on which they settled was swept of almost its entire population by a pestilence. Several of the tribes that existed when the colonists arrived from Europe were but the remnants, as they themselves asserted, of once powerful tribes, which 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 what is still the most 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, to whose diligent research in his admirable work on the United States I am greatly indebted on this subject, as well as on 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, can not 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 small-pox, 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 twenty thousand persons. Of the Huron-Iroquois, probably not more 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 been absorbed among the Creeks and Choctaws; and, indeed, it is certain, that not only straggling individuals, but also large portions of tribes, have united with other tribes, and so exist in a commingled state with them. It has happened that an entire conquered tribe has been compelled to submit to absorption among the conquerors. And, finally, the Mobilian or Muskhogee-Choctaw * Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iii. p. 253.

tribes, taken as a whole, have decidedly increased, it is believed, within the last twenty-five years. They, with the Cherokees, and the remains of several tribes of the Algonquin race, are almost all collected together, in the district 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 toward the Indians, I shall speak fully in another place.

It is difficult to estimate, with any thing like absolute precision, the number of Indians that now remain as the descendants of the tribes that 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. The entire number of Indians within the present limits of the United States is estimated by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at 400,764, of whom 123,000 are west of the Rocky Mountains. 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 traveler, Ledyard, respecting the Mongolians, "they resemble the Aborigines of America."

CHAPTER III.

DISCOVERY OF THAT PART OF NORTH AMERICA WHICH IS COMPRISED IN THE LIMITS 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,

Lang's View of the Polynesian Nations. Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iii., p. 315-318.

undertook to cede the whole. But other countries having caught the spirit of distant adventure in quest of gold, these soon entered into competition with the nation whose sovereign had won the title of Most Catholic Majesty; and since at that day all Christendom bowed its neck to the spiritual dominion of the Vicar of Christ, as the Bishop of Rome claimed to be, they could not be refused a portion from the "holy father," upon showing that they were entitled to it. On the ground that Spain could not justly appropriate to herself any part of the American Continent which she had not actually discovered, by coasting along it, by marking its boundaries, and by landing upon it, 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 nearly, if we may so speak, was this mighty plan defeated! Had Columbus given to the exploration of the northern side of Cuba as much attention as he gave to the southern, in quest of gold, he could hardly have failed to reach Florida, and so would have discovered and claimed for Spain and Rome the Continent of North America. And if Juan Ponce de Leon, who reached Florida in latitude 30° 8', thirteen years after the Cabots reached Labrador, and twelve after Sebastian Cabot (in 1498) had sailed along the northern coast of that which is now the United States, had turned his prow northward instead of southward, Spain would probably have obtained all the southern coast as far as the northern boundary of Virginia, instead of obtaining only the barren peninsula of Florida! How different, in some momentous respects, might have been the state of the world at this day! We have here another illustra

* Columbus had not at that epoch touched the continent, but had only discovered the West India Islands.

tion 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 north as the Chesapeake Bay, if not further. 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 Cartier 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 furthest 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 France, the one in 1598, under the Marquis de la Roche; the other in 1600, under Chauvin. At length, in 1605, a French colony was permanently established under De Monts, a Protestant, at the place now called Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, but not until after having made an abortive attempt within the boundaries of the present State of Maine. Quebec was founded in 1608, under the conduct of Champlain, who became the father of all the French settlements in North America. From that point the French colonists penetrated further and further up the St. Lawrence, until at length parties of their hunters and trappers, accompanied by Jesuit missionaries, reached the great lakes, passed beyond them, and descending the valley of the Mississippi, established themselves at Fort Du Quesne, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and various other places. Thus the greater part of the immense Central Valley of North America fell, for a time, into the hands of the French.

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 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 the fact that Ponce de Leon had 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."

With a view to encourage the colonization of those parts of North America that were claimed by England, several patents were granted by the crown of that country before the close of the sixteenth century. The enterprises, however, to which these led, universally failed. The most famous was that made in North Carolina, under a patent to Sir Walter Raleigh and others; it was continued from 1584 to 1588; but even the splendid talents and energy of its chief could not save his colony from final ruin. Though the details of this unsuccessful enterprise fill many a page in the history of the United States, strange to say, we are in absolute ignorance of the fate of the few remaining colonists that were left on the banks of the Roanoke; the most probable conjecture being that they were massacred by the natives, though some affirm that they were incorporated into one of the Indian tribes. Two monuments of that memorable expedition remain to this day: first, the name of Virginia, given by the courtier to the entire coast, in honor of his royal "virgin" mistress, though afterward restricted to a single province; and, next, the use of tobacco in Europe, Sir Walter having successfully labored to make it an article of commerce between the two continents.

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 century that any attempt