[Sidenote:  Peter Stuyvesant. Higginson, 97.]

62.  Stuyvesant’s Rule.—­Stuyvesant was a hot-tempered, energetic soldier who had lost a leg in the Company’s service.  He ruled New Netherland for a long time, from 1647 to 1664.  And he ruled so sternly that the colonists were glad when the English came and conquered them.  This unpopularity was not entirely Stuyvesant’s fault.  The Dutch West India Company was a failure.  It had no money to spend for the defence of the colonists, and Stuyvesant was obliged to lay heavy taxes on the people.

[Sidenote:  The Swedes on the Delaware. Higginson, 106-108.]

[Sidenote:  Stuyvesant conquers them.]

63.  New Sweden.—­When the French, the English, and the Dutch were founding colonies in America, the Swedes also thought that they might as well have a colony there too.  They had no claim to any land in America.  But Swedish armies were fighting the Dutchmen’s battles in Europe.  So the Swedes sent out a colony to settle on lands claimed by the Dutch.  As long as the European war went on, the Swedes were not interfered with.  But when the European war came to an end, Stuyvesant was told to conquer them.  This he did without much trouble, as he had about as many soldiers as there were Swedish colonists.  In this way New Sweden became a part of New Netherland.

[Sidenote:  Summary.]

[Sidenote:  The Chesapeake Colonies.]

[Sidenote:  The New England Colonies.]

64.  Summary.—­We have seen how the French, the Dutch, the Swedish, and the English colonies were established on the Atlantic seashore and in the St. Lawrence valley.  South of these settlements there was the earlier Spanish colony at St. Augustine.  The Spanish colonists were very few in number, but they gave Spain a claim to Florida.  The Swedish colony had been absorbed by the stronger Dutch colony.  We have also seen how very unlike were the two English groups of colonies.  They were both settled by Englishmen, but there the likeness stops.  For Virginia and Maryland were slave colonies.  They produced large crops of tobacco.  The New England colonists on the other hand were practically all free.  They lived in towns and engaged in all kinds of industries.  In the next hundred years we shall see how the English conquered first the Dutch and then the French; how they planted colonies far to the south of Virginia and in these ways occupied the whole coast north of Florida.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

CHAPTER 4

Sec.Sec. 26, 27.—­a.  Mark on a map all the places mentioned in these sections.

b.  Describe Champlain’s attacks on the Iroquois.

Sec.Sec. 28-30.—­a.  Compare the reasons for the coming of the French and the
Spaniards.

b.  What work did the Jesuits do for the Indians?