the Valley of Connecticut from the Dutch, situate on an island immediately below the who, having invaded it from their province present city of Albany. Hudson being of New Netherlands, had erected the fort supposed to have been the first European called Good Hope on the right bank of the that sailed up the Delaware, the Dutch river. Three years thereafter, the colony claimed the banks of that river also. But of New-Haven was planted by two Puritan their progress as colonists in America was Nonconformists, the Rev. John Davenport slow. Though Holland was nominally a and Theophilus Eaton, who had first re- republic, yet she did not abound in the matired to Holland on account of their reli- terials proper for making good colonists.. gious principles, and then left that country The country presenting but a limited scope for Boston, in 1637. Thus, with the ex- for agriculture, the people were mostly enception of Vermont, which originated in a gaged in trade or in the arts. settlement of much later date, drawn chiefly from Massachusetts and NewHampshire, we see the foundation of all the New-England States laid within twenty years from the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth. Pursuing in the New World the sameselfish principles which made the Dutch mercantile aristocracy the worst enemies of their country in the Old, the New Netherlands colonists were allowed little or no share in the government, and accordingly, notwithstanding the greatest natural advantages, the progress of the colony was very slow. New Amsterdam, which, in consequence of such advantages, might have been expected even to outstrip the mother-city, as she has since done under the name of New-York, remained but an inconsiderable village. The vicinity of New-England provoked comparisons that could not fail to make the Dutch colonists discontented with their institutions. At length, in 1664, the English took possession of all the Dutch colonies in North America, which by that time, in addition to their settlements on the Hudson, extended to the eastern part of New-Jersey, Staten Island, and the western extremity of Long Island, besides a detached settlement on the banks of the Delaware, with a population not exceeding in all ten thousand souls. New Netherlands was granted by Charles II. to his brother the Duke of York, from whom the colony and its capital took the name of New-York. voice of the people was now, for the first time, heard in its Legislature; it began thenceforth to advance rapidly in population, and, notwithstanding occasional seasons of trial and depression, gave early promise of what it was one day to become. The Meanwhile, Maryland, so called in honour of Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and wife of Charles I., had been colonized. The territory forming the present state of that name, though included in the first charter of Virginia, upon that being cancelled and the company being dissolved, reverted to the king, and he, to gratify his feelings of personal regard, bestowed the absolute proprietorship of the whole upon Sir Charles Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, and his legal heirs in succession. Never was there a more liberal charter. The statutes of the colony were to be made with the concurrence of the colonists, thus securing to the people a legislative government of their own. Sir Charles was a Roman Catholic, but his colony was founded on principles of the fullest toleration; and though he died before the charter in his favour had passed the great seal of the kingdom, yet all the royal engagements being made good to his son Cecil, who succeeded to the title and estates, the latter sent out a colony of about two hundred persons, most of whom were Roman Catholics, and many of them gentlemen, accompanied by his brother Leonard. Maryland, though subjected to many vicissitudes, proved prosperous upon the whole. Though the Roman Catholics New-Jersey was likewise granted to formed at first the decided majority, the the Duke of York, who, in 1664, handed it Protestants became by far the more nu- over to Lord Berkeley and Sir George merous body in the end, and, with shame Carteret, both proprietors of Carolina. be it said, enacted laws depriving the Ro- Difficulties, however, having arisen beman Catholics of all political influence in tween the colonists and the lords superior the colony, and tending to prevent their with regard to the quit-rents payable by increase. the former, that province was gladly surThe first colony in the State of New-rendered by the latter, upon certain conYork was that planted by the Dutch, about the year 1614, on the southern point, it is supposed, of the island where the city of New-York now stands. The illustrious English navigator Hudson, having been in the employment of the Dutch at the time of his discovering the river that bears his name, Holland claimed the country bordering upon it, and gradually formed settlements there, the first of which was ditions, to the crown, and was for some time attached to New-York, within twenty years after all the Dutch possessions had fallen into the hands of the English. West Jersey was afterward purchased by a company of Friends, or Quakers, and a few years later, in 1680, William Penn, previous