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thankful strangers named Ebenezer. The river and the hills, they said, reminded them of home. They applied themselves with steady industry to the cultivation of indigo and silk, and they prospered."

45. There came to Georgia " the two brothers, John and Charles Wesley. John, the founder of the sect of Methodists, was even then, although a very young man, a preacher of unusual promise. He burned to spread the Gospel among the settlers and their Indian neighbors.

Wesley and

Whitefield.

spent two years in Georgia, but these were unsuccessful years. Then he returned to England to begin his great career, with the feeling that his residence in Georgia had been of much value to him, but of very little to the people whom he sought to benefit. Just as he reached England, his fellowlaborer, George Whitefield (hwit'-feeld), sailed for Georgia. There were now (1737) little settlements spreading inland, and Whitefield visited these, bearing to them the word of life. He founded and maintained an orphan home in Savannah, visited all the provinces from Florida to the northern frontier, and made his grave in New England." His eloquence was wonderful; his voice powerful, rich, and sweet. Said Dr. Franklin: "When Whitefield was preaching in the open air, more than thirty thousand persons might hear him distinctly."

46. Emigrants continued to arrive, including Swiss and Scotch; but while the colony thus increased in numbers, the bright anticipations of plenty and comfort which had been Further indulged in, were not, for a long time, realized. history. This was owing in large part to the poverty and idle habits of the English settlers. Besides, the regulations of the trustees were not suited to the condition and needs of the people. Trouble, too, came from their neighbors on the South. The Spaniards, in Florida, looking upon the Savannah settlement as an encroachment upon their territory, hostilities ensued between the rival colonies; but Oglethorpe, who was a good general and a brave soldier, made a successful

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defense. The trustees governed till 1752, when wearied with their charge, they gave up their charter, and Georgia became a royal province. Eleven years later all the lands between the Altamaha and St. Mary's were annexed to Georgia by a royal proclamation. The western limit was the Pacific ocean.

European Wars that affected the Colonies.

1. During the colonial period, there were three wars in which England was engaged on the one side and France on the other, that disturbed the peace of the colonists and enlisted their aid in behalf of the "mother country," as England was affectionately called. In the first of these, known as King William's War, an expedition, fitted out by Massachusetts and commanded by Sir William Phipps, captured Port Royal, in Nova Scotia, and returned to Boston with a large amount of plunder; but at the close of the war the place was given back to the French (1689–1697). In the second contest, known as Queen Anne's War, Port Royal was again captured, when its name was changed to Annapolis, in honor of the queen, and Acadia was annexed to the British realm (1702-1713).

2. In the last contest, known as King George's War, the fortress of Louisburg, the "Gibraltar of America," was captured after a long siege, by New England troops and an English fleet; but the treaty of peace at the close of the war restored Louisburg to the French (1744–1748). In all these struggles, the French were aided by their Indian allies in Canada. The English had at times the assistance of the warlike Iroquois (é-ro-quah) or Five Nations. New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, were the greater sufferers, they being nearer to Canada. Bodies of French and Indians made incursions from Canada, fell upon the defenseless villages, and murdered or carried into captivity the helpless inhabitants. Of the Iroquois Parkman says:

3. "Foremost in war, foremost in eloquence, foremost in their savage arts of policy, stood the fierce people called by the French the Iroquois. They occupied Central New York, but extended their conquests and their depredations The Iroquois. from Quebec to the Carolinas, and from the western prairies to the forests of Maine. They consisted of five tribes or nations-the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas (to which a sixth, the Tuscaroras, was added in 1715).

4. Both reason and tradition point to the conclusion that the Iroquois formed, originally one undivided people. Sundered, like countless other tribes, by dissensions, caprice, or the necessities of the hunter-life, they separated into five distinct nations. At length, says tradition, a celestial being, incarnate on earth, counseled them to compose their strife and unite in a league of defense and aggression. Another personage wholly mortal, yet wonderfully endowed a renowned warrior and a mighty magician, stands, with his hair of writhing snakes, grotesquely conspicuous through the dim light of tradition, at this birth of Iroquois nationality. This was At-o-tar-ho, a chief of the Onondagas ; and from this honored source has sprung a long line of chieftains, heirs not to the blood alone, but to the name of their great predecessor."

