History of the United States, Volume 1

by Elisha Benjamin Andrews

[Transcriber's Notes]
The HTML and TXT formats discard page boundaries but retain the year
references in square brackets. Thus [1492-1495] indicate the following
text covers this period, until the next such appearance.
Several books on Columbus are available at Gutenberg.org, including "The
Life of Columbus" by Arthur Helps.
A pound sterling in 1600 is worth about 135 pounds or 235 Dollars US in
2006.
Here are some unfamiliar (to me) terms.
camlets
Rich cloth of Asian origin, made of camel's hair and silk and later
made of goat's hair and silk or other combinations. A garment made
from this cloth.
contumacy
Stubborn perverseness or rebelliousness; obstinate resistance to
authority.
druggets
Heavy felted fabric of wool or wool and cotton, used as a floor
covering.
escheated
Reversion of property to the state in the absence of legal heirs or
claimants.
fee simple
An estate of inheritance in land, either absolute and without
limitation to any particular class of heirs (fee simple) or limited to
a particular class of heirs (fee tail).
glebe
Plot of land yielding profit to an English parish church or an
ecclesiastical office.
Pascua Florida
Feast of flowers; Easter.
quit rent
A land tax imposed on freehold or leased land by a landowning
authority, freeing the tenant of a holding from other obligations.
New Style (dates)
Describing dates after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Various
nations adopted the Gregorian calendar between 1582 and 1752.
Old Style (dates)
Describing dates before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
pompion
Pumpkin.
sedulous
Diligent in application or attention; persevering.
settle
Long wooden bench with a high back, often including storage space
beneath the seat.
[End Transcriber's Notes.]
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Columbus
After a Portrait by Herrer.
HISTORY OF
THE UNITED STATES
FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERY OF
AMERICA TO THE PRESENT TIME
BY
E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
FORMERLY PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY
With 650 Illustrations and Maps
VOLUME I.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
Notwithstanding the number of United States histories already in
existence, and the excellence of many of them, I venture to think that
no apology is needed for bringing forward another.
1. The work now presented to the public is believed to utilize, more
than any of its predecessors, the many valuable researches of recent
years into the rich archives of this and other nations.
2. Most of the briefer treatments of the subject are manuals, intended
for pupils in schools, the conspicuous articulation so necessary for
this purpose greatly lessening their interest for the general reader.
The following narrative will be found continuous as well as of moderate
compass.
3. I have sought to make more prominent than popular histories have
usually done, at the same time the political evolution of our country on
the one hand, and the social culture, habits, and life of the people on
the other.
4. The work strives to observe scrupulous proportion in treating the
different parts and phases of our national career, neglecting none and
over-emphasizing none. Also, while pronouncedly national and patriotic,
it is careful to be perfectly fair and kind to the people of all
sections.
5. Effort has been made to present the matter in the most natural
periods and divisions, and to give such a title to each of these as to
render the table of contents a truthful and instructive epitome of our
national past.
6. With the same aim the Fore-history is exhibited in sharp separation
from the United States history proper, calling due attention to what is
too commonly missed, the truly epochal character of the adoption of our
present Constitution, in 1789.
7. Copious illustration has been employed, with diligent study to make
it for every reader in the highest degree an instrument of instruction,
delight, and cultivation in art.
8. No pains has been spared to secure perfect accuracy in all references
to dates, persons, and places, so that the volumes may be used with
confidence as a work of reference. I am persuaded that much success in
this has been attained, despite the uncertainty still attaching to many
matters of this sort in United States history, especially to dates.
BROWN UNIVERSITY, September 15. 1894.
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
The last edition of President Andrews's History was issued in 1905, in
five volumes, and brought the narrative down to the inauguration of
President Roosevelt in March of that year. In preparing the extension of
the work by the addition of a sixth volume, entrusted to the competent
hands of Professor James Alton James of Northwestern University, it has
been thought desirable to begin this final volume with the chapters
entitled "The Rise of Roosevelt" and "Mr. Roosevelt's Presidency." This
has involved some expansion and revision of these chapters as well as
the continuance of the History from 1905 to the present time. The
Appendices, which include public documents of fundamental importance and
the significant results in various fields of the Census of 1910, are an
additional feature of the new edition.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS
Age and Origin of Man in America.
