26 The Winning of the West 



ish nations. The English had exterminated or as- 

 similated the Celts of Britain, and they substan- 

 tially repeated the process with the Indians of Amer- 

 ica; although of course in America there was very 

 little, instead of very much, assimilation. The Ger- 

 manic strain is dominant in the blood of the average 

 Englishman, exactly as the English strain is domi- 

 nant in the blood of the average American. Twice 

 a portion of the race has shifted its home, in each 

 case undergoing a marked change due both to out- 

 side influence and to internal development; but in 

 the main retaining, especially in the last instance, 

 the general race characteristics. 



It was quite otherwise in the countries conquered 

 by Cortes, Pizarro, and their successors. Instead 

 of killing or driving off the natives as the English 

 did, the Spaniards simply sat down in the midst of 

 a much more numerous aboriginal population. The 

 process by which Central and South America be- 

 came Spanish bore very close resemblance to the 

 process by which the lands of southeastern Europe 

 were turned into Romance-speaking countries. The 

 bulk of the original inhabitants remained unchanged 

 in each case. There was little displacement of popu- 

 lation. Roman soldiers and magistrates, Roman 

 merchants and handicraftsmen were thrust in 

 among the Celtic and Iberian peoples, exactly as 

 the Spanish military and civil rulers, priests, trad- 

 ers, land-owners, and mine-owners settled down 

 among the Indians of Peru and Mexico. By de- 

 grees, in each case, the many learnt the language 



