This then is the result of three centuries of bloodshed and tyranny in those regions—one species of barbarism merely substituted for another. What a different scene to that which the same countries would now have exhibited, had the Jesuits not been violently expelled from their work of civilization by the lust of gold and despotism. “When we compare,” says Captain Head, “the relative size of America with the rest of the world, it is singular to reflect on the history of these fellow-creatures, who are the aborigines of the land; and after viewing the wealth and beauty of so interesting a country, it is painful to consider what the sufferings of the Indians have been, and still may be. Whatever may be their physical or natural character[12] ... still they are the human beings placed there by the Almighty; the country belonged to them; and they are therefore entitled to the regard of every man who has religion enough to believe that God has made nothing in vain, or whose mind is just enough to respect the persons and the rights of his fellow-creatures.”
The view I have been enabled in my space to take of the treatment of the South Americans by their invaders, is necessarily a mere glance,—for, unfortunately for the Christian name and the name of humanity, the history of blood and oppression there is not more dreadful than it is extensive. I have not staid to describe the conduct of the French, Dutch, and English, in their possessions on the southern continent, simply because they are only too much like those of the Spaniards and Portuguese—they form no bright exception, and we shall only too soon meet with these refined nations in other regions.
Note.—The fate of Venezuela ought not to be quite passed over. It is a striking instance of the indifference with which the lives and fortunes of a whole nation are often handed over by great kings to destruction as a mere matter of business. Charles V. of Spain being deeply indebted to a trading house of Augsburgh, the Welsers, gave them this province. They, in their turn, made it over to some German military mercenaries, who overrun the whole country in search of mines, and plundered and oppressed the people with the most dreadful rapacity. In the course of a few years their avarice and exactions had so completely exhausted and ruined the province that the Germans threw it up, and it fell again into the hands of the Spaniards, but in such a miserable condition that it continued to languish and drag on a miserable existence, if it has even recovered from its fatal injuries at the present time.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA.
Son mui buenos Catolicos, pero mui malos Christianos;—They are very good Catholics, but nevertheless very bad Christians indeed.
Saying of an old Catholic priest. Ward’s Mexico.
Most of the countries in India have been filled with tyrants who prefer piracy to commerce—who acknowledge no right but that of power; and think that whatever is practicable is just.