Primordial Americans unlike Present Asiatics.
Resemblances between their Various Branches.
Two Great Types.
The Mound-builders' Age.
Design of the Mounds.
Different
Forms.
Towns and Cities.
Proofs of Culture.
Arts.
Fate of the
Mound-builders.
The Indians.
Their Number.
Degree of
Civilization.
Power of Endurance.
Religion.
The Various
Nations.
Original Brute Inhabitants of North America.
Plants, Fruits, and Trees.
Indian Agriculture.
Part First
THE FORE-HISTORY
PERIOD I
DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT
1492-1660
CHAPTER 1. COLUMBUS.
Bretons and Normans in the New World.
The Northmen Question.
Marco
Polo's Travels.
His Pictures of Eastern Asia.
Influence on
Columbus.
Early Life of Columbus.
His Cruises and Studies.
Asia to be Reached by Sailing West.
Appeals for Aid.
Rebuffs.
Success.
Sails from Palos.
The Voyage.
America Discovered.
Columbus's Later Voyages and Discoveries.
Illusion Respecting the New Land.
Amerigo Vespucci.
Rise of the Name "America."
CHAPTER II. EARLY SPANISH AMERICA.
Portugal and Spain Divide the Newly Discovered World.
Spain gets most of America.
Voyage of de Solis.
Balboa Discovers the Pacific.
Ponce de Leon on the Florida Coast.
Explorations by Grijalva.
Cortez Invades Mexico.
Subjugates the Country.
De Ayllon's Cruise.
Magellan Circumnavigates the Globe.
Narvaez's Expedition into Florida.
Its Sad Fate.
De Soto.
His March.
Hardships.
Discovers the Mississippi.
His Death.
End of his Expedition.
French Settlement in Florida.
St. Augustine.
French-Spanish Hostilities.
Reasons for Spain's Failure to Colonize far North.
Her Treatment of the Natives.
Tyranny over her own
Colonies.
CHAPTER III. EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION BY THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH
Verrazano.
"New France."
Cartier Discovers St. Lawrence Gulf and River.
Second Voyage.-Montreal.-Third.-De Monts.
Champlain.
Founds Quebec.
Westward Explorations.
John Cabot, Discoverer of the North American Main.
Frobisher.
Tries for a Northwest Passage.
Second Expedition for Gold.
Third.
Eskimo Tradition of Frobisher's Visits.
Drake Sails round the World.
Cavendish Follows.
Raleigh's Scheme.
Colony at Roanoke Island.
"Virginia."
Second Colony.
Its Fate.
CHAPTER IV. THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA
The Old Virginia Charter.
Jamestown Settled.
Company and Colony.
Character of Early Virginia Population.
Progress.
Products.
Slavery.
Agriculture the Dominant Industry.
No Town Life.
Hardships and Dissensions.
John Smith.
New Charter.
Delaware Governor.
The "Starving Time."
Severe Rule of Dale and Argall.
The Change of 1612.
Pocahontas.
Indian Hostilities.
First American Legislature.
Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Self Government.
Virginia Reflects English Political Progress.
Dissolution of the Company.
Charles I. and Virginia.
Harvey, Wyatt. Berkeley.
Virginia under Cromwell.
CHAPTER V. PILGRIM AND PURITAN AT THE NORTH
The first "Independents."
John Smyth's Church at Gainsborough.
The Scrooby Church.
Plymouth Colony.
Settles Plymouth.
Hardships.
Growth.
Cape Ann Settlement.
Massachusetts Bay.
Size.
Polity.
Roger Williams.
His Views.
His Exile.
Anne Hutchinson.
Rhode Island
Founded.
Settlement of Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield.
Saybrook.
New Haven.
New Hampshire.
Maine.
New England Confederation.
Its Function.
Its Failure.
CHAPTER VI. BALTIMORE AND HIS MARYLAND
Sir George Calvert Plants at Newfoundland.
Is Ennobled.
Sails for Virginia.
Grant of Maryland.
Lord Baltimore Dies.
Succeeded by Cecil.
Government of Maryland.
Conflict with Virginia.
Baltimore comes to Maryland.
