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of his fathers and his passion for the chase are still alive within him. The wild enjoyments which formerly animated him in the woods painfully excite his troubled imagination; and his former privations appear to be less keen, his former perils less appalling. He contrasts the independence which he possessed among his equals with the servile position which he occupies in civilized society. On the other hand, the solitudes which were so long his free home are still at hand; a few hours' march will bring him back to them once more. The whites offer him a sum, which seems to him to be considerable, for the ground which he has begun to clear. This money of the Europeans may possibly furnish him with the means of a happy and peaceful subsistence in remote regions; and he quits the plough, resumes his native arms, and returns to the wilderness for ever.[1] The condition of the Creeks and Cherokees, to which I have already alluded, sufficiently corroborates the truth of this deplorable picture.
The Indians in the little which they have done, have unquestionably displayed as much natural genius as the peoples of Europe
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The destructive influence of highly civilized nations upon others which are less
so, has been exemplified by the Europeans themselves. About a century ago the
French founded the town of Vincennes upon the Wabash, in the middle of the desert;
and they lived there in great plenty, until the arrival of the American settlers, who
first ruined the previous inhabitants by their competition, and afterward purchased
their lands at a very low rate. At the time when M. de Volney, from whom I borrow
these details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French was reduced
to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass over to Louisiana or to
Canada. These French settlers were worthy people, but idle and uninstructed: they
had contracted many of the habits of savages. The Americans, who were perhaps
their inferiors in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in intelligence:
they were industrious, well-informed, rich, and accustomed to govern their
own community.
I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between the two races is less striking, that the English are the masters of commerce and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they spread on all sides, and confine the French within limits which scarcely suffice to contain them. In like manner, in Louisiana, almost all activity in commerce and manufacture centres in the hands of the Anglo-Americans.
But the case of Texas is still more striking: the state of Texas is a part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that country and the United States. In the course of the last few years the Anglo-Americans have penetrated into this province, which is still thinly peopled; they purchase land, they produce the commodities of the country, and supplant the original population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes no steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly cease to belong to that government.
If the different degrees—comparatively so light—which exist in European civilization, produce results of such magnitude, the consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect European civilization with Indian savages may readily be conceived.
