The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed - The shepherd state,
or the tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire - The
superiority of the power of population to the means of
subsistence - the cause of the great tide of Northern Emigration.
IN the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal
occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food, the means of
subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the
comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that
the passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North
American Indians than among any other race of men. Yet,
notwithstanding this apathy, the effort towards population, even
in this people, seems to be always greater than the means to
support it. This appears from the comparatively rapid population
that takes place whenever any of the tribes happen to settle in
some fertile spot and to draw nourishment from more fruitful
sources than that of hunting, and it has been frequently remarked
that when an Indian family has taken up its abode near any
European settlement and adopted a more easy and civilized mode of
life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children,
though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or
two in a family grow up to maturity. The same observation has
been made with regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These
facts prove the superior power of population to the means of
subsistence in nations of hunters, and that this power always
shews itself the moment it is left to act with freedom.
It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and
its effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice
or misery.
The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot
justly be called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of
them, and, indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are
represented as much more completely in a state of slavery to the
men than the poor are to the rich in civilized countries. One
half the nation appears to act as Helots to the other half, and
the misery that checks population falls chiefly, as it always
must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest in the scale of
society. The infancy of man in the simplest state requires
considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women
cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and
hardships of frequent change of place and to the constant and
unremitting drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception
of their tyrannic lords. These exertions, sometimes during
pregnancy or with children at their backs, must occasion frequent
miscarriages, and prevent any but the most robust infants from
growing to maturity. Add to these hardships of the women the
constant war that prevails among savages, and the necessity which
they frequently labour under of exposing their aged and helpless
parents, and of thus violating the first feelings of nature, and
the picture will not appear very free from the blot of misery. In
estimating the happiness of a savage nation, we must not fix our
eyes only on the warrior in the prime of life: he is one of a
hundred: he is the gentleman, the man of fortune, the chances
have been in his favour and many efforts have failed ere this
fortunate being was produced, whose guardian genius should
preserve him through the numberless dangers with which he would
be surrounded from infancy to manhood. The true points of
comparison between two nations seem to be the ranks in each which
appear nearest to answer to each other. And in this view, I
should compare the warriors in the prime of life with the
gentlemen, and the women, children, and aged, with the lower
classes of the community in civilized states.
May we not then fairly infer from this short review, or
rather, from the accounts that may be referred to of nations of
hunters, that their population is thin from the scarcity of food,
that it would immediately increase if food was in greater plenty,
and that, putting vice out of the question among savages, misery
is the check that represses the superior power of population and
keeps its effects equal to the means of subsistence. Actual
observation and experience tell us that this check, with a few
local and temporary exceptions, is constantly acting now upon all
savage nations, and the theory indicates that it probably acted
with nearly equal strength a thousand years ago, and it may not
be much greater a thousand years hence.
Of the manners and habits that prevail among nations of
shepherds, the next state of mankind, we are even more ignorant
than of the savage state. But that these nations could not escape
the general lot of misery arising from the want of subsistence,
Europe, and all the fairest countries in the world, bear ample
testimony. Want was the goad that drove the Scythian shepherds
from their native haunts, like so many famished wolves in search
of prey. Set in motion by this all powerful cause, clouds of
Barbarians seemed to collect from all points of the northern
hemisphere. Gathering fresh darkness and terror as they rolled
on, the congregated bodies at length obscured the sun of Italy
and sunk the whole world in universal night. These tremendous
effects, so long and so deeply felt throughout the fairest
portions of the earth, may be traced to the simple cause of the
superior power of population to the means of subsistence.
