CHAPTER I THE EUROPEAN BACKGROUND It seems like a long way from the Europe of the thirteenth century, when the people were first becoming aware of the end of feudal isolation, to the United States of the twentieth century, with the appalling immensity of its complex industrial life, yet within these limits lies the continuous span of American history. The beginnings of this nation are to be found not in the life of the American Indians, nor in the colony at Jamestown in 1607, nor in the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, but rather in what historians call, for want of a better term, the Renaissance; more accurately, in the evolution of Europe. By the end of the fifteenth century this development had reached a point where the outside world was beginning to attract attention. In American history the red men appear more in the form of a problem to be solved than as a great contributing factor. They did of course furnish a picturesque background for the white settlements, and they introduced the newcomers to certain almost essential crops, like maize. Furthermore, they constituted an ever-present, though not insurmountable, obstacle to westward expansion, and by so doing unwittingly assisted in the process of developing a resourceful, hardy type of frontiersman. Beyond that they have contributed little. Perhaps on the frontier itself, the meeting place of two civilizations, they affected manners and customs, but the impression was only temporary, if indeed it was apparent at all. As for American government, law, religion, and culture, they have remained untouched by Indian influence. American history consists then in the introduction of European civilization into an entirely new environment, and in the gradual growth, under pressure of the surroundings, of a different set of institutions, social and political, in fact, of a different culture. In the various processes of this growth are to be found the keys to American history. To any one even casually concerned in the interplay of human emotions and physical conditions, the story is full of intense interest. |