infernal depredations upon us. Indeed, the way in which religion was
and is conducted by the Europeans and their descendants, one might
believe it was a plan fabricated by themselves and the _devils_ to
oppress us. But hark! my master has taught me better than to believe
it--he has taught me that his gospel as it was preached by himself and
his apostles remains the same, notwithstanding Europe has tried to
mingle blood and oppression with it.

It is well known to the Christian world that Bartholomew Las Casas,
that very notoriously avaricious Catholic priest or preacher, and
adventurer with Columbus in his second voyage, proposed to his
countrymen, the Spaniards in Hispaniola, to import the Africans from
the Portuguese settlement in Africa, to dig up gold and silver, and
work their plantations for them, to effect which, he made a voyage
thence to Spain, and opened the subject to his master, Ferdinand, then
in declining health, who listened to the plan; but who died soon
after, and left it in the hands of his successor, Charles V.[12]--This
wretch, ("Las Cassas, the Preacher,") succeeded so well in his plans
of oppression, that in 1503, the first blacks had been imported into
the new world. Elated with this success, and stimulated by sordid
avarice only, he importuned Charles V. in 1511, to grant permission
to a Flemish merchant to import 4000 blacks at one time. Thus we see,
through the instrumentality of a pretended preacher of the gospel of
Jesus Christ our common master, our wretchedness first commenced in
America--where it has been continued from 1503 to this day, 1829. A
period of three hundred and twenty-six years. But two hundred and
nine, from 1620--when twenty of our fathers were brought into
Jamestown, Virginia, by a Dutch man-of-war, and sold off like brutes
to the highest bidders; and there is not a doubt in my mind, but that
tyrants are in hopes to perpetuate our miseries under them and their