Ohio History Journal

AMERICANS BEFORE COLUMBUS

 

BY GERARD FOWKE

 

We have become so accustomed to thinking of Co-

lumbus as the original and only discoverer of America,

the western continent, that we quite overlook several im-

portant points which should be considered in this con-

nection. The principal item is one which we know so

well that we often fail to remember it at all; and this is

that when Columbus made his landing he found, not a

desert, not a wilderness, but a well-inhabited country.

Then as the Spaniards extended their conquests into

Mexico and along the Pacific side of the continent, they

found among the peoples with whom they came in con-

tact various traditions which dealt with the sojourn,

at some remote period in the past, of bearded white men

who instructed the natives in many particulars relating

to government, agriculture, and the routine of their

daily lives. It was also related that when these visitors

departed, it was with the promise to return to their

proteges at some future time. The Spaniards found

that the progress of their conquest was rendered much

easier by reason of this belief on the part of the natives

who thinking that the invaders were the successors of

those legendary benefactors whose memory they cher-

ished, welcomed them as friends and companions. Had

the Spaniards availed themselves of this confidence they

could have obtained without bloodshed all which they

finally achieved, and we would have been spared the re-

Vol. XXXIX--14.     (689)

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cital of those tales of horrible cruelty which marked the

path of the early Conquistadores, and which will for-

ever remain a blot upon human records.

Again, there may be found along the western coast,

from Alaska to Peru, evidence of a foreign admixture

which has more or less modified the art and architecture

of that entire region.

Finally, there are records in European libraries and

among early Church archives which show, or at least

assert, that long before the time of Columbus students

and learned men of several European countries were

aware of the existence of a land or island somewhere

to the westward of their continent and separated from

it by the Atlantic Ocean. Vague and indefinite as was

the information on this point, it was sufficiently well de-

fined to prove that it must have some basis of fact.

Columbus was no doubt familiar with these records and

traditions, and when he reported his discovery others

would readily believe he must have reached southern or

eastern Asia.

Now let us consider how the people who met the

voyager could have reached the spot where he found

them.

Almost since that day this question has engaged the

attention of men. For a long time all theories were based

upon the idea that the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" were

the progenitors of the Indians. This belief arose at a

very early date; as is shown by the fact that as far back

as 1633 we find William Wood of New England dis-

puting the theory of Jewish descent. From his text, it

seems the only reason the people of that time had for

thinking such to be the case was that some words in the

language of certain New England tribes sounded as if

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Americans Before Columbus       691

they might be Hebrew. Mr. Wood very sensibly says

that by the same process of reasoning their relationship

to various other peoples could be proven. Evidently he

had devoted some time to the study of the Indian lan-

guages in that region, for he says their speech is peculiar

to themselves, having no connection with the refined

tongues--by which expression he probably means those

languages which were known to the schools of his day.

In 1637 Thomas Morton attempted to demonstrate

that the Indians could not be descended from the Ta-

tars of Asia, because, as he thinks, "a people well enough

at ease will not of their own accord undertake to travel

over a sea of ice." His opinion is that the Indians are

descended from such persons as may have escaped the

destruction of Troy, and being scattered over Asia

finally found their way to America. He also finds a great

similarity between the Indian languages and those of

the ancient Greeks and Latins, but he does not attempt

to explain whether this is to be considered a proof of

Trojan origin.

Josselyn, in 1638, disagrees with both Morton and

Wood; he finds that the Indians not only speak the

language of Tatars, but also resemble them in com-

plexion, habits, manner, and shape.

Apparently all these theorists had scant respect for

one another's arguments; for in 1652, Rev. Thomas

Thorogood proves to his entire satisfaction that the In-

dians are descended from the Jews.

Roger Williams held to the same belief.

Hubbard, in his History of New England, printed

in 1680, ridicules the theory of Jewish descent on the

ground that the supposed resemblances are entirely

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casual and accidental, having no value whatever as

evidence.

Father Vanegas, in 1758, after many years of resi-

dence among the Indians of California, could never find

that the natives of that region had any knowledge of

their original country, or how they came to be where

they were. Probably they had no idea what he was talk-

ing about, taking it for granted they had always lived

in their present homes. Vanegas states he could never

find the slightest evidence that they were in any manner

connected with any people whose home was or ever had

been in any part of Asia.

