Father du Tertre says expressly, that, if most negroes are flat-nosed, it is because the parents crush the noses of their children; that they also compress their lips, to render them thick; and that those who escape these operations their features are as comely as those ofthe Europeans. This remark, however, applies only to the negroes of Senegal, who, of all others, are the most beautiful. Among all other negroes, thick lips, broad and flat noses, appear formed as gifts by nature; and which are by them considered so much as beauties that every art is used upon the children who, at their birth, discover a deficiency in those ornaments.
The Negro women are very fruitful; in child-birth they experience little difficulty, and require not the smallest assistance; nor of its effects do they feel any consequence beyond the second day. As nurses and mothers they deserve great encomiums, being exceedingly tender of their children. They are more ingenious and alert than the men, and they even study to acquire the virtues of discretion and temperance. Father Jaric says, that to habituate themselves to eat and speak little, the Jaloff negro women put water into their mouths in the morning, and keep it there till the hour allotted for the first meal arrives.
The negroes of the island of Goree, and of the Cape de Verd coast, are, like those of Senegal, well made, and very black. So highly do they prize their colour, which is also glossy,that they despise those who are not the same as much as white men despise the tawny. They are strong and robust, but indolent and slothful, and cultivate neither corn, wine, nor fruit. Rarely do they eat meat; fish and millet are their chief sustenance. They eat no herbs, and because Europeans do, they compare them to horses. Of spirituous liquors they are fond to an excess, and for which they will sell their relations, children, and even themselves. They go almost naked, wearing only a small piece of calico, which descends from the waist to the middle of the thigh, and which, they say, is all that the heat of their climate will allow them to wear. Notwithstanding their poverty, and wretchedness of food, they are contented and cheerful. They also think their country is the finest in the world, and that, because they are the blackest, they are the most beautiful of men; and were it not that their women discover a fondness for white men they would deem them unworthy of their notice.
Though the negroes of Sierra Leona are less black than those of Senegal, they are not, however, as Struys asserts, of a reddish colour. The custom prevalent among them, as well as among the negroes of Guinea, of paintingtheir bodies with red, and other colours, possibly misled that author. Among the latter the women are more debauched than at Senegal; prodigious numbers of them are common prostitutes, from which they incur not the smallest disgrace. Both sexes go with their heads uncovered, and their hair, which is very short, they shave or cut in various forms. In their ears they wear pendants, which weigh three or four ounces, made of teeth, horns, shells, wood, &c. Some have the upper lip, or nostrils, pierced, for the same purpose. They wear a kind of apron made of apes’ skins and the bark of trees. They eat fish and flesh, but yams and bananas are their chief food. They have no passions but for women, and no inclinations but to remain idle and inactive. They live in wretched huts, frequently situated on dreary wilds, though in the neighbourhood of fertile and delightful spots. The roads from one place to another are commonly twice as long as they need be; they never attempt to curtail them, and even when told how in half the time they may reach any particular spot, they persist in mechanically following the beaten path. They never measure time, nor have the smallest idea of its value.
Though the negroes of Guinea are generally healthy, they seldom attain old age. A negro, at the age of 50, is a very old man. This contracted period of existence may, with great probability, be imputed to the premature intercourse between the sexes. The boys, in their tenderest years, are permitted to pursue every debauchery; and as for the girls, nothing in the whole country is so rare as to find one who remembers the period at which she ceased to be a virgin.
The inhabitants of the island of St. Thomas, of Annobona, &c. are negroes, similar to those of the neighbouring continent. Dispersed, however, by the Europeans, they are few in number, and those subjected to the bondage of their invaders. Both sexes, the covering of a kind of short apron excepted, go naked. Mandelslo says, that the Europeans, who settle on the island of St. Thomas, which is but one degree and a half from the equator, retain their white colour till the third generation; and he seems to insinuate that they afterwards become black: but that this change should be so suddenly effected seems by no means probable.
The negroes of the coasts of Juda and Arada are less black than those of Senegal,Guinea, and Congo. So fond are they of the flesh of dogs that they prefer it to all other viands; and, at their feasts, a roasted dog is always the first dish presented. This predilection for dog’s-flesh is not peculiar to the Negroes, but common among the Tartars and savages of North America. The former, in some places, castrate their dogs, in order to make them fat, and more palatable.
According to Pigafetta, and Drake, who seems to have literally copied him, the negroes of Congo are black, though in a less degree than those of Senegal. Of the generality the hair is black and frizly, though of some it is red. They are of a middle stature; their eyes are either brown or of a sea-green colour; their lips are not so thick as those of the other negroes, and their features are not unlike those of the Europeans.
In some of the provinces of Congo the customs are truly singular. When, for example a person dies at Loango, they place the body upon a kind of amphitheatre, about six feet high, in a sitting posture, with the hands resting upon the knees; they deck it out in the most ornamental dress, and then light up fires before and behind it: as the clothes absorb themoisture they cover it with fresh ones, until the corpse is thoroughly dried, when, with much funeral ceremony they commit it to the earth. In the province of Malimba the husband is ennobled by the wife; and when the sovereign dies, and only leaves a single daughter, to her, provided she is marriageable, devolves the royal authority. The first thing she does is to travel over the whole of her kingdom.
On this occasion all her male subjects are obliged, previous to her arrival at each town and village, to form themselves into a line for her reception, and she selects one to pass the night with her. When returned from her journey she sends for the man who best pleased her and instantly marries him; after which the whole regal authority devolves to the husband. These facts M. de la Brosse communicated to me in his written remarks on what he saw most worthy of notice, during his voyage to the coast of Angola, in 1738; and of the vindictiveness of these negroes he adds the following anecdote:—“Every day (says he) did they demand brandy of us for the king and chief men of the place. Happening one day to refuse it them we had soon reason to repent; for several officers, both French and English,having gone a fishing up a small lake, they erected a tent for the purpose of enjoying the fruits of their pastime. While thus employed they were joined by seven or eight negroes, the chiefs of Loango, who, in the customary mode of salutation, presented to them their hands. These they had previously rubbed with a subtle poison, whose effect is instantaneous, when unhappily the persons to whom it is communicated takes any thing without first washing their hands; and so successful were they in their purpose, that no less than eight persons perished upon the spot.â€
As a cure for a pain of the head, or for any bodily pain whatever, these negroes make a slight wound upon the part affected, and through a small horn, with a narrow hole, they suck out the blood till they obtain relief.
The negroes of Senegal, Gambia, Cape de Verd, Angola, and Congo, are of a more beautiful black than those of Juda, Issigni, Arada, and of the circumjacent places. They are exceedingly black when in health, but when sick they become of a copper-colour.
