The Red man and the White man in North America, from its discovery to the present time

Front matter

■ THE RED MAN AND THE WHITE MAN IN NORTH AMERICA THE RED MAN AND THE WHITE MAN IN NOETH AMEEICA FROM ITS DISCOVERY TO THE PRESENT TIME BY GEORGE E. ELLIS BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY Copyright, 1882, By George E. Ellis. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. WHOSE THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED TO FRANCIS PARKMAN, GENIUS AND ATTAINMENTS; WHOSE PATIENT AND LABORIOUS STUDIES FOR NEARLY TWO-SCORE YEARS ; WHOSE EXTENDED TRAVELS THROUGH THE WILDER PARTS OF THIS CONTINENT FOR PERSONAL INTERCOURSE WITH THE INDIANS; AND WHOSE PERSEVERING RESEARCH THROUGH FOREIGN ARCHIVES, HAVE MADE HIM A MASTER OF THE GREAT THEME WHICH HE HAS ALREADY ILLUSTRATED IN SEVEN VOLUMES, — STILL AWAITING OTHERS, COVERING THE PERIOD OF EXPLORATION, ENTERPRISE, AND DOMINION OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA.

Preface

. The study and research given to the preparation of the contents of this volume have occupied much of the time of the writer for more than ten years. Portions of it, under titles indicated by those of its chapters, were the substance of a course of Lectures delivered between February 18 and March 28, 1879, before the Lowell Institute of Boston. I have been disinclined to present, in such a number and array of foot-notes as would have been necessary, all the sources of information, the author ity for statements, or the grounds for opinions and conclusions on which I have relied. To have done this would have required something but little short of a complete bibliography of the copious and mul tiform literature relating to our aborigines. What may be classed as the Public Documents illustrative of it are very voluminous, and are of course of the highest authority and value. General and local histories have from time to time given sometimes thorough, but often only superficial, attention to the

PREFACE.

. more important relations of this interesting theme. Travellers, tourists, hunters, explorers, scientific commissions, military officers, missionaries, traders, and those who have lived among the Indians many years, as captives taken in youth, have contributed volumes of great variety in style, contents, views, opinions, and judgments, all of them mutually illustrative, helpful, and instructive, though by no means in accord in their representations of the character and habits, condition, capacity, religion, and general development of the various tribes of the red men, at different periods and in different parts of the country. A single paragraph, sometimes a single sentence, in the following pages, is a digest or summary of facts, statements, or opinions, gathered from several volumes, after an attempt at a fair estimate of the fidelity and judgment of their authors.

Considering how rich in material, incident, and character the whole subject is for the literature of romance, it is surprising how little it has prompted of that character. Probably this is to be accounted to the stern reality in fact and record, which has disinclined writers and readers to idealize its actors and incidents. Indians, as subjects for romance, may engage a class of writers in an age to come. For the reason stated above for limiting the num ber of foot-notes, I have given only such as authen ticate the more important statements and sources

PREFACE.

. IX of information indicated in the text of the volume. The opinions which I have ventured to express on contested points I must leave to be estimated for their weight or wisdom by different readers. Occasional repetitions in references to persons, incidents, or facts may be noticed in the following pages, as they present themselves in some different relations to periods or subjects under which the contents of the volume are disposed. Boston, June 1, 1882. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY. General Survey of the Subject. Pages 1-38. Origin of the Name Indian, 1. Archæology of the Continent, 4. Indian Antiquities, 5. The New Continent, 7. Its Promises and its Illusions, 9. Wilderness Attractions, 11. The Boon to Humanity, 13. Grandeur and Extent, 15. Vanished Tribes, 17. The Indian Nemesis, 19. Benefits and Wrongs from the Europeans, 21.

Queen Isabella pleading for the Savages, 23. Early Efforts for the Indians, 25. The Children of Nature, 27. First Relations between the Races, 29. Broken Promises, 31. Steady Pressure upon the Indians, 33. The Present " Indian Question," 35. The Fate of the Aborigines, 37.

