Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

THE relations into which the first Europeans entered with the aborigines in North America were very largely influenced, if not wholly decided, by the relations which they found to exist among the tribes on their arrival here. Those relations were fiercely hostile. The new-comers in every instance and in every crisis found their opportunity and their immunity in the feuds existing among tribes already in conflict with each other. This state of things, while it gave the whites enemies, also furnished them with allies. So far as the whites could learn in their earliest inquiries, internecine strife had been waging here among the natives from an indefinite past.

Starting, then, from this hostile relation between the native tribes of the northerly parts of the continent, we may trace the development of our subject through five periods:—

1. The first period, a very brief one, is marked by the presence of a single European nationality here, the French, for whom, under stringency of circumstance that he might be in friendly alliance with one tribe, Champlain was compelled to espouse its existing feud with other tribes.

2. The next period opens with the appearance and sharp rivalry here of a second European nationality, the English, the hereditary foe of the French, transferring hither their inherited animosities, amid which the Indians were ground as between two mill-stones.

3. Upon the extinction of French dominion on the continent by the English, the former red allies of the French, with secret prompting and help from the dispossessed party, were stirred with fresh animosities against the victors.

4. Yet again the open hostilities of contending Indian tribes were largely turned to account, to their own harm, in their respective alliances with the English colonies or with the mother-country in the War of Independence.

5. The closing period is that which is still in progress as covering the relations with them of the United States government. The old hostilities between those tribes have been steadily of less account in affecting their later fortunes; and our government has not found it essential or expedient to aggravate its own severity against its Indian subjects, or “wards,” by availing itself of the feuds between them.

The same antagonisms which had kept the Indian tribes in hostility with each other prevented their effective alliance among themselves against the whites, and also embarrassed the English and French rivals, who sought to engage them on their respective sides. Many attempts were made by master chiefs among the savages, from the first intrusion of the Europeans, to organize combinations, or what we call “conspiracies,” of formerly contending tribes against the common foe. The first of them, formidable though limited in its consequences, was made in Virginia in 1622. Only two of these schemes proved otherwise than wholly abortive. That of King Philip in New England, in 1675, was effective enough to show what havoc such a combination might work. That of Pontiac, in 1763, was vastly more formidable, and was thwarted only by a resistance which engaged at several widely severed points all the warlike resources of the English. But the inherent difficulties, both of combining the Indian tribes among themselves, and of engaging some of them in alliance on either side with the French and the English contestants, were vastly increased by the seeds of sharp dissension sown among them through the rivalries in trade and temptations offered in the fluctuating prices of peltries. Even the long-standing league of the Five Nations was ruptured by the resolute English agent Johnson. He succeeded so far as to secure a promise of neutrality from some of them, and a promise of friendly help from one of them. There were some in each of the tribes falling not one whit behind the sharpest of the whites in skilled sagacity and calculation, who were swift to mark and to interpret the changes in the balance of fortune, as one or the other of the parties of their common enemies made a successful stroke for ascendency.

The facilities for alliance with one or another native tribe against its enemies made for the Europeans a vast difference in the results of their warfare with the aborigines. One might venture positively to assert that the occupancy of this continent by Europeans would have been indefinitely deferred and delayed had all its native tribes, in amity with each other, or willing for the occasion to arrest their feuds, made a bold and united front to resist the first intrusion upon their common domains. Certainly the full truth of this assertion might be illustrated as applicable to many incidents and crises in the first feeble and struggling fortunes of our original colonists in various exposed and inhospitable places. In many cases absolute starvation was averted only by the generous hospitality of the Indians. Taking into view the circumstances under which, from the first, tentative efforts were made for a permanent occupancy by the whites on our whole coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, and along the lakes and great western valleys, we must admit that their fortunes had more of peril than of promise. While, of course, we must refer their success and security in large measure to the forbearance, tolerance, and real kindliness of the natives, yet it was well proved that as soon as the jealousy of these natives was stirred at any threatened encroachment, only their own feuds disabled them from any united opposition, and gave to one or another tribe the alternative of fighting the white intruders or of an alliance with them against their neighbor enemies. The whole series of the successive encroachments of Europeans on this continent is a continuous illustration of the successful turning to their own account of the strife of Indians against Indians. And when two rival European nationalities opened their two centuries of warfare for dominion on this continent, each party at once availed itself of red allies ready to renew or prolong their own previous hostilities.

The French Huguenots in Florida and the Spaniards who massacred them had each of them allies among the tribes which were in mutual hostility. Champlain was grievously perplexed by the pressure, to which none the less he yielded, that if he would be in amity with the Hurons he must espouse their deadly enmity with the Iroquois. Even the poor remnants of the tribe with which the Pilgrims of Plymouth made their treaty of peace, which lasted for fifty years, were the vanquished and tributary representatives of a broken people. A sharp war and a more deadly plague had made that colony a possibility.