position from the necessity of contending
against outside aggression, the inhabitants of the United States have
expended their combative energies against the weaker peoples with whom
they came into immediate contact,--

1. The Indians, from whom they took the land and wrested the right
to exploit the resources of the continent;

2. The African Negroes who were captured and brought to America to
labor as slaves;

3. The Mexicans, from whom they took additional slave territory at
a time when the institution of slavery was in grave danger, and

4. The Spanish Empire from which they took foreign investment
opportunities at a time when the business interests of the country
first felt the pressure of surplus wealth.

Each of these four groups was weak. No one of them could present even
the beginnings of an effectual resistance to the onslaught of the
conquerors. Each in turn was forced to bow the knee before overwhelming
odds.

2. _The First Obstacle to Conquest_

The first obstacle to the spread of English civilization across the
continent of North America was the American Indian. He was in possession
of the country; he had a culture of his own; he held the white man's
civilization in contempt and refused to accept it. He had but one
desire,--to be let alone.

The continent was a "wilderness" to the whites. To the Indians it was a
home. Their villages were scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
from the Gulf to Alaska; they knew well its mountains, plains and
rivers. A primitive people, supporting themselves largely by hunting,
fishing, simple agriculture and such elemental manual arts as pottery
and weaving, they found the vast stretches of North America none too
large to provide them with the means of satisfying their wants.

The ideas of the Indian differed fundamentally from those of the white
man. Holding to the Eastern conception which makes the spiritual life
paramount, he reduced his material existence to the simplest possible
terms. He had no desire for possessions, which he regarded--at the
best--as "only means to the end of his ultimate perfection."[5] To him,
the white man's desire for wealth was incomprehensible and the white
man's sedentary life was contemptible. He must be free at all times to
commune with nature in the valleys, and at sunrise and sunset to ascend
the mountain peak and salute the Great Spirit.

The individual Indian--having no