When America was new

Contents

Preface vii

I. The Planting of Virginia . . i

Why America was discovered and settled. The first Enghsh settlement at Jamestown, and its early fortunes. The big plantations, and the dwellers on them.

Preface

THE time told of in this volume is that which covers the years of the seventeenth century during which the first settlers came from the Old World to the New, made for themselves and their families rude homes in the wilderness, and, after long struggles, aided by help from across the ocean, at length found that they could hve and make self-supporting homes in this, then a new country.

We shall learn why the first settlers chose to begin at certain parts of the coast ; we shall see how they managed to get a Hving ; how they met the hardships of their new life ; and what sort of men and women they became because of the kind of life they led. We shall see the little huts they first built giving way to better dwellings, the small settlements growing to villages and towns and even cities. There will be told how they made their living, what sort of homes they built, what work they did, and how they passed their hours of rest and amusement.

We shall learn how they got along with one another, what they thought of the Indians, and vii viii Preface

what came from the meeting of the two races. There are changes in their way of Hving to be told about, changes that came from the new conditions met with in the new land. We shall tryto learn about things that would have interested us had we lived during those trying years and helped in settling the country. We shall come with the very first who crossed the ocean meaning to make their homes here. We shall see them clear away the forest in order to make room for their houses and fields for their crops. We shall meet the Indian by day and by night, in peace and in a kind of warfare new to these comers from the Old World.

We shall try to see what callings the Americans found would pay them best, what inventions they had to make to meet the new conditions of life where they had to do without many helps to which they had been used at home — to make bread without great mills to grind their flour, to build houses without boards and timbers ready shaped to their hands, to find or make for themselves many articles of daily use, such as soap, sugar, candles and cloth, which they had been used to buy in well provided shops.

And over all these difficulties we shall see them winning their way, not only to comfort,

Preface ix

but to happiness and prosperity. We shall see them begin a new nation in the wilderness and make this great land an abode ready for civilized men, for women and little children, instead of being a wild, unknown country where Indians lived and roved, leading a life almost ignorant of what these white men thought necessaries of life.

Chapter I The Planting Of Virginia

ALL the histories now tell us that America had been found by many sea-faring men long before Columbus sailed from Spain ; but when Columbus crossed the ocean it was with a purpose of making use of his discovery. This was because the European people were eager to trade with the peoples of Asia, and the journey from Europe to Asia by way of the Mediterranean Sea and past Constantinople oraround Arabia had been closed by the Turks who fought the Christian merchants, and when captured made slaves of them.

The merchants of Europe looked for other routes to Asia, and in this way came to explore the ocean westward. Some explorers went south and some west, and Columbus in this search found the West Indies. Then all the men who knew about his success thought it would soon be easy to secure the silks, the pearls, the spices, the I rugs, and other valuable things they knew were to be had in China, Japan and India. But the few who had landed on the " West India " islands soon found out that if the new land was part of Asia, it was a savage and unsettled part — a wilderness. And meanwhile the sailors who had gone South, around Africa, had succeeded in getting to the real coast of India, and brought back pepper, spices, rich stuffs of silk and satin, ivory and bronzes to prove their success. This caused the early voyages to America to be less thought of, since the merchants of the time were not looking for new and unsettled lands, but for seaports with which to trade.

It was not until many a long year afterward that America was known to be a new continent, and meanwhile no one had any idea of making a settlement on its shores except to trade with the natives or to gather some of the products of the land. There was some idea, too, of making the natives Christians.

But one of the strongest motives was the longing to find gold and silver.

To understand how it was brought about that the Spaniards sought gold in America we shall have to look back to the adventurer, Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. An Indian chief one day told him that beyond the mountains to the westward was a great sea, bearing ships Hke those of the white men, and that the countries of this coast abounded in gold and silver. This caused Balboa to go westward, brought about the finding of the Pacific Ocean, and also put into the minds of the Spaniards the notion that the precious metals were plentiful in the New World.

When Ponce de Leon came to Florida during the same year, 15 13, he also heard there that southward were lands rich in gold and silver and blessed by a perfect climate. De Leon attempted a settlement in Florida, but his men were driven away by the Indians, suffered greatly from illness, and de Leon himself was wounded. So his attempt came to nothing.

