Part 28 (1/2)
[Footnote 16: Palfrey, _New England,_ II., 47.]
[Footnote 17: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records,_ II., 9.]
[Footnote 18: Ibid., 203.]
[Footnote 19: Ibid., I., 183.]
[Footnote 20: Ibid., 253.]
[Footnote 21: Weeden, _Econ. and Soc. Hist., of New England_, I., 282, II., 861.]
[Footnote 22: Weeden, _Indian Money as a Factor in New England Colonization_ (_Johns Hopkins University Studies_, II., Nos. viii., ix.).]
[Footnote 23: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, 110; _Conn. Col. Records_, I., 8.]
[Footnote 24: _Ma.s.s. Col. Records_, IV., pt. i., 84, 118.]
[Footnote 25: Howe, _Puritan Republic,_ 102, 110, 111.]
[Footnote 26: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation,_ 459.]
[Footnote 27: Tyler, _American Literature,_ II., 87.]
CHAPTER XX
CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AIDS
Four special bibliographies of American history are serviceable upon the field of this volume. First, most searching and most voluminous, is Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (8 vols., 1888-1889). Mr. Winsor has added to the study of the era of colonization by the writers of his co-operative work the vast wealth of his own bibliographical knowledge. The part of Winsor applicable to this volume is found in vol. III., in which most of the printed contemporary material is enumerated. The second bibliography is the _Cambridge Modern History,_ VII. (1903); pages 757-765 include a brief list of selected t.i.tles conveniently cla.s.sified. J.N. Lamed, _Literature of American History, a Bibliographical Guide_ (1902), has brief critical estimates of the authorities upon colonial history.
Channing and Hart, _Guide to the Study of American History_ (1896), contains accounts of state and local histories (-- 23), books of travel (-- 24), biography (-- 25), colonial records (-- 29), proceedings of learned societies (-- 31), also a series of consecutive topics with specific references (---- 92-98, 100, 101, 109-124). For the field of the present volume a short road to the abundant sources of material is through the footnotes of the princ.i.p.al secondary works enumerated below. The critical chapters in _The American Nation,_ vols. III. and V., contain appreciations of many authorities which also bear on the field of vol. IV.
GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS
The ”Foundation” period, from 1574 to 1652, is naturally one of the most interesting in the annals of the American colonies. The most important general historians are George Bancroft, _History of the United States_ (rev. ed., 6 vols., 1883-1885); J.A. Doyle, _English Colonies in America_ (3 vols., 1882-1887); Richard Hildreth, _History of the United States_ (6 vols., 1849-1852); George Chalmers, _Political Annals of the American Colonies_ (1780); Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (8 vols., 1888-1889); John Fiske, _Discovery of America_ (2 vols., 1892), _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_ (1900), _Beginnings of New England_ (1898), _Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, New France and New England_ (1902).
Among these writers three have conspicuous merit--Doyle, Winsor, and Fiske. Doyle's volumes manifest a high degree of philosophic perception and are accurate in statement and broad in conclusions. Of his books the volumes on the Puritan colonies are distinctly of a higher order than his volume on the southern colonies. The chief merit of Winsor's work is the critical chapters and parts of narrative chapters, which are invaluable. John Fiske is not wanting in the qualities of a great historian--breadth of mind and accuracy of statement; but his great charm is in his style and his power of vivifying events long forgotten. He has probably come nearer than any one else to writing real history so as to produce a popular effect.
COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES
The main contemporary collectors of materials for the history of the early voyages to America were Richard Eden, Richard Hakluyt, and Samuel Purchas. Eden's _Decades of the New World or West Indies_ (7 vols., 1555) consists of abstracts of the works of foreign writers--Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Gomara, Ramusio, Ziegler, Pigafetta, Munster, Bastaldus, Vespucius, and others. Richard Hakluyt first published _Divers Voyages_ (1582; reprinted by the Hakluyt Society) and then his _Princ.i.p.al Voyages_ (3 vols., folio, 1589; reissued 1600). Samuel Purchas's first volume appeared in 1613 under the t.i.tle, _Purchas: His Pilgrimage of the World, or Religions Observed in all Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation unto this Present_. The four subsequent volumes were published in 1623 under the t.i.tle, _Hakluytius Posthumous, or, Purchas: His Pilgrimes._
Among these three compilers Hakluyt enjoys pre-eminence, and the Hakluyt Society has supplemented his labors by publis.h.i.+ng in full some of the narratives which Hakluyt, for reasons of accuracy or want of s.p.a.ce, abbreviated. _The Historie of Travaile into Virginia_, by William Strachey, secretary to Lord Delaware, was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1848, and this book contains excellent accounts of the expeditions sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to Roanoke, the voyages of Bartholomew Gosnold and George Weymouth, and the settlement made under its charter by the Plymouth Company at Sagadahoc, or Kennebec.
The only official collection of doc.u.mentary materials that covers the entire period is the _Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574-1696_ (9 vols., 1860-1903). George Sainsbury, the editor, was a master at catching the salient points of a ma.n.u.script. Many of his abstracts have elsewhere been published in full.