Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/302

Rh perishes with the forest, which to him and them was what cultivated fields, towns, and cities are to us. Our fathers tried to enslave the ferocious and unprogressive Indian; he would not work—for himself as a freeman, nor for others as a slave: he would fight. He would not be enslaved—he could not help being killed. He perishes before us. The sinewy Caucasian labourer lays hold on the phlegmatic Indian warrior; they struggle in deadly grasp—naked man to naked man, hand to shoulder, knee to knee, breast to breast; the white man bends the red man over, crushes him down, and chokes him dead. It is always so when the civilized meets the savage, or the barbarian—naked man to naked man: how much more fatal is the issue to the feeble when the white man shirted in iron has the smallpox for his ally, and rum for his tomahawk! In the long run of history, the race is always to the swift, and the battle to the strong. The Indian will perish—utterly and soon. The African is the most docile and pliant of all the races of men; none has so little ferocity : vengeance, instantial with the Caucasian, is exceptional in his history. In his barbarous, savage, or even wild state, he is not much addicted to revenge; always prone to mercy. No race is so strong in the affectional instinct which attaches man to man by tender ties; none so easy, indolent, confiding, so little warlike. Hence is it that the white men have kidnapped the black, and made him their prey.

This piece of individual biography tells us the sad history of the African race. Not long since, a fugitive slave told me his adventures. I will call him John—it is not his name. He is an entire negro—his grandfather was brought direct from the Congo coast to America. A stout man, thick-set, able-bodied, with great legs and mighty arms, he could take any man from this platform, and hurl him thrice his length. He was a slave—active, intelligent, and much confided in. He had a wife and children. One day his master, in a fit of rage, struck at him with a huge club, which broke both of his arms; they were awkwardly set, and grew out deformed. The master promised to sell the man to himself for a large sum, and take the money by instalments, a little at a time. But, when more than half of it was paid, he actually sold him to a trader, to be taken further South, and there disposed of. The appeals of the