Fortified settlement

“ But above all this, the state and circumstances of our settlements render such a measure not only proper and eligible, but absolutely necessary. The English settlements, as they are at present circumstanced, are absolutely at a stand; they are settled up to the mountains: and in the mountains there is no where together land sufficient for a settlement large enough to subsist by itself, and to defend itself, and preserve a communication with the present settlements. ”

“ The memory of the sufferers in this war as well as that of their descendants still looks back upon them with regret, and abhorrence, and the page of history will consign their names to posterity, with the full weight of infamy they deserve. . . .
. . . our early land laws . . . allowed four hundred acres, and no more, to a settlement right. Many of our first settlers seemed to regard this amount of the surface of the earth, as the allotment of divine providence for one family, and believed that any attempt to get more would be sinful. ”

“ With this in view, and with an eye to the attack of the Indians, very little was done in the way of rebuilding houses and cottages, but the whole strength of the settlement was devoted to the rebuilding of our little fort, and the strengthening of the stockade; and so much energy was thrown into the work by the little white and black population that a stronger building was erected, and left to be finished off afterwards. ”

“ If I wished to live away from the body of the people, my first effort should be directed towards building a good and efficient fort. When new settlements were made in the eastern countries, they built them of timber, and they were called "block houses." I would advise that every house in a new settlement should be made good for all the Indians that could approach it, with an intention to tear it down. ”

“ A further reason for the spreading out of the settlement arose from the fact that people would ask for a number of contiguous blocks to be reserved for themselves and their friends, and after the land had been reserved for them, only one or two blocks were taken up or cultivated. ”

“ The fort and armed vessels at the strait of Niagara would be a vast security to the frontiers of these new colonies against any attempts of the French from Canada. The fort at the mouth of the Wabash would guard that river, the Ohio, and Cutava river, in case of any attempt from the French of Mississippi. (Every [49] fort should have a small settlement round it; as the fort would protect the settlers, and the settlers defend the fort and supply it with provisions.) ”

“ In the formation of such a settlement, several thousand convicts could be employed advantageously for a series of years—in the erection of public buildings, whether of immediate necessity or of permanent utility; in the clearing of land for gardens and for agricultural purposes suited to the soil and climate; in the formation of roads, tanks, piers, bridges, &:c. The supplying of a settlement of this kind with the necessaries of life, by means of convict labour employed in the cultivation of land within the settlement itself, should not, I conceive, be attempted. ”

“ He was raised to the rank of the untitled nobles; received a grant of the fort, and lands adjacent, to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in depth, besides the neighboring islands; and was invested with the government of the fort and settlement, subject to the orders of the Governor-General. ”

“ The appearance of the fort is very striking, standing as it does hundreds of miles from any settlement, on the vast and lifeless prairie, surrounded by hordes of hostile Indians, and far out of reach of intercourse with civilised man; its mud-built walls inclosing a little garrison of a dozen hardy men, sufficient to hold in check the numerous tribes of savages ever thirsting for their blood. ”

“ The civil wars with their proscriptions and confiscations, the settlement of brutalised soldiers, unfit for agriculture and the labours of peace, in the most beautiful and fertile regions, the cultivation of the fields by hordes of slaves, and the absorption of large districts into private estates or latifundia, had almost annihilated the free peasant class of earlier times and had filled the peninsula with an alien population, bound to the soil by no ties of affection or association, linked by no natural piety to the paternal roof or the inherited acres. ”

“ Even with these there are occasional attempts at escape or mutiny.
When the war with France came to an end the young settlement was likely to lapse into complete decay; but in 1855 it was converted into the present convict station. ”

“ The land within the walls of the Fort has become in a great measure private property, and the convenience of its contiguity to the harbour is so great, and the natives entertain so strong an idea of security in a residence in a fortified place, however disqualified to resist a hostile force, that nothing would prevail upon them to relinquish their houses. ”

“ The manner in which the settlements were begun was more remarkable than the long delay in beginning them. In most instances, new territories have been opened up for settlement by a few hardy pioneers, whose numbers were added to, year after year; but here we have a whole colony, coming in as one body, taking up all the desirable lands in the front concessions of a score of townships. ”

“ The usual method in such experiments has been to begin in desperate fear of the settler, tying him up with cast-iron rules, and ruining him in a very few years. Then the pendulum swings back, and settlement is made easy and profitable, the old safeguards are abolished, and the land becomes full of rich squatters and companies, who fatten on State munificence through the numerous dummy settlers in their pay. ”

“ The restriction of grants of land to those counties which may be prepared for location, will condense the inhabitants of the Settlement within proper bounds, and they will thus be enabled to render that mutual assistance and protection to each other, which, if they were more widely scattered, would be totally out of their power. ”

“ Plantation life and proprietary ownership were not conducive to the growth of cities. As the old settlers died out the houses were abandoned, and the post office was removed to a corner of the Hall plantation, then known as Kingston Corner. A new settlement grew up there, and since emancipation has changed the conditions of life it has grown and thriven. ”

“ This, together with the number of convicts, who after the expiration of their sentences remain with their respective families growing up under them, has so increased the population of free settlers, that the prosperity of the settlement, as a colony, has proportionally advanced ”

“ A column from this fort was also in the body of troops from the North which co-operated in the second attack on these Indians.
During this uneventful time the little colony grew, and the settlers enjoyed a moderate degree of prosperity. A contented population of about two thousand whites, [73] to whom grants of land had been freely made for purposes of settlement or cultivation, was mainly engaged in agricultural pursuits. Side by side with them the natives were gathered in villages in which were established Jesuit missions. ”

