All along the New England coast the native tribes had been almost destroyed by a plague shortly before the coming of the Pilgrims. In consequence there was little trouble between the settlers and the Indians for several years. The English recognized the moral obligation to pay the Indians for their lands, but the red men regarded their sales only as admitting the whites to a share in the use of them. The migration into the Connecticut Valley caused the first war, by crowding the Pequot tribe into

a narrow space between the white settlements and the hostile tribes of the Narragansett Confederacy, which dwelt upon the west shore of the bay of the same name. In 1637 the hardpressed natives murdered and plundered John Oldham, the trader, and committed other acts of violence. To punish them a joint force was raised by Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, which surprised the Pequots and almost exterminated them. Their lands were thus opened for occupation by the conquering

race.

The Pequot War revealed the advantages of coöperation in meeting a common danger. Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven were so similar in their institutional life that before 1640 synods representing the clergy of all four were held to promote a common policy in church affairs. Some disputes had arisen by this time over boundaries and other questions, and the people began to feel the need of an organization able to deal with questions involving the interests of more than one colony.

Out of this situation came the New England Confederation of 1643. A Board of Commissioners was created, consisting of two men from each colony. At the annual meeting the vote of six was to determine action on any business within their powers, which included the making of war and peace, the promotion of justice between the confederates, and the rendition of fugitive servants and criminals. The Confederation worked none too well. Massachusetts exceeded in population the other three members combined, and on more than one occasion refused to be bound by the decision of their commissioners. The incorporation of New Haven with Connecticut against her will almost destroyed the Confederation. It is important historically because it shows the tendency of the colonies to unite as they became conscious of common interests. In this way, and also in the powers given to the commissioners, the Confederation foreshadowed the union under the Constitution. In 1643 New England and the Chesapeake Bay colonies were, of course, too far apart to dream of union. Even Rhode Island, because she was not orthodox, was repeatedly denied membership in the Confederation.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II

The Pilgrims and Plymouth. The best history of Plymouth is Goodwin, Channing, Doyle, Osgood, and Tyler all have Consult also the works on New England cited in

The Pilgrim Republic. chapters on Plymouth. the next section.

Massachusetts Bay. The standard account of the northeastern group of colonies is Palfrey, History of New England. Although rather old it is painstaking, accurate, and still valuable.

Fiske's book on this group is Beginnings of New England. In The Chronicles series is Andrews, Fathers of New England. An excellent recent study is Adams, Founding of New England.

A good non-political account is Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England.

Expansion and Union in New England. The authorities cited above provide an adequate treatment of this section for the general student. Osgood's discussions of the land system, the evolution of the colonial governments, and the New England Confederation are especially good.

CHAPTER III

FILLING IN THE COAST PLAIN

MARYLAND

A little while before Pastor Hooker led his flock to the fine bottom lands of Connecticut the beginnings of a new colony were made near the mouth of the Potomac (at St. Mary's, 1634). This was Maryland, which Charles I had granted to Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore.

Maryland arrests attention chiefly because it was the first successful proprietary colony. Baltimore's patent gave him the right to make laws "with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen." He construed this provision to mean that the colonists might approve or reject bills which he drew, but the representatives of the settlers insisted that theirs was the right to enact laws subject to his veto; and he was compelled to accept their view. In course of time the bicameral system evolved in Maryland, as in Massachusetts and Virginia, but the members of the upper house, or council, were selected by the proprietor instead of by the people or the King. The governor, also, was the appointee and agent of the proprietor. Maryland, in short, was governed much like Virginia, with the proprietor taking the King's place. It will serve as the type of the proprietary colony.

Baltimore offered a thousand acres to any man who would import five others to settle upon the land, and over them the grantee was given the rights of an English "lord of a manor." Few manors were ever created. As in Virginia many immigrants came as indented servants. For them the inducement was held out of a grant of fifty acres when their terms of service expired. For many years the poor servant's opportunity to rise in the social scale was better in Maryland than in Virginia, until the latter adopted a similar practice.

In other features of its institutional life Maryland was not

so different from Virginia as to call for particular study. To this statement there is one exception. Baltimore was a Catholic, and many of his coreligionists were among the early immigrants. Within a few years they were outnumbered by the Protestants, who were inclined to reenact the harsh anti-Catholic laws of England. To protect the Catholics Baltimore procured the passage in 1649 of a Toleration Act which insured religious liberty for all Christians.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIRGINIA

By the time Maryland was founded Virginia had fully recovered from the set-back given by the Indian massacre of 1622, and was again growing rapidly. A census taken in 1635 showed a population of five thousand. Plantations had taken up the lower valley of the James and its tributaries and were spreading to the northward beyond the York. When the Civil War ended with the execution of the King, Virginia proved to be a congenial refuge for the discomfited supporters of the alliance between the Crown and the Episcopacy. Far from changing the trend of development in the colony, the coming of the "Cavaliers" gave added impetus to the growth of the plantation system, since many of them were men of wealth who soon acquired large estates in land.

It was easy for men of means to get both land and labor for the large-scale production of tobacco. Head-right certificates and the right to the labor of indented servants were purchased and sold, and land grants were made to holders of head rights on easy conditions, including "seating" within a certain time, — by which was meant the clearing and cultivating of a small acreage and the erection of a cabin, and the payment of an annual quitrent to the King. The requirements were quite commonly evaded.

Although negro slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619, the number of servants of this class was small for many years as compared with the number of white servants; but in time the planters found the labor of the blacks, who were permanent bondsmen, more advantageous than the temporary servitude of persons of their own race. By the close of the seventeenth