Across this wide expanse, in the latitude of Europe, the currents of both air and water set from America toward the Old World, and almost precluded the possibility, under primitive conditions, of European voyaging and discovery. North of this eastward track, however, lie not only the stepping-stones of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, but, once at Iceland, the prevailing wind carries the European mariner to Greenland, whence the Labrador current leads him close inshore and along the coasts of Canada and New England.[[18]] To the south of the central eastward track, is the zone of the trade-winds and the great westward flowing equatorial current; and there, again, we find island stepping-stones. Thus nature clearly indicated the two ways by which America might be found; and, for long, the routes followed were the northerly one to the Newfoundland fisheries and New England, and the southerly one to the Canaries, the West Indies, and, thence, to Virginia. The earliest English efforts at colonization in North America were at the two points lying nearest to England by wind and ocean current.
One other feature in the geographic control over the life of New England may here be noted. The main imports of England were naturally those commodities which she did not produce herself, and these were found in the southern and West Indian colonies rather than in New England, whose fish and cereals competed with similar products in the home market. Destined, from her position and other geographic factors, to occupy the leading place among the colonies in trade and commerce, New England was thus forced to find outlets for her products in intercolonial and foreign trade, rather than in that with England. In order to pay for the manufactured and other articles imported from the old country, she exported, in turn, not to that country, as, in the main, did the other colonies, but to her sister colonies and to foreign ports. According to the accepted economic theories of the colonizing period, this not only made her less valuable to the mother-country, but would evidently give her a considerable interest in breaking those laws for regulating commerce that were the logical expression of the current imperial theory. If we consider, therefore, the nature of the commodities she produced, the competing character of her trade, the democratic ideas of the groups of self-governing land-holders, such as the soil and climate combined to develop, and the economic beliefs of the day, it becomes evident that, when a heavy strain should be put upon the imperial structure, the tendency to break would be likely to appear first in New England.
In the foregoing sketch, an attempt has been made to trace, very briefly, some of the influences of geography upon Puritan development in New England. The early history of all peoples is largely to be found in their struggle against their environment, and its effect upon them. These effects are subtle and far-reaching, and, in connection with them, it may not be wholly idle to speculate upon what might have been had events followed a slightly different course. Had the Jamestown settlers planted themselves upon the coast of Massachusetts, they would probably have failed. On the other hand, had the Pilgrims and Puritans, as both seriously thought of doing, settled in the tropics, where the nature of the climate and the soil would have turned the scale for slavery, where the conditions of life would have strongly combatted their notions of town and church, and where luxury and easy living would have been quickly attained by their inherent energy, what would then have become of what we call the New England element in our national life? To carry the speculation far would be futile, but it serves to bring out into somewhat clearer relief the influences of the geographic environment upon those colonists whose history it is our task to trace.
The distant land to which they came was not an uninhabited wilderness. They found there, as occupants of the soil, an unknown race, in the lower stage of barbarism, with whom they had to contend for its possession. With a few notable exceptions, the relations of the whites with the Indians were the same in all the colonies. The natives were traded with, fought with, occasionally preached to, and then, as far as possible, exterminated. “The precepts Christianity delivers,” wrote Lord Bryce, of the relations between advanced and backward races, “might have been expected to soften the feelings and tame the pride of the stronger race. It must, however, be admitted that in all or nearly all the countries ... Christianity ... has failed to impress the lessons of human equality and brotherhood upon the whites.... Their sense of scornful superiority resists its precepts.”[[19]]
This comment, which is only too true in the present day, was still more true in the seventeenth century. Even in history, the Indian has usually been treated as, at best, a picturesque element, to give color to the somewhat drab homespun of the colonial story; while the Indian policy of the several colonies, the history of the Indian trade, and the influence of the Indian upon the settler, yet await adequate treatment.
