3. Men, accustomed to so indolent a mode of life, and so scanty a dict, were totally incapable of supporting the labors of cultivating the ground, and working in the mines, which the colonists imposed upon them. Unable to sustain the grievous burdens with which their oppressors afflicted them, multitudes of those unhappy mortals were by death released from all their earthly sufferings. Hispaniola, Cuba, and other islands, were almost depopulated, before the court of Spain was sufficiently apprised of the matter to interest itself in the sufferings of the Americans. The tyranny of the unprincipled and avaricious colonists excited the abhorrence, and the miseries of the natives stimulated the compassion of several humane and benevolent Spaniards, both laymen and ecclesiastics, who had been witnesses of those scenes of horror. 4. Among those friends of mankind, the name of Father Bartholomew de las Casas will never be forgotten. This humane ecclesiastic, whose courage no danger could appal, and whose steady and resolute perseverance no difficulties could overcome, had been an indignant spectator of the tyranny exercised by the colonists on the unfortunate natives. He had loudly declaimed against their inhumanity and oppression. Passing from America to Spain, he endeavored, by every possible means, to excite the public voice, as well as the humanity and compassion of the court, in favor of his oppressed fellow creatures. This benevolent man left no stone unturned to excite the compassion of both Spain and Rome in behalf of those unfortunate sufferers, and to rouse the thunders of the church, as well as the indignation of the Spanish court, against those Christian tyrants and butchers of the human species. 5. The colonists, on their part, were not inactive. They represented the Americans as an inferior race of beings, born for slavery, incapable of comprehending the doctrines of Christianity. This degradation of the Americans from the rank of rational beings, was, however, universally exploded and condemned by the decision of Rome and Spain, where the public indignation was roused against the inhumanity of the colonial tyrants; Father de las Casas, and other friends of humanity, were indefatigable in their efforts; and it is a For what purpose were the African negroes first carried to Ame isa?-Why were not the natives employed in the mines? pleasing object of contemplation, to see Spanish ecclesiastics of the fifteenth century stand forth the avowed advocates and assertors of the rational and unalienable rights of mankind. The court of Spain interested itself warmly in the cause of the oppressed Americans, and resolved to take effective measures for putting an end to the disorders which prevailed in the colonies. 6. The colonists, on their part, finding their cause daily losing ground, and seeing reason to apprehend the anathemas of the church, as well as the effective resentment of the mother country, took a new ground, and discovered a post which they supposed, and which actually proved, in some degree, impregnable. They represented the necessity of having hands to cultivate the new settlements, and to work the mines, without which they must be abandoned, and all hopes of drawing any advantage from the discovery and conquest of those rich countries be for ever extinguished; and they represented the natives as an indolent race, whom no wages, no rewards, could induce to work, and whom nothing but absolute compulsion could oblige to apply to any kind of useful labor. Their 7. This representation, indeed, was not untrue. indolent and inactive life had rendered them equally unable and unwilling to apply to any kind of labor. Unaccustomed, as they had ever been, to the elegancies and luxuries of civilized life, and ignorant of their use, they could not suppose them worth the trouble of acquisition, and were astonished that the Europeans should either work themselves, or desire others to labor, for the possession of things not immediately necessary for the support of life; gold and silver were things of no value among them. They had never made use of those metals, except such pieces as they had accidentally found, and used merely as ornaments; and they could not conceive by what infatuation the Spaniards could be induced to ransack the bowels of the earth, and to establish a system of laborious employment for the acquisition of those metals, which appeared to them of so little use, and which they could do so well without. 8. It is very evident, that men of such ideas, and accustomed to so simple a state of life, could not be induced to labor for the sake of gain; for it is an invariable principle of human nature not to labor for the acquisition of any thing the possession of which is esteemed of no value. This plea, therefore, of the colonists, was unanswerable. The prospect of drawing immense wealth from the new world could not be abandoned. Hands were necessary to cultivate the soil and work the mines. The natives would not work for wages; nothing but compulsory means could induce them to employ themselves in labor. These circumstances precluded the possibility of emancipating the Americans. exertions of the friends of humanity were rendered abortive, in regard to the accomplishment of their grand object; but they were not, however, without a beneficial effect. The 9. The court of Spain seriously studied to ameliorate the condition of the Americans; and different plans were formed, and different measures adopted, for that purpose. Every new regulation, relative to colonial affairs, was favorable to the cause of those oppressed people. As it was not possible to draw any advantage from the mines, unless they were wrought, and the Americans would not work for hire, a circumstance which imposed the necessity of using coercive measures, it was at length determined, that they should be freed from the tyrannical oppression of their imperious taskmasters, and only obliged to work by corvees in rotation, and to receive fixed wages for the days they were obliged to work. This was, indeed, the most rational method of gradually overcoming their habitual indolence and rooted aversion to labor, and of making them industrious and useful members of society. 