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THE
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
_WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT AMERICA AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST_
BY
JOHN FISKE
_IN TWO VOLUMES_
VOL. I.
Then I unbar the doors; my paths lead out
The exodus of nations; I disperse
Men to all shores that front the hoary main.
I too have arts and sorceries;
Illusion dwells forever with the wave.
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle
To distant men, who must go there or die.
EMERSON
[Illustration: Editor's arm.]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1897
Copyright, 1892, By JOHN FISKE.
_All rights reserved._
SIXTEENTH THOUSAND.
_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
TO
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN,
A SCHOLAR WHO INHERITS THE GIFT OF MIDAS, AND
TURNS INTO GOLD WHATEVER SUBJECT HE
TOUCHES, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WITH
GRATITUDE FOR ALL THAT HE
HAS TAUGHT ME
PREFACE.
The present work is the outcome of two lines of study pursued, with more
or less interruption from other studies, for about thirty years. It will
be observed that the book has two themes, as different in character as
the themes for voice and piano in Schubert's "Frühlingsglaube," and yet
so closely related that the one is needful for an adequate comprehension
of the other. In order to view in their true perspective the series of
events comprised in the Discovery of America, one needs to form a mental
picture of that strange world of savagery and barbarism to which
civilized Europeans were for the first time introduced in the course of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in their voyages along the
African coast, into the Indian and Pacific oceans, and across the
Atlantic. Nothing that Europeans discovered during that stirring period
was so remarkable as these antique phases of human society, the mere
existence of which had scarcely been suspected, and the real character
of which it has been left for the present generation to begin to
understand. Nowhere was this ancient society so full of instructive
lessons as in aboriginal America, which had pursued its own course of
development, cut off and isolated from the Old World, for probably more
than fifty thousand years. The imperishable interest of those episodes
in the Discovery of America known as the conquests of Mexico and Peru
consists chiefly in the glimpses they afford us of this primitive world.
It was not an uninhabited continent that the Spaniards found, and in
order to comprehend the course of events it is necessary to know
something about those social features that formed a large part of the
burden of the letters of Columbus and Vespucius, and excited even more
intense and general interest in Europe than the purely geographical
questions suggested by the voyages of those great sailors. The
descriptions of ancient America, therefore, which form a kind of
background to the present work, need no apology.
It was the study of prehistoric Europe and of early Aryan institutions
that led me by a natural sequence to the study of aboriginal America. In
1869, after sketching the plan of a book on our Aryan forefathers, I was
turned aside for five years by writing "Cosmic Philosophy." During that
interval I also wrote "Myths and Myth-Makers" as a side-work to the
projected book on the Aryans, and as soon as the excursion into the
field of general philosophy was ended, in 1874, the work on that book
was resumed. Fortunately it was not then carried to completion, for it
would have been sadly antiquated by this time. The revolution in theory
concerning the Aryans has been as remarkable as the revolution in
chemical theory which some years ago introduced the New Chemistry. It is
becoming eminently probable that the centre of diffusion of Aryan speech
was much nearer to Lithuania than to any part of Central Asia, and it
has for some time been quite clear that the state of society revealed in
Homer and the Vedas is not at all like primitive society, but very far
from it. By 1876 I had become convinced that there was no use in going
on without widening the field of study. The conclusions of the Aryan
school needed to be supplemented, and often seriously modified, by the
study of the barbaric world, and it soon became manifest that for the
study of barbarism there is no other field that for fruitfulness can be
compared with aboriginal America.
This is because the progress of society was much slower in the western
hemisphere than in the eastern, and in the days of Columbus and Cortes
it had nowhere "caught up" to the points reached by the Egyptians of the
Old Empire or by the builders of Mycenæ and Tiryns. In aboriginal
America we therefore find states of society preserved in stages of
development similar to those of our ancestral societies in the Old World
long ages before Homer and the Vedas. Many of the social phenomena of
ancient Europe are also found in aboriginal America, but always in a
more primitive condition. The clan, phratry, and tribe among the
Iroquois help us in many respects to get back to the original
conceptions of the gens, curia, and tribe among the Romans. We can
better understand the growth of kingship of the Agamemnon type when we
have studied the less developed type in Montezuma. The house-communities
of the southern Slavs are full of interest for the student of the early
phases of social evolution, but the Mandan round-house and the Zuñi
pueblo carry us much deeper into the past. Aboriginal American
institutions thus afford one of the richest fields in the world for the
application of the comparative method, and the red Indian, viewed in
this light, becomes one of the most interesting of men; for in studying
him intelligently, one gets down into the stone age of human thought. No
time should be lost in gathering whatever can be learned of his ideas
and institutions, before their character has been wholly lost under the
influence of white men. Under that influence many Indians have been
quite transformed, while others have been as yet but little affected.
Some extremely ancient types of society, still preserved on this
continent in something like purity, are among the most instructive
monuments of the past that can now be found in the world. Such a type
is that of the Moquis of northeastern Arizona. I have heard a rumour,
which it is to be hoped is ill-founded, that there are persons who wish
the United States government to interfere with this peaceful and
self-respecting people, break up their pueblo life, scatter them in
farmsteads, and otherwise compel them, against their own wishes, to
change their habits and customs. If such a cruel and stupid thing were
ever to be done, we might justly be said to have equalled or surpassed
the folly of those Spaniards who used to make bonfires of Mexican
hieroglyphics. It is hoped that the present book, in which of course it
is impossible to do more than sketch the outlines and indicate the
bearings of so vast a subject, will serve to awaken readers to the
interest and importance of American archæology for the general study of
the evolution of human society.
So much for the first and subsidiary theme. As for my principal theme,
the Discovery of America, I was first drawn to it through its close
relations with a subject which for some time chiefly occupied my mind,
the history of the contact between the Aryan and Semitic worlds, and
more particularly between Christians and Mussulmans about the shores of
the Mediterranean. It is also interesting as part of the history of
science, and furthermore as connected with the beginnings of one of the
most momentous events in the career of mankind, the colonization of the
barbaric world by Europeans. Moreover, the discovery of America has its
full share of the romantic fascination that belongs to most of the work
of the Renaissance period. I have sought to exhibit these different
aspects of the subject.
The present book is in all its parts written from the original sources
of information. The work of modern scholars has of course been freely
used, but never without full acknowledgment in text or notes, and seldom
without independent verification from the original sources.
Acknowledgments are chiefly due to Humboldt, Morgan, Bandelier, Major,
Varnhagen, Markham, Helps, and Harrisse. To the last-named scholar I owe
an especial debt of gratitude, in common with all who have studied this
subject since his arduous researches were begun. Some of the most
valuable parts of his work have consisted in the discovery,
reproduction, and collation of documents; and to some extent his pages
are practically equivalent to the original sources inspected by him in
the course of years of search through European archives, public and
private. In the present book I must have expressed dissent from his
conclusions at least as often as agreement with them, but whether one
agrees with him or not, one always finds him helpful and stimulating.
Though he has in some sort made himself a Frenchman in the course of
his labours, it is pleasant to recall the fact that M. Harrisse is by
birth our fellow-countryman; and there are surely few Americans of our
time whom students of history have more reason for holding in honour.
I have not seen Mr. Winsor's "Christopher Columbus" in time to make any
use of it. Within the last few days, while my final chapter is going to
press, I have received the sheets of it, a few days in advance of
publication. I do not find in it any references to sources of
information which I have not already fully considered, so that our
differences of opinion on sundry points may serve to show what diverse
conclusions may be drawn from the same data. The most conspicuous
difference is that which concerns the personal character of Columbus.
Mr. Winsor writes in a spirit of energetic (not to say violent) reaction
against the absurdities of Roselly de Lorgues and others who have tried
to make a saint of Columbus; and under the influence of this reaction he
offers us a picture of the great navigator that serves to raise a
pertinent question. No one can deny that Las Casas was a keen judge of
men, or that his standard of right and wrong was quite as lofty as any
one has reached in our own time. He had a much more intimate knowledge
of Columbus than any modern historian can ever hope to acquire, and he
always speaks of him with warm admiration and respect. But how could
Las Casas ever have respected the feeble, mean-spirited driveller whose
portrait Mr. Winsor asks us to accept as that of the Discoverer of
America?
If, however, instead of his biographical estimate of Columbus, we
consider Mr. Winsor's contributions toward a correct statement of the
difficult geographical questions connected with the subject, we
recognize at once the work of an acknowledged master in his chosen
field. It is work, too, of the first order of importance. It would be
hard to mention a subject on which so many reams of direful nonsense
have been written as on the discovery of America; and the prolific
source of so much folly has generally been what Mr. Freeman fitly calls
"bondage to the modern map." In order to understand what the great
mariners of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were trying to do, and
what people supposed them to have done, one must begin by resolutely
banishing the modern map from one's mind. The ancient map must take its
place, but this must not be the ridiculous "Orbis Veteribus Notus," to
be found in the ordinary classical atlas, _which simply copies the
outlines of countries with modern accuracy from the modern map, and then
scatters ancient names over them!_ Such maps are worse than useless. In
dealing with the discovery of America one must steadily keep before
one's mind the quaint notions of ancient geographers, especially
Ptolemy and Mela, as portrayed upon such maps as are reproduced in the
present volume. It was just these distorted and hazy notions that swayed
the minds and guided the movements of the great discoverers, and went on
reproducing themselves upon newly-made maps for a century or more after
the time of Columbus. Without constant reference to these old maps one
cannot begin to understand the circumstances of the discovery of
America.
In no way can one get at the heart of the matter more completely than by
threading the labyrinth of causes and effects through which the western
hemisphere came slowly and gradually to be known by the name AMERICA.
The reader will not fail to observe the pains which I have taken to
elucidate this subject, not from any peculiar regard for Americus
Vespucius, but because the quintessence of the whole geographical
problem of the discovery of the New World is in one way or another
involved in the discussion. I can think of no finer instance of the
queer complications that can come to surround and mystify an increase of
knowledge too great and rapid to be comprehended by a single generation
of men.
In the solution of the problem as to the first Vespucius voyage I follow
the lead of Varnhagen, but always independently and with the documentary
evidence fully in sight. For some years I vainly tried to pursue
Humboldt's clues to some intelligible conclusion, and felt inhospitably
inclined toward Varnhagen's views as altogether too plausible; he seemed
to settle too many difficulties at once. But after becoming convinced of
the spuriousness of the Bandini letter (see below, vol. ii. p. 94); and
observing how the air at once was cleared in some directions, it seemed
that further work in textual criticism would be well bestowed. I made a
careful study of the diction of the letter from Vespucius to Soderini in
its two principal texts:--1. the Latin version of 1507, the original of
which is in the library of Harvard University, appended to
Waldseemüller's "Cosmographiæ Introductio"; 2. the Italian text
reproduced severally by Bandini, Canovai, and Varnhagen, from the
excessively rare original, of which only five copies are now known to be
in existence. It is this text that Varnhagen regards as the original
from which the Latin version of 1507 was made, through an intermediate
French version now lost. In this opinion Varnhagen does not stand alone,
as Mr. Winsor seems to think ("Christopher Columbus," p. 540, line 5
from bottom), for Harrisse and Avezac have expressed themselves plainly
to the same effect (see below, vol. ii. p. 42). A minute study of this
text, with all its quaint interpolations of Spanish and Portuguese
idioms and seafaring phrases into the Italian ground-work of its
diction, long ago convinced me that it never was a _translation_ from
anything in heaven or earth or the waters under the earth. Nobody would
ever have translated a document _into_ such an extremely peculiar and
individual jargon. It is most assuredly an original text, and its author
was either Vespucius or the Old Nick. It was by starting from this text
as primitive that Varnhagen started correctly in his interpretation of
the statements in the letter, and it was for that reason that he was
able to dispose of so many difficulties at one blow. When he showed that
the landfall of Vespucius on his first voyage was near Cape Honduras and
had nothing whatever to do with the Pearl Coast, he began to follow the
right trail, and so the facts which had puzzled everybody began at once
to fall into the right places. This is all made clear in the seventh
chapter of the present work, where the general argument of Varnhagen is
in many points strongly reinforced. The evidence here set forth in
connection with the Cantino map is especially significant.
It is interesting on many accounts to see the first voyage of Vespucius
thus elucidated, though it had no connection with the application of his
name by Waldseemüller to an entirely different region from any that was
visited upon that voyage. The real significance of the third voyage of
Vespucius, in connection with the naming of America, is now set forth, I
believe, for the first time in the light thrown upon the subject by the
opinions of Ptolemy and Mela. Neither Humboldt nor Major nor Harrisse
nor Varnhagen seems to have had a firm grasp of what was in
Waldseemüller's mind when he wrote the passage photographed below in
vol. ii. p. 136 of this work. It is only when we keep the Greek and
Roman theories in the foreground and unflinchingly bar out that
intrusive modern atlas, that we realize what the Freiburg geographer
meant and why Ferdinand Columbus was not in the least shocked or
surprised.
* * * * *
I have at various times given lectures on the discovery of America and
questions connected therewith, more especially at University College,
London, in 1879, at the Philosophical Institution in Edinburgh, in 1880,
at the Lowell Institute in Boston, in 1890, and in the course of my work
as professor in the Washington University at St. Louis; but the present
work is in no sense whatever a reproduction of such lectures.
Acknowledgments are due to Mr. Winsor for his cordial permission to make
use of a number of reproductions of old maps and facsimiles already used
by him in the "Narrative and Critical History of America;" they are
mentioned in the lists of illustrations. I have also to thank Dr.