Religious Freedom in the Colony.
Clayborne's Rebellion.
First Maryland Assembly.
Anarchy.
Romanism Established.
Baltimore and Roger Williams.
Maryland during the Civil War in England.
Death of Baltimore.
Character.
Maryland under the Long Parliament.
Puritan Immigration.
Founds Annapolis.
Rebellion.
Clayborne again.
Maryland and the Commonwealth.
Deposition of Governor Stone.
Anti-Catholic Laws.
Baltimore Defied.
Sustained by Cromwell.
Fendall's Rebellion.
Fails.
Maryland at the Restoration.
CHAPTER VII. NEW NETHERLAND
Henry Hudson and his Explorations.
Enters Hudson River.
His Subsequent Career.
And his Fate.
Dutch Trade on the Hudson.
"New Netherland."
Dutch West India Company.
Albany Begun.
New Amsterdam.
Relations with Plymouth.
De Vries on the Delaware.
Dutch Fort at Hartford.
Conflict of Dutch with English.
Gustavus Adolphus.
Swedish Beginnings at Wilmington, Delaware.
Advent of Kieft.
Maltreats Indians.
New Netherland in 1647.
Stuyvesant's Excellent Rule.
Conquers New Sweden.
And the Indians.
Conquest of Dutch America by England.
"New York."
Persistence of Dutch Influence and Traits.
CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST INDIAN WARS
Beginning of Indian Hostility.
Of Pequot War.
Mason's Strategy.
And Tactics.
Capture of Pequot Fort.
Back to Saybrook.
Extermination of Pequot Tribe.
Peace.
Miantonomoh and Uncas.
Dutch War with Indians.
Caused by Kieft's Impolicy.
Liquor.
Underhill Comes.
Mrs. Hutchinson's Fate.
Deborah Moody.
New Haven Refuses Aid.
Appeal to Holland.
Underhill's Exploits.
Kieft Removed.
Sad Plight of New Netherland.
Subsequent Hostilities and Final Peace.
PERIOD II
ENGLISH AMERICA TILL THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
1660--1763
CHAPTER I. NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE LAST STUARTS.
Charles II. and Massachusetts.
Massachusetts about 1660.
Its View of its Political Rights.
The King's View.
And Commands.
Commission of 1664.
Why Vengeance was Delayed.
Boldness of the Colony.
It Buys Maine.
Fails to get New Hampshire.
The King's Rage.
The Charter Vacated.
Charles II. and Connecticut.
Prosperity of this Colony.
Rhode Island.
Boundary Disputes of Connecticut.
Of Rhode Island.
George Fox and Roger Williams.
James II. King.
Andros Governor.
Andros and Southern New England.
In Massachusetts.
Revolution of 1688.
New Charter for Massachusetts.
Defects and Merits.
CHAPTER II. KING PHILIP'S WAR.
Whites' Treatment of Red Men.
Indian Hatred.
Causes.
Alexander's Death.
Philip
King.
Scope of his Conspiracy.
Murders Sausaman.
War Begun.
Nipmucks take Part.
War in Connecticut Valley.
Bloody Brook.
The Swamp Fight at South Kingston, R. I.
Central Massachusetts Aflame.
The Rowlandson History.
Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island again.
Connecticut Valley once more Invaded.
Turner's Falls.
Philip's Death.
Horrors of the War.
Philip's Character.
Fate of his Family.
CHAPTER III. THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT
New England Home Life.
Religion its Centre.
The Farmhouse.
Morning Devotions.
Farm Work.
Tools.
Diet.
Neighborliness.
New England Superstitions.
Not Peculiar to New England.
Sunday Laws.
Public Worship.
First Case of Sorcery.
The Witch Executed.
Cotton Mather.
His Experiments.
His Book.
The Parris Children Bewitched.
The Manifestations.
The Trial.
Executions.
George Burroughs.
Rebecca Nurse.
Reaction.
Forwardness of Clergy.
"Devil's Authority."
The End.
CHAPTER IV. THE MIDDLE COLONIES
English Conquest of New Netherland.
Duke of York's Government.
Andros.
Revolution of 1688.
Leisler.
Problems which Teased Royal Governors.
New Jersey.
Its Political Vicissitudes.
