of a western passage to India. In the

100

INDIA THE ELDORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

Madeiras he found people who believed they had seen ample evidence
of the truth of the strange stories of the islands of St. Brandan and
of The Seven Cities, which were supposed to be somewhere in the
Western Ocean. He was told of pieces of curiously-carved wood, one
of them found by Correo, his brother-in-law ; joints of gigantic cane,
such as Ptolemy said grew in India ; branches of pine ; covered
canoes ; the bodies of two strange men, differing in complexion from
either Europeans or Africans ; and all these had been picked up at
sea, or were found upon the beach, and had evidently drifted from the
west. There is also a story which seems to have been current in the
life-time of Columbus, accepted by some historians, rejected by others
as an attempt to detract from his fair fame, but passed over in silence
by those who might, from their own knowledge, have either contra
dicted or confirmed it. It is that about the year 1484 a vessel com
manded by one Alonzo San
chez was driven across the
ocean by storm, and that he
and his crew landed and spent
some time on the island of
Hispaniola. On their return
they again encountered tem
pestuous weather, and only
five out of sixteen survived
the hardships they were com
pelled to suffer. Sanchez
found a refuge in the house
of Columbus, who learned
from him the particulars of

ship of Fifteenth Century.

his western voyage and the land he had discovered, receiving from
him also, when he died, his charts and journal. If the story be true,
the information Columbus thus gained could have only helped to con
firm his theorv, which certainly was not founded on a single fact or
a single supposition.

He found from ancient authors that a belief in 'such western lands,

sometimes under one name, sometimes under another, and a belief in

the possibility of the navigation of the western seas, had long existed.

From his geographical and astronomical studies, in works

His theory .

of the size ancient and modern, he had come to the conclusion that the

of the globe. , in

earth was in shape a sphere, but that it was much smaller
than it had been generally supposed to be. Two thirds of it at least,
he was sure, was occupied by Europe and Asia, and the eastern coast
of Asia must, in that case, come within the other third of the whole
circumference and stretch toward the western coast of Europe. Other

THEORIES OF COLUMBUS. 101

men more learned than he had held this opinion, but he was the first
who proposed to put it to a practical test?. '_ If , he were right as to the
size of the globe, the one weak point o// tite: argument,* and the one
which his opponents seem to have strangely; overlooked, ^o?,;ak least,
did not answer, resorting rather to any ctcginatie absurdity m Teply to
him, if he were right in that, his reasoning was unanswerable. A
shorter and a better way to India than that sought by Prince Henry's
navigators, round the extremity of Africa, would be to sail directly
west.

The Sea of Darkness and the monsters that guarded it were fables
fit only to frighten children. Modern voyagers had exposed the fal
lacy of the supposed fatal heat of the tropics. In one of his roving
voyages Columbus himself had sailed, as he says in a letter to his son
Fernando, a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule, to another
island, Iceland, where " the English, especially those from Bris
tol, go with their merchandise." This voyage was made in 1467,
long before his attention was turned to the question which so ab
sorbed him ten years later. Some have conjectured that he then
gained a knowledge of the discoveries of the Northmen and the colo
nization of Vinland more than four and a half centuries earlier. But
this is very unlikely. It is possible that the ship in which he sailed,
and which, no doubt, was on a privateering cruise, made a short stay
in Iceland ; but the young sailor of one-and-twenty, if ashore at all,
would find something else to do than to ransack dusty monastic archives
for forgotten manuscripts in ancient Norse, or to seek for old traditions
among learned monks who would relate them in Latin. He recalled
the fact, however, that he had sailed so far beyond the uttermost
western boundary of Northern Europe, as one among the many other
reasons he had for maintaining that navigation to the west was pos
sible. The Indies, the kingdoms of the Great Khan, the dominions
of that mysterious potentate, Prester John, the island of Cipango, or
Japan, perhaps many another island along the Asiatic coast, could
easily, he was sure, be reached by the mariner bold enough to defy
all fancied terrors, and to sail for thirty or forty days and about a
thousand leagues into those unknown seas.

This was the work to which Columbus consecrated his life, and it
was for this, he believed, that God had singled him out and set him
apart from his fellow-men. He was a most diligent student of the
Bible. Its prophecies, he was persuaded, were to be fulfilled when
rapid and easy communication was established between the uttermost
parts of the earth, and all the human family were brought within the
saving influence of the Holy Catholic Church. He looked upon him
self as the destined " Christ-bearer" to far-distant and benighted

102

INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

lands. 1 " God made me," he said, u the messenger of the new heaven

and the new earth of which He
spoke in the Apocalypse by St.
John, after having spoken of it
by the mouth of Isaiah ; and He
showed me the spot where to
find it." 2 The power and the
riches which, he was persuaded,
he could win for himself and the
sovereign whom he should serve,
he would win to the glory of
God in the bringing of souls to
Christ in the East and in the
West, and his share of the treas
ure gained he would devote to
equipping armies to be led to
the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre
from the hands of the Infidel.
He was as genuine a fanatic as
Peter the Hermit, or a modern

The Christ-bearer, from Map of Juan de la Cosa. u AdventlSt." " 111 the 6X6011-

tion of my western enterprise to India," he said, " human reason,
mathematics, and charts availed me nothing. The design
was simply accomplished as the prophet Isaiah had pre
dicted. Before the end of the world, all the prophecies
must be fulfilled, the gospel be preached all over the earth, and the
holy city restored to the Church. Our Lord wished to do a miracle
by my voyage to India. It was necessary to hasten his purpose, be
cause, according to my calculations, there only remain one hundred
and fifty years to the end of the world." 3

But this faith in his divine mission was, nevertheless, a corollary to

1 His son Ferdinand says that as most of his father's affairs were guarded by a special
providence, so there was " a mystery " about his name and surname. He was a true Co
lumbus or Columba (a dove), inasmuch as he conveyed the knowledge of Christ to the
people of the New World even as the Holy Ghost was revealed in the figure of a dove at
St. John's baptism. And as St. Christopher was so called Christopher, or Christ
bearer because he had carried the Saviour, according to the legend, across the deep
waters at his own imminent peril, so this Christopher " went over safe himself, and his
company, that those Indian nations might become citizens and inhabitants of the Church
triumphant in heaven." The representation of Columbus as the Christ-bearer on the old
maps is copied from the pictures of the gigantic and popular saint, St. Christopher,
which were common in the churches early in the sixteenth century.

2 Letter of the Admiral to the (quondam) nurse of the Prince John, in the Select Letters
of Christopher Columbus, translated by R. H. Major, for the Hakluyt Society, p. 148.

8 Letter of Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, in the Profecias. See Humboldt'
Examen Critique, Tome I., p. 15.

Fanaticism
of Colum
bus.

THEORIES OF OTHER GEOGRAPHERS.

103

the logic of the sphere. It was because the world was round, because
one third of it yet remained to sail across, and because it was possible
to sail across it, that God had given him that mission. On the ever
lasting truths of science must rest the possibility of human achieve
ment. God would not appoint to him the task of bringing the ends of
the earth together if it could not be done. The theory of the spherical
form of the earth was not new, for that was taught five hundred years
before the Christian era. But the ancient geographers supposed that
the ocean of the western hemisphere was of such expanse as to be
practically if not absolutely impassable. It was on this all-important

Circulus Equinocalialis ST.TIIOMAS/?

Globus Martini Behaim

Narinbergensis

1492.

Globe of Martin Behaim.

point, the size of the globe, that the learned men of modern times
assumed that they had received new light. The globe was much
smaller than the ancients supposed ; the ocean west of Europe covered
only one third of it, and then came Asia. Columbus was not a man
of wide learning, but he had diligently informed himself of all that
had been advanced on these points by both ancient and modern
writers, and he knew that the geographers of the highest reputation of
his own time maintained the theory, on which he relied, not only of
the shape but of the size of the earth.

From these he sought argument and encouragement. He can hardly

104 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

have failed to know Martin Behaim, in the service of the King of

Portugal while Columbus was in vain attendance upon that court,

. and who showed upon his famous globe, completed in 1492,

Behaiin and t> ' *

Toscaneiii. t; ua t ne had no doubt of the proximity of Asia to the western
coast of Europe. From Paul Toscaneiii, of Florence, we know that he
received encouraging assurances of sympathy. That learned physician
and cosmographer confirmed his opinion as to the certainty and ease
of a western passage to India, and of the fame that awaited him who
should thus bring within easy reach those empires and kingdoms
described by Marco Polo, whose account of their opulence and gran
deur had so inflamed the imagination and fed the fanaticism of Colum
bus. Toscaneiii sent him a chart whereon he had laid down the coast
of Asia in accordance with the descriptions of the Venetian traveller,
and in the intervening ocean between that continent and Europe he
placed the islands of Antilla and Cipango, at convenient distances, as
stopping-places for water and fresh provisions on the western voyage
to the city of Quinsai, in the province of Cathay.

It was this sublime faith, and a knowledge of these supposed newly-
Faithof discovered facts of science, which sustained Columbus for
inhi8DUs S - eighteen years as a suppliant, struggling with poverty and
sion. obscurity in his own person, with stupidity, obstinacy, in

credulity in others, begging from court to court for a royal sanction to
his enterprise, and a few ships to undertake it. And when the
eighteen years were passed and their labor seemed all for naught, he
simply turned, sadly and wearily indeed, but with undiminished zeal
and unmoved convictions, to seek in a new quarter the aid he must
have, and which he was sure would come at last. Should he find
himself once on board his fleet, and with its prows turned westward,
nothing but the hand of death could have stayed his progress. To
turn back would have been with him to fly in the face of Heaven, to
disregard the plain counsels of God. The story, always doubted by
the most trustworthy historians, that a day or two before he sighted
Guanahani he promised his mutinous and despairing followers to
return if land was not seen within three days, is best confuted by
its own absurdity. It was a moral impossibility for him to turn back.
His faith was of the kind that removes mountains, for he was chosen
of God to bear the glad tidings of salvation to millions of his fellow-
men before the heavens should be rolled together as a scroll, that
near time when the first heaven and the first earth should have passed
away, and when there should be no more sea.

The geographical theory which alone saved the proposition of a
western passage to Cathay, or China, from being preposterous, and on
which he based his faith in his divine mission and all his hopes of

PERSEVERANCE OF COLUMBUS.

105

worldly greatness, he never abandoned. Even after his last voyage,
when he had four times crossed and recrossed the Atlantic, he said :
" The world is but small ; out of seven divisions of it the dry part
occupies six, and the seventh is entirely covered with water." In all
his voyages he was constantly finding some fancied resemblance in the
names of persons and places among the Indians to cities or provinces
or princes of the East mentioned by Marco Polo. The impression
which the wonderful stories of that traveller had made upon a mind

Columbus on Shipboard.

always ruled by a poetic temperament and a vivid imagination,
and the confidence he had in the importance and magnificence of
the discovery he proposed to make, were deepened by still another
conviction. The wealth of David and Solomon in gold and silver, of
which he read in Scripture, he believed came from those parts of the
world he expected to reach. Had he only hoped to find a new con
tinent, inhabited by some nations of savages, though he might still
have represented to the sovereigns of Portugal, of P^ngland, and of
Spain the importance and the glory of such a discovery, he would
have had little of that enthusiasm and perseverance with which his
belief in the certainty of arriving, in little more than a month, on the

106 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

confines of the glorious East inspired him and enabled him to inspire
others. The value and the character of a new continent could have
been only conjectural; but of the fabulous wealth, the noble cities, the
splendor of the palaces, the magnitude of the commerce, the millions
of souls waiting for the coming of a knowledge of Christ in that con
tinent to which he meant to open a new way, he was sure he knew.
He asked for aid to enable him to take possession, not of some specu
lative advantage, some shadowy good, but of power and riches and
dominion that had been seen of the eyes of men.

With a patience that nothing could wear out, and a perseverance
that was absolutely unconquerable, Columbus waited and labored for
eighteen years, appealing to minds that wanted light and to ears that
wanted hearing. His ideas of the possibilities of navigation were
before his time. It was one thing to creep along the coast of Africa,
where the hold upon the land need never be lost ; another, to steer
out boldly into that wilderness of waters over which mystery and
darkness brooded. Only the learned could understand that the world
was a globe, and that it might be as safe to sail upon one part of its
surface as another ; only the enlightened could see that to penetrate
the unknown might be to find that which was worth knowing. His
knowledge was disbelieved in ; his religious zeal and aspirations de
rided.

He first asked aid of Genoa ; or rather he first offered without suc
cess the empire he proposed to acquire to that, his native, city. Then
he assured John II. of Portugal that he would add India to
to Genoa and his crown by an easy voyage of less than two months, instead
of the dubious route around the distant and stormy cape of
Africa. John II., who inherited much of the enthusiasm of his
great uncle Prince Henry the Navigator, for maritime adventure, and
who had sent one or two expeditions in search of that mysterious
potentate, Prester John, who reigned, it was supposed, now in Central
Africa, now in farthest India, listened with so much interest and
attention to the proposition and the arguments of Columbus that he
referred the question of the possibility of such a voyage to the most
eminent men of learning in church and state in the kingdom. The
decision was against the project as visionary and impracticable. This
was so unsatisfactory to the king that, it seems probable, had Columbus
yielded something of his demand of honor and profit to himself in
case of success, the application to John, in spite of the advice of his
council, might have been successful.

But at length, when Columbus had been kept for years in suspense
and doubt, the Bishop of Ceuta, either to get rid of him, in any event,
or to satisfy the king, suggested that a caravel be secretly dispatched

ATTENDANCE ON THE SOVEREIGNS OF SPAIN. 107

on such a voyage as Columbus had proposed. The advice was treach
erous and base, but the king was weak enough to accept it. A
caravel was sent out, under a false pretext, provided with the charts
and other documents which Columbus had laid before the council to
sustain his proposition. But those in command of her had little in
clination for a venture which they could only look upon as mad, and
certain, if persevered in, to end in their own destruction. They only
went, therefore, as far as the Cape de Verde Islands, and reported, on
their return, that the proposed westward voyage was absurd and im
possible. When Columbus learned of the trickery and trifling of
which he was made the subject, he shook the dust of Portugal from
off his feet to go and offer, as he believed, to some other prince who
should be wise enough to accept them, the richest kingdoms of all the
earth.

He left Lisbon in 1483 or 1484, and first went, it is supposed, to
Genoa, to urge in person upon the senate of his native city the pro
posal he had previously made in writing. But whether made in per
son or by letter only, the offer was rejected, and he is next heard of
in Spain, seven or eight years before he sailed on his first Hisattend .
voyage. During those years he was often in attendance ^l^rn"*
upon Ferdinand and Isabella, then busily engaged in war for of s P ain -
the recovery of Grenada, sometimes serving in the campaigns against
the Moors, but always watchful for an opportunity to urge his suit
upon the sovereigns, or to commend it to any great man of the court
whom he could get to listen to him. He was thought, at length, so
far worthy of respect that means were provided for his maintenance
when his proposition was actually under consideration, but he sup
ported himself, some part of the time at least, by making maps and
charts, as he had done in Portugal.

He gained some friends among the powerful and influential, but
none were more useful and devoted than those of humbler rank whom
he found without seeking. Stopping, foot-sore and weary, on his
journey to the court of Spain, at the gate of the convent of Santa
Maria de Rabida, near Palos, to ask for bread and water for his little
son, his appearance and conversation so interested the prior, Juan
Perez de Marchina, that he persuaded the travellers to remain for
a longer rest than Columbus had intended. Rabida became thence-

forth the permanent home of his son, and an occasional one for him
self, for several years.

There lived at the neighboring port of Palos a family of seafaring
men, the Pinzons, and a physician, Garcia Fernandez, learned in geog
raphy and mathematics. The prior, Juan Perez, was himself inter
ested in all maritime subjects, and Columbus found in these men a

108 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

little circle of friends so well informed as to feel at once an enthusiastic
interest in the magnitude and importance of his project. With them
he discussed his plans, his geographical theories, his astronomical
problems, his pious aims. From them he received encouragement and
sympathy in the darkest hours of doubt and despondency. They
took up the enterprise with as much zeal as if it had been their own ;
Juan Perez, who had once been confessor to the queen, used all his
personal influence with her to forward the interests of Columbus, and
to secure him friends at court ; and when at last his negotiations with
the king and queen were successful, it was among these good friends
that he found the means to contribute his eighth part of the expenses
of the expedition, and two of his three vessels were commanded by
the Pinzons.

His eight years of probation were weary years of poverty, humil
iation, and hope deferred. He was not only derided as an enthusiast,
almost as a madman, but was in danger of being denounced as a
heretic for devising theories in direct contradiction to the received
doctrines of the fathers as to the shape and habitation of the globe.
He was looked upon with cold suspicion as a foreigner, and sneered
at as vainglorious for assuming to be wiser than many of the learned
Decision of ^ his own time, and all those of the past. The Council of
of e sfia" n il Salamanca, summoned by royal order to meet at the convent
manca. o f g^ Stephen, and listen to his plea, decided against him.
The most reverent and powerful prelates, fired with holy zeal, and
dogged in their hostility to new-fangled and presumptuous notions,
ridiculed with great success a project involving such an absurdity as
the existence of the antipodes, where men walked with their heels
above their heads, where the trees grew downward, where the snow
and rain fell upward from a nether heaven. To maintain that the
earth was inhabited beyond the tropics savored of blasphemy. The
Bible taught that all men are descended from Adam and Eve, whose
primal home was on the banks of the Shat-el-Arab, north of the
Persian Gulf ; and as the torrid zone was impassable, to assume that
there were human beings beyond that line was to assume that there
were races of men who did not descend from Adam and Eve.

Moreover, it was denied by these bigots that the earth was a globe,
for the Scriptures and the fathers taught that it was a level, extended
plain, whose extremity could only be reached, if it could be reached at
all, by a voyage of several years. But if the world was a globe, then,
they triumphantly asserted, such a voyage as this ignorant enthusiast
proposed would be absolutely impossible ; for either one way or the
other, in going or returning, the sailing would be all up-hill. There
were, indeed, men in that grave assembly too enlightened not to detect

QUEEN ISABELLA'S DECISION.

109

the fallacies and absurdities involved in such statements, and to
wonder at the ignorance that could believe in them ; others there
were ready with facts of navigation and geography, few as they were
in that age, to show that, whether Columbus were right or wrong,
such objections to his theories were more baseless than his wildest
dreams. And there were some, perhaps, who thought, if they did not
say so, that the laws of the universe
could not be limited to texts of Scrip
ture, or assertions sanctified by noth
ing but priestly authority. It was a
gain, nevertheless, to get the subject
before so august a body as this Coun
cil of Salamanca, and the eloquence
which Columbus brought to its dis
cussion, the special scientific facts of
which he showed himself the master,
the skill with which he parried at
tack, and the sagacity with which he
avoided the pitfalls and ambushes
with which the wily monks beset his
path, made him new friends and
strengthened his old ones. lsabella ' Queen of Castile<

Doubtful of success in Spain, he at one time sent his brother Bar
tholomew to England to open negotiations, if possible, with Henry
VII. ; at another time he entered into correspondence with Louis XI.
of France. From Ferdinand and his counsellors he could get

, . . ii'i Application

only evasive answers, and wearied out at length with pro- to England
crastination, and negotiations that came to nothing, he bade
farewell to his friends and started for France and England. But
among those who sincerely believed in him and his project was
Luis de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of Aragon,
who, on hearing that Columbus had actually started to leave the coun
try, hastened to the queen and begged her to recall him. His entrea
ties and representations, seconded by those of Alonzo de Quintanilla,
the Minister of Finance, who happened to be present, prevailed with
Isabella. They convinced her that the loss and the shame to Spain
would be great and irreparable if such an opportunity to add to her
dominion and wealth, by the discovery of a short passage to India,
should fall into the hands of any other power. A messenger was
immediately dispatched to bring Columbus back, the queen Queen Iga .
declaring that the enterprise should now be her own, and ^tne 60 ^ 68
that she would pawn the royal jewels to defray its expenses. enter P rise -
This generous sacrifice on her part, however, was rendered unneces-

110

INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

sary by Santangel, who took it upon himself to advance the requisite
sum. On the arrival of Columbus, negotiation was resumed, and an
agreement was at length drawn up between Ferdinand and Isabella
and himself by which he was made admiral and viceroy of all the seas
and lands he should discover ; a tenth part of all the revenues to be
derived from them was to be his ; and he was to provide an eighth
part of the expenses. Armed with such authority, he repaired to
Palos to make arrangements for the voyage.

The agreement was signed in April or May, 1492, and on the third

of the following August he sailed from Palos in command

turefrom of an expedition consisting of three vessels and one hundred

and twenty men. The largest ship, the Santa Maria, on

which flew the admiral's pennant, was probably not more than one

hundred tons' burden ; the
other two, the Pinta and the
Nina, commanded respective
ly by his friends Martin
Alonzo Pinzon and Vincente
Yanez Pinzon, of Palos, were
still smaller vessels, called
caravels, with no decks amid
ships, but built high out of
the water at the stem and
stern.

But not only were his ves
sels small; they were hardly
seaworthy, and one of them,
the Pinta, unshipped her
rudder before they reached
the Canaries. It is conjec
tured, indeed, that this was
not accidental, but was con
trived by the owners of the vessel before she left port, they not liking
the adventure on which they were compelled to send her. The ad
miral, however, had great difficulty in getting any vessels at all,
so intense was the feeling in Palos against the enterprise. The royal
mandate ; the promise of immunity from civil or criminal process
against any person who would enlist in it ; the example of the Pin-
zons, the most respectable and experienced mariners of the port ; and
the priestly influence of Juan Perez, the prior of Rabida, were means
and influences all needed and all used to procure crews. When the
expedition sailed, it was followed by prayers and tears and lamenta
tions for men most of whom were constrained by authority or ne-

The Fleet of Columbus.

THE FIRST EXPEDITION. Ill

eessity to enter upon an adventure which seemed desperate to the last
degree.

The sum advanced from the treasury of Aragon by Santangel was
one million one hundred and forty thousand maravedis,
" being the sum he lent," says the account-book, " for pay- the^xpedi-
ing the caravels which their highnesses ordered to go as the
armada to the Indies, and for paying Christopher Columbus, who goes
in the said armada." 1 If to this be added the one eighth share of the
expenses which it was stipulated Columbus himself should provide,
the whole cost of the expedition was one million two hundred and
eighty-two thousand and five hundred maravedis, a sum hardly equal
in its purchasing power to fifty thousand dollars of the money of our
time. It is evident, therefore, that the expense of the expedition must
always have been a secondary consideration with the sovereigns from
whom Columbus had sought assistance. The real difficulty was not
money, but the serious doubts as to the soundness of his theory of
the possibility of a western voyage to India. It was those doubts,
intensified into absolute terror, that filled Palos with wailing and
consternation when he succeeded, at last, in making good his de
parture.

Seven months later he entered the same port with the halo of the
most brilliant success about him, and prepared to proceed to court
surrounded with the barbaric pomp of painted savages decked out
with ornaments of gold, and crowned with coronets of brilliant feath
ers, attendants carrying in their hands birds of the gayest plumage,
the stuffed skins of strange beasts, and specimens of trees and plants
supposed to bear the most precious spices. No wonder that then the
revulsion of feeling was tremendous, and he was hailed as the greatest
and most fortunate of men. It was a short-lived triumph, however,
never to be repeated on his return from either of his three subsequent
voyages, for his was a success that had not succeeded.

The glory of the discovery he actually made has to a remarkable
degree obscured the fact that in the loner discussion before

The mistake

kings and councils of the discovery he proposed to make, it of the great

navigator.

was Columbus who was in the wrong, and his opponents who
were in the right, on the main question a short western route to
India. The ignorance, the obstinacy, the stupidity, with which he so
long contended, were indeed obstacles in the way of an event so im
portant to all civilized races as the possession of half the globe ; but
that event was no more proposed or foreseen by Columbus than
it was opposed by those who withstood him the most persistently.
or ridiculed him the most unmercifully. The very splendor of his

i Helps' Life of Columbus, p. 80.

112 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

promises may have made men incredulous of their fulfilment who
would, perhaps, have listened to an argument in favor merely of
the possibility of sailing westward and of reaching unknown countries,
within a moderate distance, which might be worth exploring and
worth possessing. But Columbus had no such argument to offer.
Neither in his mind nor in theirs was there any thought of a great
continent lying between two great oceans, extending almost from
pole to pole, and separating the western coast of Europe from the
eastern coast of Asia by an area of land and sea that covered half
the globe. It was that distant Asia itself that he declared he could
reach in less than forty days ; and that they rightly said was im
possible.

But at last, as he believed, and as they were forced to confess, by
an event which all misapprehended, he was justified. The enthu
siasm, the strength of faith, the tenacity of purpose, which through
so many years had never faltered, had at length triumphed tri
umphed even in the final struggle with the superstition and despera
tion of men who would have gladly sacrificed him to their fears.
They had crossed the ocean hitherto believed to be guarded by strange

and horrid monsters and shrouded in frightful darkness ; but
the New as they approached the land of the Western Hemisphere a

new terror seized them. They fancied themselves lured by
the powers of magic to certain destruction, gliding over smooth
waters, favored by gentle breezes, beguiled by birds of gay plumage
whose song was of the woods ; by fishes of flashing hues whose
natural haunts were the dark and still crevices of rocky shores ; by
fantastic clouds that took the semblance of distant mountains or of
low beaches, making a dim line upon the edge of sky and sea, but
fading into nothingness as they were approached ; by the exquisite
perfume of tropical vegetation, enwrapping all the senses, while
around them were to be seen only the desolate waters, above them
only the cruel sky. But the presence of the man of faith was stronger
than the dread of the supernatural. He never faltered for a single
instant ; not one passing mist of doubt ever clouded his mind. He
knew that God had led him to the threshold of the dominions of
Kublai Khan; and when at daybreak on the 12th of October the
morning light revealed the beautiful earth, never so hailed since the
top of Ararat pierced the waters of a drowned world, at that su
preme moment he in his sublime faith saw the realization of the
visions of a life-time. Before him rose all the splendor and opulence
of the thousands of cities and palaces, the fleets of unnumbered ships
laden with richest merchandise, the mountains of precious stones, the
lakes of pearls, the rivers of gold, of the kingdoms of Mangi and

MISTAKE OF THE GREAT NAVIGATOR. 113

Cathay ; these for his temporal sovereigns, the King and Queen of
Spain : and before him gathered millions of his fellow-creatures, to
whose perishing souls he, the " Christ-bearer," came as the messenger
of the glad tidings of salvation, to lead them to the feet of his spiritual
lord, the Holy Father at Rome.

And from that moment to the day of his death hardly a doubt
seems ever to have cast a shadow over his belief. When he asked of
the natives of Guanahani the island he first saw, and The new con-
appropriately named Salvador, or the Saviour for Cipango, pose^toTe
or Japan, they, supposing him to mean those mountains of Asia>
Haiti called Cibao, pointed southward ; and no suspicion crossed the
mind of Columbus that there could be any misunderstanding either
on his part or on theirs. From the ears and noses of these savages
were suspended rude ornaments of gold ; on these he fancied he could
distinguish engraved characters, and that they were the coin of India.
As he continued his voyage among other islands, the answer to the
constant inquiry for gold was always the same ; the Indians pointed to
the south, and the fervid imagination of the Admiral led him to
interpret their gestures as meaning that southward were kingdoms
populous, powerful, rich in all precious things the marvellous country
of Marco Polo's narrative. When he reached the coast of Cuba, the
Indians, pointing to the interior, contrived to impart the information
that at a distance of four days' journey only was Cubanacan, where
gold abounded ; he recognized in that word Cubanacan a corrup
tion of the name of that magnificent monarch of whom he was in
search, Kublai Khan ; and supposing he had reached the island of
Cipango, he dispatched two messengers overland, to deliver to him
the letter of which he was the bearer as ambassador from Ferdinand
and Isabella.

So of all his voyages. Wherever he went, whatever he saw or
heard, it only served to deepen this delusion. When he sailed west
from Jamaica, he thought he had accomplished so much of The delusion
the compass of the earth that he must needs be near the c
Aurea Chersonesus of ancient India. Hispaniola he was sure was
Ophir, and in deep pits in the mountains he saw evidences of the
ancient mines whence Solomon derived his gold. The extremity of
Cuba he assumed to be the extremity of Asia, by doubling which he
could sail along the known coasts of India, and reach at length the
Red Sea, where, if he pleased, he could leave his own ships, cross the
continent to the Mediterranean, and return to Spain, having circum
navigated the world. But there was method in this madness, for
yielding on that occasion to the representations of his companions, that
the condition of his ships would not admit of so extended a voyage, he

114 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

required an affidavit from all persons on board his fleet that they be
lieved the coast of Cuba, along which they had sailed, was the coast of
Asia. His own belief needed no confirmation, but he was gratified to
hear that a neighboring province was called Mangon, and that its
people had tails ; for he remembered that Sir John Mandeville had
described a tribe of men of that kind in the East, and he was quite
certain, therefore, that he was within a few days' travel of the king
dom of Mangi.

He changed his mind in regard to places as he visited different
regions, but he never ceased to affirm his conviction that he was on
the very eve of the fulfilment of all his hopes. Ten years of observa
tion and reflection upon the character of his discoveries moved him
not in the least to any correction of this singular credulity. Even on
his fourth and last voyage he wrote to the king and queen that on the
coast of Veragua he had reached Mangi, " contiguous to Cathay ; "
nineteen days of land travel, he is confident, would take him to the
river Ganges ; the mines of Aurea, whence, according to Josephus, he
reminds them, came the vast wealth of David and of Solomon, spoken
of in Chronicles and the Book of Kings, were, he was now sure, iden
tical with the mines of Veragua ; "in the name of God " he pledged
himself in the same letter to conduct any one, who would undertake
the mission, to the Emperor of Cathay, to instruct him in the faith of
Christ, as the Abbe Joaquim said would be done by some one who
came from Spain. 1 And finally from his death-bed he wrote to the
new sovereigns, Philip and Juana, that he would yet do them

The last . & ' . *\. t r. j i J i

letter of services the like of which had never been seen ; and in his

Columbus. . 'iii i T

last solemn will and testament he said, " In the name of the
Most Holy Trinity, who inspired me with the idea, and afterwards
made it perfectly clear to me that I could navigate and go to the

Indies from Spain, by traversing the ocean westwardly And it

pleased the Lord Almighty, that in the year one thousand four hun
dred and ninety-two I should discover the continent of the Indies and
many islands, among them Hispaniola, which the Indians call Ayte,
and the Monicongos, Cipango."

When the successful discoverer returned to Spain from his first voy
age, his reception was a triumph such as never waited upon any con-
His trium- < l ueror - The people from city and town, from village and
fo h s 1 pai n um coun * r y-side, crowded streets and highways as he travelled

from Palos to Barcelona, to do homage to the man who had
given India to Spain. At Barcelona the king and queen received him
sitting on their thrones under a canopy in the open air, and hesitated

1 Letter on the Fourth Voyage, iu Select Letters of Columbus, edited by R. H. Major
Hakluyt Soc. Pub.

TRIUMPHAL RETURN TO SPAIN.

115

when he approached to accept the customary mark of homage due
from a subject to a sovereign. In Portugal, where before this arrival
in Spain he was compelled by stress of weather to seek a haven, he
was met with the most bitter exasperation that he should have suc-

Reception by Sovereigns.

ceeded in snatching from that kingdom the glory and power and riches
her kings and princes had so long sought in the possession of that East
which he by the boldness of his genius had found by a few days'
westward sailing. Some of the advisers of John II. even counselled
his assassination, in the hope that the way to his discovery would
perish with him.

116 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V.

But the rage of the Portuguese and the admiration of the Spaniards
were alike blind. Had it been known that the tidings he brought
were of an unknown world, peopled, apparently, by naked savages
only ; that his theory as to the dimensions and divisions of the earth
was proved to be a mistake ; that the only feasible road to India was
that which the Portuguese had so long sought, round the Cape of
Good Hope ; then he might indeed have aroused some languid curios
ity for what he had done, but, still more, bitter ridicule and disap
pointment for his failure to fulfil the magnificent promise with which
for nearly twenty years he had wearied almost every court in Europe
that could command a ship. The Bahama Islands and The Great
Antilles, whatever their discovery might lead to in the time to come,
were a poor recompense for Mangi and Cathay. But he returned the
herald, as it was supposed, of a splendor and prosperity to Spain un
paralleled in history ; of new power and dominion to the Holy See,
and with offers of sudden riches to whomsoever would follow him to
the empire of the " King of Kings." The half -crazy enthusiast had
become a signal benefactor and hero ; the utmost exaltation of his
imagination had held out no promise that was not about to be ful
filled, and the nation fell at his feet.

Though Columbus himself never knew, or never acknowledged, that
he had made a mistake ; though never by a single word, so far as
there is any record, did he anticipate the true cause of the undying
fame that should wait upon his name, others saw when he returned
from his second voyage only the dispelling of a gorgeous vision. The
hidalgos who had thronged about him for that expedition, clamor
ing to be led to the possession of the East, found, not an empire
filled with magnificent cities, their ports crowded with ships by thou
sands busy with the commerce of a third of the world ; not temples
roofed with gold, resting on golden pillars, cunningly wrought and
colored ; not a people clothed in silks and costly furs, decked with
precious stones, leading lives of a magnificent luxury and ease, in cit
ies of palaces such as Europe never knew ; but only an unreclaimed
wilderness peopled by naked savages, where he who would not work
must starve, and where what gold they heard of was to be dug with
weary toil out of the bowels of the earth. The " pauper pilot," as
he was called in the days when he hung about the court a threadbare
petitioner, had indeed discovered some islands in a distant ocean ; but
his promises were idle tales, his hopes the delusions of a morbid imag
ination, his India a figment ; and he himself now proved to be a rank
impostor, a foreign adventurer who had thrust himself into the ranks
of the proudest nobility in Europe, and abused a nation with mon-
strous lies.

RESENTMENT OF THE SPANIARDS. 117

Such of these disappointed men as lived to return filled the kingdom
with their clamors. Seating themselves in the very courts of the Al-
hambra, holding up the grapes of which they eat, and displaying the
rags which hardly covered them, they would declare that they were
reduced to this poor condition by their misfortunes. They had lis
tened to fables and been deceived by lies. When the king came forth
they surrounded him, reproaching him and the admiral as the cause
of their wretched state, and cried out, " Pay ! pay ! " And if the sons
of Columbus, who were pages to the queen, passed that way, " They
shouted to the very heavens, saying, ' Look at the sons of the Admiral
of Mosquitoland, of that man who has discovered the lands of deceit
and disappointment, a place of sepulchre and wretchedness to Spanish
hidalgos.' " !

This reaction in feeling and opinion made it possible to send him
home in chains from his third expedition. The popular in- ffis failure
difference to the injustice and cruelty which pursued him to and dls s race -
the end of his days, and the bitter hostility of his many enemies, are
explicable only by the disappointment of those magnificent hopes ex
cited by his first discovery, and which he still held out in spite of the
stern facts which had opened the eyes of everybody else. Small defer
ence was paid to the authority of one who was looked upon, at best, as
a half-crazed enthusiast, and the haughty Spaniards resented it as an
insult that any power should still rest in the hands, or any confidence
be placed in the word, of one whom they thought rather deserving of
punishment as an impostor than of reward as a benefactor. He had
promised power, dominion, riches ; a short passage to Cathay ; the con
quest of the East : a savage island or two in the Western seas was as
yet the only fulfilment of that promise. What else it was to be he
never knew. Not till he was dead did the world begin to understand
that he had found a New World.

i The History of the Life and Actions of Admiral Christopher Colon, etc. By his son,
Don Ferdinand Colon.

CHAPTER VI.

COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS.

THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. His DISCOVERY OF THE MAIN LAND. THE VOY.
AGE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI. FIRST PRINTED ACCOUNT OF THE NEW WORLD.
PUBLICATIONS OF ST. DIE COLLEGE. THE PRINTER-MONKS, WALDSEEMULLER
AND RlNGMANN. EXPEDITION OF THE CABOTS FROM ENGLAND. NORTH AMER
ICA DISCOVERED- MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. JOHN CABOl's PATENTS FROM

HENRY VII. FIRST ENGLISH COLONY SENT TO THE NEW WORLD. SEBASTIAN
CABOT SAILS DOWN THE AMERICAN COAST.

ON the 30th of May, 1498, Columbus sailed from the port of San
Lucar, in Spain, on his third voyage. His special purpose this time
was to search for a country which he believed lay south of those lands
he had previously discovered. On the 31st of July following, when
he was about to abandon his southerly course in despair and turn
northward for the Carribee Islands, one of his sailors saw from the
masthead a range of three mountains. Giving many thanks to God
for his mercy, for the supply of water was failing, the provision of corn
and wine and meat was well-nigh exhausted, and the crews of the
three vessels were in sore distress from exposure to the heat of the
tropics, the admiral made for the land, which proved to be an island.
To this he gave the name it still bears of Trinidad, in honor of the
Holy Trinity, and also, perhaps, because of the three mountains which
were first seen.

Running along the coast, he soon saw, as he supposed, another
Columbus island, at the south, but which was the low land of the delta
fhfmaTntnd of the great River Orinoco. Entering the Gulf of Paria, he
tte"orinoco f . sailed along for days with Trinidad on the one hand and the
coast of the .continent on the other, delighted with the
beauty and verdure of the country and with the blandness of the cli
mate, and astonished at the freshness and volume of the water which,
with an " awful roaring," met and struggled with the sea. The in
nermost part of the gulf, to which he penetrated, he called the Gulf
of Pearls, and into this poured the rivers whose waters, he believed,
came from the earthly Paradise. 1

1 Letters of Columbus, translated by R. H. Major, and published by the Hakluyt Society
Third Voyage.

1498.]

THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS.

119

For, according to his theory of the globe, the two hemispheres were
not round alike, but the Eastern was shaped like the breast The earthly
of a woman, or the half of a round pear with a raised pro- Paradtee -
jection at its stalk ; and on this prominence, the spot highest and
nearest the sky and under the equinoctial line, was the garden
wherein God had planted Adam. He did not suppose it possible that
mortal man could ever reach that blessed region ; but as he had sailed
westward, after passing a meridian line a hundred miles west of the
Azores, he had noted that the North Star rose gradually higher in the
heavens, the needle shifted from northeast to northwest, the heat,
hitherto so intolerable that he thought they " should have been

Columbus entering the Orinoco.

burnt," became more and more moderate, the air daily more refresh
ing and delightful, and he was persuaded that he was approaching the
highest part of the globe. As he sailed westward his ships " had
risen smoothly toward the sky," till he had come, at length, to this
pleasant land " as fresh and green and beautiful as the gardens of Va
lencia in April," to this mighty rush of sweet waters that filled the
Gulf of Pearls and flowed far out to sea, coming as " on his soul " he
believed from the Garden of Eden. 1

1 Irving (Life of Columbus, book x., chap, iii.) says that Columbus still supposed Paria
to be an island, even after he had left the gulf and sailed westward along the outer coast.
But Columbus himself, in his letter to the King and Queen, makes a distinction between
the main land and Trinidad, in speaking of the one as an island and the other as the land
of Gracia. Nor is it probable that he supposed the earthly paradise to be on an island, or
that such a volume of water of which he doubted if "there is any river in the world so
large and so deep " could have its course from the " nipple " of the globe except over a
continent. Charlevoix (History of New France, Shea's translation, vol. i., p. 21) says:

120 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI.

It was hard no doubt, to turn away from this celestial land, even
to go back to Spain and relate in person to his sovereigns the mar
vellous things he had discovered, and the approach he had made to
the topmost pinnacle of the globe ; harder still to thrust away from

him considerations so sublime and so congenial to his pro-
It h iiispani > - foundly religious nature, to attend to the vulgar affairs of a

turbulent colony, where, as he afterward wrote, " there were
few men who were not vagabonds, and there were none who had
either wife or children." l

But in his absence rebellion and anarchy in Hispaniola had reached
a point beyond his control, and when he appealed to his sovereigns for

Columbus in Chains.

a judge to decide between him and these turbulent Spaniards, who set
all law, whether human or divine, at defiance, the court sent, not a
judge, but an executioner. His enemies had at length so far pre
vailed against him that Bobadilla, who came professedly to look into
these troubles, dared to usurp the government of the colony,

Brutal con- . ' . . r , . . J .'

duct of to take up his residence in the house ot Columbus, seizing all
it contained, both of public and private property and public
and private papers, and the moment the admiral came within his
reach, to arrest and send him in chains on board ship for transporta
tion to Spain as a felon. When Andreas Martin, the master of the
caravel, moved to pity at the sight of so monstrous and cruel an in-

" On the llth he had seen another land which also he, at first, took to be an island and
styled Isla Santa, hut he soon found it to be the continent."

1 " Letter of Columbus to Dona Juana de la Torres," in Select Letters, edited by R. H.
Major.

1499.] VOYAGE OF ALONZO DE OJEDA. 121

dignity, offered to strike these fetters from the limbs of his distin
guished prisoner, Columbus refused, with the words, says his son
Ferdinand, " that since their Catholic Majesties, by their letter di
rected him to perform whatsoever Bobadilla did in their name com
mand him to do, in virtue of which authority and commission he had
put him in irons, he would have none but their Highnesses them
selves do their pleasure herein ; and he was resolved to keep those
fetters as relics, and a memorial of the reward of his many services." l
Some atonement was attempted for this outrage in the reception given
him by Ferdinand and Isabella. He nevertheless hung up the chains
on the wall of his chamber, only to be taken down when, six years
later, they were laid with him in his coffin.

Some months before his return to Spain he had sent home a report
of the results of his voyage, the continent he had found, which he sup
posed to be the extremity of the Indies, its wonderful climate, its
great rivers, and its strange and attractive people. The excitement
which such news must have aroused in every port of Spain was, no
doubt, intense, and landsmen, as well as sailors, burned to be off to
this land where the natives hung breastplates of gold upon their naked
bodies and wound great strings of pearls about their heads and necks.
"Now there is not a man," says Columbus, in one of his letters,
reminding his sovereigns that he waited seven years at the royal court
and was only treated with ridicule, " Now there is not a man, down
to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a dis
coverer."

At Seville an intrepid and experienced navigator, Alonzo de Ojeda,
who was with Columbus on his first voyage, and knew, V o y ageof
therefore, the way to the Indies of the West, proposed at ojeda d aia
once a private expedition. Some merchants of Seville sup- > 1499 -
plied the means, and his patron, the Bishop of Fonseca, superintendent
of Indian affairs, and the most bitter and persistent enemy of Colum
bus, gave him license for the voyage, and treacherously procured for
him the charts which the great navigator had sent home, notwith
standing the royal order that none should go without permission
within fifty leagues of the lands he had last discovered. 2 Ojeda
sailed from Port St. Mary on the 20th of May, 1499, and with him
went Amerigo Vespucci, a native of Florence, but then re- Amerigo
siding in Seville as the agent of a commercial house. This
Vespucci had assisted in the fitting out of other expeditions ; he knew

1 The Life of the Admiral, by his son, Don Ferdinand Colon. Pinkerton's Voyages,
vol. xii., p. 121.

2 History of the New World. Girolamo Benzoni. Published by the Hakluyt Society,
p. 37. Herrera, Decade I., book iv., chap. i.

122

COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI

Portrait of Vespucci.

Columbus and had doubtless talked with him of the Sphere and the
Antipodes, of the New Indies and the Far Cathay, of the natives

sometimes tractable as chil
dren, sometimes fierce as
tigers ; of the abundant
gold and precious stones;
of the odorous spices ; of
the gorgeous silks and oth
er rich merchandises to be
brought by this new route
from that wonderful land.
He was familiar with all
the strange and stirring in
cidents of voyages which
for the previous six years
had been filling the ears of
men with tales more allur
ing and more wonderful
than were ever told by the
boldest inventors of East
ern fable, and he longed to have a share in the profit and the glory of
these great enterprises. In Ojeda's fleet he had command, if we may
believe his own statement, of two caravels ; the expedition, first
touching the coast about two hundred leagues south of the Gulf of
Paria, sailed thence leisurely along from point to point till it reached
the Cape de la Veda, meeting, during the months of its progress, with
various adventures, and the usual fortune which waited upon the
first invaders, received sometimes by the simple and confiding natives
as supernatural visitants, sometimes with desperate but generally
futile resistance when their lust for slaves, for women, and for gold
had come to be better understood.

This was, probably, the first voyage of Vespucci and his first sight
Vespucci-s * a continent which, partly by accident and partly through a
theVonti- f r eckless disregard of truth, came afterward to bear his name.
nent. 1499. jf j t wag fa s fi rs t voyage, he was entitled to no special credit,
for he was a subordinate in a fleet commanded by another, who guided
the expedition by the charts which Columbus had drawn of the course
to Trinidad and the coast of Paria eleven months before.

In 1501, Vespucci left Spain at the invitation of the King of Por
tugal, and made another, his second, voyage to the West.

Second Toy- . ' J & 1

ago of yes- sailing this time in the service of that king. He visited the

pucci. 1501

coast of Brazil, of which, however, he was not the first dis
coverer, for in the course of the previous year 1500 three dif-

1501.]

SECOND VOYAGE OF VESPUCCI.

123

ferent expeditions under the guidance respectively of Vicente Yanez
Pinzon, Diego de Lepe, and Rodrigo de Bastidas had sailed from
Spain and made extensive explorations and important discoveries
along that coast; and a Portuguese fleet, under Pedro Alvarez de
Cabral, on its way to India round the Cape of Good Hope, stretched
so far to the west to avoid the calms of the coast of Africa as to come
by that chance in sight of the opposite land, where, believing it to be
a part of a continent, De Cabral landed and took possession in the
name of Portugal.

Vespucci at the Continent. [From De Bry.]

The expedition of Vespucci, nevertheless, was a bold one, and made
important additions to astronomical science in his observations of the
heavenly bodies of the Southern firmament, especially of the " South
ern Cross," and to the knowledge of geography in his exploration
of the Southern continent and sea of the Western Hemisphere.
After leaving Cape Verde, he was sixty-seven days at sea before he
made land again at 5 south, off Cape St. Roque, on the 17th of Au
gust. Thence he sailed down the coast, spending the whole winter in
its exploration, till in the following April he was as far south as the

124 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI.

fifty-fourth parallel, farther than any navigator had been before.
The nights were fifteen hours long ; the weather tempestuous and
foggy and very cold. The last land he saw is supposed to be the
island of Georgia, where, finding no harbors, and seeing no people
along its rugged shores, the little fleet turned to escape from these
savage seas, where perpetual winter and almost perpetual darkness
seemed to reign. They reached Lisbon again in 1502.

Vespucci wrote an account of this voyage in a letter to Lorenzo de
Pier Francisco de Medici of Florence, which was published

First printed ' -i i~ s\ A -\r i i 111

narrative of at Augsburg in 1504. JNo wonder that, as it was probably

discovery of J

the main the first printed narrative ot any discovery or the mam land
of the new continent, it should excite unusual attention.
Several editions appeared, in the course of the next four years, in
Latin and Italian, and among them one at Strasbourg in 1505 under
the editorship of one Mathias Ringmann, a native of Schlestadt, a
town in the lower department of the Rhine, twenty-five miles from
Strasbourg. So earnest an admirer of Vespucci was this young stu
dent, that he appended to the narrative of the voyage a letter and
some verses of his own in praise of the navigator, and he gave to the
book the title of " Americus Vesputius : De Ora Antarctica per Re-
gem PortugallicB pridem inventa " (Americus Vespuccius : concern
ing a southern region recently discovered under the King of Portu
gal). Here was the suggestion of a new southern continent as distinct
from the northern continent of Asia, to which the discoveries hitherto
mainly north of the equator were supposed to belong. 1 And this
supposition of such a new quarter of the globe gave rise, two years
afterward, to a name, all growing naturally enough out of the enthu
siasm of this Ringmann for Vespucci, and communicated by him to
others.

In the city of St. Die, not far from Strasbourg, in the province of
Lorraine, was a gymnasium or college established by Walter Lud, the
secretary of the Duke of Lorraine. In this college was set up one of
Coiie e those newly-invented and marvellous machines, a printing-
press'oT press ; and Ringmann was appointed not merely the col-
st. Die. legiate professor of Latin, but to the important post of
proof-reader. In 1507, Lud, the Duke's secretary, and the head, ap
parently, of this little seminary of learning, published from the college
printing-press a pamphlet of only four leaves relating to a narrative
of four voyages to the New World by Amerigo Vespucci ; this, it is

1 The term " New World " was often used by the early writers, even by Columbus him
self, in a vague way and not at all in the sense afterward attached to it of a new quarter
of the globe ; nor was there till long after the deaths of Columbus and Vespucci any den
nite determination that these newly found lands were not a part of Asia.

1507.]

THE PRINTING-PRESS OF ST. DIE.

125

said by the writer, was sent to the Duke, and he Lud had caused
it to be translated from the French, in which it was written, into
Latin ; and, as if in recognition of the influence which Ringmann had
exercised upon the subject among his fellows of St. Die", Lud imme
diately adds : " And the booksellers carry about a certain epigram
of our Philesius (Ringmann) in a little book of Vespucci's translated
from Italian into Latin by Giocondi of Verona, the architect from
Venice." This refers to the Strasbourg edition of Vespucci's second
voyage, edited by Ringmann two years before, and to which he at
tached his laudatory verses. This little book of Lud's, " Speculi

Printing of Vespucci's Book.

orbis Declaratio," etc., also contains some Latin verses, versiculi
de incognita terra, the last lines of which are thus translated :

" But hold, enough ! Of the American race,
New found, the home, the manners here yon trace
By our small book set forth in little space." 1

The narrative itself, of Vespucci's four voyages, thus referred to

1 The original is :

" SeO QU plura : situ, Qtntis morescp rqjt?
&merfci parua mole Ifuellus ijabet."

Harrisse's Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 100, gives and translates the lines. The

126 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI

by Lud, was published the same year, 1507, in a book called " Cos-
mographiae Introductio," of which it made about one half.
mograpimK This was the work of Martin Waldseemiiller, and published
of waidsee- under his Greco-latinized name of " Hylacomylus." He also
' belonged to the St. Die college, where he was a teacher of
geography, and his " Introductio" was printed on the college printing
press. Whether the letter was sent to St. Die addressed to the Duke
of Lorraine by Vespucci ; or whether it was procured through the
zeal of Ringmann and its address altered without the knowledge of
Vespucci, are interesting questions. Interesting, because the letter
falling by some means into the hands of Lud and Waldseemiiller
Hylacomylus the name of its author came to be imposed upon the
whole Western Hemisphere.

The same letter subsequently appeared in Italian, addressed to an
The soderini ermnent; citizen of Venice, named Soderini, who is known
letter. O h av e been an early companion and school-fellow of Ves

pucci. That it was written originally to Soderini, is evident from
certain allusions in it to youthful days and associations which could
not refer to the Duke of Lorraine, but were proper enough when ap
plied to the Venetian citizen. If Vespucci himself had the letter
translated into French, altered its address, and then sent the copy to
Ringmann, or Lud, or Waldseemiiller, a suspicion is aroused that he
was in collusion with them, either directly or suggestively, in the be
stowal upon him of an honor that was not rightfully his. Such a
suspicion may be altogether unjust; Vespucci may neither have sent
the letter to the Duke nor have made any suggestion in regard to it ;
and perhaps no accusation would have ever been brought against him
were there not serious doubts as to the number of voyages he assumes
to have made, whether they were three or four ; as to the year, 1497,
in which he declares he went upon the first one ; and by a certain con
fusion in the letter which might have been intended to mislead, and
certainly did mislead, whether intentional or not.

We do not propose to enter into any examination of a question
which is one of circumstantial rather than positive evidence, and which
probably will never be definitively settled. Giving to Vespucci the
benefit of the doubt, there is much in the fortuitous circumstances of
The men the case to explain this naming of a newly-discovered country
America 6 by men who, perhaps, had never looked upon the sea, and
me- who may have known little, except in a general way, of the
different expeditions 'of the navigators of Spain and Portugal, and still
less of the personal interest attached to their fortunes and their deeds.
The Duke of Lorraine was a patron of learning ; the young profes-

little four-leaved book, S/ieculi orbis, etc., from which they are taken, is iu the British
Museum. See also Major's Henry the Navigator, p. 383.

1507.] THE NAMING OF AMERICA. 127

sors of the college under his protection were ambitious of literary fame
and proud of their literary labors ; it would bring, no doubt, great
credit to St. Die* if, in a work from its printing-press, the world should
be taught that these wonderful discoveries of the ten preceding years
were not, as had been ignorantly supposed, the outlying islands and
coasts of India, but of a new and unknown continent which separated
Europe from Asia. The conclusion, very likely, was jumped at a
lucky guess of over-confident youth, rather than any superiority of
judgment. Had these young book-makers lived in Cadiz or Lisbon,
instead of the Vosges mountains, they might have hesitated to pro
nounce upon a question which had as yet hardly been raised, if it had
been raised at all, among the older cosmographers and navigators.
They rushed in where even Columbus had not thought to tread, and
not only announced the discovery of a new continent but proposed
to name it.

The narrative which Ringmann had edited two years before, " De
Ora Antarctica," related only to the second expedition of Vespucci
the third, as he called it of 1501. But, from the letter now before
Lud and Waldseemiiller, they learn much more of the achievements
of the greatest of navigators, as they supposed him to be ; for they
are told that it was at a much earlier period he made the first dis
covery of these new countries ; that he had subsequently explored
them more extensively ; and Waldseemiiller concludes that they must
be a fourth part of the world. " We departed," says Vespucci, " from
the port of Cadiz, May 10th, 1497, taking our course on the great
gulf of ocean, in which we employed eighteen months, discovering
many lands and innumerable islands, chiefly inhabited, of which our
ancestors make no mention."

Waldseemiiller (Hylacomylus) assuming this date of 1497 to be cor
rect if it was so given in the letter Lud declared the Duke had re
ceived from Vespucci says in his geographical work, the " Cosmo
graphies Introductio " : " And the fourth part of the world
having been discovered by Americus may well be called waiasee-
Amerige, which is as much as to say, the land of Americus Voqmed'i
or America." Again he says : " But now these parts are
more extensively explored, and, as will be seen by the following letters,
another fourth has been discovered by Americus Vespuccius, which I
see no reason why any one should forbid to be named Amerige, which
is as much as to say the land of Americus or America, from its dis
coverer, Americus, who is a man of shrewd intellect ; for Europe and
Asia have both of them a feminine form of name from the names of
women."

Now in 1497 Vespucci was still residing at Seville engaged as factor

128 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI

or partner in a commercial house. In May of the following year,
1498, Columbus sailed on his third voyage, and for several months

previous Vespucci was busily occupied in fitting out the
ci^mto 18 ships for that expedition. 1 It is impossible, therefore, that he
covxirTun- can have gone to sea in May, 1497, to be absent eighteen

months. There is no pretence in his letters, nor anywhere
else, that he made a voyage earlier than 1497 ; he was in Seville in
1498 ; and he certainly was a pilot in Ojeda's fleet when that nav
igator, in 1499, followed Columbus to the coast of Paria. That Ves
pucci was the first discoverer of the Western continent is, therefore,
clearly untrue, although it is true that his account of such a conti
nental land in the west was the one first published, and by his zealous
friends at St. Die, who attached his name to it. In the suit between
Don Diego Columbus and the crown of Spain, lasting from 1508 to
1513, the plaintiff demanded certain revenues by right of prior dis
covery by his father, the defence of the crown being that Columbus
had no such priority. In the voluminous testimony on that trial Ves
pucci was not named as one for whom precedence could be claimed, 2
while Ojeda, under whom Vespucci went on his first voyage, distinctly
asserts that the main land was discovered by Columbus. 3

It is, nevertheless, probably true that Vespucci explored along the
American coast in his several voyages further than any navigator of
his time, as he sailed from about the fifty-fourth degree of south lati
tude to the peninsula of Florida, and possibly to Chesapeake Bay at
the north. Whether the St. Die* editors really believed, or whether
the dates of his voyages were, in some way, so changed as to make
it appear, that he was also the first discoverer of a western continent,
are questions which may never be answered. But the use they
made of his name was adopted in various works within the next few
years, and thus in the course of time America became the designa
tion of the whole Western Hemisphere. 4

1 Humboldt, Examen Critique, Tome v., p. 180.

2 Vespucci and his Voyages, Santarem ; Irving's Life of Columbus, Appendix.

3 Irving (Life of Columbus, vol. iii., Appendix No. X.) examines carefully all the evidence
known at the time he wrote on this question, and Major (Life of Prince Henry the Navigator,
chap, xix.) gives some later facts, particularly those relating to the conscious or unconscious
fraud of the priests of St. Die. The subject is discussed at great length by Humboldt
(Examen Critique), who believes that the fault was not in the statements of Vespucci, but
in the erroneous printing of dates. Vespucci, however, in more than one place speaks of
his " fourth voyage " without reference to dates, and it is difficult to understand his relation
of the voyage of 1497 as anything else than a repetition of the incidents related by Ojeda
as attending his expedition of 1499, on which Vespucci went with him. Harrisse, in his
Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, gives a careful account of the books of Lud and Hyla-
comylus.

4 Humboldt suggests (EramenCritigue., Tome iv., p. 52) that Hylacomylus, a native of Ger
many, must have known that in inventing the word America to distinguish the new conti

1497. J VOYAGE OF THE CABOTS. 129

But even if it were possible to reconcile beyond all cavil the rival
claims of the two navigators, and give the honor where, as voyage of
between them, it undoubtedly belongs, to Columbus, there is tbe Cabots -
a third who takes precedence of both as the first great captain who
pushed far enough into the unknown seas to touch the main land of
the new continent. It is conceded that a voyage was made as early
as 1497 by John Cabot, accompanied by his son Sebastian, from Bris
tol, England, to find the shorter path to India westward. In a little
vessel called The Matthew he made his first land-fall on this side
the Atlantic on the 24th of June of that year. Whether the land
first seen the Terra primum visa of the old maps was Cape
Breton, Newfoundland, or the coast of Labrador, is still an open ques
tion, though the latter is held to be the most probable by some of
those who have given the subject most careful consideration. 1 But if
the ship held its course of north by west from Bristol, it could hardly
nave been anything else. At any rate, they sailed along the coast for
three hundred league's, and that could only have been the shore of the
main land. These Cabots, then, were the first discoverers of the con
tinent, about a year before Columbus entered the Gulf of Paria, and
two years before Ojeda's fleet, in which Vespucci sailed, touched the
coast of South America two hundred leagues farther south.

But which Cabot commanded this expedition ? Here again a doubt
is started, and the father and the son has each his advo- which
cates. John Cabot was probably a native of Genoa; but
he had lived for many years in Venice, whence he removed
to London with his family " to follow the trade of merchandise." It
is not known when he was born, in what year he emigrated to Eng
land, or how soon he removed from London to Bristol. He was, it is
asserted, learned in cosmography and an accomplished navigator, had

nent, he was giving it a name of Germanic origin. He quotes his learned friend Von der
Hagen to prove this, who says that the Italian name Amerigo is found in the Ancient high-
German under the form of Amalrich or Amelrich, which in the Gothic is Amalricks. The
incursions and conquests of the northern people, and those of the Goths and Lomhards
spread this name Amalrich, from which Amerigo comes, among the Romance-speaking peo
ples. It was borne by many illustrious men.

An attempt has recently bee'n made (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1875) to show that the word
America was derived from a chain of mountains in Veragua called Amerique, heard of by
the sailors of Columbus on his fourth voyage, and reported by them in Spain. If there
were any mountains so called, and the Spaniards ever heard of them, they are not men
tioned by any of the early writers, and the theory, however ingenious, cannot stand a
moment in the light of the evidence in regard to the derivation of the word from Amerigo
by Lud and Hylacomylus.

1 Humboldt, Examen Critique; Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot; J. G. Kohl, Coll. of
Maine Hist. Soc., vol. L, Second Series. Stevens in his monograph, The Cabot?, p. 17, thinks
that their landfall was Cape Breton. Brevoort, Journal of the Am. Geog. Soc., vol. iv., p.
214, agrees with Stevens.

130 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI.

travelled by land in the East, and had heard from men in the cara
vans of Arabia those strange and captivating tales of the boundless
wealth and magnificence of " farthest Ind." 1 He disappears from
history in 1498 as suddenly as he appeared two years before, and it is
supposed that he died about that time. But whether it was as an
old man whose work was happily finished, or as one cut off in the
prime of his vigor and his days, there is no record.

The son, Sebastian, is said to have been only twenty years of age
in 1497. He was undoubtedly a young man, but some sup-
stfbastian pose a supposition necessary, indeed, to their theory in
regard to him and his voyages that he was not less than
twenty-five years of age when he sailed on this voyage with his
father. And his birth-place is as uncertain as the time of his birth.
He may have been born in Venice ; perhaps he was born in Bristol.
In one account he is represented as saying : " When my father de
parted from Venice many yeeres since to dwell in England, to follow
the trade of merchandises, hee tooke mee with him to the citie of
London, while I was yet very yong, yet having neverthelesse some
knowledge of letters of humanitie, and of the sphere." 2 But his
friend Eden's testimony is : " Sebastian Cabot tould me that he was
borne in Brystowe, and that at iiij yeare ould he was carried with
his father to Venice, and so returned agayne to England with his
father after certayne years, whereby he was thought to have been
born in Venice." 3

Both passages are relied upon as sufficient answer to the objection
of Sebastian's youth for the command of so important an expedition ;
yet neither is conclusive, inasmuch as neither gives the date of the
father's emigration to England, while the first proves altogether too
much, as it goes on to say : " And when my father died in
Sebastian that time when riewes were brought that Don Christopher
Colonus Genoese had discovered the coasts of India, whereof
was great talke in all the court of King Henry the Seventh, who then
veigned, insomuch that all men with great admiration affirmed it to
be a thing more divine than humane, to saile by the West into the
East, where spices growe, by a way that was neuer knowen before, by
this fame and report there increased in my heart a great flame of
desire to attempt some notable thing."

That John Cabot was not dead at the period referred to is just as
certain as that either he or his son, or both, sailed in search of a north-

1 Letter of M. d'Avezac to Dr. Woods, Maine Hist. Coll., vol. i., Second Series.

- Report of a conversation with Sebastian Cabot by Galeacius Butrigarius, the Pope's
Legate in Spain, first published in Ramusio's Collection of Voyages, copied by Hakluyt and
many succeeding authors.

3 Richard Eden's Decades of the New World.

1497.] MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. 131

west passage. But this " discourse of Sebastian Cabot," as it is called,
though interesting for the main facts to which it testifies, is entitled
to no credit as strictly accurate evidence as to details, inasmuch as the
narrative was not repeated by him the Pope's Legate in Spain
who had it from Cabot, till years had passed away, and then some
months elapsed before it was put in writing by the author Ramusio
who first published it, and who cautioned his readers that he only
presumed " to sketch out briefly, as it were, the heads of what I re
member of it." No reliance, of course, can be put upon such a docu
ment on any disputed point.

Other old chroniclers, however, notably Fabian, Stow, and Gomara,
speak of Sebastian Caboto as the navigator " very expert and cunning
in knowledge of the circuit of the world, and islands of the same as
by a sea card," who demonstrated to King Henry VII. the feasibility
of a northwest passage to the Indies, and who was sent to find it ;
and on these writers Hakluyt : relied for his account of the voyage.
But Hakluyt substituted the name of John, the father, for that of
Sebastian the son, 2 and subsequent authors have, for the most part,
accepted his correction.

Then the question of late is still further complicated by a MS. of
Hakluyt's recently brought to light. 3 In this the great n^iuyt-g
chronicler asserts not only that the first expedition was com- the"abot f
manded by Sebastian Cabot, but that the voyage itself was vo ^ a s e -
made in 1496. His words are : " A great part of the continent, as
well as of the islands, was first discovered for the King of England
by Sebastian Gabote, an Englishman, born in Bristow, son of John
Gabote, in 1496." And again: "Nay, more, Gabote discovered this
large tract of firme land two years before Columbus ever saw any
part of the continent. .... Columbus first saw the firme lande
August 1, 1498, but Gabote made his great discovery in 1496. " 4
There is certainly no trustworthy evidence, and little of any sort, of a
voyage by either the father or the son in that year, and the main
difficulty here is to reconcile Hakluyt to himself.

It is less easy to dispose of a map discovered about twenty years
ago in Germany, and which is in conflict with all the statements upon
this point hitherto relied upon. The map, 5 which is now in the im
perial library at Paris, covers the whole world ; in its delineations of

1 Voyages, Navigations, etc., by Eichartl Hackluyt, vol. iii., p. 89.

2 Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, Biddle, chap. v. ; Life of Sebastian Cabot, by J. F. Nichols,
City Librarian, Bristol, England, p. 46.

3 Rev. Dr. Wood in vol. i., Second Series, Maine Hist. Soc. Coll.
* Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., Second Series.

5 For detailed description and discussion see J. G. Kohl ; also letter of M. d'Avezac to
Rev. Dr. Woods. Maine Hist. Coll., vol. i., Second Series.

132

COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI

some countries it is tolerably correct, in others it is full of errors and
remarkable for inexplicable omissions ; but it assumes, in one of its in-
Testimon scriptioiis, to have this authority : " Sebastian Cabot, Cap-
O f the Map. tain and Pilot-major of his Sacred Imperial Majesty the
Emperor, Don Carlos, the fifth of his name, and king, our lord, made
this figure extended in plane, in the year of the birth of our Savior
Jesus Christ, MDXLIIII." (1544.) With reference to Newfoundland
there is this descriptive legend in Latin and Italian : " This land was
discovered by John Cabot, a Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot his son,

Tunic/ e7iat Ttebit c&eutazns mpcntito Jcannit Ce&etus Jenttus,

eKZucelffftMtm; tcrrvm/jwnumfYisttm/'qFpcZfarunt ffvtruZton/yuaJtifam; ets
eppfsitotms Jhsificonst&wJbtcrtm* Ttamirrdrunf?, vtu/jpts <ytwc/ SeTcnmxS tKe/risto
J&eatfUf txpertec/ Aa.... ~Jh#erms goter&tcs jnsdu/n. (t$u*&*t. forum/ autcm/ moor

Sebastian Cabot's Map, 1544,

in the year of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ, M.CCCC.XCIIII
(1494), the twenty-fourth day of June (at 5 o'clock) in the morning ;
to which land has been given the name of The Land First Seen (ter
rain primum visam) ; and to a great island, which is very near the
said land, the name of St. John has been given, on account of its
having been discovered the same day."

Date of the ^ ^ s l e g en d be correct, it overthrows all previous theo-
dS.p'Sted. ries ' and P uts aside a11 Previous assertions. If the first voy
age of the Cabots was made in 1494, the mistake as to
the age of Sebastian has been general, for it is not at all likely that

1497.] DATE OF THE CABOT VOYAGE. 133

any share in the responsibility in an expedition so hazardous and
uncertain would have been attributed to a lad of seventeen, and it
conflicts with all we know of his character to suppose that he would
snatch at honors that were not rightfully his. The question thus
opened anew has given rise to much learned and labored discussion
both in favor of this new supposition and against it, but the most
obvious explanation, it seems to us, in view of what was previously
known, and from documents which have more recently come to light,
is that the date of M.CCCC.XCIIII on the map is either a misprint
or a blunder.

There is no violent improbability in the supposition that the nu
merals VII were changed by the printer or the copyist into IIII, and
it was much more likely to happen than that the inscription itself,
while announcing a fact hitherto unheard of, should be in its terms
almost a literal transcript otherwise of a record hitherto universally
accepted as true, which agreed with all the contemporaneous author
ities upon the subject, and which, if it was an error, would probably
have been detected and exposed, as it was within half a century of
the time when the alleged voyage was said to have been made. This
record is the " extract taken out of the map of Sebastian Cabot, cut
by Clement Adams," " hung up in the privy gallery at Whitehall,"
and the Latin text of which is thus translated by Hakluyt : InFcription
" In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, J$? p
and his son Sebastian, (with an English fleet set out from hal1 -
Bristol) discovered that land which no man before that time had at
tempted, on the 24th of June, about five of the clocke, early in the
morning. This land he called Prima Vista, that is to say, First Scene ;
because, as I suppose, it was that part whereof they had the first sight
from sea. That island which lieth out before the land, he called the
island of St. John, upon this occasion, as I thinke, because it was dis
covered upon the day of John the Baptist" l The essential identity, in
everything but the date of the year, of the inscriptions upon the two
maps, the same day of the month, the same hour of the day, the same
naming of the land first seen, and the same name given to the neigh
boring island, all indicate that both referred to the same expedition,
and that one was copied from the other. In the transfer, what more
easy and probable that the VII should be changed to IIII, or that
IIII should be changed to VII ? That such a mistake if this ob
vious explanation of the difficulty be accepted was not made by
Clement Adams, whose map was hung up in Whitehall, and was well
known in the sixteenth century to Sebastian Cabot's contemporaries,
but that it was made by whoever printed or delineated the map of

1 Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii., p. 6.

134 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI.

1544, unheard of till twenty years ago, there seems to be ample evi
dence.

This evidence comes from recent researches made on behalf of the
British government for historical information among Italian and Span
ish archives. It is found that the Venetian ambassador in England
wrote home on the 24th of August, 1497, thus :

" Also some months ago his majesty, Henry VII., sent out a Vene-
Extracts tian, who is a very good mariner, and has good skill in dis-
hnd P it n ai- covering new islands, and he has returned safe, and has
iau archives. f omi( j two very large and fertile new islands ; having like
wise discovered the seven cities, four hundred leagues from England,
on the western passage. The next spring his majesty means to send
him with fifteen or twenty ships." l And in the archives of Venice
is also a letter dated August 23, 1497, from one Lorenzo Pasqualigo,
a Venetian living in London, to his brother, in which he writes :

" The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bris
tol in quest of new islands, is returned, and says that seven hundred
leagues hence he discovered land, the territory of the Grand Cham ;
he coasted for three hundred leagues and landed ; saw no human
beings, but he has brought hither to the king certain snares which had
been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets ; he also found
some felled trees, wherefore he supposed there were inhabitants, and
returned to his ship in alarm.

" He was three months on the voyage, and on his return he saw two
islands to starboard, but would not land, time being precious, as he

was short of provisions The king has also given him

money wherewith to amuse himself till then (the next spring), and
he is now at Bristol with his wife, who is also a Venetian, and with
his sons. His name is Zuan Cabot, and he is styled the Great Ad
miral ; vast honor is paid him ; he dresses in silk, and these English
run after him like mad people, so that he can enlist as many of them
as he pleases, and a number of our own." 2

A similar letter, written about the same time from the Spanish am
bassador in England, and dealing with the same incident the return
of this Genoese of Bristol from a voyage of discovery is found in
the Spanish archives at Seville. And unless other contemporary tes
timony, equally direct, respectable, and impartial, shall be found to
offset these statements, they may be accepted as settling two points :
First, that the first voyage of the Cabots, on which the western conti
nent was discovered, was made in the summer of 1497 ; and second,
that the leader of the enterprise was John (Zuan) Cabot.

1 Papers on English Affairs; extracted from the Venetian Calendar, by Rawdon Brown,
p. 260.

2 Ibid., p. 262.

1497.]

JOHN CABOT IN ENGLAND.

135

Of him this is the one fair glimpse that history gives us. When or
where he was born, when or where he died and was buried, can only
be guessed at with more or less of probability ; and of all the John Cabot
events of a life that certainly was not a short one this inci- in London -
dent alone stands out distinct and clear, as he walks through White
hall and the Strand, from palace to counting-house, clothed in the
costliest garments of the day, telling courtier and merchant and mari
ner how only a month's sail away he had found the Eastern Continent
of which Columbus had hitherto discovered only Some outlying islands.
And it is no marvel that these English should have " run after him
like mad," should have watched for his coming, and have given him

John Cabot in London.

good hearty English cheers whenever he appeared, for his brave ex
ploit was to the honor of the English name, as well as to his own.

If other proof were wanting that this was the first voyage, a curious
bit of evidence comes in to corroborate the story of the return of the
successful navigator and the reception that was given him. In the
account of the Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry is this Reward f or
entry : " 10th August, 1497. To hym that found the New ^SU
Isle, 10Z." i That this refers to Cabot seems improbable ; America -
but it is quite likely that the king should have sent, or given with his
own hand, such a reward to the sailor who from his faithful watch
at the mast-head was the first to cry "Land ho!" on the coast of
North America.

1 Nicolas, Excerpta Historica, quoted by Biddle and by Nicholls.

136 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP VI.

The voyage was made under a patent granted by the king on the
5th of March, 1496, authorizing John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis,
Patents of Sebastian, and Sancius, to " sail to all parts, countries, and
John cabot. geas o f fo e E as t, o f the West, and of the North, under our
banners and ensigns, with five ships of what burthen or quantity
soever they be, and so many mariners or men as they will have with
them in the said ships, upon their own proper costs and charges, to
seek out, discover, and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or
provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they be, and in what
part of the world soever they be, which before this time have been
unknown to all Christians." The patent was in entire disregard of
the bull of Pope Alexander VI., of May, 1498, by which the heathen
world was divided from pole to pole between Spain and Portugal ; but
the south was probably excluded from the sailing directions in defer
ence to actual possession by either of those nations. The king was
cautious ; he did not mean to run any risk of involving himself in
trouble with either of those powers ; he carefully stipulated that one
fifth of all the profits of the adventure should be his, and all the cost
he threw upon the Cabots. Though a year passed away before the
expedition set out, it is doubtful if it included more than the single
ship of the admiral The Matthew of Bristol. At all events that
ship, The Matthew, Captain John Cabot, cleared out at the Bristol
custom-house for the territories of the Grand Khan and a market in
May, 1497, and returned again to port in about three months, having
sailed meanwhile three hundred leagues along the coast of North
America.

In the Italian archives, from which we just now quoted, it is said
Sebastian that another expedition was to follow up this great discovery
witha, 81 " 18 ^ n the spring. " The king,''' writes Pasqualigo, " has prom
ised that in the spring our countryman shall have ten ships,
armed to his order, and at his request has conceded him all the pris
oners, except such as are confined for high treason, to man his fleet."
On the 3d of February, 1498, accordingly, a second patent, or rather
license was issued by which John Kabotto was authorized to impress
six English ships, "and them convey and lede to the Londe and Isles
of late founde by the said John in oure name and by our commande-
mente." The expedition consisted, however, of only two ships; on
board of them went three hundred passengers, whether volunteers or
convicts from the jails, and its evident purpose was colonization. It
sailed from Bristol in the spring probably in May under the
command so all the old narratives concur in saying of the young
Sebastian. John disappears with this grant to him to settle the lands
he had discovered ; is dead at least to history.

1498.] SEBASTIAN CABOT EXPLORES THE COAST. 137

But the voyage was barren of any results of value, except that
Sebastian noted that " in the seas thereabout were multitudes of big
fishes that they call tunnies, which the inhabitants call Baccalaos,
that they sometimes stoppsd his ship." And he therefore " named
this land Baccalaos." l Probably he left his three hundred emigrants
somewhere on this inhospitable coast to make such settlement as they
could, while he explored still farther northward. He reached the
latitude of 67, fighting his way through seas of ice, and looking
anxiously for the gulf that should lead him to the Indies. " To his
great displeasure" he found the coast, at length, trending eastward,
probably on the peninsula of Cumberland ; his crews, perhaps reduced
in numbers by the hardships of such navigation, perhaps in despair
and alarm at penetrating farther into a region where in July the cold
was increasing and " the dayes very long in maner without any
night," grew insubordinate and mutinous, and clamored to return.
Turning southward, he picked up his three hundred colonists, or what
was left of them, and sailed into pleasanter seas.

" Ever intent to find that passage to India," and baffled in the
search for it at the north, he hoped to discover it by run- Firgt coagt
ning down the coast. Into what bays and estuaries he may f^^
have penetrated ; how anxiously he scanned the headlands ; tinent -
how diligently sounded for depth of water, and marked the set of cur
rents that he might miss no indication of an opening to the west ; or
how long he was in making this first coast-survey of the Continent,
there is no record. 2 But doubtless he did his work faithfully and
well, keeping along the shore of Maine and Massachusetts, missing no
landmarks, doubling Cape Cod, perhaps rounding Nantucket and run
ning into Buzzard's Bay and Long Island Sound, and approaching
the harbor of New York ; for he sometimes landed, found " on most

1 Peter Martyr, De Orbe Novo. But Dr. Kohl doubts this. The cod-fishery, he says,
had long existed on the northern coasts of Europe, and the fish were called by the Ger
manic nations " Cabliauwe," or '* Kabbeljouwe," or still farther transposed, " Backljau."
The Portuguese changed it to Bacalhao. The root of the word is the Germanic " bolch,"
meaning fish. The name, therefore, could not have had an Indian origin. Maine Hist.
Coll., vol. i., Second Series. Brevoort, on the other hand (Journal of the Am. Geog. So
ciety, p. 205), says it is simply " an old Mediterranean or Romance name, given to the pre
served codfish, when it has been dried and kept open and extended by the help of a small
stick. This was the stockfish of the North, and from the word Baculum, it became the Bac-
a/ao and Baccalieu of the South of Europe."

2 Brevoort and Stevens doubt if Cabot ever sailed south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Peter Martyr who says, " Cabot is my very friend whom I use familiarly and delight to
have him sometimes keepe me company in mine own house " asserts " that he was
thereby brought so far into the South by reason of the land bending so much southwards,
that it was there almost equal in latitude with the sea Fretum Herculeum (Straits of Gib
raltar) having the north pole elevate in the same degree." Gomara says that Cabot sailed
so far north that " the days were very long, as it were without night ; " and that he fol
lowed the coast southward to the 38, whence he returned home.

138

COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI.

of the places, copper or brass among the aborigines," and captured
some of the natives and brought them home to England. But when
he had reached 38 north, that is, about Cape Hatteras, his provisions
failing, he changed his course for Bristol.

Whether Sebastian Cabot was satisfied that no passage to
of Sebastian Cathay was to be found between 67 \ and 38, north lati
tude, there is nowhere any positive assurance. He lived, how
ever, to be eighty years of age ; in the course of that long life he held

the honorable and influential position of
Pilot-major both in Spain and England ;
he led, in the service of Spain, an event
ful expedition to the Rio de la Plata ; in
the service of England he sent another
to Russia, and established commercial in
tercourse between the two nations ; but,
unless he made a third voyage to North
America in 1516, which was certainly
projected, though its accomplishment is
questioned, he abandoned, after his re
turn in 1498, all farther attempts at
discovery or settlement on the coast of
North America. The honor of the dis
covery of the mainland of the continent
was his ; but seventy years passed away

before the first permanent colony was planted north of the Gulf of
Mexico.

Sebastian Cabot.

Fac-simile of Signature of Amerigo Vespucci

CHAPTER VII.

SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS.

DESIGNS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE TO INDIA. THE COR-
TEREAL VOYAGES. VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA REACHES THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. FLORIDA DISCOVERED. GULF OF MEX
ICO SAILED OVER. EXPLORATIONS ON THE ATLANTIC SEA-COAST. ESTAVAN GOMEZ

ON THE BORDERS OF THE UNITED STATES. EXPEDITION OF PAMPHILO DE NAR-
VAEZ TO FLORIDA. ADVENTURES OF CABECA DE VACA. THE ENTERPRISE OF
HERNANDO DE SOTO. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. DEATH AND
DRAMATIC BURIAL OF DE SOTO. RETURN OF THE TROOPS OF DE SOTO. TRIS
TAN DE LUNA'S ATTEMPT TO FOUND A COLONY.

THAT the Cabots were the first modern discoverers of the Western
Continent, or, indeed, that Columbus was the first European who, in
the fifteenth century, visited the New World, is not undisputed. John
Skolnus, or John of Kolno, a Pole, is said to have been on the coast of
Labrador in 1477 ; it is claimed by some French writers that in 1488
one Cousin, a Frenchman of Dieppe, was driven across the Atlantic
and made land on the other side at the mouth of a wide river ; that
with him was one of that family of Pinzons of Palos which gave, fom
years later, captains one of them perhaps this very captain to two
of the three ships of Columbus. The evidence of such an expedition is
so slight, that constructive arguments have only more or less weight
as they are more or less ingenious.

When, however, the path to the new Indies was fairly opened, in
the last decade of the fifteenth century, fresh voyages fol
lowed in rapid succession, and not navigators only, but sov- Spain
ereigns vied with each other to share with Spain the glory E^ro^n er
and the riches of the new discoveries. Henry VII. of Eng
land, when he gave a patent to the Cabots, no doubt reflected that
Columbus might have been an English, rather than a Spanish admiral.
The king of Portugal did not attempt to conceal his. chagrin that the
dominion and power which had fallen, or inevitably would fall, into
the hands of Spain, he had rejected. But though Spain could not be
interfered with at the south, it was still possible to find the yet undis
covered way to India by a northern passage ; there might still be
unknown islands, or even continents, full of gold and heathen men, in
northern seas.

140 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

Gaspar Cor-

tereai seeks s . dQ:e

a northwest o

In 1500, accordingly, two caravels were dispatched from Portugal
under the command of Gaspar Cortereal, in search of a pas-

, . , TT T ^i

Q India in northern latitudes. He made no settlement,
passage. j^ explored the coast, either on that or a second voyage
made the next year, for six or seven hundred miles, as far north as
the fiftieth parallel, where his further progress was stopped by the ice.
The country he called Terra de Labrador the land of laborers
though that name was afterwards transferred to a region farther north.

Cortereal at Labrador.

The people were like Gypsies in color, well made, intelligent, and
modest ; they lived in wooden houses, clothed themselves in skins and
furs, used " swords made of a kind of stones, and pointed their arrows
with the same material." The country abounded with timber, espe
cially pine ; the seas were full of fish of various kinds ; and, with such
natural advantages, added to its populousness, it was thought that its
acquisition might prove valuable to Portugal. If Cortereal did not
open a way to India, or find mines of gold to rival those of Hispaniola,
at least he had discovered, as he hoped, a new Slave Coast, and he
enticed or forced on board his caravels fifty-seven of the natives whom
he meant to sell as slaves. These were pronounced as " admirably
calculated for lafeor, and the best slaves ever seen." 1

1 The Cortereal voyages are not free from the confusion which surrounds so many of the
early narratives. Several writers (see Barrow's Chronological History of Voyages ; Lard-
ner's Cyclopedia ; Edinburgh Cabinet Library) following Cordeiro's Historia fnsularia, assert
that Newfoundland was first discovered by John Vaz Costa Cortereal in 1463 or 1464 ; but
Biddle (Memoir of Cabot, book ii., chapter 11) shows that there is no good authority for
any such voyage. A passage in the life of his father by Ferdinand Colon, however, seems
to have been overlooked by all these writers. He says that Vincent Dear, a Portuguese,

1502.J THE CORTEREAL VOYAGES. 141

Cortereal made two voyages, but from the second he never came
back. ' It is uncertain what his fate was. He may have been v ,.

J rate of me

lost at sea ; or, as it has been conjectured, he may have been Cortereals -
killed by the natives in an attempt to kidnap another cargo of slaves,
or in revenge for the capture of those stolen on the previous voyage.
But this, of course, involves the presumption that the kidnapping was
on his first expedition, and that the retribution fell upon him on his
return to the coast. But the latest and most reasonable suggestion is
that it was on his second voyage that he committed this outrage upon
the Indians, and that he and his fifty captives perished together at
sea. And this is the more probable conjecture since we know that
Miguel Cortereal, a younger brother, sailed from Lisbon, on the 10th
of May, 1502, with two vessels, in search of Gaspar, eight months
after the report of the arrival of one of Gaspar's caravels. The
Indians may have punished him also for his brother's cruelty to their
kindred, for he did not return. The next year the king sent out an
expedition in quest of both, but that came back without tidings of

returning from Guinea to Terceira, saw, or thought he saw, an island, and told this to one
Luke de Gazzana, a wealthy Genoese merchant. Gazzana sent out a vessel, and " the pilot
went out three or four times to seek the said island, sailing from one hundred and twenty
or one hundred and thirty leagues, but all in vain, for he found no land. Yet for all this,
neither he (Gazzana) nor his partner gave over the enterprise till death, always hoping to
find it." Ferdinand Colon adds that a brother of Gazzaua also told him that he knew the
sons of " the captain who discovered Terceira," Gaspar and Michael Cortereal, " who went
several times to discover that land ; and it is plain from the context that Ferdinand Colon
means to refer to distinct expeditions to the West those before his father's first voyage by
Gazzana 's direction, when John Vaz Costa Cortereal was governor of Terceira; and these
by the younger Cortereals in 1500. It was natural enouirh that these expeditions should
be confounded with each other, and this confusion was not cleared up even when Hakluyt
published the first edition of his voyages in 1582, who says : " An excellent learned man of
Portugal, of singular gravety, authortie, and experience, tolde me very lately that one
Gonus Cortereal, captayne of the yle of Terceira, about the yeare 1574, Avhich is not above
eight years past, sent a ship to discover the North West Passage." Here is an obvious
mistake of about a century.

In regard to the actual expedition of Gaspar Cortereal, the principal original source of
information hitherto relied upon, is the letter of Pietro Pasqualigo, Venetian Ambassador
to Portugal, to his brother, October 19, 1501. This was first published in a volume of voy
ages printed in Venice in 1507, under the title Paesi Novamente retrovati et Novo Mondo.
But Dr. Kohl (Collections of Maine Hist. Society, 1869), relying upon some recent researches
in the Portuguese archives by M. Kuntsmann (Die Entdeckung America's), assumes that
Pasqualigo's letter refers to the second voyage of Cortereal, and that the caravel, on board
which he was with fifty of the Indians, never arrived. The letter says : " On the 8th of the
present month one of the two caravels which his most serene majesty dispatched last year
on a voyage of discovery to the North, under the command of Gaspar Corterat, arrived

here They have brought hither of the inhabitants, seven in all, men, women,

and children, and in the other caravel, which is looked for every hour, there are fifty
more." If this was the first voyage, the other caravel subsequently arrived with the fifty
Indians, as Cortereal certainly made a second expedition. The date alone of the letter
(October, 1501) if Cortereal sailed in 1500 suggests that Pasqualigo confounded the
two voyages, and that he refers to the second, from which Cortereal did not return.

142 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

either. Then the eldest brother, Vasqueanes Cortereal, the governor
of Terceira, one of the Azores, begged permission to continue the
search, but the king forbade it, and the Portuguese, discouraged by
such a succession of disasters, abandoned all farther attempts at dis
covery in the northern seas.

These explorations in high northern latitudes the Spanish left for
the most part to other nations. Not that they were less eager to find
a passage to India, but they believed that they alone were seeking it
in the right direction. The conviction was of slow growth that
another continent, hitherto unknown, lay between Europe and Asia,
and that this must be passed before the coveted spice islands of the
East could be reached by sailing westward. Even Columbus himself
must have had some misgivings, for while he professed to believe
that on his third and fourth voyages he had reached the continent of
Asia, he was none the less persistent in seeking from Venezuela to
Honduras for a strait that should lead him to a South Sea and to
search of India. It is not easy to reconcile his avowed theoretical con-
fora*west- Dictions with his practical conduct ; but it is remarkable
em passage, fa^ conjecture or reasoning should have led him to seek for
such a channel where, if it existed at all anywhere between Terra
del Fuego and the Arctic Sea, it was most likely to be found. In his
fourth and last voyage, crowded with misfortunes more romantic than
the boldest imagination would have ventured to put forth as fiction,
he groped his way along the coast of Central America in search of an
eastern passage. The problem of an easy and rapid communication
by sea with the far East, has to-day no other solution than a possible
artificial channel where the great navigator hoped to find one hollowed
out by the waters of two meeting seas.

To the genius of Columbus this homage was paid by all his con
temporaries whither he led there they followed. As Ojeda
ditions from and Vespucci, after his discovery of the Southern Continent,
on his third voyage, went to Paria and explored the coast
north and south of that gulf, so Solis and Pinzon, moved by his ex
ample, sailed into the Caribbean Sea and along its shores where
Columbus, on his fourth voyage, had led the way. Within four or
five years of his death, in 1506, the whole coast from Carthagena to
Yucatan had been visited by many adventurers, dividing the country
amongst them, fighting with each other as occasion offered, slaughter
ing, mutilating, or enslaving the Indians, as best served their purpose
in the gathering of gold.

Vasco Nunez Among these freebooters was Vasco Nunez de Balboa, an
e Baiboa. excellent specimen of that class of Spanish discoverers who
overran the southern half of the New World, and of which Pizarro

1506.]

VASCO NU&EZ DE BALBOA.

143

and Cortez who were fitted for their future careers at the same
time and in the same school and region with Vasco Nunez were still
more brilliant instances.

This Nunez was eminent in that bravery which belonged to men
who, clad in steel, armed with an arquebuse or cross-bow, and a sword,
mounted, perhaps, on horseback, were ready to meet any number of
naked savages with only bows and arrows ; he was vigorous and capa
ble of great endurance, as well as bold ; and he was pitilessly cruel,
unscrupulous, and dissolute, but at the same time zealous for the
Church.

Vasco Nunez on Shipboard.

To escape from his creditors in Hispaniola he concealed himself in
a cask, on board a vessel about to sail for the Caribbean Sea. 1 When
far from land he crept from his hiding-place and prevailed by prayers
and tears upon Enciso, the commander of the expedition, not to put him
ashore and leave him - as he threatened, to starve on a barren island.
Afterward, when the vessel was wrecked, Nunez, who had been on the

1 Herrera, Decade I., hook viii., chap. 2.

144 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

coast before and remembered an Indian village on the river Darien,
led the crew, harassed by the natives and reduced almost to starvation,
to that place. By force of character and skilful management he soon
became the head of a party, helped to depose Enciso, to whom he owed
his life, got rid of others who had some title to the government of the
province, and raised himself to supreme command.

From the son of an Indian chief he learned, on one of his maraud
ing expeditions into the interior, that six days' iourney fur-
Rumors of a & ij
Land of tlier on was another sea, and beyond it a country so abound
ing in gold that the people ate and drank out of dishes made
of it. In September, 1513, he started from Darien to find that sea.
He fought his way through tribes of hostile Indians, whom he sub
dued by killing many, " hewing them in pieces as the Butchers doe
fieshe in the shambles, from one an arme, from another a legge,

ftt

-^: J^H X

from him a buttocke, from
another a shoulder, and from
some the necke from the bodie
at one stroke ; " and some the
dogs brought down and tore ^j
limb from limb " as if they $
were wild bores or Hartes." l
At length the invaders
reached a high mountain from the top of which, said the Indian
guides, the southern sea was in sight. Nunez ordered his men to halt
while he climbed up alone. Far beneath him, on the other side,

1 Peter Martyr's Third Decade, trans, by Lok. Hakluyt, vol. v., edition of 1812

The south sea.

1513.]

DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC.

145

lay the blue ocean, sparkling and glorious in the sunlight, stretching
as far as the eye could reach, North, South, West, to where Digcove ry of
sky and water seemed to meet. It was for this that all the o^'L^slspt
great navigators of the world had been seeking for nearly 1613-
twenty years, and when the sight of it broke upon Vasco Nunez he fell
prone upon the ground. Raising himself presently upon his knees, he
gave thanks to God that it had "pleased his diuine maiestie to reserue
vnto that day the victorie and prayse of so great a thing vnto him."
An ecstacy of delight, of triumph and devotion possessed him. With
one hand he beckoned his followers to come to him ; with the other
he pointed wildly seaward, " shewing them the great maine sea here
tofore vnknowne to the inhabitants ox Europe, Aphrike, and Asia.'

First Embarkation on the South Sea.

Again he fell upon his knees, and to his prayers, " desiring Almighty
God and the blessed Virgin to fauor his beginnings, and to give him
good successe to subdue those landes, to the glory of his holy name,
and increase of his holy religion." His companions joined him and
" praysed God with loude voyces for ioy," for he " exhorted them to
lyft up their hearts and beholde the lande euen now vnder their feete,
and the sea before their eyes which shoulde bee vnto them a full and
iust rewarde of their great laboures and trauayles now ouerpassed."
He ordered heaps of stone to be piled up in token that he took pos
session of the country for his sovereign, and the name of Ferdinand

146 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

of Castile lie carved upon many trees as he went down the Pacific
slope.

The men, marshalled in battle array, were ordered by this pious
captain to assail the natives and " to esteeme them no better than
dogges meate, as they shoulde be shortly." l From that fate, how
ever, gold could always save them. Twelve men, among whom was
Pizarro, the future conqueror of Peru, 2 were sent in advance to find
the safest and shortest path to the shore. At the spot where they
approached it two canoes were stranded upon the beach. As the
flood-tide floated them Alonso Martin stepped into one, and Blaze de
Atienza followed in the other, and they called to their companions to
witness that they were the first Spaniards Martin first, and Atienza
second who embarked upon the South Sea. When, a few days
later, Vasco Nunez arrived with his whole company, he marched into
the water up to his thighs, with his sword and target, and solemnly
pronounced that ocean and all that pertained to it as the possession of
the sovereigns of Castile and Leon, which he would defend against
all comers. 3

Thenceforward the exploration and occupation of the western coast,
both north and south, went forward with little interruption. But
Fate of the man whose energy and perseverance led the way, Vasco
Bezde Bai- Nunez de Balboa, fell a victim, five years later, to the jealousy
and fears of the Governor of Darien, Peter Anias, who
ordered him, after the mockery of a trial, to be beheaded. Such
atrocities were so common among the Spaniards that this one, though
perpetrated against a man whose eminent services had been recog
nized by an appointment as Adelantado over the sea he had discov
ered, seems to have gone unpunished and almost unnoticed by the
government at home.

While the course of Spanish adventure was thus, in the earlier
years of the sixteenth century, directed towards Central America,
leading, in due season, to such events as the discovery of the Pacific,
the conquests of Peru and Mexico, and the exploration of the western
coast of the present United States, it was not forgotten that there
might be other regions further north on the Atlantic coast worth pos
sessing. Juan Ponce de Leon, who had enriched himself by the sub
jugation of Porto Rico, resolved, when deprived of the governorship
of that island, to increase his fame and his riches by some new enter
prise. He had heard that there were lands at the north, of which
marvellous tales were told, not only of great wealth of gold and prec
ious stones, but that hidden away somewhere in the deep recesses of

i Peter Martyr. 2 y e O f p; Z arro, by Arthur Helps, p. 55.

* Ilerrera, Decade I., book x., chap. 1.

SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

1512.]

PONCE DE LEON DISCOVERS FLORIDA.

147

its forests bubbled up a fountain of which whosoever drank should
receive the priceless gift of perpetual youth. The rumor of Legend of
gold was enough to tempt Spanish cupidity ; but that was ofVou.'" 1
as nothing to Ponce de Leon, already rich but already old, to the
promise of being young again.

To find this new marvel of the New World, Juan Ponce de Leon
started from Porto Rico with three ships, in March, 1512. 1 As was
fitting in a quest for a fountain of
immortality, the adventurers floated
over that summer sea as men intent
on pleasure, to whom time was long
and burdened with no serious du
ties ; they sailed from island to
island, touching here and there as
fancy led them, seeking the safest
and pleasantest coves, where the
shades were deepest in the noon
day sun and the waters coolest,
where the fruits were sweetest, the
Indians most friendly and their
women loveliest. After a month
of such idle dalliance they crossed
the Bahama Channel, and, on the
27th of March, which happened to be Easter Sunday and which the
Spaniards call Pascua de Flores, 2 they saw and passed an island on
the opposite coast. Two or three days later Ponce de Leon Discovery
landed on the main, near the point now called Fernandina. 3 March^'
Taking possession of it in the name of Spain he namejd it 1512 -
Florida, because the land was first seen on the Pascua de Flores, and
because it was fair to look upon, covered with pleasant groves and
carpeted with flowers.

For more than thirty days they sailed along the coast on both sides
of the Peninsula, and among the Bahama Islands, sometimes traffick
ing, more often fighting with the Indians, who were bold and fierce, but
seeking always for the wonderful fountain. Whether it was on the
mainland, or, as some of the Indians said, on the Island of Bimini, of

1 Dr. J. G. Kohl (Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., Second Series, p. 240) says March 3, 1513.
and that Peschel, in his Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, has proved that the year
1512, to which this voyage of De Leon is usually assigned, is incorrect. March 3, 1512, old
style, would be 1513, new style, and Bancroft accordingly gives the date 15^|. Dr. Kohl
leaves it doubtful whether he means 15*-|, or 15^|.

2 Herrera, Hildreth, Irving, and some other writers, erroneously state that Pascua de
Flores is Palm Sunday. La Pascua de las Flores is La Pascua de la Resurrection, or
Easter Sunday.

8 Peter Martyr says (Decade V., chap. 1) "that parte of the lande which Johannes Pon
tius first touched, from the north side of the Fernandina."

Juan Ponce de Leon.

148 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

the Bahama group, 1 the restoring waters were never found ; though
those who sought them drank of every spring and bathed in every
stream their eager and hungry eyes could spy in the deep shadows of
the woods.

Leon claimed, nevertheless, great merit with the king for finding
a land so fair and promising, and he was made its Adelantado, on
condition that he would colonize it. In 1521, this first governor of
territory within the limits of the present United States, returned to
the province assigned to him, but, in a fight with Indians who opposed
his landing, he received from an arrow a wound from which no heal
ing waters could wash the poison. He retired then to Cuba, thankful,

perhaps, at last, that " eloquent, just, and inightie death "
juan Ponce could release him from the burden of old age, doubly

weighted now by the calamity of poverty, for the remnant
of his riches was spent in his last expedition. 2 Other Spanish naviga
tors followed this gay old cavalier, but the object of their search was
gold, not youth. Don Diego Velasquez, one of the earlier adventurers
in Hispaniola, who had conquered Cuba, and become its governor,
ambitious, energetic, and intelligent, sent several expeditions into the
Gulf of Mexico, wisely, for his purpose, directing them to its southern
rather than to its northern coasts. It was the road to Mexico, which
Cortez soon found ; but that Florida was visited by two of the other
captains of Velasquez was almost by accident rather than by design.

Hernandez de Cordova touched there on his return from a

Voyages in

the Gulf of cruise along the coast of Yucatan, in 1517, and John de Gri-

Mexico. . . e

jalva did the same thing the next year. In 1516, Diego
Miruelo is said to have made a voyage on his own account to Florida,
and to have brought back some gold. In 1518, also, Francis Garay,
the governor of Jamaica, landed on that shore, was attacked by the
natives, and lost most of his men. 3 But he returned the next year,

1 In Peter Martyr's Map of loll, Florida is laid down as Isla de Beimeni.

2 " Whether the old fable of the Fountain of youth was derived by the Indians from the
Spaniards, or was of indigenous growth, it is impossible to decide. It was undoubtedly firmly
believed in among the other marvels of the New World. " The Dene. Aiglianus the Senator,
and Licentiatus Figuera, sent to Hispaniola to be President of the Senate, .... these three
agree," says Peter Martyr, "that they had heard of the fountaine restoringe strength, and
that they partly belieued the reportes ; but the}- sawe it not, nor proued it by experience,
because the inhabitants of that Terra Florida haue sharpe nayles, and are eager defenders
of their rights." But the Dene related that an Indian, " grieuously oppressed with old
age, moued with the fame of that fountaine, and allured through the lone longer of lyfe,
went from his natiue ilande neere vuto the country of Florida to drinke of the desired foun
taine, .... and hauinge well drunke and washed himselfe for many dayes with the ap
pointed remedies, by them who kept the bath, hee is reported to haue brought home a manly
strength, and to haue vsed all manly exercises, and that hee married againe, and begatt chil
dren." Aiglianus is De Ayllon, who visited Florida after De Leon.

3 Peter Martyr, Decade V., chap. 1.

1520.] KIDNAPPING INDIANS. 149

and was the first thorough explorer of the Gulf coast of the United
States. He made its entire circuit, and drew a chart by which he
showed that " it bendeth like a bow," and that a line stretched from
the shore of Yucatan to the point at which Ponce de Leon first touched,
would " make the string of the bow." Florida, he found, was not an
island, as De Leon had supposed, " but by huge, crooked windings and
turninges to bee joyned to this maine continent of Tenustitan" (Yu
catan). He came, also, " vpon a riuer, flowing into the Ocan with a
broade mouth ; and from his ships discryed many villages couered with
reedes ; " and this was the first discovery of the Mississippi, the Rio
del Espirito Santo, the River of the Holy Ghost. 1 But he thought
the coast, which he spent about eight months in exploring, " to be very
litle hospitable, because he sawe tokens and signes of small store of
golde, and that not pure/' 2

Fernandina was as yet the northernmost point touched by the
Spaniards on the Atlantic coast. But northward from that

, , ~,. , , Explorations

place was a country known as Gmcora, and somewhere uptneAt-
within it was supposed to be the sacred river of Jordan,
whose waters possessed a healing power akin to, if not the same, as
those of the Fountain of Youth. 3 To this land of Chicora Lucas Vas-
quez de Ayllon either sent or led an expedition of two ships in 1520
from Hispaniola, and the river now known as the Combahee, in South
Carolina, 4 he named the Jordan. It does not appear that he went
anywhere else than to the mouth of this river, though he was sent in
search of a passage that would lead to India. But the real purpose
was slaves. The people of the Jordan, unlike those farther south,
gave the strangers a kindly welcome. They crowded aboard the
ships, the like of which they had never seen before, as eager, as cu
rious, and as confiding as children. The very ease of kid-

,1 i i -i.i Kidnapping

napping these simple and unsuspicious savages might have Indians for
suggested it. The hoisting of the sails, the weighing of the
anchors, gave them no alarm ; imperceptibly to them the vessels stole
away, on an even keel, without apparent motion, and not till they
were so far from the shore that to return was impossible, did the poor
creatures understand the cruel treachery of which they were the vic
tims. They were to be sold as slaves for the gold mines and planta
tions of the Islands. But of the two vessels one foundered at sea, and
all on board perished ; on the other, but few lived to reach Hispaniola,

1 Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi, p. viii.

2 Peter Martyr.

3 Compare, however, Herrera, Decade I., lib. ix., chap. 5 ; Narrative of Fontanedo in Ter-
naux-Compans, and note by the editor, and J. G. Kohl, in Maine Hist. Socy. Coll., p. 248
Dr. Kohl says that the river was named Jordan for the captain of one of Ayllon 's ships.

* Bancroft, Hist. U. S., vol. 1 .

150 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII

for this virtue has always belonged to the North American Indian
he prefers death to slavery, and has often pined away and speedily
died, like other wild creatures, when deprived of freedom.

Four or five years later, another expedition sailed from Hispaniola,
Expedition which Ayllon certainly commanded in person, and from
Vazquez? which he never returned. It consisted of several ships, car-
de Ayiion. rying five hundred soldiers and sailors, and a few women. 1
Taking the Jordan as the starting point, the coast was explored as far
north as Maryland, and some expeditions were made inland. 2 Many
were killed by the Indians ; many more died from sickness, and among
them Ayllon himself, till only one hundred and fifty, out of the
original company of six hundred, were left to return to Hispaniola.

But the most that any of these adventurers did was to penetrate the
country a short distance, to traffic a little with natives when they hap-

Straits of Magellan.

pened to be in the mood, and more often to retire before them when

they opposed the landing or the stay of the intruders. Mean-

cortez in while, on the other side of the Gulf, Cortez had penetrated

Mexico.

into Mexico, and the spirit of adventure, the dreams of
boundless wealth, the hopes of brilliant conquest, received a new and
intense impulse by his success. " To the South, to the South," wrote
Peter Martyr, " For the great and exceeding riches of the JEquinoc-
tiall, they that seeke riches must not goe vnto the cold and frozen
North."

1 The earlier authors differ as to whether there were three or six ships, and whether they
sailed in 1524, 1525, or 1526.

2 On the Portuguese Mnp of Ribero, 1529, the Land of Aylloii " Tierra de Ayllon,"
covers the present States of Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland.

1525.] VOYAGE OF ESTAVAN GOMEZ. 151

And the hoped-for passage to the East was not forgotten. Rich
as was the booty in Mexico and Central America, it was as nothing
to the splendid acquisition of India, if only the short way by sea
could be discovered. Magellan had passed by the Straits to which
he gave his name into the Pacific Ocean, but nothing was gained
thereby over the older route round the Cape of Good Hope. With
that great navigator had sailed, as pilot of one of his ships, Stephen
Gomez, a Portuguese by birth, but then serving in Spain. He had
deserted Magellan soon after entering the Straits, 1 but does not seem,
therefore, to have been held in any less estimation in Spain, as he was,
with Cabot, the pilot-major, Ferdinand Columbus, and other eminent
cosmographers, one of the Council of Badajoz, appointed in 1524 to
settle the conflicting claims of Spain and Portugal to the New World.

In February, 1525, Gomez sailed under a royal commission to find
a passage to Cathay, which he believed was somewhere be- Estayan Go _
tween Florida and the Bacallaos, or Newfoundland. As he e a z s t of lores
was absent about ten months, he had ample time to explore u - s - 1525 -
the whole Atlantic coast of the present United States. He sailed
from North to South to about the latitude of New York, but at what
point he first touched the continent, into what bays and rivers he may
have entered, there is no positive record. 2 He brought home a cargo
of the natives to be sold as slaves, and an anecdote in relation to them,
repeated from book to book for three hundred and fifty years, has
chiefly preserved the memory of this expedition. So great was the
anxiety to be assured that the passage to India had been discovered,
that one inquirer, carried away by zeal and enthusiasm, when he
learned that Gomez had returned with a cargo of slaves {esclavos),
mistaking the word, hurried to the court with the glorious news that
the ships were laden with cloves (clavos)^ and must therefore have
found their way to the Spice Islands of the East. " But after
the court vnderstoode," says the faithful chronicler, Peter Gomez'

voyiicre.

Martyr, " that the tale was transformed from cloues to slaues

(clavos to esclavos), they brake foorth into a great laughter, to the

shame and blushinge of the fauorers who shouted for joy."

A more formidable and more disastrous attempt than any of these
to take possession of the country was made in 1528 by Pam-
philo de Narvaez. He sailed from Spain in 1527 under a Narvaea.

1528

commission from the Emperor, Charles V., with five ships

1 That the Gomez who explored the coast of the United States in 1525, and the Gomez
who deserted Magellan, are identical, is generally accepted as without question. But Piga-
fetta, in his relation of the Magellan voyage, calls the Gomez of that fleet, not Estevan
but Emamtel. See Pigafetta, in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vol. xi.

2 On the Ribero Map, the legend, " Tierra de Estevan Gomez," is written across that re
gion now occupied by the Middle and Northern Atlantic States of the Union.

152 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII

and about five hundred men ; but delays occurring in the West Indies,
where he passed the following winter, he made a second start in March,

ciavos and

1528, with four ships and a

brigantine, carrying four hun

dred men and eighty horses.

Two days before Easter he

landed in or near Tampa Bay, 1

and prepared at once to ad

vance into the country. In a

reconnoissance along the coast

they came upon a little Indian

village, where they found some bodies in a sort of mummified condi

tion, the sacred remains, no doubt, of the ancestors or the chiefs of the

tribe. The officer in command chose to assume this preservation of the

dead as a kind of idolatry, and ordered them to be burned, and the

outrage was a sufficient warning to the natives of the treatment they

might expect from such invaders.

Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca, a Spaniard of noble birth, was the
treasurer of the expedition and its voluntary historian. 2 He protested
earnestly against the mad project of Narvaez to leave the coast, cer
tain, he said, that were that done, he " would never more find the
ships, nor the ships him." Nevertheless he determined to follow his
captain rather than be left in command of the fleet, lest his courage

1 Bancroft ; compare Buckingham Smith in notes to Letters of De Solo.

2 The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabe9a de Vaca, is a minute narrative of this expedition
and his own strange personal adventures. An admirable translation of it was made by the
late Buckingham Smith.

1528.] DISASTROUS EXPEDITION OF NARVAEZ. 153

should be called in question. The marching force consisted of three
hundred men, forty of whom were mounted. Each man car
ried two pounds of biscuit and half a pound of bacon, and Narvaezmto
with this slender store of provision they plunged into an un
known wilderness, where their first act had already been one sure to
provoke hostilities from its savage people. Their rations, with such
fruit of the palmetto as they could pick up by the way, supported them
for the first fifteen days, and then the fear of starvation was added to
the other difficulties which they began to understand. Toiling on
through swamps and forests, wading the lagoons, crossing rivers by
swimming and on temporary rafts, harassed continually by an enemy
with whom suddenness and secrecy of attack were the first arts of
war, their courage and their hopes were only sustained by some vague
reports from prisoners of gold to be found in a distant district called
Apalachen. 1

They had started on the 1st of May ; on the 25th of June a mis
erable village was reached of forty houses, in the middle of a dense
swamp, from which the Indians had fled leaving behind only the
women and children. This was Apalachen, and they gave thanks to
God, believing that " here would be an end to their great hardships."
The village they took without resistance, and in it found maize to
satisfy their hunger ; the woods around abounded with game, had
they had the skill to take it ; and gold, they believed, was plentiful.
But hardly had they laid off the heavy armor from their galled and
weary backs, when the Indians attacked them and burnt the wigwams
in which they had taken shelter, provocation being first given, as
usual, by the Spaniards, who held a cacique as prisoner who had come
to them as a friend.

Their great need of rest and the time required to examine the
country round about for gold, detained them twenty -five days in Apa
lachen. But no gold was to be found, and but little maize ; in all
that district this miserable village of forty houses was the largest ; the
people were not numerous, were very savage, and very poor. Steal
ing out from their lurking-places in the neighboring swamps, they so
harassed the Spaniards that one could not venture from the camp so
short a distance as to lead a horse to water, that an arrow would not
whiz through the bushes from an unseen foe. Thus sore beset with
hunger, disease, and danger, all their hopes of sudden wealth de
stroyed, they resolved at length to make their way to the sea.

In a march of twelve or fifteen days they fought their way to the

1 At the head-waters of the Apalacha River are the Apalachian Mountains of Georgia,
to which probably the Indians referred, while the Spaniards understood them to mean the
village near its mouth.

154 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

coast. Well nigh worn out they lay down upon the sands in sore
perplexity and distress, behind them a country they could not live
in, before them a sea over which there was but one way to escape.
Building the They must build vessels; but they "knew not how to con
struct, nor were there tools, nor iron, nor forge, nor tow, nor
resin, nor rigging ; nor any man who had a knowledge

of their manufacture ; and, above all, there was nothing to eat while

Return to the Beach.

building, for those who should labor." But invention is sometimes
born of despair. A soldier undertook to make a pair of bellows with
pipes of hollow wood and deerskins, and his example was emulated
by others. The cross-bows, the stirrups, the spurs, and whatever else
they had of iron, were beaten into nails, into axes, saws, and other
needful tools. With these they contrived to build five boats, each
more than thirty feet in length, the seams of which they caulked with
the fibre of the palmetto, and pitched with pine rosin ; cordage was
made of the tails and manes of the horses ; the sails from the shirts
of the men. Every three days a horse was killed for food, while the
boats were building, the skin of the legs taken off whole to be used
when tanned as water-bottles. Besides the horse-flesh they fed upon
shell-fish and such maize as, through hard fighting, they could get
from the Indians.

At this place forty of the men died of disease and hunger, besides

suffering of those who had been killed in their contests with the savages.

ien. ^jj k u t one o f the horses had been slaughtered and eaten,

and for that reason they called the spot Bahia de Caballos, or the Bay

1528.]

CABECA DE VACA.

155

of the Horses. 1 On the 22d of September, almost five months from
the time of their departure from the spot, nearly three hundred miles
distant, where they first landed, the wretched fugitives embarked
upon their frail boats, loading them down almost to the gunwales,
and pushed out into the Gulf of Mexico.