Brinton for allowing me to reproduce a page of old Mexican music, and
the Hakluyt Society for permission to use the Zeno and Catalan maps and
the view of Kakortok church. Dr. Fewkes has very kindly favoured me with
a sight of proof-sheets of some recent monographs by Bandelier. And for
courteous assistance at various libraries I have most particularly to
thank Mr. Kiernan of Harvard University, Mr. Appleton Griffin of the
Boston Public Library, and Mr. Uhler of the Peabody Institute in
Baltimore.
* * * * *
There is one thing which I feel obliged, though with extreme hesitation
and reluctance, to say to my readers in this place, because the time has
come when something ought to be said, and there seems to be no other
place available for saying it. For many years letters--often in a high
degree interesting and pleasant to receive--have been coming to me from
persons with whom I am not acquainted, and I have always done my best to
answer them. It is a long time since such letters came to form the
larger part of a voluminous mass of correspondence. The physical fact
has assumed dimensions with which it is no longer possible to cope. If I
were to answer all the letters which arrive by every mail, I should
never be able to do another day's work. It is becoming impossible even
to _read_ them all; and there is scarcely time for giving due attention
to one in ten. Kind friends and readers will thus understand that if
their queries seem to be neglected, it is by no means from any want of
good will, but simply from the lamentable fact that the day contains
only four-and-twenty hours.
CAMBRIDGE, _October 25, 1891._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT AMERICA.
PAGE
The American aborigines 1
Question as to their origin 2, 3
Antiquity of man in America 4
Shell-mounds, or middens 4, 5
The Glacial Period 6, 7
Discoveries in the Trenton gravel 8
Discoveries in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota 9
Mr. Cresson's discovery at Claymont, Delaware 10
The Calaveras skull 11
Pleistocene men and mammals 12, 13
Elevation and subsidence 13, 14
Waves of migration 15
The Cave men of Europe in the Glacial Period 16
The Eskimos are probably a remnant of the Cave men 17-19
There was probably no connection or intercourse by
water between ancient America and the Old World 20
There is one great American red race 21
Different senses in which the word "race" is used 21-23
No necessary connection between differences in culture
and differences in race 23
Mr. Lewis Morgan's classification of grades of culture 24-32
Distinction between Savagery and Barbarism 25
Origin of pottery 25
Lower, middle, and upper status of savagery 26
Lower status of barbarism; it ended differently in the
two hemispheres; in ancient America there was no
pastoral stage of development 27
Importance of Indian corn 28
Tillage with irrigation 29
Use of adobe-brick and stone in building 29
Middle status of barbarism 29, 30
Stone and copper tools 30
Working of metals; smelting of iron 30
Upper status of barbarism 31
The alphabet and the beginnings of civilization 32
So-called "civilizations" of Mexico and Peru 33, 34
Loose use of the words "savagery" and "civilization" 35
Value and importance of the term "barbarism" 35, 36
The status of barbarism is most completely exemplified
in ancient America 36, 37
Survival of bygone epochs of culture; work of the
Bureau of Ethnology 37, 38
Tribal society and multiplicity of languages in aboriginal
America 38, 39
Tribes in the upper status of savagery; Athabaskans,
Apaches, Shoshones, etc. 39
Tribes in the lower status of barbarism; the Dakota
group or family 40
The Minnitarees and Mandans 41
The Pawnee and Arickaree group 42
The Maskoki group 42
The Algonquin group 43
The Huron-Iroquois group 44
The Five Nations 45-47
Distinction between horticulture and field agriculture 48
Perpetual intertribal warfare, with torture and
cannibalism 49-51
Myths and folk-lore 51
Ancient law 52, 53
The patriarchal family not primitive 53
"Mother-right" 54
Primitive marriage 55
The system of reckoning kinship through females only 56
Original reason for the system 57
The primeval human horde 58, 59
Earliest family-group; the clan 60
"Exogamy" 60
Phratry and tribe 61
Effect of pastoral life upon property and upon the
family 61-63
The exogamous clan in ancient America 64
Intimate connection of aboriginal architecture with
social life 65
The long houses of the Iroquois 66, 67
Summary divorce 68
Hospitality 68
Structure of the clan 69, 70
Origin and structure of the phratry 70, 71
Structure of the tribe 72
Cross-relationships between clans and tribes; the Iroquois
Confederacy 72-74
Structure of the confederacy 75, 76
The "Long House" 76
Symmetrical development of institutions in ancient
America 77, 78
Circular houses of the Mandans 79-81
The Indians of the pueblos, in the middle status of
barbarism 82, 83
Horticulture with irrigation, and architecture with
adobe 83, 84
Possible origin of adobe architecture 84, 85
Mr. Cushing's sojourn at Zuñi 86
Typical structure of the pueblo 86-88
Pueblo society 89
Wonderful ancient pueblos in the Chaco valley 90-92
The Moqui pueblos 93
The cliff-dwellings 93
Pueblo of Zuñi 93, 94
Pueblo of Tlascala 94-96
The ancient city of Mexico was a great composite
pueblo 97
The Spanish discoverers could not be expected to understand
the state of society which they found there 97, 98
Contrast between feudalism and gentilism 98
Change from gentile society to political society in
Greece and Rome 99, 100
First suspicions as to the erroneousness of the Spanish
accounts 101
Detection and explanation of the errors, by Lewis
Morgan 102
Adolf Bandelier's researches 103
The Aztec Confederacy 104, 105
Aztec clans 106
Clan officers 107
Rights and duties of the clan 108
Aztec phratries 108
The _tlatocan_, or tribal council 109
The _cihuacoatl_, or "snake-woman" 110
The _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men" 111
Evolution of kingship in Greece and Rome 112
Mediæval kingship 113
Montezuma was a "priest-commander" 114
Mode of succession to the office 114, 115
Manner of collecting tribute 116
Mexican roads 117
Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted 118
Aztec priesthood; human sacrifices 119, 120
Aztec slaves 121, 122
The Aztec family 122, 123
Aztec property 124
Mr. Morgan's rules of criticism 125
He sometimes disregarded his own rules 126
Amusing illustrations from his remarks on "Montezuma's
Dinner" 126-128
The reaction against uncritical and exaggerated statements
was often carried too far by Mr. Morgan 128, 129
Great importance of the middle period of barbarism 130
The Mexicans compared with the Mayas 131-133
Maya hieroglyphic writing 132
Ruined cities of Central America 134-138
They are probably not older than the twelfth century 136
Recent discovery of the Chronicle of Chicxulub 138
Maya culture very closely related to Mexican 139
The "Mound-Builders" 140-146
The notion that they were like the Aztecs 142
Or, perhaps, like the Zuñis 143
These notions are not well sustained 144
The mounds were probably built by different peoples
in the lower status of barbarism, by Cherokees,
Shawnees, and other tribes 144, 145
It is not likely that there was a "race of Mound Builders" 146
Society in America at the time of the Discovery had
reached stages similar to stages reached by eastern
Mediterranean peoples fifty or sixty centuries
earlier 146, 147
CHAPTER II.
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES.
Stories of voyages to America before Columbus; the
Chinese 148
The Irish. 149
Blowing and drifting; Cousin, of Dieppe 150
These stories are of small value 150
But the case of the Northmen is quite different 151
The Viking exodus from Norway 151, 152
Founding of a colony in Iceland, A. D. 874 153
Icelandic literature 154
Discovery of Greenland, A. D. 876 155, 156
Eric the Red, and his colony in Greenland,
A. D. 986 157-161
Voyage of Bjarni Herjulfsson 162
Conversion of the Northmen to Christianity 163
Leif Ericsson's voyage, A. D. 1000; Helluland and
Markland 164
Leif's winter in Vinland 165, 166
Voyages of Thorvald and Thorstein 167
Thorfinn Karlsefni, and his unsuccessful attempt to
found a colony in Vinland, A. D. 1007-10 167-169
Freydis, and her evil deeds in Vinland, 1011-12 170, 171
Voyage into Baffin's Bay, 1135 172
Description of a Viking ship discovered at Sandefiord,
in Norway 173-175
To what extent the climate of Greenland may have
changed within the last thousand years 176, 177
With the Northmen once in Greenland, the discovery
of the American continent was inevitable 178
Ear-marks of truth in the Icelandic narratives 179, 180
Northern limit of the vine 181
Length of the winter day 182
Indian corn 182, 183
Winter weather in Vinland 184
Vinland was probably situated somewhere between Cape Breton
and Point Judith 185
Further ear-marks of truth; savages and barbarians of the
lower status were unknown to mediæval Europeans 185, 186
The natives of Vinland as described in the Icelandic
narratives 187-193
Meaning of the epithet "Skrælings" 188, 189
Personal appearance of the Skrælings 189
The Skrælings of Vinland were Indians,--very likely
Algonquins 190
The "balista" or "demon's head" 191, 192
The story of the "uniped" 193
Character of the Icelandic records; misleading associations
with the word "saga" 194
The comparison between Leif Ericsson and Agamemnon, made by
a committee of the Massachusetts Historical Society, was
peculiarly unfortunate and inappropriate 194, 197
The story of the Trojan War, in the shape in which we find
it in Greek poetry, is pure folk-lore 195
The Saga of Eric the Red is not folk-lore 196
Mythical and historical sagas 197
The western or Hauks-bók version of Eric the Red's Saga 198
The northern or Flateyar-bók version 199
Presumption against sources not contemporary 200
Hauk Erlendsson and his manuscripts 201
The story is not likely to have been preserved to Hauk's
time by oral tradition only 202
Allusions to Vinland in other Icelandic documents 202-207
Eyrbyggja Saga 203
The abbot Nikulas, etc. 204
Ari Fródhi and his works 204
His significant allusion to Vinland 205
Other references 206
Differences between Hauks-bók and Flateyar-bók versions 207
Adam of Bremen 208
Importance of his testimony 209
His misconception of the situation of Vinland 210
Summary of the argument 211-213
Absurd speculations of zealous antiquarians 213-215
The Dighton inscription was made by Algonquins, and has
nothing to do with the Northmen 213, 214
Governor Arnold's stone windmill 215
There is no reason for supposing that the Northmen founded a
colony in Vinland 216
No archæological remains of them have been found south of
Davis strait 217
If the Northmen had founded a successful colony, they would
have introduced domestic cattle into the North American
fauna 218
And such animals could not have vanished and left no trace
of their existence 219, 220
Further fortunes of the Greenland colony 221
Bishop Eric's voyage in search of Vinland, 1121 222
The ship from Markland, 1347 223
The Greenland colony attacked by Eskimos, 1349 224
Queen Margaret's monopoly, and its baneful effects 225
Story of the Venetian brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno 226
Nicolò Zeno wrecked upon one of the Færoe islands 227
He enters the service of Henry Sinclair, Earl of the Orkneys
and Caithness 228
Nicolò's voyage to Greenland, cir. 1394 229
Voyage of Earl Sinclair and Antonio Zeno 229, 230
Publication of the remains of the documents by the younger
Nicolò Zeno, 1558 231
The Zeno map 232, 233
Queer transformations of names 234-236
The name _Færoislander_ became _Frislanda_ 236
The narrative nowhere makes a claim to the "discovery
of America" 237
The "Zichmni" of the narrative means Henry Sinclair 238
Bardsen's "Description of Greenland" 239
The monastery of St. Olaus and its hot spring 240
Volcanoes of the north Atlantic ridge 241
Fate of Gunnbjörn's Skerries, 1456 242
Volcanic phenomena in Greenland 242, 243
Estotiland 244
Drogio 245
Inhabitants of Drogio and the countries beyond 246
The Fisherman's return to Frislanda 247
Was the account of Drogio woven into the narrative
by the younger Nicolò? 248
Or does it represent actual experiences in North
America? 249
The case of David Ingram, 1568 250
The case of Cabeza de Vaca, 1528-36 251
There may have been unrecorded instances of visits to
North America 252
The pre-Columbian voyages made no real contributions
to geographical knowledge 253
And were in no true sense a discovery of America 254
Real contact between the eastern and western hemisphere
was first established by Columbus 255
CHAPTER III.
EUROPE AND CATHAY.
Why the voyages of the Northmen were not followed up 256
Ignorance of their geographical significance 257
Lack of instruments for ocean navigation 257
Condition of Europe in the year 1000 258, 259
It was not such as to favour colonial enterprise 260
The outlook of Europe was toward Asia 261
Routes of trade between Europe and Asia 262
Claudius Ptolemy and his knowledge of the earth 263
Early mention of China 264
The monk Cosmas Indicopleustes 265
Shape of the earth, according to Cosmas 266, 267
His knowledge of Asia 268
The Nestorians 268
Effects of the Saracen conquests 269
Constantinople in the twelfth century 270
The Crusades 270-274
Barbarizing character of Turkish conquest 271
General effects of the Crusades 272
The Fourth Crusade 273
Rivalry between Venice and Genoa 274
Centres and routes of mediæval trade 275, 276
Effects of the Mongol conquests 277
Cathay, origin of the name 277
Carpini and Rubruquis 278
First knowledge of an eastern ocean beyond Cathay 278
The data were thus prepared for Columbus; but as yet nobody
reasoned from these data to a practical conclusion 279
The Polo brothers 280
Kublai Khan's message to the Pope 281
Marco Polo and his travels in Asia 281, 282
First recorded voyage of Europeans around the Indo-Chinese
peninsula 282
Return of the Polos to Venice 283
Marco Polo's book, written in prison at Genoa, 1299;
its great contributions to geographical knowledge 284, 285
Prester John 285
Griffins and Arimaspians 286
The Catalan map, 1375 288, 289
Other visits to China 287-291
Overthrow of the Mongol dynasty, and shutting up of China 291
First rumours of the Molucca islands and Japan 292
The accustomed routes of Oriental trade were cut off in the
fifteenth century by the Ottoman Turks 293
Necessity for finding an "outside route to the Indies" 294
CHAPTER IV.
THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES.
_EASTWARD OR PORTUGUESE ROUTE._
Question as to whether Asia could be reached by sailing
around Africa 295
Views of Eratosthenes 296
Opposing theory of Ptolemy 297
Story of the Phoenician voyage in the time of Necho 298-300
Voyage of Hanno 300, 301
Voyages of Sataspes and Eudoxus 302
Wild exaggerations 303
Views of Pomponius Mela 304, 305
Ancient theory of the five zones 306, 307
The Inhabited World, or Oecumene, and the Antipodes 308
Curious notions about Taprobane (Ceylon) 309
Question as to the possibility of crossing the torrid zone 309
Notions about sailing "up and down hill" 310, 311
Superstitious fancies 311, 312
Clumsiness of ships in the fifteenth century 312
Dangers from famine and scurvy 313
The mariner's compass; an interesting letter from Brunetto
Latini to Guido Cavalcanti 313-315
Calculating latitudes and longitudes 315
Prince Henry the Navigator 316-326
His idea of an ocean route to the Indies, and what it
might bring 318
The Sacred Promontory 319
The Madeira and Canary islands 320-322
Gil Eannes passes Cape Bojador 323
Beginning of the modern slave-trade, 1442 323
Papal grant of heathen countries to the Portuguese
crown 324, 325
Advance to Sierra Leone 326
Advance to the Hottentot coast 326, 327
Note upon the extent of European acquaintance with
savagery and the lower forms of barbarism previous
to the fifteenth century 327-329
Effect of the Portuguese discoveries upon the theories
of Ptolemy and Mela 329, 330
News of Prester John; Covilham's journey 331
Bartholomew Dias passes the Cape of Good Hope and enters the
Indian ocean 332
Some effects of this discovery 333
Bartholomew Columbus took part in it 333
Connection between these voyages and the work of Christopher
Columbus 334
CHAPTER V.
THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES.
_WESTWARD OR SPANISH ROUTE._
Sources of information concerning the life of Columbus;
Las Casas and Ferdinand Columbus 335
The Biblioteca Colombina at Seville 336, 337
Bernaldez and Peter Martyr 338
Letters of Columbus 338
Defects in Ferdinand's information 339, 340
Researches of Henry Harrisse 341
Date of the birth of Columbus; archives of Savona 342
Statement of Bernaldez 343
Columbus's letter of September, 1501 344
The balance of probability is in favour of 1436 345
The family of Domenico Colombo, and its changes of
residence 346, 347
Columbus tells us that he was born in the city of Genoa 348
His early years 349-351
Christopher and his brother Bartholomew at Lisbon 351, 352
Philippa Moñiz de Perestrelo 352
Personal appearance of Columbus 353
His marriage, and life upon the island of Porto Santo 353, 354
The king of Portugal asks advice of the great astronomer
Toscanelli 355
Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus 356-361
His second letter to Columbus 361, 362
Who first suggested the feasibleness of a westward route
to the Indies? Was it Columbus? 363
Perhaps it was Toscanelli 363, 364
Note on the date of Toscanelli's first letter to
Columbus 365-367
The idea, being naturally suggested by the globular form of
the earth, was as old as Aristotle 368, 369
Opinions of ancient writers 370
Opinions of Christian writers 371
The "Imago Mundi" of Petrus Alliacus 372, 373
Ancient estimates of the size of the globe and the length of
the Oecumene 374
Toscanelli's calculation of the size of the earth, and of
the position of Japan (Cipango) 375, 376
Columbus's opinions of the size of the globe, the length of
the Oecumene, and the width of the Atlantic ocean from
Portugal to Japan 377-380
There was a fortunate mixture of truth and error in these
opinions of Columbus 381
The whole point and purport of Columbus's scheme lay in its
promise of a route to the Indies shorter than that which the
Portuguese were seeking by way of Guinea 381
Columbus's speculations on climate; his voyages to Guinea
and into the Arctic ocean 382
He may have reached Jan Mayen island, and stopped
at Iceland 383, 384
The Scandinavian hypothesis that Columbus "must
have" heard and understood the story of the Vinland
voyages 384, 385
It has not a particle of evidence in its favour 385
It is not probable that Columbus knew of Adam of
Bremen's allusion to Vinland, or that he would have
understood it if he had read it 386
It is doubtful if he would have stumbled upon the
story in Iceland 387
If he had heard it, he would probably have classed it
with such tales as that of St. Brandan's isle 388
He could not possibly have obtained from such a source his
opinion of the width of the ocean 388, 389
If he had known and understood the Vinland story, he had the
strongest motives for proclaiming it and no motive whatever
for concealing it 390-392
No trace of a thought of Vinland appears in any of his
voyages 393
Why did not Norway or Iceland utter a protest in 1493? 393
The idea of Vinland was not associated with the idea of
America until the seventeenth century 394
Recapitulation of the genesis of Columbus's scheme 395
Martin Behaim's improved astrolabe 395, 396
Negotiations of Columbus with John II. of Portugal 396, 397
The king is persuaded into a shabby trick 398
Columbus leaves Portugal and enters into the service
of Ferdinand and Isabella, 1486 398-400
The junto at Salamanca, 1486 401
Birth of Ferdinand Columbus, August 15, 1488 401
Bartholomew Columbus returns from the Cape of Good Hope,
December, 1487 402, 403
Christopher visits Bartholomew at Lisbon, cir. September,
1488, and sends him to England 404
Bartholomew, after mishaps, reaches England cir. February,
1490, and goes thence to France before 1492 405-407
The duke of Medina-Celi proposes to furnish the ships for
Columbus, but the queen withholds her consent 408, 409
Columbus makes up his mind to get his family together and go
to France, October, 1491 409, 410
A change of fortune; he stops at La Rábida, and meets the
prior Juan Perez, who writes to the queen 411
Columbus is summoned back to court 411
The junto before Granada, December, 1491 412, 413
Surrender of Granada, January 2, 1492 414
Columbus negotiates with the queen, who considers his terms
exorbitant 414-416
Interposition of Luis de Santangel 416
Agreement between Columbus and the sovereigns 417
Cost of the voyage 418
Dismay at Palos 419
The three famous caravels 420
Delay at the Canary islands 421
Martin Behaim and his globe 422, 423
Columbus starts for Japan, September 6, 1492 424
Terrors of the voyage:--1. Deflection of the needle 425
2. The Sargasso sea 426, 427
3. The trade wind 428
Impatience of the crews 428
Change of course from W. to W. S. W 429, 430
Discovery of land, October 12, 1492 431
Guanahani: which of the Bahama islands was it? 432
Groping for Cipango and the route to Quinsay 433, 434
Columbus reaches Cuba, and sends envoys to find a
certain Asiatic prince 434, 435
He turns eastward and Pinzon deserts him 435
Columbus arrives at Hayti and thinks it must be Japan 436
His flag-ship is wrecked, and he decides to go back to
Spain 437
Building of the blockhouse, La Navidad 438
Terrible storm in mid-ocean on the return voyage 439
Cold reception at the Azores 440
Columbus is driven ashore in Portugal, where the king is
advised to have him assassinated 440
But to offend Spain so grossly would be imprudent 441
Arrival of Columbus and Pinzon at Palos; death of Pinzon 442
Columbus is received by the sovereigns at Barcelona 443, 444
General excitement at the news that a way to the Indies had
been found 445
This voyage was an event without any parallel in history 446
CHAPTER VI.
THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.
The Discovery of America was a gradual process 447, 448
The letters of Columbus to Santangel and to Sanchez 449
Versification of the story by Giuliano Dati 450
Earliest references to the discovery 451
The earliest reference in English 452
The Portuguese claim to the Indies 453
Bulls of Pope Alexander VI. 454-458
The treaty of Tordesillas 459
Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, and his relations with
Columbus 460-462
Friar Boyle 462
Notable persons who embarked on the second voyage 463
Departure from Cadiz 464
Cruise among the Cannibal (Caribbee) islands 465
Fate of the colony at La Navidad 466
Building the town of Isabella 467
Exploration of Cibao 467, 468
Westward cruise; Cape Alpha and Omega 468-470
Discovery of Jamaica 471
Coasting the south side of Cuba 472
The "people of Mangon" 473
Speculations concerning the Golden Chersonese 474-476
A solemn expression of opinion 477
Vicissitudes of theory 477, 478
Arrival of Bartholomew Columbus in Hispaniola 478, 479
Mutiny in Hispaniola; desertion of Boyle and Margarite 479, 480
The government of Columbus was not tyrannical 481
Troubles with the Indians 481, 482
Mission of Juan Aguado 482
Discovery of gold mines, and speculations about Ophir 483
Founding of San Domingo, 1496 484
The return voyage to Spain 485
Edicts of 1495 and 1497 486, 487
Vexatious conduct of Fonseca; Columbus loses his temper 487
Departure from San Lucar on the third voyage 488
The belt of calms 489-491
Trinidad and the Orinoco 491, 492
Speculations as to the earth's shape; the mountain of
Paradise 494
Relation of the "Eden continent" to "Cochin China" 495
Discovery of the Pearl Coast 495
Columbus arrives at San Domingo 496
Roldan's rebellion and Fonseca's machinations 496, 497
Gama's voyage to Hindustan, 1497 498
Fonseca's creature, Bobadilla, sent to investigate the
troubles in Hispaniola 499
He imprisons Columbus 500
And sends him in chains to Spain 501
Release of Columbus; his interview with the sovereigns 502
How far were the sovereigns responsible for Bobadilla? 503
Ovando, another creature of Fonseca, appointed governor
of Hispaniola 503, 504
Purpose of Columbus's fourth voyage, to find a passage
from the Caribbee waters into the Indian ocean 504, 506
The voyage across the Atlantic 506
Columbus not allowed to stop at San Domingo 507
His arrival at Cape Honduras 508
Cape Gracias a Dios, and the coast of Veragua 509
Fruitless search for the strait of Malacca 510
Futile attempt to make a settlement in Veragua 511
Columbus is shipwrecked on the coast of Jamaica; shameful
conduct of Ovando 512
Columbus's last return to Spain 513
His death at Valladolid, May 20, 1506 513
"Nuevo Mundo;" arms of Ferdinand Columbus 514, 515
When Columbus died, the fact that a New World had been
discovered by him had not yet begun to dawn upon his mind,
or upon the mind of any voyager or any writer 515, 516
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Portrait of the author _Frontispiece_
View and ground-plan of Seneca-Iroquois long house
_reduced from Morgan's Houses and House-Life of the
American Aborigines_ 66
View, cross-section, and ground-plan of Mandan round
house, _ditto_ 80
Ground-plan of Pueblo Hungo Pavie, _ditto_ 86
Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie, _ditto_ 88
Restoration of Pueblo Bonito, _ditto_ 90
Ground-plan of Pueblo Peñasca Blanca, _ditto_ 92
Ground-plan of so-called "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal,
_ditto_ 133
Map of the East Bygd, or eastern settlement of the Northmen
in Greenland, _reduced from Rafn's Antiquitates
Americanæ_ 160, 161
Ruins of the church at Kakortok, _from Major's Voyages of
the Zeni, published by the Hakluyt Society_ 222
Zeno Map, cir. 1400, _ditto_ 232, 233
Map of the World according to Claudius Ptolemy, cir. A. D.
150, _an abridged sketch after a map in Bunbury's History of
Ancient Geography_ _Facing_ 265
Two sheets of the Catalan Map, 1375, _from Yule's Cathay,
published by the Hakluyt Society_ 288, 289
Map of the World according to Pomponius Mela, cir. A. D. 50,
_from Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America_ 304
Map illustrating Portuguese voyages on the coast of Africa,
_from a sketch by the author_ 324
Toscanelli's Map, 1474, _redrawn and improved from a sketch
in Winsor's America_ _Facing_ 357
Annotations by Columbus, _reduced from a photograph in
Harrisse's Notes on Columbus_ 373
Sketch of Martin Behaim's Globe, 1492, preserved in the city
hall at Nuremberg, _reduced to Mercator's projection and
sketched by the author_ 422, 423
Sketch of Martin Behaim's Atlantic Ocean, with outline of the
American continent superimposed, _from Winsor's America_ 429
Map of the discoveries made by Columbus in his first and
second voyages, _sketched by the author_ 469
Map of the discoveries made by Columbus in his third and
fourth voyages, _ditto_ 493
Arms of Ferdinand Columbus, _from the title-page of
Harrisse's Fernand Colomb_ 515
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT AMERICA.
[Sidenote: The American aborigines.]
When the civilized people of Europe first became acquainted with the
continents of North and South America, they found them inhabited by a
race of men quite unlike any of the races with which they were familiar
in the Old World. Between the various tribes of this aboriginal American
race, except in the sub-arctic region, there is now seen to be a general
physical likeness, such as to constitute an American type of mankind as
clearly recognizable as those types which we call Mongolian and Malay,
though far less pronounced than such types as the Australian or the
negro. The most obvious characteristics possessed in common by the
American aborigines are the copper-coloured or rather the
cinnamon-coloured complexion, along with the high cheek-bones and small
deep-set eyes, the straight black hair and absence or scantiness of
beard. With regard to stature, length of limbs, massiveness of frame,
and shape of skull, considerable divergencies may be noticed among the
various American tribes, as indeed is also the case among the members of
the white race in Europe, and of other races. With regard to culture the
differences have been considerable, although, with two or three apparent
but not real exceptions, there was nothing in pre-Columbian America that
could properly be called civilization; the general condition of the
people ranged all the way from savagery to barbarism of a high type.
