第 13 节
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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