The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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world.
When the crusaders marched to the Holy Land to rescue Jerusalem, and the holy sepulchers from the Saracens, they wore caps made from cat-skins. The French word for cat is chat, and for skins peau, and so they called a cap a chapeau. Somewhere in the East they learned the art of making felt.
When the fishermen of Brittany built their huts upon the shores of Newfoundland and Cape Breton, they saw the beavers constructing their dams along the streams, felling trees, gnawing them into logs, floating the timber in the current, placing the logs in proper position, piling stones upon them, interweaving them with sticks, stopping the crevices with grass, plastering the structure with mud, curving the dam against the current to give it strength, and building their mud-houses in the ponds of still water thus created.
Quite likely the hatters of France had already discovered that furs could be felted; but when the fishermen of Brittany carried home some skins of the beaver, they saw that hats manufactured from its fur would be far more beautiful than those felted from wool: there was soon a great demand for them; and not only the beaver, but other furs — the sable, fox, and marten — were wanted. To supply the ever-increasing demand, companies were organized in France, England, and Holland, with charters to carry on the fur trade; with power to hold lands, make settlements, and establish governments.
This desire to obtain furs became a mighty force. Emigrants bade farewell to friends, home, and the dear old things of the past, crossed the ocean, and reared their log-huts in the forest.
The demand for furs gave a new stimulus to the Indian tribes on the northern half of the continent. The knives, tinkling bells, and shining bits of tin, the glass beads, gunpowder, and rum, which the white men gave in exchange for furs, awakened desires all unknown before.
Canada was settled by emigrants from France, through this demand for furs, planting on the St. Lawrence the religion of Rome and the ideas of the Feudal age, that allowed the people no rights, nor any voice in government. The same desire to obtain furs led the Dutch to New York, to lay the foundations of a State and of a city which time has made the metropolis of the Western World.
Among the plants which Christopher Columbus beheld on the morning of October 12th, 1492, was one with broad, green lanceolate leaves, and rose-colored flowers, native not only to San Salvador and the West Indies, but growing in luxuriance in the soil of Virginia. Columbus saw the Indians roll up a dry leaf of the plant, light one end, and inhale the smoke at the other. They called it tobacco, and used it not only for pleasure, but believed that the odor was a fragrance that gave delight to the Great Spirit. Whenever they made a treaty, or transacted important business affecting them as a tribe, they smoked a pipe, making the act an oath of confirmation.
The Spaniards learned to smoke, and the French, who visited the North American shores, acquired the habit. Jules Nicot carried some of the dried leaves to France, and the plant became known to botanists as Nicot’s plant, or Nicotiana tabacum. Its introduction to France was about the year 1560, and it was soon in great demand. People not only smoked it but chewed it, and ground it into dust and snuffed it.
Ralph Lane carried some tobacco to London, in 1586, where it was used first as a medicine, but soon became a luxury, and was made fashionable by Sir Walter Raleigh. He and his friends often met at the Pied Bull tavern to smoke their pipes. King James I. hated tobacco, and wrote a book against its use. Pope Urban VIII., and Innocent XI. issued bulls against smoking. The priests of the Mohammedan religion cried out against it, and the sultan, Amuret IV., cut off the noses of those who used it. Vain the prohibition! The love for tobacco increased. All nations acquired the habit of smoking. The first settlers of Virginia grew rich through the cultivation of the plant. It became their exclusive occupation. The colony was founded upon it. Laws, customs, habits, social relations, the progress of the state, all were affected by it. Tobacco became the currency of the colony; all values were reckoned by it. Far-reaching has been its influence.
Through all past ages the strong have enslaved the weak. Prisoners taken in war were held as slaves. Barbaric people were reduced to bondage by those more civilized.
When Christopher Columbus landed on San Salvador and Cuba he was kindly treated by the Indians; but the men of Spain were cruel and enslaved them, compelling them to work in mines and in the cultivation of the sugar-cane. They gave them hard tasks, with little to eat; cut off their ears, noses, hands and feet upon the slightest provocation. Under such cruel treatment the Indians died in great numbers, and, to supply their places, expeditions were made to Mexico and South America. Vasquez D’ Allyon visited South Carolina in 1520 to obtain slaves, enticing the confiding Indians on board his ship, and carrying them to Cuba. The Indians were feeble, but the negroes of Africa were strong; and Bishop Las Casas, of Chiopia, in Mexico, who was a friend to the Indians, petitioned the emperor, Charles V., to permit the enslavement of negroes in Africa, instead of allowing the slavers to rob him of his flock. The emperor gave his consent, and the enslavement of negroes began.
Captain John Hawkins, of England, visited the West Indies, and the thought came to him that he might make it profitable to bring slaves from Africa. He returned to England, laid his plan before Sir Lionel Duchet, Sir Thomas Dodge, Mr. Gunnison, Mr. Winter, Mr. Bromfield, and other gentlemen, who joined in fitting out the ships Solomon, Swallow, and Jonas. Sir John sailed in December, 1562, to Tenerife, and from there to Sierra Leone, in Africa, where three hundred negroes were captured or purchased from the chiefs, taken to Cuba and sold. Captain Hawkins returned to England with a great quantity of gold, besides a cargo of hides, sugar, and ginger. It was so profitable a trade that the following year he sailed with four ships, and captured five hundred negroes. It is not probable that Captain Hawkins or any one else connected with the enterprise thought for a moment that it was wrong. They believed that they were God’s elect servants. The ships were becalmed in mid-ocean, and their water was running low; but Hawkins trusted in God to bring him and his cargo safe to Cuba. He wrote this in his journal: “For the space of eighteen days we were becalmed, which put us in such fear that many of our men despaired of reaching the Indies, but the Almighty God, who never suffers his elect to perish, sent us, on the 16th of February, the ordinary breeze, which never left us until we came to the Islands of Cannibals, called Dominica.”
In 1619 a Dutch vessel sailed up the James River with negroes stolen from Africa. They were sold to the settlers of Virginia, who were gathering rich harvests of tobacco. Little did the captain of that ship think what would be the outcome of that cargo of slaves — the misery, suffering, anguish, woe, and horrors; the death of myriads of human beings in the terrible passage across the sea, crowded into hot and stifling holds, panting for breath, dying of fever, thirst, hunger, confinement, homesickness; and when the terrific typhoons came on, to lighten the ship, the living and dead cast overboard to a multitude of ravenous sharks, ever following in the wake of the vessel, looking upward with hungry eyes for their expected prey!
The great artist, Turner, has pictured the horrible scene:
“Aloft, all hands! Strike the top-masts and belay!
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhoon’s coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying. Ne’er heed their chains.
Hope I hope! fallacious hope!
Where is thy market now?”
Little did Sir John Hawkins, or anybody else have any conception of what would one day be written upon the historic page of our country — the desolation of a great civil war, death upon the battle-field and in prison of half a million of men! We, even, do not comprehend what is to be the ultimate result of that sale of sixteen slaves. What part are the four millions of the African race to take in the future of our country? What will they yet do for Africa? Who knows but that they will be the means of canning a Christian civilization and Republican institutions to the continent where they had their origin?
In the “Story of Liberty” is an account of Ignatius Loyola, who founded the society of the Jesuits. He inspired others with his own lofty zeal. The members of the society went forth to convert the world, to thread the jungles of India, traverse the deserts of Africa and the steppes of Asia; uphold the Cross on the banks