The French and Indian War.

5. The three wars just alluded to had their origin in European affairs. In 1753, however, a difficulty sprung up between the French and English colonists in America,

The respecting the boundaries beween their respective French claim. territories. The French entertained the project of possessing the whole of the vast region of the west, the valley of the Mississippi, to which La Salle had given the name of Louisiana. "Not a fountain bubbled on the west of the Alleghanies but was claimed as being within the French

1753

empire. water."

Washington's Mission.

103

Every brook that flowed to the Ohio was French To secure this region to the French, forts had been built at suitable places. Along the line of the St. Lawrence, at the great lakes, and by the Mississippi, more than sixty military posts were established, beside missionary agencies. The total population of this valley, excluding Indians, may have been at the time we speak of, seven or eight thousand persons, of whom half at least were negroes.

The

6. The English claim to the territory was based on the discoveries of their navigators, the Cabots. This, if valid, gave them a prior right to the country. The French, however, deemed this an absurd claim; since the Cabots knew nothing of those vast inland regions which English French missionaries and explorers had, with incredible difficulty, perseverance, and hardships, discovered and settled. For years these rival claims were urged; but the crisis did not arrive till 1753.

claim.

The

7. At this time there was in existence a company, mostly Virginians, that had obtained a grant of land on and near the Ohio river, for the purpose of trading with the Indians and of settling the country. This was called the Ohio Company. The French, in large force, began to Ohio Company. occupy the Ohio valley, and, for the protection of their movements, to establish posts at Erie and other places. They also seized three British traders (1753).

8. Complaint was made to Robert Dinwiddie, lieutenantgovernor of Virginia and a member of the Ohio Company, of these acts; and it was resolved to send " a person of distinction to the commander of the French forces, to Washingknow his reasons for invading the British domin- ton's mission. ions." The envoy chosen was George Washington, then about twenty-two years of age, but already noted for his prudence and energy. He was a surveyor by profession, and, in the exercise of his calling, had become familiar with the wilderness. In the militia service, he had reached the rank of major. The task imposed upon Washington was a very diffi

cult one. When he set out it was in the middle of winter ; and he had to travel several hundred miles through an almost pathless wilderness, infested by bands of lurking savages, cruel and treacherous. Still, the task was accomplished. "I am here," said the French commander at Erie, "by the orders of my general," the Marquis Du Quesne (kane), the governor of Canada; and to Du Quesne the English were referred for satisfaction.

9. On his return, Washington found the Alleghany full of drifting ice. "He encamped on its border, and at daybreak was up to devise some means of reaching the opposite bank. No other mode presented itself than by a

His return. raft, and to construct this, they (he and one companion named Gist) had but one poor hatchet. With this they set resolutely at work, and labored all day, but the sun went down before their raft was finished. They launched it, however, and getting on board, endeavored to propel it across with poles. Before they were half way over, the raft became jammed between cakes of ice, and they were in imminent peril.

10. Washington planted his pole on the bottom of the stream, and leaned against it with all his might to stay the raft until the ice should pass by. The rapid current forced the ice against the pole with such violence that he was jerked into the water, where it was at least ten feet deep. He only saved himself from being swept away and drowned, by catching hold of one of the raft logs. It was now impossible, with all their exertions, to get to either shore. Abandoning the raft, therefore, they got upon an island, near which they were drifting. Here they passed the night, exposed to intense cold, by which the hands and feet of Mr. Gist were frozen. In the morning they found the drift ice wedged so closely together, that they succeeded in getting to the opposite side of the river; and before night they were in comfortable quarters." After an absence of eleven weeks, Washington delivered the French commander's reply to Dinwiddie.

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