and manners, that, were they not separated by an immense sea, we should conclude them to have descended from that nation. In point of latitude, their situation is also the same; and this further proves the influence of the climate, not only on the colour, but the figure of men. In a word, in the new continent as in the old, we find, at first, in the northern parts, men similar to the Laplanders, and likewise whites with fair hair, like the inhabitants of the north of Europe; then hairy men like the savages of Jesso; and lastly, the savages of Canada, and of the whole continent to the gulph⁶ of Mexico, who resemble the Tartars in so many respects, that we should not entertain a doubt of their being the same people, were we not embarrassed about the possibility of their migration thither. Yet, if we reflect on the small number of men found upon this extent of ground, and on their being entirely uncivilized, we shall be inclined to believe these savage nations were new colonies produced by a few individuals from some other country. It is asserted that North America does not contain the twentieth part of the natives it did when originally discovered; allowing that to be the fact, we still are

authorised to consider it then, from the scantiness of its inhabitants, as a land either deserted, or so recently peopled, that its inhabitants had not had time for a considerable multiplication. M. Fabry, who travelled a prodigious way to the north-west of the Mississippi, and visited places where no European had been, and where consequently the savage inhabitants could not have been destroyed by them, says that he often travelled 200 leagues without observing a single human face, or the smallest vestige of a habitation; that whenever he did meet with any habitations, they were always at immense distances from each other, and then never above 20 persons together. Along the lakes, and the rivers, it is true, the savages are more populous, some sufficiently so as to molest occasionally the inhabitants of our colonies. The most considerable of these, nevertheless, do not exceed 3 or 4000 persons, and are dispersed over a space of ground frequently more extensive than the kingdom of France. I am fully persuaded there are more men in the city of Paris, than there are savages in north America, from the gulph of Mexico to the furthest extremity north, an extent of ground larger than all Europe.

     The multiplication of the human species depends more on society than nature. Men would not have been comparatively so numerous as wild beasts, had they not associated together, and given aid and succour to each other. In North America, the Bison* is perhaps more frequently to be seen than a man. But though society may be one great cause of population, yet it is the increased number of men that necessarily produces unity. It is to be presumed therefore that the want of civilization in America was owing to the small number of the inhabitants, for though each nation might have manners and customs peculiar to itself; though some might be more fierce, cruel, courageous, or dastardly than others; they were yet all equally stupid, ignorant, unacquainted with the arts, and destitute of industry.
     To dwell longer on the customs of savage nations would be unnecessary. Authors have often given for the established manners of a community, what were nothing more than actions peculiar to a few individuals, and often determined by circumstances, or caprice. Some

nations tell us, they eat their enemies, others burn, and some mutilate them; one nation is perpetually at war, and another loves to live in peace; in one country, the child kills his parent, when arrived at a certain age, and in another the parents eat their children. All these stories, on which travellers have so much enlarged, mean nothing more than that one individual savage had devoured his enemy, another had burned or mutilated him, and a third had killed and eaten his child. All these things may happen in every savage nation; for a people among whom there is no regular government, no law, no habitual society, ought rather to be termed a tumultuous assemblage of barbarous and independent individuals, who obey nothing but their own private passions, and who have no common interest, are incapable of pursuing one object, and submitting to settled usages which supposes general designs, founded on reason, and approved of by the majority.
     A nation, it may be replied, is composed of men who are no strangers to each other, who speak the same language, who unite, when necessity calls, under the same chief, who arm themselves in the same fashion, and daub

themselves of the same colour. With truth might the remark be made, if these usages were established; if savages did not often assemble they know not how, and disperse they know not why; if their chief did not cease to be so, whenever it suited their caprice, or his own; and if their language was not so simple as to be, with little variation, the language of every tribe.
     As they have but few ideas, their expressions turn upon things the most general, and objects the most common; and, though the majority of their expressions were different, yet the smallness of their number renders them easily understood; and more easily, therefore, may a savage learn the languages of all other savages, than the inhabitants of one polished nation acquire a bare comprehension of the language of any other nation equally civilized.
     Unnecessary as it may be to enlarge on the customs and manners of these pretended nations, yet it may be important to examine the nature of the individual. Of all animals a savage man is the most singular, the least known, and the most difficult to describe and so little are we qualified to distinguish the gifts of nature from what is acquired by education, art and imitation, that it would not be surprising to

