“E’en the best must own,Patience and resignation are the pillarsOf human peace on earth.”Young,Night Thoughts.
“E’en the best must own,Patience and resignation are the pillarsOf human peace on earth.”Young,Night Thoughts.
“E’en the best must own,
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth.”
Young,Night Thoughts.
Happily, God blessed the Pilgrims with an early and mild spring.[168]By the middle of March the birds began to sing; the streams shook off their icy cerements; the rills ran laughing to the sea; Nature put on her gala drapery; the myriad wild-flowers opened their drowsy eyes; the time had come for the ever-marvellous resurrection of the year. The forests seemed instinct with life. On every hill-side nature hymned her praise.
The settlers shared in the buoyant and joyous feeling. They had met and mastered the New England winter. Their houses were built. Their family arrangements were completed; and now “the fair, warm days” of spring, the idyl of the year, were a harbinger of hope.
Careful and provident, the Pilgrims improved this delightful weather in planting. “On the 19th and 20th of March,” says the old chronicler, “we digged our grounds and sowed our garden-seed.”[169]This done, individual members of the communitybegan to stray into the bordering forest, incited thereto partly by natural curiosity to familiarize themselves with the salient local features of their wilderness homes, and partly by the pursuit of game. Sometimes the tyro hunters were startled by strange sights and noises; for to them the dim, still woods were a mystery. “John Goodman was much frightened this day”—so runs the entry in the Journal on one occasion—“he went abroad for a little walk with his spaniel. Suddenly two great wolves ran after the dog, which ran to him and betwixt his legs for succor. He, having nothing with him, threw a stick at one of them, and hit him, and they presently both ran away; but they came again. He got a plain board in his hand, and they sat both on their tails grinning at him a good time. At last they went their way and left him. He could not move fast, as he had lame feet.”[170]
On another occasion a storm is recorded: “At one o’clock it thundered. The birds sang most pleasantly before this. The thunder was strong, and in great claps, followed by rain very sadly till midnight.”[171]
Thus far they had seen no Indians since landing at Plymouth. Traces of them abounded. Pale wreaths of smoke, which curled above the forest-trees, gave certain token that they lurked in the vicinity. The settlers knew that they must ere long meet the aborigines, and they awaited the event with mingled hope and apprehension.
On the 16th of March, one of the warmest, pleasantest days of the early spring, a number of the Pilgrims—Bradford, Winslow, Hopkins, and Carver, among the rest—were gathered on the skirts of the settlement, chatting over their plans and projects for the coming days, when suddenly a guttural shout was heard, and the words “Welcome, Englishmen!” spoken in broken Saxon, fell on their ears.[172]
The astonished settlers started to their feet, and glancing in the direction whence the words had seemed to come, discerned on the edge of the forest a single dusky figure, waving a hand and advancing boldly towards them. In deep silence the Pilgrims awaited his approach. On reaching the group, the Indian greeted them warmly, repeating his welcome. Reassured by his friendly gestures and hearty repetition of the familiar English phrase in which only kindness lurked, the settlers cordially returned his greeting; and knowing that the way to the heart lies through the stomach, they at once gave their dusky guest “strong water, biscuit, butter, cheese, and some pudding, with a piece of mallard.”[173]
The heart of the savage was gained; the taciturnity characteristic of his race gave way, and he told his entertainers many things which they had long desired to know.
They ascertained that he was a chief of a tribe of Indians whose hunting-grounds were distant five days’ journey; that the country in their vicinity was called Pawtuxet; that some years previous a pestilencehad swept off the tribes that inhabited the district, so that none remained to claim the soil.
When asked how he came to speak English, he replied that he had picked up what little he knew from the fishermen who frequented the coast of Maine. In response to inquiries concerning the interior of the country and the tribes inhabiting the inland plateaus, he imparted valuable information.[174]
The Pilgrims gleaned these facts from his recital: A sagamore named Massasoit was their nearest powerful neighbor. He was disposed to be friendly; but another tribe, called the Nausets, were greatly incensed against the English, and with sufficient cause. It seems that a captain by the name of Hunt, who had been left in charge of a vessel by Captain Smith in 1614, had lured twenty or thirty of their brother red men on board his ship on pretence of trading; then, when they accepted his invitation, he set sail for Spain, where he sold his victims into slavery.[175]
The whole Nauset tribe panted to avenge the atrocious treachery of “this wretched man, who cared not what mischief he did for his profit;” and it was with them that the Pilgrims had had their skirmish when exploring the coast in the December sleet.[176]
The Indian from whose broken English these things were learned was Samoset. He was the first of the aborigines who held friendly and intelligentintercourse with the forefathers. His frank, hearty “welcome” was the only one the Pilgrims received; and his faithful, life-long attachment to the English interests, which “made him often go, in danger of his life, among his countrymen,” won the grateful recognition of the exiles, and deserves the plaudits of posterity.
