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to go in straight strips or zones across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Almost nothing was then known about American geography; the distance from ocean to ocean across Mexico was not so very great, and people did not realize that further north it was quite a different thing. As to the middle strip, starting from the coast between the Rappahannock and the Hudson, it was open to the two companies, with the understanding that neither was to plant a colony within 100 miles of any settlement already begun by the other. This meant practically that it was likely to be controlled by whichever company should first come into the field with a flourishing colony. Accordingly both companies made haste and sent out settlers in 1607, the one to the James River, the other to the Kennebec. The first enterprise, after much suffering, resulted in the founding of Virginia; the second ended in disaster, and it was not until 1620 that the Pilgrims from Leyden made the beginnings of a permanent settlement upon the territory of the Plymouth Company.

These two companies were at first organized under a single charter. Each was to be governed by a council in England appointed by Their com- the king, and these councils were to mon charter appoint councils of thirteen to reside in the colonies, with powers practically un

limited. Nevertheless the king covenanted with his colonists as follows: "Also we do, for us, our heirs and successors, declare by these presents that all and every the persons, being our subjects, which shall go and inhabit within the said colony and plantation, and every their children and posterity, which shall happen to be born within any of the limits thereof, shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities of free denizens and natural subjects within any of our other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England, or in any other of our dominions." This principle, that British subjects born in America should be entitled to the same political freedom as if born in England, was one upon which the colonists. always insisted, and it was the repeated and persistent attempts of George III. to infringe it that led the American colonies to revolt and declare themselves independent of Great Britain.

Both the companies founded in 1606 were short-lived. In 1620 the Plymouth Company got a new charter, which made it independent of the London Company. In 1624 the king, James I., quarrelled with the London Dissolution Company, brought suit against it in of the two court, and obtained from the subservient judges a decree annulling its charter. In 1635 the reorganized Plymouth Company sur

companies

1

rendered its charter to Charles I. in pursuance of a bargain which need not here concern us.1 But the creation of these short-lived companies left an abiding impression upon the map of North America and upon the organization of civil government in the United States. Let us observe what was done with the three

Settlement

zones

of the three strips or zones into which the country was divided: the northern or New England zone, assigned to the Plymouth Company; the southern or Virginia zone, assigned to the London Company; and the central zone, for which the two companies were, so to speak,

to run a race.

In the northern zone the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were founded by emigration from England between 1620 and 1630; and then in 1633-38 Connecticut, Providence, and Rhode Island were founded by emigration from Massachusetts. Presently, in

1. The northern

zone

1643, Providence and Rhode Island voluntarily united into one commonwealth; and in 1662 New Haven, originally founded in 1637 by emigration from England, was annexed to Connecticut by Charles II. Certain towns along the northeast coast, founded under royal grants to individual proprietors, were for some time practically a part of Massachusetts, but in 1679 a part of this region

1 See my Beginnings of New England, p. 137.

was erected by Charles II. into the royal province of New Hampshire. The remainder, under the name of Maine, was in 1692 confirmed to Massachusetts, to which Plymouth was at the same time annexed. Thus, before the Revolution, four of the original thirteen statesMassachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire had been constituted in the northern zone.

2. The

In 1663 Charles II. cut off the southern part of Virginia, the area covering the present states of North and South Carolina and Georgia, and it was formed into a new province called Carolina. In 1729 the two groups of settlements which had grown up along southern its coast were definitively separated into North and South Carolina; and in 1732 the frontier portion toward Florida was organized into the colony of Georgia. Thus four of the original thirteen states- - Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia - were constituted in

the southern zone.

zone

To this group some writers add Maryland, founded in 1632, because its territory had been claimed by the London Company; but the earliest settlements in Maryland, its principal towns, and almost the whole of its territory, come north of latitude 38° and within the middle zone.

Between the years 1614 and 1621 the Dutch

dle zone

founded their colony of New Netherland upon the territory included between the Hudson and Delaware rivers, or, as they quite naturally 3. The mid- called them, the North and South rivers. They pushed their outposts up the Hudson as far as the site of Albany, thus intruding far into the northern zone. In 1638 Sweden planted a small colony upon the west side of Delaware Bay, but in 1655 it was surrendered to the Dutch. Then in 1664 the English took New Netherland from the Dutch, and Charles II. granted the province to his brother, the Duke of York. The duke proceeded to grant part of it to his friends, Berkeley and Carteret, and thus marked off the new colony of New Jersey. In 1681 the region west of New Jersey was granted to William Penn, and in the following year Penn bought from the Duke of York the small piece of territory upon which the Swedes had planted their colony. Delaware thus became an appendage to Penn's greater colony, but was never merged in it. Thus five of the original thirteen states Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were constituted in the middle zone.

As we have already observed, the westward movement of population in the United States has largely followed the parallels of latitude, and thus the characteristics of these three origi

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