[Sidenote: Question as to their origin.]
[Sidenote: Antiquity of man in America.]
Soon after America was proved not to be part of Asia, a puzzling
question arose. Whence came these "Indians," and in what manner did they
find their way to the western hemisphere. Since the beginning of the
present century discoveries in geology have entirely altered our mental
attitude toward this question. It was formerly argued upon the two
assumptions that the geographical relations of land and water had been
always pretty much the same as we now find them, and that all the racial
differences among men have arisen since the date of the "Noachian
Deluge," which was generally placed somewhere between two and three
thousand years before the Christian era. Hence inasmuch as European
tradition knows nothing of any such race as the Indians, it was supposed
that at some time within the historic period they must have moved
eastward from Asia into America; and thus "there was felt to be a sort
of speculative necessity for discovering points of resemblance between
American languages, myths, and social observances and those of the
Oriental world. Now the aborigines of this Continent were made out to
be Kamtchatkans, and now Chinamen, and again they were shown, with
quaint erudition, to be remnants of the ten tribes of Israel. Perhaps
none of these theories have been exactly disproved, but they have all
been superseded and laid on the shelf."[1] The tendency of modern
discovery is indeed toward agreement with the time-honoured tradition
which makes the Old World, and perhaps Asia, the earliest dwelling-place
of mankind. Competition has been far more active in the fauna of the
eastern hemisphere than in that of the western, natural selection has
accordingly resulted in the evolution of higher forms, and it is there
that we find both extinct and surviving species of man's nearest
collateral relatives, those tailless half-human apes, the gorilla,
chimpanzee, orang, and gibbon. It is altogether probable that the people
whom the Spaniards found in America came by migration from the Old
World. But it is by no means probable that their migration occurred
within so short a period as five or six thousand years. A series of
observations and discoveries kept up for the last half-century seem to
show that North America has been continuously inhabited by human beings
since the earliest Pleistocene times, if not earlier.
[Footnote 1: See my _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, p. 148. A
good succinct account of these various theories, monuments of
wasted ingenuity, is given in Short's _North Americans of
Antiquity_, chap. iii. The most elaborate statement of the
theory of an Israelite colonization of America is to be found
in the ponderous tomes of Lord Kingsborough, _Mexican
Antiquities_, London, 1831-48, 9 vols. elephant-folio. Such a
theory was entertained by the author of that curious piece of
literary imposture, _The Book of Mormon_. In this book we are
told that, when the tongues were confounded at Babel, the Lord
selected a certain Jared, with his family and friends, and
instructed them to build eight ships, in which, after a voyage
of 344 days, they were brought to America, where they "did
build many mighty cities," and "prosper exceedingly." But after
some centuries they perished because of their iniquities. In
the reign of Zedekiah, when calamity was impending over Judah,
two brothers, Nephi and Laman, under divine guidance led a
colony to America. There, says the veracious chronicler, their
descendants became great nations, and worked in _iron_, and had
stuffs of _silk_, besides keeping plenty of _oxen_ and _sheep_.
(_Ether_, ix. 18, 19; x. 23, 24.) Christ appeared and wrought
many wonderful works; people spake with tongues, and the dead
were raised. (3 _Nephi_, xxvi. 14, 15.) But about the close of
the fourth century of our era, a terrible war between Lamanites
and Nephites ended in the destruction of the latter. Some two
million warriors, with their wives and children, having been
slaughtered, the prophet Mormon escaped, with his son Moroni,
to the "hill Cumorah," hard by the "waters of Ripliancum," or
Lake Ontario. (_Ether_, xv. 2, 8, 11.) There they hid the
sacred tablets, which remained concealed until they were
miraculously discovered and translated by Joseph Smith in 1827.
There is, of course, no element of tradition in this story. It
is all pure fiction, and of a very clumsy sort, such as might
easily be devised by an ignorant man accustomed to the language
of the Bible; and of course it was suggested by the old notion
of the Israelitish origin of the red men. The references are to
_The Book of Mormon_, Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co., 1885.]
[Sidenote: Shell-mounds.]
The first group of these observations and discoveries relate to
"middens" or shell-heaps. On the banks of the Damariscotta river in
Maine are some of the most remarkable shell-heaps in the world. With an
average thickness of six or seven feet, they rise in places to a height
of twenty-five feet. They consist almost entirely of huge oyster-shells
often ten inches in length and sometimes much longer. The shells belong
to a salt-water species. In some places "there is an appearance of
stratification covered by an alternation of shells and earth, as if the
deposition of shells had been from time to time interrupted, and a
vegetable mould had covered the surface." In these heaps have been found
fragments of pottery and of the bones of such edible animals as the
moose and deer. "At the very foundation of one of the highest heaps," in
a situation which must for long ages have been undisturbed, Mr. Edward
Morse "found the remains of an ancient fire-place, where he exhumed
charcoal, bones, and pottery."[2] The significant circumstance is that
"at the present time oysters are only found in very small numbers, too
small to make it an object to gather them," and so far as memory and
tradition can reach, such seems to have been the case. The great size of
the heap, coupled with the notable change in the distribution of this
mollusk since the heap was abandoned, implies a very considerable lapse
of time since the vestiges of human occupation were first left here.
Similar conclusions have been drawn from the banks or mounds of shells
on the St. John's river in Florida,[3] on the Alabama river, at Grand
Lake on the lower Mississippi, and at San Pablo in the bay of San
Francisco. Thus at various points from Maine to California, and in
connection with one particular kind of memorial, we find records of the
presence of man at a period undoubtedly prehistoric, but not necessarily
many thousands of years old.
[Footnote 2: _Second Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of
American Archæology_, etc., p. 18.]
[Footnote 3: Visited in 1866-74 by Professor Jeffries Wyman,
and described in his _Fresh-Water Shell Mounds of the St.
John's River_, Cambridge, 1875.]
[Sidenote: The Glacial Period.]
The second group of discoveries carries us back much farther, even into
the earlier stages of that widespread glaciation which was the most
remarkable feature of the Pleistocene period. At the periods of greatest
cold "the continent of North America was deeply swathed in ice as far
south as the latitude of Philadelphia, while glaciers descended into
North Carolina."[4] The valleys of the Rocky Mountains also supported
enormous glaciers, and a similar state of things existed at the same
time in Europe. These periods of intense cold were alternated with long
interglacial periods during which the climate was warmer than it is
to-day. Concerning the antiquity of the Pleistocene age, which was
characterized by such extraordinary vicissitudes of heat and cold, there
has been, as in all questions relating to geological time, much conflict
of opinion. Twenty years ago geologists often argued as if there were an
unlimited fund of past time upon which to draw; but since Sir William
Thomson and other physicists emphasized the point that in an antiquity
very far from infinite this earth must have been a molten mass, there
has been a reaction. In many instances further study has shown that less
time was needed in order to effect a given change than had formerly been
supposed; and so there has grown up a tendency to shorten the time
assigned to geological periods. Here, as in so many other cases, the
truth is doubtless to be sought within the extremes. If we adopt the
magnificent argument of Dr. Croll, which seems to me still to hold its
ground against all adverse criticism,[5] and regard the Glacial epoch as
coincident with the last period of high eccentricity of the earth's
orbit, we obtain a result that is moderate and probable. That
astronomical period began about 240,000 years ago and came to an end
about 80,000 years ago. During this period the eccentricity was seldom
less than .04, and at one time rose to .0569. At the present time the
eccentricity is .0168, and nearly 800,000 years will pass before it
attains such a point as it reached during the Glacial epoch. For the
last 50,000 years the departure of the earth's orbit from a circular
form has been exceptionally small.
[Footnote 4: _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, p. 39.]
[Footnote 5: Croll, _Climate and Time in their Geological
Relations_, New York, 1875; _Discussions on Climate and
Cosmology_, New York, 1886; Archibald Geikie, _Text Book of
Geology_, pp. 23-29, 883-909, London, 1882; James Geikie, _The
Great Ice Age_, pp. 94-136, New York, 1874; _Prehistoric
Europe_, pp. 558-562, London, 1881; Wallace, _Island Life_, pp.
101-225, New York, 1881. Some objections to Croll's theory may
be found in Wright's _Ice Age in North America_, pp. 405-505,
585-595, New York, 1889. I have given a brief account of the
theory in my _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp. 57-76.]
Now the traces of the existence of men in North America during the
Glacial epoch have in recent years been discovered in abundance, as for
example, the palæolithic quartzite implements found in the drift near
the city of St. Paul, which date from toward the close of the Glacial
epoch[6]; the fragment of a human jaw found in the red clay deposited in
Minnesota during an earlier part of that epoch;[7] the noble collection
of palæoliths found by Dr. C. C. Abbott in the Trenton gravels in New
Jersey; and the more recent discoveries of Dr. Metz and Mr. H. T.
Cresson.
[Footnote 6: See Miss F. E. Babbitt, "Vestiges of Glacial Man
in Minnesota," in _Proceedings of the American Association_,
vol. xxxii., 1883.]
[Footnote 7: See N. H. Winchell, _Annual Report of the State
Geologist of Minnesota_, 1877, p. 60.]
[Sidenote: Discoveries in the Trenton gravel.]
[Sidenote: Discoveries in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota;]
The year 1873 marks an era in American archæology as memorable as the
year 1841 in the investigation of the antiquity of man in Europe. With
reference to these problems Dr. Abbott occupies a position similar to
that of Boucher de Perthes in the Old World, and the Trenton valley is
coming to be classic ground, like the valley of the Somme. In April,
1873, Dr. Abbott published his description of three rude implements
which he had found some sixteen feet below the surface of the ground "in
the gravels of a bluff overlooking the Delaware river." The implements
were in place in an undisturbed deposit, and could not have found their
way thither in any recent time; Dr. Abbott assigned them to the age of
the Glacial drift. This was the beginning of a long series of
investigations, in which Dr. Abbott's work was assisted and supplemented
by Messrs. Whitney, Carr, Putnam, Shaler, Lewis, Wright, Haynes,
Dawkins, and other eminent geologists and archæologists. By 1888 Dr.
Abbott had obtained not less than 60 implements from various recorded
depths in the gravel, while many others were found at depths not
recorded or in the talus of the banks.[8] Three human skulls and other
bones, along with the tusk of a mastodon, have been discovered in the
same gravel. Careful studies have been made of the conditions under
which the gravel-banks were deposited and their probable age; and it is
generally agreed that they date from the later portion of the Glacial
period, or about the time of the final recession of the ice-sheet from
this region. At that time, in its climate and general aspect, New York
harbour must have been much like a Greenland fiord of the present day.
In 1883 Professor Wright of Oberlin, after a careful study of the
Trenton deposits and their relations to the terrace and gravel deposits
to the westward, predicted that similar palæolithic implements would be
found in Ohio. Two years afterward, the prediction was verified by Dr.
Metz, who found a true palæolith of black flint at Madisonville, in the
Little Miami valley, eight feet below the surface. Since then further
discoveries have been made in the same neighbourhood by Dr. Metz, and in
Jackson county, Indiana, by Mr. H. T. Cresson; and the existence of man
in that part of America toward the close of the Glacial period may be
regarded as definitely established. The discoveries of Miss Babbitt and
Professor Winchell, in Minnesota, carry the conclusion still farther,
and add to the probability of the existence of a human population all
the way from the Atlantic coast to the upper Mississippi valley at that
remote antiquity.
[Footnote 8: Wright's _Ice Age in North America_, p. 516.]
[Sidenote: and in Delaware.]
A still more remarkable discovery was made by Mr. Cresson in July, 1887,
at Claymont, in the north of Delaware. In a deep cut of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, in a stratum of Philadelphia red gravel and brick
clay, Mr. Cresson obtained an unquestionable palæolith, and a few months
afterward his diligent search was rewarded with another.[9] This
formation dates from far back in the Glacial period. If we accept Dr.
Croll's method of reckoning, we can hardly assign to it an antiquity
less than 150,000 years.
[Footnote 9: The chipped implements discovered by Messrs.
Abbott, Metz, and Cresson, and by Miss Babbitt, are all on
exhibition at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, whither it is
necessary to go if one would get a comprehensive view of the
relics of interglacial man in North America. The collection of
implements made by Dr. Abbott includes much more than the
palæoliths already referred to. It is one of the most important
collections in the world, and is worth a long journey to see.
Containing more than 20,000 implements, all found within a very
limited area in New Jersey, "as now arranged, the collection
exhibits at one and the same time the sequence of peoples and
phases of development in the valley of the Delaware, from
palæolithic man, through the intermediate period, to the recent
Indians, and the relative numerical proportion of the many
forms of their implements, each in its time.... It is doubtful
whether any similar collection exists from which a student can
gather so much information at sight as in this, where the
natural pebbles from the gravel begin the series, and the
beautifully chipped points of chert, jasper, and quartz
terminate it in one direction, and the polished celts and
grooved stone axes in the other." There are three principal
groups,--first, the interglacial palæoliths, secondly, the
argillite points and flakes, and thirdly, the arrow-heads,
knives, mortars and pestles, axes and hoes, ornamental stones,
etc., of Indians of the recent period. Dr. Abbott's _Primitive
Industry_, published in 1881, is a useful manual for studying
this collection; and an account of his discoveries in the
glacial gravels is given in _Reports of the Peabody Museum_,
vol. ii. pp. 30-48, 225-258; see also vol. iii. p. 492. A
succinct and judicious account of the whole subject is given by
H. W. Haynes, "The Prehistoric Archæology of North America," in
Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History_, vol. i. pp.
329-368.]
[Sidenote: The Calaveras skull.]