Samoset was the first Indian whom many of the Pilgrims had ever seen. He was therefore scanned with no little curiosity. He is thus described in the Journal of the Pilgrims: “He was a man free in speech; a tall, straight man; the hair of his head black, long behind, short before, and no beard. He was stark naked, save only a strip of leather about his waist, with a fringe a span long or a little more. He had a bow and two arrows, the one headed, the other not.”[177]
The settlers treated Samoset with great hospitality, as duty and sound policy alike demanded. Nevertheless, when night came they desired him to leave. This he seemed loath to do. They proposed that he should lodge on board the “Mayflower.” He assented; but the tide was so low and the wind was so fresh, that the shallop could not gain the vessel’s side. Nothing remained but to entertain their guest on shore. He was conducted to the house of Stephen Hopkins,[178]and was stealthily watched, “as we feared evil,” comments the narrator; “which, however, did not come.”[179]
On the following morning, Samoset quitted Plymouth, carrying with him a variety of presents, a knife, a bracelet, a ring; and he promised to return soon and bring with him some of Massasoit’s Indians, to open a trade in furs with the colonists.[180]He also said that he would do his utmost towards securing an interview between the English and the Indian sagamore, as preliminary to a lasting treaty and a prosperous peace.[181]
Samoset, true to his promise, did indeed return within three days, bringing with him five companions. All were cordially welcomed; but as it was Sunday, no business was transacted, the guests being dismissed as early as possible. Samoset remained at Plymouth; his friends affirmed their purpose to come again on the morrow. The morrow came but the Indians did not. Samoset was sent in quest of them. The next day he returned again, this time with four other warriors, each provided with a few skins and dried herrings, which they were anxious to barter.
One of these Indians was named Squanto. His history was somewhat romantic. He belonged to the company kidnapped by Hunt and sold in Spain. There he, with the others, had been liberated through the exertions of the monks of Malaga, and he had made his way to England. He dwelt in Cornhill, London, with an English merchant, for some time; and thence he had finally made his way back to his forest home, to be, as the eventproved, a valuable friend, interpreter, and ally to the whites.[182]
Samoset and his friends were but the advance guard of a larger host. An hour later, Massasoit himself appeared on a neighboring slope, accompanied by his brother, Quadequina, and a cloud of warriors. At the outset both Englishman and Indian were shy of each other; but at last, after much passing to and fro, they came to parley. Massasoit and Standish saluted each other; after which the soldier conducted the sachem to an unfinished house in the vicinage, where he laid for his guest a green rug and four cushions.[183]
Presently the Pilgrim governor advanced, in as great state as he could command, with beat of drum and blare of trumpet, and a squad of armed men as a body-guard. Salutations, which consisted of mutual kisses, being over, the governor and the sagamore seated themselves. Meat was then served, and the new friends drank to each other’s health and happiness.[184]
Negotiations ensued; and “a treaty of friendship was soon completed in few and unequivocal terms. The respective parties promised to abstain from mutual injuries, and to deliver up offenders; the colonists were to receive assistance if attacked; to render it, if Massasoit should be assailed unjustly. The treaty included the confederates of the sachem: it is the oldest act of diplomacy recorded in New England; it was concluded in a day, and, being founded on reciprocal interests, was sacredly kept for more than half a century. Massasoit desired the alliance, for the powerful Narragansetts were his enemies; his tribe, moreover, having become habituated to some English luxuries, were willing to establish a traffic; while the emigrants obtained peace, security, and the opportunity of a lucrative commerce.”[185]
Massasoit is thus described by the Pilgrim journalist: “In his person he is a very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grave of countenance, and spare of speech; in his attire little or nothing differing from the rest of his followers, save only in a great chain of white beads about his neck; behind his neck, attached to the chain, hangs a pouch of tobacco, which he smoked, and gave us to smoke. His face was painted with a seal red, and he was oiled both head and face that he looked greasily.”[186]
The sagamore’s favorite haunts were along the northern shores of Narragansett Bay, betweenTaunton and Providence, one of his principal seats being Mount Hope,[187]that
——“throne of royal state, which farOutshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand,Showers on her kings barbaric pomp and gold.”
——“throne of royal state, which farOutshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand,Showers on her kings barbaric pomp and gold.”
——“throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pomp and gold.”
