[Ill.u.s.tration: Queen Mary.]
The learned professions also were best patronized and had the ablest personnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy, were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers and physicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated and little respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy.
Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the land once in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In 1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half the population, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, almost to a man, decried vaccination when first vented, proclaiming it an effort to thwart G.o.d"s will. Clergymen, except perhaps in Carolina and Virginia, were somewhat better educated, yet those in New England led all others in this respect.
Colonial America boasted many great intellectual lights. President Edwards won European reputation as a thinker, and so did Franklin as a statesman and as a scientist. Linnaeus named our Bartram, a Quaker farmer of Pennsylvania, the greatest natural botanist then living.
Increase Mather read and wrote both Greek and Hebrew, and spoke Latin.
He and his son Cotton were veritable wonders in literary attainment. The one was the author of ninety-two books, the other of three hundred and eighty-three. The younger Winthrop was a member of the Royal Society.
Copley, Stuart, and West became distinguished painters.
Except for mails, there were in the colonies no public conveyances by land till just before the Revolution. After stage lines were introduced, to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh required seven days; from Philadelphia to New York, at first three, later two. The earliest coach to attain the last-named speed was advertised as "the flying machine,"
From Boston one would be four days travelling to New York, two to Portsmouth. Packet-boats between the main points on the coast were as regular and speedy as wind allowed. Stage-drivers, inn-keepers, and ship-captains were the honored and accredited purveyors of news.
Everywhere was great prosperity, little luxury. Paucity of money gave rise to that habit of barter and d.i.c.ker in trade which was a mannerism of our fathers. Agriculture formed the basal industry, especially in the Southern colonies; yet in New England and Pennsylvania both manufactures and commerce thrived. Pennsylvania"s yearly foreign commerce exceeded 1,000,000 pounds sterling, requiring 500 vessels and more than 7,000 seamen. From Pennsylvania, in 1750, 3,000 tons of pig-iron were exported. The annual production of iron in Maryland just before the Revolution reached 25,000 tons of pig, 500 of bar. The business of marine insurance began in this country at Philadelphia in 1721, fire insurance at Boston in 1724. New England produced timber, ships, rum, paper, hats, leather, and linen and woollen cloths, the first three for export.
In country places houses were poor save on the great estates, south, but in the cities there were many fine mansions before 1700. From this year stoves began to be used. Gla.s.s windows and paper hangings were first seen not far from 1750.
The colonists ate much flesh, and nearly all used tobacco and liquor freely. Finest ladies snuffed, sometimes smoked. Little coffee was drunk, and no tea till about 1700. Urban life was social and gay. In the country the games of fox and geese, three and twelve men morris, husking bees and quilting bees were the chief sports. Tableware was mostly of wood, though many had pewter, and the rich much silver. The people"s ordinary dress was of homemade cloth, but not a few country people still wore deerskin. The clothing of the rich was imported, and often gaudy with tasteless ornament. Wigs were common in the eighteenth century, and all head-dress stupidly elaborate.
William Lang, of Boston, advertises in 1767 to provide all who wish with wigs "in the most genteel and polite taste," a.s.suring judges, divines, lawyers, and physicians, "because of the importance of their heads, that he can a.s.sort his wigs to suit their respective occupations and inclinations." He tells the ladies that he can furnish anyone of them with "a nice, easy, genteel, and polite construction of rolls, such as may tend to raise their heads to any pitch they desire."
"Everybody wore wigs in 1750, except convicts and slaves. Boys wore them, servants wore them, Quakers wore them, paupers wore them. The making of wigs was an important branch of industry in Great Britain.
Wigs were of many styles and prices. Some dangled with curls; and they were designated by a great variety of names, such as tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, foxtails, twists, tetes, scratches, full-bottomed dress bobs, cues, and perukes. The people of Philadelphia dressed as the actors of our theatres now dress in old English comedy. They walked the streets in bright-colored and highly decorated coats, three-cornered hats, ruffled shirts and wristbands, knee-breeches, silk stockings, low shoes, and silver buckles." [footnote: Mrs. M. J. Lamb, in Magazine of Am. History, August. 1888.] Lord Stirling, one of Washington"s generals, had a clothing inventory like a king: a "pompidou" cloth coat and vest, breeches with gold lace, a crimson and figured velvet coat, seven scarlet vests, et cetera, et cetera.
