CHAP. IX making of war or the dread of war, has continually forced men into unions for which they felt no inclination. Congregation. This is the convergence of non-kinsmen upon the same locality and their cohesion into a group. This occurs particularly in Coming Together of Strangers in New Countries and in New Towns (a) New countries. Iceland, discovered in the ninth century, was speedily settled from the Norse communities of Norway, Ireland and Scotland. All the provinces of Christian Spain contributed to the repeopling of the lands vacated by the retiring Moors. The "Africanders" of South Africa are a blend of Dutch and French Huguenots. The colonies of England in North America attracted, besides all the British peoples, Dutch, French Huguenots, Swedes, and Germans. In the course of the last forty years immigration has made the Americans one of the most heterogeneous and polyglot of modern peoples. California, on account of its sky, scene and natural wealth, has been a magnet for the whole earth. For this reason it contains besides Americans from all parts of the Union over 5000 representatives of each of the following countries: Germany, Ireland, England, Canada, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Nerway, France, Denmark, Austria, Wales, Turkey, Spain, Greece, China, Isles of the Atlantic, and Australia. Argentina, next to the United States the greatest absorber of strangers, is rapidly filling from the Iberian and Italian peninsulas and bids fair to become for the Latins what the United States once was for the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts. (b) New towns. In the ancient world the walled city was so prized on account of the security it offered that it tended to become a depot, a market, and a trade center. As theater of opportunity it lured the enterprising from afar, so that its population became extremely mixed while yet the surrounding country was pure. Consequently it was in the city that the immemorial kinship grouping first broke down. The old families had to admit strangers into the social organization and the bond of common residence succeeded to the bond of common blood as the chief social tie. The modern commercial city is not a place of peculiar security; but from its position on the routes of travel and trade it becomes exceedingly motley in composition. This is especially true of the ports at the meeting points of traffics and races, such as San Francisco, Manila, Singapore, Shanghai, Harbin and Buenos CHAP. IX Aires. (c) Sites of valuable natural deposits. The gold rush first impressed upon California its cosmopolitan character. The lure of the Rand drew into the Transvaal so many Uitlanders that the Boers lost their country. Gold-mining camps like Nome, Leadville, Deadwood, Carson and Coeur d'Alene are slow to develop a community sense, because the residents are so diverse that they have few ideas or aims in common. The oil fields of California, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico attract every species of North American, just as the nitrate beds of Chile attract every species of South American. However mixed its original population, intermarriage will in three or four generations cause the congregate community to be almost as consanguineous as if it had developed from a single family. What therefore finally determines the psychology of the community is not whether it was formed of blood kin or of strangers, but whether the component elements freely intermarry and whether such likemindedness as it achieves is not continually ravelled out by immigration. Conjugation. The peaceful union of groups is exemplified by the Covenant with Jehovah by means of which Moses bound a number of desert tribes into the people of Israel, the Achæan and Etolian leagues of Greece, the drawing together of the circle of communities about the coasts of Iceland in order to create a law-making body and a tribunal which could settle disputes, the union of six Indian tribes into the Iroquois confederacy, the league of New England colonies to wage war with the Indian combination effected under Philip, the union of thirteen English colonies to free themselves from Great Britain, and the confederacy of the slave-holding states of the South to draw out from the American union. Says Spencer: "The scattered Greek communities, previously aggregated into minor confederacies by minor wars, were prompted to the Pan-Hellenic Congress and to the subsequent co On visiting Shanghai some years ago, I found the composition of the foreign population of the French Concession to be as follows: French 436, German 148, American 44. English 314, Australian 3, Austrian 12, Belgian 12 Korean 1, Danish 19, Spanish 2, Eurasian 68, Indian 17, Greek 2, Dutch Italian 12, Japanese 103, Manilans 3, Norwegians 14, Parsee 8, Portuguese 15, Russian 7, Swedish 4, Swiss 7, Tonkinese 207. CHAP. IX Alliances Forced Union operation, when the invasion of Xerxes was impending." "So, too, was it with the Teutonic races. The German tribes originally without federal bonds, formed occasional alliances for opposing enemies. Between the first and fifth centuries these tribes massed themselves into great groups for resistance against, or attack upon, Rome." 5 Kropotkin has shown how apt were the medieval cities for forming alliances among themselves. When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa invaded Italy "enthusiasm was roused in many towns by popular preachers. Crema, Piacenza, Brescia, Tortona, etc., went to the rescue; the banners of the guilds of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, and Trevisa floated side by side in the cities' camp. "Next year the Lombardian League came into existence, and sixty years later we see it reinforced by many other cities and forming a lasting organization. . . . In Tuscany, Florence headed another powerful league, to which Lucca, Bologna, Pistoia, etc., belonged, and which played an important part in crushing down the nobles in Middle Italy, while smaller