Mexico, discovered a few years later, seemed to promise the wealth of which the Spaniards were in search, and the great leader, Cortez, warred against the natives for two years, taking many of their towns.

A Spanish expedition also began a settlement, in 1526, not far from what afterward became Jamestown, but it was a failure and abandoned.

In short, the desire to find wealth and to make slaves, brought a number of military expeditions from Spain and gave rise to most extravagant stories about the abundance of gold and silver among the Indians. Few of the stories are more interesting than that of Cabeza de Vaca, who, from 1527, wandered for nine years through the southwest picking up from the natives wild legends of marvelous cities full of gold and precious stones. As a result expeditions were sent out to conquer these rich places, but of course found nothing more remarkable than the great pueblos of the Southwest — marvelous community villages, it is true, but having nothing of the wealth that the Spaniards expected.

In the stories of great marches made by Coronado, 1540-42, and in those of de Soto, covering the same period, we may read how these European soldiers were amazed by the countless herds of buffalo, the great treeless plains, the enormous rivers, and we wonder over the almost unbelievable exploits of these early Spanish heroes.

Few tales are more romantic, but since they came in armies and looked only for treasure, they attempted no lasting settlements, but moved from place to place, dwelling in the Indian villages, or seeking to establish nothing more homelike than a trading-post.

The French and English fishermen also came to the coasts of America to catch codfish, but there was only one attempt to make a real colony of men and women before the settlement of Jamestown, in Virginia. This first attempt was when some French Huguenots or Protestants were sent to Florida, in 1562; but they were all slain by the Spaniards, not only because they were " heretics," and so enemies of Spain, but because they were in a land the Spaniards claimed as their own. Even the settlers of Jamestown were sent over to make money for the men who sent them, by finding gold-mines, looking for a way to Asia, or cutting rare woods.

Virginia came to be settled because some London merchants thought they could make money by sending people to establish a settlement in America — a sort of trading post.

The first Englishman to sail around the world had been Sir Francis Drake, and what was learned by him in his voyage made other English sailors eager to visit the New World. One of these was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who made three voyages to America, finally being wrecked on the third voyage homeward, his boat going to the bottom with all on board.

Gilbert's half-brother was Walter Raleigh, and to Raleigh Queen Elizabeth had given the right to colonize that great part of the New World, then known as •' Virginia." Raleigh sent out several expeditions to learn what sort of land and climate he had to deal with. The earliest of these expeditions brought back the report that the land was the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful, and wholesome of all the world, and that the inhabitants, the Indians, were" void of all guile and treason and such as lived after the manner of the Golden Age."

The next year after receiving this glowing report Raleigh sent seven ships and landed a party on Roanoke Island. These men soon quarreled with the Indians, were unable to get food, and were only too glad to go home with Sir Francis Drake, who happened to visit the island.

Other similar attempts to settle the land also failed, and then came the time of the Armada, 1588, when all England was too busy in defending itself from the dreaded Spanish expedition to think of the new lands across the Atlantic. After the destruction of the great Spanish fleet, a few adventurous sailors made the voyage to New England, and by trading with the Indians, were able to load their ships with furs and valuable woods, thus securing most profitable cargoes. These men reported, as the others had done, that America was a beautiful land with a mild climate, and that there were many signs of gold.

Meanwhile, Walter Raleigh, after the death of Queen Elizabeth, had fallen into disgrace with King James, who was trying in every way to gain the favor of Spain, and thought to please the Spanish by punishing this old enemy of theirs. Raleigh's rights in America were taken away from him, and the King gave the privilege of settling the new country to two companies of merchants, some of whom Hved about London and others near Plymouth.

A play of the time named " Eastward Ho ! " spoke of the territory of Virginia as a land " where gold and silver are more plentiful than copper is with us." These companies were formed at this time, just as they are to-day, in the hope of making large profits by trading with the new countries, and one of the countries from which most was expected was America. People did not think it mattered greatly that the gold brought back by the Spaniards came from much further south than the lands belonging to the Virginia Company.

