Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-07-05
Origin of the North American Indian.
From narpsr's Magazine for July.

probably never will be. Nearly all
investigators have travelled from the
same starting point. Assuming the
unity OF the human race to be fact,
accordingsto popular Biblical inter
probation, and considering the garden
of delight spoken of in holy writ as
the old homestead Of the whole hui
man family, students reversing the
better order of logic, have been busy
with gGesses and in a hunt for plaus-
bic hypothesis for moro than three
centuries. And often fanciful and
foolish have been those hypothesis.
| Rejecting as heterodox the idea of
Lord Kames and others, that the old
Americans may have been an indigo
nous race of men, and regarding the
most beautiful creature of earth, who
first breathed in Eden, as the mother
of us Authoritarian and civilized
man-scholars have earnestly sought
for condolences of language, tradi-
tions, customs and crania, for proof
that the first dull-red people of this
continent were tawny immigrants
from Asia. THEY have cited some
mystic poetry of the halffabulous
bards, or the dark, oracular sayings
of the priests and seers and philoso-
piers OF ancient days, to show that
our continent was undoubtedly
known to the early navigators of the
Mediterranean sea, and was naturally
peopled by them or their countrymen.
They have cited in proof passages
from Hesiod and Homer. They have
pointed TO the narratives OF Hanno,
the Carthaginian explorer of The
seas. They have argued nervously
from dialogues of Theopompus, and
sentences from the stories Of Diodo-
rus Siculus, Plato and Aristotle
They have strained common sense
to It's utmost tension IN the arrange
ment of fancied evidences that the
aborigines Of America were descend
ants.of the Ph@nicians, or Of the Chi
nesc or japanese family Of MongoIi-
ans, or Of the Egyptians, or the Hin
| docs, and writers like Grotius, Thor
owgood, Adair, Boudinot, and other,
have argued, without single premise
of solid fact, that the fathers of our
barbarian brethren were the men of
the "lost tribes of Israel" who stock
council to go forth into a further
country, where never mankind
dwelt." Cotton Mather-study Par
son Mather-who believed in witches,
and seemed to have an intimate ac-
quaintance with Lucifer, guessed as
forcibly, saying: "And though we
know not when or how the Indians
first became the inhabitants of this
mighty continent, yet we may guess
that probably the Devil (whom he
called the old usurping landlord of
America) decoyed these miserable
savages thither, in hopes that the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would
never come here to destroy or dis
turb his absolute Empire over them"
Night not more theorists find good
example in Mather, who, when salts
fled that the delusion of witchcraft
had made q fool Of him, declared
that the subject was too dark and
deep for ordinary comprehension,
and referred its decision to the day
of Judgment. Mather's idea of the
red face as morally devilish, and not
fairly human, except ii shape, seems
to have been prevailing one with
the civilized man, especially of the
type of the belligerent SETTLER, and
the selfish trader, contractor and
other promoters Of frontier wars,
ever since his first contract with that
race. He accepts the theory as the
most agreeable and pr ofitaple solution
OF the question of the origin of our
barbarian brethren for it gives IL
cense to the free action Of the mailed
hand, whose warrant for its violence
and wrong is the doctrine of the OPP
pressor in every form, that might
makes right. 1t gives countenance
to the opinion of an eminent British
author-an opinion that seems to be
largely prevalent in the pulpit, in
legislative halls, and around the
chairs OF state, in our country-that
they are animals Of an inferior order,
incapable of acquiring religious
knowledge, or of being trained to the
functions of civil life. 1t iustifies
the assertion that the Indians way
of life surely affords proof that he
is not destined by Providence per-
manently to exist. AS all the civil
lied nations were once more or less
barbarous, and some of them savage,
may we not reasonably conclude that
if the red members of our common
household had been treated by their
conquerors and holders OF power
over them as men and brethren, and
not as creatures void Of reason, and
without the pale Of international
rights, and been taught righteousness
by perpetual example, they might
have acquired as clear a character
for permanent existence as other
children of the All-Father
n@- At Uxbridge, England, has
lately died an old lady of ninety
three years, whose history has ever
been mystery to her neighbours
She was of peculiarly eccentric hab-
its, always quaint in her dress, and
impregEsble to the curiosity of the
town folk. She was found lying
dead in her bed, and an inquest on
the body showed that deceased was
daughter of Spanish nobleman
of high distinction. In early life
she contracted a clandestne mar
riage with the Count de Chantal, of
France, who was a General in the
French army under the first Napol-
con, und who fell at Waterloo. Elk
lied from her native country, as well
as from France, she took refuge in
England soon after the restoration
of peace, and was living on her
scanty income at Uxbridge.
"A French chemist, Mr.. Hustault
has invented a process for making
petroleum inexplosive by mixing il