BOOK been accuftomed are wanting, confiden

IV.

from the in

capacity of

fervers,

nounce a people to be barbarous and m Hence the mutual contempt with wh members of communities, unequal in t grees of improvement, regard each othe lifhed nations, conscious of the advantage they derive from their knowledge and a apt to view rude nations with peculiar and, in the pride of fuperiority, will allow either their occupations, their feel their pleasures, to be worthy of men. feldom been the lot of communities, early and unpolished state, to fall under fervation of perfons endowed with force fuperior to vulgar prejudices, and cap contemplating man, under whatever af appears, with a candid and discerning eye.

THE Spaniards, who firft vifited A the firft ob- and who had opportunity of beholding rious tribes while entire and unfubdue 'before any change had been made in thei or manners by intercourfe with a race o much advanced beyond them in improv were far from poffeffing the qualities re for obferving the striking fpectacle prefer their view. Neither the age in which they nor the nation to which they belonged made fuch progress in true science, as i

en

HISTORY OF AMERICA.

enlarged and liberal fentiments. The conquerors of the New World were mostly illiterate adventurers, deftitute of all the ideas which fhould have directed them in contemplating objects fo extremely different from those with which they were acquainted. Surrounded continually with danger, or ftruggling with hardfhips, they had little leisure, and lefs capacity, for any speculative inquiry. Eager to take poffeffion of a country of fuch extent and opulence, and happy in finding it occupied by inhabitants fo incapable to defend it, they haftily pronounced them to be a wretched order of men, formed merely for fervitude; and were more employed in computing the profits of their labour, than in inquiring into the operations of their minds, or the reasons of their cuftoms and inftitutions. The perfons who penetrated at fubsequent periods into the interior provinces, to which the knowledge and devastations of the firft conquerors did not reach, were generally of a fimilar character; brave and enterprifing in an high degree, but fo uninformed as to be little qualified either for obferving or defcribing what they beheld.

of the

55

BOOK

IV.

Not only the incapacity, but the prejudices and their A prejudices; of the Spaniards, render their accounts people of America extremely defective.

E 4

Soon

after

HISTORY OF AMERICA.

BOOK after they planted colonies in their ne quefts, a difference in opinion arose with to the treatment of the natives. One folicitous to render their fervitude pe reprefented them as a brutifh, obftina incapable either of acquiring religious ledge, or of being trained to the func focial life. The other, full of pious for their converfion, contended that, rude and ignorant, they were gentle tionate, docile, and by proper inftructic regulations might be formed gradually int Chriftians and ufeful citizens. This verfy, as I have already related, was car with all the warmth which is natural attention to intereft on the one hand, a gious zeal on the other, animate the dif Moft of the laity efpoufed the former o all the ecclefiaftics were advocates for the and we fhall uniformly find that, acco as an author belonged to either of these he is apt to magnify the virtues or ag the defects of the Americans far beyond Thofe repugnant accounts increase the d of attaining a perfect knowledge of th racter, and render it neceffary to peruse defcriptions of them by Spanish write diftruft, and to receive their informatio fome grains of allowance.

A

ALMOST two centuries elapfed after the difcovery of America, before the manners of its inhabitants attracted, in any confiderable degree, the attention of philofophers. At length, they discovered that the contemplation of the condition and character of the Americans in their original state, tended to complete our knowledge of the human fpecies, might enable us to fill up a confiderable chafm in the hiftory of its progress, and lead to fpeculations no less curious than important. They entered upon this new field of study with great ardour; but, instead of throwing light upon the fubject, they have contributed, in fome degree, to involve it in additional obfcurity. Too impatient to inquire, they haftened to decide; and began to erect fystems, when they should have been fearching for facts on which to eftablish their foundations. Struck with the appearance of degeneracy in the human species throughout the New World, and astonished at beholding a vast continent occupied by a naked, feeble, and ignorant race of men, fome authors of great name have maintained, that this part of the globe had but lately emerged from the fea, and become fit for the refidence of man; that every thing in it bore marks of a recent original; and that its inhabitants, lately called into existence, and still at

BOOK

IV.

and from

the fyftems

phers.

of philofo

the

HISTORY OF AMERICA.

BOOK the beginning of their career, were IV. to be compared with the people of a

cient and improved continent'. Oth imagined, that, under the influence of kindly climate, which checks and ener principle of life, man never attained in the perfection which belongs to his na remained an animal of an inferior or fective in the vigour of his bodily fra destitute of fenfibility, as well as of forc operations of his mind ". In oppofition thefe, other philofophers have fuppofed arrives at his highest dignity and excelle before he reaches a state of refinement; the rude fimplicity of favage life, dif elevation of fentiment, an independence and a warmth of attachment, for whi vain to fearch among the members of focieties. They feem to confider tha most perfect state of man which is the vilized. They defcribe the manners of t Americans with fuch rapture, as if they p them for models to the reft of the Thefe contradictory theories have be pofed with equal confidence, and unc