Adair, who had lived among the southern Indians

for forty years or more, as a trader, published in 1775

a work in two large volumes, most of which was devoted

to a demonstration of his belief, or rather of his con-

viction, that the languages and customs of the American

Indians are practically identical with those of the Jews.

Presumably he means the Jews of Scriptural times, for

the Jews with whom he could have been acquainted must

have had pretty much the same languages and customs

which are in vogue among them today.

Dr. Cabrera of Guatemala, in his History of the

Americans, printed in 1822, is very confident that the

Phoenicians built the city of Palenque in Mexico.

Dr. Williamson, in his History of North Carolina,

has no doubt that the Indians are descended from the

Hindoos; but does not tell us why he thinks so.

Dr. Mitchell of New York, a very learned man of

deep scientific research, believed the Indians are de-

scended from the tribes of northeastern Asia; but his

only basis for the assertion is that they are of the same

color.

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Americans Before Columbus        693

Dr. Swinton, in his Universal History, also supports

the idea of their origin in northeastern Asia, because he

thinks that Phoenicia and Egypt are too far away from

America for colonists to have made the journey.

DeWitt Clinton, in 1818, thinks the ancient works in

this country are similar to the remains in Wales which

are attributed to the Romans. He also thinks that the

Danes, as well as the people who constructed the so-

called fortifications in this country were of Scythian

origin. According to Pliny, Scythians included all the

nations of northern Europe and Asia, and Clinton ap-

parently accepts this definition, which certainly gives

him a wide range to choose from.

Dr. Boudinot, an educated Cherokee, in his Star

of the West published about the middle of the last

century, also presented what he considered incontesta-

ble evidence that the North American Indians are iden-

tical with the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Of course the "Ten Tribes" were never "lost"

since they preserved their tribal organization intact

and remained as one nation while making their way

through desert and wilderness to some country of whose

location or even existence they were in total ignorance,

and in which they disappeared. It is practically estab-

lished that they were gradually absorbed into surround-

ing tribes or "nations" among which they took refuge

when they scattered out. But the old idea died hard; in

fact, it still finds advocates among some who think that

the "Lost Tribes" had to go somewhere as a community,

and as they are not to be found elsewhere they must of

necessity have come to America. It never seems to oc-

cur to any one maintaining the theory to explain how

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the Jews, supposing them to have been "lost" could have

preserved themselves a distinct "nation" through the

many vicissitudes they must encounter in traversing the

thousands of miles separating Asia Minor from

America.

In short, to condense the matter, there is scarcely a

known people, ancient or modern, of Asia or Europe,

who have not been mentioned by some enterprising

writer as furnishing discoverers or settlers of the

western continent, or as ancestors of the American In-

dians.  Imaginative investigators have advanced the

claims of Siberians, Tatars, Chinese, Japanese, Malays,

natives of all the Pacific islands; Norse, Danes, Irish,

Basques, Welsh, Jews, Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians,

Carthaginians, Egyptians, Canary Islanders, even Ethi-

opians;--as among those who are assumed to have

crossed the seas either intentionally or by accident, and

to have populated the western hemisphere. A chance re-

semblance in the name of some natural object; a sim-

ilarity in the construction of a hut, a boat, or an im-

plement; a word of similar sound, whether having any-

thing like the same meaning or not; any one of these or

similarly trivial things has been sufficient with too many

visionaries to form the foundation of a positive and

authoritative statement in regard to a matter of which

the writers are in entire ignorance.

Still worse, some ambitious guessers, not content to

utilize countries or peoples of whom there is definite

knowledge, must needs evoke races whose very names

even have perished; or must construct continents where

the waters of the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Indian

Ocean now measure thousands of feet in depth; as At-

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lantis, between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean

seas; Lemuria, south of India and Persia; and a great

unnamed continent which has sunk in the middle of the

Pacific, and whose mountain tops now project above the

waves as islands and archipelagoes. All these lost lands

may have once existed; but there is scarcely a possibility

that man was on earth in time to see any of them.

On the other hand, there have not been wanting au-

thors who fail to see the necessity of deriving the In-

dians from any other part of the world than that in

which they were found.

An unnamed contributor to a cyclopedia printed in

the 18th century, thinks it would be surprising indeed if

one-half of our planet should have remained without

inhabitants for thousands of years, while the other half

was peopled.

Lord Kames, in Sketches of the History of Man,

1774, not only offers several good arguments that the

Indians are not descended from any known people in

northern Asia or Europe, but fails to find any evidence

that ancient America owes its population to any part of

the Old World.

