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THE HISTORY OF THE

UNITED STATES

BOOK I. THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD

BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES

C. K. ADAMS, G. BANCROFT, H. H. BANCROFT, J. S. BARRY, W. BRADFORD,
G. CHALMERS, S. DE CHAMPLAIN, P. F. X. CHARLEVOIX, CODEX
FLATEYENSIS, F. V. DE CORONADO, H. M. DEXTER, E. EGGLESTON,
EYRBRIGGIA SAGA, J. FISKE, F. L. GOMARA, R. HAKLUYT, R. HAMOR,
H. HARRISSE, R. HILDRETH, A. HOLMES, W. IRVING, B. LAS CASAS,
H. C. LODGE, R. H. MAJOR, MOURT'S RELATION,

M. F. DE NAVARRETE, J. G. PALFREY, F. PARKMAN, T. ROOSEVELT, J. G. SHEA,
JOHN SMITH, R. G. THWAITES, G. DA VERRAZANO, J. WINSOR

WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM

C. C. ABBOTT, ADAM OF BREMEN, H. ADAMS, A. ALLEGRETTI, ARI, F. BACON,
R. BAILLIE, A. F. BANDELIER, A. G. BARCIA, A. BARLOWE, J. DE BARROS,
B. S. BARTON, N. L. BEAMISH, G. BENZONI, A. BERNALDEZ, G. BESTE,
R. BIDDLE, W. T. BRANTLY, R. A. BROCK, A. BROWN, J. D. BUTLER,
A. N. CABEZA de VACA, N. LE CHALLEUS, LORD CLARENDON, J. V. H. CLARK,
C. CLEMENTE, D. W. CLINTON, C. COLDEN, F. COLON, J. E. COOKE,
R. CRONAU, D. CUSICK, W. H. H. DAVIS, C. DEANE, DE GUIGNES,
F. B. DEXTER, W. DOUGLASS, R. EDEN, J. FROST, T. FULLER,
A. GALLATIN, A. GALVANO, S. H. GAY, S. G. GOODRICH, F. GORGES,

GREENHALGH, T. HARRIOT, W. H. HARRISON, B. HAWKINS, W. H. HAYNES,
J. G. E. HECKEWELDER, W. H. HENING, W. W. HENRY, H. H. HOWORTH,
J. HUNTER, T. JEFFERSON, LACTANTIUS, BARON LA HONTAN,
R. LANE, R. LAUDONNIÈRE, P. LE JEUNE, C. G. LELAND, J. LEMOYNE
DE MORGUES, F. LIEBER, G. H. LOSKIEL, J. McSHERRY, C. MALTE-BRUN,
G. MAREST, P. MARTYR, C. MATHER, P. MENENDEZ, MERCIER,
L. H. MORGAN, N. MORTON, H. C. MURPHY, E. D. NEILL,
K. F. NEUMANN, G. F. DE OVIEDO Y VALDES, E. PAGETT, C. H. DE PARAVEY,
J. PINKERTON, PLINY, L. B. PRINCE, T. PRINCE, S. PURCHAS, C. C. RAFN,
G. B. RAMUSIO, S. RASLES, H. R. SCHOOLCRAFT, D. SETTLE, J. T. SHORT,
J. H. SIMPSON, B. SMITH, JAS. SMITH, E. G. SQUIER, W. STRACHEY, G. SUMNER,
TORFÆUS, F. A. DE VARNHAGEN, D. VASCONCELLOS, E. P. VINING,
M. WALDSEEMÜLLER, A. WHITAKER, E. M. WINGFIELD, E. WINSLOW

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If the Europeans had never happened upon America, then at some period far later, indeed, yet inevitable- the Americans would have discovered Europe. Perhaps they would have come down from behind the horizon with all the sudden, barbaric pomp and terror that marked the appearance of the Gauls at Rome's gates, of the Tatars in China, of the Huns on the French plain of Chalons, of the Moslems in Granada and round Constantinople, of the Northmen in Sicily, of the Portuguese in India, of the Spanish at the court of Montezuma and in Peru.

These famous lines have been regarded as a prophecy of the discovery of America. Even if so intended, Seneca was not the first, by any means, to dream of land beyond the ocean-river. His verses may be translated: "There will come, after the years have lapsed, cycles wherein Ocean shall loosen the chains of things, and a vast land shall be revealed, and Tiphys shall explore new worlds; nor shall Thule remain ultimate on earth." Tiphys was the helmsman of the Argonauts, whom some writers credited with exploring the northern Atlantic. Seneca died in 65 A.D.; by a curious coincidence he was born in the Spain that gave Columbus the means to immortalise these very lines, which, indeed, Columbus was fond of quoting. The son of the admiral wrote on the margin of his copy of Seneca. "This prophecy was fulfilled by my father, Christopher Columbus, admiral, in the year 1492. (Hæc prophetia expleta è per patré meum Cristoforu Colo almirante anno 1492.")

[-985 A.D.] We are too prone to think of history as revolving round a European hub. We think of America as coming into view only with Columbus. We minimise all previous explorations in the light of the legend Columbus has become to us. Then we minimise the importance of Columbus himself because, after all, the nation whose agent he was made no lasting impression upon the civilisation of America north of Mexico.