“In our islands (says Father du Tertre in his history of the Antilles) the negroes of Angola are preferred to those of Cape de Verd,for bodily strength; but when heated, their stench is so strong, that the air whithersoever they pass is infected with it for above a quarter of an hour. The negroes of Cape de Verd smell not so strong, their skin likewise is more black and beautiful, their body is of a better shape, their features less harsh, they are much tidier, and in disposition more mild.“
The negroes of Guinea are well qualified for the office of tillage, and other laborious employments; those of Senegal are less vigorous, yet are good domestic servants, and very ingenious. Father Charlevoix says, that of all negroes the Senegal ones are the most shapely, most tractable, and as domestic the most useful; that the Bambaras are the tallest, but they are all idle and knavish; that the Aradas best understand the culture of the earth; that the Congos are the smallest, but most expert swimmers; that the Nagos are the most humane, the Mondongos the most cruel; the Mimes the most resolute, the most capricious, and the most subject to despair; that the Creole-negroes, from whatever nation they derive their origin, inherit nothing from their parents but the spirit of servitude and colour; they are more ingenious, rational, and adroit, but moreidle and debauched than those of Africa. He adds, that the understanding of the negroes is exceedingly contracted; that numbers of them seem to be even entirely stupid, and can never be made to count more than three; that they have no memory, and are as ignorant of what is past, as of what is to come; that the most sprightly ridicule the others with a tolerable grace; that they are full of dissimulation, and would sooner perish than divulge a secret; that they are commonly mild, humane, tractable, simple, credulous, and even superstitious; that they possess fidelity and courage, and might with proper discipline make a tolerable figure in the field.
If the negroes are deficient in genius, they are by no means so in their feelings; they are cheerful or melancholy, laborious or inactive, friendly or hostile, according to the manner in which they are treated. If properly fed, and well treated, they are contented, joyous, obliging, and on their very countenance we may read the satisfaction of their soul. If hardly dealt with their spirits forsake them, they droop with sorrow, and will die of melancholy. They are alike impressed with injuries and favours. To the authors of the one they are implacableenemies; while to those who use them well they imbibe an affection which makes them defy all danger and hazard to express their zeal and attachment. To their children, friends, and countrymen, they are naturally compassionate; the little they have they chearfully distribute among those who are in necessity, though otherwise than from that necessity they have not the smallest knowledge of them. That they have excellent hearts is evident, and in having those they have the seeds of every virtue. Their sufferings demand a tear. Are they not sufficiently wretched in being reduced to a state of slavery; in being obliged always to work without reaping the smallest fruits of their labour, without being abused, buffeted, and treated like brutes? Humanity revolts at those oppressions, which nothing but the thirst of gold could ever have introduced, and which would still, perhaps, produce an aggravated repetition, did not the law prescribe limits to the brutality of the master, and to the misery of his slave. Negroes are compelled to labour; and yet of the coarsest food they are sparingly supplied. Their unfeeling masters say, they can support hunger well; that what would serve an European forone meal is to them a sufficient subsistence for three days; however little they eat or sleep, they are alike hardy, alike capable of fatigue. How can men, in whom the smallest sentiment of humanity remains, adopt such maxims, and on such shallow foundations attempt to justify excesses to which nothing could ever have given birth but the most sordid avarice? But let us turn from the gloomy picture, and return to our subject.
Of the people who inhabit the coasts, or the interior parts of Africa, from Cape Negro to Cape de Voltes, an extent of about 400 leagues, we know little more than that they are not so black as the other negroes, and that they much resemble their neighbours the Hottentots: the latter are a people well known, and few travellers have omitted speaking of them. They are not Negroes, but Caffres; and their skin would be only of a tawny hue did they not render it black with paint and grease.
M. Kolbe, though he has given so minute a description of the Hottentots, considers them, however, as Negroes. He assures us their hair is short, black, frizled, and woolly, and that not in a single instance did he ever perceive it long. But from this alone we arenot authorised to consider them as real negroes. M. Kolbe himself says their colour is olive, and never black, though they take the utmost pains to render it so; nor, in the next place, can there be much certainty derived from the appearance of their hair, as they never either comb or wash it, but rub it daily with grease and soot in large quantities, which gives it the resemblance of a fleece of black sheep loaded with dirt; besides, they are in disposition different from the negroes. The latter are cleanly, sedentary, and easily subjected to slavery; the former, on the other hand, are frightfully filthy, unsettled, independent, and highly jealous of their liberty. These contrarieties are more than sufficient to confirm us in the opinion that the Hottentots are of a race distinct from that of the Negroes.
Gama, who first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, on his arrival in the bay of St. Helena, on the 4th of November, 1479, found the inhabitants black, short in stature, and ugly in aspect. He does not say, however, that they were naturally as black as the negroes, and doubtless they only appeared to him so black as he describes, from the grease and soot with which they are covered. The same travellerremarks, that in the articulation of their voice there was something similar to a sigh. Their habits were made of skins, and their weapons consisted of sticks hardened with the fire, and pointed with the horn of some animal. To the arts in use among the Negroes, the Hottentots, it is plain, are utter strangers.
The Dutch travellers say, that the Savages northward of the Cape are smaller than the Europeans; that their colour is a reddish brown; that they are very ugly, and take great pains to render themselves black; and their hair is like that of a man who has long hung in chains. They add, that the Hottentots are of the colour of the Mulattoes; that their visage is unshapely; that they are meagre, of a moderate height, and very nimble; and that their language resembles the clucking of turkey-cocks. Father Tachard says, that though they have commonly hair as cottony as the Negroes, there are numbers who have it long, and which floats upon their shoulders. He even asserts, that some of them are as white as Europeans, but that they begrime their skin with a mixture of grease and the powder of a certain black stone, and that the women are naturally fair, but they blacken themselves toplease their husbands. Ovington says, that the Hottentots are more tawny than the other Indians; that no people bear so strong a resemblance to the Negroes in colour and features, but that they are less black, their hair is not so frizly, nor their nose so flat.
From all these testimonies it is evident that the Hottentots are not real negroes, but a people of the black race, approaching to the whites, as the Moors of the white race do to the black. These Hottentots, moreover, form a species of very extraordinary savages. The women, who are much smaller than the men, have a kind of excrescence, or hard skin, which grows over the os pubis, and descends to the middle of the thighs in the form of an apron. Thevenot says the same thing of the Egyptian women, but instead of allowing this skin to grow, they burn it off with hot irons. I doubt whether the remark is true with respect to the Egyptian women; but certain it is that all the female natives of the Cape are subject to this monstrous deformity, and which they expose to such persons as have the curiosity to see it. The men, though not by nature, are all demi-eunuchs, being, from an absurd custom, deprived of one of their testicles at about theage of eighteen years. M. Kolbe saw this operation performed upon a young Hottentot; and the circumstances with which the ceremony is accompanied are so singular as to merit a recital.
