The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

races of the Pacific States embrace all the varieties of species known as American under any of the classifications mentioned. Thus, in the five divisions of Blumenbach, the Eskimos of the north would come under the fourth division, which embraces Malays and Polynesians, and which is distinguished by a high square skull, low forehead, short broad nose, and projecting jaws. To his fifth class, the American, which he subdivides into the American family and the Toltecan family, he gives a small skull with a high apex, flat on the occiput, high cheek bones, receding forehead, aquiline nose, large mouth, and tumid lips. Morton, although he makes twenty-two divisions in all, classifies Americans in the same manner. The Polar family he characterises as brown in color, short in stature, of thick, clumsy proportions, with a short neck, large head, flat face, small nose, and eyes disposed to obliquity. He perceives an identity of race among all the other stocks from Mount St. Elias to Patagonia; though he designates the semi-civilized tribes of Mexico and Peru as the Toltecan family, and the savage nations as the Appalachian branch of the American family. Dr. Prichard makes three divisions of the tribes bordering the Pacific between Mount St. Elias and Cape St. Lucas: the tribes from the borders of the Eskimos southward to Vancouver Island constitute the first division; the tribes of Oregon and Washington, the second; and the tribes of Upper and Lower California, the third. Pickering assigns the limits of the American, Malay, or Toltecan family to California and western Mexico. He is of the opinion that they crossed from southeastern Asia by way of the islands of the Pacific, and landed upon this continent south of San Francisco, there being no traces of them north of this point; while the Mongolians found their way from northeastern Asia across Bering Strait. The Californians, therefore, he calls Malays; and the inhabitants of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, he classifies as Mongolians. Californians, in the eyes of this traveler, differ from their northern neighbors in complexion and physiognomy. The only physiological test that Mr. Pickering was able to apply in order to distinguish the Polynesian in San Francisco from the native Californian, was that the hair of the former was wavy, while that of the latter was straight. Both have more hair than the Oregonian. The skin of the Malay of the Polynesian Islands, and that of the Californian are alike, soft and very dark. Three other analogous characteristics were discovered by Mr. Pickering. Both have an open countenance, one wife, and no tomahawk! On the other hand, the Mongolian from Asia, and the Oregonian are of a lighter complexion, and exhibit the same general resemblances that are seen in the American and Asiatic Eskimos.

      In general the Toltecan family may be described as of good stature, well proportioned, rather above medium size, of a light copper color; as having long black obliquely pointed eyes, regular white teeth, glossy black hair, thin beard, prominent cheek bones, thick lips, large aquiline nose, and retreating forehead. A gentle expression about the mouth is blended with severity and melancholy in the upper portion of the face. They are brave, cruel in war, sanguinary in religion, and revengeful. They are intelligent; possess minds well adapted to the pursuit of knowledge; and, at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, were well advanced in history, architecture, mathematics, and astronomy. They constructed aqueducts, extracted metals, carved images in gold, silver, and copper; they could spin, weave, and dye; they could accurately cut precious stones; they cultivated corn and cotton; built large cities, constructing their buildings of stone and lime; made roads and erected stupendous tumuli.

      Certain ethnological zones have been observed by some, stretching across the continent in various latitudes, broken somewhat by intersecting continental elevations, but following for the most part isothermal lines which, on coming from the east, bend northward as the softer air of the Pacific is entered. Thus the Eskimos nearly surround the pole. Next come the Tinneh, stretching across the continent from the east, somewhat irregularly, but their course marked generally by thermic lines, bending northward after crossing the Rocky Mountains, their southern boundary, touching the Pacific, about the fifty-fifth parallel. The Algonkin family border on the Tinneh, commencing at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and extending westward to the Rocky Mountains. Natural causes alone prevent the extension of these belts round the entire earth. Indeed, both philologists and physiologists trace lines of affinity across the Pacific, from island to island, from one continent to the other; one line, as we have seen, crossing Bering Strait, another following the Aleutian Archipelago, and a third striking the coast south of San Francisco Bay.

      SAVAGE HUMANITY.

      It is common for those unaccustomed to look below the surface of things, to regard Indians as scarcely within the category of humanity. Especially is this the case when we, maddened by some treacherous outrage, some diabolic act of cruelty, hastily pronounce them incorrigibly wicked, inhumanly malignant, a nest of vipers, the extermination of which is a righteous act. All of which may be true; but, judged by this standard, has not every nation on earth incurred the death penalty? Human nature is in no wise changed by culture. The European is but a white-washed savage. Civilized venom is no less virulent than savage venom. It ill becomes the full grown man to scoff at the ineffectual attempts of the little child, and to attempt the cure of its faults by killing it. No more is it a mark of benevolent wisdom in those favored by a superior intelligence, with the written records of the past from which to draw experience and learn how best to shape their course for the future, to cry down the untaught man of the wilderness, deny him a place in this world or the next, denounce him as a scourge, an outlaw, and seize upon every light pretext to assist him off the stage from which his doom is so rapidly removing him. We view man in his primitive state from a wrong stand-point at the outset. In place of regarding savages as of one common humanity with ourselves, and the ancestors perhaps of peoples higher in the scale of being, and more intellectual than any the world has yet seen, we place them among the common enemies of mankind, and regard them more in the light of wild animals than of wild men.

      And let not him who seeks a deeper insight into the mysteries of humanity despise beginnings, things crude and small. The difference between the cultured and the primitive man lies chiefly in the fact that one has a few centuries the start of the other in the race of progress. Before condemning the barbarian, let us first examine his code of ethics. Let us draw our light from his light, reason after his fashion; see in the sky, the earth, the sea, the same fantastic imagery that plays upon his fancy, and adapt our sense of right and wrong to his social surroundings. Just as human nature is able to appreciate divine nature only as divine nature accords with human nature; so the intuitions of lower orders of beings can be comprehended only by bringing into play our lower faculties. Nor can we any more clearly appreciate the conceptions of beings below us than of those above us. The thoughts, reasonings, and instincts of an animal or insect are as much a mystery to the human intellect as are the lofty contemplations of an archangel.

      PACIFICATION OF TIERRA FIRME.

      Three hundred and thirty-six years were occupied in the discovery of the western border of North America. From the time when, in 1501, the adventurous notary of Triana, Rodrigo de Bastidas, approached the Isthmus of Darien, in search of gold and pearls, till the year 1837, when Messrs Dease and Simpson, by order of the Hudson's Bay Company, completed the survey of the northern extremity, which bounds the Arctic Ocean, the intervening territory was discovered at intervals, and under widely different circumstances. During that time, under various immediate incentives, but with the broad principle of avarice underlying all, such parts of this territory as were conceived to be of sufficient value were seized, and the inhabitants made a prey to the rapacity of the invaders. Thus the purpose of the worthy notary Bastidas, the first Spaniard who visited the continent of North America, was pacific barter with the Indians; and his kind treatment was rewarded by a successful traffic. Next came Columbus, from the opposite direction, sailing southward along the coast of Honduras on his fourth voyage, in 1502. His was the nobler object of discovery. He was striving to get through or round this tierra firme which, standing between himself and his theory, persistently barred his progress westward. He had no time for barter, nor any inclination to plant settlements; he was looking for a strait or passage through or round these outer confines to the more opulent regions of India. But, unsuccessful in his laudable effort, he at length yielded to the clamorous cupidity of his crew. He permitted his brother, the Adelantado, to land and take possession of the country for the king of Spain, and, in the year following, to attempt a settlement at Veragua.

      FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPEANS.

      In 1506–8, Juan de Solis with