Nation in a Nutshell | Page 8

along the seaboard. There were
English everywhere-- predominant then, as English traits still possess,

in a yet more marked degree, the prevailing influence. There were,
however, Dutch in New York and Pennsylvania, some Swedes still in
Delaware, Danes in New Jersey, French Huguenots in the Carolinas,
Austrian Moravians, not long after, in Georgia, and Spaniards in
Florida.
[Sidenote: The New England Colonies.]
Amid such a diversity of races, of course the habits, the laws, and the
religious opinions of the colonies widely differed. But these differences
were not confined to those arising from variety of origin. The English
in New England presented a very marked contrast to the English in
New York and in Virginia. The settlements of Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay comprised communities of zealous Calvinists, rigid
in their religious belief and ceremonies, codifying their religious
principles into political law, and adhering resolutely, through thick and
thin, to the idea expressed, by one of the early Puritans, that "our New
England was originally a plantation of religion, and not a plantation of
trade."
[Sidenote: Roger Williams.]
Roger Williams founded Rhode Island on the principle of religious
toleration; but he carried thither the sobriety and diligence and courage
of his former Puritan associations. He provided, as he himself said, "a
shelter for persons distressed for conscience." Connecticut was also
essentially a "religious plantation," which for many years accepted the
Bible as containing the only laws necessary to the colony, and confined
the right of suffrage to members of the church; and Connecticut, as well
as Massachusetts, vigorously punished offenders by the rough,
old-fashioned methods of the pillory, the stocks, and the whipping-post.
[Sidenote: Colonial New York and Virginia.]
No contrast could be more striking than that between colonial New
England and colonial New York and Virginia. The Puritans gathered
together in towns and villages; they lived in log or earth cottages, one
story high, with no pretensions to ornament, and but little to comfort.
The wealthier New Englanders, after a time, built two-story brick
houses; but these were still plain and substantial, and not imposing.
[Sidenote: Puritan Costumes]
The men wore short cloaks and jerkins, short, loose breeches, wide
collars with tassels, and high, narrow-crowned hats with wide brims.

The women dressed in plain-colored homespun, but bloomed forth on
Sundays with silk hoods and daintily worked caps. The proximity of
Indians required that every New England village should be a fortress,
and every citizen a soldier. Two hundred years ago, muster-days and
town-meetings, means of defence from attack and of self-government
within, were as prominent features of New England life as they are
to-day.
[Sidenote: New England Industries.]
The New Englanders were mainly farmers, hunters, and fishermen.
Commerce was slow to grow up among them. Trade was the means
towards supporting a religious state; not a method for the acquirement
of wealth. By and by, however, manufactures of cotton and woollen
fabrics grew up, lumber was floated down to the coast, gunpowder and
glass were made, and fish were cured for winter use and to be sent
abroad. They ate corn-meal and milk, and pork and beans were a
favorite New England dish from the first; and they drank cider and
home-brewed beer. The first coins appeared in 1652; and the oldest
college on American soil, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge in 1636.
[Sidenote: Dutch and Cavaliers.]
The Dutch, in New York, and the Cavaliers, in Virginia, set out upon
their colonial careers in a very different way. The Dutch came to
America as traders; the Cavaliers came to be landed proprietors and to
seek rapid fortunes. Instead, therefore, of clustering close in towns and
villages, both the Dutch and the Cavaliers spread out through the
country and established large and isolated estates. Wealthy Dutchmen
came hither with patents from the East India Company, took possession
of tracts sixteen miles long, settled colonies upon them, and lived in
great state on their "manors," ruling the colonies, working their lands
with slaves, and assuming the aristocratic title of "Patroon." Thus a sort
of feudal system grew up, in which the "Patroons" exercised an
authority well nigh as absolute as that of the mediaeval barons on the
Rhine; and this system long flourished side by side with the democratic
simplicity of the Puritan commonwealths.
[Sidenote: Captain John Smith.]
In the same way the Virginians scattered themselves in the fruitful and
sunny valleys between the sea and the Alleghanies, and in time created
lordly domains and plantations, over which the possessors exercised

feudal sway. But this colony, composed originally in the main of
gentlemen unused to manual labor, and indisposed to bear patiently the
hardships of early settlement, did not become established without many
and serious difficulties. The colonists at first hung tents to the trees to
shelter them from the sun; and the best of