Read Ebook: Colonization and Christianity A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the Europeans in all their colonies by Howitt William

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Introduction 1

The Discovery of the New World 11

The Papal Gift of all the Heathen World to the Portuguese and Spaniards 19

The Spaniards in Hispaniola 28

The Spaniards in Hispaniola and Cuba 43

The Spaniards in Jamaica and other West Indian Islands 56

The Spaniards in Mexico 62

The Spaniards in Peru 92

The Spaniards in Peru-- 104

The Spaniards in Paraguay 119

The Portuguese in Brazil 145

The Portuguese in Brazil-- 158

The Portuguese in India 173

The Dutch in India 185

The English in India.--System of Territorial Acquisition 202

The English in India--.--Treatment of the Natives 252

The English in India.--Treatment of the Natives-- 272

The English in India-- 285

The English in India-- 298

The French in their Colonies 312

The English in America 330

The English in America--Settlement of Pennsylvania 356

The English in America till the Revolt of the Colonies 367

Treatment of the Indians by the United States 386

Treatment of the Indians by the United States-- 402

The English in South Africa 417

The English in South Africa-- 443

The English in New Holland and the Islands of the Pacific 469

Conclusion 499

COLONIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

Christianity has now been in the world upwards of ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS. For more than a thousand years the European nations have arrogated to themselves the title of CHRISTIAN! some of their monarchs, those of MOST SACRED and MOST CHRISTIAN KINGS! We have long laid to our souls the flattering unction that we are a civilized and a Christian people. We talk of all other nations in all other quarters of the world, as savages, barbarians, uncivilized. We talk of the ravages of the Huns, the irruptions of the Goths; of the terrible desolations of Timour, or Zenghis Khan. We talk of Alaric and Attila, the sweeping carnage of Mahomet, or the cool cruelties of more modern Tippoos and Alies. We shudder at the war-cries of naked Indians, and the ghastly feasts of Cannibals; and bless our souls that we are redeemed from all these things, and made models of beneficence, and lights of God in the earth!

It is high time that we looked a little more rigidly into our pretences. It is high time that we examined, on the evidence of facts, whether we are quite so refined, quite so civilized, quite so Christian as we have assumed to be. It is high time that we look boldly into the real state of the question, and learn actually, whether the mighty distance between our goodness and the moral depravity of other people really exists. WHETHER, IN FACT, WE ARE CHRISTIAN AT ALL!

This is the aspect of the Christian world in its most polished and enlightened quarter:--there surely is some need of serious inquiry; there must surely be some monstrous practical delusion here, that wants honestly encountering, and boldly dispersing.

The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people that they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age of the earth. Is it fit that this horrible blending of the names of Christianity and outrage should continue? Yet it does continue, and must continue, till the genuine spirit of Christianity in this kingdom shall arouse itself, and determine that these villanies shall cease, or they who perpetrate them shall be stripped of the honoured name of--Christian! If foul deeds are to be done, let them be done in their own foul name; and let robbery of lands, seizure of cattle, violence committed on the liberties or the lives of men, be branded as the deeds of devils and not of Christians. The spirit of Christianity, in the shape of missions, and in the teaching and beneficent acts of the missionaries, is now sensibly, in many countries, undoing the evil which wolves in the sheep's clothing of the Christian name had before done. And of late another glorious symptom of the growth of this divine spirit has shown itself, in the strong feeling exhibited in this country towards the natives of our colonies. To fan that genuine flame of love, is the object of this work. To comprehend the full extent of atrocities done in the Christian name, we must look the whole wide evil sternly in the face. We must not suffer ourselves to aim merely at the redress of this or that grievance; but, gathering all the scattered rays of aboriginal oppression into one burning focus, and thus enabling ourselves to feel its entire force, we shall be less than Englishmen and Christians if we do not stamp the whole system of colonial usage towards the natives, with that general and indignant odium which must demolish it at once and for ever.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD.

