University of Virginia Library

Chapter I.

It is highly probable that the continent of America
was known to the Ancient Carthaginians, and that it was
the great island Atalantis, of which mention is made by
Plato, who represents it as larger than Asia and Africa.
The Carthaginians were a maritime people, and it is
known that they extended their discoveries beyond the
narrow sphere which had hitherto limited the enterprise
of the mariner. And although Plato represents Atalantis
as having been swallowed by an earthquake, and all
knowledge of the new continent, if any such ever existed,
was entirely lost, still it is by no means improbable, that
it had been visited by some of the inhabitants of the old
world, prior to its discovery by Columbus in 1492. The
manner of this discovery is well known, as is also the fact
that Americo Vespucci, a Florentine, under the authority
of Emmanuel king of Portugal, in sailing as far as Brazil
discovered the main land and gave name to America.

These discoveries gave additional excitement to the
adventurous spirit which distinguished those times, and
the flattering reports made of the country which they had
visited, inspired the different nations of Europe, with the
desire of reaping the rich harvest, which the enlightened
and enterprising mind of Columbus, had unfolded to their
view. Accordingly, as early as March 1496, (less than two
years after the discovery by Columbus) a commission was
granted by Henry VII king of England, to John Cabot
and his three sons, empowering them to sail under the
English banner in quest of new discoveries, and in the
event of their success to take possession, in the name of

the king of England, of the countries thus discovered and
not inhabited by Christian people.

The expedition contemplated in this commission was
never carried into effect. But in May 1498 Cabot with his
son Sebastian, embarked on a voyage to attain the desired
object, and succeeded in his design so far as to effect a discovery
of [4] North America, and although he sailed along
the coast from Labrador to Virginia, yet it does not now
appear that he made any attempt either at settlement or
conquest.

This is said to have been the first discovery ever made
of that portion of our continent which extends from the
Gulph of Mexico to the North pole; and to this discovery
the English trace their title to that part of it, subsequently
reduced into possession by them.[1]

As many of the evils endured by the inhabitants of the
western part of Virginia, resulted from a contest between
England and France, as to the validity of their respective
claims to portions of the newly discovered country, it
may not be amiss to take a general view of the discoveries
and settlements effected by each of those powers.

After the expedition of Cabot, no attempt on the part
of England, to acquire territory in America, seems to have
been made until the year 1558. In this year letters patent
were issued by Queen Elizabeth, empowering Sir Humphrey
Gilbert to "discover and take possession of such remote,
heathen, and barbarous lands, as were not actually
possessed by any christian prince or people." Two expeditions,
conducted by this gentleman terminated unfavorably.
Nothing was done by him towards the accomplishment
of the objects in view, more than the taking possession
of the island of New Foundland in the name of the
English Queen.

In 1584 a similar patent was granted to Sir Walter

Raleigh, under whose auspices was discovered the country
south of Virginia. In April of that year he dispatched
two vessels under the command of Amidas and Barlow,
for the purpose of visiting, and obtaining such a knowledge
of the country which he proposed to colonize, as
would facilitate the attainment of his object. In their
voyage they approached the North American continent
towards the Gulph of Florida, and sailing northwardly
touched at an island situate on the inlet into Pamlico
sound, in the state of North Carolina. To this island they
gave the name of Wocoken, and proceeding from thence
reached Roanoke near the mouth of Albemarle sound.
After having remained here some weeks, and obtained
from the natives the best information which they could
impart concerning the country, Amidas and Barlow returned
to England.

In the succeeding year Sir Walter had fitted out a
squadron of seven ships, the command of which he gave
to Sir Richard [5] Grenville. On board of this squadron
were passengers, arms, ammunition and provisions for a
settlement. He touched at the islands of Wocoken and
Roanoke, which had been visited by Amidas and Barlow,
and leaving a colony of one hundred and eight persons
in the island of Roanoke, he returned to England.
These colonists, after having remained about twelve
months and explored the adjacent country, became so discouraged
and exhausted by fatigue and famine, that they
abandoned the country. Sir Richard Grenville returning
shortly afterwards to America, and not being able to find
them, and at a loss to conjecture their fate, left in the
island another small party of settlers and again set sail
for England.

