The United States. From the earliest times to the landing of the Pilgrim fathers

Preface

THERE is probably nothing more surprising in the history of the British Empire than the enormous expansion of its colonial possessions. Long before Canning made his proud boast that he " had called the. New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old," England had been adding island after island, and territory after territory, to that empire upon which the sun never sets.

The work of colonization as it has been pursued by various nations in all parts of the world is a study of the deepest interest. Land migrations have had much to do with the settlement of new districts ; but the movement has been fostered still more by the growth of merchant navies and the exchange of produce between nations. The Roman Empire furnished one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of colonization ; but from that time forward little was done until the extraordinary developments of the colonizing spirit in the sixteenth century. Spain and Portugal took the premier honours in the work ; but in this case, as in many others, those who were the pioneers of discovery have been surpassed by their successors.

Mixed motives have formed the basis of nearly all colonizing efforts. National glory and individual b PREFACE,

ambition have mingled with the love of adventure, the quest after gold, and the missionary spirit. Spain and Portugal desired the conversion of " heretics " as well as the extension of their respective empires, and the acquisition of the wealth of the Indies, in the fitting out of their numerous expeditions. They have long been left behind as colonizers by Holland, England, and France ; and it would be a curious speculation to enquii'e into the causes of the decadence of nations like Spain and Portugal, which once led the vanguard of civilization.

But our purpose in the series of works of which the present forms the initial volume is to trace the romance of colonization in special countries, and chiefly as that colonization has been effected by England, No colonial empire was ever raised of such vast extent as that which acknowledges the sovereignty of Queen Victoria in this Diamond Jubilee year of grace. The great work of acquiring and building up colonies began with us in the seventeenth century ; and before the end of the eighteenth Great Britain had become the first power in the world as regards the extent and value of her colonies, and that notwithstanding the serious loss of the United States. The acquisitions during the nineteenth century may not have been so numerous and important as they were in the two preceding centuries, but a greater work has been done in consolidating and strengthening our hold upon the colonies.

A rapid survey of Anglo-Saxon colonization affords much room for congratulation, if our satisfaction is occasionally chastened by a remembrance of the severities which have sometimes accompanied conquest. The premier British colony is Newfoundland,

PREFACE. 7

which was annexed by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583 ; then came the acliievements of the East India Company, which was incorporated in 1600 ; and only a few years later (1607) succeeds the earliest permanent settlement of Virginia. The Pilgrim Fathers began their noble work in 1620 ; and West Indian colonization was inaugurated with the occupation of Barbadoes in 1625. For three-quarters of a century the work proceeded apace in North America, colony after colony being added to the British Crown. Then other fields began to attract the British, and a new period began with the capture of Gibraltar in 1704. Before the century closed, France had yielded to us in Canada, and also in India, where Clive was more fortunate than Dupleix. The wars with Napoleon succeeded, and Malta, Mauritius, and many West India islands were captured from the French, as well as Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch. The triumphs of the nineteenth century include the consolidation of India under the Crown ; the surprising advance of Australia under the impetus of the gold discoveries ; the pacification and opening up of New Zealand ; the formation of Canada into a federated dominion ; the great extension of British influence through the whole of Africa ; the commercial growth of the Chinese and other settlements ; and the raising of the British flag over many new protectorates and stations. It is calculated that the population of the British colonies has increased more than fourfold since the Queen came to the throne, while the trade to and from those colonies has multiplied nine or tenfold. In the brief period of fourteen years, 1872 to 1886, although the value of many individual articles had greatly decreased, the imports into the United King-

8 PREFACE.

dom from the British colonies and India increased in amount from £79,372,853 to X 81,884,043; and in the same period the exports to British possessions increased from £65,609,212 to £82,067,711. No figm-es could be more eloquent of colonial progress than these.

Among all the stories of colonization, none possesses a deeper or profounder interest for Englishmen than that of the peopling of the United States. It seems to contain within itself an epitome of all the incidents which have marked the course of colonization elsewhere. It will be the aim of this volume and its successor to follow the course of North American colonization from the earliest times, and all through the chequered periods of development, until the various colonies succeeded in achieving their independence, and forming themselves into a union, as the United States of America. In conclusion, some space will be devoted to an explanation of the Constitution of the United States, and to tracing briefly the later history of the country.

