Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/24

4 us. We read with the historic interpretation of the past what nearly four centuries ago was veiled in the mystery of the unknown and the future. For what were possibilities then we have now realities. The most interesting and exciting questions now held under discussion about our aborigines are, whether the race is destined to absolute extinction, and whether irresistible processes are working to that result. A modification of the opinion that such must needs be the fate of the red man suggests to us, that the only condition which will arrest that result is such a transformation of his habits, mode of life, and even of his nature, that those who in three or four generations may represent the stock, in pure or mixed descent, will have wholly parted with the original and distinctive characteristics of the race. If such an extinction of an aboriginal people is to be realized, their history ought to be well searched and attested before they pass away.

Our knowledge of the natives of this continent must be taken strictly as beginning with the first contact with them by Columbus on the islands, and by himself and his followers on the main. Of the legendary and mythological Sagas of the alleged visit of the Northmen there is, as has been said, no contemporaneous record, and no extant monument or token. The one hundred and twenty white men who formed the company of Columbus were the medium for introducing the people of the Old World to those of the New. Columbus carried some of the natives to Spain on his first return voyage, and in 1508 the American savage was seen for the first time in France.

Those who now represent the native race on this continent are but little serviceable to the historian who seeks to investigate its antecedent state and fortunes. The fundamental questions for the archæologist are, whether man is autochthonic or exotic here, and whether in ethnic unity or diversity. Agassiz told us that geologically this continent was the first part of the globe fitted for human habitation,