THE I 1FLUE CE OF RENCH I . IGRATIO 0 THE POLITICAL :. ~. TQ , \Y QP .T E . ITED STATES. - ,. : , .: . .. .. ,, . Oe'!ree Grant [ Th BY ELIZABETH H. AVERY. PREFATORY NOTE. HE inve tigation of which the re ult ar herewith pre­ ented ·wa be<>'un with the thou<>' ht of pr paring a pap r for th eminary of American Hi tory in the Univer ity of Minn ota. A very brief . urvey ufficed to show that h r wa. a. field, practically unwork d, inten ly fa cinatin<>', and of no mall importance. The tudy wa ther fore continued and th paper wa expand d to the pre ent limits. t no stage of the r ear ·h, have I con ciou ly labor d to tabli h a pr -con iv d th ory. Indeed, in th main, the r - , ull r ach d ar far oth r than I hould hav anticipat d. Tho conclu. ion of a firt effort in a new field ar n ce. arily somewhat t ntativ , and I hall be quite ati fied if the r ult of thi tudy hall lead other , bett r quipp d, to continu the inv tigation, wh th r th final r ul aO'r e with tho here r ached or not. INTRODUCTIO . The formerly accepted theory that American institution are almost exclu iYely of Anglo-Saxon origin, ha of late b en vig­ orously attacked. In particular, larg claim to a share in the hon<W of building the American nation have been a erted on br-' lf of the Dutch. 1 Whataver the final judgment of ober historical criticism on such claim may be, it i evident that much is to be gained by careful study of the influence of other than Engli h-speaking people on the origin and development of our institutions. Such a study in regard to the early French ettlers will be attempted in thi paper. At the outset we are confronted by the fact that, in the main, the e settlers fall into two group : the French Prote-tant , mo tly refug from per ecution at home, who came to th At­ lantic colonie ; and the French Catholic . who, cominO' for purpose of traffic or ent by a paternal 0'0\'ernment, founded settlement in the "old orthwe t"' and the Mi i ' ippi vall y. For clearne of treatment. it eem be t to tudy parately the effect of the e two stream of immigration, and then to compare their influence. 'Especiall y in nougla~ arnphcll"s worl<, "Th Pn ritan in England. H olland. anii .\ mcric·i." ,V. E. Trittl,. ah:>. a.; · rt' Lhac w' ·borrowed from the Xeth<'rland-., ·'in i.rerm or directly,·• ciirhteen featur e ~ of our gcJ\-ernnwnt. Among them are the ~eparation of church and state, fr e­ dom of the press. freedom of relig-ion. the upreme court. the common 'iChoul 8y ·tem, etc. 'ee Xational .Jlagazin . vol. XV., p. 603. I. HUGUENOTS. I. HUGUENOT SETTLEMENTS. 1'hUGUENOT immigration to this country began at a very HJ early p riod. It would, however, be quite beside my present purpo e to relate the story of the ill-fated colonies sent out by Coligny, or even to give in detail the ac­ counts of more successful undertaking in later years. I shall attempt only a brief summary, in the order of colonies rather than in chronological order, of the settlement made by them in the United States. It appe::i.r that while the Pilgrim tarried in Leyden, :friend­ ly relations sprang up b twe n them and some of the French refugees who were also settled there, for the Mayflower brought among its pa senger certain Huguenot , Philip De­ lanoy and Wm. Molines with his wife, son, and dauahter, 1 the latter of whom has been immortalized by one of her own de­ scendant a the "Puritan maiden Priscilla" Mullin . In 1662, the General Court of Ma ~achu ett granted to John Touton, a phy ician of Rochelle, and other Fr nch Pro­ t stant exp lled on a::icount of their faith, perrui ion to ttle in the col ny. 2 Within the next quarter of a century th e were follow d by quite a larg numb r of their countrymen. Soon after the Revocation of the Edict of Nante , the proprie­ tors of a tract of land in the Nipmuck country invited ome thirty of them thith r and made them a arant of eleven or twelve thou and acre . The villag of Oxford which th y founded fl.ouri bed for a time but wa abandoned in 1704 on ac- 1.T. C. E otten. Original List of Emigrant to America, Introduction, p. XXV .. and C. JV. Baird, Huguenot Emigration to America, I., 15-1 and 15 . All the Moli nes family except the daughter died during the first winter. 