departed brave, where they will forever Very many of the tribes speak dialects, enjoy the pleasures of the chase and of war. Even of their own origin they have nothing but a confused tradition, not extending back beyond three or four generations. As they have no calendars, and reckon their years only by the return of certain seasons, so they have no record of time past. rather than languages, distinct from those of their neighbours. East of the Mississippi River, and within the bounds of what is now the United States, when the colonization of the country by Europeans commenced, there were eight races, or families of tribes, each comprehending those most alike in language and customs, and who constantly recognised each other as relatives. These were, 1. The Algonquins, consisting of many tribes, scattered over the whole of the New-England States, the southern part of New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Being the most numerous of all the tribes, they occupied about half the territory east of the Mississippi and south of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. 2. The Sioux, or DACOTAS, liv Though hospitable and kind to strangers to a remarkable degree, they are capable of the most diabolical cruelty to their enemies. The well-authenticated accounts of the manner in which they sometimes treat their prisoners would almost make us doubt whether they can belong to the human species. And yet we have only to recall to our minds scenes which have taken place in highly-civilized countries, and almost within our own day, when Christian men have been put to death in its most horrible forms by those who pro-ing between Lake Superior and the Missisfessed to be Christians themselves, to be sippi. These were a small branch of the convinced that, when not restrained by the great tribe of the same name, to be found grace and providence of God, there is no- about the higher streams of that river, and thing too devilish for man to do. between them and the Oregon Mountains. Some remains of the law, written origi-3. The HURON-IROQUOIS nations, who occunally on the heart of man by his Creator, pied all the northern and western parts of are to be found even among the Indian what is now the State of New-York, and a tribes. Certain actions are considered part of Upper Canada. The most imporcriminal and deserving of punishment; tant of these tribes were the Five Nations, others are reckoned meritorious. The as they were long called, viz., the Mohawks, catalogue, it is true, of accredited virtues Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Seneand vices is not extensive. Among the cas. These were afterward joined by the men, nothing can atone for the want of Tuscaroras from the Carolinas, a branch courage and fortitude. The captive war- of the same great family, and then they rior can laugh to scorn all the tortures of took the name of the Six Nations, by which his enemies, and sing in the very agonies title they are better known to history. of a death inflicted in the most cruel man- 4. The CATAWBAS, who lived chiefly in ner, what may be termed a song of triumph, what is now South Carolina. 5. The rather than of death! The narrations which CHEROKEES, who lived in the mountainous the Jesuit (French) missionaries, who knew parts of the two Carolinas, Georgia, and the Indian character better, perhaps, than Alabama. Their country lay in the southany other white men that have ever writ-ern extreme of the Alleghany Mountains, ten of them, have left of what they them- and abounded in ridges and valleys. 6. selves saw, are such as no civilized man The UCHEES, who resided in Georgia, in can read without being perfectly appalled.* the vicinity of the site occupied at present Roman fortitude never surpassed that dis- by the city of Augusta. 7. The NATCHEZ, played in innumerable instances by cap-so famous for their tragical end, who lived tured Indian warriors. In fact, nothing can be compared with it except that said to have been exhibited by the Scandinavians, in their early wars with one another and with foreign enemies; and of which we have many accounts in their Elder and Younger Eddas, and in their Sagas. on the banks of the Mississippi, in the neighbourhood of the present city of Natchez. 8. The MOBILIAN tribes, or, as Mr. Gallatin calls them, the MUSKнOGEE-CHOCTA, who occupied the country which comprises now the States of Alabama and Mississippi, and the Territory of Florida. The tribes which composed this family, or nation, are well known by the name of the Creeks, the Chickasas, the Choctas, and the Seminoles; to whom may be added the Yamasses, who formerly lived on the * The reader is referred to the work entitled "Relation de ce qui s'est passé en la Nouvelle France," in 1632, and the years following, down till 1660. Also to the work of Creuxius, and the Journal of Marest. Much is to be found on the same horrible subject in Charlevoix's "Histoire de la Nouvelle France;" Lepage Dupratz's "Histoire de la Louisi- Savannah River, but exist no longer as a ane;" Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia;" "Transac-separate tribe. tions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. i. ; The languages of these eight families of and the volumes of the late excellent Heckewelder, tribes are very different, and yet they are who was for forty years a missionary among the