William Strachey (1609-1618).

Another interesting chronicle of this perilous time was written in the summer of 1610 by a gentleman recently arrived at Jamestown after a stormy and eventful voyage. This vivid narrative, called “A true Repertory of the wrack and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, knight, upon and from the islands of the Bermudas, his coming to Virginia, and the estate of that colony”, was written by William Strachey, of whose personality little is known. The tremendous picture of shipwreck and disaster is presented in a masterly style.

Other narratives were written and other chronicles compiled by industrious Jamestown settlers; but their chronicles and reports were largely official documents prepared for the guidance and for the general enlightenment of Englishmen at home. Nowhere among them do we find the ring of that resounding style which makes literature of Strachey's prose.

George Sandys (1578-1644).

George Sandys was recognized as a poet of considerable rank -- author of an excellent metrical translation of the first five books of Ovid. After four years of strenuous life in the new America, Sandys went home to England with his translation of the “Metamorphoses” completed, and in 1626 presented his finished work to the king. It was a notable poem, who was accepted by contemporaries, and afterward elicited the admiration of Dryden and of Pope. Thus came the first expression of the poetic art in the New World -- "the first utterance of the conscious literary spirit, articulated in America."

We record with interest these few literary appearances in the annals of our early history, but we can in no sense claim these writers as representatives of native American literature. Smith, Strachey, and Sandys were Englishmen temporarily interested in a great scheme of colonization. After brief sojourn in the colony, they returned to England. They were not colonists; they were travelers; and while their compositions have a peculiar interest, and are not without significance for us, they cannot be accounted American works.

Of original literary accomplishment, there was little or no thought until well on in the eighteenth century. Two or three vigorous pamphlets, published in England not long after 1650, are interesting as voicing the first decided utterances of a genuine American spirit in the southern settlements. John Hammond, a resident in the newer colony of Maryland, visiting his old home in 1656, became homesick for the one he had left in America. His little work, entitled “Leach and Rachel” ("the two fruitful sisters, Virginia and Maryland"), was written with a purpose to show what boundless opportunity was afforded in these two colonies to those who in England had no opportunity at all.

PILGRIMS AND PURITANS IN NEW ENGLAND. HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITERS: WILLIAM BRADFORD, JOHN WINTHROP, FRANCIS HIGGINSON, WILLIAM WOOD.

The earliest literary efforts among the New England colonists -- like the beginnings in Virginia -- were historical land narrative writings, some in the form of journals, a few, more ambitious, representing real attempts at formal history.

William Bradford (1590-1657).

William Bradford is a one for whom the title Father of American history may well be claimed. He felt the immense significance of what was then taking place, and sought to provide a record which should preserve a faithful picture of the settlement. No sooner had the Mayflower sighted land, than Bradford began conjointly with Edward Winslow to keep a journal of all occurrences. This journal was carefully continued to the end of the first year. Ten years after the arrival, Governor Bradford began his notable “History of the Plymouth Plantation”, on which he labored for twenty years. His purpose, as he avowed, was to write "in a plain style, with singular regard unto the simple truth in all things." His story goes back to the persecutions in England and details the causes of the flight into Holland; describes the sojourn there, and explains the reasons for the second exodus to the shores of the New World. What follows consists of a contemporaneous narrative of the experiences of the colony, set down in simple chronicle without much regard to proportion or unity; but the unmistakable touch of his own homely, honest personality and the vigor of his blunt, realistic style impart a distinct literary flavor to this primitive history of Plymouth, which adds to its obvious value as the first detailed report of the New England settlements.

In 1855, this valuable document was discovered in the library of the Bishop of London, was copied, and published in this country; and in 1897, the original itself was restored to America. It is kept in the Massachusetts State Library.