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Another route on which the questionable fortunes of more than one proud family were laid, was that followed by ships which took New England fish to the Mediterranean coun- tries ; or New England rum, in demijohns made in New Eng- land glass works, to the north of Africa. In either event the ship returned with a cargo of slaves for the West Indies
46
THE GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND
or the southern colonies, and exchanged them for the pro- ducts of tthe south then in demand in New England.
The marked difference in resources between the northern and the southern colonies gave rise also to a considerable coastwise traffic. In the absence of roads, the only highway was the water, and since New England streams were not navigable above the fall line, the population was long re- stricted to the region bordering the sea; whereas the broad, slow-moving rivers of the south made the whole hinterland at once accessible and invited there the ships of traders.
The preference of the southern planter for the life of a country gentleman was one of the things which prevented any considerable development of shipbuilding in those colo- nies; but the frequent presence of New England traders in the harbors and inlets of the south established a commercial contact which became of increasing importance. It was usual for southern planters to forward their agricultural products to England in English ships or ships of the northern colonies. Some planters, such as Colonel William Byrd of Virginia, who had very wide contacts, maintained regular communica- tion with New England agents, whose business it was to look after their shipping problems and see that transportation was available at the proper time.
Thus colonial New England, with splendid timber, skillful Yankee craftsmen in her shipyards, sailors trained in the hard school of whalers and shipmasters who sailed the seven seas "by guess and by God," carried over the world the home- grown products of all eastern North America and brought back the cherished luxuries which these would purchase in far lands.
SUMMARY
In this discussion it is clear that a variety of industries and undertakings in New England came about from causes which cannot be brought within geographical limitations. An example is the important modern hardware industry of Con- necticut which was started there for no better reason than that two English tinsmiths chanced to come with their tools and a supply of tin sheets at a time when an industry could be founded.
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SUMMARY
In all of the operations of the inhabitants of the North American continent which involved ships and trading, New England men had a part. The modern prominence as well as the early fame of their section of the country, and in particular of Massachusetts, has rested fundamentally on two great geographic gifts-the fish that like the cool waters of the continental shelf; and the trees that found attractive the stimulating climate and the glaciated, boulder-strewn hillsides of New England.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
[See also the bibliographies following Chapters xv (Economic Or- ganization) ; xvi (Trade) ; and the General Bibliography at the end of Volume V.]
BISHOP, J. Leander .- A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860 (2 vols., Phila., Young, 1861) .- Very elaborate, detailed and careful account of every phase of manufacturing in America; Volume III added to 3d ed. (1868) is not important.
BOLLES, Albert S .- Industrial History of the United States (Norwich, Bill Publ. Co., 1889) .- Similar in its scope to Bishop, but less ex- tensive.
BROWN, Alexander Campbell .- Colony Commerce (London, R. Faulder, n. d.) .- A brief review of the subject in pre-Revolutionary times.
CHATTERTON, F. Keble .- Whalers and Whaling (Phila., Lippincott, 1926 .- Readable and often dramatically interesting.
CLARK, Victor S .- History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860 (Washington, Carnegie Institution, 1916) .- Extremely thorough and well documented; invaluable.
COWLEY, Charles .- History of Lowell (Boston, Lee & Shepard, 1868) .- Valuable on influence of water power on the location of the city.
COXE, Tench .- A View of the United States of America (Phila., 1794) .- Careful, American account of resources and economic conditions.
DENYS, Nicholas .- A Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (Toronto, Champlain Society, 1908; transl. from Paris edit. of 1672) .- Physiographic record of value, moderately use- ful on natural resources.
JOHNSON, Emory R., and others .- History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce of the United States (Wash., Carnegie Institution, 1915) .- Sound and very useful; analogous to Clark.
LITTLE, Otis .- The State of Trade in the Northern Colonies Considered (London, G. Woodfall, 1748) .- Analogous in value to Brown's Colony Commerce; useful on exports.