William Penn.
Character.
Liberality of Pennsylvania
Charter.
Penn and James II.
Penn's Services for his Colony.
Prosperity of the Latter.
Fletcher's Rule.
Gabriel Thomas's History of Pennsylvania.
Penn's Trials.
And Victory.
Delaware.
CHAPTER V. MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, CAROLINA
Maryland after the Stuart Restoration.
Navigation Act.
Boundary Disputes.
Liberality of Religion.
Agitation to Establish Anglicanism.
Maryland under William and Mary.
English Church Established.
Not Oppressive.
Fate of Virginia after the Restoration.
Virginia's Spirit, Numbers, Resources.
Causes of Bacon's Rebellion.
Evil of the Navigation Acts.
Worthless Officials.
Course of the Rebellion.
Result.
Dulness of the Subsequent History.
William and Mary College.
Governor Spotswood.
Blackbeard.
Carolina.
Its Constitution.
Conflict of Parties.
Georgia.
CHAPTER VI. GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE COLONIES.
Origin of American Political Institutions.
Local Self-Government.
Representation.
Relation of Colonies to England.
Classification of Colonies.
Changes.
Conflict of Legal Views.
Colonists' Contentions.
Taxation.
CHAPTER VII. SOCIAL CULTURE IN COLONIAL TIMES.
Population of the Colonies at Different Dates.
Differences according to Sections.
Intellectual Ability.
Free Thought.
Political Bent.
English Church in the Colonies.
Its Clergy.
In New York.
The New England Establishment.
Hatred to Episcopacy.
Counter-hatred.
Colleges and Schools.
Newspapers.
Libraries.
Postal System.
Learned Professions.
Epidemics.
Scholars and Artists.
Travelling.
Manufactures and
Commerce.
Houses.
Food and Dress.
Wigs.
Opposition to Them.
Social Cleavage.
Redemptioners.
Penal Legislation.
Philadelphia Leads in Social Science.
CHAPTER VIII. ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA
The French in the Heart of the Continent.
Groseilliers, Radisson, La Salle.
Joliet and Marquette Reach the Mississippi.
Baudin and Du Lhut.
La Salle Descends to the Gulf.
"Chicago."
The Portages.
La Salle's Expedition from France to the Mississippi.
Its Fate.
French, Indians, and English.
France's Advantage.
Numbers of each Race in America.
Causes of England's Colonial Strength.
King William's War.
The Schenectady Massacre.
Other Atrocities.
Anne's War.
Deerfield.
Plans for Striking Back.
Second Capture of Port Royal.
Rasle's Settlement Raided.
George's War.
Capture of Louisburg.
Saratoga Destroyed.
Scheme to Retaliate.
Failure.
French Vigilance and Aggression.
CHAPTER IX. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
Struggle Inevitable.
George Washington.
Fights at Great Meadows.
War Begun.
English Plans of Campaign.
Braddock's March.
Defeat and Death.
Prophecy Regarding Washington.
The "Evangeline" History.
Loudon's Incompetence.
Pitt at the Head of Affairs.
Will Take Canada.
Louisburg Recaptured.
"Pittsburgh."
Triple Movement upon Canada.
The Plains of Abraham.
Quebec Capitulates.
Peace of Paris.
Conspiracy of Pontiac.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLUMBUS. (After a portrait by Herrera) Frontispiece
TEMPLE MOUND IN MEXICO
BIG ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSIN
DIGHTON ROCK
THE OLD STONE MILL AT NEWPORT, R. I.
PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL--"THE NAVIGATOR." (From an old print)
QUEEN ISABELLA OF SPAIN.
COLUMBUS BEGGING AT THE FRANCISCAN CONVENT
EMBARKATION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AT PALOS. (From an old print)
AMERIGO VESPUCCI. (Fac-simile of an old print)
VASCO DA GAMA. (From an old print)
BALBOA DISCOVERING THE PACIFIC OCEAN
PONCE DE LEON
HERNANDO CORTES, (From an old print)
MONTEZUMA MORTALLY WOUNDED BY HIS OWN SUBJECTS
DEATH OF MAGELLAN
FERDINAND DE SOTO
A PALISADED INDIAN TOWN IN ALABAMA
BURIAL OF DE SOTO IN THE MISSISSIPPI AT NIGHT
FORT CAROLINA ON THE RIVER OF MAY
PEDRO MELENDEZ
INDIANS DEVOURED BY DOGS. (From an old print)
VERRAZANO, THE FLORENTINE NAVIGATOR
JACQUES CARTIER, (From an old print)
SEBASTIAN CABOT, (From an old print)
AN INDIAN VILLAGE AT THE ROANOKE SETTLEMENT
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
QUEEN ELIZABETH
KING JAMES I. (From Mr. Henry Irving's Collection)
TOBACCO PLANT.