“ In its Moot, the common meeting of its villagers for justice and government, a slave had no place or voice, while the last was originally represented by the lord whose land he tilled. The life, the sovereignty of the settlement resided solely in the body of the freemen whose holdings lay round the moot-hill or the sacred tree where the community met from time to time to deal out its own justice and to make its own laws. Here new settlers were admitted to the freedom of the township, and bye-laws framed and headman and tithing-man chosen for its governance. ”

“ There is a short-cut mode of mortgaging land here, which will make it change hands with rapidity. However, as we have nothing to do with the old feudal reasons for making land unalienable, I don't see why we should not render it as transferable as any other property. ”

“ Naturally enough, a capital so wealthy was rather tempting to men bent on conquest. But Acre had the advantage of being strongly fortified. On the [211] land side it was surrounded by a double wall, with towers and battlements, and a broad and deep ditch, which prevented access to its ramparts, and towards the sea by a fortress at the entrance of the harbour, by the castle of the Templars, and by a stronghold known as 'The King's Tower;' and on the whole, the fortifications were such that no foe, not even such as Bibars Bendocdar, could have calculated on finding the place an easy prey. ”

“ Small gatherings of houses and cots appear as oases in the moorland and forest, more or less frequent according to the early or late settlement of the district, and its freedom from, or exposure to, the ravages of war and the punishment of rebellion. These oases, townships or vills if of some extent, hamlets if of but a few houses, gather round one or more mansions of superior size and importance, the Manor houses, or abodes of the Lords of the respective Manors. Round each township stretch the great ploughed fields, usually three in number, open and uninclosed. ”

“ On his part, he offered to pay back the ten thousand francs which the fort had cost the King; to maintain it at his own charge, with a garrison equal to that of Montreal, besides fifteen or twenty laborers; to form a French colony around it; to build a church, whenever the number of inhabitants should reach one hundred; and, meanwhile, to support one or more Récollet friars; and, finally, to form a settlement of domesticated Indians in the neighborhood. ”

“ Tracts commending the colonization to the favorable notice of the public were prepared,—notably by Oglethorpe, and by Benjamin Martyn, secretary to the Trustees,—and widely circulated.
In framing regulations for the observance of the colonists, and in maturing plans most conducive to the prosperity and permanence of the contemplated settlement, the trustees regarded each male inhabitant both as a planter and as a soldier. Hence, provision was made for supplying him with arms and with agricultural tools. Towns, in their inception, were reckoned as garrisons. ”

“ They desire that a settlement shall be effected which shall make the South republican, like the North, homogeneous with it in institutions, as well as nominally united to it under one government,—a settlement which shall annihilate the accursed heresy of Secession by extinguishing the accursed prejudice of caste. ”

“ T. was with me this day; he seems to think that we should send home a strong memorial with respect to our state, and that the charge of 5s. an acre on this colony, while in its infant state, is too heavy a drag on its exertions. This settlement is, however, rapidly rising in strength and comfort. Hotels and lodgings are to be had—shelter and food for the stranger. This was not the case at first with our settlers, who suffered severe privations, and who in many cases expended their strength and substance in preparation for others, who are now reaping the benefit of the first sacrifices. ”

“ The separate settlements were variously called "colonies," "plantations," "hundreds," and "particular plantations," and sometimes contained hundreds of planters. Frequently the "plantation" was located within a loop of the James River. The members of the settlement planted their crops within the loop, and set up palisades and forts at the open end for their common defense. Sentinels and guards were provided cooperatively to man the defenses. ”

“ The site of the place where the settlement is to be made having been chosen, you shall order the colonists to build their houses, making in them a sort of stronghold, where they may defend themselves and their flocks if necessary, in case that the Indians try to attack them. ”

“ The outposts of the advancing army of settlement were most exposed to the dangers and hardships of frontier life. Every town or village, as soon as it was settled, became a garrison against attack and a mutual Benefit-Aid-Society, leagued together against every enemy that threatened the infant settlement; it was also a place of refuge for the bolder pioneers who had pushed farther out into the forest. ”

“ The Mark of the primitive settlement, in which no one had an exclusive property, and which remained unimproved, uncivilised, and imperfectly subject to public authority, is described as "unsafe, full of danger; death lurks in its shades, and awaits the incautious or hostile visitant." [6] It presents the germ of those evils which attained their full development in the Marches of Mercia and Wales. ”

“ Our lack of information is most probably due to the simple reason that the settlement, like all settlements of a new country, was a very gradual one, a few men coming over in the first instance for the purpose of trade either with Britons or Romans, or coming from the over-populated North to settle in a country which the paucity of archæological remains shows to have been thinly occupied. ”

“ The comity of nations, however, has recognised in the case of settlements made in a vacant territory for the purpose of colonisation, a title in the settlers to such an extent of territory as it may fairly be presumed that they intend to cultivate (Vattel, b. i., § 81,) and the possession of which is essential either to the convenience or security of the settlement, without being inconvenient to other nations. ”

“ And yet, when we remember that in those times of constant war—being the two centuries preceding the arrival of the Europeans—the natives always, as a rule, slept in these hill forts with closed gates, bridges over trenches removed, and ladders of terraces drawn up, we must come to the conclusion that the inhabitants of the fort, though so numerous, were merely the population of the country in the close vicinity. ”