hither, in hopes that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them."

Swinton,1 in a dissertation upon the peopling of America, after stating the different opinions of various authors who have advocated in favor of the "dispersed people," the Phoenicians and other Eastern nations, observes, "that, therefore, the Americans in general were descended from some people who inhabited a country not so far distant from them as Egypt and Phoenicia, our readers will, as we apprehend, readily admit. Now, no country can be pitched upon so proper and convenient for this purpose, as the north-eastern part of Asia, particularly Great Tartary, Siberia, and more especially the peninsula of Kamtschatka. That probably was the tract through which many Tartar colonies passed into America, and peopled the most considerable part of the new world.”2

Robertson sums up an excellent sketch of this difficult question in these words: "Though it be possible that America may have received its first inhabitants from our continent, either by the north-west of Europe or the north-east of Asia, there seem to be good reasons for supposing that the progenitors of all the American nations, from Cape Horn to the southern confines of Labrador, migrated from the latter rather than the former. The Esquimaux are the only people in America who, in their aspect or character, bear any resemblance to the northern Europeans. They are manifestly a race of men, distinct from all the nations of the American continent, in language, in disposition, and in habits of life. Their original, then, may warrantably be traced up to that source which I have pointed out. But, among all the other inhabitants of America, there is such a striking similitude in the form of their bodies and the qualities of their minds, notwithstanding the diversities occasioned by the influence of climate, or unequal progress in improvement, we must pronounce them to be descended from one source. There may be a variety in the shades, but we can everywhere trace the same original color. Each tribe has something peculiar which distinguishes it, but in all of them we discern certain features common to the whole race. It is remarkable that in every peculiarity, whether in their persons or dispositions, which characterize the Americans, they have some resemblance to the rude tribes scattered over the north-east of Asia, but almost none to the nations settled in the northern extremities of Europe. We may, therefore, refer them to the former origin, and conclude that their Asiatic progenitors, having settled in those parts of America where the Russians have discovered the proximity of the two continents, spread gradually over its various regions. This account of the progress of population in America, coincides with the traditions of the Mexicans 2 Univ. Hist., XX. Drake. 3 Hist. of America, I, 261. Published in 1788.

1 Died 1774.

concerning their own origin, which, imperfect as they are, were preserved with more accuracy, and merit greater credit than those of any people in the new world. According to them, their ancestors came from a remote country, situated to the north-west of Mexico. The Mexicans point out their various stations, as they advanced from this, into the interior provinces, and it is precisely the same route which they must have held, if they had been emigrants from Asia. The Mexicans, in describing the appearance of their progenitors, their manners and habits of life, at that period, exactly delineate those of the rude Tartars, from whom I suppose them to have sprung."

Barton1 bestowed much labor on the comparison of all known Indian dialects with those of different Asiatic and North European nations on the plan of selecting English words, such as God, Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, etc., and then giving the equivalents in the various Indian, European and Asiatic dialects. Without expressing an opinion on the soundness of his reasoning, I give his conclusion, which is "that the Americans and many Asiatic and European nations are the same people." In this connection mention may be made of Jefferson's view that the nations of America are of greater antiquity than those of Asia, and that Asia was peopled from America, not America from Asia.

Schoolcraft, whose whole life has been devoted to Indian affairs and whose volumes, published by authority of Congress, contain by far the most authentic data of information on this interesting subject, reaches the conclusion that the summary of traits of Indian manners, customs and character appears to connect their origin with the oriental world.

Bancroft concludes a masterly sketch on the Aborigines with the following reflections: "The American and the Mongolian races of men, on the two sides of the Pacific, have a near resemblance. Both are alike strongly and definitely marked by the more capacious palatine fossa, of which the dimensions are so much larger, that a careful observer could, out of a heap of skulls, readily separate the Mongolian and American from the Caucasian, but could not distinguish them from each other. Both have the orbit of the eye quadrangular, rather than oval; both, especially the American, have comparatively a narrowness of the forehead; the facial angle in both, but especially in the American, is comparatively small; in both, the bones of the nose are flatter and broader than in the Caucasian, and in so equal a degree, and with apertures so similar, that, on indiscriminate selections of specimens of the two, an observer could not, from this feature, discriminate which of them be1 New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, by Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D., Philadelphia, 1797.

2 Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, Vol. V, Philad., 1865. 3 History of the United States, Vol. III, p. 317.

longed to the old continent; both, but especially the Americans, are characterized by a prominence of the jaws; the elongated occiput is common to the American and the Asiatic; and there is to each the same obliquity of the face. Between the Mongolian of Southern Asia and Northern Asia there is a greater difference than between the Mongolian Tâtar and the North American. The Iroquois is more unlike the Peruvian than he is unlike the wanderer on the steppes of Siberia. Physiology has not succeeded in defining the qualities which belong to every well-formed Mongolian, and which never belong to an indigenous American; still less can geographical science draw a boundary line between the races. The Athapascas cannot be distinguished from Algonquin Knisteneaux, on the one side, or from Mongolian Esquimaux, on the other. The dwellers on the Aleutian Isles melt into resemblances with the inhabitants of each continent, and at points of remotest distance, the difference is still so inconsiderable, that the daring Ledyard, whose ardent curiosity filled him with the passion to circumnavigate the globe and cross its continents, as he stood in Siberia with men of the Mongolian race before him, and compared them with the Indians who had been his old play-fellows and school-mates at Dartmouth, writes deliberately, that 'universally and circumstantially, they resemble the Aborigines of America. On the Connecticut and the Oby, he saw but one race.

