"The Story of Our Country" has been often told, but cannot be told too often. I have spared no effort to make the following pages interesting as well as truthful, and to present, in graphic language, a pen-picture of our nation's origin and progress. It is a story of events, and not a dry chronicle of official succession. It is an attempt to give some fresh color to facts that are well known, while depicting also other facts of public interest which have never appeared in any general history. Wh

CHAPTER I. A Land Without a History—Origin of the American Indians—Their Semi-civilization—The Spanish Colonial System—The King Was Absolute Master—The Council of the Indies—The Hierarchy—Servitude of the Natives—Gold and Silver Mines—Spanish Wealth and Degeneracy— Commercial Monopoly—Pernicious Effects of Spain's Colonial Policy— Spaniards Destroy a Huguenot Colony. America presented itself as a virgin land to the original settlers from Europe. It had no history, no memories, no civilization th