find we had totally mistaken the picture of a savage, although it were presented to us in its real colours, and with its natural features.
     An absolute savage, such as a boy reared among bears, as mentioned by Conor, the young man found in the forest of Hanover, or the girl in the woods in France, would be a curious object to a philosopher; in observing which he might be able to ascertain the force of natural appetites; he would see the mind undisguised, and distinguish all its movements; and, possibly, he might discover in it more mildness, serenity, and peace, than in his own; he might also perceive, that virtue belongs more to the savage than to the civilized man, and that vice owes its birth to society.
     But let us return to our subject. If in North America there were none but savages, in Mexico and Peru we found a polished people, subjected to laws, governed by kings, industrious, acquainted with the arts, and not destitute of religion. They lived in towns where the civil government was superintended by the sovereign. These people, who were very populous, cannot be considered as new colonies sprung from individuals who had wandered from Europe or Asia, from which they

are so remote; besides, though the Savages of North America resemble the Tartars, by their being situated in the same latitude, yet the natives of Mexico and Peru, though they live, like the Negroes, under the torrid zone, have not the smallest resemblance to them. Whence then, shall we trace the origin of these people? and whence proceeds the cause of the difference of colour in the human species, since the influence of climate is, in this case, entirely overthrown?
     Previous to answering these questions let us pursue our inquiries respecting the Savages of South America. Those of Florida, of the Mississippi, and of the other southern parts of this continent, are more tawny than those of Canada, though not positively brown, the oil and colours with which they rub their bodies, giving them an olive hue which does not naturally belong to them. Coreal says, that the women of Florida are tall, strong, and of an olive complexion, like the men; that they paint their arms, legs, and bodies, with several colours, which as they are imprinted into the flesh by little incisions, are indelible; and that the olive colour of both sexes proceeds not so much from the heat of the climate as from the

oils with which they varnish their skin. He adds, that the women are remarkably active; that they swim over great rivers with a child in their arms, and that they climb up the loftiest trees with equal agility. In all of these particulars they entirely resemble the savage women of Canada, and other countries of America.
     Speaking of the Apalachitos, a people in the vicinage of Florida, the author of the “Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Antilles,” says, that they are of a large stature, of an olive colour, and well proportioned; and that their hair is black and long. He adds, that the Caribbees, who inhabit the Antilles, are sprung from the savages of Florida, and that they even know, by tradition, the period of their migration.
     The natives of the Lucai islands are less tawny than those of St. Domingo and Cuba; but there remain so few of either that we can hardly verify what the first travellers mention of the inhabitants. It has been pretended that they were very numerous, and governed by chiefs whom they call caciques, that they had priests and physicians; but this is all very problematical, and is of little consequence to our history. The Caribbees, in general, according

to Father du Tertre, are tall, and of a good aspect: they are potent, robust, active, and healthy. Numbers of them have flat foreheads and noses, but these features are entirely the work of the parents, soon after their birth. In all savage nations this caprice of altering the natural figure of the head is very frequent. Most of the Caribbees have little black eyes, beautiful white teeth, and long smooth black hair. Their skin is tawny, or olive, and even the whites of their eyes are rather of that hue. This is their natural colour, and not produced by the use of the rocoa, as some authors have asserted, for several of the children of these savages, who were educated among the Europeans, and not allowed the use of paint, retained the same complexion as their parents. The whole of this savage tribe, though their thoughts are seldom employed, have a pensive air. They are naturally mild and compassionate, though exceedingly cruel to their enemies. They esteem it indifferent whom they marry, whether relations or strangers. Their first cousins belong to them by right, and many have been known to have at one time two sisters, or a mother and her daughter, and even their own child. Those who have many wives

visit them in turn, and stay a month, or a certain numbers of days, which precludes all jealousy among the women. They readily forgive their wives for adultery, but are implacable enemies to the man who debauches them. They feed on lizards, serpents, crabs, turtles and fishes, which they season with pimento, and the flower of manioc. Lazy to an excess, and accustomed to the greatest independence, they detest slavery, and can never be rendered so useful as the Negroes. For the preservation of their liberty they make every exertion; and when they find it impossible, will rather die of hunger or despair than live and be obliged to work. Attempts have been made to employ the Arrouaguas, who are milder than the Caribbees, but who are only fit for hunting and fishing; exercises of which, being accustomed to them in their own country; they are particularly fond. If these savages are not used with at least as much mildness as domestics generally are in the civilized nations of Europe, they either run away or pine themselves to death. Nearly the same is it with the slaves of Brazil; of all Savages these seem to be the least stupid, indolent, or melancholy. Treated with gentleness, however, they will

