. There they contribute to that
mixture of race which characterizes every boundary zone, though as an
embittered people they may also help to emphasize any existing political
or religious antagonism. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685
was followed by an exodus of Huguenots from France to the Protestant
states of Switzerland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, and Holland, as also
across the Channel into southern England; just as in recent years the
Slav borderland of eastern Germany has received a large immigration of
Polish Jews from Russia. When the Polish king in 1571 executed the
leader of the Dnieper Cossacks, thousands of these bold borderers left
their country and joined the community of the Don; and in 1722 after the
Dnieper community had been crushed by Peter the Great, a similar exodus
took place across the southern boundary into the Crimea, whereby the
Tartar horde was strengthened, just as a few years before, during an
unsuccessful revolt of the Don Cossacks, some two thousand of the
malcontents crossed the southern frontier to the Kuban River in
Circassia.[410] The establishment of American independence in 1783 saw an
exodus of loyalists from the United States into the contiguous districts
of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Spanish Florida, Five years later
discontent with the Federal Government for its dilatory opposition to
the occlusion of the Mississippi and the lure of commercial betterment
sent many citizens of the early Trans-Allegheny commonwealths to the
Spanish side of the Mississippi,[411] while the Natchez District on the
east bank of the river contained a sprinkling of French who had become
dissatisfied with Spanish rule in Louisiana and changed their domicile.

These are some of the movements of individuals and groups which
contribute to the blending of races along every frontier, and make of
the boundary a variable zone, as opposed to the rigid artificial line in
terms of which we speak.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII

[326] A.W. Greely, Report of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, Vol. I,
pp. 28-33, 236. Misc. Doc. No. 393. Washington, 1888.

[327] A.P. Engelhardt, A Russian Province of the North, pp. 123-130.
Translated from the Russian. London, 1899.

[328] Nordenskiold, Voyage of the Vega, pp. 60-62. New York, 1882.

[329] _Ibid._, pp. 146, 161.

[330] Col. F.E. Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 194-199.
London, 1904.

[331] A.R. Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals,