chapter 28.

ALSO IN _W. H. Dall, Alaska and its Resources, part 2, chapter 2._

For some account of the aboriginal inhabitants,

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY and ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.

ALATOONA, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).

ALBA. Alban Mount.

"Cantons ... having their rendezvous in some stronghold, and including a certain number of clanships, form the primitive political unities with which Italian history begins. At what period, and to what extent, such cantons were formed in Latium, cannot be determined with precision; nor is it a matter of special historical interest. The isolated Alban range, that natural stronghold of Latium, which offered to settlers the most wholesome air, the freshest springs, and the most secure position, would doubtless be first occupied by the new comers. Here accordingly, along the narrow plateau above Palazzuola, between the Alban lake (Lago di Castello) and the Alban mount (Monte Cavo) extended the town of Alba, which was universally regarded as the primitive seat of the Latin stock, and the mother-city of Rome, as well as of all the other Old Latin communities. Here, too, on the slopes lay the very ancient Latin canton-centres of Lanuvium, Aricia, and Tusculum. ... All these cantons were in primitive times politically sovereign, and each of them was governed by its prince with the co-operation of the council of elders and the assembly of warriors. Nevertheless the feeling of fellowship based on community of descent and of language not only pervaded the whole of them, but manifested itself in an important religious and political institution--the perpetual league of the collective Latin cantons. The presidency belonged originally, according to the universal Italian as well as Hellenic usage, to that canton within whose bounds lay the meeting-place of the league; in this case it was the canton of Alba. ... The communities entitled to participate in the league were in the beginning thirty. ... The rendezvous of this union was, like the Pambœotia and the Panionia among the similar confederacies of the Greeks, the 'Latin festival' (feriæ Latinæ) at which, on the Mount of Alba, upon a day annually appointed by the chief magistrate for the purpose, an ox was offered in sacrifice by the assembled Latin stock to the 'Latin god' (Jupiter Latiaris)."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 3._

ALSO IN _Sir W. Gell, Topography of Rome, volume 1._

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ALBA DE TORMES, Battle of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).

ALBAIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

ALBAN, Kingdom of.

See ALBION; also, SCOTLAND: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES.

ALBANI, The.

See BRITAIN, TRIBES OF CELTIC.

ALBANIANS: Ancient.

See EPIRUS and ILLYRIANS.

ALBANIANS: Mediæval.

"From the settlement of the Servian Sclavonians within the bounds of the empire [during the reign of Heraclius, first half of the seventh century], we may ... venture to date the earliest encroachments of the Illyrian or Albanian race on the Hellenic population. The Albanians or Arnauts, who are now called by themselves Skiptars, are supposed to be remains of the great Thracian race which, under various names, and more particularly as Paionians, Epirots and Macedonians, take an important part in early Grecian history. No distinct trace of the period at which they began to be co-proprietors of Greece with the Hellenic race can be found in history. ... It seems very difficult to trace back the history of the Greek nation without suspecting that the germs of their modern condition, like those of their neighbours, are to be sought in the singular events which occurred in the reign of Heraclius."

_G. Finlay, Greece Under the Romans, chapter 4, section 6._

ALBANIANS: A. D. 1443-1467. Scanderbeg's War with the Turks.

"John Castriot, Lord of Emalthia (the modern district of Moghlene) [in Epirus or Albania] had submitted, like the other petty despots of those regions, to Amurath early in his reign, and had placed his four sons in the Sultan's hands as hostages for his fidelity. Three of them died young. The fourth, whose name was George, pleased the Sultan by his beauty, strength and intelligence. Amurath caused him to be brought up in the Mahometan creed; and, when he was only eighteen, conferred on him the government of one of the Sanjaks of the empire. The young Albanian proved his courage and skill in many exploits under Amurath's eye, and received from him the name of Iskanderbeg, the lord Alexander. When John Castriot died, Amurath took possession of his principalities and kept the son constantly employed in distant wars. Scanderbeg brooded over this injury; and when the Turkish armies were routed by Hunyades in the campaign of 1443, Scanderbeg determined to escape from their side and assume forcible possession of his patrimony. He suddenly entered the tent of the Sultan's chief secretary, and forced that functionary, with the poniard at his throat, to write and seal a formal order to the Turkish commander of the strong city of Croia, in Albania, to deliver that place and the adjacent territory to Scanderbeg, as the Sultan's viceroy. He then stabbed the secretary and hastened to Croia, where his strategem gained him instant admittance and submission. He now publicly abjured the Mahometan faith, and declared his intention of defending the creed of his forefathers, and restoring the independence of his native land. The Christian population flocked readily to his banner and the Turks were massacred without mercy. For nearly twenty-five years Scanderbeg contended against all the power of the Ottomans, though directed by the skill of Amurath and his successor Mahomet, the conqueror of Constantinople."

