Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

In 1637 the Swedes made a settlement at the mouth of the Delaware
River, but in 1655 they were subdued by the Dutch.

SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA.—The Virginia Company, divided into two branches,—the London Company, having control in the South, and the Plymouth Company, having control in the North,—received its patent of privileges from James I. (1606). A settlement by the Plymouth Company on the Kennebec River (1607)—the Popham Colony—was given up. In 1607 Jamestown in Virginia, as the name Virginia is now applied, was settled. A majority of the first colonists were gentlemen not wonted to labor. The military leader was Capt. John Smith, whose life, according to his own account, was spared by Powhatan, an Indian chief. Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas married Rolfe, an Englishman. The Jamestown colony seemed likely to become extinct, when, in 1610, Lord Delaware arrived with fresh supplies and colonists. He was the first of a series of governors who ruled with almost unlimited authority. But the colony grew to be more independent, and in sympathy with the popular party in England. In 1619 the House of Burgesses first met, which brought in government by the people. At this time negroes began to be imported from Africa, and sold as slaves.

THE PILGRIM SETTLEMENT.—The first permanent settlement in New England was made at Plymouth in 1620, by a company of English Christians, who landed from the "Mayflower." They were Puritans of that class called "Independents," who had separated from the English Church, and did not believe in any national church organization. The emigrants left Leyden, in Holland, where they had lived for some time in exile, and where the remainder of their congregation remained under the guidance of a learned and able pastor, John Robinson. In the harbor of Provincetown, they agreed to a compact of government. Their civil polity was republican; their church polity was Congregational. They endured with heroic and pious fortitude the severities of the first winter, when half of their number died. Their military leader was Capt. Miles Standish. In their dealings with the Indians, they were equally just and brave.

SETTLEMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS.—Somewhat different in its origin and character from the "Pilgrim" settlement at Plymouth, was the other Puritan settlement of Massachusetts. The emigrants to Massachusetts were not separatists from the Church of England, but more conservative Puritans who desired, however, many ecclesiastical changes which they could not obtain at home. Both classes of settlers, transferred to New England, found no difficulty in agreeing in religious matters; for when left free, they desired about the same things. But at Plymouth there was more toleration for religious dissent than in the later colony. In 1629 certain London merchants formed a corporation called "the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," and received a charter directly from Charles I. They sent out John Endicott to be governor of a settlement already formed at Salem. Charles had dissolved Parliament, and was beginning the experiment of absolutism. The new company was strengthened by the accession of a large number of Puritan gentlemen who were anxious to emigrate. They resolved to transfer the company and its government to the shores of America. John Winthrop was chosen governor, and in 1630 landed at Charlestown with a large body of settlers. Winthrop and his associates soon removed to the peninsula of Boston. The new colony was well provided with artisans. Soon ships began to be built. In 1636 a college, named in 1639, in honor of a benefactor, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge. At first all the voters met together to choose their rulers and frame their laws. As the towns increased in number, a General Court, or legislative assembly, was established by the colony, in which each town was represented. Each town had its church, and only church-members voted. The General Court superintended the affairs of both town and church. The political troubles in England stimulated emigration. Within ten years, about twenty thousand Englishmen, mainly Puritans, crossed the Atlantic, and took up their abode in New England. In the ecclesiastical system each church was self-governing, except as the General Court was over all. There were no bishops, and the liturgy was dispensed with in worship.

SETTLEMENT OF CONNECTICUT.—After the Dutch had built a trading-post on the site of Hartford, people from Plymouth formed a settlement at Windsor, on the Connecticut, six miles above. From Boston and its neighborhood, there was a migration which settled Hartford. In 1637 the three towns of Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford became the distinct colony of Connecticut. A colony led by the younger John Winthrop, under a patent given to Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brook, drove away the Dutch from the mouth of the Connecticut, and settled Saybrook (1635). This colony was afterwards united with the Connecticut colony. A third colony was established at New Haven (1638), which had an independent existence until 1662.

SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND OF MAINE.—Roger Williams, a minister who was not allowed to live in Massachusetts, on account of his differences with the magistrates, was the founder of Rhode Island (1636). He held that the State should leave matters of religious opinion and worship to the conscience of the individual, and confine government to secular concerns. This was not the view of the Puritans generally; and the incoming of dissenters from their religious and political system made them afraid that the colony would be broken up, or fall into disorder. Williams, in most of his qualities a noble man, obtained a patent for his government, which was framed in accordance with his liberal ideas. On lands granted by the Plymouth Company to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, settlements were made in New Hampshire and in Maine (1623). A line between the two was drawn in 1631; Gorges taking the territory on the east of the Piscataqua River, and Capt. John Mason taking the remainder.

VIRGINIA.—After 1624 the king appointed the governor in Virginia, which, however, had its own assembly. The colony grew rapidly, its chief export being tobacco. The people lived on their estates or plantations, employing indented servants and negro slaves.

MARYLAND.—Maryland was founded by George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic, to whom Charles I. granted a charter (1632). The first settlement was made by Calvert's sons, after his death. They planted a colony near the mouth of the Potomac. The Calverts sent out both Puritans and Roman Catholics, and secured the safety of the adherents of their own faith by the grant of toleration to the Protestants. Under Cromwell, a Puritan governor was appointed by Lord Baltimore (1649). There were boundary disputes with Virginia; and Clayborne, a Puritan and a Virginian, at one time got control of the government, which the Calverts regained under Charles II. (1660).

NEW ENGLAND: NEW YORK.—During the war between king and Parliament in England, the Puritan colonies were in sympathy with the popular party, but were cautious in their avowals. They took great pains to prevent the king, and later the Parliament under the Commonwealth, from taking away their self-government. The English navigation acts, which forbade them to use foreign ships for their trade and forced them to send nearly all their products to English ports, were a grievance to them. The rivalries of the English and the Dutch gave the colonists a chance to expel the Dutch from Connecticut. Charles II. at length conquered New Netherland, and ceded this territory to his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II. New Amsterdam became New York, and Fort Orange became Albany. In 1674 the country was formally ceded to England by Holland.

THE INDIANS.—When America was discovered, Mexico, Central America, and Peru were empires, to a considerable degree civilized. Relics taken from the mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys indicate, also, that races somewhat advanced in culture had once dwelt in those regions. The most of both continents was inhabited by very numerous tribes of Indians, who were savages, with the ordinary virtues and vices of savage life. They were brave and patient, but indolent, treacherous, and implacable. There was an immense variety of dialects among them, yet there are traces of a common original unity of language. The tribes had no fixed boundaries, but roamed over extensive hunting-grounds. The Iroquois, or the Six Nations, occupied central New York from the Hudson to the Genesee. The Algonquins were spread over nearly all the rest of the country on the east of the Mississippi River, and north of North Carolina. The Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws were in the South.