WHAT do you think of Captain John Smith, the hero of Virginia? Was he not a man to dream of, a true hero? Why, I feel half ashamed to say anything about him, for every one of you must know his story. I am sure all those who love good stories of adventure have read about him.
John Smith was not the kind of man to work at a trade. He ran away from home when a boy, and became a wanderer over the earth. And a hard life he had of it. At one place he was robbed, and at another place was shipwrecked. Once he leaped overboard from a ship and swam ashore. Once again he fought with three Turks and killed all of them without help. Then he was taken prisoner, and sold as a slave to a cruel Turk, who put a ring round his neck and made him work very hard.
One day his master came out where he was at work and struck him with his whip. He soon found that John Smith was a bad man to whip. He hit the Turk a hard blow with the flail he wasusing, and killed him on the spot. Then he ran away, got to Russia, and in time made his way back to England. But England was too quiet a place for him. A ship was about to cross the sea to America and he volunteered to go in it. He had not half enough of adventure yet. Some people think that Captain Smith bragged a little, and did not do all he said. Well, that may be so. But it is certain that he was a brave and bold man, and just the man to help settle a new country where there were savage red men to deal with.
The English were in no hurry in sending out settlers to the New World which Columbus had discovered. While the Spaniards were seeking gold and empires in the south, and the French were catching fish and exploring the rivers and lakes in the north, all the English did was to rob the Spanish ships and settlements, and to bring them negroes from Africa for slaves.
But the time came, a hundred years after America was discovered, when some of the English tried to form a settlement on the coast of North Carolina. Poor settlers! When the next ship came out they were all gone. Not a soul of them could be found. Nothing was left but some letters they had cut into the bark of a tree. What became of them nobody ever knew. Likely enough they wandered away and were killed by the Indians.
Nothing more was done until the year 1607,when the ship in which Captain John Smith had taken passage sailed up a bright and beautiful river in Virginia. It was the month of May, and the banks were covered with flowers.
The colonists thought this a very good place to live in, so they landed and began to look around them. The river they called the James, and the place they named Jamestown. But instead of building a town and preparing for the future, as sensible men would have done, they began to seek for gold, and soon they were in no end of trouble. In a short time their food was all eaten. Then some of them were taken sick and died. Others were killed by the Indians. It looked as if this colony would come to grief as did the former one.
So it would if it had not been for Captain Smith. He was only one man among a hundred, but he was worth more than all the rest of the hundred. He could not keep still, but hustled about, here, there and everywhere. Now he was exploring the country, sailing up the rivers or up the broadChesapeakeBay. Now he was talking with the Indians, getting food from them for the starving colonists. Now he was doing his best to make the men build houses and dig and plant the ground. You can see that John Smith had enough to keep him busy. He had many adventures with the Indians. At one time he was taken prisoner by them and was in terrible danger of being killed.But he showed them his pocket compass, and when they saw the needle always pointing north, they thought there must be magic in it. They were still more surprised when he sent one of them with a letter to his friends. They did not understand how a piece of paper could talk, as his paper seemed to do.
But all this was not enough to save his life. The great chief Powhatan looked on him as the leader of these white strangers who had settled in his land. He wanted to get rid of them, and thought that if he killed the man of the magic needle and the talking paper they would certainly be scared and go away.
So Captain Smith was tied hand and foot, and laid on the ground with his head on a log. And a powerful Indian stood near by with a great war club in his hand. Only a sign from Powhatan was needed, and down would come that club on the white man's head, and it would be all over with the brave and bold John Smith.
Alas! poor Captain Smith! There was no pity in Powhatan's eyes. The burly Indian twisted his fingers about the club and lifted it in the air. One minute more and it might be all over with the man who had killed three Turks in one fight. But before that minute was over a strange thing took place. A young Indian girl came running wildly toward him, with her hair flying and her eyes wetwith tears. And she flung herself on the ground and laid her head on that of the bound prisoner, and begged the chief to give him his life.
It was Pocahontas, the pretty young daughter of Powhatan. She pleaded so pitifully that the chief's heart was touched, and he consented that the captive should live, and bade them take the bonds from his limbs.
