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To Chastellux Paris, June 7, 1785
DEAR SIR, -- I have been honored with the receipt of your
letter of the 2nd instant, and am to thank you, as I do sincerely,
for the partiality with which you receive the copy of the Notes on my
country. As I can answer for the facts therein reported on my own
observation, and have admitted none on the report of others, which
were not supported by evidence sufficient to command my own assent, I
am not afraid that you should make any extracts you please for the
Journal de Physique, which come within their plan of publication.
The strictures on slavery and on the constitution of Virginia, are
not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do not wish to have
made public, at least, till I know whether their publication would do
most harm or good. It is possible, that in my own country, these
strictures might produce an irritation, which would indispose the
people towards the two great objects I have in view; that is, the
emancipation of their slaves, and the settlement of their
constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis. If I learn from
thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed and
reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man
at the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and
not to the one now in power, for these great reformations. The other
copy, delivered at your hotel, was for Monsieur de Buffon. I meant
to ask the favor of you to have it sent to him, as I was ignorant how
to do it. I have one also for Monsieur Daubenton, but being utterly
unknown to him, I cannot take the liberty of presenting it, till I
can do it through some common acquaintance.
I will beg leave to say here a few words on the general
question of the degeneracy of animals in America.
- As to the degeneracy of the man of Europe transplanted to America, it is no
part of Monsieur de Buffon's system. He goes, indeed, within one
step of it, but he stops there. The Abbe Raynal alone has taken that
step. Your knowledge of America enables you to judge this question,
to say, whether the lower class of people in America, are less
informed and less susceptible of information, than the lower class in
Europe: and whether those in America, who have received such an
education as that country can give, are less improved by it than
Europeans of the same degree of education.
- As to the aboriginal man of America, I know of no respectable evidence on which the
opinion of his inferiority of genius has been founded, but that of
Don Ulloa. As to Robertson, he never was in America, he relates
nothing on his own knowledge, he is a compiler only of the relations
of others, and a mere translator of the opinions of Monsieur de
Buffon. I should as soon, therefore, add the translators of
Robertson to the witnesses of this fact, as himself. Paw, the
beginner of this charge, was a compiler from the works of others; and
of the most unlucky description; for he seems to have read the
writings of travellers, only to collect and republish their lies. It
is really remarkable, that in three volumes 12mo, of small print, it
is scarcely possible to find one truth, and yet, that the author
should be able to produce authority for every fact he states, as he
says he can. Don Ulloa's testimony is of the most respectable. He
wrote of what he saw, but he saw the Indian of South America only,
and that, after he had passed through ten generations of slavery. It
is very unfair, from this sample, to judge of the natural genius of
this race of men; and after supposing that Don Ulloa had not
sufficiently calculated the allowance which should be made for this
circumstance, we do him no injury in considering the picture he draws
of the present Indians of South America, as no picture of what their
ancestors were, three hundred years ago. It is in North America we
are to seek their original character. And I am safe in affirming,
that the proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America,
place them on a level with whites in the same uncultivated state.
The North of Europe furnishes subjects enough for comparison with
them, and for a proof of their equality. I have seen some thousands
myself, and conversed much with them, and have found in them a
masculine, sound understanding. I have had much information from men
who had lived among them, and whose veracity and good sense were so
far known to me, as to establish a reliance on their information.
They have all agreed in bearing witness in favor of the genius of
this people. As to their bodily strength, their manners rendering it
disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed in labor will be weaker
with them, than with the European laborer; but those which are
exerted in the chase, and those faculties which are employed in the
tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving ambuscades for him,
and in carrying them through their execution, are much stronger than
with us, because they are more exercised. I believe the Indian,
then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I have
supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but it
would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few
generations, he would not become so.
- As to the inferiority of the other animals of America, without more facts, I can add nothing to
what I have said in my Notes.
As to the theory of Monsieur de Buffon, that heat is friendly,
and moisture adverse to the production of large animals, I am lately
furnished with a fact by Dr. Franklin, which proves the air of London
and of Paris to be more humid than that of Philadelphia, and so
creates a suspicion that the opinion of the superior humidity of
America may, perhaps, have been too hastily adopted. And supposing
that fact admitted, I think the physical reasonings urged to show,
that in a moist country animals must be small, and that in a hot one
they must be large, are not built on the basis of experiment. These
questions, however, cannot be decided, ultimately, at this day. More
facts must be collected, and more time flow off, before the world
will be ripe for decision. In the mean time, doubt is wisdom.
I have been fully sensible of the anxieties of your situation,
and that your attentions were wholly consecrated, where alone they
were wholly due, to the succour of friendship and worth. However
much I prize your society, I wait with patience the moment when I can
have it without taking what is due to another. In the mean time, I
am solaced with the hope of possessing your friendship, and that it
is not ungrateful to you to receive assurances of that with which I
have the honor to be, Dear Sir,
your most obedient,
and most humble servant,
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