Voltaire believed they are indigenous to the soil, like

the beaver and the buffalo; that they were created or de-

veloped here, and are not of necessity akin to the inhabi-

tants of any other part of the world.

It will be observed that with the exception of the

assumed "sunken continents," all the countries men-

tioned in the various citations, and in many others that

might be given, have a definite place in recorded history.

The migrations of the inhabitants are fairly well known

since their days of early barbarism. Nowhere in the

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study of customs or languages do we find evidence of a

concerted, intentional movement toward the American

continent. We can not deny that such a movement may

have taken place at some time in the remote past; but we

have no evidence whatever that such was the fact. It

is only within a few decades that scientific research

has carried the knowledge of man's existence back to a

time beyond that represented by Hebrew chronology.

Let us now see how natives of the eastern hemis-

phere, who had no knowledge of a land other than that

in which they lived, may have found a foothold upon the

American continent without any previous intention of

seeking a new home.

Mason shows how it would be quite easy for persons

living as far away as the shores of the Indian Ocean,

even west of the Malayan Archipelago, to travel the

entire distance to British Columbia, under climatic and

geological conditions as they exist at present. It is not

necessary to suppose the slightest alteration in the coast

line, the prevailing winds, the ocean currents, or the

animal and vegetable life along the route. The Black,

or Japanese Current, which is analogous to the Gulf

Stream of the Atlantic, begins its northward trend

among the islands of the Malayan group; it closely fol-

lows the coast of Asia, passing immediately to the east

of Japan and Kamchatka; winds around and among the

Kurile and Aleutian islands; washes the shore of Alaska

as far as Queen Charlotte Island; then swings out into

the ocean again. All this distance may be traversed in

canoes without being out of sight of land for more

than one day; and this in a short stretch south of

Behring Sea. No great effort is required; a vessel may

yield to the influence of winds and tides and make the

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journey with but little danger, for it is not at any time

necessary to go so far from land that the shores may

not be readily reached if storms threaten. If we should

suppose all the intermediate country to be without in-

habitants, the natural products of the sea and the land

would support a considerable traveling colony, without

the necessity on their part of cultivating the soil in any

part of the journey. In no place, nor at any season of

the year, need they suffer greatly from cold, for the

water never freezes and the air is never so cold as it is

a short distance inland. This route is the shortest that

could be taken, as it lies almost exactly along a great cir-

cle of the earth. From one end to the other of this water

highway, natives at the present day, often in small boats

or even in canoes, make journeys of greater length, in-

volving greater danger, than any which would be re-

quired to proceed from one island or headland to the

next; and they need never except in the one place men-

tioned be out of sight of land, either the place they had

left or that to which they were bound.

As showing the possibilities of this line of travel,

there were forty-one instances between 1782 and 1875

in which Japanese junks were cast upon the American

shore from Alaska to Oregon; and there is a record of

more than 100 such cases. In 1832 a Japanese junk

which floated too far out to sea to be thus stranded,

reached the Hawaiian Islands, with nine of the crew

still alive. Chinese boats, also, have been cast upon the

shores of Oregon, and at least some of the crews saved.

A few years ago the removal of a sand dune by the

winds revealed a deeply-buried junk more than a fourth

of a mile from the present beach.

The current finally sweeps southward across the

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equator to its starting point; and in this way are to be

explained certain similarities which exist between the

remains which exist upon the northwest coast of

America and remains in the Polynesian and other South

Pacific islands, even as far as New Zealand. This simi-

larity has often been adduced as proof that there was in

olden time a line of migration eastward across the Pacific

to the shores of South America, and a gradual dispersal

thence toward the northward. But the direction of the

prevailing winds and the trend of the ocean currents

as they are at present and as they undoubtedly have been

for thousands of years, show that any migratory move-

ments across the Pacific Ocean in this part of the world

must have been from the southwest Pacific to the north-

east Pacific and then back toward the region where they

had their beginning.