After having rubbed the young man with the fat of the entrails of sheep, which had been killed on purpose, they stretched him upon his back, and tied his hands and his feet, while three or four of his friends held him. Then the priest (for it is a religious ceremony) made an incision with a very sharp knife, look out the left testicle[D], and in its place deposited a ball of fat of the same size, which had been prepared with certain medicinal herbs. After sewing up the wound with the tendon of a sheep they untied the patient; but the priest before he left him rubbed his whole body with the hot fat of the sheep, or rather poured it on so plentifully, that when the fat cooled, it formed a kind of crust. This rubbing was so violent, that the young man, whose previous sufferings had been sufficiently great, was now covered with large drops of sweat, and began to smoke like a roasted capon. On this crustof grease the operator then made furrows with his nails, from one extremity to the other, and after making water in them, he renewed his frictions, and filled up the furrows with more grease. The instant the ceremony is concluded they leave the patient, in general more dead than alive, yet he is obliged to crawl in the best manner he can to a little hut, built for him on purpose, near the spot where the operation is performed. There he perishes or recovers without assistance or nourishment but the fat upon his skin, which he may lick if he pleases. At the expiration of two days he generally recovers. He is then allowed to appear abroad; and as a proof that his recovery is complete he must run and shew himself as nimble as a stag.
[D]Tavernier, in speaking of this strange custom, says that it is the right testicle which they cut off.
[D]Tavernier, in speaking of this strange custom, says that it is the right testicle which they cut off.
Though all the Hottentots have broad flat noses, yet they would not be so did not their mothers, considering a prominent nose as a deformity, flatten them immediately after their birth. Their lips are also thick, their teeth white, their eye-brows bushy, their heads large, their bodies meagre, and their limbs are slender. They seldom live longer than 40 years; and this short duration of life is doubtless caused by their being continually covered with filth, andliving chiefly upon meat that is corrupted. As most travellers have already given very large accounts of these filthy people, I shall only add one fact, as related by Tavernier. The Dutch, he says, once took away a Hottentot girl, soon after her birth, and bringing her up among themselves, she became as white as any European. From this fact he presumes, that all the Hottentots would be tolerably fair, were it not for their custom of perpetually begriming themselves.
Along the coast of Africa beyond the Cape of Good Hope, we find the land of Natal, and a people very different from the Hottentots, being better made, less ugly, and naturally more black. Their visage is oval, their nose well proportioned, their teeth white, their aspect agreeable, and their hair by nature frizly. They are also fond of grease, and wear caps made of the fat of oxen. These caps are from eight to ten inches high, and they take much time to make them; for the fat must be well refined, which they apply by little and little, and so thoroughly intermix it with the hair that it never falls off. Kolbe says, that from their birth and without any precaution to render it so, their noses are flat; they also differ from theHottentots in not stuttering, nor striking the palate with the tongue; that they have houses, cultivate the ground, and produce from it a kind of maize, or Turkish corn, of which they make beer, a drink unknown to the Hottentots.
After the land of Natal, we find the territories of Sofala and Monomotapa. The people of the former, according to Pigafetta, are black, but more tall and lusty than the other Caffres. It is in the environs of the kingdom of Sofala that this author places the Amazons; but nothing is more uncertain than what has been propagated with respect to these female warriors.
The natives of Monomotapa, the Dutch travellers inform us, are tall, well proportioned, black, and of good complexions. The young girls go naked, except a bit of calico about their middle; but so soon as they are married they put on garments. This people, notwithstanding their blackness, are different from the negroes, their features are neither so harsh nor so ugly; their bodies have no bad smell; and they are incapable of servitude or hard labour. Father Charlevoix says, that some blacks from Monomotapa, and from Madagascar, have been seenin America; but that they could not be inured to labour, and that they soon died.
The natives of Madagascar and Mosambique are black, more or less. Those of Madagascar have the hair on the crown of their head less frizly than those of Mosambique. Neither of them are real negroes; and though those of the coast are enslaved by the Portuguese, yet those of the internal part of the continent are savage and jealous of their liberty. They all go absolutely naked; they feed on the flesh of elephants, and traffic with the ivory.
In Madagascar there are blacks and whites who, though very tawny, yet seem a distinct race of men. The hair of the first is black and frizly; that of the latter is less black, less frizly, and longer. The common opinion is, that these white men derive their origin from the Chinese. But, as Francis Cauche justly remarks, there is a greater probability that they are of European race; as in all he saw, there was not one who had either the flat face or flat nose, of the Chinese. He likewise says, that these white men are fairer than the Castillans; that their hair is very long; that the black men are not flat-nosed like those of the continent; and that their lips are thin. There are also in this islanda number of persons of an olive or tawny colour, evidently produced by the intermixture of the blacks and whites. The same traveller observes, that the natives round the bay of St. Augustine are tawny; that they have no beard; that their hair is long and straight; that they are tall and well proportioned; and that they are all circumcised, though probably they never heard of the law of Mahomet, as they have neither temples, mosques, nor religion.
The French, who were the first who landed and settled upon the above island, found the white men we speak of; and they remarked, that the blacks paid great respect to them. Madagascar is exceedingly populous, and rich in pasturage and in cattle. Both sexes are highly debauched; nor is it a dishonour to a woman to be a prostitute. They are fond of singing, dancing, and pastimes in general. Though naturally very lazy, they have some knowledge of the mechanic arts. They have husbandmen, carpenters, potters, blacksmiths, and even goldsmiths; yet their houses are without accommodation, and they sleep upon mats; they eat flesh almost raw, and devour even the hides of their oxen after burning off the hair; they also eat the wax with the honey. The commonpeople go almost naked; but the richer classes wear drawers, or short petticoats, of cotton and silk.
Those who inhabit the interior parts of Africa are not sufficiently known to be justly described. Those whom the Arabians callZingues, are an almost savage race of black men. Marmol says, they multiply prodigiously, and would overrun all the neighbouring countries, were it not for certain hot winds, which from time to time occasion a great mortality among them.
It appears, then, from these facts, that the Negroes are blacks of a different species from the Caffres. From the descriptions we have given, it is also evident that the colour depends principally upon the climate, and that the peculiarity of the features depends greatly on the customs prevalent among different nations, such as flattening the nose, drawing back the eye-lids, plucking the hair out of the eye-brows, lengthening the ears, thickening the lips, flattening the visage, &c. No stronger proof can be adduced of the influence of climate upon colour, than finding under the same latitude, and at the distance of 1000 leagues, two nations so similar as those of Senegal and Nubia;and also that the Hottentots, who must have derived their origin from a black race, are whiter than any other Africans, because the climate in which they live is the coldest. Should there being a tawny race on one side the Senegal, and perfect blacks on the other, be stated as an objection, it is only necessary to recollect what has been already intimated concerning the effects of food, which must operate upon the colour, as well as upon the temperament of the body in general. An example may easily be had in the brute creation. The flesh of the hares, for instance, which live on plains and marshy places, is much more white than those which, though in the same neighbourhood, live on mountains and dry grounds. The colour of the flesh proceeds from that of the blood, and other humours of the body, of which the quality is necessarily influenced by the nature of the nourishment.