The wigs encountered the zealous hostility of many, among these Judge Samuel Sewall. His highest eulogy on a departed worthy was: "The welfare of the poor was much upon his spirit, and he abominated periwigs." A member of the church at Newbury, Ma.s.s., refused to attend communion because the pastor wore a wig, believing that all who were guilty of this practice would be d.a.m.ned if they did not repent. A meeting of Ma.s.sachusetts Quakers solemnly expressed the conviction that the wearing of extravagant and superfluous wigs was wholly contrary to the truth.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Chief Justice Sewall.]
There was an aristocracy, of its kind, in all the colonies, but it was far the strongest in the South. Social lines were sharply drawn, an "Esquire" not liking to be accosted as "Mr.," and each looking down somewhat upon a simple "Goodman." These gradations stood forth in college catalogues and in the location of pews in churches. The Yale triennial catalogue until 1767 and the Harvard triennial till 1772 arrange students" names not alphabetically or according to attainments, but so as to indicate the social rank of their families. Memoranda of President Clap, of Yale, against the names of youth when admitted to college, such as "Justice of the Peace," "Deacon," "of middling estate much impoverished," reveal how hard it sometimes was properly to grade students socially. At the South, regular mechanics, like all free laborers, were few and despised. The indentured servants, very numerous in several colonies, differed little from slaves. David Jamieson, attorney-general of New York in 1710, had been banished from Scotland as a Covenanter and sold in New Jersey as a four years" redemptioner to pay transportation expanses. Such servants were continually running away, which may have aided in abolishing the system. Paupers and criminals were fewest in New England. All the colonies imprisoned insolvent criminals, though dirt and damp made each prison a h.e.l.l. All felonies were awarded capital punishment, and many minor crimes incurred barbarous penalties. Whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were in frequent use. So late as 1760 women were publicly whipped. At Hartford, in 1761, David Campbell and Alexander Pettigrew, for the burglary of two watches, received each fifteen stripes, the loss of the right ear, and the brand-mark "B" on the forehead. Pettigrew came near losing his life from the profuse bleeding which ensued. A husband killing his wife was hanged. A wife killing her husband was burned, as were slaves who slew their masters.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pillory.]
In care for the unfortunate and in the study and in all applications of social science, Philadelphia led. The Pennsylvania Hospital, the first inst.i.tution of the kind in America, was founded in 1751. The Philadelphia streets were the first to be lighted; those of New York next; those of Boston not till 1773. Before the end of the period now before us Philadelphia and New York also had night patrols.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature of Jolliet (old spelling).]
CHAPTER VIII.
ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA
[Ill.u.s.tration: Totem of the Sioux.]
[1659-1672]
Working upward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the source of this and of the Mississippi, and then down the latter river, Franciscans and Jesuits their pioneers, braving dreadful hardships and dangers in efforts, more courageous than successful, to convert the Indians, the French had come to control that great continental highway and boldly to claim for France the entire heart of North America.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Sioux Chief.]
In 1659, Groseilliers and Radisson penetrated beyond Lake Superior, and dwelt for a time among the Sioux, who knew of the Mississippi River.
Next year Groseilliers went thither again, accompanied by the Jesuit Menard and his servant, Guerin. In 1661 Menard and Guerin pushed into what is now Wisconsin, and may have seen the Mississippi. These explorations made the French familiar with the copper mines of Lake Superior, and awakened the utmost zeal to see the Great River of which the Indians spoke. La Salle probably discovered the Ohio in 1670, and traced it down to the falls at Louisville. His main eulogist holds that he even reached the Mississippi at that time, some three years earlier than Joliet, but this is not substantiated. We also reject the belief that he reached the stream by way of the Chicago portage in 1671.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Totem of the Illinois.]
[1676]
In 1672 Count Frontenac, Governor of New France, despatched Louis Joliet to discover the Great River. He reached the Strait of Mackinaw in December, and there Pere Marquette joined him. In May, next year, they paddled their canoes up the Fox River and tugged them across the portage into the Wisconsin, which they descended, entering the Father of Waters June 17, 1673. They floated down to the mouth of the Arkansas and then returned, their journey back being up the Illinois and Desplaines Rivers. Joliet gave his name to the peak on the latter stream which the city of Joliet, Ill., near by, still retains. Joliet arrived at Quebec in August, 1674, having in four months journeyed over twenty-five hundred miles.
It thus became known how close the upper waters of the great rivers, St.
Lawrence and Mississippi, were to each other, and that the latter emptied into the Gulf of Mexico instead of the South Sea (Pacific); yet, as the Rocky Mountains had not then been discovered, it was for long believed that some of the western tributaries of the Great River led to that western ocean.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Reception of Joliet and Marquette by the Illinois.]
