Aboriginal America

by Jacob S. C. Abbott

  One of the large lakes, though still much higher than the sea, is marked as a low lake, for it is two or three hundred feet below the level of the others, and the water flowing from the upper lakes into it, in descending from one level to the other, passes over a high precipice, thus producing an immense fall, which is the celebrated Niagara.

  The surplus waters of all the large lakes flow off finally in a northeasterly direction, almost exactly parallel to the coast until they reach the sea. The river thus formed is now known as the St. Lawrence. Observe, that between the river and the coast there is a long and somewhat narrow strip of land, which will be spoken of more particularly under another head. All this region of the lakes is inhabited - during the summer season by immense numbers of beasts upon the land, of birds in the regions of the air, and of fishes in the water. In the winter it is buried deep in ice and snow. The birds at that season have all flown. The animals have retired to dens and holes, where some sleep, torpid, till the spring returns, and others burrowing beneath the frosty covering which clothes the ground, gain their livelihood there by digging for roots, or gnawing the bark of trees, or catching the fish that are still swimming in the imprisoned waters.

  Fur-Bearing Animals

  Almost all the land animals that inhabit these regions - being exposed for six months in the year to intense cold - are protected by a thick and warm coat of hair and fur. In the larger animals the hair is coarse, but thick and warm, though much less so than in the case of the smaller animals; for the smaller the body is that is exposed, the more perfect the protection that it requires, one large mass being more easily kept warm than a multitude of small ones.

  The region of these lakes, and of the country north of it, which, for many hundreds of miles, maintains the same character, is one of the most extensive and most celebrated fur-bearing districts in the world. The shores of the lakes, and the banks of all the millions of little brooks and streams, are full of minks, otter, beavers, sables, and multitudes of other swimming and burrowing animals of that kind, whose fur is softer than silk and warmer than wool. When, therefore, you look upon the map and imagine that your eyes are surveying the real country, you must picture it to your mind as swarming with all this life, winter and summer.

  In the summer these animals ramble about in the forests, or along the borders of the lakes and streams, amid a profusion of the most luxuriant and most beautiful flowers. Some climb the trees, and run along upon the branches in search of nuts for their winter stores. Some burrow in the ground, at the margin of the water, with the orifices of their dwelling convenient either for foraging upon the land, or for fishing and swimming in the ponds and streams.

  The Indian Inhabitants

  There is one thing more to be brought to mind in order to complete the picture, and that is, the presence of many wandering tribes of Indians roaming over the country. The smokes from their scattered wigwams rise among the trees both in summer and in winter. They build their habitations of the bark of trees. They hunt and trap the land animals, and snare the fish. They eat the flesh for food, and clothe themselves with the skins and furs. Each tribe preserves in a measure its own range, and yet sometimes they become involved in dreadful quarrels, in which the ordinary repose of the silent and solitary forests is broken by the frightful yells of a troop of maddened savages breaking at midnight into the encampment of their foes, or by the piercing cries of women and children whom they massacre in their fury.

  Influence of the Moral Instincts

  These scenes of war and devastation are, however, only incidental and occasional interruptions to the ordinarily peaceful flow with which the current of life here, as in all other countries and climes, flows on. The Creator has implanted in the human mind a natural sense of justice, a love of what is right in the dealings between man and man, and a disapproval of what is wrong, the influence of which, in all human communities, is ordinarily sufficient to preserve peace, even in the most rude and savage states of society. Thus, in picturing to our imaginations the scenes that were presented in this lake country, while in its aboriginal condition, we must conceive of the inhabitants as ordinarily employed in their various industrial pursuits of hunting and fishing, of fabricating implements and clothing, of building wigwams and making encampments, and of rearing their children. The scenes of violence and war that occurred to disturb the usual quite of their lives, through very serious in their results, were exceptional, and comparatively rare. It is very doubtful, indeed, whether they were more frequent, or more destructive, in proportion to the numbers affected by them, than the similar quarrels which have occurred among Christian and civilized nations, as shown by the history of Europe during the last five hundred years.

  The Great Central Valley

  South of the lake country, and occupying a very large portion of the whole interior of the continent, is a broad though shallow valley, bounded both on the east and on the west by ranges of mountains. The extent of the valley is marked on the map, not only by the mountains which bound it on the east and on the west, but also by the ramifications of the great river which drains, it. These ramifications are seen spreading in every direction, like the branches of a mighty tree, and terminating in the south in one great trunk, through which the united volume of waters is poured out into the great gulf which is seen delineated there. This is the great river Mississippi, with its thousand tributaries. If is were the real scene, instead of a mere map that we were looking upon, we should see all the branches of this immense system glistening in the sun between banks loaded with luxuriant forests, and adorned with fruits and flowers of every conceivable character and form.

