should be made for the same, and thus upon the 27. day of March, Anno
Domini, 1634, the Governour tooke possession of the place, and named
the Towne Saint Maries.Even more important, the Indians taught the Maryland colonists how
to plant corn and bartered enough of it that they were able to swap, in per-
haps the earliest example of intercolonial trade, 1,000 bushels of corn for
New England salted fish. “Experience hath taught us,” White continued,
“that by kind and faire usage, the Natives are not onely become peaceable,
but also friendly, and have upon all occasions performed as many friendly
Offices to the English in Maryland, and New-England, as any neighbour or
friend uses to doe in the most Civill parts of Christendome.” With the help
of the Indians and the fact that their group was made up “mostly [of ] hand-
icraftsmen, laborers, and servants, men and women, with a few of the
yeoman-farmer class,” the Marylanders avoided the “starving time” that
had nearly wiped out the colony at Jamestown. Lord Baltimore also prof-
ited from the experience in Virginia by immediately awarding “headrights”
of land, 100 acres each for each settler and the same amount for all servants
up to a maximum of five, with only the obligation to pay a yearly “quitrent”
of 2 shillings (payable in kind) for each 100 acres.
In England, life had meanwhile become much harder for the radical
Protestants. A small group from the town of Scrooby were harassed into
migrating in 1607. They went to Holland, which was known to be tolerant
toward dissident religions; but they soon found it too tolerant—their chil-
dren began to marry Dutch men and women. To keep the community
together, they decided to move to the New World. Despite feeling that “we
are well weaned from the delicate milk of our mother country,” they peti-
tioned King James I for permission to settle in the territory of the London
Company of Virginia; he agreed, and in 1620 the company granted them
a patent for land and a small subsidy. A London moneylender (whose
sharp practice was to become the bane of their existence for the next
twenty years) underwrote the rest of their initial expenses. Finally, these
“Puritans,” thirty-five of the original group from Holland and twice that
many “strangers,” as those who had not been in Holland were called,
boarded the Speedwelland the Mayflowerto sail in September 1620.
120 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA