Cobbs-Hoffman Elizabeth, Blum Edward J., Gjerde Jon. Major Problems in American History, Volume I, 3 edition (ENG)
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That nightingales he might excel….
If birds could weep, then would my tears
Let others know what are my fears
Lest this my brood some harm should catch
And be surpris’d for want of watch
Whilst pecking corn and void of care
They fall un’wares in Fowler ’s snare; …
3. Mary Rowlandson, a New England Woman, Recounts Her
Experience of Captivity and Escape from the Wampanoag
During King Philip’s War, 1675
On the tenth of Februa ry 1675, came the Indians with great numbers upon
Lancaster: their first coming was about sunrising; hearing the noise of so me guns,
we looked out; several houses were burning, and the smoke ascending to
heaven….
At length they came and beset our own house, and quickly it was the dole-
fulest day that ever mine eyes saw. The house stood upon the edge of a hill;
some of the Indians got behind the hill, others into the barn, and others behind
anything that could shelter them; from all which places they shot against the
house, so that the bullets seemed to fly like hail; and quickly they wounded
one man among us, then another, and then a third….
Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in their
blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock
us on the head, if we stirred out. Now might me hear mothers and children
crying out for themselves, and one another, “Lord, what shall we do?” Then
I took my children (and one of my sisters ’, hers) to go forth and leave the house:
but as soon as we came to the door and appeared, the Indians shot so thick that
the bullets rattled against the house, as if one had taken an handful of stones and
threw them, so that we were fain to give back….
I had often before this said that if the Indians should come, I should choose
rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial my
mind changed; their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit, that I choose rather
to go along with those (as I may say) ravenous beasts, than that moment to end
my days; …
Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies
wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies….
I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them into the vast and
desolate wilderness, I knew not whither. It is not my tongue, or pen, can express
Mary Rowlandson, The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682). Obtained from
www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/rownarr.html.
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDDLE COLONIES IN BRITISH AMERICA
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the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit that I had at this departure:
but God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up
my spirit, that it did not quite fail.…
This day in the afternoon, about an hour by sun, we came to the place
where they intended, viz. an Indian town, called Wenimesset, northward of
Quabaug. When we were come, Oh the number of pagans (now merciless ene-
mies) that there came about me, that I may say as David, “I had fainted, unless
I had believed, etc.” (Psalm 27:13). The next day was the Sabbath. I then
remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time; how many Sabbaths
I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight; which lay so
close unto my spirit, that it was easy for me to see how righteous it was with
God to cut off the thread of my life and cast me out of His presence forever.
Yet the Lord still showed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as He wounded
me with one hand, so he healed me with the other….
O the wonderful power of God that I have seen, and the experience that
I have had. I have been in the midst of those roaring lions, and savage bears,
that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by night and day, alone and
in company, sleeping all sorts together, and yet not one of them ever offered
me the least abuse of unchastity to me, in word or action. Though some are
ready to say I speak it for my own credit; but I speak it in the presence of
God, and to His Glory….
Yet I see, when God calls a person to anything, and through never so many
difficulties, yet He is fully able to carry them through and make them see, and
say they have been gainers thereby. And I hope I can say in some measures, as
David did, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” The Lord hath showed
me the vanity of these outward things. That they are the vanity of vanities, and
vexation of spirit, that they are but a shadow, a blast, a bubble, and things of no
continuance. That we must rely on God Himself, and our whole dependance
must be upon Him. If trouble from smaller matters begin to arise to me, I have
something at hand to check myself with, and say, why am I troubled? It was but
the other day that if I had had the world, I would have given it for my freedom,
or to have been a servant to a Christian. I have learned to look beyond present
and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them.
4. Proprietor William Penn Promotes His Colony, 1681
Since (by the good providence of God) a country in America is fallen to my lot,
I thought it not less my duty than my honest interest to give some public notice
of it to the world, that those of our own, or other nations, that are inclined to
transport themselves or families beyond the seas, may find another country added
to their choice…. But before I come to treat of my particular concernment,
I shall take leave to say something of the benefit of plantations or colonies in gen-
eral, to obviate a common objection.
Jean R. Soderlund, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 1680–1684: A Documentary History (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 58–60, 62–65.
74 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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Colonies, then, are the seeds of nations begun and nourished by the care of
wise and populous countries, as conceiving them best for the increase of human
stock, and beneficial for commerce.
Some of the wisest men in history have justly taken their fame from this
design and service….
Nor did any of these ever dream it was the way of decreasing their people or
wealth. For the cause of the decay of any of those states or empires was not their
plantations, but their luxury and corruption of manner …. I deny the vulgar opinion
against plantations, that they weaken England. They have manifestly enriched and
so strengthened her, which I briefly evidence thus:
1st. Those that go into a foreign plantation, their industry there is worth
more than if they stayed at home, the product of their labor being in commodi-
ties of a superior nature to those of this country.…
2dly. More being produced and imported than we can spend here, we ex-
port it to other countries in Europe, which brings in money or the growth of
those countries, which is the same thing. And this is [to] the advantage of the
English merchants and seamen.
3dly. Such as could not only not marry here, but hardly live and allow them-
selves clothes, do marry there, and bestow thrice more in all necessaries and con-
veniencies (and not a little in ornamental things, too) for themselves, their wives,
and children, both as to apparel and household stuff….
4thly. But let it be considered that the plantations employ many hundreds of ship-
ping and many thousands of seamen, which must be in diverse respects an advantage
to England, being an island, and by nature fitted for navigation above any coun-
try in Europe. This is followed by other depending trades, as shipwrights, carpenters,
sawyers, hewers.…
The place lies 600 miles nearer the sun than England; for England begins at
the 50th degree and ten minutes of north latitude, and this place begins at forty,
which is about the latitude of Naples in Italy,orMontpellier in France. I shall say
little in its praise to excite desires in any, whatever I could truly write as to the
soil, air, and water. This shall satisfy me, that by the blessing of God and the hon-
esty and industry of man, it may be a good and fruitful land.
For navigation it is said to have two conveniencies: the one by lying nine score
miles upon Delaware River…. The other convenience is through Chesapeake Bay.
For timber and other wood, there is variety for the use of man.
For fowl, fish, and wild deer, they are reported to be plentiful in those parts.
Our English provision is likewise now to be had there at reasonable rates. The
commodities that the country is thought to be capable of, are silk, flax, hemp,
wine, cider, wood, madder, licorice, tobacco, potashes,andiron, and it does actually pro-
duce
hides, tallow, pipe-staves, beef, pork, sheep, wool, corn, as wheat, barley, rye, and
also furs,asyourpeltry, minks, raccoons, martens, and such like; store of furs which is
to be found among the Indians, that are profitable commodities in Europe.
The way of trading in those countries is thus: they send to the southern plan-
tations corn, beef, pork, fish, and pipe-staves, and take their growth and bring for
England, and return with English goods to their own country. Their furs they
bring for England, and either sell them here, or carry them out again to other parts
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDDLE COLONIES IN BRITISH AMERICA 75
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of Europe, where they will yield a better price. And for those that will follow
merchandise and navigation, there is conveniency, and timber sufficient for shipping….
These persons that Providence seems to have most fitted for plantations are,
1st. Industrious husbandmen and day laborers, that are hardly able (with
extreme labor) to maintain their families and portion their children.
2dly. Laborious handicrafts, especially carpenters, masons, smiths, weavers, tailors,
tanners, shoemakers, shipwrights, etc….
3dly. A plantation seems a fit place for those ingenious spirits that being low in
the world, are much clogged and oppressed about a livelihood….
4thly. A fourth sort of men to whom a plantation would be proper, takes in
those that are younger brothers of small inheritances….
Lastly, there are another sort of persons, not only fit for, but necessary in
plantations, and that is, men of universal spirits that have an eye to the good of
posterity, and that both understand and delight to promote good discipline and
just government among a plain and well intending people. Such persons may
find room in colonies for their good counsel and contrivance, who are shut out from
being of much use or service to great nations under settled customs. These
men deserve much esteem, and would be hearkened to….
To conclude, I desire all my dear country folks, who may be inclined to go
into those parts, to consider seriously the premises, as well the present inconveniences
as future ease and plenty, that so none may move rashly or from a fickle but solid
mind, having above all things, as eye to the providence of God, in the disposal of them-
selves. And I would further advise all such at least, to have the permission, if not
the good liking of their near relations, for that is both natural, and a duty incum-
bent upon all; and by this means will natural affection be preserved, and a
friendly and profitable correspondence be maintained between them. In all
which I beseech Almighty God to direct us, that His blessing may attend our honest
endeavor, and then the consequence of all our undertaking will turn to the glory of His
great name, and the true happiness of us and our posterity. Amen.
