The Aborigines of America

The preceding pages have been devoted to the history of the relations between the inhabitants of the Eastern and Western Continents, and to the various statements that indicate a possible knowledge of, and voyages to, America in the era before Columbus. To complete this preliminary survey a brief account of what is known of the American aborigines in this early era is necessary. In relation to this period of American history there exists an abundance of literary material, comprising researches into the languages, raceconditions, customs, antiquities, traditions, and manuscript annals of the tribes and nations of the aborigines. None of this material is historical in the full sense of the term, though much of it may be considered as indirectly so. The editor of this work, however, has been unable to meet with any general statement in a form sufficiently condensed to yield a brief yet comprehensive review of the whole subject. He has, therefore, himself prepared a paper which may serve imperfectly to fill this vacancy, and to complete the examination of the history of America prior to Columbus.

ON the discovery an exploration of America it was found to be everywhere inhabited, from the north polar region to the extreme south, by peoples differing in degree of culture from abject savagery to a low stage of civilization. Though at first all these peoples were looked upon as members of a single race, later research has rendered this questionable, marked diversities in ethnological character having been perceived. In language a greater unity appears, philologists generally holding that the American languages all belong to one family of human speech, though the dialects differ widely in character and in degree of development. The American languages approach in type those of northern Asia, though not very closely. The same may be said of the American features. Yet if the Americans and Mongolians were originally of the same race, as seems not improbable, their separation must have taken place at a remote period, to judge from the diversities which now exist between them.

The aboriginal inhabitants of the United States, when first discovered, differed very considerably in political and social condition. Those of the north were in a state of savagery or low barbarism. The southern Indians were much more advanced politically, while the Natchez people of the lower Mississippi possessed a well-organized despotic monarchy, widely different in character from the institutions of the free tribes of the north. In Mexico existed a powerful civilized empire, despotic in character, possessed of many historical traditions, and having an extensive literature, which was nearly all destroyed by the Spanish conquerors. In this region were two distinct linguistic races, the Nahuas of Mexico and the Mayas of the more southern region. To the latter are due the remarkable architectural remains of Yucatan and Guatemala. In South America was also discovered an extensive civilized empire, of a highly-marked despotic type,--the Inca empire of Peru. This rather low form of civilization extended far to the north and south in the district west of the Andes, while the remainder of South America was occupied by savage tribes, some of them exceedingly debased in condition.

Of late years it has been made evident, through diversified archaeological discoveries, that at some epoch, perhaps not very remote, the whole region of the Mississippi Valley was the seat of a semi-civilized population, probably some-what closely approaching in customs and condition the inhabitants of the Gulf States when first seen by the Spanish and French explorers. This people had utterly vanished from the region of the northern United States at the earliest date of the advent of the whites, and perhaps many centuries before that era; yet the whole region of their former residence is so abundantly covered with their weapons, utensils, ornaments, and architectural remains, that we are not only positively assured of their former existence, but are enabled also to form many conjectures as to their probable history.

What are here spoken of as architectural remains consist principally of earth mounds, of considerable diversity in character and appearance, and some of them of enormous dimensions. There is in this fact alone nothing of peculiar interest. Earth mounds, generally sepulchral in purpose, exist widely throughout the older continents. But the American mounds are remarkable for their excessive numbers, their peculiarities of construction, their occasional great size, and the diversity of their probable purpose. They are found abundantly over the whole region from the Rocky Mountains to the Alleghanies, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, and to some small extent beyond these limits. In the State of Ohio alone there are said to be more than ten thousand mounds, with perhaps fifteen hundred defensive works and enclosures. About five thousand of them are said to exist within a radius of fifty miles from the mouth of the Illinois River, in the State of Illinois. In the South they are equally abundant. The Gulf States are full of them. From Florida to Texas they everywhere exist, of the greatest diversity in size and shape. Smaller examples occur beyond the limits of the region above outlined, though in much less abundance. These mounds are usually from six to thirty feet high and forty to one hundred in diameter, though some are much larger. To the vanished race to whose labors they are due has been given the name of the "Mound-Builders."