Do you not think this a very pretty story? Some say that it is not true, but I think very likely it is. At any rate, it is so good that it ought to be true. Afterwards this warm-hearted Indian princess married one of the Virginians named John Rolfe and was taken to London and shown to the Queen. I am sorry to have to say that poor Pocahontas died there and never saw her native land again.
Captain Smith got safely back to Jamestown. But his troubles were not at an end, for the colonists were as hard to deal with as the Indians. Some of them had found a kind of yellow stuff which they were sure was gold. They loaded a ship with this and sent it to England, thinking that they would all be rich. But the yellow stuff proved to be what is known as "a fool's gold," and worth no more than so much sand. Instead of becoming rich, they were laughed at as great fools.
After a while Smith was made governor, and henow tried a new plan to make the men work. He told them that if they did not work they should not eat. None of them wanted to starve, and they knew that John Smith meant just what he said, so they began to build houses and to dig the ground and plant crops. But some of them grumbled and some of them swore, and it was anything but a happy family.
Captain Smith did not like this swearing, and he took a funny way to stop it. When the men came home at night each one who had sworn had a can of cold water poured down his sleeve for every time he had done so. Did any of my readers ever try that? If they did they would know why the men soon quit grumbling and swearing. All was beginning to go well in the colony when Captain Smith was hurt by some gunpowder that took fire and went off. He was hurt so badly that he had to go back to England. After that all went ill.
As soon as their governor was gone the lazy men quit working. The profane men swore worse than before. They ate up all their food in a hurry, and the Indians would bring them no more. Sickness and hunger came and carried many of them to the grave. Some of them meddled with the Indians and were killed. There were five hundred of them when winter set in; but when spring came only sixty of them were alive. And all thistook place because one wise man, Captain John Smith, was hurt and had to go home.
The whole colony would have broken up if ships had not come out with more men and plenty of food. Soon after that, the people began to plant the ground and raise tobacco, which sold well in England. Many of them became rich, and the little settlement at Jamestown in time grew into the great colony of Virginia.
This ends the story of the hero of Jamestown. Now let us say something about the hero of Plymouth. In the year 1620, thirteen years after Smith and his fellows sailed up the James River, a shipload of men and women came to a place called Plymouth, on the rocky coast of New England. It was named Plymouth by Captain Smith, who had been there before. A portion of the rock on which they first stepped, is still preserved and surrounded by a fence.
These people are known as Pilgrims. They had been badly treated at home because they did believe in the teachings of the Church of England, and they had come across the stormy sea to find a place where they could worship God in their own way, without fear of being put in prison.
With them came a soldier. He was named Captain Miles Standish. He was a little man, but he carried a big sword, and had a stout heart and a hot temper. While the Pilgrims came towork and to pray, Captain Standish came to fight. He was a different man from Captain Smith, and would not have been able to deal with the lazy folks at Jamestown. But the Pilgrims were different also. They expected to work and live by their labor, and they had no sooner landed on Plymouth Rock than they began to dig and plant, while the sound of the hammer rang merrily all day long, as they built houses and got ready for the cold winter. But after all their labor and carefulness, sickness and hunger came, as they had come to Jamestown, and by the time the winter was over, half the poor Pilgrims were dead.
The Indians soon got to be afraid of Captain Standish. They were afraid of the Pilgrims, too, for they found that these religious men could fight as well as pray. One Indian chief, named Canonicus, sent them a bundle of arrows with a snake's skin tied round it. This was their way of saying that they were going to fight the Pilgrims and drive them from the country. But Governor Bradford filled the snake skin with powder and bullets and sent it back. When Canonicus saw this he was badly scared, for he knew well what it meant. He had heard the white men's guns, and thought they had the power of using thunder and lightning. So he made up his mind to let the white strangers alone.
But the Pilgrims did not trust the red men.They put cannon on the roof of their log church, and they walked to church on Sunday like so many soldiers on the march, with guns in their hands and Captain Standish at their head. And while they were listening to the sermon one man stood outside on the lookout for danger.
