Resource Center OLLibrary
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[1587-1600 |
28. Raleigh sends out a Second Colony.
Raleigh, though disappointed at the return of his first colony,
resolved to send out a second (1587). John White, the governor of
the new colony, laid the log foundations of the "City of
Raleigh."
The Governor's daughter, Eleanor Dare, was the
wife of one of the settlers. Shortly after her landing, Mrs. Dare
gave birth to a daughter. She was the first child born of English
parents in America, and was baptized by the name Virginia.
Governor White soon sailed for England to get
further help for the colony, leaving his daughter and his
granddaughter, little Virginia Dare, to await his return. That was
the last he ever saw of them. When he returned the island was
deserted; not one of the colonists was ever found. Sir Walter
Raleigh was obliged to give up his project; and America was left
with not a single English settler, but with many "English
graves."
Raleigh had spent over forty thousand pounds on
the colony. He could do no more; but he said, "I shall live to see
it an English nation." He did live to see a permanent English
settlement established in Virginia in 1607. A hundred and
eighty-five years after that event (1792) Sir Walter's name was
given to the seat of government of North Carolina, and thus the
"City of Raleigh" was enrolled among the capitals of the United
States.
Sir Walter's example was not lost; for from his
day England kept the colonization of America in mind, until it was
finally accomplished. For these reasons Raleigh is rightly
regarded as one of the founders of the American nation.
29. White Settlers in 1600 in what is now the
United States. As late as the year 1600 there seemed small
promise that this country would ever be settled and governed by
the English-speaking race. Look at the situation. More than a
hundred years had passed since Columbus landed, yet the only white
inhabitants of the territory now embraced in the United States
were a few hundred Spaniards in St. Augustine, Florida (§
23), and perhaps a few hundred more in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Over the rest of the country, embracing more
than three millions of square miles, the Indians ruled supreme.
France had tried
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1600] |
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to get a foothold on the Atlantic coast and had failed
(§§ 23, 24); England had tried and failed likewise
(§§ 26-28). Spain alone had succeeded. In 1600 it
certainly looked as though her flag was destined to wave over the
whole continent from sea to sea.
30. What America was found to be; its
Physical Geography. Looking at the territory now included in
the United States, let us see what the explorers of that age, and
of a later one, found America to be. In great measure it seemed to
them Europe repeated. It has practically the same climate and the
same soil. It produces, or is capable of producing, the same
trees, the same fruits, the same crops, with the valuable addition
of cotton, sugar, and rice. In all ways it is equally favorable to
human health and life.
But this is not all. In two important respects
America is superior to Europe. That continent commands the
Atlantic only; but America commands two oceans, -- the Atlantic
and the Pacific. We can send our ships direct to Europe and Africa
from our eastern coast, and from our western coast we can send
them direct to Asia and Australia. This is our first
advantage.
Our second advantage is, that though America
repeats all the natural features of Europe, -- its lakes,
mountains, plains, rivers, and forests, -- yet it repeats them on
a far grander scale. Europe has no chains of mountains which can
compare with the "Rockies," no lakes equal to our Great Lakes, no
river like the Mississippi, no falls like Niagara, no chasm like
the Canyon of the Colorado (§ 22), no prairies like those of
our western states.
In fact, no continent on the globe ranks higher
than America, and the United States holds the best part of it.
Besides the natural wealth our country possesses above ground in
its climate, soils, and forests, it has vast stores of wealth
underground.
Look at its quarries of stone for building, its
beds of clay for making brick, its varied mineral products, gold,
silver, copper, and lead. Better still, it has immense mines of
the two most useful minerals known to man -- coal and iron. From
these gifts of nature we have drawn riches for generations; now we
shall safeguard them against waste (§ 430, No. 3), so that we
may continue to draw riches from them for generations to come.
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[1600 |
That distinguished English statesman, the
late William Gladstone, declared that "America has a natural base
for the greatest continuous empire ever established by man." Later
on we shall see that the physical geography of our country has had
a most important influence on its history. (Map, p. 43.)
Such was the land spread out before the
explorers. It seemed to offer to all who were disappointed with
the Old World an opportunity to try, in America, what they could
make of life under new and broader conditions.
