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in safety . When one of the missionaries in Otaheite reproached % native for not coming to hear the word of God so regularly as at a former period , the islander reminded him that , though he still offered him plenty of the word , he gave him no more hatchets . The American Quakers have proved , however , that if it be
next to impossible to make barbarians Christians , it is comparatively easy to render them social and civilized . The success of the eftorts recorded in these
tracts though not extraordinary , is satisfactory and encouraging . The greatest difficulty will be experienced in the outset of such philanthropic missions . If one tribe or even family of wandering Indians be induced to settle
and to practise agriculture and the arts , other families and tribes , eeing their prosperity and comfort , will follow their example ; and an Indian missionary , whether of civilization or religion , will tie most likely to convert Indians . The Friends of Baltimore avow their expectation , which vie think extremely reasonable , that when their rude neighbours
have been formed into civilized society it will not be difficult to incorporate them into the Christian church . The North American Indians
appear from these accounts to be greatly reduced ia number .
The scanty territory which is left them in the back settlements is insufficient to supply subsistence to nations of hunters , an * l
population always bears a direct ratio to the ftieans of life . They have been much thinned also by the novel and fatal diseases introduced among them by the Anglo-
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Americans ; and much more by the thirst which they have caught from these new-comers for spirituous liquors , the immoderate use of which was described by one of themselves to their Quaker visitors , as being niore des - tructive than the gun or the tomahawk . Another cause perhaps of the reduction of their numbers
is their custom of devolving all laborious employment upon their women , who of course are the more oppressed with labour as they become fewer , and as subsistence becomes more difficult
and who from this cause are less prolific , and less desirous of children and less attentive to them . So deeply rooted is this custom that Indian men , respectable from
age or rank , are ashamed to be seen at work by the women , who , in their turn , do not fail to ridicule such of them as are so feminine as to apply to hard labour .
The Indians hare been hitherto kept down in point of civilization by the persuasion , which has not been discouraged by the
white people who have chiefly traded with them , that they are an inferior race of ^ beings . But whilst they look up with a kind of awe to the civilized intruders on
their lands , they are not insensible to their vices . Their pre-possession in favour of Quakers , as being an exception , in point of morality , from their brethren , is well known . One of their chiefs
asked the committee of Friends , with a degree of anxiety , and with prefatory apologies which bespoke the sentiments of his heart very forcibly , Whether Quakers kept slates !" The pleasure which the India **
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608 Proceedings of the Friends in Civilizing the Indians .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 608, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/44/
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