Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/25

Rh had been at home. The title of "American" was yet to come. It is not too much to say that the migrations of these centuries, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth, changed the whole aspect of the world. We can scarcely picture to ourselves the limitations of medieval life confined within the bounds of western Europe. This colonization established world commerce and brought the products of the whole earth to the inhabitants of Europe; it magnified the scale of things ten-fold. It did more; it changed the relative position of nationalities; it made the English race and speech dominant throughout the world.

But with the Declaration of American Independence a new movement in the history of changes in peoples became evident. It has since then grown in intensity almost every year, until it has become an important phenomenon of social life. It is not to be judged by any of the previous migratory efforts; it must rather be considered on its own basis and with respect to its influence on the civilization of modern Europe.

The Pilgrim fathers, fleeing to New England because of religious and political persecution, were the first real colonial settlers of America. It was real love of liberty and freedom that brought them, and not the visions of Indian wealth or mines of gold and fisheries of pearl, with which the Spanish adventurers in Peru and Mexico had astonished Europe, but the desire to worship God in their own way and to open an asylum to all victims of oppression throughout the entire world.

At the same time emigrants from Holland had commenced the settlement of Manhattan Island, and English settlers came to the western part of Long Island.

Contemporaneously, Gustavus Adolphus—at war with the Catholic powers—wished to found a new Sweden in America, which would be devoted to the uplifting of the Lutheran religion, and he sent a colony of Swedes to the Delaware.

Peter Stuyvesant, when he was governor of New Netherlands, became involved in difficulties with the New England colonies, and also with those Swedish settlers on the Delaware; and while he failed in his attempt to get the New England colonies under the Dutch rule, he did succeed in defeating the Swedes, who accepted Dutch sovereignty.

Religious toleration was the rule, and Bohemian, English, French, Germans, Italians, and Swiss were induced to come to the new colony.

Another colony of great importance to the country was that founded by Lord Baltimore in Maryland. This colony was Catholic, but the principle of religious freedom, which has since become a part of our national life, was first inaugurated in this territory.

French Huguenots, coming here after the edict of Nantes, formed an important settlement in the south.

The Quakers, who came to the United States in the latter part of the 17th century, by the straightforwardness of their dealings with the Indians, did much to supplement the civilizing influence that was being carried on by the Jesuits in French Canada, to whom no little credit is due. Without regard to their personal comfort or safety, these priests instituted a missionary work among the Hurons, Iroquois, and Algonquins, which lasted until the annihilation of the Huron tribe. They entered into the daily life of the Indians, and it required years of good example to make the slightest impression. Their sufferings and martyrdom are incredible; but as fast as one was massacred another was sent to take his place, and the recognition of the Puritan governor of New England in inviting Jesuit missionaries to be his guests and the guests of the colony is the best proof that these Protestants were convinced of the