Chapter I

Spanish Discoverers and Invaders. Pages 39-84. Columbus's First Meeting with the Natives, 40. First Acts of Violence, 42. The Colony of Navidad, 43. Its Fate, 45. Hostilities and Alliances with Natives, 47. The Hammock and the Hurricane, 49. Ruthless Spirit of the Invaders, 51. The Church and Heathendom, 53. Las Casas, 54. Religion of Conquest, 55. Rapacity and Zeal, 57. The " Requisition," 59. The Natives as Heathen, 61. Enslaving of the Natives, 63. Cruelties and Outrages, 65. Transportation of Indians as Slaves, 67. Destruction or Conversion, 69. The Dominican Friars, 71. Doctrines of Hell aud Baptism, 73. Human Sacrifices and Cannibalism, 75. Ravages of De Soto, 77. The Spaniards on the Pacific, 79. Priestly Methods, 81. The California Missions, 83. CONTENTS.

Chapter II

The Indian. — His Origin, Numbers, Person, and Character. Pages 85-139. Archæology, 85. Communal Life, 87. Relative Place of the Savage, 89. Average Intelligence, 91. The Mound Builders, 93. Aboriginal Population, 95. Resources of Life, 97. Endowment of the Indian, 99. Indian Character, 101. Indian Qualities, 105. Catlin's Views of, 100. Major Campion's, 101. General Custer's Opinions and Estimate, 104-109. Lieutenant Dodge's Estimate, 109. Romantic Views, 111. Indian State and Royalty, 113. Dr. Palfrey's and Governor Arnold's Views, 114. Indian Languages, 117. Indian Vocabularies, 119. Ferocity of Savages, 121. Torturing of Prisoners, 123. A scene of Torture, 125. Indian Medical Practice, 127. Health and Disease, 131. The " Suderie," 132. Disposal of the Dead, 133. Religion of the Indians, 136-139.

CHAPTER IH. The Indian in his Condition, Resources, and Surroundings. Pages 140-206. Limitations of Savagism, 141. The Savage a Child of Nature, 143. Conformed to Nature, 145. Indian Food and Cookery, 147. Costume and Dwelling, 149. The Medicine-Bag, 151. The Indian on the Water- Ways, 153-156. His Woods-Craft and Rovings, 157. Relationship to Animals, 159. Aboriginal Names, 161. The Indian Canoe, 165-168. The Moccason, 169. The Snow-Shoe, 171. The Indian in Winter, 173. His Cornfields, 175. Economy, 177. Communication, 179. Interpreters, 181. Sign-Language, 1S3. Gambling, 185. Games and Amusements, 187. The Ilunting-Season, 189. Superstitions, 191. A Warrior, 193. War- Parties, 195. The Gantlet and the Torture, 197. Tribal Government, 199. Chieftains and Orators, 201. The Indian "Pony," 203. The Pappooses, 205. Education, 206.

Chapter IV

Indian Tenure of Land as viewed by European Invaders and Colonists. Pages 207-258. Our National Domain, 208. Land Titles, 209. Right by Conquest, 211. Indian Possession, 213. Thinness of Population, 215. Indian Internecine Strifes, 217. Invasion, 219. Dispossessing the CONTENTS. XIII Natives, 221. Rights of Nomads, 223. Royal Grants, 225. Eu ropean Claims, 227. Indians as Subjects, 229. Prerogatives of Civilization, 231. Over Barbarism, 233. Indians as "Vermin," 235. Scriptural Authority, 237. Plea for Possession, 239. In dian Deeds, 241. Vagueness of Indian Rights, 243. The Free Wilderness, 245. Remuneration to Indians, 247. Rights as a Race, 249. Encroachments, 251. European Occupancy, 253. Conveyances by Indians, 255. Policy of our Government, 257.

