New England colonies

“ Scarcely had the first New England colonies been established when it was found desirable to unite them into some kind of a confederation. It is worthy of note that the separate existence of so many colonies was at the outset largely the result of religious differences. The uniformity of purpose, great as it was, fell far short of completeness. ”

“ The answer seems obvious, for North America itself. But what did North America mean? It had a different meaning to different interests. The New Englander cared for little but the New England colonies, and the immediately adjacent lands and seas. To the Acadian settlers the Acadian peninsula, to the Canadian habitant the banks of the St. Lawrence, were all in all. The inland colonists of New York had in their minds not merely the safety of their colony, within its ill-defined boundaries, but also paramount influence over the Five Nations, and unrestricted trade with the western Indians. ”

“ It is true that the English North American colonies were also agricultural colonies; but they had a great advantage over New France, in that their coasts were open all the year round, resulting in a maritime trade, which could never be enjoyed by Canada. Moreover New England, at any rate, was peopled by colonists who went out, not to make their fortunes, and not to build up a dominion for their King, but to make their homes, and their children's homes, on the agricultural pattern, in as kindly a soil as, and in a kindlier climate than, that of Canada. ”

“ The beginnings of the continental American colonies, indeed, are too apt to be considered as isolated events. Their unique importance from the standpoint of American history has tended to obscure their real nature. From that standpoint, they are naturally viewed as the founding of a great nation; but if they are considered solely in that relation, not only the planting of the colonies themselves, but the subsequent history of their relations with the mother-country, and the whole course of England’s old colonial policy, are bound to be misunderstood. ”

“ The colony’s increasing illegal trade was threatening the destruction of the legitimate business of colonial and home merchants alike, as well as the Empire’s international relations. Although New England’s domestic trade was of slight value to the mother-country, she occupied a strategic position of first importance in relation to the valuable staple colonies of the south and the West Indies, and, in case of war with France, it was essential that England should have some means of official communication with, and control over, her strongest colony on the enemy’s frontier in America. ”

“ On the other hand, the population of the New England colonies was something over one hundred thousand, the colony of New York alone twice outnumbering New France.
Such disparity in the populations of the warring colonies was, however, somewhat discounted by another consideration; for while the power of New France was well organised and capable of skilful direction, the English colonists could carry out no enterprise with the undisciplined soldiery at their disposal. ”

“ Both religious and economic interests, therefore, made it desirable that the English colonies should remain within the English Empire; and it was the power of England alone which enabled them to do so. For it was not a question, for example, of the sturdy New England settlers warding off attacks from the far fewer French inhabitants of Canada. No colony was self-supporting or economically self-contained. ”

“ The lines of demarcation separating the various groups of colonies in intellectual and spiritual matters corresponded pretty closely to the differences just sketched in their national progress". In the New England colonies we find a well-organised and finnly rooted ecclesiastical system. It is not enough to say that in New England every township
Beligioios conditions. ”

“ It cannot too often be pointed out that the colonial period was a colonial period, and that the relations subsisting between England and the colonies were necessarily those subsisting between a sovereign state and its dependencies. There was no more reason for the colonist of Massachusetts or Barbadoes to consider himself entirely independent of English control, than there is for the settler in Alaska to consider himself wholly independent of the United States to-day. ”

“ The thirteen original colonies were now "full grown." Their population had increased to 2,000,000 and was fast growing. Their men had proven their bravery and generalship in the French and Indian War. Many of them had developed into fine officers, and all compared favorably with the British regulars. Their loyalty to England was proven by the 30,000 lives that had been given that she might conquer her traditional rival and enemy. ”

“ The common feature of the new time, with its novel enterprises and its general immigration, was that the colonies everywhere, whether young or old, felt a keen stimulation and a new interest in affairs beyond their borders. A partial exchange of population began, a noticeable intercolonial migration. Whole congregations came out of New England to found towns in New Jersey, and individuals out of every colony ventured more freely than before to exchange one region for another, in order to coax health or fortune. ”

“ It is needless to point out, however, the subtle temptation for the colonies to pick a quarrel with the natives, to interfere with their internal affairs, or to conduct some little military expedition, when the result was likely to be the acquisition of desirable lands by a mere show of force.
As the whites encroached more and more upon the Indians, the lands of the latter gradually came to be looked upon as reservations, upon which their native owners were allowed to live until a convenient opportunity, or the growing needs of the settlers, might bring about a farther advance. ”

“ New England alone stands out in a brighter light, ready to sacrifice money and men in the national cause. With the enemy on their borders, the New Englanders knew what the danger was; further south the Alleghany mountains bounded the horizon of the colonists. State Assemblies squabbled with their Governors, each little province was passively indifferent to or actively jealous of its neighbour, all alike were with good reason suspicious of the mother country ”

“ By them the united colonies of New England, viz. Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, entered into a firm and perpetual league, offensive and defensive.
Each colony retained a distinct and separate jurisdiction; no two colonies could join in one jurisdiction without the consent of the whole; and no other colony could be received into the confederacy without the like consent.
The charge of all wars was to be borne by the colonies respectively, in proportion to the male inhabitants of each, between sixteen and sixty years of age. ”

