In the first chapter we called attention to the importance of the Appalachian barrier in long confining the process of colonizing within bounds, and preventing that wide dispersion which rendered so precarious the hold of France upon its far larger American empire. The relation of area to barrier, in that section chosen by the English, was, indeed, almost ideal for the formation of colonies, and, subsequently, of a nation through their union. While the mountains kept the original settlements within bounds until their population and institutions had both had opportunity to develop and take strong root, the extent of the continental mass behind, simple in its physiographic features, was sufficient for the growth of almost unlimited numbers and a unified state, and, so, for the effective influence upon the world of whatever form of culture might there arise. The West Indian colonies, on the other hand, in spite of their rapid growth, could not fail, eventually, to become politically unimportant, merely from their limited area and resulting limited population. Barbadoes, for example, comprised only one hundred and sixty-six square miles, the equivalent of one seventh of the land-surface of Rhode Island, or one fiftieth of that of Massachusetts. Within a century from its settlement, it contained no ungranted or uncultivated land—a condition which must have been approximated long before.[[423]] The possibility of growth, beyond a certain point, was, therefore, lacking in the islands, and, from the same cause, their development was to a great extent uninfluenced by another factor, which was of marked importance in the continental colonies and the nation for two centuries and a half. This factor was the constantly advancing frontier, with its radical reactions upon the thought and institutions of the also constantly expanding older settlements.
American political thought has been moulded, to a very great extent, by the two ideals, of unrestricted competition in exploiting the resources of the continent, and of a democracy fostered by the semi-isolated and self-reliant life of the frontier, with its comparative equality of opportunity and of economic status. Both these ideals, until a recent period, were developed by the presence of free land, in which they had largely had their origin.[[424]] As we have already pointed out, land in New England, in the earliest period, was to be obtained without either purchase price or rent, to which fact, perhaps, had been due the large non-Puritan immigration that mingled with the religious stream from 1630 to 1640.
It is also to the influence of the frontier that the American intellect owes some of its most marked characteristics: its restlessness, its preoccupation with the practical, its lack of interest in the æsthetic and philosophical, its desire for ends and neglect of means, its preference of cleverness to training, its self-confidence, its individualism, and its extreme provinciality. The influence, moreover, has been a continuing one, for almost every decade in American history, until 1890, witnessed the creation of a new frontier, which lay just a little beyond the settled regions, and reacted upon them.[[425]]
In describing the first expansion of the New England frontier, therefore, we are concerned with the earliest manifestation of one of the most potent forces in American history. The fringe of little settlements along the coast had been, indeed, the frontier of Europe; but with the planting of settlements farther inland, an American frontier came into existence, to react upon what, with the rapid movement of time characteristic of a new country, soon became the conservative, older East. That frontier has always been the refuge of the restless and the discontented, of those who have desired a freer, if not greater, economic opportunity, as well as of those who have been unable to adjust themselves to the prosaic life of a settled community, with its penalties of one sort or another for such as will not yield at least lip-service to its social, religious, or political beliefs. In Massachusetts there was no more room—if, indeed, there were as much—for those who disagreed with the authorities in any particular, than there had been at home; and those who came to that colony in the hope of enjoying any larger degree of religious toleration or civil liberty than in England were promptly disillusioned. About the time of the last events described in the preceding chapter, the prospects for freedom of thought or action must have looked as dark to the dwellers in Massachusetts not wholly in sympathy with the rulers' policy, as it had looked to those same rulers in the old country, when they met at the Earl of Lincoln's, and decided to remove to the wilderness. The opposition having become the government, it was now forcing a new opposition to follow the same course, involuntarily by banishment or voluntarily by free migration. Before continuing the story of that movement, however, we must allude briefly to that portion of the European frontier which lay northward of the Puritan settlements, and which, like them, had been formed by immigration from the Old World.
During the period we are now discussing, the history of Maine was the story of confused grants of territory and of the planting of small isolated farming, fishing, and trading communities. The existence led by the inhabitants, in their solitary shacks or little villages, was that of a rough border life in which the monotony of the hard, bitter winters, and the routine of planting, fishing, or bargaining for furs, was punctuated by an occasional murder among themselves, and by quarrels, sometimes bloody, with the Indians and the French.
