The differences
between these "new" American and these "old" European nations are not
as great as those which separate the "new" nations one from another,
and the "old" nations one from another. There are in each case very
real differences between the new and the old nation; differences both
for good and for evil; but in each case there is the same ancestral
history to reckon with, the same type of civilization, with its
attendant benefits and shortcomings; and, after the pioneer stages are
passed, the problems to be solved, in spite of superficial
differences, are in their essence the same; they are those that
confront all civilized peoples, not those that confront only peoples
struggling from barbarism into civilization.
So, when we speak of the "death" of a tribe, a nation, or a
civilization, the term may be used for either one of two totally
different processes, the analogy with what occurs in biological
history being complete. Certain tribes of savages--the Tasmanians, for
instance, and various little clans of American Indians--have within
the last century or two completely died out; all of the individuals
have perished, leaving no descendants, and the blood has disappeared.
Certain other tribes of Indians have as tribes disappeared or are now
disappearing; but their blood remains, being absorbed into the veins
of the white intruders, or of the black men introduced by those white
intruders; so that in reality they are merely being transformed into
something absolutely different from what they were.
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