374 REVIEWS — NOTES ON CENTRAL AMERICA. ' 



such arts of peace as could be practised promoted the aggrandisement 

 of individuals only by the impoverishment and decay of the State. 

 No more remarkable problem has ever been worked out in history 

 than that which is now seen in the contrast between the descendants 

 of the indomitable Anglo-Saxon puritans of New England and the 

 Spanish colonists of Central and South America. That we arc not 

 ascribing more weight to the influence of prejudices arising from the 

 peculiar social condition of the United States than is justly due in 

 tracing to such, many of the opinions advanced by the Charge d' Af- 

 faires, will, we imagine, be placed beyond doubt by the further deduc- 

 tions drawn from the previous views concerning " inferior races," 

 " amalgamation of difl'erent stocks unrestrained by natural instinct," 

 &c. After brief comment on the supposed aptitude of the Sandwich 

 Islanders for civilization and self-government, which our author traces 

 solely to the work of foreigners and white men, he thus proceeds to 

 bring the question home to his own countrymen : 



"To the Indians upon our southwestern border these remarks are scarcely less ap- 

 plicable. Under no circumstances have the North American Indians exhibited an 

 appreciation of the value, or a disposition to abide by the reciprocal obligations 

 involved in a government of the people. Their ideas of government, like those of 

 the Arabs, and the nomadic hordes of Central Asia, are only consonant with the 

 system called patriarchal : ideas which, at this day and in this country, are not only 

 ■wholly inapplicable, but antagonistic to those upon which our system is founded. 

 The only instance in which they have made a sensible progress in the right direc- 

 tion is that of the Cherokees, under the guidance of chiefs in whose veins flows a 

 predominance of European blood. And while it may be admitted that the Indians 

 of the old Floridian stock are in all respects superior to the islanders of the Pacific, 

 yet neither in industry, docility, or traditional deference to authority are they 

 equal to the Indian families of Mexico and Central America, where the attempt to 

 put the latter on a political and social footing with the white man has entailed 

 eternal anarchy, and threatens a complete dissolution of the political body. 



Iu Guatemala, as in Yucatan, it has brought about a bloody and cruel war of 

 castes, and in the former state has resulted in placing a treacherous and unscrupu- 

 lous half-breed at the head of affairs, who rales over a desolated country with irres- 

 ponsible sway. Not less disastrous has been the result in Mexico, while in Jamaica 

 savage nature is fast resuming her dominion over deserted plantations, and the 

 woods begin to swarm with half-naked negroes, living upon the indigenous fruits 

 of the soil, and already scarcely one degree removed from their original barbarism 

 in Africa. 



To the understanding of intelligent and reflecting men, who are superior to the 

 partisan and seciional issues of the hour, these considerations can not fail to 

 appeal with controlling force; for if the United States, as compared with the Span- 

 ish American republics, has achieved an immeasurable advance in all the elements 

 of greatness, that result is eminently due to the rigid and inexorable refusal of the 

 dominant Teutonic stock to debase its blood, impair its intellect, lower its moral 

 standard, or peril its institutions by intermixture with the inferior and subordinate 