Before it had become possible to work out accurate

charts of winds and currents, persons who were con-

vinced that America must of necessity have been peo-

pled from Asia, believed that all lines of immigration

converged on the shores of Behring Strait. Particu-

larly was this the case with writers who were satisfied

that the Indians are the modern representatives of the

ancient Scythians. The latter, who lived in northeastern

Europe and the northern half of Asia, were a roving

people, maintaining themselves by their herds of cattle,

horses, goats, and sheep. The fact that most of our In-

dians were also wanderers was deemed sufficient evi-

dence that they were of the same stock; and many stu-

dents hastily assumed that the Scythians made their way

to the extreme northeastern point of Asia, and then in

some way crossed to this side. It is true that Eskimo

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Americans Before Columbus        699

now live all along the borders of the Arctic Ocean on

both continents; but that these have any immediate

racial connection with either Scythians or Indians is out

of the question. So, if we are to suppose that the an-

cestors of those Indians who met Columbus when he

landed, came from any part of eastern Asia they must

have come along the line of the Japan current.

At various times theories have been promulgated

that America may have been peopled from the eastward;

that the general drift of migration was toward the west,

as it has been in all historic time. A ready passage was

found from Europe, by way of the islands around the

north of Scotland, to Iceland and Greenland, thence to

Labrador and the St. Lawrence valley. Somewhat more

plausible is the idea that voyagers or castaways from

southern Europe or northern Africa might drift to the

Canary or Cape Verde Islands, whence the return flow

of the Gulf Stream would carry them across the Atlantic

to the eastern shores of South America. The distance

is not so great as has been traversed by canoes on the

Pacific, and it has been imagined that the Caribs who

were found in the West Indies and along the adjacent

coast of South America, are descended from ancient

voyagers who followed this route. The Caribs were ex-

pert canoeists, and it is known that they paddled or

sailed to points as distant from their home as Florida

and Yucatan. Accessions to the aboriginal population

of our southern states may have been made in this

manner.

At the present day, with ordinary canoes, natives of

the South Pacific islands, without chart or compass, de-

pending merely upon the sun and stars, and their own

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instinctive sense of direction, frequently undertake voy-

ages which keep them for days at a time out of sight of

land; and they will reach the point for which they set out

as speedily as a modern navigator could do with the

same means. Even by accident, long journeys may be

successfully accomplished. It is recorded that at one

time there were upon the Fiji Islands two persons who

were picked up at sea, floating in a small canoe many

hundreds of miles from any known land. They had

existed upon some fish which they had managed to catch,

and a few cocoanuts which happened to be in their

canoe; their water supply came from the clouds. Of all

the sailors who tried to gather some information from

these derelicts in the port at which they were put on

shore, there was never one who could comprehend a

word of their language; nor could they ever name the

country or island from which they came--or if they did

no one could understand what place they meant.

All the theories and surmises above set forth of mi-

grations and discoveries are based, however, upon the

idea that America received its first inhabitants within

the period of which we have written records; and that

these settlements were made by people of whom we have

historic knowledge. But scientific researches by geolo-

gists and archaeologists have clearly shown that the ex-

istence of man began at a time so far back that recorded

history is a mere matter of yesterday when compared

with it. We know now that a high state of culture was

reached in Egypt more than seven thousand years ago;

objects which show that man in that region was tolera-

bly advanced in the higher stages of barbarism, date

back still other thousands of years. Antedating these

last are found progressively ruder articles of human

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workmanship which point to unnumbered centuries of

occupation. The caverns of France and England, as

well as those in other parts of Europe, afford indubitable

proof that they were inhabited by men long before the

close of the glacial period. There were men in western

Europe who had attained a high degree of artistic skill

while England was still a part of the main land and a

wide sea connected the Mediterranean Sea with the

Arctic Ocean. When Europe was practically a frigid

zone from a mantle of ice covering half its area; when

this had melted and the climate had become so warm as

to make it possible for animals to live there whose

natural home is in tropical regions only; when the latter

condition had passed away in turn, when the ice-sheet

had again covered the country, and the animal life was

similar to that found now only in the Arctic regions--

during all this immense period man existed in Europe.

Not as a lower type, not as a "missing link," but as a

well-developed human being who, at least in the latter

half of this period, was able to make artistic, even beau-

tiful, implements of flint and bone, and to portray various

animals and scenes with which he was familar, by means

of remarkably realistic paintings, clay models, and rock

carvings.

