Chapter 4

The next time Samoset came he brought with him another Indian, whose name was Squanto. Squanto was the only one left of the tribe that had once lived at Plymouth. All the rest had died of a dreadful sickness, or plague. He had been stolen by some sailors and carried to England; there he had learned the language. After his return he had joined an Indian tribe that lived about thirty miles further west. The chief of that tribe was named Massasoit, and Squanto said that he was coming directly to visit the Pilgrims.

In about an hour Massasoit, with some sixty warriors, appeared on a hill just outside the settlement. The Indians had painted their faces in their very gayest style--black, red, and yellow. If paint could make them handsome, they were determined to look their best.

[Footnote 8: Samoset (Sam'o-set).]

[Footnote 9: Squanto (Skwon'to).]

[Footnote 10: Massasoit (Mas'sa-soit').]

69. Massasoit and Governor Carver make a treaty of friendship; how Thanksgiving was kept; what Squanto did for the Pilgrims.--Captain Standish, attended by a guard of honor, went out and brought the chief to Governor Carver. Then Massasoit and the governor made a solemn promise or treaty, in which they agreed that the Indians of his tribe and the Pilgrims should live like friends and brothers, doing all they could to help each other. That promise was kept for more than fifty years; it was never broken until long after the two men who made it were in their graves.

When the Pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving, they invited Massasoit and his men to come and share it. The Indians brought venison and other good things; there were plenty of wild turkeys roasted; and so they all sat down together to a great dinner, and had a merry time in the wilderness.

Squanto was of great help to the Pilgrims. He showed them how to catch eels, where to go fishing, when to plant their corn, and how to put a fish in every hill to make it grow fast.

After a while he came to live with the Pilgrims. He liked them so much that when the poor fellow died he begged Governor Bradford to pray that he might go to the white man's heaven.

70. Canonicus[11] dares Governor Bradford to fight; the palisade; the fort and meeting-house.--West of where Massasoit lived, there were some Indians on the shore of Narragansett Bay,[12] in what is now Rhode Island. Their chief was named Canonicus, and he was no friend to Massasoit or to the Pilgrims. Canonicus thought he could frighten the white men away, so he sent a bundle of sharp, new arrows, tied round with a rattlesnake skin, to Governor Bradford: that meant that he dared the governor and his men to come out and fight. Governor Bradford threw away the arrows, and then filled the snake-skin up to the mouth with powder and ball. This was sent back to Canonicus. When he saw it, he was afraid to touch it, for he knew that Myles Standish's bullets would whistle louder and cut deeper than his Indian arrows.

But though the Pilgrims did not believe that Canonicus would attack them, they thought it best to build a very high, strong fence, called a palisade, round the town.

They also built a log fort on one of the hills, and used the lower part of the fort for a church. Every Sunday all the people, with Captain Standish at the head, marched to their meeting-house, where a man stood on guard outside. Each Pilgrim carried his gun, and set it down near him. With one ear he listened sharply to the preacher; with the other he listened just as sharply for the cry, Indians! Indians! But the Indians never came.

[Footnote 11: Canonicus (Ka-non'i-kus).]

[Footnote 12: Narragansett (Nar'a-gan'set): see map, paragraph 84.]

71. The new settlers; trouble with the Indians in their neighborhood; Captain Standish's fight with the savages.--By and by more emigrants came from England and settled about twenty-five miles north of Plymouth, at what is now called Weymouth. The Indians in that neighborhood did not like these new settlers, and they made up their minds to come upon them suddenly and murder them.

Governor Bradford sent Captain Standish with a few men, to see how great the danger was. He found the Indians very bold. One of them came up to him, whetting a long knife. He held it up, to show how sharp it was, and then patting it, he said, "By and by, it shall eat, but not speak." Presently another Indian came up. He was a big fellow, much larger and stronger than Standish. He, too, had a long knife, as keen as a razor. "Ah," said he to Standish, "so this is the mighty captain the white men have sent to destroy us! He is a little man; let him go and work with the women."[13]

The captain's blood was on fire with rage; but he said not a word. His time had not yet come. The next day the Pilgrims and the Indians met in a log cabin. Standish made a sign to one of his men, and he shut the door fast. Then the captain sprang like a tiger at the big savage who had laughed at him, and snatching his long knife from him, he plunged it into his heart. A hand-to-hand fight followed between the white men and the Indians. The Pilgrims gained the victory, and carried back the head of the Indian chief in triumph to Plymouth. Captain Standish's bold action saved both of the English settlements from destruction.

[Footnote 13: See Longfellow's _The Courtship of Miles Standish_. This quotation is truthful in its rendering of the _spirit_ of the words used by the Indian in his insulting speech to Standish; it should be understood, however, that the poem does not always adhere closely either to the chronology, or to the exact facts, of history.]