In the latter part of March, 1621, an event occurred which evinced alike the promptitude and the decision of the self-governed Puritan colony. It has been said that “God sifted three kingdoms to get the Pilgrim wheat” of the New England enterprise; yet despite this care the chaff was not all gotten rid of. It seems that one John Billington, a “lewd fellow of the baser sort,” had come from London and smuggled himself on board the “Mayflower,” for the purpose of stealing a voyage to the new world. He had no sympathy with the religious feelings of the Pilgrims, nor did he share their love of order and civil liberty.[188]He had frequently given offence, and now he was convicted of “contempt of the captain’s lawful command, and of makingopprobrious speeches.”[189]His sentence was peculiar: “he was to have his neck and heels tied together.”[190]He begged so hard that he was forgiven on this occasion; but he continued to be a profane, ungovernable, vicious knave, and finally came to a bad end.
At about this same time another offence was committed against the civil peace of the colony. Two servants of Stephen Hopkins met and foughta duel with sword and dagger. Both combatants were wounded; but they were immediately seized, convicted, and sentenced “to have their head and feet tied together, and so to lie for twenty-four hours without meat or drink.”[191]
The hostile lackeys were bound, in exact accordance with the verdict; but “after lying an hour they begged piteously for mercy; whereon the governor, on the entreaty of their master, released them, they promising to keep the peace in future.”[192]
These sentences convinced the refractory that the colonial government was something more than the shadow of a name; and it held them in awe of provoking its severity.
Through all these months disease was busy among the Pilgrims. But though pain racked many a weakened form, no one spoke of returning to England. As winter faded into spring the mortality became dreadful. Every house was a hospital.
“There was no hearthstone, howsoe’er defended,But had one vacant chair.”
“There was no hearthstone, howsoe’er defended,But had one vacant chair.”
“There was no hearthstone, howsoe’er defended,
But had one vacant chair.”
“Death,” says Elliot, “had reaped a ripe, fat harvest, and of the one hundred scarce fifty remained. Six had died in December; eight in January; seventeen in February; thirteen in March.”[193]Yet the Pilgrims kissed the rod; and though “the searching sharpness of that pure climate had crept into the crevices of their crazed bodies, causing death,”[194]they said “the Lord gave and theLord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The dead were buried in a bank, at a little distance from Plymouth rock; and lest the Indians should learn the weakened condition of the colony, the graves were levelled, and sown with grass.[195]Over these the unflinching survivors locked hands, and wiping their eyes, looked up, firm, devout, hopeful as ever.
In April, 1621, Governor Carver died. “Whilst they were busy about their seed, he came out of the field very sick, it being a hot day. He complained greatly of his head, and lay down; within a few hours his senses failed, and he never spoke more. His death was much lamented, and caused great heaviness, as there was cause.”[196]Shortly after, William Bradford, the historian of the colony, was elected governor, “and being not yet recovered from a severe illness, in which he had been near the point of death, Isaac Allerton was chosen to be an assistant unto him.”[197]
On the very day of Carver’s death, the 5th of April, the “Mayflower” sailed for England.[198]Not a soul returned in her of that devoted band. It has been well said that the departure of the “Mayflower” surpasses in dignity, though not in desperation, the burning of his ships by Cortez. Through the struggles of the winter she had always been insight, a place of refuge and relief in any desperate emergency. While the good ship lay moored in Plymouth harbor, they had a hold upon the outer world. But now, as grouped upon the shore they stood and watched her, as she slowly spread her sails and crept out of the bay and from their sight, they felt inexpressibly dreary and bereaved: when the sun set in the western forest, the “Mayflower” had disappeared in the distant blue.[199]
“Can ye scan the woeThat wrings their bosoms, as this last frail linkBinding to man and habitable earthIs severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there,What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,What yearning o’er their forfeit land of birth;Their distant dear ones?”[200]
“Can ye scan the woeThat wrings their bosoms, as this last frail linkBinding to man and habitable earthIs severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there,What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,What yearning o’er their forfeit land of birth;Their distant dear ones?”[200]
“Can ye scan the woe
That wrings their bosoms, as this last frail link
Binding to man and habitable earth
Is severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there,
What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,
What yearning o’er their forfeit land of birth;
Their distant dear ones?”[200]
But they did not long despair. “The sky was not inky, nor their future desperate,” says Elliot; “the sun still shone gloriously; the moon still bathed the earth with light; and the stars kept their ceaseless vigils. Spring here, as of old, followed winter, the murmuring of streams was heard, and the song of the turtle; birds builded their nests, the tender grass sprang up under their feet, and the trees budded and burst forth in wondrous beauty. God was over all—God, their God, their Friend—their protector here as in the older world; nay, more their helper now than ever before,”[201]for they were the orphans of humanity.