to his undertaking to plant a colony on a larger scale in Pennsylvania, purchased East Jersey, with the view of making it an asylum for his persecuted Sir George Carteret. Their grand object co-religionists. Finally, East and West was gain, yet the celebrated John Locke, Jersey being united as one province un-at once a philosopher and a Christian, was der the direct control of the crown, ob-engaged to make "Constitutions," or a tained a Legislature of its own, and enjoyed | form of government, for an empire that a gradual and steady prosperity down to was to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pathe Revolution by which the colonies were cific. The result of the philosophical lawsevered from England. giver's labours was such as the world had never seen the like of before. The proprietors were to form a close corporation; the territory was to be partitioned out into counties of vast extent, each of which was to have an Earl or Landgrave, and two Bar Pennsylvania, as is indicated by its name, was founded by the distinguished philanthropist we have just mentioned, but he was not the first to colonize it. This was done by a mixture of Swedes, Dutch, and English, who had for years before oc-ons or Caciques, who, as lords of manors, cupied the right bank of the Delaware, both were to have judicial authority within their above the point where Philadelphia now respective estates. Tenants of ten acres stands, and many miles below. The char- were to be attached as serfs to the soil, to ter obtained by William Penn from Charles be subject to the jurisdiction of their lords II. dates from 1681. On the 27th of Octo- without appeal, and their children were to ber in the following year, the father of the continue in the same degradation forever! new colony having landed on his vast do- The possession of at least fifty acres of main in America, immediately set about land was to be required in order to the enthe framing of a constitution, and began to joyment of the elective franchise; and of found a capital, which was destined to be- five hundred acres in order to a man's become one of the finest cities in the Western ing eligible as a member of the colonial hemisphere. The government, like that Parliament or Legislature. These "Conestablished by the Quakers in New-Jersey, stitutions," into the farther details of which was altogether popular. The people were we cannot enter, were attempted to be into have their own Legislature, whose acts, troduced, but were soon rejected in North however, were not to conflict with the just Carolina; and after a few years' struggle, claims of the proprietor, and were to be were thrown aside also in South Carolina, subject to the approval of the crown alone. which had been separated from the NorThe colony soon became prosperous. The thern province. The colonists adopted for true principles of peace, principles that themselves forms of government analoform so conspicuous a part of the Quaker gous to those of the other colonies; the doctrines, distinguished every transaction proprietary company was after a while in which the Aborigines were concerned. dissolved; the Carolinas fell under the diIt is the glory of Pennsylvania that it nev-rect control of the crown, but were gover did an act of injustice to the Indians. The territory belonging to the State of Delaware was claimed by Penn and his successors, as included in the domain described in their charter, and for a time formed a part of Pennsylvania, under the title of the Three Lower Counties. But the mixed population of Swedes, Dutch, and English by which it was occupied, were never reconciled to this arrangement, and having at last obtained a government of its own, Delaware became a separate province. erned by their own legislatures. Their prosperity was slow, having been frequently interrupted by serious wars with the native tribes, particularly the Tuscaroras, which, as it was the most powerful, was for a long time also the most hostile. Last of all the original thirteen provinces, in the order of time, came Georgia, which was settled as late as 1732, by the brave and humane Oglethorpe. The colonists were of mixed origin, but the English race predominated. Although it had difficulties to encounter almost from the first, yet, notwithstanding wars with the Spaniards in Florida, hostile attacks from the Indians, and internal divisions, Georgia acquired, by degrees, a considerable amount of strength. The settlement of the two Carolinas began with straggling emigrants from Virginia, who sought to better their fortunes in regions farther south, and were afterward joined by others from New-England, and also from Europe. At length, in 1663, Such is a brief notice of the thirteen the entire region lying between the thirty- original North American provinces, which, sixth degree of north latitude and the Riv- by the Revolution of 1775-1783, were transer St. John's in Florida, was granted to a formed into as many states. They all proprietary company in England, which touch more or less on the Atlantic, and was invested with most extraordinary pow-stretch to a greater or less distance into ers. The proprietors, eight in number, the interior. Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylwere Lord Ashley Cooper, better known vania, and North Carolina are the largest; as the Earl of Shaftesbury, Clarendon, Rhode Island and Delaware are the smallMonk, Lord Craven, Sir John Colleton, est. Lord John and Sir William Berkeley, and In 1803, the French colony of Louisiana, now the state of that name, together with the days of fine packets, or of large and the territories since comprised in the well-appointed merchant vessels, the voyStates of Arkansas and Missouri, and an ages had to be made in small and crowded almost indefinite tract lying westward of ships. The inconveniences, to say nothing these last two, was purchased by the United States for fifteen millions of dollars. And in 1821, the Spanish colony of Florida, comprising the peninsula which used to be called East Florida, and a narrow strip of land on the Gulf of Mexico, called West Florida, was purchased by the same government for five millions of dollars. Both purchases now form, of course, part of the great North American Republic. CHAPTER V. INTERIOR COLONIZATION OF THE COUNTRY. of the sickness that attended them, were but ill calculated to nerve the heart for coming trials; and as the colonists approached the coast, the boundless and solemn forests that stretched before them, the strangeness of every object that filled the scene, the absence of all tillage and cultivation, and of a village or house to give them shelter, and the uncouth and even frightful aspect of the savage inhabitants, must have damped the boldest spirits. In the case of Plymouth and some others, the settlers arrived during winter, when all nature wore her gloomiest attire. The rudest hovels were the only abodes that could be immediately prepared for AFTER the short account we have given their reception, and for weeks together of the first planting of the thirteen original there might only be a few days of such provinces, by successive arrivals of colo-weather as would permit their proceeding nists from Europe, on the seacoast and with the operations required for their comthe banks of the larger streams, we pro- fort. Not only conveniences and luxuries, ceed to say something of the progress of such as the poorest in the mother-country colonization in the interior of the country. enjoyed, but even the necessaries of life, A hundred and twenty-five years, it will were often wanting. Years had to be be observed, elapsed between the found- passed before any considerable part of the ation of the first and the last of these forest could be cleared, comfortable dwellprovinces; also, that, with the exception ings erected, and pleasant gardens plantof New-York and Delaware, which received. Meanwhile, disease and death would ed their first European inhabitants from Holland and Sweden, they were all originally English; but that, eventually, these two were likewise included in English patents, and their Dutch and Swedish inhabitants merged among the English. enter every family; dear friends and companions in the toils and cares of the enterprise would be borne, one after another, to the grave. To these causes of depression there were often added the horrors of savage warfare, by which some of the colonies were repeatedly decimated, and during which the poor settler, for weeks and months together, could not know, on retiring to rest, whether he should not be awakened by the heart-quailing war-whoop of the savages around his house, or by finding the house itself in flames. Ah, what pen can describe the horror that fell upon many a family, in almost all the colonies, not once, but often, when aroused by false or real alarms! Who can depict the scenes in which a father, before he received the fatal blow himself, was compelled to see his wife and children fall by the tomahawk before his eyes, or be dragged into a captivity worse than death? With such depressing circumstances to try the hearts of the colonists-circumstances that can be fully understood by those only who have passed through them, or who have heard them related with the minute fidelity of an eyewitness-who can wonder that the colonists advanced but slowly? All these colonies were of slow growth, ten, and even twenty years being required, in several instances, before they could be regarded as permanently established. That of Virginia, the earliest, was more than once on the point of being broken up. Indeed, we may well be surprised that, when the colonists that survived the ravages of disease and attacks from the Indians were still farther reduced in their number by the return of a part of them to England, the remainder did not become disheartened and abandon the country in despair. The Plymouth colonists lost, upon the very spot where they settled, half their number within six months after their arrival; and terrible, indeed, must have been the sorrows of the dreary winter of 1620-21, as endured by those desolate yet persevering exiles. But they had a firm faith in God's goodness; they looked to the future; they felt that they had a great and a glorious task to accomplish, and that, although they themselves might perish in attempting it, Still, as I have said, they gradually gainyet their children would enjoy the prom-ed strength. At the Revolution in England ised land. of 1688, that is, eighty-one years after