The Quest For A Lost Race - free ebook by Thomas Edward Pickett

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The Quest For A Lost Race

Thomas Edward Pickett

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THE QUEST FOR A LOST RACE

THE QUEST FOR A LOST RACE

Presenting the Theory of PAUL B. Du CHAILLU An Eminent Ethnologist and Explorer, that the English-speaking People of To-day are Descended from the Scandinavians rather than the Teutons—from the Normans rather than the Germans BY THOMAS E. PICKETT, M.D., LL.D. Member of The Filson Club READ BEFORE THE CLUB OCTOBER 1, 1906 Illustrated LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY JOHN P. MORTON &amp; COMPANY Printers to The Filson Club 1907 COPYRIGHT, 1907 BY The Filson Club All Rights Reserved Filson Club Publication

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PREFACE

PREFACE

The native Kentuckian has a deep and abiding affection for the "Old Commonwealth" which gave him birth. It is as passionate a sentiment, too—and some might add, as irrational—as the love of a Frenchman for his native France. But it is an innocent idolatry in both, and both are entitled to the indulgent consideration of alien critics whose racial instincts are less susceptible and whose emotional nature is under better control. Here and there, a captious martinet who has been wrestling, mayhap, w

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

While the Home-Coming Kentuckians were enjoying their meeting, in Louisville, in the month of June, 1906, Doctor Thomas E. Pickett published a newspaper article which he had written for the Home-Coming Week, the object of which was to present the theory of Paul B. Du Chaillu as to the descent of the English-speaking people from the Scandinavians instead of the Teutons; and to show that the descendants of these Scandinavians were still existing in different countries, and especially in Kentucky.

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I

I

Upon the northern border of Mr. James Lane Allen's "Arcady" there rises with picturesque distinctness against a range of green hills the pleasant old Kentucky town of Maysville, which, unlike the typical town of the South, is neither "sleepy" nor "quaint," but in a notable degree animated, bustling, ambitious, advancing, and up-to-date. It must be confessed, however, that here and there, in certain secluded localities, it is architecturally antique. Constructed almost wholly of brick, and plante

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II

II

In the early autumn of 1889, the writer of this paper had the good fortune to be present at the Newcastle meeting of the British Association. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, standing at the very gateway of Scotland and looking out from the Tyne upon the great North Sea, is a famous old city in English history, that lay directly in the path of conquest and migration and was literally cradled in war, alternately rocked by Scandinavian or Dane, Saxon or Norman, Englishman or Scot. To-day it is big, prosperous

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III

III

"Every schoolboy" (to quote Macaulay) is familiar with the salient facts in the history of the Normans; their origin in Scandinavia; the seizure of a fertile province in France (wrung from a fainéant heir of Charlemagne); their extraordinary evolution as the great ethnic force of the period; their absolute mastery of sea and land on every shore, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and notably their Conquest of England, their perfect fusion with the conquered peoples, and the resulting evolut

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IV

IV

But what are the characteristic traits of the Norman as we find him in his early habitat in France? We are told by a contemporary observer—Geoffrey Malaterra—that the typical or "composite" Norman of his day was prodigiously astute, a passionate lover of litigation, an eloquent speaker, skilled in diplomacy, sagacious in council, convincing in debate; a son of the Church, but not too deferential to prelates nor too precise in the observance of ecclesiastical forms; a bold and tireless litigant,

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V

V

Returning now to the discussion of the masterly paper read by M. Du Chaillu at the British Association, [4] we may consider certain aspects of the question more in detail; conceding at the same time full credit to the ability of the disputants who dissented from the views expressed by the foreign savant. M. Du Chaillu was peculiarly fortunate in his critics. If his theory should survive the searching and trenchant criticisms of such men, his scholarship would command respect even if they should