In all ages has the origin of black men formed a grand object of enquiry. The ancients, who hardly knew any but those of Nubia, considered them as forming the last shade of the tawny colour; and confounded them with the Ethiopians, and other African nations, who,though extremely brown, have more affinity to the white than to the black race. They concluded, that the differences of colour in men arose solely from the difference of climate, and that blackness was occasioned by a perpetual exposure to the violent heat of the sun. To this opinion, which seems probable, great objections arose, when it was known, that, in more southern climates, and even under the equator itself, as at Melinda, and at Mosambique, the generality of the inhabitants were not black but only very tawny; and when it was observed that black men, if transported into more temperate regions, lost nothing of their colour, but communicated it to their decendants. If we reflect on the migrations of different nations, and on the time which is necessary to render a change in the colour, we shall find no inconsistency in the opinion of the ancients. The real natives of that part of Africa are Nubians, who were originally black, and will perpetually remain so, while they inhabit the same climate, and do not mix with the whites. The Ethiopians, the Abyssinians, and even the natives of Melinda, derive their origin from the whites, yet as their religion and customs are the same with those of theArabians, they resemble them in colour, though indeed more tawny than those of the southern parts. This even proves, that, in the same race of men, the greater or less degree of black depends on the heat of the climate. Many ages might perhaps elapse, before a white race would become altogether black; but there is a probability that, in time, a white people, transported from the north to the equator, would experience that change, especially if they were to change their manners, and to feed solely on the productions of the warm climate.
Of little weight is the objection which may be made to this opinion, from the difference of the features, for in the features of a negro, which have not been disfigured in his infancy, and the features of an European, there is less difference than between those of a Tartar and a Chinese, or of a Circassian and a Greek. As for the hair, its nature depends so greatly on that of the skin, that any differences which it produces ought to be considered as accidental, since we find in the same country, and in the same town, men whose hair is entirely different from one another. In France, for instance, we meet with men whose hair is as short and frizly as that of a negro; besides, so powerful is theinfluence of climate upon the colour of the hair, both of men and of animals, that, in the kingdoms of the north, black hair is seldom seen; and hares, squirrels, weasels, and many other animals, which, in countries less cold, are brown or grey, are there white, or nearly so. The difference produced by cold and heat, is so conspicuous, that in Sweden hares, and certain other animals, are grey during the summer, and white in winter.
But there is another circumstance more powerful, and, from the first view of it, indeed insuperable; namely, that in the New World there is not one true black to be seen, the natives being red, tawny, or copper-coloured. If blackness was the effect of heat the natives of the Antilles, Mexico, Santa-Fé, Guiana, the country of the Amazons, and Peru, would necessarily be so, since those countries of America are situated in the same latitude with Senegal, Guinea, and Angola, in Africa. In Brazil, Paraguay, and Chili, did the colour of men depend upon the climate, or the distance from the pole, we might expect to find men similar to the Caffres and Hottentots. But before we enter into a discussion of this subject, it is necessary that we should examine the differentnatives of America, as we shall then be more enabled to form just comparisons, and to draw general conclusions.
In the most northern parts of America we find a species of Laplanders similar to those of Europe, or to the Samoiedes of Asia, and though they are few in number yet they are diffused over a very considerable extent of country. Those who inhabit the lands of Davis’s Straits are small, of an olive complexion, and their limbs short and thick. They are skilful fishers, and eat their fish and meat raw; their drink is pure water, or the blood of the dog-fish; they are very strong, and live to a great age. Here we see the figure, colour, and manners of the Laplanders; and, what is truly singular, as in the neighbourhood of the Laplanders of Europe, we meet with the Finlanders, who are white, comely, tall, and well made; so, adjacent to the Laplanders of America, we meet with a species of men tall, well made, white, and with features exceedingly regular.
Of a different race seem the savages of Hudson’s Bay, and northward of the land of Labrador; although small, ugly, and unshapely, their visage is almost covered with hair, likethe savages of Jesso, northward of Japan: in summer they dwell in tents made of skins of the rein-deer; in winter they live under ground, like the Laplanders and the Samoiedes, and sleep together promiscuously without the smallest ceremony. They live to a great age, though they feed on nothing but raw meat and fish. The savages of Newfoundland resemble those of Davis’s Straits, they are low in stature, have little or no beard, broad and flat faces; large eyes and flat nosed; they are also far from being unlike the savages in the environs of Greenland.
Besides these savages, who are scattered over the most northern parts of America, we find a more numerous and different race in Canada, and who occupy the vast extent of territory as far as the Assiniboils. These are all tall, robust, and well-made; have black hair and eyes, teeth very white, a tawny complexion, little beard, and hardly a vestige of hair on their bodies; they are hardy, indefatigable travellers, and very nimble runners. They are alike unaffected by excesses of hunger, or of eating; they are bold, hardy, grave, and sedate. So strongly, indeed, do they resemble the Oriental Tartars in colour, form, and features, as also in disposition,and manners, that, were they not separated by an immense sea, we should conclude them to have descended from that nation. In point of latitude, their situation is also the same; and this further proves the influence of the climate, not only on the colour, but the figure of men. In a word, in the new continent as in the old, we find, at first, in the northern parts, men similar to the Laplanders, and likewise whites with fair hair, like the inhabitants of the north of Europe; then hairy men like the savages of Jesso; and lastly, the savages of Canada, and of the whole continent to the gulph of Mexico, who resemble the Tartars in so many respects, that we should not entertain a doubt of their being the same people, were we not embarrassed about the possibility of their migration thither. Yet, if we reflect on the small number of men found upon this extent of ground, and on their being entirely uncivilized, we shall be inclined to believe these savage nations were new colonies produced by a few individuals from some other country. It is asserted that North America does not contain the twentieth part of the natives it did when originally discovered; allowing that to be the fact, we still are authorisedto consider it then, from the scantiness of its inhabitants, as a land either deserted, or so recently peopled, that its inhabitants had not had time for a considerable multiplication. M. Fabry, who travelled a prodigious way to the north-west of the Mississippi, and visited places where no European had been, and where consequently the savage inhabitants could not have been destroyed by them, says that he often travelled 200 leagues without observing a single human face, or the smallest vestige of a habitation; that whenever he did meet with any habitations, they were always at immense distances from each other, and then never above 20 persons together. Along the lakes, and the rivers, it is true, the savages are more populous, some sufficiently so as to molest occasionally the inhabitants of our colonies. The most considerable of these, nevertheless, do not exceed 3 or 4000 persons, and are dispersed over a space of ground frequently more extensive than the kingdom of France. I am fully persuaded there are more men in the city of Paris, than there are savages in north America, from the gulph of Mexico to the furthest extremity north, an extent of ground larger than all Europe.
The multiplication of the human species depends more on society than nature. Men would not have been comparatively so numerous as wild beasts, had they not associated together, and given aid and succour to each other. In North America, theBison[E]is perhaps more frequently to be seen than a man. But though society may be one great cause of population, yet it is the increased number of men that necessarily produces unity. It is to be presumed therefore that the want of civilization in America was owing to the small number of the inhabitants, for though each nation might have manners and customs peculiar to itself; though some might be more fierce, cruel, courageous, or dastardly than others; they were yet all equally stupid, ignorant, unacquainted with the arts, and destitute of industry.
[E]A kind of wild bull, different from the European bull.
[E]A kind of wild bull, different from the European bull.
