In the northern continent aboriginal America reached its highest
development in three typical environments. The first of these
regions centered in the valley of Mexico where dwelt the Aztecs,
but it extended as far north as the Pueblos in Arizona and New
Mexico. The special feature of the environment was the relatively
dry, warm climate with the chief rainfall in summer. The Indians
living in this environment were notable for their comparatively
high social organization and for religious ceremonials whose
elaborateness has rarely been surpassed. On the whole, the people
of this summer rain or Mexican type were not warlike and offered
little resistance to European conquest. Some tribes, to be sure,
fought fiercely at first, but yielded within a few years; the
rest submitted to the lordly Spaniards almost without a murmur.
Their civilization, if such we may call it, had long ago seen its
best days. The period of energy and progress had passed, and a
time of inertia and decay had set in. A century after the
Spaniards had overcome the aborigines of Mexico, other
Europeans--French, English, and Dutch--came into contact with a
sturdier type of red man, best represented by the Iroquois or
Five Nations of central New York. This more active type dwelt in
a physical environment notable for two features--the abundance of
cyclonic storms bringing rain or snow at all seasons and the
deciduous forest which thickly covered the whole region. Unlike
the Mexican, the civilization of the Iroquois was young,
vigorous, and growing. It had not learned to express itself in
durable architectural forms like those of Mexico, nor could it
rival the older type in social and religious organization. In
political organization, however, the Five Nations had surpassed
the other aboriginal peoples of North America. When the white man
became acquainted with the Iroquois in the seventeenth century,