CHAPTER 26

Lewis Henry Morgan, Evolution, Origins & the Indians

Morgan's view into the origin and evolution of man, came about through his studies of ancient societies, which helped him to cultivate theoretical ideas that would be used in addressing many social and political issues facing America in the 1800s. Morgan would be credited for advancing and introducing a form of Social Darwinism to the America culture, as he came up with the stages of human evolution. His insights into the origin of man, family and civilizations, have changed societal views and altered how society has valued the American Indian, ancient American artifacts, mound building cultures, private property ownership, natural law and marriage and family structures.

Morgan’s 1871 book Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, was published as Volume XVII of the Smithsonian’s “Contributions to Knowledge” series. His most widely published book and most notable work Ancient Society was published privately in 1877 (by Holt and Company). These books have had a major impact on the whole of society as their ideas have been embraced by many of the most influential men and women of the American scientific community.

American and science history books point out that there were many who were influenced by Morgan’s ideas and writings, but few explore the idea of who influenced Morgan. Is it possible that political, social and religious issues in western New York served to influence Morgan’s views, research and ethnological beliefs?

The many claims being made about the artifacts coming out of the mounds of western New York aroused considerable interest from Morgan and many others. In his works he expressed concerns about the claims of old-world origins of the ancient mound-building cultures. The claim of a lost race of Mound Builders and of pre-Columbian diffusion of mid-eastern cultures would set off a whole round of debates. Morgan took a personal interest in the work of Squier and Davis, for resulting from their reports and the thousands of artifacts that they had uncovered, were many assertions and a spirit of great speculations.

Morgan would have opposing views about the origins of the Mound Builders and with some of the interpretations of what the artifacts were saying about them. One such interpretation, with which he disagreed, was Squier’s assertion that the Mound Builders were an extinct race.

Not all of Squier’s contemporaries concurred with his views on the origin of the earthworks of western New York. Most notably, Lewis Henry Morgan disagreed with his general attribution of “Trench Enclosures” to the Iroquois. “There is no fact in Indian history more certain than that they are not.” Morgan wrote Squier in March of 1849, attributing the remainder of the aboriginal remains in New York to the earlier period of the Mound Builders. Those works marked the presence of “a race whose name we know not; neither know we the era of their departure.”²⁰⁸

“Squier had no quarrel with the importance that Morgan placed on historical traditions, for no one had a keener interest in collecting them than he. He was more cautious than Morgan, however, when calling them to explain archaeological problems.”²⁰⁹

Following Squier and Davis’s publication of their 1848 report, Squier quickly became aware of the diversity of opinions on the subject of the origin of the Mound Builders and would even begin to realize the larger implications of such a determination. As previously mentioned, following the publication of their first report covering the monuments and mounds of the Mississippi River Valley, Squier was engaged by interested parties working with the Smithsonian to take another look at the enclosures, earthworks and mounds of Western New York.

Morgan had made surveys of several works with the intention of submitting a brief report on the subject to the Board of Regents of the State University of New York at Albany. Only ten days after he prepared the drawings, he met with E. G. Squier in Rochester, New York, where Squier suggested that he place Morgan’s drawings in his completed work. “The appearance of Morgan’s map in Squier’s forthcoming Smithsonian monograph received advance notice but never materialized. Because of Squier’s diplomatic appointment to Central America in 1849 and his departure for Nicaragua, he and Morgan could never complete the arrangements for the map to be engraved.”²¹⁰

Squier initially assumed that the earthworks in New York were the northeastern terminuses of a larger defensive network extending diagonally through northern and central Ohio to the Wabash River in Indiana. Squier and Davis classified the works falling within that range as defensive structures. They attributed the enclosures and mounds of New York to the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley and drew attention to their close resemblance in position and form to those of Northern Ohio.²¹¹

Following Morgan’s meeting with Squier and the Board of Regents of the State of New York on November 13, 1848, Squier would receive a diplomatic appointment to Central America. As Squier became an ambassador for American expansionism, his views on the Mound Builders, as reflected in his reports, began to change.

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²⁰⁸ Barnhart,114.

²⁰⁹ Ibid., 115.

²¹⁰ Ibid. 104.

²¹¹ See: Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments, 1848, Introduction page