United States

More than two centuries have elapsed since the Hurons vanished from their ancient seats, and the settlers of this rude solitude stand perplexed and wondering over the relics of a lost people. In the damp shadow of what seems a virgin forest, the axe and plough bring strange secrets to light: huge pits, close packed with skeletons and disjointed bones, mixed with weapons, copper kettles, beads, and trinkets. Not even the straggling Algonquins, who linger about the scene of Huron prosperity, can tell their origin.

 DU PERON'S JOURNEY. - DAILY LIFE OF THE JESUITS. - 
 THEIR MISSIONARY EXCURSIONS. - CONVERTS AT OSSOSSANE. - 
 MACHINERY OF CONVERSION. - CONDITIONS OF BAPTISM. - BACKSLIDERS. - 
 THE CONVERTS AND THEIR COUNTRYMEN. - THE CANNIBALS AT ST. JOSEPH.

 ST. LOUIS ON FIRE. - INVASION. - ST. IGNACE CAPTURED. - 
 BREBEUF AND LALEMANT. - BATTLE AT ST. LOUIS. - SAINTE MARIE THREATENED. - 
 RENEWED FIGHTING. - DESPERATE CONFLICT. - A NIGHT OF SUSPENSE. - 
 PANIC AMONG THE VICTORS. - BURNING OF ST. IGNACE. - 
 RETREAT OF THE IROQUOIS.

And now, before entering upon the very curious subject of Indian social and tribal organization, it may be well briefly to observe the position and prominent distinctive features of the various communities speaking dialects of the generic tongue of the Iroquois. In this remarkable family of tribes occur the fullest developments of Indian character, and the most conspicuous examples of Indian intelligence. If the higher traits popularly ascribed to the race are not to be found here, they are to be found nowhere.

 A CHANGE OF PLAN. - SAINTE MARIE. - MISSION OF THE TOBACCO NATION. - 
 WINTER JOURNEYING. - RECEPTION OF THE MISSIONARIES. - 
 SUPERSTITIOUS TERRORS. - PERIL OF GARNIER AND JOGUES. - 
 MISSION OF THE NEUTRALS. - HURON INTRIGUES. - MIRACLES. - 
 FURY OF THE INDIANS. - INTERVENTION OF SAINT MICHAEL. - 

 THE RUINS OF ST. IGNACE. - THE RELICS FOUND. - BREBEUF AT THE STAKE. - 
 HIS UNCONQUERABLE FORTITUDE. - LALEMANT. - RENEGADE HURONS. - 
 IROQUOIS ATROCITIES. - DEATH OF BREBEUF. - HIS CHARACTER. - 
 DEATH OF LALEMANT.

POPULATION. - When Harrison was elected in 1840, the population of our country was 17,000,000, spread over twenty-six states and three territories. Of these millions several hundred thousand had come from the Old World. No records of such arrivals were kept before 1820; since that date careful records have been made, and from them it appears that between 1820 and 1840 about 750,000 immigrants came to our shores. They were chiefly from Ireland, England, and Germany. [1]

Wherever the early explorers and settlers touched our coast, they found the country sparsely inhabited by a race of men they called Indians. These people, like their descendants now living in the West, were a race with copper-colored skins, straight, jet-black hair, black eyes, beardless faces, and high cheek bones.

TYLER AND THE WHIGS QUARREL. - When Congress (in May, 1841) first met in Tyler's term, Clay led the Whigs in proposing measures to carry out their party principles. But Tyler vetoed their bill establishing a new national bank. The Whigs then made some changes to suit, as they supposed, his objections, and sent him a bill to charter a Fiscal Corporation; but this also came back with a veto; whereupon his Cabinet officers (all save Daniel Webster, Secretary of State) resigned, and the Whig members of Congress, in an address to the people, read him out of the party.

While English, Dutch, and Swedes were settling on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, the French took possession of the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. Though the attempt of Cartier to plant a colony on the St. Lawrence failed (p. 30), the French never lost interest in that part of the world, and new attempts were made to plant colonies.