Chapter V

The French and the Indians. Pages 259-325. Mr. Parkman's Works on " New France," 259-262. The Spaniards in Florida, 263. French Fishing Voyages, 265. French and Spaniards, 267. The French in Florida, 269. English Slave-ships, 271. Contests in Florida, 273. De Gourgues in Florida, 275. French in Acadia, 277. Champlain in Quebec, 279. His Indian Allies and Foes, 281. French in Alabama, 283. French in Louisiana, 285. French Claims, 287. French Explorers, 289. Voyageurs and Coureurs de Bois, 291. Frenchmen becoming Indians, 293. Traders in Canada, 295. Catholics and Huguenots, 297. Recollets in Canada, 299. French Half-breeds, 301. The Iroquois, 303. Huguenots in Canada, 305. Influence of the Priests, 307. Death of Father Ralle, 309. The Acadians, 311. Their Removal, 313. Their Dispersion, 315. French and Indian War, 317. Cession to England, 319. Conspiracy of Pontiac, 321-325.

Chapter VI

Colonial Relations with the Indians. Pages 326-367. New England Colonists, 327. Permanent Colonists, 329. Sales of Land, 331. War of Race, 333. Purchase of Indian Titles, 335- 338. King Philip's War, 339. The Pequot War, 341. Sale of Arms to Indians, 343. Wars in Virginia, 345. Confederation of Colonies, 347. English Advances, 349. Forest Forts, 351. Forest Sieges, 353. Indian Barbarities, 355. Quakers in the War, 357. The Frontiers, 359. Military Roads and Posts, 361. Captives in the Wilderness, 363. Indianized Whites, 365. Roamers and Settlers, 366, 367. CONTENTS. XIV

Chapter VII

Missionary Efforts among the Indians. Pages 368-476. General Remarks on Mission Aims and Efforts, 369. Different Estimates of the Work, 371. Discordant Teachings, 373. Salvation and Civilization, 375. The Gospel Message, 377. Differences of Method, 379. Perplexities of Doctrine, 381. An Indian Agnostic, 383. — Roman Catholic Missions, 3S5. The First Converts, 387. The Franciscan Friars, 389. The Training of the Jesuits, 391. The Jesuit " Relations," 393. The Jesuit in Residence, 395. Jesuit Instructions, 397. The Success of the Jesuits, 399. Devotion of the Jesuits, 401. Tragic Fate of Missionaries, 403. Jesuit Mission Stations, 405. Journal of a Jesuit, 407. Jesuit Altar Ornaments, 409. Training of Indian Neophytes, 411. Conference between Jesuit and Indian, 413. Jesuit Arguments, 415. Fate of the Huron Missions, 417. — Protestant Missions, 419.

Delayed in Massachusetts, 421. Eliot and Mayhew, 423. Eliot learning the Indian Language, 425. The Indians iu Training, 427. A Jesuit Diplomatist in Boston, 429. Reception of Druillettes, 431. He visits Eliot, 433. Eliot's Cautious Preparations, 435. Indian Town at Natick, 437. Seclusion of the Indians, 439. Eliot's Faith and Perseverance, 441. The Indians in Argument, 443. Indian Municipality, 445. Examination of Converts, 447. Eliot's Work in Translation, 449. His Indian Scholarship, 451. Written Indian Language, 453. Printing of Indian Bible, 455. Prospects of Success, 457. Calamitous Experiences, 459. Panic in Philip's War, 461. Removal of the Indians, 463. Partial Restoration, 465. Indians at Harvard College, 467. Severity of Puritan Discipline, 469. Eliot's Successors, 471. Indians on the Columbia. 473. Moravian Missions, 475.

