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IN the name of the country which to-day occupies the major part of the inhabitable portion of North America is indicated the twofold nature of its history; for the story of the United States may evidently be approached, either from the standpoint of a federal nation, or from that of its component political units. These units, although in themselves separate states, are geographically divided from one another, for the most part, by boundaries which are purely artificial. Natural frontiers consist of the sea, deserts, mountains, rivers, and the now almost obsolete ones of forests and swamps. A glance at the map shows that such natural barriers are only a negligible part of the boundaries between our various states and territories. Rivers alone form an exception, and these, for several reasons, are the least satisfactory for the purpose.[1] Were the federal tie dissolved, and these now united commonwealths to become completely independent, and possibly hostile, the artificial character of their limits would at once become obvious.

From this it has followed, as settlement has gradually spread over the continent, bringing innumerable communities into existence, that these have tended to group themselves into sections, united by common modes of thought, ways of life, and economic needs. Histories of the individual states are almost as arbitrarily localized as the histories of the counties within

[1. Cf. C. B. Fawcett, Frontiers (Oxford, 1918), pp. 50 ff. Also, Lord Curzon, Frontiers (Oxford, 1908), pp. 13 ff.]

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them; but the story of any of the sections into which the country has divided from time to time possesses an organic unity created by the forces of life itself.

Some of these divisions have tended to remain permanent, while others have passed with the development of the country. During the colonial period, when the English inhabited only the comparatively narrow strip of land between the sea and the mountain-barrier of the Appalachian system, the colonists fell into three natural groups,--the New England, the Middle, and the Southern,--determined by climatic, economic, and cultural conditions. These factors, operating with others somewhat more fortuitous, made the distinctions both lasting and marked, the extreme northern and southern groups exhibiting their differences more clearly than the intermediate one lying between them.

When the frontier was extended west of the mountain-barrier,--and, indeed, on a smaller scale, even earlier,--another grouping came into existence, that of East and West, or old settlement and frontier. This division was also to persist, with an ever-enlarging East and an ever-retreating West. If the economic and political ideas of these new sections were to remain somewhat sharply contrasted, the distinctions between the original extreme eastern groups were also continued, like lengthening shadows across the mountain ridges, and the whole country was to find itself aligned in two hostile groupings in the most tragic division that it has yet had to face-- that between the North and the South.

In the New England group we have one which, in spite of minor differences, is unusually homogeneous. Not only are the boundaries between the six states which now form it negligible, but the section, as a whole, is a geographical unit, within which a common life, based upon generally similar economic, political, and religious foundations, has constituted a distinct cultural strain in the life of the nation. The "New England idea" and the "New England type" have been as sharply defined as they have been persistent; and, if, in our own day, they seem, to some extent, to be passing, their influence may

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be no less living because spread broadcast throughout the whole land, and absorbed into the common national life. Effective natural boundaries, defining a limited area, are of determining influence in fostering the life of primitive peoples or of civilized colonies. Diffusion over an unlimited space, in the one case, tends to weaken the hold on the land and the growth of the state, while, in the other, it greatly retards the development of those elements that make for civilized life. Aside from other factors, the possession by the English, in the settlement period, of a limited and protected area, naturally restricted by the sea and the mountains, resulted, speaking broadly, in the building up of thickly settled, compact colonies as contrasted with the boundless empire of the French, opened to them by their control of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence rivers. It is noteworthy that, of the great river-highways leading to the interior of the continent,--the St. Lawrence, the Hudson- Mohawk, and the Mississippi,--none was at first possessed by the English, who had everywhere, unwittingly but fortunately, selected portions of the coast where their natural tendency to expand was temporarily held in check.

The Appalachian barrier, which thus served to protect and to concentrate the efforts of the English, may be said to extend from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Alabama, coming nearest to the coast in passing across New York. In the northern part of Maine, where the mountains descend to a low water-shed, enormous forests, with no easy river-route facilitating peaceful or warlike travel, formed almost as effective a barrier; while passage southward, along the coast, was impeded during the early period by the presence of a foreign nation, the Dutch. There were, indeed, certain narrow entrances to this enclosed territory from the north, as the larger streams, flowing southward from the water-shed along the Canadian boundary, could be utilized, in connection with those flowing northward from its other slope to the St. Lawrence. The many falls along their courses, entailing laborious carries in the dense forest, together with the necessary longer ones across the height of

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land, made these routes more suitable, however, for the military needs of savages than for the movement of troops in large bodies, or for the purposes of trade.[1] The main passage for travel and transport from Canada to the south lay wholly to the west of New England, by way of the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain, which latter well deserved its Indian name of "key to the country."

Within the boundaries thus roughly defined and the sea, lies a land said to contain a greater diversity of natural features than any other of equal area in the United States. To the west and north are the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the scattered peaks of Maine. From a height of fifteen hundred to two thousand feet at the base of the mountains, a gently sloping upland descends gradually to Long Island Sound and the Atlantic. Although, at first glance, its surface seems to present only a confused mass of low-lying hills, their tops are seen to show a marked uniformity of level as they gradually slope downward toward the south and east; and geological evidence makes it almost certain that, at one time, this region was a plain, resulting from the wearing down, by denudation, of an earlier mountain range. Subsequent alterations in its surface, due to erosion and other factors, gave rise to the present uplands and lowlands, which have been of determining influence in the peopling of the section, the rugged uplands offering so hard a subsistence that they were nowhere willingly chosen for settlement so long as land might still be had in the lowlands.

Although, largely in the eighteenth century, economic pressure in the happier valleys forced many farmers to move to the hills, the opening of the West drew many of, them to the prairies during the following century, and the population, like

[1. The three most important of these routes were: 1, from the headwaters of the St. John to a branch of the Chaudière; 2, from the head of the Kennebec to the Chaudière proper (the route of Col. Arnold in 1775); and 3, from a branch of the Connecticut to a stream entering Lake Memphremagog, and so down the St. Francis. Cf. A. B Hulbert, Portage Paths; Cleveland, 1903. Many of the early maps also show the more important portages and carrying-places.]

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water which had been forced above its level, slowly drained off the uplands again, through the sluiceway of the Mohawk Valley. To-day, dying hill-towns, abandoned farms, and the yet unpeopled wilderness of northern Maine, tell the story of this struggle against geographical conditions.[1]

This formation of upland and valley extends to the shore-line of Sound and ocean, the broad coastal plain, which is so marked a feature from New Jersey southward, being almost wholly absent in New England. This is probably due to a subsidence of the shore, which allowed the ocean to flow back over part of the land, and which also explains the many hundred islands off the coast of Maine, and the drowned river valleys along the Sound. So numerous are the islands, bays, and headlands of the rugged coast north of the Isles of Shoals, that they expand the two hundred and thirty miles of shore to nearly three thousand, if all are included in the measurement. In this section, also, there are many good harbors, particularly that of Portland, but the coast is so greatly dissected as to make land communication along it very difficult; while the small boats, which partially served the needs of commerce and travel in early days, were seriously interfered with by the great rise and fall of the tides. Both these conditions tended to isolate the colonial settlements and hinder their development. The upland country, with its poorer soil and more difficult conditions of life, also approaches nearer to the sea in Maine and New Hampshire than farther south, so that, although Portsmouth, too, has a fine harbor, those states have always been more thinly settled than the others.

The coast of Massachusetts is less rugged, but more varied. South of the granite headland of Cape Ann, the shores of Boston Bay are still rocky and irregular; but both shores of the great sandy curve of the Cape Cod peninsula, which, with Cape Ann, encloses the waters of Massachusetts Bay, are smooth and moulded by wind and wave. The coast again becomes rough around Buzzard’s Bay, while the almost land

[1. W. M. Davis, The Physical Geography of Southern New England (New York, 1896), pp. 26 ff.]

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locked waters of Rhode Island have drowned the old river-system of that state. Opposite Connecticut lies Long Island, the only island of any considerable size along the entire Atlantic coast; so that the Sound, or inland sea, thus formed between it and the mainland, gives to Connecticut the advantage of a quiet, protected waterway for all its ports.