At one time some of the Indians made a plot to kill all the English. A friendly Indian told Captain Standish about it, and he made up his mind to teach them a lesson they would remember. He went to the Indian camp with a few men, and walked boldly into the hut where the plotting chiefs were talking over their plans. When they saw him and the men with him, they tried to frighten them. One of them showed the captain his knife and talked very boldly about it.
A big Indian looked with scorn on the little captain. "Pah, you are only a little fellow, if you are a captain," he said. "I am not a chief, but I am strong and brave."
Captain Standish was very angry, but he said nothing then. He waited until the next day, when he met the chiefs again. Then there was a quarrel and a fight, and the little captain killed the big Indian with his own knife. More of the Indians were slain, and the others ran for the woods. That put an end to the plot.
There is one funny story told about Captain Standish. His wife had died, and he felt so lonelythat he wanted another; so he picked out a pretty young woman named Priscilla Mullins. But the rough old soldier knew more about fighting than about making love, and he sent his young friend, John Alden, to make love for him.
John told Priscilla's father what he had come for, and the father told Priscilla what John had told him. The pretty Priscilla had no fancy for the wrinkled old soldier. She looked at her father. Then she looked at John. Then she said: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
John did speak for himself, and Priscilla became his wife. As for the captain, he married another woman, and this time I fancy he "spoke for himself."
Miles Standish lived to be 70 years old, and to have a farm of his own and a house on a high hill near Plymouth. This is called Captain's Hill, and on it there is now a stone shaft a hundred feet high, with a statue of bold Captain Standish on its top.
We have now our third hero to speak of, Roger Williams. He was not a captain like the others, but a preacher; but he was a brave man, and showed in his way as much courage as either of the captains.
The Pilgrims were quickly followed by other people, who settled at Boston and other places around Massachusetts Bay until there were a greatmany of them. These were called Puritans. They came across the seas for the same reason as the Pilgrims, to worship God in their own way.
But they were as hard to live with as the people at home, for they wanted to force everybody else into their way. Some Quakers who came to Boston were treated very badly because they had different ways from the Puritans. And one young minister named Roger Williams, who thought every man should have the right to worship as he pleased, and said that the Indians had not been treated justly, had to flee into the woods for safety.
It was winter time. The trees were bare of leaves and the ground was white with snow. Poor Roger had to wander through the cold woods, making a fire at night with his flint and steel, or sometimes creeping into a hollow tree to sleep.
Thus he went on, half frozen and half starved, for eighty long miles, to the house of Massasoit, an Indian chief who was his friend. The good chief treated him well, for he knew, like all the Indians, what Roger Williams had tried to do for them. When spring time came, Massasoit gave his guest a canoe and told him where to go. So Roger paddled away till he found a good place to stop. This place he called Providence. A large city now stands there, and is still called Providence.
Roger Williams had some friends with him, and others soon came, and after a few years he had quite a settlement of his own. It was called Rhode Island. Such a settlement as that at Plymouth, at Boston, and at Providence, was called "a colony."
He took care that the Indians should be treated well, and that no one should do them any harm, so they grew to love the good white man. And he said that every man in his colony should worship God in the way he liked best, and no one should suffer on account of his manner of worship.
It was a wonderful thing in those days, when there were wars going on in Europe about religion or the manner of worship, and everybody was punished who did not believe in the religion of the state.
Do you not think that Roger Williams was as brave a man as John Smith or Miles Standish, and as much of a hero? He did not kill any one. He was not that kind of a hero. But he did much to make men happy and good and to do justice to all men, and I think that is the best kind of a hero.
I WONDER how many of my readers have ever seen the great city of New York. I wonder still more how many of them knew that it is the largest city in the world except London. But we must remember that London is ten times as old, so it can well afford to be larger.
Why, if you should go back no farther than the time of your great-grandfather you would find no city of New York. All you would see would be a sort of large village on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River. And if you went back to the time of your grandfather's great-grandfather, I fancy you would see nothing on that island but trees, with Indian wigwams beneath them. Not a single white man or a single house would you see.
