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CHAPTER V
ОглавлениеTHE SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND
The Northern or Plymouth Branch of the Virginia Company, which had been chartered by James I in 1606, did, to some extent, for the north what the sister company did for the south. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was its Raleigh, and sent out a number of exploring ships, one of which made what is now reckoned the first permanent settlement in New England. Captain George Popham was in command, and in August, 1607, three months after the planting of Jamestown, built Fort Popham, or Fort St. George, at the mouth of the Kennebec. But it is not this settlement which has been celebrated in song and story. It is that made at New Plymouth in the winter of 1620 by a shipload of Separatists from the Church of England, who have come down through history as the "Pilgrim Fathers."
Driven from England by religious persecution, the Separatist congregation from the little town of Scrooby, about a hundred in number, had fled to Amsterdam, and finally, in 1609, to Leyden. But they were not in sympathy with the Dutch, and their thoughts turned to America. The Plymouth company was approached, but could not guarantee religious freedom. It gave the suppliants to understand, however, that there was little likelihood they would be interfered with, and after long debate and hesitation, they decided to take the risk.
THE WORD OF GOD TO LEYDEN CAME
[August 15 (N. S.), 1620]
The word of God to Leyden came,
Dutch town by Zuyder Zee:
Rise up, my children of no name,
My kings and priests to be.
There is an empire in the West,
Which I will soon unfold;
A thousand harvests in her breast,
Rocks ribbed with iron and gold.
Rise up, my children, time is ripe!
Old things are passed away.
Bishops and kings from earth I wipe;
Too long they've had their day.
A little ship have I prepared
To bear you o'er the seas;
And in your souls my will declared
Shall grow by slow degrees.
Beneath my throne the martyrs cry;
I hear their voice, How long?
It mingles with their praises high,
And with their victor song.
The thing they longed and waited for,
But died without the sight;
So, this shall be! I wrong abhor,
The world I'll now set right.
Leave, then, the hammer and the loom,
You've other work to do;
For Freedom's commonwealth there's room,
And you shall build it too.
I'm tired of bishops and their pride,
I'm tired of kings as well;
Henceforth I take the people's side,
And with the people dwell.
Tear off the mitre from the priest,
And from the king, his crown;
Let all my captives be released;
Lift up, whom men cast down.
Their pastors let the people choose,
And choose their rulers too;
Whom they select, I'll not refuse, But bless the work they do.
The Pilgrims rose, at this, God's word,
And sailed the wintry seas:
With their own flesh nor blood conferred,
Nor thought of wealth or ease.
They left the towers of Leyden town,
They left the Zuyder Zee;
And where they cast their anchor down,
Rose Freedom's realm to be.
Jeremiah Eames Rankin.
A vessel of one hundred and eighty tons, named the Mayflower, was fitted out, and, on August 5 (N. S. 15), 1620, the emigrants sailed from Southampton, whither they had gone to join the ship. There were ninety persons aboard the Mayflower and thirty aboard a smaller vessel, the Speedwell. But the Speedwell proved unseaworthy, and after twice putting back for repairs, twelve of her passengers were crowded into the Mayflower, which finally, on September 6 (N. S. 16), turned her prow to the west, and began the most famous voyage in American history, after that of Columbus.
SONG OF THE PILGRIMS
[September 16 (N. S.), 1620]
The breeze has swelled the whitening sail,
The blue waves curl beneath the gale,
And, bounding with the wave and wind,
We leave Old England's shores behind—
Leave behind our native shore,
Homes, and all we loved before.
The deep may dash, the winds may blow,
The storm spread out its wings of woe,
Till sailors' eyes can see a shroud
Hung in the folds of every cloud;
Still, as long as life shall last,
From that shore we'll speed us fast.
For we would rather never be,
Than dwell where mind cannot be free,
But bows beneath a despot's rod
Even where it seeks to worship God.
Blasts of heaven, onward sweep!
Bear us o'er the troubled deep!
O see what wonders meet our eyes!
Another land, and other skies!
Columbian hills have met our view!
Adieu! Old England's shores, adieu!
Here, at length, our feet shall rest,
Hearts be free, and homes be blessed.
As long as yonder firs shall spread
Their green arms o'er the mountain's head,—
As long as yonder cliffs shall stand,
Where join the ocean and the land,—
Shall those cliffs and mountains be
Proud retreats for liberty.
Now to the King of kings we'll raise
The pæan loud of sacred praise;
More loud than sounds the swelling breeze,
More loud than speak the rolling seas!
Happier lands have met our view!
England's shores, adieu! adieu!
Thomas Cogswell Upham.
On November 19 (N. S.), nine weeks after leaving Plymouth, land was sighted, and in the evening of that day, the "band of exiles moored their bark" in Cape Cod harbor.
LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS
[November 19 (N. S.), 1620]
The breaking waves dashed high
On the stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came:
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear,—
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!
The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared: This was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why have they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow, serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Aye, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God!
Felicia Hemans.
Two days later, on Saturday, November 21, the Mayflower dropped her anchor in what is now the harbor of Provincetown, and a force of sixteen, "every one his Musket, Sword and Corslet, under the command of Captaine Myles Standish," went ashore to explore. The next day, being Sunday, praise service was held on board, and on the following Monday occurred the first washing-day.
THE FIRST PROCLAMATION OF MILES STANDISH
[November 23 (N. S.), 1620]
"Ho, Rose!" quoth the stout Miles Standish,
As he stood on the Mayflower's deck,
And gazed on the sandy coast-line
That loomed as a misty speck
On the edge of the distant offing,—
"See! yonder we have in view
Bartholomew Gosnold's 'headlands.' 'Twas in sixteen hundred and two
"That the Concord of Dartmouth anchored
Just there where the beach is broad,
And the merry old captain named it
(Half swamped by the fish)—Cape Cod.
"And so as his mighty 'headlands'
Are scarcely a league away,
What say you to landing, sweetheart,
And having a washing-day?
"For did not the mighty Leader
Who guided the chosen band
Pause under the peaks of Sinai,
And issue his strict command—
"(For even the least assoilment
Of Egypt the spirit loathes)—
Or ever they entered Canaan,
The people should wash their clothes?
"The land we have left is noisome,—
And rank with the smirch of sin;
The land that we seek should find us
Clean-vestured without and within."
"Dear heart"—and the sweet Rose Standish
Looked up with a tear in her eye;
She was back in the flag-stoned kitchen
Where she watched, in the days gone by,
Her mother among her maidens
(She should watch them no more, alas!),
And saw as they stretched the linen
To bleach on the Suffolk grass.
In a moment her brow was cloudless,
As she leaned on the vessel's rail,
And thought of the sea-stained garments,
Of coif and of farthingale;
And the doublets of fine Welsh flannel,
The tuckers and homespun gowns,
And the piles of the hosen knitted
From the wool of the Devon downs.
So the matrons aboard the Mayflower
Made ready with eager hand
To drop from the deck their baskets
As soon as the prow touched land.
And there did the Pilgrim Mothers,
"On a Monday," the record says,
Ordain for their new-found England
The first of her washing-days.
And there did the Pilgrim Fathers,
With matchlock and axe well slung,
Keep guard o'er the smoking kettles
That propt on the crotches hung.
For the trail of the startled savage
Was over the marshy grass,
And the glint of his eyes kept peering
Through cedar and sassafras.
And the children were mad with pleasure
As they gathered the twigs in sheaves,
And piled on the fire the fagots,
And heaped up the autumn leaves.
"Do the thing that is next," saith the proverb,
And a nobler shall yet succeed:—
'Tis the motive exalts the action;
'Tis the doing, and not the deed;
For the earliest act of the heroes
Whose fame has a world-wide sway
Was—to fashion a crane for a kettle,
And order a washing-day!
Margaret Junkin Preston.
A shallop which the Pilgrims had brought with them in the Mayflower was put together, and in it a party explored the neighboring shores, in search of a suitable place for the settlement. They finally selected Plymouth Harbor, and on Monday, December 21 (O. S. 11), they "marched into the land and found divers corn-fields and little running brooks,—a place (as they supposed) fit for situation; at least it was the best they could find."
THE MAYFLOWER
Down in the bleak December bay
The ghostly vessel stands away;
Her spars and halyards white with ice,
Under the dark December skies.
A hundred souls, in company,
Have left the vessel pensively,—
Have reached the frosty desert there,
And touched it with the knees of prayer.
And now the day begins to dip,
The night begins to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower.
Neither the desert nor the sea
Imposes rites: their prayers are free;
Danger and toil the wild imposes,
And thorns must grow before the roses.
And who are these?—and what distress
The savage-acred wilderness
On mother, maid, and child may bring,
Beseems them for a fearful thing;
For now the day begins to dip,
The night begins to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower.
But Carver leads (in heart and health
A hero of the commonwealth)
The axes that the camp requires,
To build the lodge and heap the fires,
And Standish from his warlike store
Arrays his men along the shore,
Distributes weapons resonant,
And dons his harness militant;
For now the day begins to dip,
The night begins to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower;
And Rose, his wife, unlocks a chest—
She sees a Book, in vellum drest,
She drops a tear and kisses the tome,
Thinking of England and of home:
Might they—the Pilgrims, there and then
Ordained to do the work of men—
Have seen, in visions of the air,
While pillowed on the breast of prayer
(When now the day began to dip,
The night began to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower),
The Canaan of their wilderness
A boundless empire of success;
And seen the years of future nights
Jewelled with myriad household lights;
And seen the honey fill the hive;
And seen a thousand ships arrive;
And heard the wheels of travel go;
It would have cheered a thought of woe,
When now the day began to dip,
The night began to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower.
