Part 7
La Salle established a fort on Lake Ontario. Not far from Niagara Falls, he built a vessel which he called the Griffin. This sailed through Lakes Erie and Huron and Michigan and then was sent back richly laden with furs. Unfortunately, it was wrecked on the return voyage with all on board. In the winter of 1680, La Salle returned to the fort on Lake Ontario to get supplies. In August, 1680, La Salle’s party, consisting of twenty-three Frenchmen and thirty-one Indians, set out in birch canoes to explore the Mississippi. Delayed by storms and tempests and Indian wars, the voyagers did not reach the mouth of the Chicago River until January, 1682. The canoes were dragged on sledges down the frozen Chicago River. When they reached the Mississippi, they were detained by the masses of ice on its waters.
As soon as possible the Frenchmen embarked and sailed down the river, stopping to get corn and information from Indian tribes on their way and to give religious instruction. They slept in the wigwams of the savages and won their hearts by just and kind treatment.
They sailed down the mighty river till they came in sight of the open sea. On the ninth of April, 1682, La Salle in the name of King Louis of France took possession of the land which he called Louisiana. The French flag was raised over the valley of the Mississippi--a territory three times as large as France. The return voyage was made in safety, though it was delayed by hostile Indians, want of food and the illness of La Salle. He did not reach Quebec till the autumn of 1683.
He sailed for France that winter to organize a colony for settling the southern country discovered by him. The king entered eagerly into the plan and La Salle was sent with four vessels bearing men and supplies to establish a colony. Ignorant of the coast, the captain went too far west and reached Matagorda Bay in Texas early in the spring of 1685. La Salle wished to seek the mouth of the river, but the captain, impatient to return, landed the stores and sailed away. La Salle made the best of matters and finding the climate pleasant and the Indians friendly, he established a colony there.
Month after month passed, and no supplies were received from France. Therefore he set out, January, 1687, with twenty men to find the Mississippi River and make his way to Canada. There he hoped to get supplies and send letters to France requesting aid for the colony. On the journey some men rebelled against his authority, killed his nephew and a faithful Indian, and later shot La Salle himself. “Thus died our wise commander, constant in adversity, intrepid, generous, engaging, dexterous, skillful, capable of everything.... He died in the prime of life, in the midst of his enterprises, without having seen their success.” He had laid the foundation of French power in the Mississippi valley, and had established it upon a basis of friendship with the natives, which made possible its growth in peace and security.
Lords Baltimore of Baltimore
An interesting figure in the Stuart court was that of the first Lord Baltimore, the Catholic nobleman through whose interest and influence the colony of Maryland was established. George Calvert--he was not yet Lord Baltimore--entered public life as the secretary of Sir Robert Cecil; he won the favor of King James I. and in 1619 he was knighted and made secretary of state. So far from seeking office, we are informed that “he disabled himself various ways, but specially that he thought himself unworthy to sit in that place so lately possessed by his noble lord and master.”
A few years later he openly connected himself with the Catholics and resigned his office. He did not, however, lose favor with the Protestant king who granted him the title of Baron Baltimore of Baltimore, and confirmed his claim to large estates in Ireland. But George Calvert’s interest lay in another direction and the remainder of his life was given to “that ancient, primitive, and heroic work of planting the world.”
As early as 1609 he had been a member of the Virginia Company and his position as secretary of state made him intimately acquainted with the course of exploration and colonization in the New World. At that time Catholics in England were not allowed liberty of worship. Calvert desired to establish a colony where men, especially those of his own faith, might enjoy the free exercise of their religion. In 1620 he purchased a plantation in Newfoundland and the next year he sent colonists with tools and supplies to found a settlement, which he named Avalon. “Westward Hoe for Avalon,” by Captain Whitbourne, published the next year, described in glowing terms the country with its good fisheries, abundant berries, cherries, and pears, and “red and white damask roses.” In 1623 the king granted a charter giving Lord Baltimore practically royal authority over the province. As a sign of sovereign power, the king of England was to receive a white horse whenever he visited Avalon.
In 1627 Lord Baltimore for the first time crossed the ocean to the province so eloquently described by Whitbourne. He found--a stormy sea beating against a rough peninsula which was broken by stretches of barren sand, tracts of marshes, hills clothed with stunted, cone-bearing trees, and narrow spaces of arable land. Desolate as it was, Lord Baltimore saw Avalon at its best, for it was summer.