In 1629, the Province of Maine, as granted to Mason and Gorges seven years previously, was divided between them, Mason accepting as his share that portion lying between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua,—which received the name of New Hampshire,—while Gorges retained the balance, extending from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec.[[426]] Mention has previously been made of the small beginnings at Pemaquid, Sheepscot, and Monhegan to the eastward, and of Portsmouth and Dover in what now became Mason's particular province. The settlements next planted, at Richmond's Island, Pejebscot, around Casco Bay, and elsewhere, were the work of servants for English merchants or of individual emigrants, and were hampered by the conflicting claims arising from the carelessly drawn patents.[[427]] Gorges himself became interested in a new attempt to colonize, and his nephew, William, was sent over as governor of a little colony planted at York, which later was to become the subject of one of those grandiose schemes of government to which the old knight was so uncontrollably addicted.[[428]] All of these early plantings, however, were of slight historical importance.
Although settlement was proceeding slowly and painfully, the vast forests and many rivers of the province offered a rich field for the exploitation of the fur trade, which was the main object of the French in the north, and one of the principal resources of the English settlements as well. The traffic, indeed, had been the means by which the Plymouth Pilgrims had bought their freedom from their merchant partners, and we have already noted that colony's activities on the Kennebec. A tragic incident that occurred at their little post on that stream, located at what is now Augusta, is of interest mainly as revealing the aggressive attitude which was later to become the settled policy of the Massachusetts colony in relation to its neighbors. Early in 1634, one Hocking, a fellow employed in an enterprise of Lords Say, Brook, and others, on the Piscataqua, tried to poach upon the Pilgrims' patented lands, and even to pass the trading station, in order to intercept the Indians carrying their furs. The Pilgrims' agents acted with restraint; but in the course of the dispute, Hocking wantonly killed one of their men; whereupon a companion of the slain man, “that loved him well,” as Bradford records, shot Hocking dead.[[429]]
Although the Plymouth men had been entirely in the right, a garbled version of the affair was sent to England and also to Massachusetts. Needless to point out, that colony had absolutely no jurisdiction whatever in the quarrel, which had occurred far outside its bounds, and not even in the unclaimed wilderness, but within the legal limits of its older neighbor. Nevertheless, the authorities at Boston arrested John Alden, one of the Plymouth magistrates, who happened to be there at the moment, and who had been at the Kennebec when the affray occurred.[[430]] This was naturally resented, even by the peace-loving Pilgrims, and letters requesting Alden's release were dispatched by the Plymouth government to Dudley. One of these, at least, that governor tried to suppress, but “Captaine Standish requiring an answer thereof publickly in the courte,” he was forced to produce it.[[431]] Alden was released, but Standish, who had been the bearer of the letter, was bound over to appear at the next Massachusetts court, to testify to the Pilgrims' patent. Finally, after Winslow and Bradford themselves had gone to Boston and conferred with Winthrop, the matter was adjusted, and Dudley and Winthrop wrote to the Lords in England the true version of the murder; but it was not likely that the other settlements would soon forget the high-handed proceedings of the Bay Colony in an affair so obviously beyond its jurisdiction.[[432]]
But the trading post on the Kennebec was not the sole concern of the Pilgrims in Maine, nor was that province the scene merely of contentions arising from conflicting English land-grants, or from rival colonial jurisdictions. It had been the stage on which the curtain had first risen in the struggle for empire between England and France, and was now to witness new episodes in that long drama. Still farther north the contest had recently become acute. Sir William Alexander, by virtue of an English grant, had claimed a large portion of French America, and Sir William Kirk had seized Port Royal and Quebec. By the treaty of St. Germain, however, in 1632, England agreed to restore “all places occupied in New France, Acadia, and Canada by the subjects of the King of Great Britain,” although the boundaries of those vaguely localized regions were not specified, and remained matters for contention, which meant raiding and Indian warfare, for over a century to come.[[433]]
Meanwhile, several more places had been occupied by the Pilgrims and those associated with the Plymouth colony. In 1630, a “very profane young man,” Edward Ashley by name, had started a trading post on the Penobscot, which the Pilgrims feared might injure their fur business on the Kennebec.[[434]] In spite of scruples, therefore, they joined with Ashley, and that person having been drowned at sea, after being released from the Fleet prison in London, they came into sole possession.[[435]] They did not long enjoy it in peace, however, for the following year the French descended upon them and carried away all their goods, valued at nearly £500, leaving word with the agents that “some of the Isle of Rey gentlemen had been there.” Allerton, who had broken with the Pilgrims, had also begun to trade, at Machias; and, a couple of years later, suffered in like manner from the French, who killed two of his men, and carried off all the others, as well as the whole stock of goods, which, as Bradford says “was the end of that projecte.”[[436]]