Chapter 12 THE THIRD ATTEMPT

ABRAHAM and the prophets knew that men are free. Christ knew it. The Saracens knew it. And 200 years after the fall of Granada, the idea was gaining momentum along the eastern edge of North America.

Obscure individuals – who lived and died unknown to anyone but their neighbors – started the third attempt to establish conditions in which human beings could use their natural freedom.

This third revolutionary effort has hardly begun. There are men living today whose grandfathers helped to begin it. Yet it was started when gods in human form were believed to govern most of the earth’s population; when kings by divine right owned Continental Europe and most of the New World.

Fewer than 3,000,000 persons lived in scattered settlements along the Atlantic coast, from Labrador to New Spain (the Floridas). They were of all races, colors, ancestries, and creeds. The French were in the north and in the Carolinas. The Dutch had built a village on Manhattan Island, and their frontier cabins extended into the Mohawk Indian country, in what is now known as upper New York State. Germans had settled in the Jerseys and far to the west – even beyond Philadelphia. There were Swedes in Delaware. Germans and Scotch-Irish were climbing the mountains of Carolina. Massachusetts, the New Hampshire grants, Connecticut, and Virginia had been settled by English, French, Dutch, and Irish.

Mingled with all these were Italians, Portuguese, Finns, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, and Negroes from dozens of different African tribes and cultures; black, brown, yellow, and white; Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Protestants, Jews; aristocrats, freemen, bond servants, slaves – and in all groups and classes, there was intermarriage with the American Indians.

In the interest of historical perspective, it is important to remember that during more than half of our history, America was a conglomeration of colonial settlements – subservient to European powers and without any government of its own.

The Spanish

The Old World monarchs, eager to extend their domains into the New World, granted large tracts of land to favored subjects.

Spain had the edge by almost a hundred years and began setting up colonies on the American mainland as early as 1509. In the beginning, the efforts were rather loosely organized. The Conquistadors were going ahead on their own initiative – handling any problems that arose and settling them right on the spot. Things were moving too fast for the Madrid bureaucrats to keep up with the details.

But as time went on, the home office supervision was tightened up. Bureaucratic controls were extended to the farthest outposts and were strictly administered “for the common good.”

Under the sponsorship of the government – and at the government’s expense – carefully selected peasants of good character, sound morals, and industrious habits were shipped over and established on collectivist farms. The government provided detailed instructions for clearing the land, caring for fences and gates, plowing, planting, cultivating, harvesting, and dividing the crops.

By order of the King, each settler’s family was given a six-month-old pig, a barrel of grain for each adult, and a hoe for every child over six years of age.

Each settlement was built as in Spain – a compact mass of cottages, protected by a detachment of soldiers and a well-constructed fort:^* A commandant, appointed by the King, kept order and dispensed justice – usually with much sympathy and wisdom. Typically, he addressed the settlers as “my children,” and they were obedient, well-behaved, and gay. They made friends with the Indians and learned their ball games, raced horses, fought cocks, danced, and sang. They were cared for as well as, or better than, their friends and relatives back home. Shipping was well organized; communication was fairly frequent. The Spanish colonists enjoyed a reasonable degree of safety and leisure in the American wilderness, and they usually had enough to eat.

The French

Along the same pattern, the kings of France later established snug little settlements along the St. Lawrence River; then around the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi Valley to New Orleans and Mobile; then up the Ohio River to Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh).

In common with the Spanish, the French settlers had carefully planned programs, designed to extend their homeland conditions into the New World.

Before Thomas Jefferson was born, there was a charming little Versailles in central Illinois. Aristocratic ladies and gentlemen – perfumed and jeweled, bewigged, powdered and patched – were carried by slaves in satin-lined sedan chairs to Twelfth Night balls, while happy villagers, fatter than any in Europe, crowded outside the windows to watch the gaiety.

The English

The English settlers were among the late arrivals; and in contrast to the Spanish, French, and Dutch, they did not have government sponsorship.

Britain was busy with domestic affairs and European conflicts. Getting a foothold in the New World was merely an incident; and in the beginning, things were left very largely to the gentlemen adventurers and seafaring buccaneers who were willing to spend their own money and take their own chances – with a nominal share of the profits going to the Crown.

