Petals Plucked from Sunny ClimesBrooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
History
Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes
Brooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
Cuba -- Description and travel; Florida -- Description and travel; Florida -- History
Although many inhuman acts have been committed by the Spaniards, they
are not chargeable with all the atrocities perpetrated in the world.
Señor B. Oliveros thus relates what he saw on the day they were dug out:
"One evening, a little before sunset, I noticed a number of persons
collected around the city gates, and proceeded there to ascertain the
cause of so many people, when I spied the two cages standing against the
city gate-posts." He, being a gunsmith, succeeded in obtaining one,
which he said was most excellent wrought iron, of which he made good
use. The other cage was taken in charge by the Spanish officers, and
locked in the fort for safe keeping until it could be sent to Spain as a
relic, where old persons now living here saw it with feelings of
terror--they then being children. Thus, instead of being exhibited as a
relic of the Spanish Inquisition at Washington, as has been represented
so frequently, it is retained in Madrid as a specimen of English
barbarity. The cages were no worse punishment than that of the old
English law for aggravated offenses: "That the perpetrator be drawn and
quartered alive." And who can number those that have perished in the
English pillories?
No nation of people in the world can wash their hands entirely from
cruel conduct, or show a clear record for the humane deportment of all
its ancestry, remembering infallibility has left its impress nowhere
except on the works and ways of God.
Some of those people usually designated as Indians, whose isolated
existence is concealed in mystery, are here in Fort Marion, fettered
with the forms of civilization, to which their adaptability of character
conforms them with as good a grace as the circumstances will permit.
That these tawny-skinned creatures have constitutions of iron there is
no doubt, as their general appearance indicates a life of fatigue to
which ease is a stranger. They are subjected to much exposure in
pursuing the wild herds that rush with the precipitancy and speed of the
mountain torrent, together with the days and weeks they spend with only
the canopy of heaven for a covering, which increases their powers of
endurance. Many times they retire supperless, and, when game is
abundant, gorge themselves to gluttony, after which, like the stupid
anaconda, they roll up for digestion, to supplant the place of more
moderation. It is the testimony of all those who have lived among the
Indians, that there exists a natural feeling of opposition to
civilization, when not weakened by wars, or overpowered with superior
numbers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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