132 



AMALGAMATION WITH NATIVES. Chap. VIII. 



them oif by a system of reserves and isolation. No Enropean 

 labourinof class was introdnced into South America ; the 

 Indians still continued to be the cultivators, the shepherds, and 

 the artizans ; and the Spaniards were merely the dominant 

 race. This state of things is more allied to the conditions 

 which now exist in British India or Dutch Java, and there 

 is thus no analogy between the South American settlements 

 and any British colony in tlie proper acceptation of the 

 word. 



Yet to Spain the credit is due, in spite of numerous short- 

 comings, and notwithstanding the oppression of her subordi- 

 nates, of having endeavoured to establish the wisest, the most 

 humane, and the only successful system of treating natives 

 of an inferior race. It is certain that such a race must either 

 continue to form the mass of the popolution, amalgamate 

 with their conquerors, or be anniliilated. The two former 

 of these thi-ee alternatives were adopted in Peru, partly from 

 natural causes, but partly also owing to the incessant exer- 

 tions of the earlier Spanish viceroys, and of the " Defenders 

 of the Indians ;" and this result was achieved in spite of the 

 oppression and cruelty of their subordinates. The Indians 

 have continued to form the labouring class of Peru ; amal- 

 gamation has taken place, to a very large extent, with 

 Europeans ; and the native race has thus been preserved 

 from extinction.'^ In the English colonies, on the other 

 hand, owing to the influx of settlers of the labouring class, 

 the aborigines have either been exterminated, or, thi-ough a 

 system of isolation, are rapidly and inevitably advancing on 

 the melancholy road to final annihilation. 



But it was the intention of the Spanish system to do 

 more for the aboriginal race than merely to preserve it 



f* " Native races must in every in- 

 stance either perish, or be amalgamated 

 with the general population of then- 



counti-y." — Merivale's Colonies and Co- 

 lonization, p. 510. 



