Читать книгу The Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in Europe - George Catlin - Страница 17

“The reflection is almost insupportable to a humane mind, that the indigenous races of America, comprising numerous distinct nations, the original proprietors of that vast continent, are probably doomed to entire extermination—a fate which has already befallen a large portion of the red tribes. It is still more painful to think that this should be the effect of the spread of the civilized races, who thus become the agents of a wholesale destruction of their fellow-men. If these melancholy truths were capable of aggravation, it may be found in the dreadful fact that the process of destruction is not left to the slow operation of invisible and insensible causes, but is hastened by expedients devised for that express end by civilized men, the tribes being stimulated or compelled to the destruction of each other, or provided with the means of destroying themselves.

“Mr. Catlin, the author of the work which has suggested these observations, has had better opportunities for studying the character of the North American Indians than most travellers since the early French writers.

“Mr. Catlin is an American, a native of Wyoming, and the publisher of his own work, at the Egyptian Hall.”