صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

.

the Inhabitants of Europe; the nations of it are characterised in such a way as to be easily distinguished; the German, the Frenchman, the Dutchman, the Spaniard, although they have a general resemblance, are marked by traits wide enough to be known, as well in general appearance as in colour; nor can we readily say, why these nations have assumed peculiarities by which they are known among their fellows. But they have assumed those peculiarities. And if we pass over a few more leagues of the land or of the sea either to the north, the east, or the south, we come to nations whose complexions, whose form of countenance, whose figure, and whose manner of life, are very materially different from those of the European; yet, while they exhibit as many shades of difference as does the Iris on the cloud, they pass as gradually as do the colours of that beautiful bow from one to the other, which are known by differences so small, that we cannot perceive where one of these colours ends and another begins: so neither can we distinguish the termination of one set of characteristics of the human race and the beginning of another, so as to say, these are from one original stock and those from another.

The American tribes, of whom I am about to treat, have a general character peculiar to themselves, yet they differ in some striking particulars from one another. Their general resemblance has been observed by many persons who, independently of each other, have visited distant parts of that vast continent. There has been found a great likeness throughout, together with lines of difference, similar to those which are seen in the societies

that possess the lands of the old hemisphere: but there are none of those great dissimilarities amongst them which mark the natives of Europe, Asia and Africa. Although they are spread over a country which bears a near proportion to the Eastern Continent, and stretches as wide from North to South, into the frigid and over the torrid zone, still a great resemblance is discovered among them, they have all the appearance of being descended from one stock.

When this extensive country became first known to the Europeans, it bore evident marks of having been but recently the abode of men. The greater part of it was wild, overrun with woods, interspersed with bogs and marshes, whose pestilential vapours the industry of man had not attempted to remove; extensive savannahs, in which wild herds of cattle fed undisturbed; and rivers to which those of Europe are streamlets, yet over which no vessels had ever sailed larger than the light canoe, made of the bark taken off sound and whole from their majestic trees, or cut out with uncouth instruments from the solid timber. It is a circumstance deeply to be regretted, that the first visiters of the new continent, and the first settlers upon it, do not appear to have entertained the thought of enquiring into the origin of this new people. At that period, before they were defiled by the impurities and the impieties of European civilization, and driven from their pacific settlements by European rapacities and cruelty, before they were scattered like sheep by ravenous wolves, and, being so scattered, lost gradually the marks by which they were then distinguished; and before they fell a sac

rifice by hundreds and by thousands to the cruel bondage by which they were visited, to obtain for their unfeeling taskmasters that cursed gold which has enflamed the evil passions in all ages, but never before with that unfeeling rapacity that filled the Spaniard's breast with every unjust and impious thought--at that period much might have been discovered from the customs prevalent among them, and from the traditions which were fresh in their memories, and had not been disturbed by change of manners or by persecution, of their early history, and more certain means might have been obtained for tracing their origin. The Spaniards cared little for the history of these harmless people. They found them a set of beings different from the inhabitants of the old world, meek, peaceful, hospitable, benevolent, possessing few marks of what they regarded as civilization, and, compared with themselves in a state of ignorance and of barbarism. They found their interest in regarding and in describing them as an inferior race, and in the pride or the hypocrisy of their heart, they did not hesitate to declare, in the reports they sent home to their government, that they were of an inferior order of men, fitted only for beasts of burden. They forced them to toil in the rich streams that poured down from the mountains golden sand, they devoted them to labour in the mines which they soon discovered rising to the very surface of the mountains. Their only care was to blind the eyes of the rulers at home, to whom they were accountable for their conduct abroad; and so easily and so effectually did they complete this wicked purpose, that, by the misrepresentation of their wretched slaves, and

the powerful influence of the silver and gold which they remitted to their king, they concealed the real condition, character, and powers of the natives from the Spanish Court, and went on for a long time in the exercise of rapacity, cruelty, and murder, until by far the greater part of the population of those territories which they had invaded were exhausted by rigorous treatment, by severe tasks which their delicate frame could not endure, and by a generally licencious conduct unchecked by any principle of humanity-but-alas-all in the name of religion!! These evils fell chiefly on those Americans who lived a comparatively civilized life—who had a quiet and a happy home, and, with few wants and those easily supplied, had no occasion for the bodily labours which stiffen the muscles and strengthen the nerves, and form the robust and vigorous man, and on that account were totally unfit for the hard duties imposed upon them by their merciless invaders. Happy were the wild and wandering tribes among them in those days of terror, who could strike their tents and retire into the woods at the sound of an enemy's footsteps. The savage as he was called was happy, while the civilized Indian fell a prey to the avarice and the reckless cruelty of the Spaniard. Long was it after these Christians had landed in America before, great as was their zeal for the catholic faith, they offered the consolations of religion to these wretched sufferers: and when at length they did offer them, it was with a view to enveigle, to deceive, and to pilfer them with greater ease. Yet the remarks which were made incidentally by some of the first settlers furnish valuable hints to support the object

of the present work. Although they appear to have entertained no thought of these people being descended from an European or an Asiatic race, yet their observations tend in some instances to illustrate the subject which is now before us. Those remarks are the more valuable, because they came from observation, and without any thought of the use that would afterward be made of them; and because they were made at the early period when the Americans retained more of their original character. In an enquiry like the present, some notion of the origin of the people is of great importance, because the enquirer will then have his mind directed to those traits of character which support his position; whereas, without it he may pass many of them by unobserved, for the want of ceiving their bearing on the point in view: and this was no doubt the case with the first settlers in America. They did not see the points of resemblance which we are now seeking for, because they had no conception of their existence, and their minds and their whole attention were turned to very different objects.

per

The man

I may be lead astray in a contrary course. who thinks he is in possession of some new and valuable thought, and is desirous of establishing the proof of it, may exercise, the energies of his mind to make all that occurs bend to support his opinion; in this way facts may be misrepresented or distorted for the express purpose of supporting an hypothesis. It may happen that circumstances will be detailed in this volume which have this character; for I shall not withhold even slight symptoms of resemblance which bear upon the point in question:

« السابقةمتابعة »