Chapter 49: Progress of the Anglo-American Colonies. The progress of the Anglo-American colonies was advanced, not by anticipating strife with the natives, but by the progress of industry. Peace on the eastern frontier revived the youthful maritime enterprise of Maine, and its settlements began to obtain a fixed prosperity. The French, just before occupying Crown Point, pitched their tents on the opposite eastern shore, in the township of Addison. But already, in 1724, the government of Massachusetts had established Fort Dummer, on the site of Brattleborough; and thus, one hundred and fifteen years after the inroad of Champlain, a settlement of civilized man was made in Vermont. That Fort Dummer was within the limits of Massachusetts, was not questioned by the French; for the fort at Saybrook, according to the French rule, gave to England the whole basin of the river. Of Connecticut the swarming population spread over all its soil, and occupied even its hills; for its whole extent was protected against the desolating inroads of savages. The selfish policy of its governors and its royalist party delayed the increase of New York. Pennsylvania, as the land of promise, was still the refuge of the oppressed. We shall soon have a German colony, wrote Logan, in 1726, so many thousands of Palatines are already in the country. Nor did the south-west range of the mountains, from the James to the Potomac, fail to become occupied by emigrants, and enlivened by county courts; and, in 1732, the valley of Virginia received white inhabitants. There were no European settlements, even in Carolina, on streams that flow westward. In that colony the abodes of civilized man reached scarcely a hundred miles from the Atlantic; the more remote ones were made by herdsmen, who pastured beeves upon canes and natural grasses; and the cattle, hardly kept from running wild, were now and then rallied at central Cowpens. Philanthropy opened the way beyond the Savannah. A British poet pointed with admiration across the Atlantic: -- Lo! swarming southward on rejoicing suns, Gay colonies extend, -- the calm retreat Of undeserved distress, the better home Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands. Not built on rapine, servitude, and woe, But bound by social freedom, firm they rise. History of the Colonization of the United States, 1841
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 09:06:01 +0000
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