The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
the European settler looking for a new home, as well as to the _savan_
looking for light upon ethnographic and social problems.
From this general outline the scope of the book may be inferred, but our
readers will permit us to refer to one or two points which are dwelt
upon in the introduction. Dr. Andree contends with the earnestness of a
determined partisan for the originality of the vegetable and animal
creations, as well as of the human race upon this continent, rejecting
entirely the theory that either was transplanted from the eastern
hemisphere. The unity of the human family, he maintains with a class of
writers distinguishable chiefly for a sleepless activity in assailing
the authority of the Christian religion, does not require the assumption
of numerical identity of origin, but rather the contrary. "It is not
necessary," he says, "to assume the arithmetical _oneness_ of mankind,
and the derivation of all from a single pair, thus arbitrarily confining
and limiting the creative power of the Highest Being;" and this position
he proceeds to advocate by a variety of arguments, at the same time
controverting the opposite opinion, and especially the notion of the
late Major Noah that the Indians of this continent were descendants of
the lost ten tribes of Israel. In this impertinence is the only
noteworthy fault we discover in the book. Discussions of such
controverted points as this belong exclusively to the audience of
scholars. A far more interesting and satisfactory part of the
introduction is that devoted to the Spanish and Portuguese in America,
and their influence on the native tribes, and _vice versa_. The contrast
which these races and the states they have founded exhibit to the
Germanic race in North America is brought out by Dr. Andree in a
striking manner. All the South American republics except Chili are in a
condition of comparative or actual disorder: no signs of expanding life
and progress are visible among them; every where the conflict of races
and castes is active or only partially suppressed; Brazil alone, by the
monarchical form of its executive, (though its institutions are
fundamentally democratic,) is spared from the anarchy which prevails
among its neighbors, and there too, alone, the black, yellow, and red
races are politically equal and in the way of complete amalgamation; but
in all these states the European element, instead of growing more
powerful and influential, tends constantly to greater weakness, and is
likely to be completely absorbed and swallowed up; since the wars of
independence the white race has diminished, not increased in number; and
instead of conferring on the native races the civilization and
refinement which was its native property, it is so far dominated by them
as to relapse toward their ignorance and rudeness; and after three
centuries all Spanish America, the West Indies included, contains not
more than fifteen millions of inhabitants, about a fifth of whom are
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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