We have thus in our first chapter glanced at the scene of crime and abomination which Europe through long ages presented, still daring to clothe itself in the fair majesty of the Christian name. It is a melancholy field of speculation--but our business is not there just now; we must hasten from it, to that other field of sorrow and shame at which we also glanced. For fifteen centuries, during which Christianity had been promulgated, Europe had become little aware of its genuine nature, though boastful of its profession; but during the latter portion of that period its nations had progressed rapidly in population, in strength, and in the arts of social life. They had, amid all their bickerings and butcherings, found sufficient leisure to become commercial, speculative, and ambitious of still greater wealth and power. Would to God, in their improvements, they could have numbered that of religious knowledge! Their absurd crusades, nevertheless, by which they had attempted to wrest the Holy City from the infidels to put it into the possession of mere nominal Christians, whose very act of seizing on the Holy Land proclaimed their ignorance of the very first principles of the divine religion in whose cause they assumed to go forth--these crusades, immediately scandalous and disastrous as they were, introduced them to the East; gave them knowledge of more refined and immensely wealthy nations; and at once raised their notions of domestic luxury and embellishment; gave them means of extended knowledge; and inspired them with a boundless thirst for the riches of which they had got glimpses of astonishment. The Venetians and Genoese alternately grew great by commerce with that East of which Marco Polo brought home such marvellous accounts; and at length, Henry of Portugal appeared, one of the noblest and most remarkable princes in earth's annals! He devoted all the energies of his mind and the resources of his fortune to discovery! Fixing his abode by the ocean, he sent across it not merely the eyes of desire, but the far-glances of dawning science. Step by step, year by year, spite of all natural difficulties, disasters and discouragements, he threw back the cloud that had for ages veiled the vast sea; his ships brought home news of isle after isle--spots on the wide waste of waters, fairer and more sunny than the fabled Hesperides; and crept along the vast line of the African coast to the very Cape of Hope. He died; but his spirit was shed abroad in an inextinguishable zeal, guided and made invincible by the Magnet, "the spirit of the stone," the adoption of which he had suggested.--At once arose Gama and Columbus, and as it were at once--for there were but five years and a few months between one splendid event and the other,--the East and the West Indies by the sea-path, and America, till then undreamed of, were discovered!

What an era of amazement was that! Worlds of vast extent and wonderful character, starting as it were into sudden creation before the eyes of growing, inquisitive, and ambitious Europe! Day after day, some news, astounding in its very infinitude of goodness, was breaking upon their excited minds; news which overturned old theories of philosophy and geography, and opened prospects for the future equally confounding by their strange magnificence! No single Paradise discovered; but countless Edens, scattered through the glittering seas of summer climes, and populous realms, stretching far and wide beneath new heavens, from pole to pole--

Since the day of Creation, but two events of superior influence on the destinies of the human race had occurred--the Announcement of God's Law on Sinai, and the Advent of his Son! Providence had drawn aside the veil of a mighty part of his world, and submitted the lives and happiness of millions of his creatures to the arbitrium of that European race, which now boasted of superior civilization--and far more, of being the regenerated followers of his Christ. Never was so awful a test of sincerity presented to the professors of a heavenly creed!--never was such opportunity allowed to mortal men to work in the eternal scheme of Providence! It is past! Such amplitude of the glory of goodness can never again be put at one moment into the reach of the human will. God's providence is working out its undoubted design in this magnificent revelation of

But they who should have worked with it in the benignity and benevolence of that Saviour whose name they bore, have left to all futurity the awful spectacle of their infamy!

I shall now pass in rapid review, the treatment which the natives of the greater portion of the regions discovered since the days of Columbus and Gama, have received at the hands of the nations styling themselves Christian, that every one may see what has been, and still is, the actual system of these nations; and I shall first follow Columbus and his immediate successors to the Western world, because it was first, though only by so brief a period, reached by the ships of the adventurers.

THE PAPAL GIFT OF ALL THE HEATHEN WORLD TO THE PORTUGUESE AND SPANIARDS.

Strange and abounding in most singular transactions as is the history of the Papal church, there is not to be found in it one fact in which the son of perdition, the proud anti-Christ, is more characteristically shown than in this singular transaction. We have him here enacting the God indeed! and giving away a world in a breath. Vast and mighty nations, isles scattered through unknown oceans, continents stretching through all climates, and millions on millions of human beings, who never heard of his country or his religion, much less of his name, are disposed of with all their fortunes; given up as so many cattle to the sword or the yoke of the oppressor--the very ground given from beneath their feet, and no place left them on God's earth--no portion in his heritage, in time or in eternity, unless they acknowledged the mysterious dogmas and more mysterious power of this hoary and shaven priest! Never was "the son of perdition" more glaringly revealed; for perdition is the only word that can indicate that fulness of misery, devastation, and destruction, which went forth with this act, upon millions of innocent and unconscious souls. Never was "the deceivableness of unrighteousness" so signally exemplified; for here was all Europe,--monarchs, ministers,--whatever it possessed of wise, or learned, powerful, or compassionate, all blinded with such "a strong delusion," that they could implicitly "believe a lie" of so monstrous and flagrant a kind.

It is difficult for us now to conceive how so gross a delusion could have wrapped in darkness all the intellect of the most active and aspiring portion of the globe; but it is necessary that we should fix this peculiar psychological phenomenon firmly and clearly in our minds, for on it depends the explication of all that was done against humanity during the reign of Papacy, and much that still continues to be done to this very day by ourselves, even while we are believing ourselves enfranchised from this "strong delusion," and too much enlightened to "believe a lie."

We must bear in mind then, that this strange phenomenon was the effect of nearly a thousand years' labour of the son of perdition. For ages upon ages, every craft, priestly and political; every form of regal authority, of arms, and of superstition; every delusion of the senses, and every species of play upon the affections, hopes and fears of men, had been resorted to, and exerted, to rivet this "strong delusion" upon the human soul, and to make it capable of "believing a lie."