The value of a coast-line, however, depends not alone upon its own features, but upon its relations with the interior, both as to means of communication, and as to the soil and products of the back-country. During the colonial period, the lines of communication were naturally along waterways. With the small tonnage of the vessels then employed, even the sea-going ones, by utilizing rivers, could pass far inland; and we find Henry Hudson penetrating to Albany in the same ship in which he had crossed the ocean. The almost interminable length of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi lured the French ever deeper into the wilderness in quest of the retreating fur-trade, so that their empire became hardly more than a series of far-flung forts and trading-posts. The rivers of New England, on the other hand, having their rise in the Appalachian barrier, and interrupted by many falls in their short courses, led to no vast domain beyond, and offered little temptation to the settler to leave their fertile valleys and tide-swept mouths. This lack of inland navigation not only tended to concentrate settlement near the coast, or on the lower navigable reaches of such streams as the Connecticut, but, also, in a later period, hastened the progress of turnpikes and railroads more quickly in New England than anywhere else in the country.[1]

At first, however, rivers were the only means of communication with the interior, and settlements along the coast of Massachusetts, and on Buzzard’s and Narragansett bays, tended to remain maritime in character, extending inland but slowly; whereas those located on such streams as the Kennebec and the Connecticut absorbed the rich fur-trade for which they formed the main routes. This trade, it may be noted, was exhausted earlier in New England than elsewhere, on account

[1. E. C. Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment (New York, 1911), p. 354.]

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of the comparatively limited drainage basins of the river-system, so that the people were sooner forced to depend upon agriculture, fishing, commerce, and manufactures.

Land travel continued both difficult and costly in all the colonies throughout the whole of the earlier industrial period, and roads were so poor, even a century after New England was settled, that not until 1722 was a team driven for the first time from Connecticut to Rhode Island. To emphasize the effect of rivers, we may note that in New York, where the Hudson was the highway, the average cost of carrying a bushel of wheat one hundred miles was but two pence, compared with a shilling in Pennsylvania, where forty wagons, one hundred and sixty horses, and eighty men were required to transport the same amount of freight handled by two or three men on a scow in New York. This high cost of land carriage, which, added to the ocean freights, had the effect of fostering home manufactures as against importations from England, also restricted the areas of distribution, and tended to localize industry.[1]

It was not, however, merely the lack of an adequate system of river transport that served to stimulate manufacturing in New England in competition with the mother-country. The character of such rivers as she possessed peculiarly adapted them for the purpose of supplying power, for not only are falls and rapids numerous in all of them, but the "fall-line" in New England is nearer tidewater than it is anywhere else along the coast. In addition, the regularity of the rainfall, and the great number of lakes, which form natural reservoirs, cause the flow of the rivers to be more constant than in other parts of the country. From all these causes, the little Merrimac, for example, which is otherwise insignificant as an American river, is the most noted water-power stream in the world.[2]

The soil of New England is of glacial origin, about three quarters of it being of boulder-clay, stubborn in character and

[1. V. S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the U. S., 1607-1860 (Carnegie Institution, Washington, 1916), pp. 88 ff.]

[2. Report on the Water-Power of the U. S.; Census Report, 1885.]

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difficult to cultivate, but of fair and lasting fertility, due to the steady decomposition of the smaller pebbles. The remainder, largely in the southeast, is sandy and of little or no use for agriculture, owing to the rapid draining away of all moisture.[1] That on the uplands is thinner and poorer than in the valleys, and the uplands predominate.

A hard living may be forced from such a soil; but the lazy or unskilled fail to subsist, much less leave a surplus. Tests of white and colored farmers in the north indicate that, if the efficiency of the former be taken as 100, that of the latter is but 49,[2] from which fact the economic impossibility of slavery would seem to be established for New England, as that institution requires the production of a considerable surplus over individual needs, even by inefficient labor. In Barbadoes, on the other hand, a hundred acres planted in sugar were tended by fifty slaves and seven white servants; a similar amount of land, if cotton were raised, required forty-five blacks and five whites; while the cultivation of ginger necessitated the labor of seven and a half persons per acre.[3] The economic, social, and political results of such utilization of the soil, as compared with the subsistence farming of New England, are too obvious to need elaboration. As we shall see, the Puritans were not wholly averse to owning slaves, and were often wont, in ethical cases, to weigh both religious scruples and economic considerations. In this case, the latter prevailed, without detriment to the former, and the abolition sentiment of the nineteenth century was rooted in the glacial soil of the seventeenth.

The soil was one which did not foster large plantations, as in the South, but small farms tilled by their owners, with little help from slave or indented servant. There was, therefore, no economic factor at work in New England tending to wide dispersal, as against the obvious need of compact settlement for purposes of protection, mutual help, and social intercourse.

[1. N. S. Shaler, United States, vol. I, p. 54.]

[2. E. Huntington, Civilization and Climate (Yale University Press, 1915), p. 22.]

[3. Dalby Thomas, An historical account of the rise and growth of the W. I. Collonies and of the great advantages they are to England in respect to Trade (London, 1690), pp. 14, 21 f.]

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The early New Englander was a somewhat hesitating believer in the injustice of slavery. He was a strong believer in a town grouped about a church. The soil confirmed and strengthened him in both convictions.

This compact form of settlement, in turn, however, caused the village lands of New England to become exceedingly high-priced as compared with the plantation lands of the southern colonies. In the seventeenth century, New England farms very rarely contained over five hundred acres, in contrast to the average Virginian plantation of five thousand; but New England land was worth about fourteen times as much per acre as that in Virginia, and a hundred-acre homestead in the north was equal in value to a fair-sized plantation in the south.[1] All these factors, operating with others, emphasized the characteristic nature of New England expansion, which was almost invariably a migration, not of individuals, but of churches and towns, or, at least, of small neighborhood groups.

When the land was first settled, it was everywhere covered by a dense forest, except for meadows here and there, along the shore or in the larger river-bottoms. Even to-day, of the thirty thousand square miles of land-surface in Maine, the forest is said to extend over twenty-one thousand, a district as large as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut combined.[2] These forests, mainly of hard-wood, deciduous trees, with an admixture of conifers in Maine, had been practically untouched by the natives, except by burning the underbrush. In fact, Whitney claims that more trees had been destroyed by the beavers than by the Indians.[3] Although building stone is plentiful in New England, this abundance of timber along the Atlantic coast determined the form of the colonial architecture, and developed a type of wooden building little used in England. It also provided the materials for shipbuilding, the forests growing to the very edge of a shore indented

[1. J. C. Ballagh, "The Land System in the South," in American Historical Associationciation Report, 1897, p. 109.]

[2. H. A. Pressey, Water-Powers of the State of Maine; U. S. Geological Survey, 1902, p. 15.]

[3. J. D. Whitney, The United States (Boston, 1889), p. 176.] Page 10

almost everywhere by suitable harbors; and, in the early period, this industry is found scattered along the entire shore. But it tended to concentrate at fewer points, as the lumber-supply near at hand became exhausted, and the tonnage of vessels increased. "In reading the early commercial history of New England," however, as Miss Semple well says, "one seems never to get away from the sound of the shipbuilder’s hammer, and the rush of the launching vessel."[1] The climate, though varying in intensity from northern Maine and New Hampshire to southern Connecticut, and also from inland to the sea, is, on the whole, a severe one. Snow falls to a considerable depth everywhere, remaining in the mountains till late in the spring, the lower mean temperature of the year, as compared with the coast farther south, being due to the greater cold of winter rather than to a cooler summer. The seasonal changes, indeed, are very marked, and the cultural influence of "the harshness of contrasts and extremes of sensibility," of a "winter which was always the effort to live, " and a summer which was "tropical license," must formerly have been even greater than to-day.[2] A noteworthy feature of our Atlantic coast, climatically, is the crowding together of the isothermal lines, so that the frigid and tropical zones are brought within twenty degrees of latitude, as compared with forty in Europe. This bringing the products of so many climatic regions comparatively near to one another greatly stimulated intercolonial trade, which New England early claimed the largest share in carrying.[3]

We thus see how the mountain-barrier kept the New Englander within bounds; how the lack of long navigable rivers prevented him from advancing far inland, even within his

[1. E. C. Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions (Boston, 1903), p. 122.]

[2. The Education of Henry Adams (Boston, 1918), pp. 7 ff.]

[3. Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment, p. 618. Both Miss Semple and A. P. Brigham (Geographic Influences in American History, New York, 1903) lay their main stress on land-forms. For climatic influences, vide W. N. Lacy, "Some Climatic Influences in American History," in Monthly Weather Review, vol. XXXVI, pp. 169 ff; Huntington, Civilization and Climate, ubi supra; and The Red Man’s Continent (Yale University Press, 1919).]

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narrow limits; how the bleak and stony uplands held him along the coast and lower river valleys; how the soil discouraged him from agriculture; and, on the other hand, how his numerous harbors, the quantity of timber for ship-building, and his central position for the carrying trade, all drew him out to sea.

