In this work Parkman not only aimed at the history of the actual struggle between France and England for the possession of North America, but he also wished to present clearly the story of the French alone, as they appeared in their character of settlers and conquerors of uncivilized lands.
In the vivid pictures with which Parkman tells this story of their life in the New World, we see a strong contrast to the Spanish power in South America, as illustrated in the pages of history. The Spaniards conquered a race already far advanced in civilization, reduced it to slavery, destroyed its race characteristics, and made everything else bend to their insatiate love of gold.
Very different was the conduct of the French in their treatment of the savage tribes that they found inhabiting the primeval forests of North America. The Jesuit missionaries and the persecuted Huguenots alike approached the Indian with one message, that of Christian love and faith in the brotherhood of man. To them the dark child of the forests, savage in nature, untamed in habit, was still a brother who must be lifted to a higher life. And to do this they lived among them as teachers and advisers rather than as conquerors.
In these pages all the heroes of the French occupation appear before us as in their daily life with the Indians: Marquette, La Salle, Tonti, Fronténac, Du Gorgues—whose visit of vengeance is so well described that he is forever remembered by the Indians as an avenger of their race—and the men of lesser note. We have also a picture of the Hurons, the Iroquois, and other tribes as they appeared to the early French settlers; and in fact Parkman has left no phase or detail of the movement untouched. It was a vast undertaking, and carried out in the midst of many difficulties, and its completion placed Parkman's name among the greatest historians of all time.
Parkman suffered from ill-health from his earliest years throughout his life, and to this was added partial blindness, which made his literary work as great a task as that of Prescott. Very often he was interrupted for months and years by illness, and in the main he had to depend upon the help of others in collecting his material; but his purpose never faltered, and the end was brilliant with success.
CHAPTER XVII
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
1809-1894
Among the boys most familiar with the scenes described in Lowell's recollections of his youth was Oliver Wendell Holmes, the son of the pastor of the First Congregational Church at Cambridge. Holmes was ten years older than Lowell, but Cambridge altered little between the birthtimes of the two poets, and in the writings of both are embalmed many loving memories of the old village.