GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS

The “Foundation” period, from 1574 to 1652, is naturally one of the most interesting in the annals of the American colonies.  The most important general historians are George Bancroft, History of the United States (rev. ed., 6 vols., 1883-1885); J.A.  Doyle, English Colonies in America (3 vols., 1882-1887); Richard Hildreth, History of the United States (6 vols., 1849-1852); George Chalmers, Political Annals of the American Colonies (1780); Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., 1888-1889); John Fiske, Discovery of America (2 vols., 1892), Old Virginia and Her Neighbors (1900), Beginnings of New England (1898), Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, New France and New England (1902).

Among these writers three have conspicuous merit—­Doyle, Winsor, and Fiske.  Doyle’s volumes manifest a high degree of philosophic perception and are accurate in statement and broad in conclusions.  Of his books the volumes on the Puritan colonies are distinctly of a higher order than his volume on the southern colonies.  The chief merit of Winsor’s work is the critical chapters and parts of narrative chapters, which are invaluable.  John Fiske is not wanting in the qualities of a great historian—­breadth of mind and accuracy of statement; but his great charm is in his style and his power of vivifying events long forgotten.  He has probably come nearer than any one else to writing real history so as to produce a popular effect.

COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES

The main contemporary collectors of materials for the history of the early voyages to America were Richard Eden, Richard Hakluyt, and Samuel Purchas.  Eden’s Decades of the New World or West Indies (7 vols., 1555) consists of abstracts of the works of foreign writers—­Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Gomara, Ramusio, Ziegler, Pigafetta, Munster, Bastaldus, Vespucius, and others.  Richard Hakluyt first published Divers Voyages (1582; reprinted by the Hakluyt Society) and then his Principal Voyages (3 vols., folio, 1589; reissued 1600).  Samuel Purchas’s first volume appeared in 1613 under the title, Purchas:  His Pilgrimage of the World, or Religions Observed in all Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation unto this Present.  The four subsequent volumes were published in 1623 under the title, Hakluytius Posthumous, or, Purchas:  His Pilgrimes.

Among these three compilers Hakluyt enjoys pre-eminence, and the Hakluyt Society has supplemented his labors by publishing in full some of the narratives which Hakluyt, for reasons of accuracy or want of space, abbreviated. The Historie of Travaile into Virginia, by William Strachey, secretary to Lord Delaware, was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1848, and this book contains excellent accounts of the expeditions sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to Roanoke, the voyages of Bartholomew Gosnold and George Weymouth, and the settlement made under its charter by the Plymouth Company at Sagadahoc, or Kennebec.