Settler

“ The settler who wielded at morn the sickle that was to give his children bread, grasped at noon the weapon of the soldier, and ere night-fall moistened with the life-tide from his bosom, the clods of the valley. Civil war unveiled its rovolting features. Neighbor stood against neighbor, and friend against friend. ”

“ Let every intending settler, therefore, learn agriculture thoroughly before he emigrates; and, if it suits his taste, time, and arrangements, let him study in the colony the necessarily imperfect system pursued by the settlers, before he embarks in it himself ”

“ The English settler as a rule viewed life differently. He disliked a lonely country home, where there was no opportunity of exercising his spirit of enterprise, where the means of giving his children an education in books were lacking, and where companionship with his species was uncertain and scanty. ”

“ The genesis of local government in Western hamlets is very simple. First comes the settler who, ax in hand, clears the ground for his humble dwelling, and plants whatever seed he has brought with him. ”

“ We do not contemplate the settler as arriving on the new land unfettered by any allegiance he owes to the old country. He belongs to civilised England; carries with him the knowledge and the implements which her civilisation has procured him; lives under her protection, and must submit to her laws. ”

“ Both native settler and European immigrant saw in this free and competitive movement of the frontier the chance to break the bondage of social rank, and to rise to a higher plane of existence. The pioneer was passionately desirous to secure for himself and for his family a favorable place in the midst of these large and free but vanishing opportunities. It took a century for this society to fit itself into the conditions of the whole province. ”

“ The settler on the outskirts of Puritan civilization took up the task of bearing the brunt of attack and pushing forward the line of advance which year after year carried American settlements into the wilderness. ”

“ But in their impatience of the attitude of the old settler of to-day, people should not forget that when that old settler was a young settler he was a particularly fine fellow, and that to him we owe the accomplishment of an arduous task of which we, who followed him, are now reaping the benefit. ”

“ This is the case with every person in every land; but it is pre-eminently the case with the early settlers of a colony. They labour, and others will enter into their labours; they sow, and others will come and reap. The first settlers in any land lay the foundation of the social edifice, and the building of after ages much accords with the foundation. Your principles and conduct will produce a more powerful impression in a thinly peopled territory than in the dense population of home. ”

“ Experience moreover has taught us that the settlement of a country, prior to the extinction of the native title to the soil is, in most cases attended with serious difficulties and embar- rassments to the Government, with annoyance and danger to the settler ; and proves fatal to the best interests, the improve- ment and civilization, of the natives. ”

“ The region, Governor Weld says, may be described from a settler's point of view as a 'poor man's country;' that is, it is best adapted for settlement by men who will labour with their own hands, and who have sons and daughters to work with them. ”

“ Why then did we so much rejoice over the dwelling of these old settlers? Merely because their industry had saved us much trouble; for in the course of their labours, they had cleared above thirty acres of excellent hay land; work which we should take a long time to execute, and not perform near so well; the truth was, this industrious colony, by whose previous labour we were thus to profit, were already extirpated, to my unspeakable sorrow, who had been creating a beaver Utopia ever since I heard of the circumstance. ”

“ Tour mind naturally reverts to your English ancestry, to those early settlers, the noble forefathers of this colony, who forsook their old homes and braved the perils of the deep till they reached these distant shores. ”

“ Towns and lands are also granted to the ladies of the king’s harem, and to the other numerous members of the royal family. The whole country is looked upon as crown property; and the waste and uncultivated parts are at the disposition of any one who will settle in them. The only duty incumbent on the settler is that he must inclose and cultivate it. ”

“ The first settlers were, as a rule, rough people who had to make their living, and little time to think of anything beyond, but we are indebted to them, for they are everywhere the necessary pioneers of civilisation—the mass whose dead bodies form a bridge for their more fortunate successors. ”

“ The enlightened and liberal policy of the settlers, together with the simplicity of manners and refinement evinced in their domestic and social economy and general intercourse, contributed to the powerful attraction exerted by the Colony on all who were disposed to escape from the tyrannous exactions and almost continuous commotions agitating and embittering civil society in Europe. ”

“ Partnerships are allowed; settlers may reside together in a village community; and the residence conditions may be temporarily fulfilled by a wife or child, to allow a settler in hard times to make money by his labour elsewhere. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If we suppose the population of one of the agricultural parishes in England, with a sprinkling of half pay officers of the navy and army, some gentlemen from the East and West Indies, and a few cockneys, put down on the shores of a wilderness, it will give some idea of the individuals who were destined to become the founders of this interesting new Colony.
The settlers may be divided into two classes, viz. gentlemen and labourers, many of them married and having young families, others single. ”

“ The settlers were men of noble birth, who were proud to trace their descent from kings and heroes of antiquity, nay, even from the gods themselves, and we do not therefore wonder that they assiduously preserved the memory of the deeds of their forefathers. ”

“ Among these early settlers were the foremost men of all the states, the Revolutionary stock that won independence, who carried their love of liberty and the principles and instincts of their localities to a soil more fertile than any of the old states, and with natural resources, climate and facilities for settlement and civilization as favorable as any within their reach. ”

“ In the main the settlers were persons of slender means, and lived hard, frontier lives. They tilled small farms with their own hands, and indentured servitude and slave-holding were consequently unimportant. ”