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.
POCAHONTAS SAVING CAPTAIN SMITH'S LIFE. (From Smith's "General History ")
THE COUNCIL OF POWHATAN. (From Smith's "General History ")
POCAHONTAS.
SIGNATURE OF BERKELEY.
PLYMOUTH HARBOR, ENGLAND.
HARBOR OF PROVINCETOWN, CAPE COD, WHERE THE PILGRIMS LANDED.
THE LIFE OF THE COLONY AT CAPE COD.
SIGNATURES TO PLYMOUTH PATENT.
SITE OF FIRST CHURCH AND GOVERNOR BRADFORD'S HOUSE AT PLYMOUTH.
GOVERNOR WINTHROP.
FIRST CHURCH IN SALEM.
SEAL OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY.
ROGER WILLIAMS' HOUSE AT SALEM.
EDWARD WINSLOW.
MARYLAND SHILLING.
HENRIETTA MARIA.
SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM CLAYBORNE.
CLAYBORNE'S TRADING POST ON KENT ISLAND.
FIGHT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND THE ST. MARY'S SHIP.
OLIVER CROMWELL.
SEAL OF NEW AMSTERDAM.
PETER STUYVESANT.
SEAL OF NEW NETHERLAND.
EARLIEST PICTURE OF NEW AMSTERDAM.
DE VRIES.
COSTUMES OF SWEDES.
THE OLD STADT HUYS AT NEW AMSTERDAM.
NEW AMSTERDAM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
THE DUKE OF YORK, AFTERWARDS JAMES II.
THE TOMB OF STUYVESANT.
ATTACK ON THE FORT OF THE PEQUOTS ON THE MYSTIC RIVER.
ATTACK ON THE PEQUOT FORT.
SIGNATURE OF MIANTONOMOH.
THE GRAVE OF MIANTONOMOH.
TOTEM OR TRIBE MARK OF THE FIVE NATIONS.
KING CHARLES II.
JOHN WINTHROP THE YOUNGER.
SIR EDMOND ANDROS.
THE CHARTER OAK AT HARTFORD.
BOX IN WHICH THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER WAS KEPT.
THE MONUMENT AT BLOODY BROOK.
GOFFE AT HADLEY.
INCREASE MATHER.
COTTON MATHER.
OLD TITUBA THE INDIAN.
LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR STOUGHTON.
FAC-SIMILE OF SHERIFF'S RETURN OF AN EXECUTION.
SLOUGHTER SIGNING LEISLER'S DEATH WARRANT.
SEAL OF THE CARTERETS.
SEAL OF EAST JERSEY.
WAMPUM RECEIVED BY PENN IN COMMEMORATION OF THE INDIAN TREATY.
WILLIAM PENN.
THE TREATY MONUMENT, KENSINGTON.
THE PENN MANSION IN PHILADELPHIA.
CHARLES, SECOND LORD BALTIMORE.
REV, DR. BLAIR, FIRST PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE.
GEORGE MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
SEAL OF THE PROPRIETORS OF CAROLINA.
JOHN LOCKE.
SAVANNAH. (From a print of 1741)
JAMES OGLETHORPE.
COSTUMES ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
JAMES LOGAN.
KING WILLIAM.
QUEEN MARY
CHIEF JUSTICE SEWALL.
THE PILLORY.
SIGNATURE OF JOLLIET. (old spelling)
TOTEM OF THE SIOUX.
A SIOUX CHIEF.
TOTEM OF THE ILLINOIS.
THE RECEPTION OF JOLIET AND MARQUETTE BY THE ILLINOIS.
LOUIS XIV.
