aves were landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in
1619, it was this economic value which caused them to be brought to this
country. At the same time that these slaves were being brought to the
shores of Virginia from their native land, Africa, the woods of Virginia
were swarming with thousands of another dark-skinned race. The question
naturally arises, Why did the importers of negro slaves go to the
trouble and expense to go thousands of miles for a dark-skinned people,
to hew wood and draw water for the whites, when they had right about
them a people of another race who could have answered this purpose? The
answer is that the Indian was tried and found wanting in the commercial
qualities which the negro seemed to possess. The Indian would not submit
to slavery as a race, and in those instances where he was tried as a
slave his labour was not profitable, and he was found unable to stand
the physical strain of slavery. As a slave, the Indian died in large
numbers. This was true in San Domingo and other parts of the American
continent.... The Indian refused to submit to bondage and to learn the
white man's ways. The result is that the greater portion of American
Indians have disappeared, and the greater portion of those who remain
are not civilised. The negro, wiser and more enduring than the Indian,
patiently endured slavery; and the contact with the white man has given
the negro in America a civilisation vastly superior to that of the
Indian."
To this may be added the testimony of Professor Shaler, of Harvard
University, in _Appleton's Popular Science Monthly_:--"If we compare the
Algonquin Indian, in appearance a sturdy fellow, with these negroes, we
see of what stuff the blacks are made. A touch of housework and of
honest toil took the breath of the aborigines away, but these tropical
exotics fell to their tasks and trials far better than the men of our
own kind could have done."
It has also to be remembered that the nearly ten million negroes in the
Southern States show that the total has more than doubled since the
close of the Civil War, and are still capable of being turned to vast
profitable account. The Indians show a decrease, and cost the Government
about L2,500,000 a year.
The attention thus given to the Indians' school at Hampton was an
interesting passage in Booker Washington's experience; but even while
that work was in progress he was gradually drifting into the course
which would represent the main serv
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