The autocthonous civilization of Peru and Mexico hardly attained the dignity of semi-barbarism. What might the Inca or Aztec have become had the influx of European culture-impulses reached his mind before its plasticity was lost, or had the gifts of acquired experience and knowledge been brought to him by hands guiltless of his scourging and innocent of his blood?
On the other hand, let an individual mingle with his fellows; a race or community enters into political or commercial relation with its neighbors, the divine sparks struck off by the attrition of mind with mind kindle the fires which illumine the spiritual in man and sets in motion the machinery of human progress. What student of history fails to recognize the influence of Phoenician letters and Egyptian thought upon Greek civilization; of Greek literature and ideals upon Roman character and development; of Roman genius for organization and talent for legal forms upon modern enlightened nations; of whatever was best in the past upon whatever is best in the life and thought and aspirations of the present.
Egypt began to advance when caravans first made their way to her over heated outlying deserts, for these brought to her something more than myrrh and incense, and precious fabrics. Greece developed with phenomenal rapidity as soon as her galleys sprinkled the blue waters of the Mediterranean, for with every incoming freight came a whisper of rudimentary art or culture which she forthwith clothed in beautiful form and language. England was provincial and primitive until her commercial supremacy made her the bearer of civilization to every corner of the globe. She has received more than she has given. Look where we will, we see unmistakably the effects of action and reaction in the intercourse of nations and communities.
In taking up the history of any one state of the Union, then, we find it impossible to confine our observation to accidental or unrelated happenings, however these happenings may find careful chroniclings at the hands of local scribes and unphilosophic writers. We see the States as a part of a physiographic area having in common with other parts the determinative elements of soil and climate which by prescribing industries, affect desires, ambitions, thought, and other forms of human activity. We study community forces and estimate their quality and intensity as they find expression in characteristic social and political institutions. We consider the people in their racial attitude, anticipate similar results from similar motives as conforming to the spirit and experience of the ethnic type to which the majority of the people stand related. We regard the State as an organic whole, a corporate being related to other similarly constituted beings. Take what position we will, there come into our line of vision ideas, origins, effects, reactions, and relations which show us that a State's history extends indefinitely into the past and in the present ramifies to every part of the larger, body-politic of which it is a constituent member.
Apart from general principles there is a singular correlation between the history of this your State and the history of the one I so inadequately represent upon this occasion (First Annual Mid-Winter Meeting of the Mississippi State Historical Society). Both States were originally a part of that great continental heart of North America, that wilderness of empire-like extent, contended for by mighty nations in epoch-making struggles. Both owe their initial territorial organization to the commercial needs of the American people of a hundred years ago. Up to a certain point the history of the one is but the history of the other. The first settlement, paradoxical as it may seem, in Louisiana was made in Mississippi. De Soto crossed your State and died in ours. The same people who founded our city of New Orleans established your city of Natchez. The narratives of Bienville and Iberville are as closely associated with your history as they are with ours. The two principal Indian wars waged by the Louisiana colony were fought upon Mississippi soil. The first appointed governor of the Mississippi Territory was the first appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory. When under Spanish rule that portion of our domain known as the Florida parishes revolted, it was Reuben Kemper from your territory that rallied to the support of the revolutionists and struck such terror in the Spaniard's breast that Governor Folch of Mobile piteously appealed to the United States Government for protection. When the West Florida revolution was crowned with success and an addition of new territory to the United States resulted, Mississippi received her portion as well as Louisiana. When in the days of the American Revolution the notorious Willing came down from Philadelphia, ostensibly to protect but really to rob, our district of Baton Rouge felt his vulture clutch as keenly as did your district of Natchez. In later times, when our Zachary Taylor found himself upon the border lands of Mexico, an overwhelming foe in his front and war hardly yet declared, your riflemen under Jefferson Davis joined our Louisianian in rushing to his assistance, long before the general government moved to protect its own. We followed you out of the Union. Disaster to you was calamity to us. The cause of the Confederacy we shared in common. Our dead are sleeping together upon the old battlefields in every part of our Southland. We are common sharers of the heritage of brave deeds and undying memories. Your peerless citizen, the first and only president of the Confederate States, died in our arms and we gave him such sepulture that the continent trembled under the all-powerful force of sentiment. We have faced your dangers, felt your needs as only a people can whose interests are one with yours. The spirit that framed your present constitution is pulsing in our veins. And so, did the time limits of this paper permit, might I continue to enumerate indefinitely the instances in which History wipes out the boundary line by which maps unblushingly infer that we are two peoples, having separate interests and lines of thoughts. True history is broadening; never narrowing. It is because so much of Louisiana history is Mississippi history, and so much of Mississippi history is in the chronicles of Louisiana that the narrative of either State calls for so broad and liberal and inspiring a treatment at the hands of the historian.
[THE STUDY AND TEACHING OF HISTORY.]
By Herbert B. Adams, Ph.D.
Professor of History in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.