In the preparation of such a work, a writer is necessarily indebted to a great number of authorities ; and the author of these volumes has endeavoured always to acknowledge his sources of information in the various chapters of his narrative. The second volume, completing the work, will shortly appear.

At a later date, it is hoped that other volumes will follow, dealing with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, British India, British Africa, and other colonies. Every year that passes only adds to the dignity and importance of our colonial empire, and the record of its manifold developments consequently becomes a study of supreme interest.

G. B. S.

Contents

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I. EARLY HISTORY AND TRADITIONS .... H

Chapter I. Eaely History And Traditions

IN the future history of the human race the vast American Continent is destined to play a conspicuous part. Its magnificent possibilities are almost inconceivable. Limitless in its resources, its mighty valleys and fruitful plains are already being opened up by the industry and enterprise of its settlers, while from the sides of its gigantic mountains mineral wealth beyond conception is being extracted. In an incredibly brief space of time splendid cities have risen as by the spell of an enchanter, and civilization already begins to count its teeming and thriving millions of population. " Westward the course of empire takes its way," wrote Bishop Berkeley a century and a half ago, and his utterance now reads like a prophecy of the greatness to which the New World was subsequently to attain.

America is frequently regarded as two distinct continents, connected by the Isthmus of Darien.

There is a strange resemblance in the configuration of the two parts : both are very wide in the north, and both gradually taper off as they extend towards the south. Each division has a lofty chain of mountains on the west, and a great central plain declining to the south and the north respectively. The southern part is watered by two gigantic rivers, the La Plata and the Amazon, which may be regarded as the counterparts of the great rivers of the north, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. There is little difference between the superficial areas of the two continents. North America embracing no less than seven million four hundred thousand English square miles, and South America six million five hundred thousand English square miles.

It is with the North American Continent that this volume is concerned, and chiefly with the colonization of that portion of it which comes within the definition of the United States territory. America is commonly spoken of as the " New World," but as a matter of fact it is quite as ancient as any other physical section of the planet. Professor L. Agassiz, in his Creological Sketches, claims indeed that it is older than any. "First-born among the continents," he remarks, " though so much later in culture and civilization than some of more recent birth, America, so far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed by the ocean tliat 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." With regard to the aboriginal inhabitants, efforts have recently been made to connect their earliest memorials with those of Asia. But while it is within the bounds of possibility that means of communication between the two continents existed in ancient times, the whole question is of so speculative a nature that it would be unprofitable to discuss it here. Humboldt and other geological authorities believed that the summits of the Madeira and the Canary Islands were once the western extremity of the chain of the Atlas Mountains ; and other writers have gone so far as to affirm that these islands, and those of the West Indies, are the summits of mountain chains which once crowned an Atlantic continent that was afterwards submerged and disintegrated by some great cataclysm. Among other traditions is that of Plato, who says that an Egyptian priest described to Solon an island called Atlantis, which lay far beyond the Pillars of Hercules. This island, which was inhabited by a warlike and powerful people, was destroyed, said the narrator, by earthquakes and floods nine thousand years before his time.

The aboriginal population of America embraces a great variety of peoples, differing in form, stature, and complexion. Yet one of the eminent physiologists, Blumenbach, places them all under one class, except the Esquimaux, who have close affinity with the inhabitants of Northern Asia. Others, like Dr. Prichard, have denied this; but when all has been said against the theory, there is unquestionably more of a common family character in the American Indians than prevails amongst the indigenous populations of

Asia and Africa. Humboldt remarks that "the Indians of New Spain bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit Canada, Florida, Peru, and Brazil. We have the same swarthy and copper colour, straight and smooth hair, small beard, squat body, long eye, with the corner directed upwards towards the temples, prominent cheek-bones, thick lips, and an expression of gentleness in the mouth, strongly contrasted with a gloomy and severe look. Over a million and a half of square leagues, from Cape Horn to the River St. Lawrence and Behring's Straits, we are struck at the first glance with the general resemblance in the features of the inhabitants. We think we perceive them all to be descended from the same stock, notwithstanding the prodigious diversity of their languages. In the portrait drawn by Yolney of the Canadian Indians, we recognize the tribes scattered over the Savannahs of the Apure and the Carony. The same style of features exists in both Americas."