Even physical geography suffers from this egoism which makes ourselves, our lineage, and our conditions the central point of the universe and all history. Though we may not give the fallacy voice or serious acceptance, it yet is part of our mental attitude. We almost dream of the great continent of the new world languishing impatiently, dully vegetating until the present white peoples appeared there in the proxy of their forefathers. Merely to bring such a false thought to the light is to destroy it. To destroy it is to open and enlarge the mind to the larger view of history, to the conception of it as founded far down in geology. With new eyes we can follow the growth of the earth through the long slow patiences or the enormous catastrophes of the world-energy. Without knowing just when or whence, just how or why, we can imagine the gradual appearance of the first men upon the continent, their timid explorations, their groping after the simplest ideas, the most brutish comforts, the most pitiful delights, the most puerile dignities.

PREHISTORIC CONDITIONS

It was long the fashion to think of the "Indians" whom Columbus found, as degenerate relics of a noble civilisation. Crude ruins were invested with a meaning and an antiquity that the science of to-day finds ludicrous. The myths of the Mound Builders are the most vivid example. Thousands of these curious artificial hillocks are scattered about the United States. In some of them are found skeletons, bits of pottery, weapons, and utensils of various sort. To these were added various forgeries of inscriptions by those enthusiastic and laborious practical jokers who make the life of the antiquary one of exquisite terror.

Upon a solution of the mysteries of the mounds, scholars of wide learning, deep thoroughness, and complete honesty spent years of research and printed their opinions in hundreds of volumes. An element of imagination is necessary to a constructive scientist, but in American archæology it was given the free reign. Pipes and trinkets made by European traders, bartered to the Indians, and found among their relics were thought to be the ancient vestiges of a civilisation highly advanced in art. The famous ruined tower at Newport was credited to Norse colonists ages before Columbus, because it was said to be of an unknown style of architecture, yet it is spoken of by Governor Arnold, in 1677, as "my stone-built windmill," and as Palfrey shows, an almost exact duplicate of it, probably its original, is found in Chesterton, England.

The notorious Dighton rock, near Berkeley, Massachusetts, was solemnly accepted as a mysterious Phoenician or Norse inscription, though even George Washington smilingly said he recognised its close resemblance to battle accounts or hunt-records which he himself had seen the Indians carving on trees, and Schoolcraft,c on showing a copy of it to an old Indian chief, was told that it was easily translatable save for a few characters. Yet the simplest and nearest-at-hand explanation was, as usual, the last to be tried.

One by one the antiquities of America have thus been brought nearer and nearer modern times. And yet a satisfactory account of the origin of the

[-985 A.D.]

people found by Columbus is still lacking, though theories have not, by any means, been wanting, on which brilliant minds have amused themselves with elaborate futility. They range from the theory that America was peopled from Europe or Asia, to the theory that Europe and Asia were peopled from America; from the doctrine that the Indians were the lost ten tribes of Israel, to the doctrine that the Indians were autocthonous and were gradually reared from lower states of life by evolution; from the hypothesis that man extended his habitat as rapidly as the prehistoric glaciers receded, to the blunt denial that there is any trustworthy evidence of great antiquity in human appearance on American soil. But, after all, the important thing is that America is capable of sustaining and encouraging an industrious civilisation and that its capabilities were finally discovered by the peoples who actually could, would, and did start that civilisation on its way.

While then there is no theory of the prehistoric American on which all archæologists are willing to repose, perhaps the most cautious view and the one most largely and recently accepted would be something as follows: So far as negative proof can decide, it is evident that no race had ever reached a state of high civilisation before the advent of the Europeans. Even the southern races, so romantically described by the Spanish conquistadors, were simply passing from the stone age to the bronze; they did not use beasts of burden and had not mastered the art of writing. They are not to be distinguished from the other Americans as a superior race, but were simply at a more advanced point of the civilisation toward which all the others were trending, as even to-day Boston differs from the backwoods of Arkansas.

ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA

How long had these people been here? Some years ago John T. Short d declared brusquely, "No truly scientific proof of man's great antiquity in America exists." But Dr. C. C. Abbotte found hundreds of undoubtedly palæolithic implements in the glacial drift near Trenton, New Jersey; his proofs were met with a counter-theory that the glacial age was perhaps of later period than had been supposed. As to the relative antiquity of man's appearance in America and in Europe there has been a sharp division of opinion among scholars, and every link in the two chains of proof has been matter of bitter dispute. In the words of H. H. Howorth, "The evidence for the existence of palæolithic man in America has been more fiercely contested even than in Europe, and the problem there is certainly more complicated. In Europe we can test the age of the remains not merely by their actual character, but also by the presence or absence of associated domestic animals. In America this test is absent, for there were virtually no domestic animals save the dog known to the pre-European inhabitants. We are therefore remitted to less direct evidence, namely, the provenance of the remains from beds of distinctly Pleistocene age, the fabric of the remains, and their association with animals, we have reason to believe, become extinct at the termination of that period."

The battle still rages on all the problems of American palæography, and the general reader must perhaps rest content with some such cautious generalisation as that of Henry W. Haynes,9 who thinks it probable that, at least in the valley of the Delaware river, man appeared in the paleolithic stage, developed to the neolithic, and became extinct. "The so-called Indians," he says, with their many divisions into numerous linguistic families, were later comers than the primitive population; the so-called 'mound builders' were

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