A Century Too Soon: The Age of Tyranny

by John R. Musick

[Illustration: Stuyvesant.]

On his return to Manhattan, Stuyvesant found the wildest confusion reigning because of a sudden uprising of the Indians. A former civil officer named Van Dyck had a very fine peach orchard which caused him no little annoyance on account of the constant pilfering of the Indians. Van Dyck, had grown exasperated and had vowed to kill the next Indian whom he should discover stealing his fruit. One day while the stout Dutchman was at his midday meal, his son ran in to tell him that he had seen an Indian squaw enter the orchard. Van Dyck sprang from the table vowing vengeance, and from the rack made of deer's horns he took down his fusee and rushed into the orchard, taking care to conceal himself until he was within easy range. The squaw saw him and, with a yell of fear, wheeled to fly for her life; but Van Dyck was a true shot and, bringing his gun to his shoulder, killed her as she ran.

[Illustration: THE SQUAW, WITH A YELL OF FEAR, WHEELED TO FLY FOR HER LIFE.]

The fury of the tribe was kindled, and the long peace of ten years was suddenly broken. One morning before daybreak almost two thousand river Indians in sixty large war-canoes landed, distributed themselves through the town and, under pretence of looking for northern Indians, broke into several dwellings in search of Van Dyck. A council of the inhabitants was immediately held at the fort, and the sachems of the invaders were summoned before them. The Indian leaders agreed to leave the city and pass over to Nutten (now Governor's Island), before sunset; but they broke their promise. That afternoon Van Dyck was discovered, and they opened fire on him. He fled down the street, but was finally shot and killed, and the lives of others were threatened. The people flew to arms and drove the savages to their canoes. The Indians crossed the Hudson and ravaged New Jersey and Staten Island. Within three days a hundred inhabitants were killed, one hundred and fifty made captives, and the estates of three hundred utterly desolated by the dusky foe. In the height of the excitement, Stuyvesant returned and soon brought order out of chaos, yet distant settlements were still broken up, the inhabitants in fear flying to Manhattan for safety. To prevent a like calamity in the future, the governor issued a proclamation ordering all who lived in secluded places in the country to gather themselves into villages "after the fashion of our New Engand neighbors." After some desultory fighting on the frontier, Dutch and Indian hostilities in a great measure ceased, and for about ten years, beyond the threatenings of the English on the one hand and the Indians on the other, New Netherland enjoyed a season of peace and prosperity.

The New England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island and a part of the Mason and Gorges claim, had, in 1644, formed a confederacy. The New England Confederacy--the harbinger of the United States of America--was simply a league of independent provinces, as were the thirteen states under the "Articles of Confederation," each jealously guarding its own privileges and rights against any encroachments of the general government. That central body was in reality no government at all. It was composed of a board of commissioners consisting of two church members from each colony, who were to meet annually, or oftener if required. Their duty was to consider circumstances and recommend measures for the general good. They had no executive or independent legislative powers, their recommendations becoming laws only after they had been acted upon and approved by the colonies. The doctrine of state supremacy was controlling. Though it was not a government, or at least only a government in embryo, yet the student can see from these separate colonies, jealous of their rights, the outcoming of the United States.

Of that famous league, Massachusetts assumed control because of her greater population and her superiority as a "perfect republic." It remained in force more than forty years, during which period the government of England was changed three times. When trouble arose between King Charles I. and Parliament, the New Englanders, being Puritans, were in sympathy with the roundheads. In 1649 King Charles lost his throne and life, and England for a brief time became a commonwealth. Unlike the Virginians, the New Englanders sympathized with the English republicans, and found in Oliver Cromwell, the ruler of England next to the beheaded Charles I., a sincere friend and protector. The growth of the colony of Massachusetts was particularly healthy. A profitable commerce between the colony and the West Indies, now that the obnoxious navigation laws were a dead letter, was created. That trade brought bullion, or uncoined gold and silver, into the colony, which led, in 1652, to the exercise of an act of sovereignty on the part of the authorities of Massachusetts by the establishment of a mint. It was authorized by the general assembly, in 1651, and the following year "silver coins of the denomination of threepence, sixpence and twelvepence, or shilling, were struck. This was the first coinage within the territory of the United States."

There lived in Boston at this time a family named Stevens. The head of the family was a white-haired old man named Mathew, whose dark eyes and complexion indicated southern blood. He was a foster-son of the Pilgrim Father, Mr. Robinson, and had come to New England in the Mayflower when she made her first memorable voyage to Plymouth, thirty-two years before.

Mathew Stevens had removed with his family from New Plymouth to Boston the year before the king of England lost his head. This man was a brother to the father of John Stevens of Virginia, and though he had Spanish blood in his veins, he was a Puritan. The Puritan of Massachusetts was, at this time, the straitest of his sect, an unflinching egotist, who regarded himself as eminently his "brother's keeper," whose constant business it was to save his fellow-men from sin and error, sitting in judgment upon their belief and actions with the authority of a divinely appointed high priest. His laws, found on the statute books of the colony, or divulged in the records of court proceedings, exhibit the salient points in his stern and inflexible character, as a self-constituted censor and a conservator of the moral and spiritual destiny of his fellow-mortals. A fine was imposed on every woman wearing her hair cut short like a man's; all gaming for amusement or gain was forbidden, and cards and dice were not permitted in the colony. A father was fined if his daughter did not spin as much flax or wool as the selectmen required of her. No Jesuit or Roman Catholic priest was permitted to make his residence within the colony. All persons were forbidden to run or even walk, "except to and from church" on Sunday, and a burglar, because he committed his crime on that sacred day, was to have one of his ears cut off. John Wedgewood was placed in the stocks for being in the company of drunkards. Thomas Petit, for "suspicion of slander, idleness and stubbornness," was severely whipped. Captain Lowell, a dashing ladies' man, more of a cavalier and modern society fop than a sober Puritan, was admonished to "take heed of his light carriage." The records show that Josias Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, was ordered to return to them eight baskets, to be fined five pounds, and thereafter to "be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr. Plaistowe, as formerly." The grand jurors were directed to admonish those who wore apparel too costly for their income, and, if they did not heed the warning, to fine them, and in the year 1646 there was enacted a law in Massachusetts which imposed a penalty of flogging for kissing a woman on the street, even in the way of honest salute. This law remained in force for a hundred years, though it was practically ignored.

In this school of rigid Puritanism lived the northern family of Stevens, of the same Spanish branch as the Virginia family. The head of the family, having been trained by such devout men as John Robinson and William Brewster, of course grew up in the law and customs of the Puritans. Puritanism to-day has a semblance of fanaticism; but in the age of pioneers, when civilization was in its infancy, the frontierman naturally went to some extreme. Extreme Puritanism is better than the reign of lawlessness which characterized many frontier settlements in later years. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between fanaticism and the keenest sagacity, and the folly of one age may become the wisdom of a succeeding century. Fanatic as the Puritan may be called, he was the sage of New England and gave to that land an impetus in the arts, literature, and science, which has enabled that country to eclipse any other part of the New World.

While New England was steadily progressing, despite changes in the home government, Maryland was without any historical event worth mentioning, save the trouble with Claybourne.