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INCENTIVES TO THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT PERIOD
OF AMERICAN HISTORY.


AN ADDRESS,

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

AT ITS FORTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY, 17TH NOVEMBER, 1846.

BY

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY.




NEW YORK:
PRESS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

1847.

NEW YORK:
WILLIAM VAN NORDEN, PRINTER,
NO. 39 WILLIAM STREET.




NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.


At a special meeting of the New York Historical Society, November 17th,
1846, being the Forty-Second Anniversary of the Society, Hon. LUTHER
BRADISH in the Chair, on motion of Mr. PHILIP HONE, it was unanimously

_Resolved_, That the thanks of the Society are due to Mr. HENRY R.
SCHOOLCRAFT, for his learned and interesting Address, delivered this
evening, and that a copy be respectfully requested to be deposited in
the archives of the Society, and published.

Extract from the Minutes.

ANDREW WARNER,

_Recording Secretary_.




AN ADDRESS.


To narrow the boundaries of historical mystery, which obscures the
early period of the American continent, is believed to be an object of
noble attainment. Can it be asserted, on the ground of accurate
inquiry, that man had not set his feet upon this continent, and
fabricated objects of art, long anterior to the utmost periods of the
monarchies of ancient Mexico and Peru? Were there not elements of
civilization prior to the landing of Coxcox, or the promulgation of the
gorgeous fiction of Manco Capac? What chain of connection existed
between the types of pseudo-civilization found respectively at Cuzco,
west of the Andes, and in the valley of Anahuac? Did this chain ever
link in its causes the pyramids of Mexico with the mounds of the
Mississippi valley? It is not proposed to enter into the details of
this discussion. Such an inquiry would far transcend the limits before
me. It is rather designed to show the amplitude of the field as a
subject of historical inquiry, than to gather its fruits. It will
entirely compass the object I have in view, if the suggestions I am to
make shall have the tendency, in any degree, to draw attention to the
topic, and to denote the strong incentives which exist, at the present
time, to study this ancient period of American history. This is the
object contemplated.

Nations, in their separation from their original stocks, and dispersion
over the globe, are yet held together by the leading traits, physical
and intellectual, which had characterized them as groups. And in
spreading abroad, they are found to have left behind them a golden
clue, which we recognize in physiology, languages, arts, monuments, and
mental habitudes. These traits are so intimately interwoven in the woof
of the mind, and so firmly interlaced in the structure and tendencies
to action of the whole organization of the man, that they can be
detected and generalized after long eras of separation, and the most
severe mutations of history. Such is the judgment, at least, of modern
research. Ethnology bases its claims to confidence in the recognition
of the dispersed family of man, in these proofs. And when they have
been eliminated from the dust of antiquity, they are offered as
contributions to the body of well considered facts and inferences,
which are to compose the thread of antique history and critical
inquiry.

And what, it may be inquired, are the evidences the study produces,
when these means of scrutiny come to be applied to the existing red
race of this continent? or to their predecessors in its occupancy? Do
their languages tell the story of their ancient affinities with Asia,
Africa, or Europe? Do we see, in their monuments and remains of art,
increments of a pre-existing state of advance, or refinement, in the
human family, in other parts of the globe? It is confessed, that in
order to answer these enquiries, we must first scrutinize the several
epochs of the nations with whom we are to compare them, and the changes
which they themselves have undergone. Without erecting these several
standards of comparison, no certainty can attend the labor. All nations
and tribes upon the face of the globe, whom we can make sponsors for
the American tribes, are thus constituted the field of study, and we
have opened to our investigations a theme at once noble and sublime.
Philosophy has no higher species of inquiry, beneath Infinitude, than
that which establishes the original affinities of man to man.

We perceive, in casting our minds back on the track of nations from
whom we are ourselves sprung, a strong and clear chain of philological
testimony, running through the various nations of the great Thiudic[1]
type, until it terminates in the utmost regions of the north. This
chain of affiliation, though it had a totally diverse element in the
Celtic, to begin with, yet absorbed that element, without in the least
destroying the connection. It runs clearly from the Anglo Saxon to the
Frisic, or northern Dutch, and the Germanic, in all its recondite
phases, with the ancient Gothic, and its cognates, taking in very wide
accessions from the Latin, the Gallic, and other languages of southern
Europe; and it may be traced back, historically, till it quite
penetrates through these elementary masses of change, and reveals
itself in the Icelandic. Two thousand five hundred years,