Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/42

 to an influential and powerful order of priesthood.

There can be little doubt that this race dwelt on the Continent of America many centuries before the Christian era, and also that it is anterior in age to the various groups who inhabit the Polynesian Islands. Probably they derived their character and mental peculiarities from the early tribes of Western Asia, which was originally peopled, to a great extent, by the descendants of Shem. In this connection, Mr. Schoolcraft adduces the following as the fulfillment of a very ancient prophecy. "Assuming the Indian tribes to be of Shemitic origin, which is generally conceded, they were met on this Continent, in 1492, by the Japhetic race, after the two stocks had passed around the globe by directly different routes. Within a few years subsequent to this event, as is well attested, the humane influence of an eminent Spanish ecclesiastic, led to the calling over from the coast of Africa, of the Hamitic branch. As a mere historical question, and without mingling it in the slightest degree with any other, the result of three centuries of occupancy has been a series of movements in all the colonial stocks, south and north, by which Japhet has been immeasurably enlarged on the Continent, while the called and not voluntary sons of Ham, have endured a servitude, in the wide-stretching valleys of the tents of Shem.—Gen. ix., 27."

They who came from civilized Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries found the American Continent peopled by tribes without cultivation, refinement, literature, fixed habitations, or anything which could give them consideration and respect in the eyes of Europeans. They looked upon the Indians as mere savages, having no rightful claim to the country of which they were in possession. They inflicted upon the unhappy natives injuries of various descriptions, as caprice, cruelty, lust, or rapine dictated, and where a different course was pursued it was not so much because the Indians had a right to just treatment, but simply because it pleased here and there liberal-minded persons to deal justly and kindly by them. Every European nation deemed that it had acquired a lawful and just claim to the possession of that part of the Continent which any one of its subjects might have discovered or visited, without any reference to the prior occupation and claims of the Indian tribes. In later times, too, the Supreme Court of the United States, (1810)—Chief Justice Marshall delivering the opinion of the Court has held, that the Indian title to the soil is not of such a character or validity as to interfere with the possession in fee, and disposal, of the land as the State may see fit.

Mr. Justice Story, in speaking of this matter, justly remarks:—"As to countries in the possession of native inhabitants and tribes at the time of the discovery, it seems difficult to perceive what ground of right any discovery