articlesforchristians

The Great Charter of Virginia

The Great Charter of Virginia

During all the early years of the Virginia colony the people were fed and clothed out of a common stock of provisions. They were also obliged to work for this stock. No division was made of the land, nor could the industrious man get any profit by his hard work. The laziest man was as well off as the one who worked hardest, and under this arrangement men neglected their work, and the colony was always poor. The men had been promised that after five years they should have land of their own and be free, but this promise was not kept. In 1614 Sir Thomas Dale gave to some who had been longest in Virginia three acres of ground apiece, and allowed them one month in the year to work on their little patches. For this they must support themselves and give the rest of their work to the common stock. This arrangement made them more industrious. But the cruel military laws put in force by the governor made Virginia very unpopular.

Argall, who came after Dale, governed very badly, and the colony was almost ruined. In 1618 many new emigrants were sent, and Lord De la Warr was again sent as governor, but he died on the way. The “Virginia Company,” of London, which had the government of the colony in November, 1618, granted to Virginia a “Great Charter,” under which the people of the colony were allowed a voice in making their own laws. This was the beginning of free government in America. Under this charter the government of Virginia was put into the hands of a governor, a “council of estate,” and a “general assembly.” The other American colonies afterward took pattern from this threefold government.

The government of the United States by a president, a senate, and a house of representatives shows that the ideas put into the Great Charter have left their mark on the constitution of our country. The governments of all our States also show traces of the same idea. Each State has a governor, a senate, and a house of representatives. So that the plan arranged in 1618 for a few hundred people in Virginia was a tiny stream that has spread out into a great river.

The Great Charter also gave the people of Virginia the right to divide the land into farms, and to own and work ground each for himself. When the new governor, Sir George Yeardley, got to Virginia in the spring of 1619, bringing this good news that the settlers were to live under laws of their own making, and were to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, they thought themselves the happiest people in the world.

About this time it was thought that the colony would be more firmly planted if the colonists had wives. Young women were therefore sent out to be married to the settlers. But, before any man could marry one of these, he was obliged to gain her consent, and to pay the cost of her passage, which was about a hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco. This venture proved very satisfactory to the Virginians, and women were therefore sent for wives from time to time for years afterward. When the colonists had land of their own, they felt themselves at home in America, and no longer thought of going back to England.

Before this there had been a good many small wars and troubles of one kind or other with the American Indians. But, as the American Indians had few firearms, the settlers could easily defend themselves. After 1619 many efforts were made to change and convert the American Indians. Money was given to educate their children, and a college was planned for them. One ambitious American Indian brave, whom the settlers called “Jack of the Feather,” and who was believed to be proof against bullets, was suspected of wishing war. At length he killed a settler, and the settler’s servants, in trying to take him to the governor, shot him. The American Indians did not show any resentment at his death at first, and O-pe-chan’-ka-no, who had become head chief on the death of Powhatan, said that the sky might fall sooner than he would break the peace.

But on the 22nd of March, 1622, while the men of the colony were in the fields, the American Indians suddenly fell on the settlements, killing the colonists mostly with their own axes, hatchets, and hoes. Three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children were killed in a single day. One American Indian lad, living in a settler’s house, had given warning during the night before, and some of the settlements had time to prepare themselves for defense. From this time on there was almost continual war with the American Indians for many years.

In 1624 the Virginia Company, of London, was dissolved, and the colony was put under the government of the king. But the king, James I, when he put down the company, promised to the colony all the liberties which they then enjoyed. This promise was not well kept by his successors in after-years; the Virginians were often oppressed by the governors sent to them, but the right to pass laws in the General Assembly was never taken away.

The Spanish in Florida and the French in Canada

The English were not the only people who had colonies in North America. The Spaniards, who claimed the whole continent, had planted a colony at Saint Au’-gus-tine, in Florida, in 1565, forty-two years before the first English colony Jamestown. Saint Augustine is thus the oldest city in the United States. But the Spaniards were too busy in Mexico and in Central and South America to push their settlements farther to the north, though they were very jealous of the English colonies, and especially of South Carolina and Georgia.

The French laid claim also to a large part of North America. They tried to plant a colony in Canada in 1549, and afterward made some other attempts that failed. Quebec [kwebec’] was founded by a great French explorer, Champlain, in 1608, the very year after the English settled at Jamestown. At Quebec the real settlement of Canada was begun, and it was always the capital of the vast establishments of the French in America.