72. What else Myles Standish did; his death.--But Standish did more things for the Pilgrims than fight for them; for he went to England, bought goods for them, and borrowed money to help them.

He lived to be an old man. At his death he left, among other things, three well-worn Bibles and three good guns. In those days, the men who read the Bible most were those who fought the hardest.

Near Plymouth there is a high hill called Captain's Hill. That was where Standish made his home during the last of his life. A granite monument, over a hundred feet high, stands on top of the hill. On it is a statue of the brave captain looking toward the sea. He was one of the makers of America.

73. Governor John Winthrop founds[14] Boston.--Ten years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, a large company of English people under the leadership of Governor John Winthrop came to New England. They were called Puritans,[15] and they, too, were seeking that religious freedom which was denied them in the old country. One of the vessels which brought over these new settlers was named the _Mayflower_. She may have been the very ship which in 1620 brought the Pilgrims to these shores.

Governor Winthrop's company named the place where they settled Boston, in grateful remembrance of the beautiful old city of Boston,[16] England, from which some of the chief emigrants came. The new settlement was called the Massachusetts Bay[17] Colony,[18] Massachusetts being the Indian name for the Blue Hills, near Boston. The Plymouth Colony was now often called the Old Colony, because it had been settled first. After many years, these two colonies were united, and still later they became the state of Massachusetts.

[Footnote 14: Founds: begins to build.]

[Footnote 15: See footnote 4 in paragraph 62.]

[Footnote 16: Boston, England; see map in paragraph 62.]

[Footnote 17: Massachusetts Bay; see map in paragraph 84.]

[Footnote 18: Colony: here a company of settlers who came to America from England, and who were subject to the king of England, as all the English settlers of America were until the Revolution.]

74. How other New England colonies grew up; the Revolution.--By the time Governor Winthrop arrived, English settlements had been made in Maine, New Hampshire, and later (1724), in the country which afterward became the state of Vermont. Connecticut and Rhode Island were first settled by emigrants who went from Massachusetts.

When the Revolution broke out, the people throughout New England took up arms in defence of their rights. The first blood of the war was shed on the soil of Massachusetts, near Boston.

75. Summary.--The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, New England, in 1620. One of the chief men who came with them was Captain Myles Standish. Had it not been for his help, the Indians might have destroyed the settlement. In 1630, Governor John Winthrop, with a large company of emigrants from England, settled Boston. Near Boston the first battle of the Revolution was fought.

Why did some Englishmen in Holland call themselves Pilgrims? Why had they left England? Why did they now wish to go to America? Who was Myles Standish? From what place in England, and in what ship, did the Pilgrims sail? What land did they first see in America? What did they do at Cape Cod Harbor? What did the Pilgrims do on the Cape? Where did they land on December 21st, 1620? What happened during the winter? What is said of Samoset? What about Squanto? What about Massasoit? What did Massasoit and Governor Carver do? What about the first Thanksgiving? What is said about Canonicus and Governor Bradford? What did the Pilgrims build to protect them from the Indians? What is said about Weymouth? What did Myles Standish do there? What else did Myles Standish do besides fight? What is said of his death? What did Governor John Winthrop do? What did the people of New England do in the Revolution? Where was the first blood shed?

LORD BALTIMORE (1580-1632).

76. Lord Baltimore's settlement in Newfoundland; how Catholics were then treated in England.--While Captain Myles Standish was helping build up Plymouth, Lord Baltimore, an English nobleman, was trying to make a settlement on the cold, foggy island of Newfoundland.

Lord Baltimore had been brought up a Protestant, but had become a Catholic. At that time, Catholics were treated very cruelly in England. They were ordered by law to attend the Church of England. They did not like that church any better than the Pilgrims did; but if they failed to attend it, they had to take their choice between paying a large sum of money or going to prison.

Lord Baltimore hoped to make a home for himself and for other English Catholics in the wilderness of Newfoundland, where there would be no one to trouble them. But the unfortunate settlers were fairly frozen out. They had winter a good share of the year, and fog all of it. They could raise nothing, because, as one man said, the soil was either rock or swamp: the rock was as hard as iron; the swamp was so deep that you could not touch bottom with a ten-foot pole.

77. The king of England gives Lord Baltimore part of Virginia, and names it Maryland; what Lord Baltimore paid for it.--King Charles the First of England was a good friend to Lord Baltimore; and when the settlement in Newfoundland was given up, he made him a present of an immense three-cornered piece of land in America. This piece was cut out of Virginia, north of the Potomac[1] River.

The king's wife, who was called Queen Mary, was a French Catholic. In her honor, Charles named the country he had given Lord Baltimore, Mary Land, or Maryland. He could not have chosen a better name, because Maryland was to be a shelter for many English people who believed in the same religion that the queen did.