Chapter VIII

Relations of Great Britain with the Indians. Pages 477-513. British America, 479-482. The Hudson Bay Company, 483-490. Rivalries in the Fur-Trade, 491. The Red River Settlement, 493. Savage Allies of Great Britain, 495. Savage Neutrals or Allies, 497. Bourgoyne's Use of Savages, 499. Washington's Apprehensions, 501. British Malignant Policy, 503. General Sullivan's Campaign, 505. Embarrassed Relations, 507. An Englishman at Vancouver, 509. Canadian Indian Commission, 511-513. CONTENTS. XV

Chapter IX

The United States Government and the Indians Pages 514-552. Congressional Policy, 515. Conduct toward the Natives, 517. Difficulties and Embarrassments, 519. Changing Conditions of the Problem, 521. Peace Medals for Chiefs, 523. Visits of Chiefs to Washington, 525. Wise and Helpful Measures, 527. Tecumseh's Confederacy, 529. The Massacre at Fort Mims, 531. Opinions of our Statesmen, 533. Baffled Statesmanship, 535. Inconstant Policy, 537. Treaties in the Forest, 539. Number and Terms of Treaties, 541. Validity of the Treaties, 543. Violated Pledges, 545. Spoils of the Black Hills, 547. Formalities of a Council, 549. Mistakes in Management, 551.

Chapter X

Military and Peace Policy with the Indians. Pages 553-586. Present Relations with the Indians, 554. As Neighbors, 555. Present Embarrassments, 557. The Indian Bureau, 559. Strictures on the War Policy, 561. Faults of the Peace Commission, 503- 565. Conflicting Charges, 567. Wasted Benevolence, 569. Cost of Peace or War, 571. Compulsory Labor, 573. Modified Covenants, 575. Security through Improvements, 577. The Indian Territory, 579. Trespasses on Reservations, 581. Semi-Civilized Tribes, 583. Indian Communism, 585.

Chapter XI

TnE Indians under Civilization- Pages 587-630. Drawbacks of Civilization, 589. Attractions of Savagery, 591. Arbitrary Civilization, 593. Resistance to Civilization, 595. Nature and Conventionalism, 597. Enforced Civilization, 599. Stages of Progress, 601. Disappointments and Failures, 603. Reversionary Instincts, 605-608. Pleas for Savagery, 609. Indianized Whites, 611. White Captives adopted, 613. Indian Diplomacy, 615. Pleas against Civilization, 617. Civilization repudiated, 619. Forlorn Remnants of Tribes, 621. Semi-Civilization, 623. Domestic Animals as Civilizers, 625. Patient and Persistent Efforts, 627. A Ray of Hope, 629. INTRODUCTORY. GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT. " Why do you, White Men, call us Indians ?" This was a question asked many times, on many occasions, in widely distant places, by the aborigines of this country, when they began to converse familiarly with the new comers from across the sea.

The question was a very natural one under the circumstances. The name " Indians" was a strange one to those to whom it was thus assigned. They did not know themselves by the title. They had never heard the word till the white men addressed them by it. Courtesy, in a wilderness as well as amid civilized scenes, would have seemed to allow that when nameless strangers met to in troduce themselves to each other, each party should have been at liberty to name himself. But the savage curiously inquired of the white man, " Why do you call us Indians ?" If, before giving an answer, the white man had asked, " What do you call yourselves ? " he too would have received but little satisfaction. It does not appear that our aborigines had any one comprehensive name, used among themselves, to designate their whole race on this continent.

They contented themselves with tribal or local titles. Nor is it likely that every white man to whom the red man put the question, " Why do you call us Indians ? " would or could have given the intelligible and true answer l INTRODUCTORY. to it. The name applied to the aborigines of this conti nent perpetuates for all time the original illusion and lure under the prompting and impulse of which this continent was first brought to the knowledge of Europeans. There is myth, there is poetic legend, there may be something which looks like testimony, about visits by dwellers on the Old World to this so called New World, before the historic voyages of Columbus and his successors. But there is nothing which can stand the severest tests of evidence for those visits as matters of positive fact. At any rate, if there were such visits they bore no fruits, left no tokens of use or occupancy, and did not bring the dwellers on either hemisphere into intercourse.

