Nation in a Nutshell | Page 9

their houses "could neither
well defend wind nor rain." Captain John Smith wrote to England,
begging his friends there to "rather send thirty carpenters, husbandmen,
gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, and diggers-up of the roots, well
provided, than a thousand of such as we have."
[Sidenote: Tobacco in Virginia.]
The Virginians cultivated tobacco; and in the same year that the
Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock, the first cargo of African slaves
was carried up the James River in a Dutch trading ship. It is an
interesting fact that so extensive and profitable was the early cultivation
of tobacco in Virginia that it became the general medium of exchange.
Debts were paid with it; fines of so much tobacco, instead of so much
money, were imposed; a wife cost a Virginian five hundred pounds of
the narcotic weed; and even the government accepted it in discharge of
taxes.
[Sidenote: Virginian Customs.]
Virginia early became divided into classes; the landlords being a virtual
nobility, the poorer colonists a middle class, and the slaves comprising
the lower social stratum. The Church of England was the prevailing
sect, and English habits of hospitality and ease of manner replaced the
Puritan austerity of the North. Yet Virginia had a severe code of
punishments; and at one time, if a man stayed away from church three
times without good reason, he was liable to the penalty of death. The
Virginians were tolerant of all faiths excepting those of the Quakers
and the Roman Catholics. Persons professing these creeds were sternly
excluded from the colony.
[Sidenote: The Indians.]
Just one hundred years before the outbreak of the Revolution, the white
population of New England had reached fifty-five thousand: while the
Indians, retreating at the approach of the European, had become
reduced to two-thirds of that number. The presence of the aborigines on
the borders of the whole line of the colonies seemed at first, destined to
become fatal to the settlement of the continent. But had it not been for

Indian hostility, the colonies might never have grown together and
merged, first into a close defensive alliance, and then into a great and
united state. It was mainly the sentiment of the common preservation
that brought about the intimate relations which gradually grew up
between Puritan, Dutchman, and Cavalier.
[Sidenote: Indian Wars.]
The Puritans treated the Indians with strict justice: Penn made friends
of the powerful tribes along the Delaware; and Roger Williams
succeeded in conciliating the Narragansetts. But a time came when the
Indians saw clearly that they were being pushed further and further
back, away from their ancient homes. Then followed the terrible wars
which so long threatened the existence of the struggling colonies, and
which the dauntless courage and hardihood of the settlers alone
rendered vain. King Philip arose, and struggled fiercely for more than a
year to exterminate the New England intruders. The Canadian French,
jealous of English supremacy on the continent, joined hands with the
Indians, and incited them constantly to fresh assaults. These French had
explored the Lakes, and the Mississippi as far as what is now New
Orleans; and they feared lest the English should deprive them of these
western domains.
Wars succeeded each other with alarming rapidity. After King Philip's
War came King William's War in 1689, Queen Anne's War in 1702,
King George's War in 1744, the Canadian War (which lasted from 1755
to 1763, and in which Quebec was taken by Wolfe, and Canada was
conquered by the English), and finally, Pontiac's bold but futile
rebellion, aided by the French, in 1763. It was these wars, and the
growing need of combined resistance to the tyrannical assumptions of
the British government, which together drew close the bonds of
friendship and mutual support between the colonies, and made them
capable of striking a successful blow for independence.

V.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
[Sidenote: The Revolution.]
[Sidenote: American Loyalty.]
The Revolution was long in brewing. The discontent of the colonies at
their treatment by the mother country was gradual in its growth. At first

it seemed rather to inspire fitful protests and expostulations, than a
desire to foster a deliberate quarrel. Even New England, settled by
Pilgrims who had no strong reason for evincing loyalty and affection
for the land whence they had been driven for opinion's sake, seemed to
have become more or less reconciled to the dominion of British
governors. There can be no doubt that the colonists, even down to
within a brief period of the Declaration of Independence, hoped to
retain their connection with Great Britain. Congress declared, even
after armies had been raised to resist the red-coats, that this was not
with the design of separation or independence. Even the mobs cried
"God save the king!" Washington said that until the moment of
collision he had abhorred