To dwell longer on the customs of savage nations would be unnecessary. Authors have often given for the established manners of a community, what were nothing more than actions peculiar to a few individuals, and often determined by circumstances, or caprice. Somenations tell us, they eat their enemies, others burn, and some mutilate them; one nation is perpetually at war, and another loves to live in peace; in one country, the child kills his parent, when arrived at a certain age, and in another the parents eat their children. All these stories, on which travellers have so much enlarged, mean nothing more than that one individual savage had devoured his enemy, another had burned or mutilated him, and a third had killed and eaten his child. All these things may happen in every savage nation; for a people among whom there is no regular government, no law, no habitual society, ought rather to be termed a tumultous assemblage of barbarous and independent individuals, who obey nothing but their own private passions, and who have no common interest, are incapable of pursuing one object, and submitting to settled usages which supposes general designs, founded on reason, and approved of by the majority.
A nation, it may be replied, is composed of men who are no strangers to each other, who speak the same language, who unite, when necessity calls, under the same chief, who arm themselves in the same fashion, and daub themselvesof the same colour. With truth might the remark be made, if these usages were established; if savages did not often assemble they know not how, and disperse they know not why; if their chief did not cease to be so, whenever it suited their caprice, or his own; and if their language was not so simple as to be, with little variation, the language of every tribe.
As they have but few ideas, their expressions turn upon things the most general, and objects the most common; and, though the majority of their expressions were different, yet the smallness of their number renders them easily understood; and more easily, therefore, may a savage learn the languages of all other savages, than the inhabitants of one polished nation acquire a bare comprehension of the language of any other nation equally civilized.
Unnecessary as it may be to enlarge on the customs and manners of these pretended nations, yet it may be important to examine the nature of the individual. Of all animals a savage man is the most singular, the least known, and the most difficult to describe; and so little are we qualified to distinguish the gifts of nature from what is acquired by education, art and imitation, that it would not be surprising tofind we had totally mistaken the picture of a savage, although it were presented to us in its real colours, and with its natural features.
An absolute savage, such as a boy reared among bears, as mentioned by Conor, the young man found in the forest of Hanover, or the girl in the woods in France, would be a curious object to a philosopher; in observing which he might be able to ascertain the force of natural appetites; he would see the mind undisguised, and distinguish all its movements; and, possibly, he might discover in it more mildness, serenity, and peace, than in his own; he might also perceive, that virtue belongs more to the savage than to the civilized man, and that vice owes its birth to society.
But let us return to our subject. If in North America there were none but savages, in Mexico and Peru we found a polished people, subjected to laws, governed by kings, industrious, acquainted with the arts, and not destitute of religion. They lived in towns where the civil government was superintended by the sovereign. These people, who were very populous, cannot be considered as new colonies sprung from individuals who had wandered from Europe or Asia, from which theyare so remote; besides, though the Savages of North America resemble the Tartars, by their being situated in the same latitude, yet the natives of Mexico and Peru, though they live, like the Negroes, under the torrid zone, have not the smallest resemblance to them. Whence then, shall we trace the origin of these people? and whence proceeds the cause of the difference of colour in the human species, since the influence of climate is, in this case, entirely overthrown?
Previous to answering these questions let us pursue our inquiries respecting the Savages of South America. Those of Florida, of the Mississippi, and of the other southern parts of this continent, are more tawny than those of Canada, though not positively brown, the oil and colours with which they rub their bodies, giving them an olive hue which does not naturally belong to them. Coreal says, that the women of Florida are tall, strong, and of an olive complexion, like the men; that they paint their arms, legs, and bodies, with several colours, which as they are imprinted into the flesh by little incisions, are indelible; and that the olive colour of both sexes proceeds not so much from the heat of the climate as from theoils with which they varnish their skin. He adds, that the women are remarkably active; that they swim over great rivers with a child in their arms, and that they climb up the loftiest trees with equal agility. In all of these particulars they entirely resemble the savage women of Canada, and other countries of America.
Speaking of the Apalachites, a people in the vicinage of Florida, the author of the “Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Antilles,†says, that they are of a large stature, of an olive colour, and well proportioned; and that their hair is black and long. He adds, that the Caribbees, who inhabit the Antilles, are sprung from the savages of Florida, and that they even know, by tradition, the period of their migration.
The natives of the Lucai islands are less tawny than those of St. Domingo and Cuba; but there remain so few of either that we can hardly verify what the first travellers mention of the inhabitants. It has been pretended that they were very numerous, and governed by chiefs whom they callcaciques; that they had priests and physicians; but this is all very problematical, and is of little consequence to our history. The Caribbees, in general, accordingto Father du Tertre, are tall, and of a good aspect: they are potent, robust, active, and healthy. Numbers of them have flat foreheads and noses, but these features are entirely the work of the parents, soon after their birth. In all savage nations this caprice of altering the natural figure of the head is very frequent. Most of the Caribbees have little black eyes, beautiful white teeth, and long smooth black hair. Their skin is tawny, or olive, and even the whites of their eyes are rather of that hue. This is their natural colour, and not produced by the use of the rocon, as some authors have asserted, for several of the children of these savages, who were educated among the Europeans, and not allowed the use of paint, retained the same complexion as their parents. The whole of this savage tribe, though their thoughts are seldom employed, have a pensive air. They are naturally mild and compassionate, though exceedingly cruel to their enemies. They esteem it indifferent whom they marry, whether relations or strangers. Their first cousins belong to them by right, and many have been known to have at one time two sisters, or a mother and her daughter, and even their own child. Those who have many wivesvisit them in turn, and stay a month, or a certain numbers of days, which precludes all jealousy among the women. They readily forgive their wives for adultery, but are implacable enemies to the man who debauches them. They feed on lizards, serpents, crabs, turtles and fishes, which they season with pimento, and the flower of manioc. Lazy to an excess, and accustomed to the greatest independence, they detest slavery, and can never be rendered so useful as the Negroes. For the preservation of their liberty they make every exertion; and when they find it impossible, will rather die of hunger or despair than live and be obliged to work. Attempts have been made to employ the Arrouaguas, who are milder than the Caribbees, but who are only fit for hunting and fishing; exercises of which, being accustomed to them in their own country, they are particularly fond. If these savages are not used with at least as much mildness as domestics generally are in the civilized nations of Europe, they either run away or pine themselves to death. Nearly the same is it with the slaves of Brazil; of all Savages these seem to be the least stupid, indolent, or melancholy. Treated with gentleness, however, they willdo whatever they are desired, unless it be to cultivate the ground, for tillage they conceive to be the characteristic badge of slavery.