In the year 1609, just two years after Captain Smith sailed into the James River, a queer-looking Dutch vessel came across the ocean and began to prowl up and down the coast. It was named the "Half Moon." It came from Holland, theland of the Dutch, but its captain was an Englishman named Henry Hudson, who had done so many daring things that men called him "the bold Englishman."
What Captain Hudson would have liked to do was to sail across the United States and come out into the Pacific Ocean, and so make his way to the rich countries of Asia. Was not that a funny notion? To think that he could sail across three thousand miles of land and across great ranges of mountains!
But you must not think that Captain Hudson was crazy. Nobody then knew how wide America was. For all they knew, it might not be fifty miles wide. Captain John Smith tried to get across it by sailing up James River. And Captain Hudson fancied he might find some stream that led from one ocean to the other.
So on he went up and down the coast looking for an opening. And after a while the "Half Moon" sailed into a broad and beautiful bay, where great trees came down to the edge of the water and red men paddled about in their canoes. Captain Hudson was delighted to see it. "It was," he said, "as pleasant with grass and flowers as he had ever seen, and very sweet smells."
This body of water was what we now call New York Bay. A broad and swift river runs into it, which is now called Hudson River, after HenryHudson. The bold captain thought that this was the stream to go up if he wished to reach the Pacific Ocean. So, after talking as well as he could with the Indians in their canoes, and trading beads for corn, he set his sails again and started up the splendid river. Some of the Indians came on board the "Half Moon," and the Dutch gave them brandy, which they had never seen or tasted before. Soon they were dancing and capering about the deck, and one of them fell down so stupid with drink that his friends thought he was dead. That was their first taste of the deadly "fire water" of the whites, which has killed thousands of the red men since then.
Captain Hudson and the Dutch no doubt thought that this was great fun. People often do much harm without stopping to think. But on up the river went the "Half Moon."
At some places they saw fields of green corn on the water's edge. Farther on were groves of lofty trees, and for miles great cliffs of rock rose like towers. It was all very grand and beautiful.
"It was a very good land to fall in with," said Captain Hudson, "and a pleasant land to see."
As they sailed on and on, they came to mountains, which rose on both sides the river. After passing the mountains, the captain went ashore to visit an old chief, who lived in a round house built of bark. The Indians here had great heaps ofcorn and beans. But what they liked best was roast dog. They roasted a dog for Captain Hudson and asked him to eat it, but I do not know whether he did so or not. And they broke their arrows and threw them into the fire, to show that they did not mean to do harm to the white men.
After leaving the good old chief the Dutch explorers went on up the river till they reached a place about 150 miles above the sea, where the city of Albany now stands. Here the river became so narrow and shallow that Captain Hudson saw he could not reach the Pacific by that route, so he turned and sailed back to the sea again.
A sad fate was that of Captain Hudson, "the bold Englishman." The next year he came again to America. But this time he went far to the north and entered the great body of water which we call Hudson Bay. He thought this would lead to the Pacific, and he would not turn back, though the food was nearly all gone. At last the crew got desperate, and they put the captain and some others into an open boat on the wide waters, and turned back again. Nothing more was ever heard of Captain Hudson, and he must have died miserably on that cold and lonely bay.
But before his last voyage he had told the Dutch people all about Hudson River, and that the Indians had many fine furs which they would be glad to trade for beads, and knives, and othercheap things. The Dutch were fond of trading, and liked to make a good bargain, so they soon began to send ships to America. They built a fort and some log huts on Manhattan Island, and a number of them stayed there to trade with the red men. They paid the Indians for the island with some cheap goods worth about twenty-four dollars. I do not think any of you could guess how many millions of dollars that island is worth now. For the great city of New York stands where the log huts of the Dutch traders once stood, and twenty-four dollars would hardly buy as much land as you could cover with your hand.
