William Howitt

“ It was not enough that millions on millions of peaceful beings were exterminated by fire, by sword, by heavy burdens, by base violence, by deleterious mines and unaccustomed severities—by dogs, by man-hunters, and by grief and despair—there yet wanted one crowning crime to place the deeds of Europeans beyond all rivalry in the cause of evil,—and that unapproachable abomination was found in the slave-trade. They had seized on almost all other countries, but they could not seize on the torrid regions of Africa. They could not seize the land, but they could seize the people. ”

“ We have professed, indeed, to teach Christianity to them; but we had it not to teach, and we have carried them instead, all the curses and the horrors of a demon race. If the reign of Satan, in fact, were come,—if he were let loose with all his legions, to plague the earth for a thousand years, what would be the characteristics of his prevalence? Terrors and crimes; one wide pestilence of vice and obscenity; one fearful torrent of cruelty and wrath, deceit and oppression, vengeance and malignity; the passions of the strong would be inflamed—the weak would cry and implore in vain! ”

“ This grand delusion has rested on Europe for a thousand years; and from the days of the Spaniards to the present moment, has gone on propagating crimes and miseries without end. For the last three hundred years, Europe has been boasting of its Christianity, and perpetrating throughout the vast extent of territories in every quarter of the globe subjected to its power, every violence and abomination at which Christianity revolts. There is no nation of Europe that is free from the guilt of colonial blood and oppression. God knows what an awful share rests upon this country! ”

“ See Hindustan, that great and swarming region of usurpations and exactions! Look at the Cape, and ask the Caffres whether the English are tender-hearted and just: ask the same question in New Holland: ask it of the natives of Van Dieman’s Land,—men, transported from the island of their fathers. Ask the New Zealanders whether the warriors whose tattooed heads stare us in the face in our museums, were not delicately treated by us. Go, indeed, into any one spot, of any quarter of the world, and ask—no you need not ask, you shall hear of our aggressions from every people that know us. ”

“ What an eternal debt of generous and Christian retribution do we owe India for all this! What, indeed, are the pangs we have occasioned, the poverty we have created, the evils of all kinds that we have perpetrated, to the moral degradation we have induced, and the gross darkness, gross superstition, the gross sensuality we have thus, in fact, fostered and perpetuated? Had we appeared in India as Christians instead of conquerors; as just merchants instead of subtle plotters, shunning the name of tyrants while we aimed at the most absolute tyranny ”

“ Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, who had sent out Grijalva, roused by the description of the new and beautiful country which he had coasted, now sought for a man, so humble in his pretensions and so destitute of alliance, that he might trust him with a fleet and force for the acquisition of it. Such a man he believed he had found in Hernando Cortez,—a man, like many other men in Spain, of noble blood, but very ignoble fortune—poor, proud, so hot and overbearing in his disposition and so dissipated in his habits, that his father was glad to send him out as an adventurer. ”

“ What an idea is that!—the Europeans standing with the lash of slavery in their hands on the bones of exterminated millions in one hemisphere, watching with remorseless eyes their victims dragged from another hemisphere—tilling, not with their sweat, but with their heart’s blood, the soil which is, in fact, the dust of murdered generations of victims. To think that for three centuries this work of despair and death has been going on—for three centuries!—while Europe has been priding itself on the growth of knowledge and the possession of the Christian faith ”

“ The Spaniards indeed looked with as much amazement on the simple people, and the paradise in which they lived, as the natives did on the wonderful spectacle of European forms, faces, dress, arts, arms, and ships.—Such sweet and flowing streams; such sunny dales, scattered with flowers as gorgeous and beautiful as they were novel; trees covered with a profusion of glorious and aromatic blossoms, and beneath their shade the huts of the natives, of simple reeds or palm-leaves; the stately palms themselves, rearing their lofty heads on the hill sides ”

“ The whole history of European colonization is of a piece. It is with grief and indignation, that passing before my own mind the successive conquests and colonies of the Europeans amongst the native tribes of newly-discovered countries, I look in vain for a single instance of a nation styling itself Christian and civilized, acting towards a nation which it is pleased to term barbarous with Christian honesty and common feeling. The only opportunity which the aboriginal tribes have had of seeing Christianity in its real form and nature, has been from William Penn and the missionaries. ”

“ Why, what interesting intelligence to every lover of philosophy, of literature, and of the study of human nature! Genuine intelligence, and enlightened curiosity would have flocked thither to look and admire; genuine philanthropy, to give fresh strength and guidance to this germinating civilization,—and Christian spirits would have glowed with delight at the thought of shewing, in the elevated virtues, the justice, generosity and magnanimity derived by them from their faith, the benefits which it could confer on these growing states. ”

“ The words of Red-Jacket will find an echo in the hearts of tens of millions of sorrowful and expatriated and enthralled beings, who will exclaim, "you want more land!—you want our country!" It is needless to tell those who have read this history that there is, and can be, nothing else like it in the whole record of mortal crimes. Many are the evils that are done under the sun; but there is and can be no evil like that monstrous and earth-encompassing evil, which the Europeans have committed against the Aborigines of every country in which they have settled. ”

