Plymouth Harbor, England.
Harbor of Provincetown, Cape Cod, where the Pilgrims landed.
[1620]
This little band set out for America with a patent from the Virginia
Company, according to James I.'s charter of 1606, but actually began
here as labor-share holders in a sub-corporation of a new organization,
the Plymouth Company, chartered in 1620. Launching in the Mayflower from
Plymouth, where they had paused in their way hither from Holland, they
arrived off the coast of Cape Cod in 1620, December 11th Old Style,
December 21st New Style, and began a settlement, to which they gave the
name Plymouth. Before landing they had formed themselves into a
political body, a government of the people with "just and equal laws."
The Life of the Colony at Cape Cod.
They based their civil authority upon this Mayflower compact,
practically ignoring England. Carver was the first governor, Bradford
the second. The colony was named Plymouth in memory of hospitalities
which its members had received at Plymouth, England, the name having no
connection with the "Plymouth" of the Plymouth Company. The members of
the Plymouth Company had none but a mercantile interest in the
adventure, merely fitting out the colonists and bearing the expense of
the passage for all but the first. On the other hand, the stock was not
all retained in England. Shares were allotted to the Pilgrims as well,
one to each emigrant with or without means, and one for every 10 pounds
invested.
Plymouth early made a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the
neighboring Wampanoags, the peace lasting with benign effects to both
parties for fifty years, or till the outbreak of Philip's War, discussed
in a later chapter. The first winter in Plymouth was one of dreadful
hardships, of famine, disease and death, which spring relieved but in
part. Yet Plymouth grew, surely if slowly. It acquired rights on the
Kennebec, on the Connecticut, at Cape Ann. It was at first a pure
democracy, its laws all made in mass-meetings of the entire body of
male inhabitants; nor was it till 1639 that increase of numbers forced
resort to the principle of representation. In 1643 the population was
about three thousand.
Signatures to Plymouth Patent.
/In witnes whereof the said President & Counsell haue to the one pt of
this pute Indenture sett their seales* And to th'other pt hereof the
said John Peirce in the name of himself and his said Associate haue sett
to his seale geven the day and yeeres first aboue written/
[1626-1630]
Between 1620 and 1630 there were isolated settlers along the whole New
England coast. White, a minister from Dorchester, England, founded a
colony near Cape Ann, which removed to Salem in 1626. The Plymouth
Company granted them a patent, which Endicott, in charge of more
emigrants, brought over in 1628. It gave title to all land between the
Merrimac and Charles Rivers, also to all within three miles beyond each.
These men formed the nucleus of the colony to which in 1629 Charles I.
granted a royal charter, styling the proprietors "the Governor and
Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." Boston was made the
capital. Soon more emigrants came, and Charlestown was settled.
Site of First Church and Governor Bradford's House at Plymouth.
It was a momentous step when the government of this colony was
transferred to New England. Winthrop was chosen Governor, others of the
Company elected to minor offices, and they, with no fewer than one
thousand new colonists, sailed for this side the Atlantic. In
Massachusetts, therefore, a trading company did not beget, as elsewhere,
but literally became a political state. Many of the Massachusetts men,
in contrast with those of Plymouth, had enjoyed high consideration at
home. Yet democracy prevailed here too. The Governor and his eighteen
assistants were chosen by the freemen, and were both legislature and
court. As population increased and scattered in towns, these chose
deputies to represent them, and a lower house element was added to the
General Court, though assistants and deputies did not sit separately
till 1644.