persons themselves well-provided to feed two or three strangers, how much more difficult is it in Virginia, where such persons are themselves in want?

3. The Pilgrims resolve to leave Holland í So long as governments and joint stock companies dominated the significance

of the colonization of the New World, the settlements made little progress.

Pilgrims. The first tenacious and really successful colonists were individuals and groups of individuals who came to America, not to seek treasure or easily gotten gains, but to build homes, to enjoy freedom of conscience, and to practice local self-government. Perhaps the best known of these early home-seekers were the Pilgrims. At the beginning of the seventeenth century several groups of these people had left England to settle in Holland, but though they enjoyed many advantages among the Dutch, they at length began to consider the desirability of removing to some other place. In the following passage the reasons which led the Pilgrim congregation to leave Holland are recounted by William Bradford, one of their number:

First, they saw by experience that the hardships of the country Hardships were such that relatively few others would join them, and fewer still

in Holland. would remain with them in Holland. Many who came and many more who desired to come, could not stand the continual labor and hard fare and other inconveniences which they themselves had been content to endure. For though many desired to enjoy the ordinances of God in their purity, and the liberty of the gospel, yet, alas, they preferred to submit to bondage, with danger to their conscience, rather than endure these privations. Some even preferred prisons in England to this liberty in Holland, with such hardships.

Secondly, they saw that though the people generally bore these Premature difficulties very cheerfully, and with resolute courage, being in the best strength of their years; yet old age began to steal on many of them, and their great and continual labors, with other crosses and sorrows, hastened it before their time. ...

Thirdly, as necessity was a task-master over them, so they them- Hardships selves were forced to be, not only over their servants, but in a sort

old age.

temptations experienced by their children.

over their dearest children. This wounded the hearts of many a loving father and mother, and produced many sad and sorrowful effects. Many of their children, who were of the best disposition, and who had learned to bear the yoke in their youth and were will

ng to bear part of their parents' burden, were often so oppressed with their labours, that though their minds were free and willing, their bodies bowed under the weight and became decrepit in early youth. ...

But still more lamentable, and of all sorrows most heavy to be borne, was that many of the children, influenced by these conditions, and the great licentious ness of the young people of the country, and the many temptations of the place, were led by evil example into dangerous courses, getting the rein off their necks and leaving their parents. Some became soldiers, others embarked upon voyages by sea, and others upon worse courses, tending to dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, to the great grief of the parents and the dishonor of God. So they saw their posterity would be in danger to degenerate and become corrupt.

Last and not least, they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least of making some way towards it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great a work.

These and some other similar reasons, moved them to resolve upon their removal, which they afterwards prosecuted in the face of great difficulties. ...

The place they fixed their thoughts upon was somewhere in those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which were fruitful and fit for habitation, though devoid of all civilized inhabitants and given over to savages, differing little from the wild beasts themselves.

After many things had been alleged for and against the journey, it was fully decided by the majority to undertake the enterprise, and to prosecute it by the best means they could. .

The missionary spirit.

And so they resolve to remove to America.

4. The “Mayflower” reaches New England 1 Determined to try their fortunes in the New World, the Pilgrims The returned to England, and having overcome a number of preliminary

Mayflower

weighs obstacles, at length set sail for America. After a tedious and distress- anchor off

Cape Cod. ing voyage of many weeks, they anchored in Cape Cod harbor on the eleventh of November, 1620. Before going ashore they adopted what is known as the Mayflower Compact, by means of which they formed themselves into a body politic. After agreeing to this compact, they chose John Carver to act as their governor for the first year. The following extracts from Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation describe the landing of the Pilgrims:

Necessity called on them to look out for a place of habitation. A party Having brought a large shallop with them from England, stowed in prepares to

go ashore. quarters in the ship, they now got her out, and set their carpenters to work to trim her up; but being much bruised and battered in the foul weather they saw she would be long mending. So a few of them volunteered to go by land and explore the neighboring parts, whilst the shallop was put in order; particularly since, as they entered the bay, there seemed to be an opening some two or three leagues off, which the captain thought was a river. It was conceived there might be danger in the attempt; but seeing them resolute, sixteen of them, well-armed, were permitted to go, under charge of Captain Standish.