In the eyes of the carefully selected and well-regimented French and Spanish, the English colonists were a scandal. Their villages were unplanned. Their houses were scattered and far apart, instead of being built in orderly clusters according to the standard European pattern.

There was no co-ordination. They didn’t cultivate their land communally. Their harvests were not shared equally. They had little respect for constituted authority.

The English colonies were often split up as a result of internal dissensions and clashing views. Rebels would pull out, push farther inland, and start new settlements. All in all, they were wild and undisciplined subjects of bad rulers; and to the Spanish and the French, the word Bostonian came to mean a lawless, devil-may-care sort of person – quite the opposite of what it means today.

But let’s start at the beginning and quickly review how the English colonies got their start.

Sir Walter Raleigh

One of the earliest efforts was the result of a deal with the court favorite, Sir Walter Raleigh. In return for one-fifth of all the precious metals that might be found, Raleigh was granted the rights to the vast Atlantic seaboard region, which he named “Virginia” in honor of his Queen. It’s interesting to note in passing that this financial arrangement was just the reverse of the policy followed by Ferdinand and Isabella. Columbus, who was financed by the Spanish government, was to get only 10 per cent – whereas Raleigh, who financed his own expeditions, was to get 80 per cent.

Raleigh made two unsuccessful attempts to establish a settlement on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. After a brief stay, the first settlers insisted on being taken back to England. The next group was left stranded for almost three years; and when the supply ship finally arrived, the settlers had vanished. Just what happened to them is still a mystery, but many legends have evolved. Even today, among the Carolina foothills and westward as far as the Osage Mountains of Oklahoma, there are rugged individuals who swear that their ancestors were members of Raleigh’s “lost colony” and that they simply moved to the mainland and up into the mountains.

After this disastrous experience, the English seem to have lost their enthusiasm. There were some reconnoitering voyages, but it was not until the early 17th century that any further colonization efforts were attempted.

Following in the footsteps of the religious – and profit-minded – Elizabeth, James I continued the practice of extending special privileges and land grants to private interests.

A few gentlemen, obtaining a colonization permit through political pull and agreeing to share their profits with the Crown, would organize a trading company at their own expense. Their agents would collect a shipload of ne’er-do-wells and make an agreement with them, which was usually broken by both sides.

The early English settlers were nothing to brag about. Successful men do not ordinarily bind themselves into servitude and leave home to vanish in a wilderness.

There were noteworthy exceptions which will be mentioned a little later; but for the moment, we are talking about the early beginnings in order to emphasize the difference between the English Colonies and the carefully planned settlements of other countries.

Rag, Tag, and Bobtail

It is no exaggeration to say that, in the main, the people sent over by the early trading companies were the rag, tag, and bobtail of Europe – hungry wretches lucky to be out of debtors’ prisons, vagrants from highways and slums. They came at their own risk and with no guarantee of security.

Some of them were shanghaied; others sold themselves into slavery to pay for their passage. And there were shiploads of women who were auctioned off at the ports to settlers in need of wives.

The Spanish, French, and Dutch came over in order to extend the power of their home governments; but the English, more often than not, came over to escape the domination of the Old World monarchs. Among them were people in search of greater religious freedom, including the Pilgrims and the Quakers, who, back in England, were looked upon as the religious fanatics of their time.

About the only aristocrats among the earlier settlers were the younger sons, the poor relations, and the black sheep of the European gentry. But they were in the minority, and the American wilderness showed no favors.

The trading companies spent large sums to collect the colonists and ship them to America. Anticipating big profits, they promised to follow through with ample supplies. But voyages from England were infrequent; and as often as not, the supplies didn’t arrive until a year later– along with a letter confidently demanding the first installment of profits.

The settlers couldn’t depend on the trading companies, and the trading companies couldn’t depend on the settlers. They wouldn’t work. They didn’t send the expected furs, and the bond servants frequently skipped out to live with the Indians.

The gentlemen adventurers who had staked their fortunes were righteously indignant. Howling in increasing anguish for the large profits – or for some profits – or at least for the recovery of their cash outlay – they finally wrote it off as a bad investment, and the early trading companies went broke. The colonists were left stranded between an empty sea and an unknown wilderness – both totally indifferent to their fate.

