AMERICAN. 233 



CHAPTER IV. 



AMERICAN CHRONOGRAPHY. 



THE History of America, is involved in the deepest obscurity, 

 prior to its discovery and colonization by the western nations of 

 Europe. America is called, by them, the Western World, as they 

 reach it most easily by sailing westward ; and the New World, from 

 its having been known to them only in comparatively recent times. 

 Of its discovery by Columbus, who first visited the mainland of this 

 Continent in 1497, we have already spoken, under North American 

 Geography. (See p. 183). Columbus supposed these lands to be 

 a part of the Indies, known to the ancients ; and hence called them 

 by the same name. But after Amerigo Vespucci (Americus Vespu- 

 cius) of Florence, had visited the new world in 1499, and described 

 it in glowing colors, and after Balboa had discovered the Pacific 

 Ocean, in 1513, the name of the Florentine was ungenerously applied 

 to the continent, and the name of West Indies, was confined to the 

 group of islands first discovered by Columbus. 



The origin of the American Indians, or aborigines, is not fully 

 ascertained. There are strong reasons for believing that the Esqui- 

 maux, in the North East, came from Greenland ; and their ancestors 

 from Northern Europe. The other tribes probably came from Asia, 

 the great cradle of the human race ; but at two or more different 

 periods. The earlier race appear to have occupied a part of the 

 United States, and to have left those mounds and antiquities, here 

 discovered; but afterwards to have been driven southward, by new 

 and more barbarous hordes, till they finally settled in the more con- 

 genial regions of Mexico and Peru. The resemblance of their 

 pyramids, and other antiquities, to those of India and Egypt, strongly 

 indicates their common origin ; but whether they came by the way 

 of Behring's Straits, in an age when Siberia enjoyed a milder climate; 

 or whether across the Pacific Ocean, from island to island ; or 

 whether there was formerly a communication between the continents, 

 by land since submerged, we are unable to decide. The resemblance 

 of our Northern Indians to the Tartars of Northern Asia, we think, 

 strongly indicates that they are of the same stock ; with less differ- 

 ence between the two races, than there is, in either race, between 

 different tribes. 



In treating of American History, we shall adopt the geographical 

 order, of the preceding department ; commencing at the north. 



1. The British Provinces, in North America, were originally 

 possessed and settled by the French ; the first considerable settle- 

 ment being that of Quebec, founded in 1608, by Champlain, a French 

 naval officer. In 1628, a company of French merchants obtained, 

 by the favor of Cardinal Richelieu, the exclusive privilege of trading 

 with Canada; which however they resigned in 1664. From this 

 time, the colony became more flourishing ; so much so as to attempt 

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