NOW that you have been told about the settlement of the colonies, it is well to recall how many of them there were. Let us see. There were the Pilgrim and Puritan settlements of New England, Roger Williams's settlement in Rhode Island, the Dutch settlement in New York, the Quaker one in Pennsylvania, the Catholic settlement in Maryland, the Cavalier ones in Virginia and the Carolinas, and the Debtor settlement in Georgia. Then there were some smaller ones, making about a dozen in all.
These stretched all along the coast, from Canada, the French country in the north, to Florida, the Spanish country in the south. The British were a long time in settling these places, for nearly 250 years passed after the time of Columbus before General Oglethorpe came to Georgia.
While all this was going on, what was becoming of the native people of the country, the Indians? I am afraid they were having a very hard time of it. The Spaniards made slaves of them, andforced them to work so terribly hard in the mines and the fields that they died by thousands. The French and the English fought with them and drove them away from their old homes, killing many of them.
And this has gone on and on ever since, until the red men, who once spread over all this country, are now kept in a very small part of it. Some people say there are as many of them as there ever were. If that is so, they can live on much less land than they once occupied.
What do you know about these Indians? Have you ever seen one of them? Your fathers or grandfathers have, I am sure, for once they were everywhere in this country, and people saw more of them than they liked; but now we see them only in the Wild West shows or the Indian schools, except we happen to go where they live. Do you not want to know something about these oldest Americans? I have been busy so far talking about the white men and what they did, and have had no chance to tell you about the people they found on this continent and how they treated them. I think I must make this chapter an Indian one.
Well, then, when the Spanish came to the south, and the French to the north, and the Dutch and the Swedes and the British to the middle country, they found everywhere a kind of people they had never seen before. Their skin was not white, like thatof the people of Europe, nor black like that of the Africans, but of a reddish color, like that of copper, so that they called them red men. They had black eyes and hair, and high cheek-bones, and were not handsome according to our ideas; but they were tall and strong, and many of them very proud and dignified.
These people lived in a very wild fashion. They spent much of their time in hunting, fishing, and fighting. They raised some Indian corn and beans, and were fond of tobacco, but most of their food was got from wild animals killed in the woods. They were as fond of fighting as they were of hunting. They were divided into tribes, some of which were nearly always at war with other tribes. They had no weapons but stone hatchets and bows and arrows, but they were able with these to kill many of their enemies. People say that they were badly treated by the whites, but they treated one another worse than the whites ever did.
The Indians were very cruel. The warriors shaved off all their hair except one lock, which was called the scalp lock. When one of them was killed in battle this lock was used to pull off his scalp, or the skin of his head. They were very proud of these scalps, for they showed how many men they had killed.
When they took a prisoner, they would tie himto a tree and build a fire round him and burn him to death. And while he was burning they would torture him all they could. We cannot feel so much pity for the Indians when we think of all this. No doubt the white men have treated them very unjustly, but they have stopped all these terrible cruelties, and that is something to be thankful for. In this country, where once there was constant war and bloodshed, and torturing and burning of prisoners, now there is peace and kindness and happiness. So if evil has been done, good has come of it.
At the time I am speaking of, forests covered much of this great continent. They spread everywhere, and the Indians lived under their shade, and had wonderful skill in following animals or enemies through their shady depths. They read the ground much as we read the pages of a book. A broken twig, a bit of torn moss, a footprint which we could not see, were full of meaning to them, and they would follow a trail for miles through the woods where we would not have been able to follow it a yard. Their eyes were trained to this kind of work, but in time some of the white men became as expert as the Indians, and could follow a trail as well.
The red men lived mostly in little huts covered with skins or bark, which they called wigwams. Some of the tribes lived in villages, where therewere large bark houses. But they did not stay much in their houses, for they liked better to be in the open air. Now they were hunting deer in the woods, now fishing or paddling their bark canoes in the streams, now smoking their pipes in front of their huts, now dancing their war dances or getting ready to fight.
The men did nothing except hunting and fighting. The women had to do all other work, such as cooking, planting and gathering corn, building wigwams, and the like. They did some weaving of cloth, but most of their clothes were made of the skins of wild animals.
In war times the warriors tried to make themselves as ugly as they could, painting their faces in a horrid fashion and sticking feathers in their hair. They seemed to think they could scare their enemies by ugly faces.
I have spoken of the tribes of the Indians. Some of these tribes were quite large, and were made up of a great number of men and women who lived together and spoke the same language. Each tribe was divided up into clans, or small family-like groups, and each clan had its sachem, or peace-chief. There were war-chiefs, also, who led them to battle. The sachems and chiefs governed the tribes and made such laws as they had.
Every clan had some animal which it called its totem, such as the wolf, bear, or fox. They wereproud of their totems, and the form of the animal was tattooed on their breast; that is, it was picked into the skin with needles. All the Indians were fond of dancing, and their war dances were as fierce and wild as they could make them.
The tribes in the south were not as savage as those in the north. They did more farming, and had large and well-built villages. Some of them had temples and priests, and looked upon the sun as a god. They kept a fire always burning in the temple, and seemed to think this fire was a part of their sun-god. They had a great chief who ruled over the tribe, and also a head war-chief, a high-priest, and other rulers.
In the far west were Indians who built houses that were almost like towns, for they had hundreds of rooms. A whole tribe could live in one of these great houses, sometimes as many as three thousand people. Other tribes lived in holes in the sides of steep rocks, where their enemies could not easily get at them. These are called Cliff-dwellers. And there were some who lived on top of high, steep hills, which were very hard to climb. These Indians raised large crops of corn and other plants.
Do you think, if you had been an Indian, you would have liked to see white people coming in ships across the waters and settling down in your country as if they owned it? They did not all pay for the land they took, like William Penn andGeneral Oglethorpe. The most of them acted as if the country belonged to them, and it is no wonder the old owners of the country did not like it, or that there was fierce fighting between the white and the red men.
Do you remember the story of Canonicus and the snake skin, and that of Miles Standish and the chiefs? There was not much fighting then, but there was some soon after in Connecticut, whither a number of settlers had come from Boston and others from England. Here there was a warlike tribe called the Pequots, who became very angry on seeing the white men in their country.
They began to kill the whites whenever they found them alone. Then the whites began to kill the Indians. Soon there was a deadly war. The Pequots had made a fort of trunks of trees, set close together in the ground. They thought they were safe in this fort, but the English made an attack on it, and got into it, and set fire to the Indian wigwams inside. The fight went on terribly in the smoke and flame until nearly all the Pequots were killed. Only two white men lost their lives. This so scared the Indians that it was forty years before there was another Indian war in New England.
I have told you about the good chief Massasoit, who was so kind to Roger Williams. He was a friend to the white men as long as he lived, butafter his death his son Philip became one of their greatest enemies.
Philip's brother was taken sick and died after he had been to Plymouth, and the Indians thought that the people there had given him poison. Philip said that they would try to kill him next, and he made up his mind to fight them and drive them out of the country. The Indians had guns now, and knew how to use them, and they began to shoot the white people as they went quietly along the roads.
Next they began to attack the villages of the whites. They would creep up at night, set the houses on fire, and shoot the men as they came out. The war went on for a long time in this way, and there were many terrible fights.
At one place the people, when they saw the Indians coming, all ran to a strong building called a blockhouse. The Indians came whooping and yelling around this, and tried to set it on fire by shooting arrows with blazing rags on their points. Once the roof caught fire, but some of the men ran up and threw water on the flames.
Then the Indians got a cart and filled it with hay. Setting this on fire, they pushed it up against the house. It looked as if all the white men and women and children would be burned alive. The house caught fire and began to blaze. But just then came a shower of rain that put out the fire,and the people inside were saved once more. Before the Indians could do anything further some white soldiers came and the savages all ran into the woods.
There were other wonderful escapes, but many of the settlers were killed, and Philip began to think he would be able to drive them out of the country, as he wished to do. He was called King Philip, though he had no crown except a string of wampum,—or bits of bored shell strung together and twined round his head,—and no palace better than a bark hut, while his finest dress was a red blanket. It took very little to make an Indian king. The white men knew more about war than the Indians, and in the end they began to drive them back. One of their forts was taken, and the wigwams in it were set on fire, like those of the Pequots. A great many of the poor red men perished in the flames.
The best fighter among the white men was Captain Church. He followed King Philip and his men to one hiding place after another, killing some and taking others prisoners. Among the prisoners were the wife and little son of the Indian king.
"It breaks my heart," said Philip, when he heard of this. "Now I am ready to die."
He did not live much longer. Captain Church chased him from place to place, till he came toMount Hope, in Rhode Island, where Massasoit lived when Roger Williams came to him through the woods. Here King Philip was shot, and the war ended. It had lasted more than a year, and a large number had been killed on both sides. It is known in history as King Philip's War.
There were wars with the Indians in many other parts of the country. In Virginia the Indians made a plot to kill all the white people. They pretended to be very friendly, and brought them meat and fish to sell. While they were talking quietly the savages drew their tomahawks or hatchets and began to kill the whites. In that one morning nearly three hundred and fifty were killed, men, women, and little children.
Hardly any of the settlers were left alive, except those in Jamestown, who were warned in time. They now attacked the Indians, shooting down all they could find, and killing a great many of them.
This was after the death of Powhatan, who had been a friend to the whites. About twenty years later, in 1644, another Indian massacre took place. After this the Indians were driven far back into the country, and did not give any more trouble for thirty years. The last war with them broke out in 1675.
The Dutch in New York also had their troubles with the Indians. They paid for all the landsthey took, but one of their governors was foolish enough to start a war that went on for two years. A worse trouble was that in North Carolina, where there was a powerful tribe called the Tuscaroras. These attacked the settlers and murdered numbers of them. But in the end they were driven out of the country.
The only colonies in which the Indians kept friendly for a long time were Pennsylvania and Georgia. We know the reason of this. William Penn and General Oglethorpe were wise enough to make friends with them at the start, and continued to treat them with justice and friendliness, so that the red men came to love these good men.
DO any of my young readers know what is meant by a Charter? "Yes," I hear some of you say. "No," say others. Well, I must speak to the "No," party; the party that doesn't know, and wants to know.
A charter is a something written or printed which grants certain rights or privileges to the party to whom it is given. It may come from a king or a congress, or from any person in power, and be given to any other person who wishes the right to hold a certain property or to do some special thing.
Do you understand any better now? I am sorry I can not put it in plainer words. I think the best way will be to tell you about some charters which belong to American history. You should know that all the people who crossed the ocean to make new settlements on the Atlantic Coast had charters from the king of England. This was the case with the Pilgrims and the Puritans, with Roger Williams, William Penn, Lord Baltimore, and the others I have spoken about.
These charters were written on parchment,which is the skin of an animal, made into something like paper. The charters gave these people the right to settle on and own certain lands, to form certain kinds of government, and to do a variety of things which in England no one could do but the king and the parliament.
The colonies in New England were given the right to choose their own governors and make their own laws, and nobody, not even the king, could stop them from doing this. The king had given them this right, and no other king could take it away while they kept their charters.
Would you care to be told what took place afterwards? All kings, you should know, are not alike. Some are very mild and easy, and some are very harsh and severe. Some are willing for the people to have liberty, and some are not. The kings who gave the charters to New England were of the easy kind. But they were followed by kings of the hard kind, who thought that these people beyond the sea had too much liberty, and who wished to take away some of it.
Charles II., who gave some of these charters, was one of the easy kings, and did not trouble himself about the people in the colonies. James II., who came after him, was one of the hard kings. He was somewhat of a tyrant, and wanted to make the laws himself, and to take the right to do this from the people. After trying torob the people of England of their liberties, he thought he would do the same thing with the people of America. "Those folks across the seas are having too good a time," he thought. "They have too many rights and privileges, and I must take some of them away. I will let them know that I am their master."
But they had their charters, which gave them these rights; so the wicked king thought the first thing for him to do was to take their charters away from them. Then their rights would be gone, and he could make for them a new set of laws, and force them to do everything he wished.
What King James did was to send a nobleman named Sir Edmund Andros to New England to rule as royal governor. He was the agent of the king, and was to do all that the king ordered. He began by undertaking to rob the people of their charters. You see, even a tyrant king did not like to go against the charters, for a charter was a sacred pledge.
Well, the new governor went about ordering the people to give him their charters. One of the places to which he went was Hartford, Connecticut, and there he told the officers of the colony that they must deliver up their charter; the king had said so, and the king's word must be obeyed.
If any of you had lived in Connecticut in those days I know how you would have felt. The chartergave the people a great deal of liberty, and they did not wish to part with it. I know that you and I would have felt the same way. But what could they do? If they did not give it up peacefully, Governor Andros might come again with soldiers and take it from them by force. So the lawmakers and officials were in a great fret about what they should do.
They asked Governor Andros to come to the State-house and talk over the matter. Some of them fancied they could get him to leave them their charter, though they might have known better. There they sat—the governor in the lofty chair of state, the others seated in a half circle before him. There was a broad table between them, and on this lay the great parchment of the charter. Some of those present did a great deal of talking. They told how good King Charles had given them the charter, and how happy they had been under it, and how loyal they were to good King James, and they begged Governor Andros not to take it from them. But they might as well have talked to the walls. He had his orders from the king and was one of the men who do just what they are told.
While the talk was going on a strange thing happened. It was night, and the room was lit up with a few tallow candles. Of course you know that these were the best lights people had at thattime; gas or the electric light had never been heard of. And it was before the time of matches. The only way to make a light in those days was by the use of the flint and steel, which was a very slow method indeed.
Suddenly, while one of the Hartford men was talking and the governor was looking at him in a tired sort of way, all the lights in the room went out, and the room was in deep darkness. Everybody jumped up from their chairs and there was no end of bustle and confusion, and likely enough some pretty hard words were said. They had to hunt in the dark for the flint and steel; and then there came snapping of steel on flint, and falling of sparks on tinder, so that it was some time before the candles were lit again.
When this was done the governor opened his eyes very wide, for the table was empty, the charter was gone. I fancy he swore a good deal when he saw that. In those days even the highest people were given to swearing. But no matter how much he swore, he could not with hard words bring back the charter. It was gone, and nobody knew where. Everybody looked for it, right and left, in and out, in drawers and closets, but it was nowhere to be found. Very likely the most of them did not want to find it. At any rate, the governor had to go away without the charter, and years passed before anybody saw it again.