The Indian's character and mental traits, which were frequently misinterpreted, were those to be expected in a savage at his stage of culture. If, on the one hand, he was not the noble being painted by Cooper, on the other, he was not the demon often conceived. Indeed, in scanning the list of epithets hurled at him by some of New England's ministers of Christ, one is reminded of Professor Murray's comment on the Greek story of Œdipus. “Unnatural affection, child-murder, father-murder, incest, a great deal of hereditary cursing, a double fratricide and a violation of the sanctity of dead bodies—when one reads,” writes this scholar, “such a list of charges brought against any tribe or people, either in ancient or in modern times, one can hardly help concluding that somebody wanted to annex their land.”[[20]]
The nature of the life the Indian led inclined to render him improvident and lazy, although capable at need of great exertion and endurance. He was dirty in his person, and yet possessed of a childish vanity as to his appearance. The popular idea of him as reserved, silent, and dignified probably came from the fact that his etiquette demanded that he thus appear on ceremonial occasions, social or religious, and it was at such times, at first, that the whites usually saw him. In reality, in his ordinary life, he was a sociable body, cheerful and chatty, with a considerable sense of humor, fond of punning and joking.[[21]] Hysterical in his nervous make-up, he was peculiarly liable to suggestion and religious excitement. As he was passionate and quick to take offense, like other savages and children, public opinion demanded that he seek revenge; and when a crime was committed against any member of a clan, the punishment of the guilty party became the duty of every other member. Under the compelling influence of such a code, the individual may often have had to appear more revengeful than he really was; and, as a matter of fact, the old law of an eye for an eye had already become softened by possibilities of compensation, through adoption or otherwise, even in the case of murder. Although prisoners of war were frequently tortured with fiendish ingenuity before being killed, in this case, also, adoption offered a milder alternative, often exercised. Scalping, as a sign of victory, was supposed to be performed only on the dead, and, although this theory did not always hold good,[[22]] it must be remembered that the whites, as well as the Indians, engaged in the practice, with the difference that, while the natives did it for honor, the settlers did it for money. New England men, and even New England women, sold scalps to the authorities at so much a head; and, among the Pennsylvanians, prices went as high as fifty dollars for a female scalp, and one hundred and thirty for that of a boy under ten.[[23]] With the Indian, it was merely a custom to which he had become inured; and it should be noted that he wore his own hair accordingly, and carefully refrained from shaving the scalp-lock, which it might be his enemy's glory, some day, to remove.
The influence of a formal code is seen also in his bearing of pain. In public, he would suffer torture of the most excruciating sort with complete stoicism, as required by the opinion of his fellows; whereas, in private, when not thus sustained, he would be childish in his self-abandon over the tooth-ache or other discomfort.[[24]] Hospitality was a cardinal virtue, to such an extent that “in some languages there was but one word both for generosity and bravery, and either was a sure avenue to distinction.”[[25]] Fierce and bloodthirsty in war, in domestic life he was affectionate to an extreme, especially toward children. His code, though different from the white man's, was apparently adhered to quite as strictly; but, when the two were brought into contact, the vices inherent in each tended to develop, and it is natural that the weaker came to be considered hopelessly lazy, cruel, drunken, and untrustworthy.
At the time of discovery, the natives encountered along the Atlantic coast had advanced from savagery to the lower status of barbarism, and were still in the Stone Age. Although agriculture was practised to a considerable extent, the Indians, having no domestic animals, were still dependent upon the chase for a material part of their diet, and so must be considered as in the hunting stage, their advancement in culture being limited by that condition.[[26]]
Their political organization was much misunderstood by the whites, with disastrous results. The settlers, utterly ignorant of savage life, tried to interpret such things as they saw in terms of their own institutions; whence came the kings, princes, and nobles, who parade the pages of our early writers. It is needless to say that nothing in Indian society in any way corresponded to these terms; and the failure of the whites to apprehend that Indian institutions had almost nothing in common with their own was the source of endless trouble and much needless bloodshed.