Historians have pointed out that the natives of North America, when first visited by Europeans four centuries ago, belonged as distinctly to the Stone Age as the earliest inhabitants of Europe. Shell-heaps have been discovered along the American coast from Massachusetts to Georgia which Sir Charles Lyell declared to be identical with the kitchen refuse-heaps of ancient Denmark. Human remains pointing to a hoary antiquity have been found at various places, and at various periods, in the United States. The discovery of earth-mounds and temple-mounds in the Valley of the Mississippi and elsewhere points to the existence of a race which peopled the North

American Continent even before the Indian ; but however interesting this may be from the ethnological point of view, it does not come within our present purpose to discuss it. Whatever may have been the nature or character of the aboriginal tribes, one thing is universally admitted, that the greater part of the native tribes have never progressed beyond the savage state in civilization. With respect to the vast number of American languages, which amount to something like six hundred, philologists have come to the conclusion that they can all be arranged under eight or ten divisions, or into forty or fifty families, each characterized by affinities sufficiently clear to prove that its component members had sprung from a common parent.

The number of Indians, and persons of partial Indian descent, still remaining in North America, is about six millions ; but probably half these consist of Spanisli-speaking half-breeds and others in Mexico and the Isthmian republics. The Indians in the United States territory, including Alaska, number about three hundred and fifteen thousand. For many years they were decimated and forced out of existence by very cruel methods ; but the American conscience has recently been much disturbed on this painful subject, so that now it is believed the Indians are slowly increasing again in numbers. One-fourth of the United States Indians live in the Indian territory, and one cause of the arrested process of extinction is to be found in the great diminution of inter-tribal warfare.

America was visited by Europeans centuries before the time of Columbus. In fact, while King Alfred was displaying his prowess and his enlightenment in Britain, Icelanders settled themselves in Greenland. There is some little difference about the exact date, but it is a pretty well ascertained fact that this settlement took place between 830 and 870 a.d. How extraordinary it seems that such an event should have attracted scarcely any attention ! The precise locality of the Norwegian colonies in Greenland cannot now be defined ; but Sir Charles Gieseke, who devoted special study to the subject, states that memorials of the settlement exist near the southern point of the peninsula. A visit was likewise paid to the western coast of Greenland ; and this fact has been established by an inscription in Runic characters, found on a stone four miles beyond Upernavik, at the seventy-third parallel. This inscription is to the effect that " Erling, the son of Sigvat, and Euride Oddsoen, had cleared that place and raised a hillock on the Friday after Rogation Day." The date on the stone is indistinct ; but Professor Rask, the translator of the inscription, fixes it at either 1135 or 1170. In any event the Runic characters prove that the date was anterior to the Reformation, because that mode of writing was afterwards forbidden. In 1828 Professor C. C. Rafn, a Dane, who had been engaged in researches respecting these early voyages, published at Baltimore some interesting facts which he had ascertained from original documents. For example, he announced that America was first discovered in 985, and that it was repeatedly visited by the Icelanders in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteench centuries ; that the embouchure of the St. Lawrence, and in particular the Bay of Gaspe, was their principal station ; that they had penetrated along the coast as far south as Carolina ; and that they introduced a knowledge of Christianity amongst the natives. Subsequently, while not altering the general drift of his views, M. Rafn changed his opinion as to the site of the Icelandic colony, fixing it at the mouth of the River Taunton, which falls into the sea in Narragansett Bay, at the north end of Rhode Island. So far as anything can be ascertained with certainty which occurred a thousand years ago, it is now admitted that it was the sons of Eric the Red, an Icelandic rover of the seas, who were the first Europeans to set foot upon the American Continent.