the first settlement of Virginia, and sixty-eight after that of Plymouth, the population of the colonies, then twelve in number, was Stout hearts were required for such enterprises. Few of the colonists were wealthy persons, and as those were not estimated at about two hundred thousand, | provinces that reach thus far, and their which might be distributed thus: Massa- whole population was confined to the strip chusetts, including Plymouth and Maine, of land interposed between those mountmay have had forty-four thousand; New-ains and the Atlantic Ocean. It is true, Hampshire and Rhode Island, including that immediately after the treaty of Paris, Providence, six thousand each; Connecti- in 1763, by which England acquired the cut, from seventeen to twenty thousand; Canadas and the Valley of the Mississippimaking up seventy-five thousand for all excepting Louisiana, which remained with New-England: New-York, not less than France, or, rather, was temporarily ceded twenty thousand; New-Jersey, ten thou- to Spain-a few adventurers began to pass sand; Pennsylvania and Delaware, twelve beyond the mountains, and this emigration thousand; Maryland, twenty-five thou- westward continued during the war of the sand; Virginia, fifty thousand; and the Revolution. But when peace came, in two Carolinas, which then included Geor- 1783, I much doubt if there were twengia, probably not fewer than eight thou- ty thousand Anglo-Americans in Westsand souls. ern Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, KenAfter having confined their settlements tucky, and Tennessee. These were but the for many years within a short distance, advanced posts of the immense host about comparatively speaking, from the coast, to follow, and, for many years after the the colonists began to penetrate the inland peace, the colonization of the interior was forests, and to settle at different points in slower than might be supposed. The popthe interior of the country, in proportion ulation of the thirteen provinces at the as they considered themselves strong commencement of the Revolution is not enough to occupy them safely. Where positively known, but it certainly did not hostility on the part of the Aborigines was exceed three millions and a half, slaves indreaded, these settlers kept together as cluded. No doubt the population of the much as possible, and established them- seaboard increased with considerable raselves in villages. This was particularly pidity, and Vermont was not long in bethe case in New-England, where, from the ing added to the original thirteen states, soil being less favourable to agriculture, making fourteen in all upon the Atlancolonization naturally assumed the com- tic slope. They amount now to fifteen, pact form required for the pursuits of trade Maine, which was long a sort of province and the useful arts, as well as for mutual to Massachusetts, having become a sepassistance when exposed to attack. As arate state in 1820. After the establishthe New-England colonists had all along ment of Independence, danger from the devoted themselves much to the fisheries Aborigines ceased to be apprehended and other branches of commerce, their set- throughout the whole country situated betlements were for a long time to be found tween the Alleghany Mountains and the chiefly on the coast, and at points affording Atlantic Ocean. The remains of the nuconvenient harbours. But it was much merous tribes, its former inhabitants, had, otherwise in the South. In Virginia, in with some exceptions in New-England, particular, the colonists were induced to New-York, and the Carolinas, retired to settle along the banks of rivers to very the West, and there they either existed considerable distances, their main occu- apart, or had become merged in other and pation being the planting of tobacco and kindred tribes. trading to some extent with the Indians. In the Carolinas, again, most hands being employed in the manufacture of tar, turpentine, and rosin, or in the cultivation of rice, indigo, and, eventually, of cotton, the colonial settlements took a considerable range whenever there was peace with the Indians in their vicinity. Where there was little or no commerce, and agricultural pursuits of different kinds were the chief occupation of the people, there could be few towns of much importance; and so much does this hold at the present day, that there is not a city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants in all the five South-violence. Excepting in some parts of ern Atlantic States, with the exception of Baltimore, in Maryland, and Charleston, in South Carolina. Even at the commencement of the war of the Revolution, in 1775, the colonies had scarcely penetrated to the Alleghany or Appalachian Mountains in any of the But it was far otherwise in the great region to the west of the Appalachian range. There, many of the Indian tribes occupied the country in all their pristine force, and were the more to be dreaded by settlers from the Eastern States, inasmuch as they were supposed to be greatly under the influence of the British government in Canada, and as unkindly feelings long subsisted between the Americans and their English neighbours, each charging the other, probably not without justice, with exciting the