In a few weeks he went back to England and the next year he returned to Avalon with his wife and all his family except his eldest son Cecilius or Cecil. The hardships of the long, severe winter and the contests with the French convinced Lord Baltimore that the northern province was no place for his colony--the twenty thousand pounds he had spent on it were wasted. He wrote to the king, complaining that “from the middle of October to the middle of May there is a sad fare of winter upon all this land,” and requesting a grant of land in a more genial climate, to which he might remove his colony of forty-six persons. At first he endeavored to obtain territory south of Virginia, but this was opposed by the Virginia Company which claimed the land and said it was about to send colonists thither. Finally it was decided that it would be well to establish an English colony north of Virginia to keep back the Dutch and the French who were settling territory claimed by England. Lord Baltimore received a grant of land on Chesapeake Bay, extending to the Potomac. But this land he was never to settle or even to see. He died in April, 1632. The grant thus devolved on his son Cecil, a young man of twenty-eight, who carried out the plans so dear to his father.
Cecil, who was the real founder of Maryland, never visited the colony; he sent out settlers and supplies under his younger brother, Leonard. Leonard was the first governor of Maryland, as the land was called in honor of the English queen, Henrietta Maria. The charter given Lord Baltimore granted more absolute power than was ever bestowed on any other English colonist in the New World. “Cecilius, Absolute Lord of Maryland and Avalon,” could make peace or war; he had the law-making power also and the people could merely advise and assent or dissent. The only tribute required was the yearly payment of two Indian arrows to the king and of one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the land. As soon as the settlers landed, Leonard Calvert established friendly relations with the Indians whom the Englishmen found to “have generous natures and requite any kindness shown them.” The peaceful relations with these Indians, called “Friend Indians” in later treaties, were never broken.
Sailing up St. Mary’s River, the colonists found a place which pleased them as a site for a settlement. They purchased it from the Indians for “axes, hoes, and cloth.” Here St. Mary’s was built in 1634, on the former site of an Indian village.
From the first the policy of the Maryland colony was “peace, unity, and religious toleration.” Until it was established, there was no place in the English colonies in America where Catholics had religious liberty. In the colony on the Potomac, the Catholics enjoyed the free exercise of their religion and granted to others the same privilege. This religious toleration was secured by law in 1649. It was agreed that “no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in their religion.”
The chief trouble of the Maryland colony in its early days was with William Claybourne, a trader from Virginia who had established a settlement and trading-post on Kent’s Island. This was a part of the territory afterwards granted to Lord Baltimore. After much contention and dissension about the matter, in 1646 Claybourne stirred up a rebellion. Governor Calvert, armed with royal authority, took forcible possession of the island. A few months later Calvert died, having appointed as his successor, Thomas Greene, a Catholic and Royalist.
This “land of the sanctuary,” as Maryland was called, grew in wealth and prosperity. In 1656 Hammond described it for the benefit of home-staying Englishmen: “Maryland is (not an Island as is reported, but) part of that main adjoining to Virginia only separated or parted from Virginia, by a river of ten miles broad, called Patomack River,--the commodities and manner of living as in Virginia, the soil somewhat more temperate (as being more northerly) many stately and navigable rivers are contained in it, plentifully stored with wholesome springs, rich and pleasant soil, and so that its extraordinary goodness hath made it rather desired then envied.”
William Penn
A Famous Quaker
About the middle of the seventeenth century a good deal of attention was attracted in England to the religious sect called Quakers, Professors, Friends, or Children of the Light. One of their ablest exponents was George Fox. He was grave and temperate in life, but so firm that it was said of him, “If George says _verily_ there is no altering him.” “Verily” was the strongest word of assent he permitted himself, obeying literally the Bible command, “Swear not at all.”
The Quakers thought that the Bible only ought to be the rule for men and churches, that there should be no set forms of worship, and that men should pray and preach, not at appointed times, but only as moved by the Spirit. They believed that every man is led by the “inward light,” or the Spirit of God, saying, “He that gave us an outward luminary for our bodies, hath given us an inward one for our minds to act by.” The Quakers refused to pay tithes and taxes to support the established church and, thinking it wrong to fight, they refused to serve in the army. At that time hats were worn indoors as well as out, and men took them off as a token of respect. The Quaker refused to pull off their hats to men of any rank, uncovering only in prayer. “Hat honor was invented by men in the Fall,” they said. These Quakers were recognized by their sober attire,--broad-brimmed hats and sober-colored clothes,--and by their use of “thee” and “thou” and “thine” instead of “you” and “yours.” To use the plural forms in addressing one person, they said, was contrary to grammar, to Biblical usage, and to truth.
