Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 33 



Speaking broadly, they have mixed but little with 

 the English (as distinguished from the French and 

 Spanish) invaders. They are driven back, or die 

 out, or retire to their own reservations ; but they are 

 not often assimilated. Still, on every frontier, there 

 is always a certain amount of assimilation going 

 on, much more than is commonly admitted * ; and 

 whenever a French or Spanish community has been 

 absorbed by the energetic Americans, a certain 

 amount of Indian blood has been absorbed also. 

 There seems to be a chance that in one part of our 

 country, the Indian Territory, the Indians, who are 

 continually advancing in civilization, will remain 

 as the ground element of the population, like the 

 Creoles in Louisiana, or the Mexicans in New 

 Mexico. 



The Americans when they became a nation con- 

 tinued even more successfully the work which they 

 had begun as citizens of the several English col- 

 onies. At the outbreak of the Revolution they still 

 all dwelt on the seaboard, either on the coast itself 



1 To this I can testify of my own knowledge as regards 

 Montana, Dakota, and Minnesota. The mixture usually 

 takes place in the ranks of the population where individ- 

 uals lose all trace of their ancestry after two or three gen- 

 erations; so it is often honestly ignored, and sometimes 

 mention of it is suppressed, the man regarding it as a 

 taint. But I also know many very wealthy old frontiers- 

 men whose half-breed children are now being educated, 

 generally at convent schools, while in the Northwestern 

 cities I could point out some very charming men and 

 women, in the best society, with a strain of Indian blood 

 in their veins. 



