of the former
enabled the Indian of the treeless plains to travel distances with ease
and celerity which before were practically impossible, and the
possession of firearms stimulated tribal aggressiveness to the utmost
pitch. Firearms were everywhere doubly effective in producing changes in
tribal habitats, since the somewhat gradual introduction of trade placed
these deadly weapons in the hands of some tribes, and of whole congeries
of tribes, long before others could obtain them. Thus the general state
of tribal equilibrium which had before prevailed was rudely disturbed.
Tribal warfare, which hitherto had been attended with inconsiderable
loss of life and slight territorial changes, was now made terribly
destructive, and the territorial possessions of whole groups of tribes
were augmented at the expense of those less fortunate. The horse made
wanderers of many tribes which there is sufficient evidence to show were
formerly nearly sedentary. Firearms enforced migration and caused
wholesale changes in the habitats of tribes, which, in the natural order
of events, it would have taken many centuries to produce. The changes
resulting from these combined agencies, great as they were, are,
however, slight in comparison with the tremendous effects of the
wholesale occupancy of Indian territory by Europeans. As the acquisition
of territory by the settlers went on, a wave of migration from east to
west was inaugurated which affected tribes far remote from the point of
disturbance, ever forcing them within narrower and narrower bounds, and,
as time went on, producing greater and greater changes throughout the
entire country.

So much of the radical change in tribal habitats as took place in the
area remote from European settlements, mainly west of the Mississippi,
is chiefly unrecorded, save imperfectly in Indian tradition, and is
chiefly to be inferred from linguistic evidence and from the few facts
in our possession. As, however, the most important of these changes
occurred after, and as a result of, European occupancy, they are noted
in history, and thus the map really gives a better idea of the pristine
or prehistoric habitat of the tribes than at first might be thought
possible.

Before speaking of the method of establishing the boundary lines between
the linguistic families, as they appear upon the map, the nature of the
Indian claim to land and the manner and extent of its occupation should
be clearly set forth.