Читать книгу A Brief History of the United States - Joel Dorman Steele - Страница 35

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SETTLEMENT.—John Endicott and five associates having obtained a grant of land about Massachusetts Bay, secured (1628) a royal charter giving authority to make laws and govern the territory. This company afterward transferred all their rights to the colony. It was a popular measure, and many prominent Puritan families flocked to this land of liberty. Some gathered around Governor Endicott, who had already started Salem and Charlestown, some established colonies at Dorchester and Watertown, and one thousand under Governor Winthrop founded Boston (1630).

RELIGIOUS DISTURBANCES.—The people of Massachusetts Bay, while in England, were Puritans, but not Separatists. Having come to America to establish a Puritan Church, they were unwilling to receive persons holding opinions differing from their own, lest their purpose should be defeated. They accordingly sent back to England those who persisted in using the forms of the Established Church, and allowed only members of their own church to vote in civil affairs.

Roger Williams, an eloquent and pious young minister, taught that each person should think for himself in all religious matters, and be responsible to his own conscience alone. He declared that the magistrates had, therefore, no right to punish blasphemy, perjury, or Sabbath-breaking. The clergy and magistrates were alarmed at what they considered a doctrine dangerous to the peace of the colony, and he was ordered (1635) to be sent to England. It was in the depth of winter, yet he fled to the forest and found refuge among the Indians. The next year, Canonicus, the Narraganset sachem, gave him land to found a settlement, which he gratefully named Providence.

Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, during the same year, aroused a violent and bitter controversy. She claimed to be favored with special revelations of God's will. These she expounded to crowded congregations of women, greatly to the scandal of the clergy and people. Finally she also was banished.

The Quakers, about twenty years after these summary measures, created fresh trouble by their peculiar views. They were fined, whipped, imprisoned, and sent out of the colony; yet they as constantly returned, glorying in their sufferings. At last four were executed. The people beginning to consider them as martyrs, the persecution gradually relaxed.

A UNION OF THE COLONIES of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut, was formed (1643) under the title of THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND. This was a famous league in colonial times. The object was a common protection against the Indians and the encroachments of the Dutch and French settlers.

KING PHILIP'S WAR.—During the life of Massasuit, Plymouth enjoyed peace with the Indians, as did Jamestown during that of Powhatan. After Massasoit's death, his son, Philip, brooded with a jealous eye over the encroachments of the whites. With profound sagacity, he planned a confederation of the Indian tribes against the intruders. The first blow fell on the people of Swansea as they were quietly going home from church on Sunday (July 14, 1675). The settlers flew to arms, but Philip escaped, and soon excited the savages to fall upon the settlements high up the Connecticut valley.

[Footnote: At Hadley the Indians surprised the people on Fast day, June 12,1676. Seizing their muskets at the sound of the savage war-whoop, the men rushed out of the meeting-house to fall into line. But the foe was on every side. Confused and bewildered, the settlers seemed about to give way, when suddenly a strange old man with long white beard and ancient garb appeared among them. Ringing out a quick, sharp word of command, he recalled them to their senses. Following their mysterious leader, they drove the enemy headlong before them. The danger passed, they looked around for their deliverer. But he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. The good people believed that God had sent an angel to their rescue. But history reveals the secret. It was the regicide Colonel Goffe. Fleeing from the vengeance of Charles II, with a price set upon his head he had for years wandered about, living in mills, clefts of rocks, and forest caves. At last he had found an asylum with the Hadley minister. From his window he had seen the stealthy Indians coming down the hill. Fired with desire to do one more good deed for God's people, he rushed from his hiding-place, led them on to victory, and then returned to his retreat, never more to reappear.—One learns with regret that recent research throws great doubt over the truth of this thrilling story. It is curious to notice also that there is no proof that Philip possessed any eloquence or was even present in any fight, though all these statements have hitherto been made by reliable historians.]

[Illustration: A FORTIFIED HOUSE.]

The colonists fortified their houses with palisades, carried their arms with them into the fields when at work, and stacked them at the door when at church. The Narraganset Indians favored Philip, and seemed on the point of joining his alliance. They had gathered their winter's provisions, and fortified themselves in the midst of an almost inaccessible swamp. Fifteen hundred of the colonists accordingly attacked them in this stronghold. The Indian wigwams and stores were burned, and one thousand warriors perished. In the spring the war broke out anew along a frontier of three hundred miles, and to within twenty miles of Boston. Nowhere fighting in the open field, but by ambuscade and skulking, the Indians kept the whole country in terror. Driven to desperation by their atrocities, the settlers hunted down the savages like wild beasts. Philip was chased from one hiding-place to another. His family being captured at last, he fled, broken-hearted, to his old home on Mt. Hope, near Bristol, E. I., where he was shot by a faithless Indian.

[Illustration: KING PHILIP.]

NEW ENGLAND A ROYAL PROVINCE.—The Navigation Act (p. 51), which we have seen so unpopular in Virginia, was exceedingly oppressive in Massachusetts, which possessed a thriving commerce. In spite of the decree the colony opened a trade with the West Indies. The royalists in England determined that this bold republican spirit should be quelled. An English officer who attempted to enforce the Navigation Act having been compelled to return home, Charles II, eagerly seized upon the excuse thus offered, and made Massachusetts a royal province. The king died before his plan was completed, but James II. (1686) declared the charters of all the New England colonies forfeited, and sent over Sir Edmund Andros, as first royal governor of New England. He carried things with a high hand. The colonies endured his oppression for three years, when, learning that his royal master was dethroned, they rose against their petty tyrant and put him in jail. With true Puritan sobriety they then quietly resumed their old form of government. This lasted for three years, when Sir William Phipps came as royal governor over a province embracing Massachusetts, Maine, and Nova Scotia. From this time till the Revolution, Massachusetts remained a royal province.

SALEM WITCHCRAFT (1692).—A strange delusion known as the Salem witchcraft, produced the most intense excitement. The children of Mr. Parris, a minister near Salem, performed pranks which could be explained only by supposing that they were under Satanic influence. Every effort was made to discover who had bewitched them. An Indian servant was flogged until she admitted herself to be guilty. Soon others were affected, and the terrible mania spread rapidly. Committees of examination were appointed and courts of trial convened. The most improbable stories were credited. To express a doubt of witchcraft was to indicate one's own alliance with the evil spirit. Persons of the highest respectability, clergymen, magistrates, and even the governor's wife were implicated. At last, after fifty-five persons had been tortured and twenty hung, the people awoke to their folly.

[Footnote: A belief in witchcraft was at that time universal. Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most enlightened judges of England, repeatedly tried and condemned persons accused of witchcraft. Blackstone himself, at a later day, declared that to deny witchcraft was to deny Revelation. Cotton Mather, the most prominent minister of the colony, was active in the rooting out of this supposed crime. He published a book full of the most ridiculous witch stories. One judge, who engaged in this persecution, was afterward so deeply penitent that he observed a day of fasting in each year, and on the day of general fast rose in his place in the Old South Church at Boston, and in the presence of the congregation handed to the pulpit a written confession acknowledging his error, and praying for forgiveness.]

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