CiiAP. VIII. COMMENTS ON SPANISH RULE. 133 



from extinction. By aclojrting a system of tutelage, as 

 regarded the Indians, the Spanish Government endeavoured 

 to defend them, in legal matters, from the superior intelli- 

 gence of a more civilized race ; and IMr. Helps points out 

 that it is hardly possible to cany legislation further, in favour 

 of any people, than by considering them as minors in the 

 eye of the law, in order to protect them from being imposed 

 upon in their dealings with their conquerors.^ The opposite 

 plan, which has been adopted in some of the English colonies, 

 of jnaking native tribes equal to Europeans in the eye of 

 the law, is a mere mockery, and cannot by any possibility 

 exist in reality.^ 



It may then be readily allowed that the intentions of the 

 Spanish Government towards the Indians were humane and 

 just ; that their legislation was invariably marked by tendei-- 

 ness and concern for the subject race ; and that their policy, 

 had it been carried into effect, was far more wise and 

 generous than that by which modem nations have generally 

 been influenced in deaKng with the aborigines of their 

 colonies. But I think I have clearly shown that, throTigh 

 the unworthiness of their subordinates, this policy was only 

 very partially enforced ; that the cruelty and oppression of 

 the colonial officials at length became insufferable ; and that 

 no cause could be more just than that in which Tupac Amaru, 

 the last of the Incas, at length drew his sword. 



Spanish Conquest in America, iv. p. 3G8. 

 Colcmies and Colonization, p. 522. 