Work or Starve

These were times when even a gentleman had to work – or starve. No one of the aristocratic class had ever faced such a choice. And those of the lower classes were in an even worse predicament. They had always depended on someone else to provide them with jobs. But on this side of the world, jobs didn’t exist. They had to create their own jobs. They had to use their heads as well as their hands. It was either that or starve.

They were up against stern reality, and no one could afford the illusion that anything other than his own will controlled his productive powers. Each came to realize that the only source of wealth is human energy attacking this earth; that he alone was responsible for his life; that if he didn’t save it, nothing would.

Thus, the slipshod practices of the early trading companies served to plant the seeds of self-reliance. From the very beginning, it was “root hog or die”; and in the desperate effort to survive, they were learning how to wrest a pretty good living from the American wilderness.

Reports going back to England became a bit more favorable, and some of the gentlemen adventurers who had managed to get permits began to flirt with the idea of taking up residence in the New World.

As early as 1630, John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Company moved to America, along with the settlers who founded the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts. When King Charles heard about this, he was quite shocked – particularly when he learned that Governor Winthrop had taken the charter along with him, instead of leaving it safely deposited at the London headquarters, as was customary.

From then on, the absentee-landlord proposition began to wane. The idea of winning fame and fortune in the New World had a strong appeal to some of the more adventuresome men of means.

The Colverts

There was George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, who was granted a patent to the Chesapeake Bay region. After his death, this land was colonized under the direction of his son.

The Calverts were Roman Catholics; and while their major aim was to make money, they were also interested in providing a refuge for others of their faith. There was considerable resentment on the part of the earlier colonists. They still harbored the Old World prejudices and didn’t relish the idea of Catholics gaining a foothold in the New World.

But in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, the Calverts from first to last set an example of liberalism, religious tolerance, live and let live, which is reflected even to this day in the admirable traditions of the Maryland Free State.

The Quakers

There was young William Penn, the son of a British admiral, who became a Quaker, much to the disgust of his distinguished father. He was a rebel at heart and refused to remove his hat in the presence of the King, but he managed to get a land grant in payment of a debt which the Crown owed his estate.

Accompanied by a hundred fellow-Quakers, Penn moved to America in the year 1682. Again the reception was none too cordial. Pacifism had no place on the rugged frontier, and the Quaker doctrines didn’t jibe with those of the Puritans. But Penn, too, ran things on a liberal basis, with major emphasis on industry and thrift rather than on religion.

Incidentally, he was America’s first great advertiser. He deluged Europe with promotional material extolling the virtues of Pennsylvania, and he offered special inducements to prospective settlers who were able to help finance themselves. But he held out no false promises of easy riches. First, last, and always, his emphasis was on opportunity through hard work.

It was Penn, perhaps more than anyone else, who started the influx of the great European middle classes – especially the sturdy and industrious Germans. According to David Muzzey:

“William Penn was the greatest of the founders of the American colonies. He had all the liberality of Roger Williams without his impatience, all the fervor of John Winthrop without a trace of intolerance, and all the tact of Lord Baltimore with still greater industry and zeal.”¹¹

The success of these early pioneers was doubtlessly responsible for attracting others from the aristocratic classes, and the English law of primogeniture was not without its influence. The eldest son inherited his father’s estate and title; the younger sons were left to shift for themselves – and America was coming to be recognized as the land of opportunity.

The Cavaliers

The migration to the New World was accelerated by the inquisitions of Cromwell, under which the Cavaliers found it uncomfortable and even dangerous to remain in England. They fled to America for reasons not dissimilar to those which, a century earlier, had prompted the young Conquistadors to follow Cortes and Balboa.

Contrary to the general impression, the word cavalier is not synonymous with aristocracy. It was merely the name of the political party which supported Charles I and which included many people of humble origin.