The country around is now all farming land, where grain and fruit are grown, and cattle are raised. But then it was all woodland for hundreds of miles away, and in these woods lived many foxes and beavers and other fur-bearing animals. These the Indians hunted and killed, and sold their furs to the Dutch, so that there was soon a good trade for both the red and the white men. The Dutch were glad to get the furs and the Indians were as glad to get the knives and beads. More and more people came from Holland, and the town grew larger and larger, and strong brick houses took the place of the log huts, and in time there was quite a town.
Men were sent from Holland to govern the people. Some of these men were not fit to governthemselves, and the settlers did not like to have such men over them. One of them was a stubborn old fellow named Peter Stuyvesant. He had lost one of his legs, and wore a wooden leg with bands of silver around it, so that he was called "Old Silver Leg."
While he was governor an important event took place. The English had a settlement in Virginia and another in New England, and they said that all the coast lands belonged to them, because the Cabots had been the first to see them. The Cabots came from Italy, but they had settled in England, and sailed in an English ship.
So one day a small fleet of English vessels came into the bay, and a letter was sent on shore which said that all this land belonged to England and must be given up to them. The Dutch might stay there, but they would be under an English governor. Old Peter tore up the letter and stamped about in a great rage on his silver leg. But he had treated the people so badly that they would not fight for him, so he had to give up the town.
The English called it New York, after the Duke of York, the king's brother. It grew and grew till it became a great and rich city, and sent ships to all parts of the world. Most of the Dutch stayed there, and their descendants are among the best people of New York to-day. Notlong after these English ships came to New York Bay, other English ships came to a fine body of water, about 100 miles farther south, now called Delaware Bay. Into this also runs a great stream of fresh water, called Delaware River, as wide as the Hudson. I think you will like to learn what brought them here.
No doubt you remember what I said about some people called Quakers, who came to Boston and were treated very badly by the Puritans. Did any of my young readers ever see a Quaker? In old times you would have known them, for they dressed in a different way from other people. They wore very plain clothes and broad-brimmed hats, which they would not take off to do honor to king or noble. To-day they generally dress more like the people around them.
If they were treated badly in Boston they were treated worse in England. Thieves and highwaymen had as good a time as the poor Quakers. Some of them were put in jail and kept there for years. Some were whipped or put in the stocks, where low people called them vile names and threw mud at them. Indeed, these quiet people, who did no harm to any one, but were kind to others, had a very hard time, and were treated more cruelly than the Pilgrims and the Puritans.
Among them was the son of a brave English admiral, who was a friend of the king and hisbrother, the Duke of York. But this did not save him from being put in prison for preaching as a Quaker and wearing his hat in court.
This was William Penn, from whom Pennsylvania was named. You may well fancy that the son of a rich admiral and the friend of a king did not like being treated as though he were a thief because he chose to wear a hat with a broad brim and to say "thee" and "thou," and because he would not go to the king's church.
What is more, the king owed him money, which he could not or would not pay. He had owed this money to Admiral Penn, and after the admiral died he owed it to his son.
William Penn thought it would be wise to do as the Pilgrims and Puritans had done. There was plenty of land in America, and it would be easy there to make a home for the poor Quakers where they could live in peace and worship God in the way they thought right. This they could not do in England.
Penn went to the king and told him how he could pay his debt. If the king would give him a tract of land on the west side of the Delaware River, he would take it as payment in full for the money owing to his father.
King Charles, who never had money enough for his own use, was very glad to pay his debts in this easy way. He told Penn that he could have allthe land he wanted, and offered him a tract that was nearly as large as the whole of England. This land belonged to the red men, but that did not trouble King Charles. It is easy to pay debts in other people's property. All Penn was asked to pay the king was two beaver skins every year and one-fifth of all the gold and silver that should be mined. As no gold or silver was ever mined the king got nothing but his beaver skins, which were a kind of rent.
What do any of my young readers know about the Delaware River? Have any of you seen the wide, swift stream which flows between the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and runs into the broad body of water known as Delaware Bay? On its banks stands the great city of Philadelphia, in which live more than a million people, and where there are thousands of busy workshops and well-filled stores. This large and fine city came from the way the king paid his debt. King Charles was not a good man, but he did one thing that had a good ending.
