Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/24

Rh either of these; it is not a national, but a private one. The citizens of other states come here, not in conquering hosts, but as individuals — to a nation for the most part foreign to the one they left, in customs, in manners, and in government. In a word, the migrations of the nineteenth century were not conquest or colonization, but "emigration."

Long before history began to be recorded, multitudes of people went out from Central Asia. There the Aryan race — the most important of the human family—had its rise. But the population soon outgrew the means of subsistence. Migration became a necessity. The Celts first spread over Europe; then came the Teutons. Of the Semitic branch of the Aryan race the Jews particularly wandered far and wide. First, to Egypt they went; then, through the wilderness to Canaan; subsequently, in the various captivities to Babylon.

Greek colonists formed from the beginning an organized political body. Their first care, upon settling in a strange land, was to found a city, and to erect in it those public buildings that were essential to the social and the religious life of a Greek. The spot was usually seized by force and the inhabitants enslaved. This sort of migration aided the fatherland and bettered the condition of the people taking part in it, for the migrants often made rapid progress in their new abodes, and added more arms to the strength of the mother country. No voluntary migrant ever left Rome; the colonies she sent forth were intended to bridle subjugated provinces, and, as a writer well said, "should be regarded rather as the outposts of an immense army, the headquarters of which were at Rome, than as an establishment of individuals who had bidden 'adieu' to their mother-country and intended to maintain themselves in their new country by their own industry."

Yet they were of advantage to the empire, for they strengthened her power abroad, and alleviated the distress at home by removing from the city a large number of the excessive population; but that policy did not result in as permanent improvement as was anticipated, for the city population increased in numbers more rapidly than the surplus could be absorbed by the foundation of new colonies.

A great wave in the migration of nations was that which swept over Europe and buried forever, under its onward rush, the old Roman Empire with its civilization. Out of this conquest grew chaos at first, then slowly new states began to rise upon its ruins, which were finally united in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. There were attempts, first by the Turks and later by the Arabs, to better their conditions by an invasion of Europe ; but they were driven back by the sturdy Crusaders, and with their driving back was rung down the curtain on that gigantic drama known as "Migration of Nations"—closed perhaps forever. Modern migration dates from the discovery of America, though it was not for centuries later that it assumed any great proportions. Europeans came in large numbers; they were merchants, workers, and planters. The natives furnished the labor. The value of the colonies to the mother country was no longer merely "military;" it was "commercial." The planters received their capital from the home country and disposed of their products and made their purchases there. Their intention was to build up a country that would be self-supporting and enjoy the same civilization as the mother country. At the same time they did not separate themselves from the parent, but continued under her political control. The relations between the two countries were for the most part friendly and loyal. They were still "Frenchmen" or "Englishmen" or "Dutch," as they