They crept slowly along the coast for weeks, hoping to reach the
Spanish colony of Panuco on the western shore of the gulf. Endur
ing always the extremity of suffering from cold, and wet, and hunger,
they were buffetted when on the sea by storms, and repulsed by the
Indians when they attempted a landing. At length the boats parted
company. First the governor refused to throw a rope to the men of
Cabega de Vaca, of whom only one or two were able to lift an oar,
saying the time had come when each man must take care of himself.
Then a storm parted the others, and De Vaca's boat was driven upon
the beach of an island. 2 To get off again the next day the men
stripped to the skin, as it was necessary to wade into the water to dig
the boat out of the sand and once more set her afloat. But when this
was done and they had jumped aboard, the surf again upset her before
they had time to resume their clothing. Some were drowned ; those

Upset in the Surf.

who were not were left as absolutely naked and destitute as they came
into the world, for not one thing in the boat was recovered. For
tunately the Indians were humane and pitiful, making fires to warm

1 The Bahia de Caballos is probably the present harbor of St. Marks.

2 Cabeca de Vaca called this island Mathado misfortune. Its locality is uncertain,
but it may have been the island of Galveston. Buckingham Smith is entirely at a loss to
identify it. Fairbanks (History of Florida} thinks it was the island of Santa Rosa.

156 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

the half frozen and famished bodies of the strangers, giving them food
from their own scanty stores. In a few days these were joined by
companions from another boat, who had also been wrecked not far
distant. The company now numbered eighty. Exposure, starvation,
and sickness, soon decided the fate of most of them, though some
prolonged their lives awhile by feeding on those who were the first
to die. Before the winter was over, only fifteen of the eighty were
left alive. The governor and all his boat-load had been driven out
to sea, and perished soon after he had refused assistance to his follow
ers in distress.

A few of the adventurers in the other boats had saved themselves

in other places, but one after another they all, except four, had died

miserably, some killed by the Indians, who had made them their

slaves, some dying of starvation, some from exposure and disease.

The four survivors, by name Cabeca de Vaca, Dorantes, Cas-

Cabeca de .

vaca ana his tello, and Estevanico, the last a negro, wandered from tribe
to tribe for six years, held sometimes in the cruelest slavery,
and sometimes carrying on a petty traffic with the natives, in combs,
in bows, arrows, and fishing-nets of their own making. Their food
was chiefly the fruit of the prickly pear, roots, and nuts ; what little
venison they occasionally received from the Indians they ate raw, for
only thus could their weakened stomachs digest it. They always went
naked, and " twice a year," says Cabega de Vaca, " we cast our skins
like a serpent." In later years they gained influence and power among
the Indians by acting as physicians, working, he declares, the most
marvellous cures simply by reciting pater nosters and by making the
sign of the cross, till they came to be held in great reverence and fear.

Thus slowly and painfully they made their way, wandering to
and fro through forests and swamps, over prairies and deserts, ex
posed to the summer's heat and the winter's cold, across the present
State of Texas, through the Mexican province of Sonora, to the sea
coast of the other side of the continent on the Gulf of California.

There they found and were succored by their countrymen, who
had already invaded that country in search of emeralds, of gold,
and of slaves, and speedily returned to Spain, heroes of an adventure
as remarkable and as romantic as any recorded in the Spanish annals
of North America.

There arrived in Spain about the same time with Cabeca de Vaca
iiernando one wno had been engaged in quite a different sort of ser
vice. This was Hernando de Soto, who had followed Pizarro
to Peru, and shared with him his dangers and his success. Leaving
Spain like so many others " with nothing but blade and buckler," he
had come back with wealth to further his ambition for the acquisition

1538.] IIERNANDO DE SOTO. 157

of some new country where he should be the leader and not a subaltern
merely. The disastrous result of every expedition to Florida thus far
had not shaken the belief among the adventurous Spaniards in the
value of the country, and that somewhere in the interior were riches
such as had been gathered in marvellous abundance in other parts
of the New World. De Soto appeared at court with a numerous
band of followers in gorgeous apparel and other lavish display of the
wealth he had acquired in Peru, and asked that authority to take pos
session of Florida, with a commission as Adelantado, be DeSotois
given him. The announcement of his intentions was re- J^d^f
ceived with the utmost enthusiasm. Gentlemen of birth Florida -
and position flocked from all parts of Spain to his standard, eager
to serve under so gallant and re
nowned a leader, and in an adven
ture which he thought so hopeful as
to be willing to risk in it his fortune,
his fame, and his life. Some came
even from Portugal, and they seemed
better to understand the character
of the enterprise. For when De
Soto mustered his men at San Lucar
the Spaniards appeared " in doublets
and cassocks of silk, pinckt and em
broidered," as if about to start on
a holiday excursion, while " the
Portuguese were in the equipage of

IT- ?51T>i De SotO.

soldiers in neat armor. Jout so

strong was the desire to go with him that men parted with their
estates to buy an interest and an outfit in this new expedition ; and
the excitement was not a little increased by the story of Cabecja de
Vaca, who on his return had also asked to be made Adelantado of
Florida. It was thought he could tell, if he would, wonderful tales of
the richness, in many precious things, of the region where he had en
dured so much, and out of which he had come literally a's naked as
he came into the world.

De Soto went prepared for conquest and colonization. His force
was between six and seven hundred men some say a thousand

1 A Relation of the Invasion and Conquest of Florida by the Spaniards, under the Command
of Fernando de Soto. Written in Portuguese by a Gentleman of the Town of the Elvas. This
is the original and the fullest and most trustworthy narrative of the expedition of De Soto
There have been several translations, the first by Hakluyt (vol. iii.), and the last by
Buckingham Smith, published by the Bradford Club. We rely mainly on the Relation
but comparing Garcilaso de Vega, Biedma, and Herrera.

158 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

with, perhaps, a few women ; among them were a number of priests
Preparations with all the paraphernalia of their office, and mechanics with
qu r e.st h of C n " the instruments of their trades. 1 The fleet consisted of nine
vessels, ships, caravels, and pinnaces ; and besides their
human freight they carried between two and three hundred horses,

The Muster at San Lucar.

The ad
venturers
land at

a large herd of swine, and a number of bloodhounds, the most efficient
ally of the Spaniards in the conquest of the New World. The em
peror appointed De Soto governor of Cuba, that he might easily ob
tain supplies for the new colony, and every possible facility thus be
given to the enterprise. After a year's preparation in
Spain and the West Indies the expedition sailed at last
Tampa Bay. from Havana on the 18th of May, 1539, and on the 30th
the troops were landed at Tampa Bay.

From Tampa Bay the adventurers marched into the interior, pur
suing substantially the same route as Narvaez about eleven years
before. Within the first few days De Soto had the good fortune to
meet with a Spaniard who had been captured from one of the ships
of that earlier expedition by the Indians, and in his long captivity
had become familiar with their language. The romantic story of
story of John Smith and Pocahontas was in part anticipated in the
Juan Ortiz, experience of this man, Juan Ortiz. When first captured
by a band whose chief was named Ucita, 2 he was bound hand and

1 De Biedma's narrative. Herrcra says, nine hundred beside the sailors, three hundred
and thirty horses and three hundred hogs.

2 Portuguese Relation. Herrera calls him Harrihiagua, the name of his village.

1539.]

ADVENTURES OF JUAN ORTIZ.

159

foot to stakes, stretched at length upon a scaffolding beneath which
a fire was kindled. The smoke had enwreathed the victim and the
forked flames were leaping to seize the naked flesh, when the intended
holocaust was suddenly interrupted by the prayers of a daughter of
the chief. She besought her father to spare the life of the Christian ;
one such, she urged, if he could do no good at least could do no harm ;
and she made a cunning appeal to the vanity of the chief by suggesting
how great a distinction it would be to hold a white man as a captive.
Her prayers were listened to ; Ortiz was lifted from the scaffold and
unbound, to serve thenceforth as a slave. What the feeling was which
the sight of the pale stranger had aroused in the bosom of the dusky
maiden, or what the relation which may have afterward existed be
tween them, we are not told ; but whether it was on her part mere
pity for a stranger, or a tenderer and deeper sentiment, it was not
forgotten. Three years later Ucita was defeated in a petty war with

Sacrifice of Juan Ortiz.

another chieftain, and there was danger that Ortiz would be sacrificed
to propitiate the devil whose anger, Ucita believed, had brought this
misfortune upon him and his people. Then the princess came again
to the rescue of the stranger and saved him from probable death.
Warning him of his danger, and leading him secretly and alone in
the night-time beyond the boundaries of her father's village, she put
him in the way to find the camp of the victorious chieftain who had
just triumphed over her father and would protect, she knew, the
Christian slave.

SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

Ortiz, when years afterwards he heard that his countrymen had
arrived in Florida, was glad enough to welcome them, while he did not
forget that he had some cause of gratitude to his Indian friends. As
a horseman rode at him, not distinguishing him from the savages, he
cried out : " Do not kill me, cavalier ; I am a Christian ! Do not
slay these people ; they have given me my life ! " Fortunately his
appeal was heard in time, and to him the expedition was more in
debted than to any other man, next to De Soto himself ; for through
him alone was it possible to hold any intelligent communication with
the Indians, whether for peace or war. His death, which occurred
not long before that of the governor, was a source of deep perplexity
and " a great cross to his designs."

When De Soto turned his face inward he sent his ships back to
The march Cuba for provisions to return at an appointed time. The
army toiled painfully through the woods and swamps of
Florida from spring till autumn. The provisions they brought with
them were soon exhausted, and the country afforded them but little
support. They heard, as Narvaez did before them, of Apalachen
where gold abounded ; and when they reached the spot where, ap
palled by the difficulties before him and the poverty of the country
round about, he had turned to the sea for refuge, so also the courage
of De Soto's men gave way and they entreated him to return. But
the governor declared he would never go back till he had seen with
his own eyes the dangers in store for them if any there were.

The first winter was passed in the neighborhood of Apalachen
Bay, and the point where Narvaez had built his boats and whence he
started on his fatal voyage. Communication was held with Cuba ;
arrangements were made for a future supply of provisions, and
twenty Indian women were sent as slaves to Dona Isabella, De
Soto's wife, as an earnest of good things to come.

In the spring they pushed northward, and in April they were still

only about three hundred miles from Tampa Bay. To the

city to the unhappy natives their march was as the march of a pesti-

natives '

lence. The news of their coming was the signal for war.
The cacique of every tribe they met was compelled to pay tribute in
maize ; to supply them with as many men as were needed for per
sonal attendants and as carriers of burdens from the boundaries of
one tribe to those of another ; and that the service might be faithfully
done, these slaves were chained in couples, neck to neck. The women
they took both for servants and mistresses, following therein the ex
ample of the governor, who consoled himself for the absence of the
Dona Isabella by the possession of not less than two of the comely
Indian girls, the daughters of caciques or others, as best suited his

1540.] DE SOTO IN FLORIDA. 161

inclination. What was not granted through fear or good-will was
taken by the strong hand ; and in either case the result was the
same subjection and cruelty. A messenger whose message was not
pleasing carried back for answer to his master the bloody stumps of
his severed hands ; amusement was combined with punishment by
setting up prisoners as targets to be shot at with arrows.

Maize they now often found in abundance in the fields and gran
aries of the Indians. They took it, or it was given to them Want of
it mattered little which. But they suffered, especially food -
the sick, for the need of salt and meat, though game, in the season,
was plenty and the natives never wanted for it. The woods were
alive with deer, with wild turkeys, and partridges ; ducks covered the
ponds ; the rivers were full of fish ; but the Spaniards lacked the
skill either to entrap or to kill any wild thing except an Indian.
When in extremity, the adventurers fed upon the hogs which had
been produced in great numbers from the drove brought from Cuba,
and which had thriven on the plentiful mast of the forest ; nor did
the hungry soldiers disdain to eat the native dogs whenever they
could get them. But it was always war, and always a struggle for
existence, while the gold they were searching for they only heard of
and always in some province yet to be reached. Their hopes were
fed, however, by the possession of great quantities of pearls fed,
though not satisfied.

In April of the second spring there came to meet the governor an
Indian queen, or cacica, who was brought to the bank of a
river, carried in a litter by four of her principal subjects. A the Indian

. . -i i ' i queen.

barge, over whose stern was a canopy supported by a lance,-
and beneath which was spread a carpet and cushions, awaited her.
On meeting the governor she took from her own neck a heavy
string of pearls and threw it over his, presenting him beside with
mantles of feathers and thread made from the bark of trees. Offering
these, with many protestations of welcome and good will, and observ
ing the eagerness with which the Spaniards received the pearls, and
how great a value they put upon them, she told them they could be
found in large quantities in the graves of the villages. These were
speedily rifled, and though three hundred and fifty pounds weight
were gathered at one time, they proved of little value, as they had
been bored by some heated implement, and had lost their lustre. Nev
ertheless they were pearls, and the hopes and the cupidity of the Span
iards were excited accordingly.

In the province of this cacica many of the people would have been
glad to remain and found a colony. But De Soto, who was an " in
flexible man and dry of word." willing enough to listen to advice but

162 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VJ1.

seldom taking it, determined to push on ; and there were never want
ing those among the Indians who were ready to answer his eager
inquiries for gold with most satisfactory state
ments, anxious to see him depart in further
search. To the cacica, who gave him not only
pearls and mantles, but much provision, he
made a return not unusual with him for gen
erosity and kindness. He retained her as a
captive, and made slaves and beasts of burden
of her subjects ; but she was wary enough to

evade the vigi-
lance of her
guards Escapeof
and es- thecacica -
cape into the
woods, taking
with her a box
full of pearls
which were said
to be of great
value. Her peo-
ple were the
most civilized of
any of the Flo-
ridians that De
Soto met with in
his three years'
march, for they

wore shoes and clothing made from skins which they dressed and
colored with great skill, and adorned themselves with mantles, made
of feathers, or in a textile fabric of some woody fibre. The cacica's
village was only two days' journey from the sea the Atlantic coast
at the point where Ayllon had landed nearly twenty years before.
The Indians cherished a dagger and some beads, perhaps a rosary,
which they said came from some of Ayllon's men.

From the province of the cacica the invaders marched northwest,
and, in the course of the summer, reached the neighborhood of the
Appalachian chain. They had seen among the Indians some little
axes of copper which were supposed to contain a mixture of
gold ; and the process of smelting ores, as practised among
the people where they were mined, was described with great accuracy.
Had the Spaniards pushed forward at the point they had now reached
they would have found what they were in search of, though not in

The Indian Queen.

Indications
of gold.

1540.J

DE SOTO AT MAVILLA.

163

large quantities. But an exploring party pronounced the mountains
impassable, and fortunately for the natives, whose fate, in case of dis
covery would have been to gather gold as slaves, or resistance to
death, the Spaniards lacked either the skill or the diligence to trace
the evidences of the existence of metals. De Soto therefore turned
south again with his little army of marauders, and wandered the rest
of the summer in the valleys of the streams emptying into Mobile
Bay.

In October they reached Mavilla, a village which has given its
name to the river and city of Mobile. The country round about, as
well as that through which they had been wandering for weeks, was
populous, and they
had done nothing
to conciliate, every
thing to exasperate
the natives. Ma-
villa was a place of
importance, con
taining many
houses, and s u r-
rounded with pal
isades ; it was soon
evident that its
possession was not
to be yielded with
out a Struggle. Palisaded Town. [From De Bry.]

The governor and a few attendants entered ; the cacique, who was
with him, took refuge in a house, and, deaf both to entreaties and
threats, defied him. It was easy enough to provoke an outbreak.
A Spaniard replied to some haughty words from a chief by laying his
back open with a cutlass, and all the Indians sprung to their Battle with
bows and arrows. Every house was an ambuscade, and be- thenatlves -
fore the Christians could fly to the fields five of them were slain.
Among those who escaped was De Soto, who, forming his troops,
at once invested the town, and led the assault, the soldiers carrying
their arms in one hand and a torch in the other. The defence was
brave, desperate, and useless. A contest between naked savages and
men, many of whom were mounted, and all were in armor, was
rather a hunting-chase than a battle. Twenty-five hundred of the
Indians were speedily put to the sword, or were driven to torture
and death by suffocation in the smoke and flames of their own
houses ; of the Spaniards, eighteen only were killed, and one hun
dred and fifty received arrow wounds from which they quickly recov-

164 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

ered. 1 Their most serious loss was of the property destroyed by the
fire, for at the first desperate onset, before the Spaniards had time to
rally, the chains of the captives were stricken off and their burdens
taken within the palisades.

De Soto was now, as he learned from the Indians, within six days of
Pensacola (Ochuse), where some of his ships awaited news of him.
But he concealed the fact from his own men, lest they should desert
him, and held no communication with the ships, for he preferred that
as yet there should be no tidings sent to Cuba of the expedition. His
pearls, the only thing of value he had found, were all lost ; he had
little else to report than continued misfortune, and that in his two
years' wanderings he had lost more than a hundred men. After a
month's stay at Mavilla, he again moved farther into the interior till
he reached the upper part of the State of Mississippi, where he went
The span- m t winter quarters on the banks of the Yazoo River. The
winter mt country was populous, and the maize was plentiful ; there
quarters. \yas, thei'efore, no lack of food. But the cold was severe,
the snow covered the ground, and whether on the march or in camp
hostilities with the Indians never ceased. There was constant aggres
sion on one side ; constant retaliation on the other. In March a night
attack was made upon the camp of the Spaniards which was more
disastrous to them than the fight at Mavilla. All that was saved
from the burning at that place was lost in this. Twelve Spaniards
were killed , fifty horses and four hundred hogs perished in the flames ;
while on the other side the loss was only one man and one woman.
In the confusion and suddenness of the attack and the fire, the soldiers
lost nearly all their clothing, as well as their arms, saddles, and other
property, leaving them for some days so destitute and miserable, that,
" had the Indians," says the narrative, " returned the second night,
they might, with little effort, have overpowered us." 2 The losses,
however, were in a few days repaired, so far as was possible, by the
forging of new swords and the making of new spears and saddles.
Skins had to be substituted for clothing, and mats of dried grass for
blankets.

In the course of the spring and summer the army crossed the State
of Mississippi diagonally from the southeast to the northwest corner
till they reached the great river the Mississippi, which the Span
iards called the Rio Grande at about the thirty-fifth degree of lat
itude, or the boundary line between the States of Mississippi and Ten-

1 Portuguese Relation. Herrera says (Decade IV., book vii., chap. 4) that the Spanish
Joss was eighty-three men, and that of the Indians eleven thousand, four thousand of whom
were burnt to death.

2 Portuguese Relation.

1541.]

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

165

nessee. " This river in that place was half a league over, so that a
man could not be distinguished from one side to the other ;
it was very deep and very rapid, and being always full of thTjiS-
trees and timber that was carried down by the force of the
stream, the water was thick and very rnuddy. It abounded with
fish, most of which differed much from those that are taken in the
rivers of Spain." Boats were necessary to cross, and it took a month
to build them.

A great cacique, Aquixo, was lord of the country on the other side
of the Mississippi, and in a day or two he approached to meet visit of the
the strangers. He came with an imposing array of two hun- caci( i ue -
dred canoes, filled with armed men, a part of whom stood up to pro
tect the rowers with feathered shields, but all with their bodies and
faces painted, their heads adorned with plumes of many colors. The

cacique and other chiefs were sheltered
under awnings. " The canoes were
most neatly made and very large, and,
with their pavilions, feathers, shields,
and standards, looked like a fleet of

,,,,_,,,, ,, Fleet of the Cacique.

galleys. J-hey brought presents ot

fish and fruit and bread, and came, they said, to welcome and do
homage to the strangers. But the strangers chose to believe that
they had a hostile purpose ; when they hesitated to land the Span-

166 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [HAP. VIL

iards killed five or six of them for such a want of confidence, and
others who attempted to make a landing they fell upon as coming
with evil intent.

When the boats were finished the army crossed without opposition.
For a few days they kept along the west bank of the river, making
their way with difficulty through the forest and wet bottom lands, and
harassed by constant attacks from the Indians. But they reached, ere
long, a higher and dryer country, where they remained for more than
a month, and where they found artificial hills, on which the caciques
piety of the sometimes put their houses. 1 On one of these De Soto set
Spaniards. U p & GTOSS when two blind men were brought to him to be
cured, and instead of healing he gave a homily to the assembled
heathen on the mystery of the atonement. The simple natives knelt
in imitation of the Spaniards at the foot of the cross, and De Soto
admonished them " to honor and adore it, and demand of the Lord
who was in Heaven all that they might stand in need of." Not long
after De Soto accepted as a present from a chief his two sisters, " both
handsome and well-shaped," with a request that the governor would
make them his wives. But women with that tribe were as cheap as
morality was with the Spaniards ; they were purchased for a shirt a
piece.

It is not clear how far north and west the expedition marched dur
ing this summer, as the narratives are obscure and sometimes con
flicting. While the larger part of the force remained through a por
tion of June and all of July in the neighborhood of the Mississippi,
a reconnoitering party was sent into the interior, which when
limit of the it returned almost in a starving condition, reported that the
country was poor and barren. They learned that further
north there were very few people, but many cattle bisons. The
robes of these animals they procured at different times from the
Indians, " which were very convenient against the cold of that country
because they made a good furr, the hair of them being as soft as
sheep's wool." But the progress of the main body seems to have been
generally south west ward, crossing the St. Francis and the White
rivers, marching through a country fertile, well-watered, and thickly
inhabited, as far as the present site of Little Rock, in Arkansas.
They found and used the saline springs of that State, and finally went
into winter quarters on the banks of a river which may have been

1 " The caciques of this country make a custom of raising, near their dwellings, very high
hills, on which they sometimes build their huts. On one of these we planted the cross, and
went with much devotion on our knees to kiss the foot of it." A Narrative of the Expedi
tion of Hernando de Soto. By Luis Hernandez de Biedma. Historical Collections of Louis
iana. By B. F. French, 1850, p. 105. These hills were no doubt the "mounds" of the
earlier people, but which the Spaniards naturally supposed were raised by the Indians.

1542.] DEATH OF DE SOTO. 167

either the White or the Arkansas. Near by, the Indians had re
ported, was a great lake which, it was supposed, might be an arm of
the sea ; and De Soto hoped to reopen communication in the spring
with Cuba, and procure reinforcements, of which he was in great need.
He had lost in his three years' wanderings two hundred and fifty men
and one hundred and fifty horses ; and since his first winter at Ap-
palachee Bay no tidings had been sent to the Dona Isabella whether
he were alive or dead.

That he was dead was to be her next news of him. With the
spring the march was resumed, and its sole object now was to reach
the sea. Communication with the Indians had become more difficult,
for Ortiz had died in the course of the winter. The Indians, obser
ving the weakness and perplexities of the Spaniards, were more defiant
than any of their tribes had hitherto been. A haughty cacique sent
word to De Soto that his boast of being the son of the Sun would be
accepted when he was seen to dry up the great river ; that meanwhile
it was not the custom of him who sent this message to visit inferiors ;
if the stranger wished to see him he was always at home ; if he came
in peace he would find a welcome ; if with hostile intentions the chief
was equally ready for him. De Soto was in no condition to punish or
resent this defiance. An expedition that was sent down the river to
find the sea, returned and reported that in eight days journey they
could make but little progress, for the country was full of swamps and
dense forests, and that the river with many bends ran far up into the
land.

Worn down with hardships, anxiety, disappointment, and despair,
De Soto sank under this accumulation of misfortunes. Con- Death of
, scious of approaching death, he called the principal officers De Soto-
of the expedition about him. He told them he was dying ; he thanked
them for the fidelity and affection they had always shown him, and
regretted that he had not been able to reward them as he had always
hoped to do, and according to their deserts ; he asked pardon of all
who believed they had cause of offence against him, and as a last
favor he begged they would in his presence choose a leader to take his
place, that he might leave them without fear of dissensions to arise
after he was gone. They asked him to appoint his own successor,
and he named Luis Moscoso de Alvarado, whom they all swore to
obey. The next day, the 21st of May, 1542, he died.

It was thought wise to conceal his death from the Indians, for he

D 7

had assured them not only that he was the son of the Sun,

but that Christians could not die. The new governor ordered in the Great

River.

him to be buried secretly in the gateway of the camp. But

the suspicions of the natives, who had seen him sick, were aroused

168 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

He was no longer visible, but they saw a new-made grave, and gath
ering about it looked down with curious eyes and in solemn, whis
pered consultation upon the mysterious heap of earth. Then Moscoso
ordered the body to be disinterred with great precaution in the dead
of night, and, the mantles in which it was wrapped being made heavy
with sand, it was dropped silently and in the darkness in the iniddle
of the deep waters of the Mississippi. And when the cacique of

Guachoya came to Moscoso and said : " What has been done with my
brother and lord, the Governor ? " The answer was, " He has ascended
into the skies for a little while and will soon be back." :

Either De Soto misunderstood this Luis de Moscoso or history has
Luis de belied him. It is said that he loved a life of ease and gayety
MOSCOSO. - n a Chmtian land, rather than one of toil and hardship
and self-denial in the discovery and subjection of strange countries.
But Avhether he believed that longer persistence in an enterprise,
now in its fourth year, whose sole fruits had been death and disaster,
was foolhardiness, or whether he wanted the energy and boldness to
pursue it and achieve success, he decided at once to lead his com
panions back to Cuba if he could find the way. When this was
announced and council called to consult as to the best direction to
pursue, there were many who were glad that De Soto was quiet in his
loaded mantles at the bottom of the great river. With him the enter
prise could have ended only with his and their lives, and they rejoiced
that he was taken and they left.

1 Herrera says th.it the body was inclosed in the trunk of an oak hollowed out for the
purpose, and sunk " in the middle of the river, where it was a quarter of a league ovec
and nineteen fathoms deep."

1542.] RETREAT OF DE SOTO'S MEN. 169

The determination was to seek their countrymen, as Cabe^a de
Vaca had done, on the Pacific coast. Through the summer and au
tumn they straggled west and south, east and north, as they The Span .
were led by some vague rumor or vaguer hope. Every- ^tumT kt
where they inquired the way to the sea ; but they met with Cuba -
no Indians who had ever seen it. Everywhere they asked if Chris
tians had not visited that region ; and when the Indians answered, No,
they sometimes put them to the torture and extorted false confessions,
which only misled the Spaniards with some new delusion. Enemies
waylaid them with that stealthiness which only Indians are capable
of ; guides misled them with that cunning which the Indian counts
as one of his chief virtues ; hunger, sickness, insubordination, con
fusion well nigh bordering on despair, so beset them, that it seemed
they could never escape unless God should be pleased to work mira
cles on their behalf. Once more, in the early winter, they turned
back to the great river for a last effort to save themselves.

A few miles above the mouth of the Arkansas, where the timber
was the largest they had seen, they built, in the course of Building the
the next six months, seven brigantines. The maize which tote" 1 *" 163 -
the Indians had stored in two neighboring villages the Spaniards
seized for their own support meanwhile. From the chains struck from
the slaves, from shot, from their stirrups, and whatever else of iron
the camp afforded, they forged the requisite nails and spikes. The
bark of the mulberry tree was twisted into cordage, and from the fibre
of a plant like hemp they made oakum. The natives supplied them
with mantles of matting for sails, and this was held as a special inter
position of Divine Providence, " disposing the Indians to bring the gar
ments ; otherwise there had been no way but to go and fetch them."
They did not, however, trust to Providence alone , for when the Chris
tians had, or thought they had, reason to suspect that the Indians were
coming with a hostile purpose, under a pretence of bringing presents,
they killed some of the messengers, cut off the noses and the hands
of others and sent them back to the caciques. This conciliatory
measure had the desired effect, and the Indians brought and offered
with great eagerness everything in their possession that would hasten
the departure of such guests. The maize of which they had been
robbed was the chief food of these poor creatures, and for want of it
they would often fall dead " of clear hunger and debility" about the
camp where they came to beg. The governor ordered, under heavy
penalties, that nothing should be given them to appease their hunger ;
but to the credit of his men the orders were not rigidly obeyed, for
" the Christians, seeing that even the hogs had their bellies full, and
that these poor Indians came and took so much pains to serve them,

170 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VIL

and whose extreme misery they could not but pity, charitably gave
them of the maes they had, " a weakness they reproached themselves
for after wai'd, when they loaded their vessels with stores for the
voyage and had room for more.

These boats were finished in June. Most of the horses and all the
hogs were killed for provisions, and on the 2d of July, 1543,

down the the expedition, reduced now to three hundred and seventy-
Mississippi.

two persons, embarked for the voyage down the Mississippi.

They were seventeen days in reaching the mouth of the river, fighting

Departure of the Spaniards.

their way on the water as they had always done on the land, for the
Indians grew the more aggressive with the hope that they were seeing
the last of the hated white men. Sailing out into the Gulf, pursued
to the last moment by the natives, they cruised for fifty days along
the coast of Louisiana and Texas, till they reached the Spanish colony
of Panuco. Haggard, gaunt, half -naked, having only a scanty cover
ing of skins, looking more like wild beasts than men, they kissed the
ground when they landed among their countrymen, and " on bended
knees, with hands raised above them, and their eyes to heaven re
mained untiring in giving thanks to God."

But the relation of such hardships as these men endured, fol
lowing upon the almost complete extermination that befell the Nar-
vaez expedition, could not deter their countrymen from further ex
plorations in the same direction. It could not be forgotten that a

1559.] DON TRISTAN DE LUNA. 171

great country, still in the possession of savage heathens, stretched from
the Atlantic coast, along which Gomez, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon,
and Ponce de Leon had sailed, to that Western or as it was then
called, Southern Ocean, reached by Cabeca de Vaca, and his three
companions, after six years' wanderings. De Soto slept quietly, after
three years of travel, at the bottom of a river, broad and deep, hun
dreds of miles from its mouth, and no man could tell how far the land
watered by it and its tributaries extended.

So vast a field for enterprise, and so full of magnificent promise,
notwithstanding the fate of all who had hitherto entered it, could not
long remain neglected. Yet in spite of its inviting name, The Land of
Flowers continued most inhospitable to all attempts on the part of the
Spaniards to gain a foothold there. An expedition, led by some zeal
ous friars, eager for the conversion of the heathen, landed on its shores*
and were massacred as soon as they set foot thereon. Twice within
the ten years following De Soto's expedition, a fleet of ships, crowded
with adventurers, and richly laden with treasure from Mexico, were
wrecked on its coast, and those on board who escaped the perils of
the sea were slaughtered by the natives, leaving barely enough alive to
tell the story of their disaster. Occasionally a solitary survivor of one
of these ill-fated enterprises returned to the Spanish settlements in
Mexico, or the West Indies, to recount his romantic adventures.
Hardly an expedition, after that of Ponce de Leon had first landed
at Florida, failed to meet somewhere among the Indians, a white cap
tive of their own race who had belonged to some previous company of
explorers, and who, taken captive by the Indians, had been spared to
slavery, after his companions were slain. Their story would be no
less romantic than that of CabeQa de Vaca, or of Juan Ortiz, if, like
them, it had gained a chronicler.

It was exactly twenty years after the imposing departure of De Soto
from San Lucar, that a fleet of still larger size, and no less

r> ' f TT /"i ~\ir Expedition

magnificence than his, was fitted up at Vera Cruz, in Mexico, of Don Tris-
for the conquest and settlement of Florida. It was com
manded by Don Tristan de Luna, a scion of a noble family in Arragon,
whose father was for several years a governor of Yucatan. He sailed
from Vera Cruz on the 14th of August, 1559, with an army of 1500
men, besides many friars zealous for the conversion of the Indians,
and a number of women and children, the families of the soldiers who
were to colonize Florida. They had a prosperous voyage to a good
harbor, which they named the Santa Maria. 1 Here they anchored
the ships, and Don Tristan prepared to send news of his arrival back

1 Hist, of Florida, by G. E. Fairbanks, says this was Pensacola Bay, as the old Spanish
maps gave the Bay as the Santa Maria.

172 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII.

to the viceroy. But the accustomed ill- fortune of Spanish adventurers
in these parts attended him. On the sixth day after his arrival T
a great storm arose, and all his ships were driven on shore and de
stroyed. Left on the land with his great army with no means of return
ing to Mexico, he at once sent out a detachment of soldiers, under his
sergeant-major, to explore the country, and seek for the rich provinces
of which they had heard, while he remained at the port with the rest
of his people.

The detachment, after a march of forty days through a country
empty of people and barren of provisions, reached an Indian

Exploration L J ,.,-,,

of the coun- town, which, although deserted, contained a quantity of corn,
beans, and other vegetables. Most of the natives had run
away on their approach, but they found a few bolder ones still lurking
about the village, and conciliated them with presents of beads and rib
bons. From these they learned that the town had been very large and
well peopled, but had been attacked by men like themselves, who had
destroyed and driven away the inhabitants. These same strange inva
ders had caused the general desolation of the country, and the abandon
ment of the villages which they had seen on the march. Refreshing
himself and his men on the provisions, which seemed abundant, the
sergeant-major sent back a party of sixteen to report to De Luna. In
their absence, De Luna, who had lost a large part of his provisions in
the shipwreck, was greatly distressed for want of food, and anxious for
the safety of the sergeant-major. He was preparing to set out in search
of him, when his messengers arrived, and he at once started to join
the advance with his train of a thousand men, women, and children.
Guided by the sixteen soldiers, they reached the Indian town, and for
a short time feasted on the food they found there. But the supplies,
which had seemed so inexhaustible to the first-comers, were soon con
sumed by the great numbers. The suffering that ensued was most
severe. They were forced to eat bitter acorns, and even the bark and
leaves of the young trees. A party was sent out again to find if they
could discover any relief, or see anything of the rich town of Coga,
of which the Indians told them. These were forced on their march
to eat their pack-mules, and then the leather of their straps, and
their gun-covers. Their lives were preserved by their entrance into
a wood of chestnut and walnut trees, where they surfeited themselves
on the abundant fruit.

De Luna awaited their return, till the sight of his people dying of
hunger made him resolve to return to the port -of Santa Maria. He
reached there after much suffering, and was soon followed by the ex
ploring party, who brought back still more unfavorable reports of the
sterility and poverty of the country. They had found none of the

1561.] SPANISH FAILURES IN NORTH AMERICA. 173

noble cities, rich in gold and silver, with people clothed in garments
of silk and cloth of the Indies, of which they had heard reports.
Instead, they saw only desolate lands, and villages deserted even by
the savage inhabitants, who had learned to flee on the approach of
the white man.

At the port De Luna procured two small vessels, either built from
the remains of the wreck, or else preserved from the storm
which had destroyed the larger ships. These he sent back *** en -
to the viceroy, with appeal for succor. Relief came in the
shape of two ships, well provisioned, prepared to take away the un
happy colony, now distracted with misery, discontent, and anarchy.
Tristan de Luna at first refused to abandon his enterprise, and in
sisted on being left behind with a few followers. But he was recalled
by the Viceroy, and at last returned to Mexico in 1561, about two
years from the time of his first setting out. Thus ended the most care
fully prepared and most promising attempt ever made to colonize
Florida by the Spaniards. Fortunately for the progress of the human
race, and the future history of North America, all their efforts to gain
a permanent foothold north of the Gulf of Mexico, were in the main
unsuccessful.

Fishing Fleet at Newfoundland.

CHAPTER VIII.

FKENCH DISCOVERIES AND ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION.

BRETON FISHERMEN ON NEWFOUNDLAND BANKS. GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO FIRST
ENTERS NEW YORK HARBOR. JACQUES CARTIER SENT ON AN AMERICAN EXPE
DITION. EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. CARTIER'S VISIT TO
THE INDIAN TOWN OF HOCHELAGA. VOYAGE OF FRANCIS DE LA ROQUE, LORD

OF ROBERVAL. THE HUGUENOTS SEEK AN ASYLUM IN AMERICA. THE CoL-

ONY OF ADMIRAL COLIGNY. JOHN RIBAULT GOES TO FLORIDA. SETTING UP
THE ARMS OF FRANCE. LAUDONNIERE COMMANDS A SECOND ENTERPRISE.
BUILDING OF FORT CAROLINE. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY.

As early as 1504, the hardy fishermen of various nations had fol
lowed the Cabots and Cortereals across the Atlantic, and were tossing
all the summer through in their little vessels on the Grand Banks,
and along the coasts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. It was only
to sail a few degrees more to the westward than their fathers had done,
for it is certain that the mariners of England, of Brittany, Nor
mandy, and the Bay of Biscay had approached, if they had not seen,
the Western continent, long before its discovery by either Columbus
or Cabot. It is not at all unlikely that they may have explored in
the sixteenth century, harbors, rivers, and islands along the shores of
New England, whose discovery has been the subject of controversy
on behalf of this or that early navigator of distinction, for nearly three
hundred years. But of what they did there is no record ; content
with finding good fishing ground, any other knowledge they may

1523.] FRENCH FISHERMEN. 175

have gained excited little interest beyond their own limited circle of
humble people, too ignorant and too busy to trouble themselves or
others with geographical conjectures. The practical question of lib
erty to fish in the newly-discovered seas, was all they cared for, and
that they settled among themselves.

Some of these Breton fishermen gave a name Cape Breton to
an island; in 1506, John Denys, of Honfleur, explored the
Gulf of St. Lawrence ; two years afterward, Thomas Aubert, of French
a pilot of Dieppe, visited, it is supposed, Cape Breton Island,
and carried some of the natives thence to France ; l and in 1518, the
Baron de Leri proposed to settle a colony on Sable Island, 2 but only
landed some cattle, whose progeny, eighty years later, served to feed
some miserable Frenchmen left there by the Marquis de la Roche.
But all these, like the fishing voyages, were private enterprises.

Spain, notwithstanding the marvellous splendor of her conquests
farther south, had persisted for nearly twenty years, at great sacrifice
of human life and of treasure, in the attempt to lay open the secret
which she believed was hidden in the region north of the Gulf of
Mexico. England and Portugal had both shown that they were not
disposed to yield the possession of the continent unquestioned to Spain.
France alone of the great maritime powers of Europe, seemed indif
ferent ; for though no fishermen on the American coast were more en
terprising and more fearless than hers, they claimed no rights except
upon the sea. In 1522, a single ship of the Magellan expedition re
turned to Portugal, having circumnavigated the globe and solved the
problem that by sailing westward the East could be reached. A new
impulse was given to the desire for a shorter northern pas- Interest felt
sage to India, and Francis I. of France, aroused to the great ^American'
event of his time, is said to have declared : " Why, these discover y-
princes coolly divide the New World between them ! I should like to
see that article of Adam's will which gives them America ! " In 1528
he proposed to compete with other powers, both for a share in that
New World, and to find for France a shorter route to Cathay.

With this intent an expedition put to sea from some port in Brit
tany, in the autumn of 1523. It consisted originally of four voyage of
vessels, but before much progress was made, two of these Verrazano -
were first disabled or lost, and afterward a third, leaving only a
single ship, called the Dauphine Dalfina. 3 The commander was

1 Charlevoix, History of New France, vol. i., p. 106.

2 Lescarbot, Histoire de Nouvelle France, p. 21. De Leri's full title was Le Sieur, Baron
de Leri et de Saint Just, Vicomte de Gueu. This has been erroneously supposed to refer to
two men.

3 In the many accounts of this voyage, Dalfina is usually translated Dolphin, but by
later writers, Dauphine. The latter, undoubtedly, is correct, as to the name of this

176

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIII.

Giovanni da Verrazano, a native of Florence Italian by birth, as
Columbus and Cabot were, who, according to the historians of
Dieppe, was a captain of one of Thomas Aubert's ships ten years
before. 1 He saw and did, for aught that can be known now, no more

than Cabot and Cortereal
had seen and done about a
quarter of a century before.
But he has left behind him
in a letter to the king, a
narrative of his adventures,
and for the first time we get
a dim and passing glimpse
by actual description, of
much of the long stretch of
the Atlantic coast of North
America now within the
boundaries of the United
States. So vague, indeed,
and sometimes so incorrect
is this narrative, that the
question has been raised
whether it was not alto
gether destitute of truth. 2
But the argument of its want of accuracy, based on internal evi
dence, may be brought with equal force against many of the accounts
of early expeditions which certainly were made. 3

It has been supposed by some writers that Verrazano may have
made a voyage in 1523 with his four ships across the Atlantic, and
that the allusion in his letter to a disaster which overtook two of them,
on " Northern coasts," refers to such an expedition. But the letter
is otherwise taken up with the single voyage of the Dauphine, in

ship. Verrazano alludes to it as " the glorious and fortunate name of our good ship," del
glorioso name e fortunate. " Glorious " would be held to be proper as applied to the Dau
phine, but is not at all fitting as descriptive of a dolphin.

1 Note by J. G. Shea, in Charlevoix, vol. i., p. 106.

2 See An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Documents concerning a Discovery in North Amer
ica, claimed to have been made b>/ Verrazzano. Read before the New York Historical Soci
ety, October, 1864. By Buckingham Smith.

3 The letter of Verrazano to Francis I. was first published by Ramusio, within about
thirty-two years of its date, and- was copied from him by Hakluyt. It has been held to be
authentic for three centuries, and is not now to be easily set aside. The discovery, a few
years since, of a map, by Hieronimus da Verrazano, in a public library in Rome, dating
about 1529, offsets, it is claimed, any possible constructive argument against his voyage
from negative evidence. For description of this map and the newest theory as to the
course of Verrazano, see an article by James Carson Brevoort, in Journal of American
Geographical Society, of New York, vol. iv.

Giovanni da Verrazano.

1524.]

VOYAGE OF VERRAZANO.

which he finally set sail from the Madeiras in January, 1524. In
forty-nine days he " reached a new country which," he writes, Hisarriv
" had never before been seen by any one," and which by fires pntheAmer-

J J ' J lean coast,

along the shore, he knew to be inhabited. His, land-fall, he March. 1524.
says, was on the thirty-fourth parallel, or about the latitude of Cape
Fear, as his course after leaving the Madeiras was " towards the west,
with a little northwardly." Thence he ran southward for fifty
leagues, but finding no harbors he reversed his course. Cruising
leisurely along the coast for two hundred leagues, he first notes that
the shore was covered with fine sand, rising into little hills about
fifty paces broad ; then that arms of the sea flowed in through inlets,
making an inner and an outer beach ; but beyond the coast-line he
saw a country rising into beautiful fields, and broad plains covered
with immense forests more or less dense, various in foliage and color,
and festooned with vines. This verdant land was fragrant with wild
roses, violets, lilies, and many other flowers, watered with many lakes
and streams. Beasts of the chase, and birds of gay plumage and
pleasant song, were plentiful. The balmy air of a delicious summer
blew gently over a smooth sea, and on the long stretch of coast, the
water was deep, and there were no rocks or hidden dangers to vex the
mariner.

The natives thronged upon the sands to watch this strange ship, and
the strange white men on board of her. They beckoned them to
land, and when a sailor, attempting to swim ashore, was

Hospitality

thrown, halt-drowned by the surf, upon the beach, they res- of the na-

cued him, built fires to warm him and to dry his clothing

his comrades on the ship looking on meanwhile, dreading to see him

presently sacrificed and

spitted for a savage

feast. But when his

strength was restored,

the natives dismissed

him with many demon

strations of tenderness

and respect. A few

days later the French

men made a cruel re

turn for this kindness

and hospitality, by cap

turing and carrying off

an Indian boy they

met near the shore,

and would have taken also the comely mother, who had only known

178 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII.

eighteen Indian summers, but for her outcries and vigorous resistance.
All these people were dark in color, well-made, naked, except some
scanty covering of furs, or dressed deer-skins and ornamental feath
ers ; their canoes wera trunks of trees hollowed out by fire and with
stone hatchets ; and their arms were bows and arrows.

The Daupliine anchored at length where a deep river flowed into
the sea from among steep hills ; a boat put off inland for a
entere Z the short distance, and found that this river widened into a lake
some leagues in circuit. The ship had probably entered the
outer Bay of New York ; the Narrows, between the beautiful hills
of Staten Island and the bluffs of Long Island opposite, was the sup
posed mouth of a river ; the magnificent sweep of the inner harbor
looked, as it does to-day to a stranger, like a lake ; the Indians plied
their canoes in large numbers from shore to shore, and at night their
watch-fires blazed in the same unbroken circle of twenty miles that
now shows the continuous twinkling line of the gaslights of a million
of people. 1 But winds which brought peril to the ship in the outer
harbor soon compelled them to put to sea again, and they left with
regret " a region that seemed so commodious and delightful," and
where they deluded themselves with the notion that the hills showed
indications of great wealth in mineral deposits.

Sailing east for fifty leagues they passed an island of triangular form,

which is supposed to be Block Island, and a few leagues farther entered

a spacious haven, where they remained fifteen days. The entrance,

. with a rock in mid-channel suitable for a fortification, was

Narragansett

Ba y- a mile or two wide and looking toward the south ; but within

it was a large bay of many leagues, containing five small islands of
great beauty, and covered with trees. The latitude, says Verrazano,
was 41 40', which is about that of Narragansett Bay, and he describes
the country " as pleasant as it is possible to conceive," abounding in
fruit trees of which he could have only seen the blossoms, as he
was there in May well watered, with open plains, as well as forests
of stately trees, and having many animals of various kinds. If this
was the Vinland of the Northmen, the stone tower of Newport was
not there when the Frenchmen spent a fortnight in that harbor, and
became familiar with its shores. Verrazano describes the houses of
the natives as built of split logs, and nicely thatched with straw, and
he could hardly have failed to see and describe so remarkable a struc
ture as the tower if it was in existence, and he was ever in Newport
harbor.

Here was their only resting-place for any length of time. When

1 There are almost as many theories as there are writers on Verrazano's voyage, but
that most generally received and which seems the most rational, is the explanation which
we have here adopted.

1524.]

VOYAGE OF VERRAZANO.

the voyage was resumed it was to cruise along the shores of New
England, seeing in the distance as they passed the White Mountains
of New Hampshire, and sailing among the pleasant islands on the
coast of Maine. The Indians of this northern region they found
fiercer and less trustful than those with whom they had trafficked and
held friendly intercourse farther south, for these knew something of

white men in the fish
ing vessels of Bacca-
laos, and had profited
by the knowledge.

Little else is known
of Verrazano than is

Verrazano in Newport Harbor.

given in this narrative of

his voyage in the Dau-

pJiine. It is conjectured

that this was not his only

expedition to the New

World, and Hakluyt

says : "he had been

thrice on that coast." 1 But whether his voyages were one or three,

he profited by his observations. His intention was to find a passage

to Cathay. The opinions of the ancients that " our ocean was one and

the same as the eastern one of Asia," the discovery of the new land

had disproved. It was possible, 'he thought, that this new land might

be penetrated, but he was convinced after the cruise of the Dauphine,

1 Since this chapter was put in type a volume of nearly two hundred pages, by Henry
C. Murphy, on the voyage of Verrazano, has been published. Mr. Murphy's aim is to show
that the claims of discovery made in Verrazano's name have no real foundation. The work
is learned, laborious, and exhaustive, and seems to leave nothing more to be said on that
side of the question.

180

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIII.

that it was "another world," appearing "really to show itself to be
larger than our Europe, Africa, or even Asia." That any

Verrazano s J

idea of the short route to Cathay could be found was clearly impos-

size oi ine * *

continent. sible. His conclusion was that the globe was evidently larger
than the ancients supposed ; it was proved that the sea was wider ;
this western land, as the voyages of the Spaniards, the Portuguese,
and that of the Dauphine combined had shown, stretched from the
Strait of Magellan to the fiftieth degree of northern latitude, a length

greater than that from the northern
most point of Europe to the most
southern of Africa ; if its breadth
was in accordance with its length,
then a new continent larger than
Asia lay between Europe and In
dia. He may have thought, there
fore, that there was little to be
gained by a western passage to In
dia, even if one existed ; and that
it certainly could not be a short one.
The credit belongs to him, not only
of having first explored with some
care the Atlantic coast of the United
States, but of first promulgating the
true theory of the size of the globe
in contradistinction to that of the old cosmographers, which Columbus
had adopted and believed in to the day of his death.

The subsequent fate of this navigator is unknown. Some writers

maintain that he is identical with a noted corsair, Juan Florin or

Florentin, who preyed upon the Spanish treasure-ships, but

Subsequent i i i n i

fate of was captured at last by the Spaniards and hanged. 1 J3ut

Verrazano. . ITIII-I i

Ramusio, who first published his letter, says that in a sub
sequent voyage Verrazano having gone ashore with some companions,
was killed by the natives, roasted, and eaten in the sight of those
who remained on board the ship. 2 It is also conjectured, from an
Italian letter written in 1537, that he was then still living in Rome. 3
Ten years elapsed before France sent out another expedition, when
Philip Chabot, Admiral of France, urged the King to establish a
colony somewhere in the northwest. The enterprise was entruste'd

1 This story seems to have been first published by De Barcia (Ensayo Cronologico, p. 8)
in 1723.

2 Biddle (Memoir of Cabot, chap, ix.) assumes that this ship must have been the Mary of
Guilford, which sailed from England in 1527, and that Verrazano was her pilot.

3 Letter of Annibal Caro, cited from Tiraboschi's Italian Literature, by Smith, Murphy,
and others.

Jacques Cartier.

1535] VOYAGE OF JACQUES CARTIER. 181

to Jacques Cartier, an experienced navigator of St. Malo, and he
sailed from that port in April, 1534, with two ships of only Jac uegCar
sixty tons each, and carrying each sixty-one men. In twenty * ier * ai ' a f rom
days the fleet reached Bona Vista Bay, on the east coast of A P ril > l ^-
Newfoundland, whence, after some delay from the ice, they steered
northward and passed through the Straits of Belle Isle into the Gulf,
afterwards named the St. Lawrence. Cartier coasted alone; the west-

ern shores of Newfoundland, rinding the country so inhospitable, so
filled with stones and wild crags, with not a cart-load of good earth
anywhere, that he believed it to be " the land God allotted to Cain."
The natives were uncouth and savage, " dressed in beasts' skins, their
hair tied on top like a wreath of hay, a wooden pin run through
it," and ornamented with feathers. Crossing the gulf he en- Hig degcri
tered a bay, which because of the heat he named the Bay p^^of 6
of Chaleur, where the natives, he thought, were " the poor- Canada -
est in the world," without clothing, eating fish and flesh almost raw,
and with no houses but their upturned canoes. But the country was
inviting, and he took possession of it in the name of the King of
France, setting up a cross thirty feet high, with three fleur-de-lys,
and the inscription Vive le Roi de France carved at its top. 1 Poor
and savage as the natives were they knew enough to object to his pro
ceeding, and their chief, protesting by signs that this was his country,
said that he wanted no crosses set up in it. But Cartier enticed him
and some others on board his ship, and conciliating him with some
trifling presents, obtained his consent to take his two sons to France.
They sailed soon after on the homeward voyage, and arrived at St.
Malo in September, after an absence of a little more than four months.
The report of these discoveries was so favorably received that
another expedition was determined upon, and Cartier was Second
dispatched the next spring in May, 1 535 with three carSw
ships, the largest, however, only one hundred and twenty Ma y- 1535 '
tons. Among his followers were some young men of family and
fortune, enthusiastic for adventure. The embarkation was a solemn
and eventful day in St. Malo ; the ships' companies making confession,
hearing high mass in the cathedral, and departing with the blessing
of the bishop. They were going, not only to find the way to Cathay,
and plant French colonies in new lands, but whole nations were to be
brought within the pale of the Holy Catholic Church.

1 There is an old tradition, says Charlevoix, that the Spaniards had visited this country
before Cartier, but finding no mines, said of it aca-nada nothing there. These words the
Indians remembered and repeated, and hence the name Canada. Others derive the name,
says Charlevoix, from the Indian word Kannata, meaning a collection of cabins. Shea
adds in a note that the Spanish derivation is fictitious. History of New France, vol. ii., p.
113.

182

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIII.

Entering
the St.
Lawrence

the 10th of August the fleet was at the mouth of the St. Law
rence, and this name which Cartier first gave to the strait be
tween the island of Anticosti he called it Assumption

Island and the north coast
became in time the name of the
whole gulf and the great river. 1
The two Indians, Taignoagny
and Domagaia, whom he had
taken home with him the year
before, told him that this river
was the Hochelaga, and that it
came from so far that no
man had ever seen the
head of it. From the
great width of its mouth,
and the depth and volume
of its waters, he might
well suppose it to be an
arm of the sea, and that
he was at length at
the opening of the

Setting up the Arms of France.

strait, so long sought for, that would lead him to the Indian Ocean ;
but his guides said that it narrowed as it ascended, and that its waters
were fresh. He made no haste, therefore, to push forward, leisurely

1 Charlevoix, History of New France, vol. ii., p. 115.

1535.] EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 183

exploring the coasts, examining the country, and looking for a con
venient harbor for winter quarters.

On the first of September he met the dark waters of the Saguenay
pouring into the St. Lawrence ; fifteen leagues further on he anchored
in the shadow of a pleasant island, which, because it was covered with
hazels, he called Isle aux Coudres ; eight leagues further he Exp i oring
found another island still pleasanter and larger, and so theriver -
abounding in grapes that he named it Bacchus Island now known
as the Isle d' Orleans. A fleet of canoes put out from the beach to
look at these strange visitors, but the natives were too much alarmed
to venture within their reach, till Taignoagny and Domagaia, whom
they recognized as of their own race, assured them that the strangers
were friends. Then they flocked aboard the vessels, listened to the
wonderful story of all that had befallen the two youths on their visit
to France, and of the kindness and benefits that had been bestowed
upon them. Donnacona, the " lord " of Saguenay, had come with the
rest, and he addressed to Cartier a long oration, took his arm, and,
kissing it, twined it about his own neck in token of amity and grati
tude that these two young men, his countrymen, had received such
favors at the hands of the French.

A few leagues farther on, at the mouth of a stream which Cartier
named the St. Croix, now the St. Charles was the village of
Stadacona, the home of the chieftain Donnacona. 1 In the waters
which washed its shores, beneath the cliffs where now stands the city
of Quebec upon the site of this Indian village, was safe

r i i i < i e -* nc horage

anchorage for the ships, and protection from the storms of on the sit
the coming winter. But Cartier heard from the natives of
another and a larger town, the seat of a rival and more powerful chief
than Donnacona, from which the river took its name Hochelaga.
This he resolved to visit. The way to it, Donnacona said, was long
and beset with perils, for he was jealous that any of the wealth of
knives and copper basins, of little looking-glasses and brilliant colored
beads, which the strangers brought, should fall into the hands of the
rival chieftain and his people. To his persuasions he added gifts, pre
senting to Cartier two boys, one of whom was his own brother, and a
little girl of ten or twelve years of age who was his sister's child.

The Frenchman laughed at danger, and was deaf to entreaty ; and
then the cunning savage tried intimidation. Three devils cunning of
Indian devils came out to the ships, " wrapped in hogges the s& &*-
skins white and blacke, their faces besmeered as blacke as any coales,

i Charlevoix (History of New France), asserts that the St. Croix and the St. Charles
are not the same. For the evidence and authorities that they are identical, see Shea's
notes to Charlevoix, vol. ii.,pp. 116, 117, and Parkmaii's Pioneers of New France, p. 185.

184

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIII.

with homes on their heads more than a yard long." l A crowd of
natives followed howling and shrieking, and then with a hideous up
roar retreating to the woods. Taignoagny and Domagaia, in real or
pretended fright, with clasped, uplifted hands, and eyes raised to
heaven, cried out, " Jesu ! Jesu ! Jesu Maria ! " declaring that these
devils had come from Hochelaga, sent by the god of that people to
say that all should perish in the ice and snow who ventured thither.
But the Christians could answer prophecy with prophecy, and beat

Donnacona's Strategy.

the heathen at their own game. The devils
they only mocked at, and as for the Indian
god, Cudruaigny, he was declared to be noth
ing " but a fool and a noddie." His messen
gers, they said, might take him word that
Christ would defend from the cold all who be
lieved in him, and though the French captain
had not himself talked with Jesus upon this subject, the priests had,
and received from him a promise of fair weather. There was nothing
Cartier pro- more to be said. The devils were ignominiously defeated ;
sT d ilw^ the t ne worshippers of Cudruaigny gave three great shrieks in
token of their acceptance of his discomfiture, and fell to sing
ing and dancing on the beach after their usual mad fashion. Cartier,

1 Narration of Carrier's Voyages, Hakluyt, vol. iii.

1535.] CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA. 185

with the smallest of his vessels, a pinnace, and two boats, started the
next day for Hochelaga.

For thirteen days they sailed leisurely along the pleasant banks of
the river, noting and admiring the fruitfulness of the land, the beauty
of the forests, and the many kinds of game, both beasts and birds,
they sheltered; the abundance of wild fruit, especially of grapes.
Everywhere on the way the natives received them with joy and won
der, and when, on the second of October, they landed about

Arrival at

eleven miles from Hochelaga, below the rapids of St. Mary, 1 the town of
a thousand Indians, men, women, and children, came down
to the strand to welcome them. With great pomp and circumstance,
Cartier, " very gorgeously attired," marched with his companions to
this royal residence. It was a village of about fifty huts, surrounded
with a triple row of palisades, in the midst of wide fields where the
brown dried leaves of the Indian corn waved and rustled in the autumn
winds. On this spot now stands Montreal, and a hill near by which
Cartier called Mont Royal, gave a name to the future city.

In the centre of Hochelaga was a public square where all the people
gathered. The women and the maidens came with their Cartierbe _
arms full of children, begging that they might even so much heafthe
as be touched by these wonderful white men from some slck-
far-off country. The " lord and king," Agpuhanna, a man of fifty
years, helpless from palsy, was brought in by his attendants stretched
upon a deer-skin. Upon his head instead of a crown he wore " a cer
tain thing made of the skinnes of hedge-hogs like a red wreath," but
otherwise his apparel did not distinguish him from his subjects. He
prayed that relief might be given him from the disease with which he
was afflicted. Cartier with his own hands rubbed the shrunken limbs
of the royal sufferer, who bestowed upon him in return his crown of
colored porcupine quills. It seemed to these poor heathen " that God
was descended and come downe from heaven to heale them," and the
halt, the lame, the blind, the impotent from age so old, some of
them, " that the hair of their eyelids came downe and covered their
cheekes " were brought forward to be healed. The best the good
captain could do was to pray ; he read the first chapter of the Gos
pel of St. John and the passion of Christ, from his service-book, and
besought the heavenly Father that He would have mercy upon these
benighted savages, and bring them to a knowledge of His holy Word.
The Indians were " marvellously attentive," looking to heaven as
the Christians did, and imitating all the gestures of devotion ; but
they better understood, and were overwhelmed with joy when, the
prayers being finished, the distribution of hatchets, knives, beads,
rings, brooches of tin, and other trifles was begun.

1 The Conquest of Canada, by the author of Hochelaga, vol. ii., p. 55

186

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIII.

Cartier and his companions soon returned to their winter-quarters

at the mouth of the St. Charles, where those they had left behind had

meanwhile built a rough fort. The river within a few weeks was

covered with solid ice, and the ships were buried in four feet of snow.

With the increasing cold, one of those pestilences so common

Pestilence r

among the among the Indians broke out, and, whether it was contagious,

French.

or whether it was superinduced by exposure to the severity
of the climate, it soon attacked the French. Twenty-four of the com-

Cartier at Hochelaga.

pany died, and the rest were so enfeebled that only three were capable
of any exertion. To the fear of death from sickness was added sus
picion of the Indians, who, they were afraid, would take advantage of
the weakness of the strangers and exterminate those whom the pesti
lence spared. The natives were ordered to keep away from the fort
and the ships under pretence of precaution against infection ; and,
when any of them approached, Cartier ordered his sick men to beat
with hammers and sticks against the side of their berths that the noise
might be mistaken for sounds of busy industry.

But where they looked for danger came succor. From the Indians
they learned that a decoction of the leaves and bark of a certain tree
was a specific for that malady under which they were fast perishing.
The squaws brought branches of the tree, and taught them how to pre-

1540.] EXPEDITION OF ROBERVAL. 187

pare and use this sovereign medicine, which, in a few days, not only did
all that was promised for it, but also cured the sick of some old chronic
difficulties. 1

Their suspicions of the Indians, nevertheless, continued. When
Donnacona had gone on a hunting expedition the French
had feared it was to gather a force sufficient for an attack
upon the fort and ships. A certain shyness the Indians
showed on their return, and an unwillingness to part, except at a high
price, with provision they needed for their own support, confirmed the
apprehensions. Suspicion on the one side undoubtedly begot it on
the other ; but that the natives had the most ground for it was shown
in the end. When Cartier, in the spring, was ready to sail, he enticed
Donnacona, with nine others, on board his ships, seized and confined
them, and, heedless of the cries and entreaties of their countrymen, car
ried them to France. In July, 1536, the fleet arrived at St. Malo; and,
when four years later, another expedition returned to Canada, Donna
cona and his companions, excepting one little girl, were all dead. They
had been baptized and received into the bosom of the Church, however,
before they died compensation enough, it was thought, for enforced
loss of liberty, country, and friends.

Cartier made to King Francis a report of the fruitfulness of Canada,
its wealth in copper, gold, and precious stones, which he had heard of,
but not seen ; of the wonders of the land, the deer with only two feet,
the men with only one, others who never eat, and others still, mere
pigmies in stature ; but the interest excited was not enough to lead to
any renewal of the attempt at colonization till 1540. In that year
Jean Francois de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval of Picardy, asked a
commission for farther exploration and experiment, and let- Commission
ters patent were issued, in which the titles were conferred R ^ a f e
upon him of Lord of Norimbegua, Viceroy and Lieutenant- 154 -
general in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle,
Carpont, Labrador, Great Bay, and Baccalaos. A Spanish spy alarmed
his government with a report that colonization was now to be under
taken by the French on a grand scale ; that thirteen ships were to

1 The tree was called Ameda, or Hanneda, by the Indians, and was thought, says the old
chronicle, to be the Sassafras. But the same narrative (Hakluyt, vol. iii.) says, that the
leaves were taken at the time from the tree, which, of course, could not have been possible
of the sassafras in winter. " A tree as big as any Oake in France," it relates, " was spoiled
and lopped bare, and occupied all in five or sixe daies, and it wrought so well that if all the
phisicians of Mountpelier and Louaine had bene there with all the drugs of Alexandria, they
wovdd not have done so much in one yere as that tree did in sixe dayes ; for it did so pre-
vaile, that as many as used of it, by the grace of God, recovered their health." In the ac
count of the next voyage of Cartier the Hanneda is spoken of as a tree " which hath the
most excellent virtue of all the trees in the world," and as measuring " about three fath
oms about." It was probably the spruce.

188

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIIL

take out twenty-five hundred men, and two years' provisions. " Let
them go," said the Portuguese, "they can do no harm in Baccalaos." 1
But in May, 1541, C artier, who was the pilot general, got away with
five vessels only, leaving Roberval to follow, after further prepara
tions, the next year.

Cartier's Departure from St. Malo.

The expedition, like those preceding it, was barren of any perma
nent results. A new fort was begun a few miles above the site of the
old one, at the mouth of the St. Croix River ; some little land was
sowed ; something which they took to be gold was gathered ; something
else, probably crystals of quartz, they supposed were diamonds for
they were so " faire, polished, and excellently cut," that in the sunlight
they " glister as it were sparkles of fire." Two ships were sent home
in the autumn with tidings of good progress. It was determined,
nevertheless, to abandon the adventure. The Indians soon became
troublesome, for probably they were not in the least imposed upon by
the story of Jacques Cartier, that their kidnapped countrymen ex
cept Donnacona, who, it was acknowledged, was dead were all mar
ried in France, and living there as " lords." And the next summer
Roberval, on his way out with an addition to the colony, of two
hundred men and women, met Cartier in the harbor of St. John,
Newfoundland, with his three remaining vessels bound homeward.
Roberval indignantly ordered him to return to the St. Law
rence. In the morning his lieutenant was far out to sea on
his way to France, having quietly slipped off in the darkness
of the night. Perhaps it was not fear of the Indians, nor the hope-
1 See Buckingham Smith's Collection de raros Documentos, p. 107, et seq.

Cartier
deserts
Roberval

1555.]

THE HUGUENOTS IN AMERICA.

189

In 1555 a colony went out to 01 y 4 in

" boutD Amer-

They ica -

lessness of a longer struggle with the difficulties and hardships of
settling a new country, that alone influenced C artier and his com
panions. For, says the old narrative, they were " moved, as it seem-
eth, with ambition, because they would have all the glory of the dis
covery of those parts themselves."

Roberval continued his voyage, weakened but not dismayed by the
desertion of his lieutenant. Of the colony he planted little
is known except its failure, after at least one winter's ex- Roberva
perience of the hardships of the wilderness. According to of attempt 8
one account, Cartier was sent to bring the survivors home. 1
At any rate they returned. Roberval, it is said, undertook another ex
pedition with a brother in 1549, which was lost at sea ; but it is also
asserted that this could not be, as he was killed in Paris. Cartier died
about 1555. It was not till the end of the century that other French
men followed these first adventurers for the settlement of the northern
portion of that immense country in North America which France
claimed as her own.

The foothold she next strove for was much farther south, where it
was hoped a handful of Huguenots might find an asylum T

J Huguenot

from religious persecution.

the Rio de Janeiro, but it soon came to a dismal end.
were Protestants, seeking to escape in the wilderness the scaffold and
the fagot to which
their religious belief at
home exposed them ;
but bitter dissensions
soon arose among them
upon such questions as
whether water could
be rightfully mixed
with the wine of the
Lord's Supper, or its
bread be properly
made of Indian meal.
Villegagnon, the lead
er, repenting of his
Protestant heresies, if
he ever seriously en
tertained them, returned to the bosom of the indulgent mother church,
and abandoned his command. A little remnant of the colony was
attacked by the Portuguese, and if any escaped alive it was only by
throwing themselves upon the more tender mercy of the savages.

1 Lescarbot, Histoire de Colonie Franqaise en Canada.

French Costumes (16th Century).

190 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII.

Meanwhile the Reformation took deeper root in France, a struggle
for political power as well as for the rights of conscience. There were
many anxious to escape from present wrong and suffering, and from
the uncertainties of the future, strong as the Protestant party had
Admiral Co- grown both among the people and at Court. Coligny, the lord
colon y B un- a admiral, and leader of the Huguenots, with a view to the
^bauu? gl r y f France, and to the protection also of his oppressed

countrymen, proposed to renew the attempt at colonization
in the New World. In February, 1562, he sent from Havre, in the
name of the king, two ships under the command of Captain John
Ribault, " to discover, and view a certaine long coast of the West In
dia .... called La Florida," a coast so long, indeed, that it included
the whole of the Atlantic side of the United States from the Rio
Grande to the Canadian line. Ribault had under his command, beside
the seamen, a band of soldiers, and with him went a number of gen
tlemen who were rather his companions than his subordinates. He
was a man of experience, of character, of tried courage, of good sense
and confirmed faith ; and " a man in truth," says the old chronicle,
"expert in sea causes." 1 His followers, it was hoped, were worthy
of such a leader. They meant to build up the Reformed Protestant
Church in the wilderness to the glory of God, and the salvation of a
" brutishe people ; " but they also looked " to trafficke in riche and
inestimable commodities," in gold, and silver, and precious stones.
They were determined to be rich, and they proposed also to be good.
The voyage was tempestuous and long, for winds from the west

and southwest drove them back, compelling them to put into

They reach

the coast of Brest to land their sick, and " suffer the tempest to passe."
Taking thence a new departure on the 27th of February, they
held a direct course across the Atlantic till the 30th of April, when they
approached "a fayre coast, stretchying of a great length, covered with
an infinite number of high and fayre trees, without anye shewe of hills."
It was the coast of Florida, in about the latitude of twenty-nine and
a half. Casting anchor some leagues from the land, off a cape which
they named Cape Francois, and which is supposed to be a headland of
Matanzas Inlet, the boats were sent to seek for a harbor. On their re
turn in the afternoon, with a favorable report, they weighed anchor and
sailed along the coast northward, observing it " with unspeakable
pleasure, of the odorous smell and beautie of the same," till they came
to " a goodly and great river." Entering this the next morning they
found it "to increase still in depth and largenesse, boy ling and roar
ing through the multitude of all kind of fish." It was a safe and pleas
ant harbor. The Indians running along the sands welcomed them
1 Laudonniere's Notable Historie, in Hakluyt, vol. iii.

1562.]

RIBAULT AT THE ST. JOHN RIVER.

191

with wondering but friendly gestures, showing " all gentlenesse and
amitie," and pointing out the easiest landing-place ; trinkets, " some
looking-glasse, and other prettie things of small value," were exchanged
for skins and girdles of leather " as well courerd and coloured as was
possible ; " the chief, or king, made an oration, eloquent but unintelli
gible ; and the French fell upon their knees upon the beach, " to give
thanks to God for that of His grace He had conducted them to these
strange places, and to beseech Him to bring to the knowledge of our
Saviour, Christ, this poore people." The river they called, from the
day on which they entered it, the River of May. It is now known as
the St. John.

Entering the St. John River.

There were no bounds to the delight and enthusiasm with which
the impressible Frenchmen entered upon their new possession ; and in
token of its being theirs they set up, on the second day, a Setting up a
stone column, on which were engraved the arms of France, ^""rmifof
on the south bank of the river, " upon a little hill compassed France -
with Cypres, Bayes, Paulines, and other trees, with sweete smelling
and pleasant shrubbes." This was the first boundary on the south of
his Majesty's dominion in the New World. It was erected in the early
morning, before the Indians were assembled, perhaps because these
Frenchmen were conscious that they had no more rightful title to the
land than the red men had to the streets of Paris. But there was no

192 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII.

cause for anxiety ; the natives looked at the pillar with mute surprise,
evidently regarding it as only one puzzle the more about these strange
visitors. They had yet to learn that as heathens they were the rightful
spoil of all good Christians. The strangers chose to take this country
as their own, for to them it seemed " the fairest, fruitfulest,
of the new and pleasantest of all the world." Its trees were " of wonder
ful greatnesse and height," and of every variety for beauty
and value ; to the tops the wild vines grew "' with grapes according ; "
the caterpillars on the mulberries they supposed were silkworms ; in
these pleasant woods roamed deer, wild swine, bears, lynxes, leopards,
conies, and many other beasts unknown, all valuable for food or for
their skins and furs ; among the many birds were turkeys, partridges of
two kinds, and woodcocks ; eyrets, herons, bitterns, curlews screamed,
or swam, or waded about the waters of the bay ; in the river was
" marvellous store " of trout, millet, plaice, turbot, and other fishes ;
so that they concluded, " it is a thing unspeakable to consider the
thinges that bee scene there, and shall bee found e more and more in
this incomparable lande, which never yet broken with plough yrons
bringeth forth al things according to his first nature, wherewith the
eternall God indued it."

Not less attractive were the mild-mannered and courteous though
naked savages. The men were -well-shaped, of goodly stature, digni
fied, self-possessed, and of pleasant countenance : the women

Manners of

the natives. we n favored, modest, suffering no one "dishonestly to ap-
proch too neare them ; " and both were so beautifully painted that
" the best Painter of Europe could not amende it." But better and
more promising than all, some of these Indians wore ornaments of
gold, silver, copper, pearls, and turquoises ; from a collar of gold and
silver about the neck of one of them, hung a pearl as big as an acorn,
which the owner was willing enough to part with for a looking-glass
or a knife. Peai'ls were found there as fair as in any country of the
world, taken from oysters along the river side, among the reeds and in
the marshes, in " so merveylous aboundance as is skant probable."
Even Cibola could be reached in boats by way of rivers in twenty
days Cibola, two thousand miles off on the Pacific, which the Span
ish friar, Marco de Niqa, visited in the year 1539, and reported that
within it were seven great cities, the houses whereof were built of
lime and stone, two, three, sometimes five stories in height, ascended
on the outside by ladders ; whose inhabitants clothed themselves in
gowns of cotton, in woollen cloth, and in garments of leather, wearing
girdles of turquoises around their waists, emeralds in their ears and
noses; whose common household vessels were of gold and silver;
and where gold was more abundant than in Peru, the walls of the

1562.] COLONY AT PORT ROYAL. 193

temples being covered with plates of that precious metal. This was
the captivating perspective seen by the new comers through the
everglades, and festooned, perfumed forests of Florida in May the
seductive vision of a life of opulence and ease which -awaited them in
place of the civil strife and religious persecution which they had left at
home.

From the St. John River of May they sailed northward along
the coast, naming the streams for well-known rivers of France.
Everywhere the natives gave them the same kind welcome ;
everywhere they found the country beautiful and promis- th e ey eoast up
ing "full of havens, rivers, and islands," says Captain
Ribault, "of such fruitfulnes as cannot with tongue be expressed; in
fertilitie apt and commodious throughout to beare and bring forth
plentifully all that men would plant or sowe upon it.'' On the 27th
they entered the harbor of Port Royal. Here a navy might

. , . . . . i PI Entrance to

ride in satety as navies have since done " one or the Port Royal

e -i i i IT??- i i harbor.

tayrest and greatest havens in the worlde, into which
flowed " many rivers of meane bignesse and large," watering " one of
the goodliest, best, and frutefullest countreys that ever was seene, and
where nothing lacketh, and also where as good and likely commodities
bee founde as in other places thereby." Here it was proposed to
plant a colony. t

Ribault called his company together and made them an address,
which he modestly omits in his own relation, 1 but which is faith
fully reported in another. 2 He reminded them of the great im
portance of the enterprise in which they were engaged, and of the
" eternal memorie " which should of right belong to those, who, for
getting their parents and their country, should have the
" ffoode happe to make tryall of the benefits and commodities Ribault to

e . r { . . his men.

of this new land." Their humble birth and condition, he
told them, should be no discouragement, for many, it should be re
membered, among the Romans, " for their so valiant enterprises, not
for the greatnesse of their parentage, haue obtained the honour to
tryumph ; " and not among the Romans only were there many notable
examples of men of low origin rising to places of dignity and power.
And his promise to those who should permit themselves to be " regis-
tred forever as the first that inhabited this strang countrey," was " I
will so imprint your names in the king's eares, and the other princes,

1 The, True and Last Discouerie of Florida, made by Captain John Ribault in the yeere 1562.
Dedicated to a great noble man of France, and translated into Englishe by one Thomas Hackit-
Hakluyt's Divers Voyages.

2 A Notable Historic containing Fonre Voyages made by Certaine French Captames into
Florida, etc., etc., by Monsieur Laudonniere. Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii.

194 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII.

that your renowne shall hereafter shine vnquenchable through our
Realme of France."

Whether moved by his eloquence, or carried away by the en
thusiasm which the events and scenes of the last few days inspired,
there were so many anxious to be left behind, that Ribault " had
much to do to stay their importunitie." Thirty, however, were all he
Beginning could spare, and a soldier of long experience, Albert de la
French set- Pierria, who was the first among them all to offer to remain,
tiement. was appointed captain. With a good will all hands then
went to work to put up a fort for the protection of the colonists. It
was called Charles Fort, and was built on a little island in a stream
they called Chenonceau, now known as Archer's Creek, about six
miles from Beaufort, South Carolina. 1 This done, Ribault set sail
with his two vessels on the llth of June, to return to France, leaving
with the colonists a store of victuals and ammunition, and this part
ing exhortation: that they be obedient to their captain, and live as
brethren, one with another.

The first care of the colonists was to finish the fort, never resting
night or day till this was done, that there might the sooner be leisure
for exploration into the interior. But here all real work began and
ended. A place to fight in, if need be, first; then to spy out and
gather the riches of the land^ in gold and silver and precious stones,
was their notion of colonization. No provision was made for the
future ; they relied on Ribault's promise to send them speedy succor,
as if it were a narrow stream and not three thousand miles of ocean
that separated them from France. The " fat ground," so " won-
derfull fertill that it will bring forthe the wheate and all other corne
twice a yeere," they suffered to remain as they found it, " unbroken
with plough -irons," and ere long they were suffering for want of
food. The game with which in their season the woods were
ana idleness filled, the fish with which the waters were alive, they were
' too unskillful or too idle to take. Indolent and improvident,
they soon became dependent upon the bounty of the savages. They
cultivated the friendship of all the tribes within their reach, and
though the Indians soon learned to look upon them with contempt for
their idleness and imbecility, they seem to have felt for them none
of that hatred and fear which the Spaniards always aroused by their
licentiousness and cruelty.

No aid came from France. The Indians, who lived as their race
lives always, from hand to mouth, and in their natural state were ac
customed to look starvation in the face at least once a year between
seed-time and harvest, had little to spare. Of this, however, they

1 Pioneers of France in the New World, by Francis Parkmau.

1562.]

THE COLONY ABANDONED.

195

gave generously, and when at one time the store-house at Charles
Fort, filled by the charity of a distant chief, was, the next night, de
stroyed with all it contained, by fire, their savage benefactors built,
within twelve days, a new house, and refilled it. With hunger and
destitution the colonists grew discontented, desperate, and insubordi
nate. Captain Albert, either from an ill-judged attempt to enforce
rigid discipline among these starving wretches, or else in the mere
wantonness of power, hanged a drummer, named Guernache, for
some trifling fault, and banished a soldier, La Chere, to a desolate
island, where he was afterward found half dead from him- Mutiny and
ger. Thereupon followed defiance and mutiny from others bloodshed -
who were threatened with the like punishments, and these only ended
in the murder of the captain. Then Nicolas Barre was chosen gov
ernor, " a man worthy of commendation, and one which knewe so
well to quit himselfe of his charge that all rancour and dissention
ceased among them." There was at last peace.

But they were as hungry as before, and the question now was, how
to get back to France. So desperate was their condition that, although
there were no mechanics among them, they determined to build a

Building the Pinnace.

small pinnace. For cordage they took such rope as the Indians could
make for them ; for sails, what they had left of their own sheets and
shirts ; for provisions, as much corn as the natives chose to give ; and so,
" drunken with excessive joy " at the hope of seeing France Bu iiding of
again, but as always, without " foresight and consideration," embarkation
and with '"slender victual," they put to sea. No madder forFrance -
voyage, perhaps, was ever undertaken. Only one third of it was

196 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII.

made when the wind failed them. For the next three weeks they
sailed only twenty-five leagues, and then provision became so short
that twelve kernels of corn a day was each man's allowance. Even
this was soon exhausted, and there was nothing left to eat but their
shoes and leather jackets. A part died of hunger. Water there was
none, except the salt sea that poured in at every seam of their crazy
craft. A storm overtook them, and for three days they lay helpless and
Misery on * n despair in the bottom of the boat, which drifted whither-
shipboard. soever it would. Hope revived at the proposition that one
should die to save the rest, and the lot fell upon that La Chore whom
Captain Albert had banished from the colony to starve alone upon
an island at Port Royal. " Now his flesh was divided equally among
his fellowes: a thing so pitiful to recite," says Laudonnidre, "that my
pen is loth to write it." But it saved the rest ; they soon after fell in
with an English vessel, on board of which was one of their com
panions who had gone home with Ribault, and they were taken,
the most feeble to France, the others as prisoners to England.

It was by no neglect of Ribault's that the thirty men left at Charles
Fort had watched in vain for his promised return till they were ready
Affairs in to resort to any desperate measure. Civil war had broken
France. Qu ^ when he reached France ; and Coligny, the lord admiral,
had no leisure to think, even in the interest of the reformed religion,
of a feeble colony planted in the wilderness on the other side of the
sea. So long as the country at home was distracted by the war, and
so long as any doubt remained of his own party attaining to supreme
power in the state, it was vain to ask for aid. A few months after
Ribault's return, the Duke of Guise, the head of the Catholic faction,
was assassinated, and in the confusion that followed, Coligny had
enough to do to defend himself against the charge of being the insti
gator of that act. True, it ultimately led to a short peace, but it was
long before there was even the semblance of a reconciliation between
parties hating each other with both religious and political rancor ;
long before there was any real relief to a country whose business and
agriculture were wellnigh ruined, whose discharged soldiers lived by
robbery, whose people were generally suffering for want of food, and
from whose borders a foreign foe had still to be expelled.

But in 1564, Coligny represented to the king that no news had
been heard from the men sent to Florida, and that it was a pity they
Coligny -a should be left to perish. A new expedition was determined
tureimdeT O11 5 but it is not certain that the survivors taken from the
donnifir e Lau ~ pinnace did not arrive in France before it sailed. If so, the
attempt at colonization, at any rate, was to be persevered
in, and three ships sailed in April under the command of Captain
Ren(i de Laudonniere, who was with Ribault on the first voyage.

1564.] COLIGNY'S SECOND COLONY. 197

In June the fleet of three ships arrived in the River of May. On
landing, the Frenchmen were greeted with shouts of welcome by a
crowd of Indians, men and women, who cried out, " Ami ! Ami ! "
(Friend ! Friend !) the one French word they had learned from their
former visitors, and remembered. Their Paracoussy, or chief, whose
name was Satouriona, led the Frenchmen to the pillar of

-.._..--- ir Ribault's

stone which Kibault had set up two years betore, "and wee piiiar adored
found the same," says Laudonnie're, " crowned with crownes
of Bay and at the foote thereof many little baskets full of mill
(corn), which they call in their language, Tapaga Tapola. Then,
when they came thither, they kissed the same with great reuerence,
and besought vs to do the like, which we would not denie them, to
the ende we might drawe them to be more in friendship with vs."
The next day the chief received the captain and his suite in state,
" vnder the shadow of an arbour, apparalled with a great Harts skinne
dressed like chamois, and painted with deuices of strange and diuers
colours, but of so liuely a portrature, and representing antiquity, with
rules so iustly compassed, that there is no Painter so exquisite that
could finde fault therewith."

Among the first gifts from the Indians was a wedge of silver, given
to Laudonni^re by a son of Satouriona. When inquiry was

j ,u- -1 \i Gift of silver

afterward made as to where this silver came from, the cun- from the na

tives

ning Indian, who understood the eagerness of the French
men to find mines of the precious metals, and meant to turn that
passion to his own account, asserted that the wedge was taken from a
tribe, some days' journey in the interior, called the Thimogoa; that
they were his natural and deadly enemies, and if the strangers Wc/uld
join him in fighting them, enough of gold and silver could be got to
satisfy all their desires.

But the enthusiasm and delight of Laudonniere and his companions
were as the case had been with Ribault and his company, and as
was entirely characteristic of them all as Frenchmen extravagant
and beyond all reason. The soil of this incomparable country was
so rich ; the trees festooned with vines and hanging moss, and " of so
souereign odour that Baulme smelleth nothing in com- Enth usiastic
parison," were so grand and beautiful ; the waters of the ^^^
lakes and rivers were so sweet and placid ; the meadows were mere '
so inviting, divided asunder into " little iles and islets ; " the flowers
of such delightful hue and fragrance, that it seemed that life there
must be passed in uninterrupted happiness and pleasure. And the
people, apparently, were worthy of so pleasant a land, being " of a
natural disposition perfect and well guided." Athore, the eldest son
of Satouriona, was " gentle and tractable ; perfect in beautie, wise-

198

FRENCH DISCOVERIES.

[CHAP. VIII.

dome, honest sobrietie, and modest grauitie." The chief of a neigh
boring tribe was " gratious and courteous," and " one of the tallest
men and best proportioned that may bee founde;" his wife a model as
a princess, a woman, and a mother, endowed with great beauty, " of
virtuous countenance and modest gravity," having in her train five
graceful daughters, well brought up, " taught well and straightly."
That they none of them wore much if any clothing perhaps added to
rather than took from the glamour of this arcadian picture. Life, too,
as seemed fitting, was prolonged in this land where the men were
noble and brave, the women beautiful, and all nature bountiful. The
father of a chief was found whose descendants were counted to the
fifth generation. How old the sire was is not stated ; but his vener
able son numbered two hundred and fifty years, and both expected,
unless cut off by a violent death, to live thirty or forty years longer.

Laudonniere, after sailing a few leagues along the coast, returned
to the River of May without going to Port Royal, having heard, no
doubt, either from the Indians or before leaving France, of the aban
donment of Charles Fort. He determined to settle on the
Forte"- May, rather than at Port Royal, as " it was much more need-
full to plant in places plentifull of victual, than in goodly
havens, faire, deepe, and pleasant to the view." The spot chosen was

just above what is
now known as St.
John's Bluff, on the
bank of the river. 1
At break of day,
the trumpet sound
ed to assemble the
people ; a Psalm
of thanksgiving was
sung ; the blessing
of God was asked
upon their enter
prise, and then all
fell to work with
shovels, cutting -
hooks and hatchets.
The fort was in the shape of a triangle, fronting the river, with the
bluff on one side, a marsh on the other, and the woods in the rear.
It was finished in a few days, with the aid of Satouriona's people,
and was iiumed Fort Caroline, in honor of the king, Charles IX. of
France.

1 Parkman's Pioneers of New France. Fairbanks' History of St. Augustine.

Fort Caroline. [De Bry.]

1564.] CUPIDITY OF THE FRENCHMEN. 199

They could handle the shovel to build fortifications, but not to till
the ground. As in the first colony, no seed was planted ; the only
harvest thought of was gold and silver. The experience of the un
fortunate Port Royalists profited them nothing ; if they considered at
all the advantage which numbers gave them, it was only that they
would be able to explore the farther, and use them, if need be, in the
subjection of the Indians, in acquiring the wealth they hoped to find.
Expeditions were sent from time to time into the interior, always
with the same purpose. Everywhere gold and silver were

J . The greed

asked for; everywhere was the same answer: it was some for gold and

silver

chief beyond who had them in plenty, and against that par
ticular chief the informant was always anxious to commence hostil
ities with the aid of the Frenchmen. There was no fable telling of gold
that they were not eager to swallow. It was " good riewes " at Fort
Caroline that there were certain Indians who covered " their brests,
armes, thighes, legs, and foreheads, with large plates of gold and silver,"
as protective armor, and that " the height of two foot of gold and sil
ver," would be the booty that might be taken from the least of the
petty chiefs' of that people. Two Spaniards were brought to the Fort
from the Gulf coast, where they had been shipwrecked fifteen years
before ; they reported that the king of that country " had great store
of gold and silver, so farre forth that in a certaine village he had a
pit full thereof, which was at the least as high as a man, and as large
as a tunne ; " that " the common people of the countrey also had great
store thereof ; " that " the women going to dance, did weare about
their girdles plates of gold as broad as a sawcer, and in such number
that the weight did hinder them to dance at their ease ; and that the
men ware the like also." While the cupidity of the Frenchmen was
inflamed with such stories, there could be no useful industry and no
steady discipline. Promises to the chiefs of rendering aid in their
attacks upon their neighbors, were kept or broken, as either course
seemed most likely to further the search for treasure. It was a trial
of cunning with the native chiefs, in which, on the whole, the savages
came off the best ; for they were sometimes enabled, by the help of
the Christians, to add to their store of scalps, while the promised
riches which the Christians coveted, were still to be got by some new
expedition. " The mountaine of Apalichi," which they soon learned
to believe was the source of the precious metals they were in search
of, seemed after every fight to be as distant as ever.

CHAPTER IX.

FRENCH AND SPANISH COLONISTS IN FLORIDA.

PLOTS AGAINST THE FRENCH GOVERNOR LAUDONNIERE. OPEN MUTINY IN HIS
COLONY. FIGHT WITH INDIANS. VISIT OF AN ENGLISH FLEET TO PORT ROYAL.
ARRIVAL OF RIBAULT WITH A FLEET OF SEVEN SHIPS. CRUSADE OF PEDRO
MENENDEZ AGAINST HERETICS. His ATTACK ON FORT CAROLINE. SLAUGHTER

OF KlBAULT AND HIS MEN BY THE SPANIARDS. FOUNDING OF THE FlRST PER
MANENT SETTLEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. INDIGNATION OF THE FRENCH AT
THE SPANISH ATROCITIES. DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES GOES TO FLORIDA. HE
MAKES ALLIES OF THE SAVAGES. ATTACK ON THE SPANISH FORT. THE
BLOODY RETALIATION. A SPANISH MISSION ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK.

DISAPPOINTMENT in these extravagant hopes and ill-directed
efforts soon led to the inevitable results. Discontent and insubordina
tion showed themselves in the fort ; Laudonniere was blamed
tioninFort for want of energy and enterprise, and a plot was formed to

Caroline. II-TC r\ T Tt

depose mm and even to take his lite. One La Roquette pre
tended to have discovered by magic a mine of gold and silver, far up
the river, which he promised should yield ten thousand crowns each
to the soldiers who should take it, besides a reserve of fifteen hundred
thousand for the king. Genre, a trusted friend of Laudonniere, was,
with Roquette, the head of this conspiracy, and many of the soldiers
were fascinated with the old delusion in fresher and more captivating
colors than ever. But to reach this wonderful mine it was necessary
first to dispose of the captain ; for he held the key of the store-house,
was rigidly economical of provision, was obeyed and trusted by many
of the soldiers, and was an obstacle generally in the way of any plan
whereby every man in the colony was to do just as he pleased with
out regard to anybody else. It was proposed to the apothecary to
give him enough arsenic or quicksilver " to make mee," says Laudon
niere himself, " pitch ouer the pearch ; " the master of the fire-works
was asked to put a keg of gunpowder under his bed. But neither
proposition found favor in the eyes of those scrupulous officers ; ex
posure speedily followed, and the conspirators were punished on the
spot or sent back to France.

But the fire was only smothered, not extinguished. Other mal-

1564.]

A PIRATICAL VOYAGE.

201

contents soon after stole two small vessels, the only ones the colony
possessed for excursions into the interior, and made off to
the West India Islands for a piratical voyage on their own nee^seize
account. Two other and larger vessels were built as soon as
possible, but were no sooner ready for sea than they also were seized,
the mutineers, this time, being strong enough to imprison Laudon-
niere and compel him to sign a roving commission authorizing them
to make a cruise among the Spanish colonies. By robbing churches
and seizing treasure-ships they hoped to so enrich themselves as to be
independent even of government at home, if their acts should be re
pudiated. But the fate which so often followed buccaneers attended
them. They soon quarrelled over the booty they easily acquired ;

Arrest of the Pirates.

three of the vessels finally fell into the hands of the Spaniards ; the
fourth, steered by a pilot who, with some of the sailors, had been com^
pelled against his will to go in her, was brought back by his skillful
management to Fort Caroline, when Laudonnie"re had the satisfaction
of seizing the ringleaders and punishing them with death.

In the spring a new enemy beset them, whose coming should have
been foreseen " ignominious hunger." The provisions they brought

202 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

with them were exhausted, and they could no longer rely upon the
stock of corn and beans which the Indians had laid up for

Famine at- , n . . . . , . _ .

tacks the winter use, as they parted unwillingly with any portion of
their small remainder. Trinkets and clothing, with which
they had become familiar, diminished in value in the eyes of the
savages, and they knew from experience how to measure with accu
racy the wasting corn-heaps by the months still to elapse before the
ripening of the new corn. Less thoughtful than the Indians, the col
onists had provided for no scarcity, and looked forward to no harvest,
depending alone upon succor from France, as their unfortunate coun
trymen had done before them. Day by day, they climbed the hill
and scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of the returning ships ; and
day by day their flesh wasted away, their bones pierced the skin, and
hardly strength was left them to gather sorrel and dig the few edible
roots they could find in the woods wherewith to keep the life in their
miserable bodies. Driven to this extremity they clamored to be led
back to France, though not one of their two or three small vessels was
large enough to carry the whole company, or fit to encounter the
perils of such a voyage.

It was the time of planting, and they could as easily have waited
for the ripening of fruit and grain and have thus made themselves
self-sustaining and independent of all outside aid for the future, as pro
vide for the three months it would take to build another ship. But
they thought of nothing, cared for nothing, but to get away. A new
ship, therefore, must be built, and they devoted such strength as they
had left to that work. Meantime, they were in want of food. For
aging expeditions among the Indians only ended in disappointment ;
the hungry crowd surrounded Laudonniere, demanding that he should
seize one of the neighboring chiefs and hold him to be ransomed in
corn and other provision. " Shall it not be lawful for vs," they said,
" to punish them for the wrong they doe unto vs, beside that we know
apparently how little they respect vs." The wrongs were that the
Indians were too prudent to part with the stores which were hardly
sufficient for their own support till the new corn was fit to gather ; the
want of respect was the unconcealed contempt they felt for these
civilized paupers who permitted themselves to be reduced to this
pitiful extremity.

The remedy proposed did not commend itself to Laudonniere's
judgment, but he was compelled to yield to the clamor around him.
injustice to O utma i or >e of their kings, was seized amid the lamentations
the Indians. o f ] ie women ant | the cries for vengeance from the men of
his tribe. The treacherous act, as Laudonniere expected, failed to
arouse either the fears or the generosity of the Indians ; but it in-

1565. J

ARRIVAL OF AN ENGLISH FLEET.

203

flamed to the last degree their cunning and ferocity. Under pretence
of providing for the ransom of their chief, they led the Frenchmen
into an ambuscade, out of which they escaped, after a hard day's fight,
with only two bags of corn, while two of their men were killed and
twenty-two wounded. Incapable of the industry and wanting in the

Fight with Indians.

forethought indispensable to the successful colonist, they could still
acquit themselves, weak as they were, with honor as soldiers.

As the season advanced food became more plentiful, and grain was
gathered for the homeward voyage in August, 1565. On the third
day of that month, however, Laudonniere, ever on the watch for aid
from home, saw from the look-out on the bluff a fleet ap
proaching. At the fort " they were so glad of those newes, English fleet

that one would haue thought them to bee out of their wittes John Haw
kins,
to see them laugh and leape for joy." Their joy was so far

premature, that the ships were English, not French, though otherwise,
as the event proved, they had equal cause for thankfulness.

The fleet was commanded by Sir John Hawkins, now returning
from a second and profitable vo} r age to the coast of Guinea, where he
had learned three years before that " store of Negros might be had,"

204 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

and that they " were very good marchandise in Hispaniola." l He
was not deaf or blind to the claims of humanity in white men, and
took pity on the sore distress of the French colony, relieving not only
their present wants, but offering to transport them to France. There
was great " bruite and mutiny " when Laudonniere declined the offer,
and the soldiers threatened that they would go without him. A com
promise at last was made, and one of the English vessels was pur
chased, with sufficient provision for the voyage. Hawkins made some
generous additions by gift, and then left them with renewed life and
hope at this unexpected and timely relief, having won among them,
says Laudonniere, " the reputation of a good and charitable man
deseruing to be esteemed as much of vs all as if he saued all our
Hues."

In a few days they were ready to sail, and waited only a fair wind,
when, on the 28th of August, another fleet was seen approaching.
The long-expected aid had come at last from France. Seven
Ribauit's ships anchored at the mouth of the river with three hun
dred men on board, under the command of Ribault himself.
Amid the salutes of cannon, the greetings of old friends and com
panions, the welcome to fellow-countrymen who were looked on as
deliverers, there was one man who was crushed by this arrival with a
sense of new misfortune, and, the hardest of all things to bear, of
cruel injustice in return for a self-sacrificing and faithful discharge of
duty.

This was Laudonniere, who soon learned that the discontented and
insubordinate persons, whom he had sent back to France the year
before, had brought accusations against him of an unwarrantable as
sumption of power and tyrannical behavior in the colony, and that
these had been listened to by Admiral Coligny. Ribault was sent to
take command in his place, and he was recalled to answer for his con
duct. When we remember the many difficulties he had had to en
counter ; the extravagant expectations of sudden wealth which had
possessed his followers and the consequent disappointment and discon
tent ; the mutinies he had been compelled to submit to or to quell ;
the calamity of famine he had been called upon to relieve ; the war
with the Indians into which he was forced against his better judg
ment ; and that through all he had held the colony together and saved
unjust com- ^ from absolute destruction, it is much easier to believe that
against Lau- ne was unfortunate than in fault. But his disgrace over-
aonntere. whelmed him, and he makes a touching, though unconscious
appeal to all human sympathy, in the record of his state at this

1 See Voifaqes of the right worshipful and valiant Kniyht Sir John Hawkins. Hakluyt's
Voyayes, vol. iii.

1565.]

EXPEDITION OF PEDRO MENENDEZ.

205

point of his sad story, that " weakened with my former trauaile, and
fallen into a melancholy vpon the false reports that had bene made of
mee, I fell into a great continuall feuer." It was doubtless a satis
faction to him to be assured that his friends among the new-comers
were at once satisfied that the accusations against him were malicious,
and had no foundation in truth ; that Ribault begged him not to leave
the colony, and generously offered to build another fortress for his
own company, and to leave him unmolested in command of Fort
Caroline. But Laudonniere felt too keenly the impeachment of his
honor and character, to accede to any proposition but implicit obe
dience to the orders from home, and an immediate return to France
to meet his accusers face to face. But misfortune had not yet done
with him. Calamities yet to come were to sweep away all question,
for a time all memory, of his past administration of affairs.

Only a week had passed, when a third fleet appeared, silently and
suddenly in the night-time at the mouth of the River of May.
When hailed as to who they were and what they wanted, of Pedro
the answer was that they were from Spain ; that Pedro Me-
nendez was in command ; and that he had come in obedience to the
king to burn and destroy such Lutheran French as should be found in
his dominions. 1 An attack was to
have been made in the morning.
Three of Ribault's ships had gone
up the river to Fort Caroline ; the
other four were no match for the
Spaniards, and had no alternative
but to slip their cables and stand
out to sea. They not only outsailed
the Spanish vessels, but turned and
followed them, when the chase was
relinquished, and watched their en
trance into the River of Dolphins,
a few leagues southward, and the
landing of men, provisions, ord
nance, and ammunition.

This expedition of Menendez was esteemed in Spain as almost a
new crusade. There was no lack of either men or means in

. 1 i (! i Spanish zeal

so holy an undertaking as the extermination ot heretics, who, against

i . . . . . heretics.

with their pernicious doctrines, were sure to vitiate the pure
minds of the Indians of the New World, stain their white souls with
ineffaceable evil, and lead them to perdition. This fervent religious
zeal, coupled with the execution and approval of the most frightful
1 MS. Letter of Menendez to the King ; Parkman's Pioneers, etc., p. 100.

Pedro Menendez.

206 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

*
atrocities, was perfectly in accordance with the spirit of the times ;

but it is quite possible that the determination of the Spaniards to
destroy, in the name of God, a handful of people in the wilderness,
because they were heretics, may have been inflamed by the piracies
which the mutineers, who stole Laudonniere's ships, had committed in
the West Indies. Menendez himself, however, was a bigot, who
could conceive of no better manifestation of love to God than cruelty
to man, when man was heretical ; whose scent for blood was unerring
as that of the most ferocious wild beast ; whose treacherous cunning
character of m approaching and seizing his prey, was the keenest animal
Menendez. i ns tinct, sharpened to the utmost degree by human intel
ligence. He undoubtedly looked upon his enterprise as a sacred mis
sion, and, when on his outward voyage his fleet had been scattered by
a storm, he insisted upon proceeding with only a part of his force, de
claring that it was evidently God's will that the victory he was to
achieve should be due, not to numbers, but to the Divine assistance.
But the most intense religious bigotry condescends to worldly wis
dom, and there is little doubt that information had been sent to Spain
by some of the Catholics of the French court that reinforcements were
about to go to Fort Caroline under Ribault, and that the zeal of
Menendez was quickened by that intelligence to fall upon the here
tics before this assistance could reach them.

When the report was taken back to Fort Caroline, that the Span-
Ribauit de- i ai 'ds had left their ships, Ribault proposed at once to fall
fovvthe fo1 u P n them with all his force before they had time to fortify
Spaniards, themselves on shore, and overcome them while in a defence
less condition. Laudonnicre, on the other hand, urged that there was
great danger of sudden storms at that season on that coast, which
might defeat such an expedition by disabling the ships, or driving
them to sea, while a prolonged absence of the soldiers would leave
Fort Caroline defenceless, and exposed to attack by the Spaniards.
His counsel, as the event proved, was wise, but it was unheeded.
Ribault sailed with all the larger vessels and nearly all the effective
men at his command. He left behind him at Fort Caroline about two
hundred and forty persons, including the sick, the women, and the
children, but among them all a very few only were able to bear
arms. 1

As Laudonnicre feared, Ribault and his ships were scattered by a
sudden and violent tempest just as they were about to attack the
enemy at the mouth of the River of Dolphins an event which was

1 Challeux's Discours de VHistoire de la Floride better known as "the carpenter's nar
rative," gives two hundred and forty as the number of persons left in the fort, but Laudon
niere's estimate is much smaller.

1565.] BLOODTHIRSTY ATTACK ON FORT CAROLINE. 207

hailed by the Spaniards as another providential interposition in their
favor. This miscarriage of Ribault was the opportunity of Plan of
Menendez, and he lost no time in availing himself of it. Menendez -
From the Indians he learned that many of the men had embarked
upon the French vessels, and he proposed to proceed at once overland
to the attack of Fort Caroline, trusting to reach it before the fleet
could return. To many of his companions it seemed a foolhardy
enterprise to march through unknown forests and swamps, to attack a
fortress of whose strength and the number of whose defenders they
were ignorant, and when defeat would probably be fatal alike to those
who went upon the expedition and those who were left behind. But
Menendez, confident in his judgment, invincible in his fanaticism, was
firm in his purpose. Fort Caroline, he was sure, was almost defence
less ; it would be easy to find the way through the woods by the com
pass ; by making an attack when least expected, success was certain ;
and finally, he said, " we shall the more speedily do a service to our
God and our king, and comply with our conscience and our duty."

On the morning of September the 17th five hundred men were
drawn out upon the beach, a mass was said, and the march began. At
the moment of starting two Indians, who had recently come

.. J . . March on

from Fort Caroline, appeared, and were secured as guides Fortcaro-
across the country, and a French deserter was to show them
where the fortress could be most easily approached and most success
fully assaulted. For two days they struggled through the woods and
morasses, exposed to heavy rains, sometimes wading to their waists,
in danger of losing the ammunition and provision which each man
carried on his back, a cold, wet, hungry, disconsolate, and grumb
ling throng of stragglers held to any military duty or purpose only
by the iron will of one man. They reached the fort in the night of
the second day, and halting in water up to their knees, the pitiless
storm beating upon their heads, they waited for daylight.

The cold and drenching rain had driven the sentinels of the feeble
garrison to shelter. One man only was found at his post, and he was
seized and speedily put to death by a reconnoitring party that ad
vanced with the first glimmer of daylight. Then the Spaniards poured
through breaches in the palisades with cries of " Santiago ! Victory !
God is with us ! " There was little fighting ; only slaughter.
The panic-stricken Frenchmen, aroused from sleep by the attack of the
Spanish war-cry, confused by the darkness and by the sud
denness of the attack, sought only, each for himself, to escape and find
shelter in the woods and swamps. Neither sex nor age was spared,
according to the French accounts ; but the Spanish relations declare
that quarter was given to the women, and children under fifteen years

208

FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

of age. Some were taken prisoners, apparently only from a refinement
of cruelty, for they were all hanged a few hours later. Over their
heads Menendez put this inscription, " I do this, not as to Frenchmen,
but as to Lutherans."

The whole number thus massacred in the name of religion was one

hundred and forty-two. Those who escaped made their way
of 1 the through the marshes to the two vessels that Ribault had left

behind him. Among these was Laudonniere, who was
found the morning after the attack, held up by a soldier, in water to

Rescue of Laudonniere.

the arm-pits, where they had passed the night. When this wretched
remnant of the colony was rescued, the vessels, which a nephew of Ri
bault commanded, sailed for France without waiting for tidings of the
expedition to the River of Dolphins.

1565.] FATE OF THE WRECKED FRENCHMEN. 209

Thus far Menendez was crowned with complete success. " We owe,"
he said, " to God and His mother, more than to human strength, this
victory over the adversaries of the Holy Catholic Religion." 1 Not a
heretic Frenchman was left alive on the River of May, and that even
the memory of them might be wiped out, the names of the river and
the fort were changed to San Mateo by these devout Spaniards, the
nearest saint-day, that of St. Matthew, being on the 21st day of Sep
tember. Taking fifty soldiers with him Menendez returned to his
encampment at the mouth of the River of Dolphins. A messenger had
been sent forward to announce his success and his coming, and the
whole camp turned out to meet him in procession with priests at their
head in full canonicals, chanting a Te Deum, and bearing a crucifix.
The Adelantado and his followers knelt before and kissed the cross,
giving thanks to God that He had enabled them to extirpate his ene
mies and theirs.

The next anxiety of Menendez was to know what had become of the
other heretics on board of Ribault's ships. Nor had he long to wait.
Intelligence was soon brought in by the Indians that the Frenchmen

were wrecked on Anastasia Island, a little to the southwai'd. Pro
ceeding; thither with fifty soldiers, Menendez found a party

The fate of

of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men, to whom the wrecked
he made himself known. Thrown by the storm upon this
desolate beach, exhausted from want of food and rest, with no means
of escape or of subsistence, they appealed to his humanity to aid them
in reaching a place of refuge at their fort, Caroline. Were they Cath
olics or Lutherans ? he asked. They replied that they were all of
the Reformed Religion. Then he told them that their fort was de
stroyed, and all its men were put to the sword. As to themselves, he
said, that being of the new faith " he held them for enemies, and would
wage war upon them even to blood and to fire, would pursue them with
all cruelty wherever he should encounter them in whatever sea or land."
They begged that he would give them shelter till succor could be sent
them from France, which was at peace with Spain. His answer was :
" They could give up their arms and place themselves under my mercy,
that I should do with them what our Lord should order ; and from
that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should other
wise inspire." 2 Then they offered him fifty thousand ducats to spare
their lives ; but he was inexorable, and they, not knowing how small
his force was, perhaps misled by the courtesy with which he treated
their messengers, accepted the only alternative that seemed left to

1 MS. Letter from Menendez to the King, in Parkman's Pioneers of France.

2 Ibid.

210 THE FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

them, and surrendered unconditionally, giving up their arms and stand
ards.

An inlet divided the two parties, and the treacherous Spaniard or
dered that the Frenchmen should be brought over in companies of ten.
As each squad arrived they were told that as they were

Themur- J Ii t <- 1J l

derof many, and their captors were tew, it would be necessary, as

a prudent and rational precaution, that the prisoners should
be bound before they were marched together to the Spanish encamp
ment. They were led then behind a sand-hill, out of sight of their
fellows on the other shore, and their hands securely tied behind their
backs with bow-strings. When toward night-fall all were gath
ered together, they were marched a short distance to a spot which the
adelantado himself had chosen and marked upon the sand with a spear.
Once more the fatal question was asked : Were they all Lutherans ?
A dozen, who professed to be Catholics, and four others, who were calk-
ers and carpenters, and whose services were needed, were led aside. A
few moments later, of all the rest, all bound, not able even to raise
an unarmed hand to ward off a blow, not one was left alive.

A cruel and inexorable fate seemed to pursue the wretched French
men. The sand could hardly have soaked up the blood of the men so
treacherously murdered, or the murderers have reached their camp a
few miles distant, when Ribault himself, with the rest of his followers,
arrived at the spot whence the others had, only a few hours before,
been betrayed to their death. Menendez heard of it the

Ribault cap- J .

turedby morning after his return, and hurried back again to the inlet.

Menendez. i i i IT < i

As before he made such disposition of his men as to com
pletely deceive the French, who knew nothing of the movements of
the Spanish soldiers since their landing ; as before, when aid was
asked to enable the shipwrecked men to reach Fort Caroline, the
answer was that the fort had been taken and its people put to the
sword ; and to convince Ribault that he was completely at the mercy
of his enemy, he was led aside and shown the pile of the unburied
corpses of his murdered countrymen. Nevertheless, the Frenchmen
apparently would not believe that Menendez was absolutely want
ing in all humane instincts, and when a ransom of a hundred thou
sand ducats was offered for their lives, they had, or thought they had,
a pledge for their safety. The Spanish narratives assert that no such
pledge was given, while the French declare that he bound himself by
an oath to spare their lives ; but at best, the answers of Menendez
were only equivocal, and meant to betray. Of the three hundred
and fifty Frenchmen, however, only one hundred and fifty, with
Ribault at their head, offered to surrender ; the rest refused, and
marched southward.

1565.]

DEATH OF RIBAULT.

211

The stratagems of the day before were again resorted to. In
squads of ten, the Frenchmen were brought across the inlet ; these
detachments, on landing, were taken out of sight of those yet to come,
and their hands bound behind their backs as a pretended precaution
for a coming march ; when all were thus secured, they were led to the
spot where lay the bodies of their countrymen on the blood-red sand.
If there was still any lingering doubt or hope in the minds of the
wretched and betrayed men, it was dispelled by the questions, which,
to Menendez, had but one significance were they Catholics or Lu
therans ? and were there any among them who wished to make confes
sion ? Ribault answered that they were all of the Reformed D( ; ath of
Faith. Then, after repeating the Psalm, Domine memento Rlbault -
mei, he said, " that from dust they came and to dust they must return ;

Massacre of Ribault.

twenty years more or less could matter but little ; and that the ade-
lantado could do with them as he chose." Two youths of eighteen
years of age, and the fifers, trumpeters, and drummers were spared.
The rest were "put to the sword, judging this," says Menendez, in
his letter to the king, " to be expedient for the service of God our
Lord, and of your majesty."

That God would be pleased, he takes for granted ; why the king

212 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

should be, he gives a reason ; for he adds : " I consider it great good
fortune that he (Ribault) should be dead, for the King of France
could effect more with him and five hundred ducats than with other
men and five thousand, and he would do more in one year than
another in ten, for he was the most experienced sailor and naval
commander known, and of great skill in this navigation of the Indies
and the coast of Florida. He was, besides, greatly liked in England,
in which kingdom his reputation was such that he was appointed
Captain-General of all the English fleet, against the French Cath
olics in the war between England and France, some years ago."
Even the savage has magnanimity enough to honor the dead in whose
living presence he may have trembled ; but that his enemy was to
be feared in life, was with Menendez, a reason for treating his dead
body with indignity. The flowing beard of Ribault, which had
excited the wonder and admiration of the Indians, was cut off and
sent to Spain as a trophy ; and his head, divided into four quarters,
was stuck up on lances at the four corners of the fort at the River of
Dolphins. 1 The place of the cruel and treacherous massacre is known,
to this day, as " the bloody river of Matanzas." 2

There were two hundred men still at large somewhere in Florida.
These were soon after heard of at a point farther down the coast.
They had entrenched themselves behind some temporary defences, and
from the materials of a wrecked vessel were building an-
nant of iu- other in which to return to France. The adelantado marched
made prison- thither and attacked them ; the fort was destroyed, and the
unfinished ship burnt. Most of the men surrendered under
a promise that their lives should be spared ; but a score of them, with
the captain, escaped to the woods, declaring that they would take the
chance of being eaten by savages rather than trust themselves to any
pledge of Spanish faith. Menendez evidently did not think the im
molation of the heretics who now surrendered, necessary to the glory
of God and his mother ; nor was their number sufficient to excite any
fears for the safety of his colony. These prisoners, therefore, he held
to the order of the king, instead of assassinating them the moment
they were in his power. And the king wrote in reply : " As to those
he (the adelantado) has killed, he has done well, and as to those he
has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys.' 1 3

The heretics all, or nearly all, dead or held as prisoners, Menendez

* See original documents reprinted in French's Hist. Coll. of La., New Series, 2 vols., and
Charlevoix's History, Shea's edition, for a comparison of all the accounts of these incidents.

2 History and Antiquities of St. Augustine, Florida. By George H. Fairbanks, New York,
1858.

3 MS. Letter of Menendez. Parkman's Pioneers.

1565.]

FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

213

then had leisure to look after the other interests of his colony, at the
mouth of the River of Dolphins. He had landed at this st Augus .
spot on the 8th of September, after his unsuccessful chase tinebuilt -
of the French ships from the River of May. It was here that Ribault
had followed to attack him, when his fleet was scattered by the tem
pest, and finally shipwrecked. Menendez had gone 011 shore and taken
formal possession of the country in the name of the King of Spain,
with military pomp and religious solemnity ; a priest meeting him at
the water's edge, chanting a Te Deum, and bearing a crucifi^, which
the soldiers knelt before and kissed with devout thankfulness. The
Indians watched these mysterious proceedings with simple wonder ;
but they received the strangers with great kindness, and gave them

Laying out of St. Augustine.

the house of a chief, called Selooe, for immediate shelter. This was
made the nucleus of a fort ; a ditch was at once dug around it, and a
rampart of earth and fascines raised. It was the first permanent
-European settlement within the present boundaries of the United
States, and called by Menendez. St. Augustine, because on the festival
day of that saint the 28th of August the Spanish fleet had come
in sight of the coast of Florida, and run into the mouth of this river.

214 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

From this point, a few days later, he had marched upon Fort Caro
line, and then to the massacres at Matanzas Inlet ; and here he had
returned with a sense of security thus frightfully purchased, to found
a state.

Not a month had elapsed since the fleet of Ribault sailed into the
River of May, with streaming banners, amid the firing of guns, great

and small, the hearty cheers for a voyage happily finished,
Si^FTench the shouts of joy at an unexpected deliverance from danger

and distress. Of the ships, two only were now afloat
those carrying Laudonniere and his companions on their painful and
perilous voyage back to France of the people, the few others who
were alive were fugitives in the woods of Florida, or prisoners in the
hands of a relentless bigot, whose mercy, when he showed any, was
only some method of cruelty just short of death. Eight hundred
Frenchmen l had perished, most of them stabbed to death while their
hands were in bonds, behind their backs.

But there was yet to come another act in the bloody baptism of the
first permanent colony planted in the New World, north of the Gulf
of Mexico. The news of the atrocities committed by Menendez was
long in reaching Europe, and any intelligence of the details was de
layed till they were gathered chiefly from the relations sent home by
the Spaniards themselves, pieced out from the fragmentary stories

of the few fortunate Frenchmen who escaped. The horror
in i'nmceat anc ^ indignation which these tales excited were not confined
crueS. ish to the friends and families of those who had fallen victims

to treachery and cruelty, or to those who shared their sor
row from religious sympathy. But the Catholic King of France, and
his infamous mother, took no steps to assert the honor of the crown
and the rights of the people, either by punishing the perpetrators of
so horrible an atrocity, or by calling upon Spain to bring them to jus
tice. The declaration of Menendez that he executed his prisoners at
Fort Caroline not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans, was clearly held to
be, if not a justification, at least so far a palliation of his crime, that it
called for no redress from a Catholic monarch. If vengeance or honor
demanded retaliation it was left to whomsoever might take it upon
himself to inflict it.

Nearly three years passed away, and the Spaniards of Florida had

probably dismissed all fear of any retribution for the treach-
cie Gourgues ery and cruelty of their leader. In the spring of 1568 three
the e River n of small vessels appeared off the mouth of the River of May,
its name changed, as we have said, to San Mateo,
and the garrisons of two forts built there after the capture of Fort
1 Charlevoix's New France, vol. ii., p. 211.

1567.] DOMINIQUE DE GOURGES. 215

Caroline saluted the strangers as they passed, supposing them to be
Spanish. The salute was returned gun for gun, but the ships were
French not Spanish, and under the command of Dominique de Gour-
gues, a soldier of the highest reputation.

De Gourgues, returning from foreign service, had heard of the
massacre of his countrymen in Florida, and that the deed had gone un
punished for two years. It is not certain whether he was a Catholic
or a heretic ; but he was, at any rate, a Frenchman, and the soldier
blazed into rage and shame that Frenchmen should have been so be
trayed to death, and that no hand had been lifted to smite their
murderers. With his passion mingled, doubtless, something of per
sonal resentment, for he had himself once been made a prisoner by the
Spaniards and, contrary to the rules of honorable warfare, condemned
to the galleys. However, without making his purpose public, he now
sold his estates, and borrowed money from his friends to fit out an ex
pedition, ostensibly for the coast of Africa.

Sailing in August, 1567, he went to that coast, and thence to the
West Indies. His cruise had lasted all winter, and perhaps its ex
penses were defrayed by a trade in negroes, seized in fights, which he
is known to have had with some African princes near Cape Blanco.
The spring found him in harbor at the western extremity of Cuba,
when, for the first time, he disclosed to his men the real ob-

. T . /-I i-i" i 11 T Object of De

ject of his expedition. Calling them together he repeated Gourdes'
the story of the slaughter at the " bloody river of Matan-
zas ; " he asked them to follow him, avenge this monstrous cruelty,
and wipe off the stain upon the honor of France. Open ears and
quick sympathies received his speech ; it was even easier to arouse
the indignation than to restrain the impetuosity of his men, and
they were hardly willing to wait for favorable weather to put to
sea. Wherever he would lead they would follow, and every man
of them felt that the honor of his country was in his special keep
ing, and vengeance for the murder of his countrymen his sacred
duty.

De Gourgues stood out to sea, after passing the forts at the mouth
of the May, that he might the better conceal his destination from the
Spaniards : returning to the coast again, when a few leagues north
ward, he entered the mouth of a small river, probably the present St.
Ilia. 1 The Indians, who also supposed the strangers to be Spanish,

1 The Reprinse de la F/oride, and Laudonniere's narrative, call the river the Tacatacourou,
named the Seine by the French, now the St. Ilia. Fairbanks' History of St. Augustine says
it was the Somme, now the St. Mary's, that De Gourgues entered ; Parkman (Pioneers), con
jectures that it may have been either the St. Ilia or St. Mary's. As the earliest narratives
distinctly state that the river entered was the Seine the Tacatacourou; and as Laudon-
niere says that the place of rendezvous afterward was beyond the Somme the St. Mary's
there seems to be no good reason for not accepting those narratives.

216 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

crowded to the shore prepared to oppose their landing, for Menendez
Reception of an( ^ n ^ s companions had made themselves so thoroughly
by e the ench hateful to the natives that they were determined to hinder
natives. any more o f a race they feared and detested from entering
the country. But when they discovered that the new-comers were
their old friends, the French, they received them with every possible
sign of satisfaction and welcome, followed by the wildest delight when
they learned that the expedition was a hostile one against the Spanish
settlements.

Satouriona, who had been the friend of the French, after the Indian
fashion, when they were at Port Royal and on the May, was

French al-

nance with the chief who received De Gourgues. Between them an alli-

Indians. _. i i 1-1 TT

ance was entered into with the most binding Indian solemni
ties, a son of the chief and his wife being given as hostages for the
safety of a reconnoitring party sent to examine the position of the forts
on the May. Satouriona called in all the warriors from the country
round about. A rendezvous was appointed further down the coast, to
which the Indians went by land, the French by water. Thence they
pushed forward, wading through marshes and streams, their feet torn
and bleeding with the stones and sharp shells that lie in their beds,
forcing their way through the tangled forests, at their head marching
De Gourgues and Olotocara, 1 a nephew of Satouriona.

At dawn they were in front of the Spanish fort on the north bank
of the May, and, as at Fort Caroline when Menendez sur-
the Spanish prised it at the same hour of the day, a single sentinel only
was at his post to give the alarm. Shouting that the French
were upon them, he coolly plied a gun he brought to bear upon the
advancing enemy, till Olotocara, springing upon the platform, ran him
through with a pike. The affrighted garrison rushed from their
quarters in a vain attempt to escape, while French and Indians, in
hot fury and savage hate, poured over the defences. In a few mo
ments, of the Spaniards fifteen only, who were seized and bound, were
left alive.

The attack was as sudden, the onslaught as furious and as irresisti
ble, the destruction more complete than when Menendez, nearly three
years before, had fallen in the light of the early morning, amid the
roar of the storm, the cries of men, and the shrieks of women and chil
dren, upon the feeble garrison of Fort Caroline. But the work was as
yet but just begun, and the completeness af French vengeance was to
be made still more significant.

The soldiers of the fort on the south bank of the river were at no

1 The name is spelled Olotocara, Olotacara, Olatocara, Olocotora, and Olotoraca, by dif
ferent authors.

1568.]

ATTACK ON THE SPANISH FORT.

217

loss to understand what was befalling their comrades on the other
side. The woods were alive with Indians ; the air was filled with
their frightful yells of anger and defiance ; to the Spaniards it was
clear from their boldness that something more than usual had given

Death of the Sentinel.

them confidence and courage, and certainly it could be no savage hand
that trained the guns of the captured fort so promptly and truly as to
silence those that had been brought to bear upon the attacking party.
The murderers of Ribault and his men did not need to be told that
the white men they saw among the Indians must be French.

As speedily as possible De Gourgues embarked his men upon a ves
sel he had taken the precaution to have near at hand, to cross the river,

218 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

and the Indians, too impatient to await its return for them, plunged
into the stream and swam over. The Spaniards, appalled
the span- and bewildered by the impetuosity of an onslaught trans
ferred to their side of the river, which had evidently swept
everything before it on the other, made only a feeble attempt to
defend their works, and fled for their lives. The avenging French
were behind them as they abandoned their fortifications ; in the forest
the Indians met and fell upon them as they sought, like hunted beasts,
concealment beneath the deep shadows and in the tangled under
brush of the woods. In this, as in the other fort, there were sixty
men ; in this, as in the other, fifteen were seized to be held a little
while as captives ; in this, as in the other, all the rest were killed.

San Mateo, with a force of nearly three hundred men, was yet to
be taken. The alarm at that post was intense, for it was only known
that both the forts below were overcome in a few hours and not a man
escaped. The commander sent out a soldier, disguised as an Indian,
to learn the strength and designs of the invaders ; but the quick eyes
Fort Mateo ^ Olotocara detected the cheat ; the spy was secured, and
besiegea. ^he garrison remained in the belief that San Mateo was
about to be surrounded by two thousand Frenchmen. De Gourgues
rested two days, and then appeared in the woods behind the fort. The
enemy opened fire, which only sent the Frenchmen to the protection of
the trees. Not knowing that De Gourgues' force was little more than
a hundred men, the Spaniards probably supposed this to be only a
detachment sent in advance, and a sortie was made to meet and dis
perse it. But the Spanish soldiers ventured too far ; De Gourgues
threw a body of men between them and the fort ; a deadly fire, close
at hand, met them in the face ; in front, in flank, in the rear, the
Frenchmen fell upon them sword in hand ; not one was spared.

From within the palisades the Spaniards watched for the success
and saw the slaughter of their comrades. They thought no longer of
defence, but only of escape. Rushing in a mob to the op-
strick'en posite side of the fort, they threw themselves into the woods
and fled, mad with fear, for their lives. They were met
with the exultant war-whoop of hundreds of savage warriors eager
for revenge, who sprang upon them from their ambushes, pierced them
with deadly arrows, brought them down with crushing blows from
tomahawks, tearing the bloody scalps from heads whose brains had not
ceased to throb. Some few, perhaps, were fortunate enough, or brave
enough, to fight their way through this storm of merciless slaughter ;
some turned and fled back again, hoping for quarter from Christian
enemies. But few, if any, escaped from sudden death.

But the massacre of Fort Caroline was not even yet atoned for.

1568.] THE MASSACRE REVENGED. 219

The flag of France once more floated over its ramparts of earth ; the
bodies of nearly four hundred Spaniards lay unburied on the
shores of the River of May ; but there were prisoners still Cation.
alive. De Gourgues ordered them to be brought before him, in the
presence of his own men and his Indian allies. He was there, he
told them, to avenge acts which were as heinous an insult to France
as they were atrocious crimes against humanity; although such deeds
could not be punished as they deserved, the perpetrators should, at
least, be made to suffer all the retaliation that could be inflicted by an
honorable enemy. Near by were still standing the trees on which
Menendez had hanged his prisoners, beneath the inscription : " I do
this not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans." To the same trees
the French captain ordered the Spaniards to be led for execution, and
over their heads were the words burned into a plank with a hot
iron, " I do not this as unto Spaniards, nor as unto Maranes; 1 but
as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers."

The whole force which De Gourgues commanded, including soldiers
and sailors, was less than three hundred men. It was not sufficient to
justify him in an attack upon St. Augustine, or even to await a pur
suit in formidable numbers from that point, which would be sure to
follow if he remained upon the coast. He had done all he could do
to satisfy the wounded honor of his country, to avenge the perfidy
and cruelty which betrayed so many of his countrymen to death. But
to give completeness to his work he demolished the three forts whose
garrisons he had exterminated ; this done, he took leave of his Indian
allies with mutual protestations of good- will, with inter- De artureof
change of presents, with regrets on one side at the departure ^,mri r ^ es
of such cherished friends, on the other with assurance of a ida -
spee'dy return. " I am willing now to live longer," said an aged
squaw, in the spirit of heathen philosophy, " for I have seen the
French return and the Spaniards killed." And that, 110 doubt, was
the feeling of all her people. There was some good-will toward the
French, of whom they had little fear. But the Spaniards they both
feared and hated.

The intelligence of what De Gourgues had done reached Spain in
time' for the king to send a fleet of small vessels to intercept him on
the coast. It was not far behind him in pursuit at Rochelle, where he
first arrived, and followed him to other ports, but he fortunately
evaded capture. The French king would not have regretted it had
the Spaniards overtaken him ; for much as his deeds in Florida were
generally applauded, and especially by the Huguenots, he was looked

1 Marane was an opprobrious term applied to Spaniards, meaning originally, suggests
Parkman (Pioneers of New France), 9 Moor.

220 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

upon coldly at the Catholic court ; and he found it prudent, when the
king of Spain offered a reward for his head, to go into retirement, if
not into actual concealment. For several years he lived in obscurity,
and died when about to take up arms once more against his old
Deaths of enemies, as commander of the Portuguese fleet in the service
r n e d G Men? ues of Don Alphonso, then at war with Philip II. of Spain,
endez. Menendez had died five years before (in 1574) when about
to sail as admiral of the Spanish armada against Elizabeth of Eng
land.

The extirpation of error in the slaughter of heretics by Menendez
had been fearfully avenged ; in the propagation of the faith the bloody
apostle was even less successful. He was, to do him justice, as zealous
in the one cause as in the other, but the Indians steadily refused to
listen to the teachings of the priests who, alone of all the Spaniards,
were not more merciless and cruel than the savages themselves. And
they learned moreover, from the success of De Gourgues' expedition,
that Spaniards were not invincible, and they were not slow to profit
by that lesson whenever the opportunity offered.

But Menendez did not confine his efforts, either for colonization or
the conversion of the Indians, to the region about St. Augus-
fortsof Men- tine. By the way of the Bay of St. Mary, as Gomez and
other early navigators called Chesapeake Bay, Menendez be
lieved that the passage to India would be found, and in 1566 he sent
a vessel carrying soldiers and priests to establish a post somewhere
on the shores of the Bay or one of its tributary rivers. The party was
guided by an Indian convert, a brother of the cacique of the Axacan
or lacan country, as a portion of Virginia was called, whence he had
been taken some years before to Mexico, and christened by the name
of the viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco. This expedition was unsuccess
ful. But Menendez continued to urge his project, and four years later
induced the general of the order of Jesuits to direct the establishment
of a missionary station at Axacan.

The Indian convert, Don Luis, was then in Spain, and gladly
availed himself of such an opportunity to return to his own country,
promising to use his influence with his brother and his people on be
half of the missionaries. With him went a priest and two religious
from Spain, and at Port Royal they were joined by the father John
Baptist Segura, the head of the Jesuit Mission of Florida, another
priest, and four Indian boys, novices from the mission school at
Havana.

In September, 1570, this little party of devout and courageous mis
sionaries were landed on the banks of the Potomac, which the early
Spanish navigators called the Espiritu Santo, where the vessel left

1570.] THE SPANISH MISSIONARIES. 221

them, with a few stores, alone in the wilderness. Travelling six miles
on foot across the country to the Rappahannock, they pushed

, .it j. v j_ ' j_i , r jt i Missionaries

into the interior tor some distance along the coast 01 that on the Rap-
river, till they reached an Indian village. Here they put up
a rude log cabin for their own shelter and as a chapel, which they
named "La Madre de Dios de lacan " " the chapel of the mother
of God at lacan, "or Axacan.

Their provisions were scanty, and they were soon called upon to
endure the hardships of winter. The Indians were even poorer than
usual, for there had been a long period of scarcity, and they could
give at best but little aid to the strangers, though they received them
witli kindness. The helpless missionaries could neither hunt nor fish,
and were almost entirely dependent upon the good-will and good
offices of Don Luis, through whom alone could they hold much intelli
gent communication with the people of his tribe. But Don Luis soon
forgot that he was a Christian ; the instinct of Indian blood

' c Desertion of

and the force of early habits were stronger than the rite ot their Indian
baptism and the pious promises of the neophyte ; he soon
abandoned the brethren and resumed the companionship of his youth
and the free and savage life of the woods. In ceasing to be the friend
of the Christians he became their most dangerous enemy, constrained
in the nature of the case to prove thus the sincerity of his conduct to
those whom he had once abandoned for civilized life and the religion
of the white man.

Again and again messengers were sent to the renegade to recall
him to the duties he had so solemnly assumed, but they were answered
only with frivolous excuses. Late in January father Quiros, taking
with him two of the Indian boys belonging to the mission, went to try
the effect of personal and spiritual authority with the man upon whose
friendship now even their lives depended. But his expostulations and
entreaties were met with evasions by Don Luis, who was unable, nev
ertheless, while standing face to face with the good father and listen
ing to the solemn and tender admonitions of the priest, to avow the
full extent of his own hypocrisy and treachery. But no sooner had
Quiros and his two companions turned disappointed and sorrowful
to retrace their foot-steps than they were brought to the ground by a
volley of arrows from the lurking savages.

The father Segura and his little company spent the time meanwhile
in prayer in the chapel as day after day passed and there Magsacre O f
were no tidings of Quiros. On the fourth day the war- the P riests -
whoop rung through the woods ; a band of painted savages surrounded
the chapel, Don Luis at their head dressed in the cassock of the mur
dered priest. Segura and his companions were no longer in doubt as

222 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX.

to the fate of Quiros ; they guessed, no doubt, what was speedily to be
their own. Don Luis demanded their knives and hatchets, which were
meekly surrendered. At a signal from the apostate the savages rushed
upon the defenceless missionaries, and all except one of the Indian
boys, saved by a brother of Don Luis, were instantly slaughtered.

In the spring a vessel arrived from Port Royal with supplies. A
crowd of Indians thronged the banks of the river as it approached ;
at a distance men were visible, clothed in the garments of the dead
priests. The savages shouted, " See the fathers who came to us.
We have treated them well ; come and see them, and we will treat
you likewise." The sailors were not deceived by this shallow artifice,
and returned at once to Port Royal to report the evident fate of the
mission.

Menendez, in the course of the year, returned from Spain, and
resolved, on hearing the story, to punish the Indians for killing his
friends. Taking a small and fast vessel he sailed up the Potomac,
landed a small force and marched in pursuit of Don Luis and his
brother the cacique. He failed to overtake them, but others were
captured, and confessed ; the boy, Alphonsus, was brought to him,
who related the particulars of the massacre, pointing out eight of
those among the prisoners who were concerned in it. These the ade-
lantado hanged at the yard-arm of his vessel, first having them bap
tized, more perhaps, to the satisfaction of his own conscience than to
their edification. This done he returned to St. Augustine. For
more than thirty years longer that remained the sole European colony
within the limits of the present United States. The unknown site
somewhere on the banks of the Rappahannock, of the chapel of Our
Lady of Axacan, marked the only important attempt of Spanish colo
nization north of Florida. 1

In 1586, Sir Francis Drake, on his way home from an expedition to
South America, in cruising along the coast of Florida in search of the
first English colony on the island of Roanoke, saw an outlook on
Anastasia Island. Entering the River of Dolphins he found the Span
ish settlement, then under the command of Pedro Menendez, a nephew
of the founder. In the fort was a treasure-chest, containing 2,000,
sir Francis which Drake did not leave behind him; the town was a
st ra Autfu k s - s cms ter of wooden houses, and these he burnt. 2 As he ap-
tine. proached the fort, from which the Spaniards had fled, " forth

with came a Frenchman being a Phipher (who had bene prisoner with

1 See original MS. by John Gilmary Shea, in New York Historical Library; and "The
Log Chapel on the Rappahaunock," by the same author, in Catholic World for March,
1875.

2 Barcia.

1586.]

CAPTURE OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

223

them) in a little boate, playing on his Phiph the tune of the Prince of
Orenge his song." 1 Of the companions of Ribault whom Menendez

The French Fifer.

spared from the second massacre at Matanzas Inlet, because he had
need of them, one was a fifer, and he it was, probably, who gave this
shrill welcome to the English invader.

1 Sir Francis Drake's West Indian Voyage of 1585. Hakluyt, vol. iii., 1600.

CHAPTER X.

ENGLISH VOYAGES AND ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.

FIRST IMPULSE IN ENGLAND TOWARD AMERICAN COLONIZATION. UNSUCCESSFUL
VOYAGES. THEORIES OF A NORTHEAST PASSAGE. VOYAGE OF SIR HUGH WIL-
LOUGHBY AND Rl CHARD CHANCELLOR. FROBISHERAND 1>AVIS IN THE NORTHWEST.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S PLAN FOR AMERICAN SETTLKMENTS. His DEPARTURE
FROM ENGLAND AND ARHIVAL AT NEWFOUNDLAND. Loss OF SIR HUMPHREY ON
HIS RETURN. WALTER RALEIGH SENDS TWO SHIPS TO EXPLORE IN AMERICA.
His FIRST COLONY REACHES THE COAST OF NORTH CAROLINA. TOBACCO INTRO
DUCED INTO ENGLAND. NEW PLANTATION BEGUN UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN WHITE.

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SETTLERS. UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR
THE LOST COLONY. RALEIGH'S ATTEMPT AT COLONIZATION ENDED BY IMPRISON
MENT.

IT is not always unprofitable, and it is often interesting, to reflect
what might have been the course of human events but for the inter
vention of some slight action, seeming at the moment to be of trifling
importance. Had Columbus, for example, refused to deviate on his first
voyage from that directly westward course which he had laid down as
the only true one, his first land-fall would probably have been the coast
of Florida. The history of the world would have flowed in another
channel, and the progress of the human race been arrested for centuries
if the order had not been given on board the Santa Maria to put the
helm up and stand southwest for a night, in pursuit of a cloud-bank
which one of the Pinzons mistook for land. We may venture upon
almost any latitude of conjecture as to what might have been, had the
Spanish march of conquest and possession been directed to the terri
tory now occupied by the United States rather than to that of the rich
and semi-civilized peoples of Mexico and Peru. In the providence of
God it was not to be.

Besides, the disasters and disappointments attending all the expedi
tions of the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French in North Amer
ica, in the course of the sixteenth century, were alleviated and atoned
for by none of that dazzling acquisition of wealth that came from the
spoiling of the semi-civilized nations of the South. The North Amer
ican Indians, unlike the natives of softer climates whom the Spanish
subdued so easily, would fight to the death with the fierceness of
wild beasts rather than quietly submit to the white men, or if re-

1527.] AWAKING OF ENGLISH INTEREST. 225

duced to slavery would die in obstinate despair. There were no slaves
and no gold in this inhospitable region ; people and country were
proved to be alike valueless in the estimate of the Spanish conquerors,
the one feeble colony at St. Augustine alone being an exception, and
that owed its origin to a cruel fanaticism and was held together by
the spirit of religious propagandism. It was happy for the world that
it was so. If the history of South America had been repeated in the
north it would have been better that the Atlantic had still been held
to be a sea of darkness into which no ship manned by mortals could
penetrate and live. At length it was plain that not the Spanish but
a people of another blood, another faith, and another destiny were to
possess the land, though more than a century passed from the time
that the Cabots looked upon their terram primtim visam of the New
World before an English colony was planted upon its shores.

The idea of the real value the new-found regions were to be to
the English people, was of slow growth in the English mind. A
short way to India was the main purpose of the voyages of the Cabots.
If other voyages were projected or made under commissions from
Henry VII. early in the sixteenth century, as was probably the case,
they had no other object. Robert Thorne, an eminent merchant of
London, whose father is supposed to have been upon avoy- Awakingof
age to Newfoundland, urged Henry VIII. in 1527, to send Sf n in '
out fresh expeditions to discover new lands and kingdoms Amenca -
whereby the king would win perpetual glory, and his subjects in
finite profit. " To which places," he said, " there is left one way to
discover, which is into the north, for that of the foure partes of the
worlde, it seemeth three partes are discovered by other princes. For
out of Spaine they have discovered all the Indies and Seas Occidentall,
and out of Portingall all the Indies and Seas Orientall ; so that by
this part of the Orient and Occident they have compassed the world.
.... So that now rest to be discovered the sayd northe parts, the
which it seemeth to mee, is onely your charge and duety. Because
the situation of this your Realme is thereunto neerest and aptist of all
others." l And in another letter on the same subject and written
with the same purpose, he says : " It appeareth plainely that the New
foundland that we discovered, is all a maine land with the Indies
Occidentall, from whence the Emperor hath all the gold and pearles :

and so continueth of coast more than 5000 leagues of length

So that to the Indies it would seem we have some title Now

then if from the sayd New found lands the Sea be navigable, there is
no doubt but sayling northward and passing the Pole, descending to
the Equinoctial line, we shall hit these Islands [of India,] and it should

1 Letter of Eobert Thorne to Henry VIII., Hakluyt, vol. i., p. 212.

226 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

be a much shorter way than either the Spaniards or Portingals
have." !

The same year two ships, the Mary of Cruilford and the Samson,
Early voy- sailed from London, possibly in compliance with these ex-
Engianj 1 , hortations of Thome's. 2 At any rate the expedition was
undertaken at the king's command; it went, wrote John Rut,
the captain of the Mary of Gruilford, as far north as the fifty-second
parallel ; was prevented by the ice from venturing further ; and the
ship then returned to England, without reporting any more interesting
fact than that John Rut counted " eleven saile of Normans, and one
Brittaine, and two Portugal! Barkes, and all a fishing," in the harbor
of St. John. 3 The Samson parted company with the other ship be
fore she reached St. John and was probably lost. In this expedition
Cardinal Wolsey seems to have had some pecuniary interest.

In 1536 an enterprise equally discouraging and certainly tragic was
undertaken by one Master Hore, of London, " assisted by

Voyftsre of

Master iiore, the king's favor and good countenance," Hore persuading
many gentlemen of Inns of Court and of Chancery and
some country gentlemen of good estate to go with him. Altogether
there were one hundred and ten persons who sailed from Gravesend
in April of that year in the ships Trinitie and Minion, the former of
one hundred and forty tons burden. They arrived in Newfoundland
after a stormy passage of two months, where they went ashore and re
mained for the summer. What good result was expected from such
an expedition it is not easy to understand, for it was so ill provided that
the men were soon in a starving condition, and forced to seek susten
ance in such wild roots as they could gather. And to such extremity
were they reduced that they soon murdered each other secretly and fed
upon the flesh of the victims.

The captain, who had supposed that the loss of his men was due
to wild beasts and Indians, had no other remedy, when the shocking
truth became known to him, than to make a " notable Oration," in
which he set forth their sin in the strongest terms as offensive to God,
exhorting them to repentance and prayer. The murders probably
ceased, but the famine continued, and it was not long before hunger
drove them to cast lots for the choice of one who should die to save
the rest. But such was the mercy of God, says the narrative, that
a French ship well provisioned arrived that same night. Of this the

1 Thome to the English Ambassador in Spain. Haklnyt, vol. i.

2 Bicldle (Memoir of Cabot, p. 279) suggests that it was on board the Mary of Guilford
that Verrazano was pilot when he was captured and eaten by the savages. Her captain
would hardly have omitted to mention such an incident had it occurred on board his vessel.

8 Purchas's Pilgrims, John Rut's letter to Henry VIII., vol. iii., p. 809. Hakluyt refers
to the sailing of one ship in 1527, and calls her the Dominus Vobiscum, vol. iii., p. 129.

1553.] VOYAGE OF SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. 227

Englishmen, either by force or by fraud, possessed themselves and put
to sea, leaving the Frenchmen their empty vessel, and to starve in their
stead. The Frenchmen, afterward, however, found their way to Eng
land, and were recompensed by the king for their losses, though the
pirates who had overpowered them were not punished, as they should
have been, in consideration of the dire distress which incited them to
so base a crime. 1

The want of success in these adventures had undoubtedly a dis
couraging influence. The belief, handed down even to a recent
period as a kind of national heirloom, that British courage and perse
verance would find somewhere a northwest passage to India, was, if not
abandoned, at least forgotten for nearly forty years in the middle period
of the sixteenth century. In place of it a conviction gained ground that
the true road to Cathay was by the northeast. Sebastian Cabot was at
that time in England, and he had " long had this secret in his mind;"
originating, perhaps, in his own experience of half a century before,
and his familiar knowledge, gained as pilot-major of Spain and Eng
land, of the abortive attempts of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and
English to go, as Thorne said in his letter to Henry VIII., by way of
the north into the back side of the New found land.

There was at this period great depression in the trade of England,
and the growth of commercial enterprise was seeking untried channels.
The merchants of London were looking for new and better markets for
their " commodities and wares " than could be found near home, and
they sought counsel of Cabot. Trade and science struck hands at once.
In 1553 Sebastian Cabot appears as first governor of " the Sebastian
mysterie and companie of the merchants adventurers for go^rn^of
the discovrie of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and places un- of C m^ any
known," and is preparing " ordinances, instructions and ad- chants -
vertisements of and for the direction of the intended voyage for
Cathay."

In May of that year three ships sailed from London under the com
mand of Sir Hugh Willoughby as captain-general of the fleet. gi rH u g h
Evidently great things were expected. , Willoughby was " a Wlllou g hb y-
most valiant gentleman and well born," chosen as the admiral above
all others because he was " of goodly personage and singular skill in
the service of warre; " Richard Chancellor, captain of one of the ships
and pilot-major of the fleet, was of the household of Henry Sidney
afterward the father of Sir Philip Sidney who, in a public speech,
assured the merchants, not only of the value of his friend, but that hfe
hoped " this present godly and virtuous intention would prove profita
ble to this nation and honourable to this our land ; " an intention

1 Hakluyt, vol. iii.. p. 129.

228

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

which the nobility were ready to help and further. Even the names
of the ships indicate the sanguine hopes of the expedition, for they
were called the Bona Esperanza, the Edward (for the king) Bona-
venture, and the Bona Confidentia. They were well built and well
provided ; and one of them, says Clement Adams, 1 " was made stanch
and firme by an excellent invention : " they covered a piece of the
keel of the ship with thin sheets of lead to protect it from the
worms, the first time apparently that sheathing was used in Eng
land.

On the 20th of May the fleet dropped down to Greenwich. The

court was at that place, and the courtiers came running out
ure of \vii- to see the vessels ; the privy council looked out from the

windows and from the tops of the towers ; the people crowded
down to the shore ; upon the ships the sailors clustered like bees in

Willoughby's Ships in Arctic Seas.

the tops, upon the yards and shrouds, and while hills and valleys rever
berated with salute after salute, these mariners " all apparelled in
watchet or skie-coloured cloth," . . . . " shouted in such sort that
the skie rang againe with the noyses thereof." It was a gala-day on
the Thames, " a very triumph in all respects to the beholders."

In the north seas the ships, not many days after, parted company
in a storm. Two of them kept together, and were found two years
later by some Russian fishermen in a Lapland harbor. They were
the Bona Esperanza and the Bona Confidentia. In the cabin of the
Esperanza sat the body of Sir Hugh Willoughby, a pen between his

1 See his narrative in Hakluyt, vol. i., p. 243, et seq.

1570.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S DISCOURSE. 229

frozen fingers, his journal open on the table before him. Scattered
about both ships lay the bodies of the frozen crews ; every man on
board had perished with the cold. When afterward an attempt was
made to take the ships back to England with their frozen companies,
they were buried as they had died, together, for both the vessels
foundered at sea.

In all the tragedies of Arctic explorations none is more pathetic than
this ; unlike many others, however, it was not a useless sacrifice.
Chancellor in the other ship reached Archangel, and travelled thence
overland to Moscow. A new channel of trade was opened ;
such civilization as Western Europe then possessed was opened be-
brought to the knowledge and observation of less cultivated i^md and g
peoples ; the Muscovy Company became powerful and rich,
and largely added to that commercial prosperity and greatness which
were to be the pride and strength of England. Satisfied that a north
east passage to Cathay was doubtful if not impossible, the English were
content with the fruits which this search for it had brought them.

A few years later the old idea revived. In 1570 an ingenious essay
full of the cosmographical learning of the time, written by Sir Hum
phrey Gilbert, renewed the interest if not the belief in the northwest
passage. 1 America, he thought, was the Atlantis of Plato, Aristotle,
and other ancient philosophers. Partially submerged and Humphrey
divided by floods, all knowledge of it was lost for many a^urse
centuries ; but since it had been recently rediscovered, mod- no/thwest
ern geographers had come to the conclusion of the ancients, P assa s e -
that it was an island. If an island it could be circumnavigated, and
it would be possible by sailing on the north side of America to go to
" Cataia, China and East India." Not only was it theoretically pos
sible, but it had actually been done. According to several writers,
there had been, both before the Christian era, and also in the eleventh
century, certain Indians cast upon the shores of Germany. They
could not, argued Gilbert, have come by the southwest through the
Strait of Magellan, nor by the southeast around the Cape of Good
"Hope, because of the distance and because of the winds and cur
rents ; nor by the northeast, even if there were any passage that way,
which he doubted, because of the shallowness of the sea, and its
being therefore perpetually frozen. Their only probable route, there
fore, was by the northwest. But it was not a question of probabili
ties. One of the old writers had declared that three brothers had
sailed from Europe through this passage, and hence it was called Fre-
tum Trium Fratrum the Strait of the Three Brothers. He, Sir
Humphrey, had with his own ears heard a certain Spaniard assure Sir

1 "Discourse written by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Kuight," Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 11.

230

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

Henry Sidney : that he knew a friar, a man famous for his many
voyages, who had sailed through and made a map of this strait ; that
he told the King of Portugal of it, who " most earnestly desired him
not in anywise to disclose or make the passage knowen to any nation :
' for that (said the king) if England had knowledge and experience
thereof, it would both greatly hinder the King of Spaine and me.' "

This ingenious essay its author
showed to George Gascoigne, the
poet, Avho was first interested in
it as a literary work. But it had
also another value, and for that he

borrowed it. Martin Fro-
bisher, or Forboiser, was a
kinsman of Gascoigne, and
was then proposing if not
actually preparing for a

northwestern expedition. To Frobisher's Departure.

him, doubtless, Gascoigne showed the paper ; perhaps it was by his

counsel that it was soon after published ; 2 at any rate it can hardly

have failed to influence opinion, and so have forwarded Fro-

WsheTde- bisher's purposes. Two months later in June, 1576 he

northwest sailed with three small vessels, one of them a pinnace of only

' ten tons. As they passed Greenwich on their way down the

river, the queen, Mary, watched them from the windows, and conde-

1 Sir Henry Sidney, who nearly twenty years before took so lively an interest in the
discovery of the northeast passage, and made a speech at a Merchants' meeting just before
the sailing of Sir Hugh Willoughby.

2 Memoir of Cabot, p. 290. Biddle quotes from the original publication, now in the British
Museum, of Gilbert's essay with an introduction by Gascoigne. This introduction Hak-
luyt omits.

1587.] FROBISHER'S VOYAGES. 231

scended to wave her hands in token of farewell. She afterwards sent
messengers on board to express her "good liking" to the expedition
an evidence of the importance attached to it.

Frobisher made two other voyages in the two following years. On
all of them he saw the land of Frisland " rising like pinna- Frobisher : s
cles of steeples," in about latitude 61, from twelve to fif- tMrdyo> nd
teen days sail west from the Shetland Islands. All along its ages -
coast were high mountains covered with snow, except where their
sides were too precipitous. Nowhere could he find a landing-place
or a harbor, nor were there any signs of habitation. Either this was
Greenland, or Frisland has since disappeared, for no navigator since
Frobisher has ever seen it.

Thence Frobisher steered westward, pursuing on each voyage
nearly the same course. The strait, which to this day bears his
name, he thought was a passage to the sea of Suez, and the island
of Cumberland he supposed to be a part of the coast of Asia. On
the first voyage he picked up some black stones, and one of these,
on his return, was given as a curiosity to the wife of one of the
adventurers. She threw it into the fire, and after long exposure to
the heat without being consumed, it glistened like gold, and was pro
nounced to be such by the refiners. A new impulse and a new pur
pose were given to the subsequent expeditions, and on the last Fro
bisher went out in command of fifteen ships. They were to come
back laden with ore, and, said the commander of the fleet, " if it had
not beene for the charge and care we had of the fleete and freighted
ships, we both would and could have gone through to the South Sea,
called Mar del Sur, and dissolved the long doubt of the passage which
we seeke to finde to the rich countrey of Cataya." l But the hundreds
of tons of supposed ore which they brought back to England proved
no less a delusion than the passage to the East, for they held no
gold.

The cost of these shiploads of black stones was forgotten in the
course of the next four or five years, and only Frobisher's assurance
remembered that, but for the care of those useless cargoes he would
have sailed direct to Cathay. Another northern expedition remains
to be noticed before we turn to the more important events of the same
period under the guidance of statesmen who were wise enough to
see that the power and opulence of England were to be increased
by founding an empire in the New World rather than by John p^
seeking a passage to the rich kingdoms of other peoples. j."Jions Arct "
Three times in the course of the years 1585-86 and 1587, 15%5 -
John Davis heroically pushed his way through those frozen northern

i Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 80.

232

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

seas. On the third of these voyages, in 1587, he left his two small
vessels on the coast of Cumberland Island to fish, while he went north
ward in a pinnace. For about six weeks he pushed his way among the
icebergs and fields of ice, sometimes along the western coast of Deso
lation, as he called Greenland, sometimes on the opposite coast, and
penetrating Baffin's Bay as far as the seventy-third parallel. In the
Strait, which ever since has borne his name, he saw the land on both
sides of him ; but beyond was " a great sea, free, large, very salt and
blew, and of an unsearchable depth." Davis was persuaded that
nothing but ice and bad weather prevented his sailing direct to India
along the northern coast of America ; but these did stay his further
progress in any direction and he returned to where he had left his
ships. These, meanwhile, satisfied with their " catch " of cod, had
ruthlessly abandoned their commander and gone home to save their
fish. The pinnace, however, reached England in safety. The death of
Secretary Walsingham, who was Da vis's chief patron, and the prepar
ations to meet the Spanish Armada, prevented any further prosecution
of his discoveries.

The familiar names of two straits upon the map of North America
keep alive the memory of these intrepid navigators, Frobisher
an ^ Davis. The voyages of both, if not directly due to the
u Di scourse " of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which George Gas-
coigne published, received from it, doubtless, an important impulse.

But Gilbert himself meanwhile
had wider views than the possi
bility of navigation around the
northern coast of North Amer
ica, though no strait or head
land upon the continent bears
the name of the first English
man who sought it with the
single purpose of colonizing
and making it a part of the
British Empire. " Many voy
ages," says Captain Edward
Hayes, "have bene pretended,
yet hitherto never any thor
oughly accomplished by our
nation of exact discovery into
the bowels of those maine,
sir Humphrey Gilbert. ample and vast countrevs, ex

tended infinitely into the north from 30 degrees, or rather from 25
degrees, of septentrionall latitude, neither hath a right way bene taken

sir Humph-

nization.

1587.]

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

233

of planting a Christian habitation and regiment upon the same." l It
is not, indeed, quite true that, as the narrative goes on to say, that
" worthy gentleman our countryman. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Knight,
was the first of our nation that caried people to erect an habitation
and government in those northerly countreys of America ; " for Cabot
had taken colonists to Baccalaos eighty years before. It nevertheless
is true that in the active brain of Gilbert was first conceived the proj
ect which was the germ of the future power of England in the New
World, the seed whence grew the present United States.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was one of three brothers, all of whom were
men of character and distinction, and all engaged in schemes of Ameri-

View on Coast near Torquay.

can colonization. The family was one of consideration and wealth in
the County of Devon, then of the first importance in the country for
its commerce and sea-ports. The family seat was not far from the
port of Torquay, looking out upon the English channel. 2 The father
was Otho Gilbert, whose name is remembered because he was the
father of such sons and the husband of their mother. Humphrey, the
second son, was educated at Eton and Oxford, and was des- Fam j lyo f
tined for the law. But Devon influences were stronger than pj, r r " u ii_
those of school and college. Let him ride where he would bert -
from his father's castle, within a circuit of not many miles, he would

1 Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 143, et seq.

2 Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, by Edward Edwards, vol. i., p. 76.

234

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

come upon Torquay, Dartmouth, Brixham, Teignmouth, Exeter, their
ports filled with vessels of all kinds, from the tall ship that sailed
southward in pursuit of Spanish galleons, to the little craft that ven
tured into northern seas to load with cod upon the coast of Bacca-

laos. About the quays of the
busy sea-ports loitered mari
ners and soldiers, come home
from foreign voyages or for-

,i i -i e Dartmouth Harbor.

eign service, with tales of

travel in strange lands and of deeds of war ; and to a young man of
courage and imagination these would have an irresistible charm in an
age when the lure to ambition was romantic adventure.

On the maternal as well as paternal side Gilbert was of good blood,
for his mother, who was the mother also, by a second marriage, of Sir
Walter Raleigh, was of a family distinguished at various periods of
English history, the Champernouns. She was, says John Fox, the
raartyrologist, " a woman of noble wit and of good and godly opin
ions." Not much is known of her, but it is enough to know that she
was the mother of the Gilberts and of Raleigh, a woman to be held
in reverential remembrance in a land where her sons were the first
to plant the seed that should bear good fruit in the New World.
Humphrey Sir Humphrey Gilbert was first a soldier, serving in the
Sces e as s a ser ~ wars of France, of Ireland, and of the Netherlands. That
he did good service there is ample testimony. In the Neth
erlands he led a regiment for the Prince of Orange, fighting for the

1583.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION. . 235

Huguenots and the new faith. In Ireland he was made Governor of
Munster. " For Sir Humphrey Gilbert," wrote Sir Henry Sidney,
" I cannot say enough .... for the estimation that he hath won to
the name of Englishman there [in Ireland] before almost not known,
exceedeth all the rest." " I never hard," wrote Sir Walter Raleigh,
" nor rede of any man more fered than he is among the Irishe na-
cion." *

In 1578 Gilbert received an ample charter giving him power for the
next six years to discover " such remote heathen and barbar- Hig charter)
ous lands, not actually possessed by any Christian prince or 1578 -
people," and have them for his own both by sea and land as absolute
proprietor. Though that portion of America near the river of Canada
was the best known, the more southern region was Gilbert and those
engaged with him believed the more valuable. Florida, it was said,
was by divine limitation the impassable boundary of Spanish domin
ion in the New World, and " that the countreys lying North of Florida
God hath reserved the same to be reduced into Christian civility by
the English nation." 2

Sir Walter Raleigh was chief among those who entered into this
scheme of his half-brother, and who contributed money, influence, and
personal effort for its success. When, the year after Gilbert received
the charter, he made the first attempt to avail himself of the privileges
it bestowed, Raleigh, it is said," sailed with him. The expedition, how
ever, returned within a few days crippled, and with the loss of one ship
probably captured in a fight with the Spaniards at sea. But it encoun
tered many difficulties even before starting. Dissensions had arisen
among those who had engaged in it, followed by withdrawals ; thea
Orders of Council came, first that Gilbert should only put to sea under
sureties of good behavior ; then that he should abandon the enterpi'ise
altogether under pain of the queen's displeasure. For the watchful
Spaniards, jealous of every English vessel that turned her head west
ward, complained of depredations made or to be made upon Spanish
commerce complaints likely enough to be well founded, for he was
no true British sailor in the reign of Elizabeth, who did not hate the
Spaniard as he hated the enemy of mankind, and did not hold him to
be the lawful prey of all Christian men.

But in 1583 the start was more successful. Raleigh's influence
with Elizabeth removed all obstacles that the Lords of Council could
put in the way, if they were still disposed to listen to Spanish com
plaints, or the Spaniards to offer them. The queen wished Gil
bert " as great goodhap and safety to his ship as if herself were there

1 Edwards' Life of Raleigh, vol. ii., pp. 2-12.

2 Report of the Voyages, etc., of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by Edward Haies. Hakluyt, vol. iii.,
p. 143.

236 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

in person," and desired him to send her his picture as a keepsake.
His charter, moreover, expired in a year, and he could afford to delay
Gilbert sails no longer. He sailed in June in command of five ships, the
of five ships, largest of which, the Raleigh, was fitted out by Sir Walter
himself at an expense of ,2,000, and was two hundred tons
burden. The smallest, the Squirrel, was only ten tons burden ; of the
other three, the Golden Hind and the Swallow measured forty tons
each, and the admiral's ship, the Delight, was one hundred and twenty
tons. The Raleigh deserted them in a few days and returned to port,
pestilence having broken out, it was said, among her crew ; but some
thing else was the matter, for, says Captain Edward Hayes, the owner
and captain of the Crolden Hind, as well as historian of the expedition,

" the reason I could never understand Therefore I leave it unto

God." 1 And Gilbert himself wrote to Sir George Peckham, 2 "the
Ark Raleigh ran from me in fair and clear weather, having a large
wind. I pray you, solicit my brother Raleigh to make them an ex
ample to all knaves." 3

In all there was a company of about two hundred and sixty men,
among them mechanics of all trades fitted for a new settlement, as
well as mineral men and refiners. On the admiral's ship was a
band of music " for solace of their own people," and they carried
such " toyes as morris-dancers, hobbie-horses and May-like conceits to
delight the savage people, as well as petty haberdashrie wares" for
barter with them.

The vessels all arrived in due season at the appointed place of meet-
Newfound- i n g' St. John's, Newfoundland. Here Sir Humphrey read
^ n E n C gHsh ed to the tradesmen and fishermen of all nations, who, as had
territory. come to be the settled custom, had gathered there for the
summer, his commission from the queen. He took possession of the
place and the neighboring country, for two hundred leagues in every
direction, with proper solemnities, receiving a sod and a twig in token
thereof, and setting up a pillar with the arms of England carved upon
it. He had gone there, however, only as a convenient stopping-place
for repairs and provisions, on his way to that more southern country,
which was the real object of the expedition. It was a disastrous
delay. Many of his men deserted ; many were disabled by sickness
from further service ; and some died. Altogether they were a rough
and worthless set, some of whom had been pirates, and were impressed

1 Hayes' Narrative, Hakluyt, vol. iii.

2 Letter to Sir George Peckham, Purchas Pilgrims, vol. iii.

8 Oldys, in his Life and Works of Sir Walter Raleigh, vol. i., says, and others have repeated
it on his authority, that Raleigh was in command of his own ship. Gilbert's letter is the
most conclusive evidence that that could not have been the case. He would not have as
serted that a ship which Raleigh commanded deserted in fair and clear weather, nor have
asked him to punish as knaves the men who were under his orders.

1583.]

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION.

237

against their will for the voyage. On the passage out, the crew of
the Swallow had overhauled a French fishing vessel, stripped her of
sails and rigging, and robbed the men of provisions and clothing,
leaving them to perish seven hundred leagues from land. At St.
John's, a conspiracy was detected to seize the vessels while the admiral
and the captains were on shore. Defeated in this, some of the men
boarded a fishing vessel, put the crew ashore, and stole out to sea.
This accumulation of mishaps made it expedient to send the Sivallow
home with the sick and as many of the discontented and the insub-

Sir Humphrey Gilbert reading his Commission.

ordinate as could be spared, leaving Sir Humphrey with only three
vessels and a diminished company.

At length they resumed the voyage. Doubling' Gape Race, they
sailed along the west coast of Newfoundland, as far as Pla- Log g 0f the
centia Bay, then headed for Cape Breton and Sable Island, Delight -
meaning to land upon the latter, where they had heard were great
store of cattle and swine, the progeny of some left there about thirty
years before. For a week they struggled with contrary winds, mak
ing only about one hundred and twenty leagues. In thick weather
and a gale of wind they suddenly found themselves, in the early
morning, among breakers and on a lee shore, as so many have done

238

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CiiAP. X.

since on the dangerous coasts of Nova Scotia. Presently the Delight,
the largest ship, struck and in a few moments went to pieces. Seven
teen of her crew jumped into the long-boat, and after seven days of
exposure, without food or water, fifteen of them reached Newfound
land ; the rest were drowned ; among them the captain, Maurice
Browne, who refused to leave his ship, but " mounting upon the high
est deck he attended imminent death and unavoidable." These were
the men who had belonged to the Swallow, and had robbed and left
to " imminent death " the crew of the French fisherman on the out-

Wreck of the " Delight."

ward passage, and that deed "justified to the mind," said Captain
Hayes, " God's judgments inflicted upon them " in this sudden ship
wreck. The Golden Hind and the Squirrel, warned in time by the
fate of their fellow, hauled off and stood out to sea.

The weather continued tempestuous and cold, for winter was ap-
Giibert re- proaching ; the land they sought they could not fall in with
- after beating about for many days ; provisions were failing,
an( j i mn g ev pushing them sore ; and it was resolved to re
turn to England. Notwithstanding the disasters that had attended

land.

1583.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION. 239

the expedition, Sir Humphrey was content. At St. John's one of his
assayers had brought him an ore, which he solemnly affirmed was of
silver, and so persuaded of this was Gilbert that he believed he had
but to return in the spring to gather great wealth. This vision took
possession of him and was a great comfort in all his trials, though it
did not make him forget his wise purpose of colonization on the con
tinent farther south. The specimens of the ore had been left on board
the Delight, by mistake of his servant, and the assayer, who knew
most about them, was lost in that vessel.

But Sir Humphrey knew where to find the mine. Hitherto he had
said little about it, and had enjoined silence upon others ; but now
that he was far out at sea and returning to England after so many
misfortunes, he talked not a little about the great store of silver in
his new possessions. The thing he seemed most to regret, next to the
loss of his men, was the loss of the lumps of ore ; and when long after,
on visiting the G-olden Hind at sea, he met the boy whose fault it was
that these precious minerals were left on the Delight, he fell upon and
beat him "in great rage." Good and pious and wise man as he was
known to be, he was of a choleric and unforgiving disposition. Years
before, when he was putting down the rebellion in Ireland, the castle
or fort that did not surrender at his first summons, he " would not
afterwards," he said, " take it of their gift, but won it perforce how
many lives so ever it cost ; putting man, woman, and child of them to
the sword." There was good reason why he should be more feared
than any other man by the Irish, as Raleigh said he was. Among sail
ors who were pirates if they had the opportunity, and among Irish
outlaws who were no better than half savages, he showed little of the
quality of mercy.

So much did he rely upon his mine of silver, that he was sure the
queen, upon report thereof, would readily advance 10,000, where
with he would equip two fleets in the spring, one to bring home the
ore, the other for a new venture to the south to plant colonies. " I
will set you forth royally next spring," he said to his companions, " if
God send us safe home." That hope was not ill-founded ; the prom
ise of sud4en wealth in the New World was never made to dull ears.
But it would only have been one more idle tale to be confuted, for
there was no mine ; the colonies, other hands than his were to plant.

The vessel Gilbert had last embarked upon was the Squirrel, the
smallest of the fleet, of only ten tons burden. He was be- The 8inki n g
sought to leave her and find greater safety on board the Golden ^ the s 9 """
Hind; but his answer was always: "I will not forsake my GU^^
little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so death-
many storms and perils." Severe as he was he would ask no man

240

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

to do that which he was himself afraid to do. So small a craft was
a poor thing in which to cross the Atlantic in September. The
weather was foul, the waves "terrible, breaking short and high like

pyramids Never men saw more outrageous seas." On the

9th of the month the Squirrel came near foundering, but rode out
the storm. The Crolden Hind approached and hailed her, and Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, sitting quietly in the stern of the boat with a
book in his hand, answered cheerfully, " we are as near to heaven by
sea as by land." In the darkness of the night that followed they
anxiously watched on board the Hind for the Squirrel's lights ; sud
denly at midnight, " as it were in a moment," they disappeared. The
little vessel " was devoured and swallowed up of the sea."

The County of Devon bred great men for the reign of Elizabeth,
sir waiter an( ^ * ne greatest of them all was Walter Raleigh. Whatever
Raleigh. j.] ie \ OCil \ influence of its maritime position, the contagion of
example, or the stimulus of noble emulation in families, did to form

the characters of its sons, was done in
larger share for Walter Raleigh than
for all the rest. His half brother,
Humphrey Gilbert, was a dozen years
his senior ; but that difference did not
forbid close affection and companion
ship between them, while it gave the
weight of years to example and pre
cept. Walter, like Humphrey, went
with the gallant band of young Eng
lishmen, to fight on the continent for
the new faith, and against the Pope ;
like him he served in Ireland, to sub
due the half savage rebels of as he
called it "that commonwelthe or
rather common woo ; " like him he
hated the Spaniard, and longed for
adventure and discovery ; and he saw, as Gilbert saw, that the way
to check the growth and power of Spain in the New World, was to
take possession of the thousand miles of sea-coast, north of Florida,
which the curse of Spanish invasion had not yet blighted, that
therein was to be found the true glory of England, and the best
service to her queen. They were true brothers in spirit, in character,
and in determined purpose, even more than in blood.

Raleigh's loss was not a slight one in the desertion, at the outset, of
the ship the Raleigh which he had built and fitted out at his own
charges ; but that w r as as nothing to the loss of his friend and brother,

Sir Walter Raleigh.

1584.] RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION. 241

whose heroic death the Grolden Hind reported within a few days in
England. Neither discouraged him, and. he seems to have accepted the
last as imposing upon him the new duty of carrying out alone the
projects in which hitherto he had been content to second his half
brother. Gilbert's patent was so near the time of its ex- Ra^^oi,.
piration as to be useless for any fresh enterprise ; and as all ^ t n e s n tof
knowledge of the supposed silver mine was lost with him, Gilbert -
Raleigh had no special motive for planting a colony so far north as
Newfoundland. With the promptitude and energy so characteristic of
the man, he at once set himself to work, and in March, 1584, had
secured from the queen a new patent with enlarged powers and priv
ileges. A month later two ships, well manned and victualed, sailed
down the Thames and put to sea, under the command of Captain
Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow.

This evidently was only a voyage of exploration, to find the place
best adapted for the future colony. They sailed by way of
the Canaries and the West Indies, for navigators had not pedition.

. 1584

yet learned to venture out of the course laid down by Co
lumbus a century before, except when seeking those northern parts
about the great river of Canada. It was sixty-six days before the
smell of the land, " so sweet and so strong a smell, as if wee had been
in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinds of odo
riferous flowers," warned them of their near approach to the Western
Continent, and two days more July 4th before they saw the low,
sandy shore of North Carolina.

Presuming this to be the main land, they kept along the coast
for one hundred and twenty miles, seeking for a good harbor, and then
entered an inlet, supposing it to be the mouth of a river. After their
long and weary voyage, worn out with the heat, and suffering from the
malaria of the tropics, they were enraptured with the region upon
which they had fallen, more by chance than design. The cool sea-
breeze tempered the heats of July ; the waves rippled gently upon
the white sands of the beach, lifting in their ebb and flow the grace
ful branches and clustering fruit of the vine which climbed every tree
and bush down to the water's edge. The land rose gradually into low
hills, crowned with cedars more stately and more beautiful than the
cedars of Lebanon.

Mounting one of these hills they saw that they were upon an isl
and about sixteen miles in length, the sea stretching on both
sides further north and south than the eye could reach. The Barlow and
main land was still distant. As they afterward discovered,
and as Vei-azzano had observed sixty years before, there ran along
this coast for many miles a chain of long and narrow islands washed

242

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [Ciixp. X.

on one side by the ocean and on the other by an inner sea from twenty
to fifty miles in breadth. In />ne of the connecting inlets Amadas and
Barlow had found a harbor and had anchored their vessels in Pamlico
Sound.

The island on which they landed has been generally supposed to be
Wocokon, identical with that now known as Ocracoke, lying between
Hatteras and Ocracoke inlets. 1 But on the map accompanying Harl
ot's " Briefe and True Relation of the New found Land of Virginia,"
published by De Bry in 1590, the island beginning next south of Cape

Landing on the Island.

Hatteras, is called Croatoan, and the second island south of that is
Wocokon. Ocracoke, therefore, is that which was then called Croa
toan, while that then known as Wocokon, is now, probably, Ports
mouth Island. 2 The first footprints of the coming nation of Bug-

1 See Stith's Virginia ; Holmes' Annals ; Belknap's American Biography ; Bancroft's
History of the United States ; Hildreth's History, and others.

2 In the original narrative, the source of all that is known of this voyage, written by Cap
tain Barlow, 1 no name is given to the island on which the expedition first landed. But in
describing the boundaries of the territory under the separate rule of different Indian chiefs,
the southernmost town of one of them is placed on what is now known as Pamlico River,
and Wocokon is referred to as not far distant. The unnamed island where thev first went
ashore, was, says Captain Barlow's narrative, about twenty miles from Koanoke Island ;
and from the Occam Albemarle Sound at the entrance of which lay Koanoke, to the

1 In Hakluyt, vol. Hi., p. 246

1584.]

RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION.

243

lish blood on the shores of the New World were made not at Ocracoke
but on the low sandy beach of Chickeonocomack Bank, still Exact ^^
often called by the people of the neighborhood Hatteras, of landin -
Cape Hatteras, or Hatteras Bank. And as the inlet, through which
the ships of Amadas and Barlow entered Pamlico Sound, was twenty
miles from Roanoke Island, that channel must in the course of time
have been filled by the shifting sands, while New Inlet, which is only

Map in Harlot's " Relation." [Fac-simile.]

twelve and a half miles from Roanoke, has been formed as its name
implies since the settlement of the country.

The ships had not long to wait for a visit from the natives. On
the third day came three Indians across the sound in canoes, vlsits from
one of whom ventured boldly among the strangers, was shown the natlves -
about the ships, entertained with wine and food, and made happy by
presents of a shirt and some other trifles. In return he loaded his

Indian town near Wocokon, was four days' journey. Then Strachey, who was the first
secretary of the first permanent Virginia colony, founded twenty -three years afterward, and
who was probably familiar with the whole region, says of Amadas and Barlow, "they
arrived upon the coast in a harborow called Hatorask ; " and he subsequently confirms, while
he follows the original narrative by adding, "to the so-ward four daies journey, they discov
ered Socoto the last town southwardly of Wincandacoa" "neare unto which" was Woco
kon, an "out island." 1 On the map of 1590 in Harlot's Relation, "Hatoras" is laid down
as at the first inlet north of the point now called Cape Hatteras.

1 The Historic of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, etc., by William Strachey, Gent. First published in
1849, by the Hakluyt Society. London, pp. Ia2, 143.

244 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT [CHAP. X.

canoe with fish, fresh caught in the sound, and piling them up in two
heaps upon the sand signified by signs that one was for each ship.
The next day there came many boats bringing forty or fifty men, led
by Granganameo, the brother of the king of that country. From him
the Englishmen learned that the region round about was called Win-
gandacoa, whereof Wingina, then ill at home from a wound received
in battle, was the king. These visitors were a " handsome and goodly
people, and in their behaviour as mannerly and civil as any in
Europe."

Afterward they came in greater numbers and in entire confidence
and cordialty, bringing food and skins, and accepting in return what
ever the strange white men at whose whiteness they " wondered
marvellously " chose to give. They soon brought with them their
wives and children, and among them was the wife of Granganameo, a
" woman very well favoured, of meane (medium) stature and very bash
ful ; she had on her backe a long cloake of leather, with the furre side
next to her body, and before her a piece of the same : about her forehead
she had a bande of wite Corall, and so had her husband many times :
in her eares she had bracelets of pearles hanging downe to her mid
dle, and those were of the bignes of good pease." Such was a Vir
ginia princess of the sixteenth century.

A few days later Captain Barlow, with seven men, went up the
Indian hos- Occam Albemarle Sound for twenty miles, and on re-
pitaiity. turning landed on the north end of Raonoak (Roanoke) isl
and. Here in a palisaded village of nine houses, built of cedar, was the

residence of the chief Granganameo ;
and here this modest wife he being
absent received and entertained their
new friends with a boundless and grace
ful hospitality. Her house of five
rooms she put at their disposal ; she
and her women fed them with the
best that field, forest, and rivers, and
Indian skill could provide ; washed and
dried their clothing ; bathed their feet
in warm water. And she disarmed
her men that the confidence of her
guests might remain undisturbed, and
sent guards to watch by the river bank

Lord and Lady of Secotan. [From De Bry.] "

that no danger should approach while

they slept in peace in their boat, covered by the dressed skins she
gave them.

The adventurers were back again in England by the middle of Sep-

1584.]

RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION.

245

tember, having spent, perhaps, six weeks among a people so attractive

and so simple, amid scenes so novel. Of the country they said " the

soile is the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome of all the

worlde ; " of trees they found fourteen " of sweet smelling Ent husiastic

timber ; " the oaks were of as many kinds as in England, ^adven-

but " far greater and better ; " the fruits were " of divers turers -

kinds, and very excellent good," such as " melons, walnuts, cucumbers,

gourdes, pease," and " grapes in all the world the like abundance is

not to be found ; " the

corn of the country

[maize] was very white,

fair and well tasted, and

there were three crops

from May to Septem

ber ; the fish were the

best in the world and

in greatest abundance ;

of " divers beasts" they

name fat bucks, conies,

and hares ; and for

the people, they were

" most gentle, loving

and faithful, void of all

guile and treason, and

such as live after the

maner of the golden

age." 1 As witnesses to

the truthfulness of this

pleasing picture of the

new found land, they

carried back with them

to England two of the

natives named Manteo

and Wanchese ; some of its products, " as chamois, buffalo and deer

skins," and " a bracelet of pearls as big as peas " for Sir Walter

Raleigh.

The effect of such a report was very marked in England. In the
name of a virgin queen Raleigh was permitted to call the The ^^
new country Virginia ; as a reward for his part in its dis- named vir-
covery the honor of knighthood was bestowed upon him ; to
his arms was added the legend, Propria insignia Walteri Ralegh, mili-
tis, Domini, et Grubernatoris Pwytm'o?/ 2 and perhaps that he might

1 Captain Barlow's "Narrative " in Hakluyt.

2 Edwards' Life of Raleigh, vol. i., p. 87.

Queen Elizabeth.

246 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

have the means to persevere in this enterprise he was enriched with a
monopoly in the granting licenses for the sale of certain wines. Al
ready a favorite with Elizabeth, he entered now more actively into
public affairs as member of parliament for the County of Devon, and
procured from that body a confirmation of the royal patent for the
possession and colonization of foreign lands.

In the spring a larger expedition and with a more definite purpose
was fitted out. On the 9th of April, 1585, a fleet of seven

Raleigh's . .

colony un- ships, under command of Sir Richard Grenville, sailed from

der Sir Rich- r

ard Gi-en- Plymouth. On board were about one hundred men who

ville. 1585. J

were to form the future colony. Of this Ralph Lane was
to be the governor ; Philip Amadas, who in this as in the expedition
of the previous year, commanded a ship, was his deputy ; of another
ship Sir Thomas Cavendish, a young gentleman just come of age and
into his inheritance by the death of his father, was owner and cap
tain ; Thomas Hariot, the mathematician and astronomer, went as
the scientific man of the expedition. One John White was the artist,
and his sketches are among the earliest, the most authentic, and
the most valuable of the habits and appearance though no doubt
somewhat idealized of the natives of Virginia as the Englishmen
found them.

Altogether it was a notable company. Lane was already a sol
dier of reputation and was after
wards knighted by the queen.
Cavendish, just out of boyhood,
made, a year later, the most fa
mous voyage of the time around

Signature of Ralph Lane. t ] le W Ol'ld, ill which he gave SOUie

valuable contributions to geographical knowledge ; and he specially

commended himself to the affectionate respect of his country-
Notable . '
men in the men and the approbation of the queen, for he wrote on his

colony.

return, " I burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships, small and
great ; and all the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned
and spoiled," - ships, towns, and villages being all Spanish. Hariot
was Raleigh's friend to the end of his career ; aided him in that " His
tory of the World" which he wrote in the Tower; and because of this
friendship, was thought worthy to be called from the bench a " devil "
by Chief Justice Popham. Of him it is questioned whether he or
Des Cartes invented the system of algebraic notation ; whether he or
Galileo was the first observer of spots upon the sun, and of the satel
lites of Jupiter, the testimony in Harlot's favor being not trivial.
Grenville, the admiral, was Raleigh's kinsman and his dear friend.
Five years later, off the Azores, he in his single ship fought fifteen

1585.] THE RALEIGH-GRENVILLE COLONY. 247

great Spanish galleons for fifteen hours, and when at last mortally
wounded, said with his last breath in the heat and smoke of battle,
" Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for
that I have ended my life, as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for
his country, queen, religion and honour."

It was men of this stamp who entered into the projects of Raleigh
to plant English people, with English law and English civilization, in
the New World. English hatred of the Spaniard took that direction
that the growth of Spanish power and dominion and wealth should
be checked beyond the sea as well as on it. Nor was Raleigh's policy
confined to North America. But here we have nothing to do with his
romantic expeditions to Guiana, the last one a brief and sad interval
between his release from twelve years' imprisonment in the Tower
and his mounting the scaffold at Westminster Gate House. There,
feeling with his finger the edge of the axe, he said, " It is a sharp
and fair medicine to cure me of all my diseases ; " and to a hesitat
ing executioner, he added, " What dost thou fear? Strike man,
strike ! " That which was glory under Elizabeth was treason under
James.

Every man who went with Grenville hated Spain as Raleigh hated
her. The fleet sailed by way of the Canaries and the West Indies,
spoiling the Spaniards wherever the opportunity offered, taking two
of their frigates, one of which " had a good and rich fraight and divers
Spaniards of account in her which afterwards were ransomed for good
round summes." On his return voyage in August, the admiral fell
in with another richly laden Spaniard which he took, he and his men
boarding her in a boat, made on the instant and so hastily knocked
together that it fell to pieces as they sprang from it to the deck of the
enemy.

It was nearly three months from the time they left Plymouth be
fore they had their first sight of the American coast south of Arrival at
Cape Fear. Standing northward they narrowly escaped Hr cokon -
shipwreck at that stormy point, and three days afterward landed
as the original narrative distinctly says, at Wocokon.

Word was sent to Roanoke Island, by the Indian Manteo, of the
return of the English. But the pleasant relations with the natives,
established the year before, were soon disturbed. Grenville with his
captains and other principal men of his fleet started almost imme
diately for an excursion of eight days further inland. Crossing Parn-
lico Sound they visited several Indian villages along the coast of the
present Hyde County, North Carolina, and the lake which the sav
ages called Paquipo, now named Mattamuskeet Lake. In one of
these villages a silver cup was stolen by an Indian, and not being

248

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

speedily returned, they burnt and spoiled their corn and town, says
the narrative, all the people being fled. Grenville soon returned to
England with a portion of the fleet ; but Lane, who remained as gov
ernor, followed, in the subsequent intercourse with the Indians, the
evil example thus set him, found it, perhaps, difficult to do any
thing else when the fears and the passions of the savages were once

An Indian Village. [From Harlot's "Relation" Fac-simile.]

aroused by such an act of cruel injustice. Peace for a time was kept
by Granganameo, and his father Ensenore, an old and venerable man ;
but they both died in the course of the winter and spring, and with
them all memory of the kindly intercourse of the year before was
lost.

Wingina, who called himself Pemissapan after the death of his
brother, Granganameo, the chief of the country round about Roan-
oke Island, threw off at length all pretences of friendship. He

1585.] THE RALEIGH-GRENVILLE COLONY. 249

and his subjects alone had been under the kindly influences of the
visitors of the year before, while tribes farther off had not come in
contact with Amadas and Barlow. This second expedition had begun
with burning a village on Pamlico River ; some of the men made their
way almost as far north as Chesapeake Bay ; Lane with two boats
penetrated the interior far up the Chowan and the Roanoke rivers ;
and wherever the strangers went it was with such evident purpose
and spirit as to excite throughout all this region at first secret mis
trust and dread, and then open warfare. The son of one powerful
chief Lane carried about with him as a prisoner, sometimes putting
him in " the bilboes " and threatening to cut off his head. The sim
ple, trustful, and kindly natives whom Barlow had found only a year
before living, as he said, after the manner of those of the Golden Age,
were suddenly transformed into wily savages. They hated and feared
the Englishmen who, they believed, had brought pestilence change in
among them, and who could kill them with invisible bullets, oiTtheTa"
though they fled far out of sight into the most secret recesses tives -
of the forest. To submit to the presence of the strangers was, they
feared, to consent to their own final extermination, and they acted ac
cordingly. Pemissapan proposed to starve out the colony on Roan-
oake Island by planting no maize, hoping that the men would separate
themselves into small companies to seek for subsistence, and could
then be cut off in detail. Ensemore, Pemissapan's father, persuaded
him to forego this project, and fortunately the seed was sown before
the old man died in April. Then the chief entered into conspiracies
with the heads of other tribes, ventured at last upon an attack on the
colony, and lost his life.

But Lane, meanwhile, had pushed up the Roanoke River, beguiled
by a tale of the abundance of pearls, of a rich mine of copper, Governor
and that the head waters of the river were so near a sea that f e g e the
the waves thereof would break into it in stormy weather. Roanoke -
The mine they may have thought was gold, as probably it was ; the
Spaniards before them had heard of the smelting of gold in North
Carolina. Lane and his men did not go far enough to find either the
gold or the passage to the South Sea ; but the Indians kept them
ever on the watch with their frightful war-whoops ; starvation was
so imminent that they were reduced to a pottage of sassafras leaves
and a porridge of dogs'-meat ; and the captain concluded that noth
ing else but a good mine, or a passage to the South Sea, could bring
the country " into request to be inhabited by our nation," notwith
standing the fatness of the soil and " its most swete and beautifullest
climate."

Soon after Lane's return from this expedition and when the enmity

250

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

among the Indians about Roanoke Island had broken out into open
visit of hostilities, a fleet of twenty-three ships, commanded by Sir
Drake'to the Francis Drake, appeared off the coast. They were fresh from
colony. 1586. ne sac ^ o f g^ Augustine, and called to get tidings of the
progress of the Virginian colony, and give it help if needed. Drake

loaded a well -manned ship with
provisions to leave with Lane,
but a storm soon after dispersed
his fleet, and this ship with
others was driven out to sea and
returned to England. Another
vessel was put at the governor's
disposal and the question sub
mitted by him to the colonists
whether they would remain or
return home. They had given
up all hope of the succor which
Grenville had promised to send
them ; a year's trial of the hard
ships of the wilderness and the
disappointment about the mine
had so completely disheartened
them that they clamored to leave
the country. They carried to
bacco with them, which was
then, it is supposed, introduced
for the first time into England. 1
In such haste did they take their departure 2 that " they left," says
a narrator, " all things confusedly, as if they had been chased thence

1 Sir Walter Raleigh made the smoking of tobacco fashionable among the courtiers, aud
even Elizabeth and the ladies of the court are said to have followed his example. Its culti
vation and use, seem to have been universal among the North American Indians. The
Portuguese introduced it into Europe. Lord Nicot, French Ambassador to Portugal, in
1559, 1560, and 1561, sent the seeds to France, and from him it was named Nicotinna. It was
held as a sovereign remedy for some diseases, especially ulcers. (Maison Rnstique, or the
Countrie Farm. Translated into English by Robert Snrflet Practitioner in Physicke. London,
1600.) Hariot, in his Brief e and True Report of the New found land of Virginia, and its Com
modities, says the Indians called tobacco Uppowoc, and that " the leaves thereof being dried
and brought into powder they use to take the fume or smoke thereof, by sucking it thorew
pipes mads of clay, into their stomacke and head ; from whence it purgeth superfluous
fleame and other grosse humours, and openeth all the pores and passages of the body ; by
which meanes the use thereof not only preserveth the body from obstructions, but also (if
any be, so that they have not been of too long continuance) in short time breaketh them:
whereof their bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many grievous diseases,
wherewithal wee in England are oftentimes afflicted." The Carribbees called their pipes
Tobacco, and the Spaniards transferred the word to the herb itself.

2 Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 265.

Tobacco Plant.

1587.] THE CITY OF RALEIGH. 251

by a mighty army, and no doubt so they were ; for the hand of God
came upon them for the cruelty and outrages committed by some of
them against the native inhabitants of that countrey." But Raleigh
had not forgotten them. Drake's fleet had not been long at sea be
fore a ship arrived at Hatorask well freighted with all things needful
for their relief. Finding Roanoke Island deserted, they set sail again for
England, and had been gone only a fortnight when Sir Rich
ard Grenville himself arrived with three ships well provided turns to
with supplies for the colony. As there was no colony to re
lieve he landed fifteen 1 men to hold possession, consoling himself for
his fruitless errand by spoiling some towns in the Azores and taking
some Spaniards on his homeward passage.

Raleigh was not discouraged by these repeated reverses, but the next
summer (1587) sent a new colony of one hundred and fifty The cityof
men. He gave it a charter, and incorporated it under the ^rporated
name of the Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh, 1587 -
Virginia. The company included women as well as men. The gov^
ernor was John White, and Simon Ferdinando, who had been a captain
of one of Grenville's ships two years before, was admiral. There was
utter want of harmony and cooperation between these two men from
the hour of sailing to the end of the voyage, an element in the ex
pedition necessarily fatal to its success. What Ferdinando thought
of White we do not know ; but White's opinion of Ferdinando he has
left on record. The Admiral was passionate, wilful, given to much
swearing "tearing God to pieces," says White and clearly had
his own way always. That way was, if we may believe White, an
intention to ruin as well as rule. One of the vessels he is accused
of leaving at a port in the West Indies, stealing away in the night
in his own ship, hoping that her captain would never, for want
of knowledge, reach Virginia, or that he would be taken by the
Spaniards. It was White's intention to go up the Chesapeake Bay,
in accordance with Sir Walter Raleigh's orders, to find a seat for his
colony, after looking on Roanoke Island for the fifteen men whom
Grenville had left there the year before. But when Ferdinando had
got forty of the colonists on board the pinnace at Hatorask to go
to the island, he ordered the sailors not to bring them back again,
declaring that the summer was too far gone to admit of time being
spent in seeking for the best spot for a settlement. The two men
were governed by different motives : one was for delay ; the other
for speed ; the governor wanted time to move with caution and con
sider consequences ; the sailor wanted to reach his port and discharge

1 Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 265, also Strachey, p. 150. Smith, Stith, and others who follow
them say erroneously fifty men were left by Greuville.

252 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

his cargo, looking forward to some new venture, probably some
homeward-bound Spaniard laden with treasure.

The fifteen men whom Grenville had left at Roanoke were not to
be found. The fort was razed to the ground ; the huts were

Governor TIT i i

white and standing, but they were overgrown with melon- vines, and the

his colony J

on iioiinoke deer roamed through them undisturbed by any fear of human
presence. The whitening bones of one man were the only
sign of recent habitation. All that White could learn of the fate of
his countrymen was that they had been attacked by the Indians, two
of them killed and the rest driven to a little island in the harbor of
Hatorask. They could be traced no farther.

The fleet remained a little more than a month, but before it sailed
the enmity between the Englishmen and the Indians was renewed
with fresh fury. One of the assistants, Mr. Howe, while searching
alone for shell-fish along the beach of Roanoke Island, was killed by
some of the tribe of which Pemissippan had been chief. To revenge
his death an attack was made before daylight upon an encampment
of Indians, who, after one of them was killed, were found to be
friends from Croatan where Manteo's people lived. The effect upon
the Croatans of this unhappy blunder was probably not favorable to
their continued friendship, though they may have been appeased for
the moment by the subsequent christening of Manteo who, by Sir
Walter Raleigh's order, was, in reward of his faithfulness to the
English, baptized with due ceremony under the name of Lord of
Roanoke and Dasamonquepeuk. Before the fleet sailed, also, the
daughter of White, the wife of Ananias Dare, one of the assistants,
gave birth, August 18, to a daughter, who was christened Virginia
the first child of English parentage born upon the territory of the
present United States.

White returned to England to ask for further assistance. He says
he went at the earnest solicitation of all the colonists ; but

White goes c T i

back to it seems unlikely that a necessity for sending the governor
on such an errand could have arisen within a month of their
arrival. The anxious desire, so evident in his narrative, to justify
his going, indicates that it was his own wish rather than the wish of
those he left behind him, to get back to England. He never suc
ceeded in anything he undertook for the colony, and never failed in
ingeniously finding reasons for the failure in the conduct of other
people.

Only one single word was ever again heard directly from the colony.
White sailed from Roanoke on the 27th of August, 1587 ; it was the
9th of the same month, three years later, 1590 before he again
set foot in Virginia. There was no help at first for this delay. When

1590.] WHITE'S LAST VOYAGE. 253

White reached home England was busy from one end to the other in
raising recruits for the army to resist the threatened Spanish invasion ;
every ship in her ports was pressed into the naval service in one ca
pacity or another. Sir Francis Drake, who, that year, cruising along
the coasts of Spain destroyed a hundred of her ships, wrote to Lord
Burleigh : " Assuredly there never was heard of or known so great
preparations as the king of Spain hath and daily maketh ready for the
invasion of England." In the summer of 1588 the Armada of one
hundred and forty ships was in the Channel; Raleigh, as he Warbe .
had been among the foremost to arouse, arm, and drill the ia V ndaifd ng ~
people to repel the invaders, so now he was on board the fleet Spam -
that went to meet them on the sea. The " Invincible Armada " soon
ceased to terrify England, and though Philip of Spain, when he learned
of its dispersion and partial destruction, swore he would waste his
crown to the value of a wax candle but he would drive Elizabeth from
the throne he claimed as his own, 1 Drake was heard of ere the year
was over harrying the Spaniards again on their own coasts. White,
meanwhile, succeeded in getting off in April, 1588, to the relief of the
colony with two vessels and fifteen new planters. But they went no
further than a few leagues north of the Madeira Islands, where, in an
encounter with the Spaniards, so many of the men were wounded and
the pinnaces so disabled that they were compelled to return to Eng
land. 2 It had been first proposed to send a larger expedition under
Sir Richard Grenville, but the ship was stopped by Order of Council,
and Grenville himself ordered for service against the Armada. It was
only by importunity that White was allowed to sail with these two
small pinnaces, and it was not till 1590 that he was permitted to make
another attempt to get back to his colony.

In February of that year, hearing that three ships belonging to a
London merchant were ready for sea on a voyage to the West White g e S
Indies, but detained by general Order of Council, he procured o te coi- 6 *
their release through the influence of Raleigh. The condi- ony " 1590>
tion was that they should carry a reasonable number of passengers
and land them in Virginia ; but this was fulfilled only so far as to take
White alone. They sailed in March ; spent four months in a cruise
against the Spaniards among the West India Islands, capturing some
prizes, and arrived at Wocokon on the 9th of August.

Six days later the ships anchored in Hatorask harbor, having spent
one night on the way off the Island of Croatoan. At Hatorask White
was cheered with the sight of a great smoke rising in the direction of

1 Rapin's History of England, vol. ix.

2 See the first edition of Hakluyt, of 1589, p. 771. The voyage is not mentioned in the
second edition of 1600, which contains White's narrative of his visit to Roanoke in 1590.

254 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

Roanoke Island, and the next morning salutes were fired at proper in
tervals to let the colonists know of the arrival of their countrymen.
Boats put off for the island, but before they reached it another column
of smoke in another direction raised fresh hopes. This they steered
for, but having consumed the day in reaching the place where it seemed
to rise it proved a delusion. Neither men nor signs of any habitation
were found.

A disaster the next day well nigh put an end to all further attempts
to reach Roanoke. The boats were sent ashore at Hatorask for water ;
the surf was heavy in the inlet, one of the boats was upset, and two
of the captains of the ships and five others were drowned. So dis
heartened were the sailors at this mishap that they refused at first to
go on, and this determination was with difficulty overcome by the will
and authority of White and the remaining captain. It was night be
fore they reached Roanoke and approached the spot where White ex
pected to find his friends. Glimmering through the trees they saw
the light of a fire, and for a moment their hopes were kindled

Search for * . .

white's coi- into enthusiasm. Approaching it along the shore the notes
of a trumpet-call from the boats rang clear and shrill through
the silent woods ; the sailors sung out in cheering tones the familiar
words of English songs which would have so stirred the blood of any
listening Englishmen long exiled from home. But there was no
answer. The light of the distant fire still flickered above the dim line
of the forest ; but out of the darkness came no friendly shout of men,
no woman's glad cry of joy and welcome.

They landed at day-break ; the fire they had seen was from burn
ing grass and rotting trees, kindled, no doubt, by the Indians whose
fresh foot-prints were found in the sand. Pushing through the woods
toward the spot where White had left his colony three years before,
they saw the letters C R O, carved upon the trunk of a tree, upon the
brow of a hill. Pausing to consider what this might mean, White
remembered that when he left the colony it was proposed that the
people should remove to the main land, and that wherever they went
the name of the place should be left behind them here upon trees or
door-posts. It was further understood that should any misfortune have
overtaken them, they should carve beneath the name a cross. Here
then was the guide, if CRO meant Croatoan, to the place whither the
colony had removed, though it was to an outer island rather than to
the main. But to the anxious father and governor there was this en
couragement, the sign of the cross was wanting.

Again they pushed on after a brief consultation upon the " faire
Romane letters curiously carved," which White had thus explained. It
was not far to the deserted post, still surrounded with its palisades.

1590.] THE LOST COLONY. 255

Here all doubts were removed : at the entrance, upon one of the largest
of the trees from which the bark had been stripped, was The deser t e d
carved in capital letters, the word CROATOAN in full, and fort -
still without the cross. Within the palisades the houses were gone,
but scattered about were bars of iron and pigs of lead, some large guns
with their balls " fowlers " and " sacker shot," they were called,
and other things too heavy for a hasty removal, all overgrown with
grass and weeds. In a trench not far off were found some chests
where they had been buried by the colonists and dug up afterward
by the Indians ; among these were three belonging to White, but all
had been rifled ; books were torn out of their covers, the frames of pic
tures and of maps were rotten with dampness, and a suit of armor was
almost eaten up with rust. " Although it much grieved me," says
White, " to see such spoyle of my goods, yet on the other side I greatly
joyed that I had safely found a certaine token of their [the colonists]
safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was borne,
and the Savages of the Island our friends."

It was his only consolation if he really believed that his friends,
among whom was his daughter, had found any such refuge.
The boats had hardly regained the ships at Hatorask when white's

J *- x . search for

a gale of wind with a heavy sea set in, and in attempting to the missing
get under way one of the ships lost her anchors and was near
going ashore. The water casks, which had been taken to the land to
be filled, could not be brought off ; provisions were short, the sailors
were despondent and impatient, and it was determined to abandon all
attempts to go to Croatoan in further search of the colony, but to sail
at once to the West Indies and recruit. White was only a passenger,
and could probably do nothing to change this determination, though
his friends, if still alive, were not many miles distant. He may,
indeed, have been doubtful if they were still alive, for the ships on
their arrival on the coast had stopped at Wocokon, had sailed along
the shores of Croatoan, and anchored for a night off the north end of
the island. Had there been any survivors of the colonists there, they
could hardly have failed, on the look-out as they would always have
been for succor, to see the passing vessels and have made their presence
known by signals of some sort. But no signs had been seen of living
men ; no columns of smoke curled up above the trees ; no flags of
distress were descried ; no friendly Indians beckoned them to land ;
no sound of gun or shout broke the silence of the wilderness. At
Roanoke alone, in the one word Croatoan carved upon the trees,
and in the crumbling vestiges of the colony, half buried in the rank
growth of two or three summers, were there any evidences that Eng
lishmen had ever been there tokens, also, that they had perished.

256 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

That such was White's conviction that he believed his daughter
and her children, and all the rest whom he had led to this distant land,
had fallen victims to the vengeance of the natives is the most char
itable way of accounting for the readiness with which he seems to
have acceded to the proposal to sail for the West Indies. It was,
indeed, suggested that they should return to Virginia, after taking on
board a fresh stock of water and provisions ; but that could only have
been a pretext, for as Croatoan was directly in their course a delay of
half a day would have sufficed to ascertain whether there were any
Englishmen alive upon the island. "I leave off," said White, in a
letter to Hakluyt, narrating the details of this voyage, "I leave off
from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were an
swerable to my will." Others did not leave off, no doubt sincerely be
lieving what with White may have been only a desperate hope, that
the unhappy planters were not all exterminated. Sir Walter Raleigh
seems never to have neglected any chance of finding his lost colony,
but excuses were never wanting for not making a thorough search on
the part of those whom he engaged to undertake it.

In 1602, that no divided interest should interfere with a thorough
prosecution of the object of the voyage, he bought a vessel and hired a
Raleigh crew for this one purpose. The ship was commanded by
urflvifcTto Samuel Mace, who twice before had been in Virginia, " a
Croatoan. sufficient mariner, and an honest, sober man." But he, like
the rest, found something else to do than to search for his countrymen.
Did he think it a fool's errand ? The honest man and sufficient mari
ner spent a month on the coast, forty leagues southwest of Hatteras,
perhaps at the mouth of Cape Fear River, trafficking with the Indians,
making no attempt to reach Croatoan, on the standing pretext of stress
of weather and loss of ground tackle. 1 There was an evident unwil
lingness in England to acknowledge publicly that so cruel a calamity
as the total destruction of so many men and women could have be
fallen an attempt to colonize Virginia ; Raleigh himself was reluctant
to give up if he ever gave up his firm persuasion that they had
not all perished ; but as those who were sent to their relief made little
or no effort to find them, it is charitable to suppose that though they
accepted his service they had no faith in his opinion.

That the colonists were all massacred soon after White left them,

strachey's has been the common belief in later times ; but there is

thlTosT 6 to good reason for doubting if that were the fact. There was

clearly a conviction prevalent in the colony at Jamestown,

twenty years afterward, that some of the Roanoke people had es-

1 Purchas, vol. iv. ; Strachey's Historic of Travaile into Virginia, p. 134. The statement
in Purchas is that Raleigh had sent succor to those left in Virginia in 1587, "five sev
eral times at his own charges," hef'ore he sent Mace.

1602.] THE LOST COLONY. 257

caped destruction, and might be even then surviving. 1 Strachey
refers to them again and again, and in a way that conveys the impres
sion he is speaking of a fact he knows will not be questioned. In
describing the country of the Upper Potomac, he says that in the high
land " to the so' ward " the people of Peccarecamek and Ochanahoen
have, according to the report of an Indian, houses of stone, which
they were taught to build " by those Englishe whoe escaped the
slaughter at Roanoak," and that a certain chief had " preserved seven
of the English alive fower men, two boyes, and one yonge mayde,
who escaped and fled up the river Chanoke, [probably the Chowan,]
to beat his copper." Of White's last visit to Roanoke, when he found
the indication that should have led him to Croatoan, he also says :
" Howbeit, Captaine White sought them no further, but missing them
there, and his company havinge other practises, and which those tymes
afforded, they returned covetous of some good successe upon the Span
ish fleete to returne that yeare from Mexico and the Indies, neglect
ing thus these unfortunate and betrayed people, of whose end you
shall yet hereafter read in due place in this decade."

But this story, if he ever wrote it, has not yet been recovered.
What it may have been we can only infer from expressions like these
scattered through " The Historie of Travaille." " He [Powhatan]
doth often send unto us to temporise with us, awayting perhapps a fit
opportunity (inflamed by his furious and bloudy priests) to offer us a
tast of the same cuppe which he made our poore countrymen drinck of
at Roanoak." The King of England, it is said elsewhere, " hath bene
acquainted that the men, women, and childrene of the first plantation
at Roanoak were by practise and comandement of Powhatan (he him
self perswaded therunto by his priests,) miserably slaughtered with
out any offence given him, either by the first planted (who twenty
and od yeares had peaceably lyved intermixt with those salvages, and
were out of his territory,) or by those who now are come." And
again : " Powhatan hath slaughtered so many of our nation without
offence given, and such as were seated far from him, and in the terri
tory of those weroance [chiefs] which did in no sort depend on him
or acknowledge him."

Assuming that Strachey was a trustworthy reporter and of that
there is no question of what he saw and heard in Virginia, we con
clude it was the belief at Jamestown that there were some survivors

1 The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, by William Strachey, the first secre
tary of the colony at Jamestown, though written at an early period of the settlement, was
not published till 1849, and the new light he sheds upon this subject is so recent that it has
not, we believe, been noticed anywhere except by the Rev. E. E. Hale, in vol. iv. of the
Collections of the American Antiquarian Society.

258 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

of White's colony, and that these Powhatan, or rather his priests,

caused to be put to death after the settlement of the English at that

place. Understanding this, we are better able to comprehend some

allusions in the Smith histories which, without the light

Allusions in. in i i IITT t i i i i

smith's his- given by Strachev, have seemed blind and inexplicable, but

tones to J is * f a*. 1 ' 4-1 ^1

these coio- are clearly a confirmation or Stracney s story tliat there were
some survivors, in 1606, of the Roanoke people. Thus, in
" The True Relation," 1 the first book by Captain Smith on Virginia,
he says, in relating an interview with the Emperor Powhatan : " What
he knew of the dominions he spared not to acquaint me with, as
of certaine men cloathed at a place called Ocanahonan, cloathed like
me." And again he says : " The people clothed at Ocamahowan, he
[Powhatan] alsoe confirmed." 2 The allusion in both cases can only
be to the lost colonists. And in the work known as his " Generall His-
torie," published fifteen years afterward, is this passage : "How or why
Captaine Newport obtained such private commission as not to return
without a lumpe of gold, a certaintie of the South Sea, or one of the
lost company sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, I know not." 3 That
one of the objects of an expedition into the interior was to succor some
of the survivors of the Roanoke colony, and because some of those
unhappy men and women lived to so late a period without being re
leased by their friends in England, is why, probably, Strachey speaks
of them as being betrayed.

Raleigh's patent of 1584 was renewed from time to time, though as
early as 1589 he hoped that he had induced others to carry on the work
which he had begun. In those first years of enthusiasm, he had ex
pended it is said, forty thousand pounds sterling in his several expedi
tions, 4 and he then enlarged on behalf of Thomas Smith and others,
merchants of London, the charter of " The City of Raleigh " under
which White and his associates were incorporated. 5 But this new
company did nothing, and Raleigh's efforts were limited to the

Raleigh's in- J .

terest in his attempt to convey help to those colonists in whose total de-

colony

struction he persistently refused to believe, down to the time
when he sent Mace, in 1602. Of that voyage we have some further

1 A True Relation of Virginia. By Captain John Smith. Edited by Charles Deane,
Boston, 1866, p. 28.

2 Ibid. p. 37. We follow the punctuation of the passage in accordance with Mr. Dcane's
suggestion, by which alone can it have any meaning.

8 The Voyages and Discoveries of Captain John Smith, vol. i., p. 120. Richmond edition.

4 Oldys, in his Life of Raleigh, vol. i., p. 117, makes this statement on the authority of a
scarce pamphlet which he describes as " a brief relation of Sir Walter Raleigh's troubles."
The sum named is probably exaggerated.

5 The indenture between Raleigh and Smith has sometimes been supposed to be a con
veyance of the patent of 1584, from Raleigh to Smith and others. It was only to include
them, with enlarged privileges, in " the City of Raleigh " charter.

1602.] THE LOST COLONY. 259

account in a letter from Raleigh, to Secretary Sir Robert Cecil, written
in August of that year. " I wrote unto you," he says, " in my last
that I was gonn to Weymouth to speake with a pinnes of myne arived
from Virginia." Mace was from Weymouth, had sailed in March of
that year for Virginia, and as he had spent a month on the coast to
trade with the Indians, and to load his vessel with sassafras, he
would be back in Weymouth in three or four months. His landfall
was "forty leagues to the south westward of Hatteras." l

Raleigh's pinnace was also loaded, he says, with " sarsephraze," and
her landfall was " forty leagues to the west of it," i. e. Virginia,
and it was for that reason that the captain did not " spake with the
peopell " the colonists at Croatoan. This letter was written to Ce
cil to ask him to intercede with the Lord Admiral for the seizure of
sassafras brought home at the same time by a Captain Gilbert, who
also had been on the American coast, forty leagues to the east of
Roanoke, because, says Raleigh, " I have a patent that all shipps and
goods are confiscate that shall trade ther without my leve." There
can be no doubt that the pinnace here referred to was the one com
manded by Mace.

Captain Gilbert was himself the bearer of this letter. He, said
Raleigh, commending him to the good offices of the secretary,

"is my Lord Cobham's man It is he by a good letters on

* <f _ American

token that had the great diamonde." The allusion re- business,
called no doubt to Cecil's mind some stirring adventure, perhaps some
piece of rare good luck in a fight with the Spaniard, in which Gilbert
had been conspicuous. But although he was Lord Cobham's man,
he was also, we suppose, a nephew of Raleigh's and in friendly
relations with him, notwithstanding this proposed seizure of his sassa
fras. That, indeed, seems only to have been what is now called a busi
ness arrangement, Gilbert assenting to this method of taking one of
the cargoes out of the market that the other might command a higher
price. He also, no doubt, was the Bartholomew Gilbert who had sailed
in April with Bartholomew Gosnold for the coast of New England,
arriving home again the latter part of July, not long before the date
of this letter.

" I do sende both the barks away againe," writes Raleigh. Of
Mace we hear no more ; but Bartholomew Gilbert, it is known, sailed
for Virginia, the following spring. 2 It was partly a trading voyage to
the West Indies, but had also another object in which Raleigh's will is
seen even if we had not his own assertion that Gilbert was to go

1 Tracts appended to Brereton. Mass. Hist. Coll.

2 Purchas, vol. iv., p. 1556.

260

ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X.

again, this time with his sanction. The vessel took in a cargo in
the West Indies, and on her way homeward went up the Chesepian
(Chesapeake) Bay to look for the lost colony. The search was
brief ; heavy weather for some days prevented a landing, till at length
Gilbert ventured to go on shore with a boat. Leaving this in charge
of two boys, he with his men started on an expedition inland. They
were still in sight of the lads they had left behind when
a band of Indians started from an ambush and attacked
them furiously. Several men were seen to fall, wounded
by arrows : the affrighted boys put
off hurriedly to the ship, leaving the
captain and his companions at the
mercy of the savages. Nothing more

thoiomew

Bartholomew Gilbert's Death.

was heard of them, and the ship, her crew reduced in numbers,
the captain and other officers gone, soon set sail and returned to
England.

With this tragic event the death of another Gilbert in the cause
of American colonization ends Raleigh's connection with that conn'
try to which, as he said the year before, he still held the title, and of
which he speaks in this letter to Cecil in these memorable words :
" I shall yet live to see it an Inglishe nation." l

In this same summer, when his nephew lay dead on the beach of
Chesapeake Bay, the final sacrifice of Raleigh on behalf of that
new English nation, his patent expired by his attainder. On the

1 Edwards' Life of Raleiyh, London, 1868, vol. ii. Letter ex. From the original Cecil
Papers.

1603.]

ATTAINDER OF RALEIGH.

261

charge of high treason, James I. found in Sir John Popham re
membered now chiefly for the part he took in the trial of End of Ka _
Raleigh, and for following his example in attempting to American
found a colony on the North American coast a chief j us- enter P rise s-
tice base enough to bend the law to the will of a tyrannical master.

Signature of Queen Elizabeth.

Signature of Sir Walter Raieigh.

Entrance to Chesapeake Bay.

CHAPTER XL

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA.

GOSNOLD'S EXPEDITION. PATENT GRANTED TO LONDON AND PLYMOUTH COMPANIES.
A COLONY SETS OUT FOR VIRGINIA. DISCORD ON SHIPBOARD. THE BUILDING
OF JAMESTOWN. NEWPORT'S EXPLORATION OF THE RIVER. GOVERNORSHIP OF
EDWARD WINGFIELD. DISCONTENT AND SUFFERING AMONG THE COLONISTS.
THE INDIAN CHIEF POWHATAN. ACCOUNTS OF SMITH'S CAPTURE BY THE SAV
AGES. DISCREPANCIES IN SMITH'S OWN STORY. RETURN OF NEWPORT FROM
ENGLAND. CORONATION OF POWHATAN. SERVICES OF SMITH TO THE COLONY.
THE NEW CHARTER. EXPEDITION OF GATES AND SOMERS. THE TEMPEST AND
THE SHIPWRECK. OPPORTUNE COMING OF LORD DE LA WARRE. CODE OF LAWS
FOR THE COLONY. ADMINISTRATION OF GATES AND DALE. CULTIVATION OF
TOBACCO. MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS. SANDYS AND YEARDLEY. THE COLONY

FIRMLY ESTABLISHED. WlIITE AND BLACK SLAVERY. THE FlRST AMERICAN

LEGISLATURE.

BARTHOLOMEW GOSNOLD sailed from Falmouth, England, on the
25th of March, 1602, in a small vessel called the Concord Bartholo
mew Gilbert being his second in command sent, not by Raleigh, nor
going with Raleigh's consent, but by the Earl of Southampton. 1 He

1 The letter from Raleigh to Cecil, referred to in the previous chapter, shows that the
presumption that this voyage was made with his consent (see Bancroft, Palfrey, and others),
is erroneous. He asks that Gilbert's " sarsephrase " be seized, " because I have a patint
that all shipps and goods are confiscate that shall trade ther without my leve." That
he had given such leave, has hitherto been assumed, because Brereton (see Purchas's Pil
grims and Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. viii., Third Series), addresses his narrative of the voyage to
Sir Walter Raleigh. Brereton's own words, however, make it plain that he did so only as a
matter of courtesy.

1602.]

GOSNOLD'S EXPEDITION.

263

took with him thirty-two persons, of whom twenty were to remain
and found a colony somewhere on the northern coast of Vir- v oyage of
ginia, as the whole country was then called, from the thirty- Barthol -

mew Gos-
nold. 1602.

fourth to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. His purpose was
to go by a direct northwest course, avoiding the usual circuitous route
by the Canaries and the West India Islands ; but contrary winds
drove him southward- to one of the Azores, whence he steered nearly
due west, arriving on the coast of New England at about 40 of
latitude, on the 14th of May.

At a point which he called Savage Rock, not far, probably, from
Cape Ann, if not the Cape itself, the Concord was boarded by a party
of Indians in a Biscay shallop, carrying both sails and oars ; their lead
er, and one or two others, were partially clothed in European garments,
which, as well as the boat, they had obtained from Biscay fishermen ;
nor was this the only evidence of frequent intercourse with such visit
ors, for it is said, " they spoke divers Christian words, and seemed to
understand more than we, for want of language, could comprehend." l
Finding at this place no good harbor, they stood southward, crossed
Massachusetts Bay, and the next morning dropped anchor, within a
league from the shore, under the lea of a great promontory.

Provincetown.

On this breezy point, jutting out into the Atlantic, which a voyager
along the coast of the United States can hardly escape hitting, either
in fair weather or foul, stands to-day the picturesque village of Prov
incetown, half buried always in sand, and at the proper season com-
1 The Relation of Captain Gosnold's Voyage, by Gabriel Archer, in Purchas, vol. iv.

264

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

pletely covered over with drying cod-fish. Gosnold and his people at
first called this promontory Shoal Hope, but presently changed the
name to Cape Cod. Champlain called it Cap Blanc (Cape White),
four years later, because of the aspect which its sands gave it ; l and
in 1614 Captain John Smith named it Cape James ; but the name
Cape Cod it has never lost. The captain and some of his companions
landed, and found pease, strawberries, and whortleberries, as yet un
ripe ; the woods were cypress, birch, witch-hazel, and beech products
which the visitor to the extremity of Cape Cod will now hardly find,
by the most diligent search.

Doubling the headland, they sailed for six days along the outer coast

of the cape, " the back side " as it is now called, which

past cape the Northmen, it is supposed, had discovered six hundred

years before, and named Wonder-strands. Certain points now

known as dangerous shoals, but which were then peninsulas of firm

land, the Concord's crew
called Tucker's Terror and
Gilbert's Point, from two
of their officers. The fish
ing was so good, better,
they thought, than off the
banks of Newfoundland,
that they " pestered " their
ship with the quantity of
cod they took each day ; in
land the country seemed
covered with grass and well
wooded, and to be very
populous. A few of the
natives came alongside in
their birch canoes, others
ran along the beaches " ad
miring" the strangers; the
pipes of those who boarded
the ship, it was observed,
were " steeled with copper,"
and one of these Indians

Map of Cape Cod. i , i , n , i ,

wore a breastplate of that
metal a foot in length and half a foot in breadth.

Crossing the Vineyard Sound, they came " amongst many fail-
islands," on one of which they landed. It was full of woods and
fruit-bearing bushes, with such an incredible store of vines running

1 Voyages du Sieur de Champlain.

1602.] GOSNOLD'S EXPEDITION. 265

upon every tree, that they could not go for treading upon them.
It is the Northmen's story over again. " We will call it Vinland,"
said Leif the Lucky, of the country he found, probably in these same
waters. To the island on which they first landed, Gosnold and his
people gave the name of Martha's Vineyard. 1 This, there is little
doubt, is now known as No Man's Land, the name of Martha's Vine
yard being afterward transferred to the larger island north of it. Here
they did not go ashore, but doubling its southwest extremity, calling
it Dover Cliff as they passed, sailed into Buzzard's Bay. It seemed
to them one of the " stateliest " of Sounds, and worthy to Decidesto
be called Gosnold's Hope. On an island now known by its Eifz^btth'*
Indian name of Cuttyhunk, 2 but which Gosnold called Eliz- Ialand -
abeth, the designation now of that whole group of which Cutty-
hunk is the outermost, it was determined to plant the colony.

The soil was " fat and lusty." The seed of various grains, planted
as an experiment, sprung up in fourteen days to a height of from
six to nine inches. Indeed, on all the coast, no more enticing place
could be found than this lovely island, with its southern side to the
sea, the Gulf Stream winding in near enough to warm the tides that
washed its shores. In a lake two or three miles in circuit, one end of
it only a few yards from the outer beach, was a rocky islet an island
within an island and on this they determined to build a fort. The
larger part of the company at once set to work, and for the next three
weeks were busy on a place of habitation and defence, while a few,
" and those but easy laborers," employed themselves in gathering
sassafras few, because, adds Captain Gosnold, in a letter to hi*
father, 3 " We were informed before our going forth, that a ton (of
sassafras) was enough to cloy England." What became of this cargo,
we learn from Raleigh's letter to Secretary Cecil.

The Indians were frequent visitors, bringing furs, wampum, to
bacco " which they drink (smoke) green, but dried into powder,
very strong and pleasant" and such provision as they had for
traffic. Among them, as among the natives of the Cape, copper was-
in common use as an ornament, and by signs they made known that
they dug it out of the ground, which gave great hope to the English
of mines not far distant. Gosnold, with some of his companions,

1 Or Martin's Vineyard, as it is often written by early writers. Captain Pring, who
made essentially the same voyage the next year, was on board the Concord. His name was
Martin, and it may have been given to the island in his honor, suggests Belknap, as the
names of others of this ship's company were used to designate other places as Tucker's-
Terror, Gilbert's Point, Gosnold's Hope, Hill's Hap.

2 " A contraction of Poo-cut-oh-hunk-un-nok, which signifies a thing that lies out of th&
water." Belknap' s American Biography, vol. ii., p. 114.

3 Master Bartholomew Gosnold's letter to his father, touching his first voyage to Vir
ginia. See Purchas and Mass. Hist. Coll.

266 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT .IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

visited other islands of the group, and explored the main in the di
rection of the site of the present town of New Bedford, and found it
to be "the goodliest continent that ever we saw, promising more by
far than we did expect ; for it is replenished with fair fields, and in
them fragrant flowers, also meadows, and hedged in with stately
groves, being furnished also with pleasant brooks, and beautified with
two main rivers." l The natives were, on the whole, not unfriendly ;
and in a place so pleasant, with so much that was encouraging, this
might have been the first English colony on the American coast, had
the Concord been better provided.

But when the time came for her return, it was found that only

enough stores could be spared to sustain for six weeks at most those who

should remain. There was little reason to hope that they

Abandon- .,,. . , ,' ..

ment of the might live upon the country, and they had made no provision

enterprise. J i i rrn

for a crop by planting. I he uncertainty as to how soon
succor might reach them from home, and the doubt whether the
Indians would leave them unmolested, counselled prudence, and they
wisely resolved that none should be left behind. On the 18th of
June they sailed for England, and on the 23d of July arrived off
Exmouth. When four days afterward they anchored in Portsmouth
Harbor, " we had not," said Gosnold, in the letter to his father, " one
cake of bread, nor any drink but a little vinegar, left."

Indirectly this voyage of Gosnold's was not without important re
sults, though a failure in its immediate purpose. New England thus
just missed of being the site of the first settled colony, but attention
was turned to these Northern coasts, never to be again relaxed for any
long period. The immediate interest aroused was enough to send out
in the course of the next two or three years, several expeditions for
trade with the Indians.

Martin Pring, who was with Gosnold in the Concord, was fitted out

by some Bristol merchants in the spring of 1603, with two
Pring-s voy- vessels, one of fifty tons, the other of twenty-six only, with

which he ran along the coast of Maine, stopping long enough
in Casco Bay to find the fishing better than off Newfoundland ; look
ing into the mouth of the Kennebunk, the York, and the Piscataqua
rivers, cruising with delight among the many islands along that shore.
Then following Gosnold's track from " Savage Rock " to Buzzard's
Bay, trading with Indians wherever he could find them, he was back
again in England, his two vessels well laden, within six months. Wey-
mouth, whom the Earl of Southampton and Lord Arundel sent out
two years later, was bent rather upon discovery than trade. But
these voyages were the direct consequence of that of Gosnold ; the

1 Archer's Relation.

1606.] PATENT TO THE VIRGINIA COMPANIES. 267

shorter route he opened by steering directly westward instead of the
circuitous course followed by vessels going to Virginia for the previous
twenty years, and the report of a rich and productive country, and a
salubrious climate, at least in the summer months, on the Northern
coast, promised a new field for English enterprise.

Gosnold himself was full of zeal and energy. The failure to
plant a colony on Elizabeth Island did not in the least discourage
him, and the few weeks spent in that region assured him of the possi
bility of successful colonization anywhere along the coast under better
auspices. He inspired men of influence and wealth with something
of his own enthusiasm. The merchants of London, Bristol, and Plym
outh considered the subject in its commercial aspect, and that seemed
full of promise ; but there were many others who saw it in a more
comprehensive light. Chief among these was Richard Hakluyt, a
London clergyman, whose diligence as an author bore witness to the
deep interest he felt in discovery in the New World, and the import
ance he believed the possession of its Northern portion to be to Eng
land. The result of the labors of such men was the formation of an
association composed of some of the most influential and respectable
persons in the kingdom, and which determined beyond a doubt the
future of North America.

Letters-patent were issued in April, 1606, to Sir George Somers,
Richard Hakluyt, Edward Maria Wingfield, and others who Paten tto
should be joined to them, by which was granted all the c^mpwSie"'*
territority on the American coast, between 34 and 45, l
and the islands within a hundred miles. It was required that two
companies be formed, one to be called the first, or Southern Colony ;
the other, the second, or Northern Colony. The jurisdiction of
the Southern colony, whose council was chiefly composed of resi
dents of London and came therefore to be known as the London
Company, extended from Cape Fear to the eastern end of Long
Island, from 34 to 41 ; the other was called the Plymouth Com
pany, as its council was appointed from Plymouth and its vicinity ; its
limits overlapped those of the other, extending from 38 to 45, or
from about the latitude of Delaware Bay to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Each colony was to be governed by a resident council of thirteen, to
be appointed by the king, with power to choose a president, Governm ent
who should not be a clergyman, from their own body, and ^hed^the
to fill any vacancies that should occur among themselves New World -
from death or resignation. The laws enacted by them were subject
to revision either by the king or the council in England. No part
whatever in the government was given to the people ; even trial by jury
was allowed only in cases of capital crimes, which were " tumults, re-

268

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

bellion, conspiracy, meetings and sedition, together with murder, man
slaughter, incest, rapes, and adultery ; " lesser crimes and misdemean
ors were to be tried before the president and council, and punished
according to their will. Real estate was to be held as under the laws
of England, but for the first five years all personal property and the
fruits of the labors of the colonists were to be held as a common
stock, and each member of the community was to be supported
from the general store. Religion was to be established in accord
ance with the rites and doctrines of the Church of England ; the

people were enjoined by virtue of such
penalties as the president and council
should choose to inflict, to "kindly
treat the savage and heathen people
in those parts, and use all proper
means to draw them to the true service
and knowledge of God," and also to
lead them to " good and sociable traf
fic." Such were the essential features
of the first constitution of government
established within the limits of the
present United States. It was espec
ially the work of that pedantic despot,
James I., who afterward amused him
self with drawing up a code of laws
for the administration of a government
where, in the last resort, all political power rested in his hands, and
the hands of those of his appointment.

In the summer of 1606, two ships sailed for New England under
the auspices of the Plymouth Company, one in May commanded by
Captain Pring ; the other in August, of which Henry Chalong was
Captain. 1 Chalong was taken by the Spaniards, but Pring sailed
along the coast of Maine and made, on his return, so favorable a report
of the country that Chief Justice Popham, of the Plymouth Company,
determined, the next year, to send his brother George Popham and
Raleigh Gilbert, a son of Sir Humphrey, 2 to settle a colony at the
mouth of the Sagadahoc. As this colony, however, returned to Eng
land in a few months the first permanent settlement was that made by
the London Company in Virginia.

1 Some confusion has arisen in regard to these voyages. In the ship with Pring went
Captain Hanam, or Hanham, some authors say as master, others as captain. Strachey
speaks of a voyage by Captain Haines, which is probably a mistake for Hanam, and has
led some writers to suppose there were three expeditions sent in 1606 by the Plymouth
Company.

2 See Prince's Worthies of Devon.

James I.

1606.]

THE COLONY SETS OUT FOR VIRGINIA.

269

John Smith.

The colony numbered one hundred and five, men men only, for
there were no women. Of these only about twenty were mechanics ;
of the rest, some were soldiers, some were servants, and Member s O f
nearly half of the whole number were "gentlemen," with thecolon y-
whom it was not of so much consequence that they were unaccus
tomed to labor, for the better bred and better educated a man is,
the better able is he for any work
but that they looked upon labor as a
degradation. Among its most nota
ble persons were Bartholomew Gos-
nold and Gabriel Archer, Gosnold's
companion in the Concord and his
torian of that expedition ; Edward
Maria Wingfield, afterward the first
governor; the Rev. Robert Hunt, the
chaplain, a good man, who soon had
enough to do to keep the hands of
his charge from each others' throats ;
George Percy, a brother of the Earl
of Northumberland, who did effi
cient service in the early struggles
of the colony ; and John Smith,
already distinguished for a romantic career as a soldier in a war
against the Turks.

