n through the years, the American people were
confronted by dangers from without. All about their tiny settlements
were Indians, growing more and more hostile as the frontier advanced and
as sharp conflicts over land aroused angry passions. To the south and
west was the power of Spain, humiliated, it is true, by the disaster to
the Armada, but still presenting an imposing front to the British
empire. To the north and west were the French, ambitious, energetic,
imperial in temper, and prepared to contest on land and water the
advance of British dominion in America.

RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS AND THE FRENCH

=Indian Affairs.=--It is difficult to make general statements about the
relations of the colonists to the Indians. The problem was presented in
different shape in different sections of America. It was not handled
according to any coherent or uniform plan by the British government,
which alone could speak for all the provinces at the same time. Neither
did the proprietors and the governors who succeeded one another, in an
irregular train, have the consistent policy or the matured experience
necessary for dealing wisely with Indian matters. As the difficulties
arose mainly on the frontiers, where the restless and pushing pioneers
were making their way with gun and ax, nearly everything that happened
was the result of chance rather than of calculation. A personal quarrel
between traders and an Indian, a jug of whisky, a keg of gunpowder, the
exchange of guns for furs, personal treachery, or a flash of bad temper
often set in motion destructive forces of the most terrible character.

On one side of the ledger may be set innumerable generous records--of
Squanto and Samoset teaching the Pilgrims the ways of the wilds; of
Roger Williams buying his lands from the friendly natives; or of William
Penn treating with them on his arrival in America. On the other side of
the ledger must be recorded many a cruel and bloody conflict as the
frontier rolled westward with deadly precision. The Pequots on the
Connecticut border, sensing their doom, fell upon the tiny settlements
with awful fury in 1637 only to meet with equally terrible punishment. A
generation later, King Philip, son of Massasoit, the friend of the
Pilgrims, called his tribesmen to a war of extermination which brought
the strength of all New England to the field and ended in his own
destruction. In New York, the relations with the Indians, especially
with the Algon