Part 5 (1/2)

[Sidenote: The Pilgrims and the Indians. _Explorers_, 333-337.]

[Sidenote: Success of the colony.]

[Sidenote: New Plymouth colony.]

47. New Plymouth Colony.--Of all the Indians who once had lived near Plymouth only one remained. His name was Squanto. He came to the Pilgrims in the spring. He taught them to grow corn and to dig clams, and thus saved them from starvation. The Pilgrims cared for him most kindly as long as he lived. Another and more important Indian also came to Plymouth. He was Ma.s.sasoit, chief of the strongest Indian tribe near Plymouth. With him the Pilgrims made a treaty which both parties obeyed for more than fifty years. Before long the Pilgrims' life became somewhat easier. They worked hard to raise food for themselves, they fished off the coasts, and bought furs from the Indians. In these ways they got together enough money to pay back the London merchants. Many of their friends joined them. Other towns were settled near by, and Plymouth became the capital of the colony of New Plymouth. But the colony was never very prosperous, and in the end was added to Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Sidenote: Founders of Ma.s.sachusetts.]

[Sidenote: _Explorers_ 341-361; _Source-book_ 45-48, 74-76.]

[Sidenote: Settlement of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1630. _Higginson_, 60-64; _Eggleston_, 39-41.]

48. The Founding of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1629-30.--Unlike the poor and humble Pilgrims were the founders of Ma.s.sachusetts. They were men of wealth and social position, as for instance, John Winthrop and Sir Richard Saltonstall. They left comfortable homes in England to found a Puritan state in America. They got a great tract of land extending from the Merrimac to the Charles, and westward across the continent. Hundreds of colonists came over in the years 1629-30. They settled Boston, Salem, and neighboring towns. In the next ten years thousands more joined them.

From the beginning Ma.s.sachusetts was strong and prosperous. Among so many people there were some who did not get on happily with the rulers of the colony.

[Sidenote: Roger Williams expelled from Ma.s.sachusetts. _Higginson_, 68-70.]

[Sidenote: He founds Providence, 1636. _Source-book_, 52-54.]

49. Roger Williams and Religious Liberty.--Among the newcomers was Roger Williams, a Puritan minister. He disagreed with the Ma.s.sachusetts leaders on several points. For instance, he thought that the Ma.s.sachusetts people had no right to their lands, and he insisted that the rulers had no power in religious matters--as enforcing the laws as to Sunday. He insisted on these points so strongly that the Ma.s.sachusetts government expelled him from the colony. In the spring of 1636; with four companions he founded the town of Providence. There he decided that every one should be free to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as he or she saw fit.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends.]

[Sidenote: They settle Rhode Island, 1637.]

50. The Rhode Island Towns.--Soon another band of exiles came from Ma.s.sachusetts. These were Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers. Mrs.

Hutchinson was a brilliant Puritan woman who had come to Boston from England to enjoy the ministry of John Cotton, one of the Boston ministers. She soon began to find fault with the other ministers of the colony. Naturally, they did not like this. Their friends were more numerous than were Mrs. Hutchinson's friends, and the latter had to leave Ma.s.sachusetts. They settled on the island of Rhode Island (1637).

[Sidenote: The Connecticut colonists.]

[Sidenote: Founding of Connecticut, 1635-36. _Higginson_, 71-72.]

51. The Connecticut Colony.--Besides those Puritans whom the Ma.s.sachusetts people drove from their colony there were other settlers who left Ma.s.sachusetts of their own free will. Among these were the founders of Connecticut. The Ma.s.sachusetts people would gladly have had them remain, but they were discontented and insisted on going away. They settled the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Weathersfield, on the Connecticut River. At about the same time John Winthrop, Jr., led a colony to Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut. Up to this time the Dutch had seemed to have the best chance to settle the Connecticut Valley. But the control of that region was now definitely in the hands of the English.

[Sidenote: Destruction of the Pequods, 1637.]

52. The Pequod War, 1637.--The Pequod Indians were not so ready as the Dutch to admit that resistance was hopeless. They attacked Wethersfield. They killed several colonists, and carried others away into captivity. Captain John Mason of Connecticut and Captain John Underhill of Ma.s.sachusetts went against them with about one hundred men.

They surprised the Indians in their fort. They set fire to the fort, and shot down the Indians as they strove to escape from their burning wigwams. In a short time the Pequod tribe was destroyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN WINTHROP, JR.]

[Sidenote: The Connecticut Orders of 1638-39.]

53. The First American Const.i.tution, 1638-39.--The Connecticut colonists had leisure now to settle the form of their government.

Ma.s.sachusetts had such a liberal charter that nothing more seemed to be necessary in that colony. The Mayflower Compact did well enough for the Pilgrims. The Connecticut people had no charter, and they wanted something more definite than a vague compact. So in the winter of 1638-39 they met at Hartford and set down on paper a complete set of rules for their guidance. This was the first time in the history of the English race that any people had tried to do this. The Connecticut const.i.tution of 1638-39 is therefore looked upon as ”the first truly political written const.i.tution in history.” The government thus established was very much the same as that of Ma.s.sachusetts with the exception that in Connecticut there was no religious condition for the right to vote as there was in Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Sidenote: The New Haven settlers.]