Erastus Wolcott Ellsworth.
On March 16 an Indian came into the hamlet, and in broken English bade the strangers "Welcome." He said his name was Samoset, that he came from Monhegan, distant five days' journey toward the southeast, where he had learned something of the language from the crews of fishing-boats, and that he was an envoy from "the greatest commander in the country," a sachem named Massasoit. Massasoit himself appeared a few days later (March 21), and a treaty offensive and defensive was entered into, which remained in force for fifty-four years.
THE PEACE MESSAGE
[March 16, 1621]
At the door of his hut sat Massasoit,
And his face was lined with care,
For the Yellow Pest had stalked from the West
And swept his wigwams bare;
Mother and child had it stricken down,
And the warrior in his pride,
Till for one that lived when the plague was past,
A full half-score had died.
Now from the Eastern Shore there came
Word of a white-skinned race
Who had risen from out the mighty deep
In search of a dwelling-place.
Houses they fashioned of tree and stone,
Turkey and deer they slew
With a breath of flame like the lightning-flash
Of the great God, Manitu.
Was it war or peace? The Chief looked round
On the wreck of his mighty band.
His heart was sad as he rose from the ground
And held on high his hand.
"We must treat with the stranger, my children," he said,
And he called to him Samoset:
"You will go to the men on the Eastern Shore
With wampum and calumet."
Warm was the welcome he received,
For the Pilgrims' hearts did thrill
At the message he brought from Massasoit,
With its earnest of good-will.
They bade him eat and they bade him drink,
Gave bracelet, knife, and ring,
And sent him again to Monhegan
To lay them before his king.
So the treaty was made, and the treaty was kept
For fifty years and four;
The white men wrought, and waked, and slept
Secure on the Eastern Shore;
From the door of his hut, old Massasoit
Noted their swift increase,
And blessed the day he had sent that way
His messenger of peace.
Burton Egbert Stevenson.
The colonists set about the work of planting their fields as soon as spring opened. The harvest proved a good one; "there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison," the fowlers having been sent out by the governor, "that so they might, after a special manner, rejoice together after they had gathered the fruit of their labors." This festival was New England's "First Thanksgiving Day." For three days a great feast was spread not only for the colonists, but for Massasoit and some ninety of his people, who had contributed five deer to the larder.
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY
[November, 1621]
"And now," said the Governor, gazing abroad on the piled-up store
Of the sheaves that dotted the clearings and covered the meadows o'er,
"'Tis meet that we render praises because of this yield of grain;
'Tis meet that the Lord of the harvest be thanked for His sun and rain.
"And therefore, I, William Bradford (by the grace of God to-day,
And the franchise of this good people), Governor of Plymouth, say,
Through virtue of vested power—ye shall gather with one accord,
And hold, in the month November, thanksgiving unto the Lord.
"He hath granted us peace and plenty, and the quiet we've sought so long;
He hath thwarted the wily savage, and kept him from wrack and wrong;
And unto our feast the Sachem shall be bidden, that he may know
We worship his own Great Spirit who maketh the harvests grow.
"So shoulder your matchlocks, masters: there is hunting of all degrees;
And fishermen, take your tackle, and scour for spoil the seas;
And maidens and dames of Plymouth, your delicate crafts employ To honor our First Thanksgiving, and make it a feast of joy!
"We fail of the fruits and dainties—we fail of the old home cheer;
Ah, these are the lightest losses, mayhap, that befall us here;
But see, in our open clearings, how golden the melons lie;
Enrich them with sweets and spices, and give us the pumpkin-pie!"
So, bravely the preparations went on for the autumn feast;
The deer and the bear were slaughtered; wild game from the greatest to least
Was heaped in the colony cabins; brown home-brew served for wine,
And the plum and the grape of the forest, for orange and peach and pine.
At length came the day appointed: the snow had begun to fall,
But the clang from the meeting-house belfry rang merrily over all,
And summoned the folk of Plymouth, who hastened with glad accord
To listen to Elder Brewster as he fervently thanked the Lord.
In his seat sate Governor Bradford; men, matrons, and maidens fair;
Miles Standish and all his soldiers, with corselet and sword, were there;
And sobbing and tears and gladness had each in its turn the sway,
For the grave of the sweet Rose Standish o'ershadowed Thanksgiving Day.
And when Massasoit, the Sachem, sate down with his hundred braves,
And ate of the varied riches of gardens and woods and waves,
And looked on the granaried harvest,—with a blow on his brawny chest,
He muttered, "The good Great Spirit loves His white children best!"
Margaret Junkin Preston.
The colonists, through the friendship of Massasoit, had had little trouble with the Indians, but in April, 1622, a messenger from the Narragansetts brought to Plymouth a sheaf of arrows tied round with a rattlesnake skin, which the Indians there interpreted as a declaration of war. Governor Bradford, at the advice of the doughty Standish, stuffed the skin with powder and ball, and sent it back to the Narragansetts. Their chief, Canonicus, was so alarmed at the look of this missive that he refused to receive it, and it finally found its way back to Plymouth.
THE WAR-TOKEN
From "The Courtship of Miles Standish"
[April 1, 1622]
Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful away to the council,
Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming;
Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment,
Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to heaven,
Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder of Plymouth.
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting,
Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a nation;
So say the chronicles old, and such is the faith of the people!
Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern and defiant,
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in aspect;
While on the table before them was lying unopened a Bible,
Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in Holland,
And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake glittered,
Filled, like a quiver, with arrows; a signal and challenge of warfare,
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy tongues of defiance.
This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered, and heard them debating
What were an answer befitting the hostile message and menace,
Talking of this and of that, contriving, suggesting, objecting;
One voice only for peace, and that the voice of the Elder,
Judging it wise and well that some at least were converted,
Rather than any were slain, for this was but Christian behavior!
Then out spake Miles Standish, the stalwart Captain of Plymouth, Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice was husky with anger, "What! do you mean to make war with milk and the water of roses? Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your howitzer planted There on the roof of the church, or is it to shoot red devils? Truly the only tongue that is understood by a savage Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the mouth of the cannon!" Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder of Plymouth, Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent language: "Not so thought St. Paul, nor yet the other Apostles; Not from the cannon's mouth were the tongues of fire they spake with!" But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain, Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued discoursing: "Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it pertaineth. War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous, Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer the challenge!"
Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden, contemptuous gesture,
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage,
Saying, in thundering tones: "Here, take it! this is your answer!"
Silently out of the room then glided the glistening savage,
Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself like a serpent,
Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of the forest.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The period of prosperity, which had been marked by the first Thanksgiving, was short-lived. Through nearly the whole of the next two years, the colony was pinched with famine. A crisis was reached in the month of April, 1622, when, so tradition says, the daily ration for each person was reduced to five kernels of corn.
FIVE KERNELS OF CORN
[April, 1622]
I
'Twas the year of the famine in Plymouth of old,
The ice and the snow from the thatched roofs had rolled;
Through the warm purple skies steered the geese o'er the seas,
And the woodpeckers tapped in the clocks of the trees;
And the boughs on the slopes to the south winds lay bare,
And dreaming of summer, the buds swelled in the air.
The pale Pilgrims welcomed each reddening morn;
There were left but for rations Five Kernels of Corn.
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
But to Bradford a feast were Five Kernels of Corn!
II
"Five Kernels of Corn! Five Kernels of Corn!
Ye people, be glad for Five Kernels of Corn!"
So Bradford cried out on bleak Burial Hill,
And the thin women stood in their doors, white and still.
"Lo, the harbor of Plymouth rolls bright in the Spring,
The maples grow red, and the wood robins sing,
The west wind is blowing, and fading the snow,
And the pleasant pines sing, and the arbutuses blow.
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
To each one be given Five Kernels of Corn!"
III
O Bradford of Austerfield haste on thy way.
The west winds are blowing o'er Provincetown Bay,
The white avens bloom, but the pine domes are chill,
And new graves have furrowed Precisioners' Hill!
"Give thanks, all ye people, the warm skies have come,
The hilltops are sunny, and green grows the holm,
And the trumpets of winds, and the white March is gone, And ye still have left you Five Kernels of Corn. Five Kernels of Corn! Five Kernels of Corn! Ye have for Thanksgiving Five Kernels of Corn!"
IV
"The raven's gift eat and be humble and pray,
A new light is breaking, and Truth leads your way;
One taper a thousand shall kindle: rejoice
That to you has been given the wilderness voice!"
O Bradford of Austerfield, daring the wave,
And safe through the sounding blasts leading the brave,
Of deeds such as thine was the free nation born,
And the festal world sings the "Five Kernels of Corn."
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
The nation gives thanks for Five Kernels of Corn!
To the Thanksgiving Feast bring Five Kernels of Corn!
Hezekiah Butterworth.
In June, 1622, a colony of adventurers from England settled at Wessagusset, now Weymouth, and when their supplies ran short, the following winter, broke open and robbed some of the Indian granaries. The Indians were naturally enraged, and formed a plot for the extirpation of the whites. Warned by Massasoit, the Plymouth settlers determined to strike the first blow, and on March 23, 1623, Standish and eight men were dispatched to Wessagusset. The poem tells the story of the events which followed.
THE EXPEDITION TO WESSAGUSSET
From "The Courtship of Miles Standish"
[March, 1623]