Nor did Columbus when on our soil, not even to the day of his death, know that he had opened a new continent, with a new race of men. The America that we know, as substantially two continents, — both of them together stretching to a greater length than Europe, Asia, and Africa, — floating between two vast oceans, was a realm that he never sought, nor ever dreamed of, nor knew that he had reached when he stood upon it. Columbus held this globe of earth to be much smaller than it is, — to be in fact of the size which it would have been if America and the Pacific Ocean had been left out of it. What he had sought for, after fourteen years of importunate pleading for patronage from European monarchs, what he supposed he had found, as he lay upon his death bed, was a sort of back-door entrance to the Indies.

That gorgeous realm, — the slender positive knowledge of which to Europeans was heightened by all the inventiveness of hu man fancy and all the glow and craving of greed, investing it with fabulous charms and glitter as a vast mine of gold and gems awaiting the spoiler, — had been opened vaguely and invitingly to here and there a land traveller and a ven turous mariner, on its western edge. It was a long and perilous route to it, either by land or sea. Columbus be lieved that by sailing westward upon the Atlantic he could NAME OF THE ABORIGINES. 3 strike it upon its rear coast, on its eastern shore. That is precisely what he thought he had done, first by touching some of its outlying islands, then on its main. And his constant questions on the spot were for Cathay, for the realm of Prester John, the treasures of Indian mines.

He was looking, not for America, but for India. And he was, as he believed, not in a new world, but on an edge of the old familiar world. India it was to be all the way, and India it was at the end. On his fourth and last voyage, Columbus wrote from Veragua, to Ferdinand and Isabella, that he was within nineteen days' land journey of the Gan ges. And so everything on his way and at the end of his way took a name from the lure and illusion under which he won a higher renown of glory than he knew. The islands which he first reached became, as they are now, the West Indies. The royal council in Spain which man aged, or rather mismanaged, all that came of the great enterprise, became " The Council for the Indies ; " and the aborigines on these superb domains of forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers were called, and, if ever they shall have all vanished away, will be known in history, as " Indians."

It is to be noted, however, that the French, who so soon after followed the Spaniards by voyages to the southern and northern bounds on the mainland of our domain, did not adopt or use the word " Indians " as a name for the aborigines. I do not recall a single case of its use by any of the French explorers. They uniformly spoke and wrote of the natives as "les Sauvages," — the savages. Occa sionally a reference may be found in which a French writer will use the expression, " The Indians, as the English call the savages." Deferring to futujg'rdiscussion the leading topics which this large subject %Jl present to us, as we follow up the subsequent relations between the people of the Old World and those of the New, we may, occupy ourselves in these introductory pages with a general view of the field before INTRODUCTORY. 4 us.

We read with the historic interpretation of the past what nearly four centuries ago was veiled in the mystery of the unknown and the future. For what were possibilities then we have now realities. The most interesting and exciting questions now held under discussion about our abo rigines are, whether the race is destined to absolute extinc tion, and whether irresistible processes are working to that result. A modification of the opinion that such must needs be the fate of the red man suggests to us, that the only con dition which will arrest that result is such a transformation of his habits, mode of life, and even of his nature, that those who in three or four generations may represent the stock, in pure or mixed descent, will have wholly parted with the original and distinctive characteristics of the race.

If such an extinction of an aboriginal people is to be realized, their history ought to be well searched and attested before they pass away. Our knowledge of the natives of this continent must be taken strictly as beginning with the first contact with them by Columbus on the islands, and by himself and his fol lowers on the main. Of the legendary and mythological Sagas of the alleged visit of the Northmen there is, as has been said, no contemporaneous record, and no extant monument or token. The one hundred and twenty white men who formed the company of Columbus were the me dium for introducing the people of the Old World to those of the New. Columbus carried some of the natives to Spain on his first return voyage, and in 1508 the American savage was seen for the first time in France. Those who now represent the native race on this continent are but little serviceable to the historian who seeks to investigate its antecedent state and fortunes.

