The American Empire - Scott Nearing

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the whites first came to North America, the Indians were a formidable foe. For years they continued to be a menace to the lonely settler or the frontier village. But when the white settlers were once firmly established, the days of uncertainty were over, and the Indians were brushed aside as a man brushes aside a troublesome insect. Their "uprisings" and "wars" counted for little or nothing. They were inferior in numbers; they were poorly armed and equipped; they had no reserves upon which to draw; there was no organization among the tribes in distant portions of the country. The white millions swept onward. The Indian bands made a stand here and there but the tide of white civilization overwhelmed them, smothered them, destroying them and their civilization together.

      The Indians were the first obstacle to the building of the American Empire. Three hundred years ago the whole three million square miles that is now the United States was theirs. They were the American people. To-day they number 328,111 in a population of 105,118,467 and the total area of their reservations is 53,489 square miles. (Statistical Abstract of the U. S., 1918, pp. 8 and 776.)

      FOOTNOTES:

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      [4] The total number of square miles in Indian Reservations in 1918 was 53,490 as against 241,800 square miles in 1880. (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1918, p. 8.)

      "Of said area 4,346,223 acres have been allotted in severalty to the enrolled members of said Cherokee Indian Nation, Oklahoma. Twenty-two thousand eight hundred and eighty acres were disposed of as town lots, or reserved for railway rights of way, churches, schools, cemeteries, etc., and the remaining area has been sold, or otherwise disposed of as provided by law.

      "The Cherokee tribal land in Oklahoma with the exception of the possible title of said Nation to certain river beds has been disposed of.

      "In reference to the Eastern band of Cherokees, you are advised that said Indians who have been incorporated hold title in fee to certain land in North Carolina, known as the Qualla Reservation and certain other lands, aggregating 63,211 acres."—Letter from the Office of Indian Affairs. Dec. 9, 1919, "In re Cherokee land."

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      The American colonists took the land which they required for settlement from the Indians. The labor necessary to work this land was not so easily secured. The colonists had set themselves the task of establishing European civilization upon a virgin continent. In order to achieve this result, they had to cut the forests; clear the land; build houses; cultivate the soil; construct ships; smelt iron, and carry on a multitude of activities that were incidental to setting up an old way of life in a new world. The one supreme and immediate need was the need for labor power. From the earliest days of colonization there had been no lack of harbors, fertile soil, timber, minerals and other resources. From the earliest days the colonists experienced a labor shortage.

      The labor situation was trebly difficult. First, there was no native labor; second, passage from Europe was so long and so hazardous that only the bold and venturesome were willing to attempt it, and third, when these adventurers did reach the new world, they had a choice between taking up free land and working it for themselves and taking service with a master. Men possessing sufficient initiative to leave an old home and make a journey across the sea were not the men to submit themselves to unnecessary authority when they might, at will, become masters of their own fortunes. The appeal of a new life was its own argument, and the newcomers struck out for themselves.

      Throughout the colonies, and particularly in the South where the plantation culture of rice and tobacco, and later of cotton, called for large numbers of unskilled workers, the labor problem was acute. The abundance of raw materials and fertile land; the speedy growth of industry in the North and of agriculture in the South; the generous profits and expanding markets created a labor demand which far outstripped the meager supply—a demand that was met by the importation of black slaves from Africa.

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      The "Slave Coast" from which most of the Negroes came was discovered by Portuguese navigators, who were the first Europeans to venture down the West coast of Africa, and, rounding the "lobe" of the continent, to sail East along the "Gold Coast." The trade in gold and ivory which sprang up as a result of these early explorations led other nations of Europe to begin an eager competition which eventually brought French, Dutch, German, Danish and English commercial interests into sharp conflict with the Portuguese.

      

      The natives of the Slave Coast had made some notable cultural advances. They smelted metals; made pottery; wove; manufactured swords and spears of merit; built houses of stone and of mud, and made ornaments of some artistic value. They had developed trade with the interior, taking salt from the coast and bartering it for gold, ivory and other commodities at regular "market places."

      The native civilization along the West coast of Africa was far from ideal, but it was a civilization which had

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