THE DUTCH AND FRENCH.

Indians were treated with great barbarity.

66

53

Philip's child

and other captives were sold to the Bermudas into slavery; death or slavery was the penalty for all known or suspected to have been concerned in shedding English blood." King Philip was finally killed, and the war came to an end.

52. The Dutch; the French. (1605-1682.) But the Indians were not the only enemies the English settlers had. The Dutch in New Netherland were a continual menace to the Connecticut and New Haven colonies, while all the settlements had a common enemy in the French. The latter held possession of the territory west of the English settlements, though the English claimed ownership of the lands westward to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1605 (sect. 8) the French succeeded in making a permanent colony in Acadie (Nova Scotia) at Port Royal (Annapolis); in 1608 Champlain founded Quebec, and later explored the beautiful lake which still bears his name. While the English were making new homes for themselves, and working out the problems of local self-government along the Atlantic coast, the French were pushing their way through the St. Lawrence valley, and along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The great motives which impelled the French were both commercial and missionary. Wherever the fur trader might go, or the soldier might be sent, there went also the Roman Catholic priest, trying to convert the native to Christianity. No difficulties, no dangers, were too great to deter him from his pious mission. Of the explorers, the Jesuit Marquette and the fur trader Joliet reached the Mississippi in 1673, and another explorer, La Salle, after discovering the Ohio, pushed on to the Mississippi and followed it to its mouth (1682), claiming for the French monarch the vast territory which he had traversed,

and calling the land that stretched westward and northward from the mouth of the great river, Louisiana in honor of his king, Louis XIV. Hennepin, a Jesuit, one of La Salle's party, went north and explored the Mississippi River as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. La Salle, while on a fruitless expedition in Texas, was killed, in 1687, by traitors among his followers.

53. French and Indians; Strength and Weakness of the French. The policy of the French toward the Indians was quite different from that of the English. The latter regarded the Indians as enemies, to be distrusted and looked upon as inferiors. The former, on the contrary, treated them as equals, intermarried with them, tried to convert them, and in every way endeavored to gain and to retain their friendship. The result was that the French had no trouble with the natives, except with those who took the side of the English. Thus a danger never absent from the minds of the English was almost unknown to the French, who were able to accomplish far more than would otherwise have been possible with the number of men at their command.

As one principal object of the French was to control the fur trade, part of their plan was to connect Canada with the mouth of the Mississippi River by a line of forts and trading posts. And they did in fact control the vast region west of the Alleghanies and east of the Mississippi in this way. New France, as they called this territory, was an immense empire of itself, and, surrounding the English possessions on the land side, was a constant menace to their safety, especially as the two great water-ways, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, were in the hands of the French. The weakness of the French colonists consisted partly in the fact that their numbers were so few, but chiefly "that the settlers rep

ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND INDIANS.

55

resented a colonizing scheme based on trading posts; while their neighbors established and fought for homes in the English sense." The strength of the French consisted in their policy towards the Indians, in their excellent generals and soldiers, and in the fact that they were united; while the English were divided among themselves, were under different governments, and were full of local jealousies.

54. English Civil War; Effect upon the Colonies. (1643-1660.) – The difficulties in England already referred to (sect. 50) culminated in the civil war. The New England colonies took the success of the Parliamentary party very quietly; for being Puritans, they naturally sympathized with their brethren in their old home; but most of the colonies were careful not to commit themselves to either side, and in Maryland alone was there anything like a struggle. It was soon found that Parliament intended to assume all the powers which had been claimed by the king. But the colonists had no idea of yielding any fuller obedience to the new government than they had yielded to the old. In fact, through the neglect with which they had been treated, they had learned that they could manage very well without a king or Parliament, so far as making their own laws was concerned. Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, seems to have fully appreciated the value and importance of the colonies, for under his rule no attempt was made to interfere with them.

(1660

55. The Restoration; Policy of the Government. 1684.) With the restoration of Charles II. in 1660 a new order of things came in. The Navigation Acts regulating the trade of the colonies, which had been passed by Parliament in 1651, but which had not been hitherto enforced, were now put into action. The English fleet which seized the Dutch colony of New Netherland (sect. 33) brought

over four commissioners whose business it was to examine into the state of the New England colonies. Rhode Island, which had succeeded in getting very liberal charters from the king (sect. 19), acknowledged their authority, but Massachusetts held to her charter, and would have little to do with them; and finally, in 1684, the charter was annulled by the English courts, and Massachusetts became a royal colony. Just as this policy was made known to the people, the king died and was succeeded by James II., who was a strong believer in the royal prerogative. By the "forfeiture of the charter" (so-called) the king claimed supreme power, and he determined to unite all the northern English colonies under one governor.

56. Rule of Andros. (1686-1689.) In 1686 the charters of Connecticut and of Rhode Island were demanded, and the latter given up. In 1686 Sir Edmund Andros, already known to the colonists as an arbitrary man, was sent out as the governor of Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Hampshire, and Maine. In 1687, it is said, Andros went to Hartford and demanded the charter of Connecticut; in the discussion which followed, the candles were suddenly blown out, and when they were relighted, the document was not to be found. In the confusion it had been seized and hidden in a hollow oak, which henceforth bore the name of the Charter Oak. After the revolution in England the charter was brought out in 1689 and went into force again. The oak tree stood until 1856, when it was blown down. Like many other stories of the earlier days there are strong grounds for doubting the accuracy of the tradition. In 1688 Andros was made governor of New York and New Jersey as well, and thus all the colonies north of the Delaware were united under one rule in accordance with the king's plan.