The French, like the English, were trying to find the Pacific Ocean, and they were much more daring in their explorations than the English colonists, whose chief business was farming. A French explorer named Joliet [zhol-yay] reached the Mississippi in 1673, and another Frenchman, La Salle [lah-sahl], explored the great country west of the Alleghany Mountains, and discovered the Ohio. After many disasters and failures, La Salle succeeded in reaching the mouth of the Mississippi. Father Hennepin, a priest, explored the upper Mississippi. The French then laid claim to all the country west of the Alleghanies. Over the region they established posts and mission-houses, while the English contented themselves with multiplying their farming settlements east of the mountains.

When La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi, he took possession of the country in the name of Louis XIV., and called it Louisiana, in honor of that king. The settlement of Louisiana was begun in 1699. The French held the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, the two great water-ways of North America, and they controlled most of the American Indian tribes by means of missionaries and traders. They endeavored to connect Canada and Louisiana by a chain of fortified posts, and so to hold for France an empire, in the heart of America, larger than France itself.

But the weakness of the French in America lay in the fewness of their people. Canada, the oldest of their colonies, was in a country too cold to be a prosperous farming country in that day. Besides, its growth was checked by the system of lordships with tenants, which some of the English colonies had also tried. But inferior as the French were in numbers, they were strong in their military character; they were almost all soldiers. The English were divided into colonies, and could never be made to act together; but the French, from Canada to the Mississippi, were absolutely subjected to their governors.

The French influenced and leveraged the American Indians to push back against the English colonies. The great business of the French in Canada was the fur trade, and this was pushed with an energy that quite left the English traders behind. The French drew furs from the shores of Lake Superior and from beyond the Mississippi. The French traders gained great influence over the American Indians. The English treated the American Indians as inferiors, the French lived among them on terms of equality. The French also gained control of the American Indian tribes by means of missionary priests, who risked their lives and spent their days in the dirty cabins of the American Indians to convert them to European religions. The powerful Iroquois confederacy, known as the “Five Nations,” and afterward as the “Six Nations,” sided with the English, and hated and killed the French. They lived in what is now the State of New York. But the most of the tribes were managed by the French, who sent missionaries to convert them, ambassadors to flatter them, gunsmiths to mend their arms, and military men to teach them to fortify, and to direct their attacks against the settlements of the English.
‘Engraving of Juan Ponce de León’
The wars between the French colony in Canada and the English colonies in what is now the United States were caused partly by wars between France and England in Europe. But there were also causes enough for enmity in the state of affairs on this side of the ocean. First, there was always a quarrel about territory. The French claimed that part of what is now the State of Maine which lies east of the Kennebec River, while the English claimed to the St. Croix. The French also claimed all the country back of the Alleghanies. With a population not more than one twentieth of that of one of the English colonies, they spread their claim over all the country watered by the lakes and the tributaries of the Mississippi, including more than half of the present United States. Second, both France and England wished to control the fisheries of the eastern coast. Third, both the French and the English endeavored to get the entire control of the fur trade. To do this the French tried to win the Iroquois Confederacy to their interest, while the English sought to take the trade of the Western tribes away from the French. Fourth, the French were Catholics and the English mostly Protestants. In that age men were very bigoted about religion, and hated and feared those who differed from them.

SPANISH DISCOVERIES IN FLORIDA

Ponce de Leon [pon’-thay day lay-on; commonly in English, ponss deh lee’-on], an old Spanish explorer, set sail in 1513 from the island of Puerto Rico, to discover a land reported to lie to the northward of Cuba, and which had somehow come to be called Bimini [bee-mcc-nee]. It was said to contain a fountain, by bathing in which an old man would be made young again. On Easter Sunday Ponce discovered the mainland, which he called Florida, from Pascua Florida [pas’-kwah floree’- dah], the Spanish name for Easter Sunday. In 1521 Ponce tried to settle Florida, but his party was attacked and he was mortally wounded by the American Indians. Florida was then believed to be an island. After his death, other Spanish adventurers explored the coast from Labrador southward, and even tried to find goldmines, and plant colonies in the interior of the country. The most famous of these expeditions was that of Hernando de Soto [aer-nan’-do day so’-to], a Spanish explorer, who reached Florida in 1539. He marched through Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. He was determined to find some land yielding gold, like Mexico and Peru. But he treated the American Indians cruelly, killing some of them wantonly, and forcing others to serve him as slaves. The American Indians, in turn, attacked him again and again, until his party was sadly reduced. De Soto tried to descend the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, but at the mouth of the Red River he died of a fever. His body was buried m the Mississippi, to keep the American Indians from disfiguring it in revenge. A few of his followers reached the Gulf and got to the Spanish settlements in Mexico.

