228 AMERICA, 



be supposed to enjoy much gaiety of temper, or high flow of spirits, 

 The Indians, therefore, are, in general, grave even to sadness ; they 

 have nothing of that giddy vivacity peculiar to some nations in Eu- 

 rope, and they despise it. Their behaviour to those about them is 

 regular, modest, and respectful. Ignorant of the arts of amusement, 

 of which that of saying trifles agreeably is one of the most considera- 

 ble, they never speak but when they have something important to 

 observe ; and all their actions, words, and even looks, are attended 

 with some meaning. This is extremely natural to men who are 

 almost continually engaged in pursuits which to them are of the 

 highest importance. Their subsistence depends entirely on what 

 they procure with their hands; and their lives, their honour, and 

 every thing dear to them, may be lost by the smallest inattention to 

 the designs of their enemies. As they have no particular object to 

 attach them to one place rather than another, they fly wherever they 

 expect to find the necessaries of life in greatest abundance. Cities, 

 which are the effects of agriculture and arts, they have none. The 

 different tribes or nations are, for the same reason, extremely small, 

 when compared with civilized societies, in which industry, arts, agri- 

 culture, and commerce, have united a vast number of individuals, 

 whom a complicated luxury renders useful to one another. These 

 small tribes live at an immense distance ; they are separated by a 

 desert frontier, and concealed in the bosom of impenetrable and 

 almost boundless forests. 



There is established in each society a certain species of government, 

 which over the whole continent of America prevails with very little 

 variation ; because over the whole of this continent the manners and 

 wjyof life are nearly similar and uniform. Without arts, riches, or 

 luxury, the great instruments of subjection in polished societies, an 

 American has no method by which he can render himself considera- 

 ble among his companions, but by a superiority in personal qualities 

 of body or mind. But as nature has not been very lavish in her per- 

 sonal distinctions, where all enjoy the same education, all are nearly 

 equal, and will desire to remain so. Liberty, therefore, is the pre- 

 vailing passion of the Americans, and their government, under the 

 influence of this sentiment, is better secured than by the wisest poli- 

 tical regulations. They are very far, however, from despising all 

 sorts of authority ; they are attentive to the voice of wisdom, which 

 experience has confered on the aged ; and they enlist under the ban- 

 ners of the chief, in whose valour and military address they have 

 learned to repose their confidence. In every society, therefore, there 

 is to be considered the power of the chief and of the elders : and 

 according as the government inclines more to the one or the other, 

 it may be regarded as monarchical, or as a species of aristocracy. 

 Among those tribes which are most engaged in war, the power of 

 the chief is naturally predominant, because the idea of having a mili- 

 tary leader was the first source of his superiority, and, the continual 

 exigencies of the state requiring such a leader, will continue to sup- 

 port and even enhance it. His power, however, is rather persuasive 

 than coercive ; he is reverenced as a father, rather than feared as a 

 monarch. He has no guards, no prisons, no officers of justice ; and 

 one act of ill-judged violence would deprive him of the throne. The 

 elders, in the other form of government, which may be considered as 

 an aristocracy, have no more power. In some tribes, indeed, there 