Savage women are all smaller than the men. Those of the Caribbees are fat, and tolerably handsome; their eyes and hair are black, their visage round, their mouth small, their teeth white, and their carriage more gay, cheerful, and open, than that of the men. Yet are they modest and reserved. They daub themselves with rocon, but do not, like the men, make black streaks upon the face and body. Their dress consists of a kind of apron, in breadth about eight or ten inches, and in length about five or six. This apron is generally made of calico, and covered with small glass beads, both which commodities they purchase from the Europeans. They likewise wear necklaces, which descend over the breast, as also bracelets round the wrists and elbows, and pendants in their ears, of blue stone, or of glass beads. Another ornament peculiar to the sex is, a kind of buskin, made of calico, and garnished with glass beads, which extends from the ancle to the calf of the leg. On their attaining the age of puberty the girls receive an apron and a pair of buskins, which are madeexactly to their legs and cannot be removed; and as they prevent the increase of the under part of the leg, the upper parts naturally grow larger than they would otherwise have done.
So intermixed are the present inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, that we rarely meet with two faces of the same colour. In the town of Mexico, there are Europeans, Indians from north and south America, negroes from Africa, and mulattoes of every kind, insomuch that the people exhibit every kind of shade between black and white. The natives of the country are brown, or olive, well made and active. Though they have little hair, even on their eye-brows, yet that upon their head is very long, and very black.
According to Wafer, the natives of the Isthmus of America are commonly tall and handsome; their limbs are well shaped, chest large, and at the chace they are active and nimble. The women are short, squat, and less vivacious than the men; though the young ones are tolerably comely, and have lively eyes. Of both the face is round; the nose thick and short; the eyes large, mostly grey, and full of fire; the forehead high; the teeth white and regular; the lips thin; the mouth of a moderatesize; and, in general, all their features are tolerably regular. They have black, long, and straight hair; and the men would have beards did they not pluck them out: their colour is tawny and their eye-brows are as black as jet.
These people are not the only natives of this Isthmus, for we find among them men who are white; but their colour is not the white of Europeans, but rather resembles that of milk, or the hairs of a white horse. Their skin is covered with a kind of short and whitish down, which on the cheeks and forehead is not so thick but the skin may be seen. The hair upon their head and eye-brows is perfectly white; the former is rather frizled, and from seven to eight inches long. They are not so tall as the other Indians; and, what is singular, their eye-lids are of an oblong figure, or rather in the form of a cresent, whose points turn downwards. So weak are their eyes, that they cannot support the light of the sun, and they see best by that of the moon. Their complexion is exceedingly delicate. To all laborious exercises they are averse; they sleep through the day, and never stir abroad till night. If the moon shines, they scamper through the forests as nimbly as the others can in the day. These men do notfrom a particular and distinct race, as it sometimes happens, that from parents who are both of a copper-colour one of these children is produced. Wafer, who relates these facts, says, that he saw a child, not a year old, who had been thus produced.
If this were the case, the strange colour, and temperament of these white Indians, can only be a kind of malady, which they inherit from their parents. But if, instead of being sprung from the yellow Indians, they formed a separate race, then would they resemble the Chacrelas of Java, and the Bedas of Ceylon, whom we have already mentioned. If, on the other hand, these white people are actually born of copper-coloured parents, we shall have reason to believe, that the Chacrelas and the Bedas originate also from parents of the same colour; and that all the white men, whom we find at such distances from each other, are individuals who have degenerated from their race by some accidental cause.
This last opinion, I own, appears to me the most probable; and had travellers given us as exact descriptions of the Bedas and Chacrelas, as Wafer has done of the Dariens, we should, perhaps, have discovered that theywere no more of European origin than the latter. This opinion receives great weight from the fact that negroes sometimes have white children. Of two of those white negroes we have a description in the history of the French Academy; one of the two I saw myself, and am assured there are many to be met with among the other negroes of Africa.
From what I have myself observed, independent of the information of travellers, I have no doubt, but that they are only negroes degenerated from their race, and not a peculiar and established species of men. In a word, they are among the negroes, what Wafer says, the white Indians are among the yellow Indians of Darien, and what the Chacrelas and the Bedas are among the brown Indians of the East. Still more singular is it that this variation never happens but from black to white, and also that all the nations of the East Indies, of Africa, and of America, in which those white men are found, are in the same latitude. The isthmus of Darien, the country of the negroes, and Ceylon, are absolutely under the same line. White then appears to be the primitive colour of Nature, which climate, food, and manners, alter, and even change intoyellow, brown, or black; and which, in certain circumstances, reappears, though by no means equal to its original whiteness on account of its corruption from the causes here mentioned.
Nature, in her full perfection, made men white; and, reduced to the last stage of adulteration, she renders them white again. But the natural white is widely different from the individual, or accidental white. In plants, as well as in men and animals, do we find examples of this fact. The white rose, &c. differs greatly in point of whiteness from the red rose, which becomes white by the cold evenings and frosty chills of autumn.
A further proof that these white men are merely degenerated individuals, is their being less strong and vigorous than others, and their eyes being extremely weak. The fact will appear less extraordinary, when we recollect, that, among ourselves, very fair men have very weak eyes, and that such people are often slow of hearing. It is pretended that dogs absolutely white, are deaf. Whether the observation is generally just, I know not, but in a number of instances I have seen it confirmed.
The Indians of Peru, like the natives of the Isthmus, are copper-coloured; those especially who live near the sea, and in the plains. Those who live between the two ridges of the Cordeliers, are almost as white as the Europeans. Some live in Peru more than a league higher than others; and which elevation, with respect to the temperature of the climate, is equal to twenty leagues in latitude. All the native Indians, who dwell along the river of the Amazons, and in Guiana are tawny, and more or less red. The diversity of shades, says M. de la Condamine, is principally occasioned by the different temperature of the air, varied as it is, from the extreme heat of the torrid zone, to the cold occasioned by the vicinage of snow. Some of these Savages, as the Omaguas, flatten the visages of their children, by compressing the head between two planks; others pierce the nostrils, lips, or cheeks, for the reception of the bones of fishes, feathers, and other ornaments; and the greatest part bore their ears, and fill the hole with a large bunch of flowers, or herbs, which serves them for pendants. With respect to the Amazons, about whom so much has been said, I shall be silent. To those who have written on the subject I refer thereader; and when he has perused them he will not find sufficient proof to evince the actual existence of such women.
Some authors mention a nation in Guiana of which the natives are more black than any other Indians. The Arras, says Raleigh, are almost as black as the Negroes, are vigorous, and use poisoned arrows. This author mentions likewise another nation of Indians, who have necks so short, and shoulders so elevated, that their eyes appear to be upon the latter, and their mouths in their breast. This monstrous deformity cannot be natural; and it is probable that savages, who are so pleased in disfiguring nature by flattening, rounding, and lengthening the head, might likewise contrive to sink it into the shoulders. These fantasies might arise from an idea that, by rendering themselves deformed, they became more dreadful to their enemies. The Scythians, formerly, as savage as the American Indians are now, evidently entertained the same ideas, and realized them in the same manner; which no doubt is the foundation of what the ancients have written about such men as they termed acephali, cynocephali, &c.