There was another, and most important factor, however, luring him to quit the land, for the banks and shoals, extending from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, were the feeding grounds of enormous masses of cod, herring, and other fish, which swarmed in the cold waters of the Labrador current. If no precious metals rewarded search, if the beaver retreated farther and farther into the wilderness, if the soil gave but grudging yield, here, at least, was limitless wealth. The industry, thanks to the combination of shoals and icy waters, became the corner-stone of the prosperity of New England; and in the colonial history of that section, commerce smells as strongly of fish as theology does of brimstone. Together with lumber, fish became the staple of exchange with old England and the rich West Indian settlements, and the industry bred a hardy race of seamen, who manned New England’s merchant fleet, and, later, the American navy.[1]

In two other aspects the sea exerted marked influence upon both the discovery and the settlement of the new lands, as well as upon their later history. The fact that America and Europe are separated by three thousand miles of water must be considered in relation to culture at various periods; for geographic factors are relative, and not absolute, in their historic connotations. Countries may be said to be habitable or uninhabitable, distances to lengthen or shorten, heights to rise or fall, according to the measure of man’s control over nature at any given time. As a distinguished French geographer has said: "Tout se transforme autour de nous; tout diminue ou s’accroit. Rien n’est vraiment immobile et invariable."[2] Increase in

[1. For the influence of the sea on subsidiary industries, vide M. Keir, "Some Influences of the Sea upon the Industries of New England," American Geographical Review, vol. V, pp. 399 ff.]

[2. Jean Brunhes, La géographie humaine (Paris, 1912), p. 6.]

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speed of vessels, with increased storage capacity for food and water, is equivalent to an actual reduction of the distance in miles; and, measured by the standards of modern ships in speed alone, without considering other factors, we may say that twenty to thirty thousand miles of uncharted seas had kept America hidden from European eyes.

Across this wide expanse, in the latitude of Europe, the currents of both air and water set from America toward the Old World, and almost precluded the possibility, under primitive conditions, of European voyaging and discovery. North of this eastward track, however, lie not only the stepping-stones of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, but, once at Iceland, the prevailing wind carries the European mariner to Greenland, whence the Labrador current leads him close inshore and along the coasts of Canada and New England.[1] To the south of the central eastward track, is the zone of the trade-winds and the great westward flowing equatorial current; and there, again, we find island stepping-stones. Thus nature clearly indicated the two ways by which America might be found; and, for long, the routes followed were the northerly one to the Newfoundland fisheries and New England, and the southerly one to the Canaries, the West Indies, and, thence, to Virginia. The earliest English efforts at colonization in North America were at the two points lying nearest to England by wind and ocean current.

One other feature in the geographic control over the life of New England may here be noted. The main imports of England were naturally those commodities which she did not produce herself, and these were found in the southern and West Indian colonies rather than in New England, whose fish and cereals competed with similar products in the home market. Destined, from her position and other geographic factors, to occupy the leading place among the colonies in trade and commerce, New England was thus forced to find outlets for her

[1. In the Middle Ages there was apparently an additional volcanic island, known as Gunnbiörn’s Skerries, between Iceland and Greenland, destroyed by eruption in 1456. R. H. Major, Voyages of the Zeni (Hakluyt Society, 1873), pp. lxxiv ff.]

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products in intercolonial and foreign trade, rather than in that with England. In order to pay for the manufactured and other articles imported from the old country, she exported, in turn, not to that country, as, in the main, did the other colonies, but to her sister colonies and to foreign ports. According to the accepted economic theories of the colonizing period, this not only made her less valuable to the mother- country, but would evidently give her a considerable interest in breaking those laws for regulating commerce that were the logical expression of the current imperial theory. If we consider, therefore, the nature of the commodities she produced, the competing character of her trade, the democratic ideas of the groups of self-governing land-holders, such as the soil and climate combined to develop, and the economic beliefs of the day, it becomes evident that, when a heavy strain should be put upon the imperial structure, the tendency to break would be likely to appear first in New England.

In the foregoing sketch, an attempt has been made to trace, very briefly, some of the influences of geography upon Puritan development in New England. The early history of all peoples is largely to be found in their struggle against their environment, and its effect upon them. These effects are subtle and far-reaching, and, in connection with them, it may not be wholly idle to speculate upon what might have been had events followed a slightly different course. Had the Jamestown settlers planted themselves upon the coast of Massachusetts, they would probably have failed. On the other hand, had the Pilgrims and Puritans, as both seriously thought of doing, settled in the tropics, where the nature of the climate and the soil would have turned the scale for slavery, where the conditions of life would have strongly combatted their notions of town and church, and where luxury and easy living would have been quickly attained by their inherent energy, what would then have become of what we call the New England element in our national life? To carry the speculation far would be futile, but it serves to bring out into somewhat clearer relief

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the influences of the geographic environment upon those colonists whose history it is our task to trace.

The distant land to which they came was not an uninhabited wilderness. They found there, as occupants of the soil, an unknown race, in the lower stage of barbarism, with whom they had to contend for its possession. With a few notable exceptions, the relations of the whites with the Indians were the same in all the colonies. The natives were traded with, fought with, occasionally preached to, and then, as far as possible, exterminated. "The precepts Christianity delivers," wrote Lord Bryce, of the relations between advanced and backward races, "might have been expected to soften the feelings and tame the pride of the stronger race. It must, however, be admitted that in all or nearly all the countries . . . Christianity . . . has failed to impress the lessons of human equality and brotherhood upon the whites . . . . Their sense of scornful superiority resists its precepts."[1]

This comment, which is only too true in the present day, was still more true in the seventeenth century. Even in history, the Indian has usually been treated as, at best, a picturesque element, to give color to the somewhat drab homespun of the colonial story; while the Indian policy of the several colonies, the history of the Indian trade, and the influence of the Indian upon the settler, yet await adequate treatment.

The Indian’s character and mental traits, which were frequently misinterpreted, were those to be expected in a savage at his stage of culture. If, on the one hand, he was not the noble being painted by Cooper, on the other, he was not the demon often conceived. Indeed, in scanning the list of epithets hurled at him by some of New England’s ministers of Christ, one is reminded of Professor Murray’s comment on the Greek story of Œdipus. "Unnatural affection, child-murder, father-murder, incest, a great deal of hereditary cursing, a double fratricide and a violation of the sanctity of dead bodies--when

[1. Lord Bryce, The Relations of the Advanced and Backward Races of Mankind (Romanes Lecture; Oxford, 1902), p. 40. He contrasts the failure of Christianity with the success of Islam in that regard.]

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one reads," writes this scholar, "such a list of charges brought against any tribe or people, either in ancient or in modern times, one can hardly help concluding that somebody wanted to annex their land."[1]

The nature of the life the Indian led inclined to render him improvident and lazy, although capable at need of great exertion and endurance. He was dirty in his person, and yet possessed of a childish vanity as to his appearance. The popular idea of him as reserved, silent, and dignified probably came from the fact that his etiquette demanded that he thus appear on ceremonial occasions, social or religious, and it was at such times, at first, that the whites usually saw him. In reality, in his ordinary life, he was a sociable body, cheerful and chatty, with a considerable sense of humor, fond of punning and joking.[2] Hysterical in his nervous make-up, he was peculiarly liable to suggestion and religious excitement. As he was passionate and quick to take offense, like other savages and children, public opinion demanded that he seek revenge; and when a crime was committed against any member of a clan, the punishment of the guilty party became the duty of every other member. Under the compelling influence of such a code, the individual may often have had to appear more revengeful than he really was; and, as a matter of fact, the old law of an eye for an eye had already become softened by possibilities of compensation, through adoption or otherwise, even in the case of murder. Although prisoners of war were frequently tortured with fiendish ingenuity before being killed, in this case, also, adoption offered a milder alternative, often exercised. Scalping, as a sign of victory, was supposed to be performed only on the dead, and, although this theory did not always hold good,[3] it must be remembered that the whites., as well as the Indians, engaged in the practice, with the difference that,

[1. Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic (Oxford, 1911), p. 54.]

[2. F. W. Hodge, Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico (Bureau of American Ethnology, 1911, vol. I, pp. 578, 88, 286; L. Farrand, Basis of American History (New York, 1904), p. 265.]

[3. G. Friederici, Skalpieren u. änliche Kriegsgebräuche in Amerika (Braunschweig, 1906), p. 106.]

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while the natives did it for honor, the settlers did it for money. New England men, and even New England women, sold scalps to the authorities at so much a head; and, among the Pennsylvanians, prices went as high as fifty dollars for a female scalp, and one hundred and thirty for that of a boy under ten.[1] With the Indian, it was merely a custom to which he had become inured; and it should be noted that he wore his own hair accordingly, and carefully refrained from shaving the scalp-lock, which it might be his enemy’s glory, some day, to remove.

The influence of a formal code is seen also in his bearing of pain. In public, he would suffer torture of the most excruciating sort with complete stoicism, as required by the opinion of his fellows; whereas, in private, when not thus sustained, he would be childish in his self-abandon over the tooth-ache or other discomfort.[2] Hospitality was a cardinal virtue, to such an extent that "in some languages there was but one word both for generosity and bravery, and either was a sure avenue to distinction."[3] Fierce and bloodthirsty in war, in domestic life he was affectionate to an extreme, especially toward children. His code, though different from the white man’s, was apparently adhered to quite as strictly; but, when the two were brought into contact, the vices inherent in each tended to develop, and it is natural that the weaker came to be considered hopelessly lazy, cruel, drunken, and untrustworthy.

