42 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



cannot long protract their lives under the 

 severe discipline that awaits them.* In the 

 Spanish provinces, where the Indians do not lead 

 so laborious a life, and are prevented from de- 

 stroying their children, great numbers of them 

 are deformed, dwarfish, mutilated, blind and 



deaf.f 



Polygamy seems to have been generally allowed 

 among the Americans, but the privilege was sel- 

 dom used, except by the Caciques and chiefs, 

 and now and then by others in some of the fertile 

 provinces of the South, where subsistence was 

 more easily procured. The difficulty of support- 

 ing a family confined the mass of the people to 

 one wife; J and this difficulty was so generally 

 known and acknowledged, that fathers, before 

 they consented to give their daughters in mar- 

 riage, required unequivocal proofs in the suitor of 

 his skill in hunting, and his consequent ability to 

 support a wife and children. § The women, it is 

 said, do not marry early; || and this seems to be 

 confirmed by the libertinage among them before 

 marriage, so frequently taken notice of by the 

 missionaries and other writers.^" 



* Charlevoix, torn. iii. p. 303. Raynal, Hist, des Indes, torn, 

 viii. 1. xv. p. 22. 



t Robertson, b. iv. p. 73. Voyage d'Ulloa, torn. i. p. 232. 



+ Robertson, b. iv. p. 102. Lettres Edif. torn. viii. p. 87. 



§ Lettres Edif. torn. ix. p. 364. Robertson, b. iv. p. 115. 



|[ Robertson, b. iv. p. 107. 



1f Lettres Edif. passim. Voyage d'Ulloa, torn. i. p. 343. 

 Burke's America, vol. i. p. 187. Charlevoix, torn. iii. p. 303, 

 304. 



