My Dear Reader - 

	If this document has entered your hands, be sure it is kept safe. 
Its contents may be relatively mild to you, but its revelations would be
explosive to the Kine.  We could count the Masquerade destroyed and our
four-hundred-odd year experiment an immediate failure. 

	That said, I will also add that the conclusions of this overview
may not be popular.  In short, those conclusions are that the course of
American history has not been affected to any significant degree by those
of the blood, Camarilla, Sabbat, Inconnu or otherwise affiliated. 
Furthermore, it any "supernatural" influence has been applied to the
course of this nation's development, it is completely indetectable and
unlikely to be distinguishable from the ordinary flow of events. 

PART ONE: Precolonial Times

	As many are well aware, the influence of Native American life on
early settlers was marked indeed, but on the supernatural level, influence
in the time preceding European colonization of North America, it was
low-key.  Many people believe that the Sabbat had, as it does today,
control over Central and South America.  This is readily disproven by
simple logistics.  The so-called Mayan and Aztec "empires" were no more
controlled by a single powerful government than the 500-odd Native
American nations of North America were.  As far as we are concerned today,
the question of whether or not a Sabbat vampire controlled one South
American "city" or another is quite moot. 
	A more important question is the role of the church in the
colonization and "pacification" of Central America.  Traditionally,
analysis of Kindred influence over religion has focussed on four elements: 
the Sabbat, the Toreador, the Brujah and, peripherally, the Inquisition. 
But this is to isolate the church from the rest of the world, a poor
strategy, and nowhere is this error more evident than in Central American
history. 
	The Sabbat had little interest in colonial affairs except in that
they swelled Ventrue and Brujah coffers in Spain.  This was seen as a
temporary problem, best handled by hands-on influence across the sea.  The
first vampires in the New World were therefore Sabbat, and their job was
to make things as difficult as possible for the conquistadores: assisting
them would have been tantamount to stabbing the rest of the sect in Europe
in the back.  (We will see how the split between South American and
European Sabbat would be instrumental in the history of that sect.)
However, the Toreador in Europe saw the increasing power of the Ventrue
and Brujah as a threat to their control of France, which entered the
colonial game late, and with the long-term gains of North America rather
than the direct bring-the-gold-home strategy of South America.  So the
Toreador set about to expand the agenda of colonialism to include a
religious element, in order to dilute and slow the gains of South American
expansionism.  Missions began to spring up across Central America.  With
the news of vast untraversed regions of paganism, a resurgence of militant
faith resulted, with many atrocities against native populations. Was this
calculated on the part of the Toreador, to force the colonials to waste
their efforts in slaughtering Native Americans instead of filling the
pockets of their patrons back home?  It seems unlikely, since the act also
cemented Sabbat control in South America, as well as giving them a
foothold in the churches there, a hold which they maintain to this day,
albeit in slightly altered form.  It it more likely that it was only a
delaying tactic designed to allow the less-easily-exploited natural
resources of North American colonization a chance to catch up, as it were,
to the fruits of South America.
	The infusion of True Faith also had another effect - to reduce the
power of several Lupine species native to the continent.  As converts
began to be made in the missions, their influence, and ability to strike
fear into their communities, waned.  There are several accounts that are
unmistakably characteristic of Lupine hunts across the West at this time,
which extended well into the period known to most as colonial.  See the
section on the "Decline of the Lupine." 
	It should be noted though, that this affected mostly Lupine
populations in the West, and in Central and South America.  From Northern
California to Manhattan Island, their power over their neighbors was both
absolute and vacuous.  There was no single Lupine agenda, nor was there
any detectable overarching Lupine conflict that would make a policy
identifiable.  There were also many legends that can partly be identified
as those of the Fae Folk, although there are inherent difficulties to
describing their place in history.  See the section on "American Myths and
the Fae Folk". 

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Deke:
	Can you believe this stuff?  We found it on a fang job in NYC. 
There's a bunch more like it.  What should I do? 
					Jim

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Jim:

	Forward all parts to JEH building, Box 1138.  Some people want to
see it.  Good work, this may be the biggest thing you've done at SAD. 
						Deke

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Deke:
	Who should I mark it "care of"?  Who is going to see it?
					Jim

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Jim:
	These people don't have names.  Send it now.
				Deke

P.S.  Trust no one.

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