One of the most learned writers on American antiquities, a Frenchman,
speaking of discoveries in Peru, exclaims, "America is to be again
discovered! We must remove the veil in which Spanish politics has sought
to bury its ancient civilization!" In this case, quite as much is due to
the ignorance, indifference, unscrupulous greed, and religious
fanaticism of the Spaniards, as to Spanish politics. The gold-hunting
marauders who subjugated Mexico and Peru could be robbers and
destroyers, but they were not qualified in any respect to become
intelligent students of American antiquity. What a select company of
investigators, such as could be organized in our time, might have done
in Mexico and Central America, for instance, three hundred and fifty
years ago, is easily understood. In what they did, and in what they
failed to do, the Spaniards who went there acted in strict accordance
with such character as they had; and yet we are not wholly without
obligation to some of the more intelligent Spaniards connected with the
Conquest.
There are existing monuments of an American ancient history which invite
study, and most of which might, doubtless, have been studied more
successfully in the first part of the sixteenth century, before nearly
all the old books of Central America had been destroyed by Spanish
fanaticism, than at present. Remains of ancient civilizations, differing
to some extent in degree and character, are found in three great
sections of the American continent: the west side of South America,
between Chili and the first or second degree of north latitude; Central
America and Mexico; and the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio.
These regions have all been explored to some extent--not completely, but
sufficiently to show the significance and importance of their
archaeological remains, most of which were already mysterious antiquities
when the continent was discovered by Columbus. I propose to give some
account of these antiquities, not for the edification of those already
learned in American archaeology, but for general readers who have not
made the subject a study. My sketches will begin with the Mississippi
Valley and the regions connected with it.