leagues were of common occurrence." "Similar leagues were formed in Germany for the same purpose. When . . . the land was the prey of interminable feuds between the nobles, the Westphalian towns concluded a league against the knights. When the knights and the nobles lived on plunder and murdered whom they chose to murder, . . . the cities on the Rhine (Mainz, Cologne, Speier, Strasburg, and Basel) took the initiative of a league which soon numbered sixty allied towns, repressed the robbers, and maintained peace." " Not often, however, do enduring societies come into being in this way. Union for emergency action is not at first sustained either by the sentiment of kinship or by any close political organization. Born of practical necessity, the league tends to fall apart into its original elements after this necessity disappears. Only lasting pressure causing alliance to persist thru several generations generates a real nation, and such lasting pressure is rarely supplied. Finally, there is the union of social groups brought about by force. The history of pre-Columbian America shows that groups consisting each of a single principal pueblo and several subordi 5" Principles of Sociology," Vol. II, p. 279. "Mutual Aid," 204-206. nate ones were most commonly formed by the simple process of CHAP. IX war, terminating in conquest, between neighboring pueblos. A frequent cause of war is occasional scarcity of food or of females. The relative military strength of neighboring pueblos 15 generally approximately known; and when such scarcity makes tself felt, the stronger tribe attacks the weaker one as a matter of course. In time the weaker pueblo buys itself free of attack by agreeing to furnish a fixed tribute of labor and agricultural produce and sometimes of women, on condition of freedom from molestation and assistance in case of attack by other tribes. Where the rival forces are nearly matched such terms may be deliberately imposed on the conquered as a means of permanent e.feeblement. Conquests of this kind tend to enlarge themselves; and in this way the districts occupied by the strongest tribes become the centers of a military domination more or less widely extended. History begins with the compound society consisting of several rs aggregated into a group in subjection to a dominant pueblo. Often this in turn is annexed with its dependencies by a rival; the repetition of this process results in large aggregations. The truggles and vicissitudes of the dominant pueblos make history.T The super-position of conquerors can occur in one of two ways. Suppose a regiment of white soldiers comes to dominate a Central African region. The colonel may keep his men together and rule the country from one point. Thus did the Dorians in Lacedemon, the Medes and Persians in Assyria, the Turks in the falkans. This policy is not very fruitful in social results. The her way is for the regiment to break up into companies and erapy and govern districts. Each captain rules within his disat but bonds of sympathy and tradition unite the dispersed companies. On anniversaries they join in some religious or patriotic festival. Such was the mode of establishment of the Hellenes in Greece, the Hebrews in Palestine, the Normans in Normandy, Great Britain, Sicily, Neustria and Russia. It is cy fecund because it rapidly transforms a simple tribe of emperors into a complex nation by the inclusion of the conquered populations." Payne, op. cit., Vol. II. p. 51. • See Costr. "L'experience des peuples," pp. 562-64. Conquest Starts a Process Two Ways of Holding Down a Conquered People CHAP. IX The superposing of one people upon another usually calls into being great landed estates. The conquerors plant themselves at quences of various strong points over the country in order to be able to nip Social Conse Conquest in the bud any uprising. They assign large bodies of land to their foremost men who thus become a territorial nobility. The lordship of these immense tracts is given not only as a reward for past military services, but on the condition that the holder keep his district in subjection and organize a local force for the defense of the realm. Forced More Social Sharp impassable lines of demarcation within society generally originate in conquest. Bagehot thinks that caste "could only begin in a country several times conquered and where the boundaries of each caste rudely coincide with the boundaries of certain sets of victors and vanquished." " Religious syncretism is another outgrowth of superposition. In ancient Babylonia, for example, the cities were in the first instance the places of residence of fellow tribesmen and were built around the temple of their divinity of fertility. The struggle between these cities for supremacy made now one city supreme over the others for a century or two and now another. Empire fell to Shirpurla, then Erech, then Agade, then Erech, Ur, Isin, Ur, and Larsa in succession, and finally to Babylon about 2300 B.C. One result was a hierarchy of gods. The city that led for a few centuries would gain for its god a high place in the minds of the subjugated people and the city that gained the supremacy first and held it for a long period, would win for its god the headship of the pantheon. The deities of the other cities would be grouped around him as sons, daughters, or subordinates. Among the ancient Mexicans the same process had brought about a pantheon.10 The reason why conquest is sociologically so much more significant than alliance is now apparent. Association for fighting does not intermingle the allied populations or oblige them to relinquish any of their dissimilar characteristics. Internally the allied groups are little modified. Subjugation, on the other hand, is likely to pour the peoples through one another, so that thenceforth separation is impossible. Moreover, it creates such new relations as master and slave, lord and villain, noble and com "Physics and Politics," p. 149. 10 See Barton, "A Sketch of Semitic Origins." |