There were white men there before the Quakers came. Many years earlier a number of people from Sweden had come and settled along the river. Then the Dutch from New York said the land was theirs, and took possession of the forts of the Swedes. Then the English of New York claimed the land as theirs. Then Quakers came and settledin New Jersey. Finally came William Penn, in a ship called by the pretty name of the "Welcome," and after that the land was governed by the Quakers or Friends, though the Swedes stayed there still.
We have something very pleasant to say about good William Penn. He knew very well that King Charles did not own the land, and had no right to sell it or give it away. So he called the Indians together under a great elm tree on the river bank, and had a long talk with them, and told them he would pay them for all the land he wanted. This pleased the red men very much, and ever afterwards they loved William Penn.
Do you not think it must have been a pretty scene when Penn and the Quakers met the Indian chiefs under the great tree—the Indians in their colored blankets and the Quakers in their great hats? That tree stood for more than a hundred years afterwards, and when the British army was in Philadelphia during the war of the Revolution their general put a guard around Penn's treaty tree, so that the soldiers should not cut it down for firewood. The tree is gone now, but a stone monument marks where it stood. A city was laid out on the river, which Penn named Philadelphia, a word which means Brotherly Love. I suppose some brotherly love is there still, but not nearly so much as there should be.
Streets were made through the woods, and the names of the trees were given to these streets, which are still known as Chestnut, Walnut, Pine, Cherry, and the like. People soon came in numbers, and it is wonderful how fast the city grew. Soon there were hundreds of comfortable houses, and in time it grew to be the largest in the country.
The Indians looked on in wonder to see large houses springing up where they had hunted deer, and to see great ships where they had paddled their canoes. But the white men spread more and more into the land, and the red men were pushed back, and in time none of them were left in Penn's woodland colony. This was long after William Penn was dead.
But while Penn's city was growing large and rich, he was becoming poor. He spent much money on his province and got very little back. At last he became so poor that he was put in prison for debt, as was the custom in those days. In the end he died and left the province to his sons. The Indians sent some beautiful furs to his widow in memory of their great and good brother. They said these were to make her a cloak "to protect her while she was passing without her guide through the stormy wilderness of life."
VIRGINIA has often been called the Cavalier colony. Do any of you know why, or who the Cavaliers were? Perhaps I had better tell you. They were the lords and the proud people of England. Many of them had no money, but they would do no work, and cared for nothing but pleasure and fighting. There were plenty of working people in that country, but there were many who were too proud to work, and expected others to work for them, while they hoped to live at ease.
Some of this kind of men came out with John Smith, and that is why he had so much trouble with them. The Puritans and the Quakers came from the working people of England, and nobody had to starve them to make them work, or to pour cold water down their sleeves to stop them from swearing.
While religious people settled in the North, many of the proud Cavalier class, who cared very little about religion, came to the South. So we may call the southern settlements the Cavalier colonies,though many of the common people came there too, and it was not long before there was plenty of work.
The first to come after John Smith and the Jamestown people were some shiploads of Catholics. You should know that the Catholics were treated in England even worse than the Puritans and the Quakers. The law said they must go to the English Church instead of to their own. If they did not they would have to pay a large sum of money or go to prison. Was not this very harsh and unjust?
The Catholics were not all poor people. There were rich men and nobles among them. One of these nobles, named Lord Baltimore, asked the King for some land in America where he and his friends might dwell in peace and have churches of their own. This was many years before William Penn asked for the same thing. The King was a friend of Lord Baltimore and told him he might have as much land as he could make use of. So he chose a large tract just north of Virginia, which the King named Maryland, after his wife, Queen Mary, who was a Catholic. All Lord Baltimore had to pay for this was two Indian arrows every year, and a part of the gold and silver, if any were found. This was done to show that the King still kept some claim to Maryland, and did not give away all his rights.
