Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human Race

by Arthur James Johnes

The Indian shows no want of acuteness in detecting the characteristic vices, whether real or imaginary, of the civilized world.

“On one occasion, when I had interrogated a Sioux chief, on the Upper Missouri, about their government, their punishments, and tortures of prisoners, for which I had freely condemned them for the cruelty of practice, he took occasion, when I had got through, to ask me some questions relative to modes in the civilized world. He told me he had often heard that white people hung their criminals by the neck and choked them to death like dogs, and those their own people; to which I answered ‘Yes.’ He then told me he had learned that they shut each other up in prisons, where they keep them a great part of their lives because they can't pay money! I replied in the affirmative to this, which occasioned great surprise and excessive laughter even amongst the women! He told me that he had been to our Fort at Council Bluffs, where we had a great many warriors and braves, and he saw three of them taken out on the prairies and tied to a post and whipped almost to death; and he had been told that they submit to all this to get a little money!

“He put to me a chapter of other questions as to the trespasses (of the Whites) on their lands, their continual corruption [pg li] of the morals of their women, and digging open the Indian's graves to get their bones, &c. To all of which I was compelled to reply in the affirmative, and quite glad to close my note book, and quietly to escape from the throng that had collected around me, and saying (though to myself and silently), that these and a hundred others are vices that belong to the civilized world, and are practised upon (but certainly in no instance reciprocated by) ‘the cruel and relentless’ savage!”

It is probable that the finer features of the North American Indian character may be ascribed in a great measure to the elevated nature of their religious belief, which indisputably appears to be quite free from the loathsome and debasing idolatry of the Hindoos and other pagan nations of the Old World.

“I fearlessly assert to the world (and I defy contradiction), that the North American Indian is everywhere in his native state a highly moral and religious being, endowed by his Maker with an intuitive knowledge of some great Author of his being and the universe, in dread of whose displeasure he constantly lives, with the apprehension before him of a future state, where he expects to be rewarded or punished according to the merits he has gained or forfeited in this world.”

In their native state, in regions remote from the Whites, the Indians are well clothed and fed, cleanly in their habits, cheerful, and healthy. The opposite qualities have been considered to be characteristic of the race, in consequence of the unhappy condition of most of those Tribes who are found among or near the settlements of the Whites, a condition ascribable to the use of ardent spirits, the destruction of the game on which they originally subsisted, and the fraudulent manner in which they have often been deprived of their lands!

“From what I have seen of these people I feel authorized to say, that there is nothing very strange or unaccountable in their character; but that it is a simple one, and easy to be understood if the right means be taken to familiarize ourselves with it. Although it has dark spots, yet there is much in it to be applauded, and much to recommend it to the admiration of the enlightened world. And I trust that the reader who looks through these volumes with care, will be disposed to join me in the conclusion, that the North American Indian in his native state is an honest, hospitable, faithful, brave, warlike, cruel, revengeful, relentless, yet honorable, contemplative, and religious being.”

The tortures practised by the Indians on their prisoners of war are, it seems, inflicted only on a portion of their captives by way of reprisal. The prisoners are for the most part adopted into the conquering tribe. The men are married to the wives of those who have fallen in battle; and those outrages on the weaker sex which have disgraced the armies of civilized Europe are unknown in the annals of Indian warfare!

The Indian is reckless of life, and the female sex among these tribes is consigned to a life of servitude. But it must be asked, is the morality of European nations uniformly founded on an earnest regard for the claims of humanity—on a tender respect for the rights and for the sufferings of the weak and defenceless! This is a momentous question, to which an answer at once humiliating and complete may be drawn from one single historical incident described in the following touching passage!

After noticing the defective state of the European law of nations in certain respects, the author from whose work the following narrative has been derived, thus proceeds: “The other case in which it seems to me that the law of nations should either be amended, or declared more clearly and enforced [pg liii] in practice, is that of the blockade of towns not defended by their inhabitants, in order to force their surrender by starvation. And here let us try to realize to ourselves what such a blockade is. We need not, unhappily, draw a fancied picture; history, and no remote history either, will supply us with the facts. Some of you, I doubt not, remember Genoa; you have seen that queenly city, with its streets of palaces rising tier above tier from the water, girdling with the long lines of its bright white houses the vast sweep of its harbour, the mouth of which is marked by a huge natural mole of rock, crowned by its magnificent lighthouse-tower. You remember how its white houses rose out of a mass of fig, and olive, and orange trees, the glory of its old patrician luxury; you may have observed the mountains behind the town, spotted at intervals by small circular low towers, one of which is distinctly conspicuous where the ridge of the hills rises to its summit and hides from view all the country behind it. Those towers are the forts of the famous lines; which, curiously resembling in shape the later Syracusan walls inclosing Epipolæ;, converge inland from the eastern and western extremities of the city, looking down the western line of the valley of Pulcevera, the eastern on that of the Bisagno, till they meet as I have said on the summit of the mountains, where the hills cease to rise from the sea and become more or less of a table-land, running off towards the interior at the distance, as well as I remember, of between two and three miles from the outside of the city. Thus a very large open space is inclosed within the lines, and Genoa is capable therefore of becoming a vast entrenched camp, holding not so much a garrison as an army. In the autumn of 1799, the Austrians had driven the French out of Lombardy and Piedmont; their last victory of Fossano or Genola, had won the fortress of Coni or Cuneo close under the Alps, and at the very extremity of [pg liv] the plain of the Po. The French clung to Italy only by their hold of the Riviera of Genoa, the narrow strip of coast between the Apennines and the sea, which extends from the frontiers of France almost to the mouth of the Arno. Hither the remains of the French force were collected, commanded by General Massena, and the point of chief importance to his defence was the city of Genoa.