and the difficulty at that time of the transportation of suitable
provisions for their sustenance, conduced much to the objection of
bringing them here. The natives were numerous, then easily approached by
the wily seductions of the Europeans, easily yoked and supported, having
the means of sustenance at hand, the wild fruits and game of the forest,
the fish of the waters and birds of the country. All these as naturally
enough, European adventurers would be cautious against introducing into
common use among hundreds of thousands of laborers, under all the
influences incident of a foreign climate in a foreign country, in its
primitive natural state. The Indians were then preferred for many
reasons, as the common laborers on the continent, where nothing but the
mining interests were thought of or carried on. This noble race of
Aborigines, continued as the common slaves of the new world, to bear the
yoke of foreign oppression, until necessity induced a substitute for
them. They sunk by scores under the heavy weight of oppression, and were
fast passing from the shores of time. At this, the foreigners grew
alarmed, and of necessity, devised ways and means to obtain an adequate
substitute. A few European laborers were brought into the country, but
the influence of climate and mode of living, operated entirely against
them. They were as inadequate to stand the climate, as the nobles were
themselves.

From the earliest period of the history of nations, the African race had
been known as an industrious people, cultivators of the soil. The grain
fields of Ethiopia and Egypt were the themes of the poet, and their
garners, the subject of the historian. Like the present America, all the
world went to Africa, to get a supply of commodities. Their massive
piles of masonry, their skilful architecture, their subterranean vaults,
their deep and mysterious wells, their extensive artificial channels,
their mighty sculptured solid rocks, and provinces of stone quarries;