All that Lord Baltimore was to pay for Maryland, with its twelve thousand square miles of land and water, was two Indian arrows. These he agreed to send every spring to the royal palace of Windsor[2] Castle, near London.

The arrows would be worth nothing whatever to the king; but they were sent as a kind of yearly rent. They showed that, though Lord Baltimore had the use of Maryland, and could do pretty much as he pleased with it, still the king did not give up all control of it. In Virginia and in New England the king had granted all land to companies of persons, and he had been particular to tell them just what they must or must not do; but he gave Maryland to one man only. More than this, he promised to let Lord Baltimore have his own way in everything, so long as he made no laws in Maryland which should be contrary to the laws of England. So Lord Baltimore had greater privileges than any other holder of land in America at that time.

[Footnote 1: Potomac (Po-to'mak): see map, paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 2: Windsor (Win'zor).]

78. Lord Baltimore dies; his son sends emigrants to Maryland; the landing; the Indians; St. Mary's.--Lord Baltimore died before he could get ready to come to America. His eldest son then became Lord Baltimore. He sent over a number of emigrants; part of them were Catholics, and part were Protestants: all of them were to have equal rights in Maryland. In the spring of 1634, these people landed on a little island near the mouth of the Potomac River. There they cut down a tree, and made a large cross of it; then, kneeling round that cross, they all joined in prayer to God for their safe journey.

A little later, they landed on the shore of the river. There they met Indians. Under a huge mulberry-tree they bargained with the Indians for a place to build a town, and paid for the land in hatchets, knives, and beads.

The Indians were greatly astonished at the size of the ship in which the white men came. They thought that it was made like their canoes, out of the trunk of a tree hollowed out, and they wondered where the English could have found a tree big enough to make it.

The emigrants named their settlement St. Mary's, because they had landed on a day kept sacred to the Virgin Mary.[3] The Indians gave up one of their largest wigwams to Father White, one of the priests who had come over, and he made a church of it. It was the first English Catholic Church which was opened in America.

The Indians and the settlers lived and worked together side by side. The red men showed the emigrants how to hunt in the forest, and the Indian women taught the white women how to make hominy, and to bake johnny-cake before the open fire.

[Footnote 3: March 25th: Annunciation or Lady Day.]

79. Maryland the home of religious liberty.--Maryland was different from the other English colonies in America, because there, and there only, every Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, had the right to worship God in his own way. In that humble little village of St. Mary's, made up of thirty or forty log huts and wigwams in the woods, "religious liberty had its only home in the wide world."

But more than this, Lord Baltimore generously invited people who had been driven out of the other settlements on account of their religion to come and live in Maryland. He gave a hearty welcome to all, whether they thought as he did or not. Thus he showed that he was a noble man by nature as well as a nobleman by name.

80. Maryland falls into trouble; the city of Baltimore built.--But this happy state of things did not last long. Some of the people of Virginia were very angry because the king had given Lord Baltimore part of what they thought was their land. They quarrelled with the new settlers and made them a great deal of trouble.

Then worse things happened. Men went to Maryland and undertook to drive out the Catholics. In some cases they acted in a very shameful manner toward Lord Baltimore and his friends; among other things, they put Father White in irons and sent him back to England as a prisoner. Lord Baltimore had spent a great deal of money in building up the settlement, but his right to the land was taken away from him for a time, and all who dared to defend him were badly treated.

St. Mary's never grew to be much of a place, but not quite a hundred years after the English landed there a new and beautiful city was begun (1729) in Maryland. It was named Baltimore, in honor of that Lord Baltimore who sent out the first emigrants. When the Revolutionary War broke out, the citizens of Baltimore showed that they were not a bit behind the other colonies of America in their spirit of independence.

81. Summary.--King Charles the First of England gave Lord Baltimore, an English Catholic, a part of Virginia and named it Maryland, in honor of his wife, Queen Mary. A company of emigrants came out to Maryland in 1634. It was the first settlement in America in which all Christian people had entire liberty to worship God in whatever way they thought right. That liberty they owed to Lord Baltimore.

Who was Lord Baltimore, and what did he try to do in Newfoundland? How were Catholics then treated in England? What did the king of England give Lord Baltimore in America? What did the king name the country? What was Lord Baltimore to pay for Maryland? What did the king promise Lord Baltimore? What did Lord Baltimore's son do? When and where did the emigrants land? What did they call the place? What is said about the Indians? Of what was Maryland the home? Why did some of the people of Virginia trouble them? What is said of the city of Baltimore? What is said of the Revolution?

ROGER WILLIAMS (1600-1684).

82. Roger Williams comes to Boston; he preaches in Salem and in Plymouth; his friendship for the Indians.--Shortly after Governor John Winthrop and his company settled Boston,[1] a young minister named Roger Williams came over from England to join them.

Mr. Williams soon became a great friend to the Indians and while he preached at Salem,[2] near Boston, and at Plymouth, he came to know many of them. He took pains to learn their language, and he spent a great deal of time talking with the chief Massasoit[3] and his men, in their dirty, smoky wigwams. He made the savages feel that, as he said, his whole heart's desire was to do them good. For this reason they were always glad to see him and ready to help him. A time came, as we shall presently see, when they were able to do quite as much for him as he could for them.

[Footnote 1: See paragraph 73.]

[Footnote 2: Salem (Sa'lem).]

[Footnote 3: See paragraph 68.]

83. Who owned the greater part of America? what the king of England thought; what Roger Williams thought and said.--The company that had settled Boston held the land by permission of the king of England. He considered that most of the land in America belonged to him, because John Cabot[4] had discovered it.

But Roger Williams said that the king had no right to the land unless he bought it of the Indians, who were living here when the English came.

Now the people of Massachusetts were always quite willing to pay the Indians a fair price for whatever land they wanted; but many of them were afraid to have Mr. Williams preach and write as he did. They believed that if they allowed him to go on speaking out so boldly against the king that the English monarch would get so angry that he would take away Massachusetts from them and give it to a new company. In that case, those who had settled here would lose everything. For this reason the people of Boston tried to make the young minister agree to keep silent on this subject.

[Footnote 4: See paragraph 22.]

84. A constable is sent to arrest Roger Williams; he escapes to the woods, and goes to Mount Hope.--But Mr. Williams was not one of the kind to keep silent. Then the chief men of Boston sent a constable down to Salem with orders to seize him and send him back to England. When he heard that the constable was after him, Mr. Williams slipped quietly out of his house and escaped to the woods.

There was a heavy depth of snow on the ground, but the young man made up his mind that he would go to his old friend Massasoit, and ask him to help him in his trouble.

Massasoit lived near Mount Hope, in what is now Rhode Island, about eighty miles southwest from Salem. There were no roads through the woods, and it was a long, dreary journey to make on foot, but Mr. Williams did not hesitate. He took a hatchet to chop fire-wood, a flint and steel to strike fire with,--for in those days people had no matches,--and, last of all, a pocket-compass to aid him in finding his way through the thick forest.

All day he waded wearily on through the deep snow, only stopping now and then to rest or to look at his compass and make sure that he was going in the right direction. At night he would gather wood enough to make a little fire to warm himself or to melt some snow for drink. Then he would cut down a few boughs for a bed, or, if he was lucky enough to find a large, hollow tree, he would creep into that. There he would fall asleep, while listening to the howling of the wind or to the fiercer howling of the hungry wolves prowling about the woods.

At length, after much suffering from cold and want of food, he managed to reach Massasoit's wigwam. There the big-hearted Indian chief gave him a warm welcome. He took him into his poor cabin and kept him till spring--there was no board bill to pay. All the Indians liked the young minister, and even Canonicus,[5] that savage chief of a neighboring tribe, who had dared Governor Bradford to fight, said that he "loved him as his own son."

[Footnote 5: Canonicus: see paragraph 70.]

85. Roger Williams at Seekonk;[6] "What cheer, friend?"--When the warm days came, in the spring of 1636, Mr. Williams began building a log hut for himself at Seekonk, on the east bank of the Seekonk River. But he was told that his cabin stood on ground owned by the people of Massachusetts; so he, with a few friends who had joined him, took a canoe and paddled down stream to find a new place to build.

"What cheer, friend? what cheer?" shouted some Indians who were standing on a rock on the western bank of the river. That was the Indian way of saying How do you do, and just then Roger Williams was right glad to hear it. He landed on what is now called "What Cheer Rock,"[7] and had a talk with the red men. They told him that there was a fine spring of water round the point of land a little further down. He went there, and liked the spot so much that he decided to stop. His friend Canonicus owned the land, and he gladly let him have what he needed. Roger Williams believed that a kind Providence had guided him to this pleasant place, and for this reason he named it PROVIDENCE.

Providence was the first settlement made in America which set its doors wide open to every one who wished to come and live there. Not only all Christians, but Jews, and even men who went to no church whatever, could go there and be at peace. This great and good work was done by Roger Williams. Providence grew in time to be the chief city in the state of Rhode Island. When the Revolution began, every man and boy in the state, from sixteen to sixty, stood ready to fight for liberty.

[Footnote 6: Seekonk (See'konk).]

[Footnote 7: "What Cheer Rock" is on the east side of the city of Providence.]