ILLUSTRATIVE LITERATURE.

Poems: Joaquin Miller, Columbus; Lowell, Columbus; Sidney Lanier, The Triumph; Wallace Rice, The First American Sailors; Alfred Noyes, Drake; Macaulay, The Armada; Tennyson, The Revenge.

Stories: Knox, The Travels of Marco Polo; King, De Soto and His Men in the Land of Florida; Barnes, Drake and His Yeomen; McMurry, Pioneers on Land and Sea; Cooper, Mercedes of Castile; Simms, The Damsel of Darien; Vasconselos; Wallace, The Fair God; Kingsley, Westward Ho!

Biographies: Adams, Christopher Columbus; Stapley, Columbus; Markham, Columbus; Guillemard, Life of Ferdinand Magellan; Corbett, Sir Francis Drake; Edwards, Sir Walter Raleigh; Ober, Heroes of American History.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS.

1. For what are we indebted to Europeans who lived before the discovery of America?

2. What traits of character in Columbus do you most admire? Why? Would it have made any difference in the history of the New World if it had been named for Columbus?

3. Was the voyage of Magellan or the first voyage of Columbus the greater achievement? Why?

4. Were any of our domestic animals found in America before its discovery by Europeans? What common grains, vegetables, and fruits were unknown in America until they were brought here from Europe?

5. In what ways was the Spanish Conquest an injury to the Indians of Mexico and Peru? In what ways did they gain by it?

6. What do we import from the West Indies? From Mexico? From South America? What do we sell to these countries?

7. How did the defeat of the Spanish Armada influence the history of America?

CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH

The First English Colony.-At the dawn of the seventeenth century, English sea power was firmly established by the defeat of the Spaniards, and England was ready to begin colonizing founding of in America. In 1606, James I gave permission to a group of Virginia London merchants to plant a colony in Virginia, and early in

The

1607, the first permanent English settlement in our country was made about fifty miles up the James River by one hundred men sent over by this London Company. King James promised that the settlers of Virginia should lose none of their rights as Englishmen. These pioneers named their town Jamestown in honor of the king. The site of Jamestown proved unhealthful, and before winter came, one-half of the settlers were in their graves. The lives of the other half were only saved by the courage and good sense of Captain John Smith, who came to the front as a born leader always will in an emergency. For the next two years Captain Smith was the life of the little company at Jamestown. The early settlers in

Virginia were poorly fitted for the work they had undertaken. Many of them were what the English call "gentlemen;" that is, they had never worked and did not know how to do so. Captain Smith kept these men at their necessary tasks by enforcing the rule that "he that will not work shall not eat." He also traded with the Indians and spent much time in exploring the country. In 1609, John Smith returned to England. The sufferings at Jamestown during the following winter were probably the most dreadful ever endured by any group of settlers in America. Sufferings of

the settlers

winter came on, exposure, famine, and

In

Savannah

N Jamestow 1607

NORTH

CAROL

Fayetteville
SOUTH
CAROLINA

Ashley

SETTLEMENTbemarle Sd.

Newber
1695

C.Fear

Charleston

1670

Port Royal

BOANOKE I.

TIC

GEORGIA

Altamaha

Darien

Savannah

1733

disease began their
deadly work.
six months, five
hundred settlers
were reduced to
sixty "most miser-
able and poor
wretches." Only
the timely arrival
of Lord Delaware
with supplies saved
the life of the col-
ony. This awful winter proved a turning point in the history
of early Virginia. One by one the mistakes of the earliest
years at Jamestown were corrected, and slowly the settlers
learned in the hard school of experience how to live in a new
country.

1565

Virginia and Her Neighbors

At first the settlers in Virginia owned all things in common, but in 1611 Governor Dale put an end to this system by giving each man land for his own. It was soon found that the settlers Early worked very much better when each man owned the fruits of his own labor. Nearly all the earliest comers to Virginia were

mistakes corrected

Tobacco

Unfree labor

men, and their settlements were little more than military camps. Presently the London Company began to remedy this condition by sending over young women who became the wives of the planters and soon these new families established homes upon the banks of the James like those they had known in the mother country.

But the thing that did most to promote the growth and prosperity of Virginia was the cultivation of tobacco. Just at this time the use of tobacco was rapidly increasing in Europe, and, consequently, this product of the Virginia plantations found a ready market at a good price. As it was found that the soil of Virginia is especially adapted to the culture of the tobacco plant, more settlers came from England and new plantations were opened along the wide, deep rivers which are the natural highways leading into the interior of the country.

The rapid growth of tobacco planting in early Virginia created a great demand for laborers to

work upon the plantations. To supply the demand convicts and kidnaped persons were sent from England, and their service sold to the planters for life or for a term of years. Such persons were called indentured servants. In 1619, a Dutch trader sold the Virginians twenty negroes. This was the beginning of African slavery in the colony, but for many years the white servants greatly outnumbered the negro slaves.

The early governors of Virginia who were appointed by the The growth London Company were often harsh and tyrannical in their government rule. Presently the control of the company in London passed

of the

into the hands of men who believed in the right of the people to govern themselves. Accordingly, they instructed the governor of Virginia to call together representatives of the different settlements to make laws for the colony. This body, which met in 1619, was called the House of Burgesses, and was the first legislative or lawmaking body in America. In 1624, the London Company had its charter taken from it, and Virginia became a royal colony; that is, henceforth the king appointed

The Provincial Capitol of Virginia, Williamsburg
The laws of the colony were made here for more than a century.

the governor. The people, however, retained the right to
elect their men to the House of Burgesses.

of Maryland

Virginia and her near neighbor, Maryland, were very much. alike in their physical geography. Both bordered upon Chesapeake Bay, and in both there were many lazily flowing rivers The upon whose banks the earliest settlements were made. The beginnings first settlement in Maryland was made at St. Mary's, in 1634, by Lord Baltimore, whose purpose was to found a home for his fellow Catholics where they could escape the persecutions from which they suffered in England at that time. Although Lord Baltimore was the proprietor or owner of Maryland, he