And now comes a story much the same as I have told you several times already. A shipload of Catholics and other people came across the ocean to the new continent which Columbus had discovered many years before. These sailed up the broad Chesapeake Bay. You may easily find this bay on your maps. They landed at a place they called St. Mary's, where there was a small Indian town. As it happened, the Indians at this town had been so much troubled by fighting tribes farther north that they were just going to move somewhere else. So they were very glad to sell their town to the white strangers.
All they wanted for their houses and their corn fields were some hatchets, knives and beads, and other things they could use. Gold and silver would have been of no value to them, for they had never seen these metals. The only money the Indians used was round pieces of seashell, with holes bored through them. Before these people left their town they showed the white men how to hunt in the woods and how to plant corn. And their wives taught the white women how to make hominy out of corn and how to bake johnny-cakes. So the people of Maryland did not suffer from hunger like those of Virginia and New England, and they had plenty to eat and lived very well from the start.
This was in the year 1634, just about the timeRoger Williams went to Rhode Island. Lord Baltimore did the same thing that Roger Williams did; he gave the people religious liberty. Every Christian who came to Maryland had the right to worship God in his own way. Roger Williams went farther than this, for he gave the same right to Jews and all other people, whether they were Christians or pagans.
It was not long before other people came to Maryland, and they began to plant tobacco, as the people were doing in Virginia. Tobacco was a good crop to raise, for it could be sold for a high price in England, so that the Maryland planters did very well, and many of them grew rich. But religious liberty did not last there very long, and the Catholics were not much better off than they had been in England. All the poor people who came with Lord Baltimore were Protestants. Only the rich ones were Catholics. Many other Protestants soon came, some of them being Puritans from New England, who did not know what religious liberty meant.
These people said that the Catholics should not have the right to worship in their own churches, even in Maryland, and they went so far that they tried to take from Lord Baltimore the lands which the king had given him. There was much fighting between the Catholics and the Protestants. Now one party got the best of it, and now theother. In the end the province was taken from Lord Baltimore's son; and when a new king, named King William, came to the throne, he said that Maryland was his property, and that the Catholics should not have a church of their own or worship in their own way in that province. Do you not think this was very cruel and unjust? It seems so to me. It did not seem right, after Lord Baltimore had given religious liberty to all men, for others to come and take it away. But the custom in those days was that all men must be made to think the same way, or be punished if they didn't. This seems queer now-a-days, when every man has the right to think as he pleases.
In time there was born a Lord Baltimore who became a Protestant, and the province was given back to him. It grew rich and full of people, and large towns were built. One of these was named Baltimore, after Lord Baltimore, and is now a great city. And Washington, the capital of the United States, stands on land that was once part of Maryland. But St. Mary's, the first town built, has gone, and there is hardly a mark left to show where it stood.
Maryland, as I have said, lies north of Virginia. The Potomac River runs between them. South of Virginia was another great tract of land, reaching all the way to Florida, which the Spaniards then held. Some French Protestants tried to settlethere, but they were cruelly murdered by the Spaniards, and no one else came there for many years.
About 1660 people began to settle in what was then called "the Carolinas," but is now called North Carolina and South Carolina. Some of these came from Virginia and some from England, and small settlements were made here and there along the coast. One of these was called Charleston. This has now grown into a large and important city.
There were some noblemen in England who thought that this region might become worth much money, so they asked the king, Charles II., to give it to them. This was the same king who gave the Dutch settlement to the Duke of York and who afterwards gave Pennsylvania to William Penn. He was very ready to give away what did not belong to him, and told these noblemen that they were welcome to the Carolinas. There were eight of these men, and they made up their minds that they would have a very nice form of government for their new province. So they went to a famous man named John Locke, who was believed to be very wise, and asked him to draw up a form of government for them.
John Locke drew up a plan of government which they thought very fine, but which everybody now thinks was very foolish and absurd. I fancyhe knew more about books than he did about government. He called it the "Grand Model," and the noble lords thought they had a wonderful government indeed. There were to be earls, and barons, and lords, the same as in Europe. No one could vote who did not hold fifty acres. The poorer people were to be like so many slaves. They could not even leave one plantation for another without asking leave from the lord or baron who owned it.
