Designs of Divine Providence in Respect to Man
Upon a principle somewhat similar to this the different races of men seem to be endowed with different qualities, each being adapted, both in physical and intellectual constitution, to the place it has to occupy in the history of the species.
For some reason or other which we cannot fully understand, Divine Providence has not seen fit to bring the family of man at once into the full possession of all the attainments and enjoyments of which the species is capable, or to the high social state for which their nature fits them. On the contrary, the system which has been adopted for the human race, unlike that seen in operation in respect to any race of animals not connected with man, is that of an exceedingly slow and gradual development. The different regions of the earth have been stocked with different branches of the human family, strikingly dissimilar to each other in their persons, in their physical powers, and in their mental constitutions - each, however, being exactly adapted to the part which they are respectively called upon to perform in the great drama.
The Great Divisions in the Human Family
Thus the races of Central and Southern Asia are endowed with very peculiar physical and mental powers, differing essentially from those of the prevailing race in Europe, which is called the Caucasian race, and both differing essentially also from those of the African races. The differences which exist would seem to be innate and permanent, so far as we can judge from the results - each particular branch being able apparently to attain only to a certain degree of refinement and civilization, and these remaining unchanged, or almost unchanged, for many centuries. The Chinese, the Malays, and the negroes of Africa appear to have subsisted in substantially their present condition from a very early age, while the Caucasian race has been constantly progressive, having built up in succession a great number of independent empires. The Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and, following them, the great European nations of modern times, have entirely outstript in arts, in science, and in civilization all the other races of the globe; although many of these other races have possessed, each in its own region of the earth, equal facilities for advancement, and have held them for the same length of time.
Constitutional Diversities
We must suppose, then, that there is a great and permanent difference in the physical and intellectual constitution of the different races - permanent at least in this respect, that it cannot be changed by an human means in the course of any moderate number of generations. Whether these differences have been produced by external causes, such as climate and modes of life, or by some hidden innate causes more or less connected with these, or whether they have originated in some other way to us wholly inscrutable, is at present entirely unknown. We must, at any rate, accept the difference actually existing as a fact, and conform our reasonings and our actions to it - always acknowledging, however, that the inferiority of any race to ours, if we claim that such inferiority exists, imposes upon us a special obligation to be just toward them, and to protect them in the enjoyment of all their rights, instead of giving us any authority to tyrannize over them or oppress them in any way. We may rightfully recognize and act upon our superiority to them in the social arrangements which we make, but we are bound in doing so to consider them as under our protection, and to guard their rights and provide for their welfare and happiness faithfully, honestly, and with feelings of sincere good will.
Mental and Physical Constitution of the American Aborigines
The American Aborigines have been generally considered by mankind as a stern, taciturn, immovable, unfeeling, and yet shrewd and cunning people. Some travelers, like the celebrated Catlin, among others, who spent a great deal of time among the western tribes, maintain that the degree in which they possess these qualities has been exaggerated. Catlin found the Indians at their own homes, in the villages which they had built on the banks of the Missouri and upon the western prairies, as jovial, as talkative, and as full of life and animation as other men. But the prevailing testimony, especially in respect to those tribes that dwelt on the Atlantic coast at the time of the first settlement of the country, represents them as exceedingly grave and stolid in all their deportment, and possessing very little sensibility of any kind. Their power to endure hunger, cold, and fatigue was surprising. This powers was doubtless, in a great degree, acquired by habit, and must of their apparent insensibility was due to a feeling prevalent among them that it was weak and unmanly to complain. Still there seemed to be something in their physical constitution which gave them a greater power of endurance than belongs to the Caucasian race. They felt cold and hunger, and the pain of wounds, much less, and could consequently endure much more, with the same exercise of fortitude, than other men.
Indeed, we might have been almost certain that this would be so. The same kind and watchful Providence which gives the eagle his astonishing extent of vision, in order that he may have power to survey the vast field over which he is to seek his food, and enables the polar bear to sleep in comfort on a floor of ice where mercury would freeze, would surely not impart a delicate sensibility to the organization of a man who was to live by seeking his food in the winter in a howling forest, with a certainty of often passing days without sustenance, and nights without any covering but bushes and snow.
The Taciturnity of the Indians
The extreme taciturnity of the Indians was one of their most striking characteristics. We shall explain it in different ways according as we suppose, that the Indian was made to fit the circumstances in which he was to be placed, or that he was made like other men, and that the circumstances changed him. On the latter supposition he has learned to be silent, from the fact that silence is so necessary for him while prowling through the woods in search of game, or watching against an ambuscade on the part of an enemy.
But talkativeness is the result of a peculiar mental organization, leading to a lively and rapid flow of ideas, ardent sensibilities, and a quick and ready action of the nerves and muscles are connected with the organs of speech. All this nice mechanism would be out of place, in a great measure, with these children of the forest;; and, indeed, it would be worse than out of place, for it might be, necessarily for aught we know, connected with a greater sensibility to pain, which to the Indian would be a very serious evil.
We might suppose, it is true, that the inward mechanism was with him, at birth, the same in respect to these faculties as in the Caucasian race, but that, on account of the mode of life which the Indian leads, it remained undeveloped. This is, doubtless, to some extent true. But it would seen that the Indian children manifest from their earliest infancy the same low degree of sensibility, giving them the power of bearing without inconvenience, or at least without pain, what would be intolerable to the children of another race, which characterizes their fathers and mothers. The children seldom cry. They remain patient, strapped upon their board, looking quietly about, and content apparently with existence alone; while a white child of the same age is endowed with powers of observation and with mental instincts and propensities so sensitive and active that it craves the incessant occupation of its faculties, and scarcely ever intermits his restless activity.