31. The Indians; the Population then and
now. One strange fact about the country was that east of the
Mississippi the whole vast area was well-nigh a solitude. Where
to-day more than fifty million white men live, there were then
only two or three hundred thousand Indians. Sometimes the
explorers would travel for days without meeting a human being. The
only roads through the forests were narrow Indian trails; the only
farms were scattered patches of Indian corn; the only cities and
towns were occasional clusters of Indian wigwams.1 The
truth is, that the Indians did not really occupy the land: they
simply possessed it. To them it was mainly a hunting ground to
roam over or a battlefield to fight on.
32. Personal Appearance of the Indians; the
"Scalp Lock." Columbus called the natives Indians (§ II),
but they called themselves simply "Men," or "Real Men"; "Real Men"
they certainly often proved themselves to be. The most numerous
body of Indians in the East was the Algonquins; the ablest and the
most ferocious was the Iroquois. (Map, p. 34.) They were a tall,
well made race, with a color usually resembling that of old
copper.
The men cut all of their hair off close to the
head, with the exception, of a ridge or lock in the middle. That
was left as a point of honor. It was called the "scalp lock." Its
object was to give an adversary -- if he could get it -- a fair
grip in fight, and also to enable him to pull his enemy's scalp
off as a trophy of the battle. That lock was the Indian's flag of
defiance. It waved above his head as the colors do over a fort, as
if to say, "Take me if you can!"
1 See Whitelaw
Reid's "Greatest Fact in Modern History."
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1600] |
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33. How the Indians lived. The Indians
were savages, but seldom degraded savages. They lived by hunting,
fishing, and farming. Their farming, however, was of the rudest
kind. For weapons they had bows and arrows, hatchets made of
flint, and heavy clubs.
The Indian believed in a strict division of
duties. He did the hunting, the fighting, the scalping; his wife
did the work. She built the wigwam, or hut, of bark.1
She planted and hoed the corn and tobacco. She made deerskin
clothes for the family. When they moved, she carried the furniture
on her back. Her house-keeping was simple.
She kindled a fire on the ground by rubbing two dry sticks
rapidly together; then she roasted the meat on the coals or boiled
it in an earthen pot. There was always plenty of smoke and dirt,
but no one complained. Housecleaning was unknown.
34. The Moccasin; the Snowshoe; the
Birch-Bark Canoe. The most ingenious work of the Indians was
seen in the moccasin, the snowshoe, and the birch-bark canoe. The
moccasin was a shoe made of buckskin, -- durable, soft, pliant,
noiseless. It was the best covering for a hunter's foot that human
skill ever contrived.
1 The wigwams were of
various kinds. Some would hold only a single family; others among
the Iroquois tribe, were long, low tenement houses, large enough
for a dozen or more families. Some wigwams were made of skins or
built of logs.
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[1600 |
The snowshoe was a light frame of wood,
covered with a network of strings of hide, and having such a broad
surface that the wearer could walk on top of the snow in pursuit
of game. Without it the Indian might have starved in a severe
winter, since only by its use could he run down the deer at that
season.
The birch-bark canoe was light, strong, and
easily propelled. It made the Indian master of every lake, river,
and stream. Wherever there were water ways he could travel
quickly, silently, and with little effort. He could go in his own
private conveyance from the source of the Ohio to the Gulf of
Mexico; or he could go from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the
Falls of Niagara; then he could pick up his canoe, carry it round
the falls, and begin his journey again on Lake Eric westward to
Duluth or Chicago.
35. Indian Government; "Wampum." Each
tribe of Indians had a chief, but the chief had little real power.
All important matters were settled by councils. The records of
these councils were kept in a peculiar manner. The Indian could
not write, but he could make pictures that would often serve the
purpose of
TREATY BELT MADE OF WAMPUM
writing. The treaty made by the Indians with William Penn was
commemorated by a belt made of "wampum," or strings of beads made
of shells. It represented an Indian and a white man clasping each
other by the hand in token of friendship. That was the record of
the peace established between them.
But quite independent of any picture, the
arrangement of the beads and their colors had a meaning. When a
council was held, a belt was made to show what had been done.
Every tribe had its "wampum" interpreters. By examination of a
belt they could tell what action had been taken at any public
meeting in the past.