The flattering description which was given of the
country, by those who had visited it, so pleased Queen
Elizabeth, that she gave to it the name of Virginia, as a
memorial that it had been discovered in the reign of a Virgin
Queen.

Other inefficient attempts were afterwards made to
colonize North America during the reign of Elizabeth, but
it was not 'till the year 1607, that a colony was permanently

planted there. In December of the preceding year
a small vessel and two barks, under the command of captain
Newport, and having on board one hundred and five
men, destined to remain, left England. In April they
were driven by a storm into Chesapeak bay, and after a
fruitless attempt to land at Cape Henry, sailed up the
Powhatan (since called James) River, and on the 13th of
May 1607, debarked on the north side of the river at a
place to which they gave the name of Jamestown. From
this period the country continued in the occupancy of
the whites, and remained subject to the crown of Great
Britain until the war of the revolution.

A new charter which was issued in 1609 grants to
"the treasurer and company of the adventurers, of the
city of London for the first colony of Virginia, in absolute
property the lands extending from Point Comfort along
the sea coast two hundred miles to the northward, and
from the same point, along the sea coast two hundred
miles to the southward, and up into the land throughout
from sea to sea, west and north-west; and also all islands
lying within one hundred miles of the coast of both seas
of the precinct aforesaid." Conflicting charters, granted
to other corporations, afterwards narrowed her limits;
that she has been since reduced to her present comparatively
small extent of territory, is attributable exclusively
[6] to the almost suicidal liberality of Virginia herself.

On the part of France, voyages for the discovery and
colonization of North America were nearly contemporaneous
with those made by England for like objects. As
early as the year 1540, a commission was issued by Francis
1st for the establishment of Canada.[2] In 1608, a French
fleet, under the command of Admiral Champlaine, arrived

in the St. Lawrence and founded the city of Quebec. So
successful were her attempts to colonize that province,
that, notwithstanding its proximity to the English colonies,
and the fact that a Spanish sailor had previously entered
the St. Lawrence and established a port at the mouth
of Grand river—neither of those powers seriously contested
the right of France to its possession.—Yet it was
frequently the theatre of war; and as early as 1629 was
subdued by England. By the treaty of St. Germains in
1632 it was restored to France, as was also the then province
of Acadie, now known as Nova Scotia. There is no
doubt but that this latter province was, by priority of
settlement, the property of France, but its principal town
having been repeatedly reduced to possession by the English,
it was ceded to them by the treaty of Utrecht in
1713.

To the country bordering the Mississippi river, and its
tributary streams, a claim was made by England, France
and Spain. The claim of England (based on the discovery
by the Cabots of the eastern shore of the United States,)
included all the country between the parallels of latitude
within which the Atlantic shore was explored, extending
westwardly to the Pacific ocean—a zone athwart the continent
between the thirtieth and forty-eighth degrees of
North latitude.

From the facility with which the French gained the
good will and friendly alliance of the Natives in Canada,
by intermarrying with, and assimilating themselves to the
habits and inclinations of, these children of the forest, an
intimacy arose which induced the Indians to impart freely
to the French their knowledge of the interior country.
Among other things information was communicated to
them, of the fact that farther on there was a river of great
size and immense length, which pursued a course opposite
to that of the St. Lawrence, and emptied itself into an
unknown sea. It was conjectured that it must necessarily
flow either into the Gulph of Mexico, or the South Sea;
and in 1673 Marquette and Joliet, French missionaries,
together with five other men, commenced a journey

[7] from Quebec to ascertain the fact and examine the
country bordering its shores.

From lake Michigan they proceeded up the Fox river
nearly to its source; thence to Ouisconsin; down it to the
Mississippi, in which river they sailed as far as to about
the thirty-third degree of north latitude. From this point
they returned through the Illinois country to Canada.

