Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 31 



the white conquest, but they could often delay its 

 advance for a long spell of years. The Iroquois, 

 for instance, held their own against all comers for 

 two centuries. Many other tribes stayed for a time 

 the oncoming white flood, or even drove it back; 

 in Maine the settlers were for a hundred years con- 

 fined to a narrow strip of sea-coast. Against the 

 Spaniards, there were even here and there Indian 

 nations who definitely recovered the ground they 

 had lost. 



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 consoli- 

 dated the Atlantic colonies under their rule, the 

 Indians had become what they have remained ever 

 since, the most formidable savage foes ever en- 

 countered by colonists of European stock. Rela- 

 tively to their numbers, they have shown themselves 

 far more to be dreaded than the Zulus or even the 

 Maoris. 



Their presence has caused the process of settle- 

 ment to go on at unequal rates of speed in differ- 

 ent places; the flood has been hemmed in at one 

 point, or has been forced to flow round an island 

 of native population at another. Had the Indians 

 been as helpless as the native Australians were, the 

 continent of North America would have had an al- 

 together different history. It would not only have 

 been settled far more rapidly, but also on very dif- 