Delaware Indians, and whom the author of this marked by strong grammatical affinities. work had the happiness of knowing intimately. It is most probable that the per who first settled America, come whence they | which they knew not how to protect themmight, spoke different, though remotely re-selves. If the Europeans introduced some lated languages. All the languages of the diseases, it is no less certain that they Aborigines of America are exceedingly found some formidable ones among the complicated, regular in the forms of verbs, natives. A year or two before the Pilgrim irregular in those of nouns, and admitting of changes by modifications of final syllables, initial syllables, and even, in the case of verbs, by the insertion of particles, in a way unknown to the languages of Western Europe. They exhibit demonstrative proof that they are not the invention of those who use them, and that they who use them have never been a highly-civilized people. Synthesis, or the habit of compounding words with words, prevails, instead of the more simple method of analysis, which a highly cultivated use of language always displays. The old English was much more clumsy than the modern. The same thing is true of the French and German; indeed, of every cultivated language. The languages of the tribes bordering upon the frontier settlements of the United States begin to exhibit visible evidences of the effect of contact with civilization. The half-breeds are also introducing modifications, which show that the civilized mind tends to simplify language; and the labours of the missionaries, who have introduced letters among several tribes, are also producing great results, and leading to decided improvements. A great deal has been said and written about the gradual wasting and disappearance of the tribes which once occupied the territories of the United States. It is not intended to deny that several tribes which figure in the history of the first settlement of the country by Europeans are extinct, and that several more are nearly so. Nor is it denied that this has been partly occasioned by wars waged with them by the white or European population; still more by the introduction of drunkenness and other vices of civilized men, and by the diseases incident to those vices. But while this may be all true, still the correctness of a good deal that has been said on this subject may well be questioned. Nothing can be more certain than that the tribes which once occupied the country now comprised within the United States, were, at the epoch of the first settlement of Europeans on its shores, gradually wasting away, and had long been so; from the destructive wars waged with each other; from the frequent recurrence of famine, and sometimes from cold; and from diseases and pestilences, against *The reader who desires, may see much on the Indian languages in Humboldt's Voyages; Vater's Mithradates, vol. iii.; Baron Will. Humboldt; Publications of the Berlin Academy, vol. xliv.; Gallatin's Analysis; Duponceau's Notes on Zeisberger; American Quarterly Review, vol. iii.; Heckewelder's two works respecting Indian manners, customs, etc.; and Mr. Schoolcraft's publications. Fathers reached the coast of New-England, the very territory on which they settled was swept of almost its entire population by a pestilence. Several of the tribes which existed when the colonists arrived from Europe were but the remnants, as they themselves asserted, of once powerful tribes, that had been almost annihilated by war or by disease. This, as is believed, was the case with the Catawbas, the Uchees, and the Natchez. Many of the branches of the Algonquin race, and some of the Huron-Iroquois, used to speak of the renowned days of their forefathers, when they were a powerful people. It is not easy, indeed, to estimate what was the probable number of the Indians who occupied, at the time of its discovery, the country east of the Mississippi and south of the St. Lawrence, comprising very nearly what may be called the settled portion of the United States; and from which the Indian race has disappeared, in consequence of emigration or other causes. But I am inclined to think, with Mr. Bancroft, an American author who deserves the highest praise for the diligent research he has displayed in his admirable work on the United States, and to whom I am greatly indebted on this subject, as well as many others which are treated in this work, that there may have been in all not far from one hundred and eighty thousand souls.* That a considerable number were slain in the numerous wars carried on between them and the French and English during our colonial days, and in our wars with them after our independence, and that ardent spirits, also, have destroyed many thousands, cannot be doubted. But the most fruitful source of destruction to these poor "children of the wood" has been the occasional prevalence of contagious and epidemic diseases, such as the smallpox, which some years since cut off, in a few months, almost the whole tribe of the Mandans, on the Missouri. Of the ALGONQUIN race, whose numbers, two hundred years ago, were estimated at ninety thousand souls, only a few small tribes, and remnants of tribes, remain, probably not exceeding 20,000 persons. Of the HURON-IROQUOIS, not more probably than two or three thousand remain within the limits of the United States. The