But according to Professor Josiah Whitney there is reason for supposing
that man existed in California at a still more remote period. He holds
that the famous skull discovered in 1866, in the gold-bearing gravels of
Calaveras county, belongs to the Pliocene age.[10] If this be so, it
seems to suggest an antiquity not less than twice as great as that just
mentioned. The question as to the antiquity of the Calaveras skull is
still hotly disputed among the foremost palæontologists, but as one
reads the arguments one cannot help feeling that theoretical
difficulties have put the objectors into a somewhat inhospitable
attitude toward the evidence so ably presented by Professor Whitney. It
has been too hastily assumed that, from the point of view of evolution,
the existence of Pliocene man is improbable. Upon general
considerations, however, we have strong reason for believing that human
beings must have inhabited some portions of the earth throughout the
whole duration of the Pliocene period, and it need not surprise us if
their remains are presently discovered in more places than one.[11]
[Footnote 10: J. D. Whitney, "The Auriferous Gravels of the
Sierra Nevada", _Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy
at Harvard College_, Cambridge, 1880, vol. vi.]
[Footnote 11: In an essay published in 1882 on "Europe before
the Arrival of Man" (_Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp.
1-40), I argued that if we are to find traces of the "missing
link," or primordial stock of primates from which man has been
derived, we must undoubtedly look for it in the Miocene (p.
36). I am pleased at finding the same opinion lately expressed
by one of the highest living authorities. The case is thus
stated by Alfred Russel Wallace: "The evidence we now possess
of the exact nature of the resemblance of man to the various
species of anthropoid apes, shows us that he has little special
affinity for any one rather than another species, while he
differs from them all in several important characters in which
they agree with each other. The conclusion to be drawn from
these facts is, that his points of affinity connect him with
the whole group, while his special peculiarities equally
separate him from the whole group, and that he must, therefore,
have diverged from the common ancestral form before the
existing types of anthropoid apes had diverged from each other.
Now this divergence almost certainly took place as early as the
Miocene period, because in the Upper Miocene deposits of
western Europe remains of two species of ape have been found
allied to the gibbons, one of them, dryopithecus, nearly as
large as a man, and believed by M. Lartet to have approached
man in its dentition more than the existing apes. We seem
hardly, therefore, to have reached in the Upper Miocene the
epoch of the common ancestor of man and the anthropoids."
(_Darwinism_, p. 455, London, 1889.) Mr. Wallace goes on to
answer the objection of Professor Boyd Dawkins, "that man did
not probably exist in Pliocene times, because almost all the
known mammalia of that epoch are distinct species from those
now living on the earth, and that the same changes of the
environment which led to the modification of other mammalian
species would also have led to a change in man." This argument,
at first sight apparently formidable, quite overlooks the fact
that in the evolution of man there came a point after which
variations in his intelligence were seized upon more and more
exclusively by natural selection, to the comparative neglect of
physical variations. After that point man changed but little in
physical characteristics, except in size and complexity of
brain. This is the theorem first propounded by Mr. Wallace in
the _Anthropological Review_, May, 1864; restated in his
_Contributions to Natural Selection_, chap. ix., in 1870; and
further extended and developed by me in connection with the
theory of man's origin first suggested in my lectures at
Harvard in 1871, and worked out in _Cosmic Philosophy_, part
ii., chapters xvi., xxi., xxii.]
[Sidenote: Pleistocene men and mammals.]
Whatever may be the final outcome of the Calaveras controversy, there
can be no doubt as to the existence of man in North America far back in
early Pleistocene times. The men of the River-drift, who long dwelt in
western Europe during the milder intervals of the Glacial period, but
seem to have become extinct toward the end of it, are well known to
palæontologists through their bones and their rude tools.
Contemporaneously with these Europeans of the River-drift there
certainly lived some kind of men, of a similar low grade of culture, in
the Mississippi valley and on both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of
North America. Along with these ancient Americans lived some terrestrial
mammals that still survive, such as the elk, reindeer, prairie wolf,
bison, musk-ox, and beaver; and many that have long been extinct, such
as the mylodon, megatherium, megalonyx, mastodon, Siberian elephant,
mammoth, at least six or seven species of ancestral horse, a huge bear
similar to the cave bear of ancient Europe, a lion similar to the
European cave lion, and a tiger as large as the modern tiger of Bengal.
[Sidenote: Elevation and subsidence.]
Now while the general relative positions of those stupendous abysses
that hold the oceans do not appear to have undergone any considerable
change since an extremely remote geological period, their shallow
marginal portions have been repeatedly raised so as to add extensive
territories to the edges of continents, and in some cases to convert
archipelagoes into continents, and to join continents previously
separated. Such elevation is followed in turn by an era of subsidence,
and almost everywhere either the one process or the other is slowly
going on. If you look at a model in relief of the continents and
ocean-floors, such as may be seen at the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy
in Cambridge, showing the results of a vast number of soundings in all
parts of the world, you cannot fail to be struck with the shallowness of
Bering Sea; it looks like a part of the continent rather than of the
ocean, and indeed it is just that,--an area of submerged continent. So
in the northern Atlantic there is a lofty ridge running from France to
Greenland. The British islands, the Orkney, Shetland, and Færoe groups,
and Iceland are the parts of this ridge high enough to remain out of
water. The remainder of it is shallow sea. Again and again it has been
raised, together with the floor of the German ocean, so as to become dry
land. Both before and since the time when those stone tools were dropped
into the red gravel from which Mr. Cresson took them the other day, the
northwestern part of Europe has been solid continent for more than a
hundred miles to the west of the French and Irish coasts, the Thames and
Humber have been tributaries to the Rhine, which emptied into the Arctic
ocean, and across the Atlantic ridge one might have walked to the New
World dry-shod.[12] In similar wise the northwestern corner of America
has repeatedly been joined to Siberia through the elevation of Bering
Sea.
[Footnote 12: See, for example, the map of Europe in early
post-glacial times, in James Geikie's _Prehistoric Europe_.]
There have therefore been abundant opportunities for men to get into
America from the Old World without crossing salt water. Probably this
was the case with the ancient inhabitants of the Delaware and Little
Miami valleys; it is not at all likely that men who used their kind of
tools knew much about going on the sea in boats.
[Sidenote: Waves of migration.]
Whether the Indians are descended from this ancient population or not,
is a question with which we have as yet no satisfactory method of
dealing. It is not unlikely that these glacial men may have perished
from off the face of the earth, having been crushed and supplanted by
stronger races. There may have been several successive waves of
migration, of which the Indians were the latest.[13] There is time
enough for a great many things to happen in a thousand centuries. It
will doubtless be long before all the evidence can be brought in and
ransacked, but of one thing we may feel pretty sure; the past is more
full of changes than we are apt to realize. Our first theories are
usually too simple, and have to be enlarged and twisted into all manner
of shapes in order to cover the actual complication of facts.[14]
[Footnote 13: "There are three human crania in the Museum,
which were found in the gravel at Trenton, one several feet
below the surface, the others near the surface. These skulls,
which are of remarkable uniformity, are of small size and of
oval shape, differing from all other skulls in the Museum. In
fact they are of a distinct type, and hence of the greatest
importance. So far as they go they indicate that palæolithic
man was exterminated, or has become lost by admixture with
others during the many thousand years which have passed since
he inhabited the Delaware valley." F. W. Putnam, "The Peabody
Museum," _Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society_,
1889, New Series, vol. vi. p. 189.]
[Footnote 14: An excellent example of this is the expansion and
modification undergone during the past twenty years by our
theories of the Aryan settlement of Europe. See Benfey's
preface to Fick's _Woerterbuch der Indogermanischen
Grundsprache_, 1868; Geiger, _Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der
Menschheit_, 1871; Cuno, _Forschungen im Gebiete der alten
Voelkerkunde_, 1871; Schmidt, _Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse
der Indogermanischen Sprachen_, 1872; Poesche, _Die Arier_,
1878; Lindenschmit, _Handbuch der deutschen Alterthumskunde_,
1880; Penka, _Origines Ariacæ_, 1883, and _Die Herkunft der
Arier_, 1886; Spiegel, _Die arische Periode und ihre Zustande_,
1887; Rendal, _Cradle of the Aryans_, 1889; Schrader,
_Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte_, 1883, and second edition
translated into English, with the title _Prehistoric
Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, 1890. Schrader's is an
epoch-making book. An attempt to defend the older and simpler
views is made by Max Müller, _Biographies of Words and the Home
of the Aryas_, 1888; see also Van den Gheyn, _L'origine
européenne des Aryas_, 1889. The whole case is well summed up
by Isaac Taylor, _Origin of the Aryans_, 1889.]
[Sidenote: The Cave men of Europe in the Glacial Period.]
[Sidenote: The Eskimos are probably a remnant of the Cave men.]
In this connection the history of the Eskimos introduces us to some
interesting problems. Mention has been made of the River-drift men who
lived in Europe during the milder intervals of the Glacial period. At
such times they made their way into Germany and Britain, along with
leopards, hyænas, and African elephants. But as the cold intervals came
on and the edge of the polar ice-sheet crept southward and mountain
glaciers filled up the valleys, these men and beasts retreated into
Africa; and their place was taken by a sub-arctic race of men known as
the Cave men, along with the reindeer and arctic fox and musk-sheep.
More than once with the secular alternations of temperature did the
River-drift men thus advance and retreat and advance again, and as they
advanced the Cave men retreated, both races yielding to an enemy
stronger than either,--to wit, the hostile climate. At length all traces
of the River-drift men vanish, but what of the Cave men? They have left
no representatives among the present populations of Europe, but the
musk-sheep, which always went and came with the Cave men, is to-day
found only in sub-arctic America among the Eskimos, and the fossilized
bones of the musk-sheep lie in a regular trail across the eastern
hemisphere, from the Pyrenees through Germany and Russia and all the
vast length of Siberia. The stone arrow-heads, the sewing-needles, the
necklaces and amulets of cut teeth, and the daggers made from antler,
used by the Eskimos, resemble so minutely the implements of the Cave
men, that if recent Eskimo remains were to be put into the Pleistocene
caves of France and England they would be indistinguishable in
appearance from the remains of the Cave men which are now found
there.[15] There is another striking point of resemblance. The Eskimos
have a talent for artistic sketching of men and beasts, and scenes in
which men and beasts figure, which is absolutely unrivalled among rude
peoples. One need but look at the sketches by common Eskimo fishermen
which illustrate Dr. Henry Rink's fascinating book on Danish Greenland,
to realize that this rude Eskimo art has a character as pronounced and
unmistakable in its way as the much higher art of the Japanese. Now
among the European remains of the Cave men are many sketches of
mammoths, cave bears, and other animals now extinct, and hunting scenes
so artfully and vividly portrayed as to bring distinctly before us many
details of daily life in an antiquity so vast that in comparison with it
the interval between the pyramids of Egypt and the Eiffel tower shrinks
into a point. Such a talent is unique among savage peoples. It exists
only among the living Eskimos and the ancient Cave men; and when
considered in connection with so many other points of agreement, and
with the indisputable fact that the Cave men were a sub-arctic race, it
affords a strong presumption in favour of the opinion of that great
palæontologist, Professor Boyd Dawkins, that the Eskimos of North
America are to-day the sole survivors of the race that made their homes
in the Pleistocene caves of western Europe.[16]
[Footnote 15: See Dawkins, _Early Man in Britain_, pp.
233-245.]
[Footnote 16: According to Dr. Rink the Eskimos formerly
inhabited the central portions of North America, and have
retreated or been driven northward; he would make the Eskimos
of Siberia an offshoot from those of America, though he freely
admits that there are grounds for entertaining the opposite
view. Dr. Abbott is inclined to attribute an Eskimo origin to
some of the palæoliths of the Trenton gravel. On the other
hand, Mr. Clements Markham derives the American Eskimos from
those of Siberia. It seems to me that these views may be
comprehended and reconciled in a wider one. I would suggest
that during the Glacial period the ancestral Eskimos may have
gradually become adapted to arctic conditions of life; that in
the mild interglacial intervals they migrated northward along
with the musk-sheep; and that upon the return of the cold they
migrated southward again, keeping always near the edge of the
ice-sheet. Such a southward migration would naturally enough
bring them in one continent down to the Pyrenees, in the other
down to the Alleghanies; and naturally enough the modern
inquirer has his attention first directed to the indications of
their final retreat, _both_ northward in America and
northeastward from Europe through Siberia. This is like what
happened with so many plants and animals. Compare Darwin's
remarks on "Dispersal in the Glacial Period," _Origin of
Species_, chap. xii.
The best books on the Eskimos are those of Dr. Rink, _Tales and
Traditions of the Eskimo_, Edinburgh, 1875; _Danish Greenland_,
London, 1877; _The Eskimo Tribes, their Distribution and
Characteristics, especially in regard to Language_, Copenhagen,
1887. See also Franz Boas, "The Central Eskimo," _Sixth Report
of the Bureau of Ethnology_, Washington, 1888, pp. 399-669; W.
H. Dall. _Alaska and its Resources_, 1870; Markham, "Origin and
Migrations of the Greenland Esquimaux," _Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society_, 1865; Cranz, _Historie von Groenland_,
Leipsic, 1765; Petitot, _Traditions indiennes du Canada
nord-ouest_, Paris, 1886; Pilling's _Bibliography of the Eskimo
Language_, Washington, 1887; Wells and Kelly, _English-Eskimo
and Eskimo-English Vocabularies, with Ethnographical Memoranda
concerning the Arctic Eskimos in Alaska and Siberia_,
Washington, 1890; Carstensen's _Two Summers in Greenland_,
London, 1890.]
