The Smuggler Chief: A Novel

by Gustave Aimard

On this subject we may perhaps be allowed to leave for a moment the framework of this romance, in order to establish the enormous difference which exists at the present time between the situation of the aborigines of South America to the Spaniards, their conquerors, and that of the North American Indians toward the Yankees, their masters. It is a difference that is destined to weigh heavily in the balance of the destinies of the New World.

The Spaniards who rushed upon South America sword and fire in hand, who conquered those ill-fated countries amid the glare of arson and the despairing shrieks of the unhappy inhabitants, whom they killed with horrible sufferings, ended, however, though without suspecting it, in gradually becoming blended with them, by contracting marriages with Indian girls, while the natives chose squaws among the Spanish women.

Then, still following the incline down which they were gliding, they eventually recognised the intelligence and political influence of the various tribes they have conquered, but which they respect by dealing and trafficking with them.

Let us now see what has been the conduct of the English in North America. Disembarking on this portion of the New World, under the guidance of William Penn, they purchased the territories which they possess, and continually treated the Indians on equal terms, while having always words of peace on their lips. They succeeded in this way, and under the deceitful appearances of an entire good faith and perfect loyalty, in gradually becoming aggrandized, though they were not willing to regard the men whom they plundered as their equals, or lower the pride of their race so far as to mingle their blood with that of the Indians.

Even more. The English, impelled by that philanthropic spirit that distinguishes them, and to which we have already had occasion to refer, were too humane to shoot down the men whose wealth they coveted, and found it far more simple to inoculate them with all the vices of old Europe; above all, that of drunkenness, which brutalizes and decimates them.

What are the results of the opposite systems adopted by the two nations? North America is losing its aborigines with frightful rapidity, while South America, on the contrary, is covered with innumerable Indian tribes.

After the organic law of the world, which wishes that the old and exhausted blood of the ancient races should be renewed and regenerated by a young and vigorous blood, it is easy to foresee that, in spite of the present state of the great Republic of the United States, which strives to invade everything, and behaves with that shorthanded system peculiar to the English character, it is only a colossus with feet of clay, which has not and cannot find in itself the necessary vital strength to accomplish the task laid down for itself by this youthful Republic, formed of heterogeneous elements which come into collision and thwart each other at every step. Its blood, vitiated by a long servitude in Europe, would require to be completely rejuvenated.

This bastard nation, without father or country, whose ancestors do not exist, and which has a pretension to be regenerating, will suddenly and eternally collapse, when, in its fury for possession, it has devoured all the so-called Spanish republics on the seaboard, and dashes against the wide chests of those men of bronze who are called the Moluchos.

In order to regenerate peoples, a nation must itself possess the regenerating virtues; but it has been said for a long time, with great truth, that the republicans of North America possessed all the vices of the old world without one of its virtues. Besides, the puerile debates, insensate utopias, and absurd follies of these honourable citizens gave us, many years ago, the measure of their strength. The future will decide the question and say whether we are deceived in the severe but impartial judgment which we pass on them. But to return to Tcharanguii, from whom this long digression has carried us away.

The young Indian chief, on getting possession of his two captives, had at the outset the idea of conveying them among his tribe, and afterwards decide which of the two he would select as his squaw; but on reflecting upon the distance which separated the Cordillera from the territory of the Jaos, and not wishing to confide such a precious booty to the warriors who had fought with him, he resolved to get ahead of his comrades, who were proceeding to the north, and conduct General Soto-Mayor's two daughters to Schymi-Tou, the Sayotkatta of Garakouaïti, who in his quality of High Priest of the Sun, would be enabled to conceal them from all eyes up to the day when Tcharanguii came to ask for an account of the deposit he had made with him.