Virginia was at first defined as all the country from the thirty- fourth to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, that is, from the Cape Fear River to the Bay of Fundy. The Virginia Company organized to settle this territory was divided into two branches according to the place where the members lived, London and Plymouth. To the Londoners King James gave the land between Cape Fear River and the Potomac ; to the Plymouth men, the land between the Hudson and the Bay of Fundy. The strip between — that is, between the Potomac and the Hudson — was left open as a prize to whichever should first settle it ; but it was ordered that in this strip no colony should be planted nearer to an earlier one than one hundred miles.

The two branches of the Virginia Company each sent out an expedition. The London merchants sent out their expedition in midwinter^ and the colonists reached Virginia in the spring. These were the men who began at Jamestown. The Plymouth merchants sent their expedition out in the following summer — May, 1607; and so the ships reached America during a severe winter season, and landed far northward at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine. The men built a few huts, looked about for signs of gold, found the natives unfriendly, and after suffering greatly from the cold, were glad to go home though they had done nothing. Their return was in 1608, and they said America was too cold to live in.

The Jamestown expedition, though it was to have a hard time, was more fortunate in the season of sailing. The setting out was made a great occasion in London. The people of that city showed a patriotic interest in the three little ships about to sail to the possessions of England in America. The expedition meant that Spain was no longer to have her own way on the seas, and that the English were to share in the riches that came from America. So crowds came to see them off, and services were held in the churches where prayers for success were read. The poet Drayton wrote a poem to celebrate the great event ; and amid cheers, the firing of small cannon, and the waving of banners, the three little vessels bearing about a hundred settlers hauled up their anchors, and went down the Thames to begin the three or four months' voyage.

The expedition included two experienced sea-captains, Newport and Gosnold, who had already made the voyage, and a number of adventurous men who were induced to join the expedition in the hope of becoming rich by trading with the

Indians, finding gold, or discovering a passage to India.

Captain John Smith, though the best of these, may stand as a type of them. He had been fairly well schooled, had gone to the Lowlands to fight in an English regiment against Spain, from there had wandered into the East, and met with surprising adventures in battle against the Infidels, the Turks. Although still a young man, he was an old campaigner, skilful in arms, fearless, and used to rough work.

After the army in which Smith was fighting against the Turks had met with a great defeat, he had been left wounded upon the battle-field and taken prisoner. Carried away by the Turks, he was sold into slavery, and bought by a Turkish officer who cultivated a large plantation. Upon this plantation Smith became a laborer, wearing a metal collar around his neck so that he might be chained up if necessary, like a dog. He was made to do all kinds of heavy work, but he never lost his pluck and pride. One day having been beaten by his master, Smith struck him down, took his horse, escaped from the farm, and after long wanderings succeeded in reaching a European outpost. Here he was well cared for and helped on his way back to the Christian countries.

The Planting of Virginia ii

Such a training made him used to hardship and prepared him for the rough hfe in the New World, and capable of taking care of himself anywhere. He was also a skilled sailor and an able leader, besides being a man of good character. His books, written in later years, tell us the story of the early days in Virginia, and as time goes on his accounts are thought more trustworthy.

Another class of men were London citizens, men who had a little property of their own, who went on the expedition simply to better their circumstances. With these there went a number of worthless fellows who probably thought they could do no worse and might do better than at home, even though they were undertaking a perilous voyage to an unknown land to meet unknown dangers. They were tradesmen out of work, runaways from trouble at home, poor fellows glad to make a change for the sake of a change, and certainly not well suited to do rough work or to bear hardships.

They started in December, 1606, but because of rough weather did not really get to sea until February. Then they took a roundabout way, probably for the purpose of refilling their water-casks and getting green vegetables — a most important matter since the use of salt food and biscuit alone was almost sure to bring on the terrible disease known as the scurvy, from which sailors in those days nearly always suffered on long voyages. There must have been some reason for thus lengthening their voyage since Captain Gosnold five years before had sailed straight across to Massachusetts and knew how much distance and time could thus be saved.

But one trouble that led to others was the absence of any well laid plans known to those on the ships. They had with them a sealed box, containing instructions, but this was not to be opened until they came to the American coast. So they did not know who were to be the officers of the colony, nor what the merchants at home wished them to do.