Do you not wish to know what became of it? We are told that it had been taken by a bold young soldier named Captain Wadsworth. While all the people in the room were looking at the one who was making his speech, the captain quickly took off his cloak and gave it a quick fling over the candles, so that in a moment they were all put out. Then he snatched up the charter from the table and slipped quietly out of the room. While they were busy snapping the flint and steel, he was hurrying down the street towards a great oak tree which was more than a hundred years old. This tree was hollow in its heart, and there was a hole in its side which opened into the hollow. Into this hole Captain Wadsworth pushed the charter, and it fell into the hollow space. I do not think any of us would have thought of looking there for it. I know nobody did at that time, and there it lay for years, until the tyrant King James was driven from the throne and a new king had taken his place. Then it was joyfully brought out, and the people were ever so glad to see it again.
The old tree stood for many years in the main street of the town, and became famous as the Charter Oak. The people loved and were proud of it as long as it stood. But many years ago the hoary old oak fell, and now only some of its wood is left. This has been made into chairs and boxes and other objects which are thought of great value.
Do you not think that Captain Wadsworth was a bold and daring man, and one who knew just what to do in times of trouble? If you do not, I fancy you will when I have told you another story about him.
This took place after the charter had been taken from the oak and brought to the statehouse again. At this time there was a governor in New York named Fletcher, who claimed that the king had given him the right to command the militia, or citizen soldiers, of Connecticut. So he came to Hartford, where Captain Wadsworth was in command, and where the people did not want any stranger to have power over them. He told the captain what he had come for, and that he had a commission to read to the soldiers.
The militia were called out and drawn up in line in the public square of the town, and Governor Fletcher came before them, full of his importance. He took out of his pocket the paper which he said gave him the right to command, and began to read it in a very proud and haughty manner. But he had not read ten words when Captain Wadsworth told the drummers to beat their drums, and before you could draw your breath there was such a rattle and roll of noise that not a word could be heard.
"Silence!" cried Fletcher. "Stop those drums!" The drums stopped, and he began to read again.
"Drum!" ordered Wadsworth in a loud tone, and such a noise began that a giant's voice would have been drowned.
"Silence!" again shouted Fletcher. He was very red in the face by this time.
"Drum, I say!" roared the captain.
Then he turned to the governor and said, laying his hand on his sword, "I command these men, Governor Fletcher, and if you interrupt me again I will make the sun shine through you in a minute." And he looked as if he meant what he said. All the governor's pomp and consequence were gone, and his face turned from red to pale. He hastily thrust the paper back into his pocket, and was not long in leaving Hartford for New York. No doubt he thought that Connecticut was not a good place for royal governors.
Suppose I now tell you the story of another royal governor and another bold captain. This was down in Virginia, but it was long after Captain Smith was dead and after Virginia had become a large and prosperous colony.
The king sent there a governor named Berkeley, who acted as if he was master and all the people were his slaves. They did not like to be treated this way; but Berkeley had soldiers under his command, and they were forced to obey. While this was going on the Indians began to murder the settlers. The governor ought to have stopped them,but he was afraid to call out the people, and he let the murders go on.
There was a young man named Nathaniel Bacon who asked Governor Berkeley to let him raise some men to fight the Indians. The governor refused. But this did not stop brave young Bacon, for he called out a force of men and drove off the murdering savages.
Governor Berkeley was very angry at this. He said that Bacon was a traitor and ought to be treated like one, and that the men with him were rebels. Bacon at once marched with his men against Jamestown, and the haughty governor ran away as fast as he could.
But while Bacon and his men were fighting the Indians again, Governor Berkeley came back and talked more than ever about rebels and traitors. This made Bacon and the people with him very angry. To be treated in this way while they were saving the people from the Indian knife and tomahawk was too bad. They marched against Jamestown again. This time the governor did not run away, but prepared to defend the place with soldiers and cannon.
But they did not fire their guns. Bacon had captured some of the wives of the principal men, and he put them in front of his line as he advanced. The governor did not dare bid his soldiers to fire on these women, so he left the town again in ahurry, and it was taken by the Indian fighters.
Bacon made up his mind that Governor Berkeley should not come back to Jamestown again. He had the town set on fire and burned to the ground. Some of the men with him set fire to their own houses, so that they should not give shelter to the governor and his men. That was the end of Jamestown. It was never rebuilt. Only ashes remained of the first English town in America. To-day there is only an old church tower to show where it stood.
We cannot tell what might have happened if brave young Bacon had lived. As it was, he was taken sick and died. His men now had no leader, and soon scattered. Then the governor came back full of fury, and began to hang all those who opposed him. He might have put a great many of them to death if the king had not stopped him and ordered him back to England. This was King Charles II., whose father had been put to death by Cromwell. He was angry at what Governor Berkeley had done, and said:
"That old fool has hung more men in that naked land than I did for the murder of my father."