'Ma s. Col. Record , vol. IV., part II .. p. 6i. ec al o, Memorial Hist. of Bo too. II., 250, where it i tated that Tout?o came ove_r in 1675 and that the first con iderable com_gany came m 1 6. Cite ~1 . copy of Council Records in the office of Sec. of tate p. 52. 12 count of Indian mas acres, the inhabitants going to Boston and other places. 1 ome forty or fifty families made a settlement, which they ailed Frenchtown, in East Greenwich. Rhode Island, in the autumn of 16 6. Owing to disputes about land titles, these ettler were afterward scattered over the Narragansett country. After the Revolution many of them moved to Ver­ mont, New York, Pennsylvania and thence farther west. 2 In th latter part of the seventeenth and the beginning of the i<>'hteenth c ntury. Connecticut received a small accession of Huguenot who located mo tly in Milford and Hartford. 3 Huguenot ettl ment were made in New York earlier than l wher . Ind ed there i evidence that the fir t white child born in that region. in 1614 or 1615, was of Huguenot parent­ a"' .4 In 1623, a. Dutch hip brought qver nearly thirty Wal­ loon familie , ome of whom settled on Manhattan Island, other n ar the pre ent ite of Philadelphia, and still others at Fort Orana -now Albany. There was considerable desultory miaration before the Revocation and ettlement were formed on both ta.ten I land and Long I land. 5 In 1677, veral families from the Palatinate located west of Rud on and in arateful commemoration of their previous ot r fuge callf\d their village ew Paltz. 6 och 11 , W tch ter o., was ettled in 16 9, the land 1 Danieb. ITi~t. of xford, p. 19; )Ia ~ . m~t. oll. vol. XXII., p. 29; c. \ . Baird dv · !ht or f<'rencb sctller' in )fa<; . from a variety of origi­ nal our e . 'Baird. II., 291, ft.: Potter, Ili tory of Fr nch ettlement· and ettler in l hod hland, pp. 17, l . , and 9. Thi ' little book rontains copie of original oocument' and i ' very valuable for tbe study of thi settle­ m nt. •rrugu no Emigration to America, II., 33u. !I. The authorities seem to be genealogical record '. ·~I morial Ili t. of.·. Y., I., I+!, 14,'5: oil. of Jluguenot Soc. of N. Y., I.. Introd .. p. X. and footnote. Both refer to the Jvnrnal of Labadist \'O ager·, Dank rs and ' luyt r, who e date was about 16i9. 'D . Ri.t. of ••. Y., III., 35; Huguenot Emigration to America l.. liO; oil. of Ilugueuot oc., I.. Iotrod. pp. XIV. and XY. ' Coll. of 'l •ter Hi ·t. oc. vol. I. part I. p. 34. There had been Wal­ loonTi;ettler in that region previously. 'ee Huguenot Coll. I., introd. xn:. The Wal.loon: were people of French extraction living in the re­ gion no~v omprr din the department dn .i: ord and the S. W. provinces of Belgrnm. The ?rot~~tant' amo~g them were practically Iluguenots. e Huguenot Em1grat10n to America, I., H9-151 and Huguenot Coll I Introd X., footnote. ., · 13 having been purchased from Leisler. The settlers were from the city which figures so largely in Huguenot history. 1 Many refugees who went first to the West Indies came thence t') .:-..L'W York.2 Individual families located here and there in New JersPy--a little group of them near Princeton-but the first and probably the only settlement looking to permanence was that on the Hackensack. This was begun in 1677 under the leadership of David Demarest, a native of Picardy, who on coming to Ameri­ ca first joined a Huguenot colony on Staten Island and later wa a prominent citizen of New HarlE>m. The colony pros­ pered, tract after tract of land was added, and before the Revo­ lution it sent emigrant to Western New York, to Adams Co., Penusy lvania, and to Harrod' lation, Kentucky. 3 P rench immigrant came al o to Delaware, to Berk Co, P enn. ylvania, po ibly to Maryland. and in much larger num­ ber to Virginia. 4 ome came to the latter colony as early as 1660, perhap earlier. Bet.ween 1690 and 1700, the arrival amounted in all to "700 or 00 men, women, aud children, who bad fled from France on account of th ir religion." Their principal ettlement wa at Manakintown, about tw nty mil above the fall of the Jam River. From thi place many of them moved to more de irable land on the Tr nt River in North Carolina.