The fundamental questions for the archæologist are, whether man is autochthonic or exotic here, and whether in ethnic unity or diversity. Agassiz told us that geologically this continent was the first part of the globe fitted for human habitation, ARCHÆOLOGY OP THE CONTINENT. 5 and there are scientists who claim that the isthmus was the cradle of the world's civilization. But Sir John Lub bock assures us that there are no physical or scientific tokens of human existence on the continent back of three thousand years. Of course it is not within the limited and appropriate design of these pages to enter into the substance and arguments of archæological science, as it opens its rich and profoundly interesting, though bewildering, discussions of prehistoric times and people on this continent. A half century ago the mounds and other earthworks in the great Western valleys engaged a curious interest, as tokens of the presence of a more advanced and intelligent representation of human beings than were those who were found in occu pancy of the soil, and who were wholly ignorant of the builders or purpose of those mysterious works.

But within quite recent years a far richer, yet still no less baffling and hardly more communicative, field of inquiry, research, and scientific theorizing has been opened to archæologists, and, strangely enough, on the mainland of the continent nearest to the islands first visited by the Spaniards. The pyramids and tombs of Egypt have found their rivals in the architec tural remains of Palenque, in Chiapas, and in all the regions of the Isthmus and of Central America. It is claimed that these, and other tokens and relics associated with them, afford evidences of an ancient prehistoric civilization rival ling that of Europe in the Middle Ages. The assumption falls as yet far short of proof. In the interest of historical and archæological science, scholars are left only to the expression of their murmurs and regrets that the first representatives of European civilization and intelligence, when opening a new world and an unknown stock of their own race to intercourse and inquiry, should have manifested not even an ordinary curiosity about those questions concerning the American aborigines which modern inquirers pursue with such diligence.

Some of these questions, we naturally infer, might have been relieved of a part of the mystery and INTRODUCTORY. obscurity which they have for us, had they drawn attention and investigation from the first and most intelligent of the Europeans who came into contact with the natives of the soil. But in this, as in so many other cases, it would have been easier to ask questions than to obtain satisfactory answers to them. It is utterly impossible for us now to reach anything more than proximate and conjectural estimates of the probable number of the aborigines, of their distribution over the continent, the density of the population in some favored spots, the extent of wholly lonely and uninhabited expanses, and the length of time during which any one tribe or confederacy of tribes had occupied the same regions.

No satisfactory information is on record of anything more than the most trivial traditionary account of the fortunes of any tribe among them covering more than two generations previous to those then in life. Of course many of the questions which we are prompted to ask con cerning the primitive and prehistoric races on this continent, as if it were a fresh and wholly independent field of inquiry, are problems equally for the dwellers on the old continents themselves, with all their histories and monu ments. The theory of the development or evolution of the human race from a lower order of animal is to be subjected to the same tests, illustrated by the same analogies, and met by the same arresting difficulties and challenges wherever specimens of that race are found. It is to be observed also that the first white comers here seem to have assumed what has ever since been substantially taken for granted, — that, though diversities of climate and of natural features and products over the breadth and length of the continent might result in differences of resource and advancement among various tribes, all the aborigines were essentially homoge neous in type, character, and condition of life.

Let us for a moment seize and hold in our minds the gorgeous dream of wealth and glory by which this continent was opened to Europeans, and improve it by an added touch ASPECT OF THE NEW WORLD. 7 of fancy of our own. Suppose that this half of the earth, ocean-bounded, stretching from pole to pole, with all its wealth of material, its vast and mighty resources, its scenes and furnishings for the life, the activity, and the happiness of man, — suppose that, as concerned its human in habitants, it had proved to be directly opposite to what it was. Suppose that it had been peopled by a superior race, advanced in civilization, refinement, art, culture, science, far at least, if not immeasurably, beyond the race whose curiosity and greed had for the first time bridged the way between them. It might have been so.