greater part who survive are to be found in Canada. The Sioux have not diminished. The CHEROKEES have increased. The CATAWBAs are nearly extinct as a nation. The remains of the UCHEES and NATCHEZ have Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. ii. p. 253. ors. been absorbed among the Creeks and countries having caught the spirit of disChoctas; and, indeed, it is certain, that tant adventure in quest of gold, these soon not only straggling individuals, but also entered into competition with the nation large portions of tribes, have united with whose sovereign had won the title of Most other tribes, and so exist in a commingled Catholic Majesty; and as all Christendom at state with them. It has happened that an that day bowed its neck to the spiritual doentire conquered tribe has been compelled minion of the Vicar of Christ, as the Bishop to submit to absorption among the conquer- of Rome claimed to be, they could not be And, finally, the MOBILIAN or MUSK- refused a portion from the "holy father," HOGEE-CHOCTA tribes, taken as a whole, on showing that they were entitled to it. have decidedly increased, it is believed, On the ground that Spain could not justly within the last twenty-five years. They, appropriate to herself any part of the Amerwith the Cherokees, and the remains of ican Continent which she had not actually several tribes of the Algonquin race, are discovered, by coasting along it, by markalmost all collected together, in the districting its boundaries, and by landing upon it, of country assigned to them by the General Government, west of the States of Arkansas and Missouri. Respecting this plan, as well as touching the general policy of the government of the United States towards the Indians, I shall speak fully in another place. It is difficult to estimate, with anything like absolute precision, the number of Indians that now remain as the descendants of the tribes which once occupied the country of which we have spoken. Without pretending to reckon those who have sought refuge with tribes far in the West, we may safely put it down at one hundred and fifteen or twenty thousand souls. Of what is doing to save them from physical and moral ruin, I shall speak hereafter. The most plausible opinion respecting the origin of the Aborigines of America is, that they are of the Mongolian race; and that they came to America from Asia, either by way of the Polynesian world,* or by Behring's Straits, or by the Aleutian Islands, Mednoi Island, and the Behring group. Facts well attested prove this to have been practicable. That the resemblance between the Aborigines of America and the Mongolian race is most striking, every one will testify who has seen both. Universally and substantially," says the American traveller, Ledyard, respecting the Mongolians, "they resemble the Aborigines of America." CHAPTER III. DISCOVERY OF THAT PART OF NORTH AMER- OF THE UNITED STATES.-THE EARLY AND UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO COLONIZE IT. As the American hemisphere had been discovered by expeditions sent out by Spain, that country claimed the entire continent, as well as the adjoining islands; and to it a pope, as the vicegerent of God, undertook to cede the whole. But other * Lang's View of the Polynesian Nations. Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iii., p. 315-18. they created for themselves a chance of obtaining no inconsiderable share. England was the first to follow in the career of discovery. Under her auspices, the continent itself was first discovered,* June 24, 1497, by the Cabots, John and Sebastian, father and son, the latter of whom was a native of that country, and the former a merchant adventurer from Venice, but at the time residing in England, and engaged in the service of Henry VII. By this event, a very large and important part of the coast of North America was secured to a country which, within less than half a century, was to begin to throw off the shackles of Rome, and to become, in due time, the most powerful of all Protestant kingdoms. He who "hath made of one blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation," had resolved in this manner to prepare a place to which, in ages then drawing near, those who should be persecuted for Christ's sake might flee and find protection, and thus found a great Protestant empire. And yet how near, if we may so speak, was this mighty plan to being defeated? A Spanish discoverer, a year or two before, was diverted, by some apparently trivial circumstance, from directing his course from Cuba to the very coast which the Cabots afterward sailed along. Had he done so, how different, in some momentous respects, might have been the state of the world at this day! We have here another illustration of the littleness of causes with which the very greatest of human events are often connected, and of that superintending Providence which rules in all things. Spain, however, far from at once relinquishing her pretensions to a country thus discovered by England, insisted on claiming a large part of it, and for a long time extended the name of the comparatively insignificant peninsula of Florida, with which she was compelled to be contented at last, over the whole tract reaching as far * Columbus had not at that epoch touched the continent, but had only discovered the West India Islands. southern coast of North