If we have always been accustomed to think of races of men only as they
are placed on modern maps, it at first seems strange to think of England
and France as ever having been inhabited by Eskimos. Facts equally
strange may be cited in abundance from zoölogy and botany. The camel is
found to-day only in Arabia and Bactria; yet in all probability the
camel originated in America,[17] and is an intruder into what we are
accustomed to call his native deserts, just as the people of the United
States are European intruders upon the soil of America. So the giant
trees of Mariposa grove are now found only in California, but there was
once a time when they were as common in Europe[18] as maple-trees to-day
in a New England village.
[Footnote 17: Wallace, _Geographical Distribution of Animals_,
vol. ii. p. 155.]
[Footnote 18: Asa Gray, "Sequoia and its History," in his
_Darwiniana_, pp. 205-235.]
[Sidenote: There was probably no connection or intercourse by water
between ancient America and the Old World.]
Familiarity with innumerable facts of this sort, concerning the
complicated migrations and distribution of plants and animals, has
entirely altered our way of looking at the question as to the origin of
the American Indians. As already observed, we can hardly be said to
possess sufficient data for determining whether they are descended from
the Pleistocene inhabitants of America, or have come in some later wave
of migration from the Old World. Nor can we as yet determine whether
they were earlier or later comers than the Eskimos. But since we have
got rid of that feeling of speculative necessity above referred to, for
bringing the red men from Asia within the historic period, it has become
more and more clear that they have dwelt upon American soil for a very
long time. The aboriginal American, as we know him, with his language
and legends, his physical and mental peculiarities, his social
observances and customs, is most emphatically a native and not an
imported article. He belongs to the American continent as strictly as
its opossums and armadillos, its maize and its golden-rod, or any
members of its aboriginal fauna and flora belong to it. In all
probability he came from the Old World at some ancient period, whether
pre-glacial or post-glacial, when it was possible to come by land; and
here in all probability, until the arrival of white men from Europe, he
remained undisturbed by later comers, unless the Eskimos may have been
such. There is not a particle of evidence to suggest any connection or
intercourse between aboriginal America and Asia within any such period
as the last twenty thousand years, except in so far as there may perhaps
now and then have been slight surges of Eskimo tribes back and forth
across Bering strait.
[Sidenote: There is one great American "red" race.]
The Indians must surely be regarded as an entirely different stock from
the Eskimos. On the other hand, the most competent American ethnologists
are now pretty thoroughly agreed that all the aborigines south of the
Eskimo region, all the way from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, belong to
one and the same race. It was formerly supposed that the higher culture
of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians must indicate that they were of
different race from the more barbarous Algonquins and Dakotas; and a
speculative necessity was felt for proving that, whatever may have been
the case with the other American peoples, this higher culture at any
rate must have been introduced within the historic period from the Old
World.[19] This feeling was caused partly by the fact that, owing to
crude and loosely-framed conceptions of the real points of difference
between civilization and barbarism, this Central American culture was
absurdly exaggerated. As the further study of the uncivilized parts of
the world has led to more accurate and precise conceptions, this kind of
speculative necessity has ceased to be felt. There is an increasing
disposition among scholars to agree that the warrior of Anahuac and the
shepherd of the Andes were just simply Indians, and that their culture
was no less indigenous than that of the Cherokees or Mohawks.
[Footnote 19: Illustrations may be found in plenty in the
learned works of Brasseur de Bourbourg:--_Histoire des nations
civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique centrale_, 4 vols.,
Paris, 1857-58; _Popol Vuh_, Paris, 1861; _Quatre lettres sur
le Mexique_, Paris, 1868; _Le manuscrit Troano_, Paris, 1870,
etc.]
[Sidenote: Different senses in which the word "race" is used.]
To prevent any possible misconception of my meaning, a further word of
explanation may be needed at this point. The word "race" is used in such
widely different senses that there is apt to be more or less vagueness
about it. The difference is mainly in what logicians call extension;
sometimes the word covers very little ground, sometimes a great deal. We
say that the people of England, of the United States, and of New South
Wales belong to one and the same race; and we say that an Englishman, a
Frenchman, and a Greek belong to three different races. There is a sense
in which both these statements are true. But there is also a sense in
which we may say that the Englishman, the Frenchman, and the Greek
belong to one and the same race; and that is when we are contrasting
them as white men with black men or yellow men. Now we may correctly say
that a Shawnee, an Ojibwa, and a Kickapoo belong to one and the same
Algonquin race; that a Mohawk and a Tuscarora belong to one and the same
Iroquois race; but that an Algonquin differs from an Iroquois somewhat
as an Englishman differs from a Frenchman. No doubt we may fairly say
that the Mexicans encountered by Cortes differed in race from the
Iroquois encountered by Champlain, as much as an Englishman differs from
an Albanian or a Montenegrin. But when we are contrasting aboriginal
Americans with white men or yellow men, it is right to say that Mexicans
and Iroquois belong to the same great red race.
In some parts of the world two strongly contrasted races have become
mingled together, or have existed side by side for centuries without
intermingling. In Europe the big blonde Aryan-speaking race has mixed
with the small brunette Iberian race, producing the endless varieties in
stature and complexion which may be seen in any drawing-room in London
or New York. In Africa south of Sahara, on the other hand, we find,
interspersed among negro tribes but kept perfectly distinct, that
primitive dwarfish race with yellow skin and tufted hair to which belong
the Hottentots and Bushmen, the Wambatti lately discovered by Mr.
Stanley, and other tribes.[20] Now in America south of Hudson's Bay the
case seems to have been quite otherwise, and more as it would have been
in Europe if there had been only Aryans, or in Africa if there had been
only blacks.[21]
[Footnote 20: See Werner, "The African Pygmies," _Popular
Science Monthly_, September, 1890,--a thoughtful and
interesting article.]
[Footnote 21: This sort of illustration requires continual
limitation and qualification. The case in ancient America was
not _quite_ as it would have been in Europe if there had been
only Aryans there. The semi-civilized people of the Cordilleras
were relatively brachycephalous as compared with the more
barbarous Indians north and east of New Mexico. It is correct
to call this a distinction of race if we mean thereby a
distinction developed upon American soil, a differentiation
within the limits of the red race, and not an intrusion from
without. In this sense the Caribs also may be regarded as a
distinct sub-race; and, in the same sense, we may call the
Kafirs a distinct sub-race of African blacks. See, as to the
latter, Tylor, _Anthropology_, p. 39.]
[Sidenote: No necessary connection between differences in culture and
differences in race.]
The belief that the people of the Cordilleras must be of radically
different race from other Indians was based upon the vague notion that
grades of culture have some necessary connection with likenesses and
differences of race. There is no such necessary connection.[22] Between
the highly civilized Japanese and their barbarous Mandshu cousins the
difference in culture is much greater than the difference between
Mohawks and Mexicans; and the same may be said of the people of Israel
and Judah in contrast with the Arabs of the desert, or of the imperial
Romans in comparison with their Teutonic kinsmen as described by
Tacitus.
[Footnote 22: As Sir John Lubbock well says, "Different races
in similar stages of development often present more features of
resemblance to one another than the same race does to itself in
different stages of its history." (_Origin of Civilization_, p.
11.) If every student of history and ethnology would begin by
learning this lesson, the world would be spared a vast amount
of unprofitable theorizing.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Grades of culture.]
At this point, in order to prepare ourselves the more clearly to
understand sundry facts with which we shall hereafter be obliged to
deal, especially the wonderful experiences of the Spanish conquerors, it
will be well to pause for a moment and do something toward defining the
different grades of culture through which men have passed in attaining
to the grade which can properly be called civilization. Unless we begin
with clear ideas upon this head we cannot go far toward understanding
the ancient America that was first visited and described for us by
Spaniards. The various grades of culture need to be classified, and that
most original and suggestive scholar, the late Lewis Morgan of
Rochester, made a brilliant attempt in this direction, to which the
reader's attention is now invited.
[Sidenote: Distinction between Savagery and Barbarism.]
[Sidenote: Origin of pottery.]
Below _Civilization_ Mr. Morgan[23] distinguishes two principal grades
or stages of culture, namely _Savagery_ and _Barbarism_. There is much
looseness and confusion in the popular use of these terms, and this is
liable to become a fruitful source of misapprehension in the case of any
statement involving either of them. When popular usage discriminates
between them it discriminates in the right direction; there is a vague
but not uncertain feeling that savagery is a lower stage than barbarism.
But ordinarily the discrimination is not made and the two terms are
carelessly employed as if interchangeable. Scientific writers long since
recognized a general difference between savagery and barbarism, but Mr.
Morgan was the first to suggest a really useful criterion for
distinguishing between them. His criterion is the making of pottery; and
his reason for selecting it is that the making of pottery is something
that presupposes village life and more or less progress in the simpler
arts. The earlier methods of boiling food were either putting it into
holes in the ground lined with skins and then using heated stones, or
else putting it into baskets coated with clay to be supported over a
fire. The clay served the double purpose of preventing liquids from
escaping and protecting the basket against the flame. It was probably
observed that the clay was hardened by the fire, and thus in course of
time it was found that the clay would answer the purpose without the
basket.[24] Whoever first made this ingenious discovery led the way from
savagery to barbarism. Throughout the present work we shall apply the
name "savages" only to uncivilized people who do not make pottery.
[Footnote 23: See his great work on _Ancient Society_, New
York, 1877.]
[Footnote 24: See the evidence in Tylor, _Researches into the
Early History of Mankind_, pp. 269-272; cf. Lubbock,
_Prehistoric Times_, p. 573; and see Cushing's masterly "Study
of Pueblo Pottery," etc., _Reports of Bureau of Ethnology_,
iv., 473-521.]
[Sidenote: Lower status of savagery.]
But within each of these two stages Mr. Morgan distinguishes three
subordinate stages, or Ethnic Periods, which may be called either lower,
middle, and upper status, or older, middle, and later periods. The lower
status of savagery was that wholly prehistoric stage when men lived in
their original restricted habitat and subsisted on fruit and nuts. To
this period must be assigned the beginning of articulate speech. All
existing races of men had passed beyond it at an unknown antiquity.
[Sidenote: Middle status of savagery.]
Men began to pass beyond it when they discovered how to catch fish and
how to use fire. They could then begin (following coasts and rivers) to
spread over the earth. The middle status of savagery, thus introduced,
ends with the invention of that compound weapon, the bow and arrow. The
natives of Australia, who do not know this weapon, are still in the
middle status of savagery.[25]
[Footnote 25: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, London, 1889, gives
a vivid picture of aboriginal life in Australia.]
[Sidenote: Upper status of savagery.]
The invention of the bow and arrow, which marks the upper status of
savagery, was not only a great advance in military art, but it also
vastly increased men's supply of food by increasing their power of
killing wild game. The lowest tribes in America, such as those upon the
Columbia river, the Athabaskans of Hudson's Bay, the Fuegians and some
other South American tribes, are in the upper status of savagery.
[Sidenote: Lower status of barbarism: it ended differently in the two
hemispheres.]
The transition from this status to the lower status of barbarism was
marked, as before observed, by the invention of pottery. The end of the
lower status of barbarism was marked in the Old World by the
domestication of animals other than the dog, which was probably
domesticated at a much earlier period as an aid to the hunter. The
domestication of horses and asses, oxen and sheep, goats and pigs, marks
of course an immense advance. Along with it goes considerable
development of agriculture, thus enabling a small territory to support
many people. It takes a wide range of country to support hunters. In the
New World, except in Peru, the only domesticated animal was the dog.
Horses, oxen, and the other animals mentioned did not exist in America,
during the historic period, until they were brought over from Europe by
the Spaniards. In ancient American society there was no such thing as a
pastoral stage of development,[26] and the absence of domesticable
animals from the western hemisphere may well be reckoned as very
important among the causes which retarded the progress of mankind in
this part of the world.
[Footnote 26: The case of Peru, which forms an apparent but not
real exception to this general statement, will be considered
below in chap. ix.]
[Sidenote: Importance of Indian corn.]
On the other hand the ancient Americans had a cereal plant peculiar to
the New World, which made comparatively small demands upon the
intelligence and industry of the cultivator. Maize or "Indian corn" has
played a most important part in the history of the New World, as
regards both the red men and the white men. It could be planted without
clearing or ploughing the soil. It was only necessary to girdle the
trees with a stone hatchet, so as to destroy their leaves and let in the
sunshine. A few scratches and digs were made in the ground with a stone
digger, and the seed once dropped in took care of itself. The ears could
hang for weeks after ripening, and could be picked off without meddling
with the stalk; there was no need of threshing and winnowing. None of
the Old World cereals can be cultivated without much more industry and
intelligence. At the same time, when Indian corn is sown in tilled land
it yields with little labour more than twice as much food per acre as
any other kind of grain. This was of incalculable advantage to the
English settlers of New England, who would have found it much harder to
gain a secure foothold upon the soil if they had had to begin by
preparing it for wheat and rye without the aid of the beautiful and
beneficent American plant.[27] The Indians of the Atlantic coast of
North America for the most part lived in stockaded villages, and
cultivated their corn along with beans, pumpkins, squashes, and tobacco;
but their cultivation was of the rudest sort,[28] and population was too
sparse for much progress toward civilization. But Indian corn, when
sown in carefully tilled and irrigated land, had much to do with the
denser population, the increasing organization of labour, and the higher
development in the arts, which characterized the confederacies of Mexico
and Central America and all the pueblo Indians of the southwest. The
potato played a somewhat similar part in Peru. Hence it seems proper to
take the regular employment of tillage with irrigation as marking the
end of the lower period of barbarism in the New World. To this Mr.