10. Notwithstanding the rational and humane measures adopted by the court of Spain, the advocates of American liberty were not fully satisfied; and Father de las Casas, whose character is strongly marked by that determined resolution which no opposition can disconcert, and that ardent zeal which can never abandon a favorite project, was firmly bent on trying every expedient in order to accomplish the complete emancipation of the natives of the new world; and in his zeal for so good a cause, unfortunately hit upon the desperate expedient of negro slavery, thus alleviating the miseries of America by hurling them upon Africa. 11. Father de las Casas, Cardinal Ximenes, and other Who was the first that suggested the idea of thus employing the negroes? projectors of the slave trade, who were undoubtedly humane and benevolent men, imagined, that by importing from Africa a number of slaves, taken prisoners in the wars, which frequently took place among the savage nations of that continent, or such as were malefactors, convicted of crimes against society, they might make useful laborers of many on whom the punishment of death or slavery would otherwise be inflicted in Africa, in consequence of martial law or judicial sentence. They might also, with no small probability of conjecture, imagine that slaves, procured from a distant country, and purchased at a great expense, would be better treated and taken care of by their interested masters, than the unfortunate natives, whose lives appeared of no value in the eyes of the colonists. 12. It was also considered, that the negroes had not that rooted aversion to labor, which so strongly characterized the natives of the new continent, and that their robust constitutions, and the strongly compacted frame of their bodies, rendered them capable of undergoing those labors and fatigues which threatened the extirpation of the whole race of the natives of America. To all these considerations, there might, perhaps, be added, the expectation that the introduction of a number of robust slaves into the colonies, would in time be productive of a race of active and industrious laborers; and that in two or three generations, the Americans becoming accustomed to a civilized life, and acquainted with its conveniencies, would gradually lose their aversion to employment, which has, indeed, been in some degree the case, and that the necessity of slavery would in time be superseded by the increase of voluntary laborers. 13. These considerations might, and many of them undoubtedly did, present themselves to the minds of the first projectors of the African slave trade, and sufficiently evince the rectitude of their intentions. The consequences, it is true, have been in many respects shocking to humanity; but these they did not, and indeed, could not foresee. Man is liable to error; and some men are so circumstanced, that the slightest mistake in their conduct cannot fail of producing the most fatal consequences, either to themselves or to others; a condition too hard for a finite capacity; yet, if we What were Las Casas' motives for employing the negroes? carefully peruse the history of mankind, or extend our observations abroad in the world, we may easily perceive, that many persons are placed in such a situation, among whom the first projectors of the slave trade may, with great propri ety, be numbered. 14. It is computed by M. l'Abbé Raynal, that between eight and ten millions of negroes have been imported into the American colonies, and that one million and a half do not now remain. If this calculation be just, or nearly so, it exhibits a destruction of the human species, of which the history of mankind affords few examples, and which must proceed from a series of sufferings shocking to humanity. It cannot be attributed to the change of climate; for the countries from whence the negroes are brought, are situated within the torrid zone, and in the same climate as most of the American settlements into which they are imported; and, excepting Batavia, scarcely any countries can be found on the surface of the globe where the air is more sultry and insalubrious than in Negroland and Guinea. This singular and shocking destruction of the unhappy Africans, may therefore, without doubt, be chiefly attributed to their violent separation from their country and their connexions, and that depression of spirits inseparable from a state of slavery, THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. 1. FORC'D from home and all its pleasures, To increase a stranger's treasures, 2. Still in thought as free as ever, What are England's rights I ask, How many negroes, has it been computed, bave been imported into America? And how many of them still live? |