They sailed from Blackwall, England, on the 19th of December,
1606, in three vessels: the largest, the Sarah Constant, of one They saiifor
hundred tons burden, the second, the Grod- Speed, of forty, Jem^er^ 6 "
the third, the Discovery, a pinnace of twenty tons ; l and of 1606-
this little fleet, Captain Christopher Newport, an able and experienced
sailor, was commander. Contrary winds kept them hanging about the
coast for five weeks ; when fairly started on their western course, they
went though Gosnold and Archer could have taught them better
by the old route of the West Indies, trading with the Spaniards and
dallying in pleasant places, so that four months passed before they saw
the coast of Virginia. 2 The delay was not only at great cost of pro
visions, which they soon came to sorely need, but so long a voyage
was in itself enough to breed discontent among men who must have
been impatient to reach their destination. Discontent bred insubor
dination, and this was aggravated by the ignorance as to who among
them was to be in authority in the future colony, and might, therefore,

1 Purchas, vol. iv.

2 Smith's History of Virginia, book iii., chap. 2, says five months, but this is an obvious
blunder.

270 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

command beforehand obedience and respect ; for the London Council
had unwisely ordered that the seals of their letters of instruction and
appointment should not be broken till the colonists had landed upon
the shores of Virginia. Among these malcontents John Smith made
himself peculiarly obnoxious. His offence may have been in reality
nothing more serious than to complain loudly of a delay, which, to one
of his active and impatient temper, must needs have been exceedingly
irksome ; but perhaps his example was contagious, and it was there
fore thought necessary to put him under restraint. He was accused
(if we may accept his own statement) of an intention to usurp the
government, to murder the council, and make himself king ; 1 whether
charges so serious were really believed to be true, or were only meant
to curb a turbulent disposition, he was still considered as under arrest
for several weeks after the arrival in Virginia.

The intention, it is supposed though on insufficient authority
was to follow the Raleigh colonies and go to Roanoke Island ; the
reckoning, however, was in fault, if that was their purpose, for they
overshot it. But there was, probably, no such intention. The in
structions of the Council were that the ships should seek for a safe
port at the entrance of some navigable river, and if more than one
was discovered that should be preferred, if there were any such, which
had two branches. Should either of these branches come from the
northwest then that one Avas to be entered, as it might be the passage
to the South Sea. 2 The hope of finding this passage the London
Council never relinquished so long as the Company remained in exist
ence.

Only three days were consumed in search of such a harbor, and on
Arrival in * ne 26th of April, 1607, they sailed into Chesseian (Chesa-
couiftry. peake) Bay. Its southern point where some of the peo-
Apni, 1607. pj e ^ on landing^ W ere attacked by the Indians, and Gabriel
Archer and a sailor wounded they called Cape Henry ; its northern,
Cape Charles, in honor of the sons of the king. They would, doubt
less, have welcomed the sight of a much less inviting land than this
after the long delay ; but they sailed up this noble bay with irrepres
sible delight, eager to begin their work.

Their first business was to ascertain who among them were to have
the management of affairs. On the night of their arrival at Cape
Henry the sealed box was opened and it was ascertained that the
council was to consist of Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward
Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and
George Kendall. The next seventeen days were spent in looking for

1 Smith's General History.

2 See instructions in full in Neill's History of the Virginia Company in London.

1607.]

THE BUILDING OF JAMESTOWN.

271

a suitable place to plant the colony, about which there was much dis
agreement, and on the 18th of May they fixed on the present site
of Jamestown so named in honor of the king on a pe
ninsula about forty miles from the mouth of the Pow- tSfsiteV 5 *
hatan, which, also in honor of James, they called the King's,
and afterward James River. This was to be their permanent home ;
the council, excepting Smith, were sworn into office, and Wingfield
chosen president.

Then " falleth every man to worke ; the Councell contrive the
Fort, the rest cut downe trees to make place to pitch
their Tents ; some provide clapboard to relade the
ships, some make gardens,
some nets, etc." 1 It was

Newport's Embarkation.

the laying of the first solid foundation of that English nation, which
Raleigh had said five years before he should yet live to see.

In the instructions of the Council the emigrants were commanded to
discover the communication which was supposed to exist by some river
or lake between Virginia and the South Sea. This they evidently
looked upon as one of their first duties, and accordingly within a week
Captain Newport " fitted out a shallop with provision and all neces-
saryes belonging to a discovery " they believed they had not far to
seek and proceeded with " five gentlemen, four maryners, and
fourteen saylors, with a perfect resolutyon not to returne, but either to
finde the head of this ryver, the laake mentyoned by others hereto-

1 Smith's History, book i., chap. 1.

272 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

fore, the sea againe, the mountaynes Apalatai [Appalachian] or some
issue." l The issue was that they returned within the week without
having discovered either the head of the river, the lake, the South
Sea, or the mountains.

They made, however, a fair survey of 'James River for a hundred
Newport's anc ^ ^ty m iles, visiting several Indian kings, or weroances,
the j7me f s as ^ ie J were called in the native tongue. By these they were
River. received with great kindness, and made welcome with venison,
turkeys, maize, strawberries, mulberries, raspberries, pornpions (pump
kins), dried nuts, and tobacco. In return they gave their hosts the
usual gifts of beads and other trifles, inviting the chiefs sometimes
to share their English food, and drink of their strong drinks to that
degree as to make the simple savage both sick and sullen. One
tribe was governed by a " queen," Queen Ahumatec "a fatt,
lustie, manly woman," dressed in a copper " crownet," a copper neck
lace, a deer-skin girdle, and u ells (else) all naked." She affected great
state and was haughty in demeanor, but " cheered somewhat her
countenance " when presented liberally with gifts. It was also ob
served of her, that she was much less affrighted at the discharge of a
gun than the men. 2

Their further progress up the river was stayed at that point where
the city of Richmond now stands, and where the water fell down
" through great mayne rocks from ledges of rocks above two fadome
high." Just below was the village of a king Pawatah (Powhatan),
a brother or son, probably, of that Powhatan afterwards known as the
Emperor, which Newport named Pawatah's Tower, placed upon a
hill on the north bank, or Popham side of the river ; the south bank
they called the Salisbury side. At this point it was proposed to
proceed by land and reach the Quirauk (Blue Ridge) Mountains ;
but they were dissuaded by the Indians, who represented the way as
tedious, and the people of that region as the enemies of Powhatan.
Here, therefore, ended their discoveries, which, though they did not
find the entrance to the South Sea, they hoped would " tend to the
glory of God, his majeste's renowne, our countrye's profytt, our
owne advancing, and fame to all posterity." 3

As they went down the river, they observed a change in the con
duct of the Indians which excited their apprehensions ; and these were
well founded, for on reaching Jamestown they learned that the camp
had been attacked during their absence. Several of the men were

1 Captain Newport's Discoveries in Virginia. First published, from MS. found in the Eng
lish State Paper Office, in vol. iv. of Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, 1860.

2 Ibid.
8 Ibid.

1607.] NEWPORT'S EXPEDITION. 273

wounded, one boy was killed, and the President, Wingfield, had nar
rowly escaped, an arrow having passed through his beard.

George Percy and Gabriel Archer, both men of note, went with
Newport on this expedition, and were probably not without some
share in its responsibilities and success, such as they were. New ort?g
The coupling of Smith's name alone with Newport's, in ? p. anions

A i in this expe-

Smith's " History," is an assertion of a prominence belong- dition -
ing quite as much to others as to him. Courageous, enterprising, and
energetic as he unquestionably was, he was inclined to make himself,
or at least sanctioned others in making him, more the hero of the
early history of Virginia than the facts seem always to warrant. His
own " History" is apparently the only authority for the assertion that
he was arrested in the West Indies ; and such an arrest must have
been made, if made at all, by Newport's orders. 1 It may be that the
difference between Smith and Wingfield, which afterward led to such
serious results, showed itself thus early, and that Newport saw the
necessity of putting a restraint upon one of a turbulent and daring
character. If this were so, it is more probable that he kept Smith
with him that he might be under his own control, and prevented
from interfering in the organization of affairs at the fort, rather than
that he divided with him the responsibility and honor of the first
expedition into the interior.

Newport remained at the fort about three weeks before sailing for
England, and assisted with his sailors in putting it in a better state
of defence. "We labored," says the narrative of his expedition,
under date of May 28th, the day after his return " pallaz- Buildingthe
doing (palisading) our forte." The colony had been on shore fort<
a fortnight, and had protected the encampment only with boughs of
trees. The attack from the Indians showed that more efficient de
fence, for which the branches were only a temporary substitute and
all that as yet there had been time to put up, must be at once made,
But in Smith's " History," we are told that "the president's overween
ing jealousy would admit no exercise at arms, or fortification, but the
boughs of trees cast together in the form of a half moon by the extra
ordinary pains, and diligence of Captain Kendall." This seems to be
pure detraction, for there is nowhere else any intimation that Wing-
field was wanting in diligence and energy, and the Newport narrative
declares that at the first attack from the savages he " shewed himself
a valiant gentleman," the proof whereof, was the arrow shot through
his beard when with four others of the council he took the post of
danger in the front.

1 We find no mention of it in the abridgment in Purchas of Percy's Narrative, in the re
port of Newport's expedition up the James River, nor in Wingfield's Discourse of Virginia.

274 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

There was evidently trouble brewing which Newport tried to avert
before he sailed on the 21st of June. Where the fault lav

Trouble . J

brewing m is not clear, but there was, says the Newport narrative,

the colony.

" among the gentlemen, and all the company, a murmur and
grudg against certayne preposterous proceedings, and inconvenyent
courses." A petition was sent in to the council, in relation to these
difficulties, whatever they were, and Newport by " fervent pers way-
son " won a " uniformity of consent " among them, so that, continues
the narrator, " we confirmed a faythfull love one to another ; and in
our heartes subscribed an obedyence to our superyors this day. Cap
tain Smyth was this day sworne one of the Counsell, who was elected
in England."

A compromise was thus apparently effected, and harmony restored
by this admission of Smith to the board of councillors. But in
Smith's " History" there is a material difference in the account of this
transaction. 1 Referring to his arrest in the West Indies, from which
he was not released, according to that authority, till he was admitted
to the council, it is asserted that it was proposed to send him to Eng
land for trial. " But he so much scorned their charitie," says the nar
rative, " and publikely defied the vttermost of their crueltie, he wisely
prevented their policies, though he could not suppresse their envies.
Many vntruthes were alledged against him ; but being so
apparently disproved, begat a generall hatred in the hearts of the
company against such vniust Commanders, that the President was ad-
iudged to give him 200, so that all he had was seized vpon, in part
of satisfaction, which Smith presently returned to the Store for the
generall vse of the Colony." Whether there was any such arrest or
not, there is good reason for doubting that there was any such trial, for
it is not mentioned in other relations of the troubles of that period.
Two months later, however, Wingfield, who had then been deposed
from the presidency, was called before the council to answer to an
action of slander brought by Smith, who, he said, had concealed an
intended mutiny ; in this suit Wingfield was adjudged to pay a fine
of 200 damages. 2

As this is Wingfield's own acknowledgment, there can be no reason
able doubt of its truth, since he could have no motive for misrepresen
tation ; while if the statement of Smith's " History " hitherto ac-

1 Smith's Generall Historic, which is a compilation of the narratives of various persons
published under his name, has hitherto been the main reliance of writers upon this period
of the history of Virginia. See Stith, Buck, and others who had access only to one side
of the story.

2 A Discourse of Virginia. By Edward Maria Wingfield. Now first printed from the
original manuscript in the Lambeth Library. Collections of the American Antiquarian Soci
ety, 1860.

1607.] GOVERNORSHIP OF WINGFIELD. 275

cepted in the absence of any other be also true, then we are to be
lieve that Wingfield was twice condemned that summer, to pay Smith
.200, which is not at all likely, and is nowhere asserted, and to ac
cept also the occurrence of so curious a legal proceeding as the trial of
one man Smith for treason, whose acquittal involved the punish
ment of another man Wingfield who was not on trial at all. But
if the account in Smith's " History " of the circumstances attending
his admission to the council be rejected in so important a
circumstance on the testimony, recently published, of the w^f?eid's
Newport narrative and Wingfield's "Discourse," it is im
possible not to question its truth in other particulars, and to doubt not
only that there was a trial at that time for treason, but that there
was any arrest.

A few days before his departure, and a week after " the faithful
love one to another " was confirmed by his fervent persuasions,
Newport asked of Wingfield how he thought himself settled in the
government. Wingfield's answer was : " that no disturbance could
endanger him or the colony, but it must be wrought either by Captain
Gosnold or Mr. Archer ; for the one was strong with friends and fol
lowers, and could if he would ; and the other was troubled with an
ambitious spirit, and would if he could." 1 This epigrammatic presen
tation of the condition of affairs, Newport reported to both Gosnold
and Archer, and urged them, with many entreaties, to be mindful of
their duties to the king and the colony. The internal dissensions
were plain enough to him ; perhaps he also foresaw how they might be
inflamed by the sufferings the colonists were to endure for want of
those stores consumed on the long voyage from England which should
have been their present support.

It was a summer of great hardship. Early in July disease broke
out among them, partly the effect of climate, but more often
caused and aggravated by the want of food and proper shelter, of great

T-II M TI TIC f hardship.

" r or the most part, says .rercy, " they died of mere fam
ine." By September nearly one half were dead, and among them
Gosnold. Wingfield had found no reason to fear the influence which
he told Newport, " that worthy and religious gent," had over the
colonists. Upon Gosnold's good-will, the president said, when speak
ing of his death, depended the success of his own administration of
affairs and of the colony ; and so much did he rely upon his counte
nance and counsel in the differences between himself and the other
councillors, that he " did easily foretel his owne deposing from his
command," when his friend was taken ill. This good opinion of
Wingfield's is confirmed by all we know of Gosnold, who seems, in the

1 Wingfield's Discourse of Virginia.

276 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

glimpses we have of him here and elsewhere, to have been a man of
thoughtful mind, calm judgment, and self reliant temper. He deserves
to be remembered next to Raleigh among the direct founders of the
American colonies.

But for the scarcity of food harmony might have been maintained
among the leaders, for that was clearly the ostensible and a bitter cause
of quarrel, whatever ambitions and jealousies may have lain hidden
beneath the surface. They might, say Smith's partisans, have all been
canonized as saints had they been as free from all other sins as from
the sins of gluttony and drunkenness ; for a half pint of boiled wheat
and another of barley, infested with worms, was each man's daily
allowance. 1 The president, it is said, exempted only himself from this
Accusations penurious and fatal diet, keeping for his own use all the good
wfngfleid. things in store, and denying them even to the sick. On the
HIS defence. o ^| ier l ian( J Wingfield says in his defence : " As I understand
by a report I am much charged with staruing the colony. I did

alwaies giue every man his allowance faithfully It is

further said I did much banquet and ryot. I never had but one squir-
ell roasted, whereof I gave part to Mr. Ratcliff , then sick, yet was that
squirell given me. I did never heate a flesh pott but when the com
mon pot was so likewise." When the store of oil, vinegar, sack, and
aquavitas was all spent, saving two gallons of each, he ordered the
vessels containing them to be " boonged vpp," reserving the sack for
the communion table, the other articles for emergencies of extreme
sickness. Gosnold, whom he consulted, approved of this pious and
prudent action ; but when he was dead and the president told the rest
of the council of this little reserve of precious stores, he exclaims :
" Lord, how they then longed for to supp up that little remnant ! for
they had no we emptied all their own bottles and all other that they
could smell out." And this small reserve, when they afterward came
into possession of it, they " poored into their own bellyes." Again and
again, the council demanded of him, he declares, larger allowances for
themselves and their favorites who were sick. The president, protest
ing he would not be partial, refused unless his associates would take the
responsibility by official action ; for had he at that time enlarged the
proportions of food allowed to each man it would have been, he de
clares, to have starved the whole colony, and he would not join
with them, therefore, in such ignorant murder without their own
warrant.

Early in September, Wingfield says the three other members of the

1 " Our food was but a small can of barley sod in water, to five men a day ; our drinke,
cold water taken out of the river, which was at flood very salt, at a low tide full of slime
and filth ; which was the destruction of many of our men." Percy in Purchas

1607.]

DISCONTENT AND SUFFERING.

277

council, llatcliffe, Smith, and Martin, waited upon him and by war
rant deposed him from both the council and the presidency. Wingfield
He declined at first to be thus summarily dealt with ; more de P sed -
than once he reminded them he had offered his resignation, which the
council had refused to accept, and now they could not legally remove
him, as, according to the charter, that must be done by a majority of a
full council of thirteen. But finally, he gave up the contest, saying,
" I ame at your pleasure ; dispose of me as you will, without further
garboiles."

The next day he was called before the council, and the change in
the government
was made known
and discussed at a
public meeting of
the colonists. The
three councillors
gave the reasons
for their action,
and with two of
them hunger evi
dently was at the
bottom of their
discontent. Rat-
cliffe, the new
president, com
plained that he
had been denied
*' a penny whitle,
(a small pocket-
knife probably
wanted for trade
with the Indians),
a chickyn, a spoon
ful of beere, and
served with foule
corne ; " Martin declared that Wingfield had neglected his duties
to the colony, "did nothing but tend his pott, spitt and oven;"
and had, moreover, starved his son and denied him " a spoonefull of
beere.'' All this would seem frivolous enough if we did not remem
ber that these poor people were in the extremity of hunger, against
which no dignity is proof. But Smith showed a nobler passion. He
repelled an accusation of lying ; he resented the scorn with which
he had been treated by Wingfield, who said that though they were

Deposition of Wingfield.

278 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

equals here, in England Smith would not be a fit companion for his
Wingfield's servant. Archer, who was now made recorder, and sub
sequently a member of the council, followed with other charges in
writing, too slight to be remembered, though the accuser, says Wing-
field, " glorieth much in his penn worke."

Kendall was deposed from the council earlier than Wingfield, and
Kendaii shot seems to have belonged to neither party, or, perhaps, to each
for mutiny, foy turns. He was confined for a time with the ex-president
on board the pinnace, and was subsequently tried for mutiny, and shot.
In arrest of judgment the poor man objected that the new president's
name was not Ratcliffe but Sicklemore, and the plea was allowed ;
but judgment, nevertheless, was pronounced by Martin. Afterward,
according to the sequence of the narrative though neither the data
of Kendall's execution nor of this incident is given Wingfield was
summoned to appear before the council, which he refused to do on the
ground that he was not legally deposed, but suggested, instead, a con
ference in the presence of ten of the most trustworthy gentlemen of
the colony. This being granted, he proposed, inasmuch Vi as he had
no joy " to live longer under the laws and government of the present
rulers and " much mi silking their triumvirate," to return to England
and report to the London Council the sad condition of their charge
in Virginia ; not that he was anxious to leave the colony, for he was
quite willing to remain if either Ratcliffe or Archer would undertake
this errand ; but if it were thought better that the enterprise should
be altogether abandoned he would give a hundred pounds toward de
fraying the expenses of taking the whole company home. These
propositions were all rejected ; even the making them was considered
a defiance of the council, and the fort opened fire upon the pinnace
apparently to prevent Wingfield's departure. If he really intended
to abandon his companions without regard to their wishes, this hostile
measure answered its purpose.

Meanwhile the distress of the colonists would have been more dis-
gervices of astrous than it was but for the kindness of the Indians, who,
fo^he S "oi- h when affairs were at the worst, brought them maize and
ony - other provisions. The energy of Smith was at the same

time of the greatest service. Taking a few men with him in a boat
he traded up and down the rivers gathering supplies. When the
savages were insolent and refused to trade, he brought them to terms
by force of arms. But returning from one of these excursions he found
according to the " General History " that Wingfield and Kendall,
then living in disgrace on board the pinnace, seeing all things at ran
dom in the absence of Smith, were attempting to regain their lost
authority, or to take the pinnace and sail for England. This plot was

1607.] DISSATISFACTION IN THE COLONY. 279

discovered to Smith on his unexpected return, " and much trouble he
had," continues the account, " to prevent it, till with store of sakre
and musket shot he forced them stay or sinke in the river, which action
cost the life of Captaine Kendall." Wingfield's proposition, that either
he, or Ratcliffe, or Archer should go to England, was construed into a
mutiny, as we know from Wingfield's own representation, and both
these relations undoubtedly refer to the same incident ; but that Ken
dall's death was the result in any sense of that attack upon the pin
nace cannot be true if Wingfield's statement be correct that he was
previously tried and executed.

It is difficult to reconcile such discrepancies in any other way than
to suppose a determination on the part of the writer in Smith's " His
tory " to justify Smith and to magnify his services. That Wingfield
and Kendall took advantage of his absence to carry out their treason
able purposes, and that it was only his opportune return, and his
prompt and energetic action, ending in the death of one of the ring
leaders in the mutiny, that averted a serious disaster, is a heroic view
of affairs with Smith as the principal figure, greatly redounding tc
his credit. But in conflict with it is Wingfield's essentially probable
and apparently truthful narrative of the struggle between him and
the council, and between the council and others ; of the criminations
and recriminations, of the orders and disobedience, the conferences, the
resistance and violent remedies which followed in turn, and in all of
which many of the colonists, as was natural, were warmly enlisted.
It is a representation of events differing from the history of the period
hitherto accepted, and in it Smith's part seems neither so important
nor so praiseworthy as it has usually been made to appear.

Whatever was the weakness of Wingfield's administration, Smith
and his friends were as little satisfied with that of Ratcliffe Dj sgati gf ac _
and Martin. It was because " of the companies dislike of thTadminis-
their president's weaknes, and their small love to Martin's tratlon -
never mending sicknes," that Smith found " all things at randome "
on the occasion just referred to. According to the same authority,
soon after bringing Wingfield to obedience and Kendall to punish
ment, he was called upon to deal with other offenders. Ratcliffe and
Archer next proposed to abandon the colony to its fate, " which proj
ect also was curbed and suppressed by Smith." As the winter ap
proached, however, tranquillity was restored, when, as the harvests were
gathered, game became plentiful, and there was enough to eat ; then
no more of the "Tuftaffaty humorists desired to goe for England." 1

Smith had now leisure for further exploration into the interior.
Wingfield says that he started on the 10th of December to go up the

1 Smith's General History.

280

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

Chickahominy to trade for corn, and to find the head of that river.
On its upper waters two of his men, who were left with a canoe, were
slain by the Indians, Pamunkey's men, and Smith himself, who was
on shore at some distance, was taken prisoner, his life being saved
" by the means of his guide," who was an Indian. He was taken to
several of the neighboring chiefs to see if he could be recognized as
one of a party who, two or three years before, had kidnapped some
Indians ; 1 he was taken at last to the great Powhatan, who sent him
back to Jamestown on the 8th of January. He had been absent just
four weeks.

Smith's life was saved, says Wingfield, by means of his guide. The
smith is taken story as usually told is that Smith tied the Indian to himself
prisoner. w ith his garters, and held him as a shield against the arrows
of his assailants. Making his way toward the boat, which he had left
in charge of two of his men, he and the guide slipped together into

thty too^e lamynjpner
tfuffaze Iff Of.

r^TSsg-i jiyliteth with ilielQnq efVSimxarJzc e /znrf-5!
..^i. allTusconvfjany,ari(lj]cw3 oftfiern.' ic ^m

From Smith's " General History." [Fac-simile.]

an " oasie creek," from which it was impossible to extricate them
selves. Half dead with cold, he at length threw away his arms and
surrendered, and was taken before Opechankanough, King of Pa-
munkey. He sought to propitiate the chief by presenting him with
" a round Ivory double compass Dyall." The savages marvelled much
at the playing of the needle which they could see, but, for the glass
over it, could not touch. With this " globe like jewel," Smith ex
plained to the king and his people the movements of the sun, moon,

1 There is no record of any voyage to Virginia within two or three years previous to the
settlement of Jamestown when any Indians were kidnapped, and if this refers to those
taken by Weymouth and carried to England in 1605, it shows a more intimate relation be
tween the tribes of New England and those of Virginia than has been supposed to exist.

1607.] SMITH TAKEN PRISONER BY THE INDIANS. 281

and stars, the shape of the earth, the extent of land and sea, the dif
ference in the races of men, and " many other suchlike matters," at
which, it was hardly necessary to add, the savages " all stood as
amazed with admiration." They nevertheless tied the lecturer to a
tree, and were about to shoot him to death with arrows, when Ope-
chankanough, who seemed to have a better appreciation than his fol
lowers had of the sciences of astronomy and cosmography, holding up
the wonderful compass, stayed the execution. They then released
the prisoner, fed him, and used him well.

So well, indeed, did they feed him, that he thought they meant to
fatten him for a feast ; and they received him otherwise with so much
honor, that they dressed themselves in their brightest paints, the plum
age of the most brilliant birds, the choicest rattle-snake tails, and
"such toys," adding, perhaps, as Strachey says the Indians some
times did, " a dead ratt tyed by the tail, and such like conundrums,"
and so attired danced before him and the king, "singing and yell
ing out with hellish notes and screeches." They promised him, more
over, life and liberty, land and women, if he would aid them by his
advice in an attack upon Jamestown ; but from this he dissuaded them
by representations of the mines, great guns, and other engines with
which such an attack would be repulsed. When he persuaded them
to send a letter to the fort, and the messengers brought, as he prom
ised they should, such things as he asked for, the savages were amazed
anew, that either the paper itself spoke to those who received it, or
that Smith had the power of divination.

This clothed and bearded white man was a strange spectacle to the
Indians, and men, women, and children crowded to see him, as he was
led from tribe to tribe. At length he was taken before the
great king of all, Powhatan, at a place called Werowoco- before
moco, which signifies king's house, on the north side of the
York River, and only fourteen or fifteen miles from Jamestown.
When Smith was led into his presence, the emperor received him in
state, seated on a throne which was much like a bedstead, clothed in a
robe of raccoon skins. On each side of him sat a young girl of six
teen or eighteen years, and beyond them a double row of men and
women, their heads and shoulders painted red and adorned with
feathers. A queen served the prisoner with water to wash his hands,
and a bunch of feathers on which to dry them ; a feast was spread
before him as if he were an honored friend and welcome guest, for
such was the Indian treatment of those who presently were to be led
out to die.

This ceremonious and hospitable reception was followed by a brief
consultation between the king and his chief men. Two great stones

282

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

were then brought in, to which Smith was dragged, and his head laid
upon them. The executioners stood ready to beat out his

is said to brains with their clubs, but at this critical moment, " Poca-
hontas, the King's dearest daughter, when no intreaty could

prevaile, got his head in her arms, and laid her owne vpon his to sane

Po what an. com/mas C.Sinilh t a be

daughter Pokahontas &^v hi 'sliji his tticni kfullne/S
and how lie Subieclert 3,$> of their \inas readej>

From Smith's "General History." [Fac-simile.]

him from death : whereat the Emperour was contented he should
Hue to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper."

The authority for this romantic story is Smith's " General History."
With other things, it has come to be considered an estab
lished historical fact because that work was long accepted
of "his"cap- as the best, as it is the fullest, of the contemporary narra
tives of the adventures of the Jamestown colonists for the
first two years. Obscurer authors were either not consulted or were
unknown by those who gave currency to these relations. But Wing-

Discrepan
cies in the
two accounts

1608.] INCONSISTENCIES IN SMITH'S STORY. 283

field, who records with such accuracy all the essential facts of Smith's
capture, and his return to the fort by Powhatan, says nothing of Poca-
hontas; Strachey, to whom this young girl was evidently an object of
interest, and who speaks in terms of praise of Smith's services and
hazards on behalf of the colony, and of his great experience among
the Indians, makes no allusion to this romance in the life of both ;
Hamor, who was also at one time secretary of the colony, and whose
tract 1 is largely a biography of Pocahontas and of her interesting
relations to the English, is silent on this first important service ren
dered by her to one of the principal men of the colony.

And even Smith differs with himself in different publications, as to
the treatment he met with from Powhatan. In his first book, the
" True Relation," published in 1608, he says that the emperor "kindly
received me with good words, and great platters of sundry victuals ;
assuring me of his friendship, and my liberty in four days." After
much kindly conversation between them, Powhatan " thus having,
with all the kindness he could devise, sought to content me, he sent
me home with four men one that usually carried my gown Inconsist .
and knapsack after me, two others loaded with bread, and filth's" 1
one to accompany me." Such treatment is altogether incon- 8tory "
sistent with a design upon his life, nor is there any hint of such an in
tention in the savage chief, or of the interference of his little daughter
to avert it. It is only in the " General History," first published in
1624, that the narrative of Smith's captivity asserts that the prisoner
was sentenced to death by Powhatan, and his life saved by Pocahon
tas. 2 Then we are told that he was sent back in a few days to James
town, not with four friendly guides only, who carried his clothing or
were laden with provisions, but with twelve savages, with whom he
did not feel that his life was safe till within the palisades and under
the protecting guns of the fort. Meanwhile between the publication of
the " True Relation " of 1608, and that of the " General History " of
1624, the princess had become famous as the " Lady Rebecca ; " by her
services to the colony; by her marriage with an Englishman, Rolfe;
by her visit to England, presentation at court, and her baptism into
the Christian Church ; and by her death on the eve of her return to
her own country.

This Powhatan, who was called an emperor by the earlier writers,
was the most powerful of all the Indian chiefs of Virginia, The great
and became an important person in the history of the colony. Lfcin. *
Smith was the first to meet with him ; the Pawatah who had enter-

1 A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia until 18th of June, 1614. By Ralph
Hamor, Jr.

2 See comments on this subject by Charles Deane in his edition of Smith's True Relation.

284

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

tained Newport and his companions, some months before, at the
falls of James River, being another and less powerful chief, perhaps
a son of Powhatan. For Powhatan was a native of the country just
above the falls of the James, and it was from it that he took his name.
Among his own people he was known as Ottaniack, or as Mamanato-
wick, the latter meaning great king ; but his true name, and that
by which he was saluted by his subjects, was Wahunsenacawh. 1 He
is described as a goodly old man, " well beaten with many cold and
stormye winters," being somewhere about eighty years of age. He
was tall in stature, stalwart and well shaped of limb, sad of coun
tenance though his face was round and fat, and his thin gray hairs
hung down upon his broad shoulders. As in his younger years he
had been strong and able, so also had he been a cruel savage, "dar
ing, vigilante, ambitious, subtile to enlarge his dominions," striking
terror and awe into neighboring chiefs. Though in his old age he

delighted in security and
pleasure, and lived in peace
with all about him, he was
from the first watchful and
jealous of these white-faced
strangers who were pene
trating his rivers, devour
ing his corn, and building
houses within his dominions.
With that Indian subtlety
of which he was peculiarly
a master, he sought their
friendship, when that would
best serve his purpose, but
never letting an opportunity
pass to cut them off when it
could be done with little or
no loss to himself and his
people. 2

He had, it was said, many
more than a hundred wives,
of whom about a dozen, all
young women, were special
favorites. When in bed
one sat at his head, and another at his feet ; when at meat one was
at his right hand, another at his left. Of his living children, when
he first became known to the English, twenty were sons and twelve

1 Strachey's Historic of Travaile into Virginia, p. 48. 2 Strachey, pp. 49, 54.

POWHATAlSr

&Jiate &L Ja/7iic77 whm. Copt' SmitJi
s-u/as dtluiered fo Mm pri/oner

From Smith's "General History." [Fac-simile.]

1608.] SMITH'S RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY. 285

were daughters, and among these last was one " whome he loved
well, Pochahuntas, which may signifie little wanton ; howbeyt she
was rightly called Amonate at more ripe yeares," in accordance
with an Indian custom in the naming of their children. She
was well known at Jamestown at an early period. The In
dian girls wore no clothing till the age of eleven or twelve years, nor
were " they much ashamed thereof, and therefor," continues Strachey,
" would Pochahuntas, a well-featured but wanton young girle, Pow-
hatan's daughter, sometymes resorting to our fort, of the age then of
eleven or twelve yeares, get the boys forth with her into the markett
place, and make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their
heeles upwards, whome she would followe and wheele so herself, naked
as she was, all the fort over." As Strachey did not go to Virginia
till 1610, and if he saw this young princess in that year, then eleven
or twelve years of age, "turning cart-wheels" among the boys of
Jamestown, she could have been only eight or nine years old at the
time Smith was taken prisoner by her father. Elsewhere speaking
of her as " using sometyme to our fort in tymes past," he adds,
" no we married to a private captaine, called Kocoum, some two yeares
since." l

Again, we hear that Smith, on his return, found the colony " all
in combustion ; " that some of the leaders were, as usual, engaged in
that inexplicable preparation to run away with the pinnace, which
never came to anything ; and once more that Smith, for the third
time, and, at "the hazard of his life, with sakre, falcon and musket
shot, forced them to stay or sink."

It is remarkable with what ingratitude these repeated services, if
they were rendered, were received by a people among whom there
seems to have been little law but the law of the strongest ; for on this
very day of Smith's return, and while he was compelling obedience on
board the pinnace with the guns of the fort, the council, through the
influence of Archer, were trying him by the Levitical law, for the
death of the two men who were killed, while under his command, by
the savages. He was adjudged guilty, and to be put to death the
next day; "but," says the "General History," "he quickly tooke
such order with such Lawyers, that he layd them by the heeles till
he sent some of them prisoners to England." Wingfield agrees that
Smith was tried on the day of his return, and condemned to opportune
be hanged either that or the next day, but that his life was captain *
saved by the opportune arrival of Newport. Of an attack New P rt -
on the pinnace at the same time by Smith, he says nothing. In the

1 Major, the editor of Strachey's Historic of Travaile into Virginia, supposes it must have
been written between 1612 and 1616.

286 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

" True Relation," Smith says that he was welcomed back with truest
signs of joy, by all except Archer and two or three others, and that
these laid " great blame and imputation " upon him for the loss of the
two men, slain by the Indians. " In the midst of my miseries," he
adds, " it pleased God to send Captaine Nuport the same night,
and for a while those plots against me were deferred."
There is no boastful assertion of laying his enemies by the heels,
nor of his bringing mutineers to order on board the pinnace. The
narrative simply and naturally recognizes his own troubles, and is
thankful for the arrival of one more powerful than any of the fac
tious leaders, to bring security and peace.

On every account, Newport's arrival was opportune. In less than
nine months the colony had become reduced to about forty persons,
and his ship brought to a starving and despairing people an addition
of one hundred and twenty men, besides a stock of provisions, of im
plements of husbandry, and of seeds. About the time of his arrival
a fire which nearly destroyed the fort, consumed the entire stock of
stores procured from the Indians, reducing the colonists to complete
dependence upon the supplies brought by Newport. Unfortunately,
however, Newport and his crew remained for fourteen weeks at James
town, and helped in the consumption of these provisions. Near the
fort a deposit of yellow mica was found, which was mistaken for gold.
The colonists were quite ready to take the risk of starvation, that the
ship might be laden with this useless dirt. That it was useless, some
of the more judicious, and Smith among them, were convinced, for
there could be no hope of productive industry till this dream of sud
den wealth was dispelled. Happily it did not last long, for in the
spring when the second vessel, which had sailed with Captain New
port from England but had been detained in the West Indies by bad
weather, arrived, she was sent home with a cargo of cedar. Wingfield
and Archer returned home in one of these vessels, and Martin in the
other, leaving Smith the principal person of the colony, and without
rivals.

Newport spent a portion of the time of his stay in a visit to Pow-

hatan, whose friendship he evidently deemed of great im-
vitu P to r s portance to the colony. The emperor received him with

great courtesy, seated, as when Smith was led into his pres
ence not long before as a prisoner, upon his bedstead throne, and
surrounded by his warriors and women. He had received from Smith
who had entertained him on that occasion with a number of re
markable stories, all lies, as to the motives which had led the English
to that country an exalted notion of the power of Newport. No
doubt to prove that he was as generous as he was great, Newport per-

1608.] SURVEY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 287

mitted Powhatan to name his own price in corn for the copper kettles
and trinkets which he offered in exchange. The result was, that the
confiding Englishman got much the worst of the bargain. But Smith,
who much better understood the nature of the wily but simple savage,
presently restored the balance of trade by displaying in the eyes of
the king some blue beads, on which a high price was put, as precious
ornaments worn only by royal personages. Corn fell to a few beads
the bushel, and the visit was made on the whole a profitable one in
provisions, and in the establishment, for the present, of friendly rela
tions with the powerful chief.

Smith passed the summer of 1608 in two expeditions upon the
waters of Virginia, making an extended survey of Chesa- smith makes
peake Bay and its tributary rivers, of which he drew a map Chesapeake 6
of remarkable correctness. In the Potomac he was beset by Bay-
a band of Indians, who, if their story could be believed, were instigated
through Powhatan, by some persons in Jamestown, to cut off Smith
and his party. A more dangerous mishap befell him in the same
river, where he was stung by a fish he calls a stingray ; he was thought
to be so near death that a grave was dug for his burial on an island
near by ; but he recovered in time to eat of the fish that struck him.
On the second expedition the party ventured as far as Sassafras River,
not far below the mouth of the Susquehanna, where the Indians are
said to have known little of Powhatan, except by name, but who held
intercourse with the French of Canada at a much greater distance.
These were remarkable voyages to be made in open boats, into an un
known country, constantly exposed to the inclemencies of weather, the
possibility of an entire failure of the means of subsistence, and the
attacks of hostile savages. But it is characteristic of the exaggera
tion which distinguishes the Smith narratives that he is said to have
sailed a distance of about three thousand miles while absent from
Jamestown only three months.

On the return from the last expedition early in September, Cap
tain Smith was made president of the colony. Newport arrived soon
after with a second reinforcement of men and supplies, and

11- i f c i i -* j_ First women

with mm came the two first women or the colony, Mistress join the coi-
Forrest and her maid Ann Burras. The latter did not wait
long for a husband, for her marriage to John Laydon is announced a
few weeks later.

Newport carne with orders from the London Council to bring home
a lump of gold, to discover the passage to the South Sea, and

& r^ i ^ i i Coronation

to find the survivors of the Roanoke Colony. He brought of POW-

,, , . hatan.

with him also some " costly novelties, as a basin, a ewer,

a bed and some clothes for Powhatan, with directions to bestow the

288

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

ceremony of a coronation upon that naked monarch. He found neither
the lump of gold, the passage to the Pacific, nor any of the survivors
of the Roanoke massacre ; but he crowned the savage who had, per
haps, procured the deaths of those unhappy persons.

Powhatan, reminded of his royal state, declined to go to Jamestown
to receive the presents when summoned thither by Smith as a special
ambassador. " I also am a king," he said ; and if the King of Eng
land had sent him gifts, they should be brought to him ; he should not
go to receive them. Newport went, and the gifts were accepted ; but

Coronation of Powhatan.

the coronation was a more difficult matter. No persuasions could in
duce the chief to kneel, and it was only by bearing heavily upon his
shoulders that he could be made to stoop so low as to admit of the
assumption that his posture was the proper one for the placing of a
crown upon his head. The firing of a pistol as a signal for a volley
from the boats in honor of the event startled him into an attitude of
defence with the suspicion that he was the victim of some treachery ;
but being presently reassured of the entire sincerity of these proceed
ings, he accepted them as an acknowledgment of his regal state, and
gave his old moccasins, the deer-skin he used for a blanket, and seven
or eight bushels of corn in the ear, to the representatives of his royal
brother of England.

1608.] SERVICES OF SMITH. 289

If Captain Newport committed any errors they were errors of judg
ment, or acts done in obedience to orders from the Council at
home, who held him in deserved respect and confidence. It icism on
was, perhaps, because of that estimation that the jealousy of
Smith was aroused against him. Newport is abused in the " General
History," after the second visit, with almost as much vehemence and
rancor as Wingfield and others were before him. Smith, no doubt,
understood better than any of his companions, the character of the In
dians ; to him this coronation of Powhatan was an absurdity, believ
ing their ends would be more easily gained with the chief by dealing
with him as a wily but ignorant savage rather than as a powerful king.
A display of strength wisely used, he thought, was more likely to
establish peaceful relations with the Indians than deprecatory meas
ures and a show of pretended respect, which the natives would only
construe into an acknowledgment of weakness. But he was not con
tent with merely following his own wiser conclusions, both with regard
to the Indians and the management of his own people ; he would see
neither good intentions nor good results in the actions of others. Had
he shown in his own acts something more of the spirit of conciliation,
and had he been less severe to subordinates and less jealous of his
companions, his services, undoubtedly great, would have done much
more to promote the secure establishment and welfare of the colony.

The chief merit of his administration was, that he kept the colony
from starvation. It depended for food mainly upon the In- Meritg of
dians, for the colonists were neither provident enough, nor ^j^ra-* 1 "
industrious enough to protect the stores brought from Eng- tlon '
land, from destruction by decay, or by the rats which came in the ships
and had also founded a colony. In cunning and courage the Indians
were no match for Smith. He could always persuade them to sell or
constrain them to give him provisions, and there was need enough for
all that he could gather. He attempted to compel the people to steady
labor, but, except when Newport's vessels were to be loaded for the re
turn voyage, without much success. They would all rather beg or buy
of the Indians, than plant, or fish, or hunt, and in spite of the severe
laws of the president, would abandon the tasks to which they were
put. Then a large proportion of the colonists were considered, by
right of their being " gentlemen," exempt from labor. Two of them,
indeed, did go heartily to work in felling trees, and were so efficient
that, it was said, forty like them would be worth a hundred common
laborers. But their example does not seem to have been followed by
others of their class, who may have been deterred partly by the sever
ity of a regulation of the president's, that a record should be kept of
every oath uttered by men at work, and for each oath a can of water

290

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

be poured down the sleeve of the offender when the day's work was
over.

Indolence and hunger were not the only troubles. Jamestown was
in an unwholesome region, and deaths from the malaria of the sur-

^^^ C.Smitk tOJhant/ie Kinp, of famavnlge pnfoner \ ~l6'o8

From Smith's " General History." [Fac-simile.]

rounding swamps were frequent. Among those who died was Captain
Wynne, a member of the council. Scrivener, another of the coun
cil, Captain Waldo, the commander of the fort in Smith's absence,
Anthony Gosnold, a brother of Bartholomew, with eight others, were
drowned by the upsetting of a boat. The council was thus reduced

1609.] THE NEW CHARTER. 291

to Smith alone, and the colony, if not altogether dependent upon him,
was, at least, under his sole direction. He was, if we may believe
the narratives written in his interest, quite equal to this enlarged re
sponsibility. The Indians were as children in his hands, whether in
negotiation or conflict. One stalwart chief he seized by his long hair
in the presence of his tribe drawn up in battle array, with a pistol at
his breast compelled him to submission, and led him trembling with
fear among his people who threw down their arms in dismay. On
another occasion he closed in fight with the King of Paspahey, a giant
in strength and stature, who took him up, and bore him to the river
to drown him ; but in the struggle in the stream, Smith who was a
small man at length got such a hold upon the throat of the savage
as to nearly strangle him, and led him off at last a prisoner to the fort.

His own people, the president ruled with a relentless will, punishing
the idle and insubordinate, threatening to hang the mutinous, if they
did not give over their attempts to abandon the colony. Two or three
Dutchmen, nevertheless, revolted from his authority, fled to the In
dians, and entered into a conspiracy with Povvhatan for the destruc
tion of Jamestown. But Smith knew their plans, defeated them,
and brought the great chief himself into submission. In the course
of these events he was aided by the little girl Pocahontas, who some
times gave him timely information of attempts to be made upon his
life, and often supplied the starving colonists with the needed sup
plies.

But the energy and services of Smith, whatever they really were,
could only keep a feeble life in the colony. With the mate- A new char .
rial of which it was composed, it was not possible to do more. yTr^nfa! 6
The cost had been great, and the return almost nothing to ^n?Ma'y,
the adventurers in England, and a new charter with larger 1609-
powers and privileges was asked for. It was granted by James, and
dated the 23d of May, 1609. The number of corporators was very
large, and included the most exalted among the nobility, the highest
among the clergy, the most distinguished among navigators, the
wealthiest among the merchants in the kingdom, as well as all of the
most influential guilds of London in their corporate capacity. The
boundaries of the land it bestowed upon the company, were from two
hundred miles north to the same distance south of Cape Comfort, in
cluding all the country between those extreme points, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific Ocean, and the islands within a hundred miles of both
coasts. A council, to sit always in London, was nominated in the
charter, future vacancies in which were to be filled by the corporators.
The appointment of officers and enactment of laws for the colony
were to be made by this body, and " for divers reasons and considera-

292 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

tions " this provision of the charter was to take immediate effect on
the arrival in Virginia of a new governor. Smith's administration
was clearly not approved of, which cannot be wondered at when we
remember how many of the men whom he had quarrelled with, de
nounced, and superseded had returned to England.

So extended were the interests engaged in the naming of the cor
porators under this new charter that the contributions were large to
carry on the enterprise. A fleet of nine ships, carrying five
the fleet hundred people, was dispatched the latter part of May, the
and somers. lieutenant-general, Sir Thomas Gates, the admiral, Sir George
Somers, and the vice-admiral, Captain Newport, taking pas
sage together in one of them, the Sea Adventure. Lord De la Warre
was appointed captain-general, but as he remained in England, Sir

Thomas Gates was to assume supreme com-
niand on his arrival at Jamestown. Among
the captains of the fleet were Ratcliffe,
Martin, and Archer, whose return to the

Signature of Sir Thomas Gates. ^^ ^ ^.^ Qf ^ new Council g mith

might well consider a reflection upon his administration, and an
answer to the complaints and charges he had sent home. Among
the vessels was the Virginia, the first American ship, built by the
people who were sent out under George Popham by the Council of
the Second or Northern Colony, two years before, to make a set
tlement at the mouth of the Sagadahoc the Kennebec River in
Maine.

The fleet was dispersed by a storm soon after sailing. Seven of
them reached the Chesapeake in August, in a more or less shattered
condition ; of the two that were missing, one was a pinnace, which
had foundered at sea, the other the admiral's ship, the Sea Adven
ture, on board which were Gates, Somers, Newport, and William
Strachey. She also was supposed to be lost, for nothing was heard of
her till the next spring.

Off the Bermuda group "the still vexed Bermooth.es " of Shake
speare a storm had assailed the Sea Adventure and wrecked her on

one of those islands. It was such a storm

'^l^t'&ltTJn.JtToL'C^.bi as Shakespeare describes in the first act of

" The Tempest," and to Strachev's account

Signature of William Strachey. 111

of it, it is thought the dramatist was in
debted for his inspiration. 1 Storm after storm, with fury added to
fury, each more outrageous than that which went before, battered the

1 A True Repertory of the Wracke, and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates ; upon and from
the Hands of the Bermudas, etc.. etc. Written by William Strachey, Esquire. Purchas,
vol. iv., lib. ix., chap. vi.

1609.]

TEMPEST AND SHIPWRECK.

293

doomed ship, and made her miserable people, says Strachey, " looke
one vpon the other with troubled hearts, and panting bosoms : gtrache !g
our clamors dround in the windes, and the windes in thunder." th^h?'- 01
There was " nothing heard that could give comfort, nothing wreck -
scene that might incourage hope. Such was the tumult of the ele
ments that the Sea swelled above the Clouds, and gave battell vnto
Heaven. It could
not be said to raine,
the waters like whole
Riuers did flood in

the ayre

Windes and Seas
were as mad as fury
and rage could make
them." The ship
sprung a leak, or
many leaks from
every joint almost,
" having spued out
her Oakum," and
this fresh calamity,
the news of which,
*' imparting no lesse
terrour than danger,
ranne through the
whole Ship with
much fright and
amazement," seemed
*' as a wound giuen
to men that were be
fore dead." Yet they
fought bravely for
their lives, passen
gers as well as seamen. " The common sort stripped naked, as men
in Gallies, the easier both to hold out, and to shrinke from vnder the
salt water, which continually leapt in among them, kept their eyes
waking, and their thoughts and hands working, with tyred bodies,
and wasted spirits, three dayes and foure nights destitute of outward
comfort, and desperate of any deliuerance, testifying how mutually
willing they were, yet by labour to keepe each other from drowning ;
albeit each one drowned while he laboured." The heavens looked so
black upon them during all this time, that not a star was seen by
night, nor the sun by day ; but on the last night of their terrible

Shipwreck of the " Sea Adventure."

294 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

struggle with the winds and waves, Sir George Somers saw, and called
others to see, " an apparation of a little round light, like a faint Starre,
trembling and streaming along with a sparkling blaze, halfe the
height vpon the Maine Mast, and shooting sometimes from Shroud to
Shroud, tempting to settle as it were vpon any of the foure Shrouds :
and for three or four houres together, or rather more, halfe the night
it kept with vs, running sometimes along the Maine yard to the very

end, and then returning but vpon a sodaine, towards

the morning watch they lost of it, and knew not what way it made."
So the boatswain in Shakespeare's " Tempest " heard the howlings
from within the ship, louder than the weather : so Miranda

Shake
speare's besought her wizard father to allay the war of the wild waters,

when the sea mounted to the sky and dashed the fire out, as
she saw the brave ship dashed all to pieces ; so Ariel flamed amaze
ment, burning in many places, on the topmast, the yards, the bowsprit,
and then in a deep nook safely harbored the king's ship, as, on the
morning of the fifth day, the Sea Adventure lay firmly fixed and quiet,
between two rocks in still waters, under the lea of the island.

On these islands henceforth known as the Somers Islands as well
as the Bermudas, from Sir George Somers, and corrupted later into
Summer Islands there was abundance of food, especially of wild
hogs, Tor the support of Gates and his one hundred and fifty com
panions, men, women, and children. There was no hardship in a win
ter in that lovely climate, and the people were for the most part con
tentedly employed in hunting and fishing, and in building two
pinnaces in which to continue their voyage. There were deaths, and
births, and even marriage among them ; the wife of " one John Rolfe"
gave birth to a daughter which was christened Bermuda, and a boy
born to another couple was called Bermudas. Nor was crime wanting
in private murders and public mutinies, for which there was due pun
ishment ; but, on the whole, the winter passed pleasantly, and in May
they all embarked save two deserters and a few who were sent off
earlier in the long-boat, and who, it was afterward supposed, reached
Chesapeake Bay, but were murdered when they landed by some of
Powhatan's people.

Meanwhile affairs at Jamestown were not prospering. In the ab
sence of the captain-general, Sir Thomas Gates, Smith continued

president, for there was no authority to supersede him. The
condition of colony was, as usual, in a distracted condition, hungry and

dependent for food upon the Indians. Martin was sent to
make a settlement at Nansemond ; Captain West went to the falls of
James River, and Ratcliffe to Point Comfort, for the same purpose.
West bought of Powhatan, for a small quantity of copper, the country

1610.] " THE STARVING TIME." 295

he proposed to occupy the region about Richmond but the good
will of the Indians was secured neither by kindness nor by abstaining
from bad treatment. The attempts to settle at these new points were
unsuccessful ; half the men were killed, and among them Captain
Ratcliffe. While West was at the falls, Smith went to his assistance,
and met with an accident which put an end to his career in Virginia.
By an explosion of gunpowder in his boat, he was so burned and
maimed that it was necessary he should go to England for surgical aid,
and he sailed soon after with the returning fleet. 1

Percy succeeded him in the presidency, but he was capable neither
of maintaining harmony among the leading men, nor even Ge0 rge Per-
that degree of limited prosperity among the people, which to t S he C pres 8 i-
existed under Smith. The late president had been so far deucy -
able to compel the colonists to labor during the past summer, that the
autumn brought them a considerable harvest ; the swine and other
animals had increased in num-
bers, and the people generally
were in good health. Whatever / I

may have been the severity of his

, . , , , -. -, Signature of George Percy.

rule, it produced good results, and

was probably no harsher than was necessary among men described as
a " lewd company, wherein were many unruly gallants packed thither
by their friends to escape ill destinies," and as "men of such distem
pered bodies and infected minds, whom no examples daily before their
eyes, either of goodnesse or punishment can deter from their habitual
impieties, or terrify from a shameful death." Before the return of
spring, improvidence, idleness, and debauchery had done their work.
The store of provisions which Smith had gathered from the harvest
and from the Indians, the domestic animals, which had been carefully
preserved for their natural increase, were all speedily consumed ;
hunger, despair, and death followed, and the winter was recorded in
the annals of the colony, as " the starving time." When Gates arrived
in May, of the five hundred whom Smith had left at Jamestown six
months before, only sixty were alive.

1 It is said in the Relation of Virginia, by Henry Spellman, 1609 recently recovered
and published in London (1872) that Captain Smith sold Spellman toPowhatan for this
land on the James, and required West to settle upon it. But that Captain West, "having
bestowed cost to begine a toune in another place misliked it." That thereupon unkindness
arose between them ; Captain Smith saying little at the time, but afterwards conspiring
with Powhatan to kill Captain West. "Which plotte," adds Spellman, "tooke but smale
effect, for in the meane time Capt. Smith was Aprehended and sent abord for England."
This Spellman is well known to have been a captive for some years among the Indians.

John Redclyffe also wrote, October 4, 1609, to the Earl of Salisbury, that Smith was sent
home to answer to some misdemeanors. Sainsbury State Papers, quoted in Neill's History
of the Virginia Company.

296 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

When Gates landed, he entered the church and ordered the bell
to be rung as a summons to the people, and as many as
Gates, the could of the sixty miserable survivors crawled out to wel-
generai ' come him. Service was first held in " zealous and sorrowful
prayer," and then Percy delivered up to him the old patent,
his own commission, and the seal of the council. Gates went out to
look at the seat of his new government. It was a scene of desolation.
The palisades were torn down ; the ports stood wide open ; the gates
were broken from their hinges ; the empty houses of the dead had been
dismantled for fire-wood, those who were alive being too weak or
too indolent to go to the forest near by for fuel, or too much afraid to
venture far from the Block House, not knowing when or where to look
for the arrows or the tomahawks of Indians lurking in the woods.

The governor was satisfied in the course of a week, that the one
wise thing to do was to abandon Jamestown with all possible speed,
and get to some place where they might hope to be saved from starva
tion. From the Indians nothing could be looked for but the most
determined hostility ; the store of provisions brought from the Ber
mudas could be made to last only a few days longer, and it was de
termined, therefore, to sail for Newfoundland, where there would be
English vessels from which assistance could be obtained. Accord
ingly, on the 7th of June, just a fortnight after the arrival of Gates,
the whole company embarked on two vessels he found in port and the
two built in Bermuda, the president himself being the last to go on
board, that he might save the fort and houses from destruction, as
some of the more desperate had determined to celebrate their depar
ture by a conflagration.

It was fortunate that he took this precaution. As the ships lay at
Lord De la anchor the next day in the lower part of the river, waiting
arrives S fi ff et ^ or * ne e ^b tide, the governor's vessel was boarded by a
fort lt C m boat from seaward. It was one sent in advance by Lord De
June, i6io. l a Warre, who had arrived at Point Comfort, where he had
heard of Gates' decision, and hastened to send orders to intercept him.

The news was received gladly by
Gates ; the tide which had prevented
the vessels getting out to sea was
taken advantage of to return to
Jamestown, and that night the col
onists were back again under the
shelter of their old quarters, which

Signature of Lord Delaware (Tho. La Warre). Q^g had gaved fr()m destruction.

Two days later De la Warre also brought his three ships to anchor
opposite the fort and went ashore.

1610.]

OPPORTUNE COMING OF DE LA WARRE.

297

As he landed he fell upon his knees and engaged in silent prayer.
A procession, dignified but ragged, ceremonies more imposing in in
tention than in fact, awaited him, as he arose ; in prayer and in ser
mon, his coming was welcomed ; his commission as captain-general was
read, and with parchments and seal. Sir Thomas Gates surrendered
into his hands the colony which he had governed a fortnight. Then
in a timely speech, De la Warre rebuked the idleness and
other shortcomings of the past, warning his hearers that he measures of
held the sword of justice in his hands, which would certainly
be drawn if occasion called for it, but encouraging them also with as
surances of the good store of provisions with which his ships were
laden.

There was food enough on hand to last for a year, but De la Warre

Arrival of De la Warre.

was mindful of the future.
He immediately dispatched
Sir George Somers and Captain Argall
to the Bermudas, to bring off some of
the wild swine with which those islands abounded, to replace the stock
which the colonists had eaten up the previous winter. Both these ves
sels were driven northward by stress of weather, and Argall returned
to Virginia ; Somers reached the Bermudas, but soon after died there,
and his nephew, who succeeded to the command of his vessel, returned
to England. In Virginia, De la Warre was more fortunate. Argall
was successfully employed in trading with the natives for corn ; two
forts were built near the mouth of the James, and another at the falls ;
the Indians were brought into more peaceful, if not more friendly

298 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

relations, by force of arms, however, rather than by conciliatory meas
ures ; and something like order and industry was enforced among the
colonists. On the whole, the administration of De la Warre was more
successful than that of his predecessors ; but it lasted only a year, when
failing health compelled him to return to England, leaving Percy
again governor.

Four years had passed away since Newport first sailed up the Pow-
New im- hatan and landed the first comers, and public enthusiasm in
coionizl ^ ne "action," as these attempts at colonization were called
in the language of the time, as in ours we say " an enter
prise," needed new impulses. Zealous divines preached eloquent
sermons in the pulpits of London, and the Council plied the public
with pamphlets. Gold mines and the South Sea, were still occasion
ally held out as possible discoveries ; but the true value of Virginia, the
mildness of its climate, the fertility of its soil, the magnificence of its
rivers, the value of its timber and other natural products, its fitness
generally for the home of civilized men, were coming to be better
understood, and the dream of a repetition of Spanish experience farther
south faded into dimness. The Council had to contend with doubt and
indifference, the natural result of the mistakes and disasters of these
first four years. The return of De la Warre was depressing, for
much depended upon his success, until he could publicly explain
the details of the sickness that made it necessary ; how ague seized
him followed by dysentery, to that succeeding cramps, to them the
gout, and to the gout scurvy, till one wonders that he escaped at all,
and can better understand the malarial influences with which these
first settlers contended, and which carried them off so rapidly.

But fortunately before his arrival two fresh expeditions had sailed
for Virginia, one under Sir Thomas Gates, whom De la Warre had
sent home for assistance, the other under Sir Thomas Dale. Both
were amply provided with men, with supplies, and with domestic ani
mals. The lessons of four years of experience had not been lost, and
the colony began at last to achieve some degree of prosperity.

Dale arrived in May, 1611. He was wise as well as energetic, and

set himself to cure, by something better than threats and ex-
sir Thomas , . t vt * 11 i e ] l

Dale com- hortations, the idleness or a people whom he round relapsing
Virginia. again into want and suffering, while they amused themselves
with playing bowls in the streets of Jamestown. He gave
to each man three acres of cleared ground to cultivate for his own sup
port and took away from him the dependence upon the public store
for food. The result justified his expectations, and three men did
more work under the new rule than thirty did under the old. There
was an incentive to labor in the appeal to self-interest, for he who

1611. J

ADMINISTRATION OF GATES AND DALE.

299

was idle was very likely to starve. Tracts of corn-land, surrounded
by palisades and protected by a block-house, appeared in various
places ; a beginning was really made in the settlement of the country
under the influence of steady industry.

Gates followed Dale in August, and superseded him for the time
being, in the government of the colony, but seconded his wise efforts
to bring about a reform in the habits of the people. A new NeW settie-
settlement was made, and a town called Henrico in honor of ments -
Prince Henry, was built a few miles below the falls of the James,

The Idle Colonists.

on the extreme end of what is now known as Farrar's Island ; and a few
months later, another town was begun at the mouth of the Appomattox,
and named Bermuda City. Both sites were elevated and healthful ;
the clearing and inclosing of lands for plantations, the laying out of
streets, the building of houses, gave employment to idle hands. Hope
and energy were aroused in men who would gradually become good
and self-sustaining citizens in the prospect of homes of their own, and
in ceasing to be paupers dependent for subsistence upon public stores
brought from England, and upon corn bought at the public expense or
stolen from the Indians. The foundation of the future state was at last
firmly laid in the idea of the welfare of each individual member of the
community. Not that the change was immediate : it was not easy to
alter a condition of things which had continued for several years, and

300 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

the old system of support from the public store was still adhered to
with regard to new comers for a certain period after their arrival. It
was, nevertheless, the beginning of a new state of affairs, and the be
ginning of anything like a hopeful prosperity.

It was not easy, however, for the Council in London to look upon

these emigrants as a body of Englishmen capable of being governed by

the same laws and influenced by the same motives and

Code of laws . _ J

for the habits to which they were accustomed at home. A code of

colony . "

pains and penalties for crime was sent out, under which they
were to live, drawn not from the common law and statutes of England
but taken from the martial laws of the Low Countries. 1 The penalty
was death for blaspheming God ; for speaking " impiously or mali
ciously " of the Holy Trinity, collectively or individually ; for any
word or act in derision or in despite of the Holy Scriptures ; for
traitorous words against the king ; for murder, for adultery, for rape,
whether of white or Indian; for perjury, or bearing false witness ;
for trading with the Indians without a license ; for embezzlement of
the public goods ; for desertion of the colony, for treason or misprision
of treason against it or its rulers ; for ordinary theft ; for robbing a
garden, wilfully pulling up a flower, a root, or herb when set to weed
ing ; for gathering grapes, or plucking ears of corn, whether belonging
to a private person or the public. He who used profane swearing, tak
ing the name of God in vain or by other oaths, had a bodkin thrust
through his tongue for the second time offending, and the third time suf
fered death ; the penalty for absence from public worship, or violating
the Sabbath, was deprivation of a week's allowance, public whipping,
and if three times repeated, death ; slander of the councillors or other
principal officers of the colony, evil speaking of the colony itself, or of
books written on its behalf, were punished by whipping, and by the
galleys for three years, and by death for the third offence ; disobedi
ence of the magistrates carried the same penalties, and he who un
worthily demeaned himself to any minister or preacher was publicly
whipped three times, and compelled to ask forgiveness of the congre
gation for three successive Sundays ; to kill any domestic animal, any
poultry, or even a dog, though they might be one's own, without per
mission, was punished as a capital crime in the principal, and he who
assisted him was to lose his ears and be branded in the hand ; those
who failed to keep their houses neat and clean, whose bedsteads were
not three feet from the ground, and who threw foul water into the
streets, were subject to trial by court-martial ; a tradesman who
neglected his business was sent to the galleys for four years if he per
sisted in the offense ; if he or any soldier failed to appear at his ap-

1 Stith's History of Virginia, p. 122.

1611.] TOBACCO. 301

pointed work at beat of drum, morning and afternoon, or left his
work before the hour appointed, he was laid " head and heels to
gether " all night upon the guard, for the first offence, for the second
whipped, for the third sent to the galleys ; whoever failed to render to
the minister an account of his faith, or refused to take advice from him
touching matters of religion, was whipped daily till he repented of his
obduracy ; public " launderer or launderesses," bakers, cooks, and
fishermen were kept to a faithful discharge of their duties by similar
penalties, and the minister or preacher who neglected to read publicly
on every Sabbath day the laws and ordinances, of whi- V. we give this
brief abstract, was deprived for a week of his allowance irom the public
store. But this was only the civil code. To the martial law, the
pains and penalties of which were much more severe, and the possi
ble offences more minute and varied, the citizens were also amenable.

If there was want of good order and good government, it was not
for lack of authority in the hand of the magistrates. The increasing
prosperity of the colony, however, in the administration of affairs by
Gates and by Dale, owed little to the severity of the laws. The al
lotments of lands, first made by Dale, were increased after the expira
tion by limitation of the system of a common support and a common
interest in the colony. There gradually grew up along the James and
some of its tributaries a settled, though scattered community of plant
ers, dependent on their own industry for their support, free from
the evil associations and habits engendered in the earlier days of
Jamestown.

From gaining a subsistence it was an easy step to the accumu
lation of a surplus ; before the expiration of the first decade of the
colony, the London Council began the granting of patents of large
tracts of land to individuals, and such tracts were also given to colonists
for meritorious services. The planting of tobacco was soon

Culture and

found to yield a far more profitable harvest than the sowing of export of

f tobacco.

corn, so profitable, indeed, that it was necessary ere long to
regulate by law the proportion of ground sowed for profit, and for food.
From a fashion of the court, introduced by Raleigh, the use of tobacco
had become so common in England, that the cheaper staple of Virginia
found a market where there was no demand for the dearer product of
the Spanish colonies. In 1614 a member of Parliament said in a
speech in the House : " Many of the divines now smell of tobacco ;
and poor men spend 4d. of their day's wages at night in smoke." 1
The increasing consumption greatly alarmed the king for the morals
of his subjects, who were deaf equally to his arguments and his
remonstrances ; but his fears for morality gave way to apprehensions

1 Neill's History of the Virginia Company.

302 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

in later years of loss to the revenue. Taxes and restrictions upon
sales which the charter did not warrant, impelled the planters to look
for a market in Holland. But a prerogative of the crown was not
to be sacrificed to the prosperity of the colony, and this first dispute
between it and the king was only settled by a compromise which sent
all Virginia tobacco to England for exportation, but gave a monopoly
of the trade to the Company.

This settlement, however, of the various questions to which this
important trade gave rise was not reached till after discussions and
difficulties protracted for a period of years, during which the colony
was gradually growing to wealth and power. At the outset the cul
tivation of tobacco was so lucrative that those who had no land planted
in the streets of Jamestown, and those who had were necessarily re
strained by law, from running the risk of starvation by planting it all
in tobacco, and none in corn. This profitableness of the crop, as it
was found to continue, made the larger tracts of land desirable, but
the land was useless without laborers.

The future of Virginia and with hers, that of all that portion of
Supply of the country where one or two great staples could be produced
theTofony* at an enormous profit was determined by these considera-
First slaves, ^ions. Men held to service for a term of years were brought
over from England by ship-loads. These were often convicted felons,
often paupers who sold themselves in the extremity of want, or were
sold to be got rid of, and were often unfortunate wretches kidnapped
without regard to their condition, and in defiance of the law. On
each laborer brought into the colony there was a bounty in land, and
to his owner he represented also a certain profit in tobacco. So far as
these people themselves were concerned they were, from training and
habit, the least desirable population of a new country, in which they
were to be, after a term of service as slaves, the free citizens ; but a
worse result followed, for the circumstances that made their servitude
profitable, made it also the forerunner of a system still more perni
cious, and of the evils of which there was no possible mitigation.
When, in 1619, a Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown with a cargo of
negroes from the coast of Guinea, they were eagerly welcomed at good
prices by the planters. For many years these two systems of slavery
existed side by side, till the obvious truth became firmly established
that it was more desirable to own a black man in fee simple than a
white man for a limited period.

Before the colony, however, became the object of earnest attention
as a source of wealth in the production of one great staple, the inter
est in it was kept alive by other events. A third charter was granted
in March, 1611-12, which included the Bermudas within the territory

1616.]

MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS.

303

of the Company sold soon after to another corporation ; the privilege
of establishing a lottery was also given. Before this was revoked
three years afterward by Parlia
ment, as unconstitutional and in
jurious to public morals, it had
added nearly thirty thousand
pounds to the treasury of the
Council. In 1616, public curi
osity was aroused by the appear
ance in London, of the Princess
Pocahontas as the wife of Mr.
John Rolfe, who was also distin
guished as the first cultivator of
tobacco in Virginia. 1

Rolfe, it seems, was a widower, 2
who was one of the company of
Sir Thomas Gates, and was the
father of the child born in the Ber
mudas, at the time of the wreck
of the Sea Adventure, and chris
tened Bermuda. In an expedition
up the Potomac, in search of corn, Pocahontas.

Captain Argall had engaged an Indian to entice Pocahontas on board
his vessel, whom he took with him to Jamestown, and detained in the
expectation of compelling Powhatan to exchange her for Marriageo {
corn and for certain Englishmen and English arms, held by and n p^- fe
that chief. While held as a prisoner, under the care of Sir hontas -
Thomas Dale, she became a Christian, and was received into the
church under the baptismal name of the Lady Rebecca. Whether
the acquaintance between Rolfe and the princess commenced at that
time, is not certain ; but they were married soon after. Dale was so
much interested in this comely daughter of Powhatan that he pro
posed to the king to send him a younger sister, of whose attractions he
had heard, proposing to make her, said the messenger, " his nearest
companion, wife, and bed-fellow." The offer could only have been
made to get possession of the girl ; wife she could not be, as there was
already a Lady Dale in England. The king may have seen through
the design ; at any rate he good-naturedly declined the proposed honor
of surrendering his daughter to be the mistress of even a white
governor.

1 Harmor's True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia.

2 Pocahontas was also a widow if Strachey's statement was correct that she had married
a " private captain called Kocoum."

304

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI.

Dale took Rolfe and his wife to England, and with them went sev
eral other young Indians, men and women, and one Tamocomo, the
husband of another of Powhatan's daughters. The young people were
under the guardianship of the Council, and to be educated as Chris
tians ; but Tamocomo was an emissary of his father-in-law, under or
ders to gather information in regard to the English people. His ob
servations may have been valuable, but he soon gave over an attempt

Presentation of Pocahontas at Court.

to take a census of the population by notches on a stick. The whole
Pocahontas party excited the liveliest curiosity. The Lady Rebecca was
m England. rece i ve( j a ^ court with great favor, though grave doubts were
entertained, suggested it was supposed by James, who was never un
mindful of the divine right of kings, whether Rolfe had not been guilty
of treason in presuming to make an alliance with a royal family. The
princess appeared at the theatres and other public places, everywhere
attracting great attraction as the daughter of the Virginian emperor,
and as one to whom the colonists had sometimes been indebted for

1619.] SANDYS AND YEARDLEY. 305

signal services ; and everywhere exciting admiration for her personal
graces, and the propriety and good sense with which she always con
ducted herself. She remained in England for nearly a year, and died
as she was about to sail for her native country. Her only child, a
son, is claimed as the ancestor of some of the most respectable families
of Virginia.

Alliances by marriage between the whites and Indians were encour
aged and were not infrequent, as it was hoped to establish by such con
nections more friendly relations with the savages. They had, no
doubt, some influence, the marriage of Pocahontas especially leading to
a treaty with Powhatan which he faithfully observed so long as he
lived, and which was renewed after his death, in 1618, by his successor.
Meanwhile Dale was succeeded in the government of the colony, first
by George Yeardley, then by Captain Argall, and again by Yeardley.
During Dale's administration, Argall, who was of an adventurous and
unscrupulous disposition, had won notoriety, i not distinc
tion, by the destruction of a little colony of French at Port ministra-
Royal in the Bay of Fundy. As governor he was more
diligent in the pursuit of his own interests, than in any care for the
welfare of the colony. The complaints against him were so loud and
bitter as to demand reparation at the hands of the Council in London,
while he was also called to account for the neglect and ruin which had
fallen upon those plantations which it was his duty to have worked on
behalf of the Company. Lord De la Warre was sent out to displace
him and correct these abuses, but died on the way, somewhere, it is
supposed, near the mouth of the bay since known as the Delaware.
Yeardley, who meanwhile had returned to England, was made cap
tain-general and ordered to Virginia.

The appointment in 1619 of Sir George Yeardley for he was now
knighted as president, was the beginning of a new era in

^ \- <- t -IT" /-kU, U J U U Sir George

the history or Virginia. Others had been as honest, ener- Yeardley ap-

,, *i-ii i i {v pointed gov-

getic, and clear-sighted as he, and as earnest in their ettorts ernor, and
on behalf of the " action." But he reaped the benefit of all Sandys
that they had done and had, besides, the advantage, which
they often wanted, of being sustained by a wise conduct of affairs in
England. Sir Thomas Smith, who from the beginning had been the
treasurer of the company in London with almost plenary powers, re
tired from office this same year, and his place was supplied by Sir
Edwin Sandys. Smith had been accused of mismanagement, and his
accounts were in some disorder, but his reputation at the time evi
dently suffered no serious injury, as on his retiring, a grant of two
thousand acres of land in Virginia was made him by the London
Council. He had had many obstacles to encounter in the raising and

306 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL

disbursements of means to found a distant colony in an unknown re
gion, and had done, perhaps, all that could be done in the first twelve
years. The earlier difficulties were overcome when affairs came into
the hands of Sandys and Yeardley, and to achieve success was a much
easier task.

When Yeardley arrived in Virginia the colony numbered about six
hundred persons. They had become discouraged and discontented
under the arbitrary and dishonest rule of Argall, were suffering from
a scarcity of food, having neglected the cultivation of maize, that they
might raise the more tobacco and acquire the means to return to Eng
land. To induce and even to compel them to raise more to eat and
less to sell, was the governor's first object, and he observed his own
laws by planting corn on the Company's lands, and writing the treas
urer in London that he must not expect remittances in tobacco for at
least a year. To restore confidence among the colonists and to assure
them of a guaranty for the future, he gave to them the power of self-
government, to a certain extent, by calling upon them to send repre
sentatives from each of the towns, hundreds, or plantations to meet
with the governor and council and decide upon all matters relating to
the colony. The governor was to have a veto upon their legislation,
and no laws were valid till approved by the Company at home. With
this power of government came the sense of possession and perma
nency, undoubtedly exercising a strong influence over the minds of the
colonists. Sir Edwin Sandys proposed to create a more complicated
form of government, but this germ of the future commonwealth, in a
house of representative burgesses, was left for a time to a natural
growth. The first legislative assembly met in the church at James
town, on the 30th of July, 1619, and consisted of twenty-two repre
sentatives and the governor and council. One of the acts passed at
this meeting was for the punishment of drunkenness.

In this first year of Yeardley 's administration, the loss by death to
Process of tne colony was three hundred. By the special order of the
the colony. ki n g ? fa number was increased by the transportation of one
hundred felons gathered from the jails of England. These misfortunes
were offset by the wisdom of Sandys. Ten thousand acres of land
were set apart at Henrico, for the foundation of a university, where
both Indians and whites were to be educated, and within two years a
hundred men were settled upon these lands, to cultivate them on half
shares. A measure of more immediate benefit, was the transportation,
with their own consent, of a hundred " maids, young and uncorrupt,''
as wives for young men, who, from being only temporary settlers,
would thus be made, by domestic ties, permanent inhabitants and good
citizens. The young women met with the heartiest welcome, and none

1619.] PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 307

remained long without a husband, though the price of a wife was the
cost of her transportation, payable in tobacco, except to those who
were tenants of the Company's lands. Many poor children, both boys
and girls, were sent out as apprentices. The system was sometimes
taken advantage of by private persons, and young women and children
kidnapped and sold as slaves to the planters ; but the purpose of the
Council was benevolent and its results beneficial to the colony. Pro
vision was made for the religious instruction of the people ; the prin
cipal seats of the colony were more securely fortified ; a lasting peace
with the Indians was thought to be secured by treaties. Within a
twelvemonth eight ships were sent out to the colony by the treasurer,
Sir Edwin Sandys, and four more by private adventurers, carrying an
aggregate of twelve hundred and sixty-one persons, to be about
equally divided between the plantations of the Company and those
belonging to individuals. The new English nation had at length
taken firm root on the shores of America.

Signature of James I.

CHAPTER XII.

COLONIZATION UNDER THE NORTHERN COMPANY.

THE SEA-COAST OF MAINE. THE EARLY FISHERMEN. FRENCH TRADERS. FONT-
GRAVE AND POUTRINCOURT. GEORGE WfiYMOUTH's VOYAGE. COLONY OF CHIEF

JUSTICE POPHAM. SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN IN NEW YORK. SETTLEMENT ON MT.
DESERT. ARGALL'S DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH COLONY. JOHN SMITH IN
NEW ENGLAND. EXPEDITIONS OF FERDINANDO GORGES. SECOND CHARTER OF
THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. NOVA SCOTIA GIVEN TO SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER.
GRANT OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY TO GORGES. FIRST TOWNS IN NEW HAMP
SHIRE AND MAINE. THE BREAKING UP OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. CHAR
ACTER OF GORGES.

ON a map of the
State of Maine, its
rivers and lakes appear to be the
result of an accidental slopping
over of water, just as when it
curdles on a polished table into
pools, and struggles without pur
pose to and fro. But no systematic
engineering could improve this
order of nature, or dis
pose the waters better
for that inland commu
nication which the savages main
tained and the white man learned
Indians at a Portage. o f them. Broad and deep rivers,

fed by lakes that are strung upon rivulets, with branches to explore
and drain every nook of the land, were highways which the birch

Maine. Its
inland com
munication

1605.] THE SEA-COAST OF MAINE. 309

canoe was expressly framed to travel; it was no burden when the
voyager came to carrying-places around falls and rapids. The Kenue-
bec was called the shortest route to the great river of the North, the
St. Lawrence, which could also be reached by the Penobscot, though

!/ O

in a more difficult and tortuous way. By water portages and a few
day's marches, the Indian could strike the Chaudiere and drop down
to the neighborhood of Quebec, or visit the ancient town of Hochelaga,
which gave the St. Lawrence its first name.

No less remarkable is the coast, which hangs like a tattered fringe
to seaward, broken into numerous coves and inlets with their Itg gea .
long protecting line of islands and picturesque bluffs wooded coast '
with the birch and pine. The tide runs up deep bays and fills the
quiet reaches between the mainland and the outer sea, inviting crafts of
every tonnage, from a shallop to a ship, to lie in shelter or to slip along
to harbors. Here the early navigators moored in safety under the lee
of islands, and explored in their boats the intricate waters of the coast,
to fill their casks, to exchange trinkets for peltry with the natives, or
to pitch upon a spot for permanent occupancy. They tell how the
contrasts of foliage, the singing of birds, the stretches of green
meadow, and all the scents of summer mixed with the tonic air, de
lighted them as they rowed along the streams or penetrated into the
woods. Rosier, who accompanied Capt. George Weymouth in 1605
upon his voyage of discovery, and was the chronicler of what they
saw, writes with great enthusiasm of the " excellent depth of water
for ships of any burthen," of the good holding ground, of the planted
peas and barley which grew half an inch a day, of the gallant coves
with sandy beaches where ships might be careened, secure from all
winds, and the " plane plots " of thirty and forty acres of clear grass,
" the goodness and beauty whereof I cannot by relation sufficiently
demonstrate." It is easy to conceive the surprise and pleasure of
a ship's crew let loose upon this balmy and picturesque coast in some
month of summer, as Weymouth's were in early June, after a tedious
voyage made in cramped quarters, shared in later times with horses,
goats, and cows for the use of colonists. These men tasted the first
rapture which a virgin land, whose charms had never been once sus
pected, could bestow. There grew, close to launching places, spars
of various woods, and trees for building pinnaces and vessels ; brooks
of sweet water came trickling down in all directions, fringed with
grass or berries of the wood, the soil invited tillage, the woods were
stocked with game, colonies of beavers were established near to falls,
and the sea swarmed with fish of many kinds salmon, haddock,
pollock, and cod. The first attempts at colonizing, upon Newfound
land and " the Maine," turned upon the value of this fishery, and

310 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

were stimulated by it. There is no doubt that many gangs of fish
ermen wintered upon the northeastern coast, and upon islands off
the coast of Maine, many years before there was thought of char
tering a colony. So the fisherman pursued and worked a vein of
wealth wherever the cod ran along the shores of the New
on coast of World ; and the mute fish piloted History to the scenes of
her most speaking achievements. She stepped from the
deck of a fishing smack, and began the work of founding a republic
by tending the rude stages where the fish were dried.

Norumbega, the name by which Maine was earliest known in Eng
land, although its boundaries were vague and shifting, is first
rations 6 *? " designated in an account of French voyages in Ramusio's
collection of travels. Norumbega was derived by European
pronunciation from an Indian word belonging to the tribes between
the Kennebec and Penobscot. It was applied by them to an aborig
inal kingdom whose seat of power was in a half-mythical town near
Penobscot Bay, and upon the eastern side of it. But the early geog
raphers sometimes applied the name to the whole region between Cape
Sable and Cape Cod, and occasionally even as far south as Florida.
It properly belonged, however, only to that region near the Penob
scot whose people referred to a mysterious site of aboriginal rule in
the interior. At a later period, this great lord of the Penobscot coun
try was called the Bashaba ; but although a good many names of local
sagamores of distinction are mentioned in the early annals, nobody
ever had an interview with the veritable Bashaba, nor entered the
traditional city of Norumbega. It is probable that the term bashaba
merely indicated the sagamore who happened at different times to
enjoy the ascendency among the Penobscot tribes.

It is said that an English ship, sent out in 1527, sailed along the
coasts of Arambec, a corruption plainly of Norumbega, and that her
men frequently went on shore, to explore these unknown lands. 1

Among other voyagers to the coast of Maine, at this period, was
Andre Thevet, the French traveller and cosmographer, who had been
a member of Villegagnon's Huguenot colony in South America. He
relates that in 1536 he visited the Grand River (Penobscot), and
gives a circumstantial narrative of his intercourse with the natives.
The behavior of his Indians was so effusively affectionate, that one
is disposed, at first, to question his truthfulness. But, in fact, the
Abnakis and Micmacs, -the aboriginal inhabitants of Maine, were

1 Hakluyt, iii. 129. Biddle (j\femnir of Sebastian Cabot), believes the English voyage re
ferred to, to be identical with that of John Rut, in the same year (mentioned in Pnrchas,
vol. iii. p. 809), and Kohl (Maine Hist. Coll., vol. i., Second Series), seems to share his
opinion, and says : " This voyage was the first instance in which Englishmen are certainly
known to have put their foot on these shores."

1605.] THE FRENCH AND THE INDIANS. 311

more amiable, and indulged in more social habits than were known
among other Indians of New England. Their temper was not uni
form, however ; at the least hint they would fly to suspicions, and
take up arms. But there is abundant evidence that they were dis
posed to welcome the English, until the hostile policy of the French
began to exert its influence.

The Abnakis, who inhabited the territory from the Penobscot,
north to Canada, and through New Hampshire, loved to col- Abori g ines
lect in permanent villages, of which there were five, two in of Maine -
Canada, and one on each river, the Kennebec, the Androscoggin, and
the Saco. These are described by French missionaries as having been
enclosed by stout and high palisades. The wigwams were built of
bended poles, and covered with bark. The dress of the natives was
" ornamented with a great variety of rings, necklaces, bracelets, belts,
etc., made out of shells and stones, worked with great skill. They
practised also agriculture. Their fields of skamgnar (corn) were
very luxuriant. As soon as the snows had disappeared, they prepared
the land with great care, and at the commencement of June they
planted the corn, by making holes with the fingers, or with a stick,
and having dropped eight or nine grains of corn, they covered them
with earth. Their harvest was at the end of August." 1

They were very brave, tenacious of purpose, faithful to engage
ments, uncompromising in war, hospitable, " and their attachment to
the family was," says one of their historians, " such as we do not
read of in other tribes of the Algic people."

The French knew how to attach these Indians permanently to
themselves, and keep them firmly hostile to the English. They soon
came under the influence of the French missionaries, and of the sol
diers and traders, who showed the tact and adaptability which distin
guish that nation. Even in giving names to places, a significant dif
ference between the French and English policy showed itself. The
French flattered the Indians by trying to pronounce all their local
names, and by perpetuating them. The Englishman made English
words migrate and settle upon the new sites, ignoring the native
nomenclature. He loved thus to recall his Portsmouth, Rye, Appledore,
his York, Falmouth, and Portland. Either the place of his birth, or
the port from which he started, provided names for the new places.
The French studied in every way to appropriate the habits of the
Indians, to hunt, travel, eat, sleep, and dress in the native fashion.
They were apt learners of the different dialects ; the lists of words
and the dictionaries compiled by their missionaries can be relied upon.
And these devoted men drew savage admiration by their constancy,

1 Collections of Maine Hist. Soc., vi. 218-19.

312 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

French
claim to
Nouvelle
France.

calmness in perils, assiduous efforts to teach and civilize, and their
skill in healing, as well as by the impressive solemnity of those novel
services of religion, with cross, cup, bell, and candle, under the
groined arches of the primitive cathedral. But the English possessed
over the French one great advantage ; and that has since been styled
" manifest destiny." For the current of history undermines and car
ries away the adroitest policies and the nicest arts of accommodation.
The French claimed the region which included Maine, under the
title of Nouvelle France, although from the time of Jacques
Cartier and De la Roque, until nearly into the beginning of
the seventeenth century, they made no definite attempt to
settle there. In the last decade of the sixteenth century, a new in
terest was awakened, especially in Brittany and Normandy, whose
fishers continued in constant intercourse with the new-found lands.
In 1598, the Marquis de la Roche obtained a patent from Henry IV.,
and made a futile attempt at settlement. He landed a colony of
wretches drawn from the galleys and the prisons of France, on the
barren shores of Sable Island, and left them to drag out a miserable
existence, subsisting on some cattle which had bred from a number
left t^iere by the ships of the Baron de Leri, eighty years before.

The year following, Pontgrave", a merchant of St. Malo,
who had been for furs as far as Tadoussac on the St. Law
rence, formed the design of establishing a fur-trading port in
Canada. He enlisted with him De Chauvin, an experi
enced sea officer, who had sufficient influence at court to obtain a

commission similar to that grant
ed De la Roche. Chauvin went
on two voyages, but whatever
results they might have produced
were checked by his sudden
death, as he prepared to go upon
a third. In 1603 Pontgrav
went himself on a voyage, taking
with him Samuel de Champlain,
an officer of repute in the French
navy, a man in good favor at
court, and an ardent Catholic.

Together with Pontgrave,
Champlain explored the St.
Lawrence, and carried back to
France maps and observations
made upon the banks of that
noble river. In the following year, another and more important

of Pont-
chwnpiam

Samuel de Champlain.

1604.] DE MONTS IN ACADIA. 313

expedition was undertaken, which came very near establishing a per
manent French colony within the present limits of Maine. This new
expedition was led by Pierre du Guast,
Sieur de Monts, the governor of Pons s~.
in the province of Saintonge. He ( / (
had been on one of the voyages of Signature of Champlain .

Pontgrave", and on the death of Du

Chaste, the governor of Dieppe, who had succeeded to Chauvin's
commission for discovery and colonization in America, De Monts ob
tained it.

De Monts was a Huguenot, but he had rendered such important
services to Henry IV. during the troubles of the League, that the
king, though he changed his faith, did not lose confidence in Acadia
his servant. Eager for maritime adventure and discovery, f^Mont^
De Monts procured an edict which created him lieutenant- 1604 -
general of Acadia, as the country was called from the 40th to the 46th
degree of north latitude. 1 Free exercise of his own religion was per
mitted to him, in return for which he engaged to have the savages
converted to Catholicism. A company was formed by merchants of
Rouen and Rochelle, to whom the king granted by letters-patent the
exclusive trade in furs and fish between the 40th, and 54th, degrees
of north latitude.

De Monts sailed from Havre de Grace on the 7th of March, 1604.
He took with him his friend Jean de Biencourt, the Baron de Pou-
trincourt, and Champlain, whose experience in previous voyages he
thought would be of service in this new enterprise. Poutrincourt
wished to find a place to which he might transfer his family, and
forget the turbulent politics of Europe in the permanent occupancy
of a land unvexed by parties and religious strife.

De Monts reached in about two months a harbor on the eastern
side of Nova Scotia, where he found a vessel engaged in fishing and
an illicit fur-trade. It was commanded by a Captain Rossignol, whose
only consolation for the confiscation of his cargo was the transference of
his name to the harbor. The place is now called Liverpool, and Rosig-
nol's name is perpetuated in a lake not far distant, the largest in Nova

1 The word is usually supposed to be derived from the French or Latin, but comes, says
one authority, from the Indian word Aquoddie, a pollock. It was corrupted by the French
into Acadie, Acadia, Cadia, Cadie. The original is preserved in the name of Passama-
quoddy Bay, which is derived from Pos (great), aguam (water), aquoddie (pollock) ; mean
ing great water for pollock. Historical Magazine, vol. i., p. 84. Another authority (see
Collections of Maine Historical Society, vol. i., p. 27, note) says that the Ac.adi is a pure
Micmac word meaning place, and was used by the Indians in combination with some other
word, as Suga-bun-acadi ', the place of ground nuts, and Passam-acadi (Passamaquoddy), the
t place of fish.

314 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

Scotia. The present Port Mouton, on the next bay, is probably the
Port au Mouton of De Monts, which he so named because he there
lost a sheep overboard, and where he spent a month on shore while
Champlain explored southward for a place that would better suit them
for a permanent settlement.

Champlain doubled Cape Sable and returned to show the expedition
the way to the Bay of Fundy. This De Monts named Baye Fran-
caise ; the harbor now known as Annapolis, Champlain called Port
Royal. After sailing up Minas Bay, they crossed the Bay of Fundy,
entered Passamaquody Bay, and on a little island which they named
St. Croix, in the river now known as the St. Croix, the
in the state Passamaquody, or the Schoodic, they determined to settle.
It was an unfortunate choice ; timber was scarce ; the water
had to be brought from the main land ; before the winter was over
they were reduced to salt meat and snow water, and the scurvy broke
out among them. The island is now known as Neutral Island, and
is on the border line between Maine and New Brunswick.

Champlain, always restless and bent on new discoveries, sailed dur
ing the winter as far south as Cape Cod, which Gosnold had
explores already visited and named. The Frenchman called it Cap
Blanc, from the white sands of its long beaches ; he nar
rowly escaped shipwreck somewhere along that dangerous coast, at
a place he named Cape Mallebarre, perhaps Gosnold's Point Care,
the extremity of Isle Nawset. In the spring he again sailed south
ward with De Monts, who was determined to find a better spot than
St. Croix on which to plant his colony. They entered the mouths
of those noble rivers of Maine, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the
De Monts Casco, the Saco ; visited Mount Desert, sailed up Portland
coast of" Harbor, which De Monts named Marchin, from the Indian
Maine. chief with whom they had some trade. There was many a
pleasant spot in the deep bays they penetrated where they could have
sat down contented to fish and trade and thrive, far away from the
turmoils and contentions of the Old World which Poutrincourt hoped
to escape. But the natives showed none of the kindly traits which
Thevet had described ; they menaced and repulsed the strangers, who
returned to St. Croix.

The condition of the colony was more miserable than ever, and
hardly any change could be for the worse. The next move was to
Removal of a harbor in Acadia, on the other side of the Bay of Fundy,
to"port ny to which Champlain had given, the year before, the name
of Port Royal, now Annapolis. Here for several years
the colony maintained a feeble existence.

But the English were not idle while the French were thus busy in ,

1605.]

GEORGE WEYMOUTH'S VOYAGE.

315

attempts to gain a foothold in the new country. Foremost among
those who saw the importance of colonization were the earls of
Arundel and Southampton ; the former, one of those steadfast friends
of Sir Walter Raleigh who did not desert him even when led to
the scaffold ; the other, that friend and patron of Shakespeare who
gave him XI, 000 and was distinguished for the dedication Voyageof
the poet made to him of his earliest poems. These two mou r th Wey "
noblemen united in sending out a ship under George Wey- 1605 -
mouth, who was instructed to explore that part of North Virginia
to be known a few years later as New England.

Weymouth sailed in the Archangel, March 5, 1605. On May 17 he

The Mouth of the Kennebec.

came to anchor near the island of Monhegan, twelve miles southeast
of Pemaquid, an Indian word signifying " that runs into the water."
The cape jutting southward forms the most eastern headland of
Lincoln County. The delight of Weymouth and his sailors was un
bounded at beholding the beauty of this island where they first landed.
Gooseberries, strawberries, wild peas, and rosebushes grew to its
very verge, and rills of sweet water trickled through cleft rocks, and
ran into the salt sea. With delicious draughts from these rivulets the
men eagerly cooled their sea-parched mouths, while they refreshed
their eyes with the spring greenness of the landscape ; from the sea
they took a store of cod, a welcome change from their sea-rations, which
gave them a foretaste of the great plenty of fish they found there
afterwards.

The authorities differ as to the next movement of Weymouth. One
theory takes him up the Penobscot to the neighborhood of Belfast ;

316 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

a second, toward the islands outside of Boothbay Harbor, and into
the Sagadahoc ; and a third, up St. George's River, which is

-just west of Penobscot Bay, and runs up toward the Cam-
mouth. J . .

den Hills. He saw mountains far inland ; these are claimed

by some to have been the White Mountains, and by others the
Camden Hills, because he tried to reach them and came so near that
his men thought themselves " to have been within a league of them." l
It hardly seems possible that they could have made such an estimate
respecting the White Mountains, which can be seen in clear weather
from several points off the coast over low land. On the whole, the
evidence seems to be in^ favor of their landing at Pemaquid, and visit
ing the region between the St. George and the Kennebec River.

If they were delighted with the little island where they had first
touched land, they were no less enchanted with the main-
with the in- land. The narrative praises the richness of the soil and
the number of native products found there, from the good
clay for brick-making to the finest and tallest trees they had ever
seen ; the very shells on the beach yielded pearls, and the bark of
the trees oozed gum which smelled like frankincense. As usual, the
Indians received them at first with hospitality, gave them good bar
gains in peltries, feasted them in their best fashion, and offered them
tobacco. But the savages soon showed mistrust of the whites, and
the whites suspected treachery among the savages. The hostile feel
ing growing out of these suspicions decided Weymouth to keep no
faith with the natives. Five of them, who trusted him sufficiently to
come on board his vessel, he detained and took with him to England.
Arriving at the port of Plymouth he gave three of them to Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, who was the governor of the fort there, a lead
ing member of the Plymouth Council and warmly interested in all
things concerning America. The other two captives he sent up to
London to Sir John Popham. The kidnapped Indians were the ob
jects of curious wonder. Such gaping crowds followed them in the city
streets as Shakespeare alluded to, when in " The Tempest " he made
Trinculo long to have Caliban on exhibition in England : " Not a
holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver ; there would this
monster make a man ; any strange beast there makes a man ; when
they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay
out ten to see a dead Indian."

Sir John Popham, the chief justice, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges,
to whose care these Indians were given, had both been largely instru
mental in getting from the king the patent for the North Virginia
Company, and their zeal received a new impulse from the informa-

1 James Hosier's Narration of the Expedition, in Purchas.

1607.]

THE POPHAM COLONY.

317

tion gained from these captive natives. A ship was soon despatched
under Captain Henry Chalong to make further discoveries, Expeditions
and two of the Indians were sent back in her. But she unfor- ham e and P
tunately was captured by the Spaniards. Another vessel was Gor s es -
sent soon after with Thomas Hanham and Martin Pring as master
and captain, who took with them the Indian, Nahanada, to his tribe
at Pemaquid. And these expeditions were followed up by another,
which but for a series of untoward events, would have made the

Indians in London.

permanent settlement of New England only a few months behind that
of Virginia.

On May 31, 1607, The Gift of G-od, of which Sir George Popham,
the brother of the chief justice, was captain, and The Mary
and John, commanded by Raleigh Gilbert, a younger son of colony.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, set sail from Plymouth. One hun
dred and twenty persons were on board, many of them well adapted
for the founding of a colony. There is no evidence of the truth
of the assertion sometimes made, that the chief justice depleted the
prisons of England to furnish forth this company ; in fact, his powers
could not stretch to that extent, though James I., a few years later,
gave to persons who had been prosecuted for grave crimes the alterna
tive of a colony or a prison.

318 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

On board one of the ships was Skitwarroes, 1 one of the five Indians
Arrival of captured by Weyinoutli, to serve as a guide and interpreter.

the colony. rpi i i p , i -,

Ine chaplain ot the expedition was Richard Seymour, a gen
tleman of the highest culture, who is supposed to have been a kins
man of Sir Edward Seymour, Lord Protector in the reign of Edward
VI. He lived in the neighborhood, and was probably related to
the families of Raleigh, Gilbert, Gorges, and Popham, all of whom
were allied by intermarriage. Among the colonists were various arti
sans, carpenters, sawyers, laborers, a smith,
an< ^ a master ship-builder. They came to
anchor to the north of Monhegan on the
31st of July, and were soon boarded by
some natives, who seemed perfectly familiar
with European trading habits. A week
was spent in boat expeditions among the

*4^WJ3*P Jp^N^gJ^ip^P

i-'i^'&i, -- , Vw -

Meeting of Nahanada and Skitwarroes.

islands, and on the evening of the 5th of August they found on one
of these a cross, which Weymouth had set up two years before. Cap
tain Gilbert sent a boat up the river to the mainland, piloted by the
Indian Skitwarroes, to a village of the natives situated in Pemaquid.
At the first appearance of the boat the Indians took to their arms;
but when their chief recognized Skitwarroes, and saw that those with
him were Englishmen, he commanded his party to lay aside their bows
and arrows, kissed and embraced the strangers, and entertained them
for hours with a kindly and cheerful welcome. The chief who met
them in this friendly way was Nahanada, 1 who had been returned to
his home the year before by Captain Hanham.

1 The original accounts differ from each other, and in themselves, in the spelling of these
Indian names.

1607.] THE POPHAM COLONY. 319

On August 9, which was Sunday, they landed upon an island to
which they gave the name of St. George, where the service of the
Church of England was read and a sermon preached by the chaplain,
many natives attending with great sobriety of demeanor. On August
15, the Gift of Grod entered the Sagadahoc, which was the name
of the broad channel below the junction of the Androscoggin and
Kennebec ; its Indian meaning is " the end of it," as if it had been
named by natives exploring from above. The Sheepscot River comes
down to the east, directly north of George's Island. 1 On August 17th,
they sailed up the Sagadahoc in the pinnace and long boat, These ttie.
and noticed all its advantages of islands and fresh water ment
streams ; and on the next day they made choice of a peninsula upon
the western side which the Indians called, after a native chief, Sabino. 2
All landed here on the 19th, another sermon was preached, the presi
dent's commission was read, and the first act of the first English colony
of New England was complete. A fort was built, mounting twelve
guns, to defend the little town of forty or fifty houses which quickly
sprung up. The master shipwright of the expedition, Thomas Digby,
had the timber cut down, shaped, and left to season during
the autumn, for building a small vessel of thirty tons, which buut m
when done was called the Virginia. This was the first vessel
built by Englishmen in American waters ; and the first use she was
put to was to take back to England, before the winter was over, nearly
two thirds of the colonists, thus early discouraged by the rigor of the
climate.

The Indians did not relish this cool annexation of their favorite
peninsula, in which they were not consulted, not even asked to sell,
still less to accept an equivalent. But it was characteristic of the
Anglo-Saxon method. They soon began to be troublesome : they
intruded within the enclosures, and some of the more reckless colo
nists set the dogs upon them, and used their sticks too freely. Cap
tain Gilbert went exploring up the river, and came into the district
of a chief less disposed than Nahanada was to keep the peace with
these intruders. They endeavored to get possession of Gilbert and
his crew, and he ran the gauntlet of menaces all the way.

1 Its Indian name was Sipsa-couta, " flocking of birds." We surmise that the English
language gained the word coot from this river ; just as skunk is a fragrant legacy from the
native sagankou. Moose is derived from moussouk, muskrat, properly musquash, from
mouskouessou, and the honk, or cry of the goose, from sehunk. So our favorite American
ism, scoot, came from the native word schoot, "to go with a rush;" and when, in later
times, a new kind of vessel was launched at Newburyport, a bystander, using the same
native word, cried, " How she schoons ! " and schooner she was from that day.

2 Perhaps Sebenoa Anglicized. This peninsula was a favorite resort of the natives, and
numerous relics of stone axes, hammers, arrow-heads, and chippings of stone-work, indicate
that it was a place for the manufacture of savage weapons.

320 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

On the 5th of February, Popham, who was the president of the

colony, died, and Captain Gilbert succeeded to the office. The ship

Mary and John had been sent back to London in the preceding

December, to procure supplies. It returned to find the colony in a

deplorable condition. The winter had been of exceptional

d tbe coi- severity ; fighting had broken out between the men and the

natives ; the storehouse with all its contents had been burned ;

the natives were in possession of the fort for awhile, and the explosion

of a barrel of gunpowder, through their own carelessness, they believed

to be done by the art of the whites.
This incident probably was the germ
of a story which obtained circulation
at a later period, that the colonists
induced a number of natives to drag

Setting Dogs on the Indians.

along one of the guns by the ropes, running with them in front of the
muzzle, and that when they were well in line with it the gun was dis
charged. But when the Indians were recounting to the Jesuits the
injuries which they had sustained from the English, this incredible
incident was not mentioned. If it had been, the Jesuit missionaries
would not have failed to record it.

In the spring came the news of the death, first, of Chief Justice
Breaking- Popham, then of Sir John Gilbert, the elder brother of the
Popham 6 new governor. The last compelled the return of Raleigh
Gilbert to England, for he was his brother's heir. The loss
of two governors, of the principal mover and proprietor of the colony,
within so short a time, and the desertion of so many of their com
panions were discouragements so serious that the remaining forty-five
determined to return home with Gilbert.

1608.] CHAMPLAIN'S DISCOVERIES. 321

Sir Francis Popham, the son of the chief justice, continued for
years to send expeditions to the coast of Maine, at his private cost ;
but no permanent settlement was made, though the crews of these
vessels may have wintered sometimes at Monhegan, and sometimes at
Pemaquid. The Northern Virginia Company was inactive, content,
apparently, to watch and wait for the results of the efforts of the sister
company farther south. The French, on the other hand, though the
tenacious preference of the English for the Atlantic coast may have
served to turn their attention to the bays and rivers farther east and
north, persisted in the attempt to gain possession of the land. In
1608, Champlain penetrated in a new direction within the territory of
the present United States.

On the 3d of July, 1608, he reached Stadacona Quebec and
began, the next day, to build a fort near the spot where Jacques
Cartier had passed, nearly three quarters of a century before, the
winter of 1535-36. Champlain's adventurous spirit did not permit
him to remain long at rest, and in the intervals of his fre-

Champlain

quent voyages to and from _b ranee, he was busy with new founds Q UC -
discoveries, making charts of sea-coasts and river-courses,
taking minute notes of climate and the natural products of the country,
and writing narratives of all that befell him on land and sea. When
in the spring his fort at Stadacona was finished, the little colony
well established, their garden-plots laid out and carefully planted, he
had time to think of new adventures. With a few companions he
sailed up the great river, visiting its islands, entering the mouths of
its tributary streams, giving them names by which many of them are
known to this day- At the mouth of the Iroquois. now the Richelieu,
he met by appointment a party of natives on the war-path against
their enemies, the Iroquois. The river, he learned, came from a beau
tiful lake, which his shallop could reach without difficulty. The
latter statement he soon found was not true, the Indians deceiving
him that they might lure him on to take part in their expected battle.
Disappointed but not discouraged, he persuaded two of his men to go
on with him, and sent the rest back to Quebec with the vessel.

They made the somewhat perilous passage safely, without losing
a single canoe, landing where the falls were highest and carrying
their frail boats on their backs, till they came to smoother Di g cove ry
water. It was early in July when they entered the lake chaplain,
dotted with many beautiful islands and surrounded with 1609-
noble trees, many of them, Champlain observed, like those of his native
France, on which hung vines as luxuriant as he had ever seen any
where. Coasting the lake he saw to the east some lofty mountain
peaks, still snow-covered under the July sun. In the secluded valleys

322 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

among these mountains lived the fierce Iroquois, who had fertile plains
rich in corn and other natural products. After a sail about the lake
Champlain gave it his own name, the only instance, he records, in
which he had thus arrogated to himself the honor of his discoveries.

Several days passed before their foes, the Iroquois, made their ap
pearance. It was in the dusk of the evening when they came to the
banks of the lake, and all night the two parties taunted and defied
each other for the fight which was to take place when the next day's
sun should rise. But the party of savages who counted on the assist-
Fightof ance f Champlain and his companions, kept their white
rthe Indians. a ;Qies carefully concealed. Next day they formed in ranks
and approached to within about two hundred feet of the Iroquois, who
awaited them firmjy. At that point they opened their ranks to give
passage to Champlain, who advanced to the front and discharged his
harquebus, wounding two of the enemy, who, astonished at such an
appearance and its effect, fled in fright and disorder to the woods,
pursued by the delighted victors.

After this battle Champlain returned to Quebec, where he con
tinued governor until its surrender to the English admiral Kertk in
1629. He was reinstated in the office when it again fell into the
'hands of the French, and from that time continued to command there
till his death in 1635.

Meanwhile a second attempt was made by the French to obtain a

settlement on the coast of Maine. In the autumn of 1605, De Monts

sailed for France, promising to send out supplies to the Port

Further at- . , . , i- i i i

tempts of Royal Colony. But during his absence preiudice had been

De Monts. J . , . TT - i -i

aroused against him as a Huguenot. His exclusive privilege
of fishing the king had revoked, and the merchants did not care to
invest in a venture which promised small returns. After many dif
ficulties, however, he procured an outfit, and set sail on May 13, 1606,
not arriving at Port Royal till July 27, but just in time to prevent
the worn-out 'Settlers from returning to France. Still desiring to find
a more southerly place for his colony, he despatched Poutrincourt on
the old route along the New England coast, and returned to France.
Off Cape Cod Poutrincourt's vessel was stranded upon a shoal, and
three of his men were killed by the natives, who manifested great
hostility. The weather also proving unfavorable he put back, and
reached Port Royal about the middle of November. Champlain
and the other gentlemen received him with great joy, and a butt of
the best Burgundy " made their caps spin round."

In the midst of their spring planting a vessel arrived with the un
welcome news that no more men nor supplies could be furnished, and
that the colony must be disbanded. Port Royal was left uninhabited

1613.]

THE FRENCHMEN AT MT. DESERT.

323

till 1610, when Poutrincourt returned at the instance of the king to
make the new settlement a central station for the conversion of the
Indians, a work which made some Jesuit missionaries prominent in
the history of the New World. His son followed in 1611, with Fathers
Pierre Biard, and Enemond Masse. Madame la Marquise de Guer-
cheville, a pious Catholic, to whom De Monts had ceded his title to
Acadia, and to whom afterwards the French king granted the whole
territory now covered by the United States, was the chief patroness of
these voyages. Desir
ing to make another
settlement, she des
patched a vessel in
1613, with two more
Jesuits, Father Quen-
tin and Gilbert du
Thet, and forty-eight
men under La Saus-
saye, who intended to
reach a place called
Kadesquit (Bangor)
on the Penobscot.
This spot had been
selected by Father
Biard on a trip which
he made from Port
Royal to the Penob
scot. They reached
Port Royal on May
16, and taking Fa
thers Biard and Masse
on board sailed for
their destination.

But such a fog en
veloped them off Me-
nans (Grand Manan)
that they had to lie to for two days ; when the weather cleared up
they saw the island which Champlain named Monts De- Mount Dea .
serts, and which the Indians called Pemetig, which means ert-
" at the head," from its commanding position. The lifting fog dis
closed Great Head, rising sheer from the ocean to buttress the forests
of Green and Newport mountains. On their right was the broad sheet
of water, since called Frenchman's Bay, extending far into the land.
Into this they gladly sailed, and dropping anchor inside of Porcupine

Great Head.

324 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

Island, effected a landing not far from the bar winch gives its name to
a little harbor. There the broad flank of Green Mount, with New
port just alongside to make a deep and still ravine, greeted the eyes
which sea-spray and the fog had filled. Eagle Lake lay buried in the
forest in front of them, and the wooded slopes stretched along to the
right as far as they could see. The islands with bronzed cliffs to sea
ward, and bases honeycombed by the tide, wore sharp crests of fir and
pine. The American coast does not supply another combination so
striking as this, of mountains with their feet in deep ocean on every
side, lifting two thousand feet of greenery to vie with the green of
waves ; of inland recesses where brooks run past brown rocks, and
birds sing woodland songs as if their nests swung in a country remote

from sea-breezes. Delicate ferns fill the moist places of the wood,
and the sea-anemones open in the little caverns where the tide leaves
a pool for them. Nature has scattered the needled pines, of shape so
perfect, from those of an inch high to the finished tree, artfully dis
tributed in the open spaces. The Frenchmen hailed this picturesque
conclusion to their voyage, and named the place and harbor St. Sau-
veur.

Several Indian villages were on the island. A smoke rose as a sig
nal that the men were observed ; they signalled with another smoke,
and the natives came to see them. Father Biard had met some of
them on the Penobscot, and now inquired the way to Kadesquit.
They answered that their place was better, and so wholesome that
sick natives in the neighboring parts were brought thither to be
cured. But when Father Biard could not be persuaded, they belied

1613.]

THE SETTLEMENT AT ST. SAUVEUR.

325

their own sanitary praises, and begged the good father to come and
see their sagamore, Asticon, who was very sick, and like to die with
out the sacrament. This wily stroke prevailed : they took him round
to the eastern shore of a bay, which is now called Somes's Sound, from
a Gloucester man who settled there in 1760. Great shell heaps still
indicate the site of Asticon's village. He only had an attack of
rheumatism ; so the father asked the natives to show him the place
which they esteemed to be so much better than Kadesquit. They
took him around the head of the Sound, to a grassy slope of twenty
or thirty acres, with a stream on each side, running down to the tide.
The bay was as still as a lake ; " the black soil fat and fertile, the
pretty hill abutting softly on the sea, and bathed on its sides by two
streams, the little islands which break the force of waves and wind." 1

Somes's Sound.

These islands are the Great and Little Cranberry, and Lancaster's.
The cliffs rise to a great height, and the water at their base is deep
enough for any ship to ride a cable's length from the shore. No won
der that Father Biard thought no more of Kadesquit. They planted
the cross, threw up a slight entrenchment, and La Saussaye began to
plant, for the time was early in June.

But, unfortunately, the English in Virginia were used to cruise along
the coast as far as Pemaquid annually to catch fish. This
year Samuel Argall sailed on such a fishing voyage, some tack on the
accounts adding that he was sent by Dale, the governor, to
drive the French out of Acadia. Champlain says he had fourteen pieces
of artillery. When he reached Pemaquid, the savages, not intending

1 Father Biard's Relation.

826 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

any harm, as the French and English were then at peace, gave him
to understand that Frenchmen had arrived at Mount Desert. They
attributed the excitement of Argall and his men to a pleased anticipa
tion of meeting the French, and procuring some needed stores. So an
Indian volunteered to guide Argall to the French vessel. He, without a
challenge, summons, or word of explanation, bore directly down, " swift
as an arrow," says liiard, upon the French vessel, on the plea that it
was in waters covered by the patent of the Virginia Company, and
opened fire. Only ten men were on board the vessel, the rest being scat
tered on shore. The sails had been
converted into deck-awnings, and the
anchor was fast on the bottom, so that
by no sea manoeuvre could they evade
the attacking vessel. No gun
ners were on board ; l)u Tliet
undertook to serve one of the
guns, and fired once wildly,
when he was mortally wounded

Argall's Attack on the French.

by a musket shot. The vessel surrendered, the Englishmen landed
and began to search the tents. Argall, finding La Saussaye's desk,
broke it open and took out his royal commission, then locked the
desk, and when he returned coolly asked him for his papers. Of
course they were missing ; then Argall, pretending that he was an
impostor, with no title to fish, trade, or settle, gave his soldiers license
to plunder, which they did thoroughly in a couple of days. After
the death of Du Thet, who lingered for a day, the other Jesuits
remonstrated with Argall, and declared that they were on a genuine
mission, approved by their king. " Well," said he, " it is a great pity
that you have lost your papers."

La Saussaye, Father Masse, and a dozen men were turned loose in

1614.] DESTRUCTION OF FRENCH SETTLEMENTS. 327

a boat to find their way to Port Royal. Near the coast they were
met by two fishing vessels which carried them to France. Father
Biard and the rest of the company were carried to Virginia ; and a
Argall began by representing that they had sailed without a commis
sion, they were lodged in jail, where they were so badly treated, and
threatened with death, that Argall became frightened, and told Sir
Thomas Dale, the Governor, that he had taken La Saussaye's commis
sion ; they were then released.

ArgalFs conduct was approved at Jamestown. The governor
sent him back, with his own vessel and the French prize, to
destroy all the settlements in Acadia. He landed again at ^Trnach
Somes's Sound, cut down the French cross, set up another
with the English arms, and obliterated every trace of the settlement.
Then sailing to the island of St. Croix, he burned all the vacated
buildings there and carried off a stock of salt. His next point was
Port Royal, where Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, who was incapable of
making any effective resistance, tried to buy Argall off by proposing
to divide the trade with him. But Argall executed his commission.
He " destroyed the fort and all monuments and marks of French power
at Port Royal. He even caused the names of De Monts and other
captains, and the fleurs-de-lys, to be effaced with pick and chisel from
a massive stone on which they had been engraved." x In one of his ves
sels were the three Jesuits who had been taken to Virginia. On their
return, the vessel in which they sailed became separated from Argall's-
in a storm, and driven to the Azores, whence they found their way to
England, and then to France. Thus not a Frenchman was left upon the
coast of Maine, nor a single cross to signify priority of possession.

