THE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT 



sistent aim of American colonization from the begin- 

 ning. 



There are a few exceptions to be noted, but they are 

 not of sufficient importance to affect the general result. 

 Such exceptions are the settlement of California, and of 

 certain localities in the Rocky Mountains, during periods 

 of excitement following the discovery of gold. Another 

 instance was the settlement of Kansas as a means of 

 preserving the equilibrium between the free and the slave 

 States. But these are isolated instances, of far more 

 moment in an historical than in a numerical sense. The 

 settlers of the United States have been moved by very 

 different instincts and motives than those which im- 

 pelled the Romans, the Normans, and Danes to settle at 

 different periods in Britain. The great movements of 

 population in the Middle Ages were armed conquests 

 for spoils, and power, and martial glory. Those, indeed, 

 were the ruling motives among Europeans and Asiatics 

 until comparatively recent times. When these motives 

 ceased to operate, they were succeeded by another which 

 was equally sordid, even if more humane. This was the 

 lust for trade or for sudden riches. This it was which 

 impelled the settlement of Australasia by the English, 

 of the Spice Islands by the Dutch, of South America by 

 the Portuguese, of Cuba by the Spanish, of Africa by all 

 of these and by the French and Germans as well. Thus 

 the hosts which swarmed out of Europe to make new 

 settlements all over the earth were principally marshalled 

 under the flag of avarice. It was far different with the 

 men who, at various periods during the last three hundred 

 years, conquered the soil of the United States and ex- 

 tended the frontiers of its civilization. 



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