Middle America

“ Our American Colonies, particularly the Northern ones, have been for some time in the happiest state of society; or, in that middle state of civilization, between its first rude and its last refined and corrupt state. Old countries consist, generally, of three classes of people ”

“ As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made was almost as definitely determined by events in the Old World. For countless centuries, Europe, by many routes and through many intermediaries, had traded with the vaguely localized countries of the Orient. Throughout the Middle Ages, not only had she been dependent on the East for most of her luxuries, but many of these, from long usage, had become necessities. ”

“ They are on the most productive and prosperous land, perhaps, in the modern world. The houses might fall down like shanties, but the fields would remain; and whoever tills those fields will count for a great deal in the affairs of humanity. They are already counting for a great deal, and possibly for too much, in the affairs of America. The real criticism of the Middle West is concerned with two facts, neither of which has been yet adequately appreciated by the educated class in England. ”

“ Descending from the best of ancestral stock, born and reared in what was known as the Great Middle West, in an atmosphere of national independence, a region of our country where we find the highest type of our American civilization, he grew to manhood under the most favored auspices. ”

“ In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe. Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world with her baneful shadow. ”

“ He studied the monuments, writings and traditions left by this civilization more than any other man; and actually learned to decipher some of the Central American writings.
His Atlantic theory of the old American civilization is that it was originated on a portion of this continent which is now under waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It supposes the continent extended, anciently, from New Granada, Central America and Mexico, in a long, irregular peninsula, so far across the Atlantic that the Canary, Madeira, and Azores, or Western Islands, may be remains of this portion of it. ”

“ The discovery of the huge continent of America, thinly inhabited,{v2-252} undeveloped, and admirably adapted for European settlement and exploitation, the simultaneous discovery of great areas of unworked country south of the torrid equatorial regions of Africa that had hitherto limited European knowledge, and the gradual realization of vast island regions in the Eastern seas, as yet untouched by Western civilization, was a presentation of opportunity to mankind unprecedented in all history. It was as if the peoples of Europe had come into some splendid legacy. ”

“ Not only are we accustomed to speak of the eastern continents as the Old World, in contradistinction to the great continent of the west, but to speak also of the world before the Flood as the Old World, in contradistinction to the post-diluvian world which succeeded it. And yet equally, if we receive the term in either of its acceptations, is America an older world still,—an older world than that of the eastern continents,—an older world, in the fashion and type of its productions, than the world before the Flood. ”

“ The life of the nation cannot be reduced to these so simple terms. These two great forces, of the North and of the South, unquestionably existed,—were unquestionably projected in their operation out upon the great plane of the continent, there to combine or repel, as circumstances might determine. But the people that went out from the North were not an unmixed people; they came from the great Middle States as well as from New England. ”

“ It is usual to speak of America as “a continent without a history.” The folly of such a statement is extreme. For centuries prior to European occupation Central America was the seat of civilisations boasting a history and a semi-historical mythology second to none in richness and interest. ”

“ In this long span of mortal years, events of vast and enduring moment shook the world. A handful of scattered and dependent colonies in the northern continent of America made themselves into one of the most powerful and beneficent of states. ”

“ But we were more interested to visit old countries and old nations than to set foot on a virgin continent, and to see colonies and cities, which, with all their growth, could only be a smaller edition of what we have so abundantly in the new States of America. ”

“ Most of the people of the United States and even of Europe have been so absorbed in their own histories, development, and general progress that they have given little attention to the twenty republics of southern America. ”

“ The civilizations of the East are known to have acted and reacted on one another, so that it is often difficult to trace things to their original source; whereas in the civilization of America the culture must to a great extent have arisen and developed on the soil, free from extraneous influence, and on this account may furnish facts of the greatest importance which the East cannot supply. ”

“ The legend says that this continent was the first region in which man rose from barbarism to civilization, and that in the course of ages it became a populous and mighty nation from whose shores immigrants went out to settle the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the valley of the Mississippi, the valley of the Amazon, the Pacific coast of South America, the shores of the Mediterranean, of the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Caspian and the western coast of Europe and Africa. ”

“ Although in 1830 the North Atlantic States numbered between three and four times as many people as the Middle West, yet in those two decades the Middle West made an actual gain of several hundred thousand more than did the old section. Counties in the newer states rose from a few hundred to ten or fifteen thousand people in the space of less than five years. Suddenly, with astonishing rapidity and volume, a new people was forming with varied elements, ideals and institutions drawn from all over this nation and from Europe. ”

“ America, and especially Saxon America, with its immense virgin territories, with its republic, with its equilibrium between stability and progress, with its harmony between liberty and democracy, is the continent of the Future,—the immense continent stretched by God between the Atlantic and Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve all social problems. ”

“ The orator claimed that, in forest, in soil, in mineral wealth, and in all the resources of Nature necessary to the subsistence of a great population, South was probably superior to North America; yet, behold the mighty difference! The world had never presented so conspicuous an opportunity for weighing the merits of different races as colonisers and civilisers as are shown in the present conditions of South and North America, and all these marvellous disparities lie in the character of the invading or colonising races.
North America sprang from the loins of Britain ”