Taking into view the general average civilization of Europe at that time, we know that it was but rude and rough, with many elements of barbarism, heavily burdened with ignorance and super stition, and convulsed year by year by local and extended wars. It might well have been that, folded within the depths of this continent, a people under the training and development of centuries, protected and fostered rather than disadvantaged by lack of commerce and intercourse with other peoples, should have enjoyed and improved this realm as we do now. Instead of the hordes of wild and naked savages, cowering in the forests, living by the chase, burrowing in smoky and filthy cabins, without arts, letters, laws, or the signs or promise of any advance in their generations, there might have been men and women enjoying and enriched by all that can adorn and elevate human existence.

And these, when the ships of curious and craving adventurers touched their shores, or strangers trespassed on their well guarded domains, might have had the will and the knowledge, the skill and the enginery of battle and defence, to repel the invaders, to sink them in the sea, or leave them to starvation, keeping the ocean cordon inviolate around them. One other element must come into our supposition. It is that of religion. Whatever religion that race imagined for this continent might have had and be lieved, however pure and elevating in its influence, how- INTRODUCTORY. ever firmly and devoutly held, so that the proffer to change it for another would be scorned and utterly withstood, — if that religion had not been in name or symbol Christian, it would at once have decided what must be the relations be tween the people and their visitors.

As we shall see, the very axiom and conviction of right and duty for all Euro pean discoverers of that day was that those of every race and clime who were outside of the fold of the Roman Church were heathen, uncovenanted and damned, and must come into it or perish. The fancy which I have ventured to suggest, — that the first European adventurers here might have found a continent and people advanced above their own in intelligence, civilization, and all the ministering resources of life, — may find a semblance approximating to reality in the reception which has been accorded to the Mongolians from China. Those immigrants have certainly found here a land prefer able for their wants and uses above that which they have left. They certainly cannot congratulate themselves on the warmth of the welcome which they have received.

In terested parties, those whose individual gains in commerce or labor are served by these destitute and hungry and humble people, — who thrive on stinted wages and refuse food, — have been pronounced public enemies for favoring the in coming of the Chinese. Among those directly concerned in the exciting question there is a bitter controversy whether this Mongolian race shall make further increase on our con tinent, and whether those already here shall not be driven out. It is easy by the imagination, helped by some ready statistics and calculations, to forecast deplorable conse quences from such an unchecked immigration. We are told that there are more of wretched and starved millions of population in China to-day than there are of all whites and Eu ropeans in the United States, and that, if the way were left open and free for them to come, with their habits of industry and thrift they would soon have predominance here.

The THE ILLUSION OP THE DISCOVERERS. 9 future must provide for that, as for many other serious prob lems, social and political. We can only comfort ourselves with the fact that this continent, especially under Anglo- Saxon sway, has shown a wonderful power of digestion and assimilation of various peoples and nationalities. We have digested a large part of Ireland, and a considerable portion of Germany, — not, however, without some symptoms of a social and political dyspepsia. Dutch, Swedes, Scandina vians, French, Italians, have also furnished us with a stim ulative and an alterative diet ; and we must leave to the wisest councillors of our nation to dispose of the Mongo lian element. But, instead of finding in this New World a people in a measure advanced in civilization, and capable of defensive resistance to invasion, those who were the first of Euro peans to introduce themselves to another division of their own human race encountered only such as we still call savages, or, at least, barbarians.

Even long after the lands discovered on this side of the Atlantic were known to form a new continent, no longer a part of India or Asia, America was regarded as simply an interposed barrier on the course westerly from Europe to the fabled realm. Not for more than a hundred years following upon the first voyage of Columbus was this continent sought or occupied solely for the magnificent ends which it has been realizing for nearly three centuries. The continent was bound to open a water-course to India, — a new and shorter route to its wealth and wonders. That shortened route, which even to this day we have not given over seeking, was then a beguiling and constraining lure, which turned all considerate thought aside from the invit ing shores and the inner depths of this splendid realm for toil and harvesting.