Life in the Colonial Time

When people first came to this country, they had to take up with such houses as they could get. In Virginia and New England, as in New York and Philadelphia, holes were dug in the ground for dwelling places by some of the first settlers. In some places bark wigwams were made, like those of the American Indians. Sometimes a rudimentary cabin was built of round logs, and without a floor. As time advanced, better houses were built. Some of these were of hewed logs, some of planks, split, or sawed out by hand. The richer people built good houses soon after they came. Most of these had in the middle a large room, called “the hall.”

The chimneys were generally very large, with wide fireplaces. Sometimes there were seats inside the fireplace, and children, sitting on these seats in the evening, amused themselves by watching the stars through the top of the chimney. In the early houses most of the windows had paper instead of glass. This paper was oiled, so as to let light come through.

Except in the houses of rich people the furniture was scant and rough. Benches, stools, and tables were home-made. Beds were often filled with mistletoe, the down from cattail flags, or the feathers of wild-pigeons. People who were not rich brought their food to the table in wooden trenchers, or trays, and ate off wooden plates. Some used square blocks of wood instead of plates. Neither rich nor poor, in England or America, had forks when the first colonies were settled. Meat was cut with a knife and eaten from the fingers. On the tables of well-to-do people pewter dishes were much used, and a row of shining pewter in an open cupboard, called a dresser, was a sign of good housekeeping. The richest people had silverware for use on great occasions. They also had stately furniture brought from England. But carpets were hardly ever seen. The floor of the best room was strewed with sand, which was marked off in ornamental figures. There was no wall-paper until long after 1700, but rich cloths and tapestry hung on the walls of the finest houses.

Cooking was done in front of fireplaces in skillets and on griddles that stood upon legs, so that coals could be put under them, and in pots and kettles that hung over the fire on a swinging crane, so that they could be drawn out or pushed back. Sometimes there was an oven, for baking, built in the side of the chimney. Meat was roasted on a spit in front of the fire. The spit was an iron rod thrust through the piece to be roasted, and turned by a crank. A whole pig or fowl was sometimes hung up before the fire and turned about while it roasted. Often pieces of meat were broiled by throwing them on the live coals.

A mug of home-brewed beer, with bread and cheese, or a porridge of peas or beans, boiled with a little meat, constituted the breakfast of the early colonists. Neither tea nor coffee was known in England or this country until long after the first colonies were settled. When tea came in, it became a fashionable drink, and was served to company from pretty little china cups, set on lacquered tables. Mush, made of Indian-corn meal, was eaten for supper.

In proportion to the population, more wine and spirits were consumed at that time than now. The very strong Madeira wine was drunk at genteel tables. Rum, which from its destructive effects was known everywhere by the nickname of “kill-devil,” was much used then. At every social gathering rum was provided. Hard cider was a common drink. There was much drunkenness. Peach-brandy was used in the Middle and Southern colonies, and was very ruinous to health and morals.

People of wealth made great display in their dress. Much lace and many silver buckles and buttons were worn. Workingmen of all sorts wore leather, deerskin, or coarse canvas breeches. The stockings worn by men were long, the breeches were short, and buckled, or otherwise fastened, at the knees.

Our forefathers traveled about in canoes and little sailing-boats called shallops. Most of the canoes would hold about six men, but some were large enough to hold forty or more. For a long time, there were no roads except the trails and bridle paths created by the American Indians, which could only be traveled on foot or on horseback. Goods were carried on packhorses. When roads were made, wagons came into use.

In a life so hard and busy as that of the early settlers, there was little time for education. The schools were few and generally poor. Boys, when taught at all, learned to read, write, and “cast accounts.” Girls were taught even less. Many of the children born when the colonies were new grew up unable to write their names. There were few books at first, and no newspapers until after 1700. There was little to occupy the mind except the Sunday sermon.

In all the colonies people were very fond of dancing parties. Weddings were times of great excitement and often of much drinking. In some of the colonies wedding festivities were continued for several days. Even funerals were occasions of feasting, and sometimes of excessive drinking In the Middle and Southern colonies the people were fond of horseracing, cock-fighting, and many other cruel sports brought from England. New England people made their militia-trainings the occasions for feasting and amusement, fighting sham battles, and playing many rough, old-fashioned games. Coasting on the snow, skating, and sleighing were first brought into America from Holland by the Dutch settlers in New York. In all the colonies there was a great deal of hunting and fishing. The woods were full of deer and wild turkeys. Flocks of pigeons often darkened the sky, and the rivers were alive with waterfowl and fish.