[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN]
When George Fox, a lad of twenty, was preaching this faith, there was born in England one who was to spread it abroad in the New World. This was William Penn. His father, Sir William Penn, was an Admiral in the royal navy and was anxious to see his son master of an estate and a title. All these plans were upset by the son who at twenty-four joined the Quakers. His father summoned him to London to argue with him, but the youth stood firm. He appeared covered before his father. The old Admiral tried to effect a compromise and get him to take off his hat to his father, the king, and the Duke of York, but he refused. He would not yield one point of the Quaker customs, dress, language, or faith. As he would not yield, his father in the end did so, and paid his fines.
The Quakers were so beset at home that Penn and others wished to establish for them a refuge in the New World. Penn became one of the owners of the colony of West New Jersey to which many Quakers went. But he was not satisfied with his partnership here and desired a province and colony of his own. This was not difficult to acquire. King Charles II., who owed Admiral Penn’s estate sixteen thousand pounds, had little gold or silver in his treasury and claimed much land in the New World. He willingly settled his debt by granting William Penn the land west of the Delaware; for this Penn was to pay yearly two beaver skins, and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the colony. Penn wished to call this land of woods Sylvania, and the king added to the name that of his old friend, the Admiral, calling it Pennsylvania.
The grant was made in 1680; two years later, in order to have an outlet to the sea, Penn secured a grant of the land which afterwards formed the state of Delaware. The very year that this second grant was made, many Quakers sailed to make their home in the new land. In the fall and winter of 1682, twenty-three ships came, bringing settlers to the Quaker colony. The next year Penn could say, “I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us.” In three years there were more than seven thousand settlers,--English, French, Dutch, Swedes, men of different races and various creeds.
Penn made it from the first a “free colony for all mankind,” assuring the people “You shall be governed by laws of your own making. I shall not usurp the right of any or oppress his person.” He put the government in the hands of a governor and of a council and general assembly chosen by freemen. Laws were passed forbidding drunkenness, dueling, stage plays, and card playing. Death, which was then in England the penalty for theft and many other offences, in Pennsylvania was inflicted only as punishment for wilful murder, according to the law of God, as the Quakers understood it.
Penn founded his colony on principles of peace and fairness to the Indians. Under a great elm-tree at Shakamaxon, afterwards Kensington, he made with the natives, a treaty of peace and friendship “never sworn to and never broken;” the red man was granted equal rights with the white, and they were to be friends “while the creeks and rivers run and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” The Indians with whom the Pennsylvania colonists were brought in contact were the mild and peace-loving Delawares. Fortunately for the Quakers, the fierce Susquehannocks, beaten by the Five Nations, had six years before gone southward.
Penn laid out the site of a town at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. He named it Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It was laid out with broad fair streets for he wished it to be a “fair and green country town.”
Two years later, Penn sailed back to England to decide a dispute about the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was fifteen years before he revisited his colony. He endeavored to see it governed well, but from a distance this was difficult. There were men hard to control. “For the love of God, me, and the poor country, be not so governmentish, so uneasy, and open in your dissatisfaction,” he wrote.
When Penn returned in 1699 it was with the plan of spending his remaining days in his colony. But two years later he learned that there was a plan afoot to turn his province into a crown territory and he sailed back to England to protect his rights. One matter after another came up to detain him and he remained in England till his death in July, 1718.
James Edward Oglethorpe
The Founder of Georgia
The colony of Georgia was the last founded of the thirteen original colonies. It was established by Oglethorpe, a man of noble birth who was animated by principles of philanthropy and patriotism.
James Edward Oglethorpe was born in London, about 1688. When a youth he entered the army and fought bravely against the Turks for several years. After his return home his attention was attracted and his sympathy aroused by the condition of prisoners in England, especially of poor debtors. In those days debt was regarded and punished as a crime; debtors were confined in prisons with murderers and thieves. It is thought that Oglethorpe’s attention was specially drawn to the matter by the sad case of one of his friends. This man, being unable to pay his debts, was imprisoned and loaded with chains; unable to pay even the fees required by the jailer, he was confined in a miserable prison where smallpox was raging, caught the disease, and died.
