Part 6

The Spanish, French, and English who made the first settlement in North America were direct descendants of the tribes that have swept across Europe and portions of Asia during the past three or four thousand years. These tribes, grouped on the basis of similarity in language under the general term "Aryan," hold a record of conquest that fills the pages of written history.

Hunger; the pressure of surplus population; the inrush of new hordes of invaders, drove them on. Ambition; the love of adventure; the lure of new opportunities in new lands, called them further. Meliorism,--the desire to better the conditions of life for themselves and for their children--animated them. In later years the necessity of disposing of surplus wealth impelled them. Driven, lured, coerced, these Aryan tribes have inundated the earth. Passing beyond the boundaries of Europe, they have crossed the seas into Africa, Asia, America and Australia.

Among the Aryans, after bitter strife, the Teutons have attained supremacy. The "Teutonic Peoples" are "the English speaking inhabitants of the British Isles, the German speaking inhabitants of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland, the Flemish speaking inhabitants of Belgium, the Scandinavian inhabitants of Sweden and Norway and practically all of the inhabitants of Holland and Denmark." ("Encyclopedia Britannica.")

This Teutonic domination has been established only by the bitterest of struggles. During the time when North America was being settled, the English dispossessed first the Spanish and later the French. Since the Battle of Waterloo--won by English and German troops; and the Crimean War--won by British against Russian troops--the Teutonic power has gone unchallenged and so it remains to-day.

The dominant power in the United States for nearly two centuries has been the English speaking power. Thus the Americans draw their inspiration, not only from the Aryan, but from the English speaking Teutons--the most aggressive and dominating group among the Aryans.

Three hundred years ago the title to North America was claimed by Spain, France and Great Britain. The land itself was almost entirely in the hands of Indian tribes which held the possession that according to the proverb, is "nine points of the law."

The period of American settlement has witnessed the rapid dispossession of the original holders, until, at the present time, the Indians have less than two per cent of the land area of the United States.

The conquest, by the English speaking whites, of the three million square miles which comprise the United States has been accomplished in a phenomenally short space of time. Migration; military occupation; appropriation of the lands taken from the "enemy;" settlement, and permanent exploitation--through all these stages of conquest the country has moved.

The "Historical Register of the United States Army" (F. B. Heitman, Washington, Govt. Print., 1903, vol. 2, pp. 298-300) contains a list of 114 wars in which the United States has been engaged since 1775. The publication likewise presents a list of 8600 battles and engagements incident to these 114 wars. Two of these wars were with England, one with Mexico and one with Spain. These, together with the Civil War and the War with Germany, constitute the major struggles in which the United States has been engaged. In addition to these six great wars there were the numerous wars with the Indians, the last of which (with the Chippewa) occurred in 1898. Some of these Indian "wars" were mere policing expeditions. Others, like the wars with the Northwest Indians, with the Seminoles and with the Apaches, lasted for years and involved a considerable outlay of life and money.

When the Indian Wars were ended, and the handful of red men had been crushed by the white millions, the American Indians, once possessors of a hunting ground that stretched across the continent, found themselves in reservations, under government tutelage, or else, abandoning their own customs and habits of life, they accepted the "pale-face" standards in preference to their own well-loved traditions.

The territory flanking the Mississippi Valley, with its coastal plains and the deposits of mineral wealth, is one of the richest in the world. Only two other areas, China and Russia, can compare with it in resources.

This garden spot came into the possession of the English speaking whites almost without a struggle. It was as if destiny had held a door tight shut for centuries and suddenly had opened it to admit her chosen guests.

History shows that such areas have almost always been held by one powerful nation after another, and have been the scene of ferocious struggles. Witness the valleys of the Euphrates, the Nile, the Danube, the Po and the Rhine. The barrier of the Atlantic saved North America.

Had the Mississippi Valley been in Europe, Asia or Northern Africa, it would doubtless have been blood-soaked for centuries and dominated by highly organized nations, armed to the teeth. Lying isolated, it presented an almost virgin opportunity to the conquering Teutons of Western Europe.

Freed by their isolated position from the necessity of contending against outside aggression, the inhabitants of the United States have expended their combative energies against the weaker peoples with whom they came into immediate contact,--

1. The Indians, from whom they took the land and wrested the right to exploit the resources of the continent;

2. The African Negroes who were captured and brought to America to labor as slaves;

3. The Mexicans, from whom they took additional slave territory at a time when the institution of slavery was in grave danger, and

4. The Spanish Empire from which they took foreign investment opportunities at a time when the business interests of the country first felt the pressure of surplus wealth.

Each of these four groups was weak. No one of them could present even the beginnings of an effectual resistance to the onslaught of the conquerors. Each in turn was forced to bow the knee before overwhelming odds.

2. The First Obstacle to Conquest

The first obstacle to the spread of English civilization across the continent of North America was the American Indian. He was in possession of the country; he had a culture of his own; he held the white man's civilization in contempt and refused to accept it. He had but one desire,--to be let alone.

The continent was a "wilderness" to the whites. To the Indians it was a home. Their villages were scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf to Alaska; they knew well its mountains, plains and rivers. A primitive people, supporting themselves largely by hunting, fishing, simple agriculture and such elemental manual arts as pottery and weaving, they found the vast stretches of North America none too large to provide them with the means of satisfying their wants.

The ideas of the Indian differed fundamentally from those of the white man. Holding to the Eastern conception which makes the spiritual life paramount, he reduced his material existence to the simplest possible terms. He had no desire for possessions, which he regarded--at the best--as "only means to the end of his ultimate perfection." To him, the white man's desire for wealth was incomprehensible and the white man's sedentary life was contemptible. He must be free at all times to commune with nature in the valleys, and at sunrise and sunset to ascend the mountain peak and salute the Great Spirit.

The individual Indian--having no desire for wealth--could not be bribed or bought for gold as could the European. The leaders, democratically selected, and held by the most enduring ties of loyalty to their tribal oaths, were above the mercenary standards of European commerce and statesmanship. Friendly, hospitable, courteous, generous, hostile, bitter, ferocious they were--but they were not for sale.

The attitude of the Indian toward the land which the white men coveted was typical of his whole relation with white civilization. "Land ownership, in the sense in which we use the term, was unknown to the Indians till the whites came among them." The land devoted to villages was tribal property; the hunting ground surrounding the village was open to all of the members of the tribe; between the hunting grounds of different tribes there was a neutral territory--no man's land--that was common to both. If a family cultivated a patch of land, the neighbors did not trespass. Among the Indians of the Southwest the village owned the agricultural land and "periodically its governor, elected by popular vote, would distribute or redistribute the arable acres among his constituents who were able to care for them." The Indians believed that the land, like the sunlight, was a gift of the Great Spirit to his children, and they were as willing to part with the one as with the other.

They carried their communal ideas still farther. Among the Indians of the Northwest, a man's possessions went at his death to the whole tribe and were distributed among the tribal members. Among the Alaskan Indians, no man, during his life, could possess more than he needed while his neighbor lacked. Food was always regarded as common property. "The rule being to let him who was hungry eat, wherever he found that which would stay the cravings of his stomach." The motto of the Indian was "To each according to his need."

Such a communist attitude toward property, coupled with a belief that the land--the gift of the Great Spirit--was a trust committed to the tribe, proved a source of constant irritation to the white colonists who needed additional territory. As the colonies grew, it became more and more imperative to increase the land area open for settlement, and to such encroachments the Indian offered a stubborn resistance.