At the time of discovery, the natives encountered along the Atlantic coast had advanced from savagery to the lower status of barbarism, and were still in the Stone Age. Although agriculture was practised to a considerable extent, the Indians, having no domestic animals, were still dependent upon the chase for a material part of their diet, and so must be considered as in the hunting stage, their advancement in culture being limited by that condition.[4]

[1. G. E. Ellis, The Red Man and the White Man in America (Boston, 1882), p. 123.]

[2. Farrand, Basis, p. 265; Roger Williams, A Key into the Languages of America (Narragansett Club Publications, vol. I), p. 138.]

[3. Hodge, Handbook, vol. I, p. 572.]

[4. L. Carr, "The Food of certain American Indians and their Method of preparing it"; Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, New Series, vol. IV, p. 156.]

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Their political organization was much misunderstood by the whites, with disastrous results. The settlers, utterly ignorant of savage life, tried to interpret such things as they saw in terms of their own institutions; whence came the kings, princes, and nobles, who parade the pages of our early writers. It is needless to say that nothing in Indian society in any way corresponded to these terms; and the failure of the whites to apprehend that Indian institutions had almost nothing in common with their own was the source of endless trouble and much needless bloodshed.

Among such Indians as had attained to some degree of social organization, which included the majority on the continent and all of those with whom the settlers came in contact, the primary unit was the clan, or gens. Within a clan, or gens, everyone was, or was supposed to be, descended from a common ancestor, and thus related to all the others--in the former the line of descent being traced through the female, and in the latter, through the male. Otherwise, the two organizations were identical, and we shall, therefore, speak in terms of the clan only. Clan members were absolutely forbidden to intermarry; they had the right to elect and depose the sachem and chiefs, to bestow names upon individuals, and to adopt strangers. They possessed common religious observances, were buried in one place, had mutual rights of inheritance in the property of deceased members, were under obligation to defend one another, and participated in the council.[1] The latter was essentially democratic, every man and woman in the clan having a voice, the sachem and chiefs being elected and deposed at will. The sachem was a civil officer having nothing to do with war, and the office was hereditary within the clan, though the succeeding relative, usually a brother or nephew, was elected. Chief was a very vague term, merely indicating one who had been elected for some special fitness, the number of chiefs being roughly proportioned to the size of the clan. Both sachem and chiefs attended the larger council of the tribe.

[1. L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society (London, 1877), pp. 71 ff.]

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While articles of personal property, such as clothes or weapons, were owned by the individual, the title to all land was in the clan, and the individual had the right of use only. Ownership in fee by the individual, as practised by the whites, was not known at all to the natives, nor was the native institution understood by the whites during the first years, so that the so-called land sales by the Indians were the cause of constant misunderstandings and ill-feeling.[1]

Generally, each clan possessed a totem, or animal, from which it derived its name. These names, however, were not, as a rule, the common ones for the animal or object, but denoted a characteristic feature or haunt, and were less childish than they have been made to seem. Thus the Turtle Clan did not use the common word, ha’nowa, but hadiniaden, "they have upright necks."[2] A curious importance was attached by the Indian to the names of individuals, and that first given in infancy was usually changed at puberty, and even at other times. Certain names were given only in certain clans, and the individual had property rights in his own name, which he could lend, sell, or even pawn.

The clan was thus the Indian’s little world. To its organization, and his own position in it, he owed almost all that made life worth living from the social standpoint--his name, to which a potent influence attached, his ceremonial rights, his rights of inheritance, his property rights in land, his obligation to defend and succor his fellow clansmen, his right to be protected in return, and, finally, his political right to elect and depose his sachem and chiefs. Notwithstanding the extremely democratic and individualistic nature of Indian society, and the looseness of its political organization, the influence of the clan sentiment upon the individual must have had enormous weight.[3]

[1. C. J. Ellis, The Red Man, pp. 207 ff.]

[2. Hodge, Handbook, vol. I, p. 304.]

[3. The phratry was a combination of two or more clans, forming a larger exogamous group, and originating, perhaps, in the division of overgrown clans. Although it frequently had the power of veto over the election of clan sachems and chiefs, its functions were social rather than political. In ball games, phratry played against phratry, while at funerals and other ceremonies the organization appears clearly. There was no chief or head.]

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Above the clan was the tribe, which is difficult to define, but clearly marked, and which was the highest form of organization ordinarily attained by the natives--confederacies, such as the Iroquois, being exceptional. Tribal organization is more obvious to the untrained observer than that of clans, and whenever the settlers found a body of natives possessing an apparent degree of independence or territorial isolation, they gave them a tribal designation, derived from the dialect, locality, or name of the leader, though such designations are of almost no value for scientific classification.[1] The tribe, which was composed of several clans, may be said to have had a common religious worship, a name, a definite territory, and the exclusive use of a dialect, together with the right to invest and depose the sachems and chiefs of the several clans.[2] These chiefs and sachems formed the tribal council, which controlled the tribe’s "foreign policy," sent and received ambassadors, made alliances, and declared war and peace, although it was a weak organization for military purposes. The assumed natural condition was war, not peace, and every tribe was theoretically at war with every other, unless a specific treaty of peace had been made. On the other hand, there was no forced military service, and public opinion or personal inclination alone sent the warrior along the war-path. Any person could organize an expedition at any time, and service was voluntary, operations, as a rule, being conducted suddenly, secretly, and on a small scale.

As among all primitive peoples, the food-quest was one of the dominating factors in the Indian’s mode of life. This included hunting, both with weapons and with traps, fishing, by net and line, and agriculture, with primitive implements and manuring. Game was fairly abundant for a sparse population, and the bays, rivers, and lakes swarmed with many sorts of fish. Maize, the fundamental food-crop of all eastern North America, was raised as far north as northern Maine; pumpkins, beans, and other native vegetables were cultivated also, and tobacco

[1. Clark Wissler, The American Indian (New York, 1917), p. 152.]

[2. Morgan, Ancient Society, pp. 112. ff.]

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was grown even beyond the northern limits of maize. Not only these crops, but the whole complex of cultivation which the Indians had developed, was of profound importance to the settlers, who, it maybe noted, also adopted in its entirety the native method of making maple-sugar.

In many cases, the quest of these various foods gave rise to seasonal migrations, from which was derived the false idea that the Indians were nomadic. Although this was not true, they nearly always did have two, and even three, places of residence--one in the summer, conveniently located for their fields of corn; one in the winter, in some sheltered valley; and, perhaps, one for the fall months, for the hunting.[1] Moreover, as Williams tells us, "the abundance of fleas" in their homes would occasionally make them "remove on a sudden" to a more exclusive spot. Most communities had one or more fortified enclosures, consisting of from one to a score of houses inside a stockade, which were resorted to in time of danger, and frequently formed their winter dwellings.[2]

In traveling, birch-bark or dugout canoes were used along the coasts and water-courses, and, on the land, well-established trails extended, with few breaks, across the length and breadth of the continent.[3] The most noted of these in New England, and among the earliest used by the settlers, were the Bay Path and Old Connecticut Path, the latter of which ran from what are now Boston and Cambridge, through Marlborough, Grafton, Oxford, and Springfield, to Albany, where it joined the great Iroquois trail along the Mohawk Valley to Niagara.[4]

In their travel, as in their domestic life, labor was more or

[1. Williams, Key, p. 74.]

[2. C. C. Willoughby, "Houses and Gardens of the New England Indians," American Anthropologist, New Series, vol. VIII, p. 126.]

[3. Rolle, for example, in 1697, followed one from Quebec to Illinois, 2400 miles. Maine Historical Society Collections, vol. V, p. 325.]

[4. The Bay Path went from Boston to Springfield along the same line, except that it passed through South Framingham instead of Marlborough and Worcester, joining the Connecticut Path at Oxford. See map, in L. B. Chase, "Interpretation of Woodward’s and Saffery’s Map of 1642," in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. IV. pp. 155 ff. For other early trails, see the same author’s "Early Indian Trails," in Worcester Society of Antiquity Collections, vol. XIV. pp. 105 ff., and A. B. Hulbert, Indian Thoroughfares; Cleveland, 1902.]