They set forth on the 15th of November, being landed by the Some Indians ship’s boat, and when they had marched about the space of a mile and a dog by the seaside, they espied five or six persons with a dog coming toward them. They were savages; but they fled back into the woods, followed by the English, who wished to see if they could speak with them, and to discover if there were more lying in ambush. But the Indians, seeing themselves followed, left the woods, and ran along the sands as hard as they could, so our men could not come up with them, but followed the track of their feet several miles.

Night coming on, they made their rendezvous, and set sentinels, The next day and rested in quiet. Next morning they again pursued the Indians' tracks, till they came to a great creek, where they had left the sands and turned into the woods. But they continued to follow them by guess, hoping to find their dwellings; but soon they lost both the

1 From William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, Chapter X.

are seen.

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Indians and themselves, and fell into such thickets that their clothes and armour were injured severely; but they suffered most from want of water. At length they found some, and refreshed themselves with the first New England water they had drunk; and in their great thirst they found it as pleasant as wine or beer had been before. Afterwards they directed their course towards the other shore, for they knew it was only a neck of land they had to cross over. At length they got to the sea-side, and marched to this supposed river, and by the way found a pond of fresh water, and shortly after a quantity of cleared ground where the Indians had formerly planted

corn; and they found some of their graves. they find

Proceeding further, they saw stubble where corn had been grown some Indian the same year, and also found a place where a house had lately been, corn, part of which they

with some planks, and a great kettle and heaps of sand newly banked, take back to under which they found several large baskets filled with corn, some the ship with them.

in the ear of various colours, which was a very goodly sight they having never seen any like it before. This was near the supposed river that they had come to seek. When they reached it, they found that it opened into two arms, with a high cliff of sand at the entrance, but more likely to be creeks of salt water than fresh, they thought. There was good harbourage for their shallop, so they left it to be further explored when she was ready. The time allowed them having expired, they returned to the ship, lest the others should be anxious about their safety. They took part of the corn and buried the rest; and so, like the men from Eschol, carried with them of the fruits of the land, and showed their brethren; at which the rest

were very glad, and greatly encouraged. The

After this, the shallop being ready, they set out again for the better exploration

reconnoitering of the place. The captain of the ship desired to go is continued.

himself, so there were some thirty men. However, they found it to be no harbour for ships, but only for boats. They also found two of the Indians' houses covered with mats, and some of their implements in them; but the people had run away and could not be seen. They also found more corn, and beans of various colours. These they brought away, intending to give them full satisfaction when they should meet with any of them, as about six months afterwards they did. . .

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5. The struggles of the early colonists 1 Once it had been demonstrated that the American wilderness The work

of the could be fashioned into homes, colonists flocked to the New World.

pioneer, Clusters of settlements formed all along the Atlantic seaboard, while back from the coast the clearing of the solitary planter came to be a common sight. Though the type of settlement varied with the geography of the region, it is generally true that the pioneering process was everywhere the same. From Maine to Georgia it involved fashioning a rude dwelling, clearing the forest, and planting crops. The following description of pioneering in New England, therefore, may be taken as also typical of the settler's work elsewhere in the colonies:

The planters are necessitated to struggle with many diffi- and the culties. To clear a farm covered with a thick growth of large trees,

difficulties

confronting such as generally abound in this country, is a work of no small him. magnitude. Especially is this true when, as is usually the fact, it is to be done by a single man; and still more especially, when that man is poor, and obliged to struggle with many other discouragements.

When a planter commences this undertaking, he sets out for his farm with his axe, gun, blanket, provision and ammunition. With these he enters the forest and builds himself a shed by setting up poles at four angles, crossing them with other poles, and covering the whole with the bark, leaves and twigs of trees, except the south side, which is purposely left open to the sun and a fire.

Under this shelter he dresses his food, and makes his bed of straw He conon which he sleeps soundly beneath his blanket. Here he usually

shelter, continues through the season, and sometimes without the sight of clears the any other human being. After he has completed this shelter, he ground, begins to clear a spot of ground, i. e. to remove the forest by which it is covered.

After the field is burned over, his next business is to break it up. prepares it The instrument employed for this purpose is a large and strong har- for planting, row. . . . It is drawn over the surface a sufficient number of times

structs a

* From Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York. New Haven, 1821. Vol. II, pp. 464-469.