after Hudson's arrival these Dutchmen did scarcely anything more. Villages grew up on Manhattan Island and in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. The trader's boat penetrated down the head-waters of the Susquehanna. But wherever villages were founded, they were not so much permanent settlements as trading - posts. Theodore Roosevelt has justly observed that while the Dutch aspired to secure large wealth for the mother-country, they were devoid of ambition to found on these shores a free Dutch nation. As traders, the Dutch never promised to open a way to great national wealth. For the eleven years between 1624 and 1635 the beaver skins received in Holland numbered only 80,182, and the otter and other skins, 9,447, or about 8,000 skins of all kinds per year. Albany, the fur depot for the whole interior, was described by Father Jogues, in 1644, as "a miserable little fort called Fort Orange, built of logs with four or five pieces of Breteuil cannon and as many swivels, with some twenty-five or thirty houses built of boards with thatched roofs." Except in the chimneys, "no mason's work had been used." Scarcely more enterprise marked the first years of English rule. As late as 1695 the trade amounted to only £10,000, while in 1678 Governor Andros reported that a merchant worth $2,500 or $5,000 was "accounted a good, substantial merchant," and a planter "worth half that in movables " was a prosperous citizen. citizen. The value of all estates in the province was only $750,000. Clearly, that was a time of very small things, but they were among the fruitful beginnings of a land and people from which was to grow the greatest of all the States, and in them this frontier had an ample share. W I The Iroquois and the Susquehanna E cannot understand the Indians of New York if we judge them only by what is seen to-day of Indian life in the Far West, among tribes who roam the mountains and plains, and who have emerged so little from the nomad state; or if we judge the Iroquois by their descendants now living on reservations. Not alone has their territorial dominion passed away, but their genius also at least, in its manifestations. They have remained silent witnesses of the progress of civilized life on American soil-stolid, unimpassioned, proud. Before the white man came was their time of splendor; after that began their decadence. The Iroquois, in their best days, were the noblest and most interesting of all Indians who have lived on this continent north of Mexico. They were truly the men whom a name they bore described, a word signifying men who surpassed all others. They alone founded political institutions and gained political supremacy. With European civilization unknown to them, they had given birth to selfgovernment in America. They founded independence; effected a union of States; carried their arms far beyond their own borders; made their conquests permanent; conquered peoples becoming tributary States much after the manner of those which Rome conquered two thousand years ago, or those which England subdues in our day. In diplomacy they matched the white man from Europe: they had self-control, knowledge of human nature, tact and sagacity, and they often became the arbiters in disputes between other peoples. Universal testimony has been borne to their oratory, of which the merit was its naturalness, and which bears the supreme test of translation. Convinced that they were born free, they bore themselves always with the pride which sprang from that consciousness. Sovereigns they were, and the only accountability they acknowledged was an accountability to the Great Spirit. In war genius they have been equalled by no race of red men. The forts which they erected around their villages were essentially impregnable. An overwhelming force alone could enter them; artillery alone could destroy them. It was virtually an empire that they reared, and this empire of the sword, like the Empire of Rome, meant peace within its borders. Before the Europeans came, there had, unquestionably, for some generations, been peace among them. It was an ideal and an idyllic state of aboriginal life, all of which was to be overthrown by the white man when he arrived, bearing in one hand fire-arms, and in the other fire-water. The period for which the province of New York had been occupied by the Iroquois,* or Five Nations, at the time of the Dutch discovery, is not known. Morgan cites circumstances which show The origin of this word has been long discussed. Horatio Hale refers it to a native Huron word, ierokwa, indicating those who smoke. ↑ Lewis H. Morgan, author of "The League of the Iroquois," the best of all books relating to the institutions and customs of that people, |