America. The first of these took place on the confines of South Carolina, and seems at once to have failed. The second, which was on the River St. John's in Florida, survived but a few years. In 1565, it was attacked by the Spaniards, under Melendez, that nation claiming the country in right of discovery, in consequence of Ponce de Leon having landed upon it in 1512; and as religious bigotry was added to national jealousy in the assailants, they put almost all the Huguenots to death in the most cruel manner," not as Frenchmen," they alleged, "but as Lutherans." For this atrocity the Spaniards were severely punished three years afterward, when Dominic de Gourgues, a Gascon, having captured two of their forts, hanged his prisoners upon trees, not far from the spot where his countrymen had suffered, and placed over their bodies this inscription: "I do not this as unto Spaniards or mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers." north as the Chesapeake Bay, if not farther. France, on the other hand, was not likely, under so intelligent and ambitious a monarch as Francis I., to remain an inactive spectator of maritime discoveries made by the nations on both sides of her. Under her auspices, Verrazzani, in 1524, and Car- | tier ten years afterward, made voyages in search of new lands, so that soon she, too, had claims in America to prosecute. As the result of the former of those two enterprises, she claimed the coast lying to the south of North Carolina, and extending, as was truly asserted, beyond the farthest point reached by the Cabots. Still more important were the results of Cartier's voyage. Having gone up the River St. Lawrence as far as the island on which Montreal now stands, he and Roberval made an ineffectual attempt to found a colony, composed of thieves, murderers, debtors, and other inmates of the prisons in France, on the spot now occupied by Quebec. Two other unsuccessful attempts at colonization in America were made by With a view to encourage the colonizaFrance, the one in 1598, under the Marquistion of those parts of North America that de la Roche; the other in 1600, under Chau- were claimed by England, several patents vin. At length, in 1605, a French colony were granted by the crown of that country was permanently established, under De before the close of the sixteenth century. Monts, a Protestant, at the place now call- The enterprises, however, to which these ed Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, but not un- led, universally failed. The most famous til after having made an abortive attempt was that made in North Carolina, under a within the boundaries of the present State patent to Sir Walter Raleigh and others; it of Maine. Quebec was founded in 1608, was continued from 1584 to 1588; but even under the conduct of Champlain, who be the splendid talents and energy of its chief came the father of all the French settle- could not save his colony from final ruin. ments in North America. From that point Though the details of this unsuccessful the French colonists penetrated farther and enterprise fill many a page in the history farther up the St. Lawrence, until at length of the United States, strange to say, we parties of their hunters and trappers, ac- are in absolute ignorance of the fate of the companied by Jesuit missionaries, reached few remaining colonists that were left on the great lakes, passed beyond them, and the banks of the Roanoke; the most probdescending the Valley of the Mississippi, able conjecture being that they were masestablished themselves at Fort Du Quesne, sacred by the natives, though some affirm Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and various other that they were incorporated into one of places. Thus the greater part of the im- the Indian tribes. Two monuments of mense Central Valley of North America that memorable expedition remain to this fell, for a time, into the hands of the day; first, the name of Virginia, given to French. the entire coast by the courtier, in honour of his royal mistress, though afterward restricted to a single province; and, next, the use of tobacco in Europe, Sir Walter having successfully laboured to make it an article of commerce between the two continents. Nor was it only in the North that that nation sought to plant colonies. The failure of the French Protestants in all their efforts to secure for themselves mere toleration from their own government, naturally suggested the idea of expatriation, as the sole means that remained to them of procuring liberty to worship God according to his own Word. Even the Prince of Condé, though of royal blood, nobly proposed to set the example of withdrawing from France, rather than be the occasion, by remaining in it, of perpetual civil war with the obstinate partisans of Rome; and in 1562, under the auspices of the brave and good Coligny, to whom, also, the idea of expatriation was familiar, two attempts were made by the Huguenots to establish themselves on the Some of the voyages made from England to America in that century for the mere purpose of traffic were not unprofitable to the adventurers, but it was not until the following that any attempt at colonization met with success. In this no one who loves to mark the hand of God in the affairs of men, and who has studied well the history of those times, can fail to be struck with the display it