WHAT a wonderful change has come over this great country of ours since the days of our grandfathers! Look at our great cities, with their grand buildings, and their miles of streets, with swift-speeding electric cars, and thousands of carriages and wagons, and great stores lit by brilliant electric lights, and huge workshops filled with rattling wheels and marvelous machines! And look at our broad fields filled with cattle or covered by growing crops, and divided by splendid highways and railroads thousands of miles in length! Is it not all very wonderful?
"But has it not always been this way?" some very young persons ask. "I have lived so many years and have never seen anything else."
My dear young friend, if you had lived fifty or sixty years, as many of us older folks have, you would have seen very different things. And if we had lived as long ago as our grandfathers did, and then come back again to-day, I fancy our eyeswould open wider than Governor Andros's did when he saw that the charter was gone.
In those days, as I told you, when any one wanted to make a light, he could not strike a match and touch it to a gas jet as we do, but must hammer away with flint and steel, and then had nothing better than a home-made tallow candle to light. Why, I am sure that many of you never even saw a pair of snuffers, which people then used to cut off the candle wick.
Some of you who live in old houses with dusty lofts under the roof, full of worm-eaten old furniture, have, no doubt, found there odd-looking wooden frames and wheels, and queer old tools of various kinds. Sometimes these wheels are brought down stairs and set in the hall as something to be proud of. And the old eight-day clocks stand there, too, with their loud "tick-tack," buzzing and ticking away to-day as if they had not done so for a hundred years. The wheels I speak of are the old spinning wheels, with which our great-grandmothers spun flax into thread. This thread they wove into homespun cloth on old-fashioned looms. All work of this kind used to be done at home, though now it is done in great factories; and we buy our clothes in the stores, instead of spinning and weaving and sewing them in the great old kitchens before the wood-fire on the hearth.
Really, I am afraid many of you do not know how people lived in the old times. They are often spoken of as the "good old times." I fancy you will hardly think so when I have told you something more about them. Would you think it very good to have to get up in a freezing cold room, and go down and pump ice-cold water to wash your face, and go out in the snow to get wood to make the fire, and shiver for an hour before the house began to warm up? That is only one of the things you would not find pleasant. I shall certainly have to stop here and tell you about how people lived in old times, and then you can say if you would like to go back to them.
Would any boy and girl among you care to live in a little one-story house, made of rough logs laid one on another, and with a roof of thatch—that is, of straw or reeds, or anything that would keep out the rain? Houses, I mean, with only one or two rooms, and some of them with chimneys made of wood, plastered with clay on the inside so that they could not be set on fire. These were the oldest houses. Later on people began to build larger houses, many of which were made of brick or stone. But I am afraid there was not much comfort in the best of them. They had no stoves, and were heated by great stone fireplaces, where big logs of wood were burned. They made a bright and cheerful blaze, it is true, but most of the heatwent roaring up the wide chimney, and only a little of it got out into the room. In the winter the people lived in their kitchens, with the blazing wood-fire for heat and light, and at bed-time went shivering off to ice-cold rooms. Do you think you would have enjoyed that?
They had very little furniture, and the most of what they had was rude and rough, much of it chopped out of the trees by the farmer's axe. Some of the houses had glass windows—little diamond-shaped panes, set in lead frames—but most of them had nothing but oiled paper, which kept out as much light as it let in.
All the cooking was done on the great kitchen hearth, where the pots were hung on iron cranes and the pans set on the blazing coals. They did not have as many kinds of food to cook as we have. Mush and milk, or pork and beans, were their usual food, and their bread was mostly made of rye or cornmeal. The boys and girls who had nice books they wanted to read often had to do so by the light of the kitchen fire; but I can tell you that books were very scarce things in those days.
If any of us had lived then I know how glad we would have been to see the bright spring time, with its flowers and warm sunshine. But we might have shivered again when we thought of next winter. Of course, the people had some good times. They had Thanksgiving-day, when thetable was filled with good things to eat, and election-day and training-day, when they had outdoor sports. And they had quilting and husking-parties, and spinning bees, and sleigh-rides and picnics and other amusements. A wedding was a happy time, and even a funeral was followed by a great dinner. But after all there was much more hard work than holiday, and nearly everybody had to labor long and got little for it. They were making themselves homes and a country, you know, and it was a very severe task. We, to-day, are getting the good of their work.
Down South people had more comfort. The weather was not nearly so cold, so they did not have to keep up such blazing fires or shiver in their cold beds. Many of the rich planters built themselves large mansions of wood or brick, and brought costly furniture from England, and lived in great show, with gold and silverware on their sideboards and fine coaches drawn by handsome horses when they went abroad.
