United States

In Indian social organization, a problem at once suggests itself. In these communities, comparatively populous, how could spirits so fierce, and in many respects so ungoverned, live together in peace, without law and without enforced authority? Yet there were towns where savages lived together in thousands with a harmony which civilization might envy. This was in good measure due to peculiarities of Indian character and habits. This intractable race were, in certain external respects, the most pliant and complaisant of mankind.

 THE NEW GOVERNOR. - EDIFYING EXAMPLES. - LE JEUNE'S CORRESPONDENTS. - 
 RANK AND DEVOTION. - NUNS. - PRIESTLY AUTHORITY. - CONDITION OF QUEBEC. - 
 THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES. - CHURCH DISCIPLINE. - PLAYS. - FIREWORKS. - 
 PROCESSIONS. - CATECHIZING. - TERRORISM. - PICTURES. - THE CONVERTS. - 
 THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. - THE FORESTERS.

 DISPERSION OF THE HURONS. - SAINTE MARIE ABANDONED. - ISLE ST. JOSEPH. - 
 REMOVAL OF THE MISSION. - THE NEW FORT. - MISERY OF THE HURONS. - FAMINE. - 
 EPIDEMIC. - EMPLOYMENTS OF THE JESUITS.

The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times, they have been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject as difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the statements of observers, old and new, the character of their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear.

 THE HURON SEMINARY. - MADAME DE LA PELTRIE. - HER PIOUS SCHEMES. - 
 HER SHAM MARRIAGE. - SHE VISITS THE URSULINES OF TOURS. - 
 MARIE DE SAINT BERNARD. - MARIE DE L'INCARNATION. - HER ENTHUSIASM. - 
 HER MYSTICAL MARRIAGE. - HER DEJECTION. - HER MENTAL CONFLICTS. - 

 THE TOBACCO MISSIONS. - ST. JEAN ATTACKED. - DEATH OF GARNIER. - 
 THE JOURNEY OF CHABANEL. - HIS DEATH. - GARREAU AND GRELON.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1852. - The Compromise of 1850 was thought to be a final settlement of all the troubles that had grown out of slavery. The great leaders of the Whig and Democratic parties solemnly pledged themselves to stand by the compromise, and when the national conventions met in 1852, the two parties in their platforms made equally solemn promises.

KING WILLIAM'S WAR. - When James II was driven from his throne (p. 93), he fled to France. His quarrel with King William was taken up by Louis XIV, and in 1689 war began between France and England. The strife thus started in the Old World soon spread to the New, and during eight years the frontier of New England and New York was the scene of French and Indian raids, massacres, and burning towns.

POPULATION. - In the twenty years which had elapsed since 1840 the population of our country had risen to over 31,000,000. In New York alone there were, in 1860, about as many people as lived in the whole United States in 1789.

THE SITUATION IN 1754. - The French were now in armed possession of the Ohio valley. Their chain of forts bounded the British colonies from Lake Champlain to Fort Duquesne. Unless they were dislodged, all hope of colonial expansion westward was ended. To dislodge them meant war, and the certainty of war led to a serious attempt to unite the colonies.