After this expedition of Argall and his ruthless work of destruction
at Mount Desert, the next English navigator of any note who visited
Maine was Captain John Smith, who in 1614 came thither

Jrtrin Rmifh

with two ships fitted out by some London merchants. As in xw Knr-
usual, a search after rich mines was announced as one of the
chief objects of the adventure, but it easily and naturally turned to ;t
fishing and fur-trading voyage. Several ships were drying and pre
paring their fish upon the coaste when Smith arrived among them, and
his own sailors, expert in this sort of work, readily took in a cargo.
" Is it not pretty sport," writes Smith, in his narrative of the voyage,
" to pull up two pence, six pence, and twelve pence as fast as you can
haul and veere a line."

Smith did not spend all his time in trading and fishing, but leaving
most of his crew thus employed, he cruised along shore in a little boat,
drawing a map as he went from isle to isle, from harbor to harbor,,

1 Beamish's History of Nova Scotia, rol. L, p. 58.

328 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

marking all soundings, rocks, and landmarks. This map he took
home, and submitted to the prince, afterwards Charles I., who
gave to the country, at Smith's suggestion, the name of New England.
Smith had sailed with two ships, and on his return left one behind
Indians kid- to finish lading. They took a good cargo of fish, but not
capuui by satisfied with that, the ship-master, Thomas Hunt, seized
twenty-seven 1 of the savages, it is supposed in Plymouth
Bay, and carried them captive to Spain, whither he went to dispose
of his cargo. There he sold his fish at an excellent profit, and sold
also his Indian prisoners as slaves. Through the benevolent efforts

V-

Cod-fishiner.

of a brotherhood of Spanish friars, some of the savages were rescued
and sent to London, and thence to their native country.

Smith's characteristic enthusiasm was greatly excited by the value

of the fishery on the coast he had visited. He commended that staple

to the consideration of English merchants, and argued that

Smith's plea _ ,.. ,.,,

forced- fish, although it might seem a " mean and base commodity,

fishery

had yet made the fortunes of so thriving a state as Holland.
He also made an able plea for colonization in New England, declaring
that those who undertook the matter could, with sense, discretion, and
perseverance, get rich. " For I am not so simple," he says, "as to
think any other motive than wealth will ever erect a commonwealth,
or draw company from their ease and humors at home, to stay in New

1 Accounts differ as to the number of the kidnapped Indians, but Smith's Description oj
New England says twenty-seven.

1617.] RICHARD VINES AT WINTER HARBOR. 329

England, to effect my purposes." And he therefore urged earnestly
the great commercial value of fur and fish, so abundant there. In a
letter written to Lord Bacon, in 1618, to commend the fisheries to his
care, he says that he had made a fishing voyage two years previous
with only forty-five men, 1 and had cleared ,1,500 in less than three
months on a cargo of dried fish and beaver skins. This would be a
good catch even for a fisherman of the present day, for a pound ster
ling in Lord Bacon's time had more value than twenty-five dollars of
our money of the present day, so that John Smith's three months' ven
ture brought in an amount nearly equal to $40,000.

He made an attempt to go again to New England in 1615, but was
driven back to port by storms ; on starting out a second time he was
captured by French pirates, and only reached England after much de
lay and ill fortune. His energy in fighting against adverse circum
stances seems for the first time to have deserted him, for we hear no
more of any attempt at new adventures, though he never lost his in
terest in the New World. In the same year of this second attempt of
Smith's, Richard Hawkins, who was made president of the voyage of
Plymouth Company, sailed to the coast of New England, but Hawkins,
found so serious a war raging among the savages that he left 1615-
those parts, going south to Virginia, and afterwards to Spain, where
he sold his cargo, and thence returned to England.

Finding himself not seconded by any other of the Company, Gorges
sent out, at his own expense, Richard Vines to make a set- Richard
tlement. This heroic man spent the winter of 1616 and Vines -
1617 in Saco Bay, at a place called Winter Harbor. A pestilence
which depopulated all the Indian tribes between the Penobscots and
the Narragansetts had broken out. Vines, who was a physician, had
no thought of deserting his post, though his vessels offered an easy
escape ; he tended the Indians with assiduous kindness, and after
wards, when he ventured into the interior, the savage gratitude pre
ceded him, and he was everywhere received with hospitality and rever
ence. Through all the raging of this disease among the Indians, he
and his men often lying in the cabins with sick and dying, not one
of them, it is narrated, ever felt so much as a headache, but retained
uninterrupted health.

Vines was absorbed in trade, discovery, and the cultivation of
friendly relations with the Indians. The dismal winter,
which devastated so many native wigwams, was used by vines in the

New World.

him to make the whole coast better known to the English.

1 This was very likely the voyage of 1614, as the date of the letter probably referred to
its publication, and there is no record of any voyage accomplished by Smith after 1614,
This was a very profitable cargo, as he says Hunt sold his fish " at forty reals a quintal,
each hundred weighing two and a half quintals."

330 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

He had no fear of the savages, for he ventured in a canoe up the
valley of the Saco River to its source, that trickles through that nar
row gap, or Crawford's Notch, the sad gate by which so many white
people were subsequently taken into Canadian captivity. He was

the first to describe the
White Mountains, if
not the first to reach
them. To him also
belongs the honor of
restraining traders
from debauching the
Indians with rum.
Thus he favored a
kind of Maine Law be
fore Maine existed.
The English might
have traced to rum the
gradual deterioration
of the native temper
of the Abnakis, from
which they were the
first to suffer in the
frontier raids ; it ex
asperated courage to
ferocity, and embit
tered every practice of
savage warfare. Rum
never made the In-
d i a n good-natured.
He became something
appalling, a concentration of the cruel and mocking rage of many
men, as soon as liquor filled his veins.

The post of Gorges, as governor of Plymouth, seems to have been
especially favorable to catch all the news, and receive all the wonders
which the line of returning ships brought to England from her pos
sessions in the New World. The governor had begun by

The Indian . . , J

captives of questioning the first Indian captives whom Weymouth had
brought him, about the country from whence they came,
and he seems to have regarded them as most useful allies in discovery.
Thus it happened again that some of the natives who were kidnapped
were sent to him to dispose of, either to be retained in his keeping
or returned on the ships that he fitted out for America. One of these
Indians, named Epenow, a savage of "goodly and brave aspect," who

Richard Vines at Crawford Notch.

1619.] EXPEDITIONS OF FERDINANDO GORGES.

had been exhibited in London as a curiosity, came into Gorges' hands,
and was sent by him as guide and interpreter in an expedition sent
in 1614, fitted out by himself and the Earl of Southampton.

But the wily Epenow was restless in captivity. He quietly bided
his time, and no sooner was he in his native land than he Epenow _
planned with his savage kinsfolk, who came out in their jj.^ 8 ^ 6
canoes to visit the ship, to make his escape. Though strictly En s lish
watched, and clad in long coats, to be easily laid hold of if he should
attempt to escape, he suddenly leaped off the ship, one day, when
standing between two men who were acting as his guards, and once in
the water easily reached the shore.

Another of these savages, named Tisquantum, or Squanto, one of
those whom Thomas Hunt had sold in Spain, was shipped
to Newfoundland, where Captain John Mason was governor
of an English plantation. Here, in 1618, Squanto met with a Captain
Dernier, who had sailed with Smith in one of his voyages. Dermer
wrote to Gorges that if he would send him a commission in New
England, he would go there from Newfoundland, taking Squanto
with him. Gorges responded by sending out Captain Rocroft, who
had before been in Virginia.

Rocroft was ordered to go to New England only, but he had barely
reached the coast when he overhauled a bark, commanded
by a Frenchman, from Dieppe, and enriching himself with croft in vir-
what he found on board, sailed for Virginia. Here he fell
in with some boon companions, quarrelled with them, and was killed.
His vessel, left to drift without a captain, was lost, and although
some of the cargo was saved, no part of this venture ever came back
to Gorges.

In the mean time, Dermer, disappointed in his hopes of getting
a ship in Newfoundland, returned to Plymouth to confer Captainl ) er .
with the governor and get his commission. Gorges hurried ^yfy'oor-
him back in a ship of his own which happened to be in port. ges- 1619-
Dermer left his ship at the island of Monhegan, and in an open pin
nace explored the coast in 1619 from Maine to Virginia. At Mar
tha's Vineyard he met Epenow, who told the story of his escape with
much merriment. Thence Dermer sailed through Long Island Sound,
the first Englishman who discovered that inland passage, lost an
anchor in the rapids of Hell Gate ; acquired, as he believed, certain
knowledge from the Indians of a passage to the South Sea ; and went
out to sea again through the Narrows. He may have thought the
Hudson river to be the channel which the Indians assured him they
knew. If so, when he returned the next season in search of it, he
was, very likely, better instructed by the Dutch whom he found on

332 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

Manhattan Island. He seems, at any rate, to have said nothing more
about the South Sea, to have gone again to Virginia, and to have died
there soon after.

In the mean time the Northern Company, of which Gorges was the
charter of most active member, had never been satisfied with their
outh ? coi- rights under the charter which connected them with the
pany. 1620. g ou th Virginia Company, and in 1620 urged their claims
to a new patent so strongly that it was granted them by the king.

This defined their territory as that land
from the 40th to the 48th degree
of latitude. Against this charter
the Virginia Company loudly remon
strated, because, according to Gorges's

Signature of Ferdinando Gorges. , ., , , .. .

account, " they were debarred the inter
meddling within our limits who had formerly excluded us from having
to do with theirs." J The dispute was referred to a committee of
Parliament, before whom Gorges appeared three times to argue the
rights of the Plymouth Company, and, on the third hearing, being
called to state the case, he made a speech so sensible and so eloquent,
urging the value of the fishing trade, which, even while they were
disputing on boundaries, might be monopolized by French or Hol
landers, that most who heard him were satisfied with his representa
tion, and in spite of the strong influence held by the Virginia Com
pany, the king could not be induced to revoke his patent.

Their charter being thus confirmed, the Plymouth Company felt
Grant to themselves on a sure basis, and more than ever Gorges was
iTexander? inclined to redouble his attempts at settlement in the new
lands. The company in 1621 made a grant to one of the
Scotch favorites of James I., Sir William Alexander, afterwards
made Earl of Stirling, a man of some literary fame both as a drama
tist and a writer of sonnets. This grant was called Nova Scotia,
and extended from Cape Sable to the St. Lawrence, including Cape
Breton, and all the islands within six leagues. It will be seen that
this grant encroached on the French dominion of Acadia, which still
stretched its indefinite boundaries about that region. The French
then and thenceforth, until the final settlement between France and
England, claimed, and largely maintained their claim, to all the
territory east of the Penobscot and north to the St. Lawrence ; the
English held their right to all west of the Kennebec. The land
lying between was disputed territory, which neither was fully able
to hold. Alexander's design was to people all his territory with his
own countrymen, who should present a firm barrier of Scotch Presby-
1 Gorges's Narrations, Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii.

1623.] THE LACONIA GRANT. 333

terianism to the Catholicism which the French settlers had brought
thither.

But the territory, including all the sea-coast of Maine, New Hamp
shire, and Massachusetts, between the lands of Alexander and the
little Pilgrim colony just fastened on that rocky shore at Plymouth, was
still unoccupied. Ships, laden with fish, furs, and timber, constantly
plied between England and its namesake in the New World. In one
year fifty ships came into English ports from these parts with profit
able cargoes of these homely exports, and the value of their American
possession began to be clearly recognized by the Company, even though
no mines like those of Mexico and Peru were found there. Early in
1622, Gorges for the first time got a special grant for himself from the
Company of which he was so indefatigable a member. He joined with
him John Mason, also a member of Plymouth Company, who had
been, says Gorges, governor of a plantation in Newfound- The IJICOQ ^
land, and was a man of action and experience. This grant Grant - 1623 -
the two owners named Laconia ; it embraced the region between
the Merrimack and Kennebec, stretching back to Canada and the
great lakes. The year their grant was confirmed, 1623, they sent
over a ship-load of settlers, half fishermen and half planters, with
all necessary tools and provisions, to make a permanent Settlement .
settlement. They sailed in the spring, and debarked at H a ^ 6
the mouth of the Piscataqua. There they divided into two 1
parties. One of these stopped at a pleasant place, which was named
" Strawberry Bank," where the white blossoms of the wild straw
berry spreading over the land gave promise of fruitful farms, and
the close proximity of the sea made it easy for the fishermen at any
time to take to their boats. There they built a rude house for gen
eral occupation, and went to work at once to furnish means for cur
ing the fish, which was to be their staple product, by erecting salt
works. This was the site of the old town of Portsmouth, New Hamp
shire. The other party went up the river a few miles, and began the
plantation of Dover. These two towns were the first decided fruits of
Gorges's work of colonization.

Almost simultaneously with the beginning of these settlements
another enterprise was begun by the Plymouth Company.
There was as vet no general government instituted in its general of

. i i -i the Plym-

territories, and it was therefore decided to appoint a gov- outhcom-
ernor-general over their whole domain, who should go in
person to America, and establish such laws and government as should
be in conformity to those of England. Robert Gorges, a son of Fer-
dinando, was thus appointed in 1623, and a large grant of land on
Massachusetts Bay, of three hundred square miles, was given him by

334 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

the Company of Plymouth. He had for his assistants Captain West
and Captain Christopher Levett, both of whom had been in New
England, and also the governor of the New Plymouth Colony already
Robert established on lands near his own grant. Gorges went first
Gorges. t o ~$ ew Plymouth to confer with its governor, and was hos
pitably received. The wife of Robert Gorges was a daughter of the
Earl of Lincoln, who felt so much interest in Puritan emigration,
and Gorges, probably, had no special hostility to the religious senti
ments of the New Plymouth colony, and held most amicable rela
tions with the Pilgrim fathers. But he did not like the country, and
only remained there till the spring of 1624, when he took ship and
went up the coast to the mouth of the Piscataqua, where he was to
meet Captain Levett. He soon after went back to England and never

View at the Mouth of the Piscataqua.

returned to America. His brother, John Gorges, succeeded him in his
rights there, and in his turn made over this grant to William Brere-
ton, who established several families in the lands originally given to
Robert Gorges.

Captain Levett, now one of the assistants of the newly appointed
governor-general, had shortly followed his chief from England, and
met him at the mouth of the Piscataqua. Here Mr. David Thomp
son, one of the planters who had settled in Portsmouth the year be
fore, already had a successful plantation ; both Gorges and Levett
were his guests. Captain Levett made an interesting exploration of
Leyetfs voy- M am e in the region of the Sagadahoc, looking for a place for
ages. 1623. permanent settlement. He had the true spirit of an adven
turer, and relates cheerfully, that after sleeping night after night on

1630.] SETTLEMENTS IN MAINE. 335

the wet ground, he was filled with content at getting dried grass
for his bed ; and recounts with much merriment the story of the
beggar, who said if he were rich he would have every day a breast of
mutton with a pudding in it, and sleep up to his neck in dry straw.

Levett finally built a house at a place he called York, somewhere
near the present site of that town, in Maine, and then returned to
England, where he printed an account of all that he had seen and
done, and specially commended to the attention of merchants the rich
products of the country and sea-coasts, in timber, furs, and codfish,
ending with the wholesome advice that no man go to the country
unless he was willing to work. He declares that a man with a family
who were unfit to labor would do better to stay at home with them ;
but he that could work and had not too many hostages to fortune in
the shape of wife and children, if he went out properly equipped with
tools, and enough provisions to last till he was prosperously estab
lished, was certain to get rich in New England.

In all these attempts no permanent plantation which could fairly
be called a settlement had been made on the coast of Maine.
Although a large part of the Laconia grant was within in limits of
the present limits of that State, yet the first expedition sent
by Mason and Gorges had established itself on the other side of the
river, which was to form the boundary of New Hampshire. As Lev
ett explored the coast, although he found many fishing stations, and
mentions several large tracts that had been granted to English
owners, he speaks of no settlements west of the Piscataqua after he
left the hospitality of Mr. Thompson's plantation. There were some
scattered beginnings on Monhegan Island, and several fishing stages
for the cure of the fish, some of which afterward formed the nucleus
of a town ; and it is not unlikely that solitary plantations may have
been begun, of which we have no record, along that coast which
furnished resting places and harbors for so many fishing vessels, and
from whence so much tall timber had already been carried away. In
1625, two wealthy merchants of Bristol, Robert Aldworth and Giles
Eldridge, bought Monhegan Island, and sent over an agent to settle
there ; a year later they bought the point of Pemaquid, which had
already been sold by Samoset, the friend of the New Plymouth colo
nists, to an English purchaser, and there they established a flourishing
colony, which in 1630 numbered eighty-four families.

In this same year 1630, the Plymouth Council gave Richard
Vines and John Oldham, each a tract of land on the Saco settlements
River, four miles broad on the sea, and extending eight nd v d ine
miles up into the land. Oldham had been six years in the on the Saco
country, and Vines's coming must certainly date thirteen or fourteen

336 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

years earlier. 1 These two men founded the towns of Biddeford
and Saco, on their tract, which faced each other on opposite sides of
the river. These were the most decided beginnings of settlements in
Maine. No such well-defined towns were built in this as in the other
colonies, and to this want of centralization and concentration Maine
owed in part its relation afterwards as a dependency of Massachusetts.
Its scattered settlements were unable to preserve for it a separate ex
istence when its stronger neighbor prepared to include it in her more
powerful organization.

In 1629, when the settlements in Laconia on the Piscataqua were
Gorges and s ^ years old, Mason and Gorges divided their grants into
videtheir ^ wo parts, the former taking all west of the Piscataqua, and
naming it New Hampshire, Mason being then governor of
the County of Hampshire, England, and the latter all east of that
stream, to the River Sagadahoc, the eastern boundary of Laconia.
Gorges named his part of the territory New Somersetshire, from the
county which had been his early home. For this new tract, now
solely his, he sent his nephew William Gorges and others, " with
craftsmen, for the building of houses, and erecting of saw-mills," also
cattle, laborers, and servants, and the foundation of a plantation was
laid. This was the town of York, on which a planter named Edward
Godfrey was the first settler. On this, Gorges had set aside an in
heritance for his grandson Ferdinando, of 12,000 acres, and it seems
to have been his favorite point for the establishment of a proprietary
interest for his family in New England.

But already bitter complaints were made in England, that discon-
The piym- tented spirits full of disaffection to the king, and hostile to
pany resign the government of the established church, were settling on
less! pa " the grants made by the Plymouth Company. Gorges, in
New England, was looked upon with jealousy and dislike by many of
the Puritans, because of his large territorial claims in their vicinity, as
well as on account of his opinions as a loyalist and member of the
English Church ; on the other hand he was attacked in England as an
upholder and author of the reputed license of laws and opinions
among the new colonies in Massachusetts. He seems to have been
deeply hurt at this, after his long and arduous work in forwarding the
plantation of English colonies in New England, and he " therefore
was moved to desire the rest of the lords, that were the principal
actors in this business, that we should resign our grand patent to the
king, and pass particular patents to ourselves, of such parts of the

1 There is a doubt about the exact time of Vines's first coming. Prince, in his Chronol
ogy, says it was the winter of 1616-17, but Gorges, in his narrative, puts it after the attempt
at settlement by the Popham Colony, and just before one of the voyages of 1614.

1635.] DIVISION OF THE COMPANY'S LANDS. 337

country about the sea-coast as might be sufficient to our own uses, and
such of our private friends as had affections to works of that nature." l
This was done in 1635, and the lands of the Company, lying between
the forty-eighth and thirty-sixth degree of latitude, were parcelled out
among its members. 2

This new division confirmed the right of Gorges to the tract lying
between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, with a sea-coast

* ! -I f t i The terri-

ot sixty miles, and an extent or one hundred and twenty tory of
miles inland. And now for the first time, he called this his
province of Maine, 3 and he drew up for it a code of laws, dividing the
land first into counties, subdividing these into hundreds, and again
into parishes or tithings, as fast as population flowed in to fill up the
vacant places. He offered also to transport planters to his domain,
promising to assign them a certain portion of land at the low rate of
two or three shillings for a hundred acres, and if any would found
a town or city, he would endow it with such liberties and immun-
ties as they would have in England. Others of poorer condition,
who would go as laborers, should have as much land as they could
till, at the rent of four or six pence an acre, according to the situ
ation.

The laws and government were a return to Saxon simplicity,
the lord proprietary retaining ownership of the soil. In 1637, the
king gave Gorges a commission as governor of New England, to com
pensate him for his strenuous efforts in colonization, and the many
losses he had suffered in these endeavors. He made preparations to
go to Maine, to assume the duties of this office, and see a country
in which he had so great an interest, but some accident prevented his
departure, and he never came to America. Three years later, he sent

1 Gorges's " Brief Narration," Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii., part 2, pp. 5, 7.

2 The divisions were : (1.) Between the St. Croix and Pemaquid, to William Alexander.
(2.) From Pemaquid to Sagadahoc, in part to the Marquis of Hamilton. (3.) Between the
Kennebec and Androscoggin ; and (4.) From Sagadahoc to Piscataqua, to Sir F. Gorges.
(5.) From Piscataqua to the Naumkeag, to Mason. (6.) From the Naumkeag round the
sea-coast, by Cape Cod to Narragansett, to the Marquis of Hamilton. (7.) From Narra-
gansett to the half-way bound, between that and the Connecticut River, and fifty miles up
into the country, to Lord Edward Gorges. (8.) From this midway point to the Connecticut
River, to Earl of Carlisle. (9 and 10.) From the Connecticut to the Hudson, to Duke of
Lennox. (11 and 12.) From the Hudson to the limits of the Plymouth Company's terri
tory, to Lord Mulgrave. See Hubbard's Hist. N. E., Mass. Hist. Coll., Series 2, vol. v.,
p. 228. Williamson's Hist. Maine, vol. i., p. 256. Gorges's " Brief Narration," Maine Hist.
Coll., vol. ii., p. 54.

3 Sullivan in Hist, of Maine, and others, say that the territory was called the Province of
Maine, in compliment to Queen Henrietta, who had that province in France for dowry.
But Folsom, " Discourse on Maine," Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii., p. 38, says that that province
in France did not belong to Henrietta. Maine, like all the rest of the coast, was known as
the " Maine," the mainland, and it is not unlikely that the word so much used by the early
fishers on the coast, may thus have been permanently given to this part of it.

338 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII.

over his kinsman Thomas Gorges, who came first to Boston, and after
a courteous reception by the governor there, went to take up his
abode at Agamenticus.

To Ferdinando Gorges more credit is due than has been always
The services acknowledged, for his persistent efforts to settle New Eng-
ter d of Charac l an d, and for his unswerving belief in the value of such a
Gorges. colony to the mother country. In the conflict of patents
and titles between him and the Virginia Company, and between
him and the colonists of Massachusetts Bay, his real and essential
services as the friend of colonization have been in some degree
lost sight of. As a staunch adherent to the Established Church,
he undoubtedly wished that those who should find homes in the
lands under his jurisdiction in the New World should be of the
faith of that Church in which he believed. But the jealousy with
which, for this reason, he was regarded, seems to have had no suffi
cient ground ; for no sectarian narrowness prevented his being the
earnest friend of the Puritans of New Plymouth, and always desirous
of their success and welfare. If, indeed, the fear of him as a zealous
Churchman was quite sincere, it was, at least, no doubt increased by
a covetous jealousy of him as a patentee. As so often happens, the
contemporary estimate of his character, taking its form from the con
victions and interests of those who made it, has survived, and is often
accepted as just by those who do not in the least sympathize with the
partial and narrow views which led to that judgment. Losing sight
of these, or taking them at their real value as the result of local and
temporary influences, the true place of Gorges is found among those
Englishmen whose far-sighted wisdom, zeal, and energies were de
voted earnestly and unselfishly to the permanent settlement of his
countrymen upon this continent. He builded, perhaps, better than
he knew ; but, so far as he did know, he built with no narrow pur
pose.

CHAPTER XIII.

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. SETTLEMENT OF NEW

AMSTERDAM.

COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE AND PROSPERITY OF THE DUTCH. THEIR INTEREST IN A
SHORT ROUTE TO INDIA. EARLY NORTHEAST VOYAGES. HENRY HUDSON EM
PLOYED BY EAST INDIA COMPANY. His FIRST VOYAGE TO AMERICA. ENTRANCE
INTO NEW YORK BAY AND DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. His RETURN TO
ENGLAND. VOYAGE TO HUDSON'S BAY. THE DUTCH ESTABLISH TRADING-POSTS
AT MANHATTAN ISLAND. DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY CHARTERED. EMIGRA
TION OF WALLOONS. SETTLEMENTS ON SITES OF ALBANY AND NEW YORK CITY.

ALONG the whole Atlantic coast of North America, there were, in
the early years of the seventeenth century, only three feeble Euro
pean colonies established, that of the Spanish at St. Augustine, of
the English on the James River, and of the French in Acadia on the
shores of the Bay of Fundy. Yet more than a hundred years had
passed away since it was claimed that Cabot had run along this coast
for a thousand miles in an English ship ; and that only a few years
later Verrazano for the French, and Gomez for the Spanish, had visited
and named some of the most distinctive of its rivers, bays, and capes.
Of all the states of Europe, Spain alone had increased in wealth and
power from the discovery of the New World. Into her coffers, both
public and private, gold had poured in such enormous quantities from
the ravishment of Mexico and Peru, as to affect the relative value of
everything that was bought and sold among civilized people ; but
otherwise no other nation shared in this sudden wealth except as
their ships could spoil the , Spaniards on the high seas. The Em
peror Charles V. stamped upon his gold coin the device of the Pillars
of Hercules and the legend Plus Ultra ; but other powers saw as yet
little reason to boast that there was much for them beyond the west
ern boundary of Europe.

That Spain had gained so much and other nations seemingly so
little, was owing partly to the poverty in gold and silver of the north
ern regions ; partly to the failure to find the northwest passage to
the South Sea ; and partly to the absorbing interest of great political
and religious complications which agitated all Europe during much of
the sixteenth century. But there were secondary results of American

340 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

discovery in the growth of commerce and navigation, the closer rela
tions, whether hostile or friendly, between nations, the significance
of which was to be developed in the coming years of another era.
These, as they led the way in a certain degree to juster views of the
importance of the New World to the Old, so also, they brought an
other power into competition with the other maritime states of Europe
for a share in the acquisition of a hemisphere.

When Charles V. resigned his Spanish possessions to his son, with
certain outlying kingdoms in Europe and that great and vague Plus
Ultra, a portion of them included a country small in extent, but al
ready of extraordinary wealth and energy, a country of which the

Medal. Time of Charles V.

favorite phrase of historians has always been that it had " wrested
its territory from the sea." This was the region occupied

The Nether- J &

by the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. Its people
had been busy for centuries in redeeming foot after foot of
swamp, and marsh, and submerged land, and surrounding the fertile
territory thus gained with dikes and defences against the ocean ; in
developing an agriculture which was amazing considering the re
sources at command ; in establishing trades which even at this time
produced the highest results of any in Europe ; and in training, as
such means inevitably must, a race of prosperous, vigorous, and intel
ligent citizens. It is easy to admit, without being carried away by any
enthusiastic admiration, that the material advancement of the country
at the time of Charles's abdication denoted the highest degree of
prosperity. The emperor is said, and probably without exaggeration,
to have derived two of the five millions of gold which formed his
annual revenue, from these little provinces alone. 1 They had become
leaders in the commerce of the world, and had gained much of the
trade that had been a great source of wealth to the southern nations
of Europe ; they had shown themselves powerful in war as well as in

1 Suriano MS., quoted by Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, chap. i.

1581.] WAR OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. 341

peace ; and their political institutions, in all those things where they
themselves controlled them, were liberal and enlightened not only for
the time, but might have been held so in a much later period.

It was dangerous to attempt to oppress or repress provinces like
these ; but Charles and Philip were among the most short- Policy of
sighted of their class of rulers. Charles had treated the towl^dthe
Netherlands with cruelty of every kind; he had extorted Netherlands -
from them enormous sums for schemes of personal ambition, besides
constantly drawing from them a revenue utterly disproportionate to
their place among his possessions ; he had interfered with their polit
ical liberties and charters in every possible way ; repressed every at
tempt to make their institutions as liberal as the intelligence of their
citizens required ; issued edicts disposing of -their people as if they had
been born serfs ; and finally had established the Inquisition, where
Protestantism was rapidly becoming the prevalent faith. But it was
reserved for Philip to attempt to carry out his father's policy with a
still more terrible thoroughness, and with a bigotry which even
Charles did not bring into the work. He established a still more
elaborate tyranny in the provinces ; sent them governors each one of
whom was worse than his predecessor ; and finally, by setting over
them the brutal Alva, he roused the Netherlands into open war.

This war continued through the century, and soon assumed its true
character that of a war of independence. What was already the
wealthiest and strongest of the regions subject to Spain, became
through it one of the first of the self-sustained nations of Europe.
Bound together by the Union of Utrecht in 1579, and declaring their
entire independence in the memorable declaration issued at War of the
the Hague on the 26th of July, 1581, the seven provinces JJether-
of Gelderland and Zutphen, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, lands-
Friesland, O very seel, and Groningen, states which had, at length, de
termined to throw off all foreign rule, established the Republic of the
United Netherlands, and carried on the conflict against Spain not as a
rebellion, but as an independent power. It was apparently as unequal
a struggle as any recorded in history ; but the heroic pertinacity with
which it was continued was greater than the inequality of the combat
ants. The little republic steadily gained ground through all discour
agements. The murder of William of Orange, the great leader of his
people, only " hardened their stomachs," as Walsingham wrote, " to
hold out as long as they should have any means of defence." This
spirit brought about its inevitable results. Spain was slowly but very
surely taught the strength of it ; and more than forty years after the
time when Philip had sent Alva into his provinces, the independence
of the United Netherlands was acknowledged in a treaty which estab-

342

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

lished a twelve years' truce, conceded virtual freedom of worship, and
practically granted to the Dutch great material advantages which had
long been in dispute. The seven provinces which had maintained the
long and unequal war, took their place as a united independent re
public.

The new nation had not, however, won its independent existence

only by an ordinary struggle with arms ; it had used means which

were perhaps as important to the world at large as the ends which

they gained. It had defeated Spain almost literally by

Commercial . "_ . A J J

prosperity of virtue oi its wonderful commercial prosperity. Provinces

the Dutch.

that had been, fifty years before, a most thriving and im
portant source of the riches of the state, had attained during the

Dutch Shipping. [16th Century.]

struggle to the commercial leader
ship of the world. " In every branch
of human industry," says Motley, " these republicans took the lead.
. . . . But the foundation of the national wealth, the source of the
apparently fabulous power by which the republic had at last over
thrown her gigantic antagonist, was the ocean." l He cites author
ities to show that at this time the United Netherlands had nearly one
hundred thousand sailors in her service, and possessed three thousand
ships in her commercial and war fleets.

While its commerce in Europe was of very great importance, the
real golden prize which the new nation in the long conflict
had almost completely taken away from Spain, was the India
trade. So humiliating and disastrous was this loss to the Spaniards,

1 Motley, the United Netherlands, vol. iv., pp. 552, 553.

The East
India trade.

1594.] NORTHEAST VOYAGES. 343

that when by the treaty they were compelled practically to concede
the right of Eastern commerce to the Dutch, they did so in a secret
article, and in language that vainly sought to conceal the fact by inge
nious circumlocution. For twenty years this trade had so increased,
and capital had flowed into it in such abundance, that it had returned
threefold to its owners. In 1602, seven years before the truce, the
Dutch East India Company, the first of great trading-monopolies, was
formed by the consolidation of several small corporations, its charter
granting it sole permission to trade for twenty-one years to the east
of the Cape of Good Hope, and to sail through the Straits of Mag
ellan ; four years afterward it declared a dividend of seventy-five per
cent. The establishment of a similar company for trade to the West
Indies had been suggested some time before this, and small associations
for that purpose had even been formed ; but a renewed attempt in
1607 was put aside, for the time at least, by the States General. 1

With such interests as they had at stake in the East, it would have
been extraordinary if the government and merchants of the Nether
lands had not been drawn sooner or later into the search for
the supposed short passage to India. They had not been passage to
idle in the matter : and their first efforts, like all others, had
been confidently directed to the Arctic Seas. They had carefully
watched the English expeditions in both hemispheres ; but Linschoten,
perhaps their chief practical geographer, the study of whose life had
been paths of ocean navigation, and Plantius, another learned scholar
of the time, and many more, were firm believers in the theory that
the long-sought way lay to the northeast, through ice-bound regions,
about which the common people held as many wild superstitions as
ever the ancients had held about the ultimate bounds of their narrower
world. 2

In June, 1594, Willem Barentz, a pilot of Amsterdam, with four
vessels provided by the provincial and several city govern-

11 1 1-1 tii Northeast

ments, the whole expedition being; advised and furthered voyages by

, * & . the Dutch.

by the geographers just named, and by others, sailed for

the Arctic region to the northeast. Barentz, separated from the

1 In 1591, according to the Dutch historians, William Usselincx of Antwerp had sug
gested such a company. In 1597 Leyen of Enckhuysen and Peterszoon of Amsterdam, two
merchants, had formed small societies for West India trade. In 1607, the consideration of
renewed proposals of Usselincx was postponed by the States, lest the granting of another
large charter should prejudice the approaching negotiations with Spain. Compare Motley,
United Netherlands, vol. iv., pp. 298, 299, 300. Brodhead's History of the State of New York,
vol. i., pp. 21, 22, Dutch authorities cited.

2 Many of these fantastic notions of the north are detailed by Motley, United Netherlands,
vol. iii., pp. 553, 554, where they are repeated from several Dutch sources. Some believed a
region to exist there where perpetual summer reigned, and a cultured and happy race lived
in great comfort and order ; others peopled the Arctic lands with races of savages, half men
and half beasts, and with various terrible monsters.

344

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

rest, reached and explored Nova Zembla ; while the others sailed into
the straits called the Waigats. They all returned before the winter.
Linschoten, the geographer, who had accompanied one of the ships,
was still sanguine that the northeast passage to India was possible ;
the hopes of the rest were somewhat dampened. Nevertheless the
enterprise was tried a second and a third time : the second expedi
tion, in the summer and autumn of 1595, proceeded by way of the
Waigats, but was an utter failure, returning without result of any
kind ; while the third, in 1596, under Barentz, Heemskerk, and Van
der Kyp, penetrated beyond
the eightieth parallel, and dis
covered and landed upon Spitz-
bergen. Barentz and Heems
kerk, separating from the

Barentz at Nova Zembla.

other vessel, rounded Nova Zembla, and became imprisoned by the
ice near Ice Havenga Bay, to which Barentz had given the name.
They were kept here, enduring the greatest suffering, until the next
year ; and it was in endeavoring to escape from their imprisonment,
that Barentz finally yielded to the rigor of the climate and to priva
tion, dying in his boat in June, 1597. His companions finally effected
their return ; but with this last failure much of the enthusiasm about
a northeastern passage died away.

These attempts show how fully prepared the Netherlander had
become, when their independence was finally acknowledged, and their
commercial prosperity had reached so great a height, to turn their
attention to a new region of the earth. The old pathways to India
were all their own ; they had thus far found the way effectually
barred to the northeast ; and, commercially at least, they might

1607.] HENRY HUDSON. 345

naturally look for new worlds to conquer. The English voyages to
the west had been followed, as were all English undertakings, with
watchful and jealous eyes ; but the old delusion was still powerful :
it was only India upon which minds were fixed ; and we shall see how
it was only the action of one navigator that turned Dutch enterprise
toward the west at all.

Among the persons in intimate relations with the Muscovy Com
pany of England, of which Sebastian Cabot was the governor, and
which had sent the expedition of Willoughby in search of a northeast
passage to India, was an experienced navigator, Henry Hudson. It
is quite likely that he was the lineal descendant of one of the found
ers of that corporation, 1 and may, for that reason, have been held in
high esteem and trust by its members, and employed on other impor
tant voyages before he went upon those by which he is best known.
He was probably a native, as he was a citizen, of London ; he was a
friend of Captain John Smith, and intimate with other adventurous
navigators of the time ; and no doubt from training and associations,
the aim of his life, as it was that of so many of his contemporaries,
was the discovery of a passage to the East, either by a northeastern
or northwestern passage.

The last expedition, under the direction of the Muscovy Company,
was commanded by Hudson. Sailing from Gravesend on Henry Hud .
the first of May, 1607, he was instructed to proceed directly to'th/north-
across the pole. He steered northwest, and along the Green- east " 1607>
land coast to about the eightieth parallel, but could penetrate no far
ther because of the ice, along the unbroken barrier of which he sailed
to the eastward, to the region of Spitzbergen. But he could nowhere
find an opening in the almost solid wall ; and late in the same year
he returned to England after a practically fruitless voyage. In the
early part of the next season he made another attempt, this time to
the northeast ; but the ice again stopped him near Nova Zembla, and
he made his way back with another report of ill success.

The Muscovy Company now abandoned for the time all further
effort. But the report of these two voyages had excited wide Hudson in
attention ; it was of just the nature to stimulate the enter- Nether- the
prise of the Dutch rivals of the English traders ; and the lands-
navigator, who had proved himself, even in his failures, to be skilful,
brave, and of great energy and perseverance, had barely returned
from his second expedition when he received a new commission. The
Dutch East India Company's directors sent for him to come to Am
sterdam.

1 See Historical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson, his Relations and Early Life, his Connec
tion with the Muscovy Company, etc. By John Meredith Read.

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

The directors resident at Amsterdam decided that before positively
engaging Hudson they must wait for the meeting of the Company's
Council of Seventeen, in the following year. But the repeated ex
plorations undertaken by the Muscovy Company had aroused others
beside the East India Company. As soon as this delay was an
nounced, Hudson was approached by a former officer of the corpora
tion, who had now, however, left it and become a keen opponent of its
plans, one Le Maire, a French merchant in the Dutch city, who
at once sought to secure him for the service of France, and was aided
in this design by President Jeannin, French ambassador at the
iiia contract Hague. 1 This attempt was all that was needed to spur the
Eas*t India East India directors into immediate decisive action, and they
company. s ig ne d a contract with him on January 8, 1609. This paper
specified that the directors should furnish a small vessel to Hudson,
with the needed outfit, in which he was to sail as soon as the favor
able season opened in April. He was to have a sum equivalent to
about three hundred and twenty dollars of our gold for his expenses,
and the support of his family during his absence ; and, should he not
return, his widow was to receive eighty dollars as an indemnity for
his loss. Should he find a practicable passage, he was to receive a
suitable reward, the clause promising this being only generally
expressed. 2

The old theory of the passage was rigidly adhered to, both in the
contract and in Hudson's detailed instructions. He was to search for
a passage " around by the North side of Nova Zembla," and he was
" to think of discovering no other routes or passages, except the route
around by the north and northeast above Nova Zembla." 3

Armed with memoranda of sailing instructions which had been
made by Barentz on his first voyage, and with an ancient document
by a Greenland navigator, 4 Hudson made himself master of the whole

1 N&gociation du Pres. Jeannin, cited by Read, Hist. Inq., p. 140, and by Henry C. Mur
phy, Hudson in Holland.

2 Mr. Henry C. Murphy, the most successful of inquirers into the history of Hudson's
voyage and matters connected with it, discovered a copy of this contract between Hudson
and the Chamber of Amsterdam, in the royal archives at the Hague. It is given, with the
full details of these negotiations, etc., in his Henry Hudson in Holland-

8 Murphy's Hudson, p. 39, seq.

4 This singular document had, in the translation used by Hudson, the following title : "A
Treatise O/"!VER BOTY, a Gronlander, translated out of the Norsh Language into llvjh Dutch
in the ye.ere 1560. And after, out of High Dutch, into Low Dutch, % WILLIAM BARENT-
SON of Amsterdam, who was chiefe Pilot aforesaid. The same Copie in High Dutch is in the.
hands of IODOCVS HONDIVS, which I have seene. And this was translated out of Low Dutch
by Master WILLIAM STERE, Marchant, in the yeere 1608,/or the use of one HENRIE HUDSON.
WILLIAM BARENTSON'S BooTce is in the hands of Master PETER PLANTIVS, who lent the
same to me." The treatise contains a variety of quaint sailing directions and information
concerning the northern seas as known to Norse voyagers in the time before Columbus ; and

1609.] HUDSON'S FIRST VOYAGE. 347

plan he was to carry out ; yet there are indications that even before
his departure probabilities in a very different direction had occurred
to him. In his long consultations with Plantius, the geographer, and
others, rude maps of regions far to the west were studied, and discus
sions took place, in which the fixed belief of Plantius as to a north
eastern route appears to have been called in question by Hudson. 1

On Saturday, the fourth of April, 1609, Hudson sailed from Am
sterdam in a yacht or Vlie-boat 2 named the Half Moon.

* -r* i -i -n T i ! Departure

with a crew of Dutch and English sailors, numbering, ac- of Hudson,
cording to different authorities, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty
men, the smallest number probably being the true one. The vessel
was of eighty tons burden forty lasts by Dutch measurement and
had been most carefully equipped. By noon of Monday she was off
the Texel, and the voyage was fairly begun. She steered away to the
north, making up the Norway coast toward the North Cape, in literal
accordance with instructions to Hudson, and soon gained the regions
with which his previous explorations had made him more or less
familiar. 3 On the fifth of May he passed the northern extremity of
the main land, and sailed directly toward Nova Zembla ; but the sea
was filled with ice as it had been before, and he was not long in find
ing his progress as effectually barred in this direction as it had been
in preceding voyages. His crew were discontented and insubordinate ;
it is said that some of them, used only to warmer climates, were un
able to bear the cold of these high latitudes ; and besides, they were
of two nationalities, and seem to have quarrelled continually.

The obstacles thus put in Hudson's way to the northeast, seemingly

it further gives an account, conceded by northern antiquaries to he substantially correct, of
the Icelandic colonies in Greenland. It has an interest of its own apart from its connection
with these voyages; for its antiquity is undoubtedly very great, and it throws no little
light on the state of Greenland in the days of its settled condition. The Treatise of Boty
(or Bardsem, as he is generally called), has been published with an introduction and notes,
by the Rev. B. F. De Costa, under the title of Sailin/j Directions of Henry Hud/ton, etc.

1 Van Meteren, Historie der Nederlanden, quoted by Read, Historical Inquiry, p. 155, snys
that Hudson showed Plantius a letter and maps of his friend Captain John Smith, in which
tbe latter explained that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean north of the Eng
lish colony.

2 From the river Vlie, where such boats were used. The name passed into the English
fly-boat.

8 Of this voyage we have several accounts, differing in no essential particular, but supple
menting each other in many ways. John de Laet, who published the Nieuwe Werelt in
1625, made use in writing it of Hudson's own journal, which unfortunately has not been
preserved. Van Meteren's Historie der Nederlanden, published in 1614, contains mate
rials which came to its author at first hand. But the most minute record of the voyage is
that made by Robert Juet, Hudson's former mate, who acted on this expedition as a cap
tain's clerk, or kind of purser, and kept a precise and probably exceedingly accurate diary
of every matter of interest during the whole duration of the exploration. His account
appears in full in Purchas, vol. iii.

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

impassable bars to further discovery, confirmed his doubts of the im
possibility of a northeastern passage, and led him to take a most
He changes important step. In direct violation of his instructions, he
his course. o ff ere( j hi s C rew a choice between two courses. One was to
sail westward, and, making the American coast, to search for a pas
sage where Captain John Smith had indicated the probability of one,
somewhere north of the English colony ; and the other was to keep
nearer the latitude they were in, and sailing directly to the west, to
try again at Davis's Straits. The first proposal was adopted, and on
May 14, nine days after rounding the North Cape, the Half Moon
was put about, and headed west by south. In two weeks she was
taking fresh water at the Faroe Islands, and in six she lay safely off
the banks of Newfoundland, the little vessel much the worse for her
encounters with those northern seas.

Hudson avoided a fleet of fishermen which lay off the bank ; and at
once made his way farther south and west. On July 12 he

Visit to the . i .

coast of sighted the coast of the continent, and six days later an-

Jiiaine. "

chored in one of the large bays on the coast of what is now
the State of Maine almost without doubt Peiiobscot Bay where
his crew were set to work upon repairs to the vessel. A new fore
mast was brought from shore to replace the one the vessel had lost at
sea, and she was put into thorough order. But Hudson's stay here
was cut short by an incident which, with many other things in this
expedition, shows the lawless and buccaneering spirit of his crew.
As the Half Moon lay in the bay, two shallops filled with Indians ap
proached her, their crews looking for peaceful trade with the stran
gers, and such friendly intercourse as the French had everywhere
encouraged. But Hudson's men met them in another temper. Man
ning a boat, they captured and carried off one shallop ; and then, in
pure wantonness, they armed two skiffs of their own with pieces
which deserved their name of " murderers," and attacked and plun
dered the Indian village on the shore. The outrage fully warranted
a quick revenge ; and Hudson feared it, for on the same afternoon
the ship was dropped down to the entrance of the bay, and on the
next day (July 26), she was again under sail to the southwest.

Though within a week she went aground on what are now known
as St. George's Shoals, it was ten days before her crew sighted land
again ; this time at the north end of the headland of Cape Cod,
which Hudson, before he knew it to be Gosnold's Cape, promptly
named " New Holland." Some of the men landed here, for they
fancied they heard people calling from the shore, and that the voices
sounded like those of "Christians;" but they came back after see
ing none but savages, and the yacht again bore away to sea, passing

1609.]

HUDSON'S FIRST VOYAGE.

349

Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and once more making a straight
course to the southwest.

When Hudson made land again he was close by the entrance of
Chesapeake Bay. Just within it he might have found his
countrymen on the banks of the James, and have consulted o^D^^f
his friend Smith about that " sea leading into the western
ocean," of which the Virginian captain had written in the letter shown
to Plantius. Perhaps because they were his countrymen, while he was
in foreign service, he made no attempt to reach them, but sailed
away to the northward, following the trend of the coast, until he

Hudson's Attack on the Indian Village.

came to the capes of the great bay which a few years later was
named the Delaware. He tried to enter it, but unsuccessfully, for
the Half Moon drew too much water for its shallow bars ; so the
vessel again took up her northward course, and passed along a coast
that looked like " broken islands " the now familiar sand-banks
of New Jersey until, in the evening of the second of September,
the high hills of Navesinck were made to the northward, and the
vessel came to anchor near a shore that was " a pleasant land to see."
The night was fair, with little wind ; as morning came a thick
mist settled about them, and hid the pleasant coast from the explorers;

350

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

Enters the
lower har
bor of New
York.

but when it had lifted, toward noon of the 3d of September, and they
had made their way along the long, curving sand-spit that
extended just beyond the hills near which they had lain,
they saw before them what they thought were three great
rivers. The northernmost seemed to them the broadest, but they
could not enter it because of the bar across its mouth ; and com
ing back to the deeper one the passage through which Verrazano's
boats, it is supposed, had passed nearly a century before into the
" most beautiful bay " the Half Moon floated slowly past the sandy
cape, and cast anchor, at nightfall, just within its shelter.

The Approach to the Narrows.

When the next morning dawned, the whole broad bay lay in view ;
and the explorers, little dreaming how their judgment was to be con
firmed in centuries to come, decided, as they shifted their anchorage
to the greater security of the " Horseshoe " further inside Sandy
Hook, that it was " a very good harbour." Across it, to the north,
they could see an island with low hills, beside which another great
river ran out from the land ; on the east the coast trended away in a
long ridge ; and on the west a vast curve of low, wooded shore ex
tended from where the Half Moon lay to the mouth of a third river,
barely in sight in the northwest. The wondering Indians crowded
the beach near by ; and though their own traditions represent them
as alarmed and troubled at the strangers' corning, they put off in their
canoes to the vessel, and seemed to the crew to welcome them with
delight.

1609.] DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. 351

The boats, while the vessel lay at anchor, were busy in the ex
ploration of the bay. On the 4th, a boat's crew put out to fish ;
and, according to an Indian tradition, landed on the long beach of
Congu, or Coney Island, the first Europeans who trod the shore of
the great New Netherland harbor. On the 6th, another crew rowed
across the broad expanse between the vessel and the more distant
island ; and passing through the "river" which we now call the Nar
rows, explored the strait on the west side of the harbor, running be
tween the island and the main, the " Kills " of later times. But
as they came back through these, past shores which were
" as pleasant with grass and flowers, and goodly trees, as ever
they had seen," they were set upon by two canoe-crews of Indians -
Indians, who shot a flight of arrows at them, and then made off
under cover of the darkness of an approaching stormy night, leav
ing an Englishman, John Colman, dead in the boat, and two others
wounded.

Losing their way in the night and storm, the diminished crew only
regained the vessel late in the morning of the next day. At noon
they buried the dead man in the sand on the beach, and gave to
Sandy Hook, in memory of him, the name of Colman's Point, a
title it did not long retain. The yacht was put in a condition of
defence, for no one knew whether the attack upon the boat was not
the prelude to general hostilities ; but though the Indians, during the
next few days, made some demonstrations that were interpreted by
the crew as hostile, nothing more serious happened. Two Indian cap
tives were kept on the vessel, the men putting red coats upon them
and holding them as hostages ; but there was no attack.

The Half Moon had spent a week in the lower bay, her crew thus
exploring the shores and trading with the people, when Hudson, after
several times changing his anchorage, and drawing nearer the mouth
of the Narrows, decided to push on into the great river.

On the twelfth of September, an afternoon when it was very " faire
and hot " along the shores of the wooded islands that lay on either
side of the broad passage, his little vessel floated up with the floodtide,
through the quiet strait which her discovery was to make a thorough
fare for the world. The hills of Staten Island were covered

., t.ii-iit'i 11 The Kills of

with " great and tall oaks, and " very sweet smells came staten isi-
from them ;" and the high terminal ridge of Long Island was
wooded to the water's edge. The channel probably seemed broader
than we see it, for its surface and shores were unbroken, and the inner
bay that lay before the explorers widened more gradually from the
strait than now. At the mouth of the Kills lay projecting rocks,
the present name of which is a corruption of the old title " Robyn's

352

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

Robyn's Rift.

Rift," 1 that marked them as the favorite haunt of seals. The main
land on the west was bordered by a broad marsh, as now ; but every-
^^-_^.-_-_^^__ _ where else the shore was

covered with trees, even at
the northern limit of the
view, where -a few little
islands dotted the surface
near a rounded point, be
side which opened still
further reaches of the
great river. The stran
ger sailed across* the
great and beautiful bay,
going up slowly with the
tide and anchoring at
night ; the people crowded
about her in canoes, and
brought corn and tobacco, " making show of love."

As the yacht entered the broad mouth of the river that stretched

away to the north in long still reaches over which " no Christian " had

ever sailed before, it is not strange that her crew were amazed

Sail up the ...

Hudson at the strong current, and began its exploration with intense
curiosity as to where so vast a stream might lead them.
Their progress was slow. They floated with a light wind past the
long shore of Manhattan Island, then more wild and rugged than
any of the scenery that lay about it, its stony hills scantily wooded,
and its rough beach broken by rocky inlets. Beyond it the eastern
bank grew higher, and gentle in its slope ; but on the other side of
the stream the rocky palisades began, overlooking the lonely river and
towering above the solitary ship as though they shut out some still
stranger region of the silent country into which the discoverers were
following an unknown way.

When the river broadened into the great bays above the " Tap-
paan Zee " and " Haverstroo " of later New Netherland

The Half- r

Moon at the topography the voyagers sailed more fearlessly and rap
idly ; the long cape or hook was passed which later Dutch
sailors called Verdrietig (tedious), because it remained so long in
sight ; but with the quickly narrowing current beyond, the land sud
denly grew high and mountainous in what seemed the very path
of the vessel, and the scenery about her became darker and wilder.
As she passed, just before nightfall, through the narrow gap in the
mountains that had seemed to stand unbroken in her way, the lonely

1 Robyn's Rift i. e. Seal Reef now called Robin's Reef.

1609.]

DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER.

353

Verdrietig Hoeck.

ship came into the heavy shadow of the great Donderberg, and

into the stillness which always lies, even now, over the long, dark

reach between the Hudson Highlands. As it grew dark, the explorers

anchored near where the high promontory of West Point extends into

the stream, the

densely wooded

mountains about

it making an

amphitheatre

through which

the river runs in

the deep shadows

of its sides. They

were in the midst

of an unbroken

wilderness such

as they had never

seen before ; and

the little yacht,

anchored at night,

with her lights

marking the one gleam of life in the silent expanse of river and

forest, might well have seemed to her crew to be strangely lost and

isolated in the darkness and stillness of a region unknown to civilized

men.

The morning following this first night in the Highlands was misty
and still ; and while the fog hid the river from view Hudson's two
Indian hostages slipped out of a port and swam quietly away ; but
when the weather cleared, and the Half Moon got under way, they
were seen on the shore, calling to the crew " in scorn." The yacht
passed on with a fair wind among the hills ; all day, indeed, she had
mountains in sight ; and at night anchored where the higher Catskills
lie a little back from the river side. Here the crew found " very lov
ing people, and very old men ; " and lay for a day at anchor, filling
their casks with water, and bartering with the Indians for their corn,
pompions (pumpkins), and tobacco.

At this point the river navigation changed, the stream growing
shallower and more difficult, so that in the run of the next few days
the vessel sometimes grounded, but without injury, upon the soft,
" ozie r ' shoals. The scenery changed as the banks grew lower, and
fertile plains bordered the stream. On the eighteenth Hudson himself
went ashore, near where the town that bears his name now stands ;
and visited an old chief who seemed to be a governor of the country,

354

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

and who showed him how great store of maize and other provision lay

in his village, and how the young men of his tribe could " make good

cheer " for their guest, killing game and feasting him roy-

tertalnea b n y ally. When the captain insisted upon returning to his ship

toward the close of the day, they fancied it was from fear,

and to show him that he had no cause for it, they took their arrows,

broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire. But he refused

to stay longer and returned on board the yacht.

With the run of the next day the vessel reached the limit of
her voyage. She lay near the present site of Albany ; the
river naviga- water was fresh, the stream constantly growing shallower
and narrower. If, when he entered it, Hudson had enter
tained a notion that this might be a passage to the South Sea, he

must now have been persuaded that it was
only a river flowing from far to the north.
Lying for four days at his anchorage, he
sent out boats to sound the stream above,
on the twentieth as far as the shoals near

Limit of Hudson's Voyage.

where Troy stands, and on the twenty-second to a little distance be
yond Waterford, a place where the village of Half-Moon still com
memorates the farthest point of his exploration. Both boats returned
with the same report, a narrowing shallow river, flowing between low
banks, over shoals impassable for the yacht ; and dwindling as they
passed up it, so that there seemed to be no hope of greater depth beyond. 1

1 The precise point reached by Hudson has always been a matter of some dispute, for a
very little study shows that the measurements of " leagues " given in Juet's Journal are not
to be relied upon. De Laet says Hudson reached lat. 43, which would be about twenty-
five miles above Albany, and fifteen above Waterford. A Collection of Dutch East India
Voyar/es, a work cited by Moulton in Yates' and Moulton's History of New York, vol. i., part

1609.] DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. 355

The captain, who had not been idle while his boats were thus en
gaged, now put his vessel about, and prepared for the return to the
river's mouth. While he lay in the stream, his men putting the
spars in order, or trading as before with the always friendly natives
for otter skins and fruits, he had entertained the chief men of the
country at a feast, the story of which lingered for two hundred years
in their traditions. 1

It was here, where Hudson gave the chiefs " much wine and aqua
vitce" that the northern Indians first saw a drunken man ; and A drunken
" they did not know how to take it," thinking him bewitched, Indlan -
and bringing charms ("stripes of beads "), to save him from the stran
gers' arts. But when the old chief promptly recovered on the next
day, after " sleeping all night quietly," and professed himself much de
lighted with the experience, they held the whites in high honor, and
made Hudson " an oration ; " and as the Half Moon sailed away down
the river, between the pleasant banks of the reach below, they fol
lowed with friendly farewells, and hearty regrets at their guests' de
parture.

For two days of her downward voyage, the yacht made such slow
progress as the troublesome navigation and frequent shoals
permitted ; but on the third, a stiff gale blew from the south, down the
and for two days more she lay at anchor, while the crew
brought wood, nuts, and fruit from the shore. They were but a few
miles from the place where they " had first found loving people " ;
and canoes came up from the friendly village, bringing the old chief
who had so amazed his companions at the revel a few days before,

1, p. 248, note, says he went to 42 40', but gives no indication as to whether it means that the
Half Moon reached this point, or only the boat. Lambrechtsen (Beschryving, etc., quoted
by Moulton and others) agrees with De Laet. Mr. George Folsom, in editing Juet's Jour
nal (extracts) in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., says : " the boat probably reached Castle
Island (now called Patroon's Island, just below Albany) ; " and he does not believe the ship
approached Albany at all. Brodhead (Hist. State N. Y., vol. i., p. 31) thinks the boat went
" probably to some distance above Waterford," on the 22d. In the text, we have adopted,
after a careful comparison, the theory of Yates and Moulton. Their account nearly agrees
with De Laet, who had Hudson's journal before him, with Lambrechtsen, and with Juet's
descriptions.

1 A tradition of the first coming of the whites, in which this scene had special prominence,
existed among the Iroquois or Six Nations, nearly two centuries afterward. A similar
tradition current among the Dela wares (especially the Mohican branch) was carefully re
corded about 1760 by the Reverend John Heckewelder, a Moravian missionary among the
Pennsylvania Indians. In 1801 he gave his account of it to Dr. Miller, who placed the MS.
in the library of the New York Historical Society. This paper, which purports to give the
tradition verbatim as it came from the lips of " aged and respected Delawares, Monseys, and
Mahicanni," is quoted at length by Brodhead, in note A of his appendix to Hist. State of
N. Y., vol. i. ; also by Yates and Moulton, i. 1, p. 252. See also Dr. Miller's address in
N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., p. 35 ; and pp. 71, 73; Hist, and Lit. Transactions of the Am.
Philo. Soc., vol. i. (Philadelphia, 1819). Singularly enough it places the scene of the revel
on Manhattan Island.

356 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

and who again received Hudson's hospitality, though it is not recorded
that he repeated his experience of aqua vitce. He brought a friend
with him, and women, who behaved themselves with modesty ; and
as he went away he made signs that the crew should come to his vil
lage, to be feasted in their turn. But with the next morning a fair
wind came ; and leaving the old man " very sorrowful," the Half
Moon sailed away down the stream, only delaying awhile in the bay
now overlooked by Newburg, before she again made her way among
the points and eddy winds of the Highlands.

The old man's regrets at his white friends' departure would prob
ably have been less keen, if he could have foreseen that before many
days were over, they were to commit an act of very foolish and wanton
cruelty against some of his fellow-Indians. As the vessel anchored at
the mouth of Haverstraw Bay, at noon of the first of October, the
A thievish day of her passage through the kills, the "people of the
Indian. mountains " came flocking aboard her as before. But among
them, wondering at the ship and weapons, was one savage of thievish
propensities, who took the opportunity to climb by the rudder into
a cabin window, and steal therefrom " a pillow, and two shirts, and
two bandeleers." 1 As he was making off with this trifling booty,
he was seen by the mate, who forthwith shot him in the breast and
killed him ; and then, all the rough brutality of the crew being
aroused, the boats were manned, a general pursuit began, and another
Indian, who tried to seize one of the boats as he swam, shared the fate
of his fellow.

This was the first interruption of the harmony between the Indians
and whites since the death of Colman ; but it was to be followed by
more serious trouble. The next day, as the yacht reached Manhattan,
one of the two savages who had been prisoners on her and escaped,
appeared with many followers, approaching with evidently hostile
Affray with intent. When they were not suffered to come alongside,
the savages. ^ ne y ca ll e d to their aid two canoes filled with armed men,
who ran under the stern of the vessel and shot a flight of arrows
at her, but without doing harm. The crew replied by a half dozen
musket-shots, two or three of which took effect, and drove the savages
to shore. But more than a hundred now gathered near the upper end
of Manhattan Island, where, when scattered by shot from a falcon on
the yacht, some of them manned still another canoe, and were only
driven off after severe execution had been done among them. The
Half Moon withdrew across the river, and anchored under the high
bank at Hoboken, passing a stormy night and day under its shelter,
but receiving no further attack. She had again reached the mouth

1 A bandoleer, meaning a short sword or cutlass.

1609.] HUDSON'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. 357

of the great river which she had been the first vessel to ascend ; her
disorderly crew were little inclined for any fresh adventures ; and
disputes, which continued even after she set sail, had begun, as to her
next destination. As she again weighed anchor and sailed across the
upper bay, whose shores may have begun already to show the bright
colors of autumn foliage, officers and crew wrangled over their plans
for the future. The Dutch mate desired to winter in Newfoundland,
and explore Davis' Straits during the next spring ; the crew " threat
ened savagely " if they were not taken back to Europe ; and Hudson's
Hudson feared their violence, and wished besides to carry the November
news of his discoveries at once to Holland. It was not until 1609-
the yacht had passed through the Kills on her outward route, and had
dropped below Sandy Hook, that a compromise was at last effected.
It was decided to make first of all for the British Islands, and two days
later they were well out at sea upon an eastern course. The voyage
was prosperous ; and on the seventh of November the ship lay safely
in Dartmouth Harbor, her turbulent sailors contented for the time,
and her master sending his report to the Amsterdam directors of the
Dutch East India Company.

Hudson had of course intended to go in person to his employers,
as soon as he should reach a European port ; but he was not per
mitted to do so. In spite of the frequency with which, at that period,
men entered foreign service, the obligations of nationality were arbi
trarily enforced when any advantage was to be gained there
by ; and the English government saw that they had let a tion in Eng-
man of too great ability enter the employ of their energetic
neighbors. When the news of the Half Moon's arrival was received in
London an order was issued forbidding her captain to leave the coun
try, and reminding him and the Englishmen on his vessel that they
owed their services to their own nation. Hudson entered again the
employ of the Muscovy Company, to whose efforts his success seems
to have given new energy ; and in the spring of 1610 he sailed on his
last and fatal voyage to the northwest, to be abandoned by his brutal
crew among the ice-fields of the great and desolate bay which bears
his name and was the last of his discoveries. The Half Moon was
detained for months at Dartmouth, and was only permitted to return
to Amsterdam in July of the year of her captain's departure.

Hudson's discovery was received in the Netherlands in a way char
acteristic of the people. It had opened to the government

( i o ,-*. ,, i i r M 11 Indifference

oi the btates General a broad and fertile territory, untouched of the Dutch

1 1 -n 111111' * thsir

betore by any European nation, and undoubtedly their own American

. discoveries.

by right of first occupation ; yet this seems to have been only

a secondary consideration in their minds. Territorial increase seemed

358 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

at first sight a comparatively unimportant matter ; the first thought
of government and people was the commercial value of the new region.
For several years the States did little in the matter but to give official
information about the situation of the new river and the course nec
essary to reach it, formal inquiries on these subjects having reached
them from the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Enckhuysen, and
Hoorn. They did not in set terms affirm their right to the discovered
territory, extend its boundaries indefinitely, as England, France, and
Spain had done in similar cases, or make grants to encourage coloni
zation an idea which does not seem even to have occurred to them
until very much later. This was not the course of the government
alone ; the East India Company itself did nothing farther with regard
to the west. The short passage to Cathay was still the absorbing
scheme with its directors ; another unsuccessful expedition was soon
to be sent to the northeast, urged by the indefatigable Plantius. The
discovery of the "Great River of the Mountains" by Hudson did
not seem to them a compensation for his failure to find a Northeast
passage.

While these stood aloof, however, private enterprise, as so often be
fore in Holland, stepped in to seize the advantages of the

Begintiing of

the fur new region. No sooner had the Half Moon come back to

trade

Amsterdam, than a few shrewd merchants of the city, who
saw the advantage of buying costly furs for trifles from ignorant and
friendly savages, engaged a part of her crew to guide a vessel of their
own to the great bay and river, and bring her back laden with good
peltries. The venture was highly successful ; and a trade quickly
sprang up, that constantly attracted new vessels and fresh competi
tion, and grew quietly but steadily till it held a high place in Nether-
land commerce, and furnished a new channel for the private capital
now set free from the dangers and disturbances of the long Spanish
war.

Thus the three years following the return of Hudson's expedition saw

the lonely " River of the Mountains " traversed by the little
ing boats m round-prowed vessels of the Dutch, with their crews of eager

the Hudson. . - 1 .

traders, making their slow way up or down the stream from
one Indian village to another ; or lying at anchor in the sheltered bays,
while canoes laden with skins thronged about them, and the savages
flocked aboard for the beads and knives and hatchets which they
took in payment. Manhattan Island, though only a fort and one or
two small buildings had been erected upon it perhaps not even
these till 1613 had become the chief station for the collection of the
peltries and their shipment to home ports ; and an unsuccessful at
tempt even had been made to keep European goats and rabbits there

1614.]

EXPEDITIONS OF ADRIAEN BLOCK.

359

for the traders' use. a The river began to be called Mauritius, after
the Stadtholder Maurice of Orange. Not only its waters, but the
bays of the present New Jersey, and the coast as far south as Dela
ware Bay, were embraced in the territory of the Dutch fur-trade ;
and the energetic Netherland seamen began to push out right and left
from their new station, and to add fresh discoveries to their scanty
knowledge of the neighboring shores.

Foremost in these enterprises were Hendrick Christaensen, Adriaen
Block, and Cornelis Jacobsen May, three Dutch captains, Firsttr admg
who, by the end of the four years following Hudson's voy- post buUt -
age, had grown most familiar with the new region, and had engaged
their ships most successfully in its trade. Christaensen, who by that
time had made ten voyages to the river, built the first great trading
post upon it, in 1614, Fort Nassau, on Castle Island, close by Al
bany, and was appointed its commander. Block spent the winter
of 1613-14 on Manhattan Island, in building a yacht of six- Exploring
teen tons, the Onrust (Restless), to take the place of his Ia y r *fen f
ship, the Tiger, which had accidentally been burned. In Block>
the spring he sailed eastward, passing through the rapids of Hell-Gate
in the East River,
explored Long
Island Sound
from end to end,
discovered and
entered the Quo-
nehtacut, or Con
necticut River,
and made his way
up the New Eng
land coast as far
as what he called
Pye Bay, now
the bay of Na-
hant, which he
called " the limit
of New Nether-
land." He visited
the shores of Nar-

ragansett Bay, and saw within it that "Roode" or "Red" island
.from which the modern State of Rhode Island derives its name.

1 Wassenaar's Historische Verhael, vol. ix., p. 44, quoted by Brodhead, vol. i., p. 47. Cap
tain Argall is said, on doubtful authority, to have visited Manhattan Island, on his return
from Port Royal, and to have found four or five houses there.

360

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

Block Island.

Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket the Dutch named Texel and Vie-
land ; the waters surrounding them the Zuyder Zee ; the island which
still bears Block's name, northeast of Montauk Point, they called
" Visscher's Hoeck." Meeting Hendrick Christaensen's ship, the For
tune, which had been sent
to Cape Cod Bay perhaps
to take him on board,
Block transferred the
Restless to another skip
per, Cornelis Hendricksen,
and sailed in the other ves
sel to Holland, adding his
report to the list of explo
rations which revealed the
extent and wealth of the
new country.

May had seen " Vis
scher's Hoeck " even be
fore Block, and had vis
ited the coast of Martha's Vineyard. But his name is perpetuated
farther south, in the Cape May of Southern New Jersey ; though
New York bay was for many years called, in his honor, Port Ma\.

It was now four years since Henry Hudson's crew had returned to
Amsterdam, and the trade with the Mauritius River had aroused so
brisk a competition as to alarm the few merchants who had been the
first to engage in it. With the spirit of an age when the right of
monopoly was firmly believed in and looked upon as the protection of
commerce, they had already urged upon the States General the pas
sage of an ordinance to protect them from those who were interfer
ing with a traffic which, as they believed, belonged only to them.
They had succeeded so far as to secure (March 20, 1614) a decree in
general terms, by which any discoverers of " new passages, havens,
lands, or places," should have " the exclusive right of navigating to
the same for four voyages," provided they reported their discoveries
within fourteen days after their return to Holland. But the pas
sage of this act was only a preliminary step. With Block's return
in September they began to press for a special charter ; and pro
vided with a carefully-drawn " figurative map " of the new country,
they appeared before the assembly of the States, detailed to that
body the merits of their work, the great risk, expense, and effort to
which they had been put, and asked to be protected. Under the
conditions of the ordinance of March, with the terms of which they
had complied, and which had, indeed, been the spur of Block and

1614.] THE NEW NETHERLAND COMPANY. 361

the rest in their discoveries, there could be no hesitation ; and their
charter was granted on the llth of October, a charter in which
the name " New Netherland " was first officially applied to New Nether .
the American region " between New France and Virginia, ^anteuo** 1
being the seacoasts between 40 and 45." The New Neth- t ^^ ch
erland Company were given the monopoly of the trade 1614-
for three years from January 1, 1615, and no other Dutch citizens
were to be permitted to " frequent or navigate " those " newly-dis
covered lands, havens, or places," " on penalty of the confiscation of
the vessel and cargo, besides a fine of fifty thousand Netherlands
ducats."

The prescribed three years passed quietly and prosperously away,
every trading voyage of the company bringing in enormous profits
to the Amsterdam proprietors ; while in the great region now laid
open to their enterprise, new explorations were undertaken

' Aimsandac-

and new resources opened. It was a development or trade, compiisn-

P-I i p i -VT -k-r i ment of the

rather than or the country, however; tor the JNew Nether- Netherland
land Company had no interest in the future of a territory in
which they held so short-lived a title ; they had no motive to colonize
it or test its agricultural capacities ; their aim was naturally to get
from it all the gain they could in the little time given them, and leave
to others the uncertain experiments which might come after. If this
system had its evils, it had also its benefits. It led to constant search
for new trading grounds, and thus brought about a more thorough
knowledge of the geography of the neighboring region than settled
colonists might have gained in many years. It kept up constant com
munication with Europe, so important to a distant settlement. Best
of all, it established friendly relations with the Indians wherever the
traders met them ; and these, though often one-sided, were founded
on mutual interest, and differed entirely from the enmity and fear
which were usually the immediate result of any intercourse, however
brief, between Europeans and Indians.

Even the murder of Hendrick Christaensen, by one of two Indians
whom he had long before taken on a voyage to Holland, but had
restored safely to their homes, did not change the friendly attitude
of the whites, though they promptly punished the murderer. The Com .
Just before Christaensen's death he had finished the trading- f a y in New "
house and defences at Fort Nassau, and in the directorship of Netherlands -
this he was succeeded by Jacob Eelkens, who had been a clerk in Am
sterdam, and who, though wanting the adventurous spirit of his pre
decessor, was an excellent commercial agent. As the three years of
the company's monopoly went on, he sent constantly increasing stores
of furs down the great river to Manhattan ; his scouts made long ex-

362 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

peditions into the vast forests to the westward, to barter with new
tribes, and find new kinds of skins ; and unknown regions were
roughly mapped out for the guidance of future traders.

In one of these expeditions, a party of three scouts, who had pene
trated farther into the interior than any before them, seem
prisoners by to have reached the upper waters of the Delaware, and to
have descended the stream to the mouth of the Schuylkill.
Here they were seized by the Indian tribes of that neighborhood, and
held as prisoners, though without suffering any harm at the hands of

Upper Waters of the Delaware.

their captors. Their situation gave rise, in turn, to new explorations,
which it would have seemed natural to undertake long before, but
which had been neglected. For when the traders at Manhattan heard
of the detention of three of their fellows, and studied out the probable
position of those who had taken them, they at once despatched Cor-
nelis Hendricksen in the yacht Restless along the coast to the south
ward, that he might go up the rivers from the great bay into which
they were supposed to flow, and ransom the prisoners.

Hendricksen thoroughly explored the shores of Delaware Bay and

river, and brought back, besides the three scouts, the most
piore Deia- glowing acounts of the river banks covered with grape-vines

and abounding in game ; and of the trade for seal-skins,
which he had opened with the natives. His explorations completed
the survey of the whole coast that nominally belonged to New Neth-

1618.]

EXPIRATION OF THE FIRST CHARTER.

363

erland ; for he had been as far south as the cape he named Hinlopen,
or Inloopen, either after a worthy Amsterdam merchant, or, as some
contend, because it seemed to vanish as the ship drew near. The
Amsterdam directors even founded, upon the discovery of these new
"havens, lands, and places," a claim for a new special charter; but
the States General feared to encroach upon the boundaries of Vir
ginia, and refused the petition, though Hendricksen had been sent
home to aid it by plans and arguments.

In the early summer of 1617, Jacob Eelkens removed the Com
pany's trading-post from Castle Island, where it was exposed to disas
trous freshets every spring, to the west bank of the river at the mouth of
the little stream called Tawasentha by the natives ; and here, a little
later, he concluded the first formal treaty of friendship with

ITT T^ i i i i Expiration

the Indians. But besides these two events, nothing note- of the erst

New Nether-

worthy marked the last year and a half of the prosperous land charter.
New Netherland monopoly ; on the first of January, 1618,
its charter expired by its own limitation, and all petitions for a re
newal were refused.
Those who had held
privileges under it, still
continued for several
years to enjoy their ad
vantages almost with
out much trouble from
competition ; but be
fore the law their ex
clusive rights had
ended. A more pow
erful company than
they had ever proposed
was soon to succeed to
all their privileges, and to add to them the functions of the founders
and virtual rulers of a new state, where the Amsterdam merchants
had only sought the immediate profits of a trade.

The greatness of the new country's resources had made itself felt in
Holland ; and the need of some more comprehensive and direct action,
such as other nations were taking in regard to their American terri
tories, was now appreciated. In the characteristic spirit of the Neth
erlands, this action took a commercial direction almost as a matter of
course. The requests of small bodies of merchants were refused, it is
true ; the owners of a new ship (which, under May's command, had
gone as far south as Chesapeake Bay), fared as ill, when they peti
tioned for a charter, as the Netherland Company had before them.

Trading Scouts.

364 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

But it was on commercial grounds, nevertheless, that the American
possessions were to be dealt with ; and whatever power and riches
they were to bring to the state were to come by the hands of a great
trading corporation.

In 1621, the year in which the twelve years' truce with Spain ex-
west India pii'ed, the great West India Company, so often suggested be-
corporated 1 . 11 " f re 9 an{ l so long debated and postponed, was chartered by
the States General of the Netherlands, with powers scarcely
less than those of its fellow monopoly in the East. Its patent, with
that assumption of authority which belonged to the great monopolies
of the time, forbade any and all inhabitants of the United Netherlands,
for twenty-two years after the first of July, 1621, to sail to the coasts
of Africa between the tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope,
or to those of America between the banks of Newfoundland and the
Straits of Magellan except in the service of the West India Company.
In the Dutch territory in America its power was practically absolute.
It could make treaties, appoint governing officers from the highest to
the lowest ; build and garrison forts ; administer justice; exercise, in
fact, all the functions of a government, and was only responsible to
the States General for its acts as shown through its own reports. Its
central board of nineteen delegates, drawn from its five chambers of
directors in Amsterdam, Middleburg, Dordrecht, North Holland,
Friesland and Groningen, together with a representative of the States
General, sat at their council-board at home, and ruled a territory im
measurably greater than their little state built upon the marshes ;
a small army of officials and a considerable merchant fleet carried
out their orders ; thirty-two vessels of war and eighteen armed yachts
were at their service in case they needed defence. 1

It was to the Amsterdam chamber of this powerful corporation,

that the affairs of all the region of New Netherland were given in

charge ; and, by the authority of their patent, the West

The Com- & ' J J . r '

pany takes India Company formally " took possession of the country

possession of -IPOO Tn, J '

its domains, in the spring of Io2z. ine enterprise 01 private traders
had not been discontinued in the mean time ; for the fur
trade had been so vigorously prosecuted along the coasts to the south
and east of Manhattan, and even in the bays near which the new
English colony of Plymouth had been founded, that Sir Dudley
Carleton, King James's Ambassador at The Hague, had entered a pro
test against the encroachment. But this remonstrance went through
a process which would now be called " stifled in committee " ; for it

1 Sixteen war vessels and four yachts provided by the States General under the terms of
the charter ; sixteen vessels, and fourteen yachts by themselves. For the charter in full see
O'Callaghan, vol. i., Appendix A.

1623.] THE WALLOONS. 365

was referred first to one branch of the Netherland government and
then to another, each professing ignorance of any actual Dutch estab
lishment in America, until at last the subject was fairly forgotten.
At all events, it was not permitted to interfere with the West India
Company's plans ; these went steadily on, and now took such shape as
for the first time promised the new territory a permanent population,
and began to change it from being the resort of transient traders to
the site of settled and lasting colonies.

In the spring of 1623, when the Company had at last completed all
their arrangements, closed their subscription books, and fully organ
ized their official staff, that clause of their charter which prescribed
that " they must advance the peopling of those fruitful and unsettled
parts," received its first practical attention. Early in March the ship
New Netherland sailed from Holland, and carried as her Emigra .
passengers, not only many of the company's officers and ser- waliooi^ 6
vants, but also the first colonists, in the true meaning of the 1623 -
word, who were to make their homes in the new country, and be
the earliest tillers of its soil. Like the first settlers of New England,
these " Walloons " had been driven from their homes by religious
persecution, but it had been of a fiercer and more relentless kind
than any that the English Puritans had been made to feel. Their
name, in which the root of the old Dutch " Waalsche " and the
German " Welschen " appears, indicated their French origin ; but
they had lived for generations in those southern Netherland prov
inces which had not joined the great revolt against Spain, and whose
population was chiefly Roman Catholic. In Hainault and Luxem
bourg, Namur and Limburg, they had formed a class sharply distinct
from the mass of the people. Speaking French that was even then
quaint and old in its forms, and professing the reformed religion, they
were a marked race, out of place among the Flemish subjects of
Philip ; and the savage persecution of the Spaniards had been ex
ercised against them with a force that was driving great numbers of
them into the freer Netherlands. Here they generally settled, seek
ing, by industry and their remarkable skill as mechanics, to replace
the property they had lost ; but many of them longed for a country
they could call their own, and the sense of permanence and security
which that alone could give.

It was a company of these thrifty people who now ventured to the
New World. They had already applied through Sir Dudley Carle-
ton to King James and the Virginia Company for permission to emi
grate to Virginia ; but only unsatisfactory conditions were offered
them. The West India directors, hearing of their application,
wisely seized upon the opportunity, and made them tempting offers,

366

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

They settle

which, they accepted. Thus they sailed on the New Netherlands under
^ e command of the Company's first regularly appointed
director, the old Captain Cornells Jacobsen May ; and, the
Albany. g^jp p ass i n g U p the Mauritius or North river as far as where
the fort had been on Castle Island, they were landed there on the

west bank, and set
to work with all the
industry of men whose
welfare depended on
their own hands.
When the yacht
Mackarel) which had
been sent out the year
before to take posses
sion, returned to Hol
land, she reported that
the colonists' corn was
" nearly as high as a
man " ; and around the
large and strong "Fort Orange," which they had thrown up on their
first arrival, a village of huts of bark was already clustered, where the
sturdy Walloon families were living, and already carrying on a brisk
traffic with the Indians, whom they described as " quiet as lambs." l

Not all the Walloons, however, and by no means all of the New
Netherlands passengers, established themselves at Fort Orange.
About eighteen families settled there ; but several others had, on the
way, been sent from Manhattan to the South (Delaware) River, and
still others to the mouth of the Connecticut or Fresh River, and to the
western end of Long Island at Waal-bogt, or Walloon's Bay now
known by the English corruption, Wallabout. Eight men,

First Settlement at Albany.

.Manhattan too, were left at Manhattan Island, to form a trading es-

On the South

Island.

tablishment for the Company. On the South River, the
settlers built a fort, which was finished a year after their arrival ; and
from its site, northward and eastward, all along the coast to Narragan-
sett Bay, the Dutch now traded peacefully, their settlements growing
in prosperity and their traffic in profits ; so that Adriaen Joris, who
had come out as second in command of the -New Netherlands was able to
report, when he returned home in December, 1624, that everything
was going on favorably wherever the colonists had founded their
homes.

i D. D. Barnard (Address before Albany Institute, 1839), says the site of the settlement
is now occupied by the business part of Albany. At the time of the address the " Fort
Orange Hotel," an old mansion-house, afterward destroyed by fire in 1847, stood on the
ground once occupied by the fort. Compare Brodhead, vol. i., p. 152, note.

1626.] THE COLONY AT MANHATTAN. 367

Three governors in turn administered the affairs of the growing
colony during this early period of quiet prosperity : May, as has been
said, during 1624 ; William Verhult in 1625 ; and Peter
Minuit after the fourth of May, 1626. But it was only with nors of New

Netherland.

the arrival or the last that the different settlements were
properly united under a single government. It was Minuit who first
made Manhattan politically what in spite of neglect it had long been
naturally, the chief place of New Netherland. Acquiring a firmer
title than that of discovery, by buying the whole island from the In
dians for " the value of sixty guilders," 1 he established himself there
with his "Schout" or high sheriff, his " Opper Koopman" or secretary
and commissary, and his council of five members, and began to rule with
a wisely directed energy.

His plans with regard to Manhattan were soon aided, though at the
temporary cost of the other settlement at Fort Orange, by an act of
the greatest folly on the part of Krieckebeeck, a commissioner who
now commanded at the latter place, Eelkens having long before been
superseded for misconduct toward the Indians, and Barentsen, his suc
cessor in the fur trade, only acting as second in actual control of the
fort. Krieckebeeck allowed himself to be persuaded by the Mohican
Indians to act as their allies against the Mohawks ; and going out with
them upon the war-path, was killed, with several of his people, in a
sudden attack made by the enemy. Any farther bad results of his
action were, it is true, prevented by his deputy, Barentsen, who was a
favorite with the Indians everywhere ; but nevertheless Min
uit thought it best to withdraw the colonists from Fort the colony to
Orange to Manhattan, leaving only a small garrison. About
the same time, the settlers on the South River left it and joined the
main colony ; so that from this time all the chief interests of New
Netherland were permanently centred in that spot.

In material improvements the island had for several years little to
boast of. Rude dwellings of wood and bark, clustered along the bank
of the North River near the southern extremity of the land, furnished
temporary homes for the colonists. A thatched stone build
ing, more lasting and pretentious, formed the Company's bus- Fort Am-
iness quarters ; while on the point itself a large quadrang
ular stone fort, Fort Amsterdam, was begun, within whose shelter
permanent houses were to be built later.

But these beginnings, though rude, were vigorously pushed forward
by the busy settlers ; while from the headquarters thus at last estab
lished where nature seemed to have made a perfect site, the West
India Company's yachts carried their rich cargoes back to Holland, or
1 About twenty-four dollars, gold.

368

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII.

followed their fast increasing trade along the coast to the south, or to
the east as far as Buzzard's Bay. A friendly letter was

Increase of . " "

New Nether- written to the English colony at .Plymouth : and the New

land trade. J . J . , . ,

Netherland government made its nrst essay in diplomacy in
sending its secretary as a formal ambassador to the Puritan Governor
Bradford, with whom he exchanged congratulations, though the New
Englander stood somewhat stiffly upon his rights under the patent of
King James, and argued, though courteously, that the Dutch had
no right to the land which they occupied. Later, the matter even
threatened to take the form of a more serious dispute ; but the powers
at home were still too closely allied to have their colonies at war, and
instead of conflict, trade was promoted between Manhattan and Plym-

Earliest Picture of New Amsterdam.

outh, whereby the latter obtained "linen and stuffs" and excellent
wampum, which was used again in buying from the Indians.

In 1628 the Island of Manhattan had a population of two hundred
Manhattan an( ^ seventy colonists. The profits of the West India Com
pany's fur trade had more than doubled since the establish
ment of the settlement ; but the agriculture of the new region was
not yet far enough advanced to support the people unaided, and sup
plies were still sent out from Holland by every vessel. Mills were
built, and there were manufactories of brick and lime, so that the
completion of Fort Amsterdam, with its stone facing, was greatly
hastened, and better houses began to appear about it ; but the great
trouble in the way of the colony's further advance seemed to be a
lack of organized labor. 'Private effort had done its utmost when
it provided shelter and food enough to eke out the stores the Com
pany furnished ; and for a little time there seemed danger that the

1628.] A CRISIS IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY. 369

New Netherland experiment would come to an end for want of a class
with large interests, apart from trade, in the soil itself, and the sys
tematized and disciplined labor that such a class would be sure to
foster. Though not a violent or sudden one, it was nevertheless in
some sense a crisis in the colony's affairs ; and it was met by the
vigilant directors with a measure of relief which was perhaps illiberal
and certainly short-sighted, but which at first appeared to attain its
end, while it was far from inconsistent with the spirit of the time in
which it was adopted.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

THE PURITANS UNDER JAMES I. SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH AT THE BEGIN
NING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE SEPARATISTS OF NORTH NOTTINGHAM
SHIRE. BREWSTER AND THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE AT SCROOBY. PERSECUTION
OF THE PURITANS. THEIR ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE FROM ENGLAND. LONG EXILE
IN HOLLAND. MOTIVES FOR A PROPOSED REMOVAL TO AMERICA. PETITION TO
KING JAMES. NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DUTCH. EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS
AT DELFT-HAVEN. FINAL DEPARTURE OF THE "MAY FLOWER" FROM ENGLAND.
ARRIVAL AT CAPE COD. FORM OF GOVERNMENT ADOPTED. EXPLORATIONS

ALONG THE COAST. SlTE FOR A COLONY SELECTED. CONFUSION OF FACTS AND

DATES AS TO THE LANDING AT PLYMOUTH. THE FIRST WINTER. SUFFERINGS
AND DEATHS.

The lessons
of exile.

THE moral, political, and, in some sense, tne material training
which the colonists on the James River, in Virginia, were
twelve years in acquiring, as a necessary preparation for
future success, the Pilgrims were, during the same period, subjected to

in Holland. " We are well weaned,"
said the pastor, Robinson, after nine
years of exile, " from the delicate
milk of our mother countrie, and
enured to the difficulties of a strange
and hard land." Poverty in Am
sterdam and Leyden was not, in
deed, quite so irremediable as in the
American wilderness, but the lesson
it taught did not greatly differ in
either place. As exiles in strange
lands with no dependence but upon
First seat of Plymouth Colony. themselves, the necessity of self-de

nial and self-reliance for the sake of self-preservation would grow alike
in both places ; in the circumstances of both was the same stimulus to
the most active use of all the powers of mind and body ; isolation,
whether from absolute solitude, or from being surrounded by an alien
people, would produce the same sense of mutual interest, of the neces
sity of mutual help, and of a mutual regard for each other's rights,
which is the only sure foundation for political self-government.

1603.] THE PURITANS UNDER JAMES I. 371

While, however, this preparatory education of events was thus, in
some measure, the same for the founders of the first two English
colonies on the American coast, the Pilgrims had this great advan
tage over their countrymen in Virginia, that a bond of unity in
deep-seated religious convictions was strengthened by a brotherhood
of social relations growing out of the peculiar circumstances of their
flight from their native land.

The accession of James I. to the throne of England did not bring,
as they hoped it would, relief to those devout and devoted believers,
who, through the preceding reign, had contended for religious free
dom. From the time of Mary, " the one side laboured," says Brad
ford, "to have the right worship of God and discipline of Christ
established in the Church, according to the simplicitie of the Gospell,
without the admixture of men's inventions, and to have, and to be
ruled by, the laws of God's word dispensed in those offices, and by
those officers of Pastors, Teachers, and Elders, etc., accord
ing to the Scripturs. The other partie, though under many between the
colours and pretences, endevored to have the episcopall dig. th e u se P ara-
nitie (after the popish maner) with their large power and
jurisdiction still retained ; with all those courts, cannons, and cere
monies, together with all such livings, revenues, and subordinate
officers, with other such means as formerly upheld their antichristian
greatnes, and enabled them with lordly and tyranous power to perse
cute the poore servants of God." 1 In this succinct statement is the
very pith of the matter in that religious controversy which followed
the Reformation ; and one of its important results, hardly noticed,
and almost unknown at the time, was, that it banished, early in the
seventeenth century, a ship-load of yeomen from England.

At a conference held in 1603, to consider the grievances of this
class of his subjects, James I. boasted, in a letter to a friend in Scot
land, that he had " kept such a revel with the Puritans these two
days, as was never heard the like ; where I have peppered them so
soundly as ye have done the Papists." 2 There was nothing to be
hoped from this son of a mother who had been led to the block for
her adherence to the ancient faith, as well as for her crimes against
the state. It was equally amusing to James to " pepper " Puritans
in public debate, and to remember that Catholics had lost their heads
for their devotion to the religion in which they believed.

There were many of these persecuted dissenters throughout the

1 History of Plymouth Plantation, by William Bradford, the Second Governor of The
Colony.

2 Strype's Life of Whitgift, App. No. 46. Quoted in Palfrey's History of New England,
vol. ii., p. 130.

372

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

Kingdom, sometimes gathered into societies of their own, especially
in London ; sometimes bearing alone a silent but painful testimony
against the undoubted immoralities connived at in the church, and the
vain ordinances as they deemed them which they were called
upon to share in and to sanction. But in no rural district were they
so numerous or so well organized as in that part of England where
the borders of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire met.
More than one earnest preacher in that neighborhood had called and
held together by his eloquence and zeal a little knot of followers as
firm in the faith as he, and ready to follow whithersoever his higher
light should lead.

View of Scrooby Village.

In North Nottinghamshire, in the Hundred of Basset-Lawe, is
The village tne village of Scrooby. Though little more than a hamlet,
i*n Nottfng y -' it was of some importance three hundred years ago, as a
hamshire. post-town on the great road from London to Scotland, and
as containing a manor place belonging to the Archbishop of York,
then the Archbishop Sandys, one of whose sons was that Edwin San
dys who, in 1618, was made Treasurer of the Virginia Company in
London. There were historical associations connected with the arch
bishop's residence at Scrooby other than those for which fhe descend
ants of the " Pilgrim Fathers " may cherish its memory, and which
even now are not without some interest. Here Margaret, Queen of
Scotland, daughter of 'Henry VII., slept for a night, on the way to
her own kingdom, in 1503 ; here, also, Henry VIII. passed a night
on a northern progress in 1541 ; and in this manor-house Cardinal
Wolsey lived some weeks after his fail, ministering to the poor in

1600.] THE ENGLISH IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 373

deeds of charity, saying mass on Sundays, and distributing alms in
meat, and drink, and money. 1

This house of the archbishop was the one great house of Scrooby,
for the people of the neighborhood were, for the most part, plain yeo
men, who followed what Bradford, the Plymouth Governor, called
the innocent trade of husbandry. In the method and manners of
their lives there was no very essential difference, except that they
had enough to eat and wear, from that way of life which fell to the
lot .of some of them in an American wilderness.

For the habits of the common people of England at that period
were exceedingly simple, and in some respects almost prim- Socialcoil .
itive. Only where wood was plentiful were their houses EngHsh f
well and solidly built of timber; elsewhere they were mere pe p Teof
frames filled in with clay. The walls of the rich only," who that period -
could afford such a luxury, were covered with hangings to keep out
the dampness, and even plastered walls were uncommon. The floors
of these houses were of clay, and cov
ered, if covered at all, with rushes.
Chimneys had come into use in the
sixteenth century, though it was com
mon long after to have a hole in the
roof for the escape of smoke, as is done
in Indian wigwams. The windows were
not glazed, for that was a luxury so
costly that even noblemen when they
left their country-houses to go to Court,
had their glass-windows packed away Fire - place in I6th Century '

with other precious furniture for safe-keeping. In the houses of
the common people there was no better protection from the weather
than panes of oiled paper. 2 A pallet of straw, with a rough mat for
covering, and a log for a pillow, was deemed a good bed. The food
of the people was chiefly flesh, for gardening was an art confined to
the very rich, for ornamental purposes, and few vegetables were cul
tivated. Even agriculture was in a rude state ; the draining of land
was almost unknown, and fever and ague consequently the common
disease. A clumsy wooden plough, a wooden fork, a spade, hoe,
and flail were the only agricultural implements. The bread was the
coarser kind of black bread made of the unbolted flour of oats, bar
ley, or rye, and in times of scarcity this was mixed with ground

1 See The Founders of New Plymouth, by Rev. Joseph Hunter. London, 1854. Also
Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation.

2 Winslow wrote home from Plymouth, in the early days of the colony, to those about to
emigrate : " Bring paper and linseed oil for your windows."

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

Thecongre-

gationat

acorns. Table-forks were unknown ; the spoons and platters, where
there were any, were of wood ; with the use of a knife, the fingers,
and a common dish, the civilities of the table were generally dis
pensed with.

The yeomen, who lived in this rude fashion, were not called Sir or
The English Master, as gentlemen and knights were, but plain John or
yeoman. Thomas. Yet they were the " settled or staid men "
from the Saxon Zeoman the great middle class of England,
the firm foundation on which the state rested ; and in " foughten
fields " the king remained among his yeomanry, or footmen, for on
them he relied as his chief strength. The land they lived upon and
cultivated was sometimes their own, and they often acquired wealth.
Their sons were sent to the universities and the inns of court, and
from the ranks of the yeomen great men and great names were given
to England ; to the class of gentry came recruits of fresh, healthy
blood, quickened by new ambitions, strong in great purposes. It was
good stock from which to settle a new country.

There was at Scrooby a congregation of Separatists, made up, for
the most part, of people of this class ; educated and enlight
ened enough to come to conclusions of their own upon ques
tions of religious reformation ; so stable in character as to
hold firmly to convictions conscientiously formed ; and endowed with
enough of this world's goods to maintain their freedom of thought,

even to banish
ment, if need be,
from their native
land. A body of
their faith pre
ceded them by
some years, in em
igrating to Hol
land, and, after
their departure,
the Scrooby peo
ple had no separ
ate building in
which to congre
gate for religious

Site of Scrooby Manor. WOl'Ship. Their

usual place of

meeting was the manor-house, belonging to the Archbishop of York.
The leading man among them was William Brewster, who after-

1587.] BREWSTER'S EARLY LIFE. 375

wards became the ruling elder of the little church. 1 Brewster held
the office of postmaster or post as it was then called of Scrooby,
a position of a good deal of importance, as it enjoined not only the
charge of the mails and the dispatch of letters, but the entertainment
and conveyance of travellers, in whatever direction they wished to go.
The postmaster was, in one sense, an innkeeper ; but an innkeeper for
certain duties, by official appointment. 2 As the incumbent of such
an office, Brewster occupied the largest and most important house in
Scrooby, that belonging to the archbishop. And this, notwithstand
ing his official relation to the state, and its dignity as an episcopal
residence, he threw open, once a week, to those with whose opposition
to the state and church he was in fullest sympathy.

But Brewster was otherwise a man of some mark. In his youth he
had spent some time at the University of Cambridge, where william
he had acquired a knowledge of Latin and Greek. He Brewster -
afterward went to court, and entered the service of a noted statesman
of the time, William Davison ; was with
him when he was sent ambassador from
Elizabeth to the Low Countries to perfect
a league with the United Provinces that signature of wiiiiam Brewster.
should enable them to maintain their independence of Spain ; was
still the faithful friend and follower of his master when Davison was
ruined for having issued, as Secretary of State, possibly against the
orders, but certainly in accordance with the wishes of Elizabeth, the
royal writ for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Davison's fall
ended Brewster's career as a courtier ; but he still possessed influence
enough to secure the appointment of post at Scrooby. Davison was
a Puritan. Bradford says of him that he was a " religious and godly
gentleman," and that he esteemed Brewster " rather as a son than a
servant, and for his wisdom and godliness in private, he would con
verse with him more like a familiar than a master." 3 Such influence
must have confirmed, if it did not instill, in Brewster's mind the prin
ciples which governed his subsequent life.

A society of Separatists, holding weekly meetings under such cir
cumstances, in the house occupied by an officer of the government,
and belonging to a dignitary of the established Church, would be
quite likely to attract more than usual attention ; their boldness may

1 The oflice of the ruling elder in the early Puritan churches was to assist the teaching
elder, or pastor, in overseeing and ruling the church, and to teach occasionally in the ab
sence of the pastor. See Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 455, note, for authorities
on this point.

2 See Hunter's Founders of New Plymouth, where the social and official position of Elder
Brewster, at Scrooby, was first made clear.

3 Bradford's Memoir of Elder William Breicster, in Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims.

376 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

have even been construed into a defiance of the law. These people
had already been called upon to suffer afflictions, when some of them
were members of the church at Gainsborough under the care of John
Smith, who, with many of his people, had taken refuge in Holland
some years before ; and also, no doubt, when upholding Richard Clif
ton, a clergyman at Babworth in the County of Nottingham,

Persecution T i < c -n i

oftheSepa- who had been deposed tor non-coniorimty. But those were
as " flea-bitings," it was said, 1 to the sufferings they were
called upon to undergo soon after they had gathered into a distinct
body at Scrooby. They were hunted and persecuted on every side ;
some were imprisoned ; the houses of others were beset and watched
till they were fain to fly, leaving homes and means of livelihood, to
preserve their liberty.

Brewster soon ceased to be postmaster, no doubt dismissed from
the office he had held more than a dozen years. And he was to have
been otherwise punished. He and two others of the principal mem
bers of the society, Richard Jackson and Robert Rochester, were sum
moned as Separatists before the Ecclesiastical Commission for the
province of York to pay a fine of <20 each ; and for not obeying that
summons, a further fine of an equal amount was subsequently recorded
against them, recorded, but not paid, for the recusants had fled be
fore the commissioners had time to enforce the penalties. 2

From the persecutions which these people suffered there was no
escape but by exile, and they resolved, therefore, to go to the Low
Countries, where they understood there was freedom of religion for
all men. Though we learn only in general terms the character of the
pains and penalties which they were called upon to endure, these were
certainly of no light nature, if persecution for religion's sake is ever
light, for they clearly understood the difficulties that beset the path
on which they were about to enter, and which they chose as the least
painful alternative. " Their desires were sett on the ways of God and
to injoy his ordinances," and for these they were ready to leave their
native soil, their lands and livings, their friends and familiar acquaint
ance, to go to a country of which they knew nothing except by hear
say, to learn a new language, to get their livings they knew not how.
Nor was this all. They could not stay ; neither were they permitted
to go, without hindrance, for the ports were shut against them. They
were oftentimes betrayed, their goods taken from them to their great
trouble and expense, and their intentions defeated. 3

It was impossible that two or three hundred people could dispose in

1 Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation.

2 Hunter's Founders of New Plymouth.
8 Bradford.

1606.]

ATTEMPTS TO LEAVE ENGLAND.

377

secret of lands and houses and other property, make the other needful
preparations to emigrate in a body from a rural neighborhood, and do
all this unobserved. They hoped to get away in small detachments,
but even this was impossible, without encountering dangers Cruel treat _
and oftentimes defeat. At one time, at Boston, in Lincoln- ^Lfncoi'n-
shire, a large party of them got safely at night on board 8hire "
ship. But the master was treacherous, and handed them over to the
officers with whom he was in complicity ; their goods were rifled and
ransacked ; the men were searched to their shirts for money ; even the
women were compelled to submit to like indignities " further than be
came modesty ; " and thus outraged, insulted, and robbed, they were
led back to the town, a spectacle and wonder to the gaping crowd that
flocked from all sides to see and jeer at their sad condition. The mag-

Attempted Flight of Puritans.

istrates were kinder than the people, and showed them such favor as
they could ; but the whole company were imprisoned for a month,
when they were dismissed to go where they would, excepting seven
of the chief among them, who were detained for trial.

These, and others with them, made a more disastrous attempt to
escape some months later. A Dutch ship was engaged to take them
on board at a lonely place between Hull and Grimsby, and thither

378 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

the women and children were sent in a small vessel ; the men were
to go by land. All arrived in due season. The ship rode at an-
Attempted c ^ or some distance from the shore ; the smaller vessel, with
Huiffrus- tne women and children, lay aground where the ebb-tide
trated. ^ad j e ff. fa er ^ j^ single boat-load of men had been taken off
to the ship as the first preparation for departure, when suddenly a
mob of country people, some on foot and some mounted, armed with
bills and guns and other weapons, rushed down upon the beach. The
frightened Dutchman " swore his country's oath, Sacramente" weighed
anchor, hoisted sails, and with a fair wind was soon out at sea. His
wretched passengers, though destitute of everything but the clothes
they wore, gave no thought to their own condition as they looked
back to their helpless wives and children thus abandoned to dangers
which they could neither defend them from nor share. On shore,
some of the men evaded the mob of assailants and dispersed ; others,
who remained with their own families, or to give such little protection
as they could to the families of their friends carried away by the
Dutchman, were taken into custody, with those who, either from age,
or youth, or sex, were unable to escape. The unhappy company was
at the mercy of the mob, always more cruel than the law. They were
hurried from place to place, from one magistrate to another ; denied
even the friendly shelter of a jail ; for the women and children, as
they mostly were, had been guilty of, at worst, a venial crime in seek
ing to go with their husbands and fathers even to a foreign land.
Now they had no homes to which they could be sent, for those they
had recently left had passed into other hands ; their present means of
support must needs have been, very limited and soon exhausted ; what
should be done with them then was a puzzling problem which each
bench of magistrates tried to throw upon its fellow of the next town
or parish, and which none of them thanked the over-zealous populace
for thrusting upon them for solution.

So pitiable a case could hardly fail to excite compassion in any civil
ized community of even two hundred and fifty years ago, and help
came no doubt, at last, to these poor people, from many persons as
liberal in mind as in purse. For we learn from the narrative of these
trials and misfortunes, 1 that " by these so public troubles, in so many
eminent places, their cause became famous, and occasioned many to
look into the same ; and their godly carriage and Christian behavior
was such as left a deep impression upon the minds of many." The
scattered families and friends at length united in Holland,

The reunion i TX i i -i i> IT

of Puritans where the Dutch ship arrived alter a tempestuous and dan
gerous voyage. In the course of the winter of 1607-8, and
the following spring, the Puritan Church of Scrooby came together

1 Bradford's History of Pit/mouth Plantation.

1608.] ARRIVAL IN HOLLAND. 379

again in Amsterdam, its members arriving in several parties, and at
different times, after many perils and hardships.

These simple yeomen of Nottinghamshire, whose travels, till that
winter, had seldom, if ever, probably, extended beyond the nearest
market town, had come, as it were, into a new world. Instead of the
green fields and pleasant hamlets of England, they saw a city risen
out of the sea, its long, sluggish canals crowded with ships and spanned
by hundreds of bridges. They wandered about streets of a new and
strange aspect, filled with people speaking a strange and uncouth lan
guage, and clothed in strange costumes. Accustomed to the monot
ony of simple, rural ways and the rigid economies of country life, they
were brought suddenly into places where wealth and luxury abounded,
and where the sights and sounds of a vast and busy commerce met
them on every side. But there were other realities before them of a
sterner kind which gave them little time to observe or think of these
new surroundings. The grim face of poverty confronted them, and all
their energies were needed in the struggle for a bare subsistence.

There were already two English Puritan churches in Amsterdam.
Strife had arisen among the members, stirred up chiefly by
John Smith, the pastor of the church from Gainsborough in churches in
Lincolnshire, a man of too restless and contentious a dispo
sition to remain long at rest in any one place or in one belief. The
Scrooby people had suffered enough to value tranquillity ; and indeed
all their history shows them to have been at all times a people who,
next to purity, sought for peace. As they had abandoned the homes
they loved so much, that they might live in the quiet enjoyment of
their own religious faith, so now, rather than be drawn into these
disputes and difficulties among the brethren of Amsterdam, they re
moved, about a year after their arrival, to Leyden.

This city was, for the next twelve years, their home, where they
gained a sufficient livelihood by hard labor, but especially Theli f ein
" enjoying much sweet and delightful society and spiritual Holland -
comfort together in the ways of God, under the able ministry and
prudent government of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. William Brews-
ter." 1 Brewster, in those years, turned his early education to account
by teaching, and carried on also the business of printing, sometimes
publishing religious works which were prohibited in England. Brad
ford, who was not more than twenty years of age when he left Not
tinghamshire, learned the trade of silk-weaving, but devoted himself
also to study, being particularly anxious to read God's Word in the
original Hebrew, and became a leading member of the church. Other
principal men among them were Carver, Cushmau, and Winslow,

1 Bradford's History.

380 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

the latter, a young man of higher social position than any of the rest,
who, visiting Ley den while on his travels, became acquainted with the
Puritans, and embraced their faith about three years before their de
parture from this city of refuge.

As the old grew older, and the young attained to manhood, a serious
consideration of the future pressed upon them. Though none were
very poor, there were none who were very prosperous ; and
tionwith their circumstances were not such as to attract any large
dwelling- addition to their number, or to increase their material wel
fare. They remained strangers in a strange land, still cher
ishing next to religious purity their birthright as Englishmen. Some
of the younger members, who had little or no recollection of their Eng
lish homes, were already yielding to
the influences and temptations of
foreign habits and manners ; and the
elders feared that as they passed
away, not only would the Church
be scattered, and the good seed of
the Gospel perish, but all the ties
and associations of a precious inher
itance be lost and forgotten among
their children.

Whither should they go that their
faith and their birthright might
both be handed down to their pos-

Church at Austerfield, Bradford's Birthplace. . , , . . , ~.

tenty sacred and inviolate I I he

power of the hierarchy that had driven them from their homes, hunted
them from port to port, robbed them of almost everything but liberty
and the right of obedience to the dictates of their own consciences, for
bade that they should go back to England. Where, then, should they
seek a new resting-place ?

There were divided opinions. The anxious discussion of the subject
began a year or more before Raleigh returned, to lose his head, from
that fatal expedition to Guinea where he had lost his son. El Dorado
was still believed in ; there were some among the Puritans of Leyden
bold enough and imaginative enough to urge a removal to a land where
in perpetual summer, upon a soil that should yield them the fruits of
the earth almost without labor, and in the enjoyment of wealth that,
from the abundance of gold, need have no limit, they hoped to forget
the perils, the hardships, and the poverty of the past.

Some were opposed to any change. They dreaded to expose their
women and the aged to the perils and privations of a long voyage, to a
change of climate, and to the dangers to be encountered from a savage

1617.] PROPOSED REMOVAL TO AMERICA. 381

people, stories of whose ferocity and cruelty " moved the very bowels

of men to grate within them, and made the weak to quake and

tremble." But the more sober-minded, putting aside both delusive

hopes and vain fears, turned their eyes to Virginia, though

not to the colony on Jarnes River, where, it was thought, they remove* to

would be subjected to religious persecution quite as much as

in England. Somewhere, however, within the wide domain of the

Virginia Company they proposed to establish themselves as a separate

and independent colony, trusting they might obtain from James the

assurance that they should be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of

their religious convictions.

They relied much on the good offices of Sir Edwin Sandys, then a
member of the Council of the Virginia Company, and under whose
wise management the colony on the James was soon to give its first
real promise of permanence and prosperity. Sandys and Brewster had
served together under William Davison thirty years before, and had
probably continued in friendly relations ; the former can hardly have
failed to be familiar with the history of the Scrooby Puritans who had
met in the house that Brewster leased, but which belonged to the
Sandys family ; l he was known, moreover, to share, in some degree,
the opinions of the Puritans upon religious subjects, and to sympathize
with them in the trials to which those opinions had led. None knew
better than he the peculiar fitness of such a community to found a
colony men and women of blameless lives, of tenacious morality, of
habits of persistent industry, inured to the evils of poverty, accustomed
by years of exile to the shifts and devices with which new settlers must
make themselves content and prosperous ; for it was not with them as
with other men, wrote Robinson and Brewster to Sandys, " whom
small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish
themselves at home again."

Robert Cushman and John Carver were sent in 1617 to England as
a deputation from the Church to obtain, if possible, a patent Cughman
from the king which should give them lands in North Vir- genuoTng-
ginia with the assurance under the royal seal, of religious land "
liberty. On their part it was promised that " they would endeavour
the advancement of his majesty's dominions and the enlargement of
the Gospel by all due means." " It was," James said, " a good and
honest motion ; but what profits," he asked, " would come from such a
movement ? " They answered : " Fishing." " So God have my soul,"
was the king's reply, " 'tis an honest trade : 'twas the Apostles' own
calling." 2 Nevertheless, the negotiations, which were continued for

1 See Founders of New Plymouth for an account of the division of the lands of the See
among his sons by Archbishop Sandys.

2 Winslow's Brief Relation.

382 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

about a year and seconded by men of influence, came to nought.
The king was unwilling to recognize such a colony by any public
act, and it would have been inconsistent with his orders for the gov
ernment of the South Virginia colony, given years before, when he
had commanded that " the word and service of God should be preached
and used according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of Eng
land." i

James, however, was made to understand that these people who be
sought his favor were not such rigid Separatists as their enemies repre
sented them to be, and did not assume that the Christian religion was
committed exclusively to their keeping. For they held communion
with the Reformed Dutch and French churches, and acknowledged
those of Scotland as Churches of Christ ; they assented to the confes
sion of Faith of the English Church, and were ready always to receive
into fellowship its devout members, though they did not accept its
Liturgy, its stated and formal prayers, and its constitution as a national
church. 2 The King they acknowledged as supreme head of the State ;
in him was the lawful power to appoint bishops, as well as civil officers,
whose authority, therefore, they honored as a part of the civil govern
ment ; and they denied all power or authority in any ecclesiastical
body that was not derived from the king. 3 James understood clearly
enough, no doubt, the distinction the Puritans always kept
with King in mind between civil and spiritual conformity. But he also

James

understood that they were a harmless and godly people who
used their religious freedom for the guidance of their own lives, and not
for the government of others. He gave their friends in England the
assurance that he would connive at their settlement in America, and
should not molest them so long as they conducted themselves peace
ably though he could not extend to them his royal permission and pub
lic recognition. Some of the Puritans, understanding the character
of the king, were disposed to think that they had gained in this con
cession all that they could reasonably hope for. James, they said,
" had he given them a seal as broad as the house floor," 4 would
have evaded or recalled it, if at any future time he should be disposed
to do so.

But better warrant than the mere word of the king was wanted to

1 Stith's History of Virginia.

2 There is a gleam of humor, though he may not have meant it as such, in Robinson's as
sertion that, " Our faith is founded upon the writings of the Prophets and Apostles in which
no mention of the Church of England is made."

8 Compare the Seven Articles sent by the Church at Leyden to the Council in England
and signed by Robinson and Brewster. New York Historical Collections, Second Series, vol.
iii., Part I. Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation ; Winslow's Brief Relation, in
Young's Chronicles.