“ The history of European intriguers, especially of the Dutch, Portuguese, English, and French, in the East, in which every species of cruelty and bad faith have been exhibited, is one of the most melancholy and humiliating nature. Those of the English and French did not cease till the very last peace. At every outbreak of war between these nations in Europe, the forts and factories and islands which had been again and again seized upon, and again and again restored by treaties of peace in India, became immediately the scene of fresh aggressions, bickerings, and enormities. ”

“ But if we do not even hold conquest to be a crime, or war to be unchristian, where is the man that will not deem that we have assumed an awful responsibility on the plainest principles of the gospel, by taking into our hands the fate of so many millions of human creatures, thus degraded, thus ignorant and unhappy? It is impossible either to “do justice, to love mercy, or to walk humbly before God,” without as zealously seeking the social and eternal benefit of so great a people, as we have sought, and still seek, our own advantage, in the possession of their wealth. ”

“ While we retain a blind admiration of martial genius, wilfully shutting our senses and our minds to the crimes and the pangs that constitute its shadow, it is laughable to say that we have progressed beyond our fathers in Christian knowledge. At this moment all Europe stands armed to the teeth. The peace of every individual nation is preserved, not by the moral probity and the mutual faith which are the natural growth of Christian knowledge, but by the jealous watch of armed bands, and the coarse and undisguised force of brute strength. ”

“ The Mexicans would have been less than men if they had not resolved to cut him off. What right had he there? What right to disturb the tranquillity of their country, and shed the blood of its people? These are questions that cannot be answered on any Christian principles, or on any principles but those of the bandit and the murderer. Six thousand people butchered in cold blood—two days employed in hewing down trembling wretches, too fearful to even raise a single weapon against the murderers! Heavens! are these the deeds that we admire as heroic and as breathing of romance? ”

“ Nations of men selling themselves to do murder, that ruthless kings might ravish each other's crowns — nations of men, standing with jealous eyes on the perpetual watch against each other, with arms in their hands, oaths in their mouths, and curses in their hearts; — are those Christian? Yet there is not a man acquainted with the history of Europe that will even attempt to deny that that is the history of Europe. ”

“ Only let any one imagine the natives of America meeting the Europeans as they did, with the simple faith of children, and the reverence inspired by an idea of something divine in their visitors; let any one imagine them thus meeting them, and finding them, instead of what they actually were, spirits base and desperate as hell could have possibly thrown up from her most malignant regions—finding them men of peace instead of men of blood, men of integrity instead of men of deceit, men of love and generosity instead of men of cruelty and avarice—wise, enlightened, and just! ”

“ There is no power but the spirit of Christianity living in the heart of the British public, which can secure justice to the millions that are crying for it from every region of the earth. It is that which must stand as the perpetual watch and guardian of humanity; and never yet has it failed. The noblest spectacle in the world is that constellation of institutions which have sprung out of this spirit of Christianity in the nation, and which are continually labouring to redress508 wrongs and diffuse knowledge and happiness wherever the human family extends. ”

“ Where is the mind that has not dwelt in its young enthusiasm on the summer beauty of the Islands of the Pacific? That has not, from the day that Captain Cook first fell in with them, wandered in imagination with our voyagers and missionaries through their fairy scenes—been wafted in some magic bark over those blue and bright seas—been hailed to the sunny shore by hundreds of simple and rejoicing people—been led into the hut overhung with glorious tropical flowers, or seated beneath the palm, and feasted on the pine and the bread-fruit? ”

“ Instantly the Inca, in the simple joy of his heart at the hope of a liberty which he was never to enjoy, issued orders to his subjects to bring in the gold; and from day to day the faithful Indians came in laden from all quarters with the vessels of gold. The sight must have been more like a fairy dream, than any earthly reality. The splendid and amazing mass, such as no mortal eyes on any other occasion probably ever witnessed, soon rose to near the stipulated height, and the avarice of the soldiers, and the joy of Atahualpa rose rapidly with it. ”

“ It is, therefore, with pleasure that I have seen the “Aborigines’ Protection Society” raise its head amongst the many noble societies for the redress of the wrongs and the elevation of humanity that adorn this country. Such a society must become one of the most active and powerful agents of universal justice: it must be that or nothing, for the evil which it has to put down is tyrannous and strong beyond all others. It cannot fail without the deepest disgrace to the nation—for the honour of the nation, its Christian zeal, and its commercial interests, are all bound up with it. ”

“ You are termed savages, but you cannot be more savage than the people of our own land, who have inflicted dreadful cruelties and mutilations on us and our friends for the faith we have in God. We fly from savages who pretend to be civilized, but have learned no one principle of civilization, to savages who pretend to no civilization, but yet have, on a thousand occasions, received white men to their shores with benevolence and tears of joy. What the savages of Europe are, a hundred regions drenched in the blood of their native children can tell ”