do whatever they are desired, unless it be to cultivate the ground, for tillage they conceive to be the characteristic badge of slavery.
     Savage women are all smaller than the men. Those of the Caribbees are fat, and tolerably handsome; their eyes and hair are black, their visage round, their month small, their teeth white, and their carriage more gay, cheerful, and open, than that of the men. Yet are they modest and reserved. They daub themselves with rocoa, but do not, like the men, make black streaks upon the face and body. Their dress consists of a kind of apron, in breadth about eight or ten inches, and in length about five or six. This apron is generally made of calico, and covered with small glass beads, both which commodities they purchase from the Europeans. They likewise wear necklaces, which descend over the breast, as also bracelets round the wrists and elbows, and pendants in their ears, of blue stone, or of glass beads. Another ornament peculiar to the sex is, a kind of buskin, made of calico, and garnished with glass beads, which extends from the ankle to the calf of the leg. On their attaining the age of puberty the girls receive an apron and a pair of buskins, which are made

exactly to their legs and cannot be removed; and as they prevent the increase of the under part of the leg, the upper parts naturally grow larger than they would otherwise have done.
     So intermixed are the present inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, that we rarely meet with two faces of the same colour. In the town of Mexico, there are Europeans, Indians from north and south America, negroes from Africa, and mulattoes of every kind, insomuch that the people exhibit every kind of shade between black and white. The natives of the country are brown, or olive, well made and active. Though they have little hair, even on their eyebrows, yet that upon their head is very long, and very black.
     According to Wafer, the natives of the Isthmus of America are commonly tall and handsome; their limbs are well shaped, chest large, and at the chase they are active and nimble. The women are short, squat, and less vivacious than the men; though the young ones are tolerably comely, and have lively eyes. Of both the face is round; the nose thick and short, the eyes large, mostly grey, and full of fire; the forehead high; the teeth white and regular; the lips thin; the mouth of a moderate

size; and, in general, all their features are tolerably regular. They have black, long, and straight hair; and the men would have beards did they not pluck them out: their colour is tawny and their eye-brows are as black as jet.
     These people are not the only natives of this Isthmus, for we find among them men who are white; but their colour is not the white of Europeans, but rather resembles that of milk, or the hairs of a white horse. Their skin is covered with a kind of short and whitish down, which on the cheeks and forehead is not so thick but the skin may be seen. The hair upon their head and eye-brows is perfectly white; the former is rather frizled, and from seven to eight inches long. They are not so tall as the other Indians; and, what is singular, their eye-lids are of an oblong figure, or rather in the form of a crescent, whose points turn downwards. So weak are their eyes, that they cannot support the light of the sun, and they see best by that of the moon. Their complexion is exceedingly delicate. To all laborious exercises they are averse; they sleep through the day, and never stir abroad till night. If the moon shines, they scamper through the forests as nimbly as the others can in the day. These men do not

form a particular and distinct race, as it sometimes happens, that from parents who are both of a copper-colour one of these children is produced. Wafer, who relates these facts, says, that he saw a child, not a year old, who had been thus produced.
     If this were the case, the strange colour, and temperament of these white Indians, can only be a kind of malady, which they inherit from their parents. But if, instead of being sprung from the yellow Indians, they formed a separate race, then would they resemble the Chacrelas of Java, and the Bedas of Ceylon, whom we have already mentioned. If, on the other hand, these white people are actually born of copper-coloured parents, we shall have reason to believe, that the Chacrelas and the Bedas originate also from parents of the same colour; and that all the white men, whom we find at such distances from each other, are individuals who have degenerated from their race by some accidental cause.
     This last opinion, I own, appears to me the most probable; and had travellers given us as exact descriptions of the Bedas and Chacrelas, as Wafer has done of the Dariens, we should, perhaps, have discovered that they

were no more of European origin than the latter. This opinion receives great weight from the fact that negroes sometimes have white children. Of two of those white negroes we have a description in the history of the French Academy; one of the two I saw myself, and am assured there are many to be met with among the other negroes of Africa.
     From what I have myself observed, independent of the information of travellers, I have no doubt, but that they are only negroes degenerated from their race, and not a peculiar and established species of men. In a word, they are among the negroes, what Wafer says, the white Indians are among the yellow Indians of Darien, and what the Chacrelas and the Bedas are among the brown Indians of the East. Still more singular is it that this variation never happens but from black to white, and also that all the nations of the East Indies, of Africa, and of America, in which these white men are found, are in the same latitude. The isthmus of Darien, the country of the negroes, and Ceylon, are absolutely under the same line. White then appears to be the primitive colour of Nature, which climate, food, and manners, alter, and even change into

