European history makes much of the “Seven Years’ War” and the “Thirty Years’ War”; and when we think of a continuous national contest for even the least of those periods, there is something terrible in the picture. But the feeble English colonies in America, besides all the difficulties of pioneer life, had to sustain a warfare that lasted, with few intermissions, for about a hundred years. It was, moreover, a warfare against the most savage and stealthy enemies, gradually trained and reinforced by the most formidable military skill of Europe. Without counting the early feuds, such as the Pequot War, there elapsed almost precisely a century from the accession of King Philip, in 1662, to the Peace of Paris, which nominally ended the last French and Indian War in 1763. During this whole period, with pacific intervals that sometimes lasted for years, the same essential contest went on; the real question being, for the greater part of the time, whether France or England should control the continent. The description of this prolonged war may, therefore, well precede any general account of the colonial or provincial life in America. The early explorers of the Atlantic coast usually testify that they found the Indians a gentle, not a ferocious, people. They were as ready as could be expected to accept the friendship of the white race. In almost every case of quarrel the white men were the immediate aggressors, and where they were attacked without seeming cause--as when Smith’s Virginian colony was assailed by the Indians in the first fortnight of its existence--there is good reason to think that the act of the Indians was in revenge for wrongs elsewhere. One of the first impulses of the early explorers was to kidnap natives for exhibition in Europe, in order to excite the curiosity of kings or the zeal of priests; and even where these captives were restored unharmed, the distrust could not be removed. Add to this the acts of plunder, lust, or violence, and there was plenty of provocation given from the very outset. [Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF AMERICAN INDIANS ABOUT 1500 BY LINGUISTIC STOCKS]