The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-02-01
Blood Will Tell.
From the N. Y. Evening Post. s


From the N. Y. Evening Post. I
The striking way in which the Gascon
blood is revealing itself in South Carolina
has awakened curiosity about the Gascon
family of our race, in satisfying which we
may, perhaps, be instrumental in explaining
to some extent the infatuation which seems
to rule in the councils of South Carolina.
The province of Gasoony lies in Southern
France, between the Garonne and the Bay
of Biscay, and extends to the Pyrenees
mountains When held by the Romans it
was known by the appellation Aquitiania
tertia, but after the expulsion of the Vascones
from Spain, in the sixth century, by the
Cloths, that people settled in Gaul, and gave
their name to the lower part of the prov
ince. sos daiou al-f.t sV III l4A
" The people are principally of the Iberian
stock, cognate with the Cantabri or Basques
of Spain, Berbers Of Africa, and Lgurians
of Italy, a dark complexioned race of un-
known antiquity that occupied Europe pre-
vious to the emigration of the blond Celtic
and German tribes, from the primitive seats
of the civilized Arian nationalities. They
were also the pristine inhabitants of Britta.
ny, Ireland and some parts of Great Britain,
and the dark skinned Irish, with whom we
meet, are their descendants.
The characteristics of this race are set
forth by BOdichon, one of the highest eth
biological authorities, to be, aversion to all
unitary systems or great assemblies or
leagues; peculiar disposition to live in
social state by provinces; tenacity of their
locality; preference for the agricultural
state; in war, preferring infantry to cavalry,
defence to attack, ambuscades to open
movements, and guerillas to pitched battles.
These peculiarities indicate the chronological
character as manifested in the tactics en-
ployed by the Spaniards against the first
Napoleon, by the Mexicans and South
Americans in their wars of independence,
and the means employed by the few patriots
OF the Revolution who existed in South
Carolina, after its conquest by Lord Corn
wallis.
The same author also states that the Ibe-
rians await danger with firmness are un-
communicative, perfdious and reserved
credulous, intoleraant and fanatical; at
tached to religious forms rather than the
idea; reject discussion, doubt and inquiry;
hold strongly to ancient usages; feel repug
nance to strangers; are unsympathetic
possess, to an extreme point, the genius of
resistance tend peculiarly to immobility
and isolation belong to hot climates, and
develop in the South; produce in preference
orators, artists, poets, men whose genius
manifests itself by the exaltation of senti.
ments and ideas, by enthusiasm and rapid
conception.
They seem to have originated in Africa,
if they did not emigrate from the famed
Atlantis and probably crossed from Moroc-
co and Algiers to Spain, by way of the
Isthmus now intersected by the Strait of
Gibraltar. Their former gods were black
and the icons or images of those which have
been transferred to the Roman Catholic
calendar, are of the same hue.
They have always been circumscribed to
localities but have maintained their individ-
uality of character. Proud and impetuous,
obstinate and perverse, regardless of all
laws except their own traditions, Carthagin-
ians, Romans, Cloths, Saracens, French and
Spaniards, have never been able to unite
them with their own people. Charles Mar
tel drove the Saracens back across the Ply.
renees, but the inhabitants of that region
set upon and destroyed Robert and the pal
adins of Charlemagne. ss0
After the accession of Marguerite of Valois
to the royal censorship of Navarro, the Ibe-
rians or Gascons embraced the Calvanistic
faith. The bilious melansholic tempera-
ment, and their unsympathetic, Indifferent
disposition is said to have had something to
do with this change. The next we hear of
them is as powerful party at the French
Court, with their facious conduct and the
multiplicity Of their intrigues gave great
annoyance to the government. 49,
Finally, civil war ensued; and the Gascons,
under De Rohan and De Soubise attempted
to ''secede,'' and establish an independent
State of their own. For while the project
appeared likely to succeed, when Richelieu
formed an alliance with Savoy and Holland,
and turned the tide of fortune. The Isle of
Rhe was taken from them in 1925; but a
short peace was made with them the en-
suing year, which was broken in 1927. Ro.
chelle, their metropolis, was besieged and
surrendered to the French on the 3Oth of Octo-
Der. The next summer the French became
masters of all Languedoc; and the pacifca-
ton at Nismes, July IA, 1929, concluded
the attempt, on the other side of the Allan
tic, to establish Gascon monarchy. The
fate of a similar experiment, now making
on this side, yet remains to be determined.