What do you think the people did? You must not imagine they came across the ocean to be made slaves of. No, indeed! They cared no more for the "Grand Model" than if it was a piece of tissue paper. They settled where they pleased, and would not work for the earls and barons, and fought with the governors, and refused to pay the heavy taxes which the eight noble owners asked.
In time these noblemen got so sick of the whole business that they gave their province back to the king. It was then divided into two colonies, known as North Carolina and South Carolina. As for the lords and barons, nobody heard of them any more.
The people of the Carolinas had other things beside the Grand Model of government to trouble them. There were savage Indians back in the country who attacked them and killed many of them. And there were pirates along the coastwho attacked ships and killed all on board. But rice and indigo were planted, and afterwards cotton, and much tar and turpentine were got from the pine trees in North Carolina, and as the years went on these colonies became rich and prosperous, and the people began to have a happy time.
I hope none of my young readers are tired of reading about kings and colonies. I am sure they must have enjoyed reading about John Smith and Miles Standish and William Penn and the rest of the great leaders. At any rate, there is only one more colony to talk about, and then we will be through with this part of our story. This is the colony of Georgia, which lies in the tract of land between South Carolina and Florida.
I am sure that when you are done reading this book you will be glad that you did not live two or three hundred years ago. To-day every one can think as he pleases, and do as he pleases, too, if he does not break the laws. And the laws are much more just and less cruel than they were in former times. Why, in those days, every man who owed money and could not pay it might be put in prison and kept there for years. He could not work there and earn money to pay his debts, and if his friends did not pay them he might stay there till he died. As I have told you, even the good William Penn was put in prison for debt, and kept there till his friends paid the money.
There were as many poor debtors in prison as there were thieves and villains. Some of them become sick and died, and some were starved to death by cruel jailers, who would not give them anything to eat if they had no money to pay for food. One great and good man, named General James Oglethorpe, visited the prisons, and was so sorry for the poor debtors he saw there, that he asked the king to give him a piece of land in America where he could take some of these suffering people.
There was now not much land left to give. Settlements had been made all along the coast except south of the Carolinas, and the king told General Oglethorpe that he could have the land which lay there, and could take as many debtors out of prison as he chose. He thought it would be a good thing to take them somewhere where they could work and earn their living. The king who was then on the throne was named King George, so Oglethorpe called his new colony Georgia.
It was now the year 1733, a hundred years after Lord Baltimore had come to Maryland. General Oglethorpe took many of the debtors out of prison, and very glad they were to get out, you may be sure. He landed with them on the banks of a fine river away down South, where he laid out a town which he named Savannah.
The happy debtors now found themselves in abroad and beautiful land, where they could prove whether they were ready to work or not. They were not long in doing this. Right away they began to cut down trees, and build houses, and plant fields, and very soon a pretty town was to be seen and food plants were growing in the fields. And very happy men and women these poor people were.
General Oglethorpe knew as well as William Penn that the land did not belong to the king. He sent for the Indian chiefs and told them the land was theirs, and offered to pay them for it. They were quite willing to sell, and soon he had all the land he wanted, and what is more, he had the Indians for friends.
But if he had no trouble with the Indians, he had a good deal with the Spaniards of Florida. They said that Georgia was a part of Florida and that the English had no right there. And they sent an army and tried to drive them out.
I fancy they did not know that Oglethorpe was an old soldier, but he soon showed them that he knew how to fight. He drove back their armies and took their ships; and they quickly made up their minds that they had better let the English alone. There was plenty of land for both, for the Spaniards had only one town in Florida. This was St. Augustine.
Before long some Germans came from Europeand settled in the new colony. People came also from other parts of Europe. Corn was planted for food, and some of the colonists raised silkworms and made silk. But in the end, cotton came to be the chief crop of the colony.
General Oglethorpe lived to be a very old man. He did not die till long after the American Revolution. Georgia was then a flourishing state, and the little town he had started on the banks of the Savannah River was a fine city, with broad streets, fine mansions, and beautiful shade trees. I think the old general must have been very proud of this charming city, and of the great state which owed its start to him.