During the four months' voyage, the rough weather, poor food, and hard work tried their tempers, and made them quarrelsome. They saw a meteor or " blazing star," and were not surprised that a big storm followed ; but at last without any great mishap anchored near the Island Dominica (San Domingo), where Indians came out in canoes and traded fruits and some cloths taken from a Spanish wreck for knives, beads, and copper jewelry. The Englishmen landed, but the natives ashore ran away from them.

Then they turned northward and after a terrible storm at last came in sight of the Virginia shore — which was bright with dogwood blossoms and redbud in bloom. The shore showed •' fair meadows and goodly tall trees," and they were especially delighted to see streams of fresh water, for they had been sixteen days under the hot sun, and (unless they had saved the rain water) had not refilled their water-casks.

When the party landed, the list of them included but few useful tradesmen. There were four carpenters, one blacksmith, one tailor, a bricklayer and a mason. But besides these useful men, there were also a barber and a drummer, fifty-five " gentlemen " (that is, men who claimed gentility, and could probably do little useful work), four boys, and twelve put down as *' laborers."

They made a mistake at the beginning by settling upon a bit of lowland near the river, but this was because the ships could be brought near the shore, and probably for safety from the Indians, who already had learned that the white men were to be feared. Several Indians had been kidnapped by former expeditions and carried abroad, and former settlers in this same region had so treated the Indians as to excite their distrust.

The colonists planted a number of vegetables, but showed how little they intended to rely upon farming for a living by spending much of their time in collecting glittering sand that they supposed was gold ore. They expected to receive supplies from England.

They built themselves rough houses, roofed with reeds or bark, and put up a few tents. The poorer men were content to live in holes dug in the ground. The sailors who brought them over, stayed for a time to gather the supposed " gold ore " and consumed the settlers' provisions until the whole party had to be put upon short rations of worm-eaten barley or wheat, each man receiving a pint a day.

Drinking the river water, watching against Indian attacks, and the exposure, to which only a few of them were used, brought on fevers and other illnesses, so that at times not more than four or five men were well enough to carry arms. Half of the party died, and the rest were saved only by trading for provisions with the Indians.

The salvation of the colony was due to Captain John Smith. As a soldier he had learned the value of discipline, and he made rules that kept the men at work, threatening to banish from the settlement those who were idle or did not obey orders.

There were great differences between these men and the Pilgrims. These had suffered no wrongs to drive them from home, they agreed with the rulers in their opinions, and they went out with the good wishes of rich merchants who hoped to profit by their labors in the New World. But the directions given for managing a colony had been very poorly contrived. A set of rules drawn up in London was meant to govern all their affairs, and whenever any of the party thought that he was being wrongly treated by the men in authority he would appeal to these rules against the governors of the colony, and this made endless squabbles.

Their officers were a president and a council. The first two presidents proved to be very poor managers, and affairs were in a bad way until Smith came into control. Smith was wise enough to try to find out about the country that lay near them and in a little boat they had built, he sailed up the rivers, making peace with the Indians on the shores and treating with them for food.

The exploring of the country had been specially ordered by those who drew up the orders for the guidance of the colonists, because they hoped that in the course of examining the country the explorers might be fortunate enough to find the wished-for passage to India.

Other settlers came until Smith was at the head of more than five hundred men. All the property was, so far, held in common, and all were expected to work for earnings to be put into the common store. There were very few women among them for the first few years, so the settlement, although it consisted of fifty or sixty houses and a church, really contained almost no homes. It was much like a frontier fort, kept up for the purpose of trading and exploring.

From a letter of Captain John Smith's we learn that the products of the Jamestown Colony at first were pitch, tar, soap-ashes, timber, some iron ore, and other such products as they could obtain from the forests.

From the same letter we learn that the settlement was fortified with a tall palisade and defended by twenty-four small cannon of different sizes. He also mentions a number of horses, five or six hundred swine, and " many more powltry."

The colonists, according to Captain Smith, seem to have been very well provisioned and supplied in 1609, when the Captain left them, which goes to show that their poverty within a few months afterward came from idleness or lack of good management.

So long as the men worked only at the cutting of timber, the finding of gold, or gave their time to trading for animal pelts, the colony could not greatly prosper, for it could not be self-supporting. The things with which they bought supplies from the Indians and traded for goods had to be sent from England. Neither could there be much made in this trade, since the cost and trouble of conveying goods across the ocean from and to England was sure to eat up the profits.

