BOOK I.

ORIGIN, ANTIQUITIES, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, &c. OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

O could their ancient Incas rise again,

How would they take up Israel's taunting strain!
Art thou too fallen, Iberia? Do we see

The robber and the murderer weak as we?

Thou, that hast wasted earth, and dared despise
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,

Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid

Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal rest,
To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed.
Art thou the God, the thunder of whose hand
Rolled over all our desolated land,

Shook principalities and kingdoms down,

And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers,

And waste them as they wasted ours

'Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,

And vengeance executes what justice wills.-COWPER

CHAPTER I.

Origin of the name Indian.—Why applied to the people found in America.—Ancient authors supposed to have referred to America in their writings-TheopompusVoyage of Hanno-Diodorus Siculus-Plato-Aristotle-Seneca.

THE name Indian was erroneously applied to the original man of America* by its first discoverers. The attempt to arrive at the East Indies by sailing west, caused the discovery of the islands and continent of America. When they were at first discovered, Columbus, and many after him, supposed they had arrived at the eastern shore of the continent of India, and hence the people they found there were called Indians. The error was not discovered until the name had so obtained, that it could not well be changed. It is true, that it matters but little to us by what name the indigenes of a country are known, and especially those of America, in as far as the name is seldom used among us but in application to the aboriginal Americans. But with the people of Europe it was not so unimportant. Situated between the two countries, India and America, the same name for the inhabitants of both must, at first, have produced considerable inconvenience, if not confusion; because, in speaking of an Indian, no one would know whether an American or a Zealander was meant, unless by the context of the discourse. Therefore, in a historical point of view, the error is, at least, as much to be deplored as that the name of the continent itself should have been derived from Americus instead of Columbus.

So named from Vesputius Americus, a Florentine, who made a discovery of some part of the coast of South America in 1499, two years after Cabot had explored the coast of Nortn America; but Americus had the fortune to confer his name upon both.