MARVIN, Winthrop L .- The American Merchant Marine: Its History and Romance from 1620 to 1902 (New York, Scribner, 1902) .- In- terestingly written; slant toward ship subsidy.
SHALER, Nathaniel Southgate, Editor .- The United States of America (2 vols., New York, Appleton, 1894) .- Unexcelled study of the natural resources of the country edited by an eminent geologist. Note : Chapter i, The Continent, and its Fitness to be Home of a Great People; Chapter ii, Natural Conditions East and South; Chapter vii, Farmer's Opportunities; Chapter viii, Minerals and Mining; Chapter ix, Forests and Lumber Industry; Chapter x, Maritime Industries. SMITH, Captain John .- A Description of New England (London, 1616) .- First volume on this region. Intended to stimulate emigration.
SWANK, J. M .- Iron in All Ages (2d ed., Philadelphia, American Iron and Steel Assoc., 1892) .- Elaborate account of the industry from the earliest times ; valuable on bog and pond ores of New England.
WEEDEN, William B .- Social and Economic History of New England, 1620-1789 (2 vols., Boston and N. Y., Houghton, Mifflin, 1890) .-- Fundamental authority in its field; excellent work of reference.
WOOD, William .- New England's Prospect (London, 1634) .- English accounts of the marvels of the new country ; conceptions then current.
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CHAPTER III
SOCIAL AND GEOGRAPHIC ORIGINS OF THE FOUNDERS OF MASSACHUSETTS
BY G. ANDREWS MORIARITY Vice-President of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society for Rhode Island
ENGLISH SOCIAL CLASSES (1620-1650)
The purpose of this chapter is two-fold: first to show from what class or classes of English society the founders of Mas- sachusetts were drawn and secondly from what parts of Eng- land they came. Much misinformation is rife as regards the origin of the first settlers of Massachusetts and Virginia. Some English and American writers are persuaded that the New Englanders came from the lower strata of society ; while some historians hold that the white Virginians are sprung ex- clusively from the English upper classes.
Both views spring from ignorance or prejudice. It is the purpose of the writer to set forth as briefly as possible the facts of the New England immigration and to show who the first settlers were and what position they occupied in the English social and economic life of the days of the early Stuarts.
The position, aspirations and history of the Puritan party in England have already been described in a previous chapter. The Puritans, who were the more extreme Protestants of the Church of England, are to be sharply distinguished from the Brownists or real Dissenters, who had left the Church. For the Puritans on the other hand did not quarrel with the government of the National Church; they desired to model its theology upon that of Geneva and to simplify the ritual. This party had become identified, at the accession of Charles I,
49
50
THE FOUNDERS OF MASSACHUSETTS
with the National and Constitutional party and formed an exceedingly influential and powerful body in the State.
At the time of the emigration Puritanism was to be found in all the classes of English society, from the great nobles at the Court to the artisans at the bench; and the consequence was that when the great Puritan leaders decided to found a Colony across the Atlantic, the settlers who went out, instead of being drawn from one stratum in English society, were drawn from all walks of life, and they represented something like a vertical cross-section of the English world.
In considering the background of the settlers a brief sketch of English society in the previous century, especially with re- gard to the elements of the various classes, is essential. The vital years that coincided with the reign of Henry VIII (1509- 1547) saw the most profound social and economic change in the English people that they have ever passed through. For in those years the whole structure of medieval society dissolved and modern social conditions were established. The change was brought about by the revolution in learning, science, commerce and outlook, in other words by the move- ment that we now call the Rennaissance, that beat with late but effective force upon the England of the early sixteenth century.
