XIII. THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM 
“I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
An’ justifies that ill opinion, 
Which makes thee startle, 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion 
An’ fellow-mortall 
—Robert Burns (To a mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough). 
Aboriginal society in America was largely based on the 
native wild beasts. They were more essential to the red 
man than our flocks and herds are to us. His dependence 
upon them was more direct and absolute. They furnished 
him food and clothing and shelter and tools. His clothing 
was made of skins; his eating and drinking vessels were of 
horn and hide and bone. His knife was a beaver tooth. 
Sinews, teeth, hair, hide, hoofs, intestines and bones 
all served him. Out of them he got hammers and wedges 
and drills and scrapers and clamps; threads and thongs and 
boxes and bags; tools and supplies for all purposes. He 
made textiles of hair and of quills, and in them wrought the 
expression of his esthetic ideals. 
The Indian was conquered and driven out in part by direct 
assault, but in a far larger part by the destruction of his 
resources in furs and game. Losing these, he became 
dependent. Armed resistance by the eastern Indians ceased 
with the passing of the beaver; by the Plains Indians, with 
the passing of the buffalo. 
The earliest white settlements in America were supported 
mainly by hunting and trapping and the sale of furs. Mis- 
sionary zeal and desire for extension of empire promoted the 
founding of colonies, but peltries provided the necessary 
revenues for their maintenance. The fur trade was inti- 
mately associated with our early colonial development and 
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