When Las Casas appeared before the Emperor Charles V. to dispute with Quevedo, Bishop of Darien, on the capacity of the South American Indians for social improvement, “he rejected,” says Robertson, “with indignation, the idea that any race of men was born for servitude; and contended that the faculties of the Americans were not despicable but unimproved; that they were capable of receiving instruction in the principles of religion, as well as of acquiring the industry and arts which would qualify them for the various offices of social life; and that the mildness and timidity of their nature rendered them so docile and submissive that they might be led and formed with a gentle hand.” On the contrary, the Bishop of Darien contended “that they were a race of men marked out by the inferiority of their talents for servitude; and whom it would be impossible to instruct or improve, unless they were kept under the continual inspection of a master.”[1] To the disgrace of the Spanish name, the sentiments of Quevedo obtained more general credence than the truths uttered by the impassioned, and eloquent Las Casas. The Indians were still kept in a state of servitude, by the discoverers and tyrants of the West; and under pretext of reclaiming them from idolatry, and instructing them in the principles of the _Christian faith_ they were obliged to endure the most galling servitude, and compelled to perform a variety of unwholesome labours which soon terminated their existence, and left scarcely a remnant of their devoted race to tell the story of their oppression and their sufferings! Such has ever been the policy of those who, spurred on by an exorbitant and all grasping selfishness, desire to tyrannize over their fellow beings, and trample on their rights, their liberties and their lives. Nor is this policy wanting on the part of those who either are, or desire to be, the oppressors of the North American Indians. The whites have, with few exceptions, denounced the savages of America as a cruel, blood-thirsty, and treacherous race of men—incapable of improvement, and therefore unworthy of that attention which has been devoted to the civilization of other barbarians. That this is a mere pretext under colour of which the most horrid crimes might be perpetrated,—an opiate for a guilty and accusing conscience,—must be evident to all who have made the Indian character the subject of their peculiar study. But because Europeans, blessed with all the lights of civilization, and all the influence of a religion purporting to be from heaven, have not only endeavoured, but are continually endeavouring, to encroach on the hunting territories of the Indians, some excuse must of course be invented to palliate their enormities, and screen their conduct from that general reprobation which it deserves. The Aborigines of America are therefore represented as false, cruel and blood-thirsty, as well as incapable of emerging from their present state of ignorance and barbarism.