In the year 1001 Markland and Vinland, on the American coast, were visited and named by Norse adventurers. Professor Rafn, in his narrative relating to American antiquities, published by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen in 1837, has vividly described this and later Norse voyages. It appears that during the year 1000 Leif, the eldest son of Eric the Red, bought a ship from a fellow-countryman named Bjorni, who had already visited Greenland. Leif besought his father to assume command of the expedition, and at first the old viking consented ; but being thrown from his horse on his way to the ship, he exclaimed, " It is not ordained that I should discover any more countries than that which we now inhabit, and we should make no further attempt in company." With that he remained at home, and Leif set forth with a crew of thirty-five men, Bjorni probably acting as pilot. They first reached Newfoundland, which they found to be a plain of flat stones, covered with snow and ice. Leif called it Helluland, from hella, a fiat stone. Next they visited Nova Scotia. They went on shore, and found a country covered with woods, with low and fiat beaches of white sand. Leif said, " This land shall be named after its qualities, and called Markland " — that is, woodland. Setting sail again, they came to a place which must have been on the mainland, and on the coast of New England, but the precise point is unknown.

Some have thought that this landing of the Norsemen was at the Island of Nantucket, but others read it to mean an island and a cape on the outside of Cape Cod. Now, however, it is generally accepted that the voyage resulted in a veritable discovery of the coast of Rhode Island by the Norsemen, and that they landed at some point either in Mount Hope Bay or Narragansett Bay. The narrative states that they went up a river which came through a lake — the veiy description of the waters in that region. They went ashore, and built a house, in which they passed the winter. By the Scandinavian calendar which they kept, it seems that 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 a little over 41°, which is equivalent to that of Mount Hope Bay. They reported that there was " no frost in winter, and little did the grass wither there," while " the nature of the country was, as they thought, so good, that cattle would not require house feeding."

One day there was great excitement in Leif's camp.

A German named Tyrker, who was Leif s foster-father, returned from an expedition, gesticulating wildly, and almost beside himself. When he was able to give a rational account of his proceedings, he said, " I have not been much farther off, but still I have something to tell of: I found vines and grapes ! " " But is that true, my fosterer ? " enquired 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." The German's statements were veriiied, and the land was named Vinland, or Vineland. With his vessel full of grapes and timber, Leif returned home in the spring ; and because of these discoveries, and his rescue of a shipwrecked crew, the leader was known ever afterwards as Leif tlie Lucky.

In the following year, 1002, Leif's brother Thorvald set forth on a New England expedition. He pursued his brother's tracks, spent the winter in the booths which his brother had constructed, and in the spring despatched some of his men on explorations to the westward. According to the American historians Messrs. Bryant and Gay, " they spent the summer in tliis pleasant excursion, coasting along the shores of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Long Island, the whole length of the Sound, penetrating probably to New York, and finding there another lake, through which a river flowed to the sea. They landed on many islands ; they 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 northward 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 (Keelness or Kellcape), in commemoration of the disaster. Then they cruised along the opposite shore of what is now Plymouth County, Massachusetts, and sailed into its bays till they came to ' a point of land which stretched out and was covered with wood.' ' Here,' said Thorvald, ' it 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. Looking about them at this beautiful spot, they saw in a secluded nook three skin-boats set up as tents, beneath which were nine Skraellings, 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 to thy ship with all thy men, and leave the land without delay.' It was the savage war-whoops of the enraged Skraellings, come to avenge the murder of their fellows. The Northmen fled to their ship to defend themselves behind their battle-screen.

" ' 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 Skraellings had retired, the answer to Thorvald's enquiry as to who was wounded was, ' None.' Then said he, ' I have gotten 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 arrow, and it will prove a mortal wound to me. Now counsel I ye, that ye get ready instantly 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 for ever 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 Yinland 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."

A third son of Eric the Red, Thorstein, sailed for Vinland in 1005, but his expedition was unsuccessful.