4 Bradford's Plymouth Plantation.

1619.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DUTCH. 383

justify them in giving up, without any certainty for the future, the
security and peace they possessed in Holland. Negotiations were
continued in England, Brewster going over to the assistance of Car
ver and Cushman. After much trouble and delay, a patent was
procured from the Virginia Company, issued in the name of Mr.
John Wincob, on the 9th of June, 1619. 1 Of this patent nothing
further is known, and it was never used. 2 It is supposed to have
made a grant of land somewhere near the mouth of the Hudson
River. Perhaps the patent was not thought sufficient because it
promised to give title to lands in that region. The Puritans were
wary and prudent, and evidently the first condition, in their minds,
of the proposed movement was that wherever they went they should
carry with them a sense of absolute security and protection. The
Dutch already had their trading posts on Manhattan Island and the
upper waters of the Hudson ; and though they had as yet made no
agricultural settlements, they clearly had the best right to that re
gion of country, both by virtue of discovery and of possession. The
most obvious course, therefore, for the Puritans was to obtain from the
Dutch some confirmation of title, before they moved under a patent
from an English company to lands which the Dutch occu
pied. This, at any rate, is what they attempted to do, what- propose to
ever may have been the motive. The pastor, John Robinson, New Nether-
proposed, on behalf of the Church, to the Amsterdam Com
pany, that he and his people should go to New Netherland, provided
the Company could assure them of protection, and establish a colony
there subject to the Prince of Orange and the States General. Four
hundred families, to go from Holland and from England, Robinson
said, would constitute the colony.

The proposal seems to have been received with enthusiasm by the
Amsterdam merchants, who well knew the value of such material for
the settlement of a new country. Their reply was an offer of free
transportation, cattle for every family, and other inducements ; 3 but
on the question of the indispensable guaranty of safety, they could
only refer the memorial to the Prince of Orange with a prayer of
their own that protection be granted. The stadtholder re- Their propo _
ferred the subject, in his turn, to the States General. After j^Yh^stetes
much deliberation and discussion, the petition of the Am- General -
sterdam Company, in favor of Robinson's proposal, was rejected.
This decision may have been influenced by the proposed establish-

1 The date is fixed by the journal of the London Council in Neill's History of the Vir
ginia Company, where the name of the patentee is spelt Wencop, Wincopp, and Whincop.
Bradford says Wincob.

2 Bradford's Plymouth Plantation.

3 Winslow in Young's Chronicles; Bradford's History.

384

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

ment of the great West India Company, to which would properly
belong the settlement of all Dutch possessions in the New World,
and by the possible international complications that might arise from
colonizing a body of Englishmen under the protection of the States-
General. 1

Nearly three years had now elapsed since negotiations were begun,
and none of them had led to any practical result. Many were discour
aged by these difficulties, and some in England, who had at first pro
posed to join in the enterprise, and others in Holland, declined to have
anything more to do with it. The more zealous and persistent, who
were not to be deterred by any obstacles, were convinced that the time
had come to resort to positive measures and to take risks. The reso

lution shaped itself into " a solemn meeting and day of humiliation
to seeke the Lord for his direction," and the conclusion was that such
as were disposed and could make the needful preparation should go,
with Elder Brewster at their head ; the rest, and the larger number,
remaining with Mr. Robinson in Leyden. Those who were left be
hind, it was agreed, should follow when means and opportunity offered.
Among those in London who had interested themselves in the nego
tiations for a patent was one Thomas Western, a merchant. He was
in Leyden some time in 1620, while these delays and doubts and dis-

1 Holland Documents, cited in Brodhead's History of the State of New York.

1620.] PREPARATIONS TO EMIGRATE. 885

appointments were gradually bringing a portion of the Church to a
determination to emigrate at all hazards. Weston's counsel was in
harmony with this feeling ; he advised them to rely neither upon the
Dutch nor the Virginia Company ; he and others, he assured them,
were ready to supply ships and money for such an enterprise ; and he
reminded them that Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others were moving
for a new patent in Northern Virginia. " Unto which," adds Brad
ford, " Mr. Weston, and the cheefe of them, began to incline
it was best for them to goe." Thereupon a joint-stock com- company 00
pany was formed, to continue for seven years ; when all the
profits of the adventure in trading, fishing, planting, or anything else,
were to go for that period into a common stock, and at the end of it
were to be equally divided between the adventurers and planters,
that is, those who had contributed money only to the enterprise, and
those who had engaged in it personally. Every person over sixteen
years of age who went was rated at ten pounds, or a single share ; and
if he provided his own outfit, to the amount of ten pounds, he was en
titled to two shares. All the members of the colony were to be sup
ported out of the common stock. These were the essential articles of
agreement made between the London adventurers, who were chiefly to
supply the means of going, and the members of the Leyden Church
who were to go. 1

The conflicting rights and interests of adventurers and planters in
this joint-stock company were not adjusted without a good deal of
controversy and delay, the planters being especially dissatisfied that
the value of the homes which they should make for themselves in the
colony should, at the end of the seven years, be equally divided among
all the stockholders ; and that, during that period, there should not
be two or three days in each week reserved to the colonists in which to
labor on their own account. But, at length, all the arrangements for
their departure were completed. The Speedwell, a vessel of sixty tons,
was bought and fitted in Holland, and another, the Mayflower, was
chartered in London, and was to receive them at Southampton.

On or about the 21st of July, 1620, 2 the church at Leyden held a
day of humiliation and prayer, the pastor, Mr. Robinson, preaching a
sermon " upon which," says Bradford, " he spente a good The Pil .
parte of the day very profitably, and suitable to their pres- f,e t s _ at
ente occasion." Those that were to stay behind " feasted " Haven -
those that were to go, " refreshing " them afterward with the singing
of psalms, making joyful melody, for many were expert in music. 3

1 Bradford's Plymouth Plantation, p. 45, where the articles of agreement are given.

2 Prince's Chronological History of New England.

3 Winslow in Young's Chronicles.

386

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

The next day leaving " the goodly and pleasante citie," continues
Bradford, " which had been their resting-place near twelve years ; but
they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on those things,
but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest cuntrie, and quieted
their spirits " they went to the port of Delft-Haven.

Here the night was spent, not in sleep, but in friendly entertain
ment, and Christian discourse. On the morrow they parted with
their friends, and " truly dolfull," he adds, " was the sight of that
sade and mournf ull parting ; to see what sighs and sobbs, and praires
did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, and

pithy speeches pierst each harte But the tide (which waits

^^ for no man) calling

them away, that were
thus loath to departe,
their Reverend pastor,
falling downe on his
knees, (and they all
with him,) with watrie
cheekes comended them
with most fervente
praiers to the Lord
and his blessing. And
then with mutuall im-
braces, and many tears
they tooke their leaves one of an other which proved to be the last
leave of many of them." 1 Then they went forth to help lay, in the
wilderness across the sea, the foundations of a Nation.

On the 5th of August, the two ships sailed from Southampton with
about one hundred and twenty passengers. In a week they were
back again, putting in at Dartmouth, the Speedwell having
sprung a leak. In a few days they again put to sea, but only
to run back to Plymouth, after sailing a hundred leagues,
for the Speedwell proved altogether unseaworthy. A month
was thus wasted in attempts to get away, and it was not till
the 6th of September that the Mayfloiver succeeded in mak
ing a successful departure alone, carrying, beside her crew, one hun
dred and two persons for the new colony. 2

It was sixty-five days before they saw land again. The voyage

1 In bidding farewell to their friends, " we gave them," says Winslow, "a volley of
small shot and three pieces of ordnance ; and so lifting up our hands to each other, and
our hearts for each other to the Lord our God, we departed."

2 This was the exact number that sailed from Plymouth, and arrived at Cape Cod, there
having been one birth and one death on the passage.

The depar
ture of the
Mayfloiver,
6th of Sep
tember,
1620, Old
Style, 16th
September,
New Stvle.

1620.]

THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER.

387

was tempestuous ; the ship was too weak to bear much canvas ; and
it was a question, when they were half across the ocean, whether they
should not return. On the 9th of November, they hailed with delight,
as so many storm-tossed mariners had done before them, the low coast
of Cape Cod. Their purpose was to find a place farther south, or in
definitely somewhere about the mouth of the Hudson River, for their
proposed settlement, and for half a day, after making land, they stood

Plymouth Harbor, England.

to the southward. But they fell presently among dangerous shoals.
Gosnold's Point Care and Tucker's Terror, Champlain's Cape Male-
barre, stretched out into the sea and turned them back. The
next day they ran along the outer coast of the cape, sailed
round its extremity, and on the llth 1 cast anchor in Cape Cod
Harbor, now the Harbor of Provincetown, the only windward port
within two hundred miles where the ship could have lain at anchor
for the next month, unvexed by the storms which usher in a New
England winter.

Their first act on landing, was to fall upon their knees and bless God
" who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered
them from all the perils and miseries thereof, againe to set
their feete on the firme and stable earth, their proper ele- landing,

r r llth Novem-

mente." 2 But however much cause there was for thankful- ber, 1620,

O S 21st

ness, they were not unmindful of the serious difficulties with November,
which they stood face to face. Among them were some per
sons not of the Leyden Church, but who had been taken on board,
perhaps, in England, as servants of the leading and wealthier members

1 The llth of November, Old Style ; the 21st of November, New Style.

2 Bradford.

388

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

of the Company. These men had given, the day before the harbor
was reached, and when the ship had been turned back from her south
ward course, some evidences of a discontented and mutinous spirit.
If the patent from the Southern Virginia Company was not used, and
a settlement was made without the jurisdiction of that Company, then
these malcontents intimated they would be under no restraint of legal

authority, and at liberty to do as should seem to them best.

It was determined, therefore, to enter into a compact of gov-
Mayjiower. ernmen t which should not only have the binding force of law
over all persons disposed to be insubordinate, but which would be, it
was thought, of as much virtue under the circumstances in which
they were placed as any patent. On the day they entered Cape Cod

Compact
signed on
board the

Harbor of Provincetown.

harbor, therefore, all the men, excepting seven of the servants, entered
into and signed this agreement : l

" In y e name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwriten,
the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by
y e grace of God, of Great Britairie, Franc & Ireland king, defender
of y e faith, &c., haveing undertaken, for y e glorie of God, and ad-
vancemente of y e Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie,
a voyage to plant y e first colonie in y e Northerns part of Virginia, doe
by these presents solemnly & mutualy in y e presence of God, and one of
another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body
politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of y e ends
aforesaid ; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such
just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions & offices, from time

1 We follow literally the copy in Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, recovered
in full only twenty years ago, and published under the editorship of Charles Deane. This
document is given in Mourt's Relation, and Morton's Memorial, with some slight and un
important changes of phraseology.

1620.] A CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 389

to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for y e generall
good of y e Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and
obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed our
names at Cap-Codd y e 11 of November, in y* year of y e raigne of our
soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France & Ireland y e eight
eenth, and of Scotland y e fiftie fourth An : Dom. 1620."

The promptitude and unanimity saving only of the seven servants,
who were the only members of the company it was necessary to reduce
to obedience by creating a government with which this compact was
made and adopted, almost compel the belief that the colonists were
quite content to find themselves without the jurisdiction of either
the Dutch, or the Virginia Company. The shoals of Point Care and
Tucker's Terror may have been rather a pretext than a cause for
making no farther attempt to reach a port more to the southward.
Nor does there seem to be any sufficient reason for believing the story,
that the captain of the Mayflower was bribed not to take his passen
gers to the mouth of the Hudson River. 1 The negotiations before
they left Holland, show that while the States General declined to
grant them protection, apparently for political reasons, the New
Netherland Company were anxious to induce them to settle in the
region of country they claimed as theirs. It was the Puritans who
objected to going without this guaranty of safety ; not the Dutch who
objected to receiving them. Weston, who represented the London ad
venturers on whom the church members at Leyden were to depend so
largely for the means of removal, urged them, as we have already
stated, not to rely upon either the Dutch or the Virginia Company,
enforcing his counsel with the fact that Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and
others, had obtained from the king a patent for that part of America
called New England. The Virginia Company opposed this patent ;
the questions raised in regard to it were carried to the House of Com
mons, and it was not till the next year that they were definitively dis
posed of. It may have been for this that the Puritans did not seek,
before their departure, for a patent from the New England Company ;
but they sent for and obtained it, when the Mayflower returned to
England in the spring. 2 It is quite possible that the Pilgrim Fathers

1 Morton in his New England's Memorial, published in 1669, says : " Of this Plot be
twixt the Dutch and Mr. Jones, (the master of the Mayflower,} I have had late and certain
Intelligence." He does not 'say what or whence the intelligence was, and it is more likely
the story was born of the feeling that grew up against the Dutch in later years, than that
it had any real foundation. There is no hint of any dissatisfaction with, or suspicion of
Captain Jones in the narratives of* the emigrants themselves. It has been said, also, that
the Mayflower had run north of her intended course, because the compass was influenced
by an axe, concealed purposely, or by chance, near the binnacle. One tale is hardly more
improbable than the other.

2 This was the patent to John Peirce. See the " Brief Narration " of Sir Ferdinando

390

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

were content to make their land-fall within the boundaries of New
England rather than within those of the Virginia Company. The
impatience of the captain of the Mayflower to land his passengers
and return to England may have found a ready response in men who
were not sorry that chance had thrown them where they had nothing
to fear from the interference of others, whatever other trials there
might be in store for them.

The extremity of Cape Cod now is quite a different place from that
on which the passengers of the Mayflower landed, glad to get ashore

The Landing on Cape Cod.

anywhere after their long and anxious voyage. Where they found
pleasant woods of oak and pine, of ash and walnut, and other fine
trees, " open & without underwood, fit either to goe or ride in," 1 are
now only a few starved and scattered shrubs. The soil of " ex
cellent black earth, a spit's depth," has disappeared, except here and
there in swamps, and in its place are the shifting hills of yellow sand,
drifting from year to year like snow before a driving storm, the Cape
only saved from being blown away altogether, by the long beach-

Gorges, in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii. Davis's notes to Morton's Memorial.
Chronicles. Deane's notes to Bradford's History.
1 Mourt's Relation. Bradford gives essentially the same account.

Young's

1620.] THE COAST EXPLORED. 391

grass which ties it down. 1 But then, as now, the waters of the bay
were shallow, and the people waded ashore ; the men to explore the
country, the women to wash the clothes after the long sea voyage ;
though where fresh water was found for this purpose, can only now
be guessed by the curious antiquary, who finds traces of a pond, ob
literated long ago by the encroaching waters of the sea and the ever

o o /

shifting sands. 2 But there was 110 water fit for drinking ; for, some
days later, the men drank their "first New England water" from
springs found ten miles distant from the beach where the Mayflower
lay at anchor.

A company of sixteen men under Captain Miles Standish, made this
first reconnoissance of the land, marching through boughs Reconnoi _
and bushes which tore their armor in pieces ; seeing Indians, ^deAiiLs
for the first time, at a distance ; crossing fields of stubble standish -
where they had grown their maize ; finding the winter's store of the
grain itself which the natives had
buried in the sand, and filling with
this a kettle left by some former
visitors, or taken perhaps, from some
wrecked vessel they returned to
the ship like the men from Eshcol,

with the fruits of the land, at which their brethren were " marvelusly
glad & their harts encouraged."

When the shallop, which the ship had brought, had received the
repairs she needed, more extended explorations were made along the
shores of the bay. These unfortunate people could not have come at
a worse season, and could hardly have found a less fitting place along
the whole coast, on which to plant a colony. More than a month was
consumed in the search for a spot, which they could venture to believe
might answer, a longer time than it would have taken to go hun
dreds of miles farther south, had they wished, or had they been will
ing to put themselves within the jurisdiction of either the Virginia
Company or the Dutch. There was nothing to invite, and every
thing to discourage them in the aspect and condition of the country.
They were very thankful to have found corn enough in the Indian
stores to answer their own needs in the coming spring for seed-corn,
which they honestly paid for, when, six months later, they met with
the owners; and they had good reason to congratulate themselves,
that the natives of the country seemed to be but few ; these were the
only special blessings, but they were duly grateful. The weather was

1 So serious is the danger of the destruction of the end of Cape Cod, as to call for re
medial measures on the part of the United States Government, within a few years.

2 See Thoreau's Cape Cod, and Dexter's notes to Mourt's Relation.

392 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

so cold that the sea-spray, as it fell upon those exposed in the open
shallop, encased them, as it were, in ai'mor of ice; the ground was
frozen hard, and during much of the first month covered with snow ;
they rather hoped than knew that fish, which was to be their chief
dependence, were plentiful, for at that season they could catch but
few ; and they sought painfully along the shallow shores for a harbor
with water enough to float their ship, whose passengers pined to ex
change their narrow cabins for even the lonely wilderness and the
leafless woods, through which the winter storms swept dismally, bring
ing with them the roar, the smell, and the dreariness of the sea.

The ship herself was safe on good anchorage-ground, and in a land
locked port ; but for her people to remain longer than was absolutely
necessaiy, at a place where there was no fresh water to drink, and
where the shore could only be reached by wading, except at the
full flood of the tide, was out of the question. No pretermission of
diligence, therefore, in seeking for a better spot was permitted, and at
last the search was successful. On Wednesday, the 6th of December
(Old Style), a party put off for a more extended search than had yet
been made. Robert Coppin, the gunner of the Mayflower, was of this
company, and he knew, he said for he had been upon this coast be
fore of a good harbor, and a great navigable river in the other head
land of the bay. On Wednesday and Thursday they cruised along
the shore, on the west side of the cape, from Provincetown to Truro,
from Truro to Wellfleet, from Wellfleet to Eastham as the region is
now divided. A sudden attack was made upon them, on Friday morn
ing, by the natives, as they were getting ready to leave the night's
camping-ground, and arquebus-shot and arrow flights were exchanged
without harm to either party.

From this point they sailed along the coast for fifteen leagues, on
Friday, and, seeing no good harbor, stood on in search of that which
Coppin said he knew. The day was stormy ; in the course of it the
rudder of the boat was unshipped, and, before they made land on the
other side of the bay, she carried away her mast, split her sail, and
was near being lost altogether. At nightfall they reached and landed
upon an island, since known as Clark's Island, because Clark, the
Mayflower's chief mate, was the first to step ashore. The next day,
the 9th, they explored the island, and on Sunday, the 10th, they
rested, as men would be sure to rest who, on week-days, never forgot,
under any circumstances, to ask in outspoken prayer the blessing of
God upon their labors.

On Monday, December llth, 1 they crossed the harbor, sounding it

1 December 11, Old Style : December 21, New Style. In 1769 the "landing of the 'Pil
grim Fathers ' " was first commemorated at Plymouth, and the date in New Style was errone-

1620.] DISCOVERY OF PLYMOUTH. 393

as they went, and finding it of good depth for small vessels. Along
the shore of the mainland they found several brooks of plen- The explor .
tiful waters pouring into the bay, and here and there were J^on'the
cleared fields, where the Indians had planted maize, ready December
for the use of new comers. If not the best of places, it was, Je^er'h" 6 "
says Bradford, who was of the party, " at least the best they N - s -
could find, and the season and their present necessity made them glad
to accept it."

The incident in itself is commonplace enough. Seventeen rough
men, 1 who, for the five previous days had been in an open boat, sleep
ing by night upon the bare ground, sometimes drenched with rain,
sometimes half frozen with the cold, landed, as they had often done
before, from their boat to seek anew a spot that would answer their
purpose. History, nevertheless, has marked the act as an epoch. Nor
is its significance likely to be forgotten, although confusion and mis
understanding have gathered about it and obscured its exact details.
Its importance and interest are none the less because it happens to
be commemorated by the descendants of the Pilgrims, wherever they
are found, on the anniversary of a day when the event did not occur,
and with the general supposition that on that day the people of the
Mayflower landed from the ship upon the rock of Plymouth which
they certainly did not do till a fortnight later.

Nor is there any reason, except in the confounding of fact and tra
dition, for the supposition that this boat-load of explorers visited the
spot where the Pilgrims afterward made their home. That is three
miles from Clark's Island, while the shore of the mainland toward
which these men would naturally steer their boat at the nearest point
stretches along opposite the island within a much shorter distance.
Though they "marched into the land, and found divers corn-fields

ously made the 22d, instead of the 21st. The error, which has been perpetuated ever since
in the celebration of the day, arose, it has been supposed, from the addition of eleven days,
instead of ten, to mark the difference between Old Style and New. The explanation is
unsatisfactory, as such a blunder seems hardly likely to have occurred. The error more
probably came from a mistake in punctuation, in Motirt's Relation, where the statement
is : " And here we made our rendezvous all that day, being Saturday, 10 of December
on the Sabbath day we rested, and on Monday we sounded the harbor," etc. There
should be a period after " Saturday," when it would read : " And here we made our
rendezvous all that day, being Saturday. 10 of December, on the Sabbath day, we rested ;
and on Monday," etc. Saturday was certainly the 9th, not the 10th; but when, in 1769,
in Plymouth, they turned to Mourt's Relation, to fix the date of this incident, and read the
record with its erroneous punctuation, they of course called Monday the 12th, and, adding
ten days for difference of styles, made " Forefathers' Day " the 22d.

1 They were Miles Standish, John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John
Tilley, Edward Tilley, John Rowland, Richard Warren, Steven Hopkins, Edward Doty ;
two seamen, John Allerton and Thomas English, hired by the colonists ; of the ship's
company, Clark, the first mate, Coppin, the master-gunner, and three unnamed sailors.

394

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XI V.

and litle runing brooks," they decided upon no particular site for the
colony, for they "afterwards," says Bradford, "took better view of
the place, and resolved where to pitch their dwelling." Nor could
they have spent much time in a survey of the shores of the harbor,
for they returned that day to their companions, at the end of Cape
Cod, to report the success of the expedition a return saddened by
the news of the death of William Bradford's wife, who, during his
absence, had fallen overboard and was drowned. With this voyage
of the shallop no tradition seems to be connected. We have only

Map of Plymouth Harbor.

the cold, bare records of ordinary facts ; the rough pioneer work of
men engaged in an arduous duty, to be done at any risk of hardship,
and to be done quickly. All the romantic interest that tradition lends
to the landing of the Pilgrims came later with the disembarkation of
the passengers of the Mayflower, upon the rock at Plymouth.

On the 15th of December the Mayflower left her harbor at Cape
Cod ; the next day, Saturday, the 16th, she dropped her anchor about
half-way between Plymouth and Clark's Island. On Monday and
Tuesday, the 18th and 19th, exploring parties, some in the shallop,
and some on foot, cruised along the shore or roamed through the woods

1621.] THE LANDING ON JANUARY 4, 1621. 395

for several miles. But it was not till Wednesday that a choice was

made between two places, and it was decided that the fittest The May _

for a settlement was where a hill, overlooking the bay and p^oiuh

the surrounding country, offered the best site for a fort and Dec b i6' o s

houses, and near which were fields cleared by the Indians for Dec - 26 > N - s -

their own planting, and a plentiful stream of sweet water. Here some

of them at once established themselves. But communication, with the

ship was, for the next two days, interrupted by bad weather, which

permitted only of the putting

off of a boat occasionally in

the intervals of the storm.

On Saturday those on shore

felled some timber. But not

till Monday, the 25th, did the

passengers generally go " on

shore, some to fell timber,

some to saw, some to rive, and

some to carry, so no man

rested all that day." The _^

actual beginning Of the Set- Relics from the 'Mayflower, 1 John Alden's Bible ; William
,i T Clark's Mug and Wallet, etc.

tlement was then made,

" to erect the first house for common use to receive them and their

goods." !

This was on the site of the present town of Plymouth, and at the
head of one of its wharves, almost buried in the roadway, is The land .
the memorial rock, or rather what there is left of it. 2 Trust- pjjwwai.
worthy tradition verifies it as that on which the passengers o^'.fj'a 1 ^,'
of the Mayflower landed when, for the first time, Monday, 1621 ' N - S -
December 25th, they left the ship with a distinct purpose of taking
possession of a new home.

Only on Tuesday of the previous week was this spot fixed upon ;
the ship was a mile and a half away ; in the interval of nearly a week
the stormy weather had made it difficult for the shallop to take even
the needed provisions to the few men on shore. Not till Monday, the
25th, was the actual work of putting up a shelter on this chosen spot
begun ; and then it seems probable -and natural indeed only till
then does it seem possible that a visit was made by the company
generally, men, women, and children, to their future home.

And it was made, no doubt, with recognition of the occasion as some
thing more than an ordinary occurrence ; with emotions of mingled

1 Bradford's History. Mourt's Relation.

2 The upper portion of it was removed, about a hundred years ago, nearer to the centre
of the town.

396

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

gladness and sorrow ; with sad and tender memories of that past life,
ending now as they were preparing to leave the ship that brought
them from the homes they should never see again ; but with sanguine
hope also in the new and free life on which they were about to
enter, though beginning in hardship and suffering, visibly begin
ning, with almost all the calamities from which they might have asked
to be delivered in no more definite and forcible prayer than that
of the Litany against which they protested, "from lightning and

Landing of John Alden and Mary Chilton.

tempest ; from plague, pestilence, and famine ; from battle and mur
der, and from sudden death."

Still another tradition connects this rock with the general land
ing of the Mayflower's passengers. 1 The honor of being the first to

1 " There is a tradition, as to the person who first leaped upon this rock, when the fami
lies came on shore, December 11, 1620." Coll. Mass. Hist. Society, vol. iii., Second Series,
p. 174. It is such careless statements as this that have led to confusion on this subject.
" The families " were on hoard the Mayflower in Provincetown harbor, twenty-five miles
from Plymouth, on the llth of December, 1620. The advance party of explorers only
landed that day somewhere on the Plymouth shore.

1621.]

THE FIRST WINTER.

397

step upon the rock is divided between John Alden and Mary Chil-
ton. 1 Neither of these persons is named in the list, which
professes to be a full one, of those who in the shallop, on and Mary n
the llth of December, discovered the bay of Plymouth ;
and certainly no woman could have been upon such an expedition.
Nor is it likely that any woman went on shore in the stormy weather,
after the arrival of the May
flower in the harbor on the
16th, till the general visit was
made on the 25th to the selected
spot. Whoever then was the
first to spring to the rock,
about which there may have
been, on such an occasion, some
pleasant rivalry, whether the
young man or the young maiden,
the leap was made, no doubt,
from the first boat from the
Mayflower, on the 25th of De
cemberJan. 4th 1621, N. S.

But even yet there was no
final transfer of the colonists to
land. The ship was still the
home of the larger number, and probably of all the women and chil
dren, those only remaining on shore who were engaged in building
or in guarding the accumulating property. On the 10th of January
the common house of about twenty feet square was nearly finished ;
it was only then that a town of a single street was laid out, and it
was agreed that each head of a family should build his own house on
the lot assigned him. The building went on slowly, for the inclem
ency of the weather permitted of out-door work for only half the
time. Some of the private houses were finished in the course of the
winter, but it was not till the 21st of March that all the company
went finally on shore.

Much less room was needed now, if that were one of the reasons for
delay in removing from the ship. For the first two months those on
shore were exposed, with little or no shelter, to the rigors of
a New England winter, though that of 1620-21 was plainly the winter
one of unusual mildness ; those in the ship were crowded
into close and unwholesome quarters ; provision was scanty and poor ;
the scurvy appeared and spread rapidly ; other diseases, engendered

1 Notes on Plymouth, Mass., vol. iii., Second Series, and Notes on Duxbury, vol. x., Mass.
Hist. Coll.

Stone Canopy over Plymouth Rock.

398

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV.

in want and exposure, became equally prevalent ; and when the spring
opened about one half the company were dead.

Some of the most eminent in character and station ; many in the
prime of their days and their strength, whose loss to the colony was
most serious ; wives, mothers, children, servants were swept away,
leaving those who survived enfeebled by sickness and overwhelmed
with grief, when they were most in need of all their physical and
mental energies. Carver, the governor, died in April, and his wife
soon followed him ; the wife of William Bradford, who was Carver's
successor, was drowned as we have already said before the May
flower left Cape Cod harbor ; Edward Winslow, Miles Standish, Isaac
Allerton, were soon made widowers ; Edward Tillie and John Tillie,
who were of the crew of the shallop that discovered Plymouth Bay,

First Burial Place near the Landing.

lost their wives, and both died not long after ; John Allerton and
Thomas English, of the same company, soon filled graves on the shore
they had helped to find ; Mary Chilton, one of the first, no doubt, if
not the very first, to spring to the landing-place in glad expectation
of a happy future in a new home, was soon alone, both father and
mother dead ; others, like her, were left orphans ; parents were left
childless ; in some cases whole families were carried off ; in others
there was only a single survivor. Hardly a day passed for four months
that they did not bring out their dead.

So the winter passed. Little happened to break the sad monotony
of intervals of work on houses which they might not live to occupy,
and nursing the sick till most of them were taken to those narrow
houses which they would never leave. Twice the wretched commu-

1621.]

THE FIRST WINTER AT PLYMOUTH.

399

nity were in danger of being burnt out of their poor shelters on shore,
the thatched roofs of their two buildings, one for the well, the othej
for the sick, taking fire by accident and being consumed. Lurking
savages were sometimes seen in the neighborhood, but they made no
attempt to molest the new comers. Precautions, however, were taken
against any attack from them, and Miles Standish, who had been a
soldier in the Low Countries, was entrusted with the conduct of mili
tary affairs, as he was generally with the command of all expeditions.

Governor Carver's Chair.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

THE COMING OF FRIENDLY INDIANS. SAMOSET AND SQUANTO. CAPTAIN DERMER'S
PREVIOUS VISIT TO PLYMOUTH. STANDISH'S VISIT TO BOSTON HARBOR. REIN
FORCEMENTS FROM ENGLAND. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AT PLYMOUTH. HOSTILE
MESSAGE FROM THE NARRAGANSETTS. ARRIVAL OF WESTON'S COLONISTS. THEIR
SETTLEMENT AT WESSAGUSSKT. AN INDIAN CONSPIRACY. STANDISH'S EXPEDI
TION AND THE PLOT DEFEATED. TlIE GRIEF OF PASTOR ROBINSON. ARRIVAL OF

ROBERT GORGES. FIRST ALLOTMENT OF LAND IN PLYMOUTH. JOHN PEIRCE'S
PATENT. THE LYFORD AND OLDHAM CONSPIRACY. THEIR BANISHMENT.
BREAKING-UP OF THE LONDON COMPANY. THE PILGRIMS THROWN ON THEIR OWN
RESOURCES. THK FISHING STATION AT CAPE ANN. ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CAP
TAIN STANDISH AND MR. HEWES. THE DORCHESTER SETTLEMENT AT CAPE ANN.
CONANT'S CHARGE OF IT, AND HIS REMOVAL TO NAUMKEAG. SETTLEMENTS
ABOUT BOSTON HARBOR. MORTON OF MERRY-MOUNT. STANDISH'S ARREST OF
MORTON.

NEW events came with the spring to the colony at Plymouth, as
well as health and hope. In March a naked Indian stalked boldly in

Visit of Samoset to the Colony.

among them, and greeted them in a few English words, which he had
learned from the fishermen and other voyagers on the coast of Maine,

1621.] FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH INDIANS. 401

his home being on the Pemaquid. This man's name was Samoset,
but why he was so far from home is not clear. He may T h e yisUof
have been brought and left in the neighborhood by Captain 1^^.!!
Dermer, who had twice been upon this coast, making his Samoset -
second voyage only the previous summer. On his first voyage he
visited the place, " which," he said, " in Captain Smith's map is called
Plimouth. And," he adds, " I would that the first Plantation might
here be seated, if there come to the number of Fifty persons, or up
wards." l

From this Samoset they learned that the Indian name of the place
they had settled upon was Patuxet, and that about four years before
all the inhabitants had been swept off by a plague. 2 He told them
who were their nearest Indian neighbors Massasoit's people, the
Wampanoags, and the Nausets on Cape Cod. It was these Nausets
with whom the Pilgrims had their harmless fight soon after landing,
and who were most inimical to the English because seven of their tribe
were kidnapped by Hunt in 1614, the other twenty being taken from
Patuxet Plymouth.

Samoset brought to the settlement some of the friendly Indians, and
among them Tisquantum or Squanto, one of those whom
Weymouth took to England, fifteen years before, and gave tumor
to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. It had been this man's fortune
to be again kidnapped, this time by Hunt, and to fall into the hands
of Dermer, who brought him home to Patuxet, " my savage's native
country," Dermer writes, where he found " all dead," nearly two
years before. It was fortunate for the new-comers that their first
intercourse with the Indians was through these two men, who were
friendly to the English and could speak their tongue. One immediate

1 Bradford says of this letter that it is "a relation written by him [Dermer], and given
me by a friend, bearing date June 30 Ano 1620 In which relation to his hon
ored friend he hath these passages of this very place." Morton in the Memorial, copies ver
batim from Bradford. "I will first begin [says the letter] with that place from whence
Squanto or Tisquantum was taken away, which in Captain Smith's map is called Plimouth :
and I would that Plimouth had the same commodities. I would that the first Plantation
might here be seated if there come to the number of 50 persons or upward." Morton evi
dently mistakes in supposing this letter of June 30, 1620, referred to the visit of that spring.
It was in the summer of 1619 that Dermer was at Plymouth.

2 There can be no doubt from the concurring testimony of several of the writers of that
period, that such a pestilence prevailed throughout New England a few years before the
settlement of Plymouth. The story was that a party of Frenchmen, trading on the coast of
Massachusetts, aroused the enmity of the natives, who fell upon and killed all but five whom
they kept as servants. None of them lived long, and the last survivor predicted to the
Indians, just before his death, that God was so angry with them for their bloody and cruel
deed that He would destroy them all. The Indians answered that they were so many God
could not kill them. The prediction, nevertheless, was fulfilled, and the more pious of the
early settlers believed that the pestilence was sent as a special providence to rid the country
of the heathen and make room for the coming of a Christian people.

402 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

good result followed, for the natives brought, within a few days, the
most powerful Sagamore of that region, Massasoit, with whom the
colonists made a treaty both offensive and defensive. They were not
much impressed with the dignity of this first Indian king whom they
met, for he was distinguished from his followers only by a string of
white bone beads about his neck ; his face was painted of a sad red,
and both face and head were well oiled so that he " looked greasily."

Squanto became at once an intimate and valued friend. He taught
them how to plant maize, and to manure it with the alewives which
in April came up the brook in great numbers to spawn ; and these he
showed them how to take. It was a service of no slight value, for the
wheat and peas, and other English seed the colonists sowed, proved
almost worthless, either from defect in cultivation, or from delay in
visit to planting. Later in the season the Indian guided two am-
fncTother* bassadors, Winslow and Hopkins, across the country to Mas-
piaces. sasoit's chief village, Pokanoket, now Warren, Rhode Island,
to confirm the treaty of peace and friendship made with him at Plym
outh. The pleasant weather between seed-time and harvest was
wisely used in learning the character of the surrounding region, in
making the acquaintance of the nearest native tribes, and in acquir
ing an influence over them.

The cape was explored ; Boston Harbor was visited, and the sight
of its islands, then covered with woods, its sheltered coves, and its
navigable streams, into which fish of every kind known on that coast
swarmed in their season, excited keen regret that their lines had not
fallen in such pleasant places. The health of the colonists was now
so completely established that ten men could be spared to go off upon
some of these excursions half, at least, of their effective force, for
the whole colony, including women and children, was reduced to about
fifty persons, and seven small houses held them all. Those left at
home were employed in fishing and tending the few acres of the ex
pected harvest. Of food there was abundance ; game was plentiful,
especially wild turkeys, which long since disappeared from the At
lantic sea-coast, and deer, which to this day roam in the woods from
Plymouth to Cape Cod. 1

In November came the first reinforcement of thirty-five persons in
the ship Fortune. She brought also a new patent, issued to John

1 In the autumn of this year the Governor (says Winslow, in Mourt's Relation) "sent
four men on fowling, that so we might after a more speciall manner rejoice together after
we had gathered the fruit of our labours." This is thought to be the origin of the New
England festival of Thanksgiving. But special reference to such a day by name comes the
next year, at the same season, for a fruitful harvest, when, says Morton in his Memorial,
"for which mercy, in time convenient, they also solemnized a Day of Thanksgiving unto
the Lord."

1621.]

A PATENT FROM THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY.

403

Peirce and associates by the Plymouth Company, which had received
its charter the November previous, and had given to the New

Patent

Plymouth Puritans the first patent it granted. It was the granted to
first time the exiles had heard from England, and the letters
were filled with complaints from the London adventurers that the
Mayflower, which had returned in the spring, had come without a
cargo. To such ungenerous reproaches Bradford who was now
governor replied in terms as pathetic as they were dignified, that
" it pleased God to vissite us with death daily, and with so generall
a disease, that the living were scarce able to burie the dead ; and the
well not in any measure sufficiente to tend the sick." This second
ship, however, was laden with lumber and some peltries, but unfor
tunately only a small part of her cargo ever reached England, as she
was taken by the French on the homeward passage.

The second winter passed without unusual hardship or sickness;

whereof the said President & Counsell haue
to the one pt of this pnte Indenture sett their seales And to
th'otner pt hereof the said John Peirce in the name of himself
and his said Associat haue sett to his scale geven the day and
yeeres first aboue written/

Signatures to Plymouth Patent. 1

1 This patent is preserved at Plymouth, Mass., and is the oldest document now in exist
ence relating to her history, as well as the first known grant made by the Plymouth Com
pany. It is published in full in vol. ii., Fourth Series, Mass. Hist. Coll., from which we
copy the fac-similes of the signatures of the President and Council who signed it, namely, the
Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir
Ferdinando Gorges-

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

[CHAP. XV.

there was enough to eat ; order, security, and sobriety were maintained
by strict discipline, the discipline, however, of a mixed civil and mili
tary rule and not exclusively of a rigid religious conformity. The
better and the larger number were heedful of their own religious walk
and conversation, as became a people who for the sake of their faith
had submitted to so many years of exile, arid who had taken refuge,
at last, in the wilderness that they might preserve their allegiance to

their convictions as well as to their
country. Civil order they valued
for its own sake, and with that sound
common sense, which on a larger field Christmas Revellers.

would be called statesmanship, se
cured it by enforcing it. But that they did not deny to others the
freedom of conscience which they claimed for themselves, is
evident from a little incident with the relation of which
Bradford closes his record of the year, and which he calls a
" passage rather of mirth than of waight." On " the day
called Christmas day," as he and others of the Leyden congregation
went out to their usual labor, some of those who had recently arrived
in the Fortune excused themselves, as it was, they said, against their
consciences to work on that day. If it was a matter of conscience, the

Governor
Bradford
and the
Christmas
revellers.

1622.] THE NARRAGANSETT INDIANS. 405

governor assented, then they should be excused till better informed.
But when on returning at noon from work these people were found
playing at ball, pitching the bar, and at other games in the street, the
governor, with more of humor than of that grim intolerance which is
often supposed to be the ground-work of the Puritan character, sent
them to their houses and their devotions, if they had any to pay, with
the reasonable injunction that it was against his conscience they should
play while others worked.

The courage and firmness which secured order at home, was no less
sturdy in maintaining peace abroad. The Narragansett Indians sent
to Plymouth, in token of enmity and of hostile intentions, a
bundle of arrows tied together with the skin of a rattle- theNaraa -
snake. This was the most numerous and most warlike tribe g
in New England, numbering, it is supposed, thirty thousand, of whom
five thousand were warriors. The little colony, in which there were
not more than fifty men capable of bearing arms, may not have known
the full strength of these Narragansetts, but they knew, at least, that
so numerous a people would be formidable enemies. So soon, never
theless, as they understood from Squanto the purport of this symbolic
message, the skin of the rattlesnake was stuffed with powder and ball
and returned. The Indians were at no loss to comprehend both the
meaning of the answer and the spirit that prompted it, and the Pil
grims were unmolested.

The town, of seven dwellings and two public buildings, was, how
ever, surrounded with palisades, as a measure of precaution ; the
order of a military garrison, both for peace within and without, was
established ; all the men were enrolled in four companies, with time
and place appointed for mounting guard, for drill, and for general
muster ; and when, in the spring of 1622, the news came of the mas
sacre in Virginia, the building of a fort was begun within the pal
isades, on what is now known as u the burial-hill " of Plymouth.
There were occasional alarms from the Indians ; but that at first,
seemingly the most serious, was a false report raised by Squanto, who,
coining to entertain a mistaken notion of his own importance, at
tempted to enhance it by arousing the fears and jealousies of his
own people and the English, which he alone was to pacify. He
learned better behavior for the future, however, when Massasoit
demanded his head, and his Plymouth friends pardoned and saved
him.

The first difficulty that had any lasting result came through the
conduct of their own countrymen. There was, indeed, a scarcity of
food, in the summer of 1622, but that was relieved partly by supplies
which Winslow obtained among the English fishermen on the coast of

406

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

[CHAP. XV.

Maine, and partly from several English vessels which, in the course of
the season, visited Plymouth. Among these arrivals were two sent
out by that Mr. Weston, of London, who hitherto had been an active
and influential friend of their company, but had now retired from it
and proposed to plant a colony of his own.

The people whom Weston sent out were not Puritans. Rude and
western's profane fellows, he himself acknowledged, many of them
wl^agus- were ? an d Mr. Peirce, in whose name the new charter was
sett - taken out, wrote : " As for Mr. Weston's company, they are

so base in condition, for the most part, as, in all appearance, not fit
for an honest man's company." Such as they were, they were landed

Burial Hill.

at Plymouth, where they remained for some time, helping to consume
the stores to which they had added nothing when they came, and did
nothing to increase while they stayed. To support them was a burden ;
to be compelled to tolerate their idleness and evil example was a mis
fortune. Plymouth was happily rid of their presence when they de
termined to establish a separate colony at Wichaguscusset, or Wes-
sagusset, now Weymouth, where abroad but shallow stream empties
into the harbor, eight or nine miles south of Boston.

Little good was to be expected from such a company ; and there
came nothing but evil. It was not long before the complaints of the
Indians were loud and bitter against them. Improvident and idle, or
diligent only in stealing, they soon reached the extremity of want
and suffering. Some died of hunger. Some sold their clothes and
blankets to the natives for food ; others rendered them the most men
ial services to keep off starvation. Many dispersed themselves about
the woods and along the shore seeking to subsist on ground nuts and
shell-fish. To the Indians they soon became objects of contempt for
their weakness, and of resentment for their thefts and, perhaps, for
graver wrongs ; for their leader was accused and he would not be
likely, if the charge were true, to be the only offender of making

1622.] WESTON'S COLONY. 407

mistresses of the Indian women. But the natives must have come at
length to despise much more than they feared them, for they would
snatch from between their hands the food the whites had prepared
for themselves, and take from under them the blankets in which they
had wrapped themselves for sleep. So far from resenting and assum
ing to punish these aggressions of the natives, they attempted to ap
pease their anger by hanging one of the colonists for stealing corn.

I'he culprit, it is related, was one of the stoutest among them
so stout, and strong, and courageous, that his fellows did not Hanging of
venture to arrest him openly, but secured him by some strat- a colonist -
agem, and hanged him thus bound. According to the same narra
tive it was proposed and seriously considered, whether it would not
be better to spare this real criminal, who was young and vigorous,
and might yet be of great service, and substitute for him on the gal
lows one who was old, and impotent, and sickly. The project was
overruled, however, not so much, apparently, from any recognition
of the essential wrong which it was proposed to inflict upon the old
man, as from the evident inexpediency of resorting to an artifice
which would exasperate but not deceive the Indians. 1

This pestilent colony, the Massachusetts Indians, in conjunction
with others, resolved, at length, to exterminate ; and as

. Discovery of

they naturally supposed such an act would be avenged an Indian

conspiracy

by the countrymen of the Wessagusset people, at Plymouth,
they also were to be fallen upon at the same time, and the country
to be thus rid altogether of the English. But before the savages
were ready to put this plan in execution, it happened that news came
to Plymouth of the serious illness of Massasoit. Edward Winslow
and John Hamden, 2 were at once sent to Pokanoket to express sym-

1 The story rests on the authority of Thomas Morton (New English Canaan, Third
Book, chap, iv.), who, however much he may have hated and misrepresented the people of
Plymouth, does not appear to have borne any ill-will towards those of Wessagusset, and
may, indeed, have been one of that company. His circumstantial statement does not look
like an invention. Butler, in Hudibras, makes use of the story to throw ridicule upon the
Puritans, who of course had nothing to do with the incident, if it ever occurred. He rep
resents the culprit as a shoemaker who had slain an Indian because he was an infidel, and
then adds,

" But they maturely having weighed,
They had no more but him of the trade,
A man that served them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble,
Resolved to spare him ; yet to do
The Indian Iloghgan Moghgan, too,
Impartial j ustice, in his stead did
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid."

2 Similarity of name has sometimes suggested that this was John Hampden, the Eng
lish patriot, but the conjecture has no other foundation, and other reasons make it alto
gether improbable.

408 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CiiAP. XV.

pathy, and if possible, render aid to one who had shown himself a,
firm friend and ally of the colonists. The chief was apparently in a
dying condition, but Winslow by timely remedies and careful nursing,
restored him in a few days to health, to the amazement of his friends
and followers, who looked upon his cure as a miracle. The gratitude
of Massasoit was unbounded, and he showed it by revealing to Hob-
bamock, Winslow's Indian guide, the plot against the colonies, in
which he had been urged to take part.

An example had been given within a year in Virginia, of how sud
den, stealthy, and complete, a massacre by Indians might be. The
information given by Massasoit was discussed in the " yearly court-
day," or town-meeting on the day of the election in March, 1 and
it was determined that an expedition be sent to Wessagusset. This

consisted of only eight men,
commanded by Captain Stan-
dish, who thought proper to
take no more, lest the sus
picions of the Indians should

Sword of Miles Standish. T . .-,

be aroused by the appearance

of a greater number. Standish found the colony in a condition quite
as forlorn and wretched as had been represented, so scattered, heed
less, imbecile, and unsuspicious, that they would be an easy prey to
the savages when these were ready to strike the blow. Only a few
of the leading men among them, when told of the designs of the
Indians, could believe in the report, and to those few it was confirmed
by some circumstances which they had themselves observed.

Some conference was had with the Indians, who suspected the de
sign of Standish, laughed at, and defied him. They were

Standish at fo . J .

wessagus- too cautious to expose themselves in any large number to
gether, and Standish seems to have recalled the advice of
Massasoit, to cut off the chiefs. Getting two of them, Pecksuot and
Wituwamat, with a brother of the latter in a room by themselves,
the Captain ordered the door to be closed, and then with two or three
of his own men, attacked the Indians. The fight was hand to hand
and desperate, but after a long struggle the two chiefs were killed, and
the other secured, who was afterwards hanged. Some others were
killed at the same time at other places ; so, also, when the alarm was
spread, were several of the English, who had wandered from home.
A more general battle, or rather skirmish, afterward occurred in an

1 The annual Town- meeting or " March-meeting day" as it was called for the
choosing of public officers and attending to the public business of the town, continued to
be held, till within a few years, in March in Massachusetts. It probably originated in
the " Court-day " of the Pilgrims.

1623.] STANDISH AND THE INDIAN CONSPIRATORS. 409

open field, when the Indians fled without loss on either side. The
head of Wituwamat was taken to Plymouth, and exposed as a
warning to the natives. Thither Standish returned, taking a portion
of the Wessagusset men with him ; others going in their own pinnace
to Monhegan, on the coast of Maine. The colony was thus entirely
broken up.

This was the first Indian blood shed by the Pilgrims, driven
thereto in self-defence by the misconduct of others. The im- Thefirst In _
mediate result was beneficial, whatever may have been the dian killed -
consequences in later times in the enmity planted in the minds of a
people who never forget and never forgive an injury. For the time
being, however, the energetic conduct of Standish spread terror, not
only among the Massachusetts Indians, but those of other tribes en
gaged with them in the plot against the English. They dispersed
themselves in the woods and swamps, to avoid the punishment which
they feared would fall next upon them ; their planting was neglected,
and in the destitution of food that followed in a few months, many
perished. 1

When the news of this affair reached Holland, Mr. Robinson, the
pastor, wrote : " Concerning the killing of those poor In-

i . P & Mr. Robin-

dians of which we heard at first by reporte, & since by more so n ; sre-
certaine relation, oh ! how happy a thing had it been, if you
had converted some before you had killed any ; besids, wher bloud is
one begune to be shed, it is seldome stanched of a long time after."
It was certainly a humane and prophetic judgment, befitting the man
and his profession, but not quite so discriminating as it might have
been as to the part his own people were constrained to take in their
own defence. The experience of two centuries and a half has since
shown how easy it is to kill, and how hard to convert an Indian ; and
however deplorable the fact may be, it is unquestionably true that
occasions have arisen and this was one of them where the choice
of killing or converting was not presented. Still less just was the
excellent pastor to Captain Standish in the same letter. " Let me be
bould," he adds, "to exhorte you seriously to consider of the disposi
tion of your Captaine, whom I love, and am persuaded the Lord in
great mercie & for much good hath sent you him, if you use him

aright Ther is cause to fear that by occasion, espetially of

provocation, ther may be wanting that tendernes of the life of man
(made after God's image) which is meete." The brethren at Plym
outh might have answered that the good pastor at Leyden, who knew
nothing of the North American Indians, could hardly judge as to the
proper line of duty for Captain Standish, shut up in a room with a

i Wmslow's " Kelation " in Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims.

410 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

naked savage, bent upon taking his life, and armed with a long, keen,
doubled-edged knife ground to a fine point.

Weston arrived not long after the dispersion of his colony. When

a few months later Captain Robert Gorges, the recently ap-

captam pointed governor of all New England, came to Plymouth,

he proposed to arrest Weston and put him upon trial to an

swer, among other things, for the ill conduct of his men at Wessagus-

set, whereby the peace of the whole country had been endangered.

Weston's sufficient defence

: J r>~ was ' ^ a t ne

ra fo rOT fi u9 . held responsible for acts done

Signature of William Bradford. b j Othei'S ill his absence.

Other charges, brought then

and later, he could not so easily answer. But Governor Bradford and
others of the leading men at Plymouth could not forget their former
relations with Weston, and the services he had rendered in the outset
of their enterprise. Partly at their intercession, and partly because
Gorges was at length convinced that nothing could be gained by a
continued pursuit of a man bankrupt alike in fortune and character,
Plymouth and New England became happily rid of that unfortunate
adventurer in the course of the next winter.

The patent Robert Gorges brought with him gave him a vague title
to all the mainland in New England known as Massachusetts,
set e reoccu- on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, with all the coast
agaitfaban- for ten miles in a straight line toward the northeast, and
thirty miles into the interior for that breadth. He, never
theless, assumed Wessagusset on the South shore to be within
the limits assigned him, and landed his stores and built warehouses on
the site that Weston had chosen. Gorges himself, however, soon re
turned to England ; his people dispersed, in the course of the year,
some going home, some to Virginia, except a few who preferred to
remain at Wessagusset.

The year 1623 was otherwise memorable in the annals of the
Pilgrims. The laboring in common and on joint account, to which
they were bound by their articles of agreement with the London
adventurers, was a source of so much injustice, discontent, and con
fusion, and so evident a hindrance to their prosperity almost to
their continued existence that the necessity of some modification
of that arrangement was forced upon them. The most obvious evil
was the radical one ; there could be no true prosperity for the whole
so long as there was no just proportion between the labor of the indi
vidual and the welfare it secured to him. It was proposed, therefore,
as an experiment, to make allotments of lands, for one year, to each

1623.]

SCARCITY OF FOOD.

411

colonist to cultivate on his own account. That there was any hesita
tion in resorting to so imperative a measure was partly be
cause it was an infringement upon the jointstock agreement, SSSW
and partly because it was the persuasion of the time that individual8 -
a colony in a new country could only exist as the dependency of a
corporation, with a community of goods in anything it produced.

In Plymouth, as in Virginia, the change once made became per
petual, and from it dates the beginning of true prosperity. The
right of every man, thencefor
ward, to ownership in the
land and to the fruits of
his own labor was estab
lished. The " partic
ular planting " or
each man for himself
was at once proved
to be so advantageous,
that " any generall
want or famine," says
Bradford, writing more
than twenty years af
terward, " hath not
been amongst them
since to this day."

And there was need
enough that some way
should be devised to
escape from that condition of almost extreme want under which, for the
first three years, the colony generally suffered. Above all people of
the world, as one of them said, they had reason to pray for
their daily bread, it so often happened that none knew at sdrclty of

i, i ,1 L -i > p -i f rn , food for the

mgnt wnere the next day s rood was to come trom. lo get first few
enough from day to day to keep soul and body together was
their constant anxiety, and the stimulus to unceasing labor. Their
chief sustenance in the summer-time was fish .and clams, with some
times a little venison very little it must have been, for stalking deer
with the clumsy musket of the period, could but be wearisome and
unprofitable hunting. Those who went out by turns in their single
boat to fish, would stay away five or six days rather than return
empty-handed to be received with gloom and disappointment by
their hungry fellows. The treasured stores were eked out in winter
with ground nuts and such wild fowl as they could kill. When a ship
came in with additions to their number the scant and sorry feast of

Site of First Church and Governor Bradford's House

412 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

welcome they spread before their friends was a lobster, or a bit of fish
without bread, and a cup of water. To deprive an Englishman of
that period, when tea and coffee were unknown in Europe, of his beer,
was to reduce him to a condition next to starvation ; but the want of
" a spoonful of beer," even for the sick, is recorded as among the
deprivations most sorely felt in the first year's sufferings, both of
Plymouth and Jamestown. " It is worthy to be observed," wrote
Bradford, twenty years afterward, in allusion to the sufferings of
the early times, " how the Lord doth chaing times and things ; for
what is now more plentiful than wine." It was not counted as
among the least of the trials which these first colonists had to endure,
that a cup of fair water was the only drink. When the search was
made along the shores of Plymouth Bay for a fitting place for a set
tlement, the reason given, in addition to the lateness of the season,
for the hasty decision was that : " We could not now take time for
further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, espe
cially our beer." 1 And when, a few years later, a colony came over
to settle at Salem, and provisions soon became scarce, " most began
to repent when their strong Beere and full cups ran as small as water
in a large Land." 2

There are indications of other troubles in these early years, the
cause and sometimes the character of which are not always clear.
The root of them all, however, was probably in the determination on
the part of some of the London adventurers to use the colony for their
own selfish purposes. Thus when John Peirce, in whose name,
second pa- but on behalf of the colony, the first patent from the Plym
outh Company was taken out in 1621, saw that the enter
prise promised within two years to be successful, he procured, in
1623, another patent on his own account, under which the Plymouth
people were to be merely his tenants. Fortunately for them Peirce
met with such losses in sending a ship to America that he was willing
to part with this grant ; but for what had cost him only <50, he com
pelled the company to pay him ,500. Nor was the conflict of ma
terial interests the only or the most serious one. Among the ad
venturers in London some were Church people, and the jealousy of
sect, while harder to reconcile than merely pecuniary interests, em
bittered and intensified all other differences. That the pastor, Rob
inson, and more of their friends from the Church at Ley den did not
join them seems to have been because there was a determination
among some of the managers in London to prevent it. There was
clearly a purpose to get another class of persons than Puritans settled

1 Mourt's Relation.

2 Johnson's Wonder Working Providence.

1623.] LYFORD AND OLDHAM. 413

at Plymouth ; and while it seems plain that those of the Puritan faith
were quite ready, so far as it was possible among a people of such
strong convictions and rigid lives, to tolerate those who did not agree

O O ' O

with them, there are indications at least on the other side, of a purpose
to diminish and overcome the puritanic element of the colony, and to
put the management of its affairs into the hands of those who had
no sympathy with it. But the Puritans were strong in the leader
ship of such men as Bradford, Brewster, and Winslow, who were as
eminently endowed with common sense, worldly wisdom, and the gov
erning faculty, as they were deservedly esteemed among the brethren
for their soundness in the faith.

Winslow was sent to England on the business of the colony in the
autumn of 1623, and brought, on his return in the spring, a report of
these differences. There came with him one John Lyford, a clergy
man, who, as it afterwards appeared, was an emissary of Arrival ol
the discontented faction in the London Council, a veritable fr^mEng rd
wolf in sheep's clothing among the Plymouth flock, a dis- land '
sembler, mischief-maker, and spy. " The preacher we have sent,"
wrote Robert Cushman, " is (we hope) an honest, plain man, though

none of the most eminente and rare Mr. Winslow and my selfe

gave way to his going, to give

continte to some hear, and we ____--r^- ( * T

/tf

see no hurt, but only his great

Charge Of Children." The /^~f Signature of Edward Winslow.

charge of his family, which
had to be supported from the public store, was the lightest burden he
brought them, as the event showed. Full of protestations of humil
ity, of admiration for the Pilgrims, of being a devout and zealous
convert to their way of thinking on religious subjects, he so ingra
tiated himself among them, that he was soon admitted to the church,
and taken by the governor into unreserved confidence.

There was in the colony one John Oldham, who also had won much
good repute before the coming of Lyford and was held in like esteem.
These two men soon drew together and gathered about them all the
discontented spirits of the colony, proposing apparently to subvert
both church and state. A movement of this sort could not be carried
on long in a community of less than two hundred persons,
without being suspected. Lyford and Oldham were watched, Lyford and
and when it was found among other things that Lyford had
prepared more letters to send to England by the ship in which he
came out than any honest purpose would seem to warrant, Bradford
felt that it was his duty as chief magistrate and to avert the ruin
that such a conspiracy threatened, to intercept these letters. They

414 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

were found to contain ample evidence against both the suspected
men.

Lyford, however, was not arrested till he openly held a meeting for
public worship in accordance with the forms and rites of the Epis
copal Church. It was impossible that the Pilgrims should see the
introduction of any other form of religious observance than their own
among them without a good deal of feeling, and that alone might, in
some degree, warp their judgment. But the offence of Lyford was
evidently not so much that he had held such a meeting, as that he
should have done so without consultation with the brethren, while he
had all the while professed to have abandoned the Episcopal Church,
and to be in full accord with a people who, as Bradford said, " all the
world knew came hither to enjoy the liberty of their conscience and
the free use of God's ordinances ; and for that end had ventured their
lives and passed through so much hardship hitherto, and they and
their friends had borne the charge of those beginnings, which was not
small." But there were other grievances, though this may have been
the head and front of his offending, that justified the course pursued
with him as a dangerous member of society.

Oldham was at the same time brought to trial, but not till he had
openly disobeyed and defied the Captain when ordered out on guard ;
had called him a " beggarly raskell," and had threatened him with a
knife. When arraigned before the public meeting with Lyford to
answer for his conduct, he loudly called, though he called in vain,
upon all who were discontented and on whom they both thought they
could rely, to rally around him in open mutiny. The result of the
trial, however, was that Lyford publicly and humbly confessed in the
church, with many tears, that he had been guilty of grievous wrong,
had slandered the brethren, and plotted against their rule in the
colony, and that in his pride, vain-glory, and self-love, he had hoped
to carry all against them by violence and the strong hand.

A sentence of banishment was pronounced upon both, to take place
some months later. This clemency was misplaced, for Ly-
and con- ford wrote again secretly to England, soon after, repeating and
maintaining the truth of all the charges he had before made,
which were chiefly intolerance among the Pilgrims of all religious
opinions and forms of worship but their own ; abuse by the mag
istrates of the civil power to the injury of all who were not of their
way of thinking; injustice to those later emigrants who had no in
terest in the joint-stock company; and waste of the public property
charges which were all categorically met and denied.

His case came at length, on this second letter, before a public
meeting of the adventurers in London for consideration and decision,

1623.J

LYFORD AND OLDHAM.

415

where Winslow, who meantime was on another visit to England, not
only met the accusations made against the good name and peace of
the colony, but proved by trustworthy witnesses there present, that
Lyford, while a clergyman in Ireland, had been guilty of seduction
under circumstances of unusual baseness. About the same time his
wife in Plymouth, "a grave matron and of good cariage," when the
sentence of banishment was about to be enforced against her hus
band, " was so affected with his doings as she could no longer con-
ceaill her greefe and sorrow of minde." She laid her bur
den before a deacon of the church and other friends, ac- ment of Ly-
knowledging that this reverend hypocrite had been a for-
nicator before their marriage and an adulterer since. Such develop
ments were the best evidence of the true character of the man, and

Expulsion of Oldham.

that the prosecution of him by the Puritans was on behalf of social
morality, good order, and peace in the colony, and did not proceed
from religious Bigotry.

The case of Oldham was less complicated, and was dealt with in a
more summary manner. He had the hardihood to return again to
Plymouth a few months after his banishment. A coarse Oldham
and open brawler, he made himself so offensive to all good of C piym- ut
citizens and so abused the forbearance of the magistrates outh-
by his open denunciations and loud-mouthed defiance, that even the

416 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

limit of their patience was at length reached. " They committed
him," says Bradford, "till he was tamer, and then apointed a gard of
musketers which he was to pass throw and every one was ordered to
give him a thump on the brich, with the but end of his musket, and
then was conveied to the water side, wher a boat was ready to cary
him away. Then they bid him goe and mende his raaners."

There is not much in the characters or the acts of these men to dis
tinguish them from the ordinary and trivial incidents which necessa
rily mark the history of a handful of people struggling in the wilder
ness to retain their grasp upon existence, while laying the foundations
of what may become a commonwealth, or may only be a village. But
their conduct had results more serious than were involved in the pun
ishment of two bad men, or than the anxiety they gave to the rulers
of the colony, or the scandal they brought upon it. The bringing
of Lyford's case before the London meeting was the culmination of
the differences and difficulties which had long divided the company;
differences and difficulties which had prevented Mr. Robinson and
the rest of his flock in Leyden, from joining those in America; had
kept alive that spirit of persecution which the Puritans hoped to
escape by voluntary exile ; and had so seriously interfered with the
progress and prosperity of the colony.

That Lyford was really an emissary of a faction whose purpose was
to take the colony out of the hands of the Puritans and reduce them
Breaking up *o the condition of sufferance if even that should be
piny e in m granted them seemed no longer doubtful. His conviction
London. before the world as a man of detestable character who had
attempted by the most treacherous means to carry out a hostile pur
pose, led the majority of the London adventurers, not to drop him, but
to drop the colony. They virtually made common cause with the cul
prit, and accepted his exposure and defeat as their own. The Com
pany from that moment came to an end, and the Plymouth people
were left, with a few friends in England, to work out for themselves
their own success or their own failure as the case might be.

It was really the beginning of their success. Thrown upon their

own resources, they developed new energies. Assuming in the course

of the next year the entire debts and responsibilities of the

Independ- 111 i 111 i

ence of the Company, lands, houses, cattle and other domestic animals
were equitably divided, and the people from dependent colo
nists became independent citizens, living in the enjoyment of the
fruits of their own labor, and under laws of their own making. The
whole trade of the colony was put for a limited period under the
sole management of eight of the principal men, who undertook in re
turn and in due time discharged the obligation to liquidate all

1624.] FISHING STATION AT CAPE ANN. 417

debts, including that to the old Company which was the price of their
freedom. Their friends at Leyden were enabled in time to join them,
though the Pastor Robinson, who died in March, 1625, was never
permitted to see the promised land. From that time they had none
to rely upon but themselves.

When Winslow returned from England in the spring of 1624, he
brought with him a grant, made to himself and Robert Cushman by
Edward Lord Sheffield, of 500 acres of land, together with
30 acres in addition for each actual settler for a mile and a Ann p a a p -"
half along the shore of Cape Ann Bay, now Gloucester.
" In my discovery of Virginia," says Captain John Smith with char
acteristic audacity, in the dedication to Prince Charles of his descrip
tion of New England " in my discovery of Virginia, I presumed
to call two nameless Headlands after my Soveraign's heirs, Cape
Henry and Cape Charles." He neither discovered Virginia nor
named its capes, but to Cape Ann he did give a name which, however,
it did not long retain calling it Cape Tragabigzanda, in honor of
that noble Turkish gentlewoman, Charatza Tragabigzanda, whose slave
he once was, by right of purchase, and who he tells us, pined for love
of him. But Prince Charles ruthlessly took from New England the
perpetuation of the memory of this tender romance by changing the
name to Cape Ann in honor of his mother, Anne of Denmark. Lord
Sheffield's right to that portion of the country was derived partly from
purchase and partly from a division of New England among the paten
tees of the Plymouth Company, which division, however, was never
approved by the king, and was therefore null and void. 1

Thither the ship in which Winslow came, was sent to establish a
fishing station, after discharging her cargo, an important part
of which was three heifers and a bull, the first cattle taken cattle at
to Plymouth. But they made a poor voyage, says Bradford,
who always thought that fishing was a " thing fatal " to the col
ony partly because of the lateness of the season, and partly because
the master of the ship was " a drunken beast, and did nothing (in a
maner) but drink and gusle, and consume away the time and his
victails."

The undertaking was on the whole, disastrous, though something
was made by trade in peltries. The beaver was to these first people of
Massachusetts a better friend than the cod, though the cod hangs to
this day in the State House at Boston as the emblem of its prosperity,
while only here and there in the country lingers some dim tradition
of the beaver, where an embankment across some secluded meadow
suggests that a dam may once have been there. The Pilgrims, how-

1 Smith's General Historie ; The Landing at Cape Anne, by J. Wingate Thornton.

418

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

[CHAP. XV.

ever, built a large frame house and put up a stage for drying fish as
the nucleus of a settlement. But here the Lyford trouble was to
break out again and plague them.

The first result of the dissolution of the Company in London which
followed his exposure was the sending out of a ship by some
of the adventurers who had upheld Lyford, upon a voyage
which could hardly fail to come into competition with their
late associates. The vessel, under the command of one Hewes, arrived
early in the season and finding this place at Cape Ann unoccupied, he

The fishing
station at
Cape Ann.

took possession of the
building and fishing-stage
which the Plymouth peo
ple had built for their own
convenience. The news
of this proceeding soon
reached Plymouth, and
Captain Standish was sent
with a company to expel
the intruders. A surrender was demanded ; Hewes piled up a barri
cade of hogsheads at the stage-head, and secure behind these with his
ship in the rear, as his base of operations, defied the Captain. High
words passed and might have ended in bloodshed, for as "a little
chimney is soon fired, so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very
little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper." 1 But the fortifi-
1 Hubbard's History of New England.

Barricade at Cape Ann.

1624.] THE CAPE ANN COLONY. 419

cation was one not to be easily carried, and an attack from the open
country could only be made at the greatest disadvantage.

There happened to be present, however, Captain William Peirce in
a ship from Plymouth, and one Roger Conant of Nantasket, and at
their intercession the anger of Standish was appeased. He was, more
over, too good a soldier not to see that an assault would be hopeless ;
so a compromise was made, the fishermen promising to help the Plym
outh people in building another stage. The house seems to have re
mained in possession of its rightful owners, for a salt-maker was sent
from Plymouth to put up pans for salt-boiling. But by his careless
ness, in the course of the summer, house and pans were destroyed by
fire, "and this," says Governor Bradford, "was the end of that
chargable bussines."

This Roger Conant, who helped to assuage the hot arid angry temper
of the Plymouth captain, was an early member of that colony ; but
being a churchman, the rigid life of the Separatists was
probably distasteful to him, and he removed to Nantasket. nantof
At Nantasket now the little hamlet of Hull, though the
old Indian name happily still clings to it, snugly nestling just within
Boston harbor, in a valley between two great round hills, out of sight,
though not out of sound of the surf which the Atlantic rolls up upon
the long stretch of Nan
tasket beach and dashes
against the ledges of Co-
hasset in or near this
lovely nook, Standish, on
his first visit to Boston har
bor, had put up a house. 1
Of this, probably a year or standish's Pot and Flatter."

two later, Conant took pos
session, and there he, Lyford, and Oldham found refuge when the
Puritans would no longer tolerate the latter.

It is not quite certain whether Conant was at this time residing at
Cape Ann, or whether he was there only to be present at
the apprehended struggle between the Plymouth men and capeAnn
the crew of Hewes's vessel, a report of which might easily
have reached him at Nantasket, only a few miles distant. At Cape
Ann, at any rate, was already planted that first colony of which
Conant was sometime in charge, and which was the seed from which
sprung the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.

The merchants of the west of England had for several years sent

1 " Something like a habitation was put up at Nantasket," says Hubbard (General His
tory of New England), with reference to future traffic with Indians.

420 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

vessels to fish along the coast of New England, 1 and in 1623 it was
proposed, as a saving of time and expense, that colonizing and fishing
should be united. The extra men whom it was necessary to take on
these voyages to catch and to cure the fish, were to be left somewhere
on the coast when the fishing season was over and the vessel ready to
go home, to employ themselves in building, planting, and hunting, for
the rest of the year till they were needed again as fishermen. The
plan, indeed, did not answer, for, as Bradford saw so plainly and as
the west country merchants proved to their great loss, the prelimi
nary and continuous work necessary in the planting of a colony was
incompatible with the business of fishing. It was not till a later
period that so many of the thrifty people of Massachusetts, small
farmers, or shoemakers, or other handi-craftsmen, in the autumn and
winter, found that they could profitably and healthfully spend the
spring and summer months in fishing on the Grand Banks, or along
the coast for cod and mackerel, and never go to sea at any other
time, or for any other purpose.

A company, however, was formed in 1623 at Dorchester, England,
The Dor- ^ wn -ich the Rev. John White, the minister of that place,
C an SterC m was ^ e mov i n g spirit, to combine planting with fishing.
One vessel was sent out that year on such a voyage, and,
when she was ready to return, fourteen of her crew were left, with
provisions for their support, at Cape Ann to begin a colony. The
next spring two ships with more men were sent ; the year after, three.
To the people were added cattle in 1625 ; but the experiment, never
theless, was unsuccessful. The fishing proved unprofitable from sev
eral causes ; the landsmen were ill-chosen and ill-governed ; the colony
fell into disorder, and most of the people were sent back to England,
probably in 1626. 2 A few men remained in charge of cattle sent out
the year before. Of these, Conant was chief, having been previously
appointed Hubbard says the overseer or governor. 3

1 In 1620 there were seven or eight fishing-vessels sent out from that part of England
and four years later their number was increased to fifty.

2 The Planters' Plea. By Rev. John White. Hubbard's General History of New Eng
land.

3 There is much incertitude about the history of this Cape Ann Colony, under the Dor
chester Company. White, in The Planters' Plea, gives the date of its settlement as 1623 ;
Hubbard in the General History says, " about 1624." White does not mention Conant, but
Hubbard says that John Tylly and Thomas Gardner, were overseers " at least for one
year's time, at the end of which," White and his associates " pitched upon him, the said
Conant, for the managing and government of all their affairs at Cape Ann." This would
be in 1625, when according to White, after a " two years and a half" experiment, the Com
pany abandoned the attempt, and a few only of the most honest and industrious remained
to take charge of the cattle. But Hubbard also says, that " together with him," Conant
the Company invited Lyford, "to be the minister of the place," and Oldham, "to trade
for them with the Indians," which invitation Lyford accepted, but Oldham declined

1626.] ENDICOTT AT NAUMKEAG. 421

The same year, Conant, not liking the place at Cape Ann, moved
to Naumkeag, or Nahumkeik, now Salem. 1 Mr. White Remo vai to
and some of his associates, encouraged by the fact that this Naumkea g-
little remainder of their colony still clung together, sent out more
cattle, and moved anew in England to engage others in their enter
prise. Some gentlemen in London added to these cattle, and there
can be little doubt that emigrants also went out in the course of the
year, to join Conant and his few companions.

The " action " had fallen, at last, into good hands. Some gentle
men of London took hold of it with great energy, moved thereto by

all three at that time residing at Nantasket ; and elsewhere he says, that these men, after
leaving Plymouth, found refuge at Nantasket for themselves and their families, "for the

space of a year and a few months, till a door was opened for them at Cape Ann

about the year 1625." But Lyford and Oldham were not tried at Plymouth till the sum
mer of 1624; Lyford's banishment was not to take place till six months afterward, and
Oldham's family had permission to remain in Plymouth the ensuing winter. Neither Ly
ford nor Oldham's family, therefore, went to Nantasket till 1625, and if they remained there
a year and some months, could not have gone to Cape Ann till 1626. Bradford, moreover,
though he does not mention Conant, says that Lyford went from Nantasket to Naumkeag,
Salem. The difficulty is. to reconcile Hubbard with himself; with the fixed date of the
Lyford trouble at Plymouth ; and with White's statement as to the beginning and duration
of the colony. This difficulty is further complicated by Captain Smith, in his General His
tory, published in 1624, where he says, " and by Cape Ann there is a plantation, a begin
ning by the Dorchester men, which they hold of those of New Plymouth, who also by them
have set up a fishing worke." If the Dorchester men held of New Plymouth, it must have
been under the Sheffield patent, and such " beginning " of their plantation would necessa
rily be in 1624, and not in 1623; for the Sheffield patent is dated January 1st, 1624, N. S.
1623, O. S. and the Plymouth "fishing work" we know was set up in the spring of 1624.
Hubbard is supposed to have received his information directly from Conant, who lived in
Salem till 1680, but as his statement about Lyford is manifestly incorrect, he is quite likely
to be so in other particulars as to dates. Smith could have had only hearsay information ;
the assertions of both, therefore, cannot weigh against the peculiarly clear account of
White, in the Planters' Plea. If Conant left Plymouth, as Hubbard says, with Lyford
and Conant's memory on such a point would probably be accurate ; if they went first to
Nantasket, and lived there even a much shorter time than a year and a few months, they
may not have gone to Cape Ann till late in 1625, Conant's "governorship " beginning the
next spring, or the winter of 1625-26, when the colony was abandoned by all but himself
and a few companions, and he took charge of the cattle. It seems, indeed, most likely that
this act of Conant's first commended him to the favorable attention of Mr. White, who
was glad to hear of so trustworthy a man on the spot, and, not being willing to give up the
project, sent more cattle to his care. Meanwhile, Conant had removed to Naumkeag. He
could hardly be called a governor, even as governors went in those times. The only
authority for it is Hubbard, who evidently used the term indifferently and interchange
ably with overseer or agent.

1 " Of which place I have somewhere met with an odd observation, that the name of it
was rather Hebrew, than Indian ; for Cin2. Nahum, signifies comfort, & pin, signifies an
haven ; & our English not only found it an Haven of Comfort, but happened also to put an
Hebrew name upon it, for they called it Salem, for the peace which they had & hoped in
it; & so it is called unto this day." Mather's Magnolia, vol. i., chap. iv.

" It fals out that the name of the place, which our late Colony hath chosen for their seat,
proves to be perfect Hebrew being called Nahum Keike, by interpretation, The bosome of
consolation." White's Planters' Plea, chap. ii.

422 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

the promise of pecuniary success and the hope of making an asylum
for those who, though not such rigid Separatists as the New Plym
outh people, were nevertheless Non-conformists, anxious to escape the
tyranny of the prelates and from a church which they believed was on
the high road to Rome. Fit men for the enterprise were sought for,
and " among others they lighted at last on master Endicott, a man
well knowne to divers persons of good note." In March, a patent 1
was procured from the New England Company ; it granted all that
tract of country from three miles south of the Charles River, to three
miles north of the Merrimack, and under this Endicott was sent out
as governor with a few colonists, who arrived at Naumkeag in Sep
tember, 1628.

Endicott's people and those already at Naumkeag, numbered alto-
Endicotfs gether on his arrival, fifty or sixty only. A year later,
arrival. w hen the Rev. Francis Higginson joined them with two
hundred more, he found there one hundred. How in the mean time
had the number doubled ? History prides itself on exactness, and
undertakes to say precisely when and how events occurred, how many
men were at a given time in a given place, and what they did. But
much is, and must be taken upon conjecture and upon trust, in this
case, and the reality may, after all, have differed much from the
guesses transmitted from book to book, and from century to century.
How many men may have scattered themselves along the shores of

Massachusetts Bay indeed all along
the whole coast of New England from
1620 to 1630, is altogether uncertain.
There were isolated " squatters," no
doubt, in various places temporary
settlements soon forgotten and soon
abandoned, or absorbed in permanent
colonies afterward established with set
tled forms of government. Some vaga
bonds came then, as so many have come
since, to the New World, to mingle with
and add to the more staid and sober

Spinning Wheel.

population. Ihere was more than one

place along the shores of the Bay, whence men may have gone to
Endicott's colony and submitted to law and the restraints of civil
society, for the sake of its advantages ; men who gladly surrendered
the attractions and the freedom of a half savage life, to be again
among houses where women in civilized garments were busy about

1 The patentees were Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcote, John
Humphrey, John Eudicott, and Simon Whitcomb.

1628.] MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT. 423

their household duties, where the pleasant whir of the spinning-wheel
filled the air, where busy farmers sowed or reaped, where horses were
driven a-field, and kine gathered into barn-yards. The sights and
sounds of rural and domestic life, appealing to so many memories of
early homes across the sea, in green and merry England, which they
would never see again, must needs have been an irresistible attraction
to many of these solitary adventurers, weary, at last, of the silence of
the wilderness and the companionship of savages. Little neighbor
hoods that had been drawn together for mutual support and defence,
would often melt away into large companies which came with the ad
vantages of numbers and of wealth. For of these smaller plantations,
it was said, " they were like the habitations of the foolish, as it is in
Job, cursed before they had taken root."

Nantasket was a place of refuge for Conant, Lyford, and Oldham.
The rough house which Standish put up there before Plym- Scattered
outh was a year old, was open to all comers, like the aionHhe* 8
" Humane Houses " of the present day scattered along the coast-
coast, places of entertainment for shipwrecked men and perhaps had
often sheltered some outcasts whom the rigid righteousness of the
Puritans would not tolerate. Thompson's Island, in Boston Harbor,
so called to this day, was granted early to David Thompson, whom
we know of as living at one time at Piscataway ; and there are trust
worthy intimations that he and others were living on the island at
one time and another. When Gorges's colony was broken up at
Wessagusset, some few remained behind, and either they or others
were still on that river some years later. William Blaxton lived
where Boston now stands. Maverick was on Noddle's Island in Bos
ton Harbor. At Mount Wollaston, a colony was planted in 1625,
which may have become so attractive to all indolent and shiftless
vagrants, as to be a nursery of vagabonds, and an asylum to discon
tented fishermen and sailors who ran away from their ships.

Mount Wollaston still bearing the same name is in the present
town of Quincy, about five miles south of Boston, and was Mount Wol .
so named from one Captain Wollaston, who came out from ^o^as and
England in 1625, with thirty others, the larger part of Morton -
whom were persons bound to service. These were not profitable emi
grants to take to New England, and Captain Wollaston soon carried
some of his servants to a better market in Virginia. Having sold the
first importation, he wrote to his partner to come on with more, and
to leave a Mr. Fitchter in charge of the colony at Mount Wollaston till
further orders. Among the colonists was one Thomas Morton, by
profession a lawyer, but by choice a roving and reckless adventurer,
impatient of any steady labor and of all serious duties, given to

424 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

drinking, fond of public sports, deriding always the sobriety of the
Puritans and the severity of their lives just the jolly vagabond to
lead other vagabonds into any mischief. " In the month of June,
Anno Salutis, 1622," he says, " it was my good chance to arrive in
the parts of New England." He must, in that case, have been at
Plymouth, where he could have found no more congenial companions
for he, too, professed to be a good church-man than among those
whose scrupulous consciences forbade them to chop wood on Christmas
day, but permitted them to play at bowls ; and he may have gone to
Wessagusset that year with Weston's people, for no brain of that
company would have been more likely to conceive that remarkable
" Embrion " his own narrative is the sole authority for its birth
which suggested the vicarious hanging of an old, sickly, and useless
member of the community, in place of a young and lusty culprit.

At any rate, this troublesome adventurer was at Mount Wollaston ;
Mare Mount he named it, which the Puritans, ignorantly or iron
ically, changed to Merry Mount, and Endicott altered again to Mount
Dagon. And here, when Fitchter was left in command, he made a
characteristic proposal, when his commander happened to be out of the
way. He told his companions that as some of their company had
already been taken to Virginia and sold for their terms of service, so
would the rest be when Wollaston was next heard from. But if they
chose, he said, to depose Fitchter and banish him from the colony, he
Morton and they would henceforth live together as copartners
and equals, and they be released from service altogether. He hardly
needed to have made the crew about him drunk as it is intimated
he did to secure the acceptance of this tempting proposal. Fitchter
was deposed and driven forth, and thenceforward not liberty only, but
license held high revel at Mount Wollaston.

Upon the top of the hill was set up, on May-day, a May-pole, eighty
The May- ^ ee ^ high, visible for miles around, "a faire sea-mark e for
lienf directions," says Morton, "how to finde out the way to mine
Mount. Hogt of Ma-re Mount." A pair of buck-horns adorned the
top ; a poem of Morton's own composing was nailed at a convenient
height to be read of all comers, few of whom could read and fewer
still could understand any more of its labored enigma than that Cith-
area pointed to land at last :

" With proclamation that the first of May,
At Ma-re Mount shall be kept hollyday."

A barrel of beer was broached upon the green, and bottles of stronger
drink provided for those who wanted it ; all the drums, guns, and pis
tols that the settlement possessed were called into use for the noise

1625.]

MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT.

425

indispensable to a public rejoicing ; roaring a song of Morton's in
praise of drink and " Indian lasses in beaver coats," the hilarious crew
danced about the May-pole, with Indian women for partners in the
absence of ladies with more clothes on.

The sober Puritans would have been shocked by such festivities,

even had they been free from the
immoralities of excessive drinking,
of the evil example and opportu
nity thus given to the Indians, and
of the debauching of their women.
But a stronger feeling than disgust
and disapprobation was aroused
when Morton's people, in their trade
for beaver skins, on which they
mainly depended for their subsist
ence, sold arms and ammunition
to the Indians, taught them their
use, and employed them as hunters.
The safety of every present and

Festivities at Merry Mount.

future colony was put in jeopardy if the savages were to have such
means of mischief. There could no longer be a silent submission to
these dangerous proceedings at Mount Wollaston. Morton was deaf
to remonstrance, and other remedies had to be resorted to by the com-

426 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV.

mon consent of those at Plymouth and others living at different places
about the bay and on the Piscataqua River. Captain Standisb
Captain Shrimp, Morton calls him in his " New Canaan," where he
gives ludicrous names to all who condemned his conduct was sure to
come to the front in such an emergency, and he, in command of a few
men, was accordingly sent to Mount Wollaston, by common consent,
to arrest the offender. Morton says they found him at Wessagusset,
where, it seems, there still remained a small colony. They took him,
he declares, by surprise ; but he warily permitted them to eat and
drink to satiety while he was carefully abstemious ; when they, over
come by their indulgence, slept, he, vigilant and wide-awake, escaped
by night to his own stronghold three miles distant.

*/ O

Thither Standish and his men followed him. Bradford in his " His-
Expedition tory," savs nothing of Wessagusset, but his and Morton's nar-
toarres d t ish Dative agree that at Mount Wollaston Morton closed his
Morton. doors and prepared to receive the assailants. Means for de
fence were ample. There were four men in a sort of log fortress with
loop-holes ; on a table they laid out three pounds of well-dried pow
der, four guns, and three hundred bullets, and then they fortified
themselves with " good aqua solis." The enemy were only nine strong,
and the approach to the building was without cover. Standish and
his men advanced steadily and in good order, " coming within danger,"
says Morton, " like a flocke of wild geese, as if they had bin tayled
one to another as colts to be sold at a faire," and much blood would
have flowed " if mine Host (Morton) should have played upon them
out at his ports holes." But he chose not to play upon them. The
" sonne of a souldier " contented himself with boasting that had he
only had more men he " would have given Captaine Shrimpe (a quon
dam Drummer) such a wellcome, as would have made him wish for a
Drume as bigg as Diogenes' tubb that he might have crept into it out
of sight." He nevertheless surrendered without firing a shot. The
only blood shed was from the nose of one of the defenders, who, from
too much u aqua solis," stumbled against the sword of one of Stan-
dish's men. The son of a soldier seems to have been a coward as well
as a braggart.

After this almost bloodless victory, Morton was taken to Plymouth
Morton sent an( i sen t thence to England in the custody of John Oldham,
England. wno ^ repenting of his former misdeeds, had been taken again
into favor. For the time Morton escaped further punishment, and
was permitted to return again to New England to plague the Puritans
for years to come. He afterward fell into the hands, however, of
Endicott whom he nicknamed Captain Littleworth who not only
sent him a second time to England, but, before he went, set him in

1630.] CHARTER OF 1630. 427

the stocks, and confiscated his goods at Mount Wollaston. He had
previously burnt his house, and cut down the Maypole. 1

Meanwhile, during all these later years of the first decade of the
Plymouth Colony, " it pleased the Lord to give the plantation peace
and health and contented minds." The Dutch of New Netherland
sent pompous letters addressed " to the noble, worshipful, wise, and
prudent Lords, the Governor and Councillors residing in New Plym
outh " "over high titles," said Bradford in his reply, "more than
belongs to us, or is meete for us to receive ; " and an ambassador was
sent the secretary Rasierres " with a noyse of trumpeters and some
other attendants." But good fellowship was thereby estab
lished between the two colonies, and this was followed by trade and
profitable trade, especially in wampum. This native cur
rency the Indians of the East soon learned to value, though, as its
manufacture by the tribes of Long Island from the shells of the qua-
harig and the periwinkle was practically unlimited, it soon produced
such an inflation of values that, from being rated at first by the penny
worth, it came at last to be sold by the fathom, and then to be pro
hibited altogether by colonial law.

But as the Pilgrims increased their trade, and grew in prosperity,
they enlarged their borders. In 1628 they procured from the Plym
outh Company a patent for lands on the Kennebec, and a settlement
near the present town of Augusta, Maine, became a val- charte rof
uable dependency. In 1630 a new patent was granted to 1630-
William Bradford and his associates, which, for the first time, defined
the limits of the New Plymouth Colony, making its eastern boun
dary the ocean, from Cohasset River to Narragansett River ; its
western, a line drawn from the mouths of these rivers and meeting
at the extreme western border of the Indian country, known as the
Pokanoket country, which was the southeastern portion of the State
of Massachusetts. And this patent also approved the grant on the
Kennebec, defining it to be fifteen miles on each bank of that river.

The colony, however, never procured the royal signature to this char
ter from the Plymouth Company. Their powers of government were
derived from the compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower, the
day after her arrival in Cape Cod Harbor, and from the discipline of
the church. In the censure of the brethren, and the authority drawn
from the general assembly of the people, the law found sufficient and

i Morton was accused of cruelty to the Indians and other crimes, and was arrested by
Endicott on a writ from England. He continued his active hostility to the Puritans till his
death in 1645 or 1646, having meanwhile been punished with a year's imprisonment in Bos
ton for his libellous book, The New English Canaan, in which he had attacked, with a good
deal of scurrilous humor, all the principal men of the colonies.

428

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

[CHAP. XV.

unquestioned authority. 1 The exigencies of their own condition, the
maintenance of social order and of mutual rights, the suggestions
of common sense, and the dictates of their own consciences, made the

body of the law. Not till the first serious crime was com-
of X john n mitted among them the murder of a fellow-colonist by one

John Billington was it thought necessary to seek for coun
sel, for precedent and sanction in English law. The advice of Gov
ernor Winthrop and other leading men of Massachusetts Bay was
asked, as to what should be done under such novel and distressing cir
cumstances, and the conclusion of the united council was that the
man should die, and the land be purged of blood.

1 See Historical Memoir of the County of New Plymouth, pp. 227, 228, by Francis Bay
lies.

Fragment of the Rock at Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.

Amsterdam.

CHAPTER XVI.

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION.

THE ORDER OF PATROONS ESTABLISHED IN NEW NETHERLAND. DIVISION AND
MONOPOLY OF LANDS. THE COMPANY OVERREACHED BY THE PATROONS. MAS
SACRE OF THE COLONISTS OF SWAANENDAEL. WOUTKR VAN TWILLER APPOINTED
GOVERNOR. WEAKNESS AND ABSURDITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. SUPER
SEDED BY WILLIAM KIEFT. POPULAR MEASURES OF THE COUNCIL AT AMSTER
DAM. PURCHASE OF LANDS FROM PATROONS. INCREASE OF IMMIGRATION.
PROMISE OF PROSPERITY TO THE COLONY. PORTENTS OF COMING CALAMITIES.
A COUNCIL OF TWELVE APPOINTED.

WITH the short-sighted selfishness that belongs to every great mo
nopoly, the West India Company attempted to assure the growth and
prosperity of their colony by means the least likely to secure
that end. In the Netherlands the feudal system had grad- west India

11 i i -i^ -L-I 1 Company.

ually given way, as everywhere else in Jiurope, with the in
creasing intelligence of the people. Titles of nobility still existed,
but they had come to be held in little esteem ; and wherever great
manorial privileges were still tolerated, it was rather as the right of
landlords than of chiefs. But this system a great Netherland com
mercial company now proposed to reestablish upon the virgin soil

430

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

Seal of New Netherland.

of a new continent, where that pretence of right, which centuries
of endurance were supposed to give it in the Old World, had no
existence.

The plan of the directors at Amsterdam was to establish seigniories
in the hands of a few great proprietors, whose
wealth and ambition would make them lords
of people as well as of lands. To the Com
pany, would be saved by this course, they
argued, all the enormous cost and care of
emigration, the necessity of supporting a
small army of officers, and much of the ex
pense of carrying on a government. The
colony would increase in wealth and num
bers through the labors of the great proprie
tors, while the chief function of the Company would be to absorb
the growing trade and commerce, and to wax fat in opulence and
power.

The " Charter of Privileges and Exemptions," issued by the West
India Company's College of Nineteen on June 7, 1629, provided
that any person, a member of this Company (for to this restriction the
College adhered even in their new measure), who should purchase of
the Indians and found in any part of New Netherland except Manhat
tan, a colony of fifty persons over fifteen years of age, should be in all
respects the feudal lord or patroon of the territory of which he should
thus take possession. Not only should he have a full and inheritable
title and proprietorship, but the power to establish officers and magis-
Proprietary trates in all towns and cities on his lands ; to hold manorial
privileges. CO urts, from which in higher cases the only appeal was to the
director-general of New Netherland ; to possess the " lower jurisdic
tions, fishing, fowling and grinding, to the exclusion of all others ; "
to make use of all " lands, rivers, and woods, lying contiguous to his
own ; " in short, to hold and govern his great manors with as absolute
rule as any baron of the Middle Ages, with the added advantage of
distance from all other constituted authority except that of the corpo
ration of which he was himself a member. The lands which such
proprietors could take under these conditions might have a frontage
of sixteen miles on one bank, or eight miles on each bank, of any
navigable river ; with the privilege of extending the estates " so far
into the country as the situation of the occupiers would permit."
The patroons could trade along the American coast within the Com
pany's nominal jurisdiction, if they brought the goods obtained to
the headquarters at Manhattan and paid a tariff of five per cent.;
they could engage in the fur trade where the Company itself had

1629.]

A MONOPOLY WITHIN A MONOPOLY.

431

no factories, on much the same conditions ; and avail themselves
of the sea-fisheries on paying three guilders a ton for what they
caught. Their power over their people was almost unlimited ; for
no " man or woman, son or daughter, man-servant or maid-

, 5? i -i i , -. Condition of

servant could leave a patroon s service during the time laborers and

they had agreed to remain, except by his written consent; der the cimr-

and this rule held in spite of any and all abuses or

breaches of contract on the patroon's part. The Company prom

ised to protect and defend the proprietors in the exercise of all

these privileges, requiring in return only that each should make an

annual report of the condition of his colony. The only privilege

that attached to tenants under the patroon's was their exemption

for ten years from all taxation ; though a certain temporary aid was

granted to them by the Company's promise to furnish for their

assistance " as many

blacks (slaves) as they

conveniently could."

The patroons could

bring over their goods

on the payment of five

per cent, to the Com

pany ; cattle and agri-

cultural implements

came without cost;

but they must pay the

passage of " their peo

ple." Certain minor

rules with regard to

the continued impor-

tation of provisions in

the Company's ships were also inserted in the charter, but they were

in every way favorable to the great proprietors.

This creation of a monopoly within a monopoly, had some im
mediate results that might have been foreseen. The same principle
which the Company was carrying out against the rest of

,-,..,1,1 , . Results of

the world, its richer and shrewder members enforced against tnemonop-
their less fortunate fellow-shareholders. Before the charter
was published some of the directors in the Amsterdam Council had
their preparations fully made to seize upon the benefits they knew
to be in prospect. No sooner were the " privileges and exemp
tions " actually made law, than Samuel Godyn, a director, Thefirst
informed his colleagues that he and his fellow -director, P atroons -
Samuel Blommaert, had already perfected their arrangements to oc-

Dutch costume*

432 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

cupy " the Bay of the South River," and had secured their title and
privileges as patroons by purchase of that region, and by due notice
to Minuit, at Manhattan. So prompt had been their action that the
purchase had been made two days before even the first passage of
the charter ; but of course it was decided to come within its rules,
and the first patroon's patent was duly delivered during the next
year. 1

Other Amsterdam directors had also availed themselves of their
position to forestall the ordinary stockholders, and were but little
behind Godyn and Blommaert. In the spring of 1630, Kiliaen van
Rensselaer, a wealthy dealer and worker in precious stones, bought
from the Indians, through Krol, the Company's commissary at Fort
Orange, an immense tract of land on the west side of the North
River. It extended from Barren (originally Beeren, or Bear's) Island,
about twelve miles below Albany, to Smack's Island, and two days'
journey inland ; and to this he added later in the year, and after be
ginning its colonization, another territory to the northward, carrying

his boundaries nearly to the confluence of the Mohawk. On
quired by the east side of the river he bought, in August, a third tract

with a river front extending from Castle Island to Fort
Orange, and from " Poetanock, the Mill Creek, northwards to Nega-
gonce." Michael Pauw, another director, had meanwhile acquired
the territory opposite Manhattan Island, on the west bank, which
still bears, in the name Hoboken, a part of its old title " Hobokan-
Hacking;" he soon after secured the whole of Staten (then Staa-
ten) Island ; and later still the region where Jersey City now stands,
and all its neighborhood. While Van Rensselaer called his estate
simply Rensselaerswyck (or Manor), Pauw bestowed upon his the
more sonorous latinized title of " Pavonia." Fort Orange, reserved
for the Company in the north, stood isolated in the midst of Van
Rensselaer's vast domain, while the post at Manhattan lay oppo
site the long river-front of Pauw's possessions. The land of both
patroons far exceeded the terms of even the liberal charter, absorb
ing some of the Company's most profitable trading-regions. Van
Rensselaer's purchases were ratified at Fort Amsterdam on the very
day on which the charter was first officially proclaimed there ; and
Pauw's final purchase but three months after.

When the action of these enterprising capitalists was revealed to

1 July 15, 1630. "It was the first European title, by purchase from the aborigines,
within the limits of the present State of Delaware ; and it bears date two years before the
charter of Maryland, granted to Lord Baltimore by Charles I." Brodhead, vol. i., p. 200.
Mr. Brodhead found the original patent at Amsterdam, in 1841. It has the names of both
proprietors, but the English version among old Delaware documents, has only Godyn's.
Compare O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 122, note ; and Moulton.

1630.] THE PATROONS. 433

their fellow-members in the Netherlands, they were indignantly de
nounced as having used " the cunning tricks of merchants." So strong
was the feeling against Van Rensselaer and the rest, that they were
required by the College of Nineteen to take several partners into the
different proprietorships. But they easily evaded the purpose of that
order, for Van Rensselaer took Godyn and Blommaert into his part
nership, with John de Laet, Bissels, and Moussart, other Amsterdam
directors, and kept for himself two of the fifths into which he divided
the estate. Godyn and Blommaert, in turn took Van Rensselaer and
de Laet into association with them, with Captain de Vries, and several
others, also directors. By this convenient arrangement the new part
ners gained little, and the first holders merely exchanged one property
for another.

The occupation of the new estates was nearly as speedy as their
purchase. Van Rensselaer had begun the colonization of his lands
almost as soon as he had acquired the first great tract, sending out
settlers, cattle, and farming tools in his ship the Eendragt
(Unity), to a point near Fort Orange. Godyn and Blom- of their es- n
maert, with their new partners, hastened to follow his ex
ample with their lands at the South River ; and Pieter Heyes, acting
in the service of Captain de Vries, took out in the Walvis (Whale),
some thirty emigrants to the bay now called Delaware, and early in
1631 founded the colony of Swaanendael, the Valley of Swans, on
the shore of the Horekill, a stream near the present town of Lewis-
ton, Delaware. At the same time Heyes crossed over to Cape May,
and bought from the Indians for his employers, another great tract of
land, stretching twelve miles northward along the coast, and twelve
miles inland. Then running up to Manhattan, without stopping to
try the profitable whale-fishery which was said to exist near the South
River, and had formed one great hope of profit with Godyn, he applied
to Minuit to register his purchases.

In spite of the jealousy which the " cunning tricks " of these ear
liest patroons had excited among the members of the West India
Company at home, it is probable that the animosity would have died
away, and no open quarrel have arisen, had the new proprietors kept
quietly to the management of colonies which soon grew to be pros
perous. But they were not content to confine themselves to agricul
ture. The lands of which they had taken possession covered some
of the most profitable trading ground that had sent its wealth of
costly furs to the Company's Manhattan warehouses. All along the
river the Indians had brought their peltries to the shore, to meet
the little fleet of trading -yachts which now sailed up and down
through the region that Hudson had opened ; and the exports to

434

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

no'jfoiize The
fur trade.

Holland, which in 1626 had been valued at forty-six thousand guild-
Thepatroons ers > na( ^ rapidly increased, within the few years following,
more than three times that amount. It was hardly to
ex p ec ted that the enormous power now put into the
hands of the patroons should not be used to acquire a part of this
profitable traffic. With so loose a regulation as that imposed upon
them by the clause in the " Privileges," which permitted them to
trade "where the Company had no factories," it was easy for them
to take an ell instead of the inch it had been meant to grant ; to
regard only the immediate
vicinity of Fort Orange and
Manhattan as covered

Trading for Furs.

those posts, and to quietly absorb the traffic of the great intermediate
region.

This infringement upon the rights of the Company, however, proved
a little more than the directors in the Netherlands would bear, and
the first attempts at it provoked a storm. The Company's monopoly
was attacked at its strongest point, and its authorities rose
in a protest so energetic that it might have put an end to

Energetic
protest of
the West

India com- the patroons' power altogether, had this not already been
suffered to grow so formidable. The directors drew up an
order forbidding all private persons, patroons or otherwise, from deal
ing in peltries, maize, or wampum, and sent out officers to see to its
enforcement. The angry complaints of the proprietors were overruled,
but the great corporation saw too late the folly of which it had been
guilty. Violent disputes occurred before it gained even a partial sue-

1631.] END OF THE COLONY AT SWAANENDAEL. 435

cess, and the difficulties thus begun not only seriously hindered its own
plans, but for several years stood in the way of the whole progress
of New Netherland, its colonization, agriculture, and every condition
of its growth.

Toward the end of the summer of 1631, the ship Eendragt arrived
at Fort Amsterdam, bringing letters ordering the recall of p et erMinuit
Minuit, who was held to have been far too complaisant in he a co^- by
confirming the purchases and privileges of the patroons. An pany - 163L
officer of the Company, one Conrad Notelman, brought out the order,
at the same time that he was instructed to supersede Minuit's Schout,
Lampo, in his office ; and in the spring of 1632 the discomfited di
rector-general resigned his authority to the council, with the secretary,
Van Remund, at its head, and sailed for home in the vessel that had
brought the order of his recall. His voyage was an eventful one, for
bad weather compelling the Eendragt to seek refuge in the English
harbor of Plymouth, she was seized there on the ground that she
had traded within the limits of the English possessions, and thus a
new discussion arose as to the Dutch right to their territory in New
Netherland. Like the former disputes, it ended in nothing definite.
Both England and the Netherlands renewed their declarations of own
ership more positively than before, but after a long correspondence
with the Dutch ambassadors the English government let the Eendragt
pursue her voyage in peace.

While the colonies on the Hudson were suffering from these dis
putes and intrigues, a much more terrible calamity suddenly Endof the
ended the existence of the settlement at Swaanendael. It s v 'anen-
arose from one of those arbitrary acts common enough in the dael -
intercourse of civilized with savage peoples, acts which the Dutch,
however, had hitherto been wise enough to avoid. Heyes, when he
had founded the Swaanendael colony for De Vries, had set up a pillar
bearing the arms of Holland, in token of possession ; but an Indian
chief, attracted by the glitter of the tin plate on which the arms were
engraved, and not in the least understanding the importance which
the whites attached to the symbol of sovereignty, had taken off the
metal and made it into shining tobacco pipes, which he carried away
in great delight. Gillis Hossett, the Dutch officer left in charge of
the new post, was indignant at this irreverent treatment of the Hol
land escutcheon, and expressed himself so angrily that the comrades
of the erring chief, thinking to conciliate the Dutch, put their fel
low to death, and came triumphantly to report the fact to the white
commander. He explained too late that he only desired to repri
mand the culprit. The Indians were enraged to find that their costly
sacrifice had been a useless one, and soon after a band of them ap-

436

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

its his es
tates in
America .

preached the settlement under the guise of friendship, fell upon and
murdered every person at the post, destroyed the fort, and left only
the ruins of the burned houses of the whites to mark the site of
Heyes's colony.

De Vries was about to leave Amsterdam to assume the place of
De Vries vis- patroon at the new settlement, when Minuit brought to
Europe the news of this massacre. He did not abandon his
voyage, but on arriving at the place where his countrymen
were murdered he thought it wiser to make a treaty of peace with the
Indians than to attempt to avenge the murder. Going on up the

South River to the long-deserted
site of Fort Nassau, he spent some
time in its neighborhood, making
still another treaty there. After
wards he dropped down the coast,
and visited the English settlement
at Jamestown in Virginia, by
whose governor, Sir John Harvey,
he was received most hospitably ;

Indian taking down the Arms of Holland

and the neighborhood of the two colonies was amicably discussed with
out any serious dispute as to the rival rights of Dutch and English.

It was now the spring of 1633 ; and while De Vries was cruising
to the southward, the Company's ship Soutberg was on its way from
woutervan Amsterdam, bringing out a fourth director - general for
fourthgoT- New Netherland. For a year after Minuit's departure, at
nor. 1633. a i me wnen it most needed the guidance of a strong and
steady hand, the colony had been left without a ruler ; and the new
officer who now arrived was anything but fitted for his post. Bred in
the service of the Company at Amsterdam, Wouter Van T wilier
was little more than a clerk at the time of his appointment, with

1633.]

VAN TWILLER AND THE ENGLISH CAPTAIN.

437

only the narrow experience of the Company's routine business at home,
and apparently without a single quality to fit him for great responsi
bilities. But he had married a niece of Van Rensselaer, the chief of
the patroons, and the very influence there was most cause to dread,
seems to have thrust him into the place which a strong man might
have made respectable, but which he could only belittle.

He had barely arrived at Fort Amsterdam, in April, when he was
overwhelmed by difficulties which soon showed the weakness An English
of his administration. On the 18th of the month an English harbor of e
vessel, the William, entered the harbor, whose supercargo dam.
was Jacob Eelkens, the Company's former commandant at Fort
Orange. He had entered the
English service when dismissed
from that of his own countrymen,
and, either through pure malice
or from hope of gain, now guided
his new masters into the richest
possessions of the old. The Wil
liam anchored for a few days in
the bay, and Van Twiller, with
De Vries, who had arrived from
Virginia a short time before, dined
with the English captain. But the
mask of frienship was soon thrown
off, and Eelkens boldly declared
his intention to go up the river,
the Englishman proposing to trade
with the Indians on his own account and to see for himself the land
that "belonged to the English," having been discovered by " Hudson,
who was an Englishman." 1

Van Twiller caused the flag of Orange to be raised over the fort
and saluted with three guns, the doughtiest defiance of the stranger's
purpose which seemed to occur to him ; Eelkens and his captain as
promptly ran up the English flag on board the William with a like
ceremony. The director strode furiously up and down his Bold
ramparts ; but when the Englishman actually weighed his ^^\
anchor, and sailed away up the stream without the fear of the ""P** 111 -
Company or the Prince of Orange before his eyes, Van Twiller was
beside himself at such audacity. He " collected all his people in
the fort before his door," and ordering a barrel of wine to be brought
and opened, stoutly drank bumper after bumper and cried, " Those
who love the Prince of Orange and me, emulate me in this, and assist

1 Voyages of De Vries, N, Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 255.

De Vries.

con .
the

438

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

me in repelling the violence committed by that Englishman ! " Then
he retired to his quarters, and the William quietly sailed out of sight
and proceeded to Fort Orange without hindrance. " This commander
Van Twiller."says the downright DeVries, who was greatly disgusted
at such cowardly conduct " this commander Van Twiller, who came
to his office from a clerkship an amusing case ! " Later in the day
De Vries dined with the director, and gave him his opinion very freely.
" I spoke then as if it had been my own case, and told him that I
would have made him go from the fort by the persuasion of some
iron beans sent him by our guns, and would not have allowed him to
go up the river. I told him that we did not put up with those things
in the East Indies. There we taught them how to behave." 1

After several days
of hesitation two or
three small craft, with a
force of soldiers from the
fort, were sent to Fort
Orange in pursuit of Eel-

Van Twiller's Defiance. keilS. They SUCCeeded in

compelling him to return,

and the William was then ordered to leave the harbor; but this tardy
triumph came much too late to help the governor's reputation. What
little was left he lost in a quarrel with De Vries a short time after,
Avhen the patroon sent his yacht The Squirrel through Hellgate, in
spite of Van Twiller's prohibition. The latter threatened in this case
to take more energetic measures than before, for he pointed
the guns in an angle of the fort at De Vries' vessel, and de
clared that he would fire. But as he stood with some of his
council on the rampart deliberating when he should have been acting,

1 De Vries' Voyages.

Quarrel
with De
Vries

1633.]

VAN TWILLER AND DE VRIES.

439

De Vries himself scornfully approached the group, and rated them in his
usual plain-spoken fashion : " It seems that the country is full of fools,"
he said. " If they must needs fire at something why did 'they not," he
asked, " fire at the Englishman who violated the rights of the river ? "
This taunt, it is recorded, " made them desist from firing ; " and they
contented themselves, as the patroon's vessel sailed away on her trad
ing voyage along the eastern and northeastern coast, with sending a

yacht to watch her movements. On
her return soon after, De Vries again
and as coolly disobeyed the govern
or's orders by going on board before
she had been searched. Secretary
Van Remund and Notelman, the

De Vries in East River.

schout or sheriff, were sent to the vessel to demand that her furs should
be entered at the fort ; but Notelman, who was "somewhat of a louser"
devoted his visit to a continual clamo for wine, caring little for the
business in hand, and only protesting that " he was dry, and would go
to the cabin ; " as for the secretary, the patroon openly defied him.
Both officials were finally sent ashore with the assurance from De
Vries that he was " astonished that the West India Company should
send such fools to the colonies, who knew nothing but how to drink
themselves drunk."

Such was the character of "Van Twiller's government at home.
Abroad, where events were independent of his personal interference,
results were not always ridiculous though generally weak. By the di-

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

rection of the Company, Arendt Corssen, a commissary, bought from
the Indians, during the summer of 1633, a tract of land on the
Schuylkill, within the limits of the present State of Penn-
landsonthe sylvania. Here he established a trading post, as some
compensation for the abandonment of the posts on and near
the South River. But by far the most important measure of the
year was the first formal attempt made by New Netherland to extend
its possessions to the eastward. In the valley of the Fresh or Con
necticut River were now living a great number of the former neigh
bors of the Dutch, the Mohicans, who a few years back had occupied
the region opposite Fort Orange. Conquered by the Mohawks, and
driven away from their old home in 1628, they had settled in the
pleasant country to the east, where they were again defeated by the
Pequods, and reduced to the condition of a tributary tribe. Though
beaten, they were restless under the yoke, and at different times had
The Dutch sought the aid of the whites to restore their old power ;
CoJ^cticut but neither the Dutch to the westward, nor the English on
River. Massachusetts Bay, would interfere in their dispute. At this
early day little attention had been paid to their country as desirable for
colonization ; but the Dutch had pushed into it in search of peltries, and
had found the valley rich trading ground. The traders had already
bought lands on both sides of the river ; and the arms of the States
General had been affixed to a tree on Kievit's Hoeck (Say brook
Point), at the mouth of the stream, in 1632.

Commissary Van Curler was sent to the Connecticut with direc
tions to make a further purchase and establishment on account of the
Company. Sailing up the stream to the mouth of Little River (the
site of Hartford), he bought tracts there on both sides of the broad
channel, and set about founding a post to be called Het Huys de
Hoop " the House of Hope," or Fort Good Hope. It was finished,
in spite of the protests of the nearest English colony that it was in
violation of their rights. The Plymouth people came to build a
trading-house a mile and a half above, and found this rival post,
which was to be the cause of long and tedious disputes, in full posses
sion of the Dutch. The fields about it were under tillage ; but there
was little or no attempt to settle the larger tracts Van Curler had
purchased. The questions which the occupation of this outpost raised,
gave to Van T wilier ample opportunity for protests and diplomatic
correspondence ; but as there was no more forcible assertion of the
assumed rights of the Dutch, there was little to retard the inevitable
fate of " The House of Hope."

Indeed, the frontiers of New Netherland seemed beset, at this mo
ment, with difficulties brought about by the English. Within two

1633.] THE SETTLEMENT AT MANHATTAN. 441

years of this settlement at Hartford, the Netherland territory seemed
likely to suffer indirectly from the dispute between the English of
Maryland and Virginia. Harvey had just been deposed in Virginia;
and the friends of Maryland's old enemy, Clayborne, finding them
selves in power, which they had little hope of retaining long, conceived
the idea of establishing a post on the Delaware to make up for their
loss of trading privileges through the Maryland charter. They knew,
through De Vries' visit to Harvey, of the Dutch Fort Nassau ; and
acting Governor West sent out a party of men under a Virginian,
George Holmes, to take possession of the now abandoned post. For
once, however, Van Twiller, to whom an English deserter carried news
of the attempt, was induced to act promptly. A force was sent to the
Delaware, and the English invaders were captured, brought to Man
hattan., and finally returned to Virginia by De Vries' vessel.

It is probable that some of the difficulties with the English might
have been avoided, or at least their recurrence prevented,

The disputes

had an excellent suggestion made by the Company to the referred to
States General been heeded. The William, the English Govem-
vessel under Eelkens's charge, had made complaint and de
mand for damages, on its return to England, the object of its voyage
having been defeated by the action of the Dutch. The application
was denied, the Company claiming that damages should rather be paid
to them for Eelkens's serious interference with their Indian trade.
The controversy, however, necessarily raised the question of the Dutch
title to New Netherland, and it was proposed by the Company to submit
the whole question to the arbitration of Bos well, the English ambas
sador at The Hague, and Joachimi, one of the Dutch ambassadors in
England, who should establish a boundary line between the English
and Dutch possessions in America. Had this suggestion been acted
upon, New Netherland would have had a different history ; but like
former questions with England, this was suffered to slip out of sight,
and in a few months the matter had been practically dismissed by
both governments.

While all these things were passing, the settlement at Manhattan,
though twenty years had passed since it was begun, was still little
else than a mere trading-post. It very slowly acquired any of the
features of a colonial village, in which industries were springing up,
new settlers constantly acquiring fresh interests, the customs and life
of a little town growing into form. Its people were the Company's
people, with the occasional addition of small bodies of emigrants from
Holland ; and as yet it had hardly grown to have an interest of its
own. Its history thus far had been only the monotonous record of
the Company's trade, except for these difficulties with the English,

442

PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

Dutch Windmi

and the measures connected with them, which kept the little band of
officials in continual perplexity. The place had, however,
New W Am" prospered and increased in some degree. New houses had
been built of good quality, some of them of brick. The
governor had erected three wind-mills, and quarters had been ar
ranged for about one hundred soldiers
I which Van Twiller had brought over
p) \ with him. A church had taken the

place of the rough loft in which the few
early settlers had worshipped ; and here
Dominie Everardus Bogardus, who had
succeeded Jonas Michaelius (the first
minister sent out in 1628), preached on
Sundays the doctrines of the Reformed
religion. The trading vessels of the Com
pany passed and repassed the fort, or lay
at anchor in the upper bay ; the smith,
the cooper, brewer, and joiner, had estab
lished rough shops near the fort ; and on
the north side of this a farm or bouwerie

had been laid out for the Company's use, and was industriously cul
tivated. The " staple right," or right to impose duties on passing
vessels, had been granted to the settlement, and added to its impor
tance, and every ship entering the river was stopped before Fort Am
sterdam, and made to pay the impost, or land its cargo. Across the
river, opposite Manhattan, Patroon Pauw's commander or superin
tendent, Van Voorst, had built his house ; and the early colonists
of Pavonia had already begun
to gather about it, when the
Company succeeded in buying
back both that region and
Staten Island from their owner,
in the summer of 1637. Nearly
two years before, they had re
gained, by a similar purchase,
the territory of Swaanendael ;
but to compensate for this re
turn of property into the cor
poration's hands, Van Rensse-
laer had added still further to his already enormous estates, which
were prospering and growing valuable under his able manager, Ar-
endt Van Curler ; while numerous less important proprietors, among
them Van Twiller himself and other official persons, who did not fail

Governor's House and Church.