All strata of society were affected but especially the upper and middle classes. The power of the old feudal nobility had spent its force in the orgy of cruelty and blood that we call the Wars of the Red and White Roses. Many of the greatest houses had been exterminated; and such as survived held greatly diminished wealth and power. The place of the great feudal families was taken by the new men, success- ful merchants, clothiers and graziers, who, under the new conditions, were acquiring great wealth; and many a noble house traces its origin to a successful business man or large farmer of this period. The dissolution of the monasteries had thrown great tracts of land upon the market and enabled the newly rich to buy lands cheaply and found landed families. By Elizabeth's time the new nobility and country gentry were inextricably mingled with the old families that survived from feudal times. In the circles of both the nobility and the gentry we find sons and daughters of the successful Tudor upstarts
51
ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY
marrying into families whose founders had ridden with Will- iam at Hastings or served in the bureaucracy of Henry of Anjou. Many of the younger sons of the nobility and gentry were entering trade, from which so many persons of their class had recently arisen. We find the bearers of great names even among the London apprentices.
The middle classes, the merchants, manufacturers and yeo- man, were also rising in the social scale. The new conditions quickened trade and manufactures, and these callings had brought a corresponding increase of wealth among those who practiced them. The yeomen and the clothiers especially were getting their heads above water, were living in a luxury and ease unknown to their progenitors of the Middle Ages, and were acquiring a powerful voice in the government of the country.
The lower classes, while living in better conditions than their ancestors, had profited far less than the upper or middle classes by the political and economic changes; their voice was as yet little heard and they were generally disregarded.
ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY (1500-1630)
Tudor society was a strange mixture at once intensely aris- tocratic and equally democratic. Aristocratic, in that the pri- vileges of the middle and upper classes were very great and their power enormous. Democratic, in that the ranks of the gentry and nobility were largely recruited from new men, whose rise from the middle classes was recent; so that there was no feeling of caste in the nobility and gentry, setting them apart from the yeomen and merchants, such as was usual on the continent. Many sons of country squires were to be found in the ranks of the clothiers and merchants; there could, of necessity, be no sharp feeling of caste between the two classes.
England was then more democratic than ever before or since, as regards the relation of the upper and middle classes of society, though intensely aristocratic as regarded the rights and power of the upper and middle classes in their relations to the lower orders of society. It has always been the glory of England that her nobility, unlike that of France, has been constantly recruited from among the ablest of the commoners,
52
THE FOUNDERS OF MASSACHUSETTS
so that the nobility never formed a separate caste as on the continent. It is likewise the glory of New England that her upper classes were drawn from among the English country squires, the rich merchants and clothiers, and the bulk of her population out of the prosperous, intelligent, well to do yeo- men and artisans of the middle classes. Peasantry there was none in the English sense of the term. The founders of New England brought hither the training and view of life that they had inherited from their Tudor grandfathers.
The great emigration to Massachusetts Bay took place be- tween the years 1628 and 1642-a very significant period for it coincides with the years of the personal government of Charles First under the guidance of his great minister Straf- ford. In other words the leaders of the Puritan party, men of great power and influence, such as the Earls of Warwick and Lincoln and the Lords Say and Sele, and Brooke, being doubtful of the success of their opposition to the Crown, de- termined to establish a place of refuge in case the struggle went against them in England. The consequence was that the Massachusetts Bay Company had the active assistance and support of many persons of great power and influence in England and was enabled to obtain a far better start than the earlier settlement of Separatists had at Plymouth. The com- position of the new Puritan Colony of the Bay, founded, not to afford a refuge to the oppressed, but for the purpose of establishing a Commonwealth along the lines which the party was struggling for in England, was such as one would nat- urally expect.
Unlike most colonists, who have gone out of England before or since, the founders of Massachusetts were not men whose primary aim in emigrating was to better themselves from an economic point of view, so much as to establish a state based upon their particular political tenets. The result was that the class of emigration was much higher than is usually met with in colonies, both from a social and educational point of view.
SOCIAL CLASSES AMONG EMIGRANTS (1620-1650)
There were of course hardly any representatives of the peer- age. As some one has said, "Dukes don't emigrate;" but there were a few representatives of noble families among the early
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SOCIAL CLASSES AMONG EMIGRANTS
settlers, members of the great Puritan houses. Thus two sis- ters of the Earl of Lincoln came to Massachusetts with their husbands, and among the early settlers of Rhode Island was Jeremy Clarke, the founder of a family of Newport Quakers, who was a nephew of Richard Weston, first Earl of Portland, sometime Lord High Treasurer of England. The Lords Say and Seele, and Brooke had large holdings in Connecticut at the mouth of the river but they never came over, although at one time they thought seriously of settling in New England.
