s of Robertson to the witnesses of
this fact, as himself. Paw, the beginner of this charge, was a compiler
from the works of others; and of the most unlucky description; for
he seems to have read the writings of travellers, only to collect and
republish their lies. It is really remarkable, that in three volumes
12mo, of small print, it is scarcely possible to find one truth, and
yet, that the author should be able to produce authority for every
fact he states, as he says he can. Don Ulloa's testimony is of the most
respectable. He wrote of what he saw, but he saw the Indian of South
America only, and that, after he had passed through ten generations of
slavery. It is very unfair, from this sample, to judge of the natural
genius of this race of men; and after supposing that Don Ulloa had not
sufficiently calculated the allowance which should be made for this
circumstance, we do him no injury in considering the picture he draws
of the present Indians of South America, as no picture of what their
ancestors were, three hundred years ago. It is in North America we are
to seek their original character. And I am safe in affirming that the
proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America, place them on
a level with whites in the same uncultivated state. The North of Europe
furnishes subjects enough for comparison with them, and for a proof of
their equality. I have seen some thousands myself, and conversed much
with them, and have found in them a masculine, sound understanding. I
have had much information from men who had lived among them, and whose
veracity and good sense were so far known to me, as to establish a
reliance on their information. They have all agreed in bearing witness
in favor of the genius of this a people. As to their bodily strength,
their manners rendering it disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed
in labor will be weaker with them, than with the European laborer; but
those which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which
are employed in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving
ambuscades for him, and in carrying them through their execution, are
much stronger than with us, because they are more exercised. I believe
the Indian, then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I
have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but
it would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few
generations, he would not become so. 3. As to the inferior