The Savages of Brazil are nearly of the size of the Europeans, but are more vigorous, robust, and alert: they are also subject to fewer diseases, and live longer. Their hair, which is black, seldom whitens with age. They are of a copper-colour, inclining to red: their heads are large, shoulders broad, and hair long. They pluck out their beard, the hair upon the body, and even the eye-brows, from which they acquire an extraordinary fierce look. They pierce the under lip, to ornament it with a little bone polished like ivory, or with a green stone. The mothers crush the noses of their children, presently after they are born; they all go absolutely naked, and paint their bodies of different colours. Those who inhabit the countries adjacent to the sea are somewhat civilized by the commerce which they carry on with the Portuguese; but those of the inland places are still absolute savages. It is not by force that savages have become civilized, their manners have been much more softened by the arguments of missionaries, than by the arms of the princes by whom they were subdued. In this manner Paraguay was subdued: the mildness, example, and virtuousconduct of the missionaries touched the hearts of its savages, and triumphed over their distrust and ferocity. They often, of themselves, desired to be made acquainted with that law, which rendered men so perfect, submitted to its precepts, and united in society. Nothing can reflect greater honour on religion, than its having civilized these nations, and laid the foundations of an empire, without any arms but those of virtue and humanity.
The inhabitants of Paraguay are commonly tall and handsome; their visage long, and their colour olive. There sometimes rages among them a very uncommon distemper. It is a kind of leprosy, which covers the whole of their body with a crust similar to the scales of fish, and from which they experience no pain, nor even interruption of health.
According to Frezier, the Indians of Chili are of a tawny or coppery complexion, but different from Mulattoes, who being produced by a white man and negro-woman, or a white woman and a negro-man, their colour is brown, or a mixture of white and black. In South America, on the other hand, the Indians are yellow, or rather reddish. The natives ofChili are of a good size; their limbs are brawny, chest large, visages disagreeable, and beardless; eyes small, ears long, and their hair black, straight, and coarse. Their ears they lengthen, and pluck out their beards with pincers made of shells. Though the climate is cold, yet they generally go naked, excepting the skin of some animal over their shoulders.
At the extremity of Chili, and towards the lands of Magellan, it is pretended, there exists a race of men of gigantic size. From the information of several Spaniards, who pretend to have seen them, Frezier says, they are from 9 to 10 feet high; they are calledPatagonians, and inhabit the easterly side of the coast, as mentioned in the old narratives, which, however, from the size of Indians discovered in the Straits of Magellan, not exceeding that of other men, has since been considered as fabulous. It might be by this, says he, that Froger was deceived in his account of the voyage of M. de Gennes; as several navigators have actually beheld both these classes of Indians at the same time. In 1709, the crew of the James, of St. Malo, saw seven giants as above described, in Gregory Bay, and those ofthe St. Peter, of Marseilles, saw six, to whom they advanced with offers of bread, wine, and brandy, all of which they rejected; but as M. Frezier does not intimate his having seen any of these giants himself, and as the narratives which mention them are fraught with exaggerations with respect to other matters, it remains still doubtful whether there in reality exists a race of giants, especially of the height of ten feet. The bodily circumference of such a man would be eight times bigger than that of an ordinary one. The natural height of mankind seems to be about five feet, and the deviations from that standard scarcely exceed a foot, so that a man of six feet is considered as very tall, and a man of four as very short. Giants and dwarfs, therefore, are only accidental varieties, and not distinct and permanent races.
Besides, if these Magellanic giants actually exist, their number must be trifling; as the savages of the straits, and neighbouring islands, are of a moderate height, whose colour is olive, have full chests, square bodies, thick limbs, and black straight hair; who, in a word, resemble mankind in general as to size, as the other Americans as to colour and hair.
In the whole of the new continent, then, there is but one race of men, who are all more or less tawny, the northern parts of America excepted, where we find some men similar to the Laplanders, and others with fair hair, like the northern Europeans; through the whole of this immense territory, the diversity among the inhabitants is hardly perceivable. Among those of the old continent, on the other hand, we have found a prodigious variety. This uniformity in the Americans seems to arise from their living all in the same manner. The natives were, and are still savages; nor, so recently have they been civilized, can the Mexicans and the Peruvians be excepted. Whatever, then, may have been their origin, it was common to them all. Sprung from one stock, they have, with little variation, retained the characteristics of their race; and this because they have pursued the same course of life, because their climate, with respect to heat and cold, is not so unequal as that of the old continent, and because, being newly established in the country, the causes by which varieties are produced have not had time to manifest their defects.
Each of these reasons merits a particular consideration. That the Americans are a new people seems indisputable, when we reflect on the smallness of their number, their ignorance, and the little progress the most civilized among them had made in the arts. In the first accounts of the discovery and conquest of America, it is true, Mexico, Peru, St. Domingo, &c. are mentioned as very populous countries; and we are told that the Spaniards had every where to engage with vast armies; yet it is evident these facts are greatly exaggerated; first, from the paucity of monuments left of the pretended grandeur of these nations: secondly, from the nature of the country itself, which, though peopled with Europeans, more industrious, doubtless, than its natives, is still wild, uncultivated, covered with wood, and little more than a group of inacessible and uninhabitable mountains; thirdly, from their own traditions, with respect to the time they united into society, the Peruvians reckoning no more than 12 kings, from the first of whom, about 300 years before, they had imbibed the first principles of civilization, and ceased to be entirely savage; fourthly, from the small number of men employed to conquerthem, which even with the advantage of gunpowder, they could not have done, had the people been numerous. Though the effects of gunpowder were as new and as terrible to the negroes as to the Americans, their country has yet remained unconquered, and themselves unenslaved; and the ease with which America was subdued, appears an irrefragable argument that the country was thinly peopled, and recently inhabited.
In the New Continent, the temperature of the different climates is more uniform than in the Old Continent; for this there are several causes. The Torrid Zone, in America, is by no means so hot as in Africa. The countries comprehended under the former zone, are Mexico, New Spain, and Peru, the land of the Amazons, Brazil, and Guiana. In Mexico, New Spain, and Peru, the heat is never very great; these countries are prodigiously elevated above the ordinary level of the earth; nor in the hottest weather does the thermometer rise so high in Peru as in France. By the snow which covers the tops of the mountains the air is cooled; and as this cause, which is merely an effect of the former, has a strong influence upon the temperature of the climate,so the inhabitants, instead of being black, or dark brown, are only tawny. The land of the Amazons is particularly watery, and full of forests; there the air is exceedingly moist, and consequently more cool than in a country more dry. Besides, it is to be observed, that the east wind, which blows constantly between the tropics, does not reach Brazil, the land of the Amazons, or Guiana, without traversing a vast sea, by which it acquires a degree of coolness. It is from this reason, as well as from their being so full of rivers and forests, and almost continued rains, that these parts of America are so exceedingly temperate. But the east wind, after passing the low countries of America, becomes considerably heated before it arrives at Peru; and therefore, were it not for its elevated situation, and for the snow, by which the air is cooled, the heat would be greater there than either in Brazil or Guiana. There still, however, remains a sufficiency of heat to influence the colour of the natives: for those who are most exposed to it their colour is more yellow than those who live sheltered in the vallies. Besides, this wind blowing against these lofty mountains, must be reflected on the neighbouring plains, and diffuse over them thatcoolness which it received from the snow that covers their tops; and from this snow itself, when it dissolves, cold winds must necessarily arise. All these causes concurring to render the climate of the Torrid Zone in America far less hot, it is not surprising that its inhabitants are not so black nor brown as those under the Torrid Zone in Africa and Asia, where, as we shall shew, there is a difference of circumstances. Whether we suppose, then, that the Americans have been long or recently established in that country, their Torrid Zone being temperate, they are of course not black.
