22 The Winning of the West 



geographical position enabled to extend her fron- 

 tiers by land, and in consequence her compara- 

 tively recent colonization of Siberia bears some 

 resemblance to our own work in the western United 

 States. The other countries of Europe were forced 

 to find their outlets for conquest and emigration be- 

 yond the ocean, and, until the colonists had taken 

 firm root in their new homes the mastery of the seas 

 thus became a matter of vital consequence. 



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 

 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 intermix- 

 ture. One result of this great turmoil of conquest 

 and immigration has been that, in certain parts 

 of America, the lines of cleavage of race are so far 

 from coinciding with the lines of cleavage of speech 

 that they run at right angles to them as in the four 

 communities of Ontario, Quebec, Hayti, and Ja- 

 maica. 



Each intruding European power, in winning for 

 itself new realms beyond the seas, had to wage a two- 