“ We are much too ready to run the wilful career of our own lusts and passions, and lay the charge at the door of Providence. It is true that English dominion is, or will become, far better to the Hindoos than that of the cruel and exacting Moguls; but who made us the judge and the ruler over these people? If the real object of our policy and exertions in India has been the achievement of wealth and power, as it undoubtedly has, it is pitiful and hypocritical to endeavour to clothe it with the pretence of working the will of Providence, and seeking the good of the natives. ”

“ The white men hated us, but they could not drive us away. When there was war, we plundered you. When there was peace, some of our bad people stole; but our chiefs forbade it. Your treacherous friend, Gaika, always had peace with you, yet, when his people stole he shared in the plunder. Have your patroles ever, in time of peace, found cattle, runaway slaves, or deserters in the kraals of our chiefs? Have they ever gone into Gaika's country without finding such cattle, such slaves, such deserters in Gaika's kraals? ”

“ Never was "the son of perdition" more glaringly revealed; for perdition is the only word that can indicate that fulness of misery, devastation, and destruction, which went forth with this act, upon millions of innocent and unconscious souls. Never was "the deceivableness of unrighteousness" so signally exemplified; for here was all Europe,—monarchs, ministers,—whatever it possessed of wise, or learned, powerful, or compassionate, all blinded with such "a strong delusion," that they could implicitly "believe a lie" of so monstrous and flagrant a kind. ”

“ It is to these old sophisms that we owe all the political evils under which we groan, and under which we have made all nations that have felt our power groan too. To every truly enlightened and Christian philosopher can there be a more melancholy subject of contemplation, than these romantic empires thus barbarously destroyed by an irruption of worse than Goths and Vandals? But that melancholy must be tenfold augmented, when we reflect what would have been the fate of these realms if Europe had been not nominally, but really Christianized at the moment of their discovery. ”

“ The Gauchos, inflamed with all the ancient demoniacal cruelty and revenge of the Spaniards,—the Indians, educated, raised, and moulded by ages of the most inexpiable wrongs into an active and insatiable spirit of vengeance, coming, like the whirlwind from the deserts, as fleet and unescapable, to burn, destroy, and exterminate—in a word, to inflict on the Gauchos all the evils of injury and death that they and their fathers have inflicted on them. ”

“ Many of them, in the anguish of despair, obstinately refuse all manner of sustenance, and retiring to desert caves and unfrequented woods, silently give up the ghost. Others, repairing to the sea-coast on the northern side of Hispaniola, cast many a longing look towards that part of the ocean where they suppose their own islands to be situated; and as the sea-breeze rises, they eagerly inhale it—fondly believing that it has lately visited their own happy valleys, and comes fraught with the breath of those they love, their wives and their children. ”

“ Here we must close our review of the Spaniards in the New World. Our narrative has been necessarily brief and rapid, for the history of their crimes extends over a vast continent, and through three centuries; and would, related at length, fill a hundred volumes. We have found them, however, everywhere the same—cruel, treacherous, and regardless of the feelings of humanity and the sense of justice. They have wreaked alike their vengeance on the natives of every country they have entered, and on those of their own race who dared to espouse the cause of the sufferers. ”

“ Christianity has now been in the world upwards of One Thousand Eight Hundred Years. For more than a thousand years the European nations have arrogated to themselves the title of Christian! some of their monarchs, those of most Sacred and most Christian Kings! We have long laid to our souls the flattering unction that we are a civilized and a Christian people. We talk of all other nations in all other quarters of the world, as savages, barbarians, uncivilized. ”

“ It is high time that we look boldly into the real state of the question, and learn actually, whether the mighty distance between our goodness and the moral depravity of other people really exists. Whether, in fact, we are Christian at all!
Have bloodshed and cruelty then ceased in Europe? After a thousand years of acquaintance with the most merciful and the most heavenly of religions, do the national characters of the Europeans reflect the beauty and holiness of that religion? Are we distinguished by our peace, as the followers of the Prince of Peace? ”

“ What a triumphant progress for civilization and Christianity! There was no wealth nor advantage of that great continent which might not have become legitimately and worthily theirs. They would have walked amongst the swarming millions of the south as the greatest of benefactors; and under their enlightened guidance, every species of useful produce, and every article of commercial wealth would have sprung up. Spain need not have been blasted, as it were, by the retributive hand of Divine punishment, into the melancholy object which she is this day. ”

“ What then did the world cost our Saviour, and what did a soul cost him? The world cost him a word—He spoke, and it was made. A soul cost Him his life, and his blood. But if the world cost only a word of God, and a soul cost the blood of God, a soul is worth more than all the world. This Christ thought, and this the devil confessed. Yet you know how cheaply we value our souls? you know at what rate we sell them? We wonder that Judas should have sold his Master and his soul for thirty pieces of silver; but how many are there who offer their own to the devil for less than fifteen! ”