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less equally divided between the sexes; and, although woman’s position was subordinate, it is a mistake to paint her as drudge, toiling for a lazy master. In building the house, for example, the man cut and set the poles, on which the woman arranged the covering of mats or bark. The tillage of the soil in comparative safety was her share, while the man undertook the more dangerous work of hunting. While she had the care of the household, and the nurture of the children, he laboriously chipped the stone implements used in war and the chase, built the boats, and, in some cases, made the women’s clothes as well as his own. The boys and old men helped her about the crops; to the other males were intrusted the duties of a warrior, and the conducting of public business and ceremonials, including the memorizing of the tribal records, treaties, and rituals.[1] In the production of household goods, the women made baskets and mats; the men, dishes and pots and spoons.[2]

Such a division of labor was calculated to provide the community, under the conditions of its savage and war-like life, with the largest possible measure of food and protection, and did not indicate a degraded position for woman. On the contrary, descent was usually traced through her, and the titles of the chiefs of the clans belonged to her, as did the family lodge and all its furnishings. She had ownership rights in the tribal lands; possessed the children exclusively; had the right of selecting from her sons candidates for the chieftaincy, of preventing them from going on the war-path, and of adopting strangers into the clan. She also had other powers, including that of life and death over alien prisoners, and was not seldom elected a chief or sachem herself. Among the Iroquois, the penalty for killing a woman was twice that exacted for a man; and it is noteworthy that no attempt against the chastity of a white woman prisoner has been charged against the savage--a record distinctly better than that of the white settlers. Although polygamy was not forbidden, it was rare except in the

[1. Hodge, Handbook, vol. II, p. 284.]

[2. D. D. Gookin, "Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, 1674"; Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Series I, vol. I, p. 151.]

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case of chiefs, priests, and shamans (or medicine-men), and monogamic unions were the rule. The tie, however, was loose, and could readily be dissolved by either party, the children, in any case, remaining with the mother. Constancy was expected, and its breach, particularly in the case of the woman, was severely punished. Chastity was not expected before marriage, but, as Wissler points out, it was essential in certain religious ceremonies, and so may have been an ideal.[1]

In their relations with their children, we find some of the highest traits in the character of the natives. Both parents were, as a rule, excessively fond of their offspring, and boys and girls were carefully instructed. In general, moral suasion alone was used; force but rarely. The girls, from an early age, were taught sewing, weaving, cooking, and the other household arts; the boys were initiated into the methods of hunting, fishing, war, and government. Etiquette was carefully observed by all, in such matters as sitting, standing, precedence in walking, interrupting a speaker, respect to elders, passing between a person and the fire, and the other niceties of life according to native standards.

The New England Indians had made but slight progress in the arts. The character of the native music is even yet not well understood, and much preliminary work remains to be done before any generalizations can be made.[2] We know, however, that in the same song the instrumental and vocal rhythms were different, and that there was a characteristic one for every ceremony. Music, indeed, was an important element in life, all ceremonies, public and private, being accompanied by songs, which were the property of clans, societies, or individuals, and were bought and sold. In design, both in pottery and weaving, the patterns used were geometrical only, and simple; but the later New England native pottery showed the influence of the superior art of the Iroquois, in form as well as decoration.[3]

[1. Wissler, The American Indian, p. 176.]

[2. Ibid., p. 146.]

[3. C. C. Willoughby, "Pottery of the New England Indians," in Putnam Anniversary Volume of Anthropological Essays (New York, 1909), pp. 83 ff.]

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In their economic life, the most interesting feature was the use of wampum, or shell-beads, as a primitive medium of exchange. These little black or white cylinders, of which the former were worth twice as much as the latter, were made with great care from certain shells found along the coast. Besides their use as currency, they were prized by the Indians as ornament, and were strung into belts, to perform their well-known symbolic and historical functions.[1]

One of the most popular misconceptions of the Indian is that of his belief in a "Great Spirit." Nowhere in American aboriginal life do we find anything approaching such a conception. The Indian was in the animistic stage of religious belief. The manitou of the Algonquins, like the orenda of the Iroquois, was merely the magic power which might exist in objects, forces, animals, and even men, superior to man’s natural qualities; and the Indian’s religious beliefs centred about his relations to some embodied form of this power. He believed in good spirits and bad, which could be controlled or invoked by prayer, offerings, charms, or incantations, and had developed a large body of myths to explain the universe and his relation to it. No moral concept attached to any of his deities, nor had he developed any idea of future rewards and punishments, although there was a belief in some vague form of life after bodily death. The rites of their primitive religion were in the hands of priests, whose power and influence increase as we proceed southward toward the highly developed ritualism of the Incas and their neighboring civilizations. The priest, acting for the tribe, must not be confused with the "medicine-man, " who depended solely upon his personal ability to establish relations with the magic powers, which he won by extraordinary experiences derived from fasting, prayer, and nervous excitement.

The exact classification of the Indians by cultural, archæological, linguistic, and other tests, is a matter of considerable

[1. W. B. Weeden, Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization, Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1884; A. C. Parker, The Constitution of the Five Nations, N. Y. State Museum Bulletin, 1916.]

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difficulty, but the linguistic, on the whole, is the best. Judged by all of them, however, the aborigines of New England possessed a high degree of unity.[1] At the time of settlement, the entire country along the coast, from Maryland to Hudson Strait, was occupied by natives of the widely distributed Algonquin stock, except for a small number of Beothuks in Newfoundland, and the Esquimaux along the Labrador shore.[2] The Algonquins also extended westward to the Mississippi, and two-thirds of the way across Canada. Imbedded in this otherwise homogeneous mass, the great body of the Iroquois dwelt on both sides of the St. Lawrence, surrounded Lake Erie, and covered all central Pennsylvania and the state of New York, except the lower Hudson. Although not included in the confines of New England, the influence of this highly organized and warlike confederacy was felt far beyond their bounds in every direction.[3] It is impossible to state the numbers which composed the New England tribes at the coming of the whites. Perhaps the original settlers faced in all, throughout New England, five thousand warriors, although this may be too high a figure, and all estimates can be only guesses.[4]

Such, in outline, was the Indian when he met the astonished and anxious gaze of the first settlers. Enough has been said to show that in the contact of the races an irrepressible conflict was bound to develop. Even had the savage never received any but kind and just treatment from his white neighbor, it is improbable that he could have readjusted his entire life so as

[1. See maps, in Wissler, The American Indian, pp. 205, 246, 282.]

[2. In recent years, evidences of a pre-historic culture in the Penobscot valley, wholly different from that of the Algonquin or Beothuks, have been found. Vide W. K. Moorehead, "Prehistoric Cultures in the State of Maine," Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Americanists (Washington, 1917), pp. 48 ff. Also his "Red-Paint People," in American Anthropologist, New Series, vol. XV.]

[3. L. H. Morgan, The League of the Iroquois; New York, 1901, passim. Though considered a different stock from the Algonquin, they seem to have been identical physically. A. Hrdlicka, Physical Anthropology of the Lenape; Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 62, 1916, p. 127.]

[4. Gookin, Historical Collection, pp. 145 f. Another writer, in 1629, says: "The greatest Saggamores about us cannot make above three hundred men, and other lesser Saggamores have not above fifteen subjects, and others neere about us but two." [Higginson] "New England’s Plantation, 1630," in Mass. Hist. Soc, Coll., Series I, vol. I, p. 122.]

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to compete with, or to accept, civilization. That test, however, was never made. To say that his lands were bought, and that, therefore, he was justly treated, is a mockery. To have expected sympathy, understanding, and justice in the situation as it developed in the seventeenth century is asking too much, both of human nature and of the period. Indeed, it is questionable whether, in the competition between races of higher and lower civilizations, when the former intrude upon the lands of the latter, justice, in its strictest sense, is ever possible. One cannot believe that the world would have been either better or happier had the land which to- day supports a hundred million self-governing people been left to the half- million barbarians who barely gained a subsistence from it four centuries ago. Man, in the individual treatment of his fellow, is, indeed, bound by the laws of justice and of right; but in the larger processes of history we are confronted by problems that the ethics of the individual fail to solve. The Indian in the American forest, and the Polynesian in his sunny isle, share, in the moral enigma of their passing, the mystery of the vanished races of man and brute, which have gone down in the struggle for existence in geological or historic ages, in what, one would fain believe, is a universe governed by moral law.

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As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made was almost as definitely determined by events in the Old World. For countless centuries, Europe, by many routes and through many intermediaries, had traded with the vaguely localized countries of the Orient. Throughout the Middle Ages, not only had she been dependent on the East for most of her luxuries, but many of these, from long usage, had become necessities.[1] About the beginning of the fourteenth century, this commerce, "the oldest, the most extensive, and the most lucrative trade known to Europe," began to be interfered with by the internal changes in the East, mainly due to conquests by the Ottoman Turks. Beginning about 1300, marked by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and continuing until all the seaports of the eastern Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, were in their possession by 1522, the process was a gradual one. At first uneasy, then alarmed, finally facing commercial ruin by the almost complete strangulation of her Oriental trade, Europe struggled frantically against geographical conditions, in her efforts to find a new and unimpeded route to the East.

During the latter part of the same period, geographical science had been making many strides; while the theory of the earth’s sphericity had been held, by some at least, since the days of Plato. After nearly two thousand years, motives developed which led men to turn that idea into action by use of the new discoveries, and in one generation Columbus sailed

[1. Cf. E. P. Cheyney, European Background of American History (New York, 1904), pp. 3-41.]

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west to America, and Da Gama east to India, and Magellan circumnavigated the globe. The thought advanced by philosophy, denied by common sense, and fought by the Church, finally wrought the greatest change yet known in the world’s history through the commonplace necessities of trade.

Voyaging toward the northwest, in the hope of finding the treasures of the East, had possibly been undertaken annually from 1491, by certain citizens of Bristol, England, when the Italian, John Cabot, domiciled in their city, applied to King Henry VII for letters patent "for the discovery of new and unknown lands." The Cabots themselves left no account of their voyages, and the story must be made up from a few contemporary documents, some hearsay evidence, and a large amount of inference. Apparently, John Cabot sailed, some time in 1497, under the patent granted to himself and his sons, and by the end of August was back in England, after a voyage of several months. The location of the landfall, made June 24, is wholly uncertain.[1] A second voyage was made the following year, and a considerable part of the northeast coast appears to have been explored, although it is impossible to place the limits of the discovery. Whether he was accompanied on either or both of the voyages by his son Sebastian is uncertain, but it is probable that he was.[2] As for the rest, one is tempted to echo Dawson’s remark, that "as for John Cabot, Sebastian says he died, which is one of the few undisputed facts in the discussion."[3] To us, the importance of the voyage lies in the fact that upon it England based her claims, in later times, to a portion of the New World, though she made no

[1. Prowse favors Newfoundland; d’Avezac, Deane, Réclus, Winsor, Brevoort, Eggleston, Winship, Biggar, and Dawson believe in Cape Breton; Biddle, Humboldt, Kohl, Stevens, Kretschmer, and Harrisse point to Labrador. The question is not important, and the alignment is given merely to show the uncertainties of this and other early voyages. The original sources are most accessible to the general reader in C. R. Beazley, John and Sebastian Cabot; London, 1898.

[2. In regard to the 1497 voyage, opinion ranges from R. Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot (Philadelphia, 1831), p. 50, who doubts if the father went, to H. Harrisse, John Cabot (London, 1896), p. 48, who doubts if the son did!]

3 S. E. Dawson, "Voyages of the Cabots." Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Series II, 1894, p. 53.]

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effort to colonize for another eighty years, and the immediate effect of the discovery was not great. The times were not yet ripe. Exploration and land-grabbing were games for kings and not for private endeavor, as the merchants of Bristol had doubtless found; and Henry, as the Milanese ambassador observed, was "not lavish."

Owing to the great demand for fish in a Catholic Europe, however, the shores of Newfoundland soon became the accustomed resort of English, French, and Portuguese.[1] The coast between Canada and Florida, nevertheless, remained practically unexplored, and the maps of the period either break the continent into islands, or connect the two known portions by a fanciful delineation, considered by some students to represent the eastern coast of Asia.[2] Where nothing is certain, all is possible, and it was thought that the passage to the East, so vainly sought elsewhere, might yet be found in this unknown part of the world. In 1524, Verrazano, under the flag of France, and, a year later, Gomez, under that of Spain, undertook again the task of finding a westward route to Zipangu and Cathay. The Frenchman, apparently, coasted northward from Carolina to Newfoundland, and the Spaniard seems to have covered part of the same range, though the limits are not known, nor even the direction in which he sailed.[3]

The three main contestants for empire in North America had now appeared. Spain, France, and England had all planted their flags upon our shores, although their future struggles were as yet hardly foreshadowed. The fishing grounds, on the high seas and far from the routes of Spain’s gold- laden galleons, were open to all, though the English seem early to have established some sort of authority over the rough fishermen of the nations

[1. Cf.H. Harrisse, The Discovery of North America (London, 1892), pp. 180 ff.; and C. de la Roncière, Histoire de la Marine Française (Paris, 1906), vol. II, p. 399.]

[2. Cf.H. Stevens, Historical and Geographical Notes; New Haven, 1869.]

[3. For the Verrazano voyage, vide B. Smith, An Enquiry into the Authenticity etc.; New York, 1864; J. C. Brevoort, Verrazano the Navigator; New York, 1874; H. C. Murphy, The Voyage of Verrazano; New York, 1875; B. F. deCosta, Verrazano the Explorer; New York, 1881. The Gomez voyage is important but very obscure. The statement by Fiske (The Discovery of America, vol. II, p. 491) is far too positive. Harrisse (Discovery, pp. 229-43) gives new documents.]

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gathered there.[1] The continent itself, however, was merely an unwelcome barrier, save the Spanish possessions in the south, with which, as yet, no other nation had thought of meddling. Nevertheless, a new era had opened, and commerce, which, from the dawn of history, had clung to the Mediterranean, now abandoned that enclosed sea for the open highways of the world’s oceans. The Oriental trade began to flow through new channels, and Spain, by the conquest of Mexico, in 1522, tapped unlimited sources of the precious metals. The enormous import business from the East, formerly concentrated in the hands of the great mercantile cities of Italy, passed to the Iberian powers,[2] while men’s horizons were widened by the new discoveries, and old established methods, routes, and connections had received severe shocks. The example of Spain and Portugal was making other nations dream of gaining fabulous wealth by finding their way to the riches of the Orient, or gold in the wilds of America.

For the next four centuries, the civilization of Europe, which throughout the mediæval period had been hemmed within a narrow region by strong barbaric powers, was able to expand against almost negligible resistance, until, after having encircled the world, it is again faced in our own day by a "closed political system."[3] At the very moment when new forces were being let loose by the social ferment following the Renaissance and the Reformation, the new lands offered vents through which those forces might in part escape, without causing such explosions as wholly to wreck the social system. Their presence, or, to phrase it differently, the existence of a practically unlimited frontier, during the whole of our colonial period, was

[1. "The Englishmen, who commonly are lords of the harbors where they fish, and do use all strangers helpe in fishing if need require, accordinge to an old custome of the countrey." Letter of Anthony Parkhurst, 1578, in Hakluyt, Voyages (Glasgow, 1904), vol. VIII, p. 10. H. P. Biggar states that the English were so heavily interested in the American fisheries by 1522, that the Vice-Admiral sent several men-of-war to the mouth of the Channel to protect the returning vessels. Early Trading Companies of New France (Toronto, 1901), p. 20.]

[2. Cf.W. Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels in Mittelälter (Stuttgart, 1879), vol. II, pp. 514-40.]

[3. H. J. Mackinder, "The Geographical Pivot of History," in The Geographical Journal, April, 1904, pp. 421-44.]

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one of the great formative elements in our institutions, and the relations between the colonies and England.

We are so accustomed to think of that country as the great trading nation and mistress of the seas, that it is hard to conceive of a time when she had not even faintly dreamed that her destiny was to be upon the water, when her trade was still mainly in the hands of foreigners, and she herself was merely a producer of raw materials for the manufacturers on the continent. Such, however, was the situation at the opening of the sixteenth century. Men, indeed, began to talk of the new discoveries, which were even introduced into the rude theatre of the time; but, in the main, they stuck to their last, and fished and grew wool like their fathers. As yet, there was not the vaguest thought of a colonial empire-- only dreams of gold and spices, and the silent fishermen catching cod.

The accession of Elizabeth opened the door to imperial ambition. Spain was, indeed, at the height of her power, where England’s day was yet to come. Elizabeth’s resources needed careful husbanding, and no open breach between the two countries could be allowed; but political interests were still European in the minds of statesmen, and peace, though many times in jeopardy, was not to be broken lightly for what English seamen might do "beyond the line." America was a means to European ends for Spain, and, until the depredations of the English became so great as to threaten those ends, murder, robbery, and the looting of cities passed with no action beyond protests, which Elizabeth met and parried.