"He that describes the Tungusians of Asia seems also to describe the North American. That the Tschukchi of Northeastern Asia and the Esquimaux of America are of the same origin, is proved by the affinity of their languages-thus establishing a connection between the continents previous to the discovery of America by Europeans. The indigenous population of America offers no new obstacle to faith in the unity of the human race."

Having thus far attended exclusively to theories and opinions originating with scholars and writers of Caucasian extraction, a brief summary of Aboriginal tradition on the subject under notice may prove interesting and instructive, although the reader will soon perceive that not much light need be expected from that quarter.

Schoolcraft states that what may be regarded in the traditions of the Indians, respecting the world, their origin and their opinions of man, as entitled to attention, is that they believe in a Great Merciful Spirit, by whom the earth, the animals and man were created, and in a great evil spirit, able to disturb the benevolent purposes of the Great Good Spirit. They state, generally, that there was a deluge at an ancient epoch, which covered the earth and drowned mankind, except a limited number. They speak most emphatically of a future state, and appear to have some confused idea of rewards and punishments, which are allegorically repre

1 Vol. I. 17-59.

sented. They regard the earth as their cosmogonic mother, and declare their origin to have been in caves, or in some other manner within its depths. They consider themselves, generally, as aborigines. By one authority they climbed up the roots of a large vine from the interior to the surface of the earth; by another, they casually saw light, while under ground, from the top of a cavern in the earth. Most of the tribes plant themselves on traditions of local origin. Seeing many quadrupeds, which burrow in the earth, they acknowledge a similar and mysterious relation. Tecumseh affirmed, in accordance with this notion, that the earth was his mother; and Michabon held that the birds and beasts were his brothers. A few of the tribes, North and South, have something of a traditional value to add to these notions, expressive of an opinion of foreign origin.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie in his voyages among the Arctic tribes relates of the Chepeweyans, that "they have a tradition that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake, which was narrow and shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great misery, it being always winter, with ice and deep snow." "Their progress (the great Athapasca family) is easterly, and according to their own tradition, they came from Siberia; agreeing in dress and manners with the people now found upon the coasts of Asia.” John Johnston, for many years agent of the Shawanoes, an Algonquin tribe, says: "The people of this nation have a tradition that their ancestors crossed the sea. They are the only tribe with which I am acquainted, who admit a foreign origin. Until lately they kept yearly sacrifices for their safe arrival in this country. From where they came, or at what period they arrived in America, they do not know. It is a prevailing opinion among them that Florida had been inhabited by white people, who had the use of iron tools. Blackhoof (a celebrated chief) affirms that he has often heard it spoken of by old people, that stumps of trees, covered with earth, were frequently found, which had been cut down by edged tools." "It is somewhat doubtful," says Johnston at a subsequent page, "whether the deliverance which they celebrate has any other refe-ence, than to the crossing of some great river, or an arm of the sea."

Montezuma1 told Cortez of a foreign connection between the Aztec race and the nations of the Old World. His speech is as follows: "I would have you to understand before you begin your discourse, that we are not ignorant, or stand in need of your persuasions, to believe that the great prince you obey, is descended from our ancient Quetzalcoatl, Lord of the Seven Caves of the Navatlaques, and lawful king of those seven nations which gave beginning to our Mexican empire. By one of his prophecies, which we receive as an infallible truth, and by a tradition of 1 History of the Conquest of Mexico. Book III.—p. 61.

many ages, preserved in our annals, we know that he departed from these countries, to conquer new regions in the East, leaving a promise, that in the process of time, his descendants should return, to model our laws, and mend our government."

On this subject Mr. Schoolcraft writes thus: "The tradition of the origin of the empire in bands of adventurers from the Seven Caves, rests upon the best authority we have of the Toltec race, supported by the oral opinion of the Aztecs in 1579. An examination of it by the lights of modern geography, in connection with the nautical theory of oceanic currents and the fixed courses of the winds in the Pacific, gives strong testimony in favor of an early expressed opinion in support of a migration in high latitudes. It is now considered probable that those caves were seated in the Aleutian Chain. This chain of islands connects the continents of Asia and America at the most practicable points; and it begins precisely opposite to the Asiatic coast north-east of the Chinese empire, and quite above the Japanese group, where we should expect the Mongolic and Tata hordes to have been precipitated upon those shores. On the American side of the trajet, extending south of the peninsula of Onalaska, there is evidence, in the existing dialects of the tribes, of their being of the same generic group with the Toltec stock."

"Thus we have traditionary gleams of a foreign origin of the race of the North American Indians, from several stocks of nations, extending at intervals from the Arctic circle to the valley of Mexico. Dim as these traditions are, they shed some light on the thick historical darkness which shrouds that period. They point decidedly to a foreign-to an Oriental, if not a Shemitic, origin. Such an origin had from the first been inferred. At whatever point the investigation has been made, the Eastern hemisphere has been found to contain the physical and mental prototypes of the race. Language, mythology, religious dogmas-the very style of architecture, and their calendar, as far as it is developed, point to that fruitful and central source of human dispersion and nationality."

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3. Passing from this general consideration of the origin of the North American Indians to the Indians of Pennsylvania, who will be repeatedly referred to in the course of this history, it seems proper that a sketch of them should be inserted at this place, in order that the reader may placed in a position to form an independent judgment on questions relating to that ill-fated race. The subjoined account is taken from Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, who has drawn his information from the writings of Heckewelder and other Moravian missionaries.

'Although divided into many tribes, the Indians inhabiting the vast expanse between Canada and Virginia, traced their origin to two sources, the Lenni Lenape and Mengwe. The former, known among their deriva 2 Vol. 2-p. 26.

1 Vol. I. p. 22.