[Illustration: JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE]
Oglethorpe investigated the conditions of prison life in England and found them bad and brutal beyond description. Most of the prisons were filthy dens in which men, women, and children were herded together, the child who had stolen a loaf of bread side by side with a brutal murderer. Oglethorpe brought the subject before parliament and succeeded in having a committee appointed to investigate the matter and take steps to limit the corruption and cruelty of the officials.
Besides attempting to relieve their condition at home, Oglethorpe began to plan an asylum abroad for the poor debtors and for persecuted sects. He wished to establish a place where those who were unfortunate and discouraged could begin life anew. It seemed to Oglethorpe that England would derive many benefits from such a colony as he planned. The country would be relieved of the burden of supporting unfortunate men who there would become self-supporting. New industries might be developed,--especially the culture of silk worms in which he was much interested. He wished to plant this settlement in the southern regions claimed by England, making it a military colony to prevent the encroachments of Spain and to protect the other English colonies.
In June, 1732, Oglethorpe and twenty associates obtained a grant of the land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers and extending westward to the Pacific Ocean, according to the usual terms of the grants of the times. The English claimed this land by virtue of the expeditions of Sir Walter Raleigh and they were desirous to occupy it before it was seized by the Spanish in Florida or the French on the Mississippi. In honor of the reigning King George II., the territory was named Georgia.
Oglethorpe agreed with Bacon that “it is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people whom you plant,” and he tried to select men who were unfortunate rather than wicked. Every opportunity was to be given the people to reform and to build up homes and fortunes. Oglethorpe went as governor of the colony, hoping by his personal aid and supervision to encourage and direct the people.
For military reasons, Oglethorpe urged that negro slavery be prohibited and that rum should not be brought into the colony. Among the men who aided in establishing and directing the colony were John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield, the famous Methodist clergymen.
In the winter of 1733, the colonists reached the New World and selected for their settlement a place on the Savannah River, a few miles from the sea. The Indians were conciliated with gifts and kindly treatment and assurances that their rights should be regarded. One of the desires of the philanthropic Oglethorpe was to civilize and christianize the natives. In six months there were one hundred and fifty persons in the settlement. They were a turbulent people unaccustomed to labor and with habits of improvidence and idleness. Oglethorpe was kind but firm; he allowed no idlers and provided tasks for even the children. Their neighbors in South Carolina were friendly and helpful, and the colony prospered. In the summer of 1734 Oglethorpe visited England, taking with him as guests several Indian chiefs. Early in February, 1736, he returned to Savannah.
Clear-sighted man of affairs that he was, he realized that a contest with Spain must come sooner or later. He endeavored to put the country in a position of defense. When war was declared between England and Spain in 1739, Oglethorpe had already secured the alliance of the Indian tribes. The Spaniards attacked an English settlement, and in return Oglethorpe captured a Spanish outpost. With his Indian allies, he marched against St. Augustine, but it was too strongly defended to be taken by the forces at his command. Two years later the Spaniards attacked Georgia; by a fortunate union of good chance and good generalship, they were defeated. “The pauper colony,” as it had been called, not only defended itself but saved its neighbor, South Carolina.
After this war was over, Oglethorpe returned to England and never again revisited his colony. About ten years later, the trustees of the colony resigned their patent and Georgia became a royal province.
Oglethorpe made his home in London where he was the friend of Walpole, Goldsmith, Johnson, and other famous men. He died at a ripe old age, having lived to see the colony which he had founded win its independence in the War of the Revolution. When John Adams came to England as minister from the United States, Oglethorpe called “to pay his respects to the first American ambassador and his family, whom he was glad to see in England; he expressed a great esteem and regard for America and much regret at the misunderstandings between the countries and felt very happy to have lived to see a termination of it.”
Philip
An Indian King
The Pilgrims were not the first white men who had visited Massachusetts. Explorers and trading parties had landed on the coast. At one time a fishing party had come to trade for furs and skins, and had carried off five Indians, one of whom was Squanto. Later, another vessel carried off twenty-seven Indians. The red men early learned to distrust and fear the pale faces.
The settlers of Plymouth endeavored to win the friendship of the Indians. They presented knives, copper chains, and other trinkets to Massasoit who was sachem, or chief, of the Indian tribes of the neighborhood, and made a treaty of friendship with him. As long as Massasoit lived, the Indians and the English lived in comparative peace.