England in America, 1580-1652 eBook

Lyon Gardiner Tyler
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 289 pages of information about England in America, 1580-1652.

England in America, 1580-1652 eBook

Lyon Gardiner Tyler
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 289 pages of information about England in America, 1580-1652.

The only official collection of documentary materials that covers the entire period is the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574-1696 (9 vols., 1860-1903).  George Sainsbury, the editor, was a master at catching the salient points of a manuscript.  Many of his abstracts have elsewhere been published in full.

The principal private collectors are E. Hazard, State Papers (2 vols., 1792-1794); Peter Force, Tracts (4 vols., 1836-1846); Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States (2 vols., 1891); Albert Bushnell Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries (4 vols., 1898-1902); Maryland Historical Society, Archives of Maryland; and the series called Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, edited by John Romeyn Brodhead.  Two convenient volumes embodying many early writings are Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature, I. (1888); Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature During the Colonial Time, 1607-1676, I. (1897).

VIRGINIA

The standard authorities for the history of Virginia are Robert Beverley, History of Virginia (1722) (extends to Spotswood’s administration); William Stith, History of Virginia (1747) (period of the London Company); John D. Burk, History of Virginia (4 vols., 1805); R.R.  Howison, History of Virginia (2 vols., 1846); Charles Campbell, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia (1847); and Jonn Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors (1900).  For the period Stith is by far the most important.  His work covers the duration of the London Company, and as he had access to manuscripts now destroyed the history has the value of an original document.  As president of William and Mary College Stith was an accomplished scholar, and his work, pervaded with a broad, philosophic spirit, ranks perhaps first among colonial histories.  As a mere collection of facts upon the whole colonial history of Virginia Campbell’s work is the most useful.  The greatest collection of original material bearing upon the first ten years of the colony’s history is in Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States (2 vols., 1890).  This remarkable work contains an introductory sketch of what has been done by Englishmen prior to 1606 in the way of discovery and colonization, and a catalogue of charters, letters, and pamphlets (many of them republished at length) through which the events attending the first foundation of an English colony in the New World are developed in order of time.  Dr. Brown’s other works, The First Republic in America (1898), and English Politics in America (1901) make excellent companion pieces to the Genesis, though the author has made a great mistake in not supporting his text with foot-notes and references.

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England in America, 1580-1652 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.