1637.]

VAN TWILLER'S UNPOPULARITY.

443

to take good cave of their own interests, had acquired lands about
Manhattan, and on the western end of Long Island.

Thus affairs stood at the end of the fourth year of Van Twiller's
administration. The incompetent governor had grown more unpopuiar-
and more imbecile in his conduct of home affairs, and he was l^-van^ 01
regarded only with contempt by the few sensible men about Twiller -
him. Irritable and consequential as he was weak, he was constantly
involved in petty quarrels with his associates. Dominie Bogardus, who
does not seem to have had all that forbearance and gentleness which
usually belong to clergymen, is known to have called him, on one
occasion, " a child of the devil," and to have declared that he would
give him " such a shake from the pulpit, on the next Sunday, as

The Obstinate Trumpeter.

would make him shudder." No doubt the governor deserved it, for
he often brought disgrace upon himself and his office by brawling over
his wine with the drunken superintendents or captains among whom
he found congenial companionship. With such a head, the discipline
among minor officers was naturally lax enough ; and the gravity of
the few records of the time is occasionally enlivened by narratives
which might almost seem exaggerations in the pages of Diedrich
Knickerbocker. Such was a quarrel between certain officers of the
fort and the fort's trumpeter, Corlaer, because the latter persisted in
trumpeting in the midst of a leisurely banquet which the others were
enjoying with their friends at a corner of the ramparts. The sturdy
musician had the best of it, in spite of the number against him, for
having given each of the company a " drubbing," he retired in good

444 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

order. Nor did their going for their swords, and venting their wrath
in vows to " eat" the trumpeter, have any disastrous result, 1 for, says
the faithful chronicler, when in the morning the wine was evaporated,
" their courage was somewhat lowered and they did not endeavor much
to find the trumpeter."

It is not to be wondered at that an administration conducted in
Kecaii of so slipshod and absurd a fashion should receive the sharp
van Twiiier. censure o f the few capable men about the governor ; and
it was through Van Twiller's treatment of one of these, Van Dinck-
lage, the schout who now occupied Notelman's place, that the
government was suddenly checked in the midst of its abuses. For
Van Dincklage, having ventured to express his contempt too openly,
was sent back to Holland with large arrears of salary unpaid, and in
a condition giving him a decided right to complain, which he did not
hesitate to do. To such purpose did he represent the governor's con
duct before the board of Amsterdam directors, that they determined at
once upon Van Twiller's recall, especially as the sellout's account was
almost immediately confirmed on the return of De Vries from one of
his frequent voyages. In the summer of 1637, the indignant Van
Twiller received notice of his removal. If his official career, however,
had brought him nothing else, it had brought him wealth. He was
now one of the richest among the private citizens of the colony, own
ing, with other large tracts of land, several islands in the East River,
one of which was Nutten now Governor's Island, at its mouth.

William Kieft of Amsterdam, the fifth director-general or governor
wiiiiam ^ New Netherland, was almost as singular a selection on the
th t goTer- P ar t f the directors as his predecessor. His record, in so
far as it has been preserved, did not show a mere routine ex
perience, like that of Van Twiller, but it had worse elements in an
other way. He had been an unsuccessful merchant, his business career
ending in bankruptcy, for which in accordance with the custom of the
time and place, his portrait was nailed to the gibbet. A still worse
crime was laid to his charge ; for he was accused of having left in cap
tivity in Turkey some unhappy prisoners he was sent to ransom, while
he embezzled the money their friends had provided for their release. 2
But he had been strongly recommended to the Company's College of
Nineteen, and his appointment was secured by friends at Amsterdam.
On the 28th of March, 1638, he reached his post at Manhattan ; and
while Van Twiller retired to enjoy the comfortable prosperity which
he had secured by the thrifty use of his official opportunities, 3 his suc-

1 De Vries, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 259.

2 De Vries ; and authorities in Brodhead, vol. i., p. 274.

8 There is a partial inventory of the large property Van Twiller accumulated in the
Albany Kecords, vol. i., pp. 89, 91, 101. O'Callaghan, vol. i , p. 183.

1638.] ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM KIEFT. 445

cessor entered upon his duties with a vigor that at least promised well.
Kieft's tendencies were decidedly despotic ; he organized a council
with a single member, besides himself, who had but one vote to the
governor's two. Furthermore, he immediately issued various decrees
which restricted all the powers of the post to a few officers who were
little more than his tools ; but in spite of this his early measures were
generally wise and beneficial.

It was indeed a wretched condition of affairs that greeted him on
his arrival ; and his first act was to have a formal affidavit Condition of
made by certain officers and men as to the state of the on e KefJ
Company's property at Manhattan ; and to embody this in arriTal -
a report to Holland. Van Twiller's zeal for improvements and build
ing had completely died away during the last part of his rule ; and
all the repairs and new houses upon which he at first lavished the
Company's money, had been suffered to fall into decay. The walls of
the fort had fallen on all sides ; the guns were without carriages ;
the houses, the mills, the work-shops, both within and without the
fort, were in a dilapidated condition ; none of the vessels, except the
yacht Prince William, was fit to be put under sail ; it was difficult
even to find the site where the magazine or public store once stood ;
the Company's farms were without tenants, and the land turned into
common. 1 It was not only matters of property that were in disorder ;
the moral condition of the post and its discipline in regard to trade
were equally out of joint. The crews that visited the port and the
traders who made it their headquarters were a rough and lawless set,
and small and poor as the Manhattan settlement was at this time, most
of the elaborate forms of smuggling, cheating, and adulteration of goods
appear from Kieft's documents to have flourished among its people.

He took these abuses in hand at once, and a series of arbitrary
but needed measures, port regulations, excise laws, and dis
ciplinary rules extending to the smallest details, marked the metres of
beginning of his administration. The attempts to enforce
them were not always successful, nor could they put a stop to the
constant petty thefts of the Company's goods by its minor officers,
or the abuse of their official opportunities by which they were fast
growing rich. In spite of Kieft's energy, the change of Manhattan
Island from a disorderly trading-post to anything like a peaceful and
prosperous colony, was only to be brought about by influences quite
outside of his control ; and it was most fortunate for all New Nether-
land that such influences were at last to make themselves felt, even
about the council-board of the selfish and short-sighted directors at
Amsterdam.

1 The deposition in full is in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 279.

446 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

The patroon difficulties had been partly settled or at least so the
New de- directors hoped by the Company's buying back Pavonia
m o a ^ r s f f r o r m and Swaanendael, thus opening new fields for their trade.

thepatroons. j^ u {. though the Company was rid of a few competitors by
this means, Van Rensselaer and his fellows, among whom were some
new proprietors, had been growing stronger and more prosperous
while the affairs of the corporation were mismanaged. Taking ad
vantage of their own strength and the Company's weakness, they
proposed a remedy of their own for the troubles and abuses which
the directors were striving to cure. This was that their already
enormous privileges should be largely increased, and their irrespon
sible jurisdiction be still more extended.

This extraordinary request was promptly refused ; but it was evi
dent that something must be done, if the Company would
wes't'india save itself from the horns of a very awkward dilemma.
It had not power enough to assume a high tone with the
patroons unless the States aided it ; and they on the other hand
would not aid it unless it showed itself capable of the better govern
ment of its colony. In this crisis the chamber at Amsterdam, with
the assent of the Council of Nineteen, adopted a measure which in
some degree redeemed its former folly, and solved the question, so
far as could be done by half measures. It resolved to do what should
have been done long before, and in a proclamation, in the fall of 1638,
it opened the New Netherland trade to virtually free competition.
People of the United Provinces, and their " allies and friends " of
whatever nation, might convey any cattle, merchandise, or goods to
New Netherland in the Company's ships, and receive " whatever re
turns they or their agents might be able to obtain in those quarters
therefor," subject to a duty of ten per cent, on imports and fifteen per
cent, on exports. " And whereas," said the proclamation further, " it
is the intention of the Company to people the lands there more and
more, and to bring them into a proper state of cultivation, the director
and council there shall be instructed to accommodate every one, accord
ing to his condition and means, with as much land as he, by him and
his family, can properly cultivate ; " such lands to become the abso
lute property of the possessor, on payment of a quitrent of one tenth
of the produce to the Company. Any colonist taking advantage of
this provision had only to promise to submit to the laws in force in
New Netherland ; and even further privileges, such as free passages,
and aid in bringing over stock for their prospective farms, were granted
by the Amsterdam directors to desirable emigrants.

This wise and timely act placed New Netherland where it had
never been before on an equality, so far, with the English colonies

1640.]

BETTER TIMES IN NEW NETHERLAND.

447

about it. The change the measure wrought in its condition was great
and immediate. Emigration from Holland began in the very i ncre ased
autumn after the issue of the proclamation, De Vries, who f^7io?- n
had bought land on Staten Island, being one of the first land-
to carry out colonists to the plantation. During the next summer
ship after ship brought emigrants, people of all conditions, from sub
stantial burghers to the laborers whom they had employed at home.
From an unprofitable trading-post New Netherland suddenly became,
in the eyes of Hollanders, a very land of promise. Those who emi
grated to it wrote to their friends at home of the prosperity which

Landing of Dutch Colony on Staten Island.

began to spring up about them ; rich men, like Melyn of Antwerp,
who came "to see the country," sent back for their families and ser
vants to join them. Nor was the immigration from the Netherlands
only ; men who had long been restless under the severity of Puritan
rule began to seek new homes among the tolerant Dutch ; " whole
settlements," says the record, removed to Dutch territory to avail
themselves of the new freedom offered there, and " to escape from the
insupportable government of New England." 1 Many came from Vir
ginia also, who had been bound to masters there, and had served out
their time.

1 The phrase of the Journael Van Nieuio Nederlaiit, 1647. See, also, O'Callaghan, vol. i.,
p. 208.

448 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI.

The main current of this sudden immigration set toward Man
hattan Island and the region about it, though the colonies
New Am- farther up the river and on Staten Island also benefited by
it. On Manhattan itself, where the " town of New Amster
dam " was now first becoming worthy of such a name, thirty well-
stocked bouweries [farms] had taken the place, in the summer of 1639,
of the few neglected ones noticed in Kieft's first report, and there
were applications for grants of land for a hundred more. Kieft had
bought from the Indians, in view of the growing demand, nearly all
the land that now forms Queen's County, and part of that in southern
Westchester, and this began to be peopled. A part of the shore of the
bay, north of the entrance to the Kill van Kull, was also purchased,
besides private tracts in different places. Prosperity seemed to follow
every enterprise of the new comers, and many of the old abuses van
ished with the coming of a better class of people. The Virginians
brought cherry and peach trees, which were soon abundant in the
island bouweries ; and they introduced from the south their better
method of tobacco- culture. Far up the river, close by Fort Orange,
the little village of Beverswyck, which had grown up on the lands
of Van Rensselaer and was the central point of his manor, shared
in the new immigration. The only one of the original patroon-
ships that had succeeded, its prosperity well maintained under the
capable Van Curler, attracted many, and the persistent efforts of its
owner sent still more. Its fertile farms and excellent houses gave
the appearance of more rapid growth than was visible at Manhattan,
but its feudal restrictions nevertheless were a serious drawback to
its progress, which was less real than that at the river's mouth. In
1640 the restless De Vries made a voyage up the Hudson,
DeVricsup of which he gives an elaborate account in his journal; and
though he appreciated all the material prosperity of Rensse-
laerswyck, his quick eye did not fail to note that the patroons had
" very much embellished " their property, at the cost of the Com
pany, "and that they had well known how to turn things to their
own advantage." Their policy, like the earlier policy of the Company
itself, was too selfish for the permanent success of, their colonies in
any large and popular sense.

In this same } r ear, 1640, the College of Nineteen passed an ordi
nance materially changing the charter of Privileges and Exemptions,
and limiting the lands of future patroons to a water front of one mile,
and a depth of two miles ; it left them their feudal privileges, but put
disputes between them under the jurisdiction of the governor of Man
hattan. Furthermore, it recognized any one, who should take five
settlers to the colony, as a " master," entitled to two hundred acres of

1640.] NEW DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS. 449

land, and such "masters or colonists" might form themselves into
towns or villages with municipal privileges ; it established a second
class of patroons, restricting them to one mile of water-front, and
whoever chose might trade at New Netherland in the Company's
ships, by the payment of certain imposts. It was a great improve
ment upon the old charter, curtailed the powers of the old patroons
and extended their privileges to the people at large.

This removal of the restrictions upon free emigration, upon the
possession of land, and upon the freedom of trade, increased Progress of
at once and largely the prosperity of the colony. The emi- the colon y-
grant naturally preferred to hold his lands directly from the Company,
rather than from a manorial proprietor and master, and the possi
bility of doing so was an inducement to remove to a new country.
He was a free man, not a serf. This fundamental change in the colo
nial policy made all the difference between a community possessing
the elements of success, and one so bound and crippled by its laws,
that to escape from, not to seek it, was an instinctive impulse.

A healthy and rapid progress might now be looked for, but there
were dangers and difficulties to be encountered from with
out. On the one hand were the encroachments of the Eng- til7and cu
lish upon territory claimed by the Dutch which had to be
met ; on the other the more serious and more alarming peril of Indian
hostilities.

CHAPTER XVII.

WAR WITH THE INDIANS. THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE.

CHANGE OF POLICY TOWARD THE INDIANS. KIEFT'S CRUEL AND STUPID OBSTI
NACY. MASSACRE OF INDIANS BY THE DUTCH AT PAVONIA. RETALIATIONS BY
THE NATIVES. MURDER OF THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY AT ANNIE'S HOECK. DIS
ASTROUS CONDITION OF THE COLONY. APPEAL OF THE PEOPLE OF NEW AMSTER
DAM TO THE STATES GENERAL. END OF THE WAR. KIEFT REMOVED FROM OF
FICE. TERRITORIAL ENCROACHMENTS OF RIVAL COLONIES. THE ENGLISH AT THE
EAST. A SWEDISH SETTLEMENT ON THE DELAWARE. FORT CHRISTINA. THE
SWEDISH GOVERNOR, JOHN PRINTZ.

THE wisdom and justice which the Dutch had hitherto shown in
their treatment of the savages gradually disappeared under Kieft's
administration. The agents of the Company, in their intercourse
with the Indians, had been governed by a uniform practice ; but when

Selling Arms to the Indians.

trade was made free and competition grew with its increase, fraud and
oppression followed among Indian traders, who had little regard
then as now for any rules but the rules of addition and multiplica
tion. This reckless love of gain sowed the seeds of future trouble in

1641.] INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 451

supplying to the savages those arms which could alone make them
very formidable enemies, by putting into their hands the means of
avenging the wrongs which they both suffered and imagined. In
spite of all laws and all the dictates of common prudence, guns and
ammunition were sold to the Indians at enormous prices by the selfish
traders along the 'Upper Hudson, and even at Manhattan whenever
the police could be evaded. The Mohawks bought enough to arm
four hundred men, not only rendering them formidable to the Dutch,
but arousing the enmity of other tribes along the river, who bitterly
complained of the superiority thus given to their enemies. Kieft,
though he tried to put a stop to this traffic, added fuel to the flame of
hatred now rapidly rising about the settlements, by a series of ill-
judged measures. An attempt in 1640, to exact tribute of corn, wam
pum, and furs from the Indians near Manhattan, raised the anger of
the savages to the highest pitch, and an attack made by his orders on
the Raritans, in revenge for an alleged theft on Staten Island an act
really committed by some white traders, was enough to bring about
#n open war.

For two years the evils that resulted from these acts hung over
New Netherland. When the Raritans, in the spring of 1641, Indian
attacked and destroyed the settlement De Vries had made hostlhties -
on Staten Island, Kieft in retaliation offered a bounty for every
head of a Raritan Indian that should be brought to him. Later in
the year a young Weckquasgeek, whose uncle had been murdered
by a white man, years before when Fort Amsterdam was building,
fell upon and killed, in mere desire of blood for blood, a quiet settler,
one Smits, who lived by the East River ; and when Kieft demanded
the murderer, his tribe refused to give him up. Popular opinion at
New Amsterdam, which had been from the first openly hostile to the
director's arbitrary treatment of the Indians, compelled him to delay
till the next spring any attempt to punish them ; and even then the
expedition which he sent against them lost its way in the forest, and
came back unsuccessful. The Weckquasgeeks were sufficiently alarmed
to make a treaty promising that the murderer should be surrendered ;
but it was never done. In the winter of 1642-43 another Indian, mad
dened by drink and by the hostility that had now been awakened
everywhere among his race, killed an innocent white man at a new
colony at Hackensack ; and again the tribe refused to give him up,
but sought to compromise by paying an indemnity of wampum.
About the same time the Indians of Connecticut were aroused against
English and Dutch alike. There was enmity on every hand. The
New Netherland people shared with their English neighbors the dread
of a general Indian war.

452 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII.

All the worst traits of Kieft's nature seem to have been called out
by these difficulties with the savages. But though he raged against
the Indians, and talked of some general and bloody punishment, the
community at large were not in the least disposed to second his des
perate purposes. He was openly accused, even, of a want of sincer
ity ; his object was said to be, not so much to punish the Indians as
to swell the sum total of his balance-sheet in his accounts with the
Company ; and it was declared that he was too ready to send others
into dangers where he did not dare to lead. When he proposed to
send out an expedition against the Weckquaesgeeks to revenge the
murder of Smits, the popular feeling against the measure was so
strong that he was constrained to call a public meeting for its consid
eration. The result was the appointment of " Twelve Select Men "
who should aid him in coming to a wise decision. The Twelve were
cautious in giving advice. The murderer, they thought, should be
punished, but his surrender was to be again and again demanded, and
any general difficulty with his tribe was to be avoided as long as pos
sible. And they were very decidedly of the opinion that inasmuch as
the " Honorable Director is as well the ruler as he is the commander
of the soldiery," he ought, "to prevent confusion, to lead the van,"
their place being " to follow his steps and obey his commands." The
Honorable Director no doubt recognized the grim humor of these
solemn burghers. He sometime afterward issued a proclamation in
which he thanked them for their advice, but forbade any further call
ing of popular meetings, as they tended to dangerous consequences,
and to the injury of the country and his own authority.

Meanwhile events were stronger than either director or council,
and all that either could do was to turn them to a wise or unwise ac
count, as. the case might be. The unhappy tribes on the lower reaches
of the river were a prey to others beside their white neighbors ; and
war among * n the middle of the winter, when the river was full of ice
ie savages. an( j ^ & sava g es we re collected in their winter camps, a war-
party from the powerful Mohawks at the north came sweeping down
upon them, armed with the guns the Dutch had furnished, and driv
ing before them far greater numbers whole settlements, indeed
of the Algonquins. Without making a stand against their formida
ble and always dreaded enemies, the southern Indians, the Weckquas-
geeks, the Tappans, and others from the rivers' banks, fled through
the woods. Many sought refuge with the white men towards whom
they had just before been so hostile; and they were received with
kindness, some at Manhattan itself, some at a colon}'- which De Vries,
always the friend of the savages, had begun by the Tappan Sea, and
called Vriesendael. At the latter place, indeed, the refugees were so

1643.]

KIEFT'S POLICY TOWARD THE INDIANS.

453

many that the patroon was anxious about the safety of his goods, and
paddled a canoe down to Manhattan to ask that a guard might be
sent him from the fort.

He was full of friendship and sympathy for the persecuted river
tribes, though he could not interfere for their protection against the
Mohawks ; and when he had brought his canoe safely through the ice
floes and landed at New Amsterdam, his presence was a great gain to
the strong party there, who were urging upon the governor that the

time had come when all the old hostility might be removed by a little
kindly treatment of the savages in their distress. Policy Policy
and humanity alike suggested that they should be at least towanfthe
suffered to find a temporary asylum with the whites. But Iadlans -
there were a few in the settlement who were ready to aid the di
rector in his plans, and while the rest debated, these resorted to a
device worthy of politicians of a later period. The Twelve Men had
been disbanded some time before ; but two or three who had belonged
to their number now reassumed their power as popular representa
tives, and authorized an act which the whole body would have rejected
in an instant. At a dinner at the house of Jansen Dam, one of the
Twelve, he and two others, by previous arrangement, presented to the
director a petition purporting to come from the community at large,
in which they asked that active hostilities should be begun against the
natives. " Let us attack them," said they ; and the defenceless con-

454

WAR WITH THE INDIANS.

[HAP. XVII.

dition of the Indians was urged as an argument for a sudden and
merciless onslaught.

Kieft acted at once on this pretended popular approval of his own
determination. In vain did De Vries, dining with him two days
after, point out the folly of such a course. " Consider, sir," he said,
" what good it will do knowing that we lost our settlements by mere
jangling with the Indians at Swaanendael in the Hoeren
Creek, in 1630, when thirty-two of our men were murdered ;
and now lately, in 1640, at Staaten. Island, where my people were
murdered, occasioned by your petty contrivances of killing the Indians

Counsel of
De Vries.

Dinner at Van Dam's.

of Raritan, and mangling the body of their chief for mere bagatelle." 1
But the director had determined, as he said, " to make these savages
wipe their chops." He knew as well as De Vries who was presi
dent of the Board of Twelve, when it had any legal existence, that
the action at Dam's house was a transparent fraud which could deceive
nobody short of Holland. He was not influenced in the least by the
wise counsel of De Vries.

Night attack Across the river, at Pavonia, the frightened Indians had
camp d at n made their chief camp, many hundreds of them collecting

there with the Hackensacks, who numbered perhaps a thou
sand. Upon this encampment Kieft had resolved to make his first

1 De Vries, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., pp. 268, 899.

1643.]

MASSACRE OF INDIANS AND ITS RESULTS.

455

attack, and on the afternoon of the day of De Vries' remonstrance, the
soldiers were collected near the fort to prepare for the crossing, which
was to happen on the following day. De Vries again protested, as he
saw the troops. " You will go," he said, "to break the Indians' heads ;
but it is our nation that you are going to murder. Nobody in the
country knows anything of it. My family will be murdered again,
and everything destroyed." The remonstrance was, of course, useless,
though Domine Bogardus and other men of influence joined in it.
The night was occupied in preparation ; and at evening of the next

Indian Fugitives from Pavonia.

day the soldiers under Sergeant Rodolf, going out, as Kieft falsely
said, " in the name of the Commonalty," were carried across the river
to Pavonia.

De Vries sat that night in the great kitchen at the director's, by
the fire. Just at midnight, the winter's night being cold and still,
he heard loud shrieks from beyond the river. Hurrying Massacre of
out to the ramparts of the fort, he looked in the direction the Indians -
-of Pavonia. " I saw nothing," he says in his brief journal, " but the
flash of the guns, and heard nothing more of the yells and clamour of
the Indians, who were butchered during their sleep." As he sat down
.again by the fire, thinking of the bloody work going on so near him,

456 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII.

there came in an Indian man and woman whom he knew, fleeing for
their lives from the Pavonia camp ; saying " that the Indians of Fort
Orange had surprised them, and that they came there for shelter."
De Vries gave them their first knowledge of the truth that the fort
was the worst refuge to which they could come, " and that it was not
the savages of Fort Orange who were murdering those of Pavonia,
but it was the Swannekins, the Dutch themselves." And with this
warning the good patroon took the pair to a side gate of the fort
where " no sentry stood," and aided them to hide themselves again in
the darkness. Eighty Indians were killed at Pavonia, and forty at
Corlaer's Hook that night, with horrible barbarities that might have
given the savages themselves a lesson in the art of torture. "And this
was the feat worthy of the heroes of old Rome ! " says De Vries, in
bitter allusion to a grandiloquent boast that Kieft had made; "to
massacre a parcel of Indians in their sleep, to take the children from
the breasts of their mothers, and to butcher them in the presence of
their parents, and throw their mangled limbs into the fire or water !
Other sucklings had been fastened to little boards, and in this posi
tion they were cut in pieces ! Some were thrown into the river, and
when the parents rushed in to save them, the soldiers prevented their
landing, and let parents and children drown. Children of five and six
years old were murdered, and some aged decrepit men cut to pieces.
Those who had escaped these horrors, and found shelter in bushes and
reeds, making in the morning their appearance to beg some food or
warm themselves, were killed in cold blood, or thrown into the fire or
water." " Some," he adds, " came running to them in the country,"
mangled and mutilated too terribly to be described ; " and these mis
erable wretches, as well as some of our people, did not know but they
had been attacked by the Maquas of Fort Orange." The troops came
back to the fort in the morning with prisoners and various bloody
tokens of their " victory ; " and Director Kieft welcomed them ex
ultantly, as men who had done a noble deed of arms in behalf of the
colony and of their homes. They had simply thrown away the chief
advantage that the Dutch colony had hitherto held over its energetic
and more restless rivals. The chief guaranty of safety and prosperity
was lost to a people who had little of the military prowess of their
neighbors to stand them in stead.

When the facts of the Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook massacres became
known, the results were more terrible than even De Vries, with all
Terrible re- h* 8 foresight, had looked for. All about the lower river and
Kieft's f poi- ^ ne bay, and on Long Island (where petty plundering ex
peditions, soon after the more important events, drove the
tribes into common cause with their mainland neighbors), the Al-

1643.]

WAR WITH THE INDIANS.

457

gonquin people rose furiously against the whites. The terrors of an
Indian war broke forth with a suddenness which appalled the colo
nists ; and every swamp and wood from the country of the Hacken-
sacks to the Connecticut, seemed all at once to swarm with hostile
savages. The outlying bouweries and plantations were laid waste,
their men killed, and their women and children made prisoners ; peo
ple from the farms crowded to Fort Amsterdam ; even Vriesendael
was besieged, and only relieved at the intercession of the Indian who
had come to De Vries by the director's fire on the night of the great
massacre, and whom he now pointed out as " the good Swannekin
chief." A hollow and but half-satisfactory peace with some of the

tribes, which was only brought about bv
De Vries's urgent intercession,
and hardly kept by the efforts
of a few old chiefs,
gave a partial

Massacre of Ann Hutchinson.

respite, from March until midsummer. But the war broke out again
in August, with renewed fierceness, among the tribes above the Hud
son Highlands. Early in the month they attacked and plundered
trading-boats upon the river, murdering many of the crews. By Sep
tember the conflict was raging with full force. In the south a band of
savages fell upon the quiet home of Ann Hutchinson, at "Annie's
Hoeck," now known as Pelham Neck, near New Rochelle, and she and
her family, excepting one granddaughter who was carried away captive,
were murdered. Other plantations near at hand and on Long Island
shared this fate ; the Hackensacks and Navesincks fell upon the settle-

458 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII.

merits to the westward of Manhattan ; even at the outposts of Fort
Amsterdam men were wounded by the shots of the lurking savages,
who might, had they known their own power, have exterminated
the whites, who, in the universal terror, were almost incapable of
resistance.

It may be imagined that during all this terrible retribution Kieft's
vindictive rashness had brought upon the wretched colony, his life
was not a pleasant one. The terror-stricken people, who crowded with
unpopular- their families within the dilapidated and insufficient ram-
ity of Kieft. p ar t s o f t] ie fort, thronged about him with imprecations and
threats. He tried in vain to shift the responsibility to the shoulders
of the Twelve Men. " You would not let them meet," was angrily
answered ; " how then could they have done this ? " Even the three
who had presented him the pretended petition at Dam's house deserted
him, and attempted to repudiate their share of responsibility for the
calamity they had helped to bring upon the colony. One of them
Adriaensen stalked into Kieft's presence and threatened to take his
life if he did not stop his ''devilish lies." Indeed, his servant at
tempted it, and fired at the director, but he was instantly shot down
by a sentinel, and his head was afterwards exposed upon the gibbet.
Adriaensen was arrested and sent to Holland for trial; but the feeling
of the people remained unchanged, nor did the proclamation of a sol
emn fast, and the remorseful acknowledgment that these things were
" doubtless owing to their sins," persuade anybody that it was the
Almighty and not the director who was the author of all their
woes.

Kieft again called the people together in September, 1643, just
after the attack upon the trading-boats had shown the gen-
assembiy of eral and vindictive nature of the war, and begged them to
choose a new council from among themselves, to consult as
the former one had done, on the terrible crisis that was upon them.
Eight citizens were selected, who seized the reins of government
much more firmly and confidently than their predecessors had done.
New provisions were made, which the exigency of the times demanded,
among them especially the equipment of a large force of soldiers, of
whom fifty were English settlers under John Underbill, lately a
Massachusetts captain who had fought against the Pequods. Confi
dence was in some measure restored to the terrified town ; and the re
fusal of an application to New Haven for aid the New England col
onies being pledged to each other not to enter separately into war, and
New Haven, moreover, doubting whether the Dutch could be justified
in the course they had pursued towards the Indians aroused the en
ergies of the New Netherlanders, who saw that they must save them
selves or perish.

1643.]

COUNCIL OF EIGHT MEN.

459

The Eight Men, however, did something more than use the scanty
resources at their command within the colony. On the A council of
twenty-fourth of October they addressed to the College of ei K htmen -
Nineteen at Amsterdam, and on the third of November to the States
General themselves,
then in session in the
Binnenhof l at the
Hague, the first docu
ments ever sent from
the people of New
Netherland to their
government at home.
Two letters of direct
appeal were sent from
the suffering citizens,
couched in simple
terms to which their
hard condition lent
convincing eloquence.

They set forth how
" Almighty God had
finally, through his
righteous judgment,
kindled the fire of The BI(ln . nhof . ~

war " around the " poor

inhabitants of New Netherland ; " and they painted a pitiable picture of
their woes, their women and children starving, their homes destroyed,
" matters, in fine, in such a state, that it will be with us according to
the words of the prophet : ' Who draws the sword shall perish of
hunger and cold.' ' To the States General they wrote that the.
"wretched people must skulk, with wives and little ones that still are
left, by and around the fort on the Manhattes, where we are not one
hour safe." They humbly prayed for such assistance " as their High
Mightinesses should deem most proper, that they might not be left a
prey "to these cruel heathens."

A terrible winter, and one full of sad forebodings, followed the
sending out of these earnest letters of appeal. The suffering people,
crowded at the southern end of the beleaguered island, and Despera te
dreading the Indian arrows even at the doors of the little
huts that clustered about Fort Amsterdam, could see no
hope of better days in the future ; and the many who could find pas-

i Then the meeting-place of the States General ; now used as the repository of the ar
chives of the Netherlands.

1643-

460 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII.

sage in the vessels going to Holland in the autumn, felt that they
were leaving a colony that could never rise again. In this anxious
and forlorn crowd was Roger Williams, who was at Manhattan to take
ship for Europe, the Boston Puritans not tolerating his presence among
them long enough for him to get a fair wind and go to sea. " Their
townes," he says, " were in flames .... mine eyes saw the flames at
their towns, and their flights and hurries of men, women, and children,
the present removal of all that could for Holland." J It was only with
the really desperate straits of midwinter, when all attempts to gain
aid from their English neighbors had failed, that the spirit of the Eight
Men and of the people rose, as man's courage does in extremities, to
energetic measures against the enemy ; and even then, the first at
tempts at offensive warfare had but little result. An expedition sent
to Staten Island in December accomplished nothing but the capture
of some grain, the Indians pursuing their usual tactics of keeping away
from a large body of organized troops. Another sally towards Green
wich and Stamford, called thither by a petty skirmish, surprised a little
Indian village, and killed its warriors, embittering, rather than aiding
to end, the general conflict.

It was only with the beginning of 1644 that any real success came
to the colonial arms. Certain English families, who had
Indian removed from Stamford to Heemstede [Hempstead] on
Long Island, called the attention of Kieft to the dangers to
which they were exposed from the Canarsees, the tribe nearest them ;
and begged that an expedition should be sent to protect them from
attack. The director and the Eight Men sent a hundred and twenty
men in answer to this appeal. Two Indian villages were surprised
and sacked ; more than a hundred warriors were killed ; and two were
brought back to Manhattan, where they were put to death before the
governor with such atrocious tortures that Indian women standing by
cried " shame," and declared that the Dutch had shown them new
methods of torture.

This success was soon followed by another and a greater. For Un-
underhiii-s dei'hill and his force of Dutch and English, having carefully
expedition, examined the main position of the Connecticut Indians near
Greenwich and Stamford, undertook an expedition of a more decisive
character against their principal village. A night march through the
February snows brought the little army of a hundred and fifty men to
the outskirts of the Indian town, which they had hoped to find unpre
pared for their approach, though the moonlight was so clear and strong
that " many winter's days were not brighter." But the savages were
warned, and stood upon their guard, nearly seven hundred strong,
1 R. T. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iii., p. 155.

1644.]

APPEAL TO THE STATES GENERAL.

461

and having their rude fortifications to protect them. The Dutch line
advanced steadily, unbroken by the arrows or attempted sorties of
the Indians, and nearly two hundred of the besieged warriors fell in
the endeavor to drive it back. Underbill succeeded at last in firing
the village ; and the flame and the moonlight lit up a slaughter beside
which the massacre at Pavonia seemed insignificant. Eight only of
the savages escaped. The Dutch, with fifteen wounded, made their
way back to Stamford ; and a few days afterward a thanksgiving was

March against the Indians in Connecticut.

celebrated on their arrival at Manhattan, after a victory which effect
ually humbled the eastern tribes.

It was only about Manhattan and on the river that many of the
tribes continued hostile after this decisive blow ; and the Eight Men
counselled that vigorous measures should now be taken against these
nearer and more dangerous neighbors ; more especially as the arrival of
a vessel from the Company's colony at Curac.oa had supplied New
Netherland with a fresh force of one hundred and thirty soldiers, whom
Peter Stuyvesant, the Cura9oa governor, had sent away because he

462 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII.

had no use for them. It was an addition of military strength to Man
hattan which it was sorely in need of, and warmly welcomed, though
how the soldiers were to be fed and clothed it was not easy to see. The
treasury was empty : Kieft's last bill of exchange had come back
from Amsterdam protested, for the Company was bankrupt. His
only resource was taxation. The best, the most obvious thing to
tax was beer. But a tax on his beer was precisely that to which a
Dutchman would not submit. So the director blundered through the
summer of 1644, without one wise or energetic measure. He was as
inert and imbecile now as he had before been violent. He wasted his
time in petty disputes and jealousies over petty measures. Still more
of the men on whom the colony depended for protection, experienced
soldiers and energetic settlers, returned to Holland. In spite of a pali
sade built across the island nearly on a line with the present Wall
Street, the Indians continued to skulk almost under the walls of the
fort, and to kill and plunder almost without the show of resistance.
All through the summer the Eight Men bore with this condition of
affairs, but in October they wrote again to the College of
against Nineteen, and this time with a bold and definite statement
of the reforms they believed to be needed, and the changes
they demanded. They again detailed the terrible state in which the
unhappy colonists found themselves, and pointed to Kieft's acts as the
source of all their troubles ; they complained of his arrogance, and his
neglect of all measures for public good, while he cared only for his own
arbitrary power. It was impossible, they said, to settle the affairs of
the country without a different and more popular form of government ;
and they asked permission for the people to elect local officers who
in turn might send deputies to confer with the governor and council.
If their High Mightinesses would send them a ruler empowered to
encourage such a system, " a governor with a beloved peace," all,
they believed, would yet be well.

This second appeal from New Netherland reached the College of
Nineteen, while they were in the midst of the discussion of the
former one, and of a great number of complaints received from other
sources with regard to the suffering and unprofitable colony. The
States General, when they had received the letter of 1643, had per
emptorily ordered that the Company should take measures to relieve
their people beyond the sea ; but the bankrupt and powerless corpora
tion, now seeking to merge itself in its great and successful fellow com
pany of the East, could do little toward obeying the order.
caiitoiioi- As usual, however, a definite demand had far more influ-

land.

ence than a general complaint, however eloquent, as it sug
gested something that could be done at once. The immediate pur-

1645.]

END OF THE INDIAN WAR.

463

pose of the Eight Men was gained: Kieft's recall was determined
upon, and decreed on the tenth of December. A provisional appoint
ment of Van Dincklage,
the former sheriff, as his
successor, was revoked in
May, in favor of Peter
Stuyvesant, the comman
der at Curagoa, who had
come home for surgical
treatment, having lost a
leg in an attack on the
Portuguese at their Island
of St. Martin. The Cham
ber of Accounts, to whom
the matter was referred,
reported in favor of the
political changes recom
mended by the Eight
Men, and against Kieft's
conduct of the Indian
war, and his earlier ad
vice that the savages be
exterminated. They sug
gested a great number of advantageous changes in the administration
of New Netherland, and for the first time, taught by hard experience,
admitted that a colony could not be made successful if managed solely
for the immediate and selfish ends which had hitherto been sought by
the Company in America, without regard to permanence or to the
popular good.

There was a delay, nevertheless, of a year between determination
and execution ; but in the mean time the assurance of what was in
tended was enough greatly to encourage the anxious colonists at Man
hattan. Kieft had a hard life now that it was known how soon he
would be powerless to trouble them ; and he only aroused more bitter
opposition by attempting to repress by summary trials the boldness
of those who now denounced him openly. A happier event, however,
than even the recall of the hated director, soon rejoiced the colony,
and gave promise of the better days that were believed to be in
store.

With the spring of 1645, the Indians themselves began to show a
wish for peace, and as early as April the colonists were glad Treat ieswith
to conclude a treaty with some of the tribes about them, thelndians -
Kieft willingly consenting, in the hope, perhaps, of still retrieving his

Hall of the States Genera

464

WAR WITH THE INDIANS.

[CHAP. XVII.

reputation with the Amsterdam directors. One treaty followed an
other. In May the mediation of an Indian ally secured a lasting peace
with the tribes along Long Island Sound ; and in July, Kieft, aided
by the patroon's men at Fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck, brought
about a similar agreement with the Mohawks and their neighbors on
the upper river. Only the tribes immediately about Manhattan re
mained, and with these, who also wanted quiet that they might go
back to planting and trading, and escape the vengeance which Un-
derhill's victory showed was in store for them sooner or later, nego
tiations were equally successful. On the 30th of August, 1645, the

citizens of New Amsterdam assembled
at the end of the island, on the ground

^ . still known as

the Battery, and

Smoking the Pipe of Peace.

witnessed the smoking of the pipe of peace, and the conclusion of a
general treaty with all the hostile tribes. On the 6th of September
New Netherland held a day of thanksgiving for the ending of the
long and terrible Indian war. Throughout the desolated colonies
about Manhattan, proprietors and laborers began to rebuild and to
cultivate again with renewed courage ; but the country had received
a check from which it revived but slowly.

Sixteen hundred of the savages, indeed, had been killed ; but there
was not a single Dutch settlement, except that at Rensselaerswyck
and the military post on South River, that had not been attacked and
generally destroyed. Besides a few traders there were left upon Man
hattan Island scarcely a hundred people, and throughout the whole
province not more than three hundred men capable of bearing arms
could have been mustered.

1637.] AFFAIRS ON THE FRONTIERS. 465

The year and more which yet remained of Kieft's administration,
was a time of petty quarrels between him and his officers and the
popular representatives. The Domine Bogardus denounced the gov
ernor from the pulpit, as he had done his predecessor, as a vessel
of wrath and a fountain of woe and trouble. Kieft retorted by hav
ing cannon fired, drums beaten, and all kinds of noisy games carried
on about the church on Sunday. His officers and soldiers were by
no means reluctant to give implicit obedience in a warfare of this
sort, and for a time the town was kept, between the domine and the
governor, in a state of unusual liveliness. Military disaster and civil
misrule had brought affairs to such a pass that in the order of nature
a change must come, either of reconstruction or absolute dissolution.
The " beloved peace " which the new governor was to bring must
have wings broad enough to stretch over army, state, and church.

Meanwhile affairs on the frontiers of New Netherland were m
nearly, if not quite, as bad a state as on the island of Manhattan
The steady aggression of the New Englanders had left the Dutch but
the merest nominal foothold in Connecticut and eastern Long Island ;
and the serious attempt that had been made in 1641-1642, to settle
the question of rights and boundaries, had resulted only in the usual
empty talk about an arbitration which never came. The Dutch set
tlement at little Fort Good Hope was more a source of amusement than
apprehension to the authorities of the thriving town of Hartford, the
Dutchmen listening sometimes to remonstrances and reproaches, and
sometimes submitting to outrages they could not resist. Dutch control
in the Connecticut Valley was gone. On the southern borders of their
possessions, however, events of a more positive character had occupied
the years of Kieft's unhappy rule. Fort Nassau, reoccupied a few
years before, held undisputed control of the beautiful region of the
South River ; the old importance of the district as an Indian trading-
ground had been reestablished, and the English had ceased to molest
the Dutch in this part of their territory, when about the time of
Kieft's arrival at Manhattan a new nation appeared on that river.
These colonies Avere to have a brief life, but to leave a lasting impress
upon the region where they were established.

William Usselincx, of Antwerp, who had first proposed and had
succeeded in establishing the Dutch West India Company, visited
Sweden, in 1624, and urged upon the king the great value which the
founding of colonies in America, and the trade that would spring from
them, must certainly be to his kingdom and people. The wise and lib
eral Gustavus Adolphus was fully capable of comprehending the broad
views of the Holland merchant, and entertained them warmly. Us
selincx set forth the advantages of his plan in a religious, political, and

466 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII.

commercial aspect. He showed that the establishment of a Swedish
A Swedish West India Company would benefit the state, in the spread
company 1 * ^ ^ ie Christian religion ; in adding to the power and splen-
formed. ^QJ. o f fa e sovereign ; and in the decrease of taxes, while it
augmented the general commercial prosperity of the people. Reward
would surely come to a state aiding the cause of Christ ; the state
itself would have " another eye ; " by reason of the increased rev
enue "every industrious man would thrive;" and it would greatly
tend, said Usselincx, in conclusion, " to the honor of God, to man's
eternal welfare, to his majesty's service, and to the good of the king
dom." The project was accepted by the king and the Diet, and ac
companied with the most favorable conditions for Usselincx himself,
who was to share largely in the profits.

Gustavus Adolphus fell at Liitzen, in 1632, before the absorbing
importance of his great campaigns had permitted him to take any
practical steps toward the carrying out of the plan ; but he had it
constantly at heart, and just before his death had drawn up a procla
mation in which he called the project "the jewel of his kingdom."
Fortunately., it was left in worthy hands. The chancellor Oxenstiern,
who appreciated its importance as fully as the king, published the
proclamation, urged on the undertaking with energy and wisdom, and
in December, 1634, secured the passage of a full and definite charter
for the Swedish West India Company. But, as in the case of the
similar Company in the Netherlands, it was several years before the
corporation was ready to act.

The hope of profitable employment from this Company led to Sweden
Swedish coi- the discharged director of the New Netherland colony, Peter
pete^Min 1 - Minuit. He pointed out to Oxenstiern how useful his ex-
uit. 1637. perience might be to the Swedes. When the Company was
fully organized he was put in command of its first expedition.

In the autumn of 1637, Minuit set sail from Gottenburg in the
Key of Calmar, accompanied by a tender called the Griffin, with about
fifty emigrants. The neighborhood of the South River was the region
upon which he had fixed for his settlement. The two vessels entered
Delaware Bay in April, 1638, and sailed up the river as far as the
"Minqua's Kill," as it was then called by the Dutch. To this stream
the Swedes gave the name of their queen, Christina, since corrupted
into Christiana, and here Minuit made a treaty with the Indian
sachem of the region, buying, for a kettle and some trifling wares, all
the land on the west side of the South River, from Cape Henlopen to
the falls near Santickan (now Trenton), and "as much inwards from
it in breadth as they might want." l The spot they chose for their

1 Acrelins' Hist, of New Sweden, translated in TV. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i.,
p. 409 ; Hudde's Report on the Swedish Colony, ib., 439.

1638.]

THE SETTLEMENT AT FORT CHRISTINA.

467

trading-house and fort Fort Christina was about two miles from
the mouth of the creek, and near the site of the present town of
Wilmington, Delaware.

The Swedes, leaving the winter bleakness of their own country, and
coming to the beautiful banks of the South River in the
freshness of the warm spring, found in the new land even vai m the
more than the fulfillment of their hopes ; yet these had been
raised by the most glowing descriptions at home. 1 A point just above
Cape Henlopen they named as they passed " Paradise Point," and as
they lay at anchor in the broad stream by their newly -purchased terri
tory, they were eager
to begin a " planta
tion." Fort Nassau
was only fifteen miles
above, and it needed
but little time for ru
mors to reach the
Dutch garrison there,
of the arrival of two
foreign ships within
the limits of New
Netherland, and the
mysterious move
ments of their passen
gers upon the shore. Messengers were dispatched to Minuit to ascer
tain his intentions ; he had only come, he said, for wood and water,
and would soon pursue his voyage to the West Indies. The story
was distrusted from the first, and when the Swedes began to make u a
small garden" near the bank an operation which was clearly not
a part of a West India voyage their commander was compelled
gradually to disclose his true purpose. The Crriffin even made a
trading voyage as far as Fort Nassau, where, though forced to put
about, her captain refused to show his commission at the demand of
the Dutch. But he announced that the Swedes meant also to build a
fort on the river, and that their right to do so was quite as good as
that of the Dutch Company.

The people at Fort Nassau sent intelligence of the matter to Kieft
at Manhattan. The director, with great promptness, brought Digmay of
' to bear upon the Swedes a sounding proclamation, asserting *nd procil'-
the right of the West India Company to the banks of the gfj t on of
South River, and warning Minuit, in most solemn and Ma y' 1638 -
weighty terms, not to attempt intrusion, assuring him that the Nether-

1 See the Argonautica Gustaviana, quoted by Bancroft, vol. ii., p. 284.

Costume of Swedes.

468 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII.

lands would protect their rights " in a manner that should appear most
advisable." l

Minuit, himself a Dutchman, and late the director of the Company
at New Amsterdam, knew the exact weight of metal which
the Swedish this sort of ordnance carried. He went on with the building
of a fort and trading-house, and when he had finished them
and had seen trade with the Indians fairly established, he placed a
garrison of twenty-four men in possession, well supplied and armed,
and then, without the least regard to the continued protests of the
Dutch, sent the vessels home well laden, to return with farther
additions to the little colony. 2 The valor and firmness displayed by
Kieft in proclamation and letter were admirable, but he was careful
not to send anybody to disturb the well-fortified Swedes. Nor was
he less loud in his complaints to the Directors in Holland ; but these
passed almost unheeded, for any design of Sweden at home or abroad
was not to be lightly meddled with. For more than a year all went
well with the colony at Fort Christina ; its trade prospered so that
it did "thirty thousand florins injury" to that of New Netherland, 3
and the little plantation about the fort began to have the appear
ance of prosperity and permanence. It was only with the winter of
1639-40, when supplies had begun to run low, and no aid had been
sent from home, that their first trials came upon the Swedish settlers.
To such straits were they brought, that they at one time determined
to give up their enterprise, and go to the Dutch at Manhattan to seek
homes or a passage to their fatherland. But the spring brought help.
This came not only from their own people, but from the Nether
lands also. Those who had returned in the vessels had
to the new spread far and wide the praises of the beautiful region they
had visited, its fitness for colonization, and the promise for
the future to those who should be its first possessors. Recruits came
with the summer of 1639, from different parts of Sweden and Finland ;
several shrewd Netherlander, to whom the confused state of the col
ony at Manhattan was anything but attractive, gained permission to
take out parties to the South River under Swedish protection. The
opening of New Netherland, just at this time, to greater freedom of
trade, caused some of these to change their minds, but enough per
severed to make a small Dutch colony, which the Swedish govern
ment decreed must be at least four or five German miles from Fort
Christina.

1 Acrelins, as cited, p. 409 ; O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 191.

2 An ambiguous passage in a letter of Kieft, dated in July of this year, has led some
writers to believe that Minuit himself went back at this time, but it is clear that he did not.
Compare Acrelius, as cited, p. 410.

3 Brodhead, vol. i., p. 319.

1641.]

PROSPERITY AT FORT CHRISTINA.

469

The new emigrants the Dutch being under the command of one
Joost de Bogaerdt, who drew a salary from the Swedish government
sailed for America late in the winter. Their arrival was hailed with
delight. Abundant supplies, a great addition to their numbers, and
news from home, where they had almost believed their undertaking
had fallen into complete neglect, dispelled in a moment the despair
of the colonists at Fort Christina. Everything took on
the appearance of prosperity ; the Dutch settlers, establish- atTort" y
ing themselves a little to the south of the Swedes, began to
build dwellings and plant their crops in the pleasant valley, a happier
contrast than they knew to their countrymen at Manhattan, whose
mistaken government was at this moment bringing upon them a des
olating war. The summer passed away without a check to their pro
gress ; the Indian trade on the South River passed almost entirely
into their hands ; their crops were good, and the fort was not mo
lested by the New Netherlanders, Kieft having concluded to raise
the siege of proclamations and treat them with neighborly civility.
In the autumn a new band of colonists arrived at the fort with further
supplies, tools, and conveniences, under the charge of Peter Hollaen-
dare. Later still in the season came two or three more vessels, each
crowded with passen
gers ; while many who
wished to leave Sweden
had been unable to come
for want of room, and
were waiting for other
ships to sail. The third
winter at the new col
ony passed away with
out bringing the suffer
ing that had been felt
in those before it ; with
the next spring and sum
mer emigrants contin
ued to join the growing settlement. During this summer (1641)
Minuit died at the fort he had founded, regretted by the Swedes,
whom he had served most faithfully, and whose enterprise he had
made successful where one of less experience would probably have
failed. Hollaendare, a Swede, succeeded him in the governorship.

Even the presence of two claimants in the valley of the South
River could not protect it long from the interference of the English,
who, De Vries said long before, " thought everything belonged to
them." As early as 1640 a New England captain is reported to have

Early Swedish Church.

470 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII.

bought some land on the South River from the Indians, who were often
ready to sell the same lands to as many people as possi-

The English

on the south ble. 1 Early the next spring a number of New England colo
nists, under the command of Robert Cogswell, sailed from
Connecticut for the South River, seeking a less rigorous climate and
more fertile soil, in a region of whose beauties they had heard so much.
At Manhattan, where they lay for a few days on their way, one of
Kieft's proclamations was aimed point-blank at them, warning them
against encroaching upon New Netherland territory. With a vague
assurance that he meant only to settle upon unclaimed lands, the
New Englander sailed on, and had no trouble in finding Indians
ready to sell him land. The English made quick work with this, as
with other settlements within Dutch limits ; and before the end of
the summer they had planted corn and built trading-posts on Varck-
en's Kill (now Salem Creek, in New Jersey), and on the Schuylkill,
near its mouth. Both posts prospered, and New Haven took them
under special protection, as colonies connected with the town. By
the time Kieft fully realized what had been done, it was too late in
the year for action.

The coming of the English was not less disagreeable to the Swedes
The English than to the Dutch ; and when, in the spring of 1642, Kieft
?he V s^uth m instructed Jansen, the commissary at Fort Nassau, to expel
the intruders, and to maintain on the South River " the rep
utation of their High Mightinesses," the people at Fort Christina gave
them their energetic aid. The English for once yielded without re
sistance, were taken as prisoners to Manhattan, and thence despatched
to their homes. Their appeals for damages, and their request that
the New Haven authorities should retaliate, were alike disregarded.

During the spring of 1648, there arrived at Fort Christina an
Arrival of officer who was to play a distinguished part in the Swedish
pnnTzlTFort colony. Hollaendare had retired from his post as governor,
Christina. an( j j o j m p r i n tz 5 a cavalry lieutenant in the Swedish ser
vice, was sent out to succeed him. De Vries gives a concise descrip
tion of this burly officer, by saying that he was a man " of brave
size," weighing somewhat more than four hundred pounds, and he
"doubted not" that the Swede drank three drinks at every meal. 2

He was evidently looked upon as a somewhat formidable person,
and was endowed with a violence of temper quite in keeping with
his physical proportions and his free mode of living. Two Swedish
war-vessels, the Swan and the Charitas, and a merchant ship, the

1 Brodhead, vol. i., p. 321, cites authorities for this report; its truth is by no means cer
tain. See O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 232.

2 De Vries, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 273.

1643.] ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR PRINTZ. 471

Fama, accompanied him to New Sweden, as the colony was now
called ; they brought out a large number of colonists ; and the new
administration began with something of the dignity and ceremony of
an older government. Printz established himself at the island of
Tenacong (the present Tinicum, about twelve miles below Philadel
phia), built a fort there the " New Gottenburg " and a house of
no mean pretensions for the time and place, which he called " Printz
Hall." A part of the colonists remained at Fort Christina ; the rest
clustered about the new fort and the governor's mansion ; and at
both points prosperous farms and orchards were soon in flourishing
condition. According to the instructions to Printz, amicable relations
were, if possible, to be kept up with the Dutch, both at Fort Nassau
and elsewhere ; but he was to monopolize the Indian trade of the
river as far as he could, and his fort was to be so built as to com
mand the stream, and be able to stop all passing vessels.

The home government had made a very large appropriation (about
two million rix dollars annually) for the support of the col-

J ' r r . Administra-

ony, and agreed to furnish it with soldiers for protection ; l tion of
the settlers had ample resources and were energetic and
industrious ; and they had chosen one of the best positions on the
coast. The material prosperity of the people was unquestionable and
for a pioneer colony exceptional. Their neighbors, however, found
some fault with its moral condition, for De Vries records that " neither
there nor in Virginia was intoxication or incontinence punished with
whipping ; " but this lenity does not seem to have led to any grave
disorders, and probably the motley population of Manhattan would
not have appeared to advantage in a comparison with the peaceful
Swedes. Swedish interests on the river were at any rate cared for in
a way that must have fully satisfied Printz's superiors. His fort at
Tinicum compelled every vessel, of whatever nationality, to strike her
colors as she passed, and no trade was permitted that did not pay due
tribute.

Notwithstanding affairs were conducted in this high-handed way
by the new comers, the Dutch hesitated to oppose them except by
the usual protests and empty threats. Printz was not a man likely
to be daunted by these. When George Lamberton, the New Ha
ven Englishman who had sent out Cogswell's unsuccessful expedition
to the South River, persisted in trading there, the Swedish

. , , , . i , rr- j Energetic

governor induced him to come ashore at linicum, and im- measures of
prisoned him and two of his crew. He tried to persuade or
bribe one of the sailors to accuse the captain of inciting the Indians
to attack the Swedes. When the sailor refused, Printz put him in

1 Hazard, Annal. Penn., apud Brodhead, vol. i., p. 379.

472

THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII.

irons, and stamped up and down the fort, " a man very furious and
passionate, cursing and swearing, and also reviling the English of New
Haven as runagates." 1 When called upon by the New Englanders,
after Lamberton's release, to give satisfaction for these "foul injuries "
and " damages," he sent a letter to Massachusetts denying the whole
story. This was in the autumn of 1643. When another New Eng
land vessel (a pinnace sent out from Boston), came to the Delaware
in the spring of the next year, the Swedes and the Dutch at Fort
Nassau united in refusing to permit her to trade in the river, and sent
each a boat to prevent it. The English soon learned that it was not

Printz and the Sailor.

so easy to have
their own way on
the Delaware as it
had been on the
banks of the Connecticut.
Printz nevertheless was
kindly and good natured
when trade was not in
question, for in October he res
cued two Boston men from the
Indians, who had treacherously
boarded an English vessel that entered the bay and killed or captured
all her crew. The rescued men he sent to New Haven.

In 1645, Jan Jansen, long the commissary at the Dutch Fort Nas
sau, was peremptorily removed by Kieft, because of well-sustained
accusations of dishonesty and incompetence, and one Andreas Hudde
was appointed in his place. It is very possible that a part of Jansen's
neglect of duty lay in his easy submission to the Swedes ; at all events,
his successor seems to have understood his obligations to protect the
river-trade, as binding him to take a different course. An opportu
nity to make issue with the rival governor was not long wanting.
1 Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 130, sqq.

1646.] DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN DUTCH AND SWEDES. 473

In the summer of 1646, a New Amsterdam trading vessel, approaching
the right bank of the mouth of the Schuylkill, was sharply Dlgputes be _
ordered off by the Swedish officer of the post near by, and I^Taes and
was forced to obey. The captain of the vessel appealed to Dutch -
Hudde ; but when that officer came in person to investigate the com
plaint, he was commanded to " leave the territory of the queen " with
as little ceremony as had been used in the first case. He retired to
Fort Nassau in great indignation, and an angry interchange of messages
and letters followed, during which Printz requested Hudde to define
precisely the rights which the Dutch believed they had in the neigh
boring region. Hudde replied rather vaguely to the Swedish messen
gers ; and Printz, who had none of the patience of a diplomat, wrote
decisively to the captain of the Manhattan vessel that he must leave
the river or lose ship and cargo, conveying his threat, however, in
courteous language, and laying all the blame on the Fort Nassau com
missary. 1 The captain wisely obeyed, and sailed away.

This dispute, however, was only the prelude to further difficulties.
Later in the summer Hudde found himself prevented from Further ^.
going to the falls at Sankikan (Trenton), whither he had flculties -
been ordered by Kieft on an exploring expedition. Printz had per
suaded the Indians to stop him, making them believe that the Dutch
designed to attack the tribes of that region, and build a fort upon their
land. The Dutch commissary was furious but discreet, and gave up
his expedition. Nor did the interference of Printz cease here. When
Hudde, at Kieft's command, attempted to begin a new settlement on
some land he had bought near the present site of Philadelphia, a
Dutch mile or more to the north of Fort Nassau, on the west shore
of the river, Printz sent a deputy to prevent it ; the officer tore down
the Dutch arms, and used " in an insolent and hostile manner
these threatening words : ' that although it had been the colors of
the Prince of Orange that were hoisted there, he would have thrown
these too under his feet ; ' besides many bloody menaces." 2 This
was followed up by a formal letter from Printz, demanding that
Hudde should at once " discontinue the injuries of which he had been
guilty against the Royal Majesty in Sweden " injuries which he had
committed " without showing the least respect to Her Royal Majesty's
magnificence, reputation, and highness ; " and the document so bela
bored the commissary with protests against his " gross violence " and
"gross conduct," that it is plain to see the choleric Swede believed
himself to be a most patient, innocent, and abused governor.

Hudde was naturally enough astonished at the tone of this despatch.

1 Hudde's report, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. ii., p. 431.

2 Hudde's report.

474 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII.

He returned an answer in the most exaggerated form of Dutch cour
tesy, to " the Noble Governor De Heer John Printz," addressing him
as " Sir Governor." Yet the letter was not without firmness, and
contained a great deal of excellent counsel. After protesting that he
had done everything in his power to promote " a good correspondence
and mutual harmony," he appealed to the Swede to do likewise. " I
confide that it is your Honour's intention to act in the same manner
at least from the consideration that we who are Christians will not
place ourselves as a stumbling-block or laughing-stock to those savage
heathens."

The good sense and moderation of this answer were of no avail.
When the sergeant by whom Hudde sent it approached the Swedish
governor, who stood before the door of " Printz Hall," with several

D ' *

servants and others about him, the burly officer paid no heed to
the messenger's courteous " good morning," but took Hudde's de
spatch from his hand without ceremony, and threw it unopened toward
one of his attendants, telling him to " take care of it." Turning
away he went to meet some Englishmen just arrived from New Eng
land, paying no further attention to the sergeant or his letter. The
Dutch soldier waited patiently for a considerable time, and then hum
bly asked for an answer ; whereupon the governor became furiously
angry, and seizing the unfortunate sergeant with all the strength
of his huge frame, threw him violently out of doors, afterward
" taking a gun in his hand from the wall, to shoot him, as he imag
ined."

After this positive breach of friendly relations, nothing but hostility
could exist between the Dutch and Swedes on the South River. Dur
ing the short time that was left of Kieft's administration at Manhat
tan, petty acts of enmity and retaliation marked all the intercourse
between the settlements of the two nations. "John Printz leaves
nothing untried to render us suspected," wrote Hudde a little later,
" as well among the savages as among the Christians yea, often is
conniving when the subjects of the Company, as well freemen as
servants, when arriving at the place where he resides, are in most
unreasonable manner abused, so that they are often, on returning
home, bloody and bruised." The Dutch trade with the Indians had
passed almost entirely out of their control ; the English were kept
away with an energy they would never have experienced at the hands
of the Fort Nassau garrison. At the moment when Kieft

.Prosperity

of New swe- gave up his misused power into the hands of his successor at

Manhattan, the Swedes were in all respects the lords of the

South River valley ; and as the power of their rivals declined, they

prospered and grew strong. Large reinforcements of settlers and sol-

1635.] PROSPERITY OF NEW SWEDEN. 475

diers came out to them ; convicts and malefactors, some of whom had
at first been sent out as servants to the colonists, gave way to the bet
ter class, under whose control they did good work on farms and build
ings ; 1 the little town at Tinicum, with its manor-house and its church
where the Reverend John Campanius preached on Sundays, had an
appearance very different from that of the now desolated and unfortu
nate New Amsterdam. When New Netherland was at its lowest point
of misfortune and mismanagement, New Sweden had reached a height
of prosperity which was, however, to disappear in its turn in the ad
vance of a stronger race.

1 Thomas Campanius Holm's Short Description, already cited, p. 73. The statement
made in the same place about the sending back of subsequent bands of convicts is, like many
of this author's statements, very improbable. His translator admits a considerable mingling
f fable in Holm's work, and his account is only trustworthy where confirmed by others.

CHAPTER XVIII.

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

JEALOUSY OP JAMES I. OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY. EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
ELECTED TREASURER. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. MASSACRE OF 1622. DIS
SENSIONS IN THE LONDON COUNCIL. CHARTER OF THE COMPANY TAKEN AWAY.
RAPID SUCCESSION OF GOVERNORS OF THE COLONY. LORD BALTIMORE, AND
HIS VISIT TO VIRGINIA. CHARTER OF MARYLAND. CECIL CALVERT'S COL
ONY. ITS LANDING IN MARYLAND. THE FIRST TOWN. ST. MARY'S BLUFF.
PURCHASE FROM THE INDIANS. THE FIRST CATHOLIC CHAPEL. FRIENDLY RE
LATIONS WITH THE INDIANS.

WHEN the regular meeting for the election of officers of the Vir
ginia Company was held in 1620, a message was received from the
king naming four persons, one of whom he wished to be chosen its treas
urer for the ensuing year. It was a despotic act, not easy to enforce,
on the one hand; hard to obey, and difficult to evade on the other.
Its own charter, not the royal wish, was the law for the Company.
But James sincerely believed that the Council of the Virginia

James I. and > . . ,

the Virginia adventurers was a nursery of sedition, and, in a measure, he

Company. . J

was unquestionably right. Among the many persons who
were busy with schemes for peopling the new country, the larger
number were moved, some by selfish motives, others by broad com
mercial and patriotic purposes. But besides these, the thinking
men of the time, those who valued religious and civil freedom ; who
contended and meant to contend against tyranny at home, so long as
the struggle was of any avail ; who looked to the future of England
with apprehension, and were sustained by the hope that a new Eng
land might arise across the sea all these by a common impulse en
gaged in some scheme of American colonization. The conviction of
the king was neither a prejudice nor a mistake, but an instinct.
However much it might please him to be busy about the govern
ment of a colony, he watched with jealous eyes any body of men ac
customed to congregate together, lest treason against the royal prerog
ative should be hatched among them. The Council of the Virginia
Company attended to its own affairs ; but there were men at that
board whose influence, in Parliament and out of it, James dreaded, not
without reason. The nominations he now made were only the begin
ning of more serious aggressions.

1621.] CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 477

The Company was happy to effect a compromise. The king con
sented not to insist upon the election of one of his own candidates ;
the Company so far gratified his wish as to quietly drop the man whom
he held to be the most obnoxious. "Choose the devil if you will,"
said James, " but not Sir Edwin Sandys." l The treasurer TheEarlof
elected was the Earl of Southampton a choice hardly ton ^S
more acceptable to James than that of Sandys himself, but treasurer -
quite as advantageous to the interests of the Company. For the pol
icy which for the two previous years had been so successfully pursued,
Southampton continued ; nor was the active management of the affairs
of the colony by Sandys lost to it ; he still remained a member of
the Council, and frequently acted as treasurer always virtually the
governor by Southampton's appointment.

So vigorous was that management that the number of colonists sent
to Virginia during the years 1619, 1620, and 1621, was three thou
sand five hundred and seventy, more than half of the whole num
ber sent by the Council to the colony since Newport landed the first
company at Jamestown in 1607. During the same period fifty
patents were granted to individuals for private plantations, and these
transported at their own charges and for their own use many servants
and cattle in addition to those sent on the company's account. It was
not the fault of the London Council that the establishment of a more
prosperous community did not follow their large expenditure of labor,
of care, and of money. Had there been nothing in the character of
the emigrants, a large proportion of whom were persons whose expul
sion from an old country was much more desirable than their acquisi
tion in a new, to stand in the way of the progress and prosperity of
the colony, there was reason enough in the want of any diversity of
industry and the enforced labor of bound servants in one direction, to
check any healthy and vigorous growth. All the energies of the peo
ple continued to be devoted to the cultivation of the one great staple,
tobacco, and neither the constant and earnest remonstrance of the
Council in London, nor the evidence of their own short-sightedness in
the constant threat of scarcity of food, and often of famine, could in
duce the colonists to adopt a wiser system. The colony was fourteen
years old when the governor wrote to the Council in London " as
to barley, oats and the best peas there is either none, or a very small
quantity of any of them in the country."

So long as the colony was in the hands of the Council their efforts to
check this evil were never pretermitted, but were never com- cultivation
pletely successful. The law to regulate the planting of to- oftobacco -
bacco was made more stringent, but seems to have continued, for the

1 Neill's History of the Virginia Company, note p. 185.

478 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XV11I.

most part, a dead letter, if even there were any attempt to enforce it.
Provision was made for the introduction of other industries, but their
growth, if they had any at all, was feeble. The soil of Virginia, it
was thought, was peculiarly suited* to the vine ; cuttings, accordingly,
were procured from time to time in large quantities from France, and
sent over with French vine-dressers, to attend to their cultivation.
Wine, it was hoped, might be manufactured in large quantities ; it
was certainly begun, for in the minutes of the proceedings of the
Council in London, a single pipe is spoken of as having been sent over,

but which, unfortunately, soured on the passage. Mulberry
triesencour- trees and silk-worms were introduced, and everything done

to encourage their growth. The Council were sanguine, and
one of their letters enjoined the colonial government to tolerate no
costly apparel except such silks as should be of their own manufac
ture. This early application of the principle of protection to home
industries the colonial officers rather resented as an insult to the rags
of the ordinary colonial wear. The silk making was no more flour
ishing than the manufacture of wine. Glass-works also were estab-
The first lished, with skilled workmen from Italy. Iron-works were

started. Ship-building and salt-making were encouraged.
Dutch workmen were sent out to put up saw-mills ; there was not
even a grist-mill in the colony till 1622.

But neither the exhortations of the Council, the diligence of the
colonial authorities, nor the amount of capital employed, could bring
the culture of any of these products into successful competition with
the growing of tobacco, where the promise of speedy wealth, especially
with those who had the means to buy the cheap labor of men bound
to service for a term of years, was so much greater. Whatever the
prosperity which the cultivation of this single staple brought to the
colony in after times, or brought rather to a single class, it is evident
that its earlier struggles were greatly prolonged by this concentration
of its energies in a single direction.

Sir George Yeardley, who, with Sandys, had given to the colony, in
Themassa- 1619, a fresh start and a new chance of success, retired from
ere of 1622. ne governorship in 1622, and was succeeded by Sir Francis
Wyat. The Earl of Southampton was reflected treasurer from year
to year till the Company lost its charter. With such officers the col
ony would have continued slowly to improve, notwithstanding all
drawbacks and mistakes, but for a sudden calamity which, in the
spring of 1622, well-nigh ruined it.

For several years there had been almost unbroken peace with the
Indians. So little fear was there of any interruption of this tran
quillity that the English had heedlessly scattered themselves about the

1622.J MASSACRE OF 1622. 479

country upon isolated farms, or in small settlements, as interest or in
clination led them, neglecting all precautions of armed security, per
mitting the natives to come and go familiarly among them without
question and without thought of danger. It proved a fatal confidence
in a people who reckon dissimulation as among the virtues, and the
infliction of vengeance as the noblest use of courage.

Since the death of Powhatan, his younger brother, Opechancanough,
had become the most powerful chief in Virginia. His hatred of the
English had never slept, though carefully hidden under the guise of
friendship and submission. It was enough to keep alive his anger
and his desire for vengeance that these stranger people still remained
in a country to which he considered his race had an exclusive right.
But he had other provocations in the memory of past wrongs, which
the English had forgotten, or which they believed to be condoned
for in treaties, in the interchange of many acts of good fellowship,
and the long maintenance of kindly and familiar relations. His
proposal and attempt to massacre the whole colony was, indeed, pre
ceded by the recent killing of a chief by two boys whose master he
had murdered ; but as this brave was well known not to be a favorite
of Opechancanough, though popular with the tribe, his death was the
pretext rather than the cause of the fearful vengeance which fell upon
the whites on the 22d of March, 1622.

There was no intimation and no suspicion of the intentions of the
savages. Not one of the thousands who dispersed themselves about
the country to visit the unsuspecting English with sudden death, was
moved by any grateful remembrance of favors or of friendship to
warn any of the intended victims of the swift calamity which was
about to overtake them. On the appointed morning, everywhere, in
places wide apart, the savages, sometimes idly loitering, seemingly
in friendly mood, into the houses of the whites, sometimes
creeping stealthily unseen and unheard into fields where men ness and en
were busily at work, fell upon them with a suddenness and
a vigor that gave no time for defence, or prayer, or warning. They
spared neither age nor sex, but slaughtered indiscriminately men and
women, parents and children, in a riot of atrocity and cruelty to which
the North American Indian never so completely abandons himself, and
never so fully delights in, as when his victim is utterly defenceless
and entirely at his mercy. It was not enough merely to take life,
sometimes even at the table where bread had just been given them to
eat. With a horrid pleasure they mutilated and disfigured the bodies
they had already put beyond help or harm, wreaking their unspent
rage upon the dead as a wild beast cries over and tears the creature
he has just killed and seeks to find life in it that he may kill again.

480

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

[CHAP. XVIII.

When this cruel work was finished, the savages turned to the posses
sions of those they had murdered. Horses, cattle, and swine were
destroyed ; houses and barns set on fire. Hatred and the love of ven
geance made them prodigal of things which at any other time would
have been most precious possessions. They left nothing pertaining to
the whites that was capable of destruction.

The attack was chiefly upon those who were at a distance from
Jamestown ; but there, fortunately, the people were put upon their
guard. The night before the massacre a converted Indian was told
by his brother of the proposed extermination of the English,
and was urged to do his part toward it by the murder of his
master. It was the single instance so far as there is any
distinct record in which the tie of blood was forgotten, and the obli-

The colo
nists
warned.

Taking Warning to Jamestown.

gation of kindly relations from benefits received remembered. The
Indian revealed to his master what was to happen on this morning.
The planter, whose place was opposite Jamestown, hurried across the
river before daylight, and gave warning to the authorities of the town.
The people were put under arms ; word was sent to all the planta
tions within timely reach ; and the larger part of the colonists were
thereby saved, for the Indians made no attack where they found they
were to encounter an armed resistance. Where they did strike, how
ever, the blow was effectual. The number killed, probably within an
hour, was about three hundred and fifty.

1622.] t RESULTS OF THE MASSACRE. 481

In the inevitable hostilities which followed, the people were com
pelled to gather into the larger towns for mutual defence. The
smaller places, like Henrico and Charles City, were abandoned ; the
scattered plantations were deserted ; the iron-works and the glass
works, where the men had been killed, were given up; vineyards were
destroyed ; cultivation of land or industry of any sort was out of the
question, except in the immediate vicinity of the larger bodies of pop
ulation, where there were enough for constant vigilance and armed
defence. Discouragement and almost despair, for a time, paralysed
the unfortunate colony.

There was the more leisure for retaliation. " We must advise you,"
wrote the Council from London, " to root out from being any Exte nnina-
longer a people so cursed, a nation ungrateful to all bene- J^ans* 116
fits, and uncapable of all goodness." " A sharp revenge," urged -
they said in another letter, " upon the bloody miscreants, even to the
measure that they intended against us, the rooting them out for being
longer a people upon the face of the earth." The advice was not
needed. " We have anticipated your desires," answered the governor
and council of Virginia, " by setting upon the Indians in all places."
To the Council's reproaches that they may have brought this calamity
upon themselves, in some measure, by their want of watchfulness,
and too much trust in the savages, they pointedly replied by remind
ing them in London how, from the beginning, they had been exhorted
to be tender with the Indians, to win their good- will by familiar in
tercourse, to entertain them kindly in their homes, and induce them
to become members of their families. They bettered, if that were
possible, the new instruction. They destroyed the towns, the crops,
the fishing- weirs of the natives ; shot them, as they would shoot wild
beasts, wherever they were found ; tracked them with bloodhounds to
their hiding-places in the forests, and trained their mastiffs to tear
them to pieces. 1

The Company in England was in no condition to bear the panic
which the news of the massacre produced. Its differences

, Dissensions

with the king, and the struggle between the two factions, led m the Lon-

. don Council.

on the one side by Southampton and bandys, on the other
by the Earl of Warwick and the friends of Sir Thomas Smith, the
former treasurer of the Company, were pressing hard upon it. The
king's jealousy of those members of the " country party " who be
longed to the Council a jealousy nursed by Gondomar, the Spanish
ambassador, whose influence over James was so important an element
in the politics of the times, the controversy in regard to the im
portation of tobacco, in which was involved the prosperity of the col-

1 See minutes of the Council, in Neill's History of the Virginia Company.

482 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII.

ony, the revenue of the crown, and the good-will of Spain ; the still
unsettled accounts of Sir Thomas Smith, and the peculations of which
he was suspected; the steady disregard of the Company, year after
year, of the wishes of the king in the choice of its officers ; the appeals
of the Council to Parliament for protection, the only result of which
was to enrage James, and to prompt him to new and more arbitrary
measures ; all these for the next two years threatened the existence
of the Company, and at length destroyed it.

One of the measures to which the Smith faction resorted to get pos
session of power, was to procure the sending of a commission
ofhe V coi by the Lords of the Privy Council to Virginia to look into
the affairs of the colony. The attempt was altogether a
failure, for the colonists both privately and through their General As
sembly vigorously protested, and supported their protest with weighty
facts, against putting affairs back again into the hands from which
they had been happily rescued when Sir Thomas Smith was deposed
from the treasury ship. The king was only the more exasperated
that he, and those who were acting in accordance with his wishes,
should be thus baffled.

If possession of the Company could not be gained, at least the Com-
Dissoiution P anv itself could be destroyed. A movement was made to
gLiacIm- procure a voluntary surrender of its charter, but this was
pany - successfully resisted. The Privy Council, by order of the

king, again interfered, and the officers of the Company appealed to
Parliament for protection. The matter, James said, was already in
the hands of his Council ; the House was warned to let it alone. The
case was taken to the Court of King's Bench, and on the 16th of
June, 1624, the patent was declared by the chief justice to be null
and void. The government of the colony was put into the hands of a
commission, at the head of which was Sir Thomas Smith. Whether
there was any real obscurity or not about his long unsettled accounts,
they were liquidated, probably, on whichever side the balance was,
by his return to power.

The decision of the court l was, of course, perfectly arbitrary, and
no better law or reason for it could be given than would have been
equally applicable to the Plymouth Company, at the head of which was
the Earl of Warwick. But it suited the king to take from South
ampton and Sandys a power which he was willing to leave in the hands
of Warwick and Gorges. There was, however, no such complication

1 For authorities as to this final disposition of the Charter of the Virginia Company
\vhich differs from Stith's account of it see Neill's History of the Virginia Company in
London. Also notes to The Aspinwall Papers, vol. iv., Mass. Hist. Soc. Col., Fourth Series,
p. 71.

1624.]

SLOW RECOVERY OF VIRGINIA COLONY.

483

of interests as of the tobacco question ; the accounts of Smith ; the
unadjudicated charges against Argall in the one case as in the other,
and happily James I. was dead before the colony of Puritans at New
Plymouth was thought worthy of much notice, or that of Massachu
setts Bay had an existence.

Meanwhile the colony in Virginia recovered, in a measure, but very
slowly, from the calamities which followed the massacre, the

. ,.,.,. , . Slow recoy-

famine consequent upon the inability to produce a sumcient ery of the

. . colony from

crop in the summer of 1622, and the sickness and mortality its misfor-
which attended the crowding of so many people into narrow
quarters. They counted it as chief among the blessings of this period
that the Lord delivered into their hands a great number of the In-

Deserted Settlement.

dians ; that they were able to destroy many of their villages and their
crops ; to take from them large quantities of corn which not only
served to satisfy their own necessities, but the want of it starved their
savage enemies. These hostilities continued almost without intermis
sion, and the whole community lived for years in a state of perpetual
panic.

The reestablishment of industry and security, therefore, was of
slow growth, and it was long before the colonists ventured to return
to their plantations, or ceased to rely solely for safety upon the pres
ence of numbers. In the progress of this gradual recovery from mis
fortune it was of little moment to them which faction was in the as-

484 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII.

cendancy in the London Council. They worked out as well as they
could their own salvation, and it was years before the transfer of the
colony from the control of a corporation to that of the king, made
much change in their condition.

James died in March, 1625, and his son had little leisure, and per-
Death of haps little inclination at the outset of his reign, to think of
James i. a distant colony which had for him none of that absorbing
interest it had possessed in many respects for his father. Wyat still
remained as governor for a year or more after the abrogation of the
charter, and then retiring, at his own request, was succeeded by Yeard-
ley, whose fitness for the post had been proved in former years. The
colony during this period seems to have been left almost entirely un
der the control of its own council and general assembly, and when in
1627 Yeardley died, the former body elected Francis West, one of
their own number and a brother of Lord Delaware, to succeed him.
He probably retired in the course of the year, and Dr. John Potts, who
was in the hardly less important post of physician to the colony, was
chosen its chief magistrate in West's place. 1 The administration of
Potts was put an end to, the year after his election, by the
royal gov- arrival of the first royal governor, Sir John Harvey, who,

ernor. ...

though a resident of Virginia, seems to have been prevented
by absence in England from assuming the office earlier. He entered
upon its duties under a load of unpopularity, acquired as one of
James's commissioners in 1624, which, so long as his administration
lasted, he did nothing to diminish.

Potts's term, however, had not expired when Lord Baltimore ar
rived at Jamestown from Newfoundland, where he had a
Baltimore to colony called Ferryland. His coming opened a new chapter

Jamestown. _-.. . . ... _. .. ., . . ,

in Virginia history. The governor and council inquired
not, apparently, in any inhospitable mood, but with an entirely nat
ural desire to learn the intention of so distinguished a visitor, who,
they probably knew, had not come to Virginia from mere idle curiosity.
Baltimore's plan was to found a colony, having already petitioned the
king to make a grant of lands to him somewhere in Virginia. But
as he seems to have been disposed to remain for a time at Jamestown
with his family, the government tendered to him the usual oath of
supremacy and allegiance. They knew, no doubt, he was a Catho
lic ; they felt that, in all their tribulations and misfortunes, in one
thing, at least, they had been happy to use their own words "in
the freedom of our religion which we have enjoyed, and that no Pa
pists have been suffered to settle their abode amongst us." 2 They did

1 Burk's History of Virginia, vol. ii., p. 23.

2 See Memorial to the Lords of the Privy Council, iu Neill's English Colonization of
America, from Sainsbury's Collection of State Papers.

GEORGE CALVERT, LORD BALTIMORE.
{From a copy of the original portrait by Daniel Mytens.)

1629.]

LORD BALTIMORE IN VIRGINIA.

485

not mean to forego, if they could help it, so great a blessing. If this
distinguished Catholic nobleman who, should he settle among them,
would bring other papists with him objected to taking the oath,
then, they may have reflected, they would be happily rid of Balti
him. Their oath he declined to take, though not unwilling
to subscribe to one of his own composing, which he thought j^ance^nd^
would answer the purpose quite as well. Their answer was 8U P remac y-
a request that he would take shipping for England by the earliest
opportunity. He complied so far as to quit the colony, but before re
turning to England he made a voyage of observation to Chesapeake

imore

the *

Scenery in the Chesapeake.

Bay, where Lady Baltimore had made a visit the year before. 1 His
family he left behind him at Jamestown ; and that he returned there
afterward from England to take them away there is this interesting
bit of evidence in the colonial records of Virginia : " Thomas .Tindall
to be pilloried two hours for giving my Lord Baltimore the lie and
threatening to knock him down." 2

George Calvert, created baron of Baltimore a few weeks only be
fore the death of James I., was not a stranger to the Virginia Colony.
He had been a member of the London Council ; through him, as sec
retary of state, the wishes of the king were conveyed when he sent
to that body a list of persons, one of whom he desired should be
chosen treasurer in place of Sandys. As a devoted servant of his

1 Note to The Aspinwall Papers. Bozman's History of Maryland. . McSherry's History
of Maryland. Neill, in his English Colonization, says, that this lady was not Lord Balti
more's wife, but gives no authority for the assertion.

2 Hening's Statutes, cited by Neill.

486 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII.

royal master, he probably upheld with a hearty good will all the
measures of the party hostile to the management of Southampton and
Sandys. When in 1624 the charter was taken away from the Com
pany, Calvert was one of the commissioners appointed to take charge
of the affairs of the colony. It is not improbable that these facts
were remembered against him when he appeared in Jamestown, and
Governor Potts tendered to him and his companions the oath of
allegiance and supremacy. A man who had been the principal secre
tary of state to James for the last five or six years of his life ; who
had done all he could to further the most despotic acts of the king ;
who was rightfully supposed to have been active in the efforts to
bring about the marriage of Prince Charles with the Spanish infanta ;
who had become a Catholic, and who now proposed to plant a Cath
olic colony in Virginia, was not likely to be popular with the colo
nists.

His interest in American colonization, however, was older than his
conversion to the religious faith to which he was now attached. That
LordBaiti- dated from the first settlement of Virginia. Some years
on v re in New- before the death of James, Calvert had obtained a grant of
foundiand. i an( j s ni the southeastern part of Newfoundland, to which
he gave the name of Avalon. The colony he there established and
called Ferryland, Avas about twenty-five miles north of Cape Race.
It was a Protestant colony, its people sent out by Calvert, till he,
in 1627, as the Catholic Lord Baltimore, whose political career in
England was ended, conceived the idea of making it an asylum
for himself and others of his religious faith. He visited Ferryland
that and the following year, taking with him, on his second voyage,
his own family and forty other papists. The country did not answer
his expectations. Discouraged, in a few months' residence, by the
severity of the climate, the barrenness of the soil, and the sickness
which carried off about one fifth of his company, he sailed for Vir
ginia, probably in the spring of 1629. 1

He had already written to the king to ask for a grant of land in
that region. This request he continued to urge on his return- to Eng
land, only with a more definite purpose. His visit to Chesapeake Bay
had revealed to him a country in wonderful and charming contrast
with the bleak shores of Avalon, and he asked of the king, who
was undoubtedly friendly to him, although he discouraged him from
engaging in enterprises which involved a necessity of much labor and
an exposure to hardship which the condition of Lord Baltimore's
health did not justify, a patent which should include all that region.

1 Authorities differ on this point, but a comparison of events renders it most probable
that the spring of 1629 was the time when Lord Baltimore first visited Virginia.

1632.] CHARTER OF MARYLAND. 487

His suit was successful, though he did not live to take advantage
of it.

Lord Baltimore died in April, 1632, but so far matured were all
his plans, that the patent was issued in
June to his son Cecilius. The father
had, indeed, secured a grant more than
a year before of lands lying south of
James River, but the opposition to this
from some of the old Virginians was so
great that it was abandoned. 1 He then
asked that the country northward might
be given him ; here, he thought, he and
his Catholic brethren might plant them
selves and live in peace, unmolested by

their neighbors on the James. He pro-
Henrietta Maria.

posed to Charles to call the colony Cres-

centia, assuring the king that he should have been glad to have given
his name to it, but that another province was already known as Caro-
lana. The king proposed Mariana,' in honor of the queen. But this
was objected to as the name of a Spanish historian. Then, said
Charles, let it be Terra Marice. And Maryland the Land of Mary
it was henceforth called. 2

The Charter of Maryland gave to Cecilius, Baron of Baltimore, his
heirs and assigns, as its " true and absolute lords and proprie-

The charter

taries," all the country lying in the irregular triangle formed of Mary-
by the fortieth degree of latitude, the Potomac River, and
Chesapeake Bay ; as well as " all that part of the peninsula or Cher
sonese lying .... between the ocean on the east and the bay of
Chesapeake on the west, divided from the residue thereof by a right
line drawn from the promontory or headland called Watkins's Point."
Briefly, the limits of the Province were like those of the State to-day,
save that they included the territory afterward set apart as Dela
ware, and extended a third of a degree farther to the north than now.
Thus the region which the patent conferred was taken entirely from
what was then known as Virginia ; but the conditions and privileges
which the Maryland grant went on to enumerate differed from any
that had been given in the case of any previous American colony.

1 The Duke of Norfolk had proposed a settlement on the south banks of James River in
1629, possibly the very lands granted to Baltimore two years later, and the colonial
assembly decreed that a county should be named for him. The same year the patent to Sir
Robert Heath, which included the whole coast from Albemarle Sound to St. Augustine,
was granted under the name of the Province of Carolana, in honor of Charles. Neill'a
English Colonization, pp. 213, 214.

2 Neill.

488 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIIL

The Lords Baltimore then and in future were to be absolute lords
of their province, in as full a sense as such power could ever
the lorciVo- be conferred ; that is, " saving always the faith and alle
giance and sovereign dominion " due to the king. They held
their rights by fealty only, the annual payment of "two Indian
arrows of those parts," and the requirement that they should deliver a
fifth of any gold or silver that might be found, being prescribed as
formal considerations of their tenure. No article of the grant required
them to render account of their administration to the king ; none pro
vided for the interference of the crown with the colonial government,
or defined occasions for it ; none even prescribed means for the inves
tigation of abuse of the powers conferred. It was especially stated
that the new province should not thenceforth be a part of the land of
Virginia, or of any other colony, but should enjoy entire independence.

But the charter was still more noteworthy in the rights which it
Political secured to the colonists the people. It provided that the
fired to" the freemen of the province should be called together to take
colonists. p ar j n f ram i n g the laws which were to govern them ; but in
cases of emergency, when it should not be convenient to call together
such an assembly of the people, the legislative power was given to
Lord Baltimore and the magistrates, provided that such laws as they
might enact did not infringe upon the rights of the citizens, " in mem
ber, life, freehold, goods or chattels." Further, the liberties thus
strongly secured in Maryland were open to all subjects of the English
crown ; no restrictions were placed on emigration to the province ;
and all colonists and their descendants were placed on the footing of
native Englishmen. Last, but by no means least as an attraction to
free settlers, even though it was granted rather as a gift to the pro
prietaries than as a direct privilege to the people, the charter added
perpetual exemption from all taxation by the crown. The proprie
taries and the provincial assemblies could regulate their own taxation,
but the charter left this to them alone.

There was only one article in the charter even distantly relating to
clause in religious matters that which gave to the proprietaries the
reiat^Tto* patronages and advowsons of all churches which should be
religion. built and which must be dedicated and consecrated according
to the ecclesiastical laws of England. There was no discrimination in
favor of or against any sect within the limits of Christianity. With
out trace of bigotry, with unprecedented guaranties of liberty to the
settler, with the promise of freedom from financial burdens, the charter
of Maryland might in very truth be said, as one of its paragraphs
affirmed, to " eminently distinguish " the new province " above all
other regions of that territory," and to so provide that the new colony

1633.]

CECIL CAL VERT'S COLONY.

489

might "happily increase by a multitude of people resorting thither,"
and that English subjects might undertake the emigration to it " with
a ready and a cheerful mind."

Cecilius Calvert, now Lord Baltimore, intended to go himself as
leader of the first expedition, but being, for some reason, detained in
England, he delegated the com
mand to his younger brother
Leonard ; Jerome Hawley and
Thomas Cornwallis, " two
worthy and able gentlemen,"
being appointed his councillors
.or assistants.

It has been a disputed ques
tion, whether the majority of
those taking part in this first
voyage to Maryland were " gen
tlemen " or laborers, but the
larger portion of the emigrants
undoubtedly belonged to the
latter class. The expedition,
moreover, was in every sense
under Roman Catholic leader
ship. Maryland was to be an
asylum for the then persecuted

Romanists, and of those who came to share in the new venture the
leading men were some twenty gentlemen " of very good fashion,"
men of influence and often of wealth, who hoped to find a

, , . Character of

quiet resort beyond the sea. Among these adventurers, their the colon-
presence and leadership lending to the voyage something of
the aspect and fervor of a religious pilgrimage, were the Jesuit priests
Father Andrew White and Father John Altham, two men whose
earnestness, self-sacrifice, and simple piety, have compelled kindly
recognition from historians of every sect and opinion. Father White
became the annalist of the expedition, and from his quaint and pic
turesque " Narrative," written in Latin and having its description in
terspersed with many pious reflections and devout thanksgivings, the
most vivid idea of the voyage and settlement is gained. 1

1 Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam (Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland). The manu
script of this valuable narrative was discovered among the archives of the " Bonnes pro-
fessa" of the Society of Jesus in Rome, by the Rev. William McSherry, of that order,
about 1832. Father McSherry at once copied it carefully, and deposited the copy in the
library of the Roman Catholic College at Georgetown, whence it was afterward removed
to that of Loyola College at Baltimore. It has been twice translated, first in 1847 by
Dr. N. C. Brooks (the translation which appears in Force's Hist. Tracts, vol. iv.). Our

Cecil Calvert.

490

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

[CHAP. XVIII.

The whole number of assembled emigrants, including servants and
Departure of laborers, was nearly or quite three hundred. On Friday,
iand M coh>ny. November 22, 1633, they sailed from Cowes, in the Isle of
Wight, in a ship, The Ark, accompanied by a pinnace,
The Dove, and, " and after committing the principal parts of the
ship to the protection of God especially, and of His most Holy
Mother, and St. Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland,
they put to sea, 'i with a gentle east wind blowing."

Cowes in the Isle of Wight.

The voyage was long, for the vessels followed the circuitous south
ern course by the Azores and the West Indies ; and at St.
Christopher's and Barbadoes they made a considerable stay.
The first part of the passage was full of danger ; a terrible tempest on
the 25th of November, separated the pinnace from the ship, nor did
the smaller vessel reappear till six weeks later, when she overtook The
Ark far on in her course, and the devout emigrants offered up a hearty
thanksgiving for their reunion with the friends they had long given
up for lost. Fears of pirates haunted them throughout the voyage ;
they narrowly escaped falling into the hands of a Spanish fleet which
lay along the Cape de Verd islands ; and only the timely discovery of
a plot among the slaves at Barbadoes, prevented their finding that
island given up to anarchy and massacre, amid which they would have

quotations are made from the later and more accurate translation, edited for the Maryland
Historical Society in 1874, by the Rev. E. A. Dalrymple of Baltimore, and accompanied by
the Latin text.

1634.] CECIL CAL VERT'S COLONY. 491

run some risk of being murdered for the sake of their ship and cargo.
Storms were frequent, nor were they always saved from danger by
monitory " sun-fish swimming with great efforts against the course of
the sun," which Father White believed to be " a very sure sign of a
terrible storm," and which once, at least, led them to take prompt pre
cautions. Beset with perils as they were, the emigrants nevertheless
made their voyage in safety, and at last, on February 24, 1634, they
sighted Point Comfort, in Virginia.

Glad as they were to be so near the end of their tedious voyage, the
new-comers had some cause to fear for their reception among Their recep .
the colonists along the James, where the hostility excited v?rginfan he
by the granting of Lord Baltimore's patent was now at its s vernor -
height. But Governor Harvey, anxious to gain favor with the king,
and personally friendly to Baltimore's purposes, was able to prevent
any disagreeable manifestation of the popular feeling. He met the
settlers, fortified as they were with royal letters to him, most hospit
ably, and treated them kindly during their stay of more than a week.
On the third of March they again set sail, and were soon within those
boundaries, on the shore of the beautiful bay, which were to mark
their future home. Right gladly did they see the pleasant region that
awaited them, for few emigrants to North America had been greeted
by a more genial climate or more beautiful lands than these ; and in
the pride of possession they " began to give names to places," 1 calling
the southern point at the Potomac's mouth, now Smith Point, by
the name of St. Gregory, and the northern one St. Michael's, now
Point Lookout.

The entrance to the great river, as Father White described it
with enthusiastic admiration, presented nearly the same appearance
as in our own day. "It is not," he remarked, " disfigured with any
swamps, but has firm land on each side. Fine groves of trees appear,
not choked with briers or bushes and undergrowth, but growing at
intervals as if planted by the hand of man, so that you can drive a
four-horse carriage wherever you chose among the trees." To the
right and left opened the mouths of broad estuaries, tributary
streams with low shores, behind which rose gentle hills, covered with
plentiful, yet not dense forests. " Never have I beheld a larger or
more beautiful river," wrote the priest ; " the Thames seems a mere
rivulet in comparison with it." The Ark and the Dove sailed up the
broad stream, while the shores at night blazed with the camp-fires of
the Indians ; and the daylight revealed to the emigrants armed bands

i A Relation of Maryland, together with a Map of the Country, etc., London, 1635. Sabin's
reprint, edited by Hawks, New York, 1865. This contemporary record is second to Father
White's in value as regards details. Its author is unknown.

492

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

[CHAP. XVIII.

hurrying to and fro, the tribes they believed mustering to resist their
landing.

Somewhat more than thirty miles from the river's mouth lay a
group of islands, called the Herons' Islands, from the great number
of those birds that flocked about them. They are known now as the
Blackstone Islands, and in the two centuries that have elapsed, almost
all of them have been washed away, a few only rising above the level

of flood tide. The first of these,
long since reduced to a long, low
sandspit, hardly discernible above the
water, the voyagers named St. Clements,
and chose as their first landing-place on
Maryland soil. It had then a sloping
shore, and cedars, nut-trees, sassafras, with
flowers and herbs, covered the four hundred acres of dry land which
have now so nearly disappeared. On March 25, the " day of the An
nunciation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary," an omen which the
ceremonies pious emigrants did not fail to note, they took possession of
on landing. fa Q country with solemn ceremonies. After celebrating mass
upon the beach, 1 they followed their governor in reverent procession
to the highest part of the island, where they planted a great cross of

i After speaking of the celebration of mass, Father White adds, " this had never been
done before in this part of the world." He was not aware of the Jesuit mission on the banks
of the Rappahanock, sixty years earlier. See p. 221 of this volume.

1634.]

CECIL CALVERT'S COLONY.

493

wood and knelt around it, while the litany was read. Then Leonard
Calvert solemnly proclaimed their right to the beautiful region about
them, and took possession of it " for our Saviour and for our Sover-
aigne Lord the King of England."

Two days were spent in explorations by the governor, who went up
the river in the Dove, taking with him another pinnace brought from
Virginia ; the greater part of the colonists remaining on board the
Ark meanwhile, as she lay at anchor in the river at St. Clement's,
watched by a crowd of curious Indians upon the shore. The

C&l vert's

chief object of Calvert's excursions was to treat with the journey up

i-t -i -11 n i the Potomac.

leaders ot the tribes, and seek to do away with any hostility
with which they might look upon the new settlement. The people left

behind in the Ark, by signs of friend-
ship to the savages about them, grad-
ua Uy made acquaintance with them
as they ventured out to the island
an( * watcne d *" e English putting to

Governor Calvert and the Indian Chief.

gether a little vessel, the parts of which they had brought with them.
They wondered where a tree could have grown large enough to be hol
lowed for the hull of the Ark; and were amazed at all the tools and
arms of the English. Little by little they became convinced of the
perfect friendliness of the strangers ; nor was Calvert less successful in
establishing good relations with the chiefs. At an Indian town near
the mouth of Acquia Creek, where the werowance, or chief, was a

494 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII.

child, and his uncle Archihau held the regency, the English were
gladly welcomed, and established a lasting friendship ; and still fur
ther up the Potomac, at Piscataway, they had a somewhat similar,
though more cautious reception. Here they found a Captain Henry
Fleet, who had traded for some time among these Indians for furs,
and used his influence over the chief to induce him to go on board the
pinnace for an interview with Calvert. The friendliness of his bear
ing soon banished the suspicions of the chief and his followers, who
had gathered on the shore fearing treachery ; and the parley was
highly successful. The definite question was put by the Governor,
whether the chief " would be content that he and his people should
set down in his country, in case he should find a place convenient for
him ; " the werowance gave the cautious but friendly answer that he
" would not bid him go, neither would he bid him stay, but that he
might use his own discretion."

This Captain Fleet was familiar with the Potomac and the neighbor
ing country, where he had long carried on a profitable trade in peltries.
He had, at one time, been held as a prisoner for several years among
The Anacos- the Nacostines or Anacostans, a tribe whose principal vil-
tan Indians. \. d g e was on ^] ie gj^g o f {} ie present city of Washington, where
their name is still preserved in a corrupted form in the island Analos-
tan in the Potomac, and in a little post-office station, Anacostia, near
the city limits. His relations with the neighboring Indians at the time
of Calvert's arrival were friendly, and he was, at least, in no fear from
his old enemies. He was a roving adventurer, sailing to New England,
or to Jamestown, or returning to England, wherever a trade in corn
or beaver offered the most inducement ; but his long imprisonment
among the Anacostans had made him most familiar with the resources
along almost the whole course of the Potomac. He was not permitted,
however, to enjoy the advantages of this trade undisputed. To con
ceal its source was impossible ; others followed him from Jamestown,
and he was at length arrested by order of the authorities there for
trading without a license. Two years before he had been taken to
Jamestown and put upon trial, but the difficulty seems to have been
compounded by his admitting others to a share in his ventures, the
profits probably being increased by the employment of larger cap
ital.

Fleet was no doubt aware that a charter had been granted to Lord
Baltimore, and may have seen something of the excitement caused at
Jamestown when the news was received that a Catholic colony would
soon be planted in such disagreeable proximity, and in a country
which the Virginians believed was rightfully theirs. He either did
not share the religious prejudices of the colonists, or was ready for

1634.J CECIL CALVERT'S COLONY. 495

other reasons to welcome the new-comers. Welcome them, at any
rate, he did ; became afterward one of their number as a man of some
mark and influence, and when finally the colony was established, was
a member of its General Assembly. 1

Under the guidance of the man thus fortunately met with, the Ark
and the pinnace now dropped down the river to the mouth of a stream

St. George's Island.

flowing into the Potomac, Calvert deciding not to make his first settle
ment so far from the sea. This stream they named the St. George ;
one of the " two harbors " formed at its mouth 2 received the name
St. Mary's, which has become the modern name of the whole river,
though a wooded island near at hand still preserves the older title.
Sandy points, doubtless higher then than now, and different in form from
those left by the wearing tides of two centuries, marked the entrance
through which Fleet guided them toward his favorite village of Yao-
comico ; 3 but a little way back from the banks, the land rose in
gentle undulations, and in the further distance into hills of moderate
height.

The river itself was rather a series of broad bays or lakes than a
stream of regular width and rapid current. Passing up through
several of these, to one which they named " the bay of St. Ignatius,"
the settlers anchored and prepared to land. At the end of the broad
harbor a low promontory extended from the eastern shore, ending
in a sandy beach, the present Chancellor's Point ; and on this, as
we understand Father White's description, the Maryland colonists

1 A narrative of Fleet's voyages to the Potomac was first published in Neill's English
Colonization.

2 Concerning the probable condition of these bays and their shores, and their difference
from their present form, see the elaborate note K to White's Narrative, p. 107 of Dr. Dai
ry mple's edition.

3 The name Yaocomico is now given to a village on the Virginia side of the Potomac,
nearly opposite St. Mary's River ; but this is an entirely modern transfer of the title from
the site to which it properly belonged, the territory of King Yaocomico, on the St.
Mary's.

496

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

[CHAP. XVIII.

first set foot. Walking on through the woods and along the bank
for a mile or more, they came upon a region whose beauty and fitness
satisfied them that here was a proper site for their future town. The
river-bank was higher here than it was farther down the stream, while

behind it, at a distance of about a half mile from the water-
tor their side, lay a gently sloping valley, on the further side of which,

again, was higher land gradually rising to the inland hills.
In this valley springs were then as now abundant ; and scattered
through it were groves of nut trees and oaks. Here the Indians had

The Bluff at St. Mary's.

their village; and where it approached the water's edge the bank rose
into a bold bluff between two broad expanses of the river, similar to
those below. The soil was fertile ; the neighboring woods, Father
White declares, were free from dangerous animals ; the place seemed
well-nigh perfect for their purpose.

On the highest part of the bluff stood a mulberry tree, large enough
even then to throw a broad shade about it, and to be visible for a long
distance up and down the river. For more than two hundred years
afterward its mass of foliage still crowned the promontory ; and its
decayed and blackened trunk, lying where it fell but a few years ago,
yet marks the place of its growth, but nearer to the edge of the bank
than it was when the settlers first stood around it, for the river has
changed and reduced the sandy cape. Under this tree, according to
well-authenticated tradition, Leonard Calvert made a treaty with the
Indians of the village. For a certain payment in cloth, tools,
chase of the and trinkets the tribe of Yaocomico consented that the

Indian vil- -i -i -i t i -11

lageand strangers should share their town with them through the

lands. . . .

harvest, and then should purchase all the site, while the
easily-contented savages removed their dwelling elsewhere. The fre-

1634.]

THE FIRST TOWN.

497

quent raids of the Susquehannahs from the north had already inclined
them to this step ; and they were the more glad if by so doing they
could win the powerful alliance of the Englishmen. They " made mu
tual promises to each
other, to live friend
ly and peaceably to
gether, and if any in
jury should happen
to be done on either
part, that satisfac
tion should be made
for the same." On
the 27th of March the
governor took posses
sion, and named the
first village of Mary
land Saint Mary's.
The colonists set
about their build
ing and planting at
once ; and the com
pact with the In
dians was kept with
scrupulous fidelity.
Through the spring
and early summer the
whites and savages
worked side by side,
the Indians teaching
the English to make
bread and "pone" of Indian corn, or helping them in the hunt;
the settlers giving them of their trinkets and tools in return.

Naturally, Father White and his fellow-priests made haste to fit up
a temporary chapel in the Indian cabin falling to their share ; but
it was not long before they established themselves in a
more fitting place for worship. Even before the Indians had
retired, according to the terms of their agreement, the new
houses which the colonists were building on every hand were ready
for occupation. A little town of comparatively comfortable dwellings
clustered in the valley, while nearer the river bank, and especially on
the bluff, preparations were made for what were to be the public build
ings of the colony. On the gradual slope from the inland hills toward
the valley, and less than half a mile to the eastward of the promon-

Return from a Hunt.

Building of
the Catholic
Chapel.

498 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII.

tory, the first church was built a small building, as is shown by the
still visible hollow in which its foundations rested, but decorated with
all the skill that the rough tools of the colonists permitted. Over the
altar was a rudely-carved representation of a mass of clouds, from
which rough wooden points descending represented the tongues of
flame at Pentecost. In the Roman Catholic College at Georgetown
two fragments of this rude altar-piece still remain, plainly showing
the simplicity and roughness of the whole.

CHAPTER XIX.

MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT.

THE COLONY FIRMLY PLANTED. HOSTILITY OF THE VIRGINIANS. DISPUTE WITH
CLAYBORNE. ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND CORNWALLIS. GOVERNOR
HARVEY DEPOSED AND SENT TO ENGLAND. MEETINGS OF THE MARYLAND ASSEM
BLY. TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. DISSENSIONS BETWEEN PAPISTS AND PURI
TANS. REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. A PARLIAMENTARY SHIP SEIZED IN MARYLAND.
CLAYBORNE'S RECOVERY OF KENT ISLAND. His RULE IN MARYLAND. RESTO
RATION OF BALTIMORE. DEATH OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. MISTRESS MARGARET
BRENT.

BEFORE the winter set in the Maryland colonists were all comfort
ably sheltered in houses gathered close about the chapel. In that soft
and genial climate there was no
hardship in living out of doors
during the summer, and their
wise treatment of the natives
had given them entire freedom
from fear of the hostilities which
they had most dreaded. Their
first trouble came from their own

Maryland Shilling.

countrymen. The indignation

with which the Virginians heard of the new colony was natural enough,
however unreasonable. It was not a question of room, for that the
country was large enough no one could dispute ; but how many it
could support was a serious consideration. The Virginians were
jealous of even a single man who should encroach upon the trade in
peltries ; that jealousy grew to open enmity when the intruders were
numerous enough to absorb completely all the trade with Indians in
the country about them. The advantages that must follow from an
increase in the population of civilized people, the cultivation of the
soil, the growth of commerce, were less immediate and obvious than
the disadvantages so plainly seen and felt at once as a scarcity of
beaver skins and corn, and higher prices for these Indian staples.
These intruders on the Potomac, moreover, though coming under a
royal charter, were settling within the domain which the Virginians
had long been accustomed to consider their own, and to the loss of

500 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

which, by the abrogation of their charter, they were by no means
reconciled.

On the other hand the Marylanders were quite secure in their rights
under the patent from the king, and resented, no doubt, with some
bitterness, the feeling they knew to exist against them in Jamestown
because of their religion. In such a state of feeling, any encounter
between the colonists would be likely to lead to trouble.

Among others who had traded within the limits of Baltimore's
patent for some years past was William Clayborne, the secretary of
Virginia under Governor Harvey, and a member of the Virginia
Council. He had done more than trade, which he did under royal
licenses of different dates authorizing him to explore from the thirty-
fourth to the forty-first
degree of latitude, he
had established on Kent
Island, in Chesapeake
Bay, and within the limits
of the Maryland grant, a
small trading post, with a
storehouse and a few per
manent settlers whom he
employed in the traffic
with the Indians of that
vicinity. His trade-per
mits were not indeed
grants of territory, but it

Clayborne's Trading-post on Kent Island. .

may fairly be questioned

whether actual settlement in the wilderness of America was not as
good title as a royal patent. At any rate, Clayborne put forward a
claim to proprietorship, refused to acknowledge the government of the
Maryland proprietary, and used his influence so vigorously in urging
this view upon the Virginian authorities that he succeeded in gaining
a majority of the council to the support of his pretensions.

Just before the setting out of the colonists from England, in 1633,
the planters of Virginia had presented a remonstrance to the king
against the Maryland patent ; but the Privy Council had only advised
an amicable settlement, and had finally decided " that the Lord Balti
more should be left to his patent, and the other parties to the course
of law ; " while both colonies were ordered to permit entire freedom
of trade between them, to harbor no fugitives one from the other, and
to preserve a fitting general amity in all their relations. This reas
serted conclusively the rights of Maryland ; yet so far from ending
the pretensions of the Virginian trader, it was followed by a long
course of resistance to the new jurisdiction.

1635.] DISPUTE WITH CLAYBORNE. 501

His bitter hostility to the new colonists had shown itself from the
very moment of their landing in America. He had met Leonard Cal-
vert and his emigrants at Jamestown, seeking to discourage them at
the outset by stories that the Indians along the Potomac were arming
to resist their coming. Their actual landing and settlement excited
him to measures for which there is not a word of defence in any view
of the case. He attempted to turn against the new-comers the friendly
tribes with whom, on a visit soon after their arrival, Harvey found
them peacefully associated. He seems to have had influence enough
over Fleet at one time to induce him to persuade the Indians that the
Maryland colonists were Spaniards, enemies of the Virginians, who
meant to drive out the tribes about them as soon as they should be
strong enough to spoil their villages and take their lands. So well
did he succeed, that even in the tribe with whom they had lived at
St. Mary's, jealousies and suspicious conduct had begun to alarm the
colonists, who hastened to build a block house for a refuge in emer
gency. Yet constant and unbroken kindness proved stronger than
Clayborne's efforts ; gradually, the savages became convinced of the
sincerity of the peaceful settlers ; harmony was restored, and when
the Indians withdrew from the village according to their promise, they
did so with assurances of continued friendship.

But Clayborne's energy and persistency in behalf of his claims
made him a truly formidable opponent. Easily evading capture by
the Marylanders, whom Lord Baltimore had ordered to seize him if
they could, he spent the last months of the year in restlessly urging
his plans upon the influential men of Virginia, and in preparing to
carry out the intention which he had announced, of maintaining his
alleged rights even by the use of force. The majority of the Virgin
ians sustained him ; the assembly advised Clayborne that they knew
no reason why he or they should surrender the Isle of Kent to the
new province. Governor Harvey alone was on the side of the Mary
land people, and for his good offices Lord Baltimore subsequently pro
cured him a letter of thanks from the king. 1

In the early spring of 1635, when Clayborne despatched a small
vessel, the Long Tail, determined to carry out his usual trad-

/ i t* TT Fignt be~

ing voyage in spite of resistance, there were few in Virginia tween armed
disposed to hinder him. But the Marylanders were pre- ciaybome
pared, having sent out two armed pinnaces under their com- Maryland
missioner or councillor, Cornwallis, to watch for any illegal
traders within the charter boundaries. They seized the Long Tail
on the 23d of April ; and when Clayborne sent an armed boat under
the command of one Ratcliff Warren to recapture her or seize any
1 Letter to Windebank, quoted in Neill's English Colonization of America, p. 242.

502

MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

Maryland vessels he might encounter, Cornwallis met her with one of
his pinnaces in the harbor of Wighcomoco on May 10th, and took her
after a fight in which Warren and two men of the Virginians were
killed, with one of Cornwallis's own crew. The chief of the surviving
Virginians seem to have been held by the Maryland officers for trial ;
the captured boat to have been carried to St. Mary's.

This open conflict between the two colonies (for Clayborne was so
generally sustained as to give it virtually that importance), caused the
most intense excitement, especially when it was followed by a demand
on the part of Maryland. The first Assembly of that province had
been convened just before the attack upon Clayborne, and though
nearly all the records of its
proceedings are lost, leaving
us in almost complete igno
rance of its acts, yet we know
from subsequent references, 1

Fight between Clayborne and Corn

that it decreed " that offenders, in all murders and felonies, shall
suffer the same pains and forfeitures as for the same crimes in Eng-

A O

land." In the eyes of the Maryland authorities Clayborne's act was
a felony ; and they sent messengers to Governor Harvey, requiring
that he should deliver up to them the man who according to their
understanding of the matter, had rebelled against the terms of the
king's charter, and had used force against their government. Harvey,
it is true, did not venture to comply with this demand, but he in
sisted that Clayborne should go to England to justify himself before
the home government.

The Virginia governor had from various causes become exceedingly
1 Chalmers Annals. See Bozman, vol. ii., p. 34, and note.

1635.]

INTENSE FEELING IN VIRGINIA.

503

unpopular, and this support on his part of the Marylanders led to ab
solute revolution. The news of the seizure of Clayborne's
vessel and the killing of his men was received at Jamestown at James e - n
with the utmost indignation. The people insisted that Har
vey should at once demand the surrender of the captured pinnace, the
recognition of Clayborne's claim to Kent's Island, and that he should
add his protest to that of the colonists generally against the patent of
Baltimore and the conduct of his people. Harvey refused with a firm
ness creditable to his courage if not to his judgment. Affairs came at
once to a crisis ; a public meeting was called to meet at the house of
William Barrene, the speaker of the Assembly. There was Gov JSa . rrey
the utmost excitement, but the utmost unanimity. Some de P sed -
months before, Harvey had written to England that the feeling against

Excitement at Jamestown.

Maryland was so intense
in Virginia that the people openly
declared they would rather knock
their cattle on the head than sell
them to that colony ; and that

among the malcontents none were so violent as Cap
tain Sam. Mathews, "who scratching his head and in
a fury stamping cried out, 'A pox upon Maryland!"
To this man was intrusted the delicate business of
dealing with Harvey in this emergency. The next
day, taking forty men with him, he marched to the
governor's house. This being surrounded, to prevent escape, a mem
ber of the council, John Uty, entered and arrested Harvey on a charge

504 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

of treason. A few days later the General Assembly met and elected
John West as governor and sent Harvey to England for trial. Clay-
borne went also to England to get the redress which Virginia, however
good her will was, was powerless to give him, but was discouraged by
Charles declaring that the act of the Virginians, in arresting and send
ing home a governor, was an intolerable assumption of sovereignty ;
that Harvey should go back though it were only for a day. 1

Some years of peace and prosperity followed in Maryland. From
time to time the colony was reinforced by the accession of new emi-
igrants. So large had been the yield from their corn, even during the
first season's planting, that they had sent a thousand bushels to New
England " to provide them some salt-fish, and other commodities
which they wanted ; " their cattle and poultry, brought from Virginia,
had increased " to a great stock, sufficient to serve the colonie very
plentifully."

The settlement had assumed much more of the aspect of a town
than any other English colony had gained in so short a time after its
foundation. It had been built from the beginning with no war or
disturbance to interrupt its progress, or to make its people fear for its
permanence. Bricks and other materials had been brought from
England in large quantities, and substantial dwellings had almost
immediately succeeded to the Indian cabins. Private buildings of
course came first ; and the earlier assemblies of the province seem to
st. John's have met at a manor belonging to Governor Calvert, called
St. John's, and situated farther inland. But the command
ing bluff, overlooking all the neighborhood, was sure, sooner or later,
to become the site of the capitol of the colony ; and after the lapse
of several years a government building or state-house was erected
there, in the form of an irregular cross, some fifty feet in length
and more than thirty across the shorter arms. 2 It stood but a short
distance a little more than thirty yards in the rear of the mul
berry tree, and the rough cruciform hollow where its foundations
were laid may still be seen, filled with a dense undergrowth of weeds
and bushes, that spring here and there from the fragments of broken
masonry. On the mulberry tree before it, probably then the only
large tree upon the bluff, were nailed the proclamations of Calvert and
his successors, the notices of punishments and fines, the inventories of

1 Neill.

2 It is impossible to fix with certainty the exact date of the building of the state-house,
or of any of the other principal buildings ; but they belonged, at all events, to the earliest
part of the history of the settlement. To Dr. Brome, the present owner of St. Mary's
Manor, a large estate covering the site and whole neighborhood of old St. Mary's, who has
carefully preserved many local traditions, we are indebted for many interesting facts re
lating to the early settlers.

1635.] PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 505

debtors whose goods were to be sold, and all notices calling for the
public attention. Even of late years, curious relic-hunters have dug
from the decaying trunk the rude nails which thus held the forgotten
state papers of two centuries ago.

The top of the bluff, according to tradition, must once have formed
a broad square before the state-house doors, where the people assem
bled, and the little force mustered which was detailed for defence ;
where punishments were inflicted, and proclamations read before being
posted. But the ceaseless wear of the river has crumbled away a
great part of the point, and only a small space now lies between the
building-site and the water. A church, built in the last century,
stands a little farther back, and the churchyard extends over all that
is left of the plateau ; the ground where the Maryland Pilgrims were
called together, is occupied by the graves of their descendants.

In the valley, still further up the inland slope than the Jesuit
fathers' church, stood the principal private house, 1 owned by The GoTern .
Calvert or one of the leaders in the colony, a well-built struc- or s House -
ture indeed for a new settlement, for its walls were partly standing
within the memory of men now living. In the middle, two stout chim
neys gave outlet for vast fire-places in the large rooms which formed
the ground floor and basement, the latter paved with square red tiles.
The house was of red brick, ornamented here and there with black ;
its general shape was square ; and about it, giving a fortress-like look
to the place, rose a stout brick wall with but few openings. Near by
was a sudden hollow in the level of the field, from the bottom of which
a spring gave the settlement its purest water. Still farther inland
lay a little ravine, where the first burial-ground of the colony was
made, and the Jesuit fathers piously planted the black cross at the
head of every Christian grave.

It was not only at St. Mary's, however, that the rapidly increasing
colony began to take on this appearance of prosperity. Up and down
the east bank of the river were farms and plantations ; and even the
opposite shore began to be taken up. In 1635, Lord Balti-

r ' Land grants

more seems to have established certain terms for the grant- made to set-

tiers.

ing of land to settlers : a thousand acres, " erected into a
Manor," but subject to a quitrent of a pound a year, to every man
who should transport to the colony five able men properly provided ;
a hundred acres, subject to a quitrent of two shillings, for every man
who should pay his own transportation, and the same for each servant

1 Local traditions agree in calling this site, on which even men of middle age remem
ber the ruins, " the Governor's House." It is not improbable, however, that it may have
been the brick house built by Cornwallis in 1640, which is especially noticed in the records
because of its superiority to its neighbors. It was very possibly occupied by later gover
nors on this account.

506 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

he should bring, if their number were less than five ; for every married
man a hundred acres each for himself and his wife, and fifty for each
child all subject to a quitrent of a shilling for every fifty acres. In
1636, while these conditions were retained for all future emigrants,
still further grants were made to those who had taken part in the
original voyage in 1633, and even slight additions to the lands of all
who had settled in the colony before the end of 1635; so that the
pioneers of the province became a favored class, especially as those
who held manors were permitted the feudal privileges of holding
courts-leet and courts-baron. The conditions differed, however, in
one very essential point, from the feudal element introduced by the
Dutch into New Netherlands, the smaller land-holders having as abso
lute a title from the government as the larger ; the estate of each was
held in fee simple, to the owner and his heirs forever ; there was no
opportunity for the abuses of the feudal class of tenures.

By the end of 1637, the region about St. Mary's is referred to in doc
uments as the " county " of that name ; while enough colonists had
settled over on the west bank of St. George's (St. Mary's) River to en
title them to form one of the "hundreds" into which the county had
been divided. Several mills had been built both at St. Mary's and on
out-lying farms ; the crops had been successful year after year, and
the cattle and poultry brought from Virginia had increased so as to
give the whole colony a plentiful supply.

The inhabitants had now become so numerous that a more complete
code of laws was necessary for their government. The Assem-

Difference

between the bly of 1635 had proposed a series of regulations for the col-

people and i i i

the lord oiiy, but they were not acceptable to the proprietary, who

proprietor. j" , V x T

refused his assent to them. Two years later Lord Balti
more sent out suggestions for enactments in place of those he had thus
rejected ; and to consider these suggestions the second Assembly of the
province was summoned to meet on the 25th of January, 1638.

The freemen duly came together on that day, some appearing in
person, nearly as many by proxy ; but they manifested anything but
that passive acquiescence which had been expected in the proposals of
their ruler. When these were " put to the question, whether they
should be received as laws or not," l only Leonard Calvert and John
Lewger, with the twelve proxies they held, voted for them ; against
them there were " thirty-seven voices." Lord Baltimore's proposals
have not been preserved, but it is probable that this resistance to his
will was rather to the construction of the charter that should limit to
the proprietary the right of initiating laws, than a dislike for any

1 Transcription from the original record of Assembly Proceedings, 1637-58, in Bozman,
vol. ii., p. 55.

1638.]

THE SECOND ASSEMBLY.

507

special provision. 1 This belief seems sustained by the recorded fact,
that when the Assembly immediately afterward proposed " to agree
upon some laws till [they] could hear from England again," the Presi
dent (Calvert) denied " any such power to be in the house ; " a de
cision which was warmly contested, and finally overruled, committees
being appointed to prepare a draft to be submitted to Lord Balti

more.

Long delays followed, and several adjournments of the Assembly

intervened before this draft of "twenty
laws " was finally approved and signed
by the members on March 24th, the
last day of the session ; but in the mean
time the body, using the common law

Clayborne's Petition.

of England and the English methods of procedure in default of a code
of its own, busied itself with matters quite as pressing. An inquiry
was ordered into the fight between the pinnaces, three years before at
Wighcomoco. The result of this was the acquittal of all the Mary-
landers, the formal indictment of Clayborne, and a bill of attainder
passed against him ; while Thomas Smith, next in rank after Ratcliff

1 This reasonable belief is adopted by Grahame, Bacon, MacSherry, Bozman, Bancroft
and others ; but taken in conjunction with other acts and circumstances of the time, needs
no authority to justify it.

508 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

Warren on the Virginian vessel, was brought to the bar, tried, and
sentenced to be hanged, without benefit of clergy. 1

Clayborne himself, meanwhile, busily at work in England, had
come near to turning the tables on his Maryland antago-
inSguesIn nists. On his arrival he had presented to the king a peti
tion, setting forth his " wrongs and injuries," citing the li
censes under which he had acted in making his settlement on Kent
Island, and pleading his cause with such address, that he very nearly
gained not only the end he had first sought, but an enormous grant
besides. The king, to whom he had held out hopes of a direct gain
from the rents he would pay for what he should receive, favored him,
though not in any very definite way ; but the lords commissioners for
plantations finally decided sharply against him, declaring " that the
ciayborne lands in question absolutely belonged to Lord Baltimore, and
defeated. i\\^ no plantation, or trade with the Indians, ought to be
allowed within the limits of his patent, without his permission. And
that with regard to violences complained of, no cause for any relief
appeared, but that both parties should be left to the ordinary course
of justice." 2 Clayborne went back to Virginia, his immediate end de
feated, but his purpose as positive as ever ; and for a longer time than
before, though he struggled against the restraints upon him, he was
compelled to leave his enemies in peace.

The Maryland Assembly of 1638 was not more fortunate than that
of three years before, in securing the assent of Lord Bal-
of th e 1 A p timore to the code of laws which it proposed ; but it won
a much greater victory in gaining at least a qualified ac
knowledgment of the principle at issue. For the proprietary, immedi
ately after receiving the report of the session at St. Mary's, wrote a
letter to his brother the governor, in which, while reserving his right
of dissent, he virtually yielded to the freemen the right for which they
had contended. That the letter was thus interpreted is evident, from
the fact that the next Assembly regarded the question as settled in
their favor, and did not again discuss it.

The colony was ere long disturbed by the enmity of the Susquehan-
nah Indians, who, jealous, perhaps, of the favor shown to other tribes,
attacked scattered parties of colonists, and the outlying plantations.
These hostilities, however, assumed no very formidable aspect, until
1642. Bands of the provincial militia were then carefully organized,

" Then did the prisoner demand his clergy ; but it was answered by the President that
clergy could not be allowed in his crime, and if it might, yet now it was demanded too late
after judgment." Assembly Proceedinqs, etc.

2 Report of the Lords Commissioners, etc., quoted by Hazard, Collections, i. p. 130;
by Bozman, ii., note xi., p. 584 ; by MacSherry, p. 46, and elsewhere, with slight variations.
Comments by Bozman, ii. 587.

1642-44.]

TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.

509

and occasionally sent out to make retaliation ; but the Assembly of
July, in the year just named, there had been others in 1640,
1641, and March, 1642, but their acts were of little mo-

oiigut ciis-

ment, was the first which appeared actually to recognize f^in!
a state of warfare as existing; and in September, the dians -
governor formally proclaimed " that the Susquihanowes, Wicorneses
and Nanticoque Indians are enemies of this province, and as such
are to be reputed and proceeded against by all persons." Even
then the fighting seems to have differed little from the occasional

Indian Attack on an Outlying Plantation.

attacks and expeditions of
the years before, though
they were called, " an In
dian war." They contin
ued from this time until
1644, when binding trea
ties were made with the
hostile tribes. All that the
colonists suffered from these hostilities, however, was the annoyance
and danger inevitable anywhere in the neighborhood of savages, rather
than such a devastating and terrible calamity as almost always at
tended a war with the Indians in most of the colonies. Even at the
height of the hostile feeling, no such universal measures of defence or
of retaliation were necessary, as had been called for in the early days
of Virginia, Massachusetts, and New Netherland.

The first really serious shock to the tranquillity of Maryland came
from within the State itself. The earnest, yet unusually tolerant Ro
man Catholics, under whose leadership the settlement had been begun,
no longer ruled, when it was a few years old, over an harmonious

510 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

people agreeing alike in politics and in religion. As Maryland had

grown and prospered, the privileges of its generous land-grants and

liberal charter had been shared with men of all shades of conviction.

There had been Protestants and even Puritans in the colony from

its very foundation, though at first they were very few. The

Religious J . J J

toleration of toleration with which they had been treated and the pains
taken to protect them in their rights were from the begin
ning remarkable. In 1638, for instance, it is recorded that the Cath
olic governor and council severely fined an overseer for speaking abu
sively of a book of sermons l>y an English Puritan ("the silver-
tongued Smith," a preacher of much note), which certain of his
subordinates were reading ; and similar examples of an impartial spirit
appear elsewhere in the early annals. Protestants had been mem
bers of the Assembly and members of the council ; nor does there seem
to be any indication of disagreement, in the first few years, between
them and their fellows on public questions. But as time went on, and
its advantages were better understood, Maryland became a very asy
lum for the persecuted of other provinces. Puritans who had been
harshly treated in Virginia removed across the Maryland line, gladly
accepting so near a refuge ; and to those in Massachusetts who should
be persecuted for any independent opinions, Calvert sent a special in
vitation to make their homes under his government. The self-in
terest of the proprietary, and a desire to hurry on the growth of the
colony, doubtless had much to do with this ; yet it is impossible not
to acknowledge the broad spirit of such a course ; it would have been
wise statesmanship had it not been a little beyond the appreciation of
many who profited by it.

Differences between the two parties were inevitable, and these wi
dened into an impassable breach as the conflict between king and Par
liament grew more and more intense in England, and the growing
power of the Parliament at home stimulated its adherents through all
the colonies.

The outbreak of hostilities in England, in 1642, hastened the crisis
of these discontents. Lord Baltimore was a supporter of the

Effect of the i i . / . i

Revolution king, though he seems to have tried, and at nrst with more
on Wy- success than many others, to keep on fair terms with the Par
liament also ; and this especially in matters relating to his
American grant, for the very existence of which he had cause to fear
in case of the Parliament's victory. As the power of that body ap
peared more formidable, the greatest care was needed in the govern
ment of the province itself, lest the complaints of the discontented
Puritans should grow loud enough to attract parliamentary attention
to the colony's affairs ; attention which would be fatal to the pro-

1643.] CLAYBORNE' S OPPORTUNITY. 511

prietor, if the English Commons should think fit to interfere in favor
of their Maryland adherents, and support them in an attempt to gain
control. It was necessary to conciliate, and probably for this purpose
the proprietary wrote particularly in 1642, that " no ecclesiastic in the
province ought to expect, nor is Lord Baltimore, nor any of his officers,
although they are Roman Catholics, obliged in conscience to allow to
such ecclesiastics any more or other privileges .... than is allowed
by his majesty or officers to like persons in England." l This and sim
ilar declarations may have produced an effect at home ; but in the
province itself the parties were too strongly divided to admit of con
cession or compromise. Puzzled by the various and contradictory de
mands of the time, Leonard Calvert sailed for England in April, 1643,
to consult in person with his brother, leaving Giles Brent, a councillor,
to govern as his deputy.

While affairs were thus confused, Clayborne, quiet for a while, and
holding a life-appointment as treasurer of Virginia, which he C i ayl)orne >g
had obtained by favoring the king when hostilities first f^reuwL 1 ?
broke out, seized his opportunity of retaliation against Mary- tlon -
land by stirring up the parliamentary faction in Maryland to a rebel
lion against the government of Baltimore. His designs were aided by
an unforeseen event. In 1643, the king, then at Oxford, commis
sioned Lord Baltimore, through his colonial officers, to seize any ships
from London or belonging to the parliament party, on which his
people might be able to lay hands. About the beginning of the next
year such a seizure was actually made by order of Calvert's
deputy, Brent, the vessel of one Richard Ingle being cap- Puttunent-
tured on its arrival at St. Mary's, though its commander
escaped and made his way to England. Brent issued a proclamation
requiring him to appear and answer a charge of treason ; and endeav
ored to exact from the captured crew an oath against Parliament, and
a promise to take the ship to Bristol, which the king then held.

Amid the intense excitement which followed this step, Clayborne
took advantage of the always hostile disposition of the people Olaybome
of the Isle of Kent. He seems to have had no difficulty in ^S^of"
again possessing himself of that disputed region. When Kentlsland -
Calvert returned in 1644 he found the province in a state of anarchy,
the factions almost at open war, the Puritan party in unconcealed
rebellion against his government, and the old and dreaded enemy of
the colony in possession of his claims within her borders. Moreover,
he had hardlv reached Maryland when Ingle arrived from England
in the ship Reformation, commanded by him under a letter of marque
from the Parliament, prepared to venture again, as his petition to

1 Neill's Terra Marice, p. 107.

512

MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

that body declared he had done before, " his life and fortune in ....
assisting the well-affected Protestants against the tyrannical govern
ment." All the parliament party in the province rose to the aid of
him and of Clayborne ; and the governor and council, with the chief
of their supporters, were driven from the colony and forced to take
refuge in Virginia. Captain Edward Hill, a Virginian, was made
governor ; but the control of the conquered province was virtually in
the hands of the two leaders of the insurrection.

Their position, however, was not strong enough to be a comfortable

one. History and tradition alike speak of their rule as turbulent,

though all but its mere outline is unrecorded. The Catho-

Turbulent

rule in the hcs, among whom their bitterest opponents were of course

formerly

to be found, still formed a considerable part of the popu
lation ; and the hope which they doubtless nourished of a
speedy restoration of the proprietary, was fostered by the oppressive
acts of Clayborne's government. It is probable, though it cannot

peaceful
province

Chancellor's Point from St. Inigoe's.

be fully decided by the scanty evidence tradition furnishes, that the
Catholic priests, long so powerful a class at St. Mary's, withdrew at
this time from the town, and established the Jesuit mission farther
from the stormy centre of affairs, where interference, if not confisca
tion of their lands, was daily to be feared.

At the lower end of the bay of St. Ignatius (of whose name St.
Inigoe is an old and once common corruption), was a bluff much like
that at St. Mary's, though lower and less picturesque. From it, look
ing to the north across the bay, could be seen the point of first landing
(Chancellor's Point) ; and to the south the view extended to the
mouth of St. Mary's River. It was a commanding site ; and on it,
though whether before or just after this period is not certain, Governor
Calvert erected a fort which effectually guarded the approach to the
town above. Near or within the fort stood a mill, and about it a few
scattered buildings. No ruins of fort or houses remain, save a few

1643.] RESTORATION OF CALVERT. 513

scattered bricks and hewn stones ; but several cannon, perhaps placed
on the ramparts in the time of Calvert himself, have been drawn
from the river, where the washing away of the sandy bluff had left
them.

It is to this point that the Jesuits perhaps removed their chief sta
tion during Clayborne's usurpation. They are found there
but a few years later ; and from the time of these events St. sionatst.
Inigoe's and not St. Mary's appears as their headquarters.
Here they built a chapel on a site still pointed out ; and a new
churchyard, to which the Catholic dead of the colony seem to have
been carried after this change, still makes green a broad field of wheat
near by. A Jesuit mission is still kept up at St. Inigoe's, and the
traditions of the place make the present chapel the third in order
from that of the early settlers.

Church near the Site of the First Jesuit Chapel.

The rule of Clayborne's governor and his supporters was, however,
to be of short duration. During the winter following his flight, Cal
vert collected his adherents on the Virginia border, and though his
force was small, he so skilfully surprised St. Mary's in April, while
Clayborne was at Kent Island and Ingle probably in England, 1 that
he captured the place with but little resistance or bloodshed, 2 The proprie .
and was reinstated in the governorship as suddenly as he ment g reln- n
had been displaced. A period of disorder and partial an- stated-
archy followed, which left the colony at Calvert's return, exhausted
and impoverished ; even the malcontents doubtless were glad to be again
under the quieter government of the proprietary. The victorious
governor's first care seems to have been to go in person to Kent
Island, attend to its complete subjection, and put over it a deputy of
his own appointment, one Robert Vaughan, a Protestant. Clayborne

1 Neill, Terra Maria, p. 112.

2 It is evident that there was some fighting, at least, from the expressions in a subsequent
correspondence between Governor Greene aud Sir Wm, Berkeley, quoted at length by Bow
man, vol. ii., note Ivii., pp. 637, 899.

514 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

appears to have escaped to Virginia, and Ingle to have remained in
England, where three years later he preferred charges before the Par
liament against Lord Baltimore's administration of Maryland affairs,
but without any definite result. All but these two and their immedi
ate followers doubtless acquiesced quietly enough in the rule of the
apparently lenient Calvert, for no records of attempted punishment
appear in connection with the governor's return, and three years later
an act of general amnesty was passed. Only one person connected
with the matter adopted a course that calls for special mention. Cap
tain Hill, who had acted as governor while Calvert was deposed, had
the audacity, some time after the restoration of peace, to claim a salary
and other compensation for his services in the office, on the ground
that he had occupied it as Calvert's representative, the council having
power to nominate such a one in case of the governor's absence. In a
long "petition" he contradicted himself by calling Calvert's return
an " invasion," represented himself as still entitled to his office, and put
together a strange tissue of absurdities which were promptly rejected
by the governor's successor ; for the correspondence did not take place
until death had put a sudden end to Calvert's long and able rule.
The governor died on the ninth of June, 1647, after an illness that
seems to have seized him on his return from the Isle of Kent.

Death of

Governor " Lying upon his death-bed, yet in perfect memory," he ap
pointed Thomas Green, one of his council, to be his succes
sor, and Mistress Margaret Brent, an unmarried sister of that Giles
Brent who had once acted as his deputy, to be his administratrix. 1
It is possible, as has been suggested in comments on this appoint
ment, 2 that the Brent family were related to the Calverts ; at all
events, they stood around the dying governor's bed when his last
wishes were expressed ; and Mistress Brent subsequently proved her
self worthy of the trust reposed in her, if not by her judgment, at
least by her remarkable strength of will and almost masculine energy
and understanding in business.

With Calvert's administration ends that earliest period of Mary
land's history, which the loss of records and the absence of personal
narratives render somewhat more dim and vague than the busy begin-
Dearth of nings of its sister colonies. The great outlines of its growth
tomfaiithor- remain, but we must fill them out by inference rather than
by knowledge. Nothing of that abundance of picturesque
detail, of quaintly told personal experience, of description of the every
day life of the settlers, which gives its vividness to the early history

1 Kilty's Landholder's Assistant, p. 104, in Bozman, vol. ii., p. 315; and Neill's Terra
MaricK, 112, and 113 note.

2 Bo/man, vol. ii., p. 307, note.

I 647 -] DEATH OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. 515

of Virginia and New England, had come down to us from the quieter
Catholic province. The Jesuit Father White's simple and beautiful

Fac-simile of MS. Records. 1

1 For many years the MS. records of Maryland, to which Bozman and others writing in
the early part of this century appear to have had access, have been lost. In December, 1 875,
a box of old papers, supposed to be worthless, was to be sold from the record office at An
napolis, when, on a careful examination of its contents, a portion of the MS. covering a
considerable period subsequent to .Calvert's death was discovered, in an almost complete
state of preservation. Without disclosing any new facts of moment, it bears witness to the
correctness of Bozman's transcripts. In the text a fac-simile is given of a part of the page
bearing Clerk Bretton's record of Calvert's death-bed appointment of Green. It runs as
follows :

Whereas by Commiso? from y e R* Hon ble Cecill, L<? Prop r of y e Province of Mary Land
to y e late Gouerno r Leonard Caluart EsqT e bearing date y e 18 th Septemb r 1644 att his Lps
[Lordship's] Fort att S*. Maries in y e s"? Province Heey e s d Leon. Calvert was authorized,
in case hee should happen to dye, or be absent from time to time, out of y e s d Province to
nominate elect & appoint such an able person inhabiting & residing w th in ye s d Province
(as he on his discretion should make choice of, & thinke fitt) to be Governo r of y e s d Prov
ince. These are therefore to publish & declare to all those whom it may concerne y' ye s d
Leon. Calvert did by word of mouth on the Ninth day of June 1647 (lying uppon his death
bed, yett in perfect memory) nominate & appoint Thomas Greene Esqr one of y e Counsell of
this Province, to be Governo r of y e same, w th all y e same authority & power of goverm' as
he y e s d Leonard Calvert was authorized by his Lps Commisn to conferre uppon him. As
by y e oaths of Mr s Margaret & Mary Brent, Francis Ankesill & James Linsey (who were
all then present w th him att y e same time) is averred to be true.

Teste me Willm Bretton, Clk.

516 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX.

journal throws a pleasant light upon the settlement's earliest days ;
but the story of his own and his companions' journeys among the
Indians along the Potomac, of their pious devotion and endurance,
their hardships and bloodless victories, hardly belongs to the annals of
the State itself, but rather to the history of that remarkable priesthood
whose adventures read like passages of a romance.

Enough remains of the annals of Lord Baltimore's colony, however,
to show most plainly those distinctive features which separated its
founders sharply from all the other strongly-marked types from which
the varying races of the future nation sprang. Here were men
trained in a different school from New Englanders or Virginians;
men with a singular mixture of religious enthusiasm, culture, practical
shrewdness, and liberal statesmanship ; far enough in advance of their
age to take warning from the errors of others, and while they founded
a province in which were mingled feudal and popular, despotic and
constitutional institutions, to administer it with such prudence that it
grew strong and gained permanence more quickly and tranquilly than
any of its predecessors.

Shawmut.

CHAPTER XX.

MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

FRESH EMIGRATION TO MASSACHUSETTS. A NEW CHARTER. ARRIVAL OF HIG-

GINSON AND SKELTON. THE FlRST CHURCH AT SALEM. THE CASE OF JOHN

AND SAMUEL BROWNE. THEY ARE ORDERED BACK TO ENGLAND BY ENDICOTT.
THE COUNCIL'S REBUKE. PROPOSED TRANSFER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
COLONY TO NEW ENGLAND. PROBABLE MOTIVES OF THE COUNCIL IN PROCURING
THE PATENT. THE CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE. WINTHROP CHOSEN GOVERNOR.
DEPARTURE FOR NEW ENGLAND. His FAREWELL ADDRESS TO ENGLISH CHURCH
MEN. OLDHAM AND BRERETON'S PATENTS. SETTLEMENTS IN AND ABOUT BOS
TON. OLD SETTLERS ABOUT THE BAY. THE COMING OF ROGER WILLIAMS.

IN June, 1629, three vessels entered the harbor of Salem, followed
a few days later by three others. They carried, besides Arrivalof
their crews, four hundred and six men, women, and children, n|^ g c at lo s a _
one hundred and forty head of cattle, forty goats, a large lem-
stock of provisions, of tools, of arms, of all things necessary to plant a
a colony. 1 No enterprise so well appointed as this at the start had
heretofore been sent to North America.

With the exception of the Plymouth people, all the colonies hitherto
had been commercial adventures, managed in an office in London. In
deed, Plymouth even was not without this purely trading purpose,

1 This is Prince's statement in the Chronology on the authority of the colonial rec
ords, and according to the warrant of the lord-treasurer, for the transportation. Dudley, in
his letter to the Countess of Lincoln (vol. ii. Force's Historical Tracts and Young's Chron
icles), says, " about 300 people ; " Francis Higginson, in his New England's Plantation, says,
"we brought with us about two hundred passengers," but he refers doubtless to the first
three ships only.

518 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

which, however necessary to its making a beginning, was not its im
pelling motive, while the shrewd men who governed there soon saw
that it must be rendered subsidiary to the interests of the colonists
themselves, who were men and not machinery. In Virginia, already
for twenty years, the experiment presently to be repeated in Mary
land of founding a commonwealth upon the labor of bondsmen and
the production of one great staple of trade, had proved to be success
ful, so far as it was successful at all, only in spite of its inherent
viciousness. New Netherland was a great Dutch trading-post, where
patroons took the place of tobacco-planters ; Dutch boors served in
stead of servants for a term of years, sometimes taken from the
English jails, or scraped together from the most wretched of the Eng
lish poor. Just so far as this trading spirit was subordinated to some
higher purpose ; just so far as men were held higher than merchandise
and the poor man's chance as of greater value than the rich man's
opportunity, there these early colonies struck deepest root, and became
the soonest strong and prosperous.

Charles I. had been king only about four years, but there were

already signs in England, significant enough to those who were wise,

of coming trouble. Influences and events were gradually

Character . J

and causes preparing men tor a stormy future, and the number of those
Puritan who sought to escape from it was rapidly increasing. These

emigration. 1-1 i T-.-I i i

persons were not like the Pilgrims, bound together as with
hooks of steel, by years of exile and poverty, but they, nevertheless
were Puritans, earnest Protestants against the corruptions and for
malities of the established church ; some even Non-conformists ; and
all turning their faces wistfully toward the new land, where perhaps
distance and obscurity might secure to them religious and political
freedom at least would take them out of the thick of the evils
which they knew could not be escaped much longer at home.

The movement, begun at Dorchester by the Rev. Mr. White, with

no more ambitious purpose than to plant a colony of fish-

The Massa
chusetts Bay ermen at Cape Ann ; growing then to the larger project

under Endicott with a grant of lands from the Plymouth
Company, had assumed other proportions under a royal patent. The
new corporation was styled " The Governor and Company of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England." 1

Of this company Matthew Cradock, 2 a London merchant, was the

1 By Massachusetts Bay was understood, at that time, what is now called Boston Har
bor, from Nahant to Point Alderton. Winthrop'a History of New England, by James
Savage, vol. i., p. 27.

' 2 Eudicott's wife was a cousin of Cradock's. The exposure and hardships of the first
winter were a sore affliction to Endicott's people, and among those who died, it is sup
posed, was Mrs. Endicott. Dr. Fuller, the physician at New Plymouth, was sent by Gov-

1629.]

MAP OF NEW ENGLAND.

519

FAC-SIMILE FROM SMITH'S GENERAL HISTORY.

520 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

governor in England. These six ships one was the Mayflower^
which, nine years before, had carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth
arriving in June, at Salem, with this well-appointed colony, were
sent out by the new company. The grant made by its patent was
from the Merrimack to the Charles River. Endicott was confirmed
by the directors in London as the governor of the colony already
planted at Salem. " The propagating of the Gospel," he was told in
the first letter of instructions, " is the thing we do profess
cottmade above all to be our aim in settling this Plantation." Cer
tainly to no more zealous hands than Endicott's could such
a work be entrusted. There was neither weakness nor hesitation in

his method of propagandism, and
none who stood in his way need ex
pect mercy.

He was to be aided, his instruc
tions told him, by " a plentiful pro
vision of godly ministers." There
were four in the fleet, three of
whom were appointed to be mem
bers of the Council. The fourth,
the Reverend Ralph Smith, was
rather permitted to go than encour
aged, as it was found that there was
a " difference in judgment in some

Endicott. - . ... . . -. - '

things between him and the other

ministers. What that difference was they do not choose to say, but
it was only that Smith was a pronounced Separatist in England, and
the others were not till they were on the other side of the ocean.
" Unless he will be conformable to our government," was the order of
the letter of instructions, " suffer him not to remain within the limits
of our grant." Mr. Smith was clearly not needed, and, whether sent
thither or not, we next hear of him living with his family, in destitu
tion apparently, at Nantasket. Some of the Plymouth people found
him there, and moved with pity, took him home with them, and for
several years he was their minister. If there was any fault in the
Rev. Mr. Smith it was probably an excess of stupidity, for in zeal he
seems to have made himself in no way offensive. He is not heard
of again for several years, when " partly by his own willingness, as
thinking it too heavy a burden, and partly at the desire, and by the
persuasion of others," says the truthful Bradford, but with more

ernor Bradford to minister to the Salem people in their distress The scurrilous Morton
of Merry Mount, who spared nobody, calls Fuller " Dr. Noddy," who, he says, " did a great
cure for Captain Littleworth [Endicott]. He cured him of a disease called a wife."

1629.] RELIGION AND POLITICS. 521

of euphemism than he often used, he resigned his place of min
ister.

Apparently it was not Mr. Smith's doctrines, but his acting up to
them by separation, that made the London Council cautious. And
caution was no doubt, wise, for Archbishop Laud was watchful, and
Charles easily offended. There was no hesitation, however, when
once the colonists were in their new home, in showing how they con
strued the Council's advice to propagate the gospel. The State was
to rest on the Church, and the church they chose to establish was not
the Church of England. " Touching your judgment of the outward
form of God's worship,"
Endicott wrote to Governor
Bradford, a month before
the arrival of the ministers, -*l-

who were to be of his coun-
cil, and with whom came the
instructions from London

"it is, as far as I can yet '

gather, no other than is war- signature of Endicott.

ranted by the evidence of truth, and the same which I have professed
and maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed Himself unto
me." 1 When the ministers arrived he and they acted in accordance
with this avowal.

Two of them, Messrs. Skelton and Higginson, were not Separatists,
but, for the distinction was carefully preserved, Non-Conformists.
The third, Mr. Bright, was neither, but still a Conformist. Before
six weeks had passed the religious character of the colony was deter
mined ; a day of fasting and prayer was held ; Skelton was chosen
pastor and Higginson teacher; the Plymouth Church was invited
to send delegates to the installation, and Bradford and some others
" gave them the right hand of fellowship, wishing all prosperity, and
a blessed success to such good beginnings." A Confession of Reli gi 0nand
Faith and Covenant, according to the Holy Scriptures one ^^
article of which was upon the Duty and Power of Magistrates colony -
in matters of Religion was adopted ; the book of Common Prayer
was discarded ; the rite of baptism and the Lord's Supper were admin
istered without the ceremonies prescribed in the ritual ; admission to
the church was regulated in accordance with the judgment of the elders,
and the life and conversation of men were subjects of discipline. They
were neither Separatists nor Anabaptists, they said ; it was not the
Church of England, nor its ordinances that they abandoned, but its
corruptions and disorders ; and being now where they had their liberty,

1 Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 265.

522

MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

[CHAP. XX.

The Old Planter's House. 2

they neither could nor would submit to them because "they judged
the imposition of those things to be sinful corruptions in the word of
God." 1

This was the understanding of Endicott and his friends as to the
best and true method of " propagating the Gospel " in the new planta
tion. The London Council
was wary and slow ; the
colonists were free, and the
archbishop's arm was not
long enough to reach across
the Atlantic.

To these proceedings the
Rev. Mr. Bright gave no
countenance. He quietly
withdrew to Charlestown ;
but there also the mother
church was without a shel
ter, and in the course of
the year he returned to England. This silent protest seems to have
satisfied his sense of duty. But there were others of a more aggres
sive, if not a more earnest spirit.

These were two brothers, John and Samuel Browne, the first a law
yer, the other a merchant, " men of estates and men of parts
and port," says Morton. Both were appointed in London
to be members of the council of thirteen to assist Endicott
in the government of the colony, and both were commended
to his consideration and confidence by Cradock. They belonged to
and believed in the Church of England, and would have nothing to
do with this " Reformed Congregation," created by the governor and
the two clergymen. Nor was theirs merely a negative protest ; calling
about them the few whose views and feelings were in sympathy
with their own, they held separate meetings and worshipped God
according to the ritual. But the liberty which the Salem Noncon
formists loved for themselves was not broad enough to include tol
eration for others. Endicott summoned the Brownes before him.
Their course was a " disturbance " to the peace of the colony, and they
were put upon their defence.

1 Morton's Memorial, where the fullest account is given of the incidents attending the
formation of the first church in Salem.

2 The old Planter's House was originally built at Cape Ann by the Dorchester people.
One Richard Brackenbury testifies in 1680 that the London Company having bought out
the Dorchester Company, sent a party to Cape Ann to pull down the house and remove
it to Salem for Endicott's use. It was accordingly removed to Salem. In 1792 it was
altered, but the above cut shows it as originally built.

Dissent and
protest of
John and
Samuel
Browne.

1629.] JOHN AND SAMUEL BROWNE. 523

Their defence was an accusation. The ministers, they said, had
departed from the order of the Church of England ; they could
hardly have failed to remind them that in the formation of the Com
pany and in the procuring of the charter from the king, there was no
open assertion whatever secret purpose there may have been that
there was to be such departure ; much less that those should be pro
scribed who still held to the rites and ordained form of worship of
the Established Church. The logic of the situation was on their side.
Those who for conscience' sake had suffered from intolerance, should
have too much conscience to be intolerant of others. Did freedom to
worship God mean that those who fled from a persecuting church
should straightway form themselves into a church that persecuted ?

The ministers answered as best they could. They met rather than
made accusations, and denied that they were Separatists or Anabap
tists ; they were Non-conformists only because the prayer-book and
the ceremonies were of man and not of God, and covered sinful cor
ruption in the Church. They had suffered much and had fled from
persecution ; and it was
plain that thereafter they
and the Church could not
dwell together. That the
liberty they had contended
for and gained was a lib
erty cherished for them
selves and not for others
was clear enough. That
evidently was their limita-

J n Endicott 8 Sun Dial and other Colonial Relics.

tion ; the gain was one too

precious to be imperilled by being shared. They only remembered
that they had escaped from a persecuting church, and for its visible
signs among them they had no toleration, though those signs were
in innocent hands. The practical dealing with the ques-

1 . TheBrownes

tion they left to Endicott, who was stronger than logic, sent back to

* 1 England.

He told the Brownes " that New England was no place
for such as they," 1 and sent them back to England with the return
ing fleet.

The first six weeks had determined the policy and the history of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. " There are lately arrived here," wrote
the Company to the ministers in October, " being sent from the gov
ernor, Mr. Endicott, as men factious and evil conditioned, John and
Samuel Browne, being brothers ; who, since their arrival have raised
rumors, (as we hear) of divers scandalous and intemperate speeches

1 Morton's Memorial.

524 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

passed from one or both of you in your public sermons or prayers in
New England as also of some innovations attempted by you." Ex
horting them, then, to clear themselves, if innocent, of these charges,
or to repent if otherwise, as the Council must " disallow any such pas
sages," they add " we are tender of the least aspersion, which either
directly or obliquely, may be cast upon the state here." l And in a
letter to the governor they are still more cautious, but explicit. " Yet
for that we do consider," they write, "that you are in a government
newly founded, and want that assistance which the weight of such a
business doth require, we may have leave to think that it is possible
some undigested counsels have too suddenly been put in execution,
which may have ill construction with the State here, and make us ob
noxious to the adversary. Let it therefore seem good unto you to be
very sparing in introducing any laws or commands which may render
yourself or us distasteful to the State here to which (as we ought)
we must and will have an obsequious eye." 2 It was clearly to the sud
denness and rashness of the thing, and the influence it might have
upon the Company's fortunes, rather than to the thing itself, that the
Council in London objected. The letters were signed by men,
Winthrop and others, who were later the leading men in Massa
chusetts. It was not the last time they and the impetuous Endicott
disagreed. With him, if anything was to be done it was well to do
it quickly.

Of the Brownes we hear little more. Their case was referred to a
committee, and slept there. " Though they breathed out threaten-
ings," says Morton, " both against the Governor and the ministers
there, yet the Lord so disposed of all that there was no further incon
venience followed upon it." They had played their part in fixing the
character of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There was no remedy
for the proceedings of Endicott and the ministers.

There could have been no backward step, even had there been the
disposition ; but there was none. Cautious as the Company were not
to offend the state, they had a definite aim and purpose, and the ex
pulsion of the Brownes was directly in the line of it. They meant
that the control of the colony should be transferred from England to
America ; that it should be governed, not by a council in London,
under the watchful and jealous eyes of the church and the court, but
by its own members, within its own house. In the same month that
Endicott and the ministers were gathering the people together under
a new confession of faith and covenant, into a visible Reformed Con-

1 The Company's Letter to the Ministers. Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 287
et seq.

2 The Company's letter to Gov. Endicott, in Young, pp. 290, 291.

1630.]

TRANSFER OF THE GOVERNMENT,

525

Seal of Massachusetts Bay Com
pany.

gregation, Mr. Cradock submitted to the London Council a proposi
tion for this transfer of government. It would be, it was ,,

i ne govern-

said, for the advantage of the colony, and an inducement to ^d tolL

persons of worth and position to transport themselves and colon y-

their families thither. 1 When first proposed in July, the members

were asked to consider the matter privately, "to carry this business

secretly, that the same be not divulged,"

lest the design should be interfered with. It

was a serious question whether, under the

patent, any such removal of the control of

the Company would be legal ; but there was

no question at all that a precarious asylum

only was opened to those who aimed to escape

the growing despotism at home, unless that

asylum could be relieved in some degree from

the fear of interference.

The subject was carefully considered ; emi
nent lawyers were consulted upon the legality
of such a step, who pronounced in its favor ;
and in the course of a few weeks it was de
cided by general consent that the change be made. A partial con
trol in regard to trade was to remain with the Council in London,
but the exclusive government of persons was to go with those who
should be in authority in the colony itself.

That a company should thus voluntarily strip itself of power has
sometimes been considered as difficult of explanation ; but there is
nothing remarkable about it if the fact was that they only possessed
themselves of that power to make precisely this disposition of it.
The men engaged in this enterprise were men who had a common
sympathy in their way of thinking upon politics and religion, and
some of them also certain personal relations. It was natural, in the
circumstances of the times, that they should be drawn together by a
common purpose, to secure somewhere an asylum for those who could
no longer submit to the oppression to which they were subjected both
in church and state, which was rapidly growing intolerable. To ob
tain a patent for lands in America on any such plea would, of course,
have been impossible ; but to procure such a grant from the king on
the usual plea, of planting colonies and opening new sources of trade,
was neither a suspicious nor a difficult thing to do. Within five
months, however, of the time of securing the patent, the real object
seems to make itself manifest. The proposition is presented to the

1 See Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, in Young's

Chronicles.

526 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

Council to put the essential government of the colony in the hands of
the colonists, but with the exhortation to its members to keep the
matter quiet. When the action of Endicott and the ministers in re
gard to the Brownes was known in London, those zealous persons
were rebuked, not for the formation of a reformed church, nor for the
expulsion of those who were obnoxious to the new establishment, but
for want of prudence lest the state should be alarmed and offended.

Meanwhile the plans of the Council were pushed to a conclusion,
and in October the necessary change was made in the board of offi
cers which invested the government of the colony in its resident mem
bers. That the precedent thus established was in after years followed
even with the royal sanction, and without raising the doubts which
had troubled the Council of Massachusetts Bay, is no evidence that
their apprehensions then of being interfered with were not well
founded. Happily they were permitted to carry out their plan with
out molestation, and they planted the seed of a vigorous republic
instead of a feeble and dependent commercial colony.

A reorganization of the court was required by the change now re
solved upon, and accordingly a new governor, and some new
thropmade councillors were elected. This governor w 7 as John Winthrop.
It is noteworthy that two days after Cradock had made his
proposition to the Council in August, a meeting of twelve gentlemen
was held at Cambridge, all of whom pledged themselves to the prose
cution of this work of a plantation in New England, and to go thither
with their families, within six months, provided that before another
month had passed, " the whole government, together with the patent
for the said plantation, be first, by an order of court, legally trans
ferred and established to remain with us and others which shall in
habit upon the said plantation." Six of the men who signed this
agreement already belonged to the Council, and were re-chosen upon
the new board ; and as the pledge at Cambridge and the proposition
at London were made within two days of each other, there was, with
out doubt, a common understanding in Conference and Council. An
accession was gained of material strength, for some of the new men
were men of wealth and position ; the moral gain was still greater,
for all of them were of that class whose discontent with the condition
of affairs in England was so great that they preferred exile to submis
sion.

John Winthrop, now in his forty-third year, was a man of good
social position, by profession a lawyer, as his father and grandfather
had been before him, with a yearly income of 100, which in the
money value of our time would be about $18,000. It was a hard
thing, no doubt, for a man of his gentle culture to dispose of his

1630.]

JOHN WINTHROP.

527

estate, to sacrifice all the associations clinging to an English home of
several generations, and to accept in exchange the rough hardships
of pioneer life in the wilderness. At a farewell dinner which his
friends gave him on the eve
of his departure, he essayed
to speak, but a sudden access
of tenderness broke down his
self-control, and tears were the
last tribute he paid to his
country. Not that the fibre
of his character lacked firm
ness, but underneath a stern
devotion to his sense of duty
was the tenderness of a wo
man. In his last letter to his
wife he reminded her of every
recurring Monday and Friday,
for at a fixed hour on those ^ -pf

days they had engaged to V/^ !

commune with heaven, and 5

with each other in spirit, in
mutual prayer.

The winter of 1629-30 was spent in active preparation. On the
30th of March, four ships of a fleet of eleven were at Yarmouth
waiting for a wind. The admiral ship of the fleet was the Arbella, 1
on board which was Winthrop. Here he and some of his asso
ciates drew up a farewell address, which they called " The
Humble Request of His Majesty's Loyal Subjects, the Gov
ernor and the Company late gone to New England ; to
the Rest of the Brethren in and of the Church of England." " We
beseech you," said the address, " by the mercies of the Lord Jesus,
to consider us as your brethren, standing in very great need of
your help [that is, their prayers and blessings], and earnestly im
ploring it." They esteemed it, they said, " our honor to call the
Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother ; and can-

1 The ship's name was the Eagle, but was changed to Arbella, in compliment to Lady Ar
bella Johnson, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, and the wife of Isaac Johnson, one of the
Council. Both he and his wife were on board the vessel. The Lady Arbella died a few
weeks after their arrival at Salem, and her husband soon after followed her. Mather, in

the Magnolia, says :

" He try 'd

To live without her, lik'd it not, and dy'd."

The lines have since been a favorite epitaph in New England burial-grounds, altered to
suit circumstances, in the case of bereaved husbands or wives, where one has not long sur
vived the death of the other.

fareweiiad-

528 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

not part from our native country, where she specially resideth, without
much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledg
ing that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common sal
vation, we have received in her bosom and sucked it from her breasts.
We leave it not therefore as loathing that milk wherewith we were
nourished there, but blessing God for the parentage and education as
members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good, and un-
feignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her, and while
we have breath sincerely desire and endeavour the continuance and
abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the
kingdom of Christ Jesus." They entreated that they should not be
forgotten in the prayers of ministers and of brethren, even of those
who through want of intelligence of their course could not so well con
ceive of their way as they could desire. And they deprecated any
want of charity toward them from any false report of their intentions,
or from the disaffection or indiscretion of some who were of them, or
rather among them ; 1 an allusion, perhaps, to the gathering of the
Church, the year before, at Salem, and the summary proceedings of
Endicott in the case of the Brownes.

No doubt they were sincere in these protestations of their love
to the mother church, of their tender memory of her as she once was,
of their devotion to her as they thought she ought to be ; but they were
not quite frank, if in the allusion to " disaffection or indiscretion of
some of us, or rather among us," they referred to the* church at Salem,
whose example they were about to follow in complete unconformity to
the Episcopal ceremonial.

Equally sincere was Higginson when, hardly a year before, as the
shores of England grew dim and shadowy upon the horizon,
o* he called his children and other passengers to the stern of
the ship to take their last look of the land of their birth,
and exclaimed : " We will not say as the Separatists were wont to
say at their leaving of England, ' Farewell, Babylon ! Farewell,
Rome ! ' but we will say, Farewell, dear England ! Farewell the
Church of God in England, and all Christian friends there ! We do
not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England ;
though we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it, but we
go to practise the positive part of church reformation and propagate
the gospel in America." 2 Yet hardly had they a roof over their heads
in Salem ere it was made a penal offence to read the Episcopal ser
vice in public. Every league of the Atlantic gave vigor and courage

1 Mather's Magnolia, Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, where " The Request," is
given in full.

2 Mather's Magnolia, vol. i., p. 362.

1630.] ARRIVAL OF WINTHROP AND HIS PEOPLE. 529

to his spiritual mind as to his material body. He soon cast off the
habits, the indulgences, and the garments of an invalid, and with
equal readiness dropped his timid non-conformity and his weak pro
testations, and put on a frank and manly separatism. " A sip of New
England's air," he said, " is better than a whole draught of Old Eng
land's ale." The new atmosphere was as good for him in church
matters as in everything else.

Nor was it otherwise with Winthrop and his people. Within one
or two years' time, writes Mather, there were seven churches in the
neighborhood of Boston, all of them " golden candlesticks ; " all of
them mindful of what " the spirit in the Scripture said unto them ; "
thoroughly weaned from, if not loathing the " breasts " of that " dear
mother," the English Church ; caring little now for that nice distinc
tion between the Church invisible and pure, and the Church visible
and corrupt.

The Arbella arrived at Salem on the 12th of June, 1630. The con
dition of things was not encouraging. During the winter Arrivalof
just passed eighty people had died, which must have been j^^er
nearly a fourth of the whole number. Their provisions were ^ 1 e 1 i2 P '
nearly exhausted, and but for this reinforcement, still greater 1630) 0- S-
suffering would inevitably have followed. It seemed impossible for
any of the early colonies to escape these initiative disasters, notwith
standing the precautions which experience taught them. No better
fortune was to attend these new-comers. In the course of the summer
seventeen ships arrived among them the faithful Mayflowei bring
ing altogether about a thousand persons. Some of them had made
long passages, and the scurvy broke out among the passengers. Much
sickness prevailed in all the settlements during the following year,
due more probably to want of proper shelter than any other cause.

These settlements were to be made at different places, but Charles-
town was a sort of starting-point for most of them, that being the one
plantation belonging to the company inside of the Bay. This

J J Settlement

beginning was made there a year or two before by three of^charies-
brothers named Sprague, who went from Salem. One of the
immediate duties urged upon Endicott, after the Company obtained
its charter, was the speedy occupation of some point within the bay
between Nahant and Point Alderton. The patent which Captain
Robert Gorges had received from the Plymouth Company had de
scended to his brother John, and he had sold to a Sir William Brere-
ton and John Oldham the acquaintance of the latter we have al
ready made at Plymouth all the country from Charles River to
Nahant and twenty miles inland. The grant made by the Plymouth
Company to the Massachusetts Company, and the royal patent to the

530

MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

[CHAP. XX.

Massachusetts Bay Company, included all this region. Neither Brere-
ton nor Oldham were disposed to yield their claims, and had failed to
come to any agreement with the Council of the Massachusetts Bay
Company, in regard to them. The question was a frequent subject at
the meetings of the Council in London, and Cradock who spoke of
Oldham as a man obstinate and violent in his opinions wrote to Endi-
cott to send "forty or fifty persons to Massachusetts Bay to inhabit
there .... with all speed .... whereby the better to strengthen our
possession there against all or any that shall intrude upon us.'' This

Colonial Furniture.

was aimed at the rival claimants, Brereton and Oldham, whose title
the Company believed, would not hold good in law against their own,
but was coupled with a caution not to molest such other Englishmen
as had there planted, and who were willing to live under the govern
ment of the new Company.

Some of these we have spoken of in a previous chapter Maver
ick, on Noddle's Island, now East Boston ; Thompson, on Thomp-

1621.] EARLY SETTLERS ABOUT BOSTON BAY. 531

son's Island ; Blaxton, or Blackstone, living at this time near the foot
of what is now Boston Common, but who removed some years

, , ,, , , . ,, , , i Old settlers

later to tne banks 01 the river since known by his name on Boston

Bay

the Blackstone in the southwestern part of the State of
Massachusetts. There was one man, also, Thomas Walford, a black
smith, living at Charlestown, then called Mishawan, by the Indians,
meaning Great Spring. Thither, where the Spragues had gone be
fore, about a hundred of those who came with Higginson in 1629,
went in obedience to the injunction of the company to strengthen their
possession. There on the 17th of June stood John Winthrop, the
first governor of Massachusetts, on the hill that on another 17th of
June, nearly a century and a half later, was to be made more memor
able.

Colonial Relics.

One of the first of the fleet to arrive was the Mary $ John, whose
captain, either misunderstanding his instructions, or over-anxious to
return, landed his one hundred and forty passengers at Nantasket.
Among these were John Wareham, and John Maverick, clergymen ;
Roger Ludlow, and Edward Rossiter, men of substance and posi
tion. As they could not remain where they had been landed, against
their will, several of their number, with an old planter for interpreter,
took a boat, and loading it with goods went in search of a place that
should better answer their purpose. They touched first at Charles-
town, and were there advised to proceed up the river. This they did
till the water shoaled near the place where the United States Arsenal
at Watertown now stands. A number of Indians in the neigh
borhood alarmed this little band, but when the old planter requested
them not to approach the camp that night, they considerately ab
stained. On the next day they sent one of their number with a bass,
as token of amity and welcome. The English sent a man with a bis
cuit, and in this economical fashion the intercourse began. The In-

532 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

dians " supplied us with bass, exchanging a bass for a bisket-cake, and
were very friendly unto us." These fish no longer run in that river,
but the Charles was then a natural fish- way as far up as the first
rapids, near which the Indians had erected a basket-weir.

Here the explorers remained but a few days, for hearing that there

was at Mattapan a neck of land with good pasturage, where they

might fence in their cattle, the whole company were taken

Settlement L

atDorches- to that place. 1 hey gave to it the name or Dorchester,
perhaps in honor of the Rev. John White, of Dorchester,
England, who seems to have had a special interest in this company.
They had held a day of fasting at Plymouth before sailing, and Mr.
White was there with them, advising, sympathising, and preaching.
They suffered many privations through the first winter at Dorchester,
eking out their scanty stores with corn bought from the Indians,
subsisting sometimes upon shell-fish, which even the women went out
to dig upon the mud-flats off the neck. 1

The Mary and John arrived in May. From that time to October
the ships were dropping in, one after another, through the summer,
their passengers scattering about Boston Bay at various points. Some
went up the Mystic ; some up the Charles ; beginnings of towns were
made at Medford, Watertown, Cambridge, Roxbury, Lynn, and else-*
where, and the " golden candlesticks " were gradually lighted. Some
other towns moved within a few weeks from Charlestown to Shawmut
Point, the first party being one of young people a ship's
boat-load who landed about where the Charlestown bridge now
crosses the river. Boston was actually begun in a frolic. Anne Pol
lard, a lively young girl, was the first person, amid some pleasant con
tention, to spring ashore the first white woman who ever stepped
upon that spot. 2

Shawmut was first called Trimountain, not because of the three
highest hills that overtopped the peninsula, but because of three emi
nences that then crowned one of them, Beacon Hill, where the State
House now stands.

The water at Charlestown, in spite of its name Mishawan,
Great Spring seems not to have been good, and Blackstone in-
gettiement vited Winthrop and his people to pitch their tents by
ton- his fountain of sweet waters, which weHed up somewhere
at the bottom of the present Common. 3 The settlement was fairly
begun before the first of September, and on the 7th of that month

1 Memoir of Robert Clap. Young's Chronicles, chap, xviii. The place was called Dor
chester Neck, till early in the present century, when it was annexed to Boston, and has ever
since been called South Boston.

2 Old Landmarks of Boston, by S. G. Drake.

3 Ibid.

1631.]

ROGER WILLIAMS.

533

Old Houses, Boston, England.

it was ordered at a court held at Charlestown, that the place should
be called Boston, from the old home of many of these people in
Lincolnshire, England.

Blackstone claimed to own the whole peninsula, as he was the first
white man who had ever occupied it. But title of occupation was held
not to be good against title by grant from the king of England. The
Company, however, was not
disposed to deal ungenerously
with him, and before he pushed
out again into the wilderness,
annoyed by too crowded a pop
ulation, they allowed him about
one sixth of the territory, and
afterward bought it of him for
thirty pounds. Blackstone was
an Episcopalian in faith, as well
as a man " of a particular hu
mor." He would not accept
fellowship in the church of the
Puritans, frankly saying : " I came from England because I did not
like the lord-bishops ; but I can't join with you, because I would not
be under the lord-brethren." 1 Walford, the blacksmith, on the other
side of the Charles, was swept away in a more summar}^ fashion by
the advancing wave of civilization. In less than a year, it is recorded
that he was fined by the court, and banished with his wife beyond
the limits of the patent. 2 He was too free in his talk.

In February, 1631, was a notable arrival. Sickness and want were
at that time universal ; even the governor's stores were almost ex
hausted ; others of smaller means were on the scantiest allowance,
and a day of fasting and prayer the fasting an easy duty was
proclaimed. But before the day arrived, the ship Lion, commanded
by the good Captain William Peirce, who so often appeared at pre
cisely the right moment both at Plymouth and Boston, was reported
at Nantasket. She was deeply laden with provisions, and the day of
humiliation and supplication was changed to one of thanksgiving and
praise, for the people felt that, like the children of Israel, they were
the chosen of the Lord, and that he had sent them succor.
Possibly the fervor of the thanksgiving would have been Roger vvii-
moderated could they have foreseen what else the ship
brought them in the person of Roger Williams, who, with his newly
married wife, was a passenger on board the Lion.

1 Lyford's Plain Dealing. Mather's Magnolia.

2 See Young's Chronicles, note, p. 374, for various authorities.

534

MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

[CHAP. XX.

Winthrop boarded the ship in the lower harbor, anxious about
the quality and quantity of her cargo, of so much importance to
the hungry colonists. The interview between him and Williams
was probably cordial,, although the latter, while travelling the same
road as the Puritans, had travelled faster and further ; and the

course he had taken in his
short career he was not much
over thirty in regard to the
Established Church, was a re
buke to the cautious prudence
shown by Winthrop and his as
sociates before they left Eng
land. It is not likely, however,
that it occurred to the governor,
when they first met, that here
in New England, where both
were alike separated from the
old order of things, any differ
ence could divide them. Among
the passengers of the Lion, the
governor says, was Mr. Wil
liams, " a godly minister."
But they were, nevertheless, speedily and completely divided in
their public relations, if not in their private friendship. Williams
was at first so well received
in Boston, that he was unani
mously elected, according to his
own statement, the teacher of
the church. But the call was

Controversy Defused because, he says, " I durst not officiate to an
unseparated people, as upon examination and conference
I found them to be." 1 That a controversy arose between
him and the church at Boston, and that he refused to join it, be
cause as Winthrop says, " they would not make a public declaration
of their repentance for having communion with the churches of Eng-

1 A MS. letter of Williams to the younger Cotton, in possession of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, and quoted by Palfrey, vol. i., p. 406, note, is the authority for this
statement. The assertion of the writer that he was elected teacher of the Boston church
is a sufficient and clear explanation of how the position of that church hitherto unex
plained came to be a subject of controversy between it and Williams. As Dr. Palfrey
says, it is hard to suppose that Williams's memory had failed him when he wrote the let
ter, and extraordinary that the fact is not mentioned in any record of the time. But as the
fact of the controversy is given without any clue as to how it arose, and as Williams's state
ment supplies a rational origin for that controversy, the positive evidence of his correctness
is greater than the negative evidence of his being mistaken.

[Signature of Roger Williams ]

with the
church of
Boston.

1631.]

WILLIAMS AT SALEM AND PLYMOUTH.

535

laud," 1 is noticed by contemporary writers. But this was not the
only offence of the recusant minister. He declared that the civil
magistrate had no right to punish a breach of the Sabbath, or any
offence that was a breach of the first four commandments of the deca
logue. The difficulty was insuperable. The church in Boston was
clearly no place for a man avowing such doctrines, whether as teacher
or member. In a few weeks he removed to Salem.

Whether it was the church in Boston that refused to accept Mr.
Williams, or Mr. Williams who refused to accept the church,

' Williams

the State now stepped in to bring the young clergyman settled at
into due subjection. The Salem church called him as its
teacher, Mr. Higginson having died about six months before. When
Winthrop heard of this,
the subject was brought
up in a court held at
Boston, and Endicott was
written to, that " they mar
velled they [at Salem]
would choose him with
out advising with the coun
cil," and requesting that
the church should proceed
no further till there had
been some conference. 2
The church paid no heed
to this admonition, and
Williams was settled as
the minister. It was only
for a few months, how
ever ; the council gave no

peace to the church till the offender was driven out from among them
to find a refuge at Plymouth, where, as the assistant of the Removal to
Rev. Mr. Smith, he remained for the next two years.

He was now where the council of Massachusetts Bay could not
reach him, and among a people to many of whom his doctrines and
ministrations were acceptable. Independent as he was as a thinker,
and fearless in avowing his convictions when occasion called for it, he
does not seem to have entered upon his career in New England by
thrusting forward either them or himself offensively. The worst doc
trine he was accused of promulgating while at Plymouth was that the
country on which the English had intruded belonged to those they
found there, and that the pretended title of James I. was mere usur-

i Savage's Winthrop, vol. i., p. 53. 2 Savage's Winthrop.

First Church in Salem.

536 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX.

pation. Some novelties of doctrine seem, at last, to have shocked the
good elder Brewster, but Bradford speaks of him in terms of high
commendation. But, for a time, his ministrations were entirely with
out offence. Winthrop and Mr. Wilson, the Boston minister, were at
Plymouth in the course of the next year walking thither from
Weymouth partook of the sacrament on the Lord's day with Mr.
Williams, and afterward discussed some question propounded by him,
according to the custom of that church ; an amicable and godly dis
cussion, apparently, Mr. Williams refraining from using the opportu
nity to advance any of his heretical views, either civil or religious.
For a while, evidently, he ceased to be a troubler in Israel.

Meanwhile no time was lost in bringing the settlers in their several
Enforce- communities under the regulation of both civil and ecclesi-
mentofiaw. as ^ ca i polity. Meetings of the court were frequent, and
stringent laws were passed and applied with rigor. Thus, one man
was fined ten pounds, in September, for selling a gun to an Indian, and
it was decreed that not even corn should be sold to the natives without
leave. Sir Richard Saltonstall, an assistant, and a man of mark, was
fined for whipping two persons when no other assistant was present,
as the law prescribed in such cases. An irreverent sportsman was
whipped for fowling on Sunday ; a hungry one for stealing a loaf of
bread. The first quack in the colony was fined five pounds for pretend
ing to cure the scurvy with a worthless water, for which he charged an
exorbitant price, and he was warned against any such practice in
future. 1 This austere virtue is now lost, even in Massachusetts.
Malicious reflections upon the government and the church at Salem
cost an offender his ears. The man who got drunk was held to be dis
orderly and fined for a breach of the peace. Adultery was punished
with death. There was no lack of watchfulness over the morals and
the manners, as well as the safety of the colonists. Even the ex-gov
ernor, Endicott, was fined forty shillings in a case of assault and bat
tery on one goodman Dexter. In a letter to Winthrop he acknowl
edged that he was wrong in such violence, as unbecoming in a justice
of the peace. But in reply to Dexter's threat that, if he could not
get justice he would "try it out at blows," Endicott said, that if that
were lawful and " he, Dexter, were a fit man for me to deal with,
you should not hear me complain ; " then adding piously and peni
tently, though the natural Adam was evidently very strong within
him, " I hope the Lord hath brought me off from that course."

But more important than all other enactments was one passed at
the first General Court for elections in the spring of 1631, by which
it was declared that no man should be admitted to the body politic

1 Mass. Col. Rec., cited in Palfrey's History of New England, vol. i., pp. 321 et seq.

1631.] CITIZENSHIP. 537

who was not a member of some church within its limits. Nothing
could so clearly show the character of the people. The test Condition ot
of citizenship was piety ; and the test of piety was member- citizenshi P-
ship in the Reformed Church. No surer way could have been devised
of excluding all but Puritans, and Puritans of a certain way of think
ing, from any share in the government of the colony. But these peo
ple had fled from ecclesiastical tyranny at home, and they believed
that their only safety lay in a close ecclesiastical corporation of their
own, a body corporate in which the adversary could gain no foothold
either in the church or in the state. Narrow and illiberal as the pol
icy is, when tried by the standard of later times, it was meant to be a
peaceful solution of the problem of that age, the working out of which
soon cost England a revolution and the king his head.

These men had come into the wilderness to build up a theocracy,
and made no pretensions of securing liberty for anybody but them
selves. They were quite as intolerant of opinions that were not their
own as the most inexorable persecutor that ever " peppered " a Puri
tan. The question is even not yet quite settled in all minds whether
intolerance is more lovely and safe in the hands of men who only
mean to use it to the glory of God, than in the hands of men who
plainly persecute the righteous for unrighteous ends. The line where
disinterested devotion fades into worldly motives and the indulgence
of the most selfish passions, is so exceedingly fine and so easily passed,
that they must needs be much more than common men who can be
trusted with intolerance only as a divine attribute.

CHAPTER XXI.

NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

LAWS, ECCLESIASTICAL AND POLITICAL. JOHN ELIOT'S WORK AMONG THE IN
DIANS. JOHN COTTON ARRIVES IN BOSTON. THE RED CROSS IN THE KING'S
BANNER. PERSECUTION AND BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS. THE FIRST
SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. SETTLERS FROM PLYMOUTH ON THE CONNECTI
CUT RIVER. JOHN WINTHROP, JR., FIRST GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT. HOOK
ER'S EMIGRATION TO HARTFORD. ANNE HIJTCHINSON AND HER DOCTRINES.
MURDER OF JOHN OLDHAM. BEGINNING OF THE PEQUOD WAR.

THE accounts that went home for the first year or two from Massa
chusetts Bay were discouraging, and for a while more returned to
England than joined the colony. Yet the progress was steady in spite
of all discouragements and hardships ; the settlements grew

Gradual . . TIT

progress of into towns ; the towns grew into a consolidated common
wealth. Local affairs soon came to be entrusted to a few
select men from a community, though any freeman who chose could
assist at their deliberations. The system which for convenience'
sake, as numbers increased, took the place of a meeting of all the
freemen, when any question arose, such as the making of roads, or the
division of lands begun in one place soon extended to others, till
in the course of four or five years town-governments were recognized
as the established order. The next step was natural and easy ; repre
sentatives were sent to the General Court, first to consult with the
assistants, and to regulate taxation ; next to enact laws, and to take
part in the general management of the colony. Step by step the
colony grew into a commonwealth a government of the people.

There was no interference with them from the home government.
Men of some influence who had been in the country and left it,

voluntarily or involuntarily, from various motives, some-
ineffectual J J '

attempt in times good and sometimes bad, united to break down the

England to

injure the colony. They were so far listened to that the king and

colony. . . .

the Privy Council looked into the matter, but found nothing
which was considered worthy of reprehension. It was considered,
apparently, that there was nothing dangerous in Puritanism when so
far away ; and it is not at all unlikely that Charles felt a generous
interest in the first colony established under a patent signed by his

1632.] CLERGYMEN IN MASSACHUSETTS. 539

own hand, and in a country to which he had given a name. There
was controversy between them and Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others
about patents ; the Brownes did not readily forget the first cause of
complaint they had against Endicott, and the church at Salem. Mor
ton remembered the prostrate May-pole at Merry Mount, and the
stocks in Boston , a mysterious Sir Christopher Gardiner who
travelled about the country among the Indians, having with him a
pretty young woman, confessedly not his wife, and who was suspected
of being a Catholic, with sinister designs on the Western Hemisphere
railed at the tyranny of Winthrop, who had dismissed him without
ceremony from Massachusetts ; but all these united, with any others
who had, or thought they had grievances, availed nothing in England
to provoke interference. The colony was happily left to its own
devices.

There the most potent influence was the clergy. Though ministers
were debarred from holding civil offices, they nevertheless, In fl uence0 f
in large measure through the church controlled the State. thecle w-
The franchise of citizenship could only belong to the church-member ;
but church- membership was under the control of the ministers. This
ecclesiastical government suited the Puritans of Massachusetts and
was of their own creation ; but the influence of the bishops in Eng
land, though exercised in a different way, was never more potent than
that of the minister of the parish in New England, who continued for
a century and a half to be looked up to by his parishioners with almost
as much reverence as is rendered to the Pope, long after the rule of
the bishops had ceased to exist.

Not all of them, however, cared for political influence, or were most
devoted even to theological questions. Chief among those who had
other aims was the Rev. John Eliot of Roxbury, who was The Apog .
made the pastor of its first church, in 1632. His life was tle " Eliot -
largely devoted to converting the Indians to Christianity, and to that
end he studied their language with great assiduity. 1 Some years later,
when he had mastered their difficult tongue, he preached his first ser
mon to a small company of Indians, in a wigwam at Nonantum near
Watertown. The presence of Waban, an Indian chief, suggested the
text, which was from Ezekiel xxxvii. 9, 10 : " Then said he unto them,
Prophesy unto the wind ; " Waban, the chief's name, The p^^
meaning wind. The sermon was effectual, and Waban be- Indlan8 -
came a Christian. A sect grew up, among whom he was a man

i Elliot's Indian Bible a few copies of which are still in existence and sell at almost
fabulous sums, though in a now unknown tongue was published in 1663. The Psalms
in Metre, the first book published in America 1640 was composed partly by him and
partly by his colleague, Weld, and by Richard Mather.

540 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

of influence, called the " Praying Indians," and who became so obnox
ious to the unconverted savage that, at a later period in time of war,
it was necessary to place them upon an island in the harbor, for pro
tection, although their own town, Natick " the place of hills "
was well fortified. 1

But Eliot's heroic work was beset with monstrous difficulties. The
Indian's ethical condition was derived from the exigencies of the wil
derness, and seldom rose above them into a nobler behavior. This
spiritual condition was limited to a vague reference to an overruling
Manito, a decided belief in Hobomock, the Evil Spirit, and an unfalter
ing trust in the medicine-man. Into this structure of natural theology
he soon learned to infuse a love of rivn so strong that it confused his
perception of the white man's religion, as it well might do. When
the Bible and the puncheon came over to him in the same ship, the
remark of one of their chiefs was not irrelevant : " Let me see that
your religion makes you better than us and then we may try it." This
keen appreciation of the difference between the Englishman's preach
ing and his practice ; the love of fighting which can hardly be assuaged
in the breast of an Indian : the thirst for the new liquors ;

Difficulties

mEiiofs the reluctance to form settled towns and to labor, were for
midable obstacles in Eliot's way ; while the lukewarmness of
the colonists, who thought the converts were poor for Christians and
spoiled for Indians, constantly dogged his manly and courageous steps
as he went to and fro with incessant ministering of religious truths and
inculcation of the arts of civilization to the people whose darkness he
so commiserated.

There were other clergymen not less identified, though in a different

Arrival of wa y with the infancy of the Commonwealth. In 1633 large

Hooker, and additions were made to the colony, and among them came

John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Samuel Stone. Hooker

and Stone went to Newtown as pastor and teacher ; Cotton remained

in Boston as teacher over the church of which Wilson was pastor.

The Rev. William Phillips of Watertown had already labored to

mould the churches into that form of Congregationalism which after-

^* / , wards prevailed, but the work was completed

sTU mi Ct/HJfll'/ by Cotton. He had, it is said, "such an in-

, ' / sinuating and melting way in his preaching,

signature of John Cotton. that he would usually carry his very adversary

captive after the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric;" and such was

1 Some of the converts were made magistrates and constables in the towns of Praying In
dians. Here is a warrant addressed to a constable : "1. I, Hidondi. 2. You, Peter Water
man. 3. Jeremy Wicket. 4. Quick you take him. 5. Fast you hold him. 6. Straight
you bring him. 7. Before me, Hidondi. " The New England History, by Charles W. Elliot,
vol. i., p. 326.

1633.]

ROGER WILLIAMS.

541

his authority " that whatever he delivered in the pulpit was soon put
into an order of court, if of a civil, or set up as a practice in the
church, if of an ecclesiastical

St. Botolph's Church, Boston, Eng.

concernment." 1 He was an
able and a learned man, already
distinguished before coming to
New England, as rector of St.
Botolph's church in Boston, Lin
colnshire, where his non-con
forming opinions were too
boldly and ably expressed to
escape the notice of the au
thorities. The hostile atten
tion of Laud, the archbishop of
Canterbury, was directed toward
him, and he was suspected of
an intention to emigrate so soon
as an attempt should be made
to deal with him for non-con
formity. He and Hooker were
closely watched. Cotton lay
concealed in London for some
time, and they only got out of
the kingdom by the feint of embarking at the Isle of Wight and going
on board in the Downs.

Within a month of these arrivals, Roger Williams returned from
Plymouth to Salem, and returned not to peace but to much Roger Wil .
tribulation. Some controversy had at length arisen between J^*^"
him and the church at Plymouth, his views savoring, Elder Salem -
Brewster thought, of Anabaptism ; he falling, Bradford said, " into
strange opinions, and from opinions to practice." Some were desirous
of retaining him, but he asked a dismission, and they let him go with
a warning to the church at Salem, some of the Plymouth people, how
ever, going with him.

But the church at Salem would heed no warning, and welcomed him
back. For months he exercised his gift "by way of prophecy," a
desultory preacher without special charge. But he prophesied so
much to the satisfaction of the Salem people, that when Mr. Skelton
died the next summer, Williams was called to his place. He was, no
doubt, watched narrowly, even before his settlement ; but for a while
his utterances were so void of offence, that the governor and as
sistants took up for consideration the treatise he had written while in

1 Hubbard's History, pp. 175, 182.

542 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

Plymouth in relation to the Indian title to the country. The offender
was notified to appear at the next General Court for cen-
be e forethe sure. 1 He appeared accordingly, and made due submission,
asserting that the treatise was written for the private satis
faction of the governor and others at Plymouth, and that there
would have been an end of it had not Mr. Winthrop sent to him for a
copy. The anxiety to find cause of complaint against him must have
been great, when a private manuscript written outside of the jurisdic
tion of Massachusetts, and thus obtained, could be made the pretext
of an accusation against the writer. Indeed the governor and council
seem to have become a little ashamed of it, for they were gracious
enough subsequently to pass the matter over, after consultation with
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Cotton, and on consideration that the Indian
essay was obscure in meaning, that Mr. Williams had disavowed any-
evil intent in writing it, and had taken the oath of allegiance.

But offences were sure to come. It was impossible for Mr. Wil
liams to keep quiet ; equally impossible, for the Council to

The question . " .

of veils at let mm alone. As a sort of preliminary ot what was to
come the colony was presently in a buzz, for he had per
suaded the women of Salem that modesty required they should go
veiled in public. Here was heresy. Cotton hastened to Salem to re
fute it, and his " insinuating and melting way " brought down every
veil in the parish between the Sunday services. It was an exhaustive
discourse, if we may trust Hubbard's report of it, and proved to the
women of Salem that the Scriptural reasons were not applicable in
their case ; for many were wives and not virgins ; none were like
Tamar ; and none needed like Ruth, to hold up her veil before Boaz
for a measure of barley. Not a woman's face was hidden on Sunday
afternoon after this morning's discourse. It was a great triumph over
Roger Williams, and so pleased was Mr. Cotton with his success, that
he carried the subject into the " Boston Lecture." But here Endicott
met him in fierce debate, and so hot did it grow that the governor in
terfered to put an end to it. 2

Williams had no more devoted follower than Endicott, whose zeal
was of the kind that out-runs discretion. At home and abroad he
was, for a time, ready to uphold his pastor at any cost, and would, no
doubt, had not the governor stopped him, have maintained against
Cotton, rather than admit that there was any defect in the doctrine

1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. i., p. 122.

2 Such sermons, however, were not uncommon. Eliot and Clmuncy, President of Har
vard College, preached long and learned discourses on Wigs. Life of Williams, Sparks's
Biography, vol. xiv. All the magistrates in 1649, signed a solemn protest against men
wearing long hair, and commended the subject to the attention of the ministers. Hutch-
inson's History.

1634.] ROGER WILLIAMS. 543

in regard to veils, that every woman in Boston was like Tamar and
should hide her face. The Council of Massachusetts were far more
tender of him than of the minister, though he did not always escape
punishment.

His zeal, and the influence of his pastor's teaching were made man
ifest in an act of more moment than whether the women

ill T rru i e TTT-iT p Endicott

should go uncovered. Ihe preaching or Williams was ot cuts out the
the searching kind and the application of his principles of
undefiled religion, knew no limit. There was in him no fear of prin
cipalities or powers ; for the Church of England he had only abhor
rence ; for those who reverenced her, rebuke if not denunciation. He
looked everywhere for the signs of anti-Christ, and at any relic of su
perstition he pointed an unswerving finger. In the red cross of St.
George he saw only a remnant of Popery, not an ensign of victory.
This fervid flame of pure spiritual doctrine caught up Endicott and he
blazed into fury. When next the flag of England fluttered over him
in the streets of Salem he seized its folds and cut out the cross in
which his pastor saw an emblem of submission to Rome. Some of the
soldiers refused to follow the mutilated colors ; the grave offence de
manded the attention of the General Court ; he was rebuked for in
discretion, and dismissed for a time from his seat as an assistant at
the Council. It was only because all were persuaded that the act was
done out of tenderness of conscience and not out of an evil mind that
he was visited with no heavier penalty 1 ; and, besides, there were a
good many people who sympathized with the act itself.

But Williams had not long been settled, against the expostulations
if not the direct order of the Council, when the people of Sa- sai^ag^a
lem asked that a tract of land at Marblehead be granted gJSandis
them. The court refused. So palpable and flagrant an refused -
act of injustice stirred the church to further resistance ; the other
churches where the magistrates were members, were written to and
urged to admonish them for this gross intolerance toward Salem.
There was no other way of appealing to public opinion, and public
opinion was the only influence that could be brought to bear upon
the magistrates. The appeal was useless; the clergy made no re
sponse, and of their position, no doubt the magistrates were Anappeal to
quite assured beforehand. The protest led to fresh penal- churches
ties ; the Salem deputies were deprived of their seats in the P uni ^ed.
court ; Endicott, as chief and of the most importance, was imprisoned
until a satisfactory apology was made for such a spirit of insubordi
nation. It was a complete establishment of the civil authority. Wil
liams asked his people to separate from these subservient churches.

i Hubbard.

544 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

But his own church was already subdued, and the request was refused.
Salem and Endicott submitted at last to a power inexorable and too
strong for them, and the pastor was left helpless and at the mercy of
the court.

And the court was without mercy, as Williams was without any
spirit of compromise. He was summoned to Boston to answer for
his dangerous heresies, and he appeared, well knowing that there was
hardly a magistrate or a minister in the little commonwealth that had
not prejudged him. The accusations against him convey an
tions against inadequate notion of how serious an offence his doctrines were

Williams. , i T- TT i i -it ...

among the .run tans. He was charged with maintaining that
the magistrate should not punish a breach of the first four command
ments, except where the result was a breach of the peace ; that he
should not tender an oath to an unregenerate man, and that no one
should pray with such a person, though he be one's nearest relative ;
and that thanks should not be given either after meat or after the sacra
ment. 1 But out of these propositions he deduced the plain doctrine,
that the magistrate had no right to meddle with any man's conscience
or religious opinions, and that the state exceeded its just power
when it assumed to have jurisdiction over any other relations of the
citizen than those of person and property. He meant this, and magis
trates and ministers understood that he meant it, and in a community
where no man was a citizen except he was a church-member, and no
man was a church-member except with the minister's permission, such
doctrine was dangerous and intolerable.

But he was not to be moved. Cotton and Hooker went to Salem
iiistriaiand to labor with him, and he withstood them. The court had

sentence. J 1 j m U p Qr r j a l } la( J J lml U p^ that [^ f or a public polemical

debate. They failed to convict him of error, as he failed to convict
them of injustice. He was sent back to Salem with permission to
take time to repent, and a warning to prepare for sentence at the next
meeting of the General Court, unless ready then to bring forth fruits
meet for repentance.

The fruits were not forthcoming. He was stiff-necked and would
not bend, and sentence of banishment was pronounced upon him. He
" hath broached and divulged " said the act, " divers new and danger
ous opinions against the authority of magistrates ; as also writ letters
of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here ; " and there
fore he was ordered to depart out of that jurisdiction Avithin six weeks
and not return without license from the court. To this sentence there
was only one dissenting voice. 2

1 Savage's WinOirop. Hubbard. Mather's Magnolia.

2 Savage's Winthrop.

1635.] BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 545

There was more than one dissenting voice however, outside of the
General Court, and especially in Salem. A staunch minority stood by
the persecuted minister, and no doubt there was some clamor every
where. Perhaps for this reason notice was given him that he might
remain till spring. Williams accepted the clemency and went on
preaching, but preached precisely as he had done before. He abated
not one jot of his dangerous opinions ; gave full measure of his doc
trines of Christian democracy. When the church was closed against
him by the timid or the prudent, he called together in his own house
such as would listen to him, and quietly but firmly testified to the
truth as it was in him.

Th'e magistrates were exasperated and summoned him again before
them. They had heard he intended to plant a colony on Narragansett
Bay, " from whence," says
Winthrop, " the infection
would easily spread into
these churches, the people
being many of them much
taken with the apprehension
of his godliness." He re
fused to appear again be
fore the court, but alleged
ill health as a reason. It
was, no doubt, a good and
sufficient excuse, but he
may, perhaps, have felt also Roger wiiliams ' s House Salem -

that it was not worth while to be tried a second time for the same
offence. At any rate the court was not satisfied, and Captain Under
bill was sent at once to Salem in a shallop with orders to
take him and put him on board a ship about to sail for Eng- arrest of
land. When Underbill arrived he was gone ; some kind
friends had given him information of the proposed arrest, and he fled
alone out into the night and the wilderness.

Winthrop was not, this year, the governor of Massachusetts, and
may have felt that release from official duty permitted the indulgence
of a feeling of personal friendship and sympathy. In a letter written
thirty-five years afterward, Williams says, " that ever honored gover
nor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote to me to steer my course to the
Narragansett Bay and Indians for many high and heavenly and public
ends, encouraging me from the freeness of place from any English
claims or patents." l To Narragansett Bay, accordingly, he steered

1 Letter from Roger Williams to Major Mason, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., Fourth
Series. The letters of Williams to Winthrop during the years immediately succeeding his

546

NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

[CHAP. XXL

his course, " though in winter snow which I feel yet," he adds, paren
thetically, for it was in January.

But he was not without friends in the wilderness into which he
threw himself. His essay on the rights of the Indian to the soil,
which had been construed into an attack upon the patent and upon
The flight of the king, and made matter of accusation against him was
Williams. no mere } v an idle, abstract argument with him, but a living
truth. His belief in their rights was wider and more earnest than
the belief of those about him, though they were not disposed to be
unjust to the natives. But to him they were a people to be tenderly
used and gently led out of the darkness of Heathenism, and the in
tercourse he had had with them, while living in Plymouth, was in
fused with this feeling, and had led to the most kindly relations.

Roger Williams building his House.

Massasoit, the old friend of the Pilgrims, was his friend also, and
with him the wanderer at last found rest at Mount Hope.

The chief gave him land on the Seekonk River, and there in the

banishment (see Rhode Island Hist. Soc., vol. i., Appendix, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii.,
Third Series, and vol. vi., Fourth Series) show the existence of cordial and even affection
ate relations between them.

1633.] SETTLEMENTS ON THE CONNECTICUT. 547

early spring he began to build himself a house. 1 Here five persons
from Salem joined him, but they all soon removed to the other side
of the river by the advice of Governor Winslow, of Plymouth. He
wrote to Williams that he and his party were within the bounds of
the Plymouth grant, and it was best to avoid all possibility of dispute
by moving a few miles farther west. The advice was wise and for
tunate. Dropping down the Seekonk River in a canoe, and round
into the broad harbor below, they landed at the foot of a hill

i t 11 * v it i Williams

whose seeming advantages attracted them. In following the settles at

Providence.

advice of Winthrop and Winslow, Williams thought he was
led by a divine guidance, and therefore, and to use his own words
" for many other Providences of the most holy and only wise," he
called the place Providence. Here, in June, 1636, the exile and his
five companions planted the seed of another New England State.

This, however, was not the first offshoot from the parent colonies
that had taken root along the southern shores of New England. As
early as 1631, Wahginnacut, a Sagamore from " the river Quonchta-
cut, which lies West of Naragancet," had visited Boston and offered
the Governor inducements, in a promised tribute of corn and beaver-
skins, to send some Englishmen to settle in his country, which he said
was fruitful. The proposition was refused, as the chief, it was
thought, only wanted English aid in a war in which he was then
engaged with the Pequots ; but the suggestion did not fall SeU i e ments
upon deaf ears. The Dutch from New Netherland had al- J3^^! y
ready penetrated the Connecticut valley, and had purchased necticut -
lands of the Indians on the banks of the river. In 1633, the Com
missary, Van Curler, had begun to build the Fort Good Fort GooA
Hope, now Hartford on the tract thus bought, and the H P el > uilt -
Dutch West India Company claimed the whole valley as theirs, by
right of possession and purchase.

Friendly relations had been established between the Dutch and the
Plymouth people, and these learned from the former something of the
rich trade and fertile soil they had found on the Fresh or Connecti
cut River. It was welcome intelligence to the Pilgrims, whose
trading-post on the Penobscot had already been robbed by the French,
and who, probably, had little hope of much more profitable trade in
that quarter. Overtures were made by Bradford and Winslow to
Winthrop to anticipate the Dutch in their proposed occupation at
Fort Good Hope. But the government at Boston " thought not fit to
meddle with it," as the neighborhood of a large body of Indians and

1 The spot is now known as " Mnnton's Cove," a short distance above a bridge in a
bend of the river, directly eastward of Providence. Gammell's Life of Roger Williams, in
Sparks's American Biography.

548

NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

[CHAP. XXI.

the shallowness of the river made it a poor place for a plantation.

The Plymouth people were not discouraged by this refusal,
on "the co 8 but in the autumn of 1633 sent William Holmes round by

sea to the Connecticut, having on board his vessel the frame
of a house already prepared for building. The Dutch threatened to
fire upon them as they passed by Fort Good Hope, but Holmes showed
his commission from the Governor of Plymouth, and insisted that he
must obey orders, and going on, put up his house upon the site of the

Site of Fort Good Hope.

present town of Windsor, about six miles above the Dutch fort. 1
Governor Van Twiller the next year sent troops from New Amster
dam who, however, were not employed to oust the intruders
upon the territory which, he claimed, not without reason, belonged to
the West India Company. But the sturdy Pilgrims, under Holmes,
held their own, and entered into successful trade with the Indians.
This firm footing on the Connecticut was made, when the next
spring a petition was presented to the General Assembly of
Massachusetts Bay from the people of Newtown, asking that
they might be permitted " to look out either for enlargement
necticut. Qr rem0 val." The ministers Hooker and Stone were at the
head of this movement, but, though the petition was at first granted,
when the intention was avowed of going to the Connecticut, it met with
warm opposition. In the autumn the subject again came up for discus
sion in the General Court, when it was urged, that so large an emi
gration would be a great injury to the colony; the emigrants them
selves would be exposed to great dangers both from the Indians and

1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut.

The New-

remove to
the Con-

1635.] EMIGRATION TO CONNECTICUT. 549

the Dutch ; it was doubtful if the king would assent to a company
settling upon lands to which they had no patent, and there was no
good reason for removing so far, when there was ample room within
the limits of the Company's patent which they might occupy. On the
main question a majority of the deputies from the towns were in favor
of granting permission to the petitioners to remove to the Connecti
cut ; but a majority of the assistants voted against it.

Thereupon arose an important conflict as to the rights of these two
classes of representatives whether the assistants who rep- Conflict of
resented the magistracy, though smaller in number, should ^neraj nthe
not outweigh by their vote the larger number of deputies Court -
who represented the people. Neither party was disposed to yield, and
a day of fasting and prayer was appointed to get light upon the sub
ject, aided by a sermon from Mr. John Cotton. The result was at
least peace for the present, though the question as to the conflicting
claim of assistants and representatives remained undetermined, and
the Newtown people, before Mr. Cotton's sermon was preached, con
sented to accept an enlargement of their borders.

The wish to remove to the rich lands of the Connecticut Valley
was not confined to the church at Newtown. Others of
Watertovvn, Dorchester, and Roxbury, were equally uneasy, tothecon-
and as no permission could be obtained to go beyond the
limits of the Massachusetts patent, a good many resolved to go with
out. A few men from Watertown began the settlement of Wethers-
field in the winter of 1635, and more of their townsmen followed them
in the spring; others went from Dorchester and settled themselves
about the Plymouth people at Windsor in the summer of that year.
In November, a still larger party, gathered probably from various
places, started for the new country. It was composed of whole fami
lies, men, women, and children, and they took with them their horses,
cattle, and swine. It was a perilous journey through the woods
at that season, and winter was upon them before it was over. The
river was frozen by the middle of the month, and the vessels which
were bringing their household goods and provisions were unable to
get to them. Two of these were wrecked on the way. The emi
grants were put to almost the extreme of suffering, and seventy of
them, going down the river, in the hope of meeting with their own
vessels, were happily rescued by another, and carried back to Mas
sachusetts, miserable and repentant. Those who went to Windsor
were complained of by the Plymouth people for intruding on their
lands.

These irregular attempts at settlement, more or less successful, were
followed by one which laid the foundation of a stable colony. In the

550

NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

[CHAP. XXI.

thrJp, the

autumn of this year, John Winthrop, a son of Governor Winthrop of
Massachusetts, came out from England, bringing with him a
commission to be governor of Connecticut, under the patent
of Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook and others, which cov
ered that region of country. He brought with him men, ordnance,

and ammunition,
and had orders to
erect a fort at the

G~A/ ( t " ^4 X *t~<a-A_^-> mouth of the river.
/ ^ ' Hearing that the

Signature of Lord Say and Seal. Dutch had deS-

patched a vessel on the same errand, he immediately sent a small ves
sel from Boston with twenty men to take possession, and when the
Dutchman arrived a battery of two cannon confronted him, which
was enough to prevent his landing. When the Dutch purchased the
country three years before, of the Indians, they had affixed to a tree

Tearing down the Dutch Arms.

at Kievit's Hook the arms of the State's General in token of posses
sion. The Englishmen contemptuously tore down this shield, and
carved a grinning face in its stead. 1 The place was named Saybrook,
in honor of the Lords Say and Brook, the patentees, a strong fort was
soon built, and the only evidence left in the valley of the presence of
the Dutch was the feeble post of Fort Good Hope.

1 Brodhoad's History of New York.

163U.]

THE HOOKER EMIGRATION.

551

Between the English settlers at Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor
and the new governor, it was easy to come to an amicable Theiiooker
arrangement. And others soon followed from Massachu- emigration -
setts. The Newtown people, notwithstanding " they had been car
ried captive after the triumphant chariot of Mr. Cotton's rhetoric,"
and had accepted the offer of
more lands which the General
Court had offered them; and
notwithstanding the painful ex
perience of some of those who
had sought there new homes,
still longed for the fresh fields
and green meadows of the
Connecticut. " Two such em
inent stars, such as were Mr.
Cotton and Mr. Hooker," says
Hubbard, " both of the same
magnitude, though of differing
influence, could not well con
tinue in one and the same orb."
It is not impossible that there
may have been some iealousy

between two such eminent men
in a small community, where there was no influence so potent as that
of the clergyman, and where of two the most distinguished only one
could be first. Whether Hooker had any such feeling or not, the
chief reason he gave for desiring a removal was that it was already
too crowded in Massachusetts, and that the policy of the Company in
planting settlements so near each other was a mistake.

The accession of members to the colony during the year 1635, no
doubt helped to strengthen this conviction, for there came, that year,
about three thousand persons from England. Some must go farther
into the interior, and the Newtown people resumed their determina
tion. They disposed of their houses and lands to a body of new
comers, and prepared for removal.

In June, 1636, the whole church of Newtown, numbering about a
hundred, with Hooker and Stone, the ministers, at their head, started
on their journey. They were about ten days in the woods, travelling
in that time something less than a hundred miles. They drove before
them a hundred and sixty cattle ; wagons carried the old and feeble ;
these and tents were a sufficient shelter at night. The forest was
beautiful with the abundant flowers of June and with the tender foliage
of the young summer ; the woods were vocal with the music of birds,

John Wmthrop, the younger.

552 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

in that month always in clearest and fullest song ; the rains of spring
had passed ; the heats of the later season had not come ; and so, with
out hardship, almost without fatigue, the emigrants traversed the wil
derness, as happy, in their ten days' journey, as a modern church-party
that picnics for a clay in a suburban grove.
Thev left nothing behind them to regret ;
before them the future was rosy with hope.
The one touch of sombre color, which, how
ever, took nothing of in
terest and even of ro-

Hooker's Emigration to Connecticut.

mance from the scene, was the figure of Mrs. Hooker, who, feeble
from illness, was carried in a litter.

Hartford was the end of this pleasant journey ; then so named in

honor of the Rev. Mr. Stone, who was a native of Hartford in England.

Wethersfield, and Windsor also, received their names this

Towns

named in summer, as sufficient numbers followed in the path of the

Connecticut. i p i i

Newtown people, to make them worthy ot special designa
tion ; and higher up the river, Pynchon, one of the earliest of the
planters, and a member of the original Council in London, began
a settlement, with a few others, which soon came to be called Spring
field. At the end of the year there were about eight hundred
people in the valley of the Connecticut, which, though governed at
first by commissioners from Massachusetts, was soon an established
autonomy.

But this swarming of the hive was by no means the most agitating
experience of Massachusetts during this period. A theological dis-

1634.]

MRS. HUTCHINSON.

553

pensation was visited upon it which shook its very soui, and it is not
impossible that the interest raised by this was so absorbing that the
authorities saw with indifference, or did not notice at all, that the
people were leaving the colony with as little hesitation as if no per
mission had ever been asked, and refused of the General Court.

In 1634 there arrived a Mrs. Ann Hutchinson from Atford, near
Boston, England. With her came her husband, a rather
insignificant person, and her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Mrs. iiutch-

___. i i T i * i i i inson.

Wheelwright. John Cotton, who came over the year be
fore, was her favorite among all the ministers in England, and she
seems to have followed him to this country, for she declared that no
church in England suited her. She was a woman of superior intelli
gence, bright, witty, good at a fencing match of tongues, versed in
Scripture and theological literature, never so happy as when descanting
on her views. Her temper was resolute ; she ruled her weak husband,
and had a taste for ruling ; to be an influential centre of opinion was
her ambition, which she took no trouble to conceal. Moreover she was
skilful in sickness, and knew how to treat the travails and

01 i 1-11 i i UTS. Ilutch-

trOllbleS ot her sex. She soon became highly popular, only mson-sad-

Winthrop, Wilson, and a few others did not admire her.
John Cotton, of course, was her adherent. So also was Sir Henry
Vane, who was governor for one of the three years of his residence
in the colony and during the contin
uance of this controversy ; a Puritan
of the Puritans, and delighting in
theological subtleties, he warmly sup
ported Mrs. Hutchinson. The views
which she maintained were of the
kind called Antinomian ; that is, the
Law was not a school-master to bring
men to Christ, the Person of the Holy
Ghost dwells in a justified person and
becomes his justification ; no sanctifi-
cation can help to testify to a man
that he is justified, or of him, because
it may be assumed. The clergy ob
jected that as the Holy Ghost was the
Third Person of the Trinity he could
not be indwelling. But she declared that made no difficulty. They
disliked the distinction which she and her brother-in-law strenuously
maintained between a covenant of grace and a covenant of works, and
she offended by rallying them for their austerity.

It was her custom to hold lectures twice a week, to which the

Henry Vane.

554 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

women flocked, from eighty to one hundred attending to hear her re
peat from memory the sermons she heard, and comment upon
mgon-g U iec- them with piquancy. She had Scripture for these novel gath
erings of women, for Titus says that the aged women may
teach the young ones. " Come along with me," says a writer of the
period, " I '11 bring you to a woman that preaches better Gospell than
any of your black-coats that have been at the Ninnyversity, a woman
of an other kind of spirit, who hath had many revelations of things to
come, and for my part I had rather hear such a one that speaks from
the meere motion of the spirit, without any study at all, then any of
your learned Scollers, although they may be fuller of Scripture."

Only four or five members of the Boston Church held out against
her ; the country churches were mainly opposed to her teachings.
The feeling began to grow bitter when Mrs. Hutchinson obtrusively
Her success l 6 ^ * ne meeting-house whenever Wilson rose to speak,
m Boston. Winthrop and Wilson succeeded with difficulty in prevent
ing the election of Wheelwright to an associate place with the teacher
and pastor. Their success was provoking and increased the alienations
among old friends and fellow-workers. When people began to call
each other hard names, to brand this one as under a covenant of works,
and that one as superior, being under grace, the General Court took
up the matter as becoming dangerous to the State. Wheelwright was
pronounced guilty of sedition and contempt because he employed the
occasion of a general Fast to preach a discourse in which he

Interference 111 ,. . . ,. . ^~,

of the Gen- called persons living in a covenant of works Anti-Chnsts and

eral Court. r

stirred up the people against them. The sentence proved so
unpopular, even Winthrop signing a petition against it, that the court
went out of Boston and held its sittings at Newtown.

In May, 1637, the confusion was at its height. At the General Court
a quarrel arose upon the presentation of a petition from Boston. The
Court would not allow it to be read till after the usual election of
magistrates. Vane resisted, and refused with his supporters to take
part; but Winthrop, who was deputy, persisted in voting, and the elec
tion resulted in restoring Winthrop and Dudley to power : Endicott
was made a magistrate for life ; but all the adherents of Mrs. Hutchin
son were left out. The excitement in Newtown was intense, and
people came into violent collision. " In the height of the fray,
Wilson climbed a tree and made a speech, the meeting being held in
the open air." 1 Winthrop was coldly received in Boston and subjected
to studied insults.

A synod of ministers and magistrates which was held in August at
Newtown, and condemned the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson and Wheel-

1 Hutchinson.

1634.]

TRIAL OF MRS. HUTCHINSON.

555

wright did not pacify dissension. The two parties were irreconcilable.
Now the General Court, began to deal with the principal offenders :
some were disfranchised, Wheelwright was banished, and Mrs Hutch-
eventually went to the Piscataqua. Mrs. Hutchinson was 1 > vhe"i and
brought to trial for not discontinuing her meetings at the ^"ugutto
order of the late synod. It is probable that the agitations tnal-
of the years had affected her temper and somewhat impaired her judg-

Trial of Mrs. Hutchinson.

ment. She was intemperate enough to claim to be inspired, and that
it had been revealed to her that she would come to New England to be

556 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

persecuted, but that God would ruin the colony for her sake. She nar
rowly escaped procuring the verification of her own prediction, for her
quarrel of opinion rent the State when it divided the churches. So
intense was the feeling aroused against her, that it was believed the
Almighty testified His disapprobation of her heresies by producing
monstrous births among women who had accepted her teachings ; and
even she herself was suspected of having been the subject of such a
Her banish- dispensation. The Court banished her, but considerately left
ment. j ier o s ^ av ou {. j ie b^ter winter at a private house. Powder

and arms were carried out of Boston, and the principal disaffected
persons, to the number of seventy-six, were summoned to surrender
their arms, which they did. Mrs. Hutchinson then removed to Rhode
Island, and afterward to New York, where, as has already been told
in a previous chapter, she was killed some years after by the Indians. 1

One of the reasons which the General Court of Massachusetts had
given for not acceding to the requests for permission to remove to the
Connecticut Valley was the danger from the Indians. It was no
doubt sincere, and it certainly was not without reason. The Indians
were far more numerous in that part of the country than along the
sea-coast, where the epidemic of years before had more than decimated
them. They saw with jealousy and fear the whites intruding upon
their territory. With the Dutch hitherto they had kept upon good
terms, for the Dutch were traders only, and not settlers upon the
Connecticut. But the English were evidently coming with another
purpose than mere traffic, and the Indians were alarmed accordingly.

Aggressions were begun, continued, and grew more frequent. What
Indian hos- the Indians did we know ; what was done to them we do not
tiiities. know. Sometimes they robbed the whites, and sometimes
they murdered them ; plunder, no doubt, was often their object ;
quite as often, perhaps, revenge. When, in 1634, they went on board
the schooner of a Captain Stone, somewhere near Fort Good Hope,
and murdered all hands, it was probably because there was much they
wanted to steal on board the vessel, just in from the West Indies.
But when, two years later, Captain Oldham met the same fate at their
hands, it is not^in the least improbable that there may have been
some provocation which led to the deed.

John Oldham had been in New England from the first settlement

of Plymouth. After his ignominious expulsion from that colony, we

hear of his apparent restoration to favor among; that people ;

Character of . , . . . TV/T 1

John old- or his attempts to round colonies ot his own in Maine ana

Boston harbor, so far, at least, as to procure patents to that

end ; of his trading along the coast ; of his disputing with the Council

i See p. 457.

1636.]

DEATH OF OLDHAM.

557

of the Massachusetts Bay Company their title to the lands which
they held under the hand and seal of the king. Restless, energetic,
always engaged in some enterprise, he certainly was ; and there is no
evidence that there was anything more amiss in him than belongs
almost inevitably to a man of violent temper, removed in a great de
gree from the restraints of civilization, leading a life of adventure,
associating and trading with the Indians till he had acquired, perhaps,
as such men are apt to do, something of the habits and almost the
nature of an Indian.

In 1636 he was trading in a vessel of his own, along the Connecti
cut River. What encounter there may have been between him and
the Indians, that led to the final catastrophe, is not known whether
his vessel was boarded by them merely for plunder, or whether some
aggression on his part provoked retaliation. But off Block Island, a
Massachusetts fisherman, John Gallop, descried the vessel drifting

Recapture of Oldham's Vesse

helplessly out to sea, crowded with Indians who could handle neither
helm nor sail. Gallop, who had only one man and two boys with him,
without hesitation attacked the vessel and then boarded her, assault
ing the Indians with such weapons as he had at hand. It must have
been a gallant naval battle, for the brave fisherman and his brave

558 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI.

companions drove the Indians before them, some diving into the hold
for safety, some throwing themselves into the sea, till none were left
upon the vessel but the dying and the dead. Upon the deck lay the
body of Oldham, still bleeding from recent wounds where he had
fallen with his crew in defence of his vessel.

This death of Oldham was the signal for war. The government of

Massachusetts Bay, the people who had already come, and

of the erst the people who were coming into the Connecticut valley, saw

Indian War. r . Y

that peace with the requots was no longer to be purchased
by attempts at conciliation. Immediate measures were taken to punish
this outrage ; the Indians put themselves both on the defensive and
the offensive, and the colonies of New England were for the first time
engaged in serious war.

TABLE OF DATES.

499. Chinese claim to American discovery.

860. Iceland discovered by Naddod, the Northman.

985. America seen by Bjarni Herjulfson.

1000. Leif, son of Eric the Red, discovers America.

1002. Thorvald the Northman; voyage to America.

1004. Thorvald's second voyage.

1005. Voyage of Thorstein of Ericsfiord.

1007. Expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefne; sails for America.

Birth of Snorri, first European child born on this continent.

1011. Colony of Freydis, daughter of Eric the Red.

1170. Alleged discovery of America by the Welsh.

1380. Voyage of Nicolo Zeno, a Venetian.

1467. Christopher Columbus sails to Iceland.

1477. Reputed voyage of John of Rolno.

1483. Columbus leaves Portugal for Genoa.

1484. Alleged voyage of Alonzo Sanchez.
1488. Alleged voyage of Cousin of Dieppe.

1492. First voyage of Columbus ; Discovery of West Indies.

1497. John and Sebastian Cabot discover North America.

1498. Third voyage of Columbus ; he discovers the continent of South America.
Second voyage of Sebastian Cabot.

1499. First voyage of Amerigo Vespucci.

1500. Gaspar Cortereal goes to Labrador.

1501. Second voyage of Amerigo Vespucci.

1502. Voyage of Miguel Cortereal.

1504. Amerigo Vespucci's narrative published.

1506. Death of Christopher Columbus.

John Denys of Honfleur explores the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1507. America named.

1512. Discovery of Florida by Juan Ponce de Leon.

1513. Pacific Ocean discovered by Vasco Nunez de Balboa.

1516. Voyage of Diego Miruelo to Florida.

1517. Hernando de Cordova visits Florida.

1518. John de Grijalva goes to Florida.
Colony of Baron de Leri on Sable Island.

1519. Francis de Garay explores the Gulf of Mexico.

1520. Lucas Vasquez De Ayllon's expedition to coasts of South Carolina.

1521. Death of Juan Ponce de Leon.

1522. A ship of Magellan's Expedition sails around the world.

560 TABLE OF DATES.

1524. Council of Badajos held to settle claims of Spain and Portugal to America.
First French expedition to America under Giovanni da Verrazano.

1525. Stephen Gomez sails along the Atlantic coast.

1527. Expedition of John Rut sails from England.

1528. Pamphilo de Narvaez lands in Florida.

1534. Jacques Cartier of France sails to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1535. Second voyage of Jacques Cartier.

1536. Voyage from London commanded by Captain Hore.

1539. Fernando De Soto lands in Florida.

1540. Jean Francois de la lloque, Seigneur de Roberval, secures a patent from

Francis I.

1541. Jacques Cartier sails on a third voyage.
The Mississippi River discovered.

1542. Death of Fernando de Soto.
Voyage of Roberval.

1543. Return of De Solo's Expedition.
1553. Expedition of Sir Hugh Willoughby.
1555. Death of Jacques Cartier.

Huguenot Colony in Brazil.

1559. Expedition of Don Tristan de Luna.
1562. Admiral Coligny's first colony sent to Florida under John Ribault.

1564. Second Expedition of Coligny under Rene de Laudonniere.

15G5. Second arrival of Ribault in Florida.

Massacre of Ribault and his companions by Pedro Menendez.
1565. Founding of St. Augustine.

1568. Attack of Dominique de Gourgues on the Spanish forts.

1570. Colony of Pedro Menendez landed on the Potomac.

1574. Death of Pedro Menendez.

1576. First voyage of Martin Frobisher in search of a Northwest passage; dis

covers straits since called by his name.

1577. Second voyage of Martin Frobisher.
1578. Third voyage of Martin Frobisher.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert receives his first charter for American dis
covery.

1579. The Union of Utrecht formed.

1581. The Republic of the United Netherlands established.
1583. Sir Humphrey Gilbert sails on his American voyage.
1584. Sir Walter Raleigh receives his first patent.

Sir Walter Raleigh's first expedition under Amadas and Barlow.

1585. Raleigh's second expedition under Sir Richard Greenville.
1585-6-7. Voyages of John Davis in search of a Northwest passage.

1586. Sir Francis Drake attacks St. Augustine, Florida.

Sir Francis Drake succors Raleigh's colonists in Virginia.
1587. Raleigh's colony under Mr. John White.

Birth of Virginia Dare.
1590. White's second arrival in Virginia.
1594. Willem Barentz explores Nova Zambia.

1598. Marquis de la Roche secures a patent from Henry IV. of France.
1602. Voyage of Samuel Mace to Virginia.

Captain Bartholomew Gosnold begins a settlement on Elizabeth
[Cuttyhunk] Island.

TABLE OF DATES. 561

Dutch East India Company formed.

1603. First voyage of Samuel Champlain to America.
Martin Pring explores coast of Maine.

Voyage and death of Bartholomew Gilbert.

1604. French patent of Acadia granted to De Monts.

De Monts and Champ lain establish a colony in the present limits

of Maine.
1605. Voyage of George Wey mouth to the coasts of Maine.

1606. Patent granted to the Virginia Companies.

First permanent colony of English set sail for America.

1607. First permanent settlement of Virginia at Jamestown.
Colony sent to Maine by Chief Justice Popham.
Henry Hudson attempts the Northeast passage.

1608. Founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain.

1609. Second Charter granted to the Virginia Company.
The Discovery of Lake Champlain.

Voyage of Henry Hudson to America. Discovery of the river
named for him.

1610. Arrival of Lord de la Warre in Virginia.

1611. Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of Virginia.

1612. Third charter granted to the Virginia Company.
1C 13. Settlement of Jesuits on Mount Desert Island.

1613-14. Captain Samuel Argall breaks up the French settlements in Maine and

Acadia.

1614. The New Netherland Company receives its charter.
Captain John Smith explores New England.

Expedition sent by Ferdinando Gorges and Earl of Southampton.
1615. Adriaen Block explores Long Island Sound.

1618. Expiration of the first New Netherland charter.
Ferdinando Gorges sends Captain Rocroft to New England.

1619. First cargo of slaves brought to Jamestown.

First legislative assembly of Virginia meets in Jamestown.

1620. The Pilgrims sail from Delft Haven
New charter of the Plymouth Company.

1621. The Pilgrims settle at Plymouth.

Nova Scotia granted to Sir William Alexander.
The Dutch "West India Company incorporated.
John Peirce's first patent from the Plymouth Company.

1622. The Dutch West India Company takes formal possession of New Nether
land.

Weston's colony established at Wessagusset.
The Massacre in Virginia, under Opechancanough.
1623. The Laconia Grant to Gorges and Mason.

Settlement of New Hampshire at Portsmouth and Dover.
Robert Gorges made Governor-general under the Plymouth Company.
John Pierce' s second patent.
The Lyford and Oldham difficulty at Plymouth.
1625. Permanent settlements in Maine begun under Aldworth and El-

dridge.
1629. The Massachusetts Bay Company founded.

Issue of the Charter of Privileges and Exemptions by the Dutch
West India Company.

562 TABLE OF DATES.

Lord Baltimore visits Jamestown.
1630. Settlement of Boston and neighboring towns.

John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Bay.

Oldham and Vines found Biddeford and Saco in Maine.

Kiliaen van Rensselaer buys Rensselaerswyck.

Godyn and Blommaert buy land on the Delaware. Pauw buys Pavonia.
1631. Gorges and Mason divide the Laconia grant.

New Hampshire named by Mason.

Arrival of Roger Williams at Boston.

Swaanendael founded by Heyes for De Vries.
1632. Maryland granted to Lord Baltimore.

Dutch traders on the Connecticut.

1633. The Dutch buy lands on the Schuylkill and on the Connecticut. Fort
Good Hope founded.

Plymouth trading-house on the Connecticut.

1634. Settlement of Maryland.

Charter granted to the Swedish West India Company.

1635. Permanent settlement of Connecticut by emigrants from Massa

chusetts Bay.

The Plymouth Company resign their Patent.
Hostilities between Maryland and Virginia.

1636. Providence founded by Roger Williams.

1637. Climax of the dissensions excited at Boston by Anne Hutchinson.

Swedish colonists sail from Gottenburg for America.
1638. New Netherland opened to general trade and settlement.

The Swedes settle in Delaware at Minqua's Kill (near Wilmington).
1639. De Vries colonizes Staten Island.

1641. The Raritan Indians destroy De Vries's settlement on Staten Island.
Hollaendare, Governor of the Swedes.

1642. Hostilities between the Maryland settlers and the Susquehannah Indians.

1643. Massacre of Indians at Pavonia by the Dutch. Indian war.
Murder of Anne Hutchinson by the Indians.

John Printz, Governor of the Swedish Colony.

1644. Underbill's expedition, in the service of the Dutch, against the Connecti

cut Indians.

Clayborne and Ingle's insurrection in Maryland.
1647. Death of Leonard Calvert.

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