The Finding of the New World[1]
Miss Jane Meade Welch is a native of Buffalo, N. Y. She was born March 11, 1854. Her parents were Thomas Cary Welch and Maria Allen Meade. She was educated at the Buffalo Seminary and Elmira College. She has traveled extensively in America and in Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. Her profession is that of lecturer. She is the regular lecturer on American History at the Buffalo Seminary, St. Margaret's school, Buffalo; Mrs. Sylvanus Reed's school, New York; The Misses Masters' school, Dobbs Ferry, and Ogontz school, Pa. She has also lectured at Cornell University. She is the first American woman to lecture at Cambridge, England, or whose work has been accepted by the British Association. Her address is Buffalo, N. Y.
In the attempt to connect the New World with the Old in remotest times, it is
almost impossible to find a clue that leads to documentary history. Nearly every
European nation claims a hero, or group of heroes,
who reached America before Columbus time, and
every eastern Asiatic race makes a similar claim. Of
all these alleged pre-Columbian voyages to America,
the only one tha rests on actual proof is that of the
Norsemen. But Leif Ericsson's chance finding of
the North American coast somewhere between Cape
Breton and Point Judith, led to no permanent coloni-
zation, and did not impress itself upon the mind of
Europe outside the Scandinavian peninsula. Hence
it should not be mentioned in the same breath with
Christopher Columbus' heroic venture. He sailed
the Sea of Darkness, on the faith of a conviction, and
"reunited two streams of human life that had flowed
apart since the glacial age," establishing a permanent
connection between the eastern and western halvses
of our planet.
A long chain of circumstances led to his dis-
covery of America. The closing of the eastern way
to the orient through the taking by the Turks of
Constantinople, made it necessary to find a new
passage to the Indies. Years were given to the effort
to find one by circumnavigating Africa, and one daring captain after another sailed
down the gold coast. While these expeditions were going forward, Christopher
Columbus, who may have taken part in one of them, was dwelling on the neighboring
island of Porto Santo. There, three hundred miles out upon the Sea of Darkness, the
idea of sailing due west to the Indies shaped itself in his mind.
The story of Christopher Columbus' repeated rebuffs need not again be re-
hearsed. As an example of courage he is pre-eminent, and no ingenuity of argu-
ment can take from him his glory. Like Newton in the discovery of the law of
gravitaion, he did a thing that could be done but once.
When Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani, he there found a new race of
human beings whom he described as "gentle and uncovetous" They were of a reddish
hue, with small deep-set eyes, high cheek bones, straight black hair, and almost
no beard. Our double continent was truly the great world of the red men, for with
the exception of the sub-arctic Eskimo, they were its sole inhabitants. This conti-
nent belonged to them. Their houses, while they varied in degrees of develop-
lent, were essentially the same, whether they were the skin lodges of the most
northern tribes, or the pueblos of the Aztecs. They were communal houses, in which
dwelt several, sometimes a great many, related families.
Upon this communal household was built their political fabric. The lowest
political unit in ancient America was the exogamous clan, next came the phratry, and
then the tribe, With the exception of the Iroquois league and the Mexican confederacy,
the tribe was the highest political organization in ancient America. According
to the scientific definition of civilization, there was no such thing in ancient America.
The tribes highest in development, social and political, were those in the Cordilleras,
running from the New Mexican tableland through Peru. Those lowest in
development were found, where many of them are still found, west of the Rocky
Mountains in California, and in the valleys of the Columbia, Yukon and Athabascan
rivers. Large unexplored fields yet await the investigation of archaeologists and
geologists in both North and South America. But the work thus far accomplished
has convinced the majority of historians there never was a pre-historic American
civilization. That Aztecs, Mayas and Incas were Indians no less than were Algonquins
or Iroquois.
Many of these groups, particularly Peruvians Mayas and Aztecs, presented
strange incongruities of culture, but, tested by strict scientific standards, they were
not civilized. As to whence these aborigines came, and, how long they had inhabited
America before they were found by the Spaniards, and succeeding Portuguese,
French and English explorers, science has not yet been able to yield what is to all
minds a satisfactory answer. Discoveries nade by geologists in the past few years
have altered our attitude toward these questions. It is certain, however, that they
had been here a long time. The inhabitants of ancient America were indigenous.