5. Examination and Testimony of Tituba, a Servant-Slave
in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
Salem Village, March 1, 1692
Tituba an Indian woman brought before us by Constable Joseph Herrick of
Salem upon suspicion of witchcraft by her committed according to the com-
plaint of Joseph Hutcheson and Thomas Putnam, etc. of Salem Village as appears
per warrant granted Salem 29 February 1691/2. Tituba upon examination and
after some denial acknowledged the matter of fact according to her examination
given in more fully will appear and who also charged Sarah Good and Sarah
Osborne with the same….
Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents, ed. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (New York:
Da Capo, 1977), 3:1747–49.
76 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, Assistants
(H
ATHORNE:) Titibe what evil spirit have you familiarity with?
(T
ITUBA:) None.
(H:) Why do you hurt these children?
(T:) I do not hurt them.
(H:) Who is it then?
(T:) The devil for ought I know.
(H:) Did you never see the devil?
(T:) The devil came to me and bid me serve him….
(H:) Who have you seen?
(T:) Four women sometimes hurt the children.
(H:) Who were they?
(T:) Goody Osborne and Sarah Good and I do not know who the
other were. Sarah Good and Osborne would have me hurt the
children but I would not….
(H:) When did you see them?
(T:) Last night at Boston.
(H:) What did they say to you?
(T:) They said hurt the children,…
(H:) What is this appearance you see?
(T:) Sometimes it is like a hog and sometimes like a great dog.
(H.) What did it say to you?
(T:) The black dog said serve me but I said I am afraid. He said if I did
not he would do worse to me.
(H:) What did you say to it?
(T:) I wil l serve you no longer. Then he sa id he would hurt me and
then he looks like a man and threatens to hurt me.… and he told
me he had more pretty things that he would give me if I would
serve him.
(H:) What were these pretty things?
(T:) He did not show me them.
(H:) What else have you seen?
(T:) Two rats, a red rat and a black rat….
(H:) Do you see who it is that torments these children now?
(T:) Yes, it is Goody Good. She hurts them in her own shape.
(H:) And who is it that hurts them now?
(T:) I am blind now, I cannot see….
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDDLE COLONIES IN BRITISH AMERICA 77
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6. A Slave, Phillis Wheatley, Laments the Death of Revivalist
George Whitefield, 1770
HAIL, happy saint, on thine immortal throne,
Possest of glory, life, and bliss unknown;
We hear no more the music of thy tongue,
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.
Thy sermons in unequall’d accents flow’d,
And ev’ry bosom with devotion glow’d;
Thou didst in strains of eloquence refin’d
Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind….
Thou moon hast seen, and all the stars of light,
How he has wrestled with his God by night.
He pray’d that grace in ev’ry heart might dwell,
He long’d to see America excell;
He charg’d its youth that ev’ry grace divine
Should with full lustre in their conduct shine;
That Saviour, which his soul did first receive,
The greatest gift that ev’n a God can give,
He freely offer’d to the num’rous throng,
That on his lips with list’ning pleasure hung.
“Take him, ye wretched, for your only good,
“Take him, ye starving sinners, for your food;
“Ye thirsty, come to this life-giving stream,
“Ye preachers, take him for your joyful theme;
“Take him my dear Americans, he said,
“Be your complaints on his kind bosom laid:
“Take him, ye Africans, he longs for you,
“Impartial Saviour is his title due:
“Wash’d in the fountain of redeeming blood,
“You shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God.”…
Phillis Wheatley, “On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield” (1770).
78 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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7. Dr. Alexander Hamilton Depicts the Material Acquisitions
of Northern Colonists, 1744
New York
Saturday, June 16th….
I found the city less in extent, but by the stir and frequency upon the streets,
more populous than Philadelphia. I saw more shipping in the harbour. The
houses are more compact and regular, and in general higher built, most of
them after the Dutch model, with their gavell ends fronting the street. There
are a few built of stone; more of wood, but the greatest number of brick, and
a great many covered with pantile and glazed tile with the year of God when
built figured out with plates of iron, upon the fronts of several of them. The
streets in general are but narrow, and not regularly disposed. The best of them
run parallel to the river, for the city is built all along the water, in general.
This city has more of an urban appearance than Philadelphia. Their wharfs
are mostly built with logs of wood piled upon a stone foundation. In the city are
several large public buildings. There is a spacious church, belonging to the
English congregation, with a pretty high, but heavy, clumsy steeple, built of
freestone….