presents of the Divine wisdom and goodness. For be it observed, that England was not yet ripe for the work of colonization, and could not then have planted the noble provinces of which she was to be the mother-country afterward. The mass of her population continued, until far on in the sixteenth century, to be attached to Rome; her glorious Constitution was not half formed until the century that followed. The Reformation, together with the persecutions, the discussions, and the conflicts that followed in its train, were all required, in order that minds and hearts might be created for the founding of a free empire, and that the principles and the forms of the government of England might in any sense be fit for the imitation of her colonies. Though England, when she first discovered America, thought only, as other nations had done, of enriching herself from mines of the precious metals and gems; on being undeceived by time, she indulged for a while the passion that followed for trafficking with the natives. But the commercial, as well as the golden age, if we may so speak, had to pass away, before men could be found who should establish themselves on that great continent with a view to agriculture as well as commerce, and who should look to the promotion of Christianity no less than to their secular interests. To this great and benevolent end God was rapidly shaping events in the Old World. CHAPTER IV. COLONIZATION of the territORIES NOW CON- ACCOMPLISHED. king the legislative authority, and a control over appointments; a species of double government, under which few political privileges were enjoyed by the colonists. What from the wilderness state of the country, the unfriendliness of the Aborigines, the insalubrity of the climate, the arbitrary conduct of the company, and the unfitness of most of the settlers for their task, the infant colony had to contend with many difficulties. Yet not only did it gain a permanent footing in the country, but, notwithstanding the disastrous wars with the Indians, insurrectionary attempts on the part of turbulent colonists, misunderstandings with the adjacent colony of Maryland, changes in its own charter, and other untoward circumstances, it had become a powerful province long before the establishment of American Independence. By a second charter granted in 1609, all the powers that had been reserved by the first to the king were surrendered to the company; but in 1624 that second charter was recalled, the company dissolved, and the government of the colony assumed by the crown, which continued thereafter to administer it in a general way, though the internal legislation of the colony was left, for the most part, to its own Legislature. Massachusetts was settled next in the order of time, and owed its rise to more than one original colony. The first planted within the province was that of NewPlymouth, founded on the west coast of Massachusetts Bay, in 1620; but although it spread by degrees into the adjacent district, yet it never acquired much extent. It originated in a grant of land from the THE first permanent colony planted by Plymouth Company in England, an incorthe English in America was Virginia. poration of noblemen, gentlemen, and burEven in that instance, what was projected gesses, on which King James had bestowed was a factory for trading with the natives, by charter all the territories included withrather than a fixed settlement for persons in the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees of expatriating themselves with an eye to the north latitude, from the Atlantic to the future advantage of their offspring, and Pacific Ocean. That company having looking for interests which might recon- undergone important modifications, much cile them to it as their home. It was more numerous settlements were made founded in 1607, by a Company of noble- under its auspices, in 1628 at Salem, and men, gentlemen, and merchants in London, in 1630 at Boston, from which two points by whom it was regarded as an affair of colonization spread extensively into the business, prosecuted with a view to pecu- surrounding country, and the province soon niary profit, not from any regard to the became populous and powerful. A colony welfare of the colonists. These, consist- was planted in New-Hampshire in 1631, ing of forty-eight gentlemen, twelve labour- and some settlements had been made in ers, and a few mechanics, reached the Maine a year or two earlier; but for a Chesapeake Bay in April, 1607, and having long time the progress of all these was landed, on the 13th of May, on a peninsula slow. In 1636, the celebrated Roger in the James River, there they planted their Williams, being banished from Massachufirst settlement, and called it James Town. setts, retired to Narragansett Bay, and by There had been bestowed upon the com- founding there, in 1638, the city of Provpany by royal charter a zone of land, ex-idence, led to the plantation of a new tending from the thirty-fourth to the thirty- province, now forming the State of Rhode eighth degree of north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, together with ample powers for administering the affairs of the colony, but reserving to the B Island. In 1635, the Rev. Thomas Hooker and John Haynes having led a colony into Connecticut, settled at the spot where the city of Hartford now stands, and rescued |