“ How did our nation gain new life when the pioneers looked westward from the eastern ridges? Why are we spoken of as a "great compounded nation"? What are our "mighty works of peace"? The author now shows how the Middle Seaboard States were a type of the later form of the nation, because they had a mixed population. What does he think about the influence of the Puritan and the Southerner? Note the questions that he asks regarding the course of American history. ”

“ The ideals of equality, freedom of opportunity, faith in the common man are deep rooted in all the Middle West. The frontier stage, through which each portion passed, left abiding traces on the older, as well as on the newer, areas of the province. Nor were these ideals limited to the native American settlers: Germans and Scandinavians who poured into the Middle West sought the country with like hopes and like faith. These facts must be remembered in estimating the effects of the economic transformation of the province upon its democracy. ”

“ So much, however, has come to the knowledge of our time, as suffices to prove that the nations of Central America were very far advanced in political and social development as well as in science and art. ”

“ But the larger part of what has been distinctive and valuable in America's contribution to the history of the human spirit has been due to this nation's peculiar experience in extending its type of frontier into new regions; and in creating peaceful societies with new ideals in the successive vast and differing geographic provinces which together make up the United States. Directly or indirectly these experiences shaped the life of the Eastern as well as the Western States, and even reacted upon the Old World and influenced the direction of its thought and its progress. ”

“ Since its early discovery South America has been pre-eminently a country of bloodshed. Revolution has succeeded revolution and hundreds of thousands of the bravest have been slain, but, phoenix-like, the country rises from its ashes. ”

“ But the English North American colonies, now the powerful people of the United States of America, made by far the most rapid progress. To the plenty of good land which they possessed in common with the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, they added a greater degree of liberty and equality. ”

“ I believe these conjectures to be warranted by the fact that in several parts of the American continents, viz.: in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, a civilization of no mean degree of advancement was found to exist at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards; and, indeed, there are not wanting authorities who assert that the civilization found in America by the Spaniards, both in Mexico and Peru, was equal to their own. ”

“ THE most interesting period in the history of the discoveries on the American continent was in that part of the sixteenth century when the efforts of the Spanish people were directed to pushing from the already settled coast lands and isthmuses into the interior of both North and South America. ”

“ To the citizens of the Middle West and the Far West, especially, busy as they were with the development of vast untapped resources, the affairs of the outer world necessarily appeared remote and insignificant. ”

“ The first emigrations to North America were not composed of a strolling banditti of rude nations, like the first people of most other colonies in the history of the world. The early settlers in the newly discovered continent were as far advanced in civilization, policy, and manner; in their ideas of government, the nature of compacts, and the bands of civil union, as any of their neighbors at that period among the most polished nations of Europe. ”

“ Beyond this, nothing is known of their [94] history; but the accounts we have of such buildings as Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal, make it highly probable that Central America was the ancient seat of a civilization, in all essential points similar to those of India and Egypt; that is to say, similar to them in respect to the unequal distribution of wealth and power, and the thraldom in which the great body of the people consequently remained. ”

“ Then, declaring that the “English race,” not stopping within the limits of the Union, will advance much beyond towards the Northeast,—that at the Northwest they will encounter only Russian settlements without importance,—that at the Southwest the vast solitudes of Mexican territory will be appropriated,—and dwelling on the fortunate geographical position of “the English of America,” with their climate, their interior seas, their great rivers, and the fertility of their soil, he is ready to say:—
“So, in the midst of the uncertainty of the future, there is at least one event which is certain. ”

“ IN that distant age when Nature was still toiling at the foundations of the Eastern Continent, portions of America had become dry land, and mountain-peaks in North Carolina were illuminated by rising and setting suns. It is, therefore, an anachronism to speak of America as the New World, especially when we remember the high antiquity of the fauna of North America. Still it is believed that the Eastern Continent was the original abode of man. ”

“ From the northwest, America was discovered and populated.
Men first came into being somewhere in the Old World. From this point of beginning they spread slowly over the face of the earth. In all directions the ancient men traveled, always on foot, always without a goal. After a time Europe, Africa and Asia were populated, but the Americas remained without men. ”

“ If it be remarkable that the Western Continent should have remained unknown for so many centuries to civilized man, it is, perhaps, still more remarkable that since its discovery and settlement, it should have become the theatre of so many signal transactions, and have advanced so rapidly to its present civil, religious, and political importance. The history of every portion of it is interesting and instructive; but more especially that portion occupied by the people of the United States. A great work is in progress throughout the entire continent ”

“ In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe. Our early history is the study of European germs developing in an American environment. Too exclusive attention has been paid by institutional students to the Germanic origins, too little to the American factors. The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. ”

“ These and other relics of past races, abounding in Central, the southern part of North, and in South America, give indisputable evidence of these regions having been inhabited, many centuries ago, by multitudinous enlightened populations that had attained a high state of civilization. ”