Hatred of the Indian, among the pioneers, was hereditary; there was scarcely a man on the frontier, who had not lost a father, a mother, or a brother, by the tomahawk; and not a few of them had suffered in their own persons. The child, who learned the rudiments of his scanty education at his mother's knee, must decipher the strange characters by the straggling light which penetrated the crevices between the logs; for, while the father was absent, in the field or on the war-path, the mother was obliged to bar the doors and barricade the windows against the savages. Thus, if he did not literally imbibe it with his mother's milk, one of the first things the pioneer learned, was dread, and consequently hatred, of the Indian. That feeling grew with his growth, strengthened with his strength--for a life upon the western border left but few days free from sights of blood or mementoes of the savage. The pioneer might go to the field in the morning, unsuspecting; and, at noon, returning, find his wife murdered and scalped, and the brains of his little ones dashed out against his own doorpost! And if a deadly hatred of the Indian took possession of his heart, who shall blame him? It may be said, the pioneer was an intruder, seeking to take forcible possession of the Indian's lands--and that it was natural that the Indian should resent the wrong after the manner of his race. Granted: and it was quite as natural that the pioneer should return the enmity, after the manner of _his_ race! But the pioneer was _not_ an intruder. For all the purposes, for which reason and the order of Providence authorize us to say, God made the earth, this continent was vacant--uninhabited. And--granting that the savage was in possession--for this is his only ground of title, as, indeed, it is the foundation of all primary title--there were at the period of the first landing of white men on the continent, between Lake Superior and the Gulf of Mexico, east of the Mississippi, about one hundred and eighty thousand Indians.[72] That region now supports at least twenty millions of civilized people, and is capable of containing quite ten times that number, without crowding! Now, if God made the earth for any purpose, it certainly was _not_ that it should be monopolized by a horde of nomad savages!