_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 4._

"Scanderbeg died a fugitive at Lissus on the Venetian territory [A. D. 1467]. His sepulchre was soon violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the janizaries, who wore his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious amulet their involuntary reverence for his valour. ... His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the Castriots were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 67. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

ALSO IN _A. Lamartine, History of Turkey, book 11, sections 11-25._

ALBANIANS: A. D. 1694-1696. Conquests by the Venetians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

ALBANIANS: End----------

ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1623. The first Settlement.

In 1614, the year after the first Dutch traders had established their operations on Manhattan Island, they built a trading house, which they called Fort Nassau, on Castle Island, in the Hudson River, a little below the site of the present city of Albany. Three years later this small fort was carried away by a flood and the island abandoned. In 1623 a more important fortification, named Fort Orange, was erected on the site afterwards covered by the business part of Albany. That year, "about eighteen families settled themselves at Fort Orange, under Adriaen Joris, who 'staid with them all winter,' after sending his ship home to Holland in charge of his son. As soon as the colonists had built themselves 'some huts of bark' around the fort, the Mahikanders or River Indians [Mohegans], the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, with the Mahawawa or Ottawawa Indians, 'came and made covenants of friendship ... and desired that they might come and have a constant free trade with them, which was concluded upon.'"

_J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of N. Y., volume 1, pages 55 and 151._

ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1630.- Embraced in the land-purchase of Patroon Van Rensselaer.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646.

ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1664. Occupied and named by the English.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1673. Again occupied by the Dutch.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

ALBANY, NEW YORK: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress and its plans of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

ALBANY, NEW YORK: End----------

ALBANY AND SCHENECTADY RAILROAD OPENING.

See STEAM LOCOMOTION ON LAND.

ALBANY REGENCY, The.

See NEW YORK; A. D. 1823.

ALBEMARLE, The Ram, and her destruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (APRIL-MAY: NORTH CAROLINA), and (OCTOBER: N. CAROLINA).

ALBERONI, Cardinal, The Spanish Ministry of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

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ALBERT, King of Sweden, A. D. 1365-1388. Albert, Elector of Brandenburg, A. D. 1470-1486. Albert I., Duke of Austria and King of Germany, A. D. 1298-1308. Albert II., Duke of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, A. D. 1437-1440; King of Germany, A. D. 1438-1440.

ALBERTA, The District of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORIES OF CANADA.

ALBERTINE LINE OF SAXONY.

See SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553.

ALBICI, The.

A Gallic tribe which occupied the hills above Massilia (Marseilles) and who are described as a savage people even in the time of Cæsar, when they helped the Massiliots to defend their city against him.

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 4._

ALBIGENSES, OR ALBIGEOIS, The.

"Nothing is more curious in Christian history than the vitality of the Manichean opinions. That wild, half poetic, half rationalistic theory of Christianity, ... appears almost suddenly in the 12th century, in living, almost irresistible power, first in its intermediate settlement in Bulgaria, and on the borders of the Greek Empire, then in Italy, in France, in Germany, in the remoter West, at the foot of the Pyrenees. ... The chief seat of these opinions was the south of France. Innocent III., on his accession, found not only these daring insurgents scattered in the cities of Italy, even, as it were, at his own gates (among his first acts was to subdue the Paterines of Viterbo), he found a whole province, a realm, in some respects the richest and noblest of his spiritual domain, absolutely dissevered from his Empire, in almost universal revolt from Latin Christianity. ... In no [other] European country had the clergy so entirely, or it should seem so deservedly, forfeited its authority. In none had the Church more absolutely ceased to perform its proper functions."

_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity,