The Mentor, No. 35,
The Story of America in Pictures:
The Contest for North America
The Mentor
“A Wise and Faithful Guide and Friend”
Vol. 1 No. 35
THE STORY OF AMERICA IN PICTURES
THE CONTEST FOR NORTH AMERICA
LA SALLE
CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG
DEERFIELD MASSACRE
CAPTURE OF QUEBEC
BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT
PONTIAC WAR
By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
Professor of Government, Harvard University
The whole round world is now open. Gone is the pleasure of findingnew lands, sighting strange mountains, floating down mysteriousrivers, and meeting unknown races of men. After Mt. Everestis climbed by some daring mountaineer, and after an airship lands on thehighest peak of Mt. McKinley, what will be left for the seeker of novelty?Where can you now find a river or mountain range or tribe certifiednever before to have been seen by white men?
That rich pleasure was enjoyed in the fullest measure by the explorersin North America; in fact, they enjoyed it so much that they kept italive for four centuries. For a good two hundred and fifty years theEnglish at intervals battered their way into Hudson Bay, and DavisStrait, and the Arctic deserts, trying to smash a route through the ice,around to the north of Asia and Europe. Nearlythree centuries passed after De Soto reachedthe lower Mississippi before Lieutenant Pikefound its source in its native lair. As late as1880 no man, white or red, knew the passesacross the Canadian Rockies; and to this dayonly three boat parties have ever gone throughthe length of the canyon of the Colorado.
ROBERT CAVELIERDE LA SALLE
Born 1643; died 1687.
In the work of opening up North Americathe French surpassed the English: if no bolder,they were more adventurous. From the lowerSt. Lawrence they held a direct route into theinterior, which flanked the two great obstaclesto western exploration; namely, the Six Nationsof the Iroquois and the Alleghany Mountains.It is hard to say which was the firmer wallagainst English discovery.
FRENCH ADVENTURE
LA SALLE’S SHIP, THE GRIFFIN
From an old print.
If we were only French, we could weep at the splendid story of Frenchdiscovery, as compared with the final collapse of the French empire onthe continent of North America. The French were the first to find theSt. Lawrence; first to see each one of the Great Lakes; first to spread exaggeratedideas about Niagara Falls—where, according to Mark Twain,the hack fares in his time were so much higher than the falls that the visitordid not perceive thelatter. They were first tobe awestruck at the siteof the future city of Chicag