In New York the Dutch built quaint old houses, of the kind used in Holland. In Philadelphia the Quakers lived in neat two-storied houses, with wide orchards and gardens round them, where they raised plenty of fruit. When any one opened a shop, he would hang out a basket, a wooden anchor, or some such sign to show what kind of goods he had to sell.
In New England Sunday was kept in a very strict fashion, for the people were very religious. It was thought wicked to play, or even to laugh, on Sunday, and everybody had to go to church. All who did not go were punished. And, mercy on us, what sermons they preached in those cold old churches, prosing away sometimes for two hours at a time! The boys and girls had to listen to them, as well as the men and women, and you know how hard it is now to listen for one hour.
If they got sleepy, as no doubt they often did, and went off into a snooze, they were soon wide awake again. For the constable went up and down the aisles with a long staff in his hand. This had a rabbit's foot on one end of it and a rabbit's tail on the other. If he saw one of the women asleep he would draw the rabbit's tail over her face. But if a boy took a nap, down would come the rabbit's foot in a sharp rap on his head, and up he would start very wide awake. To-day we would call that sort of sermons cruelty to children, and I think it was cruelty to the old folks also.
Do you think those were "good old times"? I imagine some of you will fancy they were "bad old times." But they were not nearly so bad as you may think. For you must bear in mind that the people knew nothing of many of the things we enjoy. They were used to hard work and plainfood and coarse furniture and rough clothes and cold rooms, and were more hardy and could stand more than people who sleep in furnace-heated rooms and have their tables heaped with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats.
But there was one thing that could not have been pleasant, and that was, their being afraid all the time of the Indians, and having to carry muskets with them even when they went to church. All around them were the forests in which the wild red men roamed, and their cruel yell might be heard at any time, or a sharp arrow might whiz out from the thick leaves.
The farm-houses were built like forts, and in all the villages were strong buildings called blockhouses, to which everybody could run in times of danger. In these the second story spread out over the first, and there were holes in the floor through which the men could fire down on the Indians below. But it makes us tremble to think that, at any time, the traveler or farmer might be shot down by a lurking savage, or might be seized and burned alive. We can hardly wonder that the people grew to hate the Indians and to kill them or drive them away.
There was much game in the woods and the rivers were full of fish, so that many of the people spent their time in hunting and fishing. They gotto be as expert in this as the Indians themselves, and some of them could follow a trail as well as the most sharp-sighted of the red men.
Some of you may have read Fenimore Cooper's novels of Indian life, and know what a wonderful hunter and Indian trailer old Natty Bumppo was. But we do not need to go to novels to read about great hunters, for the life of Daniel Boone is as full of adventure as that of any of the heroes of Indian life.
Daniel Boone was the most famous hunter this country has ever known. He lived much later than the early times I am talking about, but the country he lived in was as wild as that found by the first settlers of the country. When he was only a little boy he went into the deep woods and lived there by himself for several days, shooting game and making a fire to cook it by. He made himself a little hut of boughs and sods, and lived in it like an Indian, and there his father and friends found him when they came seeking him in the woods.
Years afterwards he crossed the high mountains of North Carolina and went into the great forest of Kentucky, where only Indians and wild animals lived. For a long time he stayed there by himself, with the Indians hunting and trying to kill him. But he was too wide awake for the smartest of them all.
One time, when they were close on his trail, he got away from them by catching hold of a loose grape-vine and making a long swinging jump, and then running on. When the Indians came to the place they lost the marks of his footprints and gave up the chase. At another time when he was taken prisoner he got up, took one of their guns, and slipped away from them without one of them waking up.
Many years afterwards, when he and others had built a fort in Kentucky, and brought out their wives and children, Boone's daughters and two other girls were carried off by Indians while they were out picking wild flowers.
Boone and other hunters were soon on their trail, and followed it by the broken bushes and bits of torn dress which the wide-awake young girls had left behind them. In this way they came up to the Indians while they were eating their supper, fired on them, and then ran up and rescued the girls. These young folks did not go out of the fort to pick wild flowers after that.
Once Daniel Boone was taken prisoner, and would have been burned alive if an old woman had not taken him for her son. The Indians painted his face and made him wear an Indian dress and live with them as one of themselves. But one day he heard them talking, and found that they were going to attack the fort where all his friendswere. Then he slipped out of the village and ran away. He had a long journey to make and the Indians followed him close. But he walked in the water to hide his footsteps, and lived on roots and berries, for fear they would hear his gun if he shot any game. In the end he got back safe to the fort. He found it in bad condition, but he set the men at work to make it strong, and when the Indians came they were beaten off.
Daniel Boone lived to be a very old man, and kept going farther west to get away from the new people who were coming into the Kentucky forest. He said he wanted "elbow room." He spent all the rest of his life hunting, and the Indians looked on him as the greatest woodsman and the most wonderful hunter the white men ever had.
