第 13 节
作者:疯狂热线      更新:2021-12-07 09:33      字数:9322
  government and the young upas…tree of slavery。 A contradiction in terms
  was set to resolve itself; a riddle for unborn generations of Americans。
  Presently there happened another importation。 Virginia; under the new
  management; had strongly revived。 Ships bringing colonists were coming in;
  hamlets were building; fields were being planted; up and down were to be
  found churches; a college at Henricus was projected so that Indian children
  might be taught and converted from 〃heathennesse。〃 Yet was the population
  almost wholly a doublet…and…breeches…wearing population。 The children for
  whom the school was building were Indian children。 The men sailing to
  Virginia dreamed of a few years there and gathered wealth; and then return
  to England。
  Apparently it was the new Treasurer; Sir Edwyn Sandys; who first grasped
  the essential principle of successful colonization: Virginia must be HOME
  to those we send! Wife and children made home。 Sandys gathered ninety
  women; poor maidens and widows; 〃young; handsome; and chaste; 〃 who were
  willing to emigrate and in Virginia become wives of settlers。 They sailed;
  their passage oney was paid by the men of their choice; they marriedand
  home life began in Virginia。 In due course of time appeared fair…haired
  children; blue or gray of eye; with all England behind them; yet
  native…born; Virginians from the cradle。
  Colonists in number sailed now from England。 Most ranks of society and most
  professions were represented。 Many brought education; means; independent
  position。 Other honest men; chiefly young men with little in the purse;
  came over under indentures; bound for a specified term of years to settlers
  of larger means。 These indentured men are numerous; and when they have
  worked out their indebtedness they will take up land of their own。
  An old suggestion of Dale's now for the first time bore fruit。 Over the
  protest of the 〃country party〃 in the Company; there began to be sent each
  year out of the King's gaols a number; though not at any time a large
  number; of men under conviction for various crimes。 This practice
  continued; or at intervals was resumed; for years; but its consequences
  were not so dire; perhaps; as we might imagine。 The penal laws were
  execrably brutal; and in the drag…net of the law might be found many merely
  unfortunate; many perhaps finer than the law。
  Virginia thus was founded and established。 An English people moved through
  her forests; crossed in boats her shining waters; trod the lanes of hamlets
  builded of wood but after English fashions。 Climate; surrounding nature;
  differed from old England; and these and circumstance would work for
  variation。 But the stock was Middlesex; Surrey; Devon; and all the other
  shires of England。 Scotchmen came also; Welshmen; and; perhaps as early as
  this; a few Irish。 And there were De La Warr's handful of Poles and
  Germans; and several French vinedressers。
  Political and economic life was taking form。 That huge; luxurious;
  thick…leafed; yellow…flowered crop; alike comforting and extravagant; that
  tobacco that was in much to mould manners and customs and ways of looking
  at things; was beginning to grow abundantly。 In 1620; forty thousand pounds
  of tobacco went from Virginia to England; two years later went sixty
  thousand pounds。 The best sold at two shillings the pound; the inferior for
  eighteen pence。 The Virginians dropped all thought of sassafras and
  clapboard。 Tobacco only had any flavor of Golconda。
  At this time the rich soil; composed of layer on layer of the decay of
  forests that had lived from old time; was incredibly fertile。 As fast as
  trees could be felled and dragged away; in went the tobacco。 Fields must
  have laborers; nor did these need to be especially intelligent。 Bring in
  indentured men to work。 Presently dream that ships; English as well as
  Dutch; might oftener load in Africa and sell in Virginia; to furnish the
  dark fields with dark workers! In Dale's time had begun the making over of
  land in fee simple; in Yeardley's time every 〃ancient〃 colonistthat is
  every man who had come to Virginia before 1616was given a goodly number
  of acres subject to a quit…rent。 Men of means and influence obtained great
  holdings; ownership; rental; sale; and purchase of the land began in
  Virginia much as in older times it had begun in England。 Only here; in
  America; where it seemed that the land could never be exhausted; individual
  holdings were often of great acreage。 Thus arose the Virginia Planter。
  In Yeardley's time John Berkeley established at Falling Creek the first
