Happy Columbus Day!

What better way to celebrate "in honor of Columbus" the culmination of our "manifest destiny", begun on this date 511 years ago, that with our 26th President, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt?

Some brief selections from The Winning Of The West, his four-volume history of this "most vital part of that great movement of expansion which has been the central and all-important feature of our history -- a feature far more important than any other since we became a nation, save only the preservation of the Union itself."

After the great Teutonic wanderings were over, there came a long lull, until, with the discovery of America, a new period of even vaster race expansion began. ...

The vast movement by which this continent was conquered and peopled cannot be rightly understood if considered solely by itself. It was the crowning and greatest achievement of a series of mighty movements, and it must be taken in connection with them. Its true significance will be lost unless we grasp, however roughly, the past race-history of the nations who took part therein. ...

When, with the voyages of Columbus and his successors, the great period of extra-European colonization began, various nations strove to share in the work. ... Among the lands beyond the ocean America was the first reached and the most important. It was conquered by different European races, and shoals of European settlers were thrust forth upon its shores. These sometimes displaced and sometimes merely overcame and lived among the natives. They also, to their own lasting harm, committed a crime whose shortsighted folly was worse than its guilt, for they brought hordes of African slaves, whose descendants now form immense populations in certain portions of the land. Throughout the continent we therefore find the white, red, and black races in every stage of purity and intermixture. ...

The English had exterminated or assimilated the Celts of Britain, and they substantially repeated the process with the Indians of America; although of course in America there was very little, instead of very much, assimiliation. ... The English-speaking peoples now hold more and better land than any other American nationality or set of nationalities. They have in their veins less aboriginal blood than any of their neighbors. Yet it is noteworthy that the latter have tacitly allowed them to arrogate to themselves the title of "Americans", whereby to designate their distinctive and individual nationality. ...

Australia, which was much less important than America, was also won and settled with far less difficulty. The natives were so few in number and of such a low type, that they practically offered no resistance at all, being but little more hindrance than an equal number of ferocious beasts. ...

When the whites first landed, the superiority and, above all, the novelty of their arms gave them a very great advantage. But the Indians soon became accustomed to the new-comers' weapons and style of warfare. By the time the English had consolidated the Atlantic colonies under their rule, the Indians had become what they have remained ever since, the most formidable savage foes ever encountered by colonists of Euorpean stock. ...

For the record, the "aboriginal" population in the New World was roughly 75 million, and had decreasing to about 6 million a few hundred years later.

Posted by Eddie Tews at October 13, 2003 02:24 PM