It is well known that a country in pasture cannot support so
many inhabitants as a country in tillage, but what renders
nations of shepherds so formidable is the power which they
possess of moving all together and the necessity they frequently
feel of exerting this power in search of fresh pasture for their
herds. A tribe that was rich in cattle had an immediate plenty of
food. Even the parent stock might be devoured in a case of
absolute necessity. The women lived in greater ease than among
nations of hunters. The men bold in their united strength and
confiding in their power of procuring pasture for their cattle by
change of place, felt, probably, but few fears about providing
for a family. These combined causes soon produced their natural
and invariable effect, an extended population. A more frequent
and rapid change of place became then necessary. A wider and more
extensive territory was successively occupied. A broader
desolation extended all around them. Want pinched the less
fortunate members of the society, and, at length, the
impossibility of supporting such a number together became too
evident to be resisted. Young scions were then pushed out from
the parent-stock and instructed to explore fresh regions and to
gain happier seats for themselves by their swords. 'The world was
all before them where to choose.' Restless from present distress,
flushed with the hope of fairer prospects, and animated with the
spirit of hardy enterprise, these daring adventurers were likely
to become formidable adversaries to all who opposed them. The
peaceful inhabitants of the countries on which they rushed could
not long withstand the energy of men acting under such powerful
motives of exertion. And when they fell in with any tribes like
their own, the contest was a struggle for existence, and they
fought with a desperate courage, inspired by the rejection that
death was the punishment of defeat and life the prize of victory.
In these savage contests many tribes must have been utterly
exterminated. Some, probably, perished by hardship and famine.
Others, whose leading star had given them a happier direction,
became great and powerful tribes, and, in their turns, sent off
fresh adventurers in search of still more fertile seats. The
prodigious waste of human life occasioned by this perpetual
struggle for room and food was more than supplied by the mighty
power of population, acting, in some degree, unshackled from the
consent habit of emigration. The tribes that migrated towards the
South, though they won these more fruitful regions by continual
battles, rapidly increased in number and power, from the
increased means of subsistence. Till at length the whole
territory, from the confines of China to the shores of the
Baltic, was peopled by a various race of Barbarians, brave,
robust, and enterprising, inured to hardship, and delighting in
war. Some tribes maintained their independence. Others ranged
themselves under the standard of some barbaric chieftain who led
them to victory after victory, and what was of more importance,
to regions abounding in corn, wine, and oil, the long wished for
consummation, and great reward of their labours. An Alaric, an
Attila, or a Zingis Khan, and the chiefs around them, might fight
for glory, for the fame of extensive conquests, but the true
cause that set in motion the great tide of northern emigration,
and that continued to propel it till it rolled at different
periods against China, Persia, italy, and even Egypt, was a
scarcity of food, a population extended beyond the means of
supporting it.
The absolute population at any one period, in proportion to
the extent of territory, could never be great, on account of the
unproductive nature of some of the regions occupied; but there
appears to have been a most rapid succession of human beings, and
as fast as some were mowed down by the scythe of war or of
famine, others rose in increased numbers to supply their place.
Among these bold and improvident Barbarians, population was
probably but little checked, as in modern states, from a fear of
future difficulties. A prevailing hope of bettering their
condition by change of place, a constant expectation of plunder,
a power even, if distressed, of selling their children as slaves,
added to the natural carelessness of the barbaric character, all
conspired to raise a population which remained to be repressed
afterwards by famine or war.
Where there is any inequality of conditions, and among
nations of shepherds this soon takes place, the distress arising
from a scarcity of provisions must fall hardest upon the least
fortunate members of the society. This distress also must
frequently have been felt by the women, exposed to casual plunder
in the absence of their husbands, and subject to continual
disappointments in their expected return.
But without knowing enough of the minute and intimate history
of these people, to point out precisely on what part the distress
for want of food chiefly fell, and to what extent it was
generally felt, I think we may fairly say, from all the accounts
that we have of nations of shepherds, that population invariably
increased among them whenever, by emigration or any other cause,
the means of subsistence were increased, and that a further
population was checked, and the actual population kept equal to
the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.
For, independently of any vicious customs that might have
prevailed amongst them with regard to women, which always operate
as checks to population, it must be acknowledged, I think, that
the commission of war is vice, and the effect of it misery, and
none can doubt the misery of want of food.