  iron works ever set up in English…America。 There were by this time in
  Virginia; glass works; a windmill; iron works。 To till the soil remained
  the chief industry; but the tobacco culture grew until it overshadowed the
  maize and wheat; the pease and beans。 There were cattle and swine; not a
  few horses; poultry; pigeons; and peacocks。
  In 1621 Yeardley; desiring to be relieved; was succeeded by Sir Francis
  Wyatt。 In October the new Governor came from England in the George; and
  with him a goodly company。 Among others is found George Sandys; brother of
  Sir Edwyn。 This gentleman and scholar; beneath Virginia skies and with
  Virginia trees and blossoms about him; translated the 〃Metamorphoses〃 of
  Ovid and the First Book of the 〃Aeneid〃; both of which were published in
  London in 1626。 He stands as the first purely literary man of the English
  New World。 But vigorous enough literature; though the writers thereof
  regarded it as information only; had; from the first years; emanated from
  Virginia。 Smith's 〃True Relation〃; George Percy's 〃Discourse〃; Strachey's
  〃True Repertory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates〃; and
  his 〃Historie of Travaile into Virginia Brittannia〃; Hamor's 〃True
  Discourse〃; Whitaker's 〃Good News〃other letters and reportshad already
  flowered; all with something of the strength and fragrance of Elizabethan
  and early Jacobean work。
  For some years there had seemed peace with the Indians。 Doubtless members
  of the one race may have marauded; and members of the other showed
  themselves highhanded; impatient; and unjust; but the majority on each side
  appeared to have settled into a kind of amity。 Indians came singly or in
  parties from their villages to the white men's settlements; where they
  traded corn and venison and what not for the magic things the white man
  owned。 A number had obtained the white man's firearms; unwisely sold or
  given。 The red seemed reconciled to the white's presence in the land; the
  Indian village and the Indian tribal economy rested beside the English
  settlement; church; and laws。 Doubtless a fragment of the population of
  England and a fragment of the English in Virginia saw in a pearly dream the
  red man baptized; clothed; become Christian and English。 At the least; it
  seemed that friendliness and peace might continue。
  In the spring of 1622 a concerted Indian attack and massacre fell like a
  bolt from the blue。 Up and down the James and upon the Chesapeake;
  everywhere on the same day; Indians; bursting from the dark forest that was
  so close behind every cluster of log houses; attacked the colonists。 Three
  hundred and fortyseven English men; women; and children were slain。 But
  Jamestown and the plantations in its neighborhood were warned in time。 The
  English rallied; gathered force; turned upon and beat back to the forest
  the Indian; who was now and for a long time to come their open foe。
  There followed upon this horror not a day or a month but years of organized
  retaliation and systematic harrying。 In the end the great majority of the
  Indians either fell or were pushed back toward the upper Pamunkey; the
  Rappahannock; the Potomac; and westward upon the great shelf or terrace of
  the earth that climbed to the fabled mountains。 And with this westward move
  there passed away that old vision of wholesale Christianizing。
  CHAPTER VIII。 ROYAL GOVERNMENT
  In November; 1620; there sailed into a quiet harbor on the coast of what is
  now Massachusetts a ship named the Mayflower; having on board one hundred
  and two English Non…conformists; men and women and with them a few
  children。 These latest colonists held a patent from the Virginia Company
  and have left in writing a statement of their object: 〃We 。 。 。 having
  undertaken; for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith;
  and honor of our King and Country; a voyage to plant the first colony in
  the northern parts of Virginia〃。 The mental reservation is; of course;
  〃where perchance we may serve God as we will!〃 In England there obtained in
  some quarters a suspicion that 〃they meant to make a free; popular State
  there。〃 FreePopular…Public Good! These are words that began; in the
  second quarter of the seventeenth century; to shine and ring。 King and
  people had reached the verge of a great struggle。 The Virginia Company was
  divided; as were other groups; into factions。 The court party and the
  country party found themselves distinctly opposed。 The great; crowded
  meetings of the Company Sessions rang with their divisions upon policies
  small and large。 Words and phrases; comprehensive; sonorous; heavy with the
  future; rose and rolled beneath the roof of their gr