At the period of this discovery M. de La Salle, a
Frenchman of enterprise, courage and talents but without
fortune, was commandant of fort Frontignac. Pleased
with the description given by Marquette and Joliet, of the
country which they had visited, he formed the determination
of examining it himself, and for this purpose left Canada
in the close of the summer of 1679, in company with
father Louis Hennepin and some others.[3] On the Illinois
he erected fort Crevecœur, where he remained during the
winter, and instructing father Hennepin, in his absence to
ascend the Mississippi to its sources, returned to Canada.
M. de La Salle subsequently visited this country, and establishing
the villages of Cahokia and Kaskaskia, left them
under the command of M. de Tonti, and going back to
Canada, proceeded from thence to France to procure the
co-operation of the Ministry in effecting a settlement of
the valley of the Mississippi. He succeeded in impressing
on the minds of the French Ministry, the great benefits
which would result from its colonization, and was the first
to suggest the propriety of connecting the settlements on
the Mississippi with those in Canada by a cordon of forts;
a measure which was subsequently attempted to be carried
into effect.

With the aid afforded him by the government of
France, he was enabled to prepare an expedition to accomplish
his object, and sailing in 1684 for the mouth of the
Mississippi, steered too far westward and landed in the
province of Texas, and on the banks of the river Guadaloupe.
Every exertion which a brave and prudent man

could make to effect the security of his little colony, and
conduct them to the settlement in Illinois, was fruitlessly
made by him. In reward for all his toil and care he was
basely assassinated; the remnant of the party whom he
was conducting through the wilderness, finally reached the
Arkansas, where was a settlement of French emigrants
from Canada. The colonists left by him at the bay of St.
Bernard were mostly murdered by the natives, the remainder
were carried away by the Spaniards in 1689.

[8] Other attempts made by the French to colonize the
Mississippi near the Gulph of Mexico, were for some time
unavailing. In an expedition for that purpose, conducted
by M. Ibberville, a suit of armor on which was inscribed
Ferdinand de Soto, was found in the possession of some
Indians. In the year 1717 the spot, on which New Orleans
now stands, was selected as the centre of the settlements,
then first made in Louisiana, and the country continued in
the possession of France until 1763. By the treaty of Paris
in that year, she ceded to Great Britain, together with
Canada her possessions east of the Mississippi, excepting
only the island of New Orleans—this and her territory on
the west bank of that river were transferred to Spain.

The title of Spain to the valley of the Mississippi, if
made to depend on priority of discovery, would perhaps,
to say the least, be as good as that of either of the other
powers. Ferdinand de Soto, governor of Cuba, was most
probably the first white man who saw that majestic
stream.

The Spaniards had early visited and given name to
Florida. In 1528 Pamphilo de Narvaez obtained a grant
of it, and fitting out an armament, proceeded with four or
five hundred men to explore and settle the country. He
marched to the Indian village of Appalachas, when he was
attacked and defeated by the natives. The most of those
who escaped death from the hands of the savages, perished
in a storm, by which they were overtaken on their voyage
home. Narvaez himself perished in the wreck, and was
succeeded in his attempt at colonization by de Soto.

Ferdinand de Soto, then governor of Cuba, was a man
of chivalrous and enterprising spirit, and of cool, deliberate

courage. In his expedition to Florida, although attacked
by the Indians, immediately on his landing, yet,
rather seeking than shunning danger, he penetrated the
interior, and crossing the Mississippi, sickened and died on
Red river. So frequent and signal had been the victories
which he had obtained over the Indians, that his name
alone had become an object of terror to them; and his followers,
at once to preserve his remains from violation, and
prevent the natives from acquiring a knowledge of his
death, enclosed his body in a hollow tree, sunk it in the
Red river and returned to Florida.

Thus, it is said, were different parts of this continent
discovered; and by virtue of the settlements thus effected,
by [9] those three great powers of Europe, the greater portion
of it was claimed as belonging to them respectively, in
utter disregard of the rights of the Aborigines. And
while the historian records the colonization of America as
an event tending to meliorate the condition of Europe, and
as having extended the blessings of civil and religious liberty,
humanity must drop the tear of regret, that it has
likewise forced the natives of the new, and the inhabitants
of a portion of the old world, to drink so deeply from the
cup of bitterness.