  The Soil of the Great Valley

  The soil of the whole valley, which, however, is so broad and so shallow that, seen as we have imagined from above, it would have more the appearance of an extended plain than of a valley, is extremely fertile. It is what is called an alluvial formation; that is, a very large portion of the territory has been covered with deposits from the rivers themselves, left after overflows and inundations. These deposits have accumulated, in the course of ages, to a great depth, and they form an exceedingly rich and fertile soil. The rivers twist and turn this way and that in meandering through these plains; and when swollen by rain or by the melting snows, they undermine the banks, and bring down great masses of earth, and great numbers of immense trees into the water. The earth thus washed in is carried down by the flood, and after being mingled with a great variety of animal and vegetable remains, is distributed over widely extended districts below, when the water has overflowed the banks, and thus adds, throughout all the country so covered, a new layer of fertility to the soil.

  Formation of Islands in the River

  The trees float on, too, upon the current. Some drag by the roots and get lodged along the banks or upon shoals, in the bed of the stream. In this latter case they intercept others coming down, and so create an obstruction, around which sand and sediment collect, until an island is formed. When this new formation becomes consolidated, it turns the current of the steam, and perhaps in the end is the means of deflecting the river into a new channel.

  There is another way by which islands are formed. The river wearing continually upon its banks, and making immense convolutions in its course, sometimes cuts through a narrow neck, where previously it flowed around in a great circuit. A new channel is thus made for a part of the water, while the rest flows on round the circuit in the old course. By this means an island is formed, which may, perhaps, continue for centuries to divide the stream.

  Swamps

  At length, perhaps in the case of such an island, the old channel becomes choked up and closed at the opening, having previously become half filled with the floating trunks of trees, and all manner of brush and rubbish. Henceforward it remains a stagnant pool, a mile perhaps wide, and fifty miles long, filled with aquatic plants of every kind, and with decaying and half sunken trunks of trees, all covered and adorned, where they emerge into the atmosphere, with rich
mosses, green and brown, and with graceful ferns, which hang drooping like tufts of feathers along the bands, or clinging, wherever they can get a foothold, to the trunks of the decaying trees.

  The lagoons and morasses formed in this manner, in ancient times, became the peaceful and happy abode of vast numbers of animals adapted to such a habitation. Alligators, lizards, serpents, and reptiles of all kinds, crawled along the banks or slept in the sun upon the logs that line the shore; while long-legged birds waded in the water fishing for their food among the sedges, and flocks of ducks and other wild fowl, some of them resplendent in plumage, and adorned with the most gorgeous hues or orange, crimson, blue and gold, lay floating on the surface, or flew in flocks hither and thither through the air. The lagoons and morasses were inhabited by these animals in millions.

  the Old Forsaken Channels

  In other parts of this great valley swamps and morasses were formed in another way. The river, when it overflowed its banks, carried over with it, upon the land, immense quantities of sand, gravel, and driftwood, and other such substances, whether floating upon the water or suspended in it. These substances would, of course, be caught and retained, or, if heavier than the water, would subside in greater quantities near the bank than further inland; that is, the largest and heaviest would become lodged, while the water itself, carrying with it the finer sediment, would flow further into the interior. Thus the land would become built up, so to speak, faster near the river than further inland, and consequently would rise higher; and the water which was carried over into the plains beyond could not flow back into the river again. Instead of this, it would find its way into every

  Forsaken Channels

  low and sunken tract, which would, of course, in this way become half submerged, and long before the water could be evaporated by the sun a new supply would come in from another inundation.

  The result is, that throughout the whole extent of the valley, especially in the southern and lower portions of it, great tracts of land have become half submerged, and continue permanently in that condition, and thus, though teeming with animal and vegetable life, are wholly unfit, in their present state, for the abode of man.

  The Mouth of the Mississippi

  The mouth of the river, as might be expected from the prevailing character which it bears throughout its course, presents a very extraordinary spectacle. The torrents that come down in the great floods bring with them vast numbers of trees and immense quantities of brush and drift wood, and also of sand and mud held in suspension by the water, all of which are swept out in every direction around the mouth of the river and deposited there. In this way, in process of time, a delta, or projection of the land has been formed, which is so large as to be plainly perceptible upon the map. This land rises scarcely above the level of the sea, and the water of the river makes its way through it in every direction, in many different and devious channels. The whole tract is, in fact, an entangled mass of trees and brushwood, matted together and gone to decay, and covered with mud and slime; and so unfit for the habitation of man that when, on the coming of the Europeans, a landing-place was required on the bank of the river; it was found necessary to ascend more than one hundred miles before a site suitable for a town could be found. And even at that spot the surface of the river is now often higher than the streets of the town which has been build there, and in digging a foot or two anywhere in the soil we come to the water.