yellow, brown, or black; and which, in certain circumstances, reappears, though by no means equal to its original whiteness on account of its corruption from the causes here mentioned.
     Nature, in her full perfection, made men white; and, reduced to the last stage of adulteration, she renders them white again. But the natural white is widely different from the individual, or accidental white. In plants, as well as in men and animals, do we find examples of this fact. The white rose, &c. differs greatly in point of whiteness from the red rose, which becomes white by the cold evenings and frosty chills of autumn.
     A further proof that these white men are merely degenerated individuals, is their being less strong and vigorous than others, and their eyes being extremely weak. The fact will appear less extraordinary, when we recollect, that, among ourselves, very fair men have very weak eyes, and that such people are often slow of hearing. It is pretended that dogs absolutely white, are deaf. Whether the observation is generally just, I know not, but in a number of instances I have seen it confirmed.

     The Indians of Peru, like the natives of the Isthmus, are copper-coloured; those especially who live near the sea, and in the plains. Those who live between the two ridges of the Cordeliers, are almost as white as the Europeans. Some live in Peru more than a league higher than others; and which elevation, with respect to the temperature of the climate, is equal to twenty leagues in latitude. All the native Indians, who dwell along the river of the Amazons, and in Guiana are tawny, and more or less red. The diversity of shades, says M. de la Condamine, is principally occasioned by the different temperature of the air, varied as it is, from the extreme heat of the torrid zone, to the cold occasioned by the vicinage of snow. Some of these Savages, as the Omaguas, flatten the visages of their children, by compressing the head between two planks; others pierce the nostrils, lips, or checks, for the reception of the bones of fishes, feathers, and other ornaments; and the greatest part bore their ears, and fill the hole with a large bunch of flowers, or herbs, which serves them for pendants. With respect to the Amazons, about whom so much has been said, I shall be silent. To those who have written on the subject I refer the

reader; and when he has perused them he will not find sufficient proof to evince the actual existence of such women.
     Some authors, mention a nation in Guiana of which the natives are more black than any other Indians. The Arras, says Raleigh, are almost as black as the Negroes, are vigorous, and use poisoned arrows. This author mentions likewise another nation of Indians, who have necks so short, and shoulders so elevated, that their eyes appear to be upon the latter, and their mouths in their breast. This monstrous deformity cannot be natural; and it is probable that savages, who are so pleased in disfiguring nature by flattening, rounding, and lengthening the head, might likewise contrive to sink it into the shoulders. These fantasies might arise from an idea that, by rendering themselves deformed, they became more dreadful to their enemies. The Scythians, formerly, as savage as the American Indians are now, evidently entertained the same ideas, and realized them in the same manner; which no doubt is the foundation of what the ancients have written about such men as they termed acephali, cynocephali, &c.

     The Savages of Brazil are nearly of the size of the Europeans, but are more vigorous, robust, and alert: they are also subject to fewer diseases, and live longer. Their hair, which is black, seldom whitens with age. They are of a copper-colour, inclining to red: their heads are large, shoulders broad, and hair long. They pluck out their beard, the hair upon the body, and even the eye-brows, from which they acquire an extraordinary fierce look. They pierce the under lip, to ornament it with a little bone polished like ivory, or with a green stone. The mothers crush the noses of their children, presently after they are born; they all go absolutely naked, and paint their bodies of different colours. Those who inhabit the countries adjacent to the sea are somewhat civilized by the commerce which they carry on with the Portuguese; but those of the inland places are still absolute savages. It is not by force that savages have become civilized, their manners have been much more softened by the arguments of missionaries, than by the arms of the princes by whom they were subdued. In this manner Paraguay was subdued: the mildness, example, and virtuous

conduct, of the missionaries touched the hearts of its savages, and triumphed over their distrust and ferocity. They often, of themselves, desired to be made acquainted with that law, which rendered men so perfect, submitted to its precepts, and united in society. Nothing can reflect greater honour on religion, than its having civilized these nations, and laid the foundations of an empire, without any arms but those of virtue and humanity.
     The inhabitants of Paraguay are commonly tall and handsome; their visage long, and their colour olive. There sometimes rages among them a very uncommon distemper. It is a kind of leprosy, which covers the whole of their body with a crust similar to the scales of fish, and from which they experience no pain, nor even interruption of health.
     According to Frezier, the Indians of Chili are of a tawny or coppery complexion, but different from Mulattoes, who being produced by a white man and negro-woman, or a white woman and a negro-man, their colour is brown, or a mixture of white and black. In South America, on the other hand, the Indians are yellow, or rather reddish. The natives of