Resource Center OLLibrary
|
1600] |
|
35 |
The heads of these "wampum" strings had
another use: they served for money, and a certain number of them
would buy a bushel of corn. But the Indian rarely needed these
beads for this purpose. The forest supplied him and his family
with food, clothes, and medicine. Under such circumstances a
pocket full of money would have been as useless to him as to a
bear.
36. Social Condition of the Indians;
"Totems." The Indian had less liberty than the white man. He
was bound by customs handed down from his forefathers; he could
not marry as he pleased; he could not sit in whatever seat he
chose at a council; he could not even paint his face any color he
fancied, for a young man who had won no honors in battle would no
more have dared to decorate himself like a veteran warrior than a
private soldier in the United States army would venture to appear
at parade in the uniform of a major general.
Each clan had a "totem" or badge, to designate
it. The "totem" was usually the picture of a squirrel, crow, or
some other wild creature. Among the Iroquois the figures of the
Bear, Turtle, and Wolf were the coats-of-arms of the "first
families" of the Indian aristocracy. The "totem" was also used as
a mark on gravestones and as a seal. When the United States sells
a piece of land to a western farmer, it stamps the deed with the
government seal, so when an Indian sold a tract of land to a white
man, he marked the deed with a rude representation of the "totem"
or great seal of his tribe.
37. Indian Religion; Indian Character.
The Indian usually believed in a "Great Spirit" -- all-powerful,
wise, and good; but he also believed in many inferior spirits,
some good and some evil.
Often he worshiped the evil spirits most. He
said: The Great Spirit will not hurt me, even if I do not pray to
him, for he is good; but if I don't pray to the evil spirits, they
may get mad and do me mischief.
Beyond this life the Indian looked for another.
There the brave warrior who had taken many scalps would enter the
happy hunting grounds; there demons would flog the coward to
never-ending tasks.
|
36 |
|
[1600 |
It has sometimes been said that "the only
good Indian is a dead Indian"; but judged by his own standard of
right and wrong, the red man was conscientious. He would not steal
from his own tribe; he would not lie to his friends; he never
became a drunkard till the white man taught him.
38. The Indian's Self-Control; Torturing
Captives; Respect for Courage. The Indian rarely expressed his
feelings in words, but he frequently painted them on his face in
red, black, or yellow paint. You could tell by his color whether
he meant peace or war, whether he had heard good news or bad. He
sometimes laughed and shouted; he seldom, if ever, wept. From
childhood he was
STARK RUNNING THE GANTLET
taught to despise pain. A row of little Indian boys would
sometimes put live coals under their naked arms and then press
them close to their bodies. The game was to see which one would
first raise his arms and drop the coal. The one that held out
longest became the leader. If an Indian boy met with an accident,
and was mortally wounded, he scorned to complain; he sang his
"death song" and died like a veteran warrior.
The Indians either adopted their captives or
tortured them. They liked to see how much agony a captive could
bear without crying out. The surest way for a prisoner to save his
life was to show that he was not afraid to lose it. The red man
never failed to respect courage.
When General Stark of New Hampshire was taken
prisoner by the Indians (1752), he was condemned to run the
gantlet.
|
1600] |
|
37 |
Two long rows of stalwart young warriors were formed. Each man
had a club or stick to strike Stark as he passed. But Stark was a
match for his tormentors. just as he started on the terrible race
for life he snatched a club out of the hands of the nearest
Indian, and knocking down the astonished savages right and left,
he escaped almost unhurt. The old men of the tribe, who stood
near, roared with laughter to see the spruce young warriors
sprawling in the dust. Instead of torturing Stark, they treated
him as a hero.
39. The Indian and the White Man; what the
White Man learned from him. The Indian was a treacherous and
cruel enemy, but a steadfast friend.
He would return good for good, but he knew
nothing about returning good for evil; on the contrary, he always
paid bad treatment by bad treatment and never forgot to add some
interest. If he made a treaty he kept it sacredly; it is said that
in no instance can it be proved that he was first to break such an
agreement. Those of the early white settlers who made friends with
the red man had no cause to regret it.
The Indian's school was the woods. Whatever the
woods can teach that is useful, -- and they can teach much, --
that he learned. He knew the properties of every plant, and the
habits of every animal. The natives taught the white man many of
these things and helped him to get fish and furs; but the most
useful thing they taught the European settlers was how to raise
corn in the forest without first cutting down the trees.
They showed them how to kill the trees by
burning or girdling them. Then, when the leaves no longer grew,
the sun would shine on the soil and ripen the corn. There were
times in the history of the early settlements of white men when
that knowledge saved them from starvation, for often they had
neither time nor strength to clear the soil for planting.
40. Influence of the Indians on the Early
History of the Country. But we shall see that the contact
between the red men and the white men had influences in other
ways. Sometimes the red men and the white settlers made covenants
of friendship and
|
38 |
|
[1600- |
agreed to help each other fight; for instance, the Iroquois
Indians in New York state agreed to help the English fight the
Canadian French. By doing so, they enabled the English to keep
possession of the Hudson River. If the Canadian French could have
got that river, they might have separated the English colonists in
New England from those in Pennsylvania and Virginia and so have
got the control of a large part of the Atlantic coast.
Finally, the Indian wars prevented the English
from scattering over the country. These contests forced the white
men to stand by each other, and thus trained them for union and
for independence.
41. Effects of the Discovery of America on
Europe. What, now, were the effects of the discovery of the
New World on Europe? They may be summed up as follows:
1. There was a sudden and immense increase of
geographical knowledge. That made it necessary to construct an
entirely new map of the globe. That map showed what no other ever
had -- the continents of North and South America and the Pacific
Ocean.
2. The New World invited new enterprise: it
offered vast regions to be explored and conquered. Spain,
Portugal, France, and England began to plan western empires beyond
the Atlantic. These plans gave rise to a struggle for the mastery,
and to important and decisive wars, especially between England and
France. Men of every rank turned their attention to America, --
some sought wealth, others political power, others a refuge from
religious or political oppression. Here was room and opportunity
for all.
3. The discovery of the precious metals in
Mexico and South America had far-reaching effects. Before those
mines were found there had often been great scarcity of gold and
silver in Europe. But the treasure Spain obtained from America
enabled her monarchs to equip armies, build palaces, and make
public improvements of all kinds. Thus the riches which poured in
from the New World gave a great impulse to the life of the Old
World.
|
1600-] |
|
39 |
4. Intercourse with America had an immense
influence on trade and navigation. Before Columbus sailed, the
commerce of Europe was confined chiefly to the Mediterranean. Then
little vessels crept cautiously along the shore, peddling out
their petty cargoes from port to port. But now men began to build
large and strong ships, fit to battle with Atlantic storms, and
ocean commerce commenced. Trade took its first great step toward
encircling the globe.
5. New products were obtained from America. We
gave Europe Indian corn,1 the tomato, the turkey, and
the potato, for which tens of thousands of half-fed European
laborers were grateful.
We also gave the people of Europe such luxuries
as cocoa and tobacco, and such drugs, dyestuffs, and valuable
woods and gums as Peruvian bark, cochineal, logwood, mahogany, and
india rubber.
6. Before the discovery of America sugar,
cotton, rice, and coffee, when used at all, were imported by
Europe from the Indies.
But these things were then so costly that only
the rich could afford to use them. Now they were either
rediscovered in America, or transplanted here. In time they became
cheap and plentiful, so that even the poor of the Old World came
to regard them as necessaries of life.
7. But the discovery of America had still
greater results, for it made men's minds grow larger because it
compelled them to think of a much larger world than they had ever
thought of in the past. The voyage to America was like a journey
to another planet. it made the people of Europe acquainted with a
new race -- the Indians -- and with new animals, new plants, new
features of nature, new fields of enterprise. Everybody felt that
America meant opportunity. That was a wonderful thought. It filled
the minds and hearts of men with new hope, with new courage, and
it stimulated them to undertake what they would not have dared to
do before.
1 Maise, or Indian
corn, if not first introduced to Europe front America, was first
practically introduced from here; so, too, was india
rubber.
|
40 |
|
[1600- |
42. Summary. The period embraced in
this section covers the greater part of a century. In it we have
three classes of discoveries and explorations:
1. Those of the Spaniards; these were confined
to the south. They comprised Florida, the Pacific, the Mississippi
River, Mexico, and part of the country north and east of it.
2. Those of the French; these related to the
river St. Lawrence and to expeditions to the eastern coast of
Florida and vicinity.
3. Those of the English; these included
explorations in the north, those of Drake on the Pacific, but,
more important than all, those sent out by Raleigh to
Virginia.
We have followed the Spanish expeditions of
Ponce de Leon, Balboa, Cortez, De Soto, and Coronado. We have
witnessed the struggle between the French and the Spaniards for
the possession of Florida, and have seen it end with the triumph
of the Spaniards and the founding of St. Augustine (1565), the
oldest town in the United States.
On the other hand, we have seen that the English
expeditions of Frobisher, Davis, and Gilbert, with Raleigh's
attempts to establish a colony in Virginia, all failed, and that
the country was left in 1600 with no white occupants but the
Spaniards, who seemed destined to keep all of America to
themselves.
Finally, we have compared the physical geography
of America with that of Europe, considered the effects of the
contact of the white men and the Indians, and have set forth the
important results of the discovery of America on Europe.