  The Prairies

  In the northern part of this great fertile basin, watered by the Mississippi and its branches, there is a vast extent of country void of forests, or nearly void of them, there being no wood upon it except narrow belts of trees growing along the margins of the rivers. This country consists of boundless plains of grass land, called prairies. The soil is very fertile, and the grass grows high; and when from any small elevation the traveler takes a survey of the scene, looking out, as he may, to an unobstructed horizon on every side, and seeing the grass waving in the wind throughout the whole expanse around him, he might well imagine himself in the midst of an ocean - only that the billows that roll over it are green instead of blue. These plains, in aboriginal times, furnished food for buffaloes, elks, antelopes, and other animals that feed on herbage, the whole mass moving continually to and fro over the vast expanse as the season changed, or as the state of the pasturage invited them to new fields.

  The Northern Atlantic Slope

  The most important part of the whole territory represented on the map, in a historical point of view, is the Atlantic slope, as it is called - that is, the portion of the country between the mountains bordering the valley of the Mississippi, on the east, and the sea. You will see by the map that this is a long and narrow strip of land. It is divided naturally into two portions. The stormy cape which is seen projecting into the sea about midway of the coast marks this division. To the northward of this there is a tract of land lying between the sea on the one hand, and the river which carries off the surplus water of the great lakes on the other. This is the northern part of the Atlantic slope, and it was the scene of many of the most interesting events connected with the history of the country.

  The country in this district is mountainous or hilly in every part. In former times it was covered with forests, except where the Indians had cleared small patches of ground, by burning down the trees, to make fields for the cultivation of maize. This tract of land was exactly adapted by nature for producing the grasses and other herbaceous plants, which form the food of the sheep, the horse, the ox, and other such grazing animals - the most useful of all to man. But no such animals were produced in this region. It would be impossible, indeed, that they should live here, in a state of nature, on account of the fact that, though in summer everything is favorable for the production of their food, in the winter, which season here lasts from four to six months in the year, the whole country is buried under the snow, and, of course, all such animals, if any there were, would perish.

  Such animals are now, however, raised in great numbers in all this region. Indeed, they are the great staple of production. They feed themselves during the summer season from the grass that grows upon the hill-sides and upon the mountain slopes; while such as grows on the more smooth and level lands below is husbanded for them by the farmer, by being cut, and dried, and stored in barns, and so fed out to them under shelter during the winter season, when the fields and hill-sides are all alike buried under four or five feet under the snow.

  Native Animals

  Thus, in its native state, there were no animals in this region except such as could provide themselves with food, or live without it during the protracted winters. The moose, with his long legs to wade through the snow, and his long neck and head to reach up to the branches of the trees and underwood, could live by browsing upon the buds and the tender bark which grows upon them. The squirrels and other such smaller animals were endowed with instincts which led them to lay up food for the winter in hollow logs or holes in the ground. The bears went into a torpid sleep in which they remained insensible and without food for months at a time, and the minks and other burrowing creatures of that kind continued their operations under the ice and snow all winter long, feeding on roots or on fish; and whatever might be the severity of the cold above, finding it always warm and comfortable for them below.

  Man

  This northeastern region had its human inhabitants, too, notwithstanding the depth of the snow which covered it, and the intensity of the cold which prevailed during so large a part of the year. These inhabitants easily provided themselves with food during the summer season, partly by hunting and fishing, and partly by cultivating the ground in such spots as they had been able to clear of trees. They had a double resource in winter, too. In the first place there were the stores of provisions which, like the squirrels, they had laid up in the season of abundance, and then, even in the winter, the supplies which nature afforded them were not wholly cut off. For, although all above the surface of the earth, both of land and wa
ter, formed one lifeless and desolate expanse of frost and ice and snow, and was enveloped in an atmosphere so intensely cold that no active vegetable or animal life could endure exposure to it, still beneath this surface, both upon the land and upon the water, there was a protected stratum teeming with life in every form, and there were a thousand ways which their savage ingenuity devised of penetrating to this stratum, and drawing from it at least a portion of their needed supplies. All this, however, will be more fully explained in a subsequent chapter.

  The Southern Atlantic Slope

  To the south of the stormy cape represented on the amp, and between the mountains and the sea, is the southern Atlantic slope, of nearly the same size and form as its northern counterpart, but extremely dissimilar in character. It consists mainly of level plains, covered, in a great measure, with forests of pine; and across these plains innumerable rivers flow from the mountains to the sea, through valleys of the most extraordinary richness and beauty. In this country the grasses do not grow,, but their place is filled by tropical plants. The two chief plants that have been cultivated here are rice and cotton.

  Character of the Coast

  One very curious and extremely important result of the difference of the conformation of the land in the northern and southern portion of the Atlantic slope, is a great difference in the accessibility of the coast in the two sections. Where a district of country is mountainous and rocky, the shores are usually bold, and the indentations in the land are filled with deep water. The rivers, too, in flowing through such a country, are bounded generally by steep and permanent banks, which yield but little sand or soil, to be borne away by the current of the stream. The rivers are consequently more likely to be deep, and their mouths to be comparatively unobstructed.