Schenectady
… In the city are about 4,000 inhabitants, mostly Dutch or of Dutch extract.
The Dutch here keep their houses very neat and clean, both without and
within. Their chamber floors are generally laid with rough plank, which in
time, by constant rubbing and scrubbing, becomes as smooth as if it had been
planed. Their chambers and rooms are large and handsome. They have their
beds generally in alcoves, so that you may go thro’ all the rooms of a great house
and see never a bed. They affect pictures much, particularly scripture history,
with which they adorn their rooms. They set out their cabinets and buffets
much with china. Their kitchens are likewise very clean, and there they hang
earthen or delft plates and dishes all round the walls, in manner of pictures, hav-
ing a hole drilled thro’ the edge of the plate or dish, and a loop of ribbon put
into it to hang it by; but notwithstanding all this nicety and cleanliness in their
houses they are in their persons slovenly and dirty. They live here very frugally
and plain, for the chief merit among them seems to be riches, which they spare
no pains or trouble to acquire, but are a civil and hospitable people in their way,
but at best rustic and unpolished….
Nantucket Fall…
While I waited for the chocolate which I had ordered for breakfast, Angell gave
me an account of his religion and opinions, which I found were as much out of
Dr. Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton’s Itinerarium; Being a Narrative of a journey… from May to September, 1744, ed. Albert
Bushnell Hart (St. Louis, Mo.: The DE Vinne Press, 1907), 51, 87–88, 182–183, 197.
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDDLE COLONIES IN BRITISH AMERICA
79
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the common road as the man himself. I observed a paper pasted upon the wall,
which was a rabble of dull controversy betwixt two learned divines, of as great
consequence to the publick as The Story of the King and the Cobbler or The Cele-
brated History of the Wise Men of Gotham. This controversy was intituled Cannons
to batter the Tower of Babel. Among the rest of the chamber furniture were several
elegant pictures, finely illuminated and coloured, being the famous piece of The
Battle for the Breeches, The Twelve Golden Rules, taken from King Charles I’s study,
of blessed memory (as he is very judiciously styled), The Christian Coat of Arms,
&c., &c., &c., in which pieces are set forth divine attitudes and elegant passions
all sold by Overton, that inimitable ale-house designer at the White Horse
without Newgate….
New London…
I went home at six o’clock, and Deacon Green’s son came to see me. He
entertained me with the history of the behavi our o f o ne Davenport, a fanatick
preacher there, who told his flock in on e of his enthusiastic rha psodies, that in
order to be saved they ought to burn all their idols. They began this co nflagra-
tion with a pile of books in the publick street, among which were Tillotson’s
Sermons, Beveridge’s Thoughts,DrillincourtonDeath, Sherlock, and many other
excellent authors, and sang psalms and hymns over the pile while it was
a-burning. They did not stop here, but the women made up a lofty pile of hoop
petticoats, silk gowns, short cloaks, cambrick caps, red-heeled shoes, fans, neck-
laces, gloves, and other such apparel, and, what was merry enough, Davenport’s
own idol, with which he topped the pile, was a pair of old wore-out plush
breeches.
8. Gottlieb Mittelberger, a German Immigrant, Portrays
the Difficulties of Immigration, 1750
When the ships have weighed anchor for the last time, usually off Cowes in
Old England, then both the long sea voyage and misery begin in earnest. For
from there the ships often take eight, nine, ten, or twelve weeks sailing to
Philadelphia, if the wind is unfavorable. But even given the most favorable
winds, the voyage takes seven weeks.
During the journey the ship is full of pitiful signs of distress—smells, fumes,
horrors, vomiting, various kinds of sea sickness, fever, dysentery, headaches, heat,
constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and similar afflictions, all of them
caused by the age and the highly-salted state of the food, especially of the meat,
as well as by the very bad and filthy water, which brings about the miserable
destruction and death of many. Add to all that shortage of food, hunger, thirst,
frost, heat, dampness, fear, misery, vexation, and lamentation as well as other
troubles. Thus, for example, there are so many lice, especially on the sick people,
Gottlieb Mittelberger, Reise nach Pennsylvania ( Journey to Pennsylvania) (1756).
80 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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that they have to be scraped off the bodies. All this misery reaches its climax
when in addition to everything else one must also suffer through two to three
days and nights of storm, with everyone convinced that the ship with all aboard
is bound to sink. In such misery all the people on board pray and cry pitifully
together….