DO you not think there are a great many interesting stories in American history? I have told you some, and I could tell you many more. I am going to tell you one now, about a brave young man who had a great deal to do with the making of our glorious country. But to reach it we will have to take a step backward over one hundred and fifty years. That is a pretty long step, isn't it? It takes us away back to about the year 1750. But people had been coming into this country for more than a hundred and fifty years before that, and there were a great many white men and women in America at that time.
These people came from Spain and France and Great Britain and Holland and Germany and Sweden and other countries besides. The Spaniards had spread through many regions in the south; the French had gone west by way of the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi River; but the British were settled close to the ocean, and the country back of them was still forest land, where only wild men and wild beasts lived. Thatis the way things were situated at the time of the story which I now propose to tell.
The young man I am about to speak of knew almost as much about life in the deep woods as Daniel Boone, the great hunter, of whom I have just told you. Why, when he was only sixteen years old he and another boy went far back into the wild country of Virginia to survey or measure the lands there for a rich land-holder.
The two boys crossed the rough mountains and went into the broad valley of the Shenandoah River, and for months they lived there alone in the broad forest. There were no roads through the woods and they had to make their own paths. When they were hungry they would shoot a wild turkey or a squirrel, or sometimes a deer. They would cook their meat by holding it on a stick over a fire of fallen twigs, and for plates they would cut large chips from a tree with their axe.
All day long they worked in the woods, measuring the land with a long chain. At night they would roll themselves in their blankets and go to sleep under the trees. If the weather was cold they gathered wood and made a fire. Very likely they enjoyed it all, for boys are fond of adventure. Sometimes a party of Indians would come up and be very curious to know what these white boys were doing. But the Indians were peaceful then,and did not try to harm them. One party amused the young surveyors by dancing a war dance before them. A fine time they had in the woods, where they stayed alone for months. When they came back the land-holder was much pleased with their work.
Now let us go on for five years, when the backwoods boy-surveyor had become a young man twenty-one years of age. If we could take ourselves back to the year 1753, and plunge into the woods of western Pennsylvania, we might see this young man again in the deep forest, walking along with his rifle in hand and his pack on his back. He had with him an old frontiersman named Gill, and an Indian who acted as their guide through the forest.
The Indian was a treacherous fellow. One day, when they were not looking, he fired his gun at them from behind a tree. He did not hit either of them. Some men would have shot him, but they did not; they let him go away and walked on alone through the deep woods. They built a fire that night, but they did not sleep before it, for they were afraid the Indian might come back and try to kill them while they were sleeping. So they left it burning and walked on a few miles and went to sleep without a fire.
A few days after that they came to the banks ofa wide river. You may find it on your map of Pennsylvania. It is called the Allegheny River, and runs into the Ohio. It had been frozen, for it was winter time; but now the ice was broken and floating swiftly down the stream.
What were they to do? They had to get across that stream. The only plan they could think of was to build a raft out of logs and try to push it through the ice with long poles. This they did, and were soon out on the wild river and among the floating ice.
It was a terrible passage. The great cakes of ice came swirling along and striking like heavy hammers against the raft, almost hard enough to knock it to pieces. One of these heavy ice cakes struck the pole of the young traveler, and gave him such a shock that he fell from the raft into the freezing cold water. He had a hard enough scramble to get back on the raft again.
After a while they reached a little island in the stream and got ashore. There was no wood on it and they could not make a fire, so they had to walk about all night to keep from freezing. The young man was wet to the skin, but he had young blood and did not suffer as much as the older man with him. When morning came they found that the ice was frozen fast between the island and the other shore, so all they had to do was to walk across it.
These were not the only adventures they had, but they got safe back to Virginia, from which they had set out months before.
Do you want to know who this young traveler was? His name was George Washington. That is all I need say. Any one who does not know who George Washington was is not much of an American. But quite likely you do not guess what he was doing in the woods so far away from his home. He had been sent there by the governor of Virginia, and I shall have to tell you why.
But first you must go back with me to an earlier time. The time I mean is when the French were settling in Canada along the St. Lawrence River, and going west over the lakes, and floating in canoes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Wherever they went they built forts and claimed the country for their king. At the same time the English were settling along the Atlantic shores and pushing slowly back into the country.
You should know that the French and the English were not the best of friends. They had their wars in Europe, and every time they got into war there they began to fight in America also. This made terrible times in the new country. The French had many of the Indians on their side, and they marched through the woods and attacked some of the English towns, and the cruel Indians murdered many of the poor settlers who had donethem no harm. There were three such wars, lasting for many years, and a great many innocent men, women and children, who had nothing to do with the wars in Europe, lost their lives. That is what we call war. It is bad enough now, but it was worse still in those days.
The greatest of all the wars between the French and the English was still to come. Between the French forts on the Mississippi and the English settlements on the Atlantic there was a vast forest land, and both the French and the English said it belonged to them. In fact, it did not belong to either of them, but to the Indians; but the white men never troubled themselves about the rights of the old owners of the land.