“ To understand the literary leadership of New England during the thirty years immediately preceding the Civil War it is necessary to recall the characteristics of a somewhat isolated and peculiar people. The mental and moral traits of the New England colonists, already glanced at in an earlier chapter, had suffered little essential modification in two hundred years. The original racial stock was still dominant. As compared with the middle and southern colonies, there was relatively little immigration, and this was easily assimilated. ”

“ The character originally impressed upon New England by such men was maintained by the powerful influence of the colleges and schools, so that there was always more attention devoted to scholarship and to writing than in any of the other colonies. Communities of Europeans, thrust into a wilderness and severed from Europe by the ocean, were naturally in danger of losing their higher culture and lapsing into the crudeness of frontier life. All the American colonies were deeply affected by this situation. ”

“ At more than one period, English colonists have been accused of believing that “it is the undoubted right of every Englishman to settle where he likes, to behave as he sees fit, and to call upon the Mother-Country to foot the bill.” [759] This, however, is not merely a colonial characteristic: it is the spirit developed upon every frontier, as the later history of American westward expansion may be called upon to illustrate; and, as we have pointed out, the whole chain of colonies formed the long encircling frontier of England. ”

“ The confederation of the United Colonies, first proposed by Connecticut, was an act of great wisdom, foreshadowing the more celebrated political unions of the English race on this continent, for they all have recognized the common maxim, that “Union is strength.” The colonists were surrounded by “people of several nations and strange language,” and the existence of the Indian tribes within the boundaries of the New England settlements was the source of ceaseless anxiety and alarm. ”

“ Yet within sixty years after the Susan Constant entered the James River, seven colonies were firmly planted on the coast of North America: Virginia and Maryland to the south; Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth, Connecticut and Rhode Island, in New England; and between the two groups of English settlements was the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the Hudson. Within the limits of these colonies dwelt a population of more than seventy thousand people, economically self-sufficing, possessed of well-defined political institutions and clearly marked types of social and intellectual life. ”

“ The colonists were fast ripening into fitness for independence. They had increased with marvellous rapidity. Europe never ceased to send forth her superfluous and needy thousands. America opened wide her hospitable arms and gave assurance of liberty and comfort to all who came. The thirteen colonies now contained a population of about three million.
They were eminently a trading people, and their foreign commerce was already large and lucrative. New England built ships with the timber of her boundless forests, and sold them to foreign countries. ”

“ In the early days of the New England colonies no more embarrassing or hampering condition, no greater temporal ill could befall any adult Puritan than to be unmarried. ”

“ In the same way the history of each colony and of the colonies taken together is interwoven with that of colonies of other European nations—the Spaniards, French, and Dutch—planted at first distant from the English settlements, but gradually expanding into dangerous proximity. It was from a desire to protect themselves against the danger of attack by their foreign neighbors and to press their territorial claims that the New England group of English colonies afforded the example of the first American confederation. ”

“ Both on the north and on the southeast the English colonies touched elbows with the French in active commercial and territorial competition. The West Indies were the emporium for sugar and slaves, and an extensive traffic was had in both commodities with the continental colonies. This important commerce has already been frequently referred to, particularly in the treatment of New England (page 185) , whose vessels did the bulk of the colonial carrying trade.
Why those neighbors did not revolt against England. ”

“ Guidelines on attacking Indians in other colonies Nevertheless, our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby declare to the rest of our Colonies in New England, that it shall not be lawful for this our said Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in America, in New England, to invade the natives inhabiting within the bounds and limits of their said Colonies, without the knowledge and consent of the said other Colonies. ”

“ The settlement of New England by the Puritans occupies a peculiar position in the annals of colonization, and without understanding this we cannot properly appreciate the character of the purely democratic society which I have sought to describe. As a general rule colonies have been founded, either by governments or by private enterprise, for political or commercial reasons. ”

“ While the Spaniards were settling in Florida and New Mexico, the French in Acadia, and the Dutch in the New Netherlands, the English, as we have seen, had also been busy. In Virginia they had founded Jamestown, and Gosnold and John Smith had visited and named several places in New England, such as Cape Cod and the Charles River.
During the next few years several attempts were made to found a colony in New England, but all failed. Still, [106] although no real settlements were made, English fishing vessels were often seen along the coast, where codfish could easily be caught and dried. ”

“ In this last respect, however, New England, although settled ostensibly by loyal Englishmen, was almost as much of a danger as was New Netherland, settled by the Empire’s rivals. New England’s foreign commerce, which had amounted to very little before the English Civil War, had grown rapidly with the prosperity of the West-Indian sugar colonies, and by the time of the Restoration had assumed considerable proportions, both with the other colonies and with foreign countries. But New England merchants paid almost no attention to the laws of trade. ”

“ The tariff wars, the constant bickering over boundaries, and the lack of unity in military affairs, which latter might easily prove fatal when opposed by a unified, centralized power like France, all seemed to point to a consolidation of the colonies as being a distinct step forward. New England, at least, formed a geographical unit, with a population fairly homogeneous in character; and a general government might be expected to work with not more friction than had been developed from the absorption of New Hampshire and Maine by Massachusetts. ”

“ A contemporary narrative speaks cheerfully of the probable success of the colony, and states that they had a prosperous beginning and that "the natives of New Netherland are very well disposed so long as no injury is done them." ”