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Spenser called "divine tobacco." They had also found certain round "roots" which "being boiled are very good food."40

Sir Walter planted the Indian herb and the round "roots" in his garden at Youghal near Cork, Ireland. By his efforts the Potato- the most valuable vegetable known to man - and Tobacco, denounced by King James as "the vilest of weeds," were introduced into use in the British Isles.

Not disheartened by the failure of his first attempt to establish a settlement in Virginia, Sir Walter sent out emigrants (1587) to form another. This colony mysteriously disappeared and no trace of it was ever found, save the name, Croatoan,"1 which the colonists had cut on the bark of a tree when they left their settlement never to return.

Though Sir Walter's enterprise had failed, the idea survived, and was successfully carried out later by a company of London merchants. Raleigh believed that he should live to see an "English nation" founded in the New World. He was not disappointed. His memorial window in the church of St. Margaret near Westminster Abbey, commemorates the fact that he "laid the corner-stone of the American Republic." 26. The American Indians; their character; their numbers. Before proceeding to the work of Raleigh's successors, let us consider the subject of the Indians and their influence on the history of our country.

The Indians that Columbus met in the West Indies were usually gentle, timid, and easily enslaved by Europeans. But no colonist ever accused the northern Indians of excessive meekness of spirit. In bloodthirsty ferocity and bull-dog tenacity an Algonquin — or, still better, an Iroquois a match for the most brutal Spaniard that ever set foot on the shores of the New World.

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The entire Indian population east of the Mississippi probably fell short of two hundred thousand. The same area to-day supports a white population of over fifty millions.

Like the wild beasts of the forest, the Red Men possessed the country without occupying it. They required vast solitudes in which to seek their game. This was the more necessary because the dog was their only domestic animal.

The Indians cultivated some small patches of corn and tobacco. But this area of cultivation remained practically stationary, since the amount of corn which a squaw could work over with her clamshell hoe could never be very great, when measured by the vigorous appetites of a healthy Indian family. 27. Influence of the character of the Indian on the early settlers. It was perhaps fortunate for the future of America that the Indians of the North rejected civilization. Had they accepted it the whites and Indians might have intermarried to some extent as they did in Mexico. That would have given us a population made up in a measure of shiftless half-breeds.

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It was fortunate, too, that the Indians whom the English colonists encountered were generally warlike. Had they been peaceful and submissive the white settlers would probably have reduced them to slavery, as they did in the West Indies. That would have struck a serious blow at the habits of personal industry and of self-help acquired by the colonists. The fact that the Red Man was intractable, independent, and fond of fighting prevented the great body of settlers from spreading rapidly over the country. It compelled them to live in a tolerably compact line along the coast, made them vigilant, exercised them in the art of war, and made union for selfdefence a necessity. When later the English settlers had to fight the Canadian French, this training in arms, which conflicts with Indians had forced upon them, came into effective play and had decisive results on the future of America.

28. The indebtedness of the colonists to the Indians for food and clothing. The relations in which the aborigines stood to the colonists as friends or enemies had important economic results. The first and greatest need of the colonists was an abundant supply of food. The chief American cereal

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