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VI

VI

Those were stirring days in the old Northumbrian city by the sea. And to the utmost border of that ancient kingdom the busy populations were alive with expectation and hope. Little cared they for the Sea Rover now. He no longer enjoyed, as once, the freedom of the city and the sea. They were really as indifferent to the vexed question as the philosophic Canon Taylor humorously affected to be. The loquacious savants might settle matters to suit themselves; but there was another question, probably

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VII

VII

The continuous application of three acute and powerful minds along the same line of thought, in the first half of the last century—an unconscious or undesigned collaboration (so to speak) of Lamarck, St. Beuve, and Hippolyte Taine—evolved a marvelous instrument of critical and philosophic research; furnishing for every capable thinker a method adapted to the investigation of all subjects, great and small; neglecting no phase, shrinking from no interpretation, rejecting no authentic fact, and hav

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VIII

VIII

One of the most interesting results of a very prolonged process of ethnic differentiation is mentioned by John Fiske, in comparing two remote branches of the so-called "Aryan" race—the short, fat, pursy Hindoo, and the wiry, long-limbed Kentuckian. It is not incredible that these were simply original marks of race—"Scythian," in the one instance; Scandinavian in the other. It is a far cry, too, from old Benares to the Bluegrass; but it is possible that if missionaries from Kentucky could remain

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IX

IX

The Normans were a brilliant and enterprising race; but what before all things (says Freeman) "distinguished them from other nations, was their craft ." This was manifest in everything, at all times, and everywhere—in statesmanship, in war, in traffic, and in the trivial interactions of social and domestic life. Craft was no more characteristic of a Norman king in the past than of a Norman trader in modern times. It is as distinctly racial as the commercial "cuteness" or cleverness universally a

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X

X

An English scholar of sound judgment and exceptionally sound views has recently said that the Emperor Napoleon was the greatest administrator of all time. His greatest work, perhaps, is the system of administrative centralization which, through a century of the severest tests that political madness could apply, has maintained the conditions of social order even in the midst of war and under every form of organized misrule, and secured almost unparalleled prosperity for the municipalities and pro

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XI

XI

In the spring of 1885, a pamphlet was published by a citizen of Kentucky directing attention to the effect of certain racial influences in molding the institutions of this State. It was entitled "The Genesis of a Pioneer Commonwealth." The suggestions offered by the writer as to the sources of our organic life were subsequently illustrated and confirmed by an eminent Virginian scholar, Dr. Alexander Brown, in his "Genesis of the United States," published in 1890—a marvel of masterly investigatio

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XII

XII

As the Conqueror stood among the sovereigns of that day, so stood the Normans among the contemporary races. They were of peculiar type, these men—both sovereign and subject—and were cast in a like mold. They had body, sap, color, concentrated vigor, and inbred Thracian fire. They had a sort of racial distinction which in its merely personal aspects was never lost. Mingling with all races, they yet stood in a sense separate and apart from all. They were as the Haut Brion among the wines of the Bo

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XIII

XIII

The alphabetical series of Norman or Anglo-Norman names here given was selected by an English scholar from an English official directory and published, anonymously, in the latter half of the last century, to illustrate a theory of the genesis of the English race. The present selection represents only in part the series or lists originally published, embracing several thousand names. To this selection the writer has added Norman or Scandinavian names from other sources, together with "notes" that

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XIV

XIV

When following the long dim path of Gothic migration we found but little that seemed to be in vivid relation with the ethnology of our own race; and it was not until we were afloat upon the Scandinavian seas, with Rolf Ganger looking out upon the kingdoms of the earth, that we began to feel ourselves (to speak in paradox) firmly planted upon historic ground. Here the conditions of the old parable are reversed. The genius of civilization is offering the kingdoms of the earth to the Devil himself.

