Captain John Smith.
In the same way the Virginians scattered themselves in the fruitful and sunny valleys between the sea and the Alleghanies, and in time created lordly domains and plantations, over which the possessors exercised feudal sway. But this colony, composed originally in the main of gentlemen unused to manual labor, and indisposed to bear patiently the hardships of early settlement, did not become established without many and serious difficulties. The colonists at first hung tents to the trees to shelter them from the sun; and the best of their houses "could neither well defend wind nor rain." Captain John Smith wrote to England, begging his friends there to "rather send thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, and diggers-up of the roots, well provided, than a thousand of such as we have."
Tobacco in Virginia.
The Virginians cultivated tobacco; and in the same year that the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock, the first cargo of African slaves was carried up the James River in a Dutch trading ship. It is an interesting fact that so extensive and profitable was the early cultivation of tobacco in Virginia that it became the general medium of exchange. Debts were paid with it; fines of so much tobacco, instead of so much money, were imposed; a wife cost a Virginian five hundred pounds of the narcotic weed; and even the government accepted it in discharge of taxes.
Virginian Customs.
Virginia early became divided into classes; the landlords being a virtual nobility, the poorer colonists a middle class, and the slaves comprising the lower social stratum. The Church of England was the prevailing sect, and English habits of hospitality and ease of manner replaced the Puritan austerity of the North. Yet Virginia had a severe code of punishments; and at one time, if a man stayed away from church three times without good reason, he was liable to the penalty of death. The Virginians were tolerant of all faiths excepting those of the Quakers and the Roman Catholics. Persons professing these creeds were sternly excluded from the colony.
The Indians.
Just one hundred years before the outbreak of the Revolution, the white population of New England had reached fifty-five thousand: while the Indians, retreating at the approach of the European, had become reduced to two-thirds of that number. The presence of the aborigines on the borders of the whole line of the colonies seemed at first, destined to become fatal to the settlement of the continent. But had it not been for Indian hostility, the colonies might never have grown together and merged, first into a close defensive alliance, and then into a great and united state. It was mainly the sentiment of the common preservation that brought about the intimate relations which gradually grew up between Puritan, Dutchman, and Cavalier.
Indian Wars.
The Puritans treated the Indians with strict justice: Penn made friends of the powerful tribes along the Delaware; and Roger Williams succeeded in conciliating the Narragansetts. But a time came when the Indians saw clearly that they were being pushed further and further back, away from their ancient homes. Then followed the terrible wars which so long threatened the existence of the struggling colonies, and which the dauntless courage and hardihood of the settlers alone rendered vain. King Philip arose, and struggled fiercely for more than a year to exterminate the New England intruders. The Canadian French, jealous of English supremacy on the continent, joined hands with the Indians, and incited them constantly to fresh assaults. These French had explored the Lakes, and the Mississippi as far as what is now New Orleans; and they feared lest the English should deprive them of these western domains.