Page:Slavery consistent with Christianity (third edition, 1853).pdf/11

Rh To substantiate these scriptural facts respecting the origin of the negro, permit me to give you a tradition which I found among the Seminole Indians in Florida, as follows: “When the Great Spirit had created the earth and all its animals, he concluded to make man, who should be lord and master of the whole. But as the first man he made was black, and not being well pleased with him, he proceeded to make a second, whom he made red; but not being satisfied with the improvement, he created a third—and him he made white, with whom he was well pleased. The Great Spirit then presented to these men three boxes—the first of which contained books, the second bows and arrows, and the third hoes and axes. And as the white man was the Great Spirit’s favorite, he had the first choice; and he selected the box of books. The red man was allowed the second shoicechoice [sic]—who took the bows and arrows: and the negro had to take the hoes and axes; and now, say these Indians, the white man lives by books, the red man by hunting, and the black man by labor—and such they believe to be the will of the Great Spirit—hence the reason why these Indians would never receive teachers and missionaries among them. And there has been recently discovered a nation of negroes in central Africa, holding the same tradition; both traditions acknowledging the superiority of the white man over the other two, as well as the inferiority of the black to the red.

We will now advance a physiological argument in support of what has already been said, containing the reason for the color of the negro.

There is every reason to believe that an additional curse was inflicted on the earth by the flood, and that very great changes must have been produced in the physiology of the earth—in her climate and atmosphere. God did curse the ground when Adam sinned: and from the fearful increase of crime, both in quantity and quality, he found it necessary to increase and extend the course, in such a manner, that, by multiplying the physical disabilities in the way of obtaining the necessaries of life, as well as by multiplying the causes tending to the abreviationabbreviation [sic] of human life, there would be a diminution in crime individually and collectively: and as in wisdom and benevolence, he inflicted the first curse on the earth, so also in wisdom and benevolence, he inflicted the second, because the first was insufficient. And after the infliction of the last curse on the ground, he tells Noah that he would no more curse it for man’s sake.

When God determined to destroy the old world by a flood, and to change the character of the earth, by increasing or creating physical disabilities not existing before—he would find it necessary to change also the physical economy of the human family, or at least a part of that family, in order that they might be prepared to meet this contemplated contingency. And it is a well establisehdestablished [sic] fact, which the science of physiology fully explains, that