The Cavaliers were temperamental, romantic individualists, and they made an effective complement to the Puritans and Quakers. Henry Woodfin Grady summed it up most admirably when in the interest of “preserving a sort of historical equilibrium,” he reminded a New England audience that the Cavalier, as well as the Puritan, was among the early settlers and that he was “up and able to be about.”^*

He pointed out that it was the Virginia Cavalier who first challenged France on this continent; that it was John Smith, a Cavalier, who gave New England its very name; that while Miles Standish was cutting off men’s ears for courting a girl without her parents’ consent and forbidding men to kiss their wives on the Sabbath Day, the intrepid Cavalier was courting and kissing everything in sight; and that the Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to the Cavalier colonies, the huts in the wilderness being as full as the nests in the woods.

I’d like to devote more space to the Virginia Cavalier; but – again paraphrasing Henry Grady – we’ll leave him to work out his own salvation, as he has always been able to do with engaging gallantry and charm.

The main point is that from the very beginning, America was the great melting pot. Neither Puritan, Cavalier, nor Quaker long survived as such. But happily, the virtues and customs of each still live to inspire their sons and to preserve the old traditions.

Although most of the Cavaliers settled in Virginia and Maryland, many of them migrated southward. The Carolina region was successfully colonized in the 1650’s by people who moved down from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Specializing in turpentine and tar, they got along splendidly until, some 20 years later, a carefully planned colonization effort was launched from England.

A group of highly respected lords, aided and abetted by experts in statecraft, were given a special charter which would make the Carolinas a separate colony. This colony would be set up as a “grand model” of the ideal political structure and would include all the complexities of European feudalism – plus a touch of Plato. In fact, it was so elaborate that the persons required to carry out the theories would be almost as numerous as those left to do the productive work.

The attempts to put the plan into effect resulted in chaos and dissension amounting to open rebellion. Progress was at a standstill until the early 1700’s, when the “lord proprietors” passed out of the picture and the Carolinas were set up as two separate colonies. From then on, they were left pretty much in charge of their own affairs, and they grew and prospered.

But theoretical planners never seem to benefit from the lessons of history nor from the failures of their contemporaries. Barely had the Carolinas been restored to a reasonably practical basis of operation, when an even more fantastic plan was launched for the colonization of the last of the 13 colonies.

Enigmatic Edward

The early story of Georgia is the story of just one man. He was James Edward Oglethorpe, a most fascinating, intriguing, imaginative, and lovable personality. Indeed, it would put a strain on the thesaurus to find adjectives that would do him full justice. He was handsome, curly-haired, fastidiously clad, dashing, gallant, debonair, born to the aristocracy, a man of wealth, a fearless and distinguished soldier, an able strategist – and along with all this he was the most unselfish, generous, and noble-minded person to play an important role in colonizing America.

Although head of Britain’s most prosperous slave trading corporation, Oglethorpe was a humanitarian at heart. His heart was as big as all outdoors, and his desire to do good to his fellow man overshadowed all of his other interests.

After a few years’ schooling at Oxford, he served with the great soldier, Prince Eugene, in the war against the Turks, following which he returned to England and took over his ancestral estate on the banks of the winding river Wey.

A few years later, he was elected to Parliament, and from then on he devoted the greatest part of his life to a wide range of social reforms. He wanted to give the soldiers and sailors a better deal. He was worried about the price of coal. He wanted to provide refuge and relief for the persecuted Protestants of Europe. He spearheaded the agitation for English prison reforms and fought to abolish the stupid law under which decent and industrious people could be thrown into jail for small debts.

A man of great energy and action, Oglethorpe worked day and night – making speeches, writing letters, and publishing tracts at his own expense. He also found time to keep himself posted on colonial affairs and was quite disturbed at the slipshod way in which the colonies were being run.

England’s foothold on the American continent was none too secure. Unfriendly Spain was strongly entrenched to the south, and the French were to the west and north. In order for England to hold her own against encroachment, there had to be a better co-ordination of defensive strategy.

Ingenious Plan

It was Oglethorpe’s interest in this latter problem which led to a most ingenious and appealing plan – a plan that would not only provide broad opportunities for social reform, but would greatly strengthen the Empire from a military and economic standpoint. His comprehensive proposal added up about as follows:

1. It was not only unjust, but it was also economically wasteful to keep people in prison for small debts. Why not set them up in the New World and at the same time provide a haven for the oppressed Protestants of Europe?

2. There was a vast area of desirable land lying between the Altamaha and Savannah rivers, south of the Carolinas and north of Spanish Florida.

