The colonization of North America, which took place in the full light of
history, gives us the means of understanding the Saxon colonization of
England, which otherwise lies obscure in the twilight of our written
records. In both cases we have to deal with a spontaneous or popular
movement. One was across the wide Atlantic, the other across an almost
land-locked sea. Both commenced by the formation of a fringe of true
settlement wherein inherited tribal traditions and organizations were
nursed and strengthened; in both cases the original fringe was fed by a
stream of immigrants continuing over several centuries. The chief
difference between the two movements lies in this: the American
colonists encountered a people who were so physically unlike themselves
as to raise a racial frontier, whereas the Saxon people pushed their way
into a land inhabited by people of their own stock. The progeny of the
captured British native could be reared so as to become a true Saxon.
The Saxon colonization, as it spread over the land, engulfed--when it
did not exterminate--the natives and their tribal organizations in their
agricultural village communities. The Saxon settlement of England held
and prospered because it was a true colonization.