The uniformity in their mode of living, I also assigned for the little variety to be found in the natives of America. As they were all savage, or recently civilized, they all lived in the same manner. In supposing that they had all one common origin, they were dispersed, without being intermixed; each family formed a nation not only similar to itself, but to all about them, because their climate and food were nearly similar; and as they had no opportunity either to degenerate or improve, so they could not but remain constantly and almost universally the same.
That their origin is the same with our own, I doubt not, independent of theological arguments; and from the resemblance of the savages of North America to the Oriental Tartars, there is reason to suppose they originally sprung from the same source. The new discoveries by the Russians, on the other side of Kamtschatka, of several lands and islands which extend nearly to the Western Continent of America, would leave no doubt as to the possibility of the communication, if these discoveries were properly authenticated, and the lands were in any degree contiguous. But, even in the supposition of considerable intervals of sea, is it not possible that there might have been men who crossed them in search of new regions, or were driven upon them by bad tempests? Between the Mariana islands and Japan there is, perhaps, a greater interval of sea than between any of the territories beyond Kamtschatka and those of America; and yet the Mariana islands were peopled with inhabitants who could have come from no part but from the Eastern Continent. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that the first men who set foot on America landed on some spot north-west of California; that the excessive cold ofthis climate obliged them to remove to the more southern parts of their new abode; that at first they settled in Mexico and Peru, from whence they afterwards diffused themselves over all the different parts of North and South America. Mexico and Peru must be considered as the most ancient inhabited territories of this continent, being not only the most elevated, but also the only ones in which the inhabitants were found connected together in society.
It may also be presumed that the inhabitants of Davis’s Straits, and of the northern parts of Labrador, came from Greenland, being only separated by these small straits, for the savages of Davis’s Straits, and those of Greenland, as we have just remarked, are very similar; and Greenland might have been peopled by the Laplanders passing thither from Cape Nord, the intermediate distance being only about 150 leagues. Besides, as the island of Iceland is almost contiguous to Greenland, has long been inhabited and frequented by Europeans; and as the Danes formed colonies in Greenland, it is not wonderful there should be found men who, deriving their origin from those Danes, were white and fair-haired. There is someprobability also that the white men along Davis’s Straits derive their origin from these Europeans, thus settled in Greenland, from whence they might easily pass to America, by crossing the little interval of sea of which this strait is formed.
In colour and in figure we meet with as great a degree of uniformity in America, as of diversity of men in Africa. From great antiquity has this part of the world been copiously peopled. The climate is scorching, yet in different nations it is of a different temperature; nor, from the descriptions already given, are their manners less different. From these concurrent causes there subsists a greater variety of men in Africa than in any other part. If we examine the difference in the temperature of the African countries, we shall find that in Barbary, and all the territories near the Mediterranean Sea, the men are white, or only somewhat tawny; those territories are refreshed on one hand by the air of the Mediterranean Sea, and on the other by the snows on Mount Atlas, and are, moreover, situated in the Temperate Zone, on this side the Tropic; so also all the tribes between Egypt and the Canary islands have the skin only more or less tawny.Beyond the Tropic, and on the other side of Mount Atlas, the heat becomes more violent, and the colour of the inhabitants is more dark, though still not black. Coming to the 17th or 18th degree of north latitude we find Senegal and Nubia, where the heat is excessive, and the natives absolutely black. In Senegal the thermometer rises to the degree 38, while in France it rarely rises to 30; and in Peru, situated under the Torrid Zone, it is hardly ever known to pass 25. We have no observations made with the thermometer in Nubia, but all travellers agree in representing the heat to be excessive. The sandy deserts between Upper Egypt and Nubia heat the air to such a degree that the north wind actually scorches. The east wind also, which is usually prevalent between the Tropics, does not reach Nubia till it has crossed the territories of Arabia; therefore that the Nubians should be black is little cause for wonder; though indeed they are still less so than those of Senegal, where, as the east wind cannot arrive till it has traversed all the territories of Africa in their utmost extent, the heat is rendered almost insupportable.
If we take all that district of Africa comprised between the Tropics, where the east windblows most constantly, we shall easily conceive that the western coasts of this part of the world must, and actually do, experience a greater degree of heat than those of the eastern coasts; as the east wind reaches the latter with the freshness which it receives in passing over a vast sea, whereas before it reaches the former, it acquires a burning heat, in traversing the interior parts of Africa. Thus, therefore, the coasts of Senegal, Sierra Leona, Guinea, and all the western regions of Africa, situated under the Torrid Zone, are the hottest climates in the world; nor is it by any means so hot on the eastern coasts, at Mosambique, Mombaza, &c. I have not the smallest doubt, therefore, but this is the reason that we find the real negroes, or the blackest men, in the western territories of Africa, and Caffres, or black men, of a hue more light, in the eastern territories. The evident difference which subsists between these two species of blacks proceeds from the heat of their climate, which is not very great in the eastern, but excessive in the western. Beyond the Tropic, on the south, the heat is considerably diminished, not only from its situation as to climate, but from the point of Africa being contracted; and as that point is surrounded bythe sea the air is necessarily more temperate than it could be in the middle of a continent. The colour of the inhabitants of this country begins to assume a fairer hue, and they are naturally more white than black. Nothing affords a more convincing proof that the climate is the principal cause of the variety in the human species than the colour of the Hottentots, who could not possibly be found less black did they not enjoy a more temperate climate.
In this opinion we shall be more confirmed if we examine the other nations under the Torrid Zone, on the east side of Africa. The inhabitants of the Maldivia islands, of Ceylon, of the point of the peninsula of India, of Sumatra, of Malacca, of Borneo, of Celebes, of the Philippines, &c. are very brown, though not absolutely black, from all these countries being either islands or peninsulas. In these climates the heat of the air is temporized by the sea; besides which, neither the east nor west wind, which reign alternately in that part of the globe, can reach the Indian Archipelago without passing over seas of an immense extent. As their heat is not excessive, therefore, all these islands are peopled with brown men; but in New Guinea we again meet with redblacks, and who, from the descriptions of travellers, seem to be absolute negroes, because the country they inhabit forms a continent to the east, and the wind is more hot than that which prevails in the Indian Ocean. In New Holland, where the heat of the climate is not so great, we find people less black, and not unlike the Hottentots. Do not these negroes and Hottentots, whom we meet with in the same latitude, and at so great a distance from the other negroes and Hottentots, evince their colour depends upon the heat of the climate? That there was ever any communication between Africa and this southern continent, it is impossible to suppose; and yet in both we find the same species of men, because the same circumstances occur which occasion the same degrees of heat.