Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II | Page 2

animated by vital ambitions looking to growth in
population and industry. After forty years of prosperity in trade they
had failed to become a settled and well-ordered colonial state, looking

bravely forward to permanence, expansion and eventual statehood. The
first free school in America is credited to their initiative, and they were
tolerant of other religions than their own, but they planted no other
seeds from which a great State could grow.
As Coligny before him had sought to plant in Florida a colony of
French Huguenots, so Raleigh, who had served under that great captain
in the religious wars of the Continent, sought to found in Virginia a
Protestant state. Much private wealth and many of his best years were
given by Raleigh to the furtherance of a noble ambition, but all to futile
immediate results. Raleigh's work, however, like all good work nobly
done, was not lost. Out of his failure at Roanoke came English
successes in later years--John Smith at Jamestown, the Pilgrims at
Plymouth.
Oldest of permanent English settlements in America is Jamestown, but
the English failures at Cuttyhunk and Kennebec antedate it by a few
years, and the failure at Roanoke by a quarter of a century. At
Jamestown, ten years after the arrival of the first settlers, a legislative
assembly was organized--a minature parliament, modeled after the
English House of Commons, and the first legislative body the new
world ever knew. Here, too, in Jamestown began negro slavery in the
United States, and in the same, or the next, year. Thus legislative
freedom and human slavery had their beginning in America at the same
time and in the same place.
Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, next among the English settlements,
followed in due time the failure of Gosnold at Cuttyhunk and the
description of New England John Smith wrote and printed in 1614 after
a voyage of exploration along her coast. After several years Plymouth
contained only about 300 souls, but the Bay colony, founded ten years
later, increased rapidly. By 1634 nearly 4,000 of Winthrop's followers
had arrived, many of them college graduates. From this great parent
colony went forth Roger Williams to Rhode Island, Hooker to Hartford,
Davenport to New Haven, so that by the middle of the seventeenth
century five English colonies had been planted within the borders of
New England.
Long after all these came the Maryland and Pennsylvania settlements,
founded by Lord Baltimore and William Penn as lords proprietor,
owners of vast tracts of land and possessing privileges more extensive

than ever before were bestowed on British subjects. In the new century
arrived Oglethorpe, with his insolvent debtors, soon to find Spaniards
from St. Augustine hostile to his enterprise. But Oglethorpe was a
soldier as well as a colonizer; he had served in Continental wars, and,
after laying siege to St. Augustine further aggressions from that source
ceased.
Thus at last, in the New World, the English race, their flag, their
language and their laws, had displaced the Spaniards in that
world-important contest for dominion and power, of which the second
issue was soon to be fought out on many bloody fields with France.
F.W.H.

CONTENTS
VOL. II--THE PLANTING OF THE FIRST COLONIES
INTRODUCTION. By the Editor
THE FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE MASSACRE BY
MENENDEZ (1562-1565):
I. The Account by John A. Doyle
II. Mendoza's Account
SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S VIRGINIA COLONIES (1584-1587):
I. The Account by John A. Doyle
II. The Return of the Colonists with Sir Francis Drake. By Ralph Lane
III. The Birth of Virginia Dare. By John White
BARTHOLOMEW GOSNOLD'S DISCOVERY OF CAPE COD
(1602):
I. By Gabriel Archer, One of Gosnold's Companions
II. Gosnold's Own Account
THE FOUNDING OF JAMESTOWN (1607). By Captain John Smith
THE FIRST AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (1819). By
John Twine, its Secretary
THE ORIGIN OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN AMERICA:
I. In the West Indies (1518). By Sir Arthur Helps
II. Its Beginnings in the United States (1620). By John A. Doyle
NEW ENGLAND BEFORE THE PILGRIM FATHERS LANDED
(1614). By Captain John Smith
THE FIRST VOYAGE OF THE "MAYFLOWER" (1620). By
Governor William Bradford

THE FIRST NEW YORK SETTLEMENTS (1623-1628). By Nicolas
Jean de Wassenaer
THE SWEDES AND DUTCH IN NEW JERSEY (1627). By Israel
Acrelius
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
(1627-1631). By Governor Thomas Dudley
HOW THE BAY COLONY DIFFERED FROM PLYMOUTH. By
John G. Palfrey
LORD BALTIMORE IN MARYLAND (1633). By Contemporary
Writers
ROGER WILLIAMS IN RHODE ISLAND (1636). By Nathaniel
Morton
THE FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT (1633-1636). By Alexander
Johnston
WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND (1647-1696). By John G.
Palfrey
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF NEW YORK (1664). By John H.
Brodhead
BACON'S REBELLION IN VIRGINIA (1676). By an Anonymous
Writer
KING PHILIP'S WAR (1676). By William Hubbarrd
THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA:
I. Penn's Account of the Colony (1684)
II.