Of the country gentry there was a large representation in the new settlement. As the antecedents of the early settlers become better known, it is surprising to observe how many of them belonged to or were closely connected with the so- called county families, who, it must be remembered were far more numerous then than now. A long list of persons promi- nent in the new settlement might be cited who were connected with or descended from the county families or from well to do families, who were on the edge of the gentry, and about to enter its ranks, among them John Winthrop and Thomas Dud- ley
Then there were the Clergy, graduates of the two great universities, men who had adhered to the old forms of the church, as they were observed in Elizabeth's time and who had been removed by Laud for opposing his innovations in the ceremonies. These were by far the most important group of professional men and a study of their biographies is the main key in solving the problem of the English homes of many of their followers, who went with them to New England. It has been estimated that about one hundred and four grad- uates of Cambridge and over thirty of Oxford, clergymen for the most part, were among the early settlers; and this high percentage of educated men assured the Colony of the cultiva- tion of letters and the establishment of a sound seat of learn- ing.
English lawyers and physicians had few representatives in the new enterprise. As a class, the lawyers were inclined to the Court rather than to the Puritan party and there was not enough hope for advancement to bring them out to New Eng- land in any number. Furthermore the lawyers, as a class, were not looked upon with favor by the early settlers. Nevertheless
54
THE FOUNDERS OF MASSACHUSETTS
there were a few lawyers early in Massachusetts but they were restless souls for the most part, who had come out for religi- ous reasons. The doctors were somewhat more numerous but did not form any large proportion of the settlers.
Merchants, most of them well to do, from London and the larger towns, came in considerable numbers, as this was a class in which Puritanism had made great progress. They were persons of importance and among them were many ca- dets of county families or near relatives of the gentry-for we must remember that in those days, when there were few colonies, the Government posts were filled with the sons of the nobility. Hence the only career open to the numerous sons of a country squire were the law, which required an ex- pensive preparation, and that of the merchant. At this time we find the landed gentry apprenticing their sons to merchants in London and elsewhere. Many of these came over to New England and took their place here among the upper classes of the Colony.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF EMIGRATION (1620-1650)
The great bulk of the emigration, as was to be expected, consisted of well to do yeomanry and craftsmen; men of some estate and standing in the rural communities from which they came; and it must always be remembered that these men were not penniless adventurers but persons of substance and intelligence, of energy and independence of thought. They came not merely to advance themselves in life but to establish a home for the political party to which they belonged. These men, who formed the majority of the settlers, were destined to put their stamp upon the New England character, and to leave an indelible impress upon the social and political life of their descendants. With them came their servants and apprentices, young men, who in due course would reach the position of their masters, and who were drawn from about the came class in the community. Of the so-called lower classes and the peasantry there were fewer representatives at any period in the seventeenth century except some hired or indentured servants.
To sum up, the settlers of Massachusetts represented a
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GENERAL CHARACTER OF EMIGRATION
cross section of the English people, rather than any one dis- tinct class ; and this cross section was an England in the small, with the gentry fairly numerous at the top, resting upon the bulk of the middle class made up of yeomen, tradesmen and artisans.
As compared with the contemporary emigration to Vir- ginia, one finds the settlers in both sections drawn pretty much from the same classes. The percentage of the gentry was perhaps slightly higher in Virginia than in Massachusetts but very nearly the same. The artistocratic tone of later Virginia, as compared with the democratic tone of the New England Colonies, was due almost entirely to physical and economic conditions, rather than to any inherent differences in the classes from which the settlers of the two regions came. In Virginia the country was adapted to agriculture and the devel- opment of large landed estates. New England with its rocky barren soil and its good harbors fostered of necessity trade, commerce and town life, which tend to give a democratic tone to society.
