78 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



same love of existence as other men. He will resort to every possible contrivance 

 to avoid the ills of life, but when they fall upon him he bears them with a heroism 

 that has become a proverb. 



As a result of habitual indolence, the Indians are remarkably improvident. 

 What a missionary writer says of a few nations, is applicable to many, and indeed 

 to most. " They live reckless of the past, little curious about the present, and 

 very seldom anxious about the future."^ When the cold pinches him he com- 

 mences building a hut; but should the weather soften and invite to repose, he 

 abandons his task until again stimulated by necessity. And so it is with his other 

 domestic concerns. He will often suffer with want before he engages in the 

 chase ; and a successful hunting expedition is followed by a protracted season of 

 indolence and gluttony. 



It is usual to charge the Indians with treachery : but in most instances it will 

 be found that they have only retorted the perfidiousness that has been heaped 

 upon them by others. The annals of Indian history are ample evidence of this 

 fact. A system of encroachment and oppression has been practised upon them 

 since the first landing of Europeans on the shores of America : their lands have 

 been seized upon the most frivolous pretences, and they have had no redress at the 

 hand of the white man : wars have been fomented among them to procure their 

 mutual destruction ; and when they have been weakened by the conflict, the 

 common enemy has stepped in and seized upon their possessions. They have 

 been taken in their villages, or inveigled on ship-board, to be sold into slavery ; 

 and in fact every art that cupidity could devise has been put in practice to deprive 

 them of liberty and life. Is it surprising that a people thus oppressed should 

 retaliate on their oppressors ? Or shall we stigmatise them as treacherous when 

 they have received so much treachery at our hands ? 



A strong feeling of gratitude is proverbially an Indian trait. General Harrison, 

 who has had ample occasion to see and know the Indians, observes that one of the 

 brightest parts of their character is their high regard for the obligations of friend- 

 ship. " A pledge of this kind once given by an Indian of any character, becomes 

 the ruhng passion of his soul, to which every other is made to yield." It is not, 

 however, to be denied that they are unfeeling by nature and cruel by education. 

 To spill the blood of an enemy, to torture him to death by slow degrees, is the 

 supreme pleasure of the American savage. He WTeaks his vengeance with equal 

 fury on all the kindred of his adversary. Old age, the helplessness of infancy or 



* DoBRizHOFFER, Abipoues, II, p. 55, 



