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Re: some thoughts about thanksgiving |
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Nov 25, 05 - 11:44 AM |
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The Red Man’s Continent
Page 1
1. “Across the twilight lawn at Hampton Institute straggles a group of sturdy young men with copper-hued complexions. There day has been devoted to farming, carpentry, blacksmithing, or some other trade. Their evening will be given to study. Those silent dignified Indians with straight black hair and broad, strong features are training their hands and minds in the hope that some day they may stand beside the white man as equals.
Behind them, laughing gaily and chattering as if without a care in the world, comes a larger group of kinky-haired, thick lipped youths with black skins and African features. They, too, have been working with the hands to train the mind. Those two diverse races, red and black, sit down together in a classroom, and to them comes another race.
She stands there a slender, golden-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon girl just out of college—a mere child compared with the score of swarthy, stalwart men as old as herself who sit before her. Her mobile features seem to mirror a hundred thoughts while their impassive faces are moved by only one. Her quick speech almost trips in its eagerness not to waste the short, precious hour. Only a strong effort holds her back while she waits for the slow answers of the young men whom she drills over and over again in simple problems of arithmetic. The class and the teacher are an epitome of American history. They are more than that. They are an epitome of all history.
History in its broadest aspect is a record of man’s migrations from one environment to another. America is the last great goal of these migrations. He who would understand its history must know its mountains and plains, its climate, its products, and its relation to the sea and to other parts of the world. He must know more than this, however, for he must appreciate how various environments alter man’s energy and capacity and give his character a slant in one direction or another. He must also know the paths by which the inhabitants have reached their present homes, for the influence of former environments upon them may be more important than their immediate surroundings. In fact, the history of Norht American has been perhaps more profoundly influenced by man’s inheritance from his past homes than by the physical features of his present home. It is indeed of vast importance that trade can move freely through such natural channels as New York Harbor, the Mohawk Valley, and the Great Lakes. It is equally important that the eastern highlands of the United States are full of the worlds finest coal, while the central plains raise some of the world’s lavish crops. Yet it is probably even more important that because of his inheritance from a remote ancestral environment man is energetic, inventive, and long-lived in certain parts of the American continent, while elsewhere he has not the strength and mental vigor to maintain even the degree of civilization to which he seems to have risen.
Three streams of migration have mainly determined the history of America.
One was an ancient and comparatively insignificant stream from Asia. It brought the Indian to the two great continents which the white man has not practically wrested from him.
A second and later stream was the great tide which rolled in from Europe. It is a different from the other as West is from East. Thus far it has not wholly obliterated the native people for between the southern border of the United States on the one hand, and the northern borders of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay on the other, the vast proportion of the blood is still Indian. The European tide may in time dominate even this region, but for centuries to come the poor, disinherited Indians will continue to form the bulk of the population.
The third stream flowed from Africa and was different from either of the others as South is from North.
The differences between one and another of these three streams of population and the antagonisms which they have involved have greatly colored American history. The Indian, the European, and the Negro apparently differ not only in outward appearance but in the much more important matter of mentality…”
1. Huntington, Ellsworth, The Red Man’s Continent. Volume 1, Chapter 1 Pages 1-4. The Chronicles of America Series. New Haven: Yale University Press. Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University press 1919.
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