Thus the Massachusetts people partook of the variety of English social groups; they equally represented a variety of geographical sections of the mother country. In dealing with the fascinating problem where they came from in England, we have to remember that in the earlier settlement from 1628 to 1641 the people came out not singly but in geographical groups and units, a phenomenon not seen in modern emigra- tion. The usual course of such an emigration was as follows: Some parson, who had been silenced by Laud, would decide to go to New England; whereupon his followers and admirers in the region where he preached and guided would decide to get together and go with him to New England. Such a parson usually had a goodly following among the people living within a radius of thirty miles around the town or parish where he was settled.
Accordingly, when we find a minister coming to New Eng- land with a group of adherents, we may be sure that these people belonged in and about the place of his ecclesiastical service in England. Consequently if we find where such a par- son preached in England, we know the region from which his flock in New England came. In determining the English
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THE FOUNDERS OF MASSACHUSETTS
livings of the New England clergy, the clerical biographies in Cotton Mather's Magnalia, however faulty and inaccurate, are of the utmost value because Mather lived close enough to the founders to have a pretty accurate knowledge as regards their English homes.
PARENT TOWNS AND SECTIONS (1620-1650)
Another great source of information as to the English homes of the founders of New England is to be found in the town names. It was the custom of a group arriving in New England to name their new settlement for the nearest market town to their old homes in England. This test, however, is not always infallible. Sometimes a town was named for an English town near which some important magistrate, not nec- essarily connected with the group of settlers, lived; or again a group of people coming from one part of England would settle in a town already named by an earlier group. A good example of the first exception is Ipswich, named for Ipswich in Suffolk, out of compliment to John Winthrop, Jr., a Suf- folk man, who was interested in the development of the place, while most of the settlers came from counties Wiltshire and Hampshire. Dorchester is a good example of the second exception-where the early group of settlers from Dorset- shire, who named the town, was later augmented by a group from Lancashire, who settled there but who had no connec- tion with the famous old town in Dorsetshire.
We are now in position to generalize as to the principal centers of New England emigration and can then take up the separate towns and tell whence in England the greater part of the inhabitants came. Generally speaking the great bulk of the emigration came from that portion of England that lies south of the River Trent. The emigration from the north of England was relatively light, as one would expect from a region where Puritanism had made comparatively lit- tle progress. The great proportion of the settlers came from the Puritan stronghold of East Anglia : i.e., counties Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk and eastern Hertfordshire. If we take the little cloth town of Sudbury on Stour in southwestern Suf- folk as a center and draw a circle with a radius of fifty miles
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SOURCES OF COLONIAL TOWNS
around the town, we shall have the region that contributed perhaps the largest quota to the earliest settlement of Massa- chusetts.
Next in importance was the Wessex emigration, coming from Dorset, Somerset, and Eastern Devon; this movement has not been as well studied as that from Suffolk, probably because Winthrop was a Suffolk man; but the early emigra- tion from the West Country fostered by the Rev. John White of Dorchester, was probably nearly, if not quite, as import- ant as that from the Eastern Counties.
Other regions contributed to the emigration-notably the Weald of Kent; the midland counties of Buckingham, North- ampshire, and Leicester; the large Boston group from Lin- colnshire, and, as was to be expected, a strong contingent of Londoners. There was also considerable emigration from the borders of Wiltshire and Hampshire and western Berkshire, and also some from Gloucestershire, near the Welsh border.
In the North Country the emigration was not so strong and came from the Puritan centers in that region. Some emi- gration can be traced from around Preston and Manchester in Lancashire, from Bradford vale and Rowley in Yorkshire and from Durham in the extreme north. This latter was al- most entirely due to the hiding there of the Rev. Thomas Shepherd-later pastor of Cambridge, Massachusetts-for a year or so before he escaped from England. From else- where in the North, from the Counties of Cumberland, North- umberland and Westmoreland came comparatively little or no emigration.
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