Among those who are in good health impatience sometimes grows so great
and bitter that one person begins to curse the other, or himself and the day of his
birth, and people sometimes come close to murdering one another. Misery and
malice are readily associated, so that people begin to cheat and steal from one
another. And then one always blames the other for having undertaken the voy-
age. Often the children cry out against their parents, husbands against wives and
wives against husbands, brothers against sisters, friends and acquaintances against
one another.
But most of all they cry out against the thieves of human beings! Many
groan and exclaim: “Oh! If only I were back at home, even lying in my pig-
sty!” Or they call out: “Ah, dear God, if I only once again had a piece of good
bread or a good fresh drop of water.” Many people whimper, sigh, and cry out
pitifully for home….
When at last after the long and difficult voyage the ships finally approach
land, when one gets to see the headlands for the sight of which the people on
board had longed so passionately, then everyone crawls from below to the deck,
in order to look at the land from afar. And people cry for joy, pray, and sing
praises and thanks to God. The glimpse of land revives the passengers, especially
those who are half-dead of illness. Their spirits, however weak they had become,
leap up, triumph, and rejoice within them….
When the ships finally arrive in Philadelphia after the long voyage only
those are let off who can pay their sea freight or can give good security. The
others, who lack the money to pay, have to remain on board until they are pur-
chased and until their purchasers can thus pry them loose from the ship. In this
whole process the sick are the worst off, for the healthy are preferred and are
more readily paid for. The miserable people who are ill must often still remain
at sea and in sight of the city for another two or three weeks—which in many
cases means death. Yet many of them, were they able to pay their debts and to
leave the ships at once, might escape with their lives….
This is how the commerce in human beings on board ship takes place. Every
day Englishmen, Dutchmen, and High Germans come from Philadelphia and
other places, some of them very far away, sometime twenty or thirty or forty
hours’ journey, and go on board the newly arrived vessel that has brought people
from Europe and offers them for sale. From among the healthy they pick those
suitable for the purposes for which they require them. Then they negotiate with
them as to the length of the period for which they will go into service in order
to pay off their passage, the whole amount of which they generally still owe.
When an agreement has been reached, adult persons by written contract bind
themselves to serve for three, four, five, or six years, according to their health
and age. The very young, between the ages of ten and fifteen, have to serve until
they are twenty-one, however.
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDDLE COLONIES IN BRITISH AMERICA 81
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Many parents in order to pay their fares in this way and get off the ship must
barter and sell their children as if they were cattle. Since the fathers and mothers
often do not know where or to what masters their children are to be sent, it
frequently happens that after leaving the vessel, parents and children do not see
each other for years on end, or even for the rest of their lives.
ESSAYS
Historians debate the relationship between religion and economic interests in
colonial America. These two essays show distinct angles of the era. The first, by
Harvard historian David D. Hall, focuses upon the religious views of the settlers
in the seventeenth century. Their worlds, Hall contends, were defined by won-
der and sacred judgment, and they sought to make spiritual sense of their con-
fusing world. In contrast, T. H. Breen, a historian at Northwestern University,
observes that colonial Americans were increasingly concerned with becoming
part of an “empire of goods” in the eighteenth century. Americans were consu-
mers, and in order to consume, they needed to accumulate wealth. Breen argues
that Americans’ patterns of consumption fostered identities that not only tied
them to the British empire, but enabled them to perceive common bonds with
other colonists. Both Hall and Breen focus on the ways colonists linked them-
selves to broader worlds spiritually and materially.
Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies
DAVID D. HALL
The People of seventeenth-century New England lived in an enchanted universe.
Theirs was a world of wonders. Ghosts came to people in the night, and trumpets
blared, though no one saw the trumpeters. Nor could people see the lines of force
that made a “long staff dance up and down in the chimney” of William Morse’s
house in Newbury. In this enchanted world, the sky on a “clear day” could fill
with “many companies of armed men in the air, clothed in light-colored gar-
ments, and the commander in sad [somber].” The townsfolk of New Haven
saw a phantom ship sail rega lly into the harbor. An old man in Lynn espied
a strange black cloud in which after some space he saw a man in arms
complete standing with his legs straddling and having a pike in his hands
which he held across his breast…. After a while the man vanished in
whose room appeared a spacious ship seeming under sail though she
kept the same station.
Voices spoke from heaven and children from their cradles.
From David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early America (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1989), 71–72, 76–78, 90–92, 122–127, 189–193. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A Knopf, a division of
Random House, Inc.
82 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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