Morgan adds the use of adobe-brick and stone in architecture, which also
distinguished the Mexicans and their neighbours from the ruder tribes of
North and South America. All these ruder tribes, except the few already
mentioned as in the upper period of savagery, were somewhere within the
lower period of barbarism. Thus the Algonquins and Iroquois, the Creeks,
the Dakotas, etc., when first seen by white men, were within this
period; but some had made much further progress within it than others.
For example, the Algonquin tribe of Ojibwas had little more than emerged
from savagery, while the Creeks and Cherokees had made considerable
advance toward the middle status of barbarism.
[Footnote 27: See Shaler, "Physiography of North America," in
Winsor's _Narr. and Crit. Hist._ vol. iv. p. xiii.]
[Footnote 28: "No manure was used," says Mr. Parkman, speaking
of the Hurons, "but at intervals of from ten to twenty years,
when the soil was exhausted and firewood distant, the village
was abandoned and a new one built." _Jesuits in North America_,
p. xxx.]
[Sidenote: Middle status of barbarism.]
Let us now observe some characteristics of this extremely interesting
middle period. It began, we see, in the eastern hemisphere with the
domestication of other animals than the dog, and in the western
hemisphere with cultivation by irrigation and the use of adobe-brick and
stone for building. It also possessed another feature which
distinguished it from earlier periods, in the materials of which its
tools were made. In the periods of savagery hatchets and spear-heads
were made of rudely chipped stones. In the lower period of barbarism the
chipping became more and more skilful until it gave place to polishing.
In the middle period tools were greatly multiplied, improved polishing
gave sharp and accurate points and edges, and at last metals began to be
used as materials preferable to stone. In America the metal used was
copper, and in some spots where it was very accessible there were
instances of its use by tribes not in other respects above the lower
status of barbarism,--as for example, the "mound-builders." In the Old
World the metal used was the alloy of copper and tin familiarly known as
bronze, and in its working it called for a higher degree of intelligence
than copper.
[Sidenote: Working of metals.]
Toward the close of the middle period of barbarism the working of metals
became the most important element of progress, and the period may be
regarded as ending with the invention of the process of smelting iron
ore. According to this principle of division, the inhabitants of the
lake villages of ancient Switzerland, who kept horses and oxen, pigs and
sheep, raised wheat and ground it into flour, and spun and wove linen
garments, but knew nothing of iron, were in the middle status of
barbarism. The same was true of the ancient Britons before they learned
the use of iron from their neighbours in Gaul. In the New World the
representatives of the middle status of barbarism were such peoples as
the Zuñis, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Peruvians.
[Sidenote: Upper status of barbarism.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of civilization.]
The upper status of barbarism, in so far as it implies a knowledge of
smelting iron, was never reached in aboriginal America. In the Old World
it is the stage which had been reached by the Greeks of the Homeric
poems[29] and the Germans in the time of Cæsar. The end of this period
and the beginning of true civilization is marked by the invention of a
phonetic alphabet and the production of written records. This brings
within the pale of civilization such people as the ancient Phoenicians,
the Hebrews after the exodus, the ruling classes at Nineveh and Babylon,
the Aryans of Persia and India, and the Japanese. But clearly it will
not do to insist too narrowly upon the phonetic character of the
alphabet. Where people acquainted with iron have enshrined in
hieroglyphics so much matter of historic record and literary interest as
the Chinese and the ancient Egyptians, they too must be classed as
civilized; and this Mr. Morgan by implication admits.
[Footnote 29: In the interesting architectural remains
unearthed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ and Tiryns, there have
been found at the former place a few iron keys and knives, at
the latter one iron lance-head; but the form and workmanship of
these objects mark them as not older than the beginning of the
fifth century B. C., or the time of the Persian wars. With
these exceptions the weapons and tools found in these cities,
as also in Troy, were of bronze and stone. Bronze was in common
use, but obsidian knives and arrow-heads of fine workmanship
abound in the ruins. According to Professor Sayce, these ruins
must date from 2000 to 1700 B. C. The Greeks of that time would
accordingly be placed in the middle status of barbarism. (See
Schliemann's _Mycenæ_, pp. 75, 364; _Tiryns_, p. 171.) In the
state of society described in the Homeric poems the smelting of
iron was well known, but the process seems to have been costly,
so that bronze weapons were still commonly used. (Tylor,
_Anthropology_, p. 279.) The Romans of the regal period were
ignorant of iron. (Lanciani, _Ancient Rome in the Light of
Recent Discoveries_, Boston, 1888, pp. 39-48.) The upper period
of barbarism was shortened for Greece and Rome through the
circumstance that they learned the working of iron from Egypt
and the use of the alphabet from Phoenicia. Such copying, of
course, affects the symmetry of such schemes as Mr. Morgan's,
and allowances have to be made for it. It is curious that both
Greeks and Romans seem to have preserved some tradition of the
Bronze Age:--
[Greek: tois d' ên chalkea men teuchea, chalkeoi de te oikoi,
chalkô d' eirgazonto; melas d' ouk eske sidêros.]
Hesiod, _Opp. Di._ 134.
Arma antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt
Et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami,
Et flamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum.
Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta.
Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, etc.
Lucretius, v. 1283.
Perhaps, as Munro suggests, Lucretius was thinking of Hesiod;
but it does not seem improbable that in both cases there may
have been a genuine tradition that their ancestors used bronze
tools and weapons before iron, since the change was
comparatively recent, and sundry religious observances tended
to perpetuate the memory of it.]
[Sidenote: "Civilizations" of Mexico and Peru.]
This brilliant classification of the stages of early culture will be
found very helpful if we only keep in mind the fact that in all wide
generalizations of this sort the case is liable to be somewhat unduly
simplified. The story of human progress is really not quite so easy to
decipher as such descriptions would make it appear, and when we have
laid down rules of this sort we need not be surprised if we now and then
come upon facts that will not exactly fit into them. In such an event
it is best not to try to squeeze or distort the unruly facts, but to
look and see if our rules will not bear some little qualification. The
faculty for generalizing is a good servant but a bad master. If we
observe this caution we shall find Mr. Morgan's work to be of great
value. It will be observed that, with one exception, his restrictions
leave the area of civilization as wide as that which we are accustomed
to assign to it in our ordinary speaking and thinking. That exception is
the case of Mexico, Central America, and Peru. We have so long been
accustomed to gorgeous accounts of the civilization of these countries
at the time of their discovery by the Spaniards that it may at first
shock our preconceived notions to see them set down as in the "middle
status of barbarism," one stage higher than Mohawks, and one stage lower
than the warriors of the Iliad. This does indeed mark a change since Dr.
Draper expressed the opinion that the Mexicans and Peruvians were
morally and intellectually superior to the Europeans of the sixteenth
century.[30] The reaction from the state of opinion in which such an
extravagant remark was even possible has been attended with some
controversy; but on the whole Mr. Morgan's main position has been
steadily and rapidly gaining ground, and it is becoming more and more
clear that if we are to use language correctly when we speak of the
civilizations of Mexico and Peru we really mean civilizations of an
extremely archaic type, considerably more archaic than that of Egypt in
the time of the Pharaohs. A "civilization" like that of the Aztecs,
without domestic animals or iron tools, with trade still in the
primitive stage of barter, with human sacrifices, and with cannibalism,
has certainly some of the most vivid features of barbarism. Along with
these primitive features, however, there seem to have been--after making
all due allowances--some features of luxury and splendour such as we are
wont to associate with civilization. The Aztecs, moreover, though
doubtless a full ethnical period behind the ancient Egyptians in general
advancement, had worked out a system of hieroglyphic writing, and had
begun to put it to some literary use. It would seem that a people may in
certain special points reach a level of attainment higher than the level
which they occupy in other points. The Cave men of the Glacial period
were ignorant of pottery, and thus had not risen above the upper status
of savagery; but their artistic talent, upon which we have remarked, was
not such as we are wont to associate with savagery. Other instances will
occur to us in the proper place.
[Footnote 30: See his _Intellectual Development of Europe_, New
York, 1863, pp. 448, 464.]
[Sidenote: Loose use of the words "savagery" and "civilization".]
The difficulty which people usually find in realizing the true position
of the ancient Mexican culture arises partly from the misconceptions
which have until recently distorted the facts, and partly from the loose
employment of terms above noticed. It is quite correct to speak of the
Australian blackfellows as "savages," but nothing is more common than to
hear the same epithet employed to characterize Shawnees and Mohawks;
and to call those Indians "savages" is quite misleading. So on the other
hand the term "civilization" is often so loosely used as to cover a
large territory belonging to "barbarism." One does not look for
scientific precision in newspapers, but they are apt to reflect popular
habits of thought quite faithfully, and for that reason it is proper
here to quote from one. In a newspaper account of Mr. Cushing's recent
discoveries of buried towns, works of irrigation, etc., in Arizona, we
are first told that these are the remains of a "splendid prehistoric
civilization," and the next moment we are told, in entire
unconsciousness of the contradiction, that the people who constructed
these works had only stone tools. Now to call a people "civilized" who
have only stone tools is utterly misleading. Nothing but confusion of
ideas and darkening of counsel can come from such a misuse of words.
Such a people may be in a high degree interesting and entitled to credit
for what they have achieved, but the grade of culture which they have
reached is not "civilization."
[Sidenote: Value and importance of the term "barbarism."]
With "savagery" thus encroaching upon its area of meaning on the one
side, and "civilization" encroaching on the other, the word "barbarism,"
as popularly apprehended, is left in a vague and unsatisfactory plight.
If we speak of Montezuma's people as barbarians one stage further
advanced than Mohawks, we are liable to be charged with calling them
"savages." Yet the term "barbarism" is a very useful one; indispensable,
indeed, in the history of human progress. There is no other word which
can serve in its stead as a designation of the enormous interval which
begins with the invention of pottery and ends with the invention of the
alphabet. The popular usage of the word is likely to become more
definite as it comes to be more generally realized how prodigious that
interval has been. When we think what a considerable portion of man's
past existence has been comprised within it, and what a marvellous
transformation in human knowledge and human faculty has been gradually
wrought between its beginning and its end, the period of barbarism
becomes invested with most thrilling interest, and its name ceases to
appear otherwise than respectable. It is Mr. Morgan's chief title to
fame that he has so thoroughly explored this period and described its
features with such masterly skill.
[Sidenote: The status of barbarism is most completely exemplified in
ancient America.]
[Sidenote: Survivals of bygone epochs of culture.]
It is worth while to observe that Mr. Morgan's view of the successive
stages of culture is one which could not well have been marked out in
all its parts except by a student of American archæology. Aboriginal
America is the richest field in the world for the study of barbarism.
Its people present every gradation in social life during three ethnical
periods--the upper period of savagery and the lower and middle periods
of barbarism--so that the process of development may be most
systematically and instructively studied. Until we have become familiar
with ancient American society, and so long as our view is confined to
the phases of progress in the Old World, the demarcation between
civilized and uncivilized life seems too abrupt and sudden; we do not
get a correct measure of it. The oldest European tradition reaches back
only through the upper period of barbarism.[31] The middle and lower
periods have lapsed into utter oblivion, and it is only modern
archæological research that is beginning to recover the traces of them.
But among the red men of America the social life of ages more remote
than that of the lake villages of Switzerland is in many particulars
preserved for us to-day, and when we study it we begin to realize as
never before the continuity of human development, its enormous duration,
and the almost infinite accumulation of slow efforts by which progress
has been achieved. Ancient America is further instructive in presenting
the middle status of barbarism in a different form from that which it
assumed in the eastern hemisphere. Its most conspicuous outward
manifestations, instead of tents and herds, were strange and imposing
edifices of stone, so that it was quite natural that observers
interpreting it from a basis of European experience should mistake it
for civilization. Certain aspects of that middle period may be studied
to-day in New Mexico and Arizona, as phases of the older periods may
still be found among the wilder tribes, even after all the contact they
have had with white men. These survivals from antiquity will not
permanently outlive that contact, and it is important that no time
should be lost in gathering and putting on record all that can be
learned of the speech and arts, the customs and beliefs, everything that
goes to constitute the philology and anthropology of the red men. For
the intelligent and vigorous work of this sort now conducted by the
Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, under the direction
of Major Powell, no praise can be too strong and no encouragement too
hearty.
[Footnote 31: Now and then, perhaps, but very rarely, it just
touches the close of the middle period, as, e. g., in the lines
from Hesiod and Lucretius above quoted.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Tribal society and multiplicity of languages in aboriginal
America.]
A brief enumeration of the principal groups of Indians will be helpful
in enabling us to comprehend the social condition of ancient America.
The groups are in great part defined by differences of language, which
are perhaps a better criterion of racial affinity in the New World than
in the Old, because there seems to have been little or nothing of that
peculiar kind of conquest with incorporation resulting in complete
change of speech which we sometimes find in the Old World; as, for
example, when we see the Celto-Iberian population of Spain and the
Belgic, Celtic, and Aquitanian populations of Gaul forgetting their
native tongues, and adopting that of a confederacy of tribes in Latium.
Except in the case of Peru there is no indication that anything of this
sort went on, or that there was anything even superficially analogous to
"empire," in ancient America. What strikes one most forcibly at first is
the vast number of American languages. Adelung, in his "Mithridates,"
put the number at 1,264, and Ludewig, in his "Literature of the American
Languages," put it roundly at 1,100. Squier, on the other hand, was
content with 400.[32] The discrepancy arises from the fact that where
one scholar sees two or three distinct languages another sees two or
three dialects of one language and counts them as one; it is like the
difficulty which naturalists find in agreeing as to what are species and
what are only varieties. The great number of languages and dialects
spoken by a sparse population is one mark of the universal prevalence of
a rude and primitive form of tribal society.[33]
[Footnote 32: Winsor, "Bibliographical Notes on American
Linguistics," in his _Narr. and Crit. Hist._, vol. i. pp.