While the English were talking the French were acting. About 1750 they built two or three forts in the country south of Lake Erie. What they wanted was the Ohio River, with the rich and fertile lands which lay along that stream. Building those forts was the first step. The next step would be to send soldiers to the Ohio and build forts there also.
When the English heard what the French were doing they became greatly alarmed. If they did not do something very quickly they would lose all this great western country. The governor of Virginia wished to know what the French meant to do, and he thought the best way to find out was to askthem. So he chose the young backwoods surveyor, George Washington, and sent him through the great forest to the French forts.
Washington was very young for so important a duty. But he was tall and strong and quick-witted, and he was not afraid of any man or anything. And he knew all about life in the woods. So he was chosen, and far west he went over plain and mountain, now on horseback and now on foot, following the Indian trails through the forest, until at last he came to the French forts.
The French officers told him that they had come there to stay. They were not going to give up their forts to please the governor of Virginia. And Washington's quick eye saw that they were getting canoes ready to go down the streams to the Ohio River the next spring. This was the news the young messenger was taking back to the governor when he had his adventures with the Indian and the ice.
If any of you know anything about how wars are brought on, you may well think there was soon going to be war in America. Both parties wanted the land, and both were ready to fight to get it, and when people feel that way fighting is not far off.
Indeed, the spring of 1754 was not far advanced before both sides were on the move. Washington had picked out a beautiful spot for a fort. Thiswas where the two rivers which form the Ohio come together. On that spot the city of Pittsburg now stands; but then it was a very wild place.
As soon as the governor heard Washington's report he sent a party of men in great haste to build a fort at that point. But in a short time a larger party of French came down the Allegheny River in canoes and drove the English workmen away. Then they finished the fort for themselves and called it Fort Duquesne.
Meanwhile Washington was on his way back. A force of four hundred Virginians had been sent out under an officer named Colonel Frye. But the colonel died on the march, and young Washington, then only twenty-two years old, found himself at the head of a regiment of soldiers, and about to start a great war. Was it not a difficult position for so young a man? Not many men of that age would have known what to do, but George Washington was not an ordinary man.
While the Virginians were marching west, the French were marching south, and it was not long before they came together. A party of French hid in a thicket to watch the English, and Washington, thinking they were there for no good, ordered his men to fire. They did so, and the leader of the French was killed. This was the first shot in the coming war.
But the youthful commander soon found thatthe French were too strong for him. He built a sort of fort at a place called Great Meadows, and named it Fort Necessity. It was hardly finished before the French and Indians came swarming all around it and a severe fight began.
The Virginians fought well, but the French were too strong, and fired into the fort till Washington had to surrender. This took place on July 4, 1754, just twenty-two years before the American Declaration of Independence. Washington and his men were allowed to march home with their arms, and the young colonel was very much praised when he got home, for everybody thought he had done his work in the best possible way.
When the news of this battle crossed the ocean there was great excitement in England and France, and both countries sent soldiers to America. Those from England were under a general named Braddock, a man who knew all about fighting in England, but knew nothing about fighting in America. And what was worse, he would let nobody tell him. Washington generously tried to do so, but he got snubbed by the proud British general for his pains.
After a while away marched General Braddock, with his British soldiers in their fine red coats. Washington went with him with a body of Virginians dressed in plain colony clothes. On and on they went, through the woods and over themountains, cutting down trees and opening a road for their wagons, and bravely beating their drums and waving their flags. At length they came near Fort Duquesne, the drums still beating, the flags still flying, the gun barrels glittering in the bright sunshine.
"Let me go ahead with my Virginians," said Washington. "They know all about Indian fighting."
"That for your Indians!" said Braddock, snapping his fingers. "They will not stay in their hiding places long when my men come up."
Soon after they came into a narrow place, with steep banks and thick bushes all around. And suddenly loud Indian war-whoops and the crack of guns came from those bushes. Not a man could be seen, but bullets flew like hail-stones among the red-coats. The soldiers fired back, but they wasted their bullets on the bushes. Washington and his men ran into the woods and got behind trees like the Indians, but Braddock would not let his men do the same, and they were shot down like sheep. At length General Braddock fell wounded, and then his brave red-coats turned and ran for their lives. Very likely not a man of them would have got away if Washington and his men had not kept back the French and Indians.
This defeat was a bad business for the poor settlers,for the savage redskins began murdering them on all sides, and during all the rest of the war Washington was kept busy fighting with these Indians. Not till four years afterwards was he able to take Fort Duquesne from the French.
Then another body of men was sent through the woods and over the mountains to capture this fort. But their general did as Braddock had done before him, spending so much time cutting a highroad through the woods that the whole season passed away and he was ready to turn and march back. Then Washington, who was with him, asked permission to go forward with his rangers. The general told him to go and he hurried through the woods and to the fort. When he came near it the French took to their boats and paddled off down the river, so that Washington took the fort without firing a shot.