COINS STRUCK IN FRANCE FOR THE COLONIES.
ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE.
NEW ORLEANS IN 1719.
SIGNATURE OF D'IBERVILLE.
THE ATTACK ON SCHENECTADY.
HANNAH DUSTIN'S ESCAPE.
QUEEN ANNE.
GOVERNOR SHIRLEY.
SIR WILLIAM PEPPERRELL
THE AMBUSCADE
THE DEATH OF BRADDOCK.
MONTCALM.
WILLIAM PITT.
GENERAL WOLFE.
LANDING OF WOLFE.
QUEBEC IN 1730. (From an old print)
BOUQUET'S REDOUBT AT PITTSBURGH.
LIST OF MAPS
GLOBUS MARTINI BEHAIM NARINBERGENSIS, 1492
EUROPEAN PROVINCES IN 1655.
MARQUETTE'S MAP.
PLAN OF PORT ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA.
MAP SHOWING POSITION OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS.
BRADDOCK'S ROUTE.
MAP OF BRADDOCK'S FIELD.
INTRODUCTION
AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS
Man made his appearance on the western continent unnumbered ages ago,
not unlikely before the close of the glacial period. It is possible that
human life began in Asia and western North America sooner than on either
shore of the Atlantic. Nothing wholly forbids the belief that America
was even the cradle of the race, or one of several cradles, though most
scientific writers prefer the view that our species came hither from
Asia. De Nadaillac judges it probable that the ocean was thus crossed
not at Behring Strait alone, but along a belt of equatorial islands as
well. We may think of successive waves of such immigration--perhaps the
easiest way to account for certain differences among American races.
It is, at any rate, an error to speak of the primordial Americans as
derived from any Asiatic stock at present existing or known to history.
The old Americans had scarcely an Asiatic feature. Their habits and
customs were emphatically peculiar to themselves. Those in which they
agreed with the trans-Pacific populations, such as fashion of weapons
and of fortifications, elements of folk-lore, religious ideas,
traditions of a flood, belief in the destruction of the world by fire,
and so on, are nearly all found the world over, the spontaneous
creations of our common human intelligence.
The original American peoples, various and unlike as they were, agreed
in four traits, three of them physical, one mental, which mark them off
as in all likelihood primarily of one stock after all, and as different
from any Old World men: (1) They had low, retreating foreheads. (2)
Their hair was black. (3) It was also of a peculiar texture, lank, and
cylindrical in section, never wavy. And (4) their languages were
polysynthetic, forming a class apart from all others in the world. The
peoples of America, if from Asia, must date back to a time when speech
itself was in its infancy.

Temple Mound In Mexico.
The numerous varieties of ancient Americans reduce to two distinct types
--the Dolicocephalous or long-skulled, and the Brachycephalous or
short-skulled. Morton names these types respectively the Toltecan and
the American proper. The Toltecan type was represented by the primitive
inhabitants of Mexico and by the Mound-builders of our Mississippi
Valley; the American proper, by the Indians. The Toltecans made far the
closer approach to civilization, though the others possessed a much
greater susceptibility therefor than the modern Indians of our prairies
would indicate.
Of the Mound-builders painfully little is known. Many of their mounds
still remain, not less mysterious or interesting than the pyramids of
Egypt, perhaps almost equally ancient. The skeletons exhumed from them
often fly into dust as soon as exposed to air, a rare occurrence with
the oldest bones found in Europe. On the parapet-crest of the Old Fort
at Newark, 0., trees certainly five hundred years old have been cut, and
they could not have begun their growth till long after the earth-works
had been deserted. In some mounds, equally aged trees root in the
decayed trunks of a still anterior growth.
Much uncertainty continues to shroud the design of these mounds. Some
were for military defence, others for burial places, others for lookout
stations, others apparently for religious uses. Still others, it is
supposed, formed parts of human dwellings. That they proceeded from
intelligence and reflection is clear. Usually, whether they are squares
or circles, their construction betrays nice, mathematical exactness,
unattainable save by the use of instruments. Many constitute
effigies--of birds, fishes, quadrupeds, men. In Wisconsin is a mound 135
feet long and well proportioned, much resembling an elephant; in Adams
County, 0., a gracefully curved serpent, 1,000 feet long, with jaws
agape as if to swallow an egg-shaped figure in front; in Granville, in
the same State, one in the form of a huge crocodile; in Greenup County,
Ky., an image of a bear, which seems leaning forward in an attitude of
observation, measuring 53 feet from the top of the back to the end of
the foreleg, and 105-1/2 feet from the tip of the nose to the rear of
the hind foot.