and he returned to Greenland to die. Two years later a more important venture was made by an Icelandic merchant of much wealth and ancient lineage named Thorfinn. He was surnamed Karlsefne, or the man of promise destined to become great. He had married Gudrid, the widow of Thorstein. An expedition was formed, consisting of Karlsefne's own vessel, a second Icelandic vessel fitted out by three other merchants, and a third vessel commanded by a Greenlander named Thorvard, who had married Freydis, a natural daughter of Eric the Red, and one destined to play a conspicuous part in colonization. The expedition, which consisted of three ships and one hundred and forty men and women, set sail in the spring of 1007, with the evident intention of making a permanent settlement in the new country. They visited Markland and Helluland, and went beyond Cape Cod. Two Scotch scouts were sent out — slaves, fleet of foot, who had been given to Leif the Lucky by the King of Norway — and these returned, bearing respectively a bunch of grapes and an ear of corn. The fleet next reached Nantucket, or Martha's Vineyard, where eider-ducks were found in abundance. During the following winter there was great scarcity of provisions, and one Thorhall, " a bad Christian," who had formerly been steward to Eric the Red, abandoned the expedition, and returned home, inducing nine others to do the same. Thorhall and his companions fared badly, however, for they were driven ashore by a strong gale on the coast of Ireland, and seized by the natives, and sold into slavery. Meanwhile Karlsefne and his companions proceeded to explore the coast of Rhode Island, following in the track of Leif. They spent a winter in Vinland, and it was so mild that there was no snow upon the ground, and the cattle were able to feed upon the green and juicy grasses of the fields. In the spring they went away ; but returning in 1009, they began to trade with the natives, the Skraellings. Quarrels at length ensued with the natives, and we read of one great battle in which the wife of Thorvard exhibited great bravery, and caused the Skraellings to flee to their canoes. But the settlers grew weary of the place, and in the spring of 1010 Karlsefne's efforts at colonization were wholly abandoned. Two native boys whom they took with them spoke of a country south of Vinland known as the White Man's Land, which was supposed to extend from Chesapeake Bay to East Florida, and to be peopled by a colony of Irish.

The first European child born on the American continent was Snorri, the son of Karlsefne and Gudrid, who first saw the light in Vinland 1007 a. d. As predicted by Gudrid's former husband, a long line of distinguished descendants sprang from him, and among the later descendants of Snorri were Thorvaldsen, the eminent Danish sculptor, and Finn Magnusson, the distinguished Danish scholar.

In the year 1011 the savage and fearless Freydis, who had long been determined to make another expedition into Vinland, set forth upon a new undertaking with two Icelanders named Helgi and Finnbogi. There were two vessels, each bearing thirty fighting men. The Icelanders first landed, and stored their goods in Leif's booths ; but they were dispossessed by the crafty Freydis, who had secreted five more fighting men in her vessel beyond the number agreed upon. Still peace was kept for a time ; but in the end the evil machinations of Freydis, who was a kind of Lady Macbeth, led to a terrible tragedy. She made her credulous husband believe that she had been beaten and shamefully used by the Icelanders when she went to negotiate for their vessel, and she spurred Thorvard on to a frightful revenge. He and his people slew Helgi and Finnbogi and all their companions in cold blood. Five women indeed they spared ; but when Freydis beheld this, she took an axe and did not rest until she had slain all the women by her own hand. She moreover threatened to kill any of her own band who revealed what had taken place after their return to Greenland. With this ill-fated expedition the colonization by the Northmen in Vinland comes practically to an end.

There are cumulative proofs that the Northmen did effect a settlement on the American coast. Among these are the Icelandic Sagas, whose general drift there is no reason to distrust. Also Adam of Bremen, an ecclesiastical historian, writing about the middle of the eleventh century, has a passage in which he avers that the King of Denmark informed him " that a region called Vinland had been found by many in that ocean, because there vines grew spontaneously, making the best wine ; for that fruits grow there which were not planted, we know, not by mere rumour, but by the positive report of the Danes." Further, there are the narratives published by the Northern Antiquarian Society of Denmark, which narratives were originally

EARLY HISTOEY AND TRADITIONS. 25

written between the years 1387 and 1395. These chronicles furnish unimpeachable evidence as to the early discovery of portions of North America.

Of voyages westward before the time of Columbus there are also various traditions in existence. When Lisbon was still held by the Arabs, it is stated that eight hardy and well-instructed Arabian sailors " determined to explore that mighty and mysterious ocean which stretched from the coast of Portugal to the setting sun, on whose western horizon no sail ever crept up against the sky, or disappeared from sight beneath its waters." They navigated the ocean many days, and at last landed upon an island, where they were all made prisoners and taken before the king of the country, who ridiculed their hazardous exploit. Subsequently they were carried out to sea in a boat, and abandoned. They drifted on to the coast of Africa, and ultimately returned to Lisbon, where they became known as " the strayed ones." It is conjectured that these adventurous men must have landed first at the Madeira group of islands, and afterwards on those of Cape Verde.