Roman trading posts continued the
process. By traffic in amber, tin, furs, etc., with the tribes of the
north of Europe, a continental commerce was developed. The routes of
this trade have been ascertained.[3] For over a thousand years before
the migration of the peoples Mediterranean commerce had flowed along the
interlacing river valleys of Europe, and trading posts had been
established. Museums show how important an effect was produced upon the
economic life of northern Europe by this intercourse. It is a
significant fact that the routes of the migration of the peoples were to
a considerable extent the routes of Roman trade, and it is well worth
inquiry whether this commerce did not leave more traces upon Teutonic
society than we have heretofore considered, and whether one cause of the
migrations of the peoples has not been neglected.[4]

That stage in the development of society when a primitive people comes
into contact with a more advanced people deserves more study than has
been given to it. As a factor in breaking the "cake of custom" the
meeting of two such societies is of great importance; and if, with
Starcke,[5] we trace the origin of the family to economic
considerations, and, with Schrader,[6] the institution of guest
friendship to the same source, we may certainly expect to find important
influences upon primitive society arising from commerce with a higher
people. The extent to which such commerce has affected all peoples is
remarkable. One may study the process from the days of Phoenicia to
the days of England in Africa,[7] but nowhere is the material more
abundant than in the history of the relations of the Europeans and the
American Indians. The Phoenician factory, it is true, fostered the
development of the Mediterranean civilization, while in America the
trading post exploited the natives. The explanation of this difference
is to be sought partly in race differences, partly in the greater gulf
that separated the civilization of the European from the civilization of
the American Indian as compared with that which parted the early Greeks
and the Phoenicians. But the study of the destructive effect of the
trading post is valuable as well as the study of its elevating
influences; in both cases the effects are important and worth
investigation and comparison.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: In this paper I have rewritten and enlarged an address
before the State Historical Society of Wisconsin on the Characte