VOICES FROM AMERICA’S PAST
THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA
1607-1763
Edited by Richard B. Morris Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Columbia University New York, New York
James Woodress Chairman, Department of English San Fernando Valley State College Northridge, California
WEBSTER PUBLISHING COMPANY
ST. LOUIS ATLANTA DALLAS PASADENA
VOICES FROM AMERICA’S PAST The Beginnings of America 1607-1763 The Times That Tried Men’s Souls 1770-1783 The Age of Washington 1783-1801 The Jeffersonians 1801-1829 Jacksonian Democracy 1829-1848 The Westward Movement 1832-1889 A House Divided: The Civil War 1850-1865 (Other titles in preparation)
Copyright ©, 1961, by Webster Publishing Company Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Preface] v I Settlements North and South [The Founding of Jamestown] 1 [William Simmonds Describes the Settlers’ Problems] 2 [John Smith’s Adventures] 4 [The Founding of Plymouth] 9 [William Bradford’s History Of Plymouth Plantation] 9 [John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony] 17 [Cotton Mather Describes John Winthrop] 18 [John Winthrop’s Letters to His Wife] 19 II Religious Life in America [New England] 22 [Edward Taylor’s Poems] 23 [The Salem Witch Trials] 25 [Samuel Sewall’s Confession of Error] 30 [The Great Awakening: Jonathan Edwards] 30 [Other Colonies] 33 [John Woolman’s Journal] 33 III Colonial Problems [Indian Troubles] 37 [Mrs. Rowlandson’s Captivity] 38 [Conflict with France] 42 [George Washington’s Letter on Braddock’s Defeat] 42 [Benjamin Franklin’s Comments on Braddock] 44 IV Colonial Life [Transportation] 46 [Sarah Kemble Knight Journeys to Connecticut] 46 [Life in the South] 49 [William Byrd, a Virginia Gentleman] 49 [William Byrd Sees North Carolina] 50 [William Byrd Visits Colonel Spotswood] 52 [Life in a City] 52 [From Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography] 53
The excerpt from Of Plymouth Plantation, by William Bradford, edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, which begins on [page 11], was reprinted by permission of Alfred Knopf, Inc., 1952.