We must pass by the doings of Hawkins, Drake, and the other sea-dogs, the whole pack of whom were soon in full cry after the hated Spaniards in their slow-moving galleons, laden with the treasure upon which their European power was nourished. This latter fact was now recognized, and wild and, perhaps, unlawful as were these English seamen, we must remember that, unlike common pirates, their depredations were not alone for private ends, but were blows struck for their religion, their country, and their queen. Had it not been for them, the Armada might indeed have been invincible, and the

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civilization of North America have been Latin instead of Anglo-Saxon.[1]

One of the outstanding characteristics of the later Tudor period was the remarkable development of individual initiative. Men were no longer content "ever like sheepe to haunte one trade," but in every field of human endeavor were striking across new paths. It was, moreover, an age of glorious amateurs. As in the best days of Greece, the bars that bound the individual within narrow limits of professionalism were broken asunder. It was as if to the nation’s mature powers had suddenly been added the gift of youth. It was a cry of youth which Thorne uttered when he swept away all objections to the dangers of the Northwest Passage with his "there is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable." Elizabeth’s well-known methods, which perhaps temperament, necessity, and policy all had their share in fashioning, were admirably adapted to bring out, and to use to the utmost, these qualities in her subjects. Personal loyalty and individual initiative were largely fostered in place of taxation and governmental enterprise, and the patriotism of a united nation rose to new levels. "He is not worthy to live at all," wrote Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1576, "that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his countries service, and his owne honour."[2]

This growing national feeling was strengthened by religious motives. The persecutions under Mary, and the tortures of the Inquisition, to which English sailors were so often subjected in the ports of Spain, both played their part in the drama now being enacted. Five thousand English volunteered for service against the Spaniard in the Netherlands, and the Queen’s hand was being forced by the national feeling that she

[1. If "these thinges be sett downe and executed duelye and with speed and effecte, no doubte but the Spanishe empire falles to the grounde, and the Spanishe kinge shall be lefte bare as Aesops proude crowe . . . if you touche him in the Indies, you touche the apple of his eye; for take away his treasure, which is neruus belli, and which he hath almoste oute of his West Indies, his olde bandes of souldiers will soone be dissolved, his purposes defeated, his power and strengthe diminished, his pride abated, and his tyranie utterly suppressed." R. Hakluyt, "A Discourse concerning Western Planting"; Maine Historical Society Collections, vol. II, p. 59.]

[2. Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. VIII, p. 190.]

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herself had aroused. The conquest of Portugal by Spain, in 1580, nominally transferred to the latter all the colonial possessions of the entire world she did not already possess, leaving no room open for other nations, according to Spanish pretensions. The English government at last spoke, however, and in the same year, in answer to Spain’s demand for the return of Drake’s plunder, announced that Spain "by the law of nations could not hinder other princes from freely navigating those seas and transporting colonies to those parts where the Spaniards do not inhabit; that prescription without possession availed nothing."[1] The rights of other nations were definitely settled by the defeat of the Armada eight years later. Business was beginning to improve somewhat after its long decline. The Muscovy Company had been chartered in 1555, and trade was seeking those new outlets which Sebastian Cabot had been recalled from Spain to find; but England felt the effects of the vast injection of American bullion into the currency system of Europe later than the continental countries. After the recoinage of the debased money in 1559, however, the advance in prices, which had already begun, was very rapid, with effects upon the country gentry and other classes, which were to have a marked influence upon American colonization.

In the meantime, while Drake was hastening home from the Pacific in the Pelican, loaded to the gunwales with the spoils of Spanish treasure-ships, another voyage, the first, except those of fishermen, since the ill-fated escapade of a London lawyer in 1536, was being made to the shores of Newfoundland. The motive was the old continuing one of a passage to the Orient by the northwest, although little is known of its details. The Queen, however, granted to its leader, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a patent to colonize and rule such lands as he might choose from his new discoveries. This patent, which was issued in 1578, and marked a new epoch in England’s American policy, followed in many respects the charters of the trading companies

[1. Cited by Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States (Boston, 1890), pp. 9 f. The original source is not indicated.]

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granted by the Crown both previously and subsequently.[1] It had, however, a wholly novel feature in the clause which permitted Gilbert to transport a colony to his new possessions. It is probable that this first attempt to plant an English community beyond the seas was largely based upon the experience being gained at this very time in the efforts to colonize Ireland. Sir Humphrey himself, with other west-country gentlemen, had undertaken to plant colonies on the Crown lands in Ulster, eleven years before, and various plans and essays had been made, though unsuccessfully.[2] These colonizing schemes in Ireland were being considered and carried out during the whole period of the early efforts to plant colonies in America, and many individuals and city companies were interested in Irish and American lands at the same time. Both were almost equally wild and uncivilized, and both were rich and undeveloped.[3] The Irish Plantation Society, formed in 1613, was a serious rival to the Virginia Company, and diverted both funds and colonists at a critical time for the American scheme.[4]

The beginnings of the continental American colonies, indeed, are too apt to be considered as isolated events. Their unique importance from the standpoint of American history has tended to obscure their real nature. From that standpoint, they are naturally viewed as the founding of a great nation; but if they are considered solely in that relation, not only the planting of the colonies themselves, but the subsequent history of their relations with the mother-country, and the whole course of England’s old colonial policy, are bound to be misunderstood. The American colonies, in their inception, were largely business ventures of groups of individuals or joint-stock companies, and, as such, were but episodes in the expansion of English commerce.

[1. It is given in Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. VIII, pp. 17-23.]

[2. W. Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce (Cambridge, 1892), vol. II, pp. 31-33.]

[3. M. J. Bonn, Die Englische Kolonisation in Irland (Stuttgart, 1906), vol. I, pp. 265-373.]

[4. Brown, Genesis, p. 860.]

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The patents and charters issued to companies for trade and discovery, prior to that of Gilbert, contained the germs of most of the provisions which subsequently found their way into the charters of American colonies, and the ideas of colonial administration. Monopoly of trade for a definite time was naturally granted, as recompense for the great expense and risk involved in opening new channels. The trades, moreover, were also justly regulated for the benefit of England rather than of the few individuals who were shareholders in the enterprises. Hence, we find stipulations such as that in the Cabot charter of 1496, requiring all business done under it to pass through the port of Bristol only; or that in the charter of 1566, to the Fellowship of English Merchants, requiring that all goods must be carried solely in English ships, manned for the most part with English sailors.[1] These and other restrictions were the germs of a domestic economic policy which, although reasonable enough in its inception, was to be pregnant with such fatal results when pursued consistently, and without taking into consideration the altered conditions brought about by the unexpectedly tremendous growth and political needs of those particular colonies planted by certain trading companies or individuals in America.

Under the system of international intercourse prevailing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was found necessary to provide some sort of government and authority for the groups of English merchants, and their clerks, residing in foreign countries. The problem was met, in 1404, by Henry IV, who granted a charter to those resident in the Teutonic countries of northern Europe, permitting them to meet together to elect their own governors, and to make their own laws, the king ratifying and requiring obedience to such legislation in advance.[2] In 1462, Edward IV, in a charter to those resident in the Netherlands, appointed the governor, but allowed the merchants to elect twelve "Justiciers," who were to sit with

[1. Hakluyt, Voyages, vols. VII, p. 144, and III, p. 89.]

[2. Ibid., vol. II, p. 108; cf. also the earlier charter of Richard II (1391), cited by C. T. Carr, Select Charters of Trading Companies (Selden Society, London, 1913), pp. xi ff.]

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him as a court. The merchants were also to make their own laws, which, however, had to be approved by the royal governor. When it was no longer a question of trading in a civilized country, but of discovering new ones, unoccupied, or occupied only by heathen, the discoverer was naturally allowed to take possession in the name of the king, and was enfeoffed with the new land, the condition of tenure usually being a fifth of the precious metals found.

In these commercial charters, we thus find the germs of the commonwealth, royal, and proprietary colonies of the seventeenth century. There was no break at the beginning of American history. Nor was there any conscious intention upon England’s part of founding an empire. The English colonies were by-products of British commercial activity, and English "colonial policy" was but a mere phase of her commercial policy. It is only by that light that the development of events can be rightly understood.

The lands conveyed to Gilbert were suitable for Englishmen to dwell in and to be made valuable would require to be populated. This, however, raised a new question. Heretofore, men had lived as merchants in foreign but civilized countries, or fished or traded in others. If, now, they were to settle permanently in this barbarous land, would they cease to be Englishmen without becoming anything else? Elizabeth cut the knot by decreeing that such new countries should owe personal allegiance to herself, and, in that way, be united to her "Realmes of England and Ireland"; and, further, that any one born in the new lands, or emigrating thither from the old, should have all the privileges of a free-born native of the Realm.[1] These questions, now first arising, as to whether the settlers in new lands were within or without the Realm, and, if without, then whether they could be held as subject to the government that functioned for the Realm, were to become more and more

[1. Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. VIII, p. 20. Professor H. L. Osgood states that "by the realm was usually meant England, Wales, and Berwick on Tweed." The American Colonies in the 17th Century (New York, 1907), vol. III, p. 6. In Gilbert’s charter, the words "realmes of England and Ireland" are used. Scotland, of course, was a separate realm.]