All this led the merchants at home to Hsten to the grumbUng of mischief-makers against Smith, and he was deposed from his office. Soon after, having been injured by an explosion of gunpowder, he had to return to England.

When Smith had left the colonists to themselves everything went to quick ruin. Crops and work were neglected, their fort was allowed to fall into decay, there was no good management of their stores, and famine and disease destroyed of five hundred inhabitants all but sixty.

These few resolved to give up the colony, and two ships coming from England with but fourteen days' provisions, they went aboard and started down the river to the ocean.

But hardly had they reached the ocean when they met a vessel bringing a new governor, Lord Delaware, and more settlers. The new governor, though not in all ways well fitted for his place, was yet a just and kindly man and brought back some prosperity to the abandoned town. After a few months this governor was taken ill, returned to England, and was succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale. Dale was a hard-hearted old soldier, cruel and miserly, but it happened that the colony needed a man who would rule them with a rod of iron. Although the men under him worked as convicts might work in a prison and were brutally abused, yet they learned the value of order and industry, and from the time of Dale's governorship the colony began to prosper.

Other governors followed. Some of them were mild, and others were little better than thieves and cutthroats ; but since the colony was kept alive only by sending new men into it, from England, it mattered at first little how it was governed.

The great benefit that came from Governor

Dale was a change in the way of giving to settlers rights in their farms. At first, as has been said, the land was owned in common by all and so there was nothing to be gained by any colonist for himself through industry. Fisher, in his " Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times," says : *' A man could not gain and have a home for himself by clearing and cultivating tlie land ; he had no family to inspire his exertions ; he lived only for himself and for the present, and therefore he lived from hand to mouth, from day to day."

After Dale had divided the land among the settlers, affairs improved, but he had given the separate farms of three acres each to only a very few, and for the most part the colonists were left without any hope of bettering themselves by hard work.

In the year before Plymouth was begun, 161 9, one of the English merchants, Sir Edwin Sandys, realized that there could be no success for Jamestown until wives were provided for the settlers ; and he sent over a shipload of young women, leaving each free to marry whom she chose, provided the chosen husband should pay the expenses of her outfit and her journey over the seas. There were ninety of these young women, and after they had been only a short time in the colony they found themselves so well pleased with their husbands that they wrote letters home which induced sixty more young women to follow their example.

Although Sir Edwin Sandys was thus the saviour of the colony by his wise counsels, he never came to America. His nephew, George Sandys, noted as a poet and writer, made the voyage and acted as secretary to the colony. Of him we are told that he believed a route could be found to the Pacific by traveling overland, and that he was willing to risk his life in making the attempt. That he was something besides a poet is evident, since he was appointed to have especial control over all schemes for raising " staple commodities," among which were to be pineapples, plantains, and other fruits, and establishments for carrying on the silk industry.

When once the owning of plots of land, and the coming of the women, had caused the colonists to look upon Jamestown as their real home, the Virginia settlement began to succeed. Within a very short time there were several thousand inhabitants in Jamestown and these later comers were men of a far higher class than made up the earlier expeditions.

There were in England at the time agents who made it their business to tell people what was needed to fit them for the new hfe in America. There is an old letter written to a lady whose son intended to go to Virginia, explaining what was necessary to provide in going to Jamestown. One of the main things seemed to be an ample supply of bedding, a feather bed, blankets, bolsters, pillows and so on, being especially named. The broker who writes this letter explains that whereas there is plenty of food in Virginia, it will be necessary for a newcomer to provide cloth and clothing. Others things mentioned are guns, groceries, and corn, " which is apt to be scarce," the broker says, " because the planters desire to give so much of their land up to cultivating tobacco."

A most important matter in the story of the Jamestown Colony is the granting of what is known as the " Great Charter." Seeing how badly affairs were going in the colony, some of the wiser of the London merchants who were interested in making it a success thought it would be best to allow the colonists to govern themselves, so far as that were possible, and they drew up this charter, a paper letting the colonists elect men to govern them. Those who drew it up, also took care to limit the power of the governor of the colony, though they left him power enough to keep things in order.