New England colonists were surrounded by foreigners.  There were the French on the north and the east, and the Dutch on the west.  The Indians, too, were living in their midst and might at any time turn on the whites and kill them.  Thinking all these things over, the four leading colonies decided to join together for protection.  They formed the New England Confederation, and drew up a constitution.  The colonists living in Rhode Island and in Maine did not belong to the Confederation, but they enjoyed many of the benefits flowing from it; for it was quite certain that the Indians and the French and the Dutch would think twice before attacking any of the New England settlements.

[Illustration:  A CHILD’S HIGH CHAIR, ABOUT 1650.]

[Sidenote:  Education.]

56.  Social Conditions.—­The New England colonies were all settled on the town system, for there were no industries which demanded large plantations—­as tobacco-planting.  The New Englanders were small farmers, mechanics, ship-builders, and fishermen.  There were few servants in New England and almost no negro slaves.  Most of the laborers were free men and worked for wages as laborers now do.  Above all, the New Englanders were very zealous in the matter of education.  Harvard College was founded in 1636.  A few years later a law was passed compelling every town to provide schools for all the children in the town.

CHAPTER 7

NEW NETHERLAND AND NEW SWEDEN

[Sidenote:  The Dutch East India Company.]

57.  The Dutch.—­At this time the Dutch were the greatest traders and shipowners in the world.  They were especially interested in the commerce of the East Indies.  Indeed, the Dutch India Company was the most successful trading company in existence.  The way to the East Indies lay through seas carefully guarded by the Portuguese, so the Dutch India Company hired Henry Hudson, an English sailor, to search for a new route to India.

[Sidenote:  Henry Hudson.]

[Sidenote:  He discovers Hudson’s River, 1609. Higginson, 88-90; Explorers, 281-296.]

[Sidenote:  His death. Explorers 296-302.]

58.  Hudson’s Voyage, 1609.—­He set forth in 1609 in the Half-Moon, a stanch little ship.  At first he sailed northward, but ice soon blocked his way.  He then sailed southwestward to find a strait, which was said to lead through America, north of Chesapeake Bay.  On August 3, 1609, he reached the entrance of what is now New York harbor.  Soon the Half-Moon entered the mouth of the river that still bears her captain’s name.  Up, up the river she sailed, until finally she came to anchor near the present site of Albany.  The ship’s boats sailed even farther north.  Everywhere the country was delightful.  The Iroquois came off to the ship in their canoes.  Hudson received them most kindly—­quite unlike the way Champlain treated other Iroquois Indians at about the same time, on the shore of Lake Champlain (p. 20).  Then Hudson sailed down the river again and back to Europe.  He made one later voyage to America, this time under the English flag.  He was turned adrift by his men in Hudson’s Bay, and perished in the cold and ice.