The cruelties which have been exercised on the Aborigines
of America, the wrong and outrage heaped on
them from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the
present period, while they excite sympathy for their sufferings,
should extenuate, if not justify the bloody deeds,
which revenge prompted the untutored savages to commit.
Driven as they were from the lands of which they
were the rightful proprietors—Yielding to encroachment
after encroachment 'till forced to apprehend their utter
annihilation—Witnessing the destruction of their villages,
the prostration of their towns and the sacking of cities
adorned with spendid magnificence, who can feel surprised
at any attempt which they might make to rid the country
of its invaders. Who, but must applaud the spirit which
prompted them, when they beheld their prince a captive,
the blood of their nobles staining the earth with its crimson
dye, and the Gods of their adoration scoffed and derided,

to aim at the destruction of their oppressors.—
When Mexico, "with her tiara of proud towers," became
the theatre in which foreigners were to revel in rapine and
in murder, who can be astonished that the valley of
Otumba resounded with the cry of "Victory or Death?"
And yet, resistance on their part, served but as a pretext
for a war of extermination; waged too, with a ferocity,
from the recollection of which the human mind involuntarily
revolts, and with a success which has forever blotted
from the book of national existence, once powerful and
happy tribes.

But they did not suffer alone. As if to fill the cup of
oppression to the brim, another portion of the human
family were reduced to abject bondage, and made the unwilling
cultivators of those lands, of which the Indians
had been dispossessed. Soon after the settlement of North
America was commenced, the negroes of Africa became
an article of commerce, and from subsequent importations
and natural [10] increase have become so numerous as to
excite the liveliest apprehensions in the bosom of every
friend to this country. Heretofore they have had considerable
influence on the affairs of our government; and
recently the diversity of interest, occasioned in Virginia,
by the possession of large numbers of them in the
country east of the blue ridge of mountains, seemed
for a while to threaten the integrity of the state.—Happily
this is now passing away, but how far they may effect the
future destines of America, the most prophetic ken cannot
foresee. Yet, although the philanthopist must weep over
their unfortunate situation, and the patriot shudder
in anticipation of a calamity which it may defy human
wisdom to avert; still it would be unfair to charge the existence
of slavery among us to the policy of the United
States, or to brand their present owners as the instruments
of an evil which they cannot remove. And while others
boast that they are free from this dark spot, let them remember,
that but for them our national escutcheon might
have been as pure and unsullied as their own.[4]

We are indebted to the Dutch for their introduction
into Virginia, and to the ships of other than slave holding
communities, for their subsequent unhallowed transportation
to our shores. Yet those who were mainly instrumental
in forging the chains of bondage, have since rendered
the condition of the negro slave more intolerable
by fomenting discontent among them, and by "scattering
fire brands and torches," which are often not to be extinguished
but in blood.

Nothwithstanding those two great evils which have
resulted from the discovery and colonization of America,
yet to these the world is indebted for the enjoyment of
many and great blessings. They enlarged the theatre of
agricultural enterprise, and thus added to the facilities of
procuring the necessaries of life. They encouraged the
industry of Europeans, by a dependence on them for almost
every species of manufacture, and thus added considerably
to their population, wealth and happiness; while
the extensive tracts of fertile land, covering the face of
this country and inviting to its bosom the enterprising [11]
foreigner, has removed a far off any apprehension of the
ill effects arising from a too dense population.

In a moral and political point of view much good has
likewise resulted from the settlement of America. Religion,
freed from the fetters which enthralled her in Europe,
has shed her benign influence on every portion of our country.
Divorced from an adulterous alliance with state, she
has here stalked forth in the simplicity of her founder;
and with "healing on her wings, spread the glad tidings
of salvation to all men." It is true that religious intolerance
and blind bigotry, for some time clouded our horizon,
but they were soon dissipated; and when the sun arose
which ushered in the dawn of our national existence scarce
a speck could be seen to dim its lustre. Here too was

reared the standard of civil liberty, and an example set,
which may teach to the nations of the old world, that as
people are really the source of power, government should
be confided to them. Already have the beneficial effects
of this example been manifested, and the present condition
of Europe clearly shows, that the lamp of liberty, which
was lighted here, has burned with a brilliancy so steady as
to have reflected its light across the Atlantic. Whether it
will be there permitted to shine, is somewhat problematical.
But should a "holy alliance of legitimates" extinguish
it, it will be but for a season. Kings, Emperors and
Priests cannot succeed much longer in staying the march
of freedom. The people are sensibly alive to the oppression
of their rulers—they have groaned beneath the burden
'till it has become too intolerable to be borne; and
they are now speaking in a voice which will make tyrants
tremble on their throne.