[1682]
In 1676 Raudin, and three years later, Du Lhut, visited the Ojibwas and Sioux west of Lake Superior. Du Lhut reached the upper waters of the Mississippi at Sandy Lake. He went there again in 1680. In 1682 La Salle crossed the Chicago portage and explored the lower Mississippi all the way to the Gulf, taking possession of the entire valley in the name of France and naming it Louisiana. Nicholas Perrot travelled by way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers to the upper Mississippi in 1685, and again in 1688. It is in his writings that the word "Chicago" first appears in literature.
There were thus between the two great valleys, 1, the Superior route; 2, the Wisconsin and Fox route; 3, the Illinois River route, whether by the Kankakee, La Salle"s way, or by the south branch of the Chicago River, Joliet"s way; and 4, the route by the Wabash and Ohio. The Wabash, too, could be approached either from Lake Erie or from Lake Michigan, through St. Joseph"s River. At high water, canoes often pa.s.sed from Lake Michigan into the Mississippi without portage.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Part of the Map Published in Paris by Thevenot as "Marquette"s Map." It shows the route taken by Joliet across Wisconsin from the Baie des Puans (now Green Bay) to the Mississippi River, also part of the return journey, that is, from the present site of Chicago, northward along lake Michigan.]
[1685-1690]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis XIV.]
La Salle had the ambition to get to the South Sea from the Mississippi.
Governor De la Barre, who followed Frontenac, opposing him, he repaired to France, where he succeeded in winning Louis XIV. to his plan. At the head of a well-equipped fleet he sailed for the mouth of the Mississippi, reaching land near Matagorda Bay on the first day of the year 1685. Not finding the Mississippi, La Salle"s officers mutinied.
The expedition broke up into parties, wandering here and there, distressed by Indian attacks and by treachery among themselves. La Salle was shot by his own men. Nearly all his followers perished, but a small party at last discovered the river and ascended it to Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, reaching France via Quebec. In this expedition France took possession of Texas, nor did she ever relinquish the claim till, in 1763, the whole of Louisiana west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain, La Salle"s ill-starred attempt led later to the planting of French colonies by D"Iberville at Biloxi Island, in Mobile Bay, soon abandoned, and at Poverty Point, on the Mississippi; and still later to the settlement of New Orleans and vicinity. Growth in these parts was slow, however. So late as 1713 there were not over three hundred whites in the entire Mississippi Valley.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Coins Struck In France for the Colonies.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: a.s.sa.s.sination of La Salle.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: New Orleans in 1719.]
By this time French traders had set foot on every sh.o.r.e of the great lakes and explored nearly every stream tributary thereto. The English, pushing westward more and more, were trying to divide with them the lucrative business of fur-trading, and each nation sought to win to itself all the Indians it could. The Mohawks and their confederates of the Five Nations, now equipped and acquainted with fire-arms, spite of alternate overtures and threats from the French, remained firm friends to the English, who more and more invaded those vast and fertile western ranges. It grew to be the great question of the age this side the Atlantic, whether England or France should control the continent. King William"s war, declared in 1689, was therefore certain to rage in America as well as in Europe.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature of D"Iberville.]
One sees by a glance at the map what advantage France had in this struggle. It possessed the best fishing grounds and fur-producing districts, and fish and furs were at first the only exports of value from the north of America. The French, too, held all the water-ways to the heart of the continent. Coming up Lake Champlain they could threaten New York and New England from the rear. The colonies farther south they shut in almost as straitly, French bullets whistling about any Englishman"s ears the instant he appeared beyond the mountains.
In other respects England had the advantage. In population English America had become as superior as French America was territorially, having 1,116,000 white inhabitants in 1750, to about 80,000 French. The English colonies were also more convenient to the mother-country, and the better situated for commerce both coastwise and across the ocean.
Among the English, temper for mere speculation and adventure decayed very early, giving way to the conviction that successful planting depended wholly upon persistent, energetic toil.
A piece of fortune more important yet was their relatively free religious and political system. Toleration in religion was large.
Self-government was nearly complete internally, and indeed externally, till the navigation acts. Canada, on the other hand, was oppressed by a feudal const.i.tution in the state, settlers being denied the fee simple of their lands, and by Jesuits in Church. "New France could not grow,"
says Parkman, "with a priest on guard at the gate to let in none but such as pleased him. In making Canada a citadel of the state religion, the clerical monitors of the Crown robbed their country of a transatlantic empire." Thus the Huguenots, France"s best emigrants to America, did not come to New France, but to New England and the other Protestant colonies.