The Conquest of the American Continent. Grant Madison

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      Having imposed their language on the conquered people, they died out almost completely, leaving, as in Wales, their speech on the lips of the little Mediterranean native. Whatever truth there is in the legends of King Arthur and his resistance to the Saxons they clearly indicate a blond, Celtic aristocracy ruling over an underclass of small Mediterraneans. The same condition is indicated in Irish legends where the Celts appear as a distinct, fair-haired military class.

      The next Nordic invasion of Britain was by the Saxons from the country around the present duchy of Holstein and by the Angles and Jutes from farther north on the mainland of Denmark or Jutland. These tribes which entered England in the fifth century were probably more purely Nordic than the continental Teutons and this also was true of the Norse and Varangians of a later date. Their conquest was almost completed during the century after their arrival but there was sufficient resistance in the western part of England to postpone its final subjugation for several centuries. However, gradually the population of practically all England and the lowlands of Scotland became purely Nordic. This racial stock was reinforced by the invasion of Danes, who occupied most of northeast England.

      The Norsemen settled around the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, England, and, especially, Wales, and added a very considerable contribution to the pure Nordic element of the population.

      The next and last invasion of Britain by the Nordics was the Norman conquest in 1066. The Norman leaders and soldiers were pure Nordics from the most Nordic part of France. In fact, the Normans were heathen Danes speaking a Teutonic tongue when they arrived in Normandy in 911 A.D. so that on coming to England they had been in France only a little over one hundred and fifty years. In those years they had accepted Christianity, had learned French, and had become the exponents of the highest culture in Europe. Into England they brought with them many followers of Alpine origin, and the clergy whom they imported was also composed very largely of Latinized Alpines.

      At this point we may remark that Wales, especially along the coasts, has a very large Nordic population. It is absurd to distinguish between England, Scotland, North Ireland, and Wales as is done in the census of the United States. We might just as well distinguish between North England and South England on the ground that the first is Anglian and Danish and the other Saxon and Jutish. The lowlands of Scotland are pure English territory and have been such for a thousand years. The Ulster Scots who came to America were only two or three generations removed from the Scottish and English borderers and had not mixed with the native Irish. It is also to be remarked that the Norman conquest of England was that of one Nordic people by another, and that Great Britain and Ireland constitute a group, the membership of which is overwhelmingly Nordic in its racial inheritance.

      At the time of the discovery of America, all Europe was far more Nordic than it is today. Germany at that time had not witnessed the expansion of the Alpines of the south and east which is characteristic of the present era. In England, before the industrial revolution created a demand for little brunet Mediterraneans to drive spindles, the Nordic had the field to himself. As farmer, soldier, sailor, explorer, and pioneer he was pre-eminent. The brunet Mediterranean element, formerly called Iberians, had been forced back into the extreme west of England and into Wales, and was not an important economic or political factor. Nor was there any considerable immigration of that racial stock into the American colonies. These were settled primarily by the descendants of the Normans, Saxons, Anglians, and Danes coming from the distinctly Nordic districts of the mother land.

      Norfolk and Suffolk were settled by the Angles and afterwards formed a part of the Danish kingdom. As said above the lowlands of Scotland and the English borders were Anglian and Dane, while the coasts and islands of Scotland were everywhere Norse. The Highlands were Celtic with an admixture of Norse, Anglian, and Norman. There were also remnants of the old Mediterranean populations, probably Picts. Curiously enough these Mediterraneans contributed their dark eyes and hair color, but not their short stature. The population of West Scotland has the greatest height of all the peoples of Europe.

      Ireland, like England, was settled as we have seen originally by the Neolithic Mediterraneans. They in turn were conquered by the Goidelic or "Q" Celts, blond Nordics who imposed their language on the aborigines. In the ninth century, Ireland was overrun by the Norse and Danes, whose descendants today constitute a very considerable portion of the population. The very name Ireland is Danish. Most of the big blond Irish of today, although they like to claim "Celtic" descent, are, in fact, of Norse, Danish, Saxon, Norman, or Scotch derivation.

      The Nordic elements in Ireland were reinforced again and again by the English and Normans, who, from the days of their original entry into the island down to our day have formed the great majority of the nobility and upper classes of the country. The Celtic Goidel in Ireland today is a negligible quantity which cannot be racially identified. The brunet elements in western Ireland, though to some extent Celtic in speech, are descended from the old Neolithic or Mediterranean population of the British Isles, mixed with a primitive, aboriginal race of great antiquity, the Firbolgs.

      Ireland has shown a singular power of absorbing its conquerors. The descendants of Danish, Norman, and English settlers consider themselves pure Irish "Celts." It is a strange fact that the English, Scotch, Norman, Danish, and even the French Huguenots who have settled in Ireland have acquired and have handed down an extraordinary temperamental unity. As to language, by the time of Elizabeth the English Pale constituted a part of eastern Leinster, and there English was uniformly spoken. The English language ultimately spread over the whole of Ireland, leaving only a few remnants of Celtic speech in the extreme west.

      From the times of James I to those of William III, large numbers of English and Scotch borderers passed over to the northeast corner of the island into the province of Ulster. They were fervent Presbyterians and hated the native Catholic Irish. It was the sons and grandsons of these immigrants who came to America in the eighteenth century and are sometimes miscalled the "Scotch Irish." They had special grievances of their own against England on account of economic restrictions imposed upon their industries.

      Before this time a large number of Cromwellian soldiers had settled in Leinster, but not having their own women with them they intermarried with the Catholic Irish and their descendants today are most intensely Irish in national feeling. The Reformation never had much hold on Ireland, so that the Catholic Irish today represent the mixed population of Ireland before the sixteenth century, together with numerous converts from the Scotch and English immigrants.

      With this brief survey of the distribution of the Nordic race in Europe down to the time of the discovery of America and the beginning of emigration to the colonies of the New World, we can pass on to one of the most dramatic mass-migrations of man.

      From West Central Asia where it was in contact with the Mongoloids on the east, the Nordic race pushed across Europe to the extreme western coasts. We shall show how it traversed the Atlantic Ocean and then in three centuries subdued a continent. Generation after generation it fought its way westward, until it reached the Pacific Ocean, where today it stands confronting Asia and its immemorial rivals, the Mongols, this time on the west.

² In Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades, by J.K. Wright of the American Geographic Society, p. 320, the author says: "In these authorities we find that the differences between the inhabitants of the northern and southern parts of Italy were fully appreciated in the twelfth century. 'The Lombards,' Gunther says, 'are a keen, skillful, and active people; foresighted in counsel; expert in justice; strong in body and spirit, full of life and handsome to look upon, with slight, supple bodies that give them great power of endurance; economical and always moderate in eating and drinking; masters of their hands and mouths; honorable in every business transaction; mighty in the arts and always striving for the new; lovers of freedom and ready to face death for freedom's sake. These people have never been willing to submit to kings.... But what a contrast the people of Apulia in the south present СКАЧАТЬ