wild, roving, reckless life. They could hunt the wild beasts. They could live without the restraints of society. They had heard wonderful stories of exhaustless mines of gold and silver. There they could get rich, and that was the land for them.
A vessel with five hundred colonists was fitted out. There were only sixteen men of the five hundred accustomed to work; the others called themselves gentlemen and cavaliers. They settled at Jamestown. They found no rich gold-mines, and wealth was not to be had on the fertile plains without labor. Not knowing how to cultivate the soil, and hating work, they had a hard time. They suffered for want of food. Many died from starvation. Yet more of the same indolent class joined the colony—young men who had had rows with tutors at school, and who had broken the heads of London watchmen in their midnight revels. A historian of those times says that “they were fitter to breed a riot than found a colony.”
The merchants, finding that a different class of men was needed to save the colony from ruin, sent over poor laboring men, who were apprenticed to their sons. Thus the idle cavaliers were kept from starvation. Instead of working themselves, they directed the poor, hard-working men, and pocketed the profits.
Smoking began to be fashionable in England. Lawyers in big wigs, ministers in black gowns, merchants seated in their counting-houses, ladies in silks and satins, all took to this habit of the North American Indians. Tobacco was in demand. Every ship from America was freighted with it. The purple-flowered plant grew luxuriantly in the fields of Virginia, and so through the labor of the poor men the indolent cavaliers became rich.
As there were no women in the colony, some of the cavaliers sent over to England and bought themselves wives, paying a hundred pounds of tobacco for a wife. Others married Indian wives.
The jails of London were crowded with thieves and vagabonds. They had committed crime and lost their freedom. To get rid of them, the magistrates sent several ship-loads to Virginia, where they were sold to the planters as servants and laborers. Thus it came to pass that there were distinct classes in the colony—men having rights and men without rights—men owning labor and men owing labor—men with power and men without power—all of which had something to do in bringing about the rebellion.
In August, 1620, a Dutch captain sailed up James River with twenty negroes on board his ship, which he had stolen from Africa. The planters purchased them, not as apprentices, but as slaves. The captain, having made a profitable voyage, sailed for Africa to steal more. Thus the African slave-trade in America began, which became the main fountain-head and grand cause of the rebellion.
The Virginia planters wanted large plantations. Some of them had influence with King James, and obtained grants of immense estates, containing thousands of acres. All the while the common people of England were learning to smoke, snuff, and chew tobacco, and across the English Channel the Dutch burghers, housewives, and farmers were learning to puff their pipes. A pound of tobacco was worth three shillings. The planters grew richer, purchased more land and more slaves, while the apprenticed men, who had no money and no means of obtaining any, of course could not become land-owners. Thus the three classes of men—planters, poor white men, and slaves—became perpetually distinct.
By the charter which the company of London merchants had received from the King, owners of land only were allowed to have a voice in the management of public affairs. They only could hold office. A poor man could not have anything to do with enacting or administering the laws. In 1705, a historian, then writing, says:—
“There are men with great estates, who take care to supply the poor with goods, and who are sure to keep them always in debt, and consequently dependent. Out of this number are chosen the Council, Assembly, Justices of the Peace, and other officers, who conspire together to wield power.“[1]
Thus a few rich men managed all the affairs of the colony. They were able to perpetuate their power, to hand these privileges to their sons, through successive generations.
At the present time there are many men and women in Virginia who consider themselves as belonging to the first families, because they are descendants of those who settled the country. The great estates have passed from the family name—squandered by the dissolute and indolent sons. They are poor, but very proud, and call themselves noble-born. They look with contempt upon a man who works for a living. I saw a great estate, which was once owned by one of these proud families, near the Antietam battle-field, but spendthrift sons have squandered it, and there is but little left. The land is worn out, but the owner of the remaining acres—poor, but priding himself upon his high birth, looking with haughty contempt upon men who work—in the summer of 1860, day after day, was seen sitting upon his horse, with an umbrella over his head to keep off the sun, overseeing his two negro women, who were hoeing corn!
All of these springs which started in Virginia tinged, entered into, and gave color to society throughout the South. There were great estates, privileged classes, a few rich and many poor men. There were planters, poor white men, and slaves.
In those old times pirates sailed the seas, plundering and destroying ships. They swarmed around the West India Islands, and sold their spoils to the people of Charleston, South Carolina. There, for several years, the freebooters refitted their ships, and had a hearty welcome. But the King’s ships of war broke up the business, and commerce again had peaceful possession of the ocean.
These things gave direction to the stream, influencing the development and growth of the colonies, which became States in the Union, and which seceded in 1861.
While the Dutch captain was bargaining off his negroes to the planters in 1620 at Jamestown, another vessel was sailing from Plymouth harbor, in England, for a voyage across the Atlantic. Years before, in the little town of Scrooby, a man with a long white beard, by the name of Clifton, had preached what he called a pure religious doctrine. Those who went to hear him, and who believed what he preached, soon came to be called Puritans. Most of them were poor, hard-working English farmers and villagers. There was much discussion, controversy, bigotry, and bitterness in religion at that time, and these poor men were driven from county to county, till finally they were obliged to flee to Holland to escape persecution and save their lives. King James himself was one of their most bitter persecutors. He declared that he would “harry every one of them out of England.” After remaining in Holland several years, they obtained permission of the King to sail for North America.
On a December morning the vessel, after five months’ tossing upon the ocean, lay at anchor in the harbor of Cape Cod. Those on board had no charter of government. They were not men who had had midnight revels in London, but men who had prayers in their families night and morning, and who met for religious worship on the Sabbath. They respected law, loved order, and knew that it would be necessary to have a form of government in the colony. They assembled in the cabin of the ship, and, after prayer, signed their names to an agreement to obey all the rules, regulations, and laws which might be enacted by the majority. Then they elected a governor, each man having a voice in the election. It was what might be called the first town-meeting in America. Thus democratic liberty and Christian worship, independent of forms established by kings and bishops, had a beginning in this country.
The climate was cold, the seasons short, the soil sterile, and so the settlers of Cape Cod were obliged to work hard to obtain a living. In consequence, they and their descendants became active, industrious, and energetic. Thus they laid the foundations for thrift and enterprise. They did not look upon labor as degrading, but as ennobling. They passed laws, that men able to work should not be idle. They were not rich enough to own great estates, but each man had his own little farm. There was, therefore, no landed aristocracy, such as was growing into power in Virginia. They were not able to own labor to any great extent. There were a few apprenticed men, and some negro slaves, but the social and political influences were all different from those in the Southern colonies. The time came when apprenticed men were released from service, and the slaves set free.
These hard-working men did not wish to have their children grow up in ignorance. In order, therefore, that every child might become an intelligent citizen and member of society, they established common schools and founded colleges. In 1640, just twenty years after the landing