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insistent of answer in the days to come. But when Elizabeth granted her patent to Gilbert, little could any one have realized the size of England’s future empire in America, or that that empire would be lost by civil war, in part because the answers to those questions could not be found. The main factor that gave rise to this distinction between the Realm and the Dominions, and that was to be primarily responsible for the failure satisfactorily to adjust the relations between them, was the physical distance, in terms of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, by which they were separated.

Gilbert’s efforts to colonize, however, like those of his half-brother, Raleigh, resulted only in failure. The time was ill chosen, as there was still work enough for enterprising spirits, and the employment of capital, in other directions. Under the stimulus of the defeat of the Armada, English seamen scoured the sea in search of Spanish prey, and it has been estimated that eight hundred Spanish vessels were lost in four years.[1] If in the light of such opportunities, colonizing seemed but a poor investment, voyaging and discovery, nevertheless, proceeded at a rapid rate. But New England, in spite of its being so near the field of English activities in the fisheries, was neglected, although its coast may occasionally have been visited by enterprising souls like Richard Strong, who sailed to "Arambec," in 1593, in search of "sea-Oxen."[2]

The land itself seems not to have been thought worth investigating until Bartholomew Gosnold made a clandestine voyage thither, to his own profit, and to Raleigh’s annoyance, in 1602. Formerly, this little trading trip of Gosnold’s, undertaken for the Earl of Southampton, Lord Cobham, and others, was thought to have been a serious attempt at colonization with the consent of Raleigh, the sphere of operations lying within the limits of his patent. The voyage thus secured more attention from historians than it deserved. Apparently some sort of permanent trading-post was, indeed, intended, as of the thirty-two persons who went to America, twenty were expected

[1. Brown, Genesis, p. 20.]

[2. Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. VIII, p. 157.]

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to "remayne there for population."[1] "None did, however; and after having visited Massachusetts Bay, christened Cape Cod, and spent some time on the island of Cuttyhunk, where they built a fort, and loaded their ship with sassafras, the whole company returned to England, after an absence of four months. Raleigh, ignorant of the episode, but finding the "sassephrase" market taking a sudden drop, investigated, and the fact of the voyage came to light. Although he confiscated the cargo, he became reconciled with both Gosnold and his own nephew, Bartholomew Gilbert, who also had had a hand in the business, and both were subsequently employed in Virginia.[2]

In the following year, Raleigh’s consent was obtained by Hakluyt and some merchants of Bristol, to the sending out of another expedition, under Martin Pring, with some of Gosnold’s men aboard, for the purposes of trade.[3] The little company, in their two vessels, coasted along the shores of Maine, explored Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Harbor, overlooked by Gosnold, and having loaded their ships with the much-desired sassafras, went back to England, to confirm Gosnold’s good opinion of the country. This was to receive still further confirmation from Weymouth two years later.

During these two years Elizabeth had died, and Raleigh had been convicted of treason. Such rights as he may have possessed to the land of North Virginia were ignored, therefore, when the Earl of Southampton, Thomas Arundell, and others dispatched Weymouth to find a suitable place for colonizing in the parts visited by Gosnold and Pring. This was the real intent of the expedition, although it was given out that it was for the discovery of the Northwest Passage.[4] There is some

[1. S. Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (ed. Glasgow, 1905), vol. XVIII, p. 302.]

[2. The clandestine nature of the voyage is proved by B. F. de Costa, "Gosnold and Pring," in N. E. Historical and Genealogical Register, 1878, vol. XXXII, pp. 76-80.]

[3. Purchas, Pilgrimes, vol. XVIII, pp. 322-28.]

[4. "We found the land a place answerable to the intent of our discovery, viz. fit for any nation to inhabit." "Rosier’s Relation," in Burrage, Early English and French Voyages (New York, 1906), p. 371. Sir F. Gorges, "A Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings, etc., 1658," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Series III, vol. VI, p. 50.]

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evidence that the proposed colony was to be for Roman Catholics. At least, Sir George Peckham and Sir Thomas Gerrard, who claimed to be assignees of the Gilbert patent, had secured the privilege for Romanists of becoming colonists, and the Earl of Southampton and his leading associates in the present venture were of that faith.[1] Weymouth spent about a month on the coast, exploring the shores about the St. George’s Islands and the river of the same name.[2]

The English, however, had not been the only explorers upon the New England coast, nor to them only had it begun to appeal as a possible place for colonizing. For the French, as well as the English, the sixteenth century in America had been a period of exploration, of staking out of vague claims, and of unsuccessful efforts to establish permanent settlements. The first decade of the seventeenth was to witness the success of both nations in the latter undertaking, the English at Jamestown in 1607, and the French at Quebec but one year later, so close was the race between them. In the territory of New England, however, both nations were to try, and fail, within the same period; and citizens of both countries had already, from time to time, received grants of undefined extension in that general part of the world, when finally a charter with definite bounds was assigned by the French King to the Sieur de Monts, in 1603. This grant embraced all the territory between the 40th and 46th degrees of latitude, or from Philadelphia to Montreal.

The issuance of this patent was immediately followed by an attempt at settlement, de Monts and Champlain, both of whom had previously been in Canada, sailing with a hundred and twenty men in the spring following the receipt of the grant. Buildings were erected, and the first winter passed on the island of St. Croix, in the mouth of the river of the same name, which empties into Passamaquoddy Bay.[3] It was thus the first

[1. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1574- 1660, p. 695 (hereafter cited as Cal. State Pap., Col.); J. P. Baxter, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (Prince Society, Boston, 1890), vol. I, p. 65.]

[2. The river was formerly thought to be the Kennebec. Cf. Burrage, Early Voyages. In Burrage’s edition of Rosier’s Relation (Gorges Society, Portland, 1887), there is an exhaustive survey of the literature.]

[3. H. S. Burrage, Beginnings of Colonial Maine (Portland, 1914), p. 32.]

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authorized attempt to colonize any part of New England. The choice of a site had been unfortunate, and in the following spring, the colony removed to Nova Scotia, where it lasted two years more before the cancellation of the grant resulted in its abandonment. A lively and entertaining account of life in the colony was written by a genial lawyer, who was one of its members, and the attention with which American affairs were then being watched is indicated by the appearance of an English translation in the same year in which the original came out in Paris.[1] During the three years of his stay, Champlain was indefatigable in exploring the coast, making three principal voyages along the shores of New England, which he described and mapped as far south as the present settlement of Chatham, in Massachusetts.

The coast of Maine and the shores of Massachusetts Bay were carefully studied for sites for settlement, and the former was for long to form a debatable land between French and English. These years also saw the foundation laid of the friendship between French and Indian, which was to cost the English dear. De Monts’s patent contemplated trade with the natives, rather than an agricultural colony; and the French empire in America, as has already been noted, consisted mainly of a series of trading-posts. It was to the interest of the French that the Indian should remain, as he himself wished, a hunter; whereas the growth of the English agricultural colonies denied him the possibility of continuing his savage life, without, on the other hand, absorbing him into civilization. It was not merely that the French, in the main, were tactful and friendly, accepting the Indian as he was, and even intermarrying, while the English were harsh and disdainful. It may be said that one Indian required to sustain his life approximately as many square miles as the English agriculturist, with his domestic animals, needed acres. On the other hand, the uses to which the French put the soil were identical with those for which it served the savage. The English, indeed, "bought" land, which the French never did; but the French and the Indian shared the soil to the profit

[1. Marc Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France; Paris, 1609.]

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[image: Manuscript Map of the New England Coast, 1607-8 (Believed to Have Been drawn by Champlain)]

of both, while the English deprived the native of his means of subsistence, in exchange for coats and beads.[1] Not that they did so intentionally; but the consequence was inevitable. Nor was it the Indian alone who was to fall before the farmer and founder of towns. The French coureurs des bois, and traders in the scattered posts, were likewise to fall and, in part, for the same reason.

Nevertheless, at the time of the first authorized English attempt to colonize New England, the French were, if anything, ahead in the race. Champlain’s knowledge of the coast and its possibilities was quite as accurate, probably, as that of Gosnold or Pring or Weymouth, though English writers usually give many pages to the latter trio while dismissing Champlain in a line or two. A definite grant of the territory had been made, and the first colony of their hereditary enemy was seemingly successfully started within the limits of the English patent, when King James affixed his signature to that document. A struggling little settlement in Virginia, however, was to prove the undoing of the French in the north, and win the New England coast for the English, though not without further effort on the part of its future settlers. But, whatever the local successes of French or English, it must not be forgotten that the colonies of both nations were mere pawns in the game of European policy, and that the allegiance of the colonist was to be determined in the last analysis, not by their own comparative strength on faraway shores, but by the strength which the two nations could put forth in their navies on the sea.

[1. Ellis, The Red Man, p. 242; J. Winsor, "The Rival Claimants for North America," American Antiquarian Society Proceedings, 1894, pp. 415-17.]