202 THE SPANIARDS AND WEST INDIAN ABORIGINES. 



almost everywhere upon the Atlantic seaboard, as well 

 as upon that of the Gulf of Mexico : and we believe 

 that there are ample grounds for asserting that the 

 first meeting of the whites with the Indians was of a 

 friendly character that is to say, that upon their first 

 landing the strangers were almost invariably received 

 by these children of Nature with hospitality and kind- 

 ness; the best of everything that they possessed, in 

 the way of food and articles of barter, being set before 

 them. But as usual when the savage and the civilized 

 man have met, it was not long before quarrels and 

 hostilities arose, caused, as it is said, by the aggressive 

 attitude assumed by the whites; and we feel bound 

 to say that the evidence goes to show that the Spaniards 

 were the greatest sinners in this respect ; and that more 

 than either the English or the French, their cruel and 

 tyrannical conduct first laid the seeds of that antipathy 

 of race which has never ceased to operate, with such 

 disastrous results, up to the present time. 



It is another melancholy feature in this case that 

 the original policy given out to the world as the 

 object of Spanish diplomacy, was the conversion of the 

 heathen to the Christian religion. How this pious intention 

 was carried out, let the history of the West Indies, 

 and other places, tell ! Here especially, it is admitted 

 by the Spanish historians themselves that the primitive 

 races who were found inhabiting Cuba, San Domingo, 

 and other islands, were a peculiarly mild and inoffen- 

 sive set of beings: yet in the course of a comparatively 

 few years, such were the extraordinary barbarities that 

 were practised upon them, that the whole of these 

 people, after being reduced to complete slavery, became 

 extinct. In Mexico and Central America however, the 