Indians, by means of their respective agents and hunters, to commit acts of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Tennessee, there was little security for American settlers in the West from 1783 until 1795. The first emigrants to Ohio suffered greatly from the Indians; two armies sent against them, in the western part of that state, under Generals Harmer and St. Clair, Far different are the circumstances of those colonists now! The mountains, at various points, are traversed by substantial highways; and, still farther to augment the facilities for intercourse with the vast Western Valley, canals and railroads were defeated and shockingly cut to pie-1 was laborious and tedious beyond concepces; and not until they had received a tion. dreadful defeat from General Wayne, on the River Miami-of-the-lake, was there anything like permanent peace established. But, as a prelude to the war between the United States and Great Britain, which commenced in 1812 and ended in 1815, the Indian tribes again became troublesome, are in progress. It is accessible, also, from particularly in Indiana and in the southeast- the south, by vessels from the Gulf of ern part of the Valley of the Mississippi, Mexico, as well as from the north by the forming now the State of Alabama. The lakes, on whose waters from fifty to a hunCreeks, a powerful tribe of the Muskho- dred steamboats now pursue their foaming gee race, then occupied that country, and way. As for the navigable streams of the it was not until defeated in many battles Valley itself, besides boats of all kinds of and skirmishes that they were reduced ordinary construction, nearly, if not quite, to peace. In point of fact, perfect secu- four hundred steamboats ply upon their rity from Indian hostilities has prevailed waters. And now, instead of being a throughout the West only since 1815; boundless forest uninhabited by civilized since that there have been the insignifi-men, as it was sixty years ago, the West cant war with Black Hawk, a Sioux chief, contains no fewer than eleven regularwhich took place a few years ago, and the ly-constituted states, and two territories still more recent war with the Seminoles which will soon be admitted as states into in Florida-exceptions not worth special the Union, the population having, meannotice, as they in nowise affected the coun- while, advanced from ten or twenty thoutry at large. sand Anglo-American inhabitants to above six millions.† Generally speaking, the various sections of the Valley of the Mississippi may be said to have been colonized from the parts of the Atlantic coast which correspond with them as nearly as possible in point of latitude. This is easily accounted for: emigrants from the East to the West naturally wish to keep as much as they can within the climate which birth and early life have else. Sometimes it is possible, at certain stages of It is now (1844) about sixty years since the tide of emigration from the Atlantic States set fairly into the Valley of the Mississippi, and though no great influx took place in any one year during the first thirty-five of that period, it has wonderfully increased during the last twenty-five. When this emigration westward first commenced, all the necessaries that the emigrants required to take with them from the East had to be carried on horseback, no roads for wheeled carriages having been the Mississippi, Ohio, or any other river in that reopened through the mountains. On arri-gion, when the water is very high. It is this: inving at the last ridge overlooking the boat is made to go along close to one of the banks, stead of keeping in the middle of the stream, the plains to the west, a boundless forest lay and the men who guide it, by catching hold of the stretched out before those pioneers of civ-boughs of the trees which overhang the water, are ilization, like an ocean of living green. Into the depths of that forest they had to plunge. Often long years of toil and suffering rolled away before they could establish themselves in comfortable abodes. The climate and the diseases peculiar to the different localities were unknown. Hence, fevers of a stubborn type cut many of them off. They were but partially acquainted with the mighty rivers of that vast region, beyond knowing that their common outlet was in the possession of foreigners, who imposed vexatious regulations upon their infant trade. The navigation of those rivers could be carried on only in flat-bottomed boats, keels, and barges. To descend them was not unattended with danger, but to ascend by means of sweeps and oars, by poling, warping, bush-whacking, and so forth, *Or the River Miami which flows into Lake Erie, and so called to distinguish it from the Miami that falls into the Ohio. The word bush-whacking is of Western origin, and signifies a peculiar mode of propelling a boat up Even enabled to drag the boat along. It is an expedient There are more than sixty on Lake Erie alone. It may be worth while to give the names of these states and territories, their extent in English square miles, and their population according to the census of 1840. They are as follows: Ohio STATES. Sq. miles. Pop. in 1840. 1,519,467 40,260 36,500 685,868 59,700 212,267 57,900 476,183 Kentucky 40,500 779,828 |