Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/50



From beyond the cognizance of human history North America has been occupied by the copper-colored race, who, as a people, have been recognized by the earliest discoverers and explorers as Indians, supposing that the new found lands they occupied, was India, a portion of the eastern extremity of Asia.

It was not until Balboa had discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1613 or until Magellan had circumnavigated the globe in 1621 that the truth dawned upon the inhabitants of Europe that the aborigines found here by white men, occupied an entirely new continent that became known to them as The New World, and later took the name of one of the explorers of its shores—America.

The new country, in time received settlements along its eastern borders by at least three distinct classes of people; adventurers, treasure hunters, and religious outcasts from Europe. Of these, four distinct nationalities, with their marked differences in language, customs and general habits in life, were represented Spanish, English, French, and German or Dutch. With the latter class, with which some Swiss colonists were included, were the Mennonites, who located principally in Pennsylvania, but