with its luxuries, has no charm for him. The Africans of the Tropic,
the Aborigines of America, the Mongols of Asia,- the inhabitants of
Polynesia, have remained for thousands of years where history first
found them; and nothing hut absolute want, or self-preservation, can
drive them from the countries where the Creator placed them. These
races have been least adulterated, and consequently preserve their
original instincts and love of home. This truth is illustrated in a
most remarkable degree by the Indians of America. We still behold
the small remnants of scattered tribes fighting and dying to preserve
the lands and graves of their ancestors.
We shall have more to say, in another chapter, on the amalgamation
of races, hut may here remark, that the infusion of even a minute
proportion of the blood of one race into another, produces a most
decided modification of moral and physical character. A small trace
of white blood in the negro improves him in intelligence and morality;
and an equally small trace of negro blood, as in the quadroon, will
protect such individual against the deadly influence of climates which
the pure white-man cannot endure. For example, if the population
of Mew England, Germany, France, England, or other northern climates,
come to Mobile, or to Mew Orleans, a large proportion dies
of yellow fever: and of one hundred such individuals landed in the
latter city at the commencement of an epidemic of yellow fever, probably
half would fall victims to it. On the contrary, negroes, under
all circumstances, enjoy an almost perfect exemption from this disease,%
ven though brought in from our Morthem States; and, what is
still'more remarkable, the mulattoes (under which term we include
all mixed grades) are almost equally exempt. The writer (J. C. Mott)
has witnessed many hundred deaths from yellow fever, hut never more
than three or four cases of mulattoes, although hundreds are exposed
to this epidemic in Mobile. The fact is certain, and shows how difficult
is the problem of these amalgamations. I
That negroes die out and would become extinct in Mew England, if
cut off from immigration, is clearly shown by published statistics.
It may even he a question whether the strictly-white races of Europe
are perfectly adapted to any one climate in America. We do not generally
findin the United States apopulation constitutionally e'qual to that
of Great Britain or Germany; and we recollect once hearing this remark
strongly endorsed by H e n ry Clay, although dwelling in Kentucky,
amid the best agricultural population in the country. Knox19 holds that
the Anglo-Saxon race would become extinct in America, if cut off
from immigration. Mow, we are not prepared to endorse this assertion
; hut inasmuch as nature works not through a few generations, but
through thousands of years, it is impossible to conjecture what time
may effect. It would he a curious inquiry to investigate the physiological
causes which have led to the destruction of ancient empires,
and the disappearance of populations, like Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and
Rome, Many ancient nations were colonies from distant climes, and
may have wasted away under the operation of laws that have acted
slowly hut surely. The commingling of different bloods, too, under
the law of hyhridity, may also have played an important part. Mr.
L ayard tells us that a few wandering tribes only now stalk around
the sites of the’ once-mighty Mineveh and Babylon, and that, but for
the sculptures of Sargan and Sennacherib, no one could now say
what race constructed those stupendous cities. But let us return
from this digression.
To this inherent love of primitive locality, and instinctive dislike
to foreign lands, and repugnance towards other people, must we
mainly attribute the fixedness of the unhistoric types of men. The
greater portion of the globe is still under the influence of this law.
In America, th e . aboriginal barbarous tribes cannot he forced to
change their habits, or even persuaded to successful emigration : they
are melting away from year to year ; and of the millions which once
inhabited that portion of the United States east of the Mississippi
river, all have vanished, hut a few scattered families ; and their representatives,
removed by our Government to the Western frontier, are
reduced to less than one hundred thousand. I t is as clear as the sun
at noon-day/that in a few generations more the last of these Red men
will he numbered with the dead. We constantly read glowing accounts,
from interested missionaries, of the civilization of these tribes ;
hut a civilized full-blooded Indian does not exist among them. We
see every day, in the suburbs of Mobile, and wandering through our
streets, the remnant of the Choctaw race, covered with nothing hut
blankets, and living in bark tents, scarcely a degree advanced above
brutes of the field, quietly abiding their time. Mo human ingenuity1
can induce them to become educated, or to do an honest day’s work :
they are supported entirely by begging, besides a little traffic of the
squaws in wood. To one who has lived among American Indians, it
is in vain to talk of civilizing them. You might as well attempt to
change the nature of the buffalo.
The whole continent of America, with its mountain-ranges and
table-lands—its valleys and low plains—its woods and prairies—exhibiting
every variety of climate which could influence the nature of
man, is inhabited by one great family, that presents a prevailing type.
Small and peculiarly shaped crania, a cinnamon complexion, small
feet and hands, black straight hair, wild, savage natures, characterize