CHAPTER had sailed for Virginia in his pinnace. His visit to ManVI. hattan, as he returned northward in the spring, has been 1620. mentioned in the previous chapter. Leaving the Dutch colony, he explored the coasts and islands for eight leagues to the eastward of the Hudson, and, having arrived at Cape Cod, had redeemed from the Indians two Frenchmen, the survivors of a shipwrecked crew. He left behind him, on the coast of Cape Cod, an Indian whom. he had brought from England as guide and interpreter, one of those kidnapped by Hunt, who had found his way, in some fishing vessel, from Spain to Newfoundland, where he had been taken into Gorges's employ, and carried to England. Not long before the arrival of the Mayflower, Dormer had been severely wounded in an encounter with the Indians of Martha's Vineyard, whence he sailed for Virginia, where he died.. After a laborious and fatiguing voyage of five weeks, during which they underwent fatal exposure to cold and wet, having passed the bottom of the bay and followed the coast for some distance to the north, the boat's crew of explorers entered a harbor more promising than any they had yet seen. Two long spits of sand, extending like piers in opposite directions, inclosed an extensive and well-protected basin, of which, however, the greater part was shallow. On Smith's map this harbor was designated by the English name of Plymouth, and was indicated on it as a fit place for settlement. The season was too far advanced to admit of any further search, and the explorers returned to the ship, which soon dropped anchor Dec. 16. at the selected spot. In compliment, it is said, to the kind treatment received at the English city of Plymouth, the name of NEW PLYMOUTH was retained. The settlers themselves are often designated as the Plymouth pilgrims. Distributed into nineteen families, the colonists were soon VI. busy in felling trees and building houses, which they CHAPTER placed on a rising ground in two rows, with a store-house in the midst. 1621. As they stood in some fear of the natives, who seemed carefully to avoid them, they adopted a military organi- January. zation, and chose for their leader Miles Standish, who had served as a soldier in Holland. Some small cannon were presently landed. During the winter little or nothing was seen of the natives, but early in the spring an Indian walked boldly into the village, and surprised the inhabitants by calling out, "Welcome, Englishmen !" He was a sagamore, or petty chief from the eastward, by name Samoset, and had learned a little English of the fishermen who frequented that coast. He introduced another Indian, named Squanto, the same lately left behind by Dormer, who also spoke a little English, and, in conjunction with Samoset, acted as interpreter, guide, and pilot, to the settlers. Another Indian, named Hobomoc, attached himself with great zeal to the service of the colonists, and insisted upon living among them. By means of these friendly Indians an intercourse was presently opened with Massasoit, head chief of the Pocanokets or Wampanoags, inhabiting the country westward of New Plymouth. An interview, marked at first with a little distrust, but soon succeeded by confidence, took place between Governor Carver and Massasoit; presents were exchanged; and a league of friendship was entered into, which for many years was faithfully observed. A fatal distemper, perhaps the small-pox or some malignant fever, had lately raged among the Indians on these shores, and, indeed, along the whole coast of New England. Several tribes, especially those composing the Massachusetts confederacy, inhabiting the bay of CHAPTER that name, north of New Plymouth, had been almost exVI. terminated by it. The coast was thus left open to set1621. tlement, a circumstance noted by the early New England historians as a special providence. Shortly after the treaty with Massasoit, the MayflowApril 5. er, which had wintered at Plymouth, set sail on her homeward passage. Already, before her departure, the number of the colonists had been greatly thinned; others died soon after; among the rest, Governor Carver, whose place was supplied by William Bradford. The winter had been unusually mild, but the colonists were so ill provided against it, and had suffered so much from cold and exposure before their houses were finished, that within the first five months they lost more than half their number. Once there were only seven persons well enough to attend the sick. But, as the spring advanced, the survivors grew strong again, and, though often pinched for food, none died for the next three years. To improve the friendship with Massasoit, Edward Winslow, one of the most intelligent and energetic of the colonists, was sent across the country with a companion, and Squanto as a guide, to visit that chief at his village of Pocanoket, on Narraganset Bay. The presents they carried were graciously received; but the Indian king was so unprovided with food-his corn being out, and game not in season-that his visitors came near starving. They were honored, however, by sleeping on the same bed with Massasoit and his squaw, they on one end and the Indians on the other. It was of plank, raised a foot from the ground, covered with a thin mat, and horribly infested by vermin. Corbitant, one of Massasoit's sachems, being suspected of infidelity to that chief and of hostility to the colonists, whose interpreter Squanto he had seized, and was believed teen men. VI. to have killed, Standish marched against him with four- CHAPTER Corbitant's village was beset, some of the inhabitants wounded, and the prisoner released. Alarmed 1621. by this movement, nine petty sachems came to Plymouth, and signed a paper acknowledging themselves loyal sub- Sept. 13. jects of King James. They Shortly after this submission, a boat with ten men was sent to explore Massachusetts Bay, some forty miles to the northward. That bay was found to terminate in a spacious harbor studded with islands, and encompassing the three-crested peninsula of Shawmut, site of the present city of Boston. Toward the south the Blue Hills were visible, from whose Indian name Massachusetts is said to be derived. Two or three rivers entered the bay; several peninsulas projected into it; and its shores offered so many favorable positions, that the Plymouth men could not but wish they had settled there. found at Shawmut a few Indians under Obattinewat, a petty sachem dependent on Massasoit; but as they lived. in perpetual dread of the Tarenteens, or eastern Indians, who were accustomed to send war parties along the coast in canoes, they did not dare to remain long in one place. Toward the commencement of winter thirty-five new Nov. 10. colonists arrived in the Fortune, including those left behind by the Speedwell. Cushman came with them, and brought a patent from the Council for New England, obtained through the good offices of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; but he did not remain long in the colony. After delivering an elaborate discourse "on the sin and danger of self-love," afterward printed in London, and still extant, intended to repress the discontents already apparent at the joint-stock system on which the colony was founded, Cushman returned in the Fortune to render an account of matters to the merchant adventurers, and to look after Dec. VI. CHAPTER the interests of the colony in London, where it was necessary to have a confidential agent. He took with him 1621. for cargo a quantity of furs, sassafras, clapboards, and wainscot, valued at £500, about $2400, the first remittance from New Plymouth. But, as the ship passed up the English Channel, she was seized, on what pretense does not appear, and carried into a French port; nor was she dismissed except at the expense of the best part of her lading. The confederacy of the Narragansets, inhabiting the west shore of Narraganset Bay, having escaped the rav ages of the pestilence so fatal to the Massachusetts and other tribes, were comparatively numerous and powerful, and Massasoit stood in much awe of them. Canonicus, their sachem, by way of defiance, had sent to Plymouth a bundle of arrows tied with a rattlesnake's skin. Bradford, nothing daunted, sent back the same skin stuffed with powder and ball. The superstitious Indians took it for some fatal charm, and passed it in 1622. terror from one village to another, till it came back again to Plymouth. It was judged proper, however, by the Plymouth authorities, to take precautions, and the village was surrounded by a palisade of timbers driven into the ground, a mile in circuit, with three gates-no inconsiderable work for so feeble a colony, Feb. The Fortune had brought no provisions, and the whole company were obliged to subsist for six months on half allowance. Even this scanty supply was obtained with difficulty, and by spring there was a famine. WinsMay low sailed to Monhiggon in quest of food, and the wants of the colony were partially relieved by the charity of the fishing crews assembled there. Already some fishing villages began to be formed on the main-land shore opposite to Monhiggon, next to Plymouth the oldest set |