Big Elephant Mound, Wisconsin.
The sites of towns and cities were artfully selected, near navigable
rivers and their confluences, as at Marietta, Cincinnati, and in
Kentucky opposite the old mouth of the Scioto. Points for defence were
chosen and fortified with scientific precision. The labor expended upon
these multitudinous structures must have been enormous, implying a vast
population and extensive social, economic, and civil organization. The
Cahokia mound, opposite St. Louis, is 90 feet high and 900 feet long.
The Mound-builders made elegant pottery, of various design and accurate
shapes, worked bone and all sorts of stones, and even forged copper.
There are signs that they understood smelting this metal. They certainly
mined it in large quantities, and carried it down the Mississippi
hundreds of miles from its source on Lake Superior. They must have been
masters of river navigation, but their mode of conveying vast burdens
overland, destitute of efficient draft animals as they apparently were,
we can hardly even conjecture.
The Mound-builders, as we have said, were related to the antique
populations of Mexico and Central America, and the most probable
explanation of their departure from their Northern seats is that in face
of pestilence, or of some overpowering human foe, they retreated to the
Southwest, there to lay, under better auspices, the foundations of new
states, and to develop that higher civilization whose relics, too little
known, astound the student of the past, as greatly as do the stupendous
pillars of Carnac or the grotesque animal figures of Khorsabad and
Nimrud.
So much has been written about the American Indians that we need not
discuss them at length. They were misnamed Indians by Columbus, who
supposed the land he had discovered to be India. At the time of his
arrival not more than two hundred thousand of them lived east of the
Mississippi, though they were doubtless far more numerous West and
South. Whence they came, or whether, if this was a human deed at all,
they or another race now extinct drove out the Mound-builders, none can
tell.
Of arts the red man had but the rudest. He made wigwams, canoes, bone
fish-hooks with lines of hide or twisted bark, stone tomahawks,
arrow-heads and spears, clothing of skins, wooden bows, arrows, and
clubs. He loved fighting, finery, gambling, and the chase. He
domesticated no animals but the dog and possibly the hog. Sometimes
brave, he was oftener treacherous, cruel, revengeful. His power of
endurance on the trail or the warpath was incredible, and if captured,
he let himself be tortured to death without a quiver or a cry. Though
superstitious, he believed in a Great Spirit to be worshipped without
idols, and in a future life of happy hunting and feasting.
Whether, at the time of which we now speak, the Indians were an old
race, already beginning to decline, or a fresh race, which contact with
the whites balked of its development, it is difficult to say. Their
career since best accords with the former supposition. In either case we
may assume that their national groupings and habitats were nearly the
same in 1500 as later, when these became accurately known. In the
eighteenth century the Algonquins occupied all the East from Nova Scotia
to North Carolina, and stretched west to the Mississippi. At one time
they numbered ninety thousand. The Iroquois or Five Nations had their
seat in Central and Western New York. North and west of them lived the
Hurons or Wyandots. The Appalachians, embracing Cherokees, Creeks,
Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and a number of lesser tribes, occupied
all the southeastern portion of what is now the United States. West of
the Mississippi were the Dakotas or Sioux.
Since the white man's arrival upon these shores, very few changes have
occurred among the brute inhabitants of North America. A few species, as
the Labrador duck and the great auk, have perished. America then
possessed but four animals which had appreciable economic value; the
dog, the reindeer at the north, which the Mound-builders used as a
draft animal but the Indians did not, and the llama and the paco south
of the equator. Every one of our present domestic animals originated
beyond the Atlantic, being imported hither by our ancestors. The Indians
of the lower Mississippi Valley, when De Soto came, had dogs, and also
what the Spaniards called hogs, perhaps peccaries, but neither brute was
of any breed now bred in the country. A certain kind of dogs were native
also to the Juan Fernandez and the Falkland Islands.