“ First, the railway gods had again broken faith with the settlers; and every cent that Carter could raise or borrow had been required to meet rents on his timber concessions. Though not in actual want, they had had to trim expenses, reduce their living to the settler scale. Having all of a pretty woman's natural love of finery, Helen could see no way of restoring her depleted wardrobe. Moreover, there was the choring, washing, milking of cows, feeding of calves, inseparable from pioneer settler life—a burden that was not a whit the less toilsome because self-assumed. ”

“ Hell-fire Brown of Elementaita, Joseph Henry Brown of Gilgil, and Brown of Lumbwa. Brown of Lumbwa's me. Don't believe a word either of the other two Browns tell you! Yes, we're all settlers. Country good to settle in? Depends what you call good. If you like lots of room, an' hunting, natives to wait an' your own house on your own square mile—comfortable climate—no conventions—nor no ten commandments, why, it's pretty hard to beat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But as yet the typical settler everywhere was the man of the axe and rifle, the small pioneer farmer who lived by himself, with his wife and his swarming children, on a big tract of wooded land, perhaps three or four hundred acres in extent. ”

“ I left these good folks in the height of enjoyment, and should not perhaps have said so much about them, but that having all very lately come from the United States across the plains, they had brought with them, and as yet retained, the simple manners and wants of a rural population. These people form the most valuable portion of the{53} emigration, for they come as permanent settlers, and they continue permanent improvers. ”

“ And Squirrels, formerly.
Until a Pioneer, as
Settlers often do
Liking the quiet of the Place
Attracted more unto —
And from a Settlement
A Capital has grown
Distinguished for the gravity
Of every Citizen. ”

“ A large body of immigrants, or a number of families from the same locality, generally form a separate settlement—especially if they are of different race from the original settlers; and if they settle in the capital, they usually have a separate quarter allotted to them. ”

“ The main body of the settlers, located in the capital or at the port where they landed, and often afraid to go a mile from either, knew nothing whatever of the people whose country they came unceremoniously to occupy. ”

“ The settlers themselves, introduced under so unfavourable auspices, were not long in immensely improving their condition, and many of them, in the course of a few years, rose to positions of comfort, eminence, and opulence ”

“ If it is so at the present day, with a settled population of so many centuries’ standing, how much more must it have been so when each district was peopled by a different tribe of settlers, speaking to some extent different languages, holding different views, following different occupations, and observing different customs! ”

“ From the number of settlers, the conveniences afforded by the rivers, the fertility of the soil, and the many connexions and intermarriages formed with neighbouring nations, it grew and flourished, unharmed by foreign enemies, though most unfortunate in civil wars. ”

“ THE LANDING OF THE BRITISH SETTLERS OF 1820.
(Written on occasion of the celebration of the Settlers’ Jubilee in Grahamstown, in 1870.)
Winds of the North blew cold with icy breath,
And parting seemed a sorrow like to death,
When fifty years ago our little band
Of British settlers left their native land.{102}
They said farewell for ever! ah, farewell
The friends, the joys, the land, they loved so well.
We never more shall stand
On that dear English land,
Nor view our native skies ”

“ Peculiar complaints of British settlers.Besides those causes of complaint which are common to the whole Colony, the British settlers have many peculiar to themselves. The emigrants who have settled in the country within the last ten years, are supposed to comprise half the population. ”

“ The will of the settlers told in this way directly and immediately on the legislation in a way unknown to the English Parliament, and the settlers were men whose will was braced and invigorated by their personal independence and comfort, the tradition of their past, and the personal temper which was created by the greater loneliness and self-dependence of their lives. ”

“ Every white settler’s every other settler’s neighbor, even though there’s miles betwixt their clearin’s. All hands helpin’ so makes light work of raisin’ cabins or barns, sowin’, reapin’, or clearin’. I—I declare I feel as excited as a boy. But you don’t seem to. You’re gettin’ a great lad now, Gaspar, an’ one these days I’ll be thinkin’ of payin’ you some wages. ”

“ On the shores of the Pacific, three thousand miles from us, and twice as far from England. Who is to settle it? Americans mainly; some settlers undoubtedly from England; but all Anglo-Saxons; all, men educated in notions of independent government, and all self-dependent. ”

“ To this good rule we attribute, to a great extent, not alone our success in bringing settlers to our colonies, but likewise their general contentment in their new homes and brave cheerfulness in meeting the trials, hardships, and set-backs, which are incident to new settlements. ”

“ The mixed lot of settlers around us offered a favorable field for observation of the different kinds of people of our own race. We were swift to note the way they behaved, the differences in their religion and morals, and in their ways of drawing a living from the same kind of soil under the same general conditions; how they protected themselves from the weather ”

“ They prevent any from forming a fixed settlement who are inclined to attempt it; for although the fruitfulness of the soil would abundantly repay the labour of settlers, and render migration wholly unnecessary, even if the population were increased more than tenfold ”

“ The early settlers found in the forests which they had to clear, an unlimited supply of material, which necessity compelled them to employ in every possible way, in the construction of their houses, their furniture, and domestic utensils, in their implements of labour, and in their log-paved roads. ”

“ The settlers of colonies in America did not carry with them the laws of the land, as being bound by them wherever they should settle. They left the realm to avoid the inconveniences and hardships they were under, where some of those laws were in force, particularly ecclesiastical laws, those for payment of tythes and others. ”

“ While in the Land Service of the United States there were many examples of heroic conduct by colored settlers worthy of the highest praise. Many of them, emigrants from other Southern States, seeking better conditions, and arriving with barely sufficient to pay entrance fee, and nothing to sustain them in their fight with nature to clear their heavily-wooded land and fit it for cultivation. ”