American History told by
Contemporaries

PART I

PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION

FOR TEACHERS, PUPILS, STUDENTS, AND LIBRARIES

CHAPTER I-THE SOURCES AND HOW TO FIND THEM

IN

1. What are Sources?

N the current discussions on the teaching and study of history, one of the most frequent expressions is "the sources," or "original material." What do these words mean? As history is an account of the past actions of men, every historical statement must go back to the memory of those who saw the events, or to some record made at the time. Tradition is the handing down of memories from one person to another; indeed, one of the most famous of American sources, the Norse Sagas on the discovery of America, was thus transmitted for three centuries before it was finally put into writing. Such transmissions are likely to get away from the first form as years go on, and may change into legends, such as have already formed around Washington's life. A more trustworthy form of transmitting earlier memories is by autobiography, or by reminiscence written out in later life; but narratives set down long after the events are apt to become twisted by the lapse of the years between the event and the making of the record, and thus their chief value is to reproduce the spirit of the times. In preparing this volume such works have been sparingly used. Graydon's Memoirs

(No. 170) and Heath's Memoirs (No. 218) are examples of such books.

Much more important are the records and memoranda made at or very near the time of the event. Sometimes silent monuments may be all that is left the British earthworks at Saratoga are still a memorial of Burgoyne's campaign; and the house of General Gage at Danvers, Massachusetts, still stands to tell us that its occupant was a man of taste and substance.

Laws, proclamations, and other public documents are sources of great value, because they not only describe, but constitute the event: they bear the signatures, the affixing of which gives them validity; they are drawn up even before the event takes place. Examples are the royal order creating the Board of Trade (No. 46), and the veto message of Governor Morris (No. 65).

Of greater literary interest are the narratives of explorers, travellers, and visitors, in which American history is rich: an instance is Peter Kalm's travels (No. 112). As travellers have, however, often too lively a sense of the importance of their own impressions, a more valuable kind of source is the contemporary journal, written from day to day during the events described. When made by men who were the helmsmen of a commonwealth, like John Adams (Nos. 24, 79, 153, 189), they have the highest historical credit; for they are forged fresh from the mint, and reveal what even the official records may conceal. Even when written without any expectation of publication, they furnish valuable evidence: no better example can be found than the diary of Stephen Williams (No. 160) or that of William Pynchon (No. 208).

The letters of public men, or even of private men, have the same double value of a tale unvarnished and written at the moment; and they also reveal the writer's character. Such are the familiar letters of King George III (Nos. 158, 215). More elaborate are the arguments or controversial pamphlets intended for circulation at the time, such as John Dickinson's Farmer's Letters (No. 149) and Tom Paine's Common Sense (No. 186); but such sources are often warped by party feeling. Narratives composed immediately after events have passed, like Madison's review of the southern campaign (No. 211), have the value of careful, considerate composition while the facts are fresh.

Historical sources, then, are nothing less or more than records made at or near the time of the events, by men who took part in them, and who are therefore qualified to speak.

2. Educative Value of Sources

IKE other literature, the office of history is to record, to instruct,

student or reader, for it deals with stirring events, with human character, and with the welfare of the race; hence, if well narrated, there is in this subject something to arouse the minds of young and old, and to develop them when aroused. The training element of history as a school subject has been discussed in many places: a list of references to such discussions appears in Channing and Hart's Guide to the Study of American History, § 15. The value of sources, as a part of that study, has long been in the minds of the scholars and antiquarians who have painfully preserved and reprinted the old narratives, and it begins to be appreciated by the reading and teaching public. The most authoritative suggestions on the study of history in schools lay stress on the use of such material.

Sources are indeed the basis of history; but not mere raw material, like the herbaria of the botanist or the chemicals of a laboratory, stuffs to be destroyed in discovering their nature. As utterances of men living when they were made, sources have in them the breath of human life history is the biology of human conduct. No historical question can be settled without an appeal to the sources, or without taking into account the character of the actors in history.

Nobody remembers all the history he reads; the bold and striking events seize hold of the mind, and around them we associate the less notable incidents. A source, however, fixes such a bold and striking event in its most durable form. Volumes about the Indians will not tell us so much that we shall remember as Adair's or Carver's personal experiences (Nos. 113, 116).

