The founding of New England

In the name of the country which to-day occupies the major part of the inhabitable portion of North America is indicated the twofold nature of its history; for the story of the...

As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made was almost as definitely determin...

During the period upon which our story now enters, all of North America was claimed by the three contestants for empire—Spain, England, and France. The claims of the first cover...

The history of the New England group of colonies was, in the main, shaped throughout the entire prerevolutionary period by the influence of three factors. These were the geograp...

In 1606, in the obscure English village of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, a little group of men, which included John Robinson, William Brewster, and William Bradford, had for some...

During the years that the Pilgrims had thus been struggling to found a tiny commonwealth on an inhospitable bit of the long American coast-line, events had been moving rapidly o...

In an earlier chapter, in discussing the problems which confronted Elizabeth, we spoke of an established church as a necessity in her day from all three standpoints—of religion,...

In the first chapter we called attention to the importance of the Appalachian barrier in long confining the process of colonizing within bounds, and preventing that wide dispers...

As a result of the complete crushing of the power of the Pequots their whole country was opened to peaceful settlement, and the extension of the frontier in that direction becam...

From the formation of the Confederacy in 1643, until the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, the colonies were practically free to make what use they could of an entire...

The same decade and a half, the political events of which we traced in the last chapter, was to witness also religious movements of utmost importance. The firm establishment of...

In the last chapter we mentioned the change that was to take place in the relations between New England and the mother-country in the years following the Restoration. That chang...

The Puritan Revolution in England had failed to establish a permanent government, which should provide for the liberty of the individual, and be consonant with the genius of the...

During the quarter of a century preceding 1675, the growth of the New England colonies, both in numbers and resources, had been marked. Their refusal, on the one hand, to observ...

The year 1676 was doubly noteworthy in the history of New England. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, it marked the definite end of the internal menace of the Indians in...

In the preceding chapters, we have tried to show the comprehensive nature of that expansion of Europe which, with ever-accelerating swiftness, has been in operation since the ag...

Just a year before the events of that 18th of April, described at the close of the last chapter, the Reverend Increase Mather had sailed for England as representative of “many c...