420-428, gives an admirable survey of the subject. See also
Pilling's bibliographical bulletins of Iroquoian, Siouan, and
Muskhogean languages, published by the Bureau of Ethnology.]
[Footnote 33: _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp. 147-174.]
[Sidenote: Tribes in the upper status of savagery.]
The lowest tribes in North America were those that are still to be found
in California, in the valley of the Columbia river, and on the shores of
Puget Sound. The Athabaskans of Hudson's Bay were on about the same
level of savagery. They made no pottery, knew nothing of horticulture,
depended for subsistence entirely upon bread-roots, fish, and game, and
thus had no village life. They were mere prowlers in the upper status of
savagery.[34] The Apaches of Arizona, preëminent even among red men for
atrocious cruelty, are an offshoot from the Athabaskan stock. Very
little better are the Shoshones and Bannocks that still wander among
the lonely bare mountains and over the weird sage-brush plains of Idaho.
The region west of the Rocky Mountains and north of New Mexico is thus
the region of savagery.
[Footnote 34: For a good account of Indians in the upper status
of savagery until modified by contact with civilization, see
Myron Eells, "The Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of
Washington Territory," _Smithsonian Report_, 1887, pp.
605-681.]
[Sidenote: The Dakota family of tribes.]
Between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast the aborigines, at
the time of the Discovery, might have been divided into six or seven
groups, of which three were situated mainly to the east of the
Mississippi river, the others mainly to the west of it. All were in the
lower period of barbarism. Of the western groups, by far the most
numerous were the Dakotas, comprising the Sioux, Poncas, Omahas, Iowas,
Kaws, Otoes, and Missouris. From the headwaters of the Mississippi their
territory extended westward on both sides of the Missouri for a thousand
miles. One of their tribes, the Winnebagos, had crossed the Mississippi
and pressed into the region between that river and Lake Michigan.
[Sidenote: The Minnitarees and Mandans.]
A second group, very small in numbers but extremely interesting to the
student of ethnology, comprises the Minnitarees and Mandans on the upper
Missouri.[35] The remnants of these tribes now live together in the same
village, and in personal appearance, as well as in intelligence, they
are described as superior to any other red men north of New Mexico.
From their first discovery, by the brothers La Vérendrye in 1742, down
to Mr. Catlin's visit nearly a century later, there was no change in
their condition,[36] but shortly afterward, in 1838, the greater part of
them were swept away by small-pox. The excellence of their horticulture,
the framework of their houses, and their peculiar religious ceremonies
early attracted attention. Upon Mr. Catlin they made such an impression
that he fancied there must be an infusion of white blood in them; and
after the fashion of those days he sought to account for it by a
reference to the legend of Madoc, a Welsh prince who was dimly imagined
to have sailed to America about 1170. He thought that Madoc's party
might have sailed to the Mississippi and founded a colony which ascended
that river and the Ohio, built the famous mounds of the Ohio valley, and
finally migrated to the upper Missouri.[37] To this speculation was
appended the inevitable list of words which happen to sound somewhat
alike in Mandan and in Welsh. In the realm of free fancy everything is
easy. That there was a Madoc who went somewhere in 1170 is quite
possible, but as shrewd old John Smith said about it, "where this place
was no history can show."[38] But one part of Mr. Catlin's speculation
may have hit somewhat nearer the truth. It is possible that the
Minnitarees or the Mandans, or both, may be a remnant of some of those
Mound-builders in the Mississippi valley concerning whom something will
presently be said.
[Footnote 35: An excellent description of them, profusely
illustrated with coloured pictures, may be found in Catlin's
_North American Indians_, vol. i. pp. 66-207, 7th ed., London,
1848; the author was an accurate and trustworthy observer. Some
writers have placed these tribes in the Dakota group because of
the large number of Dakota words in their language; but these
are probably borrowed words, like the numerous French words in
English.]
[Footnote 36: See Francis Parkman's paper, "The Discovery of
the Rocky Mountains," _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1888. I hope
the appearance of this article, two years ago, indicates that
we have not much longer to wait for the next of that
magnificent series of volumes on the history of the French in
North America.]
[Footnote 37: _North American Indians_, vol. ii., Appendix A.]
[Footnote 38: Smith's _Generall Historie of Virginia, New
England and the Summer Isles_, p. 1, London, 1626.]
[Sidenote: Pawnees, etc.]
The third group in this western region consists of the Pawnees and
Arickarees,[39] of the Platte valley in Nebraska, with a few kindred
tribes farther to the south.
[Footnote 39: For the history and ethnology of these
interesting tribes, see three learned papers by J. B. Dunbar,
in _Magazine of American History_, vol. iv. pp. 241-281; vol.
v. pp. 321-342; vol. viii. pp. 734-756; also Grinnell's _Pawnee
Hero Stories and Folk-Tales_, New York, 1889.]
[Sidenote: Maskoki family.]
Of the three groups eastward of the Mississippi we may first mention the
Maskoki, or Muskhogees, consisting of the Choctaws, Chickasaws,
Seminoles, and others, with the Creek confederacy.[40] These tribes were
intelligent and powerful, with a culture well advanced toward the end of
the lower period of barbarism.
[Footnote 40: These tribes of the Gulf region were formerly
grouped, along with others not akin to them, as "Mobilians."
The Cherokees were supposed to belong to the Maskoki family,
but they have lately been declared an intrusive offshoot from
the Iroquois stock. The remnants of another alien tribe, the
once famous Natchez, were adopted into the Creek confederacy.
For a full account of these tribes, see Gatschet, _A Migration
Legend of the Creek Indians_, vol. i., Philadelphia, 1884.]
[Sidenote: Algonquin family of tribes.]
The Algonquin family, bordering at its southern limits upon the Maskoki,
had a vast range northeasterly along the Atlantic coast until it reached
the confines of Labrador, and northwesterly through the region of the
Great Lakes and as far as the Churchill river[41] to the west of
Hudson's Bay. In other words, the Algonquins were bounded on the south
by the Maskoki,[42] on the west by the Dakotas, on the northwest by the
Athabaskans, on the northeast by Eskimos, and on the east by the ocean.
Between Lake Superior and the Red River of the North the Crees had their
hunting grounds, and closely related to them were the Pottawatomies,
Ojibwas, and Ottawas. One offshoot, including the Blackfeet, Cheyennes,
and Arrapahos, roamed as far west as the Rocky Mountains. The great
triangle between the upper Mississippi and the Ohio was occupied by the
Menomonees and Kickapoos, the Sacs and Foxes, the Miamis and Illinois,
and the Shawnees. Along the coast region the principal Algonquin tribes
were the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenape or Delawares, the Munsees or
Minisinks of the mountains about the Susquehanna, the Mohegans on the
Hudson, the Adirondacks between that river and the St. Lawrence, the
Narragansetts and their congeners in New England, and finally the
Micmacs and Wabenaki far down East, as the last name implies. There is a
tradition, supported to some extent by linguistic evidence,[43] that the
Mohegans, with their cousins the Pequots, were more closely related to
the Shawnees than to the Delaware or coast group. While all the
Algonquin tribes were in the lower period of barbarism, there was a
noticeable gradation among them, the Crees and Ojibwas of the far North
standing lowest in culture, and the Shawnees, at their southernmost
limits, standing highest.
[Footnote 41: Howse, _Grammar of the Cree Language_, London,
1865, p. vii.]
[Footnote 42: Except in so far as the Cherokees and Tuscaroras,
presently to be mentioned, were interposed.]
[Footnote 43: Brinton, _The Lenape and their Legends_, p. 30.]
[Sidenote: Huron-Iroquois family of tribes.]
We have observed the Dakota tribes pressing eastward against their
neighbours and sending out an offshoot, the Winnebagos, across the
Mississippi river. It has been supposed that the Huron-Iroquois group of
tribes was a more remote offshoot from the Dakotas. This is very
doubtful; but in the thirteenth or fourteenth century the general trend
of the Huron-Iroquois movement seems to have been eastward, either in
successive swarms, or in a single swarm, which became divided and
scattered by segmentation, as was common with all Indian tribes. They
seem early to have proved their superiority over the Algonquins in
bravery and intelligence. Their line of invasion seems to have run
eastward to Niagara, and thereabouts to have bifurcated, one line
following the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the other that of the
Susquehanna. The Hurons established themselves in the peninsula between
the lake that bears their name and Lake Ontario. South of them and along
the northern shore of Lake Erie were settled their kindred, afterward
called the "Neutral Nation."[44] On the southern shore the Eries planted
themselves, while the Susquehannocks pushed on in a direction
sufficiently described by their name. Farthest of all penetrated the
Tuscaroras, even into the pine forests of North Carolina, where they
maintained themselves in isolation from their kindred until 1715. These
invasions resulted in some displacement of Algonquin tribes, and began
to sap the strength of the confederacy or alliance in which the
Delawares had held a foremost place.
[Footnote 44: Because they refused to take part in the strife
between the Hurons and the Five Nations. Their Indian name was
Attiwandarons. They were unsurpassed for ferocity. See Parkman,
_Jesuits in North America_, p. xliv.]
[Sidenote: The Five Nations.]
But by far the most famous and important of the Huron-Iroquois were
those that followed the northern shore of Lake Ontario into the valley
of the St. Lawrence. In that direction their progress was checked by the
Algonquin tribe of Adirondacks, but they succeeded in retaining a
foothold in the country for a long time; for in 1535 Jacques Cartier
found on the site which he named Montreal an Iroquois village which had
vanished before Champlain's arrival seventy years later. Those Iroquois
who were thrust back in the struggle for the St. Lawrence valley, early
in the fifteenth century, made their way across Lake Ontario and
established themselves at the mouth of the Oswego river. They were then
in three small tribes,--the Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senecas,--but as
they grew in numbers and spread eastward to the Hudson and westward to
the Genesee, the intermediate tribes of Oneidas and Cayugas were formed
by segmentation.[45] About 1450 the five tribes--afterwards known as the
Five Nations--were joined in a confederacy in pursuance of the wise
counsel which Hayowentha, or Hiawatha,[46] according to the legend,
whispered into the ears of the Onondaga sachem, Daganoweda. This union
of their resources combined, with their native bravery and cunning, and
their occupation of the most commanding military position in eastern
North America, to render them invincible among red men. They
exterminated their old enemies the Adirondacks, and pushed the Mohegans
over the mountains from the Hudson river to the Connecticut. When they
first encountered white men in 1609 their name had become a terror in
New England, insomuch that as soon as a single Mohawk was caught sight
of by the Indians in that country, they would raise the cry from hill to
hill, "A Mohawk! a Mohawk!" and forthwith would flee like sheep before
wolves, never dreaming of resistance.[47]
[Footnote 45: Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 125.]
[Footnote 46: Whether there was ever such a person as Hiawatha
is, to say the least, doubtful. As a traditional culture-hero
his attributes are those of Ioskeha, Michabo, Quetzalcoatl,
Viracocha, and all that class of sky-gods to which I shall
again have occasion to refer. See Brinton's _Myths of the New
World_, p. 172. When the Indian speaks of Hiawatha whispering
advice to Daganoweda, his meaning is probably the same as that
of the ancient Greek when he attributed the wisdom of some
mortal hero to whispered advice from Zeus or his messenger
Hermes. Longfellow's famous poem is based upon Schoolcraft's
book entitled _The Hiawatha Legends_, which is really a
misnomer, for the book consists chiefly of Ojibwa stories about
Manabozho, son of the West Wind. There was really no such
legend of Hiawatha as that which the poet has immortalized. See
Hale, _The Iroquois Book of Rites_, pp. 36, 180-183.]
[Footnote 47: Cadwallader Colden, _History of the Five
Nations_, New York, 1727.]
After the Five Nations had been supplied with firearms by the Dutch
their power increased with portentous rapidity.[48] At first they sought
to persuade their neighbours of kindred blood and speech, the Eries and
others, to join their confederacy; and failing in this they went to war
and exterminated them.[49] Then they overthrew one Algonquin tribe after
another until in 1690 their career was checked by the French. By that
time they had reduced to a tributary condition most of the Algonquin
tribes, even to the Mississippi river. Some writers have spoken of the
empire of the Iroquois, and it has been surmised that, if they had not
been interfered with by white men, they might have played a part
analogous to that of the Romans in the Old World; but there is no real
similarity between the two cases. The Romans acquired their mighty
strength by incorporating vanquished peoples into their own body
politic.[50] No American aborigines ever had a glimmering of the process
of state-building after the Roman fashion. No incorporation resulted
from the victories of the Iroquois. Where their burnings and massacres
stopped short of extermination, they simply took tribute, which was as
far as state-craft had got in the lower period of barbarism. General
Walker has summed up their military career in a single sentence: "They
were the scourge of God upon the aborigines of the continent."[51]
[Footnote 48: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 49: All except the distant Tuscaroras, who in 1715
migrated from North Carolina to New York, and joining the
Iroquois league made it the Six Nations. All the rest of the
outlying Huron-Iroquois stock was wiped out of existence before
the end of the seventeenth century, except the remnant of
Hurons since known as Wyandots.]
[Footnote 50: See my _Beginnings of New England_, chap. i.]
[Footnote 51: F. A. Walker, "The Indian Question," _North
American Review_, April, 1873, p. 370.]
[Sidenote: Horticulture must be distinguished from field agriculture.]
[Sidenote: Perpetual warfare.]