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XV

XV

When the great Gothic column of migration, sweeping past the Caspian and crossing the Asian frontier, followed the river valleys and the shores of the Baltic Sea, making a reconnoissance in force that reached as far as the waters of the northern sea, it pushed its exploring columns through every part of Scandinavia, peopling every shore it passed, and leaving every promontory and peninsula in every nook and hook and cranny and on every continental headland, every island inlet, and in every peace

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XVI

XVI

The learned author of "British Family Names," speaking of certain lists of ancient Norman names alleged to be authentic, says: "Of this great array of time-honored names, few are now borne by direct representatives. They exist among the old gentry rather than in the peerage. In the majority of cases, the later descendants of illustrious families have sunk into poverty and obscurity, unconscious of their origin." They have not "vanished from the world" (as Mr. Freeman says), but are daily coming

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XVII

XVII

The impression we derive from the foregoing description of the Scandinavian physique among the more northern tribes recalls Professor Shaler's conclusions from a careful study of the measurement of fifty thousand troops from Kentucky, made by the astronomer Gould (a distinguished mathematician), who after the war took service in the Argentine Republic. "The results," he says, "are surprising. Their average height was nearly an inch greater than that of the New England troops; they exceed them eq

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XVIII

XVIII

The student who is interested in this subject may find some help in the following series of Names (to which frequent reference has been made), compiled by an anonymous English scholar whose learning and ability have been recognized in the critical reviews. It was to one of these reviews that the present writer was indebted for suggestions that at once quickened his interest in M. Du Chaillu and his researches, and induced him in the republication of the English writer's list (taken from a London

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XIX

XIX

Perhaps no critic has thrown more light upon mediæval history than Mr. Freeman, who in his discriminating analysis of the Norman character declares the supreme, the directive, the dominant quality to be craft : a special power of intellect which seems to have been created or evolved by the necessities of those times—intellect fused with instinct and directed by a conscienceless common sense. Mr. Freeman detected its manifestations in all the Norman's great affairs. In legal proceedings, in court

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XX

XX

The "Names" which follow, and the occasional "Notes" that accompany them, are intended to illustrate the theory of descent which has been advocated in this discussion. To find a large body of people in Kentucky derived from English sources and bearing Norman surnames is in itself a circumstance of peculiar interest and of almost conclusive weight. But to find noted in connection with an hereditary surname certain characteristics that are common to two races and apparently derived along certain h

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XXI

XXI

There came at last a shadow over our memory of the bright Arcadian days. "The beautiful Scandinavian" was fatally stricken in her prime by an insidious malady which gradually sapped her strength but scarcely touched the saint-like beauty which was the glory and charm of her youth. The Great Traveler, who construed at a glance the ethnical significance of those embodied charms, has long ago passed to his eternal rest. In her children she seems to live again. Her sons—handsome young Scandinavians

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ALPHABETICAL SERIES OF NORSE, NORMAN, AND ANGLO-NORMAN, OR NON-SAXON, SURNAMES.

ALPHABETICAL SERIES OF NORSE, NORMAN, AND ANGLO-NORMAN, OR NON-SAXON, SURNAMES.

Derived from English Official Records and from other Authentic Sources. [The learned Canon of Carlisle assures us that not only has Normandy supplied us with many of our family names, but it enjoys the distinction of having been the first to establish an hereditary surname. Few stop to consider that a surname thus conceived is not merely an heraldic vanity or device to give social dignity and distinction to those who bear it, but is in reality a scientific advance in the working nomenclature of

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SOME VIRGINIA NAMES SPELLED ONE WAY AND CALLED ANOTHER

SOME VIRGINIA NAMES SPELLED ONE WAY AND CALLED ANOTHER

A very able and scholarly Virginian, Mr. B. B. Green, of Warwick, Virginia, has compiled a list from which we make the following selections: "In living form,"—says Mr. Green, "are now to be heard in the Southwest, words and pronunciations which have remained unaltered at least since the time of Simon de Montfort." "The Virginian"—says the same writer—"has a good opinion of himself; is calm, well-balanced; is self-reliant, and has the English quality of not being afraid to take responsibility." I

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