Colonization and Christianity: A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the; Europeans in all their coloniesHowitt, William
History
Colonization and Christianity: A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the; Europeans in all their colonies
Howitt, William
Indians, Treatment of; Indigenous peoples
Ten years after the discovery of Brazil, a young noble, Diego Alvarez,
who was going out on a voyage of adventure, was wrecked on the coast
of Bahia, and was received with cordiality by the natives, and named
Caramuru, or the Man of Fire, from the possession of fire-arms. Here he
married the daughter of the chief, and finally became the great chief
himself, with a numerous progeny around him. Another man, Joam Ramalho,
who also had been shipwrecked, married a daughter of the chief of
Piratininga, and these circumstances gave the Portuguese a favourable
reception in different places of this immense coast. In about thirty
years after its discovery the country was divided into captaincies, the
sugar-cane was introduced, and the work of colonization went rapidly
on. The natives were attacked on all sides; they defended themselves
with great spirit, but were compelled to yield before the power of
fire-arms. But while the natives suffered from the colonists, the
colonists suffered too from the despotism of the governors of the
captaincies; a Governor-general was therefore appointed just half a
century after the discovery, in the person of Thome de Sousa, and some
Jesuits were sent out with him to civilize the natives.
Amongst these was Father Manoel de Nobrega, chief of the mission,
who distinguished himself so nobly in behalf of the Indians. The
city of Salvador, in the bay of All-Saints, was founded as the
seat of government, and the Jesuits immediately began the work of
civilization. There was great need of it both amongst the Indians
and their own countrymen. “Indeed, the fathers,” says Southey,
“had greater difficulties to encounter in the conduct of their own
countrymen than in the customs and disposition of the natives. During
half a century, the colonization of Brazil had been left to chance;
the colonists were almost without law and religion. Many settlers had
never either confessed or communicated since they entered the country;
the ordinances of the church were neglected for want of a clergy to
celebrate them, and the moral precepts had been forgotten with the
ceremonies. Crimes which might easily at first have been prevented, had
become habitual, and the habit was now too strong to be overcome. There
were indeed individuals in whom the moral sense could be discovered,
but in the majority it had been utterly destroyed. They were of that
description of men over whom the fear of the gallows may have some
effect; the fear of God has none. A system of concubinage was practised
among them, worse than the loose polygamy of the savages. The savage
had as many women as consented to become his wives—the colonist as
many as he could enslave. There is an ineffaceable stigma upon the
Europeans in their intercourse with those whom they treat as inferior
races—there is a perpetual contradiction between their lust and their
avarice. The planter will one day take a slave for his harlot, and sell
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