I am aware that it is generally considered
that the white man has a right to the black man's possessions and land,
and that it is his high and holy mission to exterminate the wretched
native and take his place. But with this conclusion I venture to differ.
So far as my own experience of natives has gone, I have found that in
all the essential qualities of mind and body, they very much resemble
white men, with the exception that they are, as a race, quicker-witted,
more honest, and braver, than the ordinary run of white men. Of them
might be aptly quoted the speech Shakespeare puts into Shylock's mouth:
"Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions?" In the same way I ask, Has a native no feelings
or affections? does he not suffer when his parents are shot, or his
children stolen, or when he is driven a wanderer from his home? Does he
not know fear, feel pain, affection, hate and gratitude? Most certainly
he does; and this being so, I cannot believe that the Almighty, who
made both white and black, gave to the one race the right or mission of
exterminating, or even of robbing or maltreating the other, and calling
the process the advance of civilisation.
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