3. Its latitudinal position corresponded to that of China, Persia, Palestine, and the Madeiras, upon whom England was dependent for such important products as silk, hemp, wine, olive oil, spices, and drugs.

4. With proper supervision, such things could doubt-lessly be produced in the proposed new colony, thus making England independent of foreign sources.

5. By concentrating on such products, the new colony would not in any way conflict with the activities of other colonies.

6. From a military standpoint, it would serve as a buffer between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. To insure a strong army, special concessions would be made to soldiers – only able-bodied fighting men would be permitted to own land.

7. In the interest of the common good, everything would be beneficently administered under a well-balanced plan. This would not only provide for the necessities of military regimentation, but it would also eliminate the disorders, maladjustments, and wastes of competition.

8. The social aspects would also be carefully supervised. Slaves, rum, and Roman Catholics would be strictly prohibited.

9. The new colony would be named for King George II; and it would be an honor and a credit to him – something to which he could point with pride as an example worthy of emulation by all the other colonies.

10. First, last, and always, Georgia would be a strictly eleemosynary proposition. To avoid dissension and to insure adherence to the high objectives, no one would be allowed to vote. Oglethorpe would look after everything personally, and his motto would be Non Sibi, Sed Aliis – Not for Self, but for Others.

Without Argument

This comprehensive proposal was accepted without argument. Not only was the charter granted, but also the English government departed from its usual policy and made a cash contribution of £10,000 to help get things started. Oglethorpe put up some of his own money; and overwhelmed by his logic and persuasiveness, benevolent societies and right-thinking citizens made liberal donations.

With his carefully selected band of settlers, Oglethorpe came to the New World and founded the city of Savannah in the year 1733. From a military standpoint, the project was a success. With a handful of well-trained troops, Oglethorpe not only licked the invading Spaniards, but also took advantage of the opportunity to extend the borders of Georgia considerably southward.

You can read about it in the history books, and it’s a most thrilling story. But as I said before, the historians are inclined to stress the war aspects and overlook the lessons that might be learned as bearing on the problems of peace and progress.

Reasons for Failure

In spite of his self-sacrifice and high motives, Oglethorpe’s venture was a miserable failure from an economic and sociological standpoint. He failed to recognize that military regimentation always works at cross-purposes to creative progress – that human initiative doesn’t operate according to the pattern of a beehive. And incidentally, he overlooked the fact that variations in climate and soil are not wholly dependent on latitude; that regardless of the needs of man-made empires, the Almighty never intended that Georgia should be a substitute for the Orient.

During 20 years of futile effort, the population never exceeded 6,000; and when it dwindled back down to around 500, Oglethorpe gave up in despair and returned to England.

A few years later, all the bans and prohibitions were lifted. The pendulum swung the other way. Things were thrown wide open. “Refugees” who had fled to the Carolinas came back and brought their friends with them, and there was an influx of new blood from Virginia – including the cavalier Talbots. The last of the 13 colonies grew by leaps and bounds; and by the end of the century, its population had passed the 160,000 mark.

Oglethorpe’s effort to set up a Utopia was one of the more extreme attempts at regimentation; but it is typical, in many respects, of the type of thing that laid the groundwork for the revolution that was to come.

^* Through an unfortunate error made in Madrid, the Spanish government ordered the fort at St. Louis to be built on a site which the Missouri River flooded every spring. Even the children knew that the river’s battering ice would destroy the fort, but orders were orders and must be obeyed. The fort was built. The morose Commandant drank himself into a stupor every day that winter. In the spring, the river demolished the fort, and St. Louis was unprotected when the British attacked it. Disaster seemed certain until a trader took command; under his voluntary leadership, the settlers put up a good fight and saved the town.

^*These quotes and near-quotes are from The New South – a speech delivered before the New England Club in the City of New York, December 21, 1886, by Henry W. Grady – journalist, editor, orator, scholar, ambassador of good-will, self-reliant individualist, and southern gentleman. He is not related to me; but I was born just after his death, and, like thousands of others, I was given his name. Incidentally, The New South is well worth reading as bearing on the problems of today.

Henry Woodfin Grady, The New South and Other Addresses (New York: Charles E. Merrill, 1904), p. 25.