If man was present to witness such geological

changes as those involved in a gradual subsidence of

western Europe until scores of feet of water now roll

between England and the continent of which it then

formed a part; if he witnessed, also, an elevation of the

central and eastern portions of Europe to such an extent

that kingdoms traversed by great rivers now exist where

all was then an unbroken sea; if these are the facts, and

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the testimony seems clear that they are;--then we may

reasonably suppose that he also witnessed other changes

of which we have, as yet, no evidence. There may have

been land connections across the north Atlantic and the

north Pacific which are not now at all apparent. At-

lantis may not be so imaginary as it seems. Possibly

Asia and America were united by a broad belt of land;

Behring Sea is quite shallow over a space of several

thousand square miles. From Alaska to Kamchatka, on

to Japan, and the Malayan archipelago, the whole region

is volcanic and a considerable amount of elevation or de-

pression may take place at any time. Furthermore,

when the northern hemisphere was covered with a mas-

sive sheet of ice and the waters of the ocean were drawn

to it by attraction of gravitation, passageways may have

existed in the northern hemisphere, of which we can now

know nothing. Possibly a different distribution of land

and water, or changes in winds due to different positions

of the earth in its orbit, so affected ocean currents that

they would flow in lines very different from those in

which we find them. Through many or all of these means

there could easily have been lines of communication and

travel which do not now appear. We can not say that

natives of South America and the West Indies might not

have wandered across from the east; and perhaps there

were also ways by which any of the peoples of eastern or

southern Asia could reach the western coast. But if

such migrations were possibilities, they date immeasur-

ably back of any history or of any trustworthy tradition.

The several continents have been inhabited from such

remote antiquity that on each one has been evolved a

race which differs from all the others.

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At the close of the 19th century the trend of thought

was toward the view of Kames and Voltaire, and the

anonymous contributor mentioned above, namely, that

the Indian is indigenous to America; that he never came

from anywhere, but developed on this continent. A few

went still further and maintained that America is not

only the oldest continent geologically, but that it is the

original home of mankind, and that from here came all

the other inhabitants of the world. These authors were

probably laboring under an acute development of Chau-

vinism. Brinton maintained that the evidence of

language and archaeology proves that the Aleutian Is-

lands were first populated from America and not from

Asia; that Siberia was not populated at all until long

after man had spread over Europe; and that until a

recent geological date all the region now included in

Behring Sea and the adjoining land on both sides and

for a long distance southward was covered by enormous

glaciers or ice-sheets which prevented any passage in

either direction between the two countries. While this

is quite true, it would not interfere with the idea that the

earliest peoples may have made their way from one

country to the other along the coast before the ice cov-

ered the area, or in the period between the different

epochs of the ice age, although no convincing evidence

of such movement has ever been found. Nor does it

contravene the idea that much more land in that region

was above the water formerly than is the case at present.

It is still the opinion of some students that the more

thorough the investigation, the more firmly is the con-

clusion established that the aboriginal peoples of

America are not to be considered as an offshoot of any

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other branch of the human race. If we accept such

conclusion, then man seems to have inhabited the west-

ern continent through all the periods of prehistoric time

since he first took shape as man. The occupancy of

America, according to these investigators, goes so far

back that it preceded the development of arts, industries,

language or any form of communal life except as men

lived like wild animals. The most persistent research

has failed to disclose any marked resemblance between

the art, architecture, religions, or customs of the North

Americans, taken as a whole, and those of any peoples of

the old world; while the entire absence from America of

any domesticated animal or of any food product of the

eastern hemisphere, which was not also native to this

side of the earth, certainly indicates that if this continent

received its population from any other it was at a time

so remote that man was then only a hunter, almost a wild

animal, had no knowledge of agriculture, and could not,

or at least did not, attempt the domestication of any

animal except such as might be of assistance to him in

the chase.

The belief is now growing that the Indian of North

America is of Mongoloid derivation; not a direct de-

scendant of any people now living in Asia, but tracing to

a common origin with some of them, and perhaps not

more divergent from the primitive stock than are the

natives of southern and eastern Asia. There is much

in favor of this view.

One of the best evidences of the antiquity of man

in our country is afforded by the study of philology.

There are more than four hundred languages among the

tribes from the Eskimo to the Pafagonians, so distinct,

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Americans Before Columbus        705

so unlike, that they do not furnish a means of communi-

cation among those living not far distant from one

another. While they are essentially the same in what

we may call the grammatical structure, yet the individual

words have no resemblance. This, it is contended, can

mean only that a methodical form of speech had become

fixed before the community in its original habitat began

to break apart. The formation of language is a slow

process; and as it must have taken a very long time for

a race, starting with a common tongue, to lose entirely

the primitive speech and create a new one in each of sev-

eral hundred centers, we are compelled to the conclusion

that America has probably been inhabited nearly or quite

as long as any other portion of the globe.

