AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF LANCASTER COUNTY. CHAPTER I. THE ABORIGINES. 1. THE question "How was America peopled?" has engaged the attention of many distinguished writers and engendered a veritable wilderness of theories. Before stating these, a few observations on the discovery of the New World may not be out of place, as different nations claim the honor of having visited this continent prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. From a passage in Diodorus Siculus, [B. C. 100] stating that some "Phoenicians were cast upon a most fertile island opposite to Africa— after having passed the islands which lie beyond the straits of Hercules, we will speak of those which lie much farther into the ocean. Towards Africa, and to the West of it, is an immense island in the broad sea, many days' sail from Lybia. Its soil is very fertile, and its surface variegated with mountains and valleys. Its coasts are indented with many navigable rivers, and its fields are well cultivated; delicious gardens and various kinds of plants and trees." This is supposed to refer to America. But this is by no means the oldest tradition; for Hanno, flourishing about B. C. 800, at the height of Carthaginian greatness, is said to have explored the coast of Africa and starting from the straits of Hercules to have sailed Westward 30 days. Hence it has been inferred that Hanno visited America. The account of Plato [B. C. 400] is generally regarded entitled to respect. Speaking of the first discovery of the Atlantic, he says: "In those first times, the Atlantic was a most broad island, and there were extant most powerful kings in it, who, with joint forces, appointed to occupy Asia and Europe: and so a most grievous war was carried on, in which the Athenians, with the common consent of the Greeks, opposed themselves, and they became the conquerors. But that Atlantic island, by a flood and earthquake, was indeed suddenly destroyed, and so that warlike people were swallowed up." And elsewhere: "An island in the mouth of the sea, in the passage to those straits, called the pillars of Hercules, did exist; and that island was greater and larger than Lybia and Asia; from which there was an easy passage over to other islands, and from those islands to that continent, which is situated out of that region." "Neptune settled in this island, from whose son, Atlas, its name was derived, and divided it among his ten sons. To the youngest fell the extremity of the island, called Gadir, which, in the language of the country, signifies fertile or abounding in sheep. The descendants of Neptune reigned here, from father to son, for a great number of generations in the order of primogeniture, during the space of 9,000 years. They also possessed several other islands; and passing into Europe and Africa, subdued all Lybia as far as Egypt, and all Europe to Asia Minor. At length the island sunk under water; and for a long time afterwards the sea thereabouts was full of rocks and shelves." In a work ascribed to Aristotle, [B. C. 384] the Carthaginians are said to have discovered a great island beyond the Pillars of Hercules, very fertile, but uninhabited, full of forests, navigable rivers and abounding in fruit. Seneca is supposed [about A. D. 1] to have uttered a prophecy concerning America: "Venient annis Saecula seris, quibus oceanus MEDEA, III, 375. In English "The time will come when the sea will loosen the chains of nature and a mighty continent shall stand forth; Typhis shall discover new worlds; nor shall Thule be any longer the extremity of the known world." Leaving these ancient and legendary notices, we pass to more recent claims. "The Scandinavians, after having colonized Iceland in A. D. 875 and Greenland in 983, had by the year 1000 discovered America as far down as 41° 30' N. L., a point near New Bedford in Massachusetts, and if the account of a missing sailor, who, after some absence, returned in a state of vinous excitement and flourishing bunches of grape, can be believed, they must have come much further South. The chronicler says that owing to this circumstance the captain of the ship called that country Vinland. The next claimants to the discovery of America are the Welsh. In Cardoc's history of Cambria it is stated that Madoc, son of Owen Gwynnedd, Prince of Wales, set sail westward in A. D. 1170, with a small fleet, and after a voyage of several weeks, landed in a region totally different, both in its inhabitants and productions, from Europe. He is supposed to have reached the coast of Virginia. Neither this, however, nor the earlier Scandinavian expeditions, can be said even to have formed a connecting link between the America of the red man and the America of his white brother." 1 The Chinese are actually reported to have visited America in A. D. 1270, when China being overrun by the Tartars, a body of one hundred thousand men, refusing obedience to the invaders, are supposed to have set sail in a thousand ships to find a new country or perish in the enterprise, and to have ultimately settled in Mexico.2 The Normans and the Germans also have claimed the discovery of America long before the voyages of Columbus, but it is needless to discuss claims which cannot be verified, and it is sufficient for our purpose to state that no authentic account of actual discovery has been established prior to the landing of Columbus at Guanahani, or Cat Island, in the Bahamas on the 11th of October, 1492. 2. Resuming the question, "How was America peopled?" we enter a field in which speculation and theory have run riot. A brief survey of it, without discussion, is all we propose to furnish. Thomas Morton, author of "New Canaan," a book published in 1637, argues for the Latin origin of the Indians, and the value of his reasoning may be inferred from the circumstance that because he fancied he heard the Indians make use of the word Pasco-pan he concluded that their ancestors were acquainted with the god Pan. Williamson says: "It can hardly be questioned that the Indians of North America are descended from a class of the Hindoos, in the southern parts of Asia." He holds that they could not have come from the North because the South American Indians are unlike those of the North. The correctness of this conclusion may be determined by the following testimony of Humboldt who states that "the Indians of New Spain bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit Canada, Florida, Peru and Brazil. Over a million and a half of square leagues, from Cape Horn to the river St. Lawrence and Behring's Strait, we are struck at the first glance with the general resemblance in the features. We think we perceive them all descended from the same stock, notwithstanding the prodigious diversity of their languages. In the portrait drawn by Volney of the Canadian Indians we recognize the tribes scattered over the savannahs of the Apure and the Carony. The same style of features exists in both Americas." Thorowgood [1652], Adair [1775] and Boudinot [1816], claim for the Indians Hebrew descent and identify them with the lost tribes. Cotton Mather gravely accounts for the origin of the Indians by the craft and subtlety of the devil, "who decoyed those miserable savages 1 Chambers' Cycl. S. V. America. 3 Hist. of N. Carolina, I, 216. 2 Hist. of China and Univ. Hist., Vol. XX. |