Colorado—The Bright Romance of American HistoryGrable, F. C.
History
Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History
Grable, F. C.
Colorado -- History
The next century found Champlain in 1603, making his voyage to Canada,
starting the French settlement at Quebec, in 1608, and sailing up the
St. Lawrence and around the lakes, hunting for locations for
settlements, and for a way to China. There was Lord de la Warr, coming
over in 1607, and finding a little English settlement on the mainland
at Jamestown in Virginia. The same year came the capable Captain
Smith, a soldier of fortune, who killed his Turkish task master, and
whose life was saved by a Senorita, to be saved again by Pocahontas.
There was the distinguished Sir Henry Hudson in 1607, trying to find
another Cape Horn above Greenland; failing, he sailed south, entered
New York harbor, thence up the Hudson River seeking China. Up past the
monument of Grant, past the beautiful Palisades, by West Point and
Poughkeepsie, beyond Albany, and all the time the water becoming more
shallow and the banks narrower, until he had gone one hundred and
fifty miles, sailing north instead of southwest to Southern
California, which would put him opposite the country he was seeking.
Turn back! Sir Henry, turn back! Your prow will soon be fast in the
mud, your vessel's sides will scrape the river's banks, your boat will
dam up the waters of the Hudson, and all the surrounding country will
be inundated! It is not yet the day of the airship, so that you can
sail over the Rocky Mountains, nor is it the time of tunnels, so that
you can find a passage beneath them! Just north of you, at that very
moment, sixty miles away, Champlain has turned back, and neither of
you know it. This country is not for you, nor for him. There are no
great waterways along which you both may sail, touching the shores,
planting the flags of your countries, and claiming this Continent for
your Kings. Go back! Sir Henry, and when Champlain has colonized
Canada, and established Quebec, sail in and take it away from him!
Which was the very thing that was done twenty-one years later. Where
might seemed right then, so sometimes it seems right now, after all
these years of Christianization.
The settlements are coming fast now. All up and down the Coast, the
people are gathering; the Plymouth Fathers have come; the Scotch are
at Nova Scotia; the Swedes and Dutch are at Delaware and New Jersey;
the French are in Virginia and Louisiana; the English are in New
England; the Spanish have killed all the Huguenots and are in Florida.
Then there is the conscientious William Penn, Quakerlike, out among
the Indians buying their lands, and we are saying to him "why buy,
when you can take all without asking?" And there is Daniel Boone, the
native-born American explorer, hero of every boy and girl, who has
made his way through the wilderness and with an axe blazed his way, as
later he marked his path by rocks and mounds of earth, all the way to
the Mississippi River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account