Moreover, in various parts of this country artificial

objects have been unearthed in positions which imply for

them a great antiquity. Some of them have been found

under a depth of glacial debris which indicates that they

are at least as old as the period next preceding that in

which the ice-sheet reached to the Ohio and Missouri

Rivers. Some of these specimens are symmetrical and

well finished, showing their makers to have attained a

high degree of skill in such work. We must remember

that after man had first learned how to sharpen a stone

by knocking a flake off of it, many ages had to pass be-

fore he had acquired the ability to produce an article

comparing favorably with those made in later days. If

we accept the statements of the finders as to the condi-

tions under which these objects were found, we must

admit the existence of man in the Ohio and Missouri

valleys before the close of the glacial period. Eminent

authorities, however, vigorously dispute the correctness

Vol. XXXIX--45

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of these reports, and deny that the specimens are as old

as claimed; not because they were not found at the

depths stated, but because there is not sufficient evidence

that they may not in some way, have been carried down

from the surface to the place in which they were dis-

covered; or that the deposits covering them are more re-

cent in origin than they are claimed or supposed to be.

The oldest human remains yet found in America

whose authenticity is beyond dispute, seem to be those

of the "Lansing Man," unearthed in the Missouri River

bluffs west of Kansas City. This was a skeleton, partly

under a large slab of limestone, 28 feet below the sur-

face. Various geological considerations indicate that

the Missouri River has lowered its channel 35 or 40 feet

since the remains were placed where found. A foot in

a century is a moderate estimate of the amount of

erosion that has taken place; and on this basis it would

seem that the body was buried some 35 or 40 centuries

ago. The skull is clearly American Indian in its for-

mation; hence we must conclude that it was then a dis-

tinct type. How long it would take for this type to

become fixed can not even be guessed at.

Coming down to present conditions, accessions to the

original population of America since the close of the

glacial period and before free navigation was possible,

would be feasible only along the line of the Japan Cur-

rent. That such accessions have taken place can not

be doubted in view of the appearance in buildings

and sculptures from Mexico southward, of construction

and decoration which indicate Hindoo, Chinese or

Japanese influence. While very slight, this influence is

quite perceptible. The temples, palaces, and other large

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Americans Before Columbus            707

structures of the region from Mexico to Peru, are purely

of native design and development; but here and there are

found traces of the foreign elements noted. These

modifications, while of course old as counted by years,

are recent as measured by the length of time which has

elapsed since the beginning of the culture which led to

the construction of such buildings. Whatever be the

origin of the first Americans, clearly these modifying

influences must have reached the southern countries

from the northward, along the Pacific coast. Morgan

believed that the valley of the Columbia River was the

region from which both North and South America were

peopled in the first place, and reinforced from time to

time later. He accepted conditions as they are, without

reference to any particular period of time or to geolog-

ical changes. He showed that barbarians ignorant of

agriculture must, if they increase in numbers, rapidly

spread over large areas. Fish and food animals are

comparatively limited in quantity, and it takes but little

time for hunting tribes to drive game so far back into

the wilderness that it is out of reach; then the hunter

must follow and make a new home. Fish, it is true, can

not thus retreat; but the supply can nevertheless be so

diminished as no longer to support the same number of

people. Morgan says:

The country around Puget Sound was singularly well sup-

plied with the requisites for the subsistence of Indian tribes. A

mild and genial climate prevailed and in the amount and variety

of the means of subsistence spontaneously furnished it had no

parallel in any part of the earth. It is reasonably certain, first,

that the distribution of the aborigines over North America began

on the Pacific side of the continent; second, that the several stock

languages east of the Rocky Mountains and north of Mexico and

Central America were emigrants from the north; and last that the

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708      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

initial point of all these migrations was in the valley of the

Columbia.

This dispersal, or at least the beginning of it, must

date very far back. The character of the aborigines

living east of the Rockies is very different from the

character of those living west of these ranges; and we

find a great difference, too, in the peoples of the Pacific

coast as we go southward. Some of these differences

are due to soil and climate; others to diverse methods of

living. But there still remains a distinction which can

not be thus accounted for, and which can only mean

more than one period of migration, and more than one

original starting point of these migrations. After a

racial type becomes fixed, small accessions to it in after

times are completely absorbed and become a part of the

community. The only influence new-comers in limited

numbers can have is to start a new line of thought or a

new method of living, which being found satisfactory,

may survive long after all traces of its originators have

been swallowed in the general type.

Sufficient has now been said to give the reader a gen-

eral idea of the drift of surmise and theory regarding

prehistoric conditions. Traditions and writings which

attempt to account for the discovery and settlement of

America by the nations of which we have historic

knowledge are not satisfactory. The ancient Egyptian

priests claimed to have definite records of the existence

of a great island which they called Atlantis, far out in

the Atlantic Ocean, the inhabitants of which waged war

upon the nations of northern Africa. They set the date

as 9,000 years before the time at which they related the

events to Pliny, who wrote them down nearly 2,000

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Americans Before Columbus        709

years ago. This story is generally considered mythical

or fabulous, and probably is so in the form in which it

has come down to us. None the less, it may have a basis

of fact, though some measure of skepticism is justified

concerning the great antiquity claimed for the Atlan-

teans. The shortest distance across the Atlantic from

Africa to South America is only about 1,600 miles. If

a populated island existed somewhere between the two

countries the current of the Gulf Stream would easily

carry derelicts or adventurous sailors to the Caribbean

Sea.

It is said that written documents in Rome show that

long before the day of Columbus, an Irish priest made a

voyage to a country somewhere far in the west, from

which he returned after many years. When he related

his adventures, a number of persons volunteered to ac-

company him, if he would again take up his missionary

or proselyting work among these unknown people.

Accepting their offer, he secured a vessel and set forth

toward the mysterious land. Here the record ceases;

the expedition was never mentioned again.

There was also a mythical Welsh prince, Medoc or

Madoc, who in the 12th century, having heard of a "far

country" in the west, proceeded with a number of fol-

lowers to explore and perhaps to colonize it. He, too,

was lost to knowledge forever afterward. Various ex-

plorers have imagined they could find traces of Madoc's

party, especially among the Mandan Indians of the

upper Missouri valley. Among other things it is

asserted that these Indians spoke the Welsh language;

also, that they possessed books printed in Welsh which

they regarded as their most sacred treasures. Unfor-

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710      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

tunately for this story, printed books were not known

until long after Madoc's time; nor is it probable that

documents of any sort would survive for centuries with

the treatment they would receive from roving Indians,

no matter how sacredly they might be guarded; and the

Mandans were a Siouan or Caddoan tribe.

Among the writers of the narratives concerning

these early adventurers, one fact has been overlooked.

This is, that not until long after the Christian era began

were there any vessels which could navigate the ocean.

The Greeks, Phoenicians, and other maritime peoples

never ventured far from shore, because their vessels

could not be handled in waters as rough as those of the

Atlantic; we read of continual destruction of their fleets

by storms in the limited area of the Mediterranean,

along the coasts of Spain, and in the waters which sur-

round France and Great Britain. So no prehistoric

colonists could have made their way to America except

by land. If there were any casual immigrants, their

coming was accidental and by chance, like those of the

Chinese and Japanese whose stranded junks are men-

tioned above.  Not until the old Northmen of the

Scandinavian peninsula undertook the conquest of the

sea, was a form of boat devised which was manageable

in the storms of the North Atlantic. Before their time

all boats had been constructed with flat or rounded bot-

toms which offered but little resistance to the water

when the wind was on the beam or quarter. Conse-

quently it was extremely difficult to hold them to a

definite course, as they would make great leeway unless

the wind was dead astern. When clouds or haze pre-

vented solar observations early navigators were unable

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Americans Before Columbus       711 to calculate their position except approximately. It remained for the Norse to invent the keel; and not until this idea had been properly worked out was it possible to make long voyages in unknown waters with any cer- tainty of reaching the desired destination, or of finding the way back home again. The first white men who reached the coast of North America, made a permanent settlement, and left a cer- tain and definite record of their discovery, were the Northmen, beginning with Leif, son of Eric the Red. He, or his immediate successors, in the year 1000 A. D., established a colony in Massachusetts near the mouth of the Charles River. The last mention we have of them was in 1347. At that period the "Black Plague" which devastated Europe almost depopulated Greenland and Iceland. The disease being carried to "Vineland," this colony perished totally, or if any survived they were destroyed or absorbed by the Indians.

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