the part of the latter a reversion to a more barbarous type
than had before been prevalent. Nor was this strange; for the
necessities under which he found himself drove the Indian backward into
barbarism. The influence of "firewater" upon the character of the red
man has been often expatiated upon; but this was in truth but a small
factor in the sum of the general result. A conquered race, driven from
its strongholds into the primitive life of savagery to find means of
sustenance, will always relapse into a state of barbarism; history is
not wanting in examples of this truth. It was thus with the Indians of
North America. Though the process was gradual, it was none the less
sure; they found themselves involved in an unending contest for actual
existence, and such a state is highly inimical to development along
upward-tending lines. As has been inevitably the case in similar
instances, they retrograded.

It is to this cause--never perhaps sufficiently considered in studies of
the Indian nature--that must be referred much that would otherwise
appear inexplicable. Even though the early colonists were as a rule ill
disposed toward the Indians, as was befitting those who desired a
pretext for wholesale robbery of territory, yet their narratives stand
in sharp contrast to the tales of Amerind nature as we have them of
later date, and in still greater contrast to our present knowledge.
Instead of the progress for which one might look, if he should be of
those who are convinced of the admirable effects of the introduction of
our civilization, there was steady retrogression. The early colonists
found a species of civilization, however crude; but it did not advance,
or even continue. The Indians of the East, of course, felt the effect of
the influx of white men long before their brethren of the West; and we
will first glance at the effect here upon the status of woman from the
new conditions.

While before the coming of the whites there was doubtless frequent
warfare among the red men, and while the men were preeminently warriors,
yet warfare was not their normal state. Tribal feuds there were in
plenty, and these ever and again broke out into strife; but, as a rule,
the tribes lived in general amity, and not infrequently, as in the case
of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, there were treaties of alliance and
support. With the evolution and progress of the new conditions, however,
the Indian found himself an Ishmael indeed. Not on