How did the news come? The scattered Indian tribes had little to do with each other, except when they fought, and in a fight they generally killed all the men they conquered who did not escape. But they often kept the women and made wives of them.
It may have been one of these women, captured by some raiding party in the south, who told the prairie Indians the story her tribe had heard in the same way from some tribe still farther south. The story was that a lot of these “white” men had come sailing across the big water in monstrous canoes with wings; once ashore, they had come riding over the country on great four-legged animals, as swift and terrible as buffalo, though not so shaggy. Nearly all the tribes had an old story about an agreeable fair-skinned god who had once lived among them and had promised to come back, so the newcomers were at first believed to be that god and his brothers. But they were not at all agreeable, for they took possession of the land and killed the Indians [a]Indians Hear Strange News] resisting them. They had terrible weapons,—tubes that breathed fire, and shining swords that cut off a head at a blow.
Fortunately for our Indians, these mysterious conquering white-skins never came up to the north. But some of their animals did. Running wild, little herds of horses found their way up at last to the prairie. They were hard to catch; but if buffalo could be driven into a corral, so could they. It was not very long before the Indians were breaking and riding them; and from that time the tribesmen chased the buffalo on horseback instead of on foot.
Early Buffalo Hunting
Presently news came that more white men or gods had appeared,—this time in the east.
Here is what had happened.
While the early forefathers of our “Indians” were spreading north through Asia and wandering over into America, our own forefathers came wandering and hunting west through Europe. Some of them came to [a]Seeking a Way to the Indies] the very edge of the sea before they finally settled down, and learned to plow, and gradually joined together to form nations. Five hundred years ago, three of the strongest nations had grown up on the shores of the Atlantic, in Spain, France, and England. They, like other nations in Europe, used to get spices and incense, pearls and precious stones, ivory and silk, from India and the farther East. But the way to India was now barred by the Mahommedans. The goods that they allowed to pass were heavily taxed on the way, and became very dear.
Most people up to then believed that the earth was flat; but some knew it must be round, and one of these was the Italian named Christopher Columbus. He persuaded the King and Queen of Spain in 1492 to lend him three little ships, and with these he sailed away westward to find a shorter and cheaper trade route to India. He discovered a number of islands, and thinking they were close to India he called them the West Indies and their people Indians,—a mistaken name which has stuck to the native tribes of America ever since. More Spaniards followed; some of them landed on the American mainland, in Mexico; and it was their runaway horses which found their way up to our Western plains.