Hence the instructing power of history depends in considerable part on the sources. They do not tell all their own story; they need to be arranged and set in order by the historian, who on the solid piers of their assurances spans his continuous bridge of narrative. But there are two sides to history: the outward events in their succession, with which secondary historians alone can deal; and the inner spirit, which is revealed only by the sources. If we could not know both things, it would be better to know how Zenger was tried for criticising government (No. 72), than what had been the history of freedom of the press in the

colonies up to that time. The sources, therefore, throw an inner light on events: secondary writers may go over them, collate them, compare them, sometimes supplement them, but can never supersede them.

As for entertainment, the narratives of American discovery are the Arabian Nights of history for their marvels and adventures. The tale of the founding of Louisiana (No. 109) is a classic of romantic literature. Other pieces please by their quaintness, such as Gabriel Thomas's glowing description of Pennsylvania (No. 25), or Bolzius's simple account of the Salzburgers in Georgia (No. 40). Others of these selections are mile-stones in the growth of a national literature, stretching all the way from Cotton Mather's verbose style (No. 92) or Dummer's rugged Defence of the New-England Charters (No. 48), through Franklin's Autobiography (No. 81), to Francis Hopkinson's humor (No. 96) and Jefferson's full pipe-organ of splendid sentences (No. 188). As an account of the planting of a civilization in the wilderness, of the growth. of free government, of a power to discuss great political questions with force, the sources of American history are a contribution to the world's literature.

3. Classification of Sources on the Colonies and the Revolution

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SSUMING that the use of sources needs no further argument, the next important question is, What sort of material is available on the colonial and revolutionary periods? For convenience of reference the pieces in this volume may be classified into a few general categories, as follows:

The most important unwritten records stand along the sea-coast. These consist of old forts, such as the battery at Cambridge, Massachusetts, or the earthworks at Yorktown; of public buildings, of which many date from the seventeenth century, as the State House at Newport, Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia, and the Court House at Hillsboro; of churches, as the Old South in Boston, St. Michael's in Charleston, and the old Swedes' Church (1700) in Philadelphia; and of dwelling-houses, such as the Wayside Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts, the Bond house at Edenton, North Carolina, the Byrd mansion at Westover, near Richmond, the Chew house at Germantown, and Mount Vernon. Such remains may be used by visiting them, or by showing photographs of them. In several

parts of the country, as in the National Museum at Washington, the Field Museum at Chicago, and the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, there are collections of the implements and arts of the aborigines of North and South America.

Manuscript records ordinarily appeal only to the investigator, for whose benefit are the suggestions in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, VIII, 413 et seq., and in Channing and Hart, Guide to American History, § 35. Two classes of written records may, however, sometimes be used by beginners, — family papers and local records. From the unpublished town records of Brookline, Massachusetts, for example, pupils in the high schools have drawn some interesting material. It is worth while to make pupils acquainted with the handwriting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many facsimiles of which are found in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, and in many other places. The letter of Alexander Scammell (No. 162) is a striking example of valuable unpublished materials which are still to be found among family papers. The Historical Manuscripts Commission, created in 1895 by the American Historical Association, is bringing to light unsuspected treasures of this kind, which will be found in the Reports of that Commission, beginning with that for 1897.

In this volume much use has been made of the official public records of various kinds, because they contain the most apt illustrations of the workings of colonial government, and because in the time of the Revolution public bodies became the spokesmen of the communities in their new relations. The votes and proceedings of the revolutionary period are livelier and more characteristic than is usually the case in such material, as may be seen in the town-meeting vote of 1765 (No. 140).

Public records have been printed in elaborate collections for all the thirteen colonies. Sets of the charters are printed in Ben. Perley Poore, Federal and State Constitutions; in H. W. Preston, Documents illustrative of American History; in many numbers of the American History Leaflets and Old South Leaflets; and in other collections. Lists of these collections and of the printed colonial laws, with exact titles, may be found below (No. 6) and in Channing and Hart, Guide to American History, § 29.

Hardly any state has made up a full set of its own statutes; the best collections are Hening's Statutes for Virginia and various editions of Massachusetts laws. In many of the histories of separate colonies or states are appendices of select statutes.