From their position and military strength they exercised a marked influence upon the course of events between the English and the French in their competition for supremacy in North America. As the two were nearly equal in power and resources during the first century of colonization, the French may ascribe to the Iroquois, in no small degree, the overthrow of their plans of empire in the New World.
With a knowledge of the gens in its archaic form and of its capabilities as the unit of a social system, we shall be better able to understand the gentes of the Greeks and Romans yet to be considered. The same scheme of government composed of gentes, phratries and tribes in a gentile society will be found among them as they stood at the threshold of civilization, with the superadded experience of two entire ethnical periods. Descent among them was in the male line, property was inherited by the children of the owner instead of the agnatic kindred, and the family was now assuming the monogamian form. The growth of property, now becoming a commanding element, and the increase of numbers gathered in walled cities were slowly demonstrating the necessity for the second great plan of government--the political. The old gentile system was becoming incapable of meeting the requirements of society as it approached civilization. Glimpses of a state, founded upon territory and property, were breaking upon the Grecian and Roman minds before which gentes and tribes were to disappear. To enter upon the second plan of government, it was necessary to supersede the gentes by townships and city wards--the gentile by a territorial system. The going down of the gentes and the uprising of organized townships mark the dividing line, pretty nearly, between the barbarian and the civilized worlds--between ancient and modern society.
GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF THE GANOWÁNIAN FAMILY.
DIVISIONS OF AMERICAN ABORIGINES.--GENTES IN INDIAN TRIBES; WITH THEIR RULES OF DESCENT AND INHERITANCE.--I. HODENOSAUNIAN TRIBES.--II. DAKOTIAN.--III. GULF.--IV. PAWNEE.--V. ALGONKIN.--VI. ATHAPASCO-APACHE.--VII. TRIBES OF NORTHWEST COAST.--ESKIMOS, A DISTINCT FAMILY.--VIII. SALISH, SAHAPTIN, AND KOOTENAY TRIBES.--IX. SHOSHONEE.--X. VILLAGE INDIANS OF NEW MEXICO, MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA.--XI. SOUTH AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES.--PROBABLE UNIVERSALITY OF THE ORGANIZATION IN GENTES IN THE GANOWÁNIAN FAMILY.