In the two preceding chapters, I have denied the possession of Christianity to multitudes and nations who had assumed the name, with a sternness and abruptness, which no doubt have startled many who have now read them; but I call earnestly upon every reader, to attend to what I am now endeavouring deeply to impress upon him; for, I must repeat, that there is more of what concerns the progress of Christian truth, and consequently, the happiness of the human race, dependent on the thorough conception of the fact which I am going to state, than probably any of us have been sufficiently sensible of, and which we cannot once become really sensible of, without joining heart and hand in the endeavour to free our own great country, and Christendom in general, from the commission of cruelties and outrages that mock our profession of Christ's religion, and brand the national name with disgrace.

There is no fact then, more clearly developed and established past all controversy, in the history of the Papal church, than that from its very commencement it set aside Christianity, and substituted in the words of the apostle, "a strong delusion" and "the belief of a lie." The Bible--that treasury and depository of God's truth--that fountain of all pure and holy and kindly sentiments--that charter of all human rights-- that guardian of hope and herald of salvation, was withdrawn from the public eye. It was denounced as the most dangerous of two-edged instruments, and feared as the worst enemy of the Papal system. Christianity was no longer taught, the Bible being once disposed of; but an artful and deadly piece of machinery was put in action, which bore its name. Instead of the pure and holy maxims of the New Testament--its sublime truths full of temporal and eternal freedom, its glorious knowledge, its animating tidings, its triumphant faith--submission to popes, cardinals, friars, monks and priests, was taught--a Confessional and a Purgatory took their place. Christianity was no longer existent; but the very religion of Satan--the most cunning invention, by which working on human cupidity and ambition, he was enabled to achieve a temporary triumph over the Gospel. Never was there a more subtle discovery than that of the Confessional and the Purgatory. Once having established a belief in confession and absolution, and who would not be religious at a cheap rate?--in the Confessional--the especial closet of Satan, every crime and pollution might be practised, and the guilty soul made to believe that its sin was that moment again obliterated. Even if death surprised the sinner, there was power of redemption from that convenient purgatory. Paid prayers were substituted for genuine repentance--money became the medium of salvation, and Beelzebub and Mammon sate and laughed together at the credulity of mankind!

Thus, as I have stated, Christianity was no longer taught; but a totally different system, usurping its name. Instead of simple apostles, it produced showy popes and cardinals; instead of humble preachers, proud temporal princes, and dignitaries as proud; instead of the Bible, the mass-book and the legends of saints; instead of one God and one Saviour Jesus Christ, the eyes of its votaries were turned for help on virgins, saints, and anchorites--instead of the inward life and purity of the gospel-faith, outward ceremonies, genuflexions, and pageantry without end. Every man, however desperate his nature or his deeds, knew that for a certain amount of coin, he could have his soul white-washed; and, instead of a healthy and availing piety, that spurious and diabolical devotion was generated, which is found at the present day amongst the bandits of Italy and Spain--who one moment plunge their stiletto or bury their bullet in the heart of the unsuspecting traveller, and the next kneel at the shrine of the Virgin, perform some slight penance, offer some slight gift to the church, and are perfectly satisfied that they are in the way of salvation. It is that spurious devotion, indeed, which marks every superstition--Hindoo, Mahometan, or Fetish--wherever, indeed, mere outward penance, or the offering of money, is substituted for genuine repentance and a new life.

Let any one, therefore, imagine the effect of this state of things on Europe through seven or eight centuries. The light of the genuine gospel withdrawn--all the purity of the moral law of Christ--all the clear and convincing annunciations of the rights of man--all the feelings of love and sympathy that glow alone in the gospel;--and instead of these an empty show; legends and masses, miracle-plays and holiday pageants; such doctrines of right and wrong, such maxims of worldly policy preached as suited ambitious dignitaries or luxurious friars--and it will account for that singular state of belief and of conscience which existed at the time of the discovery of the new countries of the East and West. It would have been impossible that such ignorance, or such shocking perversion of reason and faith, could have grown up and established themselves as the characteristics of the public mind, had every man had the Bible in his hand to refer to, and imbue himself daily with its luminous sense of justice, and its spirit of humanity.

In closing this chapter, let me say that I should be very sorry to hurt the feelings of any modern Catholic. The foregoing strictures have no reference to them. However much or little of the ancient faith of the Papal church any of them may retain, I believe that, as a body, they are as sincere in their devotion as any other class of Christians; but the ancient system, character, and practice of the Church of Rome, are matters of all history, and too closely connected with the objects of this work, and with the interests of millions, to be passed without, what the author believes to be, a faithful exposition.

THE SPANIARDS IN HISPANIOLA.

Creation's heir! the world, the world is mine!

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