Mr. Edward John Payne is doubtless correct in maintaining, in his
"History of the New World called America," that the backwardness of the
American aborigines was largely due to their lack of animals suitable
for draft or travel or producing milk or flesh good for food. From the
remotest antiquity Asiatics had the horse, ass, ox and cow, camel and
goat--netting ten times the outfit in useful animals which the
Peruvians, Mexicans, or Indians enjoyed.
The vegetable kingdom of Old America was equally restricted, which also
helps explain its low civilization. At the advent of the Europeans the
continent was covered with forests. Then, though a few varieties may
have since given out and some imported ones run wild, the undomesticated
plants and trees were much as now. Not so the cultivated kinds. The
Indians were wretched husbandmen, nor had the Mound-builders at all the
diversity of agricultural products so familiar to us. Tobacco, Indian
corn, cocoa, sweet potatoes, potatoes, the custard apple, the Jerusalem
artichoke, the guava, the pumpkin and squash, the papaw and the
pineapple, indigenous to North America, had been under cultivation here
before Columbus came, the first four from most ancient times. The manioc
or tapioca-plant, the red-pepper plant, the marmalade plum, and the
tomato were raised in South America before 1500. The persimmon, the
cinchona tree, millet, the Virginia and the Chili strawberry are natives
of this continent, but have been brought under cultivation only within
the last three centuries.
The four great cereals, wheat, rye, oats, and rice, constituting all our
main food crops but corn, have come to us from Europe. So have cherries,
quinces, and pears, also hops, currants, chestnuts, and mushrooms. The
banana, regarded by von Humboldt as an original American fruit, modern
botanists derive from Asia. With reference to apples there may be some
question. Apples of a certain kind flourished in New England so early
after the landing of the Pilgrims that it is difficult to suppose the
fruit not to have been indigenous to this continent. Champlain, in
1605 or 1606, found the Indians about the present sites of Portland,
Boston, and Plymouth in considerable agricultural prosperity, with
fields of corn and tobacco, gardens rich in melons, squashes, pumpkins,
and beans, the culture of none of which had they apparently learned from
white men. Mr. Payne's generalization, that superior food-supply
occasioned the Old World's primacy in civilization, and also that of the
Mexicans and Peruvians here, seems too sweeping, yet it evidently
contains large truth.
PART FIRST
THE FORE-HISTORY
PERIOD I.
DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT
1492-1660
CHAPTER I.
COLUMBUS
[1000]
There is no end to the accounts of alleged discoveries of America before
Columbus. Most of these are fables. It is, indeed, nearly certain that
hardy Basque, Breton, and Norman fishermen, adventuring first far north,
then west, had sighted Greenland and Labrador and become well acquainted
with the rich fishing-grounds about Newfoundland and the Saint Lawrence
Gulf. Many early charts of these regions, without dates and hitherto
referred to Portuguese navigators of a time so late as 1500, are now
thought to be the work of these earlier voyagers. They found the New
World, but considered it a part of the Old.
Important, too, is the story of supposed Norse sea-rovers hither,
derived from certain Icelandic manuscripts of the fourteenth century. It
is a pleasing narrative, that of Lief Ericson's sail in 1000-1001 to
Helluland, Markland, and at last to Vineland, and of the subsequent
tours by Thorwald Ericson in 1002, Thorfinn Karlsefne, 1007-1009, and of
Helge and Finnborge in 1011, to points still farther away. Such voyages
probably occurred. As is well known, Helluland has been interpreted to
be Newfoundland; Markland, Nova Scotia; and Vineland, the country
bordering Mount Hope Bay in Bristol, R. I. These identifications are
possibly correct, and even if they are mistaken, Vineland may still have
been somewhere upon the coast of what is now the United States.
In the present condition of the evidence, however, we have to doubt
this. No scholar longer believes that the writing on Dighton Rock is
Norse, or that the celebrated Skeleton in Armor found at Fall River was
a Northman's, or that the old Stone Mill at Newport was constructed by
men from Iceland. Even if the manuscripts, composed